Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A30274
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The Christian temper: or, The quiet state of mind that God's servants labour for Set forth in a sermon at the funeral of Mrs. Ursula Collins. By D.B.
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Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing B5699; ESTC R213107
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22,863
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76
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to the right Owner I Love the Lord not I Love his Deliverances saith the good man q. d. 'T is unto the Giver my affections are drawn by best gifts Nor would I count any of them good if they tended not to make my Esteem and Love of Him better Return of Prayer is another kind of thing than the Gold of Ophir But all my Love is too little for Him that makes it And rather than any of it should be stole from Him I would chuse to have any Desire of mine denied by Him. 'T is Him that I studiously Love in all things for all things and above all things L. 3. The Mercy of one Day engageth us to Duty all our Days It engaged the Psalmist as the second verse most expresly saith Because He hath enclined at this time his Ear unto me therefore will I Call upon Him or Pay all Duty to Him as long as I live q. d. The Deliverance that God hath now wrought for me hath sensibly brought Fire Fuel and Bellows to the Love of God in me And for present the coals thereof are coals of Fire which hath a most vehement flame But this gives me not content I look forward and I take care for to morrow My heart is green Wood and Fire in green Wood doth as easily Die as it doth difficulty come to Live. Above measure I think my self engaged to consult for the continuance of that Zeal which is easier Lost than first Got. And easier Kept than Regain'd Lost I know it will be if the divinely appointed means be not used to preserve it The which means are all Duties And unto the Use of them all my days I am as much obliged as the very first day of my Salvation I dream not that God's end in it is to make me Bless Reverence Trust and Serve Him the more for less than all my time The benefit of the Salvation it self extends plainly thro' it all And thro' it all as in duty bound I engage my self to that universal Obedience whereof Prayer is the so eminent Pillar The World shall see there is a Thankfulness that abides unto the Giver even to the last breath of the Receiver L. 4. Death and Hell do often Fright but they never Hurt a good Soul. The Psalmist says verse the third that the fears of death to wit Bodily and Spiritual found him and he found trouble and sorrow great store in them He says not that they mischieved him It were easie to shew that they both did him good He hath elsewhere told us 'T was good beneficial for him that he was Afflicted viz. in Body and Spirit And here it self he doth with sufficient plainness speak the same For in the next verse these are his words Then called I on the Name of the Lord as if he had said In that my Affliction I sought God early That Hell upon Earth drave me to Heaven Mine Eyes had been less toward God if he had not set the Image of death upon my Eye-lids So many and so fervent Prayers had not been put up from my Soul and for my Soul if the dread of Death and Hell had not come into my Soul. Memorable is that passage of worthy Mr. Shepheard I have oft wondred If Christ hath born all our miseries and suffered death for us why then should we feel any miseries or see death any more And I could never satisfie my own heart by many answers given better than by this viz. That if the Lord should abolish the very being of our miseries they should indeed then do us no hurt but neither could they then do us any good Now the Lord Jesus hath made such Peace for us that our Enemies shall not only not hurt us but they shall be forced to do us much good Wants make us pray the more Sorrows do humble us more Temptations make us exercise graces more Desertions make us long for Heaven more 'T is now part of our portion to have not only Paul and Apollos and World but to have Death it self to do us good L. 5. The troubles of our Souls are the Souls of our Troubles David's do so appear By the heaps of words that he pileth up to express them they appear so Death-sorrows Hell-pains Troubles and Sorrows that found him and got hold of him Oh what a deal of Water can the Sea contain more than a Thimble or a Cockle-shell And what an a like deal of good and evil is the Soul capable of more than the Body And how much more to be pitied is the Soul that is betwixt Hope and Fear of God's Love than the Body that is between the Axe and the Block Let the Reader that would see more of this see the unparallellable Mr. Ro. Bolton upon Prov. 18.14 L. 6. In the Fire and Water there 's nothing like holy Prayer David was in them both with the witness and in them as the best course he could take he prays Then called I on the Name of the Lord O Lord I beseech thee deliver my Soul q.d. When I was beat off my Legs I fell upon my Knees I knew the heavenly Father used to strike his Children no lower Yea and to strike them for no purpose so much as to bring them on their Praying Knees Unmixed Praise is his delight in Heaven but upon Earth 't is Praise with Prayer he delights in And which he makes the in-let of all his Mercies and our true Consolations They quite mistake their way to welfare who when they are distressed sit still in lazy Complaints Or go busie themselves in Complotments hoping by their own and by borrowed Wisdom and Power to remove the Mountains that lay on their hearts Idleness and carnal Activity sink us deeper into sorrows they never take us out But Prayer honours God and God honours Prayer No want is so great but He can supply it and there 's no Soul that Prays in Faith but may be sure He will supply it Is his Power only Infinite no his Goodness that makes Promises and his Truth that keeps them be fully as Infinite as that Power it self is What therefore is comparable to Prayer 'T is with it and not without it that Faith subdues worlds of evils obtains Promises muzzles Lions quenches Fire scapes the edge of Swords of weak makes strong Nothing can kill a Believer but that which can stop the breath of his Prayer L. 7. God's gracious righteous and merciful Acts do teach us his gracious righteous and merciful Nature They taught our Psalmist He comes from declaring the former to conclude the latter He had said what God had Done and verse the fifth he says what God is Namely Gracious that is Kind without any Force or Necessity and without any Merit or Motive from without his own heart Righteous that is Just or Faithful Merciful that is forward to help creatures Lying in misery Be it observed 't is the Nature of God from whence alone in many cases we
can draw any Hope or Peace 'T is from thence alone as the first Fountain that in all cases we do or can draw it 'T is for the Exaltation and Praise of his Nature that he worketh all his works and that he calleth us to consider all his works 'T is the reproach of his Nature that Satan above all things aimeth and acts for as that which upholds the Kingdom of Sin in the World. Wherefore miserable are they who cannot set seal unto this Doctrine And who do not Learn what God Is from what He Does Their Religion is vain Pageantry who while they cry up his Works do not enamouredly see in them the glory of Him the worker L. 8. God is a Believer's own God. So the Psalmist calls him OUR GOD. To be sure God is at his own Disposal He can give Himself to whom He pleaseth to be Theirs in Marriage Covenant for ever And 't is as certain He hath so given Himself and all that He Hath unto sincere Believers Who accordingly give themselves and all that they Have unto Him. Of both I speak largely elsewhere L. 9. The most Shiftless Saints have God their Saviour The Lord preserves the Simple saith verse the sixth Men of least Policy are saved by Him who is Only Wise They are Preserved one or other or all ways viz. From evils and In them and out of them L. 10. Sanctified hearts remember their Wants and their Helps Davids did so I was brought Low and He helped me Indeed sin takes away the heart Corrupts the mind Memory and Will. And lets not him be a Man that will not be a Saint Grace on the contrary raises the Mind perfects the Memory rectifies the Will. And make that he who will be a Saint must be very like an Angel. That is Humble and Grateful Humble in ones self Grateful unto God. Assoon shall Cherubims cease to remember that once they were Nothings and God raised them out of Nothing as an Holy Soul shall forget his great Depressions and his Gods Exaltations of him out of them The Text we are now arrived to And in it you see do ye not these Particulars to wit 1. The Preucher David's Conscience 2. The Auditory David's whole man. 3. The Sermon an Exhortation to holy Quietness pressed by Gods motive Kindness Many Doctrines here meet us and chiefly these D. 1. Good men give themselves good Lectures Davids have their Chaplains in their breasts And Preach unto themselves Their own Reins do instruct them And indeed all men's words and God's too be unprofitable unto us till they become the words of our Consciences unto us He is an ill man whose Conscience is a dumb Dog. D. 2. The best of men do not keep perfectly still in severe storms David himself did not This charge Return to thy Rest plainly speaks his Removal from it And a sinful Unquietness it self We have heard indeed of Job's Patience in his Affliction and so have we heard of his Impatience too In that very grace wherein a good man is most Perfect in that it self he is far from being Legally Perfect Our gracious God doth not and Men should not let one act or a few un-allowed acts denominate us In no man save Him who was God and Man had ever Diligence or Patience its Perfect work In the foresaid sense Perfect We may not call our selves Hypocrites for that which God doth not so call us Perfection is coveted by every one that is sincere but 't is not by any one in this Life attained Sin came into us when our Souls came into our Bodies and 't will never go quite out of us till our Souls go quite out of them Happy is he that has no sin Reigning or Raging Till you are in Abraham's bosom you shall have sin Assaulting and Afflicting you And that in Adversity and Prosperity too But the Truth I chuse to insist on is that which follows D. 3. Rest in God is the state of Mind that 's Laboured for by the Children of God. 'T is that you see whereto David laboriously called and instructed his Soul. And the record of it can be thought design'd for nothing so much as to provoke us to go and do likewise That thus we may the better do the Proposition shall be briefly Explain'd and Proved in these four Considerations C. 1. Rest is the Health Or the pleasant Feeling of a Soul United unto and Enjoying of its supreme good Two things it importeth Life and Peace Rest is not Death nor is it Rage Where there is no Life there 's none of the Spiritual Rest we speak of Nor any other but what a Stock or Stone possesses Where there is no Peace it need not be said what a distance there is from Rest Raging Life stands farther from Rest than Dead Peace it self A Flint stone is nearer to it than a Furious malecontented man. Soul-rest is a lively Peace and Peaceful Life And here think distinctly 1. No Creature is or can be its own happy-making good 2. All Living ones do crave such good from without themselves 3. God is all good Creatures have nothing but what He puts and holds in 'em no virtue to benefit one another 4. Before the best Union unto God we cannot have the best good from Him By the best Union understand nearest Relation That of Adopted Sons and Covenanted Servants By the best good understand that which is Spiritual and Eternal 5. When we have the best good bestown upon us by God we are not at Rest in our selves presently We are not well till what is Bestown on us be also Enjoyed by us 6. Enjoyment is made up of five Ingredients to wit Use Knowledge Pleasure Content Security We then Enjoy what God Is unto us and what He also Doth for us when we Use it for the just ends of it When we duly reflect and Discern our selves to be in the Possession and best use of those best things When we take Pleasure and make glad our hearts in the Discovery thereof When we Content and satisfie our selves with that Pleasure saying 'T is Enough yea 't is All we would not nay we cannot have it better with us than Grace hath made it When likewise we have and consider us to have strong Security for Holding what we Have 7. Rest is the State and Temper of a Soul thus enjoying God through Jesus Christ It 's such a Soul's satisfiedness and that in a double reference to all that God has yet done and all that God shall ever do A Soul in the Rest which our Text intends thus speaketh Lord I must speak as I find Thou hast hitherto done all things well I must needs approve yea and applaud all I am sure Thou thy self canst not mend it for there has been in it no fault I shall never forgive my self my trespasses in the hard thoughts I have had of any thing by Thee done If I remember them in Heaven I shall there Blush to all