of such a Lord and Master Consider what I say For it is a very honourable thing to suffer for Christ his Gospel and Kingdom For the Spirit of God and of glory resteth upon all such And what are all the sufferings of this present time in comparison with the glory which shall be revealed in us But though we have escaped what others have undergone yet we know not what may be our portion as to suffering before we dye Perhaps there is the more behind God hath appointed the number of them that shall suffer for Christ And who knows what God hath appointed for him this way But what ever it be Heaven will put an end to it where are no sufferings but Crowns even incorruptible Crowns of glory You know what is said of them that came out of great tribulation they were clothed with white Robes and had palms in their hands Ninthly Exercise those fruits of the Spirit which are proper to this life You have heard of several as Faith Hope Patience love to Enemies and to Men out of Christ Sympathy common gifts for Edification Communication of Knowledge which is mediate in this life All these are the gifts of the Spirit on this side Heaven in the exercise whereof God is much glorified and others edified which is that which should be the scope and aime of us all Tenthly and lastly There is one thing more which we are exhorted to do in this world which cannot be done after death and it is a very great service and highly incumbent on us and I was willing to reserve it to the last place that it might the rather abide by us and 〈◊〉 this Endeavour to transmit pure Religion and undefiled to posterity by commending it to your Children The Fathers to the Children shall make known thy truth And we may run it through Fatherhood at large But Let me speak of Domestical Fathers that is Fathers of Families This is a great matter and is the special work of the godly in their generations How else shall that be made good which is written His Name that is Christ's shall endure for ever his Name shall be continued as long as the Sun Some render it His Name shall be continued as a son continueth his Father's name for the Original Jinnon or Janin cometh of Nin 〈◊〉 son As if one should say Filiabitur nomen ejus or sobolescet nomen ejus as Tremellius renders it That is Christ shall not only himself live for ever in his person but his Name also shall endure for ever and be derived to his Children who therefore shall prolong his days as Children mete out their Fathers mortality in bearing his name being called Christians and the sons of God and the Children of Christ And this shall be saith the Psalmist before the Sun that is as long as the Sun endureth Now God will use means to bring this to pass and what are those means one special one is this The Father to the Children shall make known thy Truth For how should the Name of Christ be childed from generation to generation as some render it if care be not taken by Parents to Child Christ's Name downwards to their Off-spring that his Name may be put upon their Children by being not only Christians by Baptism but by Regeneration And this is one of the great works and ends of our lives for Hezekiah here mentioneth First Praising of God and Secondly Making known the Truth to our Children which was a great Statute in Israel and obligeth us no less then them saith the Psalmist I will open my mouth in a Parable I will utter dark sayings of old which we have heard and known and our Fathers have told us We will not hide them from their Children shewing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done Here 1. Are such as are worthy of the name of Fathers viz. who transmit to posterity the Truths of God contained in the Scripture so as these here did as appears in the sequel of the Psalm And 2. Here is the only infallible sort of Tradition viz. that which delivereth to posterity what God first delivered to the Prophets Apostles and holy men of God and is now contained in the Scriptures 3. From these words we are taught that the godly in every age ought to have the same care to transmit the Word of Truth to their posterity as their Ancestors had to transfer it unto them and so to pay the debt which they owe to their godly Ancestors unto their succeeding Children for our Children are here called their Children vers 4th And if you descended not from such Parents immediately yet peradventure mediately you did However this here is your duty out of love to God to Truth and your Posterity Mark therefore what followeth in the same Psalm For God established a Testimony in Jacob and appointed a Law in Israel which he commanded our Fathers that they should make them known to their Children that the generation to come might know them even the Children which should be born who should arise and declare them unto their Children You see this transmitting of the Truth and true Religion to Posterity is God's love and Testimony because it testifieth and witnesseth for God and against us if we break it And this Law and Testimony we have several times in Moses So that the Law and Testimony is to transmit the Truth to Posterity For God did not deliver the Truth and true Religion to a person or people for the use of themselves alone but for the benefit of their Children also And he never loved the Truth truly who is careless whether it dye with himself or out-live him Let such Parents and Masters look to it who have been negligent in instructing their Children and Families The handing of Religion from Parents to Children from the Living to the next succeeding Age is a standing part of our Generation-work It is said of David That after he had served his generation he fell asleep And truly such as fall asleep before go to bed before they have done their work and that is the way to make them start as many do when they are newly setting themselves to sleep Oh sirs care and pains for the godly being of posterity is a great and necessary business I many times think of the care and endeavour of the nine Tribes and half lest their Children should lose their interest in the God of Israel To which end they built the Altar Ed as they tell the two Tribes and half in their Apology Say they The Lord God of Gods The Lord God of Gods he knoweth and Israel he shall know that we have not done it in rebellion to turn from following the Lord c. But we have done it rather for fear of this thing lest in time to come your Children
might speak unto our Children saying What have you to 〈◊〉 with the Lord God of Israel For the Lord hath made Jordan a border between us and you ye Children of Reuben and Children of Gad ye have not part in the Lord So shall your Children make our Children cease from fearing the Lord Therefore we said Let us now prepare to build us an Altar not for burnt-offering nor for Sacrifice but that it may be a witness between us and you and our generations after us that we might do the service of the Lord before him with our Burnt-offerings our Sacrifices and with our Peace-offerings that your Children might not say to our Children in time to come ye have no part in the Lord c. Here you see the care and endeavour of the two Tribes and half for the preservation of the true Religion and way of God's Worship among their posterity which is the Point that I am now pressing I beseech you lay it to heart for I fear that many are guilty in this matter and that posterity is like to be little beholding to them Admit of a few Expostulations and consider What will your Children and Servants say when they come to succeed you and peradventure dye at last in therâ—â— sins Lord our Parents and Masters did not make known the Truth to us they did not Catechize and Instruct us they did not deliver to us the form of sound words nor any brief sum of the Articles of Faith and true Religion but we lived and dyed in ignorance for they had no care of our Souls and if others dealt thus with their Children and Servants Religion it self might have perished as we have done Now would not this be most miserable And are you willing to be thus indited by your Children and Servants in that great day Doth not Hezekiah here say The Father to the Children shall make known thy Truth And is it not exprest as a duty and a great one too And doth not Hezekiah look upon this as one of the great works to be attended in this World without which it is not worth while to live Hezekiah indeed had no son at this time but he resolveth here that if God shall give him one he will make known the Truth and Faithfulness of God to him for he looks upon it as his duty when he saith The Father to the Children shall make known thy Truth And what is the reason that many are so ignorant this day but because they wanted Family-instruction from Parents and Masters For it is not enough that such do live under the preaching of the Gospel if they want instruction in the Families wherein they have lived the want whereof makes the Ministers Plow to go so heavily Oh let not the Children and Servants rise up in judgment against you and charge their ignorance and damnation upon the neglect of your duty towards them Thirdly Consider with whom God hath betrusted the Gospel and true Religion 1. He puts his Ministers in trust with it For saith the Apostle We are allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel And it is a great trust and we must be faithful in the discharge of it and you must not be offended if we deal plainly with you 2. He betrusteth all his people with his Gospel and pure Religion expecting their discharge of this trust by their utmost endeavors to transmit it to posterity as you heard but even now from that Text Psalm 78. 3 7. For he doth not as I said put the trust into your hands for your selves only that you should make use of it during your lives and then dye and let others that shall come after you shift for themselves for this were to be cruel like the Ostriches in the Wilderness who leave their Eggs in the Earth and warm them in the dust forgetting that the Foot may crush them and the wild Beast break them but he expecteth and requireth your faithfulness and utmost care and labour to recommend the same Religion to your Children and Servants that live with you And what saith Solomon My Father taught me and said thus and thus to me Prov. 4. 4. And my Mother also taught me and she said so and so to me Prov. 31. But how have you taught those that are under your care and what have you said to them And where is the Altar Ed that you have built for them as a witness and memorial of the true Religion and Worship of God which you have commended to them No marvel that Religion decayeth in many Families when their Governours have wrapt up their Religion in a Napkin and professed only for themselves and not for them that should come after them You that are guilty in this part will have a sad reckoning to make when you shall be called to give an account of your discharge of that trust which is commended to you and have never an Ed to witness your care of conveying the Truth to the generation to come Know therefore that it is your duty according to this trust committed to you to turn and wind your Religion for God's Glory the advantage of posterity which if you neglect take beed you be not numbred among the wicked and slothful servants and have your portion with them Consider the common care of Parents to bequeath their Houses Lands and Goods to such as are to succeed them They leave their substance to their Babes saith the Psalmist And the inward thought is that their houses shall continue for ever and their dwelling places to all generations and they call their Lands after their own names That is they are thoughtful for the upholding of their Families and the continuing of their names from one generation to another But as for the Gospel which they profess and the Religion which they own they have little or no care at all They leave their Earthly substance to their Children but that which is the most substantial thing of all they leave it not to them and they leave their names to their Children but the Name of God and Christ they leave not nor have they any care that Christ's Name be named upon them by endeavouring to make them Christians indeed according to their duty as the Psalmist saith I will make thy Name to be remembred in all generations They care not that his Name should be childed from generation to generation Truly it were just with God that their names should be blotted out from under Heaven who love their own names better than Christ's Consider the Covenant that pious Parents are entred into with God For when God saith I will be thy God and the God of thy Seed He expecteth and requireth that Parents do not only give up themselves but their Seed also unto God As Hannah said in her prayer If thou wilt give unto thine Handmaid a Man-child I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life
She spake indeed of more then an ordinary devoting him to the Lord viz. in the way of Nazariteship But yet she bound however to have given him back to the Lord in and by an ordinary way of dedication common to her self with all Parents who are bound to this duty by the Law of Nature and by many commands in the Word of God which I have already mentioned Train up therefore a Child or Catechize him in the way he should go So did David deal with Solomon as you have heard and so Lois with Eunice and Eunice with Timothy and so the godly Fathers in their generations It was as you have heard a Testimony and a Law in Israel And when you brought your Children to Baptism you did solemly engage unto this duty For the Covenant which gave your Children right to that Ordinance and which sealed it to them strongly obliged you to give them up to God in the use of all such means as he hath appointed And therefore you are a Covenant-breaker in the neglect of this duty which is the ruine both of many Children and Families as of Elie's in particular and yet Eli did reprove his sons but did not do his utmost And this is the reason why many Children of godly Parents prove lewd and vicious and their Families at last lose all power of godliness if they grow not loose and prophane For it is with Children as with the Flowers in your Gardens which without care and culture will soon degenerate Remember therefore your Covenant and attend the terms thereof which concern you in relation to your posterity And say I am not only naturally but also federally bound to use all means to train up my Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to serve the purpose of God as to their Eternal Salvation For do you think it enough that you breed them up to live in this world And is it enough that you provide Meat and Drink and Apparel Portions and Trades aud ways of livelihood for them Or that you give them civil Education and teach them how to carry themselves as men will you love their bodies and neglect their souls Do you know the price of your own souls and not of theirs too Or are not theirs as precious as yours Or is it all one to you where you spend your Eternity and whether you go to Heaven or Hell In the mean-while where is your Religion where your love of God and Godliness Where your Conscience as to your Covenant Or what care have you that Godliness may flourish in the next generation who take not the course that it may thrive in your own Family Take heed lest you prove to be an Hypocrite at last Oh remember the care of good Manoah when the Angel told him he should have a son But saith he How shall we order the Child and what shall we do do unto him And seeing you are a Covenanter with God and have given up your Children to him who hath accepted of them and sealed the Covenant to them you should now consider that they are his Children his Sons and Daughters as well as yours as he expresly calleth them And he puts them out to you to Board and Breeding and you must give an acount to him how you have bred them up for him And what will ye rob God of his Children and bestow them upon the world or sacrifice them to devoured and cause them to pass through the fire as God challengeth those Parents in the aforesaid place of Ezekiel I mean to be devoured of that roaring Lion and not to pass through the fire but to dwell with devouring fire and with everlasting burnings Doth not Nature teach Men to propagate their kind And doth not Grace teach them to propagate the Truth and true Religion without the first Mankind would perish without the second Religion would soon be extinguished or have you more care to uphold the World than to propagate the Gospel of Christ's Kingdom if so you are no better than a Man or Woman of this generation I perceive there are many Bills presented for prayers in behalf of ungodly Children It is well if their Parents have not been wanting in their duty towards them If they have not let them not despond as to the success of their endeavours I have lived to see the blessed fruits of pious Education and that though Children so Educated have gone astray for a while yet they have been graciously reduced at the last made their Parents joyful And I think it is not usual that a Father should be a true fearer of the Lord and one that conscionably dischargeth his duty towards his Children and yet all of them should prove ungodly and none of them be converted sooner or later but perish in the uncircumcision of their hearts Perhaps Parents may not always live to see it but it is well enough if their Children come to Heaven after them I have insisted the more upon this Point it being the great duty of my Text and of such concernment as to generation-service The Exhortation reacheth Ecclesiastick Fathers such as are the Ministers of the Gospel For such Fathers also to their Children shall make known the Truth And that is the reason why we make known those Truths to you viz. that we may discharge our duties to our Children that you may discharge the like to yours And every week and every Sabbath and every Sermon we preach can testifie that we are careful to make known the Truth unto you For we have kept back nothing that was profitable for you nor have shunned to declare unto you all the Counsel of God For as John saith to Gaius We have no greater joy than to hear that our Children walk in truth even in the Truth that we make known unto them And let all that fear the Lord bless his Name that in such a day as this is there are yet such Spiritual Fathers who know the Truth and labour to make it known to their Spiritual Children For the time may come that you may want them when the Truth which is now made known to you by us may be impugned by them that shall come after us There are also Scholastick Fathers who have the care of training up Children in Learning and these have their place as well as the former in the fifth Commandment And a great advantage is put into their hands to make known the Truth unto their Children as well as to inform their understandings in a way of Humane Learning And I know no Calling nor Relation excepting that of the Ministry that hath the like opportunity of making known the Truth unto posterity There are likewise Fathers Political For there is the Father in the Family the Father in the Church the Father in the School and the Father in the Common-wealth or Countrey And some think that Naaman's servants called him Father
Hezekiah saith here The living the living he shall praise thee as I do this day Yea but how many days did this continue For by and by he is praising himself Ye see the deceitfulness of the Heart of Man This by the way Only consider the uncertainty of the opportunity and how soon it may be at an end and that the dead cannot praise God nor they that go down into silence Now your Tongues may speak for God and so may your Lives and Examples too but shortly there will be nothing but silence Oh! be not silent before death for then you will be silent for ever Peradventure you have spoken too little already in order I mean to the work of your day Speak therefore and act to God's honour and the benefit of others whil'st you live or for ever hold your peace I have laid several particulars before you concerning the service of this life have you not been wanting in many of them And is not your day also far spent and are not the shadows of the evening stretched out make it up for the future as far as your remaining dayes will give you leave And to this end Consider the account you are to give when your opportunity is ended What saith the Apostle Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God And this is the very next thing after death It is appointed unto Men once to dye and after this the judgment Once to dye not twice for there is an Emphasis in that little word once as appeareth by the next verse So Christ was once offered c. And after this the judgment 1. Dye 2. But once 3. Men that is all Men. 4. Then to judgment and there is a statutum est upon all this four And the judgment will pass upon your managing your present opportunities For when the Lord cometh he cometh to reckon so when you go to the Lord you go to reckon viz. how you have praised him here among the living how you have endeavoured to further his Kingdom according to your capacity how you have lived exemplarily embraced and improved all opportunities to appear and speak for Christ how and for whom you have prayed how you have comforted the feeble minded and supported the weak supplyed the outward wants of the Saints according to your ability how you have stood for Christ in a suffering time how you have improved those Gifs of Grace which are proper to this Life how you have endeavoured to transmit pure Religion and undefiled to your Posterity by recommending it especially to your Children I tell you these are the great things and all of them are the Work of the Living and not of the Dead How far you have attended them hitherto you best know If you have been wanting you had need to make up in repentance what hath been lacking in duty and a great part of your repentance must be exercised in fruits worthy amendment of life For so soon as ever your Soul is quit of its earthly Tabernacle you must presently appear before God's Judgment-Seat Consider the greatness of the reward of good and faithful servants They shall have as much joy as their hearts can hold For they must enter into it seeing it cannot enter into them Neither the Sufferings nor the Duties and doings of this present time are worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us But our Eyes are too seldom upon the recompence of reward nor do we consider what God hath prepared for them that love him Whereas did we seek for Glory Honour Immortality we should continue patiently in well-doing But few that fear God have Faith enough to take in the exceeding eternal weight of Glory that is prepared for them If glorified Saints were to return to live again upon Earth they would double and treble their duties beyond what they did in former times For what do they think when they are entring into the joy of their Lord what All this Glory all this Joy an Heart full and a Heaven full and to Eternity also and that for so few imperfect services And must I now spend Eternity in the enjoyment of God and do none of those services any more for him which were proper and peculiar to my temporal life And must I be on the receiving hand as to all this Glory for ever and for ever Certainly if it were possible This would make the Saints repent in Heaven that they had done no more for Jesus Christ on Earth But if such thoughts were incident to glorified Saints they come too late when once they are in Heaven Now is your time to be working for that inestimable reward When therefore you come to God you must have a full perswasion not only of his Being but Bounty that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him as the Apostle speaks But remember that it must be diligently And be you never so diligent he will abundantly reward it And if Saints could but look into Heaven and see how 't is there before they come thither they would soon double their diligence and work their fingers to the stumps for Christ But many want Faith to believe so great a reward or to apply it to themselves as that which God will certainly bestow upon them after their work is ended Consider yet further That the good you do upon Earth may encrease when you are dead and as that encreaseth so shall your glory still be enlarged For though the least Glory above is unconceivable and the words there spoken unutterable yet there are aboundance of Argumentations in Heaven and the ywho at their first entrance wore but single Crowns after a while wear double ones For it is said God will give to every Man according to his wayes and according to he fruits of his doings So that if their former doings on Earth do fructifie after they are dead God will reward them according to the Fruit thereof For not only their works but the fruit of them also doth follow them And so do the evil works of wicked men follow them as Jeroboam's did for above three hundred years together after his death for that at last he felt a sevenfold Hell for what he did at first Upon this account it is conceived that Dives desired Abraham to send Lazarus to go and preach to his five brethren that they might avoid that place of torment why is there charity in Hell no it was not out of love to his brethren but to himself because he had corrupted them with his wicked life and left a bad example behind him which they followed therefore he desired that they might if not be saved for that I think a damned Soul cannot desire yet that they might not for his cause and example be brought into that place of torment because this would be the encrease of his torment too In like manner on the other
that which God is pleased to grant to some and it is a great mercy where it is vouchsafed for it is not so eminently granted unto all that fear the Lord. Had Hezekiah now dyed his Distemper was so violent that he could not have dyed so comfortably I reckoned till morning that as a Lion so he will break all my bones From day even to night wilt thou make an end of me Like a Crane or a swallow so did I chatter I did mourn as a Dove Mine eyes fail with looking upward Oh Lord I am oppressed undertake for me But they that have done but little for the Lord and are not now like to do much had need to pray more especially that thus they may finish their course And if God grant you this mercy you may perhaps do as much good dying as ever you did living The few words of the penitent Thief have done good to thousands though he was a Man that never did good but much evil till he was converted upon the Cross And thus much for the Exhortation to value Opportunities and to make the best improvement of time while it lasteth 3d Vse of Exhortation If there are opportunities of performing service to God in this world which are not to be enjoyed after death and that the Saints do that for God here which they cannot do in Heaven Then be not too eager in your desires to dye It was Jobs weakness though indeed he was then in great distress and misery He longed for death and digged for it more thân for hid Treasures We must not be too forward to dig our own Graves We may prepare them as Joseph of Arimathea did and also we must prepare for them but let us not dig them impatiently or importunately Life is a great mercy yea and length of dayes It is annexed to the obedience of the fifth Commandment With long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation Why will not a Child of God be satisfied without length of dayes Yes he is satisfied to dye when God pleaseth If God will take him away sooner or later he he is satisfied It is said of Abraham Isaac David and Job that they dyed full of dayes And it was true both passively in that they were old Men and actively in that they were well satisfied to live so long And therefore Job left off digging for death long before he dyed Peradventure you have your exercises both outward and inward and withall you have good hopes of a blessed state in a better world and now you long for death and would fain be gone Take heed it is time enough to go to a glorious Eternity and when you are there you will never say you came not thither soon enough Here is more service for you to do Do not love your Reward beyond your Work A lazy servant will be often listening to the Clock or looking upon the Sun and longing for the Evening not minding so much his Work as his Wages It is said of Jehojada also that he was full of dayes when he dyed being one hundred and thirty years old He was full of days passively and full actively he was satisfied with this great length of dayes and very well contented and thankful to live so long He was deep in years I suppose about if not above an hundred years old when his Nephew Joash came to the Crown For he lived to see Joash married and after that the Temple repaired And he died not long before Joash who reigned but forty years But few men lived so long in those dayes and yet he did a great deal of good service unto the last And when he died they buried him in the City of David among the Kings because he had done good in Israel both towards God and towards his house And the most of it was done in his old Age. 4th Use of Exhortation If the people of God can do more service for him on Earth than in Heaven Be exhorted to prize their lives pray for them and improve them If Hezekiah here had died of his sickness the people of God would soon have missed him as when at last he died they did for you know what came after Consider what a deal of good ceaseth with the liâ—e of a good Man It is true his Works live but his working is dead Ministers shall preach no more Church-Officers rule no more dispense no more Benefactors lay out themselves no more publick Spirits act no more True their Examples Sayings Writings Memorie Fruits of their former Works may survive But their persons personal actings delightful presence sweet fellowship wholesome Counsels and ready helpfulness are dead and gone Whereas these are great mercies and many will say so when they are gone who made but little of them while they had them You know how the Elders of Ephesus and the Brethren at Miletus wept at Paul's parting sorrowing most of all that they should see his face no more and yet after that he lived many years and wrote an Excellent Epistle to the Church at Ephesus Oh how would they have wept had he then dyed at Miletus But few precious ones are prized enough till dead and perhaps not then neither The Israelites did not sufficiently value Samuel when he grew old but when they had tasted what Saul was and that Samuel also was taken away by death then they all lamented him Yea and Saul himself also wanted him who little regarded him whil'st living Bring me up Samuel saith he to the Witch at Endor He that before would not go to Samuel will now go to the Devil for him Bring me up Samuel Yes Rake him by all means out of his Grave And oh that Saul could but once more speak with Samuel How few are they who have a just valuation of these living mercies or that duly lay to heart the loss of them For it is our duty also to bewail the death of such as when the Church lost Stephen devout Men carried him to his burial and made great lamentation over him Oh know the price of living Saints especially the most useful ones You that are Children and have godly Parents who have made known the Truth to you take heed you think not they have lived too long but know that it is your mercy if they dye full of years and come to their Graves in a full age like as a shock of Corn cometh in its season Improve their lives and lament their deaths Sarah was an hundred twenty and seven years old when she dyed and yet Isaac lamented the loss of her for the space of three years and nothing could comfort him but his marriage with a dear Rebekah I beseech you love and honour your godly Parents beg their continuance with you and your profiting by them and be very obedient to the first Commandment with a Promise Joash had that benefit by his old Uncle Jehojada who was