shall not be to me why should I think to be spared when others are taken away whose sins mine have exceeded the time by-past is too much to have wrought the will of the flesh I am resolved now to make better use of the present and future so long as God shall spare me to prepare for death and for eternity And as these providences are thus merciful means to bring about a blessed change in us so allso to cary it on still further and further How livelily doth sudden death set-forth to us the necessity of repentance in all the kinds of it As the vanity of the creature and the necessity of making God our portion the shortnes of our own righteousnes seeing we must appear before a just and holy God and the necessity of Christ and his righteousnes the evil of sin whereof we have nothing to exspect but shame and sorrow and the necessity of holines all its paths ending in peace and without which we shall never see God in happines And how much the same contributes to promote these gradually allso in us the constant experience of all Gods people abundantly witnes 5 That all may learn experimentally many particular and necessary lessons they formerly disregarded The light of nature shews us sundry of them and the light of scripture more clearly all of them but unbelief doubts of them sensuality constantly opposes them and as men asleep we generally neglect them God is therfore pleased to use unexspected providences which draw the curtain and let in the light so convincingly and sensibly upon us that without wilful shutting our eys we cannot withstand it that so his truth being taught and backt by our own experience may be more readily embraced and obeyed For experience is a more sensible argument than notions to convince us of the truth and less liable to ignorance and mistake for confirming us in it and more particular and prevalent with us to practise it Let me therfore name som of those excellent lessons which still hang on this one bough suddenly broken off from us As 1 the vanity and frailty of life Such a death cryes to us with the word all flesh is grass and all the goodlines thereof is as the flower of the field the wind passeth but over it and it is gone and the place thereof shall know it no more Is. 40.6 Ps 103.16 2 The nearnes of death and judgment If thou willst put these far from thee this summons will convince thee of thy folly that this night thy soul may be required of thee Luke 12.19 20. 3 The necessity of being prepared for thy dissolution For the night of death cometh whether thou thinks of it or no when no man can work there being no knowledg nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest no casting up thy accounts in the dark nor perfecting them with God in the grave Joh. 9.4 Eccles. 9.10 4 The danger of deferring thy preparation For in an hour thou thinks not of may Christ call thee to give an account of thy stewardship for thou shalt be no longer steward Math. 24. Luke 16. v. 2. 5 The pretiousnes of time to prepare for eternity For time is short and were it longer litle enough for so great a work and allso uncertain as thou seest and therfore not to be lavisht out upon thy lusts seeing thine eternal welfare depends upon it 1 Cor. 7.29 6 The vain hopes of living many years Since thou knowest not what a day may bring forth no more than what a woman with child whether male or female living or dead as t is this day Prov. 27.1 7 The groundles presumtion of a lingring death when thou seest some in a moment go down to the grave and many die in their full strength Job 21. 13 23. 8 How quickly the greatest hopes are dasht and expectations disappointed Here 's a child com to the birth and no streugth to bring forth but mother and child die together there 's a strong man saith with Agag surely the bitternes of death is past and the next hour it returns and carries him away 1 Sam. 15. 9 Moderation towards the things of this life For the Lord is at hand ready to call thee quickly from thy good things who makes them thy portion and then whose shall they be and where wilt thou be and to take thee who makes him thy happines from the evils of this life that they no more shall torment thee Philip 4.5 10 The different nature of earthly enjoyments and heavenly Earthly promise much and in the tryal faile our exspectations But heavenly we find best upon tryal and such as will never fail us nor forsake us Heb. 13.5 And lastly the vast difference between our present and future state Here we meet and part presently there we meet and never part here 's nothing but changes there 's none but a stable eternity 1 Thes 4.17 These Reasons I hope may suffice for the several sorts of sudden death mentioned on this occasion to justify God's proceedings therein and to shew us the gracious design of these kind of providences that seem of all others most dismal to us none so much as these conducing to the general good of mankind as tending to awaken us out of our security cure us of our spiritual distempers and point out to us and quicken us to our duty Let us see to it that we make use of them accordingly and what further improvement may be made of the present providence we shall now speake to by way of inference and application Vse 1. Hence learn the uncertain tenure or manner of holding our nearest Relations and dearest friends and acquaintance That seeing them liable continually to be lost we may be more sensible our enjoying them is but of meer curtesy and that we are but tenants at will for them and all our other earthly comforts to God the great Lord of all having by our sinful apostacy lost our right and title to the enjoyment of them which he gave us at first by the covenant of works in our creation For had we continued in our original state of integrity there would have been none of this sorrowful parting of friends but we should either have continued happy together on earth or without suffering death have been as S. Anstin and others think after some certain time translated into heaven and whether all together at last or successively at such a term of years it would have been matter of triumphant rejoycing to all But now having by sin forfeited and lost all our mercies God hath been graciously pleased in the covenant of grace to alter his dispensation not to trust us bank-rupts with a new stock in our own hands but to commit all to Christ in whom he hath treasurd up spiritual life for his people so that that is now in safe keeping being hid with Christ in God Colos 3.3 And this he hath assured us of by promise upon our fulfilling the condition
with this world especially the healthful and those that wallow in pleasure and prosperity that they have neither list nor leisure to think seriously and prepare for the next As if they were priviledged from the like stroke and had a protection from death's arresting them or when it doth could bride it off for some time or make such a covenant with hell as will secure them So great is the security and stupidity of most that they regard not these warnings nor think themselves longer concernd when once the funerals are over Therfore that we may make better use of them 1 Suppose the like or worse may befall thee or thine whilst secure sinners still suppose the best Not to disquiet thy selfe with groundles fears but to prepare for all events of providence which are so never the neerer thee but thou much fitter for them unexspected crosses of all others being the hardliest born Say then what befalls others may befall me allso by this supposition as a prospective bring thy own and thy friends death neer thee think of it frequently and converse with it familiarly that so neither may surprize thee Exempt not thy selfe or thy Relations from that which frequently befalls others How many are the acute diseases that quickly snap mans life asunder How many the casualties and accidents whereby men of all ranks and conditions have perisht in all ages and places unexspectedly * Plin. l. 7. c. 53. de mortibus repentinis Val. Max. l. 9. c. 12. Zuinger Theatrum l. 18. To reckon those recorded by authors and known to our selves would take up our whole time 2. Flatter not thy self that thou and thine shall live long and die leisurely Oh the vain and deceitful hopes that most have of living still on and on they know not how long The younger that have death on their backs think they must of course live to be aged the old that have death before their faces and gray hairs not only here and there upon them but all over them hope still of holding out yea when sicknes is entred and death at the door we still hope that we or ours shall escape with life I have seldom met with one so old that hoped not to rub aut som years longer and never with any to whom their years past and to com did not seem of a different length Looking backwards on many years past they count them but a short time and usually their work therein litle but looking forwards on a few before them reckon them long and what a deale of work they shall doe therein so casily doe we deceive our selves in numbering our days and measuring our work that will not be deceived by others in any accompt that is of concernment 3 Reckon life by days not years seing none know what hour the son of man will com and call for them Thus the best and wisest of men reckoned their lives as Jacob Moses Job David and Solomon Gen. 47. v. 9. Ps 90.14 Job 14.5 Ps 39.5 Eceles 8 15. This right numbering our days would make us apply our hearts to wisdom by improving our present time and opportunities in the day of grace cutting off our vain hopes of future uncertainties and looking on every day as a new gift of God for his work Lam. 3.23 If Horace a heathen could say Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum much more should a Christian believe and live every day as his last because it may be so and if it be not it is more than any one knows Our Lord having wisely and mercisully conceald both the time and place of our departure from us that our lives might not be spent in continual madnes of mirth and vanity in our former and of fears and melancholy in our later days but might be restrained from sin and quickned to duty not delaying our preparations for death but living in a constant exspectation thereof nor presuming of future time not in our power but rightly improving our present with our Apostle dying daily and as a good man said that of twenty years he had known no morrow This divine arithmetick of numbring our days Moses and David begd of God and much more need have we to make our hearts so sensible of our frailty from these examples that we may get ready to follow and may not be only unwilling to live as many through the troubles of life but willing to die which grace only enables us to when prepared 4 Set these examples before thee so as they may affect thy heart and make it restles till they be duly improved by serious consideration That when others are destroyed from morning to evening or every hour of the day it may not be without any regarding it Job 4.20 Say how soon may this befall me or mine How uncertain is our time here and how certain death and eternity hereafter How doe I loyter whilst time flies and my glas perhaps ending and how litle of that work don which must be don or I am lost for ever Am I fit to look death in the face or a just and holy God in judgment have I not delayed long enough allready and is there not danger in these delays Is my soul and eternal salvation of so litle consequence that my heart should still deceive me in disregarding them Is it not wisdom to doe that first that is of greatest consequence and necessity Is not all my time litle enough for so great a work as preparing for eternity and shall I lose more Have so many of God's servants that have taken so much pains so long time in Religion fasting weeping praying hearing c. confest themselves unready for death what shall I be that have don so litle How dismal will death be to me if no better prepared for it Will Christ stay any more for me then he did for the foolish virgins was it not only they that were ready that entred in with him Or will he when once the door of mercy is shut open it for me alone No no I cannot exspect it and therfore will take his counsel and watch not knowing the day or hour wherein he cometh 5 Make sure to be habitually prepared at least for death by being reconciled to God through Christ Acquaint therfore thy self with him and be at peace and take heed of living in that state wherein thou wouldst be loth to die See to the soundnes of thy repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and the sincerity of thy obedience as ever thou meanest to secure the better part thy soule and thy future happines in eternity And labor after assurance that when this earthly house of thy tabernacle is dissolved thou hast an house eternal in the heavens as ever thou desirest to die comfortably The want of this makes death so dismal to those that are sensible what it is to die How many that live under the Gospel and know no more than the heathen Adrian
or complaining because God did it Ps 39.9 Peter looks only at Christ's enemies and quarrels Christ at God and submits to death the cup which my Father hath given me shall I not drink it Jâ—b 18.11 If Epictetus could say I have yielded my desires to God how much more should we that are Christians 2 Be sensible of thy sins and deserts for them so wilst thou more willingly accept and better beare the punishment of them Wherfore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins Lam. 3.39 I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him saith the Church Micah 7.9 Those complain most that least know themselves and their sins 3 Compare our sufferings several ways and we shall see small reason for impatience under them of what kind soever they be As 1 with our sins The Church complaind there was no sorrow like hers yet after acknowledges it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed and thou our God hast punisht us less than our iniquities deserve Which is true of the greatest punishments on this side hell For if we had our desert in stead of weeping here for wives or children and as Rachel will not be comforted because they are not we might be howling there in despaire in a state for ever uncable of the least comfort 2 With our enjoyments Many mercies for one affliction many spiritual mercies for one temporal affliction 3 With the suffering of others What are any of ours to Job's and many of God's best servants whom he often strips not of one only but of most or all their earthly comforts at once If all men or especially God's people should bring their miseries together and lay them in a common heap none of us should have our share by much 4 With the good we may gather by them As to fins for the discovering them to us and making us search and try our wayes and turne again to the Lord. For the curing them in us as security pride hypocrisie worldlines doting on creature comforts unprofitablnes under the means of grace c. And for the preventing sin from us Which otherwise we should he apt to fall into if God did not hedge up our way with these thorns So in reference to graces Afflictions being as fire to refine and purify them and make for the exercising improving and quickening of them as our faith hope love zeale patience experience humility heavenly-mindednes prayer c. And in regard of more communion with God here and more glory in heaven hereafter The loss of friends is abundantly made up in more enjoyment of God which his people experience frequently who never enjoy him so much as when they enjoy the creature least May not Christ say am I not better then all these These all die away but God and Christ remain the same A good woman when her friends died would often say well however my God lives at length her husband dying she lamented bitterly that her child askt her Mother is your God dead at which she took up blaming her self for her impatience And the Apostle declares That our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us not meritoriously but occasionally and instrumentally when sanctified a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 4 Let faith and patience have their perfect work in you Faith in God through Christ and the promises for a holy use and blessed effect of these sad providences it being He that teaches you to profit by them making you partakers of his holines and them to yield the peaceable fruit of righteousnes Patience to bear them aright in a holy submission and compliance with Gods will in the greatest crosnes of events when you have rekond comforts and are arrested with sorrows If the vertue of patience be as Seneca faith a salve for all soars much more the grace which thô it make not miseries none yet keeps us from being miserable by them In our duty it is good to doe that of choice we must doe of necessity Quarrel not therfore with God for this is but like the wild and ignorant Indians that shoot their arrows at the sun when it scorches them which fall back upon their own heads Nor repine at his dealings for this will but double the affliction not remedy it Say not I could beare any cross but this For you doe but deceive your self in this plea for your impatience being most sensible of the present having forgot former and not knowing or much regarding future as we are allways most sensible of the present weather And were it so as you think it is not for you to choose your own crosses no more than your comforts Check your selves and indulge not impatience which discomposes and unfits you for your duty both towards God and men as we see in Jonah whose prayers in that temper are nothing but quarrelling with God Be not so sinfully selfish as to wish them so much to their loss as to be with you again who have finished their course past the fears and pangs of death left this troublesom world and got rid of their sins and Satan's temptations and crowned with righteousnes in eternal life Envy not the early happines of thy wife that is gon to a better husband nor of thy child that is gon to his heavenly Father But prepare thou to follow and be with Christ and them in heaven where there will be no more parting Now that God by the clouds gathering so thick and black about us threatens us with a dreadful storm we have reason to count them more than ordinary blest and happy that are got safe home to their father's house and those heavenly mansions out of the reach of men or devils God's smoking us out of these houses of clay by these particular providences allso may and justly should make our eyes water but not be filld with tears or our hearts with sorrows too much either in degree or duration for those gon before us who might say to us as Christ to the daughters of Jerusalem weep not for us but for your selves and your children that are left behind in the days a coming in a troublesom world And that none should sorrow for this our sister as others which have no hope I might shew more largely if I had known her longer Who thô taken from us in an hour we thought not yet we have reason to believe neither unthought of nor unprepared for by her not only in regard of the hazardous condition she knew she was to pass thorow but the tenure of her life which was vertuous and unblamable her conversation having been answerable to her pious education The certainty of death and uncertainty of the time is not more commonly said than abused by the most who in stead of being allways ready because they know not the time are less ready at all times but the godly wise have not so learned Christ who have been taught by him to watch because they know not what hour he will come To speak of that good in her which she held in common with all other Christians is needles In these loose and declining times she kept her integrity and was at more than ordinary pains for the injoyment of the publique ordinances both in season and out of season as God afforded opportunity How should her early rising to them shame most of us for our sloth if we had any shame in us She redeemed the time in these evil days for her private devotion not vainly spending it in pleasure as too many doe but improving it for eternity making God's word her companion and counsellor Her converse and carriage was modest and prudent guiding both her tongue and affairs with discretion Never speaking evil of any or censoriously judging of others as the unbridled and licentious tongues of many that run at random who feare not to speak evil of dignities and spare not uncharitably to censure all and often better than themselves because they are not of their way In brief she was a Mary in God's house as well as a Martha in her own Finally for her eternal salvation she was nether presumtuously confident as the ignorant nor fearfully diffident as the unbelievers but in a way of duty reposed her soul on Gods mercy and the merits of her Savior being wont to say the feared death but not to be dead Who seemed to be heard in that she feared God removing death as it were out of her sight by those apoplectical or convulsive fits that seised on her and made her senseles wherby death became less terrible to her at least if it was any terror at all And for a Christian sensible of sin and future judgement and eternity not to be affraid to be dead is to me an argument of more than ordinary faith in Christ and more than most of us I feare if we were put to it can truly say For such a one as Epicharmus whom Tully * L. 1. Tuscul Quaest Emori nolo sed me esse mortuum nihil aestimo q. d. mortem horreo idque natura verum ubi fuero mortuus nihil amplius faciam quia nullus ero Pagnini Scholia mentions who neither believes the immortality of the soul or a future state to say so is no wonder but for a Christian that believes both is rare Let 's then comfort our selves that she sleeps sweetly in Jesus and get ready that at what hour soever he shall call for us we may not have our work to doe and both fear death and to be dead but may be fitted to give up our accounts with comfort and be ever with the Lord. FINIS
that befall the wicked chastisements Levit. 26 28. Deutr. 11 2 3. Ps 94 10. Ier. 30 14. Nor doe I well understand how that which is in it selfe and owne nature a punishment should ever be otherwise tho it com from different causes I know and is used for different ends and effects or how thô afflictions may be chastisements to the righteous whilst they live their death can be so to them and much les how that of Infants which make so great a part of mankind and if of believing parents are charitably judged by most and I would be glad to see well proved are righteous and saved for the Apostle makes it the effect of Adams transgression and therefore properly a punishment Rom. 5 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 15 21 22. And therfore that distinction allso used by Dally and others that death to the righteous is only materially or improperly a punishment not formally as the cutting or burning a patient by a Phisitian differs from the like inflicted out of Justice by a Judge on an offender seems not consonant to the Apostle's doctrine seeing death is inflicted by the law-giver for the breach of his law whereas a Patient suffers not as a malefactor It is true that neither death nor any other punishments of the Righteous are meerly vindictive in reference to satisfaction for sin as the Papists mantaine Christ having fully satisfied for their sins and procured the pardon of them which upon their believing is granted them by the covenant of grace but not so as to free them from the temporal evils of this life or death and their bodies lieing in the dust these being excepted after the promis of the Messias Gen. 3. For God having given man a law and threatned his transgressing it with death which implies the temporal of the body the spiritual of the soul and the eternal of both our first parents comprehending all man-kind having trangrest it God coms and hold Assizes summons them to appeare before him charges them with their sin convinces them of their guiltines and then allaying the severity of his Justice with Mercy and free Grace first promiseth a Messias and Salvation and deliverance through him from their Sins by his satisfaction to Justice for them so as he had determined and after agreed with Christ the seed of the Woman in the Covenant of Redemption so that though they and all in them had Sinned and come short of the Glory of God being Spiritually dead in Tresspasses and Sins and therby liable to eternal Death yet they and all their rightteous Seed should be Saved by the Messias from these two kinds of Death which are the great destructive penalties of Sinners And then proceeds to Sentence them what they should all suffer notwithstanding First the Woman who was first in fault declaring her peculiar Punishment as to her Sex besides those common to her with Man in her sorrowful Conception bringing forth and subjection to her Husband and then the Man and all mankind in him both Men and Women are sentenced to Misery in this Life mortality and their Bodies lying in the dust from whence they were taken The Promise and its preceding the Sentence implying that all those tâ—at imbraced God's Mercy through the Messias should have no other Punishment then these temporal and all those that rejected it and so remaining on their first terms with their Creator commonly call'd The Covenant of Works should suffer the Death threatned therein for their Transgressions The Execution of this Sentence hath continued ever since and will continue till the Resurrection that all may feel the bitter fruits of their Apostacy in these temporal Punishments for the bettering of God's People not for their satisfying Justice for their Sins as the Papists affirm seeing they neither can no meer Man much less Sinful being able to satisfy divine Justice for the least offence nor have need Christ having done this sufficiently for them and for the leaving the incorrigible Wicked that will not be bettered by them the more inexcusable in their suffering Eternal Punishment So that those metaphorical expressions of Pardon of Sins by God 's not seeing or remembring them blotting them out covering them casting them behind his back and into the bottom of the Sea c. denoting the plenariness thereof and those sayings of our Divines remtssa cuspà remittitur poena and that Justification takes away all Punishment c. must be understood according to the Covenant of Grace and agreably with the execution of God's sentence upon Sinners For thô remission on of Sin be nothing else then the remission of its puishment yet it s that punishment only which is opposite to pardon such as belongs to the impenitent and is Eternal whereas all those whom God justifies he also glorifies Insomuch that thô the righteous have through Christ the remission of their Sins and eternal Punishment granted them in the Covenant of Grace together with a sanctified use of their temporal that they shall all work together for their good and the sting of Death taken out of their Sin that brought it in being now thereby turn'd out again and victory over the Grave in the Redemptiom of their bodies from their Captivity under it at the Resurrection yet Death is still in all the degrees of it antecedent in the miseries of this Life and kinds of it first and second or temporal and eternal the wages of Sin according to the original threatning And temporal Death a punishment in all according to the original Sentence thô to the Righteous Eternal Life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ their Lord who hath abolish'd Death or Sin which is Spiritul Death and Eternal the consequent thereof thô not their Temporal and brought Life and Immortality to light by the Gospel from the first promise of himself still more clearly and by himself at last most fully to whom be Glory Rom. 6 23. 2 Tim. 1 10. 2. The causes or reasons of the Adjuncts of Death in the kinds manner and other circumstances thereof as why some die a violent others a natural Death these suddenly those leisurely one sooner another later or at such times or places rather than others are in the ordinary course of Providence of which we speak secret to us thô well known to the all-wise God There being such a stupendious variety herein that as in living faces so in dying persons ther 's no perfect agreement in all circumstances each of which are particularly and only known to him who numbers the hairs of our heads and so orders and governs every single person and thing as if it were all he had to do and so all things as if he were not imployed in any particulars The Apostle gives us the clearest account hereof that I know in few words saying God worketh all things after the Councel of his own Will Ephes 1 11. where we have counsel directing will determining and power working or executing all things
with clear circumstances there we may judge of the chief reason or cause though there be several others concurring that we may make better use of examples as Scripture teaches us 1 Cor 10 5-10 Otherwise we must take heed of rushing into God's Secrets which belong not to us and only eye the general ends to make use of his Providences accordingly As where great and crying Sins goe before and the end is demonstration of Justice there we may see that 's the chief cause especially in extraordinary Punishments whereof we have many examples in Scripture And where also such Sinners are threatned there also truth appears in their being Punished as the Egyptians first born Ahaziah Joram Ahab Jezebel c. So when the Sin is clearly visible in the Death a Haman's Agag's and innumerable others that shed Man's Blood and accordingly have their own unexspectedly shed Or when destruction follows at the heels of great Sins as the three thousand Israelites slayn for the molten calf Exod. 32. and while the flesh was between their teeth the wrath of the Lord was kindled against them Numb 11. and Herod immediatly simitten and eaten of worms Acts. 12. And yet when the vindication of Gods laws and ordinances is manifested to be the end its hard to say whether his love to the truth and ordinances of his institution be not the chief reason thô justice be more discernable for we must not judge all those that are simitten and destroyed even by God's immediate hand to perish eternally And therfore it is observable that as God never appeard so terribly as at the giving the law from mount Sinai so his wrath was never so hot nor such severity used as against the first trangsgressors to assert the honor of his laws and make them more regarded afterwards As in the first idolatry after their promulgation Exod. 32 10. At the first burnt-offerings when Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire that is common and not from the altar there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them the punishment suting to their sin Levit. 10. As afterwards Numb 16. when Corah and others descended from Levi endeavoured to make the priesthood common to all the Levites v. 10. and Dathan and Abiram Reubenites and others the politick power of Moses and the seventy elders newly establisht by God Ch. xi common with the rest the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up v. 32. and fire from the Lord consumed the two hundred and fifty that offered inconse v 35. whose censers God commanded to be used for a sign and memorial thereof v. 38. and 40. and for the peoples murmuring at this dispensation fourteen thousand and seven hundred of them dyed of the plague v. 49. So when God appoynted the punishment for presumtuoussins the first offender the man that punishment sticks on the sabbath day is by God's appoyntment stoned to death Numb 15. Thus God vindicated the honour of his ark with smiting the Philistines and after it's returne above fifty thousand of the men of Beth-shemesh shewing thereby that the ark was the same thô it had been among the uncircumcised and the effects of feare were answerable 1 Sam. c. 5. and c. 6. and after that Vzzah for his rash taking hold of it thô as seems to us for a good end for the oxen shook it so that David was affraid and we may suppose the people much more 2 Sam. 6. And thus allso God vindicated the honor of Christianity at the first planting of the Gospel in smiting Ananias and Sapphira so that great feare came upon all the Church and upon as many as heard these things Acts. 5. But where no notorious crimes preceed and other particular ends than justice appear there sudden death is the Occasion and God's love to his truth and messingers that declare it or servants that profess or suffer for it the chief cause and reason thereof As the widow of Sarepia's son raised to life by Elijah by which he is acknowledged a man of God and the word of the Lord in his mouth truth 1 Kings 17. the Shunammite's son by Elisha whose miracles resembled his master Elijah's 2 Kings 4. So Lazarus's as Christ declares to the messinger his sisters sent to him This sicknes is not unto death thô in its nature and next end it was yet not irrevocably as they feared but for the glory of God that the son of God might be glorified thereby intimating that this of Lazarus should be used as a means of glorifying God and his son in miraculous raising him again to life and therby confirming his office of Messiah and Doctrine of the Gospel as we read it did most eminently Jâ—hn 11. And the noble army of Martyrs whom God brings forth as his Champions for the truth shewing the power of his grace and their sincerity that they doe not serve God for wordly things as the devil slanderd Job but love him their Savior and his truth above their own lives and making their death which their enimies count ignominious honourable to him religion and themselves and using it to quite contrary ends than their persecutors design namely the increase and confirmation of his Church and people I have been the longer upon these extraordinary examples both to cleare the truth in the general and the several kinds of sudden death and allso in the ordinary cases that now follow to be more particularly spoken of For by a parity of reason it will follow that as God makes different use of like providences suting them to different ends and making them occasions and means of different effects in wonderful variety according to his infinite wisdom and power so he hath accordingly particular reasons that are just and weighty for his dispensations thô unknown to us except he discovers them as his justice in extraordinary punishments for enormous offences or his goodnes mercy and other causes when it is otherwise So that where no sins or ends and effects more than common there we are not able nor ought we to judge of God's reason why these rather than others are suddenly taken away either by diseases as apoplexies convulsions and the like or by pains as women in travel or by wars fire water and other accidents these things falling alike to all for if the kinds of death or any temporal punishments were infallible signs of God's hatred and temporal blessings of his love we could never reconcile God's word we are bound to believe with the works of providence which are but the fulfilling of it and the execution of his purposes In such cases therefore when God exercises us as Job who is set forth to us as a pattern of patience in dark providences prayed shew me why thou contendest with me c. 10. and waited for the end of the Lord so should we God many times dealing with us as Christ said to Peter what I do thou knowest not now but thou shalt know hereafter As any one hearing Solomon's
meet him to awaken all for it s said they all slumbred and slept the wise virgins slumbred and the foolish slept so that none in the visible church but have need of wakening Math. 25. For as in nature troubles either feared or felt both awaken us out of our sleep and keep us from sleeping so in grace there being few Christians to be found that either the fears of death and judgements by som warnings of them or some inward or outward troubles have not awakend and kept watching We are naturally so sensual and immerst in the things of this life so regardles of God his word and our eternal concernments and so apt to put the evil day far from us that God is mercifully pleased by examples as wel as precepts and threats to rouse us up to consider our latter end that we may not run heedlesly on to our eternal destruction As it is usual with God to forewarne both nations and cities before he smites them as all histories both sacred and prosane testify we never reading of judgements but for mercies abused so allso particular persons there being none of years but have warning in this kind and may every where see graves shorter than their own For as security shakes off the feare of sin and misery and makes us look on death and judgement at a distance so the feare of them makes them seem neer us and to reflect upon our selves and the desert of our sins and consider our later end thereby becomming instrumental to make us serious which is the first step in religion and to turn our sloth into diligence our indifferency into earnestnes and our inconstancy into stablenes and resolution Lastly To bring us to repentance As this is the end of God's threatnings that he may not punish if we will repent so it s allso of his executing them that others may take warning all his providences being a fulfilling of som threat or promis in his word This even the Ninivites understood as appears by their practise upon Jonah's denunciation of their destruction and thus our Savior expounds these providences which are rich in sense as well as the word howbeit we seldom fully comprehend it Who preaching in Galilee was interrupted by some News-mongers from Jerusalem that told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices in Jerusalem for Pilate had no jurisdiction but Herod over the Galileans supposing they were some extraordinary sinners because they suffered such things Luke 13. Christ according to his great wisdom neither taxes Pilat's fact of cruelty as they might possibly suppose nor approves it nor denies those Galileans to be sinners and suffer justly but only that they were greater sinners than all the rest shewing that they were not to be judged as such because of their suffering and adds the like concerning those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and slew declaring from both these examples the general use the living should make of the sudden death of others which is to repent this being the end of Gods sparing us to give us time and space for repentance and his taking away others to stir us up to make use of our time accordingly And the more to awaken them to this duty shews the more especial use of these to them in a prophetical commination from the manner of their perishing making it a type or emblem to the living of their future destruction as Samuel did by Sauls rending his mantle of God's rending the Kingdom from him saying except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Denoting that as those Galileans were slain by Pilat the Roman governor and his soldjers so the Galileans should after by the Roman army and as the 18 in Jerusalem were slain by the fall of the tower in Siloam so the dwellers in Jerusalem should be by the fall of their other towers and walls Which they not repenting was accordingly accomplisht in both For the Romans first fel upon Galilee and destroyd great numbers of them and the rest flying to Jerusalem at the time of the passover were with other Jews slain in such abundance that the altar for sacrifices swimd with blood and multitudes of the inhabitants of Jerusalem it being besieged and taken by the Romans were slain by the battering of their walls and buried in the ruins of their city So dangerous is it to neglect repenting from the warnings given us and especially for those more immediatly concernd So great wisdom and safety is there in true repentance which will certainly save our souls from eternal and is the only way to save our persons also and estates from publick calamities and temporal destruction But oh the blindnes and stupidity of most part of men that when God's hand is lifted up they will not see it when he hedges up their sinfull ways with thorns will needs run through them when he smites som on their right hand and others on their left regard it not that can go and com from funerals without a serious thought of their own Common providences are but litle observed by us and therfore do but litle move and affect us but when we meet with unexspected occurrences or interruption of the ordinary course of time and nature in the death of any this is apt to startle us and make us bethink our selves more than usually and where grace sets in with it becoms a means to better and reform us Thus God often makes use of the sudden death of som to bring others first to themselves by consideration and afterwards to himself by repentance and especially those in the like condition when one is taken and another left som destroyd and others saved this making both a deeper and lastinger impression and those more neerly concernd in or related to the deceased For as we often think this or that occasiond their death and these or those things might have prevented it the thoughts whereof frequently trouble us afterwards so our former carriage towards them and theirs to us coms now afresh to our remembrance feeds our sorrow and lays the foundation of our repentance These and those things saith conscience thou shouldst have done and so and so thou shouldst have carried towards them and didst not and this and that thou shouldst not have done nor carried in this or that manner to them and didst thou might have got much good by them and hast not and done more good to them and wouldst not thou matterdst not what became of their souls and knowest thou what will becom of thine Then thinks the sinner what if their case had been mine where had I now been if I had been so hurried to judgment my conscience tells me I am not fit to die I cannot say my sins are pardond and my peace made with God whom I have so greatly offended he hath now warnd me to flee from the wrath to com and should I not take it shall I still except my self and say this
in us such is the wretchednes of our hearts that usually the better God is to us the worse we are to him and the more enjoyment he gives us of earthly friends the more we forget our heavenly father When we want and desire husbands wives children friends or any earthly comforts that we cannot obteine we seek God for them and when he threatens to take them from us we cry to him to spare us them but when we enjoy these even when he denies or takes them away from others and have most reason to eye and own him in them depend upon him for them and use them as encouragements to serve him that gives and continues them to us we are apt to forget him set these up in his room make them our God and take up with them as our portion so that he is then litle regarded of the most and less than he ought by the best When he therfore blows upon these blessings it is to bring us to set them in their due place and keep them so in subordination to himself and make us mind him more for the future and them less than formerly lest these streams of creature comforts that should lead us to him should draw us from him and drown us in perdition For now that reason through sin hath lost its soverainty over us sense lying so near us usually sways us and brings the soul not only to comply with the necessities of our present state in these Relations for the comfort of this life which is lawful being God's institution in innocency but to such a condescention to the body which only skils sensual things that for the most part men live a meer animal life without God in the world not like men capable of enjoying him much less like Christians How happy were it then that as by experience we learn the worth of these things by the want of them so we would allso their worthlesnes in comparison of him who is our only happines thus should we gain more by our parting with them than by our enjoying them com to make a happy exchange These providences duly considered and rightly used would recall us back again from the creature to God awaken conscience and make every one turn preacher to himself that God may have the prevailing choice Saying I see husband or wife parents or children are soon gon all of them but vanity miserable comforters are ye all I said I shall die in my nest my beloved yoke-fellow shall comfort me this son will be the staf of my old age that friend will be my support but how quickly am I disappoynted of one and may be of all these perishing comforts I still thought and hoped satisfaction would arise from these things I had a mind to liked and loved but find my self continually deceived I will therfore seek it no more in these houses of clay where it is not to be found but in the living God in whose enjoyment it is only to be had and then I may hope contentment with the portion of these he gives me will allso dwell with me which hath been all along so great a stranger How have I foolishly forsaken the fountane of living waters of salvation and been hewing out to my selfe one broken cistern after another of creature comforts when I stil found as fast as I made them they will hold no water I have too long dabled in these nether springs that only feed the winter brooks which dry up on a sudden when I most want them I will betake me to the upper springs of grace that flow continually which can only quench the thirsty desires of my soul Lord whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth I desire in comparison of thee all these faile me but thou wilt never faile me therfore I choose thee for my portion who wilt be so for ever Ps 73. And lastly from our dependence upon them for support and comfort Man fallen from God affects a self-sufficiency and finding the shortnes thereof in himself in stead of looking above and returning to him looks about him and cries who will shew me any good and fixing on such earthly blessings as he either hath or hopes for rests on them so that God is but a cypher and his blessings the figure with him till he see his mistake God indeed hath the name and profession of our faith but sad experience shews us how ready our hearts are to depart from him and to make the creature our confidence and if our projects and exspectations faile us therein to sit down in despondency as if there were no remedy Even the best of men are apt to over-reckon themselves in their hopes over-act their reliance on creature comforts and leane too much on these sensible supports till God lets them see what broken reeds they rely upon and upon what sandy foundations they build vast hopes which with the least puff of his displeasure fall to the ground Then the hearts of foolish Nabals die within them and holy Davids drawn to comfort themselves in their God Thus the Church forbidden to trust in a friend or those most neerly allyed and finding the disappoyntment of such adherence resolves I will look unto the Lord. Micah 7.5 6 7. Thus the wife depending on her husband when he is taken from her and she a desolate widow trusts in God 1 Tim. 5.5 Thus the child of whom we say as Lamech this same shall comfort us being taken away shews us our folly in reckoning so long before hand and on such uncertainties These providences as well as the word calls to us and saith Let not the wise man trust and glory in his wisdom seing unexspected events daily confound the wisest nor the strong man in his strength which every sicknes or small accident destroys nor the rich man in his riches which on a sudden take to themselves wings fly away out of his reach nor husband and wife parents and children friends and acquaintance in one another which die and perish we see daily but all in the living God at all times who it the only rock to be relyed on all these being unstable as water the Father of mercies when all these becom miseries and the God of all comfort when these can yield us none at all Jer. 9.23 Ps 62.8.2 Cor. 1.3 3 This shews us the necessity of being allways ready for death and prepared for the death of ours that we may not be surprised how suddenly soever either shall happen The double example this day before us summons us to this duty seing then we have lost the comfort of their lives le ts not lose this benefit of their deaths If the warnings of God's word hath not awakend us let these alarms of his providence doe it All grant it necessary to provide for this great change of time with eternity and yet how wofully is it for the most part neglected Men are so taken up