Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A44681
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A funeral sermon on the decease of that worthy gentlewoman Mrs. Margaret Baxter, who died the 28th of June, 1681 by John Howe.
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing H3030; ESTC R26809
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27,363
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48
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A Funeral Sermon On the Decease of That worthy Gentlewoman M rs Margaret Baxter Who died the 28th of June 1681. By JOHN HOWE Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1681. To the very Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter SIR WHen you assign'd unto me that part not of forming a Memorial for your excellent deceased Consort which is reserved to the fittest hand but of instructing the People upon the occasion of her decease This Text of Scripture occurring also to my thoughts which I reckon'd might sufficiently agree with the design you generally recommended to me tho I am sensible how little the prosecution did so it put me upon considering with how great disadvantage we set our selves at any time to reason against bodily Inclination the great Antagonist we have to contend against in all our Ministerial Labours An Attempt which if an higher Power set not in with us looks like the opposing of our faint Breath to the steady course of a mighty River I have often thought of Cicero's wonder That since we consist of a Mind and a Body the skill of curing and preserving the Body is so admir'd as to have been thought a Divine Invention That which refers to the Mind is neither so desired before it be found out nor so cultivated afterwards nor is approv'd and acceptable to so many yea is even to the most suspected and hateful Even the Tyrant Phalaris tells one in an Epistle tho by way of menace That whereas a good Physician may cure a distemper'd Body Death is the only Physician for a distemper'd Mind It works not indeed an universal Cure But of such on whom it may how few are there that count not the Remedy worse than the Disease Yet how many thousands are there that for greater hoped bodily advantages afterwards endure much more pain and trouble than there is in dying We are a mysterious sort of Creatures Yet I acknowledg the Wisdom of God is great and admirable in planting in our Natures so strong a love of this bodily Life without which the best would be more impatient of living on Earth so long as God thinks it requisite they should And to the worst Death would not be a sufficiently formidable punishment And consequently humane Laws and Justice would be in great part eluded And the same Divine Wisdom is not less admirable in providing there should so generally be so much of mutual Love as doth obtain among near Friends and Relatives For thereby their Cohabitation and mutual Offices towards each other are made more pleasant and easie which is a great compensation for the concomitant Evil that by the same Love their parting with one another cannot but be rendered grievous But for you who live so much upon the Borders and in the pleasant view of the other State The one separation is I doubt not much easier to your sense and the other to your fore-thoughts than they are with the most A perfect indifferency towards this present bodily State and Life is in mine eyes a most covetable thing and my daily aim Wherein I entreat your Prayers may assist Your most respectful though most unworthy fellow-Servant and Expectant in the Work and Hope of the Gospel JOHN HOWE A Funeral Sermon 2 COR. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. THe solemn Face of this Assembly seems to tell me that you already know the present special occasion of it And that I scarce need to tell any of you that our worthy honoured Friend Mrs. Baxter is dead You have 't is like most of you often met her in this place when her pleased looks were wont to shew what delight she took to have many share in those great Advantages wherein she had a more peculiar Interest You are now to meet her here no more but are met your selves to lament together that our World hath lost so desirable an Inhabitant And to learn as I hope you design what so instructive an occasion shall of it self or as it may be improv'd serve to teach us It doth of it self most obviously teach the common Document that we who are of the same make and mould must all die too And our own prudence should hereupon advance one step further and apprehend it a most covetable thing that the temper of our minds might comply with this unalterable state of our case And that we be in a disposition since we must die to die willingly and with our own consent Nothing can be more irrational or unhappy than to be engaged in a continual quarrel with Necessity which will prevail and be too hard for us at last No course is so wise in it self or good for us as to be reconciled to what we cannot avoid to bear a facile yielding mind towards a determination which admits of no repeal And the Subject now to be insisted on may help us to improve the sad occasion to this very important purpose And shew us that dying which cannot be willed for it self may be join'd with somewhat else which may and ought to be so and in that conjunction become the object of a rational and most complacential willingness A Subject recommended to me though not the special Text by one than whom I know no Man that was better able to make a fit choice as in the present case none could have that right to chuse I cannot stay to discuss and open the most fruitful pleasant series of discourse in the foregoing Verses though there will be occasion to reflect somewhat upon it by and by But in the Text the Apostle asserts two things concerning the temper of his Spirit in reference to Death His Confidence and Complacency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. His Confidence or his Courage and Fortitude We are confident I say He had said it before Vers. 6. We are always confident and assigned the Cause knowing that while we are present in the Body we are absent from the Lord. And declared the kind of that knowledg viz. which he had of that presence of the Lord whereof he was deprived by being present in the Body that is that it was the knowledg of Faith not of Sight Vers. 7. Now here he adds We are confident I say It notes a deliberate courage And the fixedness of it that it was not a suddain Fit a passion soon over He had said above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are confident at all times It was his habitual temper And here the ingemination signifies increase as if he had said We grow more and more bold and adventurous while we consider the state of our case and what we suffer by our presence in the Body Sense of injury or damage heightens and adds an edg unto true valour We would venture upon a thousand Deaths if the matter were left entirely to our own Option rather than be
the first Fruits of the Spirit that blessed Spirit of Adoption and groan for the Adoption the season of your being more solemnly own'd for Sons viz. the redemption of the Body Rom. 8.23 Which though it ultimately refer to the Resurrection may be allowed to have an incompleat meaning in reference to Death too For I see not but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may admit such a construction as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.15 i. e. that redemption of the Body may mean redemption from it wherein it is burthensome a grievance and penalty here as well as there The redemption of Transgressions doth truly mean liberation from the penalty of them From which penal Evil of and by the Body so materially at least it is we are not perfectly freed as our blessedness is not perfect till Mortality be swallowed up of Life and all the adopted the many Sons be all brought to glory together How happy in the mean time is your case when Death becomes the matter of your rational well-grounded hope You have many Hopes wherein you are liable to disappointment You will then have one sure Hope and that will be worth them all none can prevent you of this Hope Many other things you justly hope for are hindred by ill minded Men of their accomplishment But all the wit and power of your most spiteful Enemies can never hinder you from dying And how are you fenc'd against all the intervening Troubles of Life Nihil metuit qui optat mori You have nothing to fear if you desire to die nothing but what at least Death will shortly put an end to Make this your aim To have Life for the matter of your Patience and Death of your Desire 2 ly On the other part also labour to be upon good terms with the Lord secure it that he be yours Your way to that is short and expedite The same by which we become his Ezek. 16.8 I entred into Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Solemnly and unfeignedly accept him and surrender your selves Without this who can expect but to hear from him at last Depart from me I know you not Know of your selves demand an account Are you sincerely willing to be his and to take him for yours without limitation or reserves Matters are then agreed between him and you And who can break or disanul the Agreement Who can come between him and you I often think of the high transport wherewith those words are uttered The excellent knowledg of Christ Jesus my Lord Phil. 3.8 This is Christian Religion not in a System but as it is a vital principle and habit in the Soul inclining us making us propense towards our blessed Lord addicting and subduing us to him uniting us with him Whereby we come to know by inward sensations to feel the transfusions of his spiritful Light and Influence and our Souls thereby caught and bound up in the bundle of Life So we have Christ form'd within His Holy Truths Doctrines Precepts Promises inwrought into the temper of our Spirits And as it follows in that Context Phil. 3. to have him according to the States wherein he successively was by correspondent impressions represented in us So as that we come to bear the Image of him crucified and dying first then reviving and rising and afterwards ascending and glorifi'd To know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his Death If by any means we might attain unto the Resurrection of the Dead Vers. 10 11. Let us not be at rest till we find it thus in some measure with us If we feel our selves after this manner internally and initially conform'd to him this will be both a Preparative and a Pledg of our future perfect conformity both internal and external It will fit us to be ever with the Lord and assure us we shall and can be no where else That he and we shall not to eternity dwell asunder We shall neither fear to be externally conform'd to him in his Death to quit and lay down the Body as he did nor despair of attaining with him the Resurrection from the Dead and of being present with him in Glory Or that he shall recover for us out of the Dust our vile abject Bodies the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Body of our Humiliation wherein we were humbled as he was in his as it follows in that Phil. 3. vers 21. and make it like his own glorious Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conform and agreeable by that power by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself In the mean time as this present state admits converse much with him every day Be not strangers to him often recognize and renew your Engagements to him Revolve in your Thoughts his Interest in you and yours in him And the nearer relation which there is between him and you than that between you and this Body Recount with your selves the permanency and lastingness of that Relation That whereas this Body as now it is a terrestrial Body will not be yours long He is to be your God for ever and ever That though Death must shortly separate you from this Body Neither Life nor Death Principalities nor Powers things present nor things to come shall ever separate you from the Love of God which is in Christ our Jesus our Lord. While this Body is a Body of Death to you he is your Life your Hope and your exceeding Joy your better more laudable and more excellent Self more intimate to you than you can be to your self as hath been anciently and often said And for the obtaining whose presence absence from the Body is a very small matter A great Prince in an Epistle to that Philosopher tells him I seem to my self not to be a Man as the saying is while I am absent from Iamblichus or while I am not conversant with him That we can better endure our Lord's absence is surely a thing it self not to be endured We should labour our acquaintance with him such as is fit to be between so great a Majesty and such mean Creatures as we should grow daily Yea and endeavour to make the Thoughts more familiar to our selves of spiritual Beings in the general For we are to serve and converse with him in a glorious community of such Creatures An innumerable company of Angels The General Assembly and the Church of the First Born and the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12.23 In a Region where an earthly Body remaining such can have no place Why do we make the Thoughts of a Spirit out of a Body so strange to our selves We meet with hundreds of Spirits in Bodies and moving Bodies to and fro in the Streets every day and are not startled at it Is a Body so much nearer a-kin to us than a Spirit that we must have so mean a thing to come between to mediate and reconcile us to it