Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A31401
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Christian tranquility, or, The government of the passions of joy and grief in a sermon preached at Shenton in Leicestershire, upon the occasion of the much lamented death of that hopeful young gentleman, Mr. Francis Wollatson ... / by John Cave ...
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Cave, John, d. 1690.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing C1580; ESTC R36287
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20,948
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37
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upon the power of God to support and succour us in our most dejected and disconsolate Estate He is my strength and my defence therefore I shall not greatly be moved Psal 37.24 said David We must trust and hope that he can and will bring light out of the thickest darkness Give beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness That he hath not only the goodness of a Father but the ability yea the Alsufficiency of a heavenly Father and is able to do more abundantly for us than we are able to conceive or hope This was our Apostle's stay and comfort in his most acute trouble He said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee 1 Cor 12.8 9 for my power is made perfect through weakness therefore instead of sinking under my infirmities very gladly will I rejoyce in them that the power of Christ may rest upon me But 3. This inordinacy of Trouble is considerable in its consequents or effects as 1. When it makes us impatient and fretful under our Afflictions as it did Jehoram Behold this evil is of the Lord why then should I wait on the Lord any longer 2 Kings 6.33 Hieremy and Jonah tho good men for the main and holy Prophets yet were very much to blame in this particular It was part of Jabez his Prayer and we would do well to put it into ours 1. Chron. 4.10 Lord keep me from evil that it may not grieve me i. e. that I may not be fretful under it or offensive by it that it may not so grieve me as to occasion my grieving of thee of thy holy and good Spirit 2. When it makes us insensible of and unthankful for those mercies which God is pleased to continue to us Our sorrow must not draw such a thick veil over our Hearts and Faces that we cannot see through it to contemplate or take notice of Gods manifold blessings which we still enjoy They are froward Children who if they may not have what they would throw away what they have and this often provokes their Parents to renew and sharpen their Corrections that they may cry for somewhat indeed If our behaviour be such towards our heavenly Father we provoke him to add to our present Afflictions the removal of our remaining Mercies Wherefore amongst a great deal of excellent consolatory advice which Photius the renowned Patriarch of Constantinople gave Patritius upon the Death of his beloved Daughter we find this agreeable to our occasion Photii Ep. 234. The Almighty Creator hath taken to himself a piece of his own work but he hath given or left more than he took and I pray God they may long be left and live to their Parent 's encreasing joy ' You are grieved for what you have lost take comfort in those that are still with you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us give thanks to God for what he hath taken from us that we may have a more sure hold of those he continues to us and that they may daily prove greater blessings and comforts 3. Our Sorrow hath an inordinate effect when it makes us unuseful in the Duties of our general and particular Callings when it renders us unserviceable to God to the King the Church to our Country and our Families But I must content my self as I hope by Gods Grace I have in some measure satisfied you to shew you only thus briefly when the tide of our Sorrow swells and rises too high either in the measure the manner or the effects thereof I shall only add a few words more in this dying part of my Discourse And I hope you will most regard what I say last to allay or abate your Trouble and that by perswading you 1. To the exercise of some proper Graces 2. To the practice of some seasonable Duties 1. To the exercise of some proper suitable Graces such as these following 1. Meekness and Humility a Sense of your own Unworthiness of your own if not ill yet undeservings Meekness meets an Affliction half way and Humility stoops as it were to take up the burden 2. Faith or dependance upon God This is a setling and a quieting Grace I had fainted unless I had believed said David Psal 27.13 Wait on the Lord and he shall strengthen thy heart Nothing gives such ease and relief under the Afflictions of this Life as a firm belief of the Joys of another A belief of Consolations hereafter proportionable to our patient Sufferings here 3. Repentance If we turn our Sorrow upon our Sins which most justly deserve it Godly sorrow will wash the wound clean and eat out the Venome and malignity of worldly grief as spiritual joy corrects the flatulency of carnal mirth 4. Charity Which as it covers Sin so it cures Sorrow the work of Righteousness which frequently in Holy Scripture is but another word for Charity or Bounty is peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever Isa 32.17 He that soweth righteousness shall reap a sure reward tho he sow in tears he shall reap in joy Tho we cannot profit the dead as some have imagined we may by our Alms and Oblations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Damascen de defunctis yet we may much benefit and comfort our selves thereby When we come to die the remembrance of our bounty and charity the good deeds we have done for the house and the servants of our God will minister more comfort to our minds than all the Treasures we leave behind us upon Earth These are the Graces which especially I would advise you to exercise 2. The Duties I would recommend to you in short are 1. A diligent reading and hearing of the Word of God 2. Serious and seasonable Meditation 3. Fervent and devout Prayer 1. A diligent Attention to the Word read or preached This is my comfort in my affliction said David Psal 119.5 the King thy word hath quickned me And again Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage Scripturarum lectio Vita est saith St. Ambrose There is comfort nay Life in reading the holy Scriptures Wherefore St. Basil stiles them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Refectory or Apothecaries Shop for fainting sick Souls There is a Salve for every Wound a Cure for every Malady And particularly the great Athanasius counselled his Friend when any sore Trouble seized him to betake himself to the reading of the 42d Psalm 2. Serious Religious Meditation is an excellent help to digest trouble And in such trouble as ours it concerns us especially to meditate upon the shortness of life and upon the certainty and unavoidableness of death or rather because I have spoke of this already of the shortness of death and the certainty of Resurrection That the dead bodies of our dear Relations are not lost but lodged in the grave That it will not be long before that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption and that part which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory When we stick our Herses with flowers and go forth to the grave with Rosemary it naturally suggests this meditation That the bones of our friends shall flourish again like an herb in the Prophet Isaiah's comparison In this sense Sunt sua fata sepulchris Death it self dies and Mortality is swallowed up of Life 3. The last duty and instrument of peace and comfort which I shall recommend to you is fervent and devout prayer and it is the Apostle James his Recipe Is any man afflicted let him pray as if this alone would effect the cure To be sure it is the most magisterial and soveraign Remedy it vents the tumor and breaths out the anguish of a throbbing Malady Pray then and pray again that God would sanctifie your Affliction so unto you that you may serve him chearfully here and that in his good time you may be happily gathered to your son and you to your brother as he is already gathered to his fathers and yours that when you rest stom your labour you may rest from your cares and vexations from all the sad accidents of short time from pain and sickness sorrow and sympathy weeping for your selves weeping with and for your beloved Friends that you may get above the Clouds and the Rain above the changeable Regions and enter into pure and eternal Joys that when you leave your Estates and Honours here you may be made partakers of a glorious inheritance with the Saints in light and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the spirits of just men made perfect in the kingdom of heaven That when you see this Sun no more which sets as well as riseth you may behold everlasting day That you may enjoy a clear and an uninterrupted Tranquility a Rest not only without sorrow but without sleeping too without so much as a still interruption of your waking active delights If you thus cry to God out of your Bochim your Valley your depths of Tears and Trouble this and the other parts of holy devotion if they do not set you upon dry ground will keep your heads above water yea Comfort shall come riding to you upon the wings of your Clouds your loss shall be your gain and this lamented death your living and lasting advantage If you bury your worldly Affections with your dear deceased and blow up a fire of heavenly desire out of his ashes you your selves rise to a new life and do in a sense put off Mortality on this side the grave You have a part in the first Resurrection and shall have in the second Death that black that bloody King of terrors shall not have dominion over you The sting of death is sin the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God who hath given us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one immortal and only wise God be all Honour and Glory Power and Praise now and for ever Amen Blessed Lord who hast caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning grant we may in such wise hear them read mark and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ Amen FINIS
read in Psal 34.19 that the afflictions of the righteous are many And we read in the same verse that they are not lasting The Lord delivereth him out of them all Sorrow may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning Psal 30.5 And both these were remarkably exemplified in good Job His afflictions were sore and numerous The sudden unhappy death of ten children the perverseness of his wife the loss of all his great stock plagues on his body and terror in his mind the scorn of vile persons the contempt of his servants the censures and reproaches of his Friends yet time blew over all those clouds the Lord delivered him out of all these troubles and blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning Jonah out-lived the withering of his Gourd In the New Testament our Saviour makes the afflicted of the number whom he pronounceth happy and that because they are passing into a better state Blessed are they that mourn now for they shall be comforted Blessed are they tho they mourn because they only mourn now in this short point of time 1 Pet. 1.6 St. Peter comforts the sufferers he wrote unto upon this very consideration Ye have reason to rejoice because it is but now for a season that ye are in heaviness 2 Cor. 4.15 And St. Paul reckons the heaviest afflictions of the first Christians but light because momentary To sense and natural apprehension our sufferings seem long and our refreshments late But the Reason of an Heathen made a wiser judgment Dabit Deus his quoque sinem And the Faith of a Christian thinks any thing short in comparison which hath an end Death if nothing else puts us out of our pain and sorrow and in the grave the weary are at rest No Torments are intolerably long but those of Hell which are eternal Nay the Christians sufferings are not only short because they have an end but I may add they are salutiferous too because they have a good an happy end Omnes paenae non exterminantes sunt medicinales All punishments that do not end us end well like the launcings of a wound which let out the ulcerated matter they are intended to heal and save us Our heavenly Father chastens us not after his own pleasure to shew his Soveraignty but for our profit to impart his Holiness He designs our quiet by our trouble the peaceable fruits of righteousness by the afflictions which are most grievous to Nature After God had wrestled with Jacob he blessed him And he usually comforts his servants according to the days that he hath afflicted them and according to the years that they have seen evil Psal 90.15 Many sad accidents in mens account have proved the means or occasions of singular temporal benefits and great worldly prosperity The case of Joseph is upon famous Record in Scripture And in Church-History we read of one Eudoxia who was unkindly thrust out of her Fathers house by her unnatural Brethren and making her complaint to the Emperor Theodosius the younger she found love as well as pity he received her into his Palace and made her his Queen when she wanted house and Harbour the ordinary necessaries and comforts of Life And it was a strange Observation which Cardan made of himself That never any good befel him In his Life written by himself but what was occasioned by some foregoing evil Indeed the Sun evermore shines most pleasantly after a Storm and it is the usual method of the Divine Providence to usher in his mercies with the black Rod thereby enhansing and endearing our subsequent refreshments O quid solutis est beatius curis We are a great deal more happy in a deliverance out of misery than if we had never been in it But if our seeming evils are not in this respect real blessings yet with St. Hierom Brevia mala putemus Epist ad Paulam sup obit Blesilloe filiae quae finis melior subsequetur We may well account all those sufferings short which end happily as ours will if we bear them patiently and penitently 1 Pet. 5.6 Humble your selves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time But this minds me to pass from the Proposition or Doctrine of my Text The time is short to the Applicatory part of it the practical inferences in these words It remains that those that weep be as if they wept not and they that rejoyce as tho they rejoyced not The Devil hath two general ways or means of working our ruin per blanda aut per aspera by Pleasure or Pain Prosperity or Adversity and our Apostle who was not ignorant of his devices endeavours here to arm and secure us against the dangers of both by making this general use of the shortness of our lives and the vicissitude of our Fortunes to perswade us to Equanimity and Moderation to an even temper of Spirit in every Condition whether comfortable or calamitous To instruct us both how to be abased and how to abound how to bear Prosperity without Insolence and Adversity without Impatience and in all our projects and defeats in all the changes of worldly things to keep a mind unchanged neither elevated nor depressed above measure in the difference of Conditions nor in the greatest contrarieties of Events As it was observed of Aristippus he scarce ever changed Countenance in any Alteration of his Affairs if at any time he sought to mend his Circumstances yet he never seemed discontented with them And Cicero notes it of Pythagoras that his looks never discovered the least inconstancy in his mind that no one ever saw him rejoyce or weep if he did so indeed it was as our Apostle would have us do as if he did not In the Text there seems to be an allusion to that of the Prophet Ezekiel The time is come the day draweth near let not the buyer rejoyce Chap. 7.7.12 or the seller mourn For thus he proceeds in the following words They that buy as tho they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Seneca who perhaps was not altogether a Stranger to our St. Paul hath somewhat like this in his 78 Ep. to Lucilius Interim tene hoc mordicus adversis non succumbere laetis non credere Keep close to this rule not to despond in adversity or confide in prosperity And he gives the reason in another place why we ought to be so indifferent in our Affections viz. because the things or states are of an indifferent nature nec bona nec mala neither good nor evil in themselves but may become either to us as we use or abuse them A continued course of intense passion seems very incongruous towards such discontinuing such indifferent things It best becomes us so to govern our Desires our Sorrows and Delights that they may be propotionate to the nature and value of