Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44691
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Self-dedication discoursed in the anniversary thanksgiving of a person of honour for a great deliverance. By J.H.
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing H3038AA; ESTC R215393
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32,263
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171
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Self-dedication DISCOURSED In the Anniversary THANKSGIVING Of a Person of Honour For a Great DELIVERANCE By J. H. LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pigeons in Cornhill over against the Royal Exchange 1682. TO THE Right Honourable JOHN Earl of Kildare Baron of Ophalia First of his Order in the Kingdom of Ireland MY LORD I Little thought when in so private a way I lately offered much of the following Discourse to your Lordship's ear I should receive the command which I am not now so far as it proves to me a possible one to disobey or further to dispute of exposing it thus to the view of the world or so much as to present it to your Lordship 's own eye It was indeed impossible to me to give an exact account of what was then discoursed from a memory that was so treacherous as to let slip many things that were prepared and intended to have been said that day and that could much less being assisted but by very imperfect memorials recollect every thing that was said several daies after Yet I account upon the whole it is much more varied by enlargement than by diminution Whereby I hope it will be nothing less capable of serving the end of this enjoyned publication of it And I cannot doubt but the injunction proceeded from the same pious gratitude to the God of your life which hath prompted for several years past to the observation of that domestick Annual Solemnity in memory of your great preservation from so near a death That the remembrance of so great a mercy might be the more deeply imprest with your self and improved also so far as this means could signify for that purpose to the instruction of many others Your Lordship was pleased to allow an hour to the hearing of that Discourse What was proposed to you in it is to be the business of your life And what is to be done continually is once to be throughly done The impression ought to be very inward and strong which must be so lasting as to govern a man's life And were it as fully done as mortality can admit it needs be more solemnly renewed at set times for that purpose And indeed that such a day should not pass you without a fall nor that fall be without an hurt and that hurt proceed unto a wound and that wound not be mortal but even next to it looks like an artifice and contrivance of Providence to shew you how near it could go without cutting thorough that slender thred of life that it might indear to you its accurate superintendency over your life that there might here be a remarkable juncture in that thred and that whensoever such a day should revolve in the circle of your year it might come again and again with a note upon it under your eye and appear ever to you as another Birth-day or as an earlier day of resurrection Whereupon my honoured Lord the further design of that Providence is to be thoroughly studied and pondered deeply For it shews it self to be at once both mercifull and wise and as upon the one account it belong'd to it to design kindly to you so upon the other to form its design aptly and so as that its means and method might fitly both serve and signify its end If therefore your Lordship shall be induc't to reckon the counsel acceptable which hath been given you upon this occasion and to think the offering your self to God a living Sacrifice under the endearing obligation of so great a mercy is indeed a reasonable service Your life by that dedication acquires a sacredness becomes an holy divine life And so by one and the same means is not onely renewed and prolonged in the same kind of natural life but is also heightned and improved to a nobler and far more excellent kind And thus out of that umbrage onely and shadow of death which sat upon one day of your time springs a double birth and resurrection to you Whereby as our Apostle speaks in another place of this Epistle you come to yield your self to God as one alive from the dead So your New year which shortly after begins will alwaies be to you a fresh setting forth in that new and holy course of life which shall at length and God grant it to be after the revolution of many fruitfull years wherein you may continue a publick blessing in this wretched world end and be perfected in a state of life not measured by time wherein you are to be ever with the Lord. Which will answer the design of that mercifull providence towards you and of this performance how mean soever of Your Honours most obedient humble Servant John Howe Self-dedication Rom. 12.1 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service TWO things are more especially considerable in these words The matter of the Exhortation that we would present our bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God our reasonable service And the pathetick form of obtestation that is used to enforce it I beseech you by the mercies of God The former I intend for the principal subject of the following Discourse And shall onely make use of the other for the purpose unto which the holy Apostle doth here apply it Our business therefore must be to shew the import of this Exhortation In the doing whereof we shall 1. Explain the terms wherein the Text delivers it 2. Declare more distinctly the nature of the thing expressed by them 1. For the terms By bodies we are to understand our whole selves exprest here synecdochically by the name of bodies for distinction sake It having been wonted heretofore to offer in Sacrifice the bodies of beasts The Apostle lets them know they are now to offer up their own Meaning yet their whole man as some of the following words do intimate and agreeably to the plain meaning of the Exhortation 1 Cor. 6.20 Glorify God in your bodies and spirits which are his Sacrifice is not to be understood in this place in a more restrained sense than as it may signify whatsoever is by God's own appointment dedicated to himself According to the stricter notion of a Sacrifice it s more noted general distinction though the Jewish be very variously distributed is into propitiatory and gratulatory or Eucharistical Christianity in that strict sense admits but One and that of the former sort By which One that of himself our Lord hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified We our selves or any service of ours are onely capable of being Sacrifices by way of analogy and that chiefly to the other sort And so all sincere Christians are as lively stones built up a spiritual house an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 1 Pet. 2.5 being both Temple Priests and Sacrifices all at once As our Lord himself in