Mankind shall be cursed and commanded to depart from God The same Lord Jesus who is here said to take holy Men to be for ever with himself in the next Epistle to these Thessalonians has his coming described in other terms The Lord Jesus 2 Thess 1. 7 8. shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming Fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ There is everlasting Death as well as everlasting Life and they who trifle away their time in this World without performing the Conditions upon which eternal Happiness is promised will find it to their astonishment true when though they call Rev. 6. 16. for the Rocks and Mountains to hide them yet the great Day of God's Wrath will come and they shall not be able to stand Wherefore happy they of whom these words speak who when they are called to meet the Lord in the Air shall never depart from him Which according to the tenor of the Scripture cannot be the Portion of all Men therefore there can be no difficulty or doubt in restraining my Third Observation to holy Men. Thirdly After Death all the holy People of God shall for ever be with the Lord. I confess these words do not assure us that immediately after Death our Souls shall be translated to Glory and Happiness but only tell what shall befal us after the Resurrection It is now 1600 Years and upwards since this Epistle was written and yet the end of the World is not come And when it will come none of us knows How long soever it may be it is but a small space of Time in comparison of Eternity and therefore it being otherwise certain that our Souls do not sleep in the interval between the Death and the Resurrection of the Body I consider it now without any distinction and express it indefinitely of the future State Then holy Men shall ever be with the Lord. So has our Blessed Saviour assured us If any John 12. 26. Man serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my Servant be Again In John 14. 2 3. my Father's house are many Mansions if it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a Place for you And if I go and prepare a Place for you I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am there ye may be also And the same assurance we have from other Texts in other Phrases Now what it is to be with the Lord is not easy for us in this present State fully to say But sure we are it describes a very great and happy State And we may in the consideration of it join some other Texts compared together with those I have named out of the Gospel of St. John We are willing rather to 2 Cor. 5. 8. be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. Now we see through a Glass darkly 1 Cor. 13. 12. but then Face to Face His Servants shall serve Rev. 23. 3 4. Psal 16. 11. him and they shall see his Face In thy presence is fulness of Joy at thy right Hand are Pleasures for evermore And one place more particularly describes the Glory of our Bodies Who shall Phil. 3. 21. change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like to his glorious Body So then to be with the Lord is not to be advanced only to a proximity of Place but there is an Affinity a nearness of State a resemblance and a participation also of that Glory and Happiness in which our Lord is Now let us consider a little Holy Men shall ever be with the Lord that is they shall be exalted to Honour and Glory as our Lord is Not in the same degree for of that we are not capable but in our Measures and according to our Capacities This it is to be where Christ our Lord is To be honoured of his Father and our Father If any Man serve me him will my Father honour John 12. 26. The honour that our Lord Jesus did to our Nature in becoming Man shall then redound to our Persons we shall be taken up to be with God He who is set down in the Throne of his Glory will ennoble and raise us so that even our Bodies that are sown and laid in the Grave in dishonour shall be raised in Glory The difference 1 Cor. 15. between Beauty and Deformity is esteemed considerable in this Life but the reflections that will beam upon us in that glorious State shall beyond what we can now conceive dignify our Persons That which now turns to Dust and Ashes shall be transfigured and the Righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the Mat. 13. 43. Kingdom of their Father God has now honoured Man by making him an excellent Creature fit to govern the rest of the Creation if he could but govern himself but we are now in a very low form of excellence in comparison of the Honour and Dignity which our Lord Jesus will put upon us when he calls us as the Blessed of his Father to inherit a Kingdom prepared Mat. 25. 34. for us Therefore is that which we shall be possessed of called Glory a Crown of Glory a Kingdom an Eternal weight of Glory In comparison of which all the Sceptres and Crowns of this lower World are Trifles and Toys and not worth looking after But again To be with the Lord is to be delivered from all the Encumbrances and Necessities and Perplexities of this present Life to be raised to fulness of Joy and Pleasures for evermore To be secured from all Wants and Weaknesses from Sins and Sorrows and Fears from the Devil and Hell and Death from whatsoever would disturb and dissatisfy To be with the Lord is to have the Lord for our God and to dwell with us and the consequence of God's dwelling with us is as is descrbed God shall wipe Rev. 21. 4. away all Tears from our Eyes and there shall be nor more Death neither Sorrow nor Crying neither shall there be any more Pain for the former things are past away The Imperfections of this State shall pass away and the Necessities of it too We shall no more hunger nor thirst no more be sollicitous what will become of us no more amused and frighted with Wars or rumours of Wars no more in danger of Plots and Conspiracies under no discontent for decay of Trade or loss of Friends under no pains of Body nor trouble of Mind beyond the reach of Sickness and Diseases and effectually secured from all distrubing Accidents Yea and beyond all this which is but the absence of Misery to be with the Lord is to be in our Father's house in those pleasant Mansions where Peace and Joy dwell and triumph where the Eyes of our Understanding shall be inlightned and inabled to take a full view of the
ravishing Beauties of Truth and Goodness which are too dazling for mortal Eyes where our Wills shall be reduced to a sweet and blessed composure and our Affections centred and united in God and Goodness and filled with those Ardours of which we are not now capable But when we are filled with all the fulness of God when we Ephes 3. 19. shall know and see and adore and magnify God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost for bringing us into eternal Glory when we shall be past the Dotages of this present Life and shall have none in Heaven but God when Psal 73. 25. we shall have gathered up the wandring Powers of our Souls and fixed them upon God the Author and the Object of our Happiness Then shall we find words fit to express those incomparable Attainments about which we do now but chatter and give imperfect accounts of as Children do when they talk of Mens Affairs But when we shall be with the Lord we shall then understand the happy change of our Society We now converse with Men of variable Tempers of difficult Passions of contradicting Interests of ungovernable Lusts so that a solitary Wilderness is many times more desirable than such unacceptable Company But when we shall be with the Lord we shall also be with the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12. 23. with Men refined and purged from Dregs and Dross from all that would abate of the purity and sincerity of Pleasure that we shall there enjoy from suitable Correspondencies In a word To be with the Lord is to perfectly happy And that the fore-thoughts of an End may not disturb the present Enjoyment we shall be for ever with the Lord. We shall not enter upon Possessions to be ejected again but shall receive a Kingdom that cannot be shaken We shall find a Treasure that fails not a lasting Glory a perpetual Spring a never-dying Happiness Joys that will not wither or decay in sixty or eighty Years And many times a great deal sooner the Pleasures of this Life have no relish in them but all our remaining Days are Evil in which we say that we have Eccles 12. no pleasure in them But the duration of the Happiness of Heaven does not waste or diminish it It remains fresh and flourishing and full of satisfaction We shall ever be with the Lord so as never to desire to change our Place or Company We shall never be weary of what we do nor of what we enjoy And there can no addition be made to this Happiness but by a consideration that we shall not enjoy it as single Persons by our selves alone but all holy Men who are called together shall be equally in his Presence and if not equally yet fully as happy as their Capacities will admit Fourthly Which is the 4th thing I have to consider from these words So shall we ever be with the Lord. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So after that manner with reference to what was before said We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. That every holy Man and Woman shall have a distinct knowledg of and a particular correspondence with every other Member of the same Triumphant Church I do not define But that there shall be a Knowledg of and converse with one another we may very reasonably believe when we consider That it is a great part of our Comfort and Content now to enjoy the society of our Friends And it cannot be thought that that blessed Company will derogate from but will rather add to each others happiness To the torment of wicked Men they shall see who are admitted into the Kingdom of God There shall be weeping and Luke 13. 28. gnashing of Teeth when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Prophets in the Kindgom of God and you your selves thrust out And why should it be difficult to believe that they who are there shall see and know one another And it follows in the same place And they shall come from the East and Vers 29. from the West and from the North and from the South and shall sit down in the Kingdom of God In the verse of my Text it is said they shall meet together They shall all meet the same Lord and partake of the same Happiness and join in the same Songs of Praise and Triumph And who can think when they are called together to meet their Lord that they shall then be separated and know nothing of one another's particular State No sure The Communion of Saints will be perfected in Heaven So shall we ever be with the Lord. So in Company and Consort so as to be together loving one to another as well as loving God and making accessions to each others Happiness by being so far ever with the Lord. From this account of these words I might make divers Inferences I take up with Three 1. If Holy Men shall be thus for ever with the Lord then we may be content to wait with patience for a compleat Happiness till that day comes If it please God to exercise us with Sorrows and Troubles in this Life we must remember it is the Kingdom of God to which Acts 14. 22. we are passing through these many Tribulations All the Afflictions of this Life cannot make us throughly miserable not finally miserable we are able to see through them to what is reserved in the Heavens for us When we are for ever with the Lord we shall never be diverted or disturbed or called off from the continual enjoyment of that fulness of Joy we cannot be for ever miserable Afflictions are but for a while and in comparison of Eternity they endure but for a moment But when all these Clouds are blown over then at the Morning of the Resurrection there will open upon us a Glory brighter than the Noon-day Sun A Glory that will never set or fade Because our Lord will one day take us to be so near himself we ought to be well content whilst we are here in the Body to be exercised as it shall please the Wisdom of God 2. We shall ever be with the Lord but this is not the portion of all Men as has been already said And besides the concurring Testimony of the whole Scripture the next Epistle tells us what will become of wicked Men at the second coming of Christ Wherefore this Exhortation has here a proper place that we would so live now as that we may hereafter be for ever with the Lord. And that I express in the words of our Saviour If any Man John 12. 26. serve me let him follow me and where I am there shall also my Servant be There can be no hopes of being hereafter where our Lord and Master is unless we now follow him by Obedience to him and Imitation of him
A SERMON AT THE FUNERAL OF Mr. CHRISTOPHER GLASCOCK The late Eminent School-master Of Felsted in Essex Preached there Jan. 22. 1689 90. By WILLIAM SHELTON Rector of St. James in Colchester LONDON Printed for N. Renew at the King's Arms and I. Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard MDCXC To the Right honble DANIEL Earl of NOTTINGHAM Lord Finch of Daventry Principal Secretary of State and one of his Majesties most Honourable Privy-Council MY LORD THAT good Man whose Memory these Papers endeavour to preserve was so well known and so much in your Lordship's Favour that were not the Character they give him so disproportionate to his Merit I should not doubt of a candid acceptance of them Perhaps it was one Instance of his Modesty in his valnation of himself that he would design me to this Service who he knew would rather under-rate than flatter him I humbly present what I have done to you Lordship's Patronage who finding leisure amidst those Public Cares whereby you serve their Majesties and oblige our Church and Nation to consult the future flourishing Condition of that long famous School by taking care for a fit Successor that may deliver Posterity from suffering loss by the death of Mr. Glascock will also vouchsafe to be a Patron as of the Concerns of the succeeding so of the Concerns of the succeeding so also of the Name and Memory of the dead Schoolmaster And for his sake will pardon this presumptious Address of his Friend May it please your Lordship Colchester April 4. 1690. Your Lordship 's most Humble and most Obedient Servant WILLIAM SHELTON A SERMON At the FUNERAL of Mr. CHRISTOPHER GLASCOCK 1 THESS iv 17. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. WHEN Friends take leave of each other their parting is more or less solemn as they apprehend the length of Time before they shall meet and embrace again Therefore is the separation which Death makes between Friends of greater consideration because there will be no return of those that are departed and gone before us We shall to them but they 2 Sam. 12. 23. shall not return to us Yet even this parting is not altogether hopeless and they who think so do not well understand the Doctrine of the Christian Religion Such there were amongst the Thessalonians Men not sufficiently instructed in the Doctrine of the Resurrection To whom therefore St. Paul applies himself in the 13th verse of this Chapter But I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope It seems there were some in that Chruch not well informed about the State of the Dead and what was to follow after Death Therefore in the next Verses he establishes the Doctrine of the Resurrection Ver. 14. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Ver. 15. For this we say unto you by the Word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep Ver. 16. For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a Shout with the Voice of the Archangel and with the Trump of God and the Dead in Christ shall rise first The World will last to a certain period of Time and then the End of all things will be at Hand when all the Negotiations and Correspondencies of this Life shall cease The Son of Man will come from Heaven in Power and great Glory when they who shall be then alive shall be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an 1. Cor. 15. 52. Eye They shall not go so leisurely through a long stage of Death as they whose Bodies are committed to the Grave and resolved into their first Dust but they shall be as effectually changed from a mortal and corruptible State as they who after a long corruption are raised out of the Grave Yet shall they not prevent or get the start of them who have been long dead For then shall the Trump of God sound then shall the Voice of the Archangel alarm and put Life and Motion into dry bones and summon together all that have been dead from the beginning of the World and all that shall be then found alive to attend the Lord Jesus who shall come to judg the Quick and the Dead And when all are together caught up in the Clouds to meet the Lord in the Air as the beginning of this Verse speaks then shall every Man be judged according to his Works They who have done Evil shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the Presence of the 2 Thess 1. 9. Lord and from the Glory of his Power And when workers of iniquity are so commanded to Luke 13. 27. depart from him then they who have done good shall have the Reward of their Labours in his presence where there is fullness of Joy And this is the account given of their Happiness and Glory in these words And so shall we ever be with the Lord. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I do not love nor use to be nice or curious in making particular Observations from particular Words But because according to the number of the Greek words four things are here plainly either supposed or expressed I determine my self to that number We shall be We shall ever be We shall ever be with the Lord. And with relation to the former words of the Verse We shall so ever be with the Lord. So that these Four Heads of Discourse shall comprehend what I have to say to these words 1. It is here manifestly supposed There is a future State We shall be after death 2. The duration of this State is Eternal We shall ever be 3. The state in which we shall thus for ever continue is described so far as concerns holy Men by being with the Lord and elsewhere by being present with the Lord. 4. This shall be after the Quick and Dead are united in one Body to meet our Lord Jesus at his second coming so as we then meet so shall we ever be with the Lord. First We do not perish when we die We remain in being when the Union of Soul and Body is dissolved the Soul remains and the Body shall in due time be reunited We die that we may live again There is a Future State a Being and a Life after Death Though it be no sufficient excuse for Ignorance yet it may suggest this pious Meditation to us to bewail the wanton abuse of Knowledg or the means of Knowledg if we consider that in this Age of Light and Improvement there are Men who to outward appearance seem to profess Atheism with greater and more avowed confidence than other Men dared to do in former Ages of Ignorance and Superstition There was one or two suspected of old among the Athenians but they were scorned and reproached as unworthy
He is our Lord and as such he has in his holy Gospel given us incomparable Precepts for a good Life and to encourage our Obedience he has confirmed and explained these Precepts by his own most excellent Example If we follow him in the Temper of our Minds and in the Holiness of our Lives he will take us up to be with himself else if we expect the Reward without doing our Work if we presume upon the fulfilling the Promise when we will not obey the Command if we trust we shall be Happy in Heaven though we will not be Holy upon Earth we deceive our selves and ruin our selves by that deceit Nothing impure shall enter that Holy Place We shall never be fit to be admitted into the presence of an Holy Saviour to see the Face of an Holy God unless we our selves be also Holy The exccllency of an Holy Life makes it very reasonable but the hopes of Happiness makes it very necessary All workers of Iniquity shall be commanded to depart from God Without Holiness no Man shall see the Lord. If we be Heb. 12. 14. ashamed of Christ and his Commandments here he will be ashamed of us then and will send us to our proper place wherefore as we desire the End we must use the Means we must live soberly righteously and godly in this Tirus 2. 12. present World for that is the only way of being for ever with the Lord for the time to come 3. From hence appears the reasonableness of the exhortation in the next Verse Wherefore Vers 18. comfort one another with these words And of that before I would not have you ignorant Vers 13. concerning them which are asleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope Our Holy and Religious Friends whom Death takes from us are not lost they are gone before us to a better Place and to better Company And by what we read in this 17th Verse we know where to find them if we follow them after such a manner as that we may overtake them They are taken from us and according as we needed or delighted in their Company our loss may be the greater in their absence But if they were our Friends it does not become us to grudg them their Happiness They are now with the Lord in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ whither we shall e're long be taken if we be followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises I have been the less prolix in my Discourse upon these words that I might have some time to spare to pay those Respects which are so justly due to the memory of that Reverend and Worthy Man whose Funerals we now solemnize Upon which occasion I must take liberty to bewail the misfortune of this great and Worthy Auditory that this Lot is fallen upon me who in divers respects am less fit for this Service than many worthier Men of this Neighbourhood Not only because of my own Defects of which I desire always to be duly conscious nor together with that Consideration because of the straits of Time only which gave me less leisure to recover my self from an hurry of Thoughts but also because of the distance in which I have lived from him which gave me less opportunity of making those Remarks upon his daily Conversation which would have helped forward the Character that ought to be given of him But when I have promised my self that you who conversed with him oftner will supply the Defects that you find in this Account from your more frequent and daily Observations of what was eminent and praise-worthy in him I take leave to proceed when I have first said That I have known him not much less than 40 Years And besides divers Correspondencies by Letters I have had the happiness of frequent conversing with him and therefore may be thought in some measure fit to say something of him In which I may be excused from giving a large account of the former part of his Life before he was fixed in this Place or before I had any knowledg of him For though he was born in this County and Neighbourhood and educated in this School from whence he removed to Katherine-Hall in Cambridg and from thence to a private Town in this County Chipping-Ongar where he began his Employment of a School-master and where he gained such a reputation for his Abilities in that Employment that he was after a few Years continuance there sollicited to remove to Ipswich In which Town of note he was understood to be so perfect a Master in his Art that the then Lord of Warwick courted him hither Yet these things being so long ago that there are few alive that can give any perfect account of them and he being setled here in the Year 1649 or thereabouts I am sure before the middle of 1650 he has lived here long enough to make good the Truth of all I shall say concerning him Which I reduce to these Heads I consider him As a Man As a Neighbour As a Friend As a School-master As a Divine As a sincere honest Man and good Christian 1. As a Man I only remark the strength and vivacity of his old Age. God blessed him with an able Body fit for his able Mind He was not pondus inutile terrae He did not out-live his Serviceableness His Strength and Health continued with him so as he was not wanting to his Employment even almost to the last days of his Life Which I do not note as properly his Vertue for then it would be imputable as the Fault of those who decay sooner but his Felicity it was and the Felicity of those who were recommended to his Care that they did not waste a great deal of their precious Time under an old decayed Schoolmaster who was not able to fulfil the Ends for which they were sent to him But when he was of a great Age about 76 as he esteemed himself born for Service so he was able to pursue the Ends for which he came into the World as long as he continued in it 2. What a Neighbour he was you of this Place do very well know How useful and friendly how ready to make Peace and to do all good Offices that lay in his Power Of this I may be allowed to say the less because Envy it self cannot charge his Memory in this Matter He never was a self-designing Man He was of no sowr or morose Disposition Never inclined to make or increase Quarrels or Contentions Nor could he be content to cloyster up himself and to live so retired as to deny others the advantage of his Conversation but hearty and free and open-spirited and as willing to do Kindnesses as others are to receive them What an excellent Companion he was all the Country knows as well as this Town Nor do I know one Man this day in Essex of more general Acquaintance and whose Company was more