Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A30665
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The danger of delaying repentance set forth in a sermon preached to the university at St. Mary's Church in Oxford on New-Years-Day, 1691/2 / by Ar. Bury ...
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Bury, Arthur, 1624-1713.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing B6193; ESTC R4405
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13,117
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31
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allowed 8 days respite but This by fixing no Future day maketh every day of Delay a day of Disobedience God be blessed there are not many who deny the duty to be necessary but too many who hope they may safely delay it And those hopes they build upon the unhappy Translation of the Greek word which importeth A Change for the future into a Latin one which signifieth only A Sorrow for what is past For thence men rashly if not wilfully infer that the Gospel promiseth pardon to every one that repenteth and That may be done at any time but never more seasonably than in the last scene of life when they shall have nothing else to do And what is this but a defiance to the Apostle's caution which the last time that I appeared in this place we heard him give the Galatians in these words Be not deceived God is not mocked for what a man soweth that shall be also reap I shall now repeat no more of what I then said but this That God hath established the same Rule for the other life as for this That the Harvest shall answer the Seed in Kind yet so as to multiply it but at some distance of time For there is one time to sow and another time to reap and in this spiritual husbandry the earliest season is alway the best for Two great Reasons First Because delay multiplieth Difficulties and Secondly Because it multiplieth Dangers 1. It multiplieth Difficulties because by repeated Acts the Habits will grow to a second Nature for so the Prophet declareth as little hope that those who are accustomed to do evil should learn to do well as there is that a Bluck-a-moor should change his skin or a Leopard his spots And as Difficulties encrease so do the Helps decay The Light of Conscience the Word preached and the Grace of God by frequent baffles lose their power and in time grieving the Spirit cometh to quenching the Spirit It is a dreadful Consideration That the day of Grace is shorter than the day of Life that there is a measure of iniquity beyond which God's Spirit will not strive with man but leave the Reprobate to his own ways wherein he must certainly perish This is lively set forth in the latter half of the first Chapter of the Proverbs of Solomon wherein Wisdom is personated first Wooing then Threatning and at last Deserting the obstinate and therefore perishing fool This brought us to the Frontier of the other Argument against Delay it multiplieth Dangers which it is my present business to survey taking our view from Moses's Case I. God sought not to slay Moses in the field but in his lodgings but we are not sure we shall die in our Beds II. Moses knew his danger but we know not when our disease is mortal III. When Moses was disabled his Wife acted his part but if our disease disable us from Repentance we cannot do it by Proxy IV. As soon as the Child was circumcised the destroying Angel left Moses in safety but we have no certainty that God will pardon us in consideration of a Death-bed Repentance I. THE first danger is That we may not die in our Bed and thereby have opportunity to repent What is there no other way to the Grave but from the Bed Or hast thou any Revelation that however many other ways there be and however many other men pass those other ways yet thou hast a particular protection against them What creature so Mean or so Weak as not to be able to destroy the Wisest and the Mightiest man Anacreon's Wit could not deliver him from a Grapestone nor Pope Adrian's triple Crown from a Fly nor Herod's joint Wit and Power from Worms Zeuxis was strangled with a fit of Laughter and many by a fit of Grief Wine engageth one Man in a Quarrel another in a Fever a third in a Ditch and others in other destructive Accidents How many every Year fall by some violent Death And what Year more fruitful than this in Apoplexies which have knocked down one in the Court where Laws are Made another in That where they are Executed one as he is about to sleep another when he is about to eat Sudden Deaths are almost daily of those who depended upon Death-bed-Repentance with as much confidence as any of us who survive perhaps to be made the like warnings to others From this slippery station let us view the fall In play we allow men to hazard so much as they may reasonably spend upon one pleasure but those who put their whole Livelyhood to the Mercy of a Die are Blamed though they prove Fortunate and Scorned if they be Ruined Yet have they as much Hope of Gain as Danger of Loss But the Impenitent staketh eternal Life against a Lust a Brutish Pleasure which is overpurchased at the much greater Loss of that which a vertuous man enjoys If it be pleaded that there is great odds against this danger because those who die in their Beds are many more than those who die otherwise we ought to reply that a man ought not to stake his All against Nothing though there were but one bad Chance in the Dice And we are further to consider that if we were secure from this yet there are other dangers For II. A second Danger is that if we die in our Beds we cannot Know and are loth to Believe that we must die by This Disease For on the contrary all our worldly Friends and spiritual Enemies combine with our own Self-love to flatter us The Physicians by their Art are obliged to fortifie their Patients Spirits the better if possible to resist the Disease and by the same rules all that come near him must speak Comfort or Nothing concerning his Condition So fondness for his ease tempts him to continue his Inveterate Practice of dismissing his Repentance to a more convenient season Yea so powerful is this fondness that it infatuateth those who have no hopes either to Escape their present sickness or to Continue any considerable time in it The Consumption which hath devoured all the inward and outward Flesh hath not consumed this Humour And in old men this Disease is no less incurable than the natural Infirmities of Age. No man saith Seneca is so old ut impiè alterum diem speret he may well hope to live some days longer and one of those days he will do the Work but for the present he cries with Solomon's Sluggard yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep and death cometh upon the one as want upon the other like a Traveller not Expected and an armed man not to be Resisted For the Bed cometh within that Petition in our Litany from sudden death good Lord deliver us the Death that surpriseth us unprepared is sudden in whatever circumstances it seizeth us whether in Bed or Field Nor can it now be pleaded as before That the odds is great in favour of the Impenitent
The Danger of Delaying Repentance Set forth in a SERMON PREACHED TO THE UNIVERSITY AT St. Mary's Church in Oxford ON NEW-YEARS-DAY 1691 2. By Ar. Bury D. D. Rector of Exon Colledge LONDON Printed for Nathanael Ranew at the Kings-Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. The Danger of Delaying Repentance Set forth in a SERMON Preach'd to the University of Oxford c. EXOD. iv 24 25 26. And it came to pass by the way in the Inn that the Lord met him and fought to kill him And Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the fore-skin of her Son and cast it at his feet and said Surely a bloody husband art thou to me So he let him go Then or as the vulgar Latin better When she said a bloody husband thou art because of the Circumcision MOses was now in a Journey undertaken with great Reluctancy in absolute Obedience to God's repeated Commands He made what shifts he could from the unwelcome Employment First on the People's part he pleaded that they would not believe him then on his own part that he was not qualified and when he was answered in both he fell from pleading to downright begging Then was the Lord's anger kindled against him Now therefore without delay or dispute he obeyeth the second Command and by the way in his lodging for Inns properly so called there were none in those Days by some praeternatural Disease which spake the immediate hand of God he fell into imminent Danger of Death and by what Revelation we know not the neglect of Circumcising his new-born Son appeared to be the provocation But the Disease which punished the neglect now hinders the performance and he must have perished had not his Wife with a sharp Knife for the word in the Hebrew is the same in Joshua 2.2 where it is so translated she circumcised the Child And as the fore skin and blood fell at his feet she uttered those words which our Learned Mede probably believed to have been the ritual Form in that Ceremony For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signify a Husband but a Spouse not yet married and was often used for the nearest Allied and in this Office might be used by the Circumciser to the Child pronouncing him Circumcised and by the blood of Circumcision betrothed to the Covenant And this Opinion giveth a fair Account of the 26 verse not otherwise easily proved worth mention So the summ of the Story is this Moses had not circumcised his Son at the time prescribed by the Law which appointed the 8th day upon pain of death he was about to suffer death as a punishment of That neglect but escaped by his Wife's care in Performing what he had Neglected This neglect of Moses we may take as a Foil to illustrate that exact obedience of our Lord which we this day commemorate Moses was the Mediator of a Covenant whereof Circumcision was the Seal our Lord was Mediator of a Covenant whereby it was abolished yet did he submit to it and not only to Circumcision which was commanded but to Baptism too which without any command was practised by such as professed singular perfection For we read Matth. 3.13 Jesus came from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him but John forbad him saying I have need to be baptized of Thee and comest thou to me and Jesus answering said unto him suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness then he suffered him i. e. it is not necessary indeed but it becometh me to fulfil i. e. to be perfect in All Righteousness i. e. in what-ever is excellent Thus far the Letter but the Collect for this day assureth us that we do not thus solemnly celebrate the naked History but the Mystery therein contained which we find thus displayed Col. 2.10 Ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ Godliness is so adaequately the end of all our Lord's actions that not only his Moral but even his Ritual Performances are thereto referred Yea not his Obedience only but his Sufferings and Exaltation his Death Burial and Resurrection are made Engagements Encouragements and Emblems of it For so the Apostle goeth on Buried with him in baptism wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God who raised him from the dead And you being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickned together with him having forgiven you all trespasses Nor is this the only Text wherein we find the Apostle at this holy Chymistry distilling the Spirit out of the Letter This this is truly to apply Christ to our selves Thus doth our Church teach us to commemorate our Lord's Circumcision praying that God would grant us the true circumcision of the spirit Whereof to shew the Necessity and the Danger of delaying it I have thought it proper to view Moses's case and apply it to our own in his Sin and his Danger HIS SIN was his delaying the Circumcision of his Son beyond the time prescribed by the Law That this proceeded not from any compliance with his Wife or her Father as some imagin appeareth from this that Midian was one of the Sons of Abraham by Keturah and all Nations that came out of his Loins celebrated circumcision nor did Mahomet learn it of his Jew but derive it from his Ancestors Besides we hear of another Son of Moses Gersom whom we therefore must believe to have been duly circumcised because we find nothing to the contrary It was not therefore his neglect of the Law but the Time which he delayed not out of Contempt but upon plausible Reason He was in a journey upon God's Errand his Son so newly born as not to be able to undergo such an operation and then such a journey Such an excuse God himself afterward approved in the whole people who were all Uncircumcised and Blameless during a journey of 40 Years as appears Jos 2. I say not that Moses had Then God's approbation but he might Then well judge That a competent excuse which God in the like case admitted for such And that this was Moses's reason we may judge by his leaving his Wife and Child to stay till they might return to her Father of whom we read in the 18th Chapter that he brought them to Moses in the Wilderness So the proper weight of Moses's guilt seemeth to be this That he took his Wise and Child with him and thereby cast himself into such circumstances as made it necessary for him to delay his duty till the journey were ended and the Law transgressed And what is such an Errour in comparison of ours The Gospel maketh the circumcision of the Heart no less necessary than the Law made that of the Foreskin That