Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n
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A67218
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The substance of several sermons, from John, ix. 39 Preach'd at the request of a friend, and now publish'd for the benefit of the publick. By Nathanael Wyles, an unworthy labourer in Christ's vineyard.
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Wyles, Nathaniel.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing W3770B; ESTC R222177
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55,039
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110
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Preach the Gospel of Christ and He strived to Preach where Christ had not been Named And all this was made efficacious by Mighty Signs and Wonders by the Power of the Spirit of God So that it was best for the Churches and more needful he should continue though to his loss Phil. 1. 21. In all this Notwithstanding He was most mindful to ascribe all to Grace 1 Cor. 15. 10. By the Grace of God be was All that He was and after all his Discourse of his Line and measure He concludes He that Glorieth Let him Glory in the Lord 2 Cor. 10. 17. The Apostle Finished this course under and by the High Priest and Apostle of our Profession whose the fupreme Glory in all is Inasmuch as He who Built the House hath more Honour then the House whose House with all Prophets Apostles and Saints Heb. 3. 1. The Apostle was For He who Built All Things in his Church is God and our Saviour Jesus Christ Head 3. I come now to the third Head or Character the Apostle gives of himself I have kept the Faith This Completes the whole Herein the Apostle speaks again as a mighty Champion that retain'd the Riches of Faith Much more precious then of Gold that Perisheth The Faith he retain'd with such a Might and would by no means suffer it to be forced out of his Hand 1. That Great Principal and most essential Faith the Apostle kept or held fast is Jesus Christ Himself and his Righteousness who is pleased because he himself is indeed the All of Faith to be styled Faith it self Gal. 3. 23. 2. It is the whole Truth of the Gospel as the Apostle Jude gives it the Honourable Title of the Faith once at once once for All Delivered to the Saints Jude 3. Comprizing the Righteousness of Faith by which the Just Live and receive even full assurance of understanding The Righteousness of God revealed from Faith to Faith The Faith embracing the truth that is after Godliness which whoever walks contrary to denies the Faith The Faith that looks to the Eternal State and Condition which Hymeneus and Philetus denying by saying The Resurrection was past already overthrew the Faith of some This the Apostle held fast in all the senses of it now given and would by no means part with or betray to any Seducers or Adversaries of one sort or other as was before asserted under the first Character of Fighting a good Fight 3. The inward Grace of Faith in the Heart and Holy confession of which the Apostle saith Rom. 10. With the Heart Man believes unto Righteousness and with the Mouth confession is made to salvation The Life he liv'd by the Faith of the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him The Faith even the Plerophory of it sprinckling the Heart from an Evil Conscience by the Blood of Jesus the Faith by which we have Peace with God the faith that embraces the Promises by which we cleanse our selves from all Filthiness of Flesh and Spirit the sheild of faith The Apostle Exhorts above all to take to quench the fiery Darts of the Devil The faith by which the Elders obtained so Honourable a Testimony and Memory Heb. 11. In all those their grat Acts The faith that passes through all afflictions temptations and tryals till those Pillars are set up with this Inscription Rev. 13. Here is the Faith and Patience of the Saints here are they who keep the Commandments of God and hold the Testimony of Jesus Lastly the faith the very presence of things hoped for raises to that Plerophory of hope that enters within the Veil All Saints with the Apostle who by faith have dyed and slept in and by Jesus and are entred into rest with him even as this servant of the Lord hath done by the same faith and whom God even our Lord Jesus will bring with him the Living remaining Saints shall not Anticipate The Lord my God will come and all his Saints with him But in all this faith our whole subsistence is in and by the Author and Finisher of Faith And so we are come to the second part of the Text Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness This is the Prize of the High Calling of God in Jesus Christ Eternal Glory the Eternal Inheritance Eternal Redemption the whole Excellency Glory and Blessedness of the Eternal State is the Inheritance of the Saints in Light which is alone by Jesus Christ in us the Hope of Glory reserved in Heaven This the Lord as a Righteous Judge gives and he gives as a Crown of Righteousness Because Jesus Christ hath purchased it with his own Blood and Obedience And in him it is that Saints are able to subsist in this Eternal Glory Being made like him by seeing him as he is but most Glorious herein is that State He in the Father the Father in Him and Saints hereby in Christ and in the Father and the Love wherewith the Father Loved Him even before the Foundation of the World is in them because He is in them and in all this the Son Intercedes with the Father as a Righteous Father John 17. 24 c. To open this part of the Text according to the Tenor of the present Discourse so far as we have proceeded 1. That expression of the Apostle Henceforth or as the word in the Greek signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That which remaineth is there is laid up for me c. An expression suitable to this is that Heb. 4. 9. There remaineth a rest for the People of God This hath an Immutable certainty If the Judgment of wicked Men be laid up in store with God and Sealed among his treasures Deut. 32. 34. How much more the Salvation the Glory and Blessedness of his Saints It is as cerrain and much more certain then as in themselves the precedent Fighting the good Fight c. For their assurance is not in themselves They would fail and come behind as Combatants not obtaining the Prize If all the certainty were in themselves as the Angels not Elect and Adam fail'd or fell short But the Prize it self to be given to them who do Fight and Run is in the nature of the thing out of themselves and in God alone and is assur'd by his Righteousness and Veracity that cannot fail This remainder is so Connexed as not possible to be separated from what went before and more Impossible by far to fail then what went before as in us but as all is sure in the Great surety It is to be fulfilled in all his Even as the Debt He paid for them is set far above all doubts 2. In this assurance of the Prize the Apostle speaks so triumphingly of he says The Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me He Styles the Lord the Judge and the Righteous Judge in agreement with the custom of those Games In which there was a Person solemnly constituted who should adjudge the Prizes
Israel over Jordan but to come up to Mount Nebo and to Dye Deut. 33. God plainly sent to Hezekiah to set His House in Order and to Dye against which Prohibition that it might be under as it were an Arrest of Judgment He so earnestly Prayed It is therefore to be duly considered That for the Display of the Judgment and Indignation of God against sin and because of the present State of the Saints under a Remaining Body of Sin and so of Death and in the present State of this World full of Sin and Evil and of so many of the Children of Adam Children of Death even of the Second Death In the Wisdom and Holiness of God It was by the Counsel of the Father and the Son that Death should continue and have the Face of a Judgment and of a Legal Prohibition to continue in the Service of God any longer on Earth Till the Kingdom of Christ the Kingdom of Redemption should bring in a State of the Living Saints then Remaining being chang'd and not to Dye 2. Jesus Christ our Lord Because the Children were Partakers of Flesh and Blood He took part of the same that through Death He might subdue Him that had the Power of Death that is the Devil and Deliver them who all their Life were subject to Bondage by reason of the Fear of Death and now therefore Death came upon Him with the Violence and Terror of a Judgment from which He was taken and from Prison Esa 53. 8. By the Mighty Power of his Resurrection It becomes all His to submit then to the Face of a Judgment in Dying that they may be conform'd to their Captain and from the First Born Heb. 2. 14. Obj. It may be Objected against this necessity of Dying How were those two Enoch and Elias exempted from that sentence of the Righteous and Holy Law that is stretched out so upon all seeing sin had extended it self on them as well as on others Answ The Death of Jesus Christ stood as a Full Ransom and Price of Redemption from the very first promise so that it is not indeed a Point of Justice or of the Truth of God That Believers in Jesus Christ are served as I may so speak with a Prohibition by Death but a Wise and Holy Dispensation of Government with Relation to the Servants of God in the present World where therefore in that wise Government God thinks fit there might be such an exemption from the General Statute of Dying or Prohibition by Death as of Enoch and Elijah and many more Examples of such Exemptions there might have been if He had seen Good having received such full satisfaction to his Law and to his Justice and He hath it in reserve an Universal Exemption at the Kingdom of Christ the Kingdom of Redemption when the Apostle says We shall not all dye but we shall all be changed and he prefaces before it Behold I shew you a mystery And I am much perswaded and even assured These two were Types of the Living Remaining caught up to meet the Lord in the Air 1 Cor. 15. He delivers up the Kingdom to God even the Father and hath put down all Rule Authority and the last Enemy and cast it into the Lake Rev. 20. ult When the Gentle Hand of Power shall Transpose the Saints as the Great Prophet Enoch of the Lord coming with Ten Thousand of his Saints and the Living Remaining changed and the Flames of Fire upon All Enemies shall convey them as in Elijahs Chariot to Heaven 3. The Judiciary part of Death is absolutely removed For the Sting of Death is Sin and the strength of Sin is the Law but thanks be to God who hath given us the Victory through Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 15. 12. So that Death is to Saints a sleeping in Jesus a Resting from Labours an entring into Rest a becoming present with the Lord A being with Christ a being in Paradise a being clothed upon with our House from Heaven And to shew It was not a Deadly stroke Before the Pronunciation of that Universal Prohibition of continuing here Dust thou Art and to Dust thou shalt Return Death was more gently express'd and with assurance of Victory The Womans Seed shall break the Serpents Head but the Serpent shall only Bruise the Heel of the Womans Seed Applic. I will now by way of Applicatory Review close the whole How fit this Context of the Apostle is to a Discourse with Relation to the Death of one or more of the Servants of God appears by the Apostles Preface to it I am even now as it were already as in Conformity to my Great Lord Offered and Sacrificed as a Martyr and the Time of my Dissolution is at Hand and so He goes on I have Fought c. As if He Preached his own Funeral Sermon while Living and a Great one it is but it hath its Principal sense in Christ and in God as appears in the following Part of the Chapter v. 17. wherein we have this Great acknowledgment that in his Fighting the Good Fight and Finishing his Course the Lord stood with Him strengthened Him that by Him the Preaching might be Fully known and the Gentiles hear and the Lord Delivered Him out of the Mouth of the Lyon the Lord would deliver Him from every Evil Work and preserve Him unto His Heavenly Kingdom and to Him he ascribes the Glory of All for Ever And He Includes all Saints Even all who Love the appearing of Jesus Christ this High Elogium or Speech of Praise else I must acknowledge I have no Opinion of the Large Encomiums or Praisings used in Funeral Sermons observing the Grand Exemplar of them Gods Gracious Remembrance of Moses John 1. Moses my Servant is Dead and no more and yet that Fixed so Dashing a Character of Honour upon Him that He is remembred by it to the Last Rev. 15. They Sang the Song of Moses the Servant of God and of the Lamb But this of the Apostle Joyned with that of Heb. 7. 23. Gives me such a History of the Life and Death of Saints That I cannot but Recommend it to all the Servants of Christ as the most excellent Rule of Life and as the Ground of the most Consolatory Hope in Death and that the very Discourse of it may be upon the Deceased Christian Friend a Memorial of Honour And so I most Humbly Recommend it to the Relations of all the Friends of the so many lately Removed Servants of God and of this Particular one the occasion of whose Death it is Published through Him who though the Eternal Liver as the Son of God without Beginning or End of Days yet in our Nature Became Dead for our sakes but behold He is Alive for Evermore Even so have all his Servants Reason to say Even so Amen And He hath the. Keys of Hell and Death Let Him Lay His Hand on his Servants of God in this Discourse and Bless it to Them and to his Servants of all States and Conditions saying unto them Fear not And to Him be Glory for Ever FINIS