with clear circumstances there we may judge of the chief reason or cause though there be several others concurring that we may make better use of examples as Scripture teaches us 1 Cor 10 5-10 Otherwise we must take heed of rushing into God's Secrets which belong not to us and only eye the general ends to make use of his Providences accordingly As where great and crying Sins goe before and the end is demonstration of Justice there we may see that 's the chief cause especially in extraordinary Punishments whereof we have many examples in Scripture And where also such Sinners are threatned there also truth appears in their being Punished as the Egyptians first born Ahaziah Joram Ahab Jezebel c. So when the Sin is clearly visible in the Death a Haman's Agag's and innumerable others that shed Man's Blood and accordingly have their own unexspectedly shed Or when destruction follows at the heels of great Sins as the three thousand Israelites slayn for the molten calf Exod. 32. and while the flesh was between their teeth the wrath of the Lord was kindled against them Numb 11. and Herod immediatly simitten and eaten of worms Acts. 12. And yet when the vindication of Gods laws and ordinances is manifested to be the end its hard to say whether his love to the truth and ordinances of his institution be not the chief reason thô justice be more discernable for we must not judge all those that are simitten and destroyed even by God's immediate hand to perish eternally And therfore it is observable that as God never appeard so terribly as at the giving the law from mount Sinai so his wrath was never so hot nor such severity used as against the first trangsgressors to assert the honor of his laws and make them more regarded afterwards As in the first idolatry after their promulgation Exod. 32 10. At the first burnt-offerings when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire that is common and not from the altar there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them the punishment suting to their sin Levit. 10. As afterwards Numb 16. when Corah and others descended from Levi endeavoured to make the priesthood common to all the Levites v. 10. and Dathan and Abiram Reubenites and others the politick power of Moses and the seventy elders newly establisht by God Ch. xi common with the rest the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up v. 32. and fire from the Lord consumed the two hundred and fifty that offered inconse v 35. whose censers God commanded to be used for a sign and memorial thereof v. 38. and 40. and for the peoples murmuring at this dispensation fourteen thousand and seven hundred of them dyed of the plague v. 49. So when God appoynted the punishment for presumtuoussins the first offender the man that punishment sticks on the sabbath day is by God's appoyntment stoned to death Numb 15. Thus God vindicated the honour of his ark with smiting the Philistines and after it's returne above fifty thousand of the men of Beth-shemesh shewing thereby that the ark was the same thô it had been among the uncircumcised and the effects of feare were answerable 1 Sam. c. 5. and c. 6. and after that Vzzah for his rash taking hold of it thô as seems to us for a good end for the oxen shook it so that David was affraid and we may suppose the people much more 2 Sam. 6. And thus allso God vindicated the honor of Christianity at the first planting of the Gospel in smiting Ananias and Sapphira so that great feare came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things Acts. 5. But where no notorious crimes preceed and other particular ends than justice appear there sudden death is the Occasion and God's love to his truth and messingers that declare it or servants that profess or suffer for it the chief cause and reason thereof As the widow of Sarepia's son raised to life by Elijah by which he is acknowledged a man of God and the word of the Lord in his mouth truth 1 Kings 17. the Shunammite's son by Elisha whose miracles resembled his master Elijah's 2 Kings 4. So Lazarus's as Christ declares to the messinger his sisters sent to him This sicknes is not unto death thô in its nature and next end it was yet not irrevocably as they feared but for the glory of God that the son of God might be glorified thereby intimating that this of Lazarus should be used as a means of glorifying God and his son in miraculous raising him again to life and therby confirming his office of Messiah and Doctrine of the Gospel as we read it did most eminently Jâ—hn 11. And the noble army of Martyrs whom God brings forth as his Champions for the truth shewing the power of his grace and their sincerity that they doe not serve God for wordly things as the devil slanderd Job but love him their Savior and his truth above their own lives and making their death which their enimies count ignominious honourable to him religion and themselves and using it to quite contrary ends than their persecutors design namely the increase and confirmation of his Church and people I have been the longer upon these extraordinary examples both to cleare the truth in the general and the several kinds of sudden death and allso in the ordinary cases that now follow to be more particularly spoken of For by a parity of reason it will follow that as God makes different use of like providences suting them to different ends and making them occasions and means of different effects in wonderful variety according to his infinite wisdom and power so he hath accordingly particular reasons that are just and weighty for his dispensations thô unknown to us except he discovers them as his justice in extraordinary punishments for enormous offences or his goodnes mercy and other causes when it is otherwise So that where no sins or ends and effects more than common there we are not able nor ought we to judge of God's reason why these rather than others are suddenly taken away either by diseases as apoplexies convulsions and the like or by pains as women in travel or by wars fire water and other accidents these things falling alike to all for if the kinds of death or any temporal punishments were infallible signs of God's hatred and temporal blessings of his love we could never reconcile God's word we are bound to believe with the works of providence which are but the fulfilling of it and the execution of his purposes In such cases therefore when God exercises us as Job who is set forth to us as a pattern of patience in dark providences prayed shew me why thou contendest with me c. 10. and waited for the end of the Lord so should we God many times dealing with us as Christ said to Peter what I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter As any one hearing Solomon's
THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD In sudden Death ordinary and extraordinary vindicated and improved In a funeral SERMON for Mrs. MARY REVE Wife to Mr. NICHOLAS REVE Merchant First preached to the English Church in ROTTERDAM January 14. 1685. and since enlarged By JOSEPH HILL B. D. At ROTTERDAM Printed by REINIER LEERS M.DC.LXXXV TO RICHARD HUNTINGTON Esquire SIR THis Sormon which I preached for your daughter's sake ' out of my respects to her and supposal of this office for her had she died with you I now send you enlarged and printed Not for any sollicitations which is the usual modest excuse although I wanted not these from som Gentlewomen in her late condition but because I have not seen this subject notwithstanding the many occasions thereof handled by any thô it may be by some and I not know it And especially because God's providence which is as the soul in the worlds body ruling and acting all things in it is frequently misunderstood by many Some not only complaining when their exspectations are crost as Cato did of its darknes and obscurity and saying with Brutus that vertue is but nomen inane an empty name when they see such things befal the vertuous but are even ready with Epicurus to deny it altogether because of its seeming irregularity Others reading the many temporal promises in the Old Testament mostly relating to the Jews and some to particular persons as David or such places of Scripture as Psalm 91 are apt to judge providence to be so far from fulfilling the word that it is contrary to it and being not able to reconcile them are greatly staggerd and perplext I have therfore cast in my mite of endeavors to reconcile God's word with his works in this one branch of sudden death for satisfaction therein and from that ordinary in the Text and example taken occasion since to treat of most of those extraordinary in Scripture for the better illustrating thereof and this kind of providence both in general and particular in infants as wel as aged by reason of the litle one we have also lost The blessing of heaven accompany it for good to those that peruse it that God may have the glory of his truth and faithfulnes in his word and of equity and righteousnes in his works For your selfe Sir I am sensible what a ful and home blow God hath reacht you in cutting down tree and fruit together the loss of such a daughter with a grandson is great but it is the will of your heavenly Father to which I hope you have learnt to submit You might perhaps have been better satisfyed if she had died by you rather than at this distance but thô Rebekah like she left her native country and Father's house yet not God's nor without his especial providence who sets the solitary in families and fixes the bounds of our habitations And here she liv'd beloved and died lamented and thô she is buried in the dust yet not in oblivion all which to her is indeed fruitles yet may somwhat alleviate your sorrow that she was amongst those that valewd her worth That this sharp affliction may be sanctified so that you may make the best improvement thereof and that the blessed Spirit which is stiled the Comforter may comfort you and all concernd therein is the prayer of SIR Your Servant in the Lord. J. H. GOD'S PROVIDENCE in sudden death vindicated and improved GENESIS xxxv vers 19. And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath which is Bethlehem IAcob's life as most of God's eminent servants was made up of providences all in checquer-checquer-work being a mixture of mercies and miseries for the most part successively and some times joyntly throughout his pilgrimage And is more particularly described than any of the saints of God in Scripture he being the root of the future Church which God more regards then all the great Kingdoms of the world that are therfore past over in silence whilst poore Jacob with his staf and travels family and flocks remaine upon record to all generations That as Abraham and Isaac so he especially might be a patterne to his posterity whose servitude sufferings and increase in Egypt resembled his in Syria their being pursued at their coming thence with all their litle ones and great riches his by Laban and their passage to and abode in Canaan and after going into captivity his in many things and going in 's old age into Egypt But not to them only being now written for the instruction of us Gentiles allso on whom the ends of the world are come and is as all particular histories most profitable for all thô generall may be more pleasing to many Rom. 15 4. 1 Cor. 10 11. Let us therfore view a little the variety of God's dealings with this blessed Patriarch that in this Chapter lead to the text Wherby we may see how God freed him from his fears that he and all his should be destroyd by calling him to Bethel discouraging his enimies and bringing him safely thither to pay his vows which the good man had too long neglected v. 1-7 But thô this removal from his owne dwelling to God's house made a comfortable change yet he soon meets with an alteration for Deborah a grave and picus matron his mothers nurse and his deare friend dies there and is buried with great lamentation v. 8. Which the God of all consolations who usually knits his comforts to his people's crosses lets him not long proceed in but cloths him afresh with the garments of praise by appearing to him againe changing his name from Jacob to Israel and making great promises to him and his seed v. 9-15 But this glorious day of grace is followed with a very dark night of providence in the death of his most beloved Rachel which yet was not without the appearance of a bright star in the firmament of the Church by the birth of a 12th Patriarch his mothers Benoni but his fathers Benjamin From all which we may gather There 's no exspecting constant prosperity for Gods people on earth mercies without miseries are reserved for heaven Being now come to the paragraf of Rachels death which I have chosen as suitable to our Sister 's departed let none stop me with her father's speech to Jacob concerning her It must not be so done in our countrey Gen. 29 26. For thô I will not say as some doe that the want of funeral sermons makes funeral sorrows so small amongst us yet this I must and will say that all are too apt to run into extreams and either desspise the chastening of the Lord or faint when they are rebuked of him Hebr. 12 5. And therfore whatsoever may tend to remedy this is not onely seasonable but very needfull I know at the reformation of these Churches when the generallity of Magistrates and Ministers prevaild for this setlement thô Prince William and some others were Lutherans and this amongst other things of funeral sermons was
it and want them most That God the Author of life and death and all other mercies and miseries doth deprive his best servants as well as others indifferently of their greatest earthly comforts is most apparent by this and other Scriptures Eccless 8 14. 9 2. And that he doth this sometimes with most imbittering circumstances not only suddenly but unexspectedly allso which makes the providence more grievous especially at present as the sudden death of younger friends not exspected is hardlier borne than that of aged having been exspected long and at such times as these comforts are most wanted whereby their loss becoms a continued affliction and matter of constant grief afterwards is allso most evident by this history and many others I need not mention seeing the experience of all ages attest it For what Saint alive then or now so deare to God as Jacob what Relation so neare as a wife and what wife so beloved of a husband as Rachel for whom he served a 7 years apprenteship and how hard soever it was they seemd to him but a few days for the love he had to her Gen. 29 20. Yet notwithstanding God takes away from him this desire of his eyes with a sudden and unexspected stroke as he did after from the prophet Ezekiel c. 24. v. 16. For she had not gon her ful time with child as may be gatherd from their removal from Bethel and traveling towards their father Isaac's house in Hebron which in common prudence they would not have done if they had expected her coming in labor before they could have reached thither And was in a place of no accommodation being in the way nigh Ephrath before they could reach it surprisd with her pangs and must stay there whether in house or tent is not mentioned then which for a woman of her quality and estate nothing could be less exspected Moreover this being her second child it might be hoped in reason had she gon her full time she might with as much or more safety bring forth this than her former son in regard the first birth is usually the most dangerous and the fruit of the womb like that of the trees is easily gatherd when com to maturity Yet God that hath all persons times and places in his power brings her presently here not only to pas through the valley of the shaddow of death as all women doe in travail but allso through the gates of death it selfe dashing all their hopes of her safety and good Jacob thô very sorrowful no doubt is silent at it not once complaning the least that we read of because he knew it was his heavenly father's pleasure Thô it was allso at such a time as made his wound the deeper this befalling him when he had most need of her for his present solace in his afflictions from his childrens miscarriage and other crosses and future comfort in his old age his elder children being ready to marry and leave him and for the helping him in the education of Joseph and especially Benjamin now borne to them For as no earthly comforts are so great as those of man and wife or more alleviate their troubles from others so no nurse for a husband like his wife nor for children like their own mother I have been the larger in these circumstances because they set out history to the life and correspond most of them to the occasion our deceased Sister having come in travail before her time died of her second son c. and to my designe of speaking to such a death as is in the text suitable to the example before us Reasons of these kind of providences are many which I shall now proceed to handle taking it for granted all along amongst Christians that it is God that doth all these things by his over-ruling providence as Scripture every where declares But shall pas over most of the Efficient causes that are well known the Principal as God's being our soveraign Lord and therfore may so deale with any of us sinners and his will and pleasure which is so to deale with som as we see as also because he is infinitly wise knowing what things most conduce to his glory and our good and how by his Power to use them as well as work them for these ends and Jâ—st or righteous in all his ways and Holy in all his works and Good allso yea very Mercifull his tender mercies are over all his works Ps 145 9. and 17. Every of which and much more all of them serve to silence us and teach us submission tho we know not how to reconcile these concurring causes in many particular occurrences And the Instrumental causes as Angels men and other creatures imployed by God herein actively commanding them or permissively suffering them to execute his pleasure allways powerfully limiting ordering and over-ruling them so that he is to be eyed and owned in all that befalls us Job 1. And shall only speak of the Impulsive causes wherein the maine difficulty lies and afterwards of the Final I. The meritorious cause of these and all other punishments is sin for which the Justice of God inflicts them Sin being the transgression of Gods law and death the punishment threatned on all mankind for the same every death must needs be a punishment seeing it is the execution of the threatning and the destruction of the sinner And much more that which is sudden this circumstance being an aggravation thereof as appears by its being as such denounced Deutr. 7 4. 1 Sam. 2 31. Is. 29 5. and 30 13. Prov. 6 15. and 29 1. executed Job 22 16 and 36 14. Ps 37 2. Eccles 7 17. 1 Thes 5 3. bewailed Jer. 4 20 and 6 26. imprecated Ps 55 16 and deprecated as such Ps 102 25. The Pelagians indeed of old as the Socinians of late denyed mans mortality to be the effect of his sin affirming it to arise from his natural constitution at the first but were generally opposed therein and refuted by the Orthodox as Councels Fathers and Histories both general and of them particularly written by many * Alvarez Latius Vossius Jansenius Norris do declare It having been the constant opinion both of the ancient Jews and Christians that every kind of death was the punishment of sin as the learned Grotius de satisfactione assures us I confess many of our Divines writing against the Popish opinion of humane satisfaction to divine justice by sufferings in this life and purgatory afterwards granting death to be a punishment per se naturâ suâ * Dallaeus de poenis do yet deny it to be properly so to those whose sins are pardond through Christ distinguishing the afflictions of this life and death allso into chastissements of the righteous and punishments of the wicked But Scripture is not so nice calling those that befall the righteous punishments somtimes Ezra 9 13. Ier. 30 11. and 46 28. Lament 3 39. Amos 3 2. and somtimes those
that befall the wicked chastisements Levit. 26 28. Deutr. 11 2 3. Ps 94 10. Ier. 30 14. Nor doe I well understand how that which is in it selfe and owne nature a punishment should ever be otherwise tho it com from different causes I know and is used for different ends and effects or how thô afflictions may be chastisements to the righteous whilst they live their death can be so to them and much les how that of Infants which make so great a part of mankind and if of believing parents are charitably judged by most and I would be glad to see well proved are righteous and saved for the Apostle makes it the effect of Adams transgression and therefore properly a punishment Rom. 5 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 15 21 22. And therfore that distinction allso used by Dally and others that death to the righteous is only materially or improperly a punishment not formally as the cutting or burning a patient by a Phisitian differs from the like inflicted out of Justice by a Judge on an offender seems not consonant to the Apostle's doctrine seeing death is inflicted by the law-giver for the breach of his law whereas a Patient suffers not as a malefactor It is true that neither death nor any other punishments of the Righteous are meerly vindictive in reference to satisfaction for sin as the Papists mantaine Christ having fully satisfied for their sins and procured the pardon of them which upon their believing is granted them by the covenant of grace but not so as to free them from the temporal evils of this life or death and their bodies lieing in the dust these being excepted after the promis of the Messias Gen. 3. For God having given man a law and threatned his transgressing it with death which implies the temporal of the body the spiritual of the soul and the eternal of both our first parents comprehending all man-kind having trangrest it God coms and hold Assizes summons them to appeare before him charges them with their sin convinces them of their guiltines and then allaying the severity of his Justice with Mercy and free Grace first promiseth a Messias and Salvation and deliverance through him from their Sins by his satisfaction to Justice for them so as he had determined and after agreed with Christ the seed of the Woman in the Covenant of Redemption so that though they and all in them had Sinned and come short of the Glory of God being Spiritually dead in Tresspasses and Sins and therby liable to eternal Death yet they and all their rightteous Seed should be Saved by the Messias from these two kinds of Death which are the great destructive penalties of Sinners And then proceeds to Sentence them what they should all suffer notwithstanding First the Woman who was first in fault declaring her peculiar Punishment as to her Sex besides those common to her with Man in her sorrowful Conception bringing forth and subjection to her Husband and then the Man and all mankind in him both Men and Women are sentenced to Misery in this Life mortality and their Bodies lying in the dust from whence they were taken The Promise and its preceding the Sentence implying that all those tâ—at imbraced God's Mercy through the Messias should have no other Punishment then these temporal and all those that rejected it and so remaining on their first terms with their Creator commonly call'd The Covenant of Works should suffer the Death threatned therein for their Transgressions The Execution of this Sentence hath continued ever since and will continue till the Resurrection that all may feel the bitter fruits of their Apostacy in these temporal Punishments for the bettering of God's People not for their satisfying Justice for their Sins as the Papists affirm seeing they neither can no meer Man much less Sinful being able to satisfy divine Justice for the least offence nor have need Christ having done this sufficiently for them and for the leaving the incorrigible Wicked that will not be bettered by them the more inexcusable in their suffering Eternal Punishment So that those metaphorical expressions of Pardon of Sins by God 's not seeing or remembring them blotting them out covering them casting them behind his back and into the bottom of the Sea c. denoting the plenariness thereof and those sayings of our Divines remtssa cuspà remittitur poena and that Justification takes away all Punishment c. must be understood according to the Covenant of Grace and agreably with the execution of God's sentence upon Sinners For thô remission on of Sin be nothing else then the remission of its puishment yet it s that punishment only which is opposite to pardon such as belongs to the impenitent and is Eternal whereas all those whom God justifies he also glorifies Insomuch that thô the righteous have through Christ the remission of their Sins and eternal Punishment granted them in the Covenant of Grace together with a sanctified use of their temporal that they shall all work together for their good and the sting of Death taken out of their Sin that brought it in being now thereby turn'd out again and victory over the Grave in the Redemptiom of their bodies from their Captivity under it at the Resurrection yet Death is still in all the degrees of it antecedent in the miseries of this Life and kinds of it first and second or temporal and eternal the wages of Sin according to the original threatning And temporal Death a punishment in all according to the original Sentence thô to the Righteous Eternal Life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ their Lord who hath abolish'd Death or Sin which is Spiritul Death and Eternal the consequent thereof thô not their Temporal and brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel from the first promise of himself still more clearly and by himself at last most fully to whom be Glory Rom. 6 23. 2 Tim. 1 10. 2. The causes or reasons of the Adjuncts of Death in the kinds manner and other circumstances thereof as why some die a violent others a natural Death these suddenly those leisurely one sooner another later or at such times or places rather than others are in the ordinary course of Providence of which we speak secret to us thô well known to the all-wise God There being such a stupendious variety herein that as in living faces so in dying persons ther 's no perfect agreement in all circumstances each of which are particularly and only known to him who numbers the hairs of our heads and so orders and governs every single person and thing as if it were all he had to do and so all things as if he were not imployed in any particulars The Apostle gives us the clearest account hereof that I know in few words saying God worketh all things after the Councel of his own Will Ephes 1 11. where we have counsel directing will determining and power working or executing all things
shall not be to me why should I think to be spared when others are taken away whose sins mine have exceeded the time by-past is too much to have wrought the will of the flesh I am resolved now to make better use of the present and future so long as God shall spare me to prepare for death and for eternity And as these providences are thus merciful means to bring about a blessed change in us so allso to cary it on still further and further How livelily doth sudden death set-forth to us the necessity of repentance in all the kinds of it As the vanity of the creature and the necessity of making God our portion the shortnes of our own righteousnes seeing we must appear before a just and holy God and the necessity of Christ and his righteousnes the evil of sin whereof we have nothing to exspect but shame and sorrow and the necessity of holines all its paths ending in peace and without which we shall never see God in happines And how much the same contributes to promote these gradually allso in us the constant experience of all Gods people abundantly witnes 5 That all may learn experimentally many particular and necessary lessons they formerly disregarded The light of nature shews us sundry of them and the light of scripture more clearly all of them but unbelief doubts of them sensuality constantly opposes them and as men asleep we generally neglect them God is therfore pleased to use unexspected providences which draw the curtain and let in the light so convincingly and sensibly upon us that without wilful shutting our eys we cannot withstand it that so his truth being taught and backt by our own experience may be more readily embraced and obeyed For experience is a more sensible argument than notions to convince us of the truth and less liable to ignorance and mistake for confirming us in it and more particular and prevalent with us to practise it Let me therfore name som of those excellent lessons which still hang on this one bough suddenly broken off from us As 1 the vanity and frailty of life Such a death cryes to us with the word all flesh is grass and all the goodlines thereof is as the flower of the field the wind passeth but over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more Is. 40.6 Ps 103.16 2 The nearnes of death and judgment If thou willst put these far from thee this summons will convince thee of thy folly that this night thy soul may be required of thee Luke 12.19 20. 3 The necessity of being prepared for thy dissolution For the night of death cometh whether thou thinks of it or no when no man can work there being no knowledg nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest no casting up thy accounts in the dark nor perfecting them with God in the grave Joh. 9.4 Eccles. 9.10 4 The danger of deferring thy preparation For in an hour thou thinks not of may Christ call thee to give an account of thy stewardship for thou shalt be no longer steward Math. 24. Luke 16. v. 2. 5 The pretiousnes of time to prepare for eternity For time is short and were it longer litle enough for so great a work and allso uncertain as thou seest and therfore not to be lavisht out upon thy lusts seeing thine eternal welfare depends upon it 1 Cor. 7.29 6 The vain hopes of living many years Since thou knowest not what a day may bring forth no more than what a woman with child whether male or female living or dead as t is this day Prov. 27.1 7 The groundles presumtion of a lingring death when thou seest some in a moment go down to the grave and many die in their full strength Job 21. 13 23. 8 How quickly the greatest hopes are dasht and expectations disappointed Here 's a child com to the birth and no streugth to bring forth but mother and child die together there 's a strong man saith with Agag surely the bitternes of death is past and the next hour it returns and carries him away 1 Sam. 15. 9 Moderation towards the things of this life For the Lord is at hand ready to call thee quickly from thy good things who makes them thy portion and then whose shall they be and where wilt thou be and to take thee who makes him thy happines from the evils of this life that they no more shall torment thee Philip 4.5 10 The different nature of earthly enjoyments and heavenly Earthly promise much and in the tryal faile our exspectations But heavenly we find best upon tryal and such as will never fail us nor forsake us Heb. 13.5 And lastly the vast difference between our present and future state Here we meet and part presently there we meet and never part here 's nothing but changes there 's none but a stable eternity 1 Thes 4.17 These Reasons I hope may suffice for the several sorts of sudden death mentioned on this occasion to justify God's proceedings therein and to shew us the gracious design of these kind of providences that seem of all others most dismal to us none so much as these conducing to the general good of mankind as tending to awaken us out of our security cure us of our spiritual distempers and point out to us and quicken us to our duty Let us see to it that we make use of them accordingly and what further improvement may be made of the present providence we shall now speake to by way of inference and application Vse 1. Hence learn the uncertain tenure or manner of holding our nearest Relations and dearest friends and acquaintance That seeing them liable continually to be lost we may be more sensible our enjoying them is but of meer curtesy and that we are but tenants at will for them and all our other earthly comforts to God the great Lord of all having by our sinful apostacy lost our right and title to the enjoyment of them which he gave us at first by the covenant of works in our creation For had we continued in our original state of integrity there would have been none of this sorrowful parting of friends but we should either have continued happy together on earth or without suffering death have been as S. Anstin and others think after some certain time translated into heaven and whether all together at last or successively at such a term of years it would have been matter of triumphant rejoycing to all But now having by sin forfeited and lost all our mercies God hath been graciously pleased in the covenant of grace to alter his dispensation not to trust us bank-rupts with a new stock in our own hands but to commit all to Christ in whom he hath treasurd up spiritual life for his people so that that is now in safe keeping being hid with Christ in God Colos 3.3 And this he hath assured us of by promise upon our fulfilling the condition
with this world especially the healthful and those that wallow in pleasure and prosperity that they have neither list nor leisure to think seriously and prepare for the next As if they were priviledged from the like stroke and had a protection from death's arresting them or when it doth could bride it off for some time or make such a covenant with hell as will secure them So great is the security and stupidity of most that they regard not these warnings nor think themselves longer concernd when once the funerals are over Therfore that we may make better use of them 1 Suppose the like or worse may befall thee or thine whilst secure sinners still suppose the best Not to disquiet thy selfe with groundles fears but to prepare for all events of providence which are so never the neerer thee but thou much fitter for them unexspected crosses of all others being the hardliest born Say then what befalls others may befall me allso by this supposition as a prospective bring thy own and thy friends death neer thee think of it frequently and converse with it familiarly that so neither may surprize thee Exempt not thy selfe or thy Relations from that which frequently befalls others How many are the acute diseases that quickly snap mans life asunder How many the casualties and accidents whereby men of all ranks and conditions have perisht in all ages and places unexspectedly * Plin. l. 7. c. 53. de mortibus repentinis Val. Max. l. 9. c. 12. Zuinger Theatrum l. 18. To reckon those recorded by authors and known to our selves would take up our whole time 2. Flatter not thy self that thou and thine shall live long and die leisurely Oh the vain and deceitful hopes that most have of living still on and on they know not how long The younger that have death on their backs think they must of course live to be aged the old that have death before their faces and gray hairs not only here and there upon them but all over them hope still of holding out yea when sicknes is entred and death at the door we still hope that we or ours shall escape with life I have seldom met with one so old that hoped not to rub aut som years longer and never with any to whom their years past and to com did not seem of a different length Looking backwards on many years past they count them but a short time and usually their work therein litle but looking forwards on a few before them reckon them long and what a deale of work they shall doe therein so casily doe we deceive our selves in numbering our days and measuring our work that will not be deceived by others in any accompt that is of concernment 3 Reckon life by days not years seing none know what hour the son of man will com and call for them Thus the best and wisest of men reckoned their lives as Jacob Moses Job David and Solomon Gen. 47. v. 9. Ps 90.14 Job 14.5 Ps 39.5 Eceles 8 15. This right numbering our days would make us apply our hearts to wisdom by improving our present time and opportunities in the day of grace cutting off our vain hopes of future uncertainties and looking on every day as a new gift of God for his work Lam. 3.23 If Horace a heathen could say Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum much more should a Christian believe and live every day as his last because it may be so and if it be not it is more than any one knows Our Lord having wisely and mercisully conceald both the time and place of our departure from us that our lives might not be spent in continual madnes of mirth and vanity in our former and of fears and melancholy in our later days but might be restrained from sin and quickned to duty not delaying our preparations for death but living in a constant exspectation thereof nor presuming of future time not in our power but rightly improving our present with our Apostle dying daily and as a good man said that of twenty years he had known no morrow This divine arithmetick of numbring our days Moses and David begd of God and much more need have we to make our hearts so sensible of our frailty from these examples that we may get ready to follow and may not be only unwilling to live as many through the troubles of life but willing to die which grace only enables us to when prepared 4 Set these examples before thee so as they may affect thy heart and make it restles till they be duly improved by serious consideration That when others are destroyed from morning to evening or every hour of the day it may not be without any regarding it Job 4.20 Say how soon may this befall me or mine How uncertain is our time here and how certain death and eternity hereafter How doe I loyter whilst time flies and my glas perhaps ending and how litle of that work don which must be don or I am lost for ever Am I fit to look death in the face or a just and holy God in judgment have I not delayed long enough allready and is there not danger in these delays Is my soul and eternal salvation of so litle consequence that my heart should still deceive me in disregarding them Is it not wisdom to doe that first that is of greatest consequence and necessity Is not all my time litle enough for so great a work as preparing for eternity and shall I lose more Have so many of God's servants that have taken so much pains so long time in Religion fasting weeping praying hearing c. confest themselves unready for death what shall I be that have don so litle How dismal will death be to me if no better prepared for it Will Christ stay any more for me then he did for the foolish virgins was it not only they that were ready that entred in with him Or will he when once the door of mercy is shut open it for me alone No no I cannot exspect it and therfore will take his counsel and watch not knowing the day or hour wherein he cometh 5 Make sure to be habitually prepared at least for death by being reconciled to God through Christ Acquaint therfore thy self with him and be at peace and take heed of living in that state wherein thou wouldst be loth to die See to the soundnes of thy repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the sincerity of thy obedience as ever thou meanest to secure the better part thy soule and thy future happines in eternity And labor after assurance that when this earthly house of thy tabernacle is dissolved thou hast an house eternal in the heavens as ever thou desirest to die comfortably The want of this makes death so dismal to those that are sensible what it is to die How many that live under the Gospel and know no more than the heathen Adrian
whither they shall goe at their death is lamentable to consider Get thy self allso as much as possible actually prepared by keeping up thy assurance evenning thy accounts daily with God walking with him as Enoch having thy conversation in heaven whilst on earth and thy fellowship with the Father and his son Jesus Christ so shall death never surprize thee or affright thee much less hurt thee changing only thy place not thy company opening the door for thy entrance into life and being ever with the Lord which then thou wilt find bejond all thy present faith and hopes infinitly better than being in this world Lastly prepare allso for thy Relations leaving thee Our seldom thinking of this before hand makes it difficult for us to beare Be sensible of and thankful for God's giving and continuing them to thee seeing he denies them som and takes them from others use them as his left hand blessings but enjoy them not as thy portion depend on him for comfort from them resigne them to him from whom thou receivedst them doe thy duty towards them whilst thou hast them so shalt thou have comfort when thou losest them 4 Let this caution us from rash censuring and judging of these kind of providences seeing in the text God's taking away unexpectedly a good Rachel from Jacob one of his best servants 1 Not the just and holy God for them In denying him and his providence with the Atheists Who seeing often the vilest of men spared as Diagoras did a perjur'd person and better taken away as Cotta his friend Drusus and Ovid his Tibullus open their mouths against heaven in denying a God and his providence in the world Or 2 in judging him unjust and cruel For he delights not in death as it is the destruction of his creature but as it is the exercising of judgment and righteousnes in the earth Jer. 9.24 His works are wondrous that though a wise man as Solomon think to know them yet shall he not be able Eccles 8.17 The most inquisitive run but into a labarynth wherein they lose themseves at last For how can we possibly be able to judg of his proceedings who are wholy ignorant of the grounds of them It is God only that knows mens intentions and his own designs that he hath to accomplish and all the links in the chaine of providence so that where he manifests not these we are in the dark and incompetent judges Our profoundly learned Contry-man Bradwardine * De Causa Dei L. 1.0.31 hath a remarhable story to this purpose of a devout man tempted to blaspheme providence to whom God sent an angel in humane shape that commanded him to follow him And leads him to the house of a good man who entertaind them very kindly that night from whom he secretly took a cup he valewed highly and going thence to a wicked mans house the second night who treated them not so well gives him the cup at their departure Having been the third night most curteously entertaind in the morning he threw the mans servant off a bridge and drowns him and coming the fourth night to an honest man that made them heartily welcom slew his litle son that cryed and sufferd them not to sleep Then he acquaints his follower why he did these so strange things saying he was sent of God to satisfy him I took the cup saith he from the first a good man for his good because he lov'd it too much and gave it the second a bad man that he might receive his reward at present I drowned the servant of the third because he had resolved the next day to slay his master whom I preserved from death and his servant from committing murder that he might be less punisht in hell The fourth before he had a son and heir was very charitable and after grew penurious therfore I took away the cause of his covetousnes and conveyd his sons soul to paradise So true is that of the Psalmist Thy righteousnes is like the great mountains thy judgments are a great deep Thy foot steps are not known and therfore cannot be traced by us poor ignorant mortals Ps 36.6 and 77.19 Nor 3 must we judge when we see the righteous and wicked taken alike away that God's Providence goes blindfold to work as the Heathen think the fates doe and sweeps away one and another hand over head for so we shall neither eye God in nor make a right use of his dealings with us We cannot indeed make or discern the difference as to us sicknes and sword devours one as well as another but this is fallacia sensus both scripture and reason teaches us that there is a very particular direction in all that befalls us from the hand of God Every disease that happens every bullet that flies every wave of the sea and every casualty have their commission from God before they can touch or destroy any If a sparrow falls not on the ground without him much less a mans life and if the very hairs of our head are all numbred much more our days are so determined Math. 10.29 30. Job 7.1 and 14.5 14. Prov. 16.33 Nor lastly must we imagin that righteousnes will exempt us from sudden destruction in common calamities with the wicked As Abraham seems to judge in his pleading for Sodom Gen. 18.23 24 25. For thô God will rather spare the wicked for the righteous sake as he there declares and in extraordinary cases where he hath past his particular promise doth so as God gave Paul all that sailed with him Acts. 27. and makes a distinction as Ezek 9.4 5 6. Mal. 3.17 18 yet in ordinary it is not so but the green and dry tree denoting as it follows the righteous and the wicked perish together Ezek 20.47 and 21.3 And no wonder for usally the good are infected with or one way or other guilty of the sins of the times and places where they live and if they partake in sins its reasonable they allso partake in plagues Rev. 18.4 Or if not yet being mixt with the wicked in an ordinary way it cannot be otherwise as experience shews us in wars famin pestilence inundations shipwracks and the like Especially earth quakes wherein many cities have been wholy swallowed up and many with the inhabitants in a great patt destroyed the histories whereof would fill a volum Passing those of old 12 cities of Asia say Pliny and Tacitus 13 saith Ensebius in our Saviors daies in one night Coloss Laodicea Hierapolis in the year 63.3 in Cyprus in 77.4 in Asia and 2. in Greece in 105.3 in Galatia in 109. Antioch Nicomedia and Nice several times Nicopolis and Caesarea in 128. Smyrna allso and Corinth afterwards and 10 in Crete in one year so 20 in Germany in later times besides many others these being sufficent for my purpose in most of which multitudes of Christians as well as others perisht And as God takes them away as he sees good