CXLV expository sermons upon the whole 17th chapter of the Gospel according to St.…

Now we shall show you, What things even to the godly, ¹though they may have comfort for the main, yet will greatly dishearten and diminish their joy then. There will be fears against hope, doubts against faith, agonies against joy: That even as nature and death will in a terrible manner conflict together, so will their hopes and fears: Yet this is not to be understood, but that even a Christian walking most tenderly and circumspectly, may at his death have no joy and assurance: God for many just and wise ends doth sometimes dispense it so, that he who lived very holily, may yet die very uncomfortably. It was so with Christ, though there was a peculiar reason, and why not with his members? only when God dealeth so, they are mere exercises to increase their Crown of glory; they are not so properly afflictions for sin, as Job had those extraordinary trials, not for sin, though he was not without sin, but trial, and thereby to make him more glorious. But I shall speak of such particulars, as in their own nature tend to make our end very sad and heavy; and therefore let him who would look on death, as Jacob did on his son Josephs Chariot, not with grief, but with joy, as a convoy to eternal happiness,² take heed of these things as so many dangerous works: And

Now we shall shew you, What things even to the godly, ¹though they may have comfort for the main, yet will greatly dishearten and diminish their joy then. There will be fears against hope, doubts against faith, agonies against joy: That even as nature and death will in a terrible manner conflict together, so will their hopes and fears: Yet this is not to be understood, but that even a Christian walking most tenderly and circumspectly, may at his death have no joy and assurance: God for many just and wise ends doth sometimes dispense it so, that he who lived very holily, may yet die very uncomfortably. It was so with Christ, though there was a peculiar reason, and why not with his members? only when God dealeth so, they are meer exercises to increase their Crown of glory; they are not so properly afflictions for sinne, as Job had those extraordinary trials, not for sinne, though he was not without sinne, but triall, and thereby to make him more glorious. But I shall speak of such particulars, as in their own nature tend to make our end very sad and heavy; and therefore let him who would look on death, as Jacob did on his sonne Josephs Chariot, not with grief, but with joy, as a convoy to eternall happinesse,