A12166:1111
Beams of divine light breaking forth from several places of holy Scripture, as they…Beames of divine light breaking forth from severall places of holy Scripture, as they…
Beams of divine light breaking forth from several places of holy Scripture, as they were learnedly opened, in XXI. sermons. The III. first being the fore-going sermons to that treatise called The bruised-reed, preached on the precedent words. By the late reverend and judicious divine, Richard Sibs, D.D. Mr. of Katharine Hall in Camb: and sometimes preacher at Gray's Inn. Published according to the Doctor his own appointment subscribed with his hand; to prevent imperfect copies.Beames of divine light breaking forth from severall places of holy Scripture, as they were learnedly opened, in XXI. sermons. The III. first being the fore-going sermons to that treatise called The bruised-reed, preached on the precedent words. By the late reverend and iudicious divine, Richard Sibs, D.D. Mr. of Katharine Hall in Camb: and sometimes preacher at Grayes Inne. Published according to the Doctor his owne appointment subscribed with his hand; to prevent imperfect coppies.
London: printed by George for N. Bourne, 1639
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1Therefore this should moderate our fear of death, and our grief for the departure of others. Why we are not lost when we die; the soul and body is taken asunder, it is taken in pieces: but both remain still; the body goes to the earth from whence it was taken, and the soul goes to God that gave it. And for our comfort, we go to those that we knew before (many of them) to our fathers; not to strangers. Especially in respect of our souls, we go to our fathers▪ to our next fore-fathers, and to our old fathers; to Abraham, Isaac, to Jacob, to David, to blessed Saint Paul, and Peter, and all the blessed men that died in the faith. And when we are dead, we go to those that are more perfect than those that we leave behind us. This should moderate our grief: oh, I leave my friends behind me, my father, and mother, and children it is to go to better, to greater; and those that love thee better. Thou goest to greater: for they are in their pitch, they have attained their end, they are in heaven▪ and to better, they are refined from those corruptions that men here are subject unto: and then their love is perfect likewise: therefore going to our fathers, and not to strangers, to those that are better, and greater, and love us more perfectly; ⟨p. 225⟩why should we think much to die? they will be ready to entertain us; oh the welcome that souls find in heaven! and at the day of the Resurrection the sweet embracings, when all the blessed souls that have been from Adam to the last man, shall meet together! seeing therefore we go to our fathers, it should rather make us cheerful: Here, whom do we live with? take them at the best, our friends? men, subject to jealousies and weaknesses; our jealousy makes us suspect them, and their weaknesses makes us think the meaner of them: so our love is not perfect, nor our graces are not perfect; therefore we cannot have perfect love, and contentment while we are here. But in heaven there shall be no jealousy, nor fear, nor imperfection, which is the ground of jealousy: we shall perfectly love them, because they shall be perfectly good; and they shall perfectly love us, because we shall be perfectly good; and one shall stand admiring the graces of God in another; and that will maintain a perpetuity of love: