And then the higher their presumptuous and groundless hopes have been raised the greater will their shame and disappointment be when they and their hopes shall perish together 3. The firm and certain connection which the gracious Promise and Covenant of God hath made and settled between a patient continuance in well-doing here and the enjoyment of eternal life hereafter may further serve for the comfort and encouragement of all his sincere and faithful Servants under all the difficulties and hardships afflictions and sorrows exercises and Tryals which they undergo here in the course of their obedience He that hath obtained a clear prospect by faith of the invisible World and of the glory honour and incorruption which are to be eternally enjoyed there by all that regularly seek after them here and is withal conscious to himself that he is one of that happy number can easily see through the darkest cloud and discern a comfortable end of all his present troubles And therefore his Faith mightily animating his Hope and his Hope proportionably strengthening his Patience he doth not faint in the day of Adversity nor is he weary of well-doing Prov. 24. v. 10. because he is sufficiently assured that the time is short and so that it will be but yet a little while before all Tears shall be wiped away from his eyes and all Isa 25. v. 8. grief and sorrow banished from his heart and endless Joyes succeed in their Rev. 7. v. 17. room 4. The same consideration may serve as a sweet and comfortable allay to the sorrows of such as are mourning for the death of such of their near and dear Relatives or Friends who in their life-time gave sufficient proof of their exemplary care and diligence to persevere in such a steady course of duty and obedience as hath eternal life and glory connected with it It is indeed very selfish and unbecoming our Christian hope with immoderate and unallayed grief and sorrow to lament the death of such For asmuch as altho' their absence and departure from us be very sensibly our great loss their presence with the Lord is in an infinitely higher degree their gain And therefore methinks even natural affection which makes us wish well to our dear Relatives especially when sanctified by Grace and assisted by faith should give some check to our immoderate grief for the Removal of such of them from us by the stroke of death concerning whom we have such comfortable and well-grounded hopes For why should we grieve at or regret their happy advancement unto that immortal glory and honour which they had been long seeking for but could never reach before 5. What we have heard may serve both for our direction and excitation unto such a regular and steady course of obedience here that we may all obtain eternal life hereafter Let us endeavour therefore to have that Truth which hath been this day suggested to us out of the Word of God so deeply impress'd upon our very hearts that the thoughts of it may continually dwell with us and have a constant influence upon us by the grace of God for the engageing us to the most strenuous diligence and constancy in prosecuting our present duty as that which hath by the divine ordination and appointment a direct tendency to our future eternal felicity Let us never forget that the only way to glory and honour and a blessed immortality is a patient continuance in well doing And so let none of us any longer indulge our selves in the neglect of that upon which our eternal welfare doth so evidently depend but let the time past suffice us to have wrought the Wills of the Flesh and to have misemployed the active strength and vigour of our Souls in minding only earthly things And now let us resolve by the grace of God to call off our hearts and affections from this lower World and all its perishing vanities and so set our selves in good earnest to seek those things that are above Minding the great Duties of Christianity with a more serious care than ever we have hitherto exercised about them Making True practical Religion more our business as it is what will turn to the best accompt unto us at last O let none of us be guilty of such preposterous folly in the great concernments of our immortal Souls as we would be ashamed of in the management of our secular affairs separating the Way from the End as if the one might be attained without a serious and due attendance to the other The Way in which we must seek for future glory and happiness if ever we would have it is plainly delineated to us in the Text And all those that are gone before us and have actually received the Reward of the eternal inheritance both sought and obtained it in this way and no other even by a patient continuance in well-doing It doth therefore concern us to tread in their steps that we also may in due time and in our appointed order come to the fruition of the same happiness with them And so my earnest exhortation to you is in the words of the Apostle Heb. 6. 11 12. That every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end that ye be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises And here for your further excitation I shall now on this solemn occasion set before you the illustrious and worthy Example of our deservedly honoured and lately deceased Friend whose immortal part is now with Christ For She was indeed One upon whose Heart and Life the divine Spirit and Grace had in most conspicuous and shining lineaments drawn that excellent and noble Character by which the Heirs of Blessedness are described in the Text And to that in the several parts of it I shall principally confine my self in the following Account that I shall give you of her Wherein my more immediate design and aim is to shew you how eminently this Text of Scripture was exemplified in her that you may thence be the more confirmed in your comfortable and well-grounded assurance of her being now happily possessed of that Eternal Life which by the divine designation and appointment belongs to all that bear that Character And therefore not to say any thing of her natural endowments either intellectual or moral altho they were such as made the Grace of God to shine with the greater lustre in her discreet and well-ordered conversation I shall speak only to those that were manifestly divine and supernatural And for as much as my happy acquaintance with her did commence too late to capacitate me to give you any particular account of the more early impressions of the Divine Grace upon her Soul or the more distant Passages of her pious Life and that I may keep my self as remote as may be from all suspition of flattery and falsehood in the payment of this my last solemn
saw meet to lay upon her Yea in the very midst of her weariness and pain when her eyes have been held waking and her sleep hath fled from her she would often express the grateful sense which she had of the singular Mercy of God towards her in the many instances wherein it pleased him to intermix it with her Affliction Considering how much better it was with her under her severest exercises than with many others of Gods dear Children who by reason of their mean Circumstances in the World could not be furnish'd with those external helps accomodations which by the distinguishing Goodness of God she enjoyed Which she would often speak of with great compassion to others and no less thankfulness to God upon her own account and especially in the late cold and pinching season wherein such were exposed to very great hardship as had sickness added to poverty And thus the excellent Character that the Apostle gives us of the Heirs of Heaven in the Text was in every part of it eminently found in her who was indeed One who by patient continuance in well-doing sought for glory and honour and immortality And then I may add That 5. Agreeably hereunto her Faith and Hope were for the most part strong and lively except at such times as she was under clouds of Melancholly arising from bodily distemper which made all things look dark unto her while it prevailed But most perceptibly did she improve in their strength and vigour for some months before the expiration of her Time whereby she did not only obtain a comfortable victory in a great degree over the Fear of Death which had formerly been a very grievous exercise unto her but was also greatly supported and encouraged under her continued remaining Troubles of Life For as there were many comfortable Words in the Holy Scriptures whereon God had caused her to hope so by strengthening and encreasing her Faith he enabled her more closely to apply them to her self and so to take the comfort of them when she needed it most As under one of the last Returns of her Distempers she did very frequently revolve in her mind those words of afflicted but believing Job Chap. 23. v. 10. When he hath tryed me I shall come forth as gold And God inabling her to mix that word with faith made it both at that time and afterwards very useful to her And so in her last sickness even the night before her death after she had been exercised with grievous pain the whole night and day preceding having a short interval of â—ase for a few moments while I was with her I observed her to repeat unto her self several times with great complacency as I apprehended from the pleasant tone of her voice tho' but low those encouraging words of the devout Psalmist Psal 42. 8. The Lord will command his loving kindness in the day-time and in the night his Song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life Adding in the close Lord thou art the God of my life natural life spiritual life yea eternal life and therefore my prayer is unto thee After which her pain and sickness again returning she grew more and more apprehensive of her near approaching dissolution and after a short space said to me as I stood by her bed-side I have a dark valley to pass through Whereupon encouraging her to hope in God I said to her The Father of lights will be with you there and he will enlighten your darkness to which she very sweetly replyed and turn the shadow of Death into the morning And not long after she spake to me in these or the like words I bless God I do not at all doubt my eternal Interest but it is some trouble to me that I have yet so little of the Joy of Gods Salvation As at another time which whether it were before or after the former I do not exactly remember she said with some apparent Concern to a dear Friend standing by What! Come so near to the confines of a glorious eternity and yet have no clearer prospect of the glory of it But altho' that unspeakable and glorious Joy which doth sometimes attend the lively exercises of Faith in the children of God in their last hours was as you may perceive by these hints withheld from her She was not without Solid and great peace in believing which of the two the more substantial tho' not the more delectable enjoyment And I make no question but that now she hath the other also in a better way as well as in a greater proportion than ever any had it in this World even fulness of Joy in the divine presence and pleasures for evermore For faith and patience having both had their perfect work in her she is now gone to inherit the promises in Eternal Life And now my Christian Friends the greatest honour and respect that we can pay to her blessed Memory which I hope will yet live among us is to follow her Worthy Example every one seeking for glory and honour and immortality in that way wherein she sought and hath now obtained all Let me therefore earnestly recommend this unto you all as I desire also to charge it upon my self And more especially to you her nearest surviving Relatives who had a greater advantage than any others by your nearness to her most exemplary course of life as an excellent pattern for you to imitate And therefore as she hath done worthily in serving God and her Generation according to his Will and now Rev. 14. v. 13. Heb. 4. v. 9. rests from her labours in that everlasting Sabbatism which remaineth for the People of God into which she entred on the close of that day of the week which is not unfitly called by us the Christian Sabbath Let it be your care every one to do likewise And more particularly let me address my self unto you her hopeful Off-spring her dear Children for whom she put up many a Prayer to God that he would make you all his Children And let me earnestly exhort you never to forget what a Mother you had what excellent instruction and wholesome counsel she often gave you and what a teaching Example she set before you by which being now dead she yet speaks to you And surely it is your great Concern as you love your souls to hearken to the Voice to understand the Language of it There are some things which Actions do speak out louder than any Verbal Expressions and certainly if you have the heart attentively to consider and understand it you cannot be unapprehensive that your Mothers Example calls aloud upon you all to mind the great Concernments of your Souls with serious care and diligence as she did to get your thoughts and affections abstracted and drawn off from this World and fixedly set upon things above as hers were to be diligent and industrious in the careful and conscientious performance of all Christian Duties
or at least some tendency to it But then if we cast our eyes forward upon that blessed state that is to ensue upon the back of death we may there see this invaluable blessing actually attained No cloud doth then offuscate the mind and judgment no vanity of thought no perversness of will no irregularity of affections no treachery of Memory no deficiency in duty I say none of all these things is then present to disturb or corrupt the Soul And when the great period of the Resurrection comes perfect health will be also the inseparable property of the Body In order to which it remains in the mean time in the grave in order to purification and preparation for such a state as being even then united to Christ as we see 1 Cor. 6. 14 15. 2. Full Enjoyment of Good True Life is not only inclusive of subjective but of Objective Happiness too And therefore there must not only be perfect Health considered in its notion but the full Enjoyment of Good even of all good and the supreme good But now let us reflect seriously with our selves if this be attainable here But what Are we not absent from the Lord whilst we are at home in the body And is it possible that we can be reckoned to enjoy fully true good whilst we are at such a distance from the supreme good God himself It is true we may enjoy here some tasts of Gods love and favour But these are but some drops compared with the ocean of felicity Do we not here Complain Cry and Lament that we want this and the other good thing We are still craving and never satisfied And therefore it is sufficiently evident that we want many things needful and conducive to make our life truly happy But on the other hand what can be wanting to us when we come to enjoy God fully who is the only necessary Good the only suitable Good and the All sufficient Good O this blessed feast upon the hive of sweetness the ocean of pleasure the Treasure of Happiness upon which the Celestial inhabitants are ever feasting and yet ever full Who can conceive the infinite bounty of the King of Heaven which he there lets out to the wonder and ravishment of Angels and glorified Souls Who can express the joy the satisfaction the ecstasie that sills the thoughts and dilates the affections of those happy Banquetters All tears are now wiped away from the Saints once sorrowful and weeping eyes They have forgotten their former poverty and remember their misery no more O blessed blessed ever blessed they who are now got safe into this banquetting House and who have the banner of love displayed over them to the full O how pure How perfect Are those pleasures which are at Gods right hand What can be thought to be wanting to those who see the face of God and the Lamb for ever and who are admitted to eat of the tree of life that is in the midst of the Paradise of God They thirst no more but are led to the pure fountains of living water that flows from the throne of God In a word we may easily conceive what their abundance and affluence of all things is when we have said that God himself will be to them all in all 3. True Peace and Joy And now what else can be the result and effect of both subjective and objective happiness but undisturbed peace and unmixed joy Which are such blessings as we have only some pledges and earnests of here below For we all know or at least may know what allays these admit of here by troubles and perplexities griefs and fears that constantly attend us and give us sufficient reason to conclude that our rest is not here All our mirth joy and quiet here is fleshly vain and transitory Our laughter is like the crackling of thorns under a pot and oftimes in the midst thereof the heart is sorrowful and the end thereof heaviness And if at any time we are here admitted to the manifestations of Gods love and the sight of his face as a just ground of peace and joy yet how quickly do these remove from us whereby our Sky becomes overcast again with new clouds which return after the rain But if we cast our eyes within the vail we shall perceive true rest peace and joy prepared for the Saints in so much that even Heaven it self is upon this account termed singly peace Isa 57. 1 2. Thete our praises shall be brim full with Raptures of satisfaction joy and gladness 4. The most delightful Place of Abode A pleasant situation is that which adds much to the satisfaction of ones abode here and a delightful seat and place to be in is certainly one of the greatest Conveniences of Life But can any spot of Earth bear this Character in a true and full sense when the very ground is cursed upon the account of mans sin No no we may justly cry out with David wo is me that I dwell in Meschesh and in the Sun scorch'd Tents of Kedar We are here only in a wilderness state And tho' God hath given us many eminent Instances of his wisdom and power in the admirable frame even of this lower Creation Yet alas all these are but the dark shadows of the glorious Lanskip of the upper Paradise For it is Heaven alone that can answer such a Character as being a place wholly made for true pleasure and delight If the Palace of the great God may be thought to be infinitely glorious and admirable above the clay-cottages of those whose habitation is in the dust then let us entertain more suitable thoughts of that so desirable a place Which is such as the heart of man could never conceive any thing to bear any true resemblance unto it the most magnificent representation of it in Scripture Rev. 21. Being only figurative and therefore far short of what it is in it self 5. The most Excellent Company It is Society that Alleviats in a great measure our sorrows and griefs here and makes up the defects of other things And as man is made for Society so there is nothing more desirable than excellent and suitable company But tho' comparatively speaking some such may be found here yet our best company on earth is as other things vain and short of the true Idea of such a blessing The best men are men at best and subject to unruely passions and humours which is a great allay unto their company besides that oft-times sins and scandals miseries and wants render the company of men but little acceptable to one another And if there were none of these things to disturb us yet all men are mortal and can enjoy one a-another but for a short time on earth But then if we turn our thoughts from earth to heaven we find our wishes and desires this way fully answered For there we shall be admitted to converse with the great God himself the most glorious object of delights
it than the very shew and appearance Life is a more noble thing than we imagin when considered in its right notion and idea We talk of a vegetative and sensitive Life But if in Philosophy these must needs creep in as distinct species thereof Yet Divinity will refine our thoughts of it a little further For since Life is one of the glorious Attributes of the supreme Being who designs himself oft-times the Living God we must needs conceive somthing high and sublime therein And as God is the fountain of all Life to others so it is only in him that We live So that to speak properly we have no life in our selves our breath being in our nostrils and we depending every moment on God for new supplies thereof Therefore we find it the Property of God only to have Life in him-self yea and such a Property as is only communicable to Christ Joh. 5. 26. For as the Father hath Life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have Life in himself And therefore this is spoken of with respect to Christ with a special mark of Observation Joh. 1. 4. In him was Life But I shall not run further than the Text for the Ground of my notion of Life For we may plainly perceive by the very Terms of Birth and Death in the words that there is some Life here imported with respect to which as plainly and necessarily presupposed these periodical terms are made use of Now this Life herein presupposed must either be the present Life or that which is to come If it be the present Life then it is apparent that Solomon had very mean and low thoughts of it since he prefers the destruction of it by Death to the commencing it at first by Birth And those very mean thoughts which he hath of it are a plain Indication that it doth not deserve the noble designation of Life as being rather a shadow thereof than the thing it self But if it be the Future Life that is here imported then it presents us with a noble Idea of true Life indeed as inclusive of true Happiness and Felicity and lets us see with what good Reason Death is here preferred to Birth But tho' this last sense gives us the fairest prospect of Life and the most solid ground of the wise Solomons determination of this case yet I think we are to include both these sorts of Life as presupposed clearly in the Text. For as Solomon runs the parallel expresly between Birth and Death So his doing thus doth manifestly presuppose that he had run the parallel also between the Present and Future Life for except the Periods of Birth and Death have respect to these they must be reckoned to stand as Cyphers here without any significancy But tho' it is indubitable that Solomon runs the parallel here between Life Present and Future Yet we are not to imagine that he compares them as being both included in the true notion of Life and so as species under the same Genus but rather as two Opposites so as to consider that which we call the present Life under the notion of a kind of Death or state of Death and so to vendicate the notion of true Life to the future only For as I said before when I explained the terms of Birth and Death that our Birth into this world was rather our Death in Sin and Misery Whereas our death out of this world is more properly our Birth into Happiness and felicity So I say now of the Present and Future Life that the Present Life is rather the state of the dead that we die into when we are born Whereas the Future Life is that only which deserves the name of Life as being that state that we are born into when we come to that period which we call death And tho' this invertion of Terms may seem strange at first to such who are so immersed in sense as not to reflect on things as they are indeed in themselves Yet if once we come to entertain genuine conceptions of time and eternity and what concerns these we will see sufficient reason for such a rectification of vulgar opinions wherein men are oft detain'd contrary to reason it self from a misapplication of meer words Wherefore since I take Life for that which either is proper to God or which derivatively is communicated to subjects capable of it I mean made so by himself it is therefore to be laid down as the basis of our ensuing reflections that Life and Happiness are the same thing tho' the words express this differently to us But it is only the consideration of true Life or Perfection as peculiar to the Saints that I am here to consider Which that it may the more distinctly appear it may not be amiss to run the Parallel a little between the present and future Life as we call them that we may the more easily admit of the Conclusion here in the Text as to the preferableness of the latter to the first Which methinks the Apostle expresses well when he calls the future Life by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Life assigning to the present Life the designation of Mortality only 2 Cor. 5. 4. And in doing this I must first consider what those Qualifications of Life are that denominate it excellent happy and desirable And as to this I shall express my self in words common and known to all that the impressions may be the more clear and cogent And now as to this matter I cannot think of any Conveniency or true Qualification of Life wanting where these seven Things Concur viz. 1. Perfect Health 2. Full enjoyment of all Good 3. Vnmixed and undisturbed Peace and Joy 4. The most pleasant place of abode 5. The most excellent Company 6. An untainted Good Name 7. The perpetual Duration of all these Wherefore let us consider these Qualifications or Properties of Life with respect both to the Present and the Future that we may see whether our Passage by Birth into the one or by death into the other be to be preferred 1. Perfect Health By this we understand perfect rectitude both of Soul and body and all the faculties and powers of them And if so our Inquiry must be where this rare Jewel is to be found without which all our other comforts are insipid and tastless Surely it cant be acquired in this miserable World either as to Mind or Body For as to our Minds how uncultivated are our judgments as to our apprehensions of spiritual things How vain are our thoughts How perverse our wills How irregular our affections How treacherous our memories And how lame and defective are our actions and performances even to the most spiritual duties And as to our Bodies do we not carry about with us the Principles of Diseases and the seeds of death it self And what innumerable pains and maladies are we here subject to every day to most bringing along with it some new exercise or other
we here converse with are also Or 2. If the carnal Rationalist and Philosopher further object and argue against this Doctrine from the consideration of Deaths being the Destruction of nature I Answer 1. that to speak properly there is no such destruction of nature by Death as many imagine For the Soul is not destroyed by it but acts and lives more nobly than before Neither is the Body properly destroyed but only reduced into its first Principles in order to be new moulded and more gloriously re-edified than before And therefore since the two Essential constituent parts of man remain in being man can't be said to be destroyed For tho' the immediate Tye between Soul and Body be loosed yet it is for a time only and in the mean time the relation they stand in to one another continues even when the actual union is suspended And besides all this it being the Soul that is principally the Man we are therefore to reckon that the man is in being still even when unbodied But 2. let it be considered that Death is not preferred to Birth or Life meerly as it is the dissolution of nature as now existing but the formal Reason of this is upon the account of the excellency of the future Life which death is the passage into For upon this account only is it that the Apostle prefers death to life 2 Cor. 5. 4. Not for that we would be unclothed says he but clothed upon that Mortality may be swallowed up of Life But 3. as to what many poor sincere-Christians are apt to object against this Point from the expressions that sometimes Death goes under in Scripture of its being as the punishment of sin our enemy and to be destroyed 1 Cor. 15. 26. I would for Answer propose to them besides what hath been already said this one consideration That tho' Death be indeed our enemy as it is inflicted as a punishment of sin since the fall Yet it has now altered its nature and end with respect to Saints since Christs death especially Christ having slain death and him that had the power thereof Indeed Death passeth still upon all men but in very different respects For to the wicked death is still continued as a grim Messenger and King of Terrours But as for the Saints Death is now become Christs servant to convey home the Souls of his own to himself Therefore as Christ is said to have abolished death 2 Tim. 1. 10. So he is said also Rev. 1. 18. To have taken into his custody and keeping the Keys of Hell and Death Upon which accounts we may perceive what little reason we have to fear Death when he acts only in commission under our dear Lord and Saviour and when also so blessed a Guide as he leads the way And 4. As to the Objection which the vulgar sort of groveling Mortals are apt to make against Death that it robbs them of and separates them from all their comforts friends possessions enjoyments and hopes I Answer that where the case is thus with any I must needs grant they have reason to prefer life to death If thou hast all thy portion in this life I shall not wonder to see thee prefer earth to heaven and dust to gold But O poor wretch art thou not ashamed of such an objection which militates indeed against thee but not against this Doctrine For the Saints of whom we here speak will tell thee that whereas death separates thee from all thy comforts it is in that way alone that they expect to reap the full harvest of all joy and comfort for at the right hand of God there is fulness of joy and in his presence there are pleasures for evermore 3. Infer We may see hence also the folly and ignorance of the generality of men as to their notions and conceptions of Life and Death Who seem to think that all comforts are to be found only in this Life and therefore give way to strange and melancholly apprehensions of death and what follows it As there are many poor Creatures in the world living in mean celles and cottages in some obscure corner whose low minds having never travelled from the smell of their native thatch and turff represent the world to themselves no otherwise than according to the ideas which a barren spot of earth of a few miles circumference hath afforded them So the generality of mankind seem to be so pre-occupied with the prejudices of sense and custom as never to have suitably reflected on those things which right Reason may not obscurely conclude from Scripture Premises concerning the glory and excellency of the future state of the spirits of just men made perfect For if our thoughts were more inured to such Divine Meditations we would dispise the vanities of a fading life more since we converse here but with imaginary comforts and joys tho' with too real griefs and miseries 2d The Regulation of our Practise As Practise is the end of Knowledge so my design in all that hath been said was to bring you to a sincere conscientious Performance of those Duties that the Doctrine handled doth call for from you And therefore suffer me to lay them impartially before you at this time And in doing this since not only the Doctrine in it self but the present Occasion of this Discourse calls for a particular and becoming Consideration this way I shall therefore endeavour with what succinctness is convenient to do these two things here viz. 1. to Improve the Doctrine Practically with respect to that Duty that is incumbent upon all from hence as to the good of our Souls 2. to Improve it also specially with respect to the sad occasion of this present meeting and concourse And 1 I shall endeavour to Improve the Doctrine in the General so as may be of use to all of you And what I have thus to say to you I will comprise and summ up in these three Directions or Rules 1. Direct Take heed how you carry with respect to your Spiritual state and Interest in God thorow Christ Which Advice I will take up in these three Parts which I am sure you are all concerned seriously to mind 1. Examine and Try your selves if God be your Portion and Christ your Saviour What are you secure whilst you remain at uncertainties as to this matter What ground have you to believe that Christ is yours Have you renounced Sin Satan the world and sinful self Have you accepted Christ wholly in all his offices and have you laid hold on him as your alone Saviour Be careful my friends that you found not your hopes on a mistake and thus build on the sand Religion is more than a name and Conversion more than a notion Therefore Judge your selves impartially as to this matter lest you be judged to condemnation by God for your neglect to do so 2. Be sure what ever you do to lay the whole weight and stress of your Salvation in the
his Soul is otherwise wholly propending Heaven-ward 3. Seek to have your Souls admitted to Converse with God here For if we are not admitted to this happy Society wholly yet let us endeavour after this Blessing here below in as far as God may be pleased to priviledge us with it Alas that we should be satisfied with the Society of shadows and vanishing things here below whilst we may have communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ It is this blessed Fellowship alone that can sweeten and familiarise Death and dissolution to us and make separation appear rather a change of our Place than of our Company But 2 I must also subjoyn some more special improvement of the Doctrine with respect to our Practise in relation to the sad Occasion of our present Meeting together at this time And here tho' what I am to say further may be of use to all yet I address my self more particularly to You whom this Dispensation of Providence doth more nearly respect and concern And what I have to say here I shall comprise in a Threefold Counsel or Advice 1. Couns Submit your selves cordially to Gods correcting hand in this stroke Remember the Patience of Job under greater severity and say with him the Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken blessed be the Name of the Lord. All the Providences of God are the Effects of the highest wisdom and with respect to the Saints they all flow from love and mercy also Nothing falls out casually in such matters however they appear to us For if a sparrow fall not to the ground without our Father which is in Heaven then surely a Friend a Relative and Child of God cannot be removed hence without his special providence for are we not of more value than many sparrows 2. Couns Moderate your sorrows as to the Person deceased from the consideration of the place and company she is gone to and the happiness she now enjoys For blessed be God we sorrow not to day as those that have no hope For we have not the least shadow of doubt as to her happiness and glory But if we have any thing to bewail this day it is as to our selves that we are left behind Indeed we have reason to lament her removal as a loss to her Relatives a loss to her Friends yea and a loss to the Country But otherwise with respect to her self we have rather cause of joy than sorrow If I may be so bold as to suppose the Lord speaking to us in the words of Jerom who to comfort a pious Matron named Paula upon the death of her daughter brings in the Lord speaking to her may we not think that the Lord speaks by this dispensation unto you to this purpose I have made this your Relative and Friend mine But what Do you envy my possession Where can she be better than with me Would you bring her back from Rivers of Pleasures to the valley of Tears From Health to Sickness From a Throne to a Drageon May we not therefore in this case allude to our Lords expression Joh. 14. 28. If ye loved me ye would rejoyce because I go to the Father And I suppose could we now hear her speak to us it would be in words of such an importance 3. Couns Imitate what was Good Valuable and Praise-worthy in her Imitate her in her Faith in her Charity in her Assiduity in Religious Duties in an impartial scrutiny into the state of her own Soul in her closet retirements and publick walk and conversation in a sincere design to honour and please God in a chearful delight in doing good to all and in patience and submission under affliction and this Leads me to a Transition from the Doctrine to the Person in whom we may see a Laudable Example which may serve to back the Preceding Precepts as being at least to many of us here an ocular Demonstration thereof The Character And here give me leave to present you with a few hints of this worthy Saint which I have either known from her self immediately or from an impartial observation of her Life and walk And I am the rather emboldned to do this because although many others knew her much earlier and longer than I yet there were few she was pleased to condescend to be more free with in the concernments of her Soul But since my Brother who hath already preceded me on the same occasion hath besides a General Character of her given you some succinct narrative of her last Hours I shall therefore only present you further with some account of her Christian Life and Conversation that may be of further use with respect to Imitation by others as well as condusive to make her Memory further precious Her natural Temper was Retired and serious and altogether averse from crouds of Company and the hurries of the world Yet no way Morose and Sullen but Pleasant and Affable to All and becomingly Free also with her Friends And such she specially reckoned so who were truely Pious and Religious For it might justly be said of her as of David that all her delight was in the Saints whom she esteemed the excellent Ones of the Earth And such Persons she valued according to the degree of worth that she see in any without regard to the discriminating name of a Party For she was careful besides her regard for all pious and vertuous Persons duely to ponder the super added Qualifications that she see in any that might entitle them to a more particular share in her Friendship And as her Temper was naturally serious so God blessed her very early even in her childhood with true seriousness and Piety as she hath been forced oftner than once to confess with grateful Acknowledgments of Gods mercy to her on that account as well as comfortably to reflect upon the Blessing she had in being descended from eminently Religious Parents and brought up in true Christian Education A natural Modesty attended her in all her Actions even the most serious An eminent instance whereof was this that tho' she was educated in the Congregational-way very strictly yet she could never be induced as is usual with such to give any open or formal account of her Souls concerns before others and upon that account she had been wholly debarred from the most spiritual of ordinances had not God by providential acquaintance imprest that just Character of her upon the mind of the Reverend Dr. Jacomb as upon an inquiry into such things to admit of her notwithstanding this to all ordinances with intire satisfaction This I speak not with the least design to reflect on any Party or Way especially since God hath been pleased of late to cement the two sticks of Ephraim and Judah in so great a measure by an happy Vnion but I mention it only by way of Caution both to Ministers and Churches that we may see what tenderness is required in debarring poor modest Christians from what in
both relative and personal as she was to be constant and serious in attending upon Ordinances there seeking the appointed food of your Souls where she both often sought and found it to dedicate some part of your Pretious Time every day to reading the Scriptures and other good Books devout Meditation and secret Prayer which you know was her constant Course as long as her health and strength would permit in a word to make serious Religion your main business as it was most manifestly hers And if you will hearken to this Call in conjunction with the Calls of GOD's Word and that Monitory Providence that you are now under so as heedfully to tread in your pious Mothers steps as Dear Children following her in those things wherein shew was a follower of God and persisting in this Course to the end of your Life Then let me tell you for your Comfort that altho' Death hath at present made a separation between her and you it shall be but for a short season and then you shall again live together in the glorious and bright Mansions of Heaven and in the beatifick Vision and Fruition of God and Christ for ever and ever Amen FINIS A Funeral Sermon By Robert Fleming V. D. M. Preach'd in the Afternoon Eccles vii 1. Better is the Day of Death than the Day of ones Birth AS all the Faculties of Mans Soul are become miserably depraved and corrupted by reason of Sin So in particular the leading and directive Faculty the Mind or Intellect is signally so For besides the blindness and ignorance of men in things natural there is nothing more apparent than that universal darkness and stupidity which they are under as to their apprehensions of things spiritual and eternal For altho' there seems to be remanent upon the minds of all men naturally some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or imperfect râ—dera of the true impressions of good and evil and some secret Perswasions of a soveraign Being to which all things owe their original and continuance yet alas what sad Conceptions do men entertain of things of an immaterial and and spiritual nature as appears not only from the Writings of the more learned and ingenious Heathens but from innumerable and dayly Instances even in the midst of the Meridian Light of the Gospel So that constant Experience doth in this matter sufficiently confirm Scripture-Testimony that the natural man knows not the things of the Spirit of God as requiring a subjective as well as objective spiritual Light to discern them by However this is one of God's ends in Revealing his Word to us that we may thorow his Blessing upon pains and industry attain to rectified Notions and Idaeas of things so excellent in themselves and so momentous to be rightly known by us And as this is the scope of the whole Scripture to bring Life and Immortality to Light unto us so particularly of this Book of the wise and in quisitive Solomon who having undertaken a speculative Journey into all the Regions of sublunary Enjoyments returns an experienced Ecclesiastes or Preachers of those things that he thought might be of universal use to be known And therefore having rubbed off the fine Varnish and gaudy Paint of Earthly Objects with which they insinuate themselves at first view as beautified to our vain imiginations he here represents them impartially to our Reason as they are in their own natures and usefulness to us Of this we might adduce many instances if need were But we go no farther than the Words before us wherein we may observe a Rectification of a twofold Mistake that we are apt to fall into For first whereas men usually prefer Riches to a good Name we are here instructed that a good Name is better more valuable than precious ointment i. e. than the fatness of the world and the affluence of all earthly wealth and riches For thus I take the word according to Prov. 22. 1. which seems to be a comment on this or a plain account of what is here figuratively imported For precious ointment was esteemed of old amongst the most valuable things of the Treasures of Princes as we see Isa 39. 2. And hence it is that Prov. 15. 30. A good name is said to make the bones sat And again whereas Men generally prefer Life to Death Solomon here tells us that we are greatly mistaken in the Case for that upon the contrary the day of Death is much to be prefer'd to the day of ones Birth According to which Position he goes on to shew that the house of Mourning is better than the house of Feasting and sorrow preferable to Laughter v. 2 3 c. It is the second of these only that I am directed to consider at this time viz. That the day of Death is better than the day of ones Birth A strange Paradox and enough to amaze the minds and thoughts of all such as mind earthly things and who have not attained to have their interior Senses spiritually exercised to discern spiritual things Nay I am apt to think that many even serious Christians may find it difficult to reconcile their thoughts to this Doctrine And therefore on all hands I foresee Objections What! will the Atheist and Antiscripturist say is it better not to be than to be Is it possible will the carnal Philosopher and Rationalist object that the destruction of nature it self should be preferable to its Being and Continuance Nay even many poor Christians will be ready to tell me that it seems very strange to them to prefer Death which owes its Original to Sin and is our enemy and the last to be destroyed to prefer I say this to Life it self wherein we have opportunity to serve God and do good to our selves and others And methinks I hear a multitude cry out at the hearing of this and many such Worldlings there are What! Death better than Life Here 's strange Doctrine indeed What! Leave all our Earthly Comforts Friends and Possessions and that for Death and the Grave who can have Faith to believe such Doctrine as this Well Friends here 's that which may silence all your Doubts and answer all your Questions as to this matter if you will give ear to God himself that Death is preferable to Birth But I must supersede the satisfying you as to your particular Scruples in this matter till I shall have come to the Improvement of the Doctrine which I must now lest I act preposterously previously inquire into And here though the Words are in themselves so very plain that I see no momentous Variation among Criticks in the translating of them Yet I find some considerable difference in the Sentiments of Expositors as to the meaning of them For some understand the Text of all Mankind with respect only to this present Life laying aside all Consideration of the future State as many Passages in this Book are undoubtedly to be understood And if so then the meaning only is That