Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A32083
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A funeral sermon preach'd at the internment of Mr. Samuel Stephens for some time employ'd in the work of the ministry, in this city : who departed life the fifth of January, 1693/4 in the twenty eighth year of his age / by Edmund Calamy.
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Calamy, Edmund, 1671-1732.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing C271; ESTC R10147
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15,357
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38
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not but our Work may be at an end as soon almost as we begin and therefore we have need carefully to improve all opportunities of Service and to work apace It is indeed enough to surprize us vvhen we consider all things to think that God should have rais'd up so many of us in so discouraging Times as we have pass'd through that he should have given us any tolerable competency of Fitness for his Service and that he should in any measure own us in it But alas my Brethren let 's not be too confident God can nip budding hopâ— he can if he pleases just show us to the World and then snatch us away again Let 's take care leâ—t we by our sins provoke him to lay us aside as Vessels wherein he hath no pleasure Let 's work therefore for God without Self-seeking Let 's take care to recommend Religion to others by our Lives Let 's love as Brethren and studiously strengthen and no ways weaken one anothers hands Let 's apply our selves diligently to our Work and let this Instance of our Mortality quicken us Let 's often think this Work of ours will soon be at an end in which if we have been faithful we shall be amply rewarded for we shall shine as Stars in God's Right Hand If we have been idle negligent and careless our punishment vvill be proportion'd to our sin Let 's not be so fond as to feed our selves with hopes of a long time of use and service to come but in the Day let 's foresee our Night Let 's seriously bethink our selves that Death will soon seize us and summon us to Judgment Our Souls will take their flight and leave our Bodies behind and we must be beholden to our surviving Friends to do that last Office for us which we are now going to do for the Relicks of our Deceasâ—d Brother Mr. SAMVEL STEPHENS Of whom I shan't say much to you though I could if I thought it needful As for his Family ' t vvas Noble and Honourable in Heavens Blaâ—â—â—ry it having been successively employed in the Work of the Ministry ever since the Reformation his immediate Father only excepted Which Gap the Two Brothers would have made up if both had liv'd But blessed be God that hath spared us One Branch of so Worthy a Stock As for the Person of the Deceased he was design'd for the Ministry from his Younger Years and had as Good Advantages all along for the acquiring the needful Accomplishments for it as this Land vvould afford to those under our Discouragements Which Advantages he so Well Improv'd as at length to become a Workman that needed not to be asham'd He had a Sense of Religion instill'd into him in his early Days about the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Year of his Age ever since which time he hath been observed by those that knew him to have had a very tender Conscience He vvas noted for his frequency in Prayer even while a School-Boy the serious performance of which Duty argues the Greatest Love to God of any He had a most awful Sense of the Ministerial Employment which those with whom he had any intimacy will readily testifie He was very backward to begin to preach though by his most Judicious Friends judg'd sufficiently qualified and earnestly prest thro' his great humility and unwillingness to rush into such a work And I could tell you of a Worthy Divine to whom he to his dying day us'd for the most part to read his Notes before he 'd Venture with Them into the Pulpit His Spirit hath many a Time been so over-awed by a sense of the Sacredness of the Work he was engaged in that he hath been afraid to persist in it and almost perswaded to turn his Thoughts another way And indeed he was humble and modest to a Fault His Natural Temper exposed him somewhat to Melancholy and one thing that tended to make his Life uneasie was his great Scrupulosity and fear of offending God in the smallest matters where others could apprehend no danger But in this he was on the safest side tho the most uncomfortable But he had the happiness to be able to conceal his inward Trouble from the Observation of the World by a free pleasant and cheerful Conversation by which he avoided discouraging others of which he was fearful I look upon him to have had as much of True Generosity in his Natural Temper as most I know He from his heart scorn'd to do any Thing that was mean or base or servile and abhorr'd every Thing that in the least lookt like undermining He ever retain'd a most grateful sense of the Kindness of those Worthy Gentlemen and others who were his Friends and was always ready to the utmost of his Capacity himself to do any Office of Kindness for any Having been for some years employ'd occasionally in the Preaching Work of the Ministry it so pleased God that a Mortal Distemper seiz'd him which depriv'd the Church of an useful Servant and us of a Fellow-Labourer that might have been very helpful His Distemper with Violence seiz'd his head the Rage whereof was Visibly increased by those awful Thoughts of Eternity wherewith he was possessed I mention this the rather that I may thence take occasion to warn those who will defer and put off their great work to a Dying Bed from this Instance and others of the like nature often to be met with to see their folly and grow wise For several days before he dy'd his Distemper deprived him of the free use of his Reason and so it happens in many Cases who then in his Wits would put off the Great Work he was sent into the World for to such a Time And yet this may be the case of any one of us Our Eternal State may be irrevocably fixt even before we die and we absolutely incapacitated to do any thing in our Soul-Affairs But I hope and believe our deceased Brother's Work was not then to do but was finished before After that his Natural Strength which was very great had for some days grappled with a malignant Fever he was forc'd to yield a Rent was made his Soul took its flight and left his Body lifeless in the Eight and Twentieth Year of his Age. His Work 's soon done but not too soon for him who I hope is happy We are now going to commit his Body to the Earth there to lye and rot which will shortly also be the Case of every one of us His Toil and Warfare and Combat and all painful Work is at an end He 's taken away from those Evils which we may live to see For who knows what is coming upon us We may for ought we know meet with miseries that we little think of before we dye But blessed be God that we have another Life of Rest and Peace and Joy in hope and that tho we cant know what will befall us here yet we know this assuredly That Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their labours and their Works do follow them FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Abraham Chandler THE Mourners Companion or Funeral Discourses from several Texts 8vo Price bound 1 s. 6 d. Death a Deliverance A Funeral Discourse to bind up with the Mourners Companion Sacramental Discourses on several Texts before and after the Lords Supper together with a Paraphrase on the Lords Prayer 12ves Price bound 1 s. 6 d. Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica Sicily Malta c. with a particular Historical Account of those and Divers other Earthquakes Price bound 1 s. 6 d. The Day of Grace Or a Discourse concerning the Possibility and Fear of its being past before Death Shewing the groundless Doubts and mistaken Apprehensions of some as to their being finally forsaken and left of God with the dangerous Symptoms and Approaches of others to such a sad state in Four Sermons from Psalm 81. 11 12. Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity with some other Subjects Moral and Divine To which is annexed an Appendix concerning the First Day of the Year how observed by the Iews and may best be employed by a serious Christian. All Six by Mr. John Shower * Viz. That of Beza reserv'd at Cambridge Heb. 9 27. Jam. 3. 17. Rev 14.13
A Funeral Sermon Preach'd at the Interment of Mr. SAMVEL STEPHENS For some time Employ'd in the Work of the Ministry in this CITY Who departed this Life the Fifth of January 1693 4. in the Twenty eighth Year of his Age. By EDMVND CALAMY 1 Pet. 1.24 All flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of grass the grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away Psal. 103.16 For the wind passeth over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more LONDON Printed for Abraham Chandler at the Chyrurgeons-Arms in Aldersgate-street MDCXCIV TO THE READER THou hast here an awful Providence to draw forth and exercize thy solemn Thoughts A Person Young Strong Healthful and of no ordinary Hopefulness and Proficiency in what might render him a Light and Blessing to and in his Generation but soon cut down by a malignant Fever I knew him intimately and greatly valu'd him and by my free and frequent Conversation with him I found him Apprehensive Inquisitive Receptive of things in their Evidences Attentive to what was said Calm and Modest but Pertinent in his Replies and prone to consider Seriously of Matters But yet the Concernedness of his Soul for Holiness and Heaven drench'd in a Scrupulous Temper did too exorbitantly agitate his Imagination or Fancy the strength whereof was his bewail'd Vnhappiness For though his Conscience was tender and his Life blameless and his Industry evidently great in the pursuit of Things Eternal yet was he rarely if ever free from urgent Doubts and Fears yet not discernible to any until related by himself unto some few and among these to me to whom his Resorts were very frequent free and grateful for his ordinary Conversation was not morose but pleasant and profitable though through Self-diffidence and Suspicion he both kept guard and much reflected on himself rather to Censure than to Exalt himself in his own Conceit or to extort Self-Commendation from Others He is Dead Neither was Providence long about this fatal and awakening Work Through Providential Conduct the Author of this Sermon thus entertain'd a great and attentive Auditory at the Funeral Solemnity of the Deceased The Composer of this Sermon my Dear and Worthy Fellow-Labourer in the Gospel I could copiously Commend but will not He is well known to be more prest by me and others than forward of himself to make this serious and useful Sermon publick The First-Fruits of an hopeful Harvest are not the worse for being early but the better Young Timothy when deserving it was Commended even by St. Paul that great Apostle And Grace I hope will keep him safe and humble and I beg it may do so But Manum de Tabula God's Word and Providence have their loud Call and solemn Errand to us all Oh! Hear Prepare Fulfil Dispatch Pray Wait and Hope The Iudge is at the Door the End of all Things is at hand we little know when how near or how A Fever such as made this Spectacle of Mortality may quickly send us after him who is lately gone unto the Grave And what comes next Pardon me Reader if I vent my very Heart and Wishes in these borrow'd Strains O Deus aut nullo caleat mihi Pectus ab igne Aut solo caleat pectus abigne tui Languet ut illa Deo mihi mens simul aemula languet Coelitus ut rapitur me violenta rapit Ut Paveam scelus omne petam super omnia Coelum Da mihi Fraena Timor Da mihi Calcar Amor. Luctibus Caetera Suspiriis LONDON Jan. 15. 1693 4. Thine in and for the Lord Whilst Matt. Sylvester A Funeral Sermon c. A Funeral Solemnity my Friends is an awful Thing apt to dispose the Minds of those who are in any wise Thoughtful for Serious Impressions and therefore affords an Opportunity for pursuing an Exhortation to Piety and Religion with good Advantage Though Funeral Orations had their Rise from Heathenish Vanity yet may they provided all unjust Commendation of the Dead and servile Flattery of the Living be avoided be exceeding useful even among Christians in helping to make the Survivers better there being nothing that more promotes the Amendment of our Lives than the serious Consideration and Improvement of the Departure of Others who are snatch'd away by Death both on our Right-hand and Left leaving us behind who Our Selves also must shortly follow We have now before us the Corps of one who a Fortnight ago might rationally have hop'd to have liv'd as long as most here present One that a few Days ago was Hale and Strong Healthful and Vigorous Aimable and Pleasant Well-Accomplish'd and Useful But a mortal Distemper seiz'd him his Strength was on a sudden baffled and all his Plenty of Spirits exhausted he is crush'd like a Moth his Serviceableness is at an end and we are now going to commit his desented Carcass to the Earth the grand Principle of its Composition Who that will give way to Consideration but must hereupon be provok'd to take up some such Resolution as this By the help of God henceforward whatever I neglect I 'll mind my main Concern I 'll do what I have to do in this World without Delay since I know not how soon Death may surprize me and summon me to Judgment 'T is the engaging us to make and keep such a Resolution as this which humbly imploring Divine Assistance I at present aim at And in order thereto I have pitch'd for the Subject of my Discourse on that Passage of Holy Writ which we meet with in JOHN ix 4 I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day the night cometh when no man can work WHich are the Words of our Blessed Saviour ordinarily taken as spoken by him with reference to Himself discovering his steady Purpose of managing that great Concern for which he came into the World with the utmost Speed and Diligence and more particularly his Resolvedness to do as many beneficial Miracles as the short time of his stay here below would allow him But waving this Sence I shall consider them as having a general Aspect setting before us all that which is our plain Duty and should be our resolved Purpose For which Acceptation besides the Obligation we are under to a Resemblance of our Blessed Lord in this as well as in other Respects I think I have sufficient Ground in that according to one of the most valuable Copies of the New Testament this day in the World this Passage should be thus render'd We must work the Works of him that sent us And indeed a transient Animadversion of the Circumstances of this Verse will suffice to satisfie us that it hath nothing in it peculiar to our Saviour but that he took a convenient Occasion to make his Followers sensible how much they were concern'd according to their different Capacities to do the Work that God had set them in the Time that he had