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A60128
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Death a deliverance, or, A funeral discourse, preach'd (in part) on the decease of Mrs. Mary Doolittle, (late wife of Mr. Thomas Doolittle, minister of the Gospel in London) who departed this life the 16th of Decemb. 1692 by John Shower.
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Shower, John, 1657-1715.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing S3661; ESTC R184223
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53,028
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143
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and made thee meet for it These Desires it is true are but faint and weak to what the promised salvation may Justly chalenge yet they are holy and sincere and have God and Christ and his blessed Presence above for their Object thou hast his Image and seal imprinted on thy Nature Mind and Will This Evidence and Experience in thy self shall no be deseated in its Tendency and Designt SECT II. Secondly In our Contemplation of this happy State which the saints desire beyond the Grave we ought to remember that though the Glorious Change of the Body be one part the Felicity of the Soul is the principal one Yea the Glory of departed Souls is one great Cause and Means of that happy Change which we expect for the Body To be with Christ and behold his Glory and partake of it does especially refer to the Soul We shall see him as he is and in that respect be made like him We are now the Children of God by free Grace and Adoption but his admirable Love will not desist till our Consormity to his Image be more compleat till we are brought to his Presence and partake of his Holiness to that degree as to be the objects of his eternal Complacence and Delight Father I will says Christ that those that thou hast given me should be with me to behold my Glory Then all our Sins and Failings all our Follies and Infirmities all our Wrinkles and Blemishes all our Transgressions and Imperfections shall be done away and our Souls shall be washed white in the Blood of the Lamb being conformed to our Divine Pattern The lesser Manifestations of the Spiritual Glory of Christ which we have sometimes here are highly valuable to a Saint but unspeakably short of that which we expect these hereafter will be more clear more transforming more satisfactory and more lasting We now see through a Glass but darkly but we shall know as we are known for we shall see him as he is We hope for an inlightened and inlarged Mind to behold the Excellency and Radiancy of the Divine Perfections shining in and through our glorified Redeemer This will oblige the most Improved Saint that ever left this Earth to cry out with the Queen of Sheba concerning Solomon that the one half was never told them was not known or believed before And if we are changed into his Image by beholding his Glory in the Gospel-glass the Vision hereafter will be more clear and so the Change will be greater and the Delight and Complacence resulting from it must needs be unspeakably more And this is our Comfort that it will be such as shall last for ever If we have any Glymps of him at present by the Light of Faith we quickly lose the sight again How soon does an interposing Cloud hide him from us But the Felicity of the Blessed Vision above will be permanent we shall dwell for ever in the joyful Light of his Countenance and abide with him continually in the Heavenly Mansions SECT III. Thirdly Let us then indeavour to confirm our Faith in the Expectation of this blessed State for Soul and Body after Death Let us keep the Grounds of Faith visible in our Eye let us imploy our Thoughts frequently and seriously upon the blessed Object Let us deeply and often consider the cogent Reasons upon which we believe and expect such things both the intrinsick Grounds of Faith and the Motives of Credibility that our Assent may be the more firm and lasting that our Christian Faith may influence us as present things are wont to do Did we not look upon the great things of the other Life as uncertain we could not but reckon them preferable to the best of our present Injoyments Did we believe them we could not but desire 〈…〉 for our not desiring that blessed State but our criminal Infidelity that we believe it not For were we but fully perswaded of the truth of the Promises we must needs imbrace them for their Goodness and Excellency and then we should long till Death did draw aside the Vail open the Gate of Heaven and bring us into the Divine Presence But we waver and doubt concerning the invisible future World and hence it is that we close with what is Present because we are not equally perswaded of the Truth and Cortainty of what is Future Let us then indeavour to strengthen and confirm our Faith SECT IV. Fourthly Let us regulate our Affections and Carriage in this Earthly Tabernacle as Persons who believe and expect such a glorious Change Let us pass the time of our Sojourning in this World as Pilgrims and Strangers Let us abstain from fleshly Lusts that War against our Souls Let us use both our Souls and Bodies answerable to the belief of such things Let us watch lest we are surprized into sin by our bodily Senses Appetites and Imagination Let us remember that the Soul and Body like two diseased Creatures bound together in one chain do now mutually infect corrupt and Poyson one another Let us take heed of sin by the inordinate Love of Bodily Pleasure or the undue fear of Bodily Suffering Let us imitate the Pattern of Christ while he dwelt in a Body and labour to have the same Mind which he had to be in this World as he was in it Lot the good and evil of this World have less powerful impression upon us Let us not be over fond of the Pleasures of the Animal Life may they every day be less considerable with us Let us not so love the Body as on that account to decline any present Duty much less so over-love it as to prefer the Comforts of the present Life to a future Felicity Let us not regret over much that such an earthly Tabernacle must fall into dust that such a perishing Body must dissolve and lye in the Grave We are sensible how weak and useless it was for a good while at first before the Body was fitted for the service of the Soul and we cannot but be sensible what a Trouble and Temptation it has been since Let the burdens and inconveniences of the bodily Life be more tolerable let us not be impatient under them let us be willing that the outward Man decay so that the inward Man be renewed let our Judgment and Esteem our Desires and Indeavours our Joys and Sorrows be rectified and moderated as to all that refers to the Body and this Present Life Let our Eyes and Hearts be fixed on the Heavenly State let us remember we are a sort of Creatures related to the other World though we dwell at present in an earthly Tabernacle In the midst of our earthly Comforts let us think of the Heavenly State and Lise as infinitely better Let us keep alive the Desires of the Presence of Christ and fuller Conformity to him in the height of our Temporal Prosperity Let the believing Thoughts of the Caelestial State be unspeakably sweeter to us than the best of all this
the End of their Faith and Hope and so attained their desire in the present Salvation of their Souls and they have Assurance too as to their Bodies That hereafter they shall be raised and changed and made like the glorious Body of Christ SECT II. Let us thus think in particular of our Good Friend Mrs. Doolittle who hath put off this Earthly Tabernacle and is entered into the glorious Assembly of the Friends af Christ above What I shall say of her is not meerly to comply with Custom concerning the Dead but in hopes to edifie and Instruct the Living I Know there be some who disgust the publishing of any particular Passages of our departed Friends how Imitable an Praile worthy soever But it is the Fluttery and Falshood often used on such Occasions concerning those whose Character will not bear a Commendation that is the Cause But I fear no such Censube as to what I shall now say concoming Her whose Death and Funeral brings me here and gives another Place this day to my Reverend Brother than this where he is wont to be God will not be displeased that we should Honour those whom he hath Honoured with eminent Grace The Memory of the Righteous shall be blessed And how shall others be perswaded to follow the most Laudable Patterns if we conceal particulars At least the Surviving Relations Friends and Acquaintance may be edified and assisted by it in their Duty upon such Providences And I have the less to apprehend of Cavil or Objection in the present Case because what I shall mention is from such Hands as there can be no Doubt of the Truth of what I shall say and very many of you here will readily yield a concurrent Testimony SECT III. It shall be under three Heads First her personal Piety or her general Character as a Christian Secondly her Relative Religion or concerning her in the several Relations wherein she stood as faithfully discharging the Duties of them Thirdly Her Christian Deportment under bodily Infirmities and Sickness with some more remarkable Passages in this her last Sickness before she put off this earthly Tabernacle First as to her Personal Piety and general Character as a Christian That she was truly Serious and Religious in her Youth and so esteemed and judged abone forty years agoe was the ground of her being chosen by her Husband as the Companion of his Life And God continued her to him in much Mercy for about nine and thirty years being pleased by her to build up his House to such a Degree as not many Instances in City or Country can be given of the like That out of his own Family there was not one Solemn Funeral in Thirty nine or forty years except of two Children in the Month and one newly wean'd and none at all in the space of five and twenty years Let God have the Glory and let Thankfulness to heaven be mixed with your mourning by this Reflection I have many witnesses amongst you who were acquainted with her serious Piety and they who knew her best had abundant proof of her secret Converse with God and dayly retirement for Meditation and Prayer and this very often early in the Morning Which is Imitable by all of us and one of the best Evidences of Unfeigned Real Living Religion in the Power of it I do not understand and I like it not the worse that she pretended to high flights of Confidence and Assurance which few attain or preserve very long and I fear many deceive themselves by somewhat that is not of God under that Name Yet when she had any Darkness as to her Spiritual State when she was sensible of the weakness of her Love to Christ and Lamented it He who on all accounts was fittest to assist her endeavoured to let her know the Truth of that Grace by distinguishing of a threefold Love to Christ a Delighting Love a Desiring Love and a Mourning Love telling her that tho she had not the former of these to her Comfort she could not deny or disown the two latter And this helped to give her Satisfaction and support concerning the Tryal of her State She added Judiciously the Night before she died I look to Sincerity and uprightness of Heart as a ground of Comfort but I do not put them in the room of Christ my only Saviour Several years agoe she read much in the practical Writings of Mr. Isaac Ambrose particularly concerning Eternity which made a very great Impression on her Mind so as that she trembled under the Apprehension lest she should come short of that Blessed Eternity there described However under her Doubts and Fears when the free Grace of God in Christ was discoursed of she could comfortably say why then may not such a one as I be accepted by free Grace in Christ and hope to be capable of Blessedness in Heaven as well as others this is a Faithful Saying worthy of all acceptation that Christ came into the World to save Sinners of whom I am Chief This she did and could say from her very Soul and appeal therein to the Omniscient Searcher of Hearts and this was her Encouragement and Joy that she could Say it I have resigned my self to God in Covenant again and again I Bless the Lord who hath enabled me to devote and give up my self to be his Lord I am thine Accept and Save me And at another Time she was able to say I have had that Converse with God and Communion with him that I would not part with for the whole World This is more than many who are Sincere attain unto For tho some real Christians have great Refreshments and support by Communication of Light and Strength and Joy upon a sick and Death Bed as if the Light of Glory shined into them and they had the beginning of Heaven here yet many others may want this when they come to die and Experience little of these exuberant Joys through their whole Course For God exercises Prerogative in the Dispensation of his Comforts at that and at other Times Therefore the Judgment we should make of Persons must rather be grounded on their general Course of Life than on their particular frame in Sickness or toward the approach of Death Some times by reason of the disorder of the Blood and Spirits the Holiest servants of God may be either Lumpish and Melancholy or else Feverish and Phrenetcal sometimes through the Temptations of the Devil they may be unsetled in their Minds or through Dissertion speak uncomfortably to those about them They may afflict themselves with dispairing Thoughts and leave the World under inward Darkness Their agonies in death may be without any sence of Comfort and yet they may be accepted with God and pass to eternal Glory because we shall not be Judged according to that particular Iustant of Death but according to the general Course of our Life However it is observed in most cases that God does speak peace to upright