Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A44679
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A funeral sermon for that faithful and laborious servant of Christ Mr. Richard Fairclough (who deceased July 4, 1682 in the sixty first year of his age) by John Howe.
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Howe, John, 1630-1705.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing H3027; ESTC R28698
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23,255
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72
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A Funeral Sermon FOR That FAITHFUL AND LABORIOUS Servant of CHRIST M r Richard Fairclough Who Deceased July 4. 1682. in the Sixty first year of his Age. BY JOHN HOWE Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for John Dunton at the Black Raven in the Poultrey 1682. To the Reverend Mr. SAMUEL FAIRCLOUGH Mr. JOHN FAIRCLOUGH Mr. GEORGE JONES Mr. RICHARD SHUTE With their Pious Consorts The Brethren and Sisters of the Deceased Mr. RICHARD FAIRCLOUGH My worthy Friends IT is I apprehend a grievous thing to you to be destitute of the wonted solace you have taken in those your most delectable Relatives the Father and the elder Brother of a Family whereof you were the genuine or the ingrafted Branches Whether Nature or Choice gave you your Interest you had a common concern and Comfort in it And indeed from a Love too little common to the rest of the World The Love that hath so observably flourished among you and been your Collective Unitive Bond as it hath shewn it self to be of an higher than the Common kind demonstrated its own Divine Original and that it had its root in Heaven so have its effects been a Demonstration what such a Love can do for the Cherishing of Union not only in a private Family but in the Church and Family of the Living God also And how little necessary it is unto an Union even there that there be a sameness of sentiments and Practices in every little punctilio for a disagreement wherein too many have thought themselves licensed to hate and even destroy one another As God himself was the Fountain so he was tbe first object of that Love with you And as your Love to him caused your entire devotedness to his Interest so your mutual Love united your Hearts according to your several Capacities in serving it without grudging or hard thoughts that each one serv'd it not exactly in the same way By that Love you have been undivided in your Joyes and Sorrows in reference to one another While your very eminent Father Survived how gladly did you pay a joint Reverence and Duty to him what a glory was his hoary Head unto you This your worthy Brother was the next resort and center of your united respect and delight I doubt not you feel your loss as to both which thô God had made a former breach upon you the longer continuance as well as the pleasantness of the enjoyment cannot but have made the more sensible unto you We are somewhat apt to Plead a Prescription for our more continued Comforts But you know how little that avails against a Statute as that for instance by which it is appointed that all must dye Nor is it to be regretted that the absolute Lord of all should pluck in pieces our earthly Families for the Building and Compleating his own in Heaven What I have said of this your excellent Brother in the close of the following Discourse is but a small part of what you know The saying it serves for the Solace of the Survivors not the advantage of the Dead And the Solace is real and great when imitation makes all that is commendable our own and most intimate to our selves It is otherwise but a faint Comfort to have been Related to an excellent Person When a Limb is cut off the Soul retires to the remaining parts May a double Portion of the Spirit and Life which were so copious and vigorous in the Deceased abound unto you And I should be very faulty if I put not in for some share with you who must profess my self a great sharer in your Affliction and Loss and Your very Affectionate Brother and Servant in our Lord John Howe A Funeral SERMON MAT. XXV 21. His Lord said unto him Well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful over a few things I will make thee Ruler over many things enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord. IT may seem somewhat Incongruous and an indecency that this Memorial of our worthy Friend should be now Solemniz'd so long after his very remains are gone from off the face of the Earth But two things concurr'd to make the delay necessary and unavoidable viz. That his own desire exprest in his Will limited the Performance of this Office to the Person upon whom it now falls And that my own great Infirmities before the time of his Sickness and Death which made it more likely he should have done this part for me than I for him had obliged me to begin a course for the repairing of languishing Health which required some Weeks attendance abroad and which could not be sooner over But if our business were only to Mourn and lament our own and the more common Loss it were not yet too late The mention of his Name The worthy Mr. Richard Fairclough is enough to Open fresh Springs calling to remembrance such a Brother such a Friend such a Preacher of the Word of Life as he was And it should do it most of all upon the most common account whom would it not induce to Mourn over this forlorn World to see that every thing that is more excellent more pure more desirable more capable of being useful in it God is gathering up out of it O how much of Spirit and Life is gone from it when one such man dies how are we to mourn over the World as dying gradually the worst sort of Death when the Holy Divine life is thus exhal'd out of it and is expiring by degrees But come we have somewhat else to do than Mourn all this tends to make a glorious Heaven one bright Star the more is now added to it there is nothing of this holy Life lost whatsoever of Excellency Purity Goodness Life Loveliness and Love of that Divine kind vanishes from among us is but transferr'd to its own native place returns to its proper Element as the forsaken Dust hath to its own Heaven hath its part out of every such Person the seat of all Life Purity and Goodness as the Earth draws into its Bosom it s own terrene part not without a Sacredness and a rich Perfume adhering to that also And as it is not our only or more principal business to Mourn so nor is it to relieve and fortifie our selves against Mourning We have somewhat to do divers from them both and that is more considerable than either of them We are chiefly so to consider his Death as may best serve the purposes of our own yet-continuing Life which was the scope of that desire of his signified by his Will that an Instructive Sermon might be upon that occasion Preacht to the People We are to set our selves to learn from it what doth most concern our own daily practice and hope So to acquit our selves as not to neglect the duty of good and faithful Servants to our common Lord nor to come shott of their Reward And to this purpose we are more to consider his life than his death
unprofitable Servant into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth vers 30. 6. See what estimate we are to make of the nature of God especially of his large munisicent goodness which is his nature God is love For consider the various emanations and discoveries of it which may here be taken notice of 1. That he should seek to have any for servants which the text supposeth that he doth in this world of ours A world of Apostate Degenerous Impure Impotent creatures disaffected to him and his Government hating him and as in themselves they are hateful to him He who hath so little need of servants for any real use who can do all things with a word And if he thought it fit to have them for state and as a thing becoming his majesty and greatness is attended above by so excellent God-like Creatures So suitable and obsequious So powerful and agile Those ministers of his that do his pleasure hearkening to the voice of his word A World of ministring Spirits that might be used for purposes less kind to us than they are That he should seek Servants among us for his having them implies it who ever serv'd him unsought unto invite men into his service with so importunate solicitation whom he might despise for their vileness and destroy for their rebellion which he can in a moment And that he should seek such to become his Servants not with indifferency but with so great earnestness and use afterwards so various endeavours to retain them in his service When they gradually decline that he so graciously upholds them when ready to break faith with him and quit his service that by so apt methods he confirms them when they actually wander and turn Vagabonds that he should be so intent to reduce them How admirable is all this View the whole case at once They neglect his first Invitations he repeats and inculcates them They faint he encourages and supports them They revolt he follows to bring them back The cause of our admiration still rises higher and higher How much is it in this last instance above all humane measures Most men would disdain so to sue to Servants that forsake them and are loath to confess their real need and want of them were it never so great The Cynick scorn'd to look after his servant that left him counting it a disgrace when Manes thought he could live without Diogenes that Diogenes should not be able to live without Manes The All-sufficient Deity stoops to that which indigency and wretchedness think even too mean for them 2. Consider the frankness of his acceptance even of the best for how many omissions how much lazieness and sloth how many incogitancies and mistakes how much real disservice must he forgive when he accepts them and says yet 'T is well done How little is it they do at the best and how unprofitable to him and yet that little also he forms and even creates them to and continually succours and assists them in it Works in them to will and to do Otherwise nothing at all would be done and yet how full how complacential his acceptance is 3. Consider the largeness and bounty of his rewards too large for our expression or conception So that we even say most to it when even lost in wonder we only admire and say nothing 4. Consider the kind of the Service which he thus bespeaks accepts and rewards The best and most acceptable service any are capable of doing him is when they accept him take and chuse him to be their portion and blessedness Trust love and delight in him as such live upon his fulness and according to their several stations perswade as many as they can to do so too They that in the most peculiar sence are his Ministers or Servants as they are more earnestly intent upon this and win more Souls are the more amply and gloriously rewarded They that turn many to righteousnes shine as stars And for all the rest of his Servants wherein do they serve him most but when by their converse and example they induce others to entertain good thoughts of God and Religion and thereupon to make the same Choice which they have made and become seriously Religious which is most certainly connected with their being happy and indeed in greatest part their very Happiness it self And when they relieve support encourage and help on those that are in the way or whom they are endeavouring to bring into the way to final blessedness We as much need our servants as they can us they are our living reasonable but most necessary instruments The whole universe of created beings subsists by mutual dependencies the uncreated being without any Creatures are made to need one another Infinite self-fulness not capable of receiving additions is most highly gratified by our chearful reception of its communications Let us learn now to conceive of God answerably to all this We do him not right that we consider not his admirable goodness in so plain instances of it with more frequent seriousness and intention of mind and Spirit and shew our selves stupid unapprehensive Creatures have we a thinking faculty about us a power to use thoughts and can we use it upon any thing more evident more considerable or that more concerns us or do we never use it less pertinently 7. How unreasonable is it either to quit the Service of our blessed Lord or to serve him dejectedly Quit it Who hath more right in us or where will we mend our selves O the treacherous folly of Apostacy and how severely is it wont to be animadverted on 2 Chron. 12.1 'T is said Rehoboam forsook the Law of the Lord and all Israel with him And what followed Shishak the King of Egypt comes against them with a great power and God sends them this Message by Shemaiah the Prophet that Because they had forsaken him vers 5. therefore he also had left them in the hands of Shishak and afterwards that thô upon their humbling themselves he would not quite destroy them but grant them some deliverance yet he adds nevertheless ye shall be his i. e. Shishak's Servants that ye may know my Service and the Service of the Kingdoms of the Countreys vers 8. Since they would abandon God and the true Religion he would by a very sensible instruction and costly experience teach them to distinguish and understand the difference and make them know when they have a good Master and if we serve him despondingly and with dejected Spirits how causeless a Reproach do we cast upon him and his Service 't is a greater iniquity than is commonly considered implies dislike of his work and the rules and orders of the Family impatiency of the restraints of it distrust of his Power to protect or Bounty to reward us and we may expect it to be resented accordingly so we sometimes find it hath been Deut. 28.47 48. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness