more fruitfully Yea every one in their places and callings labouring to be more holy and prayerful Ps 12.1 more useful and active for the interest of Christs and for publike good This were to do like Christians worthy of our Name and the fruit of this would be excellent and beautiful For Fruits of sensiblenesse of our losses 1. It might help through grace to appease divine anger 2. To avert approaching judgement as Amos 7.1 2. compared with ver 3. and 4.5 with ver 6. 3. God would take it kindly behold precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Salnts Ps 116.15 would not our Father take it well if we were followers of him Eph. 5.1 as dear chilldren 4. It would make way for comfort Comfort is then seasonable and savoury when it comes in in Gods method Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Mat. 5.4 The world inverts Christs order they begin in comfort and end in mourning true Saints begin in mourning and end in comfort it is true all over When thus humbled under the mighty hand of God it might be seasonable to suggest to our selves and others some such considerations as these 1. Comforting considerations Who made these that are taken away so excellent and influential GOD Well as he said Salvus est Artifex God never dieth he that made the vessel is alive though the vessel be broken in pieces with God there is abundance of Spirit he can easily raise up others in their places to carry on his work When Moses was troubled about a Successour and knew not where to finde him and therefore begs an immediate choice from heaven Num. 27.16 Let the God of the spirits of all flesh set a man over the Congregation God had a recruit that Moses little thought of a Joshuah one under his own roof his servant he must succeed in that great charge ver 18. 2. Consider God can do his own work without the service of men though he useth instruments he needs them not many times to speak after the manner of men God is more troubled to fit the instrument then to do the work alone In the Creation of the world God was alone Isa 44.24 In the Redemption of the world Jesus Christ was alone and of the people there were none with him Isa 63.3 And how easily were both these mighty wohks finished In the reforming of the Church he useth instruments and the Church looks upon them many times as the oniy men that must do it and behold they prove so crosse and untoward that unlesse God lay them by and take the work into his own hand a deliverance would end in a bondage and a glorious Reformation set in a black and horrid Desolation This is a comfort were we fit for it Though God tie us to means he doth not tie himself to means Thirdly the lesse there is of the creature the more God is engaged to appear Deut. 32.36 Our despairing times are Gods rising times Isa 33.10 The comfort is this GOD will glorifie HIMSELF Fourthly as our duty is when God takes eway the creature to live immediately upon Himself when the cisterns are empty then to go to the fountain so our comfort is Those are the purest tasts of God which we have immediately from himself Our very windowes darken much of our light We see through a glasse darkly 1 Cor. 13.12 And many times some of our water of Life leaks through the pipes by which it ir conveyed God is most to the Angels and Saints in Heaven because what HE IS he lets in immediately into their souls They drink of the river of his pleasures Ps 36.8 9. and in his light do they see light Fifthly and lastly as for our Worthies that are gone they have made a blessed change Labour for Rest Sin for Holinesse Earth for Heaven Rags for * Good old Mr. Dent when he thing out his last breath said Give me my Crown and Robes and so gave up the ghost Robes their Crosse for a Crown the company of sinners for the Spirits of just men made perfect the creature for the Creator Father Son and Holy Ghost God blessed for ever Reader I could adde much more upon this Accompt but I am sensible how farre already I have exceeded the bounds of an Epistle It is for thy sake and therefore I hope with the ingenuous it will finde net only Pardon but Acceptance The Lord fit thee for these comforts and then fill thee with them It is the humble and hearty desire of A poor unworthy Servant of Christ and of thy faith THO. CASE 1 COR. 1.29 with 31. That no flesh should glory in his Presence But as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. THe Connexion of the words briefly stands thus The Corinthians being extremely sick of a spiritual plurisie an overweaning opinion of their own gifts and graces the Apostle like a wise Physician opens a veine and le ts out some distempered blood by calling them back to a sober remembrance of their original what they were before conversion scil foolish and ignorant impotent and ignoble a people of a low and base extraction meer non-entities as it were ver 26 27 28. And yet withal lest they should be too much dejected and faint by over much discouragement he administreth a cordial unto them of singular vertue and shewes that they were not so low and abject by their natural generation but they were as high and honourable by their divine regeneration wise and righteous and holy and redeemed and yet still that he may keep their spirits in an equal poise he lets them know all their excellencie is extraneous they owe it wholly to Jesus Christ Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification Redemption all is theirs but not by inheritance or their own acquisition it was all by vertue of their union with Jesus Christ Of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us Wisdome Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption The Fathers ordination and the Sons merit was the fountain of all these transcendent priviledges Of Him i. e. Of the Father and in Christ Jesus so Wisdome is yours and Righteousnesse yours and Sanctification yours and Redemption yours All is yours 1 Cor. 3.22 23. and you are Christs and Christ is Gods Now in these two verses read the Apostle tells us that God hath a design in this contrivement which he sets forth negatively and affirmatively 1. Negatively that flesh should not be glorying vers 29. 2. Affirmatively that he that glorieth might glory in the Lord. And for both these he quoteth divine Authority though he himself spake by the afflatus of the same Spirit As it is written viz. Jer. 9.23 24. I shall not detein you in the opening of the words what need any clearing will meet us in the handling of the doctrinal observations which do naturally arise from the words
dissolved with its own commendation and as in the furnace the light matter evaporates into smoke and aire so by praise bloaty spirits are soon puft up and transported into a strange disdain of others and over-valuing of themselves It is an humbling consideration pride came in by the fall and then man began to be proud when he had lost his perfection he never was lifted up till he had cast himself down from his excellency empty casks sound most while the well-fraught vessel silenceth its own fulnesse and giveth no echo to temptation You may easilier draw it out hen make it speak the Holy Ghost alludes to the metaphor Prov. 20.5 Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep water but a man of understanding will draw it out take in the next verse Ver. 6. and it makes up the sense Most men will every man proclaim his owne goodnesse the empty multitude will sound out their own praises but the man of deep and solid worth must be pierc't if you will know what is in him This is an infallible observation that pride is found in supposed worth rather then in real 3. A stop to grace Jam. 4.6 Thirdly Pride is the great obstruction of grace God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble The Lord loves to poure the oile of his grace into empty vessels Intus existens prohibet alienum a minde stuff't wich self-opinion is not capable of Christs fulnesse One well observeth Mantâ—n that pride is a greater hinderance to knowledge then ignorance and the reason is because the proud man thinks he needs no knowledge Seneca observed it Many might attain to perfection if they had not thought they had attain'd it already Humility is the funnel of knowledge Psal 25.9 The meek he will guide in judgement the meek he will teach his way double meeknesse shall be honoured with double instruction Fourthly 4. A blot with men pride is a vaile upon our excellencies with men the unsavoury But in our commendations we use to say Such a man hath excellent parts But he is proud such a woman beautiful but she knows it it is like Naamans leprosie a blot upon a faire character He was a mighty man of valour 2 Kings 5.1 but a leper 5. A blast from God Fifthly it is worse with God it is a blot with men but oftentimes it is a blast from God Nebuchadnezzars pride disinherited him of his reason and turn'd him a grazing among the bruit beasts I have heard of a Divine in our age I cannot forgive my self that I was not more inquisitive after his name and place at least not more careful to record them who having read admirable Lectures upon the Creed and being earnestly prest by his brethren to publish them for the transcendent rarity of his notions the poore man was so overset with their incautious applause that his over-swolne pride brake out into this hellish blasphemy Jesule Jesule quantillus tu sine me I am afraid to English it and added If I would I could say as much against thee as I have spoken for thee Upon which blasphemous boast he was immediately blasted so that never after he was able to say so much as the Lords prayer to his dying day A dreadful instance and may justly set us a trembling Our parts are not given us for Ornament so much as for service not for our praise but for Gods and therefore when we pride our selves in them we invert Gods ends and provoke his jealousie If we would keep what we have we had need to take heed of glorying 4. Sort of Motives But much more if we consult the fourth sort of Motives viz. such as are taken from GOD. 1. Gâ—d doth most hate the sin of pride Jam. 4.6 First it is a sin that God doth most of all oppose He resisteth the proud God overtakes other sins but he meets pride Ps 140.11 Evil shal hunt the wicked man to destruction a metaphor taken from hounds following the chased creature by the sent of the foot till tired out of breath they overtake her in her covert and worry her to death But this is a chase of patience as well as of justice and gives the sinner time of repentance Rev. 2.21 But God takes a quicker order with the proud God meets him in his way and resists him to his face 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he sets himself in battel array against the proud man and discharges all his artillery in his face Thus God followed Cain Sin lay at his door Gen. 4.7 the punishment of his sin slept as it were at his threshold waiting his repentance But he resisted Pharaoh that proud Tyrant who knew not the Lord and ten times let flie in his face and at length unhors't him in the sea in the midst of his boastings I will I will I will said the proud King and three times more to that Exod. 15.9 But while the word was in his mouth God set his battel array against him Thou blewest with thy winde the sea covered them they sank as lead in the mighty waters Quick dispatch Thus also God overtook Judas but he resisted Herod and while his heart was lifted up with the blasphemous applause of the people God blasted him from heaven and he that could hear himself cried up for a God was made a spectacle of greatest abhorrency before men Surely he scorneth the scorners Prov. 3.34 saith the Original text The proud man scornes others and God scornes him The Hebrew word may seem to have some reference unto speaking by an interpreter It is the same word used Gen. 42.23 And this may hint a notable instance of pride the proud man is so swell'd in his own opinion that he scornes to speak to his neighbour but by an Interpreter i. e. he will not speak himself but by another and so God deals with him he scornes the scorner God will not speak to him himself but by an Interpreter his judgments shall interpret his thoughts he shall speak to them in his wrath Psal 2.5 and vex them in his sore displeasure Yea the proud man doth not scorne his brother only but he scornes God too And that will make a Second Consideration 2. Motives on God part Pride hates God most in reference to GOD. God doth most of all oppose this sin of pride because this sin doth most of all oppose God The proud man doth most unjustly scorn God and therefore God doth most justly scorn him He slights God and God slights him Who is the Lord that I should fear him saith Pharaoh and what is this Pharaoh that he should dare me might God say and say so he did by the interpretation of his judgements Other sinnes oppose Gods Will but pride strikes at his being Other sins withdraw the heart from God pride lifts up the heart against God Pride would not only unthrone God but un-Ghd him If pride could
ἈσαÏκοκάυκημα OR THE VANITY of Glorying in the FLESH Open'd in a SERMON Preached at the FVNERAL OF KINGSMEL LUCY Esq Eldest SONNE to FRANCIS LUCY Esq By THO. CASE M. A. sometimes Student of Ch. Ch. Oxon. and now Pastor of Giles in the Fields London London Printed by T. R and E.M. for Robert Gibbs in Chancery-lane near Serjeants Inne 1655. To the Honourable Sir THO WITHRINGTON Knight and SERJEANT at the LAW And one of the Commissioners of the Treasury Noble Sir THe Dedication of this piece to your Name may seem strange to one that is a stranger to you But the truth is your interest in this young Gentleman deceased gives you too great a title to this poor imperfect memorial of him while your great love to the worth and goodnesse that was in him invited your Noble Spirit to adopt him into the Relation of a Son-in-law a choice which truly rendereth you as honourable as it would have rendered him happy had he lived to enjoy it But oh the instability of all sublunary felicities You expected a Marriage and behold a Funeral Vanity of vanities how fitly hath that great Apostle phrased all terrene fruitions 1 Tim. 6.17 uncertain riches Ixion-like they vanish while we hug them in our armes yea we lose them before we are possessed of them This is the Doctrine the living God teach us the Use To do good Ver. 18 19 to be rich in good works c. to lay hold on eternal life To your interest in these papers your condescension in pressing me to print them as it hath laid upon me another engagement to publish so it hath given me a new encouragement to put them under the protection of your Name which though it cannot I know secure them from the just censure of many defects yet it may free me from the unjust censure of presumption in this Dedication Accept them Honoured Sir as an evidence of that great respect which your integrity hath merited as with others so with my self And if in the ensuing lines there be any thing that may either alleviate your losse or divert the sense of it It shall be a great satisfaction to SIR Your Humble Servant in the Gospel of Christ THO. CASE To my most Honoured Friends FRANCIS LVCY Esq and his most Christian and Vertuous YOKE-FELLOW Grace and Peace THe sorrow of the New Convert lookeing upon Christ crucified the Holy Ghost hath pleased to shadow forth unto us in Zech. 12.10 Scripture by the sorrows for the losse of a first-borne as one that is in bitternesse for his first-born 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ut amaresceâ—e super primogenitum rachamim from rechem which signifieth the wombe because of all compassions the mothers compassions are the most tender the Hebrew reads it infinitively not personally to take in both Sexes certainly because those sorrowes especially on the mothers side are the strongest and the most impressive of all natural affections What your sorrows then are for the losse of this Gentleman whose praemature death if it be lawful to call it so now Gods work is finished hath occasioned first the preaching and then at your too prevailing solicitation the printing of this Sermon cannot be easily imagined A first born and such a first-born as few Parents have either boasted of or mourned over A Son who was what you could wish for a Son or from a Son A Son you have lost for the losse of whom I can be content to let you mourn and with all my heart sit down and mourn with you for Your the Nations and mine own losse Yet to keep your sorrows from over-flowing the banks Remember I beseech you that your trial is not parallel with the trial of some of Gods Worthies It is not the trial of Job who had all his Sons and Daughters slaine and buried in one tempest Not the trial of David whose darling son was executed in the very act of treason and parricide No nor the trial of Abraham your father who must resign up his Son his first-borne his only Son whom he loved the Heire not of Abrahams possessions only but of the Promises too and that which is above all aggravations tremendous Isaac must be the Sacrifice and Abraham the Priest to offer him up with his own hand His Piety to God must be cruelty to his Son yea had not the Command of the Law giver intervened most unnatural murder Deare friends your losse though invaluable is not imbittered with such temptations A Son a first-born but dying in the arms of your Loves and Prayers Not more sent for home to his fathers house as it were in another The Small Pox accended into a burning fever fiery chariot then willing to go Neither hath his death made you or your samily Orphane A brother he hath left behinde him to inherit your estate and his Brothers vertues A Brother in whom his Brother lives though Kingsmell be dead yet Lucy is alive A Brother so like his Brother Minut. Foelix that as he said of the two friends Crederes unam animum in duobus esse divisam You would think one soul animated two bodies Sic oculos sic ille manus sic ora gerebat Both one in Nature as in Name They look and speak and act the same Three Sisters also hath he left sharers of the same spirit of sweetnesse and Piety with himself Recruits of your comfort and vessels to propagate though not the name yet that which is better the goodnesse of your family Certainly my worthy friends God hath mixt your Cup with many sweet ingredients so that you may well bespeak your own soules with your elder brother the Lord Jesus Christ The Cup that my Father hath given me shall I not drink it Behold it is but a Cup not a Sea of bitternesse and of a fathers tempering not an enemies and it is a gift not a cutse Oh if Jesus Christ could thus alleviate his Cup which was ful of his Fathers wrath how much more may you drink and forget your sorrows whose cup is mixt with so much love The very things which seem to aggravate your losse do lighten it The better your Son was the easier your trial It is our great infelicity that we invert our arguments and when God hath put sweetnesse into the Premisses we put bitternesse into the Conclusion We are wittie to aggravate our own afflictions and for the most part mistake the accent that which should help us bear our burden makes it intolerable we can tell how it might have been better and think we could bear any trial but this and so we dispute our Crosse when we should take it up and give God counsel when God looks for obedience But God hath taught you better things and things which accompany salvation though I thus speak And I do greatly rejoyce to behold that Christian meeknesse and patience that sweet submission to Lev. 10.3 that gracious acquiescence in the
Will of God Your silence before the Lord where by you evidence to your selves and others your trial to be the rod of a Father the fruit of love You do not only bear your Crosse but adorn it The Lord cause all grace to abound in your souls perfect the good pleasure of his grace and the work of faith with power And the Lord continue you both comforts one to another and blessings to all your Relations 1 Sam 2.20 give you a rich recompence for the loan which is lent to the Lord and now one channel is dried up cause the remaining to over-flow with mercy Make your surviving off-spring double comforts to you and blessings to the world Yea the lesse you have of the creature fit you for and fill you with MORE OF HIMSELF So prayeth Your most obliged and most faithful Friend and Servant in the Gospel THO. CASE To the Choise and every way Hopeful Young Gentleman Mr. RICHARD LUCY the Now only Son and Heire to FRANCIS LVCY Esq Student of Ch. Ch. Oxon. Learned Friend YOu have not the least interest in these papers whom your desired Brother hath left Inheritor not to his Expectations only but his Vertues which here are presented to you Not as you have seen them in their own native beauty and splendor as they beamed out themselves to the eye of those that did converse with him while alive but as you have seen the picture of a man taken in his winding sheet in more dark and lifelesse colours and yet as to the visage and aire such as that without an Inscription you might at first sight be able to tell whose picture and image it is The view whereof I know not whether it may affect you more with grief or joy grief becaufe it ls not himself joy because you have so much of his shadow to converse with as long as you shall survive I send it to you Sir to perfect the Copy for the truth is there is none that can draw it to life but your self it being not only imago tua but imago tui that therefore you would every day adde one line to the finishing of this excellent piece Nulla dies fine linea is the designe of this third dedication It concernes you highly for though the death of your honoured Brother hath left you the Birth-right it is his Life only that must give you the Blessing Your Advantages are rare a pious fathers counsels a gracious mothers tears and prayers the inspection of a learned and industrious Tutor your daily converse with silent and vocal Libraries dead and living monuments of learning Above all that which the great Rabbi among the Jewes and Apostle amongst Christians puts as a Crown upon young Timothies head that from a childe thou hast known the Scriptures 2 Tim 3.15 which are able to make thee wise to salvation These are your advantages and Prayer your emprovement the exercise whereof you have learn't both by Precept and by Pattorn may the Gift of Prayer be accomplished with the Grace of Prayer the sweet and secret teachings of the Spirit of Grace and Supplication Zech. 12.20 The Lord make you to abound in that holy duty our heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the traffick and trade whereby we fetch in the merchandize of the Heavenly Jerusalem Great obligations presse you to a vigorous emprovement of your advantages the recruit of your tender Parents comforts the honour of your Noble Family the expectation of your worthy friends the name of your excellent brother whom dying me thinks I hear bespeaking of you thus Vive tuo frater tempore vive meo That you may do worthily and answer all these engagements with an overplus of satisfaction may a double portion of your Brothers spirit rest upon you It is Sir and shall be the prayer of Your real friend and Servant unfeignedly covetous of your perfection THO CASE TO THE READER Good Reader IT is a judgement threatened by two Prophets against the Jewes Jer. 16 5. Ezek. 24.23 that they should not mourn nor lament for their dead That which was their judgement is our sin which the Prophet Isaiah hath languaged to our hands Isa 57.1 The righteous perish and no man layeth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering c. It was sometime the curse of the worst of men that wretched Coniah They shall not lament for him Jer. 22.7 saying Ah Lord or Ah his glory This wanton secure ungrateful generation hath most wickedly translated this curse upon them whom the Lord hath blessed and made blessings to their generations we lament not over our Worthies saying Ah Lord or Ah their glory The Hand of God of late is gone out against us in a dreadful manner and within a few moneths last past hath taken away divers worthy Ministers not only faithful but mighty in the service of the Gospel The last Summer as I take it there died in one Essex County only about thirty foure godly Ministers since then there is fallen very lately worthy Dr. Hill Malle is Hereticorum Schismaticorum flagellum Master of Trin. Coll. Cambridge a man of a singular spirit for Government mighty in convincing and suppressing of error and innovations Reverend Mr. Gataker a Treasury of Learning and Religion Profound Dr. Gouge His excellent Comment on the Hebrews with other of his learned Labours will remain as Monuments of his great worth to posterity whose indefatigable industry both in his publick Ministery domestick duties and private studies was to admiration Judicious Whitaker mighty in preaching melting in prayer whose holinesse was mixt with such sweetness and tendernesse of spirit that it rendred him useful and acceptable to men of all judgements and tempers Excellent Dr. Bolton a man of singular spirituality and acutenesse in all his Gospel-labours Famous Mr. Angel a man ineeed of Angelical understanding and holinesse a burning and shining light Precious Mr. Robinson Englands Jacob London Remembrancer judicious in preaching affectionate in prayer in both incomparably laborious a man most deeply sensible of the evil of the times and unmovably firm to his principles Ingenious Mr. Jaggard a man of singular parts and excellent Ministerial abilities Hopeful Mr. Fenton newly chosen to Croatchet Friars young in yeares but of great maturity in the knowledge of Christ These and many more some in their full age others in the midst of their dayes and some wo unto us in their prime and strength of their Ministery hath God removed from us To this breach that God hath made upon us in the Church hath he added some deep wounds in the Common-wealth Besides the death of many worthy Gentlemen very serviceable in their generations that which may set most sad upon our spirits is that God hath snaetch't from us by sudden and unexpected strokes many young Gentlemen of the greatest eminency and hopes which this or many generations formerly have known That