to get a thankful heart for so great a mercy SECT I. HOw or with what must those that are preâ—erved give thanks to God This must be done three waies 1. You must praise God with your tongues Your lips must shew forth his praises Psal 51.15 Your tongue must sing aloud of Gods righteousness and mercy For this end God hath preserved you Psal 30.11 Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing thou hast put off my sackcloath and girded me with gladness Ver. 12. To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent O Lord my God I will give thanks unto thee for ever By glory David means his tongue The Tongue is the glory of a man it being his priviledge above all Creatures with the tongue to form articulate words having distinction of sound for the communicating of the conceptions of his mind unto others Thus we should praise God by speaking of his excellencies and perfections of his nature of his works and waies of his dealings with us of the danger he hath delivered us from of the good he hath given to us of the salvation he hath wrought for us 2. You must praise God with your heart as well as with your tongue for as prayer for mercy with the tongue without the heart will not be profitable to us so praises with the tongue for mercy received without the heart will not be acceptable unto God To praise God with the heart is the very heart of our praises Thus David that before called upon his tongue to bless God doth also elsewhere call upon his soul to do it Psal 103.1 Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name God blesseth us by giving good things unto us Eph. 1.3 We bless God when we do thankfully acknowledge the good things we receive from God You must then stir up your soul and all that is within you unto this great work of praise for so great Preservation 3. You must praise God in your lives and by your works and conversations You must not only speak Gods praises but you must live to his praise you must do it with life and in and by your life Life is the mercy I call upon you to praise God for and you must do it by your life You may praise God with your lips and not with your hearts but if you do indeed praise God with your heart you will also do it by your life If you will give thanks indeed you must live thanks The best thanks-giving is thanks-doing Thus if you would be thankful for the life of your children shew it by your religious care in their holy Education That God might not say of you I spared such a mans Children in time of Plague and afterwards he brought them up to dishonour me and to sin against me if you would be thankful for your own life then lay it out in holy walking with God SECT II. WIth what Arguments should the people of God urge their own hearts thus in tongue in heart and life to praise and glorifie God for his preserving of them Work your heart hereunto with these following Arguments Consider 1. Should not you thus praise God for your preservation from danger by the Plague Who did make this one of your Arguments to prevail with God by prayer in time of danger to preserve you Did not you reason thus with God in time of sickness Lord lengthen out the life of thy servant O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake for in death there is no remembrance of thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks What profit is there in my bloud when I go down into the pit Shall the dust praise thee Shall it declare thy truth The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee They that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth The living the living he shall praise thee Were not these your pleadings at the throne of grace And did not you promise to God and purpose in your heart that if God would spare you you would celebrate his praises And shall not there be a correspondence betwixt your actions when you were in fears and your actions when your great danger by the Plague is over 2. Should not you thus praise God for your preservation Who have such examples for your practice recorded in the Scripture When Hezekiah had been sick and was recovered he sang forth the praises of the Lord Isa 38.19 20. When David had been in danger of death and was delivered he deliberates with himself what he should return and render to the Lord Psal 116.12 13 c. What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will take the cup of Salvation and will call upon the name of the Lord. Ver. 17. I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanks-giving For your imitation consider Davids practice 1. He propounds a case of conscience Since I was brought low and the Lord hath helped me since the sorrows of death have compassed me about and God hath delivered me what shall I render What must I do What return must I make And he presseth himself to this by four forcible Arguments in these words for all his benefits towards me He considered First Benefits received Kindnesses call for acknowledgments favours are obliging We must give thanks in and for afflictions much more when we are delivered I deserved judgments but benefits have been my receipt Secondly The Author of them His benefits The kindnesses of men should not be forgotten much less the benefits of God Your life is a benefit and God is the Author of it Thirdly The Number of them All his benefits they were many not a few Three things are innumerable Gods mercies to us Our sins against God The evils that good men suffer Psal 40.5 12. Fourthly The Person to whom they were given For all his benefits to me Hath God indeed given such mercy to me Hath God continued life to me so vile so unworthy Oh what shall I render 2. He resolves this case propounded I will take the Cup of salvation I will offer the sacrifice of praise God hath taken from you for the present the Cup of death which was to so many a Cup of trembling he hath removed your Cup of affliction and instead thereof hath given you a Cup of Consolation and a cup running over with variety of mercies and will not you take the Cup of Salvation and offer the Sacrifice of praise Do you see David in the like case so diligent and inquisitive what to render and so peremptory and resolute to offer praise to God and will not you go and do likewise 3. Is not this the noblest work you can engage in to praise God and to celebrate with thankfulness the greatness of his mercy and goodness It is the work of Angels to be praising
הוהיל ×‘×™×©× ×”×ž OR A Serious Enquiry For a SUITABLE RETURN FOR Continued LIFE in and after a Time of Great Mortality BY A WASTING PLAGUE ANNO 1665. Answered in XIII DIRECTIONS By THO. DOOLITEL Psal 116.8 For thou hast delivered my soul from death mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling 9. I will walk before the Lord in the Land of the living 14. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people Isaiah 38.18 For the Grave cannot praise thee Death cannot celebrate thee they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy Truth 19. The living the living he shal praise thee as I do this day c. London Printed by R. I. for â— Johnson and are to be sold by A. Brewâ—er at the Threee Bibles at the west end of St. Pauls and R. Boulâ—er at the Turks-head in Cornhill 1666. To such whom the Lord hath kept alive in the time of so great Death by the Plague in the Land especially in the City of London THe design of these lines is neither to commend the Author nor the Book which in these few following sheets is presented to your view the former being as needless to them that know his Person as the later to them that read his Directions but I would commend the Subject being so seasonable to your perusal and the Duties being so necessary to your Practice It was the saying of a Learned Divine who had the honour of being made a Prisoner as well as Minister of the Lord That it was great pitty there were no more Prisoners of Jesus Christ to write songs of his love I will not say I could wish that more of our Citizens had in this late Dreadful Plague remained in this then Doleful place which to the Countries seemed more formidable than a Prison but I believe that many of you whose Calling and Duty did tye your hands and feet and shut you up in the City have found such sweet experiences of the goodness and love of God that they will be recorded And 65. will be remembred by you with thankefulness so long as you live You have seen the Destroying Angel entering the City and Death riding upon the Pale Horse Triumphant in the streets Arrows flying the sword bathed Garments rouling in blood and this grim Conqueror breaking in upon Houses without resistance taking Captive Men Women and Children and clapping them up in the Prison of the Grave where they must remain fast bound in his chains of darkeness untill the opening of the doors by him who hath the keys of the Grave who having Conquered Death himself will at his appearance loosen the Bonds of all Deaths prisoners that they may stand before his Judgement Seat to receive their Final Dooms In the midst of which slaughter and Captivity the Captain of your Salvation hath stood by you held his shield over you set his mark upon you and given you singular experience of his Power and Goodness in your preservation You have been in a storm God hath shown you his wonders in the Deep and when so many Ships have been cast away before your eyes and so many Persons have been devoured by the cruel Waters and your selves inviron'd with waves on every side yet the Lord hath kept you alive like Jonah in the Belly of the Sea or made a way for you to pass through when so many not onely Egyptians but Israelites have been drowned you have been in the water but the Lord hath been an Arke about you You have been in the fire like the three Children but the Son of God hath walked with you and suppressed the violence of the fire that it hath not prevailed over you you have been like the Bush which Moses saw burning but was not burn't because God was in it And when you look back upon those dark days and black Bills of Mortality where you have had account of so many thousands dying for so many weeks together Do you not wonder at your strange escape Do you not look upon your selves as Brands pluckt out of the fire And must you not acknowledge it is the Lords mercy you are not consumed You who have continued in the City in the time of the Plague when such throngs of people have been crouding out of this world daily into another have had singular advantages of looking into and preparing for Eternity which few think of with fixed seriousness till they be awakened by some dangerous sickness whereby withal they are usually so weakened in body and spirit that they are rendred unfit for such cogitations but to be in such danger whilst in so good health and in such Leasure from encumbring employments I doubt not but it hath effectually moved many of you to soar a loft in your thoughts and Meditations that you might take a view of the other Country which the Scripture doth set forth of the City which hath foundations whose builder and Maker is God I believe the wicked have had dreadful apprehensions of the burning lake of the Ocean of Gods wrath which every day they were ready to launch forth into and that however some have been hardened and are as bad yea worse than before yet I hope others have been so awakened with this dreadful Providence that they have been effectually perswaded to Repentance and Faith in Christ who alone can deliver from the wrath which is to come I believe that others have had deeper impressions of Eternity upon them than ever they had in their lives which the borders thereof on which they have been walking have given them so near frequent a prospect of and I doubt not but all of you have made vows and promises to the Lord of a Holy conversation of leaving those sins your conscience at that time upbraided you withal and dedicating your lives to the Lord if he would be pleased to spare your lives Take heed of dropping asleep again after you have been awakned of returning again unto sin after it hath been imbittered of forgetting or abusing Gods mercy after such a wonderful preservation retain the same thoughts of sins evil and the worlds vanity of the worth of true Grace and Christs beauty retain the impressions you had of Eternity when you were so near it in your apprehensions hath God laid obligations upon you by his preservations and deliverances And have you laid obligations upon your selves by your purposes and resolutions Labor then to live up to your obligations and if you be at a loss what return to make to the Lord You have by his Providence this little Book put into your hands to give you directions receive them not as the bare counsel of man but so far as backt by the Scripture as the Prescriptions of God as if the Lord should speak to you from Heaven and say This is my will these are your duties and see that you perform them Hereby you will both please the Lord and rejoyce the heart of
what manner of persons ought you to be in all manner of holy conversation after such a sight as this IV. In this great house of so great mourning God hath been teaching you the worlds vanity You have seen what miserable comforters riches are to men in time of Plague and at an hour of death you have seen death haling men from that which they had set their hearts upon you have seen death dragging men from their riches and from their pleasures and hath forced them to come away to the Bar of God and leave their riches behinde them and their pleasures behind them You have seen that riches could not go with them into another world but left them in a time of need You have seen that those that loved riches could finde no comfort in them when they stood in greatest need of comfort You have seen that what men have been laboring for and scraping together all the time of their health and life death hath come and scattered in a moment Oh how weaned should you be from the world and the riches and the pleasures thereof after such a sight as this Oh how much less should you afford the world of your heart and affections of your love desire and delights that is so unkind to dying men even unto those that served it most and loved it most Oh do you learn to deal so with the world as you have seen the world to deal with others i. e. turn it out of your heart with as little love and pity to it as you have seen the world turn its followers out of it and shake them off notwithstanding all their entreaties to abide and stay therein The world may now entreat you that it might stay in your heart and live in your love but hearken you no more to its entreaties than it hath hearkened unto others and you must expect the world ere long will deal with you as it hath dealt with others therefore part with the world before you leave the world V. In this great house of so great mourning God hath been teaching you the short continuance of all relations you have seen death taking Husbands from their Wives Parents from their Children Ministers from their people and so Wives from their Husbands Children from their Parents People from their Ministers Those that had but one onely Son Plague and Death hath stripped them of him and teared one relation out of the others bosome fain they would have kept them but death would not suffer them they wept and cryed but death would not have pity on them nor hear their cries nor regard their tears but said this is your childe but I must have him this is your husband but I must seize upon him God hath given me a Commission and I always use to do according to the Commission I receive from God if God will not spare you in vain you look for pity at mine hands I saith death am blinde and cannot see the beauty of your childe that hath drawn out your heart so much towards him I am deaf and cannot hear your pleadings for the continuance of your childe or husband or friend if God doth not hear you I cannot and if God doth not spare and pity you I will not therefore I will smite him and stick my arrow in his heart and dippe it in his life-blood and take him from you Oh how many have thus experienced the dealings of death and you have seen it and will not you learn to sit looser in your affections towards your nearest and dearest relations You have seen death hath seized upon them that were most beloved by their friends and perhaps did therefore do it because they were over loved and took up too much of that love and that delight which should have been more and would have been better placed upon God Your lesson then is set down by the Apostle for I would not teach you by rott nor without the book of Gods word 1 Cor. 7.29 But this I say Brethren the time is short or rolled up or contracted a metaphor taken from a piece of cloth that is rolled up onely a little left at the end so some As Mariners near the Haven winde up their sails or make them less When the sails of time are thus contracted it is a sign we are near the Harbor of eternity It remaineth that both they that have wives be as though they had none Vers 30. And they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that buy as though they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away VI. In this great house of so great mourning God hath been teaching you the lesson of humility How many humbling sights have you seen every Corpse that you have seen hath been an humbling sight It may be you have been proud of your beauty but have not you seen that beauty vanisheth away when death comes that beautiful bodies by the Plague and Death have been turned into loathsome bodies and those that you have loved and been delighted to look upon you have been glad to have them buried out of your sight when once dead How many open Graves have you seen and those that have been nice and curious of their comely bodies have been interred and given to be meat for worms and to be a prey to rottenness and putrefaction Have you seen any difference betwixt the poor and the rich beâ—wixt that body that was fed with courser fare and that which was nourished with more delicate dishes Have you not seen bodies that were made out of dust been turned to the dust to be turned into dust and will you be proud after God hath taken such an effectual course to teach you to be humble VII In this great house of so great mourning God hath been teaching you that all things fall alike to all that the wise must dye as well as the fool and the good must dye as well as the bad And though God hath promised conditionally preservation from the Plague unto his people which hath been literally fulfilled to some of his yet some of his have fallen in this general mortality God hath been teaching of you that though grace doth deliver from eternal death yet not from temporal though from the sting yet not from the stroke of death that you though godly should be preparing for your own departure out of this world VIII In this great house of so great mourning God hath been teaching you the difference between the death of the wicked and the death of the righteous that though good and bad alike have dyed yet they have not dyed alike But as there was a difference in their life so God did make a difference in their death Have not you seen some wicked dye without any sense of sin or fear of God or Hell and