Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A31657
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A sermon preached for the funeral of that humble and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, Mr. Nathanael Smith late of Malmesbury, in the county of Wilts. : with a brief account of his life, in an epistle to Dr. Annesley / by Henry Chandler ...
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Chandler, Henry.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing C1927; ESTC R43079
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16,505
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32
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A SERMON Preached for the FUNERAL Of that Humble Faithful Servant of Jesus Christ Mr. NATHANAEL SMITH LATE OF Malmesbury IN THE COUNTY of WILTS WITH A Brief Account of his LIFE in an Epistle to Dr. ANNESLY By HENRY CHANDLER Minister of the Gospel Psalm 112.6 Surely he shall not be moved for ever the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Three Leggs in the Poultrey over against the Stocks Market MDCXCI To the Reverend and Pious Dr. SAMVEL ANNESLY SIR THE design of this Application to you is not your Praise it were the greatest Absurdity for me to attempt it for all that know you and me know you to be much above my Character your Works praise you better than my Pen can My Intention is a sincere and grateful Acknowledgment of the kindness I have received at your Hands for which I stand much indebted to you I would gladly bring a greater and better Thank-offering were it in my Power but this being the best I hope it will be accepted 't is a Sermon preached for the Funeral of my Father-in-Law whose virtuous good Life has done more to prefume his Memory than this Printed Discourse can do to perpetuate it He was a Man eminently Religious and very useful a sincere vigorous pursuer of Holiness in his whole Course I do seriously think that if ever any man in the World made Religion his Business he did he was so far as I could make Observation Religious in every thing allowances for insuperable Frailties being made In his Closet he was frequent and very serious humble and importunate in Prayer if ever any Man prayed in season and out of season he did early and late did he wrestle with God for himself his Family the Nation and the Church of God how early in the Morning have I heard him pleading with God for this poor Sinful Nation when questionless he thought none in the House was awake Many an hours Sleep hath he denied himself of for the sake of private Prayer many a cold Morning before Day hath he been upon his Knees without Fire or Candle to do what in him lay to stave off Judgments from the poor Kingdom how would he stir up himself rouse up his heart and expostulate with his God! When I first saw him in his Coffin I could not forbear saying The Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof In his private Retirements he was wonderfully free and bold yet not rude or irreverent in his Expressions In his Family he was a constant zealous Worshipper of God Morning and Evening no Business whatever could prevail with him either to omit or curtail his set solemn Family-Duties a thing which I fear but few Professors may pretend to God's Word was read his Name call'd on his Praises sung as often in his Family as perhaps in the best Families in England I think but few Families so often mourned apart and together as his I have reason to hope that all his Children now living will bless God in Heaven for him He was not as too many Professors are chiefly careful to raise his Childrens Fortunes but to save their Souls and therefore was truly Watchful over them and Faithful to them as in the matter of Instruction so also of Reproof and Correction And here I may safely add That he was one of the faithfullest Reprovers of Sin that ever I knew If in some Cases his Zeal outran his Discretion wise Men will easily pardon it as being a mistake on the right hand He was heartily concerned for the Glory of God and could not endure to see or hear him dishonoured and therefore tho he exposed himself to danger he would speak without regarding the Person or fearing the Issue In the Congregation he was a Devout Serious Hearer he loved God's Word and honoured the Ministry I have good reason to believe that he usually heard the Word Preached in a very deep Humility and Self-denial He took great pains to prepare his heart to receive the Word and when he had heard it he was diligent to keep it and to that end he would often repeat it in his Family to his Wife and Children I am confident it was his earnest Desire to be in all things subject to the Law of God for he was never offended at Plain-dealing but loved to have his heart ripp'd up and his sins pointed at He rejoiced in opportunities of drawing nigh to God the Sabbaths were his Delight and I judge he was one of the most strict Observers of them He had a great Veneration for the Ministry I am well satisfied he hath done as much to maintain the Faithful Preaching of the Word in the Place he lived in for many Years together as most of his Ability in England I could give a particuldr account here but that the Modesty of his good Widow my dear Mother-in-Law forbids it He was a Dissenter from the Church of England and usually attended the Ministry of Nonconformists but an hearty Lover and ready Hearer of all Sober Orthodox well-living Conformists a thing I judge very commendable as savouring of a Catholick Spirit and proceeding from true Christian Charity In his Business he was Diligent but not Sollicitous I never saw a man commit his ways to God with a greater Confidence and Trust He was industriously careful to be religiously careless He took indeed true pains to get this World but I think in my conscience very much without vexatious thoughtfulness in the pursuit raising delight in the getting or sinking grief for the loss thereof In his dealings he was punctual and just true to his word and conscionable in his ways he was careful rather to receive than do wrong as many in the City and Countrey can safely testifie He lived not in Pleasure but was ridgidly Temperate and for the sake of Religious Duties did very much deny himself in Eating and Drinking He was truly Charitable and ready to relieve the distressed he thought it his Duty and made it his Practise to lay up for Charitable and Pious Vses as God had blessed him and what he laid up he counted no more his own than a bag of his Neighbour's Money that might be left with him so grateful was doing good to him that he not only did it chearfully himself but rejoiced exceedingly to observe others like-minded He was mightily affected with those that harboured the French Protestants and sent a Thousand Prayers to Heaven for them The Concerns of the Church lay near his heart and had constantly a room in his Prayers He was constantly Serious he seemed to carry a dread of the Majesty of God continually upon his Spirit and would be frequently putting in something of God where-ever he was or whomsoever he was conversing with and that which crown'd all is he was profoundly humble as sensible of his own Nothingness as most men that ever I knew In a word as was his Name so was he an Israelite
indeed in whom there was no guile Reverend Sir I cannot but presume That you will readily grant upon a Supposition that this Account is true as God knoweth it is That he was a very good man and consent That his Name should be kept alive and his good Example recorded for others Imitation For this End I have adventured thus to appear in Publick by Printing this well-meaning poor Discourse which I humbly lay at your Feet as a Token of my unfeigned Gratitude for your undeserved Love to me The Lord recompence you Bless this Essay to the Souls of them that shall read it and incline your Heart to Pray for London May 8. 1691. SIR Your Obliged Humble Servant HENRY CHANDLER JOB I. 21. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord. THE Words acquaint us with the incomparable good Temper of Soul that Religious Job possessed in the midst of an unparallell'd Affliction His case was thus A most tremendous Hurricane of Providence had overturned and swept away almost all his earthly Comforts his Oxen and Asses were seiz'd by the Saheans his Sheep destroyed by Lightning his Camels carried away by the Caldeans his Servants slain and which was worst of all his dearer Children unhappily taken away in the midst of their Mirth and the terrible Advice hereof brought him in Parcels by Messengers one upon the heels of another in one day A thing so dreadful that at first sight one would think it was a Conspiracy of Providence to make as great and dismal Destruction amongst his Graces within as it did amongst his Goods and Chattels and Children without and indeed this was the design of Satan but not of God as will appear to the serious Considerer of the meek and composed Remark he makes upon the Providence in the Words of my Text The Lord c. where he doth not only implicitly acquit God of all Unrighteousness or Cruelty but expressly praise and bless him A frame of heart as signally and wonderfully holy as God's Providence was dreadful and astonishing I shall consider this Practice of Job not only as a matter of History but as an example of Piety proposed to us by the Holy Ghost for our imitation And then they afford us this Observation Doct. Every Christian is indispensibly obliged to bless the afflicting taking God I shall endeavour to give you the Sense manifest the Truth and shew you the Usefulness of this Doctrine In the Explication of the Doctrine I shall first prevent some mistakes and shew what is not the Sense of it As 1. This Doctrine doth not mean that we should love our Afflictions for their own sake Malum qua malum non est appetibile I humbly conceive that this is impracticable and our Religion obliges us not to the Practice of things absolutely imposible as is the loving any Evil as Evil Pain Loss Poverty Sickness or Death cannot be loved for themselves 't is repugnant even to innocent Nature Christ Jesus himself could not practice it as we are taught by that Expression Matth. 26.39 If it be possible let this cup pass from me Neither 2. Doth this Doctrine designedly plead for a Stoical impenetrableness as tho it were a Virtue to be insensible of and unconcerned at the Afflictions of Providence this is very alien from the Sense of the Holy Ghost the Frame of Job or the Design of this Sermon As the first is impracticable this is inhumane if not impracticable too for by the way I think as few of the Stoicks arrived to their admired Apathy as Quakers to their pretended Perfection However to entertain the Rebukes of Providence with a moderate proportioned sorrowful Resentment I account virtuous and commendable Job himself expresseth somewhat of this nature by rending his Mantle shaving his Head and falling down upon the ground And God teacheth us this Lesson by creating us with a Disposition to grieve when his Providences call for it for God maketh nothing in vain then what need of Water and Sluices if the one must never run nor the other ever be drawn But affirmatively the Doctrine doth intend 1. When God afflicts us by taking away from us we must carefully prevent or suppress all quarrelling Discontent we are bound to see that there be no Rebels in our Hearts that find fault with God or that rise up and charge him foolishly 't is our Duty to keep the King of Heaven's Peace in our Souls at such times to watch carefully againgst Tumults and Mutinies in our Hearts which are ever and anon apt to rise at the least Provocation imaginable yea many times when there is none given at all Here I conceive are two things to be minded 1. In all our Afflictions we must take heed that we do not rashly and proudly call our God to account concerning his Providences for he is infinitely above us and who dare say unto him What doest thou Job 9.12 If we cannot understand the Wisdom or Usefulness of his Methods Watson we must silently adore where we cannot fathom and patiently wait till he unvail them The Examination of a God is not the Province of a Creature though we may humbly enquire for our own Instruction yet we may not proudly ask for Examination This is more than his Angels ever durst pretend to 2. We must be as careful that in our Judgment made upon his Providence we reflect not upon his Attributes In the Language of Scripture that we do not attribute Folly to God we may not in any case think that God hath forgot himself or acts unlike himself for if we should 't would be nothing less than speaking Blasphemy in our Hearts whose Words are as audible to God as those of our Mouths If I mistake not the Religious Aaron lived both these Particulars when being afflicted severely by the Lord in the Death of his two Sons Lev. 10.3 He held his peace his profound silence loudly speaking a Resolution in him not to examine nor impeach the Great and Holy God 2. Our blessing the afflicting taking God includeth a readiness in us to proclaim the Righteousness and Justice of all his afflictive Dispensations In all our Distresses and Sorrows 't is our Duty to think and acknowledge that God hath not wronged us by exceeding the demerits of our Sins but that we truly deserve the strokes we smart under be they never so many thus the poor afflicted Church of the Jews acknowledgeth and so will every gracious Soul and thus doth Job himself If I justify my self Ezra 9.13 Job 9.20 mine own mouth shall condemn me If I say I am perfect it shall also prove me perverse A gracious heart will justify God tho by so doing he unavoidably throws dirt in his own face he desires to honour God by Confession tho it be to his own disparagement as he rejoyces to see the Sun rise tho it put out the Moon and all the Stars 3.