that befall the wicked chastisements Levit. 26 28. Deutr. 11 2 3. Ps 94 10. Ier. 30 14. Nor doe I well understand how that which is in it selfe and owne nature a punishment should ever be otherwise tho it com from different causes I know and is used for different ends and effects or how thô afflictions may be chastisements to the righteous whilst they live their death can be so to them and much les how that of Infants which make so great a part of mankind and if of believing parents are charitably judged by most and I would be glad to see well proved are righteous and saved for the Apostle makes it the effect of Adams transgression and therefore properly a punishment Rom. 5 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 15 21 22. And therfore that distinction allso used by Dally and others that death to the righteous is only materially or improperly a punishment not formally as the cutting or burning a patient by a Phisitian differs from the like inflicted out of Justice by a Judge on an offender seems not consonant to the Apostle's doctrine seeing death is inflicted by the law-giver for the breach of his law whereas a Patient suffers not as a malefactor It is true that neither death nor any other punishments of the Righteous are meerly vindictive in reference to satisfaction for sin as the Papists mantaine Christ having fully satisfied for their sins and procured the pardon of them which upon their believing is granted them by the covenant of grace but not so as to free them from the temporal evils of this life or death and their bodies lieing in the dust these being excepted after the promis of the Messias Gen. 3. For God having given man a law and threatned his transgressing it with death which implies the temporal of the body the spiritual of the soul and the eternal of both our first parents comprehending all man-kind having trangrest it God coms and hold Assizes summons them to appeare before him charges them with their sin convinces them of their guiltines and then allaying the severity of his Justice with Mercy and free Grace first promiseth a Messias and Salvation and deliverance through him from their Sins by his satisfaction to Justice for them so as he had determined and after agreed with Christ the seed of the Woman in the Covenant of Redemption so that though they and all in them had Sinned and come short of the Glory of God being Spiritually dead in Tresspasses and Sins and therby liable to eternal Death yet they and all their rightteous Seed should be Saved by the Messias from these two kinds of Death which are the great destructive penalties of Sinners And then proceeds to Sentence them what they should all suffer notwithstanding First the Woman who was first in fault declaring her peculiar Punishment as to her Sex besides those common to her with Man in her sorrowful Conception bringing forth and subjection to her Husband and then the Man and all mankind in him both Men and Women are sentenced to Misery in this Life mortality and their Bodies lying in the dust from whence they were taken The Promise and its preceding the Sentence implying that all those tâ—at imbraced God's Mercy through the Messias should have no other Punishment then these temporal and all those that rejected it and so remaining on their first terms with their Creator commonly call'd The Covenant of Works should suffer the Death threatned therein for their Transgressions The Execution of this Sentence hath continued ever since and will continue till the Resurrection that all may feel the bitter fruits of their Apostacy in these temporal Punishments for the bettering of God's People not for their satisfying Justice for their Sins as the Papists affirm seeing they neither can no meer Man much less Sinful being able to satisfy divine Justice for the least offence nor have need Christ having done this sufficiently for them and for the leaving the incorrigible Wicked that will not be bettered by them the more inexcusable in their suffering Eternal Punishment So that those metaphorical expressions of Pardon of Sins by God 's not seeing or remembring them blotting them out covering them casting them behind his back and into the bottom of the Sea c. denoting the plenariness thereof and those sayings of our Divines remtssa cuspà remittitur poena and that Justification takes away all Punishment c. must be understood according to the Covenant of Grace and agreably with the execution of God's sentence upon Sinners For thô remission on of Sin be nothing else then the remission of its puishment yet it s that punishment only which is opposite to pardon such as belongs to the impenitent and is Eternal whereas all those whom God justifies he also glorifies Insomuch that thô the righteous have through Christ the remission of their Sins and eternal Punishment granted them in the Covenant of Grace together with a sanctified use of their temporal that they shall all work together for their good and the sting of Death taken out of their Sin that brought it in being now thereby turn'd out again and victory over the Grave in the Redemptiom of their bodies from their Captivity under it at the Resurrection yet Death is still in all the degrees of it antecedent in the miseries of this Life and kinds of it first and second or temporal and eternal the wages of Sin according to the original threatning And temporal Death a punishment in all according to the original Sentence thô to the Righteous Eternal Life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ their Lord who hath abolish'd Death or Sin which is Spiritul Death and Eternal the consequent thereof thô not their Temporal and brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel from the first promise of himself still more clearly and by himself at last most fully to whom be Glory Rom. 6 23. 2 Tim. 1 10. 2. The causes or reasons of the Adjuncts of Death in the kinds manner and other circumstances thereof as why some die a violent others a natural Death these suddenly those leisurely one sooner another later or at such times or places rather than others are in the ordinary course of Providence of which we speak secret to us thô well known to the all-wise God There being such a stupendious variety herein that as in living faces so in dying persons ther 's no perfect agreement in all circumstances each of which are particularly and only known to him who numbers the hairs of our heads and so orders and governs every single person and thing as if it were all he had to do and so all things as if he were not imployed in any particulars The Apostle gives us the clearest account hereof that I know in few words saying God worketh all things after the Councel of his own Will Ephes 1 11. where we have counsel directing will determining and power working or executing all things
so that as he hath right by Creation and continual preservation of all his Creatures to govern them as he pleases so his understanding being infinite his will just and his power almighty his government in all he doth must needs be most excellently perfect But who hath known the mind of the Lord or been his counceller and acquainted with his secrets for which reason we should with the Apostle humbly adore them and not vainly enquire after them presumptuously prying into those things which belong not to us O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom aed knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Rom. 11.33 34. But thô we must not be curious to know what we ought not we must not be careless to know what we ought Scripture frequently requiring us to observe God's dealings incouraging us thereto and condemning the neglect thereof Let us therefore proceed more particularly and for the understanding these riddles of Gods Providence plow with his Heifer the Sacred Scriptures wherin we have a multitude of examples for our instruction and rules also for our direction that we may wisely consider his doings as we are commanded These kinds and manner of Death are considerable in reference to God the persons that Die and the Living that survive As they come from God so they are in themselves Punishments for the breach of his law but very different in their causes and effects according to the diversity of the subjects they are inflicted upon or that are therein concern'd which we must carefully regard lest we dangerously mistake For which end we must consider I. That as all God's glorious Attributes whereby he is pleased to display himselfe are equally in him so those that relate to his government are alwayes jointly though unequally exercised in his works in this world even those that to us seem most opposite as his Mercy and Justice which are singly exercised in the world to come Even the Devils have some Mercy and Patiance mixt with Justice at present being reserved in chains as malefactors unto Judgement for greater Punishments who yet feel so great that they believe and tremble for fear of their future Jude 6. James 2 19. And in the greatest severity towards Men God in wrath remembers some Mercy even to the worst that he suddenly destroys besides the remnant that he saves in warning them before delaying till their iniquities be full and mittigating their Punishment in taking them away none suffering to the utmost here nor none so much hereafter as they should had they lived longer ' to treasure up more Sins against the day of Wrath as the old World Sodom and Gomorrah the Amorites Amalakites and many others But though Justice be very apparently the chief reason of some Punishments especially those extraordinary commonly called Judgements and such as are general yet for the most part especially in particular and ordinary cases God hath many other reasons and greater than that we imagine some of which though unkown at present are yet well known afterwards If not here to be sure hereafter when we shall see a distinct exercise of those Attributes that here are mixt so that there will be no Atheists or Unbelievers of Gods Justice in Hell nor no mistakes of Gods Judgment and Mercies in Heaven In the mean time from this manifold Wisdom of God and the mixture of causes joyntly acting in this Life we may see the fundamental ground of our mistaking Gods dealings with us here and learn to take heed that we separate not those reasons which appears not to us from those which seem most apparent and so divide where we should only distinguish which often arises from our narrow conceptions of the great and holy God and his ways judging of him too often by our selves thô he hath told us that his thoughts and ways are not ours but as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so are his thoughts and ways higher than ours in Pardoning the Penitent which is the choicest of Mercies however they be otherwise dealt with in this World Isa 55.7 8 9. So that though we must take notice of Gods Justice in all Punishments acknowledging our Sins to have deserved greater yet not only and as separate from his goodness and Mercy which may be greater therein for any thing we know though not so manifest at present lest we mistake the Righteouss God in these his judicial dispensations Lam. 3 18-26 In the next place let 's consider the dieing Persons themselves and they are either Righteouss or Wicked there being no middle state and consequently their Death is an entrance into their future Happiness or Misery Now in regard we cannot judge of the Spiritual and Eternal condition of those that die suddenly but by their lives ' for us to conclude either way of them as is too customary from the manner of Death seeing all these externals fall alike to all is great uncharitableness on the one hand or gross presumption on the other To be sure if they belong to God it is more in Mercy to them than in Justice as in freeing them from the fear of Death that King of Terrors as Job calls it or future backslidings and loss of God's Favour which is worse to God's People than Death it self his loving kindness to them being better than Life or taking them away from the evil to come and many other ways unknown to us And is more eligible to those prepared then a lingring in regard of its end and for a greater good as the sudden cutting off an Arm or a Leg to save the Life so that the Apostle groand earnestly desiring it not for that he would be unclothed or desired only to die but for its consequents to be clothed upon that Mortality might be swallowed up of Life 2 Cor. 5. v. 4 Though to the wicked or unprepared this circumstance is a sad aggravation as I suggested before and the best of God's Servants in the want of Assurance cry with David to God O spare me that I may recover strength before I go hence yet to them there is more fear than danger their great and blessed Physitian so mixing the poyson of Death with stronger ingredients that sometimes are cordials to comfort them and always means to cure them perfectly of all their and Sins Miseries so that Death in general of what kind soever is reckoned amongst the privilidges of Believers in subordination to their future Glory 1. Cor 3.22 As to the surviving the Death of Relations and Friends in what manner soever is to be accounted an Afflilction in the general but very different many ways according to the qualifications of the Dead and Living their nearness in Relation dearness in Affection kindness and other circumstances aggravating or extenuating the loss and according to their future use both as to Temporal and Spiritual good and their being Sanctified accordingly or otherwise not improved But herein we must
Ezeh 16.50 so when som are extraordinarily delivered that is allso ascribed to his soveraignty and befalls the wicked as wel as the righteous as scripture shews us I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and ye were as a firebrand pluckt out of the burning yet have ye not returnd unto me saith the Lord. Amos. 4.11 So that the experience of all ages verisies Salomon's words which ate interpretative not exclusive of providence and shews how things goe ordinarily under its conduct when he saith all things come alike to all there is one event to the righteous and to the wickâ—d Eccles 9.2 The same manner of afflictions and death materially befalling the one as the other By which unseeming providence God secures his people from the rage and malice of Sathan and wicked men in this world which would not be habitable for saints if they were certainly known and keeps off the scandal of Religion none knowing who are sincere or only hypocritical and mens coming to him for base ends whereby we should have more professors but worse Christians It being sufficient for his people's security that he knows them perfectly and makes a difference between them and the wicked of the world in the same providence where we can make none in his fatherly affection to them therein in his intention direction and ordering thereof for their good and in his issuing all in their eternal salvation 2 As we must not judge amis of God's proceedings so neither must we rashly judg of those so taken away Either of the cause like the Barbarians that judged the Aposte Paul a murderer from the viper fastning on his hand thinking he would fall down dead suddenly of which I have spoken in the reasons or of their eternal state and condition For if the life be good no manner of death is bad and if the life be bad the death is seldom good no evil of punishment but only of sin abates God's fatherly affection to his children but rather increases it or any way lessens their interest in his favor witnes Abel and all the Prophets to Zacharias slain between the Temple and altar Stephen and all the Apostles and Martyrs and best of men in all ages I know but one place of scripture that looks like judging mens eternal state by temporal judgments and that is of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them suffering the vengeance of eternal fire Jude 7. Which yet is not meant of the next world in hell thô being the worst we read of and not ten righteous amongst them are damned most of them as Christ that knew intimates when he saith Math. 11. it shall be more tolerable for them than Corazin at the day of judgment the degree implying the kind but only the duration of the judgment in this world and as an emblem of the day of judgment when God shal bring a diluviam ignis as Irenaus calls it or rain hell out of heaven upon the world that now is and of the punishment of the wicked as the Psalmist alluding therto tells us this shall be the portion of their cup Ps 11.6 Learne we then to goe no further than scripture that speaks sparingly of mens eternal state and never that I know of concludes damnation from God's punishments here but allways from mens sins unrepented of and let us make no conclusions upon such false grounds nor presume to ascend Christs tribunal in condemning any to eternal punishments Pererius and others are too bold in asserting all the old world that were drowned except infants were damned For not to mention their number that world in all probability being as populous as the present and granting the generality were even of the sons of God that had corrupted their ways yet scripture speaking only indefinitly it is not for us to make it universal that all had or that nome repented upon the flood 's approaching allbeit God only establisht covenant with Noah and his family as afterwards with Abraham and his as the best in their generations Nor lastly must we censure the Relations of any suddenly taken away as if it were for som extraordinary sins that God so deals with them Which was the fault of Job's three friends For the devil whom God ordinarily restrains of his will more than wicked men in regard of his great malice and power and his being in termino or condemnd thô not fully executed whereas men are here only in via or probationers in reference to their future judgment having accused Job falsly and being by God extraordinarily permitted his pleasure on all he hath for the tryal and exercise of this noble champion begins with his estate knowing Job would have valewed that less if he had before lost his children then destroys them allso suddenly sparing the wife that was in his power who it should seem was none of the best for his second in this combat And his friends knowing these things and seeing his bodily sufferings allso to be very great allthô the loss of his children seems his greatest outward affliction his personal being greater in his inward troubles of spirit than bodily for thô he was greivously sore and pained yet not heart-sick or in dainger of death they in stead of comforting him add affliction to the afflicted censure him as unrighteous and think to prove him so by this argument That he that is sorely afflicted of God is either an open sinner or secret hypocrite this Job denies and disputes it with them and Elihu moderates determining God's favor and afflictions to be consistent which God confirms and shews his displeasure against the others Let this example of these good men's censoriousnes keep us from playing the Criticks in such cases and to judge nothing before the time either of God or men rashly lest he deal with us after our folly but stay till this dust that blinds us be blown out of our eyes and then shall we see clearly the reason of all at the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God Rom. 2.5 5 For Application to those especially concernd in the loss of their deare Relations that they bear it Christianly I need say the less of this because many have said so much tho the practise of most is not answerable and especially those that are surprized For the suddennes thereof discomposes our minds makes us inconsiderate and laying aside the rule both of scripture and reason comply with present sense quarelling with God as Jonah for the loss of his guord or any thing next us as the cause thereof as Job's wife with her husbands religion and the good widow with Elijah for the sudden death of her son 1 Kings 17. Briefly therfore 1 Eye God as the author and orderer of all that befalls us His soverainty power goodnes justice wisdom c. in the kind manner measure time and issue of afflictions David was dumb in silence opened not his mouth in murmuring
or complaining because God did it Ps 39.9 Peter looks only at Christ's enemies and quarrels Christ at God and submits to death the cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it Jâ—b 18.11 If Epictetus could say I have yielded my desires to God how much more should we that are Christians 2 Be sensible of thy sins and deserts for them so wilst thou more willingly accept and better beare the punishment of them Wherfore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Lam. 3.39 I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him saith the Church Micah 7.9 Those complain most that least know themselves and their sins 3 Compare our sufferings several ways and we shall see small reason for impatience under them of what kind soever they be As 1 with our sins The Church complaind there was no sorrow like hers yet after acknowledges it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed and thou our God hast punisht us less than our iniquities deserve Which is true of the greatest punishments on this side hell For if we had our desert in stead of weeping here for wives or children and as Rachel will not be comforted because they are not we might be howling there in despaire in a state for ever uncable of the least comfort 2 With our enjoyments Many mercies for one affliction many spiritual mercies for one temporal affliction 3 With the suffering of others What are any of ours to Job's and many of God's best servants whom he often strips not of one only but of most or all their earthly comforts at once If all men or especially God's people should bring their miseries together and lay them in a common heap none of us should have our share by much 4 With the good we may gather by them As to fins for the discovering them to us and making us search and try our wayes and turne again to the Lord. For the curing them in us as security pride hypocrisie worldlines doting on creature comforts unprofitablnes under the means of grace c. And for the preventing sin from us Which otherwise we should he apt to fall into if God did not hedge up our way with these thorns So in reference to graces Afflictions being as fire to refine and purify them and make for the exercising improving and quickening of them as our faith hope love zeale patience experience humility heavenly-mindednes prayer c. And in regard of more communion with God here and more glory in heaven hereafter The loss of friends is abundantly made up in more enjoyment of God which his people experience frequently who never enjoy him so much as when they enjoy the creature least May not Christ say am I not better then all these These all die away but God and Christ remain the same A good woman when her friends died would often say well however my God lives at length her husband dying she lamented bitterly that her child askt her Mother is your God dead at which she took up blaming her self for her impatience And the Apostle declares That our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us not meritoriously but occasionally and instrumentally when sanctified a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 4 Let faith and patience have their perfect work in you Faith in God through Christ and the promises for a holy use and blessed effect of these sad providences it being He that teaches you to profit by them making you partakers of his holines and them to yield the peaceable fruit of righteousnes Patience to bear them aright in a holy submission and compliance with Gods will in the greatest crosnes of events when you have rekond comforts and are arrested with sorrows If the vertue of patience be as Seneca faith a salve for all soars much more the grace which thô it make not miseries none yet keeps us from being miserable by them In our duty it is good to doe that of choice we must doe of necessity Quarrel not therfore with God for this is but like the wild and ignorant Indians that shoot their arrows at the sun when it scorches them which fall back upon their own heads Nor repine at his dealings for this will but double the affliction not remedy it Say not I could beare any cross but this For you doe but deceive your self in this plea for your impatience being most sensible of the present having forgot former and not knowing or much regarding future as we are allways most sensible of the present weather And were it so as you think it is not for you to choose your own crosses no more than your comforts Check your selves and indulge not impatience which discomposes and unfits you for your duty both towards God and men as we see in Jonah whose prayers in that temper are nothing but quarrelling with God Be not so sinfully selfish as to wish them so much to their loss as to be with you again who have finished their course past the fears and pangs of death left this troublesom world and got rid of their sins and Satan's temptations and crowned with righteousnes in eternal life Envy not the early happines of thy wife that is gon to a better husband nor of thy child that is gon to his heavenly Father But prepare thou to follow and be with Christ and them in heaven where there will be no more parting Now that God by the clouds gathering so thick and black about us threatens us with a dreadful storm we have reason to count them more than ordinary blest and happy that are got safe home to their father's house and those heavenly mansions out of the reach of men or devils God's smoking us out of these houses of clay by these particular providences allso may and justly should make our eyes water but not be filld with tears or our hearts with sorrows too much either in degree or duration for those gon before us who might say to us as Christ to the daughters of Jerusalem weep not for us but for your selves and your children that are left behind in the days a coming in a troublesom world And that none should sorrow for this our sister as others which have no hope I might shew more largely if I had known her longer Who thô taken from us in an hour we thought not yet we have reason to believe neither unthought of nor unprepared for by her not only in regard of the hazardous condition she knew she was to pass thorow but the tenure of her life which was vertuous and unblamable her conversation having been answerable to her pious education The certainty of death and uncertainty of the time is not more commonly said than abused by the most who in stead of being allways ready because they know not the time are less ready at all times but the godly wise have not so learned Christ who have been taught by him to watch because they know not what hour he will come To speak of that good in her which she held in common with all other Christians is needles In these loose and declining times she kept her integrity and was at more than ordinary pains for the injoyment of the publique ordinances both in season and out of season as God afforded opportunity How should her early rising to them shame most of us for our sloth if we had any shame in us She redeemed the time in these evil days for her private devotion not vainly spending it in pleasure as too many doe but improving it for eternity making God's word her companion and counsellor Her converse and carriage was modest and prudent guiding both her tongue and affairs with discretion Never speaking evil of any or censoriously judging of others as the unbridled and licentious tongues of many that run at random who feare not to speak evil of dignities and spare not uncharitably to censure all and often better than themselves because they are not of their way In brief she was a Mary in God's house as well as a Martha in her own Finally for her eternal salvation she was nether presumtuously confident as the ignorant nor fearfully diffident as the unbelievers but in a way of duty reposed her soul on Gods mercy and the merits of her Savior being wont to say the feared death but not to be dead Who seemed to be heard in that she feared God removing death as it were out of her sight by those apoplectical or convulsive fits that seised on her and made her senseles wherby death became less terrible to her at least if it was any terror at all And for a Christian sensible of sin and future judgement and eternity not to be affraid to be dead is to me an argument of more than ordinary faith in Christ and more than most of us I feare if we were put to it can truly say For such a one as Epicharmus whom Tully * L. 1. Tuscul Quaest Emori nolo sed me esse mortuum nihil aestimo q. d. mortem horreo idque natura verum ubi fuero mortuus nihil amplius faciam quia nullus ero Pagnini Scholia mentions who neither believes the immortality of the soul or a future state to say so is no wonder but for a Christian that believes both is rare Let 's then comfort our selves that she sleeps sweetly in Jesus and get ready that at what hour soever he shall call for us we may not have our work to doe and both fear death and to be dead but may be fitted to give up our accounts with comfort and be ever with the Lord. FINIS
THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD In sudden Death ordinary and extraordinary vindicated and improved In a funeral SERMON for Mrs. MARY REVE Wife to Mr. NICHOLAS REVE Merchant First preached to the English Church in ROTTERDAM January 14. 1685. and since enlarged By JOSEPH HILL B. D. At ROTTERDAM Printed by REINIER LEERS M.DC.LXXXV TO RICHARD HUNTINGTON Esquire SIR THis Sormon which I preached for your daughter's sake ' out of my respects to her and supposal of this office for her had she died with you I now send you enlarged and printed Not for any sollicitations which is the usual modest excuse although I wanted not these from som Gentlewomen in her late condition but because I have not seen this subject notwithstanding the many occasions thereof handled by any thô it may be by some and I not know it And especially because God's providence which is as the soul in the worlds body ruling and acting all things in it is frequently misunderstood by many Some not only complaining when their exspectations are crost as Cato did of its darknes and obscurity and saying with Brutus that vertue is but nomen inane an empty name when they see such things befal the vertuous but are even ready with Epicurus to deny it altogether because of its seeming irregularity Others reading the many temporal promises in the Old Testament mostly relating to the Jews and some to particular persons as David or such places of Scripture as Psalm 91 are apt to judge providence to be so far from fulfilling the word that it is contrary to it and being not able to reconcile them are greatly staggerd and perplext I have therfore cast in my mite of endeavors to reconcile God's word with his works in this one branch of sudden death for satisfaction therein and from that ordinary in the Text and example taken occasion since to treat of most of those extraordinary in Scripture for the better illustrating thereof and this kind of providence both in general and particular in infants as wel as aged by reason of the litle one we have also lost The blessing of heaven accompany it for good to those that peruse it that God may have the glory of his truth and faithfulnes in his word and of equity and righteousnes in his works For your selfe Sir I am sensible what a ful and home blow God hath reacht you in cutting down tree and fruit together the loss of such a daughter with a grandson is great but it is the will of your heavenly Father to which I hope you have learnt to submit You might perhaps have been better satisfyed if she had died by you rather than at this distance but thô Rebekah like she left her native country and Father's house yet not God's nor without his especial providence who sets the solitary in families and fixes the bounds of our habitations And here she liv'd beloved and died lamented and thô she is buried in the dust yet not in oblivion all which to her is indeed fruitles yet may somwhat alleviate your sorrow that she was amongst those that valewd her worth That this sharp affliction may be sanctified so that you may make the best improvement thereof and that the blessed Spirit which is stiled the Comforter may comfort you and all concernd therein is the prayer of SIR Your Servant in the Lord. J. H. GOD'S PROVIDENCE in sudden death vindicated and improved GENESIS xxxv vers 19. And Rachel died and was buried in the way to Ephrath which is Bethlehem IAcob's life as most of God's eminent servants was made up of providences all in checquer-work being a mixture of mercies and miseries for the most part successively and some times joyntly throughout his pilgrimage And is more particularly described than any of the saints of God in Scripture he being the root of the future Church which God more regards then all the great Kingdoms of the world that are therfore past over in silence whilst poore Jacob with his staf and travels family and flocks remaine upon record to all generations That as Abraham and Isaac so he especially might be a patterne to his posterity whose servitude sufferings and increase in Egypt resembled his in Syria their being pursued at their coming thence with all their litle ones and great riches his by Laban and their passage to and abode in Canaan and after going into captivity his in many things and going in 's old age into Egypt But not to them only being now written for the instruction of us Gentiles allso on whom the ends of the world are come and is as all particular histories most profitable for all thô generall may be more pleasing to many Rom. 15 4. 1 Cor. 10 11. Let us therfore view a little the variety of God's dealings with this blessed Patriarch that in this Chapter lead to the text Wherby we may see how God freed him from his fears that he and all his should be destroyd by calling him to Bethel discouraging his enimies and bringing him safely thither to pay his vows which the good man had too long neglected v. 1-7 But thô this removal from his owne dwelling to God's house made a comfortable change yet he soon meets with an alteration for Deborah a grave and picus matron his mothers nurse and his deare friend dies there and is buried with great lamentation v. 8. Which the God of all consolations who usually knits his comforts to his people's crosses lets him not long proceed in but cloths him afresh with the garments of praise by appearing to him againe changing his name from Jacob to Israel and making great promises to him and his seed v. 9-15 But this glorious day of grace is followed with a very dark night of providence in the death of his most beloved Rachel which yet was not without the appearance of a bright star in the firmament of the Church by the birth of a 12th Patriarch his mothers Benoni but his fathers Benjamin From all which we may gather There 's no exspecting constant prosperity for Gods people on earth mercies without miseries are reserved for heaven Being now come to the paragraf of Rachels death which I have chosen as suitable to our Sister 's departed let none stop me with her father's speech to Jacob concerning her It must not be so done in our countrey Gen. 29 26. For thô I will not say as some doe that the want of funeral sermons makes funeral sorrows so small amongst us yet this I must and will say that all are too apt to run into extreams and either desspise the chastening of the Lord or faint when they are rebuked of him Hebr. 12 5. And therfore whatsoever may tend to remedy this is not onely seasonable but very needfull I know at the reformation of these Churches when the generallity of Magistrates and Ministers prevaild for this setlement thô Prince William and some others were Lutherans and this amongst other things of funeral sermons was
ventilated they were not judged necessary at the interment there being neither precept nor precedent in Scripture for more than decent buriall with lamentations nor any reason why they should not be made for the godly poore of exemplary lives and deaths as well as the rich whose purses generally procure them Yet upon occasions it was judged very necessary on the Lord's day or in weekly lectures to admonish the living of their mortality direct the sorrowfull Relations in their duty and stir up all to immitate laudable examples and prepare for following those departed in the faith Seing then it is not material whether we have the corps in a coffin before our eyes according to the custome in England or it be coverd with earth as here so that we have but the Deceased's life and death in our minds and memories for our betterment I shall proceed to shew you the agreablenes of this portion of Scripture to the present occasion Vers. 16. Shews where Jacob and his family were viz. but a litle way from Eprath whither they were going How exactly doth God in his providence set the bounds of journeys as wel as habitations the places and times of our lives and deaths And what befel them there Rachel travailed and had hard labor The best of women may have the bitterest pains in child-birth and the saddest remembrance of God's sentence In sorrow thou shalt bring forth child'ren Gen. 3 16. Vers 17. The midwife incourages her in her pains and fears with having another son i. e. besides Joseph she had allready But all in vaine she regards it not as in the like case Phineas wife 1 Sam. 4 20. Earthly comforts signify litle to dieing persons Vers. 18. Rachel who was not satisfied with Joseph alone but desired another son Gen. 30 24. now when she haith him calls him Ben-oni the son of my sorrow It is dangerous not to rest contented with our present injoyments When we desire creature comforts immoderatly God may grant them so that they not only proove comfortles but bitternes to us Numb 11 4 33. and Ps 78 29 30 31. The time when she thus named him was as her soule was in departing whereby her death as all others is set forth to us which the following words for she died declare Souls die not with our bodies They goe to God that gave them to be judged by him Eccles. 12 7. The union of our souls and bodies being life and their parting againe death 1 Kings 17 21 22. therfore dieing Stephen prays Lord Jesus receive my spirit Act. 7 59. But Jacob lost that name should be a continual renovation of his sorrow calls him Benjamin the son of the right hand denoting his affection to him Ps 80 17. It is wisdom to suit names to occasional providences Vers 19. In the Text we have I. Rachel's death II. Burial III. Place of both I. Rachel died Beutiful Rachel Jacob's dearly beloved Rachel dies whilst blear-eyed Leah lives The more we love any creature person or thing the more danger we are in to lose it God often times crossing our inordinate affections for our good in taking away our beloved comforts and sparing those that are despised Rachel that so passionately desired children that she said unto Jacob give me children or else I die Gen. 30 1. now dies by having them Our immoderate desires many times cost us very deare II. And was buried The most beloved alive when they are dead we desire to have buried out of our sight as Abraham said of Sarah Gen. 23 4. A decent burial of the dead is the living Relations duty Yea somtimes memorials of the deceased may be expedient when free from ostentation and superstition as we see in the following verse Jacob sets a pillar upon her grave as a standing monument of his affection and her desert III. In the way to Ephrath which is Beth-lehem Renowned for our Savior's birth called Beth-lehem Ephratah Micah 5 2. and of Judea Math. 2 1 5 6. to distinguish it from that in Galilee and the city of David Luke 2 4 John 7 42. for his birth and education as Zion was for his building and habitation 2 Sam. 5 7 9. c. which is by interpretation a house of bread and so most fitting for Christ's birth who was the Son of David according to the flesh and the true bread of life as he inculcates at least 7 times on one occasion Iohn 6 About a mile as some say that have seen the place short of this Beth-lehem Rachel dies in the way distant from her own and husbands friends in an unsetled condition without habitation We all may know where we were born but none knows where or in what condition they shall die And is there buried If we live the life and die the death of the righteous it matters not much where we are buried nor at what distance from the rest of our friends How delicate soever the body may be the carcas is not curious in what bed of dust it sleeps and the souls of Gods people find as neare a way to heaven from any one place upon earth as other Many superstitious people now adays would think themselves happy to die so neare Beth-lehem that they might be buried there But Jacob well knew that burial places are not of religious consideration but any fit place pointed out by providence might serve well enough for the best of his family Thô he and his son Joseph likewise that died in Egypt would have their body and bones buried in Canaan yet that was to testify their dieing in the faith of God's promis of that land â—o their posterity and to assure them of their return thither and therfore is otherwise of no consideration to us It is but of later times that any were buried in Churches or cities but allways abroad as all scripture and other Histories and laws allso witnes When the opinion of Purgatory and holines of places prevailed at first men would be buried nigh the Churches that they might be remembred in the prayers and oblations of those that met there and afterwards in them because they thought them more sacred which tho opposed by * V. Durantus de ritib. Ecclesiae l. 1. c. 23. Gerhardus de morte §. 78-88 many laws civil and Ecclesiastical and writers ancient and modern by some as an innovation others as superstitious and many as dangerous to the health of the living especially in times and places of infection yet all in vaine the tyrant custom hath so prevailed that it s grown too strong for all contradiction But I have deteyned you too long from that I chiefly designe which is not so much to speake of death and mortality as such a surprising death as this Scripture speaks of clearly to the occasion and to vindicate God's providence therein and shew what improvement we should make thereof D. God takes from us our dearest Relations and creature comforts sometimes suddenly when we least exspect
it and want them most That God the Author of life and death and all other mercies and miseries doth deprive his best servants as well as others indifferently of their greatest earthly comforts is most apparent by this and other Scriptures Eccless 8 14. 9 2. And that he doth this sometimes with most imbittering circumstances not only suddenly but unexspectedly allso which makes the providence more grievous especially at present as the sudden death of younger friends not exspected is hardlier borne than that of aged having been exspected long and at such times as these comforts are most wanted whereby their loss becoms a continued affliction and matter of constant grief afterwards is allso most evident by this history and many others I need not mention seeing the experience of all ages attest it For what Saint alive then or now so deare to God as Jacob what Relation so neare as a wife and what wife so beloved of a husband as Rachel for whom he served a 7 years apprenteship and how hard soever it was they seemd to him but a few days for the love he had to her Gen. 29 20. Yet notwithstanding God takes away from him this desire of his eyes with a sudden and unexspected stroke as he did after from the prophet Ezekiel c. 24. v. 16. For she had not gon her ful time with child as may be gatherd from their removal from Bethel and traveling towards their father Isaac's house in Hebron which in common prudence they would not have done if they had expected her coming in labor before they could have reached thither And was in a place of no accommodation being in the way nigh Ephrath before they could reach it surprisd with her pangs and must stay there whether in house or tent is not mentioned then which for a woman of her quality and estate nothing could be less exspected Moreover this being her second child it might be hoped in reason had she gon her full time she might with as much or more safety bring forth this than her former son in regard the first birth is usually the most dangerous and the fruit of the womb like that of the trees is easily gatherd when com to maturity Yet God that hath all persons times and places in his power brings her presently here not only to pas through the valley of the shaddow of death as all women doe in travail but allso through the gates of death it selfe dashing all their hopes of her safety and good Jacob thô very sorrowful no doubt is silent at it not once complaning the least that we read of because he knew it was his heavenly father's pleasure Thô it was allso at such a time as made his wound the deeper this befalling him when he had most need of her for his present solace in his afflictions from his childrens miscarriage and other crosses and future comfort in his old age his elder children being ready to marry and leave him and for the helping him in the education of Joseph and especially Benjamin now borne to them For as no earthly comforts are so great as those of man and wife or more alleviate their troubles from others so no nurse for a husband like his wife nor for children like their own mother I have been the larger in these circumstances because they set out history to the life and correspond most of them to the occasion our deceased Sister having come in travail before her time died of her second son c. and to my designe of speaking to such a death as is in the text suitable to the example before us Reasons of these kind of providences are many which I shall now proceed to handle taking it for granted all along amongst Christians that it is God that doth all these things by his over-ruling providence as Scripture every where declares But shall pas over most of the Efficient causes that are well known the Principal as God's being our soveraign Lord and therfore may so deale with any of us sinners and his will and pleasure which is so to deale with som as we see as also because he is infinitly wise knowing what things most conduce to his glory and our good and how by his Power to use them as well as work them for these ends and Jâ—st or righteous in all his ways and Holy in all his works and Good allso yea very Mercifull his tender mercies are over all his works Ps 145 9. and 17. Every of which and much more all of them serve to silence us and teach us submission tho we know not how to reconcile these concurring causes in many particular occurrences And the Instrumental causes as Angels men and other creatures imployed by God herein actively commanding them or permissively suffering them to execute his pleasure allways powerfully limiting ordering and over-ruling them so that he is to be eyed and owned in all that befalls us Job 1. And shall only speak of the Impulsive causes wherein the maine difficulty lies and afterwards of the Final I. The meritorious cause of these and all other punishments is sin for which the Justice of God inflicts them Sin being the transgression of Gods law and death the punishment threatned on all mankind for the same every death must needs be a punishment seeing it is the execution of the threatning and the destruction of the sinner And much more that which is sudden this circumstance being an aggravation thereof as appears by its being as such denounced Deutr. 7 4. 1 Sam. 2 31. Is. 29 5. and 30 13. Prov. 6 15. and 29 1. executed Job 22 16 and 36 14. Ps 37 2. Eccles 7 17. 1 Thes 5 3. bewailed Jer. 4 20 and 6 26. imprecated Ps 55 16 and deprecated as such Ps 102 25. The Pelagians indeed of old as the Socinians of late denyed mans mortality to be the effect of his sin affirming it to arise from his natural constitution at the first but were generally opposed therein and refuted by the Orthodox as Councels Fathers and Histories both general and of them particularly written by many * Alvarez Latius Vossius Jansenius Norris do declare It having been the constant opinion both of the ancient Jews and Christians that every kind of death was the punishment of sin as the learned Grotius de satisfactione assures us I confess many of our Divines writing against the Popish opinion of humane satisfaction to divine justice by sufferings in this life and purgatory afterwards granting death to be a punishment per se naturâ suâ * Dallaeus de poenis do yet deny it to be properly so to those whose sins are pardond through Christ distinguishing the afflictions of this life and death allso into chastissements of the righteous and punishments of the wicked But Scripture is not so nice calling those that befall the righteous punishments somtimes Ezra 9 13. Ier. 30 11. and 46 28. Lament 3 39. Amos 3 2. and somtimes those
with clear circumstances there we may judge of the chief reason or cause though there be several others concurring that we may make better use of examples as Scripture teaches us 1 Cor 10 5-10 Otherwise we must take heed of rushing into God's Secrets which belong not to us and only eye the general ends to make use of his Providences accordingly As where great and crying Sins goe before and the end is demonstration of Justice there we may see that 's the chief cause especially in extraordinary Punishments whereof we have many examples in Scripture And where also such Sinners are threatned there also truth appears in their being Punished as the Egyptians first born Ahaziah Joram Ahab Jezebel c. So when the Sin is clearly visible in the Death a Haman's Agag's and innumerable others that shed Man's Blood and accordingly have their own unexspectedly shed Or when destruction follows at the heels of great Sins as the three thousand Israelites slayn for the molten calf Exod. 32. and while the flesh was between their teeth the wrath of the Lord was kindled against them Numb 11. and Herod immediatly simitten and eaten of worms Acts. 12. And yet when the vindication of Gods laws and ordinances is manifested to be the end its hard to say whether his love to the truth and ordinances of his institution be not the chief reason thô justice be more discernable for we must not judge all those that are simitten and destroyed even by God's immediate hand to perish eternally And therfore it is observable that as God never appeard so terribly as at the giving the law from mount Sinai so his wrath was never so hot nor such severity used as against the first trangsgressors to assert the honor of his laws and make them more regarded afterwards As in the first idolatry after their promulgation Exod. 32 10. At the first burnt-offerings when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire that is common and not from the altar there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them the punishment suting to their sin Levit. 10. As afterwards Numb 16. when Corah and others descended from Levi endeavoured to make the priesthood common to all the Levites v. 10. and Dathan and Abiram Reubenites and others the politick power of Moses and the seventy elders newly establisht by God Ch. xi common with the rest the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up v. 32. and fire from the Lord consumed the two hundred and fifty that offered inconse v 35. whose censers God commanded to be used for a sign and memorial thereof v. 38. and 40. and for the peoples murmuring at this dispensation fourteen thousand and seven hundred of them dyed of the plague v. 49. So when God appoynted the punishment for presumtuoussins the first offender the man that punishment sticks on the sabbath day is by God's appoyntment stoned to death Numb 15. Thus God vindicated the honour of his ark with smiting the Philistines and after it's returne above fifty thousand of the men of Beth-shemesh shewing thereby that the ark was the same thô it had been among the uncircumcised and the effects of feare were answerable 1 Sam. c. 5. and c. 6. and after that Vzzah for his rash taking hold of it thô as seems to us for a good end for the oxen shook it so that David was affraid and we may suppose the people much more 2 Sam. 6. And thus allso God vindicated the honor of Christianity at the first planting of the Gospel in smiting Ananias and Sapphira so that great feare came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things Acts. 5. But where no notorious crimes preceed and other particular ends than justice appear there sudden death is the Occasion and God's love to his truth and messingers that declare it or servants that profess or suffer for it the chief cause and reason thereof As the widow of Sarepia's son raised to life by Elijah by which he is acknowledged a man of God and the word of the Lord in his mouth truth 1 Kings 17. the Shunammite's son by Elisha whose miracles resembled his master Elijah's 2 Kings 4. So Lazarus's as Christ declares to the messinger his sisters sent to him This sicknes is not unto death thô in its nature and next end it was yet not irrevocably as they feared but for the glory of God that the son of God might be glorified thereby intimating that this of Lazarus should be used as a means of glorifying God and his son in miraculous raising him again to life and therby confirming his office of Messiah and Doctrine of the Gospel as we read it did most eminently Jâ—hn 11. And the noble army of Martyrs whom God brings forth as his Champions for the truth shewing the power of his grace and their sincerity that they doe not serve God for wordly things as the devil slanderd Job but love him their Savior and his truth above their own lives and making their death which their enimies count ignominious honourable to him religion and themselves and using it to quite contrary ends than their persecutors design namely the increase and confirmation of his Church and people I have been the longer upon these extraordinary examples both to cleare the truth in the general and the several kinds of sudden death and allso in the ordinary cases that now follow to be more particularly spoken of For by a parity of reason it will follow that as God makes different use of like providences suting them to different ends and making them occasions and means of different effects in wonderful variety according to his infinite wisdom and power so he hath accordingly particular reasons that are just and weighty for his dispensations thô unknown to us except he discovers them as his justice in extraordinary punishments for enormous offences or his goodnes mercy and other causes when it is otherwise So that where no sins or ends and effects more than common there we are not able nor ought we to judge of God's reason why these rather than others are suddenly taken away either by diseases as apoplexies convulsions and the like or by pains as women in travel or by wars fire water and other accidents these things falling alike to all for if the kinds of death or any temporal punishments were infallible signs of God's hatred and temporal blessings of his love we could never reconcile God's word we are bound to believe with the works of providence which are but the fulfilling of it and the execution of his purposes In such cases therefore when God exercises us as Job who is set forth to us as a pattern of patience in dark providences prayed shew me why thou contendest with me c. 10. and waited for the end of the Lord so should we God many times dealing with us as Christ said to Peter what I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter As any one hearing Solomon's
sentence of dividing the child would have thought it cruelty if he had gon away without seeing or after knowing the end and effect much more may we mistake the Allwise God if we look on his providence by piece-meals and wait not till we see the issue For thô there be sin in all and that be the only meritorious cause of death yet that is original sin that is alike in all from Adam all being equally related to him so that thence coms no distinction of this or that kind of death but as most conceive from actual transgressions Which being not discernd in infants who yet die in great variety both in regard of diseases and violent murders their death is generally laid on their parents as the widow of Sarepia cried to Elijah art thou come unto me to call my sins to remembrance and to slay my son I Kings 17. For the Jews knew well that God visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children by many Scriptures threatning it and examples of it's being executed and appears particularly in that fearfull imprecation that Christ's blood might be on them and on their children the fulfilling whereof the whole nation lie under to their confusion and the confirmation of Christianity to this day But we must take heed of applying this alike to all for where no extraordinary sins God may and somtimes doth in soveraignty take away children elder or younger as Job's for tryal and other ends more than in justice lest we judge and speake amis of God's dealings with men as Job's friends and many others are accustomed to doe For when men see any misery befall any one out of the common road of providence having natural conceptions that sin and punishment are related they presently conclude that some extraordinary sins either of them or their parents are the procuring cause on their parts and punitive justice answering to it on God's part whereof we have many narratives in Scripture to which I confine my self of Barbarians Jews and Christians but I will only mention that in John 9. at present which hath occasioned most of the thoughts I have imparted concerning these impulsive causes considering that there is the same general nature in all evils of punishment as consisting in the privation of their opposit good The disciples rightly supposed that the blindnes of the man so born was from God justly that he punishes children for their parents sins but mistook in taking it for granted that either his parents or he in his soul before his body was formed had been more than ordinary sinners or in som kind at least which was the cause of his blindnes and asked Christ whether it was who answered neither hath this man sinned nor his parents that is as they meant and their question implyed not greaters sinners than others or in relation to this as the cause to the effect But that the works of God should be made manifest in him which intimates a quite different reason from what they imagined not God's punitive justice for either of their sins but his love to Christ and his doctrine in the manifesting his power in a miraculous cure and mercy to the blind man's soul to be the chief causes Where we may observe how Christ diverts them as every where else from curious enquiries resolving this affliction as an insaelicitas or misery into Gods soveraignty that denies or gives his blessings in kind or degree to whom when and in what manner he pleases it being lawful for him to do what he will with his own and denying it to be poena from justice for any greater or particular sins as they judged thô otherwise both were sinners and so a sufficient ground in point of justice to deprive either of sight or any other blessings in life or all in death yet this difference proceeded not there-from and then directs them by the final cause to judge of the impulsive or reason of this providence and to regard the ends and consequences thereof as that which concernd them which in this case were extraordinary in respect of the miracle and ordinary in regard of the spiritual good this affliction occasiond and wrought both for himself and others Les us therfore accordingly now apply our selves to the final cause or the reasons taken from the end not in reference to the dead which in ordinary cases is a secret to us as I have shewn but the living Which we must understand not of the finis operantis or what God designs in particular thereby which is different in all and no further known to us than as manifested by the effects or in general only as tending to his glory which if we speak properly is only his end and all things whatsoever without himself but means joyntly considered tending thereto and which he uses for the same Rom. 11 36 But the sinis operis in reference to us as these providences are means fitted by him for such ends as tend to the common good of the living which is allways superior to particular sufferings And thô sad experience shews us that for the most part providences have not the effects upon us answerable to their ends yet that 's through our default as we see allso in the ordinances and if so be these moral means obtain not their primary end as medicinal to better us yet their secondary serving at least to justify God and render those that make small or no use of them or contrary than they ought wholy inexcusable and more especially those who have the word to direct them and interpret to them their end and use For the end God's word declares allways implies the use we should make of every thing both in the general and particularly according to their kind and degree But I shall pass by the general ends of afflictions and death and only speak of those more peculiar to this kind of death I am upon nor yet of many that might be drawn from the ends thereof in reference to God his son and our Savior his word ordinances and graces of his spirit the good and evil things of this life our sins and those concernd nearly and remotely but of a few that are most comprehensive suggesting the suitable use of them the end implies that my future discourse may be more practical reserving those that are more particular for the Application I Then God thus suddenly and unexspectedly takes away som that the supremacy of his providence may be more apparent and himself thereby better known and acknowledged in the world That this is the general end of God's unexspected dealings with men in mercies and judgements extraordinary and all other cases above their-thoughts and contrivances appears by hundred places of Scripture relating both to his people and heathens exprest in those phrases that ye or they may know that I am the Lord and implied in the effect which is the end accomplisht for finis in actu positus dicitur effectus and
and we Christians ought and should and for which God is pleased to use them in his Church For thô we have the law that discovers sin and condemns sinners to eternal punishments and the Gospel that tenders us pardon and eternal salvation yet so great is our unbelief and the love of our lusts that we litle regard them till God awaken us and lets us see and feel experimentally by outward or inward troubles or both the evil of our sins and how destructive they are to us and therby bring us to condemn and loath them and our selves for them and valew his mercy through Christ for pardoning them For which ends he makes use especially of those that are most powerful to convince men of and affect them with his justice sins hainousnes the sinners desert and need of mercy Of which kind are those punishments which are generally inflicted on all apparently according to his threatnings wherein are seen the greatnes of the offence God's resolution to punish his power and impartiality in punishing great as well as small so that none can flatter themselves with hopes of impunity And those that have the offence legibly written upon them so that all may read the sin in the punishment and see God's equity therein whereby he is justified and the offender condemned even by himself as well as others as we find among the very heathen Judges 1. v. 7. And those punishments that are great and so shew the greatnes of the offence justice never proportioning them greater but mercy mitigating them to less than the offenders deserts All which kinds of punishment concur in death as most clearly appears by the scriptures which declare God's threatning thereof before and sentencing all it to it after for our apostacy Gen. c. 2. and c. 3. as a suitable punishment for our wilful despising of life virtually promist in the threatning of death and that which shews us the greatnes of our offence in that it is the greatest of punishments comprehending all other miseries as life it deprives us of all other mercies Rom. 6 23. And yet more signally do all these appeare in the kinds of death we this day celebrate the mother bringing forth in sorrow because the woman was first in the transgression and dying for her having transgrest and the litle infant for that only So that its better for us to goe to this house of mourning than feasting as Solomon saith Eccles 7 2. for that is the end of all men and therefore will be thine and mine and the living will lay it to heart intimating the reason of that being the end of all from the usefulnes thereof to the living that seriously will confider it as a spectacle of their own mortality whereof sin especially original was the moral cause whatever were the natural together with the manner thereof in regard of their inward and outward man How bitter therfore should the remembrance of and sorrow for our first transgression be to us and all other sins as proceding from it especially our wilful and deliberate offences which are as so many approbations of our first parents apostacy whereby we have so often declared we should have done as they did had we been in their place how hardly soever we are apt to think and many allso to speak of them And how acceptable should Christ be to us as the only Mediator to bring us back again to God from whom we have fallen and reconcile us to him whom we have offended who by his death hath redeemed their souls from destruction that will embrace him taken away sin the sting of death strength from the law to condemn them eternally sanctified the grave to their bodies by his own lying in it and by his resurrection given them assurance of their victory over it in their bodies rising again and being fashioned like to his glorious body For it is this our apostacy from God at first that brought in this sad separation of all our comfortable relations both spiritual between God our father and us and natural between husband and wife parents and children kindred and friends and soul and body at last here and both from happines for ever hereafter and also intaild upon us all miseries which are more in this life than can be numbered and greater in that to com than can be exprest And Christ only that makes up again the union for his people in spiritual relations his father ours himself our husband all his brethren and fisters and all necessary comforts in natural relations in this life and soul and body to meet again and both with happines for ever freeing us from eternal miseries and all those temporal which he procures not to work together for our good 4. That such as are taken away by untimely death may be examples and warnings to the living 1 To deter them from the like sins where they were notorious and the cause of their punishment every example of punitive justice being a fulfilling of the threatning of the law on the Offender and vertually a threatning for the like offence to others This course God took especially with his Church in its infancy training them up as we doe our children with temporal threats and promises mercies and judgements whereas now in its maturity under the Gospell on a better covenant he uses more especially spiritual promises of grace and salvation and threatnings of spiritual and eternal punishments and deals with us accordingly the more powerfully to allure us to holines and deter us from wickednes Yet in regard we are still men of like passions and no less moved with examples he declares this to be the end of all such temporal judgements to us Christians and requires us to make this use of them 1 Cor. 10.6 The Israelites suddenly destroyed several times in the wildernes saith the Apostle were our examples to the intent we should not lust after evil things as they allso lusted commanding us to avoid their sins thereafter mentioned and declaring that all these things happened to them for ensamples or types and are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come v. 7. 11. Thus the untimely death of many of the Corinthians for their profanation of the Lord's supper is recorded that we should beware thereof 1 Cor. 11. v. 30. So allso when the crime is apparent in the punishment as Paul's being guilty of stoning Stephen in his being stoned by the Jews and drawn out of the city supposing he had been dead thô he was miraculously revived or at least restored Acts 14.19 20. And this use we are to make of those extraordinary examples of God's judgments that fall out in all ages and nations for execrable murders perjury and dreadful imprecations great persecution and oppression c. wherein histories abound and †Reinold's God's Revenge of murder Camerarii opere subcisiva centur 1. c. 86. contur 3. c. 3 33 34 36.38 Gorrutius de providentia l.
meet him to awaken all for it s said they all slumbred and slept the wise virgins slumbred and the foolish slept so that none in the visible church but have need of wakening Math. 25. For as in nature troubles either feared or felt both awaken us out of our sleep and keep us from sleeping so in grace there being few Christians to be found that either the fears of death and judgements by som warnings of them or some inward or outward troubles have not awakend and kept watching We are naturally so sensual and immerst in the things of this life so regardles of God his word and our eternal concernments and so apt to put the evil day far from us that God is mercifully pleased by examples as wel as precepts and threats to rouse us up to consider our latter end that we may not run heedlesly on to our eternal destruction As it is usual with God to forewarne both nations and cities before he smites them as all histories both sacred and prosane testify we never reading of judgements but for mercies abused so allso particular persons there being none of years but have warning in this kind and may every where see graves shorter than their own For as security shakes off the feare of sin and misery and makes us look on death and judgement at a distance so the feare of them makes them seem neer us and to reflect upon our selves and the desert of our sins and consider our later end thereby becomming instrumental to make us serious which is the first step in religion and to turn our sloth into diligence our indifferency into earnestnes and our inconstancy into stablenes and resolution Lastly To bring us to repentance As this is the end of God's threatnings that he may not punish if we will repent so it s allso of his executing them that others may take warning all his providences being a fulfilling of som threat or promis in his word This even the Ninivites understood as appears by their practise upon Jonah's denunciation of their destruction and thus our Savior expounds these providences which are rich in sense as well as the word howbeit we seldom fully comprehend it Who preaching in Galilee was interrupted by some News-mongers from Jerusalem that told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices in Jerusalem for Pilate had no jurisdiction but Herod over the Galileans supposing they were some extraordinary sinners because they suffered such things Luke 13. Christ according to his great wisdom neither taxes Pilat's fact of cruelty as they might possibly suppose nor approves it nor denies those Galileans to be sinners and suffer justly but only that they were greater sinners than all the rest shewing that they were not to be judged as such because of their suffering and adds the like concerning those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew declaring from both these examples the general use the living should make of the sudden death of others which is to repent this being the end of Gods sparing us to give us time and space for repentance and his taking away others to stir us up to make use of our time accordingly And the more to awaken them to this duty shews the more especial use of these to them in a prophetical commination from the manner of their perishing making it a type or emblem to the living of their future destruction as Samuel did by Sauls rending his mantle of God's rending the Kingdom from him saying except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Denoting that as those Galileans were slain by Pilat the Roman governor and his soldjers so the Galileans should after by the Roman army and as the 18 in Jerusalem were slain by the fall of the tower in Siloam so the dwellers in Jerusalem should be by the fall of their other towers and walls Which they not repenting was accordingly accomplisht in both For the Romans first fel upon Galilee and destroyd great numbers of them and the rest flying to Jerusalem at the time of the passover were with other Jews slain in such abundance that the altar for sacrifices swimd with blood and multitudes of the inhabitants of Jerusalem it being besieged and taken by the Romans were slain by the battering of their walls and buried in the ruins of their city So dangerous is it to neglect repenting from the warnings given us and especially for those more immediatly concernd So great wisdom and safety is there in true repentance which will certainly save our souls from eternal and is the only way to save our persons also and estates from publick calamities and temporal destruction But oh the blindnes and stupidity of most part of men that when God's hand is lifted up they will not see it when he hedges up their sinfull ways with thorns will needs run through them when he smites som on their right hand and others on their left regard it not that can go and com from funerals without a serious thought of their own Common providences are but litle observed by us and therfore do but litle move and affect us but when we meet with unexspected occurrences or interruption of the ordinary course of time and nature in the death of any this is apt to startle us and make us bethink our selves more than usually and where grace sets in with it becoms a means to better and reform us Thus God often makes use of the sudden death of som to bring others first to themselves by consideration and afterwards to himself by repentance and especially those in the like condition when one is taken and another left som destroyd and others saved this making both a deeper and lastinger impression and those more neerly concernd in or related to the deceased For as we often think this or that occasiond their death and these or those things might have prevented it the thoughts whereof frequently trouble us afterwards so our former carriage towards them and theirs to us coms now afresh to our remembrance feeds our sorrow and lays the foundation of our repentance These and those things saith conscience thou shouldst have done and so and so thou shouldst have carried towards them and didst not and this and that thou shouldst not have done nor carried in this or that manner to them and didst thou might have got much good by them and hast not and done more good to them and wouldst not thou matterdst not what became of their souls and knowest thou what will becom of thine Then thinks the sinner what if their case had been mine where had I now been if I had been so hurried to judgment my conscience tells me I am not fit to die I cannot say my sins are pardond and my peace made with God whom I have so greatly offended he hath now warnd me to flee from the wrath to com and should I not take it shall I still except my self and say this
shall not be to me why should I think to be spared when others are taken away whose sins mine have exceeded the time by-past is too much to have wrought the will of the flesh I am resolved now to make better use of the present and future so long as God shall spare me to prepare for death and for eternity And as these providences are thus merciful means to bring about a blessed change in us so allso to cary it on still further and further How livelily doth sudden death set-forth to us the necessity of repentance in all the kinds of it As the vanity of the creature and the necessity of making God our portion the shortnes of our own righteousnes seeing we must appear before a just and holy God and the necessity of Christ and his righteousnes the evil of sin whereof we have nothing to exspect but shame and sorrow and the necessity of holines all its paths ending in peace and without which we shall never see God in happines And how much the same contributes to promote these gradually allso in us the constant experience of all Gods people abundantly witnes 5 That all may learn experimentally many particular and necessary lessons they formerly disregarded The light of nature shews us sundry of them and the light of scripture more clearly all of them but unbelief doubts of them sensuality constantly opposes them and as men asleep we generally neglect them God is therfore pleased to use unexspected providences which draw the curtain and let in the light so convincingly and sensibly upon us that without wilful shutting our eys we cannot withstand it that so his truth being taught and backt by our own experience may be more readily embraced and obeyed For experience is a more sensible argument than notions to convince us of the truth and less liable to ignorance and mistake for confirming us in it and more particular and prevalent with us to practise it Let me therfore name som of those excellent lessons which still hang on this one bough suddenly broken off from us As 1 the vanity and frailty of life Such a death cryes to us with the word all flesh is grass and all the goodlines thereof is as the flower of the field the wind passeth but over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more Is. 40.6 Ps 103.16 2 The nearnes of death and judgment If thou willst put these far from thee this summons will convince thee of thy folly that this night thy soul may be required of thee Luke 12.19 20. 3 The necessity of being prepared for thy dissolution For the night of death cometh whether thou thinks of it or no when no man can work there being no knowledg nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest no casting up thy accounts in the dark nor perfecting them with God in the grave Joh. 9.4 Eccles. 9.10 4 The danger of deferring thy preparation For in an hour thou thinks not of may Christ call thee to give an account of thy stewardship for thou shalt be no longer steward Math. 24. Luke 16. v. 2. 5 The pretiousnes of time to prepare for eternity For time is short and were it longer litle enough for so great a work and allso uncertain as thou seest and therfore not to be lavisht out upon thy lusts seeing thine eternal welfare depends upon it 1 Cor. 7.29 6 The vain hopes of living many years Since thou knowest not what a day may bring forth no more than what a woman with child whether male or female living or dead as t is this day Prov. 27.1 7 The groundles presumtion of a lingring death when thou seest some in a moment go down to the grave and many die in their full strength Job 21. 13 23. 8 How quickly the greatest hopes are dasht and expectations disappointed Here 's a child com to the birth and no streugth to bring forth but mother and child die together there 's a strong man saith with Agag surely the bitternes of death is past and the next hour it returns and carries him away 1 Sam. 15. 9 Moderation towards the things of this life For the Lord is at hand ready to call thee quickly from thy good things who makes them thy portion and then whose shall they be and where wilt thou be and to take thee who makes him thy happines from the evils of this life that they no more shall torment thee Philip 4.5 10 The different nature of earthly enjoyments and heavenly Earthly promise much and in the tryal faile our exspectations But heavenly we find best upon tryal and such as will never fail us nor forsake us Heb. 13.5 And lastly the vast difference between our present and future state Here we meet and part presently there we meet and never part here 's nothing but changes there 's none but a stable eternity 1 Thes 4.17 These Reasons I hope may suffice for the several sorts of sudden death mentioned on this occasion to justify God's proceedings therein and to shew us the gracious design of these kind of providences that seem of all others most dismal to us none so much as these conducing to the general good of mankind as tending to awaken us out of our security cure us of our spiritual distempers and point out to us and quicken us to our duty Let us see to it that we make use of them accordingly and what further improvement may be made of the present providence we shall now speake to by way of inference and application Vse 1. Hence learn the uncertain tenure or manner of holding our nearest Relations and dearest friends and acquaintance That seeing them liable continually to be lost we may be more sensible our enjoying them is but of meer curtesy and that we are but tenants at will for them and all our other earthly comforts to God the great Lord of all having by our sinful apostacy lost our right and title to the enjoyment of them which he gave us at first by the covenant of works in our creation For had we continued in our original state of integrity there would have been none of this sorrowful parting of friends but we should either have continued happy together on earth or without suffering death have been as S. Anstin and others think after some certain time translated into heaven and whether all together at last or successively at such a term of years it would have been matter of triumphant rejoycing to all But now having by sin forfeited and lost all our mercies God hath been graciously pleased in the covenant of grace to alter his dispensation not to trust us bank-rupts with a new stock in our own hands but to commit all to Christ in whom he hath treasurd up spiritual life for his people so that that is now in safe keeping being hid with Christ in God Colos 3.3 And this he hath assured us of by promise upon our fulfilling the condition
of the covenant but hath reserved temporal life and the comforts thereof in his soveraign pleasure to give continue or take away â—â—â—n and in what manner he pleases that we might entirely depend upon him for all So that if he will any day write a Jacob wiveles a Job childles a David friendles a Jeremiah comfortles there 's no reason to gainsay it no cause to complain or murmur at it much less to implead him for it seing he takes but his own that he had only lent us for a time never given or granted us absolutely to enjoy Is it any injury then when the time is expired to require his own Doth he make the matrimonial bond natural that husband and wife should die together Hath he tyed children to their parents feet or fastend them to their houses as their pictures not to be parted withal or removed If he lets us have our Relations a while here and then takes them into the gallery of heaven is it any detriment to them or us Are they not so better cared for and bestowed than they can be by us what ever we think and how much soever discontented Thou wilt be ready to say But why so soon Why so unexspectedly Hath not godlines the promise of this life as well as that to come And obedient children of their days being prolonged Very true godlines both interests us in God the giver and in all the promises for every good gift but for this life and all other temporal mercies only conditionally so far forth as is good for us So God will not only givo grace and glory but will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly Ps 84.11 But what and how must we account good things Spiritual good things indeed are absolutely good in themselves and for all and allways but temporal thô good in themselves yet neither for all nor allways but relatively onely in reference to the persons for that which is good for some is hurtful for others as one mans meat we say is another's poison and in subordiuation to greater good as this life in relation to eternal Now who is fittest to judg what is best for us and when The Father or the child the physitian or the patient the all-wise God or foolish man We sind what we thought worse proves for the better to us frequently and God's time fitter then our own thô hardly perswaded therof at present so that referring our selves to him our uncertainty is our greatest safety and the condition annext to temporal blessings so far from a diminution that it is an inhancing and confirmation of their promises For thereby we are assured that God will neither give his children any thing to their real prejudice nor take â—way any thing that was the best for them that if he deprives them of temporals it is for their spiritual good and all the crosses that befall them are better for them than the things they desire All which not only recommend godlines even in regard of the things of this life but are the greatest stay and security we can possibly have to support us under all the variety of changes that befall us in this evil world 2 This serves to weane our hearts from being immoderatly set on any of our Relations or creature comforts Which is the Apostle's inference 1 Cor. 7.29 30 31. Brethren the time is short it remaineth both that they that have wives be as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoyce as though they rejoyced not and they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Our fore-fathers are past away before us the marriage knot loosens daily and is either cut asunder by a violent or untyed by a natural death at last Brethren and sisters and a friend somtimes dearer than a brother part and are no more seen in the flesh our children that are our selves only wrapt up in other skins in whose life ours are ofren bound up are frequently snatcht out of our arms and if they croud us out of the world quickly follow us to our long home That as Xerxes beholding his great army wept to think they should all of them shortly be laid in the dust so may we over our living Relations as well as dead considering we are liable continually to lose them Let this then make us sit looser from them and take off our hearts 1 From our inordinate affection to them It is our wisdom to set our hearts upon nothing but that which is above the reach of dainger disappointment and to love nothing much but what we cannot love excessively As God that will be our portion for ever when all these and our own lives faile us and Christ our Savior that will make us happy with himself in heaven If any steal away our hearts from them and perk up in their place in our thoughts and affections its mercy that breaks down such idols and grinds them to powder or turns such comforts into crosses as would carry it in the competition with the blessed God and our dear Savior We are so bewitcht with these sensible enjoyments and are so taken up with them that even good Jacobs have need of imbittering circumstances to wean them from their Rachels and Josephs and holy Davids from their Michals and Absolons and all from their over-loved Relations and creature comforts How immoderately for the most part doe we desire them How eagerly doe we pursue them How ardently doe we love them How highly doe we valew them How excessively doe we delight in them How anxiously doe we keep them How passionate are we when crost in them How fearful are we of losing them How loth are we to part with them How perplext when we have lost them And yet all these inordinacies must be cured in us or we cannot be Christ's disciples Math. 10. v. 37. Luke 14.26 Which ordinary medicines will not doe these distempers are so strongly rooted in us and therfore the wise Physitian of souls is pleased often mercifully to use such severities as are necessary to imbitter our earthly comforts and endear himself and our Savior to us Who that duly considers how litle God's commands the promises of heaven the threatnings of hell Christ's calls and his Ministers pleadings prevail with men to love him more than father or mother wife or child as the Gospel requires but must acknowledg the usefulnes of these warnings to us for that end and the necessity of God's sharpest rods for Physick as well as his word for food for our souls and consequently the reason why it is the portion of his people to suffer affliction rather than the rest of the generality of the world Secondly From placing our happines in them Man in innocency had a mind to know a will to choose and affections to delight in God as his happines but since sin hath broke down his image
in us such is the wretchednes of our hearts that usually the better God is to us the worse we are to him and the more enjoyment he gives us of earthly friends the more we forget our heavenly father When we want and desire husbands wives children friends or any earthly comforts that we cannot obteine we seek God for them and when he threatens to take them from us we cry to him to spare us them but when we enjoy these even when he denies or takes them away from others and have most reason to eye and own him in them depend upon him for them and use them as encouragements to serve him that gives and continues them to us we are apt to forget him set these up in his room make them our God and take up with them as our portion so that he is then litle regarded of the most and less than he ought by the best When he therfore blows upon these blessings it is to bring us to set them in their due place and keep them so in subordination to himself and make us mind him more for the future and them less than formerly lest these streams of creature comforts that should lead us to him should draw us from him and drown us in perdition For now that reason through sin hath lost its soverainty over us sense lying so near us usually sways us and brings the soul not only to comply with the necessities of our present state in these Relations for the comfort of this life which is lawful being God's institution in innocency but to such a condescention to the body which only skils sensual things that for the most part men live a meer animal life without God in the world not like men capable of enjoying him much less like Christians How happy were it then that as by experience we learn the worth of these things by the want of them so we would allso their worthlesnes in comparison of him who is our only happines thus should we gain more by our parting with them than by our enjoying them com to make a happy exchange These providences duly considered and rightly used would recall us back again from the creature to God awaken conscience and make every one turn preacher to himself that God may have the prevailing choice Saying I see husband or wife parents or children are soon gon all of them but vanity miserable comforters are ye all I said I shall die in my nest my beloved yoke-fellow shall comfort me this son will be the staf of my old age that friend will be my support but how quickly am I disappoynted of one and may be of all these perishing comforts I still thought and hoped satisfaction would arise from these things I had a mind to liked and loved but find my self continually deceived I will therfore seek it no more in these houses of clay where it is not to be found but in the living God in whose enjoyment it is only to be had and then I may hope contentment with the portion of these he gives me will allso dwell with me which hath been all along so great a stranger How have I foolishly forsaken the fountane of living waters of salvation and been hewing out to my selfe one broken cistern after another of creature comforts when I stil found as fast as I made them they will hold no water I have too long dabled in these nether springs that only feed the winter brooks which dry up on a sudden when I most want them I will betake me to the upper springs of grace that flow continually which can only quench the thirsty desires of my soul Lord whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth I desire in comparison of thee all these faile me but thou wilt never faile me therfore I choose thee for my portion who wilt be so for ever Ps 73. And lastly from our dependence upon them for support and comfort Man fallen from God affects a self-sufficiency and finding the shortnes thereof in himself in stead of looking above and returning to him looks about him and cries who will shew me any good and fixing on such earthly blessings as he either hath or hopes for rests on them so that God is but a cypher and his blessings the figure with him till he see his mistake God indeed hath the name and profession of our faith but sad experience shews us how ready our hearts are to depart from him and to make the creature our confidence and if our projects and exspectations faile us therein to sit down in despondency as if there were no remedy Even the best of men are apt to over-reckon themselves in their hopes over-act their reliance on creature comforts and leane too much on these sensible supports till God lets them see what broken reeds they rely upon and upon what sandy foundations they build vast hopes which with the least puff of his displeasure fall to the ground Then the hearts of foolish Nabals die within them and holy Davids drawn to comfort themselves in their God Thus the Church forbidden to trust in a friend or those most neerly allyed and finding the disappoyntment of such adherence resolves I will look unto the Lord. Micah 7.5 6 7. Thus the wife depending on her husband when he is taken from her and she a desolate widow trusts in God 1 Tim. 5.5 Thus the child of whom we say as Lamech this same shall comfort us being taken away shews us our folly in reckoning so long before hand and on such uncertainties These providences as well as the word calls to us and saith Let not the wise man trust and glory in his wisdom seing unexspected events daily confound the wisest nor the strong man in his strength which every sicknes or small accident destroys nor the rich man in his riches which on a sudden take to themselves wings fly away out of his reach nor husband and wife parents and children friends and acquaintance in one another which die and perish we see daily but all in the living God at all times who it the only rock to be relyed on all these being unstable as water the Father of mercies when all these becom miseries and the God of all comfort when these can yield us none at all Jer. 9.23 Ps 62.8.2 Cor. 1.3 3 This shews us the necessity of being allways ready for death and prepared for the death of ours that we may not be surprised how suddenly soever either shall happen The double example this day before us summons us to this duty seing then we have lost the comfort of their lives le ts not lose this benefit of their deaths If the warnings of God's word hath not awakend us let these alarms of his providence doe it All grant it necessary to provide for this great change of time with eternity and yet how wofully is it for the most part neglected Men are so taken up
with this world especially the healthful and those that wallow in pleasure and prosperity that they have neither list nor leisure to think seriously and prepare for the next As if they were priviledged from the like stroke and had a protection from death's arresting them or when it doth could bride it off for some time or make such a covenant with hell as will secure them So great is the security and stupidity of most that they regard not these warnings nor think themselves longer concernd when once the funerals are over Therfore that we may make better use of them 1 Suppose the like or worse may befall thee or thine whilst secure sinners still suppose the best Not to disquiet thy selfe with groundles fears but to prepare for all events of providence which are so never the neerer thee but thou much fitter for them unexspected crosses of all others being the hardliest born Say then what befalls others may befall me allso by this supposition as a prospective bring thy own and thy friends death neer thee think of it frequently and converse with it familiarly that so neither may surprize thee Exempt not thy selfe or thy Relations from that which frequently befalls others How many are the acute diseases that quickly snap mans life asunder How many the casualties and accidents whereby men of all ranks and conditions have perisht in all ages and places unexspectedly * Plin. l. 7. c. 53. de mortibus repentinis Val. Max. l. 9. c. 12. Zuinger Theatrum l. 18. To reckon those recorded by authors and known to our selves would take up our whole time 2. Flatter not thy self that thou and thine shall live long and die leisurely Oh the vain and deceitful hopes that most have of living still on and on they know not how long The younger that have death on their backs think they must of course live to be aged the old that have death before their faces and gray hairs not only here and there upon them but all over them hope still of holding out yea when sicknes is entred and death at the door we still hope that we or ours shall escape with life I have seldom met with one so old that hoped not to rub aut som years longer and never with any to whom their years past and to com did not seem of a different length Looking backwards on many years past they count them but a short time and usually their work therein litle but looking forwards on a few before them reckon them long and what a deale of work they shall doe therein so casily doe we deceive our selves in numbering our days and measuring our work that will not be deceived by others in any accompt that is of concernment 3 Reckon life by days not years seing none know what hour the son of man will com and call for them Thus the best and wisest of men reckoned their lives as Jacob Moses Job David and Solomon Gen. 47. v. 9. Ps 90.14 Job 14.5 Ps 39.5 Eceles 8 15. This right numbering our days would make us apply our hearts to wisdom by improving our present time and opportunities in the day of grace cutting off our vain hopes of future uncertainties and looking on every day as a new gift of God for his work Lam. 3.23 If Horace a heathen could say Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum much more should a Christian believe and live every day as his last because it may be so and if it be not it is more than any one knows Our Lord having wisely and mercisully conceald both the time and place of our departure from us that our lives might not be spent in continual madnes of mirth and vanity in our former and of fears and melancholy in our later days but might be restrained from sin and quickned to duty not delaying our preparations for death but living in a constant exspectation thereof nor presuming of future time not in our power but rightly improving our present with our Apostle dying daily and as a good man said that of twenty years he had known no morrow This divine arithmetick of numbring our days Moses and David begd of God and much more need have we to make our hearts so sensible of our frailty from these examples that we may get ready to follow and may not be only unwilling to live as many through the troubles of life but willing to die which grace only enables us to when prepared 4 Set these examples before thee so as they may affect thy heart and make it restles till they be duly improved by serious consideration That when others are destroyed from morning to evening or every hour of the day it may not be without any regarding it Job 4.20 Say how soon may this befall me or mine How uncertain is our time here and how certain death and eternity hereafter How doe I loyter whilst time flies and my glas perhaps ending and how litle of that work don which must be don or I am lost for ever Am I fit to look death in the face or a just and holy God in judgment have I not delayed long enough allready and is there not danger in these delays Is my soul and eternal salvation of so litle consequence that my heart should still deceive me in disregarding them Is it not wisdom to doe that first that is of greatest consequence and necessity Is not all my time litle enough for so great a work as preparing for eternity and shall I lose more Have so many of God's servants that have taken so much pains so long time in Religion fasting weeping praying hearing c. confest themselves unready for death what shall I be that have don so litle How dismal will death be to me if no better prepared for it Will Christ stay any more for me then he did for the foolish virgins was it not only they that were ready that entred in with him Or will he when once the door of mercy is shut open it for me alone No no I cannot exspect it and therfore will take his counsel and watch not knowing the day or hour wherein he cometh 5 Make sure to be habitually prepared at least for death by being reconciled to God through Christ Acquaint therfore thy self with him and be at peace and take heed of living in that state wherein thou wouldst be loth to die See to the soundnes of thy repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the sincerity of thy obedience as ever thou meanest to secure the better part thy soule and thy future happines in eternity And labor after assurance that when this earthly house of thy tabernacle is dissolved thou hast an house eternal in the heavens as ever thou desirest to die comfortably The want of this makes death so dismal to those that are sensible what it is to die How many that live under the Gospel and know no more than the heathen Adrian
whither they shall goe at their death is lamentable to consider Get thy self allso as much as possible actually prepared by keeping up thy assurance evenning thy accounts daily with God walking with him as Enoch having thy conversation in heaven whilst on earth and thy fellowship with the Father and his son Jesus Christ so shall death never surprize thee or affright thee much less hurt thee changing only thy place not thy company opening the door for thy entrance into life and being ever with the Lord which then thou wilt find bejond all thy present faith and hopes infinitly better than being in this world Lastly prepare allso for thy Relations leaving thee Our seldom thinking of this before hand makes it difficult for us to beare Be sensible of and thankful for God's giving and continuing them to thee seeing he denies them som and takes them from others use them as his left hand blessings but enjoy them not as thy portion depend on him for comfort from them resigne them to him from whom thou receivedst them doe thy duty towards them whilst thou hast them so shalt thou have comfort when thou losest them 4 Let this caution us from rash censuring and judging of these kind of providences seeing in the text God's taking away unexpectedly a good Rachel from Jacob one of his best servants 1 Not the just and holy God for them In denying him and his providence with the Atheists Who seeing often the vilest of men spared as Diagoras did a perjur'd person and better taken away as Cotta his friend Drusus and Ovid his Tibullus open their mouths against heaven in denying a God and his providence in the world Or 2 in judging him unjust and cruel For he delights not in death as it is the destruction of his creature but as it is the exercising of judgment and righteousnes in the earth Jer. 9.24 His works are wondrous that though a wise man as Solomon think to know them yet shall he not be able Eccles 8.17 The most inquisitive run but into a labarynth wherein they lose themseves at last For how can we possibly be able to judg of his proceedings who are wholy ignorant of the grounds of them It is God only that knows mens intentions and his own designs that he hath to accomplish and all the links in the chaine of providence so that where he manifests not these we are in the dark and incompetent judges Our profoundly learned Contry-man Bradwardine * De Causa Dei L. 1.0.31 hath a remarhable story to this purpose of a devout man tempted to blaspheme providence to whom God sent an angel in humane shape that commanded him to follow him And leads him to the house of a good man who entertaind them very kindly that night from whom he secretly took a cup he valewed highly and going thence to a wicked mans house the second night who treated them not so well gives him the cup at their departure Having been the third night most curteously entertaind in the morning he threw the mans servant off a bridge and drowns him and coming the fourth night to an honest man that made them heartily welcom slew his litle son that cryed and sufferd them not to sleep Then he acquaints his follower why he did these so strange things saying he was sent of God to satisfy him I took the cup saith he from the first a good man for his good because he lov'd it too much and gave it the second a bad man that he might receive his reward at present I drowned the servant of the third because he had resolved the next day to slay his master whom I preserved from death and his servant from committing murder that he might be less punisht in hell The fourth before he had a son and heir was very charitable and after grew penurious therfore I took away the cause of his covetousnes and conveyd his sons soul to paradise So true is that of the Psalmist Thy righteousnes is like the great mountains thy judgments are a great deep Thy foot steps are not known and therfore cannot be traced by us poor ignorant mortals Ps 36.6 and 77.19 Nor 3 must we judge when we see the righteous and wicked taken alike away that God's Providence goes blindfold to work as the Heathen think the fates doe and sweeps away one and another hand over head for so we shall neither eye God in nor make a right use of his dealings with us We cannot indeed make or discern the difference as to us sicknes and sword devours one as well as another but this is fallacia sensus both scripture and reason teaches us that there is a very particular direction in all that befalls us from the hand of God Every disease that happens every bullet that flies every wave of the sea and every casualty have their commission from God before they can touch or destroy any If a sparrow falls not on the ground without him much less a mans life and if the very hairs of our head are all numbred much more our days are so determined Math. 10.29 30. Job 7.1 and 14.5 14. Prov. 16.33 Nor lastly must we imagin that righteousnes will exempt us from sudden destruction in common calamities with the wicked As Abraham seems to judge in his pleading for Sodom Gen. 18.23 24 25. For thô God will rather spare the wicked for the righteous sake as he there declares and in extraordinary cases where he hath past his particular promise doth so as God gave Paul all that sailed with him Acts. 27. and makes a distinction as Ezek 9.4 5 6. Mal. 3.17 18 yet in ordinary it is not so but the green and dry tree denoting as it follows the righteous and the wicked perish together Ezek 20.47 and 21.3 And no wonder for usally the good are infected with or one way or other guilty of the sins of the times and places where they live and if they partake in sins its reasonable they allso partake in plagues Rev. 18.4 Or if not yet being mixt with the wicked in an ordinary way it cannot be otherwise as experience shews us in wars famin pestilence inundations shipwracks and the like Especially earth quakes wherein many cities have been wholy swallowed up and many with the inhabitants in a great patt destroyed the histories whereof would fill a volum Passing those of old 12 cities of Asia say Pliny and Tacitus 13 saith Ensebius in our Saviors daies in one night Coloss Laodicea Hierapolis in the year 63.3 in Cyprus in 77.4 in Asia and 2. in Greece in 105.3 in Galatia in 109. Antioch Nicomedia and Nice several times Nicopolis and Caesarea in 128. Smyrna allso and Corinth afterwards and 10 in Crete in one year so 20 in Germany in later times besides many others these being sufficent for my purpose in most of which multitudes of Christians as well as others perisht And as God takes them away as he sees good