Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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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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Death a Deliverance OR A Funeral Discourse Preach'd in Part on the Decease of M rs 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 Eccles 7.1 The Day of Death is better than the day of one's Birth LONDON Printed for Abr. Chandler at the Chyrurgeons-Arms at the Entrance into Bartholomews-Close in Aldersgate-street And Samuel Wade at the Bible under the Piaza of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1693. TO HIS Reverend and Honoured Friend and Brother Mr. DOOLITTLE SIR IF you did not know how little time I have to command I should need an Excuse for not having sooner finisht the Transcription and Enlargment of the following Discourse which was preached at your Desire on the Death of your Wife and now on the same Motive is made publick If it may any way Contribute to allay your Sorrow for your great Loss or be useful to any Others especially the Relations and Acquaintance of the Deceased I shall not Repent it The Text recommended to me is every way suited to the Occasion and to your Design of my instructing the Living from it however defective the Prosecution and Performance be You will not expect from me at least you cannot that a Subject so often treated on by Others should be beautified with new notions Neither do I fear to have displeased you by the citation of some Passages out of the practical Writings of the Excellent Mr. Baxter For whose Memory I know you have so dear a Value and by whom while he Lived you had the Honour and Advantage to be esteemed and loved For my own part I think my self obliged to take all Occasions to express my Thankfulness to God for the Ministry and Acquaintance the Books and Counsels of that Great and Holy Man whom I reckon to have been a Publick Blessing to the Nation and the Age and am confident that more Impartial Posterity will acknowledg it I cannot doubt but that you with many thousand Others do Joyn with me in Praising God for his long Life That One so often near the Grave and so fit for the upper better World and living in such delightful Fore-thoughts of Everlasting Rest should be spared and continued among us for so many years May he that hath the Residue of the Spirit fill surviving Ministers Younger and Elder with greater measures of Holy Light and Love to furnish us for our work and to assist and suceed us in it May we all learn to carry it with greater Indifference to this present Animal Life and dayly advance in our Desires and Preparations for the Heavenly one The Removal of any of our Friends who were made meet for Heaven may be many ways improved to this Purpose for whom you know we are not to Sorrow as others who have no Hope Doubtless your late Sickness and Indisposition since the breach God hath made in your Family will be regarded as an additional Call and help to such Thoughts and Affections as this Discourse is designed to promote And if the many Prayers of those who have reason to Bless God for you may be heard as in some Instances they have been we may hope your Life and Serviceableness shall be yet prolong'd In which request to God I heartily concur who am Sir Your Respectful tho most Unworthy Fellow-Servant in the Work of the Gospel John Shower London Febr. 13. 169◠THE Contents CHAP. I. THe Introduction Paraphrase and Explication of the Text. CHAP. II. The Method and Design of the following Discourse Good Men in the Present State are burdened with their Sins and Sufferings so as to groan for Deliverance p. 13. CHAP. III. They have a Certain Expectation of a Better State and Life after this and may be comfortably perswaded of their own Title in particular p. 25. CHAP. IV. To Desire and Long for this Blessed State beyond the 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 the Temper of a Christian Spirit p. 33. CHAP. V. Of the Resurrection of the Body It is Possible Probable and Certain Where were the Souls of those who have been raised from the Dead during their separation from their Bodies Our Resurrection by Christ Illustrated and proved p. 50. CHAP. VI. The same Body for substance is to be raised again at the last day What the Change will be of these Bodies hereafter from what they are at present p. 68. CHAP. VII Inferences of Truth and Duty from the preceding Discourse The Soul doth not perish when the Body dies The Felicity of the Soul is that which we principally desire Our Faith should be confirmed about it Our Affections and Carriage should correspond to such a Belief p. 79. CHAP. VIII Of the Characters of such who may and ought to long for this Glorious Change who they are who have a Title to this desired Blessedness p. 60. CHAP. IX How Few Christians live in the Exercise of such Desires What may be the Reason Some fear of Death consistent with Vprightness Elder Christians and the Sickly and Infirm should quicken such a Desire of Deliverance Reproof and Exhortation in reference hereto p. 94. CHAP. X. Our Holy Friends Departed obtain their Desires by Dying this should moderate our funeral Sorrows A short Account of the Exemplary Character of Mrs. Mary Doolittle with some Passages of her last Sickness Conclusion p. 112. A Funeral Sermon 2 COR. V. 4. We that are in this Tabernacle do groan being Burdened not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life CHAP. I. The Introduction Paraphrase and Explication of the Text. SECT I. NOtwithstanding all the difficult Exercises of St. Paul from Enemies on every side upon the account of his Faithfulness to Christ in the Discharge of his Ministry He bears up with an invincible courage and resolution by the expectation of an Eternal Recompence in the other World This is the Tenor of his Discourse throughout the foregoing Chapter he begins and ends with it and repeats it at large in the three last Verses For this cause we faint not c. That is however perplexed and persecuted cast down and troubled yet neither he himself nor any of those ingaged in the same cause and work with him did faint in their minds because their present Sufferings did only prepare the way for a more glorious Reward For our light Affliction says he which is but for a moment worketh for us a more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory while we look not at the things which are seen which are but temporal but at the things which are not seen which are Eternal And supposing the worst that these Afflictions should end in Death yet such a case would admit of comfort For we know says he verse 1.2 of this chapter we are confidently perswaded upon very good grounds that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle were dissolved we have a better dwelling provided an happier Condition in
hope and view We have a Building of God an House not made with hands eternal in the Heavens And for this we groan earnestly for this state of immortal Happiness desiring to be cloathed upon with our House that is from Heaven A Blessed State so fitted for us and we for it that no Apparel for the Body can be more SECT II. He was not only content to Dye and ready with Patience to receive a Summons out of this World but so unspeakable was the difference in his Judgment between his present State in the Body and that which he expected beyond the Grave that he reckoned a Translation was every way preferable and rather to be chosen even by intervening Death that so instead of this little House this mean and poor Dwelling which we now inhabit we may come to a better Building that is of God formed and prepared by him to the more spacious Mansions which the blessed God has provided for us above that instead of this movable Tent This earthly Tabernacle continually liable to so many changes dangers and inconveniencies we may have a House not made with hands that is of God's immediate Work more excellent and more lasting more safe and more abiding That instead of this earthly House of dirt and clay into which it will shortly be dissolved we may have a building in Heaven suited to the Heavenly State and Life a more commodious Dwelling fitted for the Offices of a Glorified Soul and which shall not molder but be Eternal that when this Tabernacle is dissolved which needs every day to be repaired and with all our care cannot long be supported we may have a permanent unchangable building eternal in the Heavens In short that our bodies as well as our Souls may be glorious and blessed and unchangably so in the other World After such a State and Life as this so elegantly described in the beginning of this Chapter he declares his earnest Desire in this Text not in his own name only but as the common sense of all the Followers of Christ This he amplifies and limits by several expressions unto which some following verses in this chapter will give further light For we that are in this Tabernacle do groan being burdened not for that we would be uncloathed but cloathed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life SECT III. In which words we may consider two Parts 1. The State and Temper of the Followers of Christ or of all real Christians That while they are in the Body they are burdened and groan for Deliverance 2. A Judicious Stating the matter of such Desire of Deliverance Or what it is that they groan and long for set forth in three expressions 1. Negatively It is not Simply to be uncloathed But 2. To be cloathed upon And 3. That Mortality may be swallowed up of Life 1. The state and Temper of good men or real Christians while they are in the Body They are burdened and therefore groan for deliverance We that are in this earthly Tabernacle Or as the expression is ver 8. While we are at home in the Body present in the Body or While we converse and Sojourn in the Body Which he calls an earthly House ver 1. But because it is no certain fixed Dwelling he adds the other term of a Tabernacle While we dwell in this little Fabrick framed at first out of the dust of the earth as were the Worms who are therefore our Kindred and Relations and they were formed before the Creation of man While we are in this earthly Tabernacle whose foundation is in the dust Whose matter is not more excellent than that of the Beasts that perish An earthly Tabernacle not only as to its original but is sustained and repaired by earthly things 146 Psalm 4.12 Eccl. 7. and ere long to be resolved into Earth again This dust shall be turned to earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God While we are in this earthly House we groan and long for a removal we earnestly covet desire and wait for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a better Dwelling and a better State we pant and breath and long for it from the Faith and Hope of what God has revealed concerning the upper better World and the future Felicity of all that believe in Christ where we look for another sort of Bodies and another kind of Life this is that we aspire and groan after and would fain obtain SECT IV. 2. He describes the matter of such a Desire and the just limits of it in three Expressions 1. Negatively Not for that we would be uncloathed i. e. 1. Not Simply to dye for dying sake Not meerly to be rid of the Body and to live without any As we are a sort of Creatures made up of Soul and body the separation of these two cannot in it self for its own sake be desirable we have a natural innocent unavoidable Aversion to Death as such And as it is a Penalty and the fruit of Sin as even to the best man it is there cannot but be some unwillingness to dye however fit it be to be desired otherwise on the account of the Consequences of Death All the Faith and Reason in the world cannot make Death to be no penalty So neither is it possible that any man can reason or believe himself into a love of Pain and Death as such Therefore it is not simply to be uncloathed to have Soul and Body separated that is here desired It is not a perpetual state of being without a Body For he desires to be cloathed upon and not found naked Our case is so stated that our Souls are to be cloathed upon with a Body and we cannot but desire that the union of the Soul and body should be preserved and in the state of Separation there is some hankering of the Soul after the body Some such Desire of regaining that Reunion SECT V. 2. Neither is it meerly a Weariness of this present Life by reason of the Burden of sorrows and Sufferings which the Apostle and other Christians met with in it that makes them thus to groan For if he might be further serviceable to the interest of Christ and therein be accepted and pleasing to him he declares ver 9. that he was willing to live He professes his readiness to prefer the Salvation of many Souls and his being instrumental to their happiness before the hastening of his own He knew that God may have as much Service in our Lives in an afflicted suffering State as in a prosperous Condition he knew That we may glorifie God in Sickness and in a Prison as much or more than in health or liberty And that to bear any of our Trials and Burdens well and to honour God by a Christian Deportment under them is better than to be delivered His Desire therefore to the blessed State which was in expectation was not to the Act of Dissolution it self without reference to what would