which we can forecast we many times stagger and falter about Israel confessed what God had done and that omnipotently He smote the rock and the waters gushed out and yet in the same breath they question his power can he furnish a Table in the wildernesse can he give bread also and provide flesh for his people Psalm 78. 19 20 22. Moses himself stagger'd when the Lord made a promise which seemed to exceed the power of ordinary causes Numb 11. 21 22. And therefore when God will confirm the faith of his servants he draweth them off from viewing the greatnesse and strangeness of the promises in themselves to the consideration of his power Is any thing too hard for the Lord Gen. 18. 14. I am the Lord the God of all flesh is there any thing too hard for me Jer. 32. 27. If it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these dayes should it also be marvellous in mine eyes saith the Lord of Hosts Zach. 8. 6. And therefore in all cases of difficulty when sense and reason flesh and blood dictate nothing but despaire we should by faith look up to the truth of God promising and to the power and name of God giving being to his promisâ—s whose ways are higher then our wayes and his thoughts then our thoughts Isa. 55. 8. 9. So did Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 20. 12. so David I Sam. 30. 6. so the Prophet Ezek. 37. 3. so Abraham Rom. 4. 19 20 21. so Peter Luke 5. 5. so we should all do when we walk in darkness and have no light still trust in the Name of the Lord and stay upon our God Isa. 50. 10. 2 We hence learn the Original of the Resurrection it is an Heavenly work as dew which comes from heaven to revive the grass The Lord resolves the lineage and genealogie of corn into Heaven Hos. 2. 21. takes it to himself to be the father of the dew Job 38. 28. It comes from him whose body did shed drops of heavenly dew in the garden and by them did slay death and revive he herbs of the grave We must labour therefore by an heavenly conversation to have our Bodies Temples of the holy Spirit that this Heavenly vertue when it hath drawn us out of our graves may then carry us to Heaven for as that which is earthly when it is out of its place never leaves descending till it goes to Earth so that which is Heavenly will never cease rising till it get to Heaven Earthly vapors may be drawn up but they fall again in rain and winde Wicked men though raised will fall again Any thing of heaven will go to heaven any thing of Christ will go to Christ. Concerning this dear and worthy Lay though my custom be to be very sparing in Funeral Elogies yet many things were in her so remarkable that the mentioning of them cannot but tend to the Edification of others I shall not mention her meere Exterrals The worth credit and dignity of her family The gentlenesse and sweetnesse of her disposition and all amiable accomplishments which rendred her lovely to those that knew her nor set forth the proportion between her and the present Text. I shall onely name such things as commended her to God as well as to men She looked after Heaven very young would frequently blesse God for the Religious Education which she had under her parents She was even then assaulted with Temptations unto Atheisme and to think that there was no God But took the best course to repell and resist them that the most experienced Christian could have directed her unto Immediately betaking her self by prayer unto that God whom she was tempted to deny She was a woman mighty in the Scriptures read them over once a year and searched after the sense of difficult places out of the several Annotations before her She was as it were a Concordance directing usually to the Book and Chapter where any place of Scripture mentioned in discourse was to be found She was constant in reading substantial Authours of dogmatical and practical Divinity and by that means grew greatly acquainted with the whole Body of wholsome doctrine She was unweariedly constant in the performance of private duties in so much that it is verily believed by him who had best reason to know it that for twelve years together she never intermitted her morning and evening addresses unto the Throne of Grace When she was suddenly surprized with the pangs of this last child she ran into her closet to be first delivered of her prayer and to poure out her soul to God before she was delivered of her child She had a singular delight in the publick Ordinances and was a most constant frequenter of them with very serious and devout attention calling her memory to an account when she came home and if any particular slipt from her forgotten she would enquire of her husband in bed to recover it for her She left behind her in her closet a paper book wherein with her own hand she had collected divers general Directions for an holy spending of the day with several particular meanes for the faithful observance of those General Rules She highly honoured Holinesse in the poorest and meanest persons and would frequently with some decent and modest excuse get off from unprofitable impertinent discourse that she might have her fill of more edifying conference with such in whom she had learned of David to place her delight For divers months before her death she was wonderfully improved heavenward as those about her observed not regarding the world nor letting any vain word drop from her and her countenance many times after her coming out of her closet seemed to have strange impressions of her conversing with God shining in it as some conversant with her have professed to observe She was greatly adorned with Meeknesse Modesty and Humility which are graces in the sight of God of great price When one wish'd her ioy with the Honour lately come to her she answered That there was a greater Honour which she looked after which would bring with it more solid joy She alwayes expressed much Honour and Reverence to her parents in all comely and dutiful comportment towards them which much endeared them unto her Full of conjugal affection to her dear husband revoking with an ingenuous Retraction any word which might fall from her which she judged lesse becoming that Honour and Reverence which she did bear to him When he was ingaged upon publick concernments and more particularly when he cross'd the seas to wait on his Sacred Majesty she daily put up such ardent and heavenly petitions unto God for him as caused those about her to conclude it impossible that the husband of so many prayers and teares should meet with any miscarriage Wonderful watchful over his Bodily health and spying out distempers in him before he discovered them himself Earnestly desiring what is now come to passe that he might survive her that she might never know the wound of a deceased Husband She had a more then ordinary care in the Education of her children holding them close to the reading and committing to memory both Scripture and Catechisme wherein by her diligence they made a very strange progress a pregnant instance whereof to speak nothing of her children yet living was her eldest son who went to heaven in his childhood about the age of five or six years of whose wonderful proficiency in the knowledge of God an exact account is given by a grave and godly Divine in the printed Sermon which he preached at his Funeral She was very affable and kind to her servants specially encouraging them unto holy duties who have professed themselves very much benefited in their spiritual concernments by the discourses which she hath had with them She was very charitable and ready to do good to poor distressed persons specially those of the houshold of faith visiting edifying and comforting them and with her liberality relieving their necessities acknowledging Gods free and rich mercy in allowing her a plentiful portion of outward blessings and that she was not in the low condition of those whom her charity relieved In her sicknesse and extremities of travel and other pains she earnestly pleaded Gods promises of healing of easing of refreshing those that were weak and heavy laden acknowledging her self so to be not in body onely but in soul too and was full of holy and servent ejaculations Yea when the disease affected her head and disturbed her expressions yet even then her speeches had still a tincture of Holinesse and savour'd of that spirit wherewith her heart was seasoned She advised those about her to set about the great and one necessary work of their souls while they were in health assuring them that in sicknesse all the strength they had would be taken up about that She desired her husband to read to her in her sicknesse Mistris Moores Evidences for salvation set forth in a Sermon preached by a Reverend Divine at her Funeral meditating with much satisfaction upon them And when some cloud overcast her soul she desired her husband to pray with her and seconded him with much enlargement of heart and blessed God for the recovery of light again Thus lived and died this excellent Lady a worthy patterne for the great ones of her sex to imitate Such works will follow them into another world where none of the vanities of this no Pleasures no Pomp no Luxury no Bravery no Balls no Enterludes no Amorous or Complemental discourses or other like Impertinencies of the world will have any admittance The more seriously you walk with God and plie the concernments of your immortal souls living as those that resolve to be saved the greater will be your treasure of comfort in your death and of glory in another life whereas all your other delights and experiments for content will expire and give up the Ghost in Solomons vanity and vexation of Spirit The Lord make us all wise unto salvation FINIS Irenaeus lib. 5. cap. 15. 30. Tertul. de Resurrect c. 32. Hieron Cyril in loc Aug. de Civ dei lib. 20. cap. 21. Calvin Institut l. 2. c. 10. sect 21. l. 3. c. 25. sect 4. Calvin Sasbout 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 11. 3. 12. 6. Gen. 12. 13. Gen. 20. 2. Isa. 8. 13. Psal. 119. 51. Jer. 20. 8.
16. 21. when they looked for deliverance from one calamity they fell into another or as some render it instead of bringing forth a child or working any deliverance they were delivered of their own spirit or gave up the Ghost The next words are a litteral explication of the metaphor We have not wrought any salvation or deliverance All our conceptions and cries end in vanity and disappointment All our Hopes touching the ruine of our enemies ver 14. are come to nothing they are not fallen But we are dead men very carcasses we dwell in the dust we are as low as calamity can make us Now above all this misery the Church by faith lifteth up her head in the assurance of a glorious Resurrection She turnes away from the view and sense of her own sufferings from the conceptions and parturitions of her own Counsels and carnal contrivances and with a triumphant Apostrophe turns to God Thy dead men shall live The pronown is very emphatical for they are the words of the Church to God as appears by the continuation of the context from ver 16. so it is not meant of all but of Gods dead men whether figuratively in any desperate clamity or really in their graves For the words will extend to both Shall live or do live are prisoners of hope have a seed of life in them even in the grave It is the Apostles similitude and illustration 1 Cor. 15. 36 37 38. With my dead body In the Original it is thus My dead body They shall live by an usual Enallage of the number every one of my dead bodies shall live Some make it an expression of the Prophets faith applying to himself the comfort of that common salvation preaching nothing to them which he was not in his own particular assured of Some take it as an Answer of Christ to the Churches faith as if it related to that Mat. 27. 52 53. I conceive them to be the words of the Church still comforting her self in the assurance of Gods mercy to every one of her mystical members which assurance is expressed by a kind of Hypotyposis calling the dead to come forth out of the dust and to rejoyce for her deliverance For thy dew is as the dew of Herbs Thy divine word power and promise is able to do unto us as dew unto herbs though they seem outwardly dried up and dead yet having a vital Root they do by the fall of the dew send forth their Leaves and beauty again Now God hath more care of us then of herbs and his spirit more efficacy then the dew and therefore however we may be withered and consumed with calamity and death yet he will raise us up again and cloath us with beauty and glory Thus the Scripture often argues from natural to supernatural things Jer. 31. 35 36. Jer. 33. 20 21. Psal. 89. 36 37. 1 Cor. 15. 36. And this similitude of dew reviving and refreshing decayed herbs we frequently meet with Prov. 19. 12. Isa. 66. 14. Hos. 14. 5 6. And the earth shall cast out the dead as a woman doth an untimely birth The Grave shall be in Travel with the dead the Apostle seems to point at such a Metaphor Acts 2. 24. and shall be delivered of them Another version thus Thou shalt cast the Giants in the earth They who here as Giants did trample on the Church and were formidable unto her shall then fall and perish when thy people shall awake and sing as ver 14. so elsewhere They shall take them captives whose captives they were and they shall rule over their oppressors Isa. 14. 2. the sons of them that afflicted them shall come bending unto them Isa. 60. 14. 65. 13 14. In the words we observe two general parts 1. The Churches complaint under very great calamity and disappointment ver 18. 2. Her triumph over all her enemies and sufferings ver 19. The complaint being expressed by the metaphor of conception and parturition intimateth 1. The Greatnesse of their affliction 2. The Contrivances they used to procure deliverance from it 3. The disappointment of them all we have brought forth winde as elsewhere ye shall conceive chaffe and shall bring forth stubble Isa. 33. 11. In the Triumph we may consider 1. The Matter of it Deliverance from the lowest to the best condition from death to life from a carcasse to a Resurrection from corruption to glory from dust to singing 2. The Reasons of it 1. In regard of the subject Mortui tui Gods dead men Cadaver meum the Churches dead body 2. In regard of the Author and vertue whereby it should be effected the Word the Power the Spirit of God metaphorically expressed Ros tuus Thy dew is as the dew of herbs From the first general the Prophets complaint we may observe three things 1. That the Lord exerciseth his own people yea his whole Church sometimes with sore and sharp afflictions with the pangs and throws of a woman in travel Sometimes we finde them in a house of bondage in Egypt sometimes in a Grave in Babylon often oppressed with Philistims Midianites Cananites Ammonites Edomites Syrians under the tyranny of the four great Monarchies of the earth So the Christian Church first under the persecutions of the Heathen Emperors of Rome and then under persecutions of Antichrist her witnesses prophesying in sackcloth 1260. years As Christ first suffered then entred into glory Luk. 24. 26. so must his Church Rom. 8. 17. Christ hath a double Kingdom that of his patience and that of his power we must be subjects under the Kingdom of his patience before we come to that of his power The Church must passe through the Sea and the Wildernesse to Canaan they must be in a working and suffering condition before they come to the Rest or Sabbath which remaineth for them Heb. 4. 9. Davids militant Raign must go before Solomons peaceable Raign Our sins must this way be mortified Our faith hope love patience humility Christian courage and fortitude be exercised Our conformity unto Christ evidenced The measure of the wickednesse of the enemy filled The glory of God magnified in supporting them under in delivering them out of all their afflictions and raising them up when they are at lowest Therefore we should not esteem it strange when we fall into divers temptations or see the Church of God in the world in a suffering or dying condition 1 Pet. 4. 12 13 17. Jam. 1. 2. If we will have Christ for our husband we must take him for better for worse 1. His afflictions are short and but for a moment Isa. 54. 7. 2 Cor. 4. 17. 2. Sanctified by the Spirit of glory and of God resting upon us 1 Pet. 4. 13 14. 3. Seconded with grace and the power of Christ to support us under them 2 Cor. 12. 9. 4. Operative unto peace righteousness and glory Rom. 8. 28. Heb. 12. 11. 5. Not worthy to be compared with the glory
that shall be revealed Rom. 8. 18. 6. Proportioned to our need 1 Pet. 1. 6. and to our strength 1 Cor. 10. 13. If we will come to glory we must go the same way unto it as Christ did the way of holinesse and the way of sufferings Act. 14. 22. and surely if there be enough in a womans child to recompence the pains of her travel John 16. 21. There will certainly be enough in the glory to come to recompence all our pains either in our obedience or in our afflictions II. We might here note That even Gods own servants in time of trouble calamity are very apt to betake themselves to their own conceptions and contrivances for deliverance they are big oftentimes with their own counsels and in pain tobring forth and execute their own projections in order to the freeing of themselves from trouble Abraham when he was afraid of Pharaoh and Abimelech dissembled his relation unto Sarah David fearing Achish the King of Gath fained himself mad 1 Sam. 21. 11 12 13. when he feared the discovery of his adultery he gave order for the killing of Uriah 2 Sam. 11. 15. one sin is the womb of another When Asa was in danger from Baasha King of Israel he bought his peace with the spoils of the Temple 2 Chron. 16. 1 2. when Jonah was afraid of preaching destruction to Ninive he fled unto Tarshish from the presence and service of the Lord Jonah 1. 3. when Peter was afraid of suffering with Christ he flies to that woful Sanctuary of denying and forswearing him Mat. 26. 69 74. thus the fear of man causeth a snare Prov. 29. 25. This therefore is a necessary duty in time of fear and danger to look up as the Church here after disappointment by other refuges doth with a victorious and triumphant faith unto God and to make him onely our fear and our dread not to trust in fraud and perversenesse or to betake our selves unto a refuge of lies Isa. 30. 12. 28. 15. but to build our confidence upon that sure foundation on the which he that believeth shall not need make hast If we lean not upon our own understanding nor be wise in our own eyes but in all our ways acknowledge him and trust in him and fear him and depart from evil we have this gracious promise that he will direct our paths Prov. 3. 5 7. the more we deny our selves the more is he engaged to help us But when we travel with our own conceptions and will needs be the contrivers of our own deliverance it cannot be wondred if the Lord turn our devices into vanity and make our belly prepare wind and deceit Job 15. 35. as it here followeth We have brought forth wind we have not wrought any deliverance all our endeavours have been vain and succeslesse III. Carnal Counsels and humane contrivances are usually carried on with pain and end in disappointment and do obstruct the progress and execution of Gods promises unto us If we would go on in Gods way and use the means which he hath directed and build our faith and hope upon his promises we have then his Word to secure us his Spirit to strengthen us his Grace to assist us his Power and fidelity to comfort us we have him engaged to work our works for us and his Angels to bear us in our Wayes But when we seek out diverticles and inventions of our own when we will walk in the light of our fire and in the sparks which we have kindled Isa. 50. 11. and be wise in our own conceit Rom. 12. 16. and walk after our own thoughts Isa. 65. 2. no wonder if we be disappointed and made ashamed of our own counsels Hos. 10. 6. when we sow the wind it is not strange if we reap the whirle-winde Hos. 8. 7. And therefore it is our wisdom to cease from our own wisdom as the wise man exhorteth Prov. 23. 4. in as much as the Lord hath pronounced a curse upon those that are prudent in their own sight Isa. 5. 21. whom usually he disappointeth Job 5. 12. We have considered the Churches complaint her anguish her disappointment Now in her Triumph we are first to view her deliverance and then the causes of it In the deliverance is a Gradation both in the misery from which and in the condition unto which they are restored For the former 1. It extends unto dead men whom to quicken exceeds the power of nature But we do not use to give men over and lay them out for dead as soon as their breath fails them some diseases look like death therefore the deliverance goes further unto Cadaver meum my carkasse which the remainders of vital heat have forsaken laid out carried away severed from the living hastning to putrefaction But death makes yet a further progresse this carcasse must be had out of sight lodged in the bowels of the earth and there dissolved into dust his house must know him no more Job 7. 10. and yet even here when death hath carried a man to the end of his journey and landed him in its own dominion so far shall the deliverance extend The Damsel whom Christ raised was mortua though yet in the house amongst the living Mark 5. 35. The widows son gone a little further into the Region of death coffin'd up laid on the Biere carried out from the House a Carcasse Luke 7. 14. Lazarus in deaths den Inhabitator pulveris as far as death could carry him yet raised up John 11. 38 44. so there is a gradation in the Terminus à quo of this deliverance There is likewise a gradation in the Terminus ad quem the condition unto which they are restored 1. They shall Live and this is a favour though one stay in prison 2. They shall Rise their life shal be to an exaltation the wicked shall live again but it shall be to die again but these dead shall live and rise their life shall be an advancement to them 3. They shall Awake like a man out of sleep refreshed and comforted Psal. 17. 15. 4. They shall sing as victors over the grave never to return thither more So we have here 1. The sad condition of the Church 2. The great mercy and power of God to them in that condition Their sad condition in the former of these two gradations 1. They are dead men in a condition of death their whole life a conflict with mortality And though this be not a calamity peculiar to them for death feedeth equally upon all and though there be a great alleviation in their being Mortui tui The Lords dead men yet in some respects we finde the weight of mortality on the Churches side Wicked men meet many times with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 live in pleasure and then die in ease spend their days in wealth and jollity in vanity and folly and go suddenly to the grave die onely once and together Job 21. 13. whereas
in the Life of Christ their Head whether we wake or sleep we live together with him 1 Thes. 5. 10. as we are risen with him and sit with him in heaven Col. 3. 1. Eph. 2. 6. 3. They live in the Seed of the Spirit of Holiness whose Temples they are which is in them a pledge and seminal virtue of Resurrection Rom. 8. 11. compared with 1 Cor. 3. 16. 6. 19. In which respect the Apostle compareth the bodies of the faithful unto Seed I Cor. 15. 42. to note that by the Inhabitation and Sanctification of the Spirit there is a vital virtue in the body to spring up and awake again Thus even in the state of death we have vitam Absconditam Col. 3. 3. hidden out of our sight and sense as seed in the Furrow as a jewel in the Cabinet as an Orphans estate in the hand of his Guardian hidden with Christ the first fruits and in God the Author and Fountain of Life Thus vivunt they do live And further vivent they shall live for our life in Christ is not a decaying but a growing and abounding life Joh. 10. 10 therefore it will break forth into the similitude of Christs glorious Body in whom it is hid as the Corn groweth into the likeness of that seed wherein it was originally and virtually contained Joh. 12. 24. Col. 3. 4. Phil. 3. 21. 1 Joh. 3. 2 3. Of natural life we cannot say I live and I shall live for natural life runs into death as Jordan into the dead Sea But of Christian life we may say I live and I shall live it is a life which runs into life though through the way of death as the waters of the Caspian Sea are said through subterraneous passages to have communion with the great Ocean It comes from heaven Christ the Fountain and Center of it and it goes back unto heaven As a piece of earth falls to the whole earth so every piece of heaven will find the way to its whole 2. Resurgent With my dead body they shall arise their life shall be given them for their advancement wicked men shall live again that they may dye again and shall rise ut lapsu graviore ruant that they may be thrown deeper Pharoahs Butler and Baker came both out of prison the one to his office the other to dishonor the one to be advanced the other to be executed So mortui tui and mortui seculi shall both come out of their graves the one from a prison to a Furnace the other from a prison to a Palace In which respect Believers only are called children of the Resurrection Luke 20. 36. It is a Resurrection of life to the one of condemnation to the other Joh. 5. 29. And therefore to distinguish them from the other it is added 3. Expergiscimini They shall awake as a man refreshed with sleep which puts a great difference beâ—ween the deaths and Resurrections of the godly and the wicked 1. The death of the godly is but asleep 1. In regard of the seeds of life abiding in them A man in sleep ceaseth from the acts of sense but the faculties he retaineth still So an holy man though he lose in death the acts of life yet the seed and root he hath not lost he lives to God still 2. In regard of his weariness of the world and fulness of dayes A man wearied with labour lies down willingly to rest Abraham dâ—ed full of dayes he was satiated and desired no more Gen. 25. 8. the Apostle had enough of the world when he desired to depart and to be with Christ Phil. 1. 23. whereas a wicked man how old soever is not said to die full of years or satisfied with life He may be loaded but not replenished he knows not whither he is going and therefore he would fain stay in the world still But it may be said Have not wicked men brought death upon themselves as Achitophel Saul Judas and godly men been sometimes unwilling to die as Hezekiah Isai. 38. 1 2. True both yet neither the one out of the love of death nor the other out of love of the world wicked men are impatient of present anguish and inconsiderate touching future terrours and therefore rush upon the one to avoid the other But godly men are weary of the body of sin and believe the favour of God and glory of Christs presence and that makes them desire to depart and to be with him Nor did Hezekiah decline death out of a servile fear being able to plead unto God his uprightness but out oâ— a desire to live to compleat the Reformation of the Church which he had begun and that he might have a Successor to derive the Line of the Royal Seed unto So then death to the godly is but a sleep in regard of the rest it giveth them Rev. 14. 13. from sins fâ—om sorrows from labours from enemies from temptations from fear from evils to come and therefore Job calls the grave his bed Job 17. 13. and so the Prophet They shall lye down in their beds Isa. 57. 2. 2. This awaking makes a great difference between the Resurrection of the godly and the wicked the one riseth refreshed as sleep repaireth the decays of Nature so that a man riseth vigorous and recruited therefore the time of the Resurrection is called the time of refreshing and of restitution of all things Acts 3. 19 21. The other riseth affrighted as a man awakened with a Thunder-clap or whose house is in a flame about him the one awakes to his work the other to his Judgement it is morning and everlasting day to the one it is horrour and darkness to the other and therefore it is added 4. Cantate when they awake they shall sing as David when he awaked calls on his Lute and Harp to awake with him Psal. 57. 8. In their graves at Bobylon they hung their Harps on the Willows no musick then Psal. 137. 3. but they go out of their graves as Israel out of the Red Sea with Victory and Triumph over Death and Hell and so shall sing the Song of Moses and the Lamb. Dust and Ashes in the Scripture phrase are ceremonies of mourning Job 2. 12. Mic. 1. 10. but here they who inhabit the dust are called upon to put off their prison garments and to shake themselves from their dust Isai. 52. 1 2. to awake unto singing and triumph when they awake they are satisfied Psalm 17. 15. Thus we see the deliverance of the Church is fully as large as their distress From all which we learn 1. The true cause why Death and the calamities leading thereunto do still remain after Christs Victory over them to wit 1 To exercise our Faith and Hope in Gods Promises for the righteous hath hope in his death Prov. 14. 32. 2 to conform us unto Christ as well in the way to life as in the end 1 Pet. 4. 13. 3 To wean us from the love of the