Fathers when they died Gen. 23.9 Gen. 49.29 Gen. 50.25 Rut. 1.17 2 Sam. 19.37 for bodies as well as Souls because they purchased burial places for their family aapart So both Jacob and Joseph charged their Children to carry them out of Egypt and bury them with their Fathers and theiâ— own people in Canaan Whicâ— desire of theirs to be buried neaâ— their holy Kindred did 1. Shew their love to one another desiring their company being dead whom they loved living 2. They did it to testifie the faith in the Resurrection hopinâ— by this means at the last Resurrâ—ction they should all rise togetheâ— in glory 3. Not to mention a third sâ—perstitious reason by which pâ—â—haps they might be induced 〈◊〉 opinion of receiving some woâ— or acceptableness to God by â—â—ing near to those in the Graâ— who for holiness were dear to hiâ— and beloved of him Thus Jâ—ahs death was a gathering to his â—thers of his Body to the Sepâ—â—chres of his Fathers and of his Soul to the company of all the Holy Fathers that died in the same faith pose may be seen To this purin the knowledge of the words Sanctuaria Brandea Habeo sepulchrum super quod jaceam commenda biliorem Deo futurum est me credam quod super sancte corporis ossa requi escam Ambros de excessa fraâ— Saty. in cap. 2. Baron Annal how far this Superstition afterward grew which Scolars may inquire after Our Saviour tells of this happy gatering I say unto you that many shall come from the East and West and shall sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven Our departure out of this life wheresoever we live East West North South sends all holy Souls to sit at the same Table of Glory with all Patriarchs and Believers that have been since the beginning of the World Here we sit at Table hand over-head Judas has his hand in the same dish with Jesus Goats and Sheep go in the same Pasture good and bad are mixed but hereafter there shall be a seperation there shall be a society of the blessed where no unclean thing shall enter The Godly shall sit at a Table by themselves none shall come there without a wedding Garment Here is Mega Chaos a great confusion Habak 1.4 but there wil be a time when there shall be Mega Chasma a great Gulfe seperating distance whereby sinners anâ— Saints shall be kept from blending together Luke 16.16 That same last division which shall be made iâ— fearful to think on when Goat shall go among Goats and Sheeâ— with Sheep yea that we maâ— quake and tremble at it of thoâ—â— many hundreds that hear me thâ— day there shall be a divisioâ— some shall go to the right hanâ— other shall be gathered to the leâ— we are all gathered together herâ— there will be a seperation Mat. 24. â—â— 4â— yea two that sit in one Seat of tâ— that lie in one bed the one shâ— he taken and the other left the 〈◊〉 gathered to glory the other tuâ—bled into a lake of wrath neâ— to meet again To confirm tâ— doctrine of gathering we have the Parables of our Saviour of the Wheat and Tares which here grow together but at length shall be seperated Mat. 13. when Wheat shall be gathered to the Barn The Jews Liturgy print at Venice Of ancient this was the common Epitaph Sit anima cius in fasciculo viventium Hen. Kornmannus in lib. de mirac mhrtuor cap. 30. and Tares to burn The modern Jews have a prayer for their dead which has more of Babylon than Zion in it 1 Sam. 25.29 The Lord say they have mercy on the Soul of N. or such a one who is gone to his World therefore I vow to give alms for him that his Soul may be bound up in the bundle of life with the Souls of Abraham Isaac Jacob Sarah Rebecca Rachel Leah and the rest of the Righteous men and women Amen Though part of this prayer be foolishly superstitious to pray for the dead yet that which is for our purpose in hand is the phrase of the bundle of life which the Scripture acknowledges Which manner of speaking instruct us that God keeps all the Souls of his Saints bound up by themselves as it were in one blessed bundle A bundle it is called first to signifie that they were once disperst one from another here on earth but are there collected into one company and place 2. To signifie the unity of the blessed These flie not asunder in discord there is perfect agreement and concord A bundle a tied up Fagott a Wheat Sheaf is an embleme of unanimity 3. To signifie the firm perpetuity of their estate God has bound them up fast and surely and what can break Heaven's bundles 4. It notes their felicity and happiness it s a bundle of life and glorious immortality Thus are they gathered all the faithfuâ— Members one to another and alâ— to their Head Jesus Christ Deatâ— gathers Souls but the great gathering day is when Bodies and Souls shall all be gathered together unto Glory Why should not the Saints be gathered together by themselves they never desired the society of the wicked yea it is an heavy part of their Cross that there are Ishmaels in the same family with them Here living among the wicked their bodies are joyned but their affections heaâ—ts and wills are distinct and seperate Reason 2 They have had many gatherings by themselves Luke 10.20 1. They have their names and they only all written and gathered in one Book of Life by Election Mat. 24.11 2. They all flie and are gathered like Eagles unto one Carcase and food of life Jesus Christ to seed on him in Word and Sacraments 1 Cor. 19. Use 3. How far so ever they be separates they are all gathered into one common communion of Grace and why should they not be gathered at last into one communion of blessedness and Glory Are the Saints Souls gathered in death till then must there be a mixture This will meet with them who accurse the Moon for some spots they find in her such as will either throw away the Church or themselves out of the Church because the Fringes of her Coat are somewhere rent off all is not aright in her True it is and O that the Lord would purge his Temple and set up Pastors after his own Heart that there is something in the Church as black as Tents of Kedar Cant. 1. for which good hearts will mourn but withall in many other things she is comely as the Curtains of Solomon for which we owe the Lord much praise It is one thing to live where means of pure worship are wanting Greenh in his common place of religion chap. 13. Title the Church another to be where false worship is erected for the first we are not to flie the Church but by purges and patience to stay the
tell us of taking good heed to these two things which are the complex of the whole counsel of God Acts 20. 27. Repentance towards God and Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ Or lastly take his unum magnum his one great point of exercise To have always a Conscience void of offence towards God and towards Men. Act. 24.16 Gen. 5.12 All comes to this one to imitate Enochs holy Peripateticks to walk with God continually Many things of beauty and novelty are lookt after in this World outwardly glorious and rich things are applauded men and great persons dote upon rarity and splendors of this World and think those men are in a kind of Heaven though they be very fairly forward in a way to Hell Plato in Tâ—aeâ— Thus the glorious Tent and Tabernacle of the great Persian Kings were called Ouranoi the Heavens you have learnt better to know Christ in the Soul and the Soul in Christ to be Heaven upon Earth He that believeth hath everlasting life What a glorious vanity was that of Kings of Cusco and Mexico one of them having a glorious Garden where all the Trees Fruits Lord St. Aug. Herbs Plants Flowers according to order and greatness they have in a Garden were curiously framed in Gold and in his Cabinet all the living Creatures were known in Earth or Sea curiously fashioned and cast in Gold A princely Heathenish vanity would make his life no better then a St. Augustine calls this life A shadow in Moonshine which is little more then shadow of a shadow I know you more study to have all the fair flowers of Heaven Faith Patience Humility Meekness Love of Christ Thankfulness c. cast in a sanctified model by Gods Spirit kept in your heart and life exceeding massy gold Carlo Boccomeo Bp. of Millain Canonised for a Saint said well A Bishop should have no Garden but the holy Scriptures Go you on still to make Prayer your Garden and Flowers and by holy glorifying of God as St. Chrysostome directs Give up your five spiritual senses to wait on God continually For the Soul has spiritual seeing smelling tasting touching hearing which in their way applyed to God and his manifestations you shall not only please God but give him Musick and be his Decachorda Cithara St. Chry. in op Imperfecto in cap. 22. S. Matth. Hom. 24. his ten stringed Harp to praise him No farther will I detain you but pray for you that you may have support of Gods Spirit in your great infirmities tryals and gravid years to answer them from Heaven with grace sufficient for you and very efficient in you that when your strength of flesh and heart fails you God may come in with fresh store and assure you of Holy Asaphs viaticum that he will be the strength of your heart your portion for ever He the Guide Faher of his Israel lead you till per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a right Christian comfortable death he bring you ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to an immortal life which all good Mortals wait for by Jesus Christ the blessed Purchaser and unfailing Preparer of it So prays your observant servant in the Lord. T. C. THE EPISTLE To the READER FAith and assurance the Christians Ourania is better worthy Wooing and fighting for then the Grecians Helena the one is but the subject of a worm-eaten beauty the other carries with it a decor and beauty that no old age no not Eternity it self can wrinkle or furrow with uncomeliness holy Souls find it hard in the getting and meet with 〈◊〉 task that makes them imploâ— all their shoulders and sinews foâ— the keeping of it The Labours of the Saints to fight with the Monsters that Satan sets on work against them 2 Cor. 2.11 Revel 2.24 the scruples doubts fears distempers temptations hellish methods noemata and depths of the Serpent do put a name of softness and facility upon all Hercules his labours Phil. 1.6 Phil. 4.13 sore tryals with Beasts and Men yet this is their comfort their help is more for Christ having begun his Grace will stand by them and work for them till all his Heavenly business be perfected and though the Serpent may rend the Skin and wound the flesh of the Heel yet Gods Servants shall end in capite in the Head both bruising the Head of the Serpent and being sure to have the benefit as members of Jesus Christ their Head of whom they hold The first of these Texts was addressed and dressed for the wounded Heel of a gracious Saint that was struck sick by the Serpent of which sore drinking up the moysture of her Spirits she was dangerously deeply and distressfully sick lying in the valley of the shadow of death 3 Quarters of a Year day and night combating with God about Ecclipses of his Face desertions manifestations of wrath apprehensions of hell which squeezed out frequent confessions and complaints of an estate worse then Cains an owning of the Sin against the Holy Ghost a challenging reprobation as its due portion And besides the sense of an angerful God there was continual combating with the spiteful Spiriâ— of Hell every day ready tâ— write its own Epitaph with the blackest letters of damnation and a lost Soul All these accompanied with solitude and secrecie with two three days together fasting praying and weeping till the eyes were turned into buckets and few spiritual comforters and legati pacis to be met withal save one spirit of Grace that had bound up the Soul in this Resolution Though God will not be my God yet I will die praying and seeking after him and a poor messenger of God who having but a little Oyl in his cruse by dayly dropping of it into the wound it both increased and healed with the dropping It pleased God at length to make the winter and sad weaâ—her of this storm-beaten â—â—â—l to be over end so as the flowers appeared singing of birds was come and the voice of the Turtle was heard a cheerful Soul began sweetly to sing in its Cage of Clay The sorrows were deep the comforts rose very high and as once wormwood waters were drunk in the Cellar of bitterness and the banner over the Soul seemed in â—reat letters to have it The Lord hath forsaken me Cant. 2. Isa 49.14 Now â—t is led into the Wine Cellar of of Gods promises the sweetest comforts are broached and drunk and the Lords banner of love is spread over Here Heaven out of Heaven and some of the masters joy descended down before the Soul ascended up to it After the Vesseâ— had been seasoned some months with this unknown and admirable new Wine of living comforts Largissimum quoddam caeli gremium Bernard in Cantic Ita mihi visus sim tanquam unus ex illis beatis esse O Si duresset Idem in cantic Ser. 23. the Lord by a Chariot of sickness and that a violent one
may not be neglected carnal and sinful means may not be used Better use none but prayer then use all without prayer As carnal and evil helps are to be avoided so let this give an exhortation for direction to the Sovereign means of help in all our necessities and exigencies to betake us unto prayer that even for the time we pray will mitigate and alleviate the evil and in Heavens appointed time will obtain a removal of it The voice of a good heart is that of the Prophets Hos 6 1â— Come let us return to the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us c. Tender before God your troubled spirits lay before him all your sorrows he will be overcome by fervent prayer to lay unto them an equal yea a far more surpassing weight of mercies in giving a gracious deliverance The Prophet knew the vertue of prayer to be so powerful that he falls a wondring why God can be angry with his people that prays Psal 80.4 For how can God be angry with a â—ruly praying heart unless he will be angry with his own Spirit which teaches to pray yea which frames the Petitions his Children put up unto him God cannot be displeased and continue his wrath if there continue in me his Spirit of prayer for then there should be discord 'twixt God the Father and the Holy Spirit when yet they are but one God If we pleaded with the bare spirit of man our Weapons were but Vitrea tela Weapons of Glass Austin as the Father calls Hereticks Arguments quickly broken of no force but being assisted by the Spirit of Grace what shall stand in our way not tribulation not anguish not sorrow of minde not temptations of Devil not malice of men not the failings of our own hearts for he that hath given us his Son to intercede above and his Spirit to intercede below for us and in us how shall he not wtth them give us all things else especially things concerning his Service If God have any marks for his sheep sure this is one that they call upon God and are accustomed in all their needs to shew their rent fleeces their weakness their evils to the eye and ear of the great Shepherd of their Souls by prayer If there be and so carnally foolish as will cavil at and seâ—m this Heavenly habit of prayer saying Who can shew us any good that comes from it many pray but where is their Cross removed and blessings conferred by it Zcch 12.10 to such this good we can shew that though their deliverance do not appear yet this appears a signe of their adoption and which shall certainly bring them peace at the last when all carnal men shall be accursed Psal 14.4 who have carried this mark of Goats that they loved not to call upon God Besides this good shall certainly come their afflictions are sanctified to them by prayer and a sweet communion and fellowship is maintained 'twixt God and the Soul which is the only Heaven to be had upon earth Verse Here are two errors about prayer would be avoided The first of wicked men who despise small evils and use not to fly to the remedy of prayer but at some sore plunge and last pinch when the Boat has tried all other Oars and cannot be brought safe into the Haven It is not the custom of them that are unaccostomed to Godliness not to betake themselves to prayer till worldly helps are out of joynt and cannot help them Then when worldly means will not delp our decayed estate the last refuge is to call on God When the Apothecaries pots cannot draw them out of the bed of sickness after all prayer chuses God for the Physition Mark 5. When 12 years Physick will do no good then the diseased woman cares not to ask Christ his counsel When death or the utmost end of any evil approaches then doth the worldly spirit turn to God because he cannot work it out himself an evil ordering when God must be put in the second and last place Thus justly doth God suffer men to despise small Crosses till they by neglect of prayer grow vehement and immense like waters from the ankle to the chin Well worth St. Austine who In Confess lib. 9. when his teeth did but ake did flie unto prayer and desired them that were present with him to pray for him and with him whereas we only foolishly ungodlily do desire the prayers of others and fly to our own prayers only when evils are grown great and ripe Be our evils never so small yet they may grow greater unless we take prayer the remedy for prevention Second error is of Godly men who by the greatness of their sins or afflictions are kept and affrighted from prayer as if it were only able to remove lighter burdens nay rather they should be more diligent in prayer by how much more vehement their anguish is If your evil be so great why do you encrease it Expectation of deliverance from the most leaden and heaviest weights is not hopeless unless we be prayerless This is as if some silly one should argue Strong ropes and good tacklings firm Masts and whole Sails are profitable in a calm Sea but in a storm and violent tempest nothing will hold all will be broken with the Winâ—s yea â—â—â—â—â—â—less if in our calm or evilâ—â—â—â—â—eâ— be profitable much more is it necessary when the winds blow the rain fall and the storms beat for this will underprop and stablish a Christian to keep him from falling But against prayer in those cases the Godly deeply afflicted have to shifts Fain would we pray 1 Shift but in our prayers we finde no delight no spiritual rellish in this duty and what shall we get in that if we go about it for which we are so unfit and indisposed so shall we rather provoke God than any way please him This is called driness and barrenness in spiritual exercises yet why should this hinder us be our hearts never so dry and barren this is the way to moisten them It may be through the trouble of our hearts we finde no delight in our devotions John 5. we know the Angel was in the Pool when the waters were stirred and troubled so though we think our troubled tumultuous thoughts unfit to meet and commune with God in prayer yet even then Gods Spirit can move in those troubled waters our unfitness cannot hinder the fitness of Gods Spirit whose best and most prevailing language is troublesome groans and sighs that cannot be exprest Rhm. 8. We may go to God unfit for prayer and yet be marvellously fitted by him that works upon hearts in the very act of prayer Yea surely a prayer which is put to God constrainedly not to please our selves for we find no tast pleasant in it but reemly to obey God because it is his will is very acceptable to him The more humble we are in
him he is sometimes joyed with a sense of Gods love by and by in sorrow through some growing afflictions his months are sometimes watry as April sometimes mirthful as May and yet by all these varieties his field of sanctification becomes more fruitful All the months of Jobs years were not alike Job 29.2 O that I were saith he as in the months past What were those seasons lightsome days prosperous favourable Gods Candle burnt over my head all went with a sweet stream But now he possesses months of grief and darkness he goes mourning without the Sun Job 30. yet we know all these wrought for his good the glory of his patience the excellencie of his affiance the worthiness of his hope when the blind eye of man could espie nothing but what appeared hopeless These changes of joy sorrow are not because the Lord is changed for he is immutable and changes not but they signes of our changeableness When God bestows good things on us and his favour is towards us we are ready to change this into occasion of pride and security thereupon the Lord strips us of our consolations and sends some Messenger of Satan to buffet us lest we should be puft up or because we are puft up 2 Cor. 12â— 1. Lest we should for prevention And is not this for oâ—r good when the poyson is taken out 〈◊〉 our hands which we are ready tâ— drink 2. Because we already are foâ— our humiliation and is not this foâ— our good also that like Tenant we might acknowledge of whom we hold In a short time yoâ— shall see David both up and down Psal 30.6 by the Lords hand so setting him in prosperity up by his own security Ver. 7. I shall never be moved Presently he is down down by the Lords hiding his face as a pricking of this windy Bladder that his proud confidenec may fall and down in own sad apprehensions then I was troubled and saw how quickly the Lord can abase our highest thoughts and turn away his face from us We do not always finde God writing pleasant Epistles to his Children he sometimes writes bitter things Reason It must be thus to make good the difference 'twixt Earth and Heaven Earth is a place of change and variation in Heaven all things always continue alike The Sun if it rise with us in its very rising it is passing from us to the West In Heaven the glorious light rides always in the East there is no declination nor setting the Lord is an everlasting light Here all things are full of Transitions joy sits but while then sorrow takes the room Eccl. 1 4. One generation passeth and another cometh In our way to Heaven we must look for change of ways many turnings only at our journies end we finde a good and always remaining good estate durable and immutable When once we come in presence of that face of glory there is no Cloud can ever be interposed 'twixt us and it to hide it from us Earth would be too like Heaven if our good things did fasten their foot with us and we should know no change Reason 2 This sorts with the nature of man who cannot well coniinue and endure in any stayed estate to use it aright He cannot keep within his measure If he be full he will burst like a bottle unleâ—â— God give him some vent If 〈◊〉 be empty he will burst with impatience unless God put som meal into the barrel Mans hanâ— is paralytick cannot hold the ballance even one of the Scales goe too low by too much sorrow oâ— is lifted up by too much presumptuous and secure joys 2 Cor. 2. We cannot well grieve but over-grieve and when we joy we are subject to be over joyed Only we have a wise God that knows our temper and whereof we are made and so disposes of us that we shall sometimes have matter oâ— patience in our afflictions other times matter of praise and thanks in a condition more easie and prosperous Surely I think these two excellent vertues would scarcely be found were it not for the vicissitude and changes of sweet and bitter For where would God get his due thanks if he did not sometimes manifest his face and favour to his Children and what use had we for patience Heb. 10.36 if God suffered us not sometimes to wait for his countenance to shine on our persons and his accptance of our prayers and grant of our desires Here is now some work for that Grace Use Doth God work our good by such contrary means This should teach us to weigh Gods work with his own weights and to look into his dealings with us with better eyes than those of humane wisdom The wisdom of men is but foolishness with God it cannot give a true censure of his actions If God work not by visible and probable means and instruments such as man would imagine the fittest we then conclude our vain expectance of a good end from such strange proceedings We if we had seen Christ put clay and spittle in a mans eyes should be ready to shoot our bolts of folly and to think what fault has the man committed thus to have his eyes put out Alas weak wisdom Consider the workman it is Christ who can bring light out of darkness heal with wounding fetch water out of flints and beget good to be brought out of the womb of evil That God who made waters stand like a wall who quickned the dead and barren womb of Sarah that God who made a Maiden a Mother Was not the Virgin Mary meter anandros parthenos brephotrophos Joan. Euchaitens in Jambic Gen. 1.11 16. who raised the Prince of righteousness glory out of a Manger who made the earth bring forth fruit before there was a Sun to shine upon it that God I say who works by contrary means and without means why should we distrust him working by unlikely means He turns away his face from thee it is for thy good to strengthen thy faith in waiting and praying to bring thee to loath and distaste worldly comforts when thou findest so little health and help in them and to raise thy affections to run the faster him When we think God is so angry with us Psal 39. as no better end can be expected than that his sore strokes should consumes us and make an end of us then has the Lord worthy ends intended working for his own glory and his Childrens fuller consolation thereby for it is the priviledge of his Divine Power to effect matters far above all that we can either ask or think or conceive with the most quick eye of humane wisdom Ephes 3. What if we be cast into the dungeon with Joseph cannot God bring him through this room and make it the high way to seat him a Compeer with Pharaoh though cast out with Moses into the Bullrush-boat it may be God sees this the ready way
way to Heart even as matter of joy that the Land or place is well rid of them Are the Righteous taken away from evil which is to come upon others then much more from evil to come upon themselves 1. Then away with Purgatory the righheous are taken from thaâ— evil to come An evil it is where there is the punishment of loss and want of Gods presence yea which differs nothing in punishment of sense from Hell but for the continuance If the Lord take away the Righteous from evils on earth much more from that evil of a temporary Hell When they die they go to rest and peace but small is the rest that those torments will afford them 2 Kings 22.20 2 Again it will cut off prayers to Saints departed they are taken away from evils they know not our evils Dr. Field in apprehend to the fourth book of Church chap. 22. shews the very pontificians doubting this cleer Glass they see not the miseries we suffer upon earth So the Lord saith of Josiah his eyes shall not see all the evil that he will bring upon that place No he shall not see it in that Glass of the Trinity The Saints departed see not our particular miseries they can help us living upon earth with their Prayers but when they are dead Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel doth not acknowledg us Esay 63.16 Scultetus in Esaiam 63.16 ibi plura contra specul Trinitatis imaginarium Our praying to them to see and help us out of our evils is like the vain breath of a bowler who having thrown his Bowl out of his hand calls after it and intreats it to run this way or that way If the Saints be taken away from seeing or knowing our evils then do we call upon them for help in vain Use 2 Let this give warning to a nation and people yea to our nation and us people to take notice of the Lord 's of late takeing his Saints fast from among us holy Sons zealous Hearts Heavenly Spirits faithful Preachers Hast thou not taken these from us O Lord what wilt thou do with us art thou not separating us for some judgment O Brethren let us meet the Lord and hold his weapons for doubtless when he comes thus he comes with a purpose to strike Zac. 3 2. For are not these as brands pluckt out of the fire Now the Lord may deal with us as our sins deserve and God knows that is an heavy doom for the Righteous that would have broke the strong streams of his indignation are carried away If the Righteous abide among us though they do but hold up their hands Amalek shall not prevail Exod. 17.11 but if we have no Moses left to do it then Amalek the enemy may over-run Israel Why did not the plague now of late destroy all where it came why came it not among us thanks be to God for the prayers of the Righteous for their sakes we are kept from the infection But what if the Lord thus deal often with us to take from among us such praying Soule as this what shall we then do God being provoked and we have none to quiet him and appease him none to clap the hands and stamp with the feet and cry Ezek. 6.11 alas for the abominations of the house of Israel O let us be intreated as wise Christians to observe these evil days and not be so sensual and senseless as no think but meanly of the death of Gods dear ones In them we lose our horsemen and our Chariots 2 Kings 13.14 the strength and munition of Israel consists in them We had better lose many Pieces of Ordinance then to have one of these taken from among us for it is to be feared God has a controversie with that place where he picks out these persons in their flourishing age and the prime of their years Hard before the destruction and overthrow of Jerusalem there was a voice heard in the Temple Migremus Migremus hinc Let us away Josephus Sepe etiam stellas vento impendâ—â—â—â— viâ—â—â— Precipites celo labi Virgil. Georg. lib. 1. let us away from hence We have heard this voyce many of Gods Saints both have cryed let us go away and they are gone away from among us yet we fear not yet we tremble not and never dream of any evil to come And though we see the Stars falling have not the wisdome to Collect that it is a sign of some great Winds to blow upon us The prophet David might teach us to make better use of these things who seeing the number of the godly dayly diminish'd he creis out Help Lord. He crys as if the axietree of Heaven and Earth had bin split asunder as if the poles had knapt in pieces and the World had received an inrecoverable loss and what is it that makes this good man thus cry out nothing but this that the godly grew scarce and the righteous fell into a small number whereby some great judgment was likely to follow and destroy the corrupt World Besides Nations it may be a warning to our Towns and families if the godly in our Towns or houses be taken from among us it will not â—e â—n 〈◊〉 â—â—r us to â—oâ—k eâ—râ—estly to 〈◊〉 yâ— lest â—he Lord make this as 〈◊〉 â—â—ologue to some Judgement coming upon us These are like good Angels while we have them to guard and procure blessings to our dwellings and inhabitations Q. It may be asked yea but how shall we lay their deaths to hrart Answer This way and by this means First Prayer beseeching God and praying for these two things 1. That his taking of them away be in mercy and not in Judgment It is in mercy always to them but pray we that he do it in mercy to us also 2. That he would raise up holy and righteous ones in their room that there may never want some holy ones to stand in the Gap Secondly Repentance so laying it to heart as that we seek out and repent of those sins of ours for which the Lord might take them away and bring his wrath on us Thirdly Imitation so thinking of the righteous gone from us that we labour to tread in those holy footsteps and imitate those Graces which were eminent in them and left for our pattern Thus though they be taken away for evil to come yet by this our laying it thus to Heart the Lord will avert the evil from us Vse 3 This will teach us how to lay the death of the wicked and unrighteous to Heart that is to be considered of us also As the Righteous are taken away from evil to come so should we consider that the wicked are taken away for evil to come They dying in impenitency and unbelief cannot scape the deserts of vengeful wrath that is their evil to come When prophane and Godless wretches die the wicked should lay it to heart that live lest they die so