A34165:907
A Complete collection of farewell sermons preached by Mr. Calamy, Dr. Manton, Mr. Caryl…A Compleat collection of farewel sermons preached by Mr. Calamy, Dr. Manton, Mr. Caryl…
A Complete collection of farewell sermons preached by Mr. Calamy, Dr. Manton, Mr. Caryl ... [et al.] ; together with Mr. Ash his funeral sermon, Mr. Nalton's funeral sermon, Mr. Lye's rehearsal ... with their several prayers.A Compleat collection of farewel sermons preached by Mr. Calamy, Dr. Manton, Mr. Caryl ... [et al.] ; together with Mr. Ash his funeral sermon, Mr. Nalton's funeral sermon, Mr. Lye's rehearsal ... with their several prayers.
London : s.n., 1663
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
First, learn hence the preciousness of every righteous man, the great God will not gather things of no value; great men do not use to gather chaff and straw; and therefore, when Christ said of Josiah, I will gather thee to thy Fathers, it was a sign he was a precious Pearl worth the gathering, and of a high value and account in the sight of God, and so is every true Child of God, right dear and precious are they in the sight of God, both living, and dying; they are bought with a great price, not with Gold and Silver, and other corruptible things, but they are bought with the precious blood of the Son of God: they are as precious to God as thee Apple of his eye: so precious that he hath given Christ for them, and to them; so precious that he called them his Jewels, his peculiar treasure, his Jedidiahs, and therefore God will not suffer them to perish, but gather them to himself before the evil day come, as the Husbandman gathers in the Corn, before the Beast go out into the field.
Secondly, Learn hear what reason we have to be comforted in the death of a righteous man or woman, because their death is not a perishing, but a gathering to God and Christ, and the society of Saints and Angels. The death of a righteous man is no more than if a Merchant that hath abundance of Jewels in a far Country, he should send for the• home. Why death to a righteous man is nothing but God sending for his Jewels home. Such a phrase there is in Mal. 3.17. In the day that I make up my Jewels, they shall be mine. In this life they are imperfect Jewels; they are like Gold in the Oar mingled with a great deal of dross; and death is nothing but a perfection of the Jewels; death is nothing more; and God doth nothing by death, but as a Gold-sinner gathers up all his ends of Gold and Silver; it is nothing but just as if a Father should send for his Son home, that had been a long time absent from him, to his own house: it is a carrying us to our Fathers house. And therefore let us be comforted when our Righteous Friends dye, though their death be ⟨image 107⟩matter of sorrow to us, in regard of the loss, that we sustain by their death, and because their death is a warning-piece of evil to come: yet in regard of them we have no cause to mourn. I speak this of those that are related to the righteous, when they dye; did you ever here of a Husbandman that mourned for the carrying in of his Corn into the Barn? or a Jeweller mourn for making up of his Jewels? Let us mourn rather that we are lest scattered among the wicked of the earth, and from the glorious presence of God and Christ: and let us morn for those that are scattered from Christ, and from grace: and for those that whilst they live are scattered, and when they dye are gathered to the Devil and his Angels. Let us not mourn for those that dye in Christ, but let us mourn for those that live out of Christ; let us not mourn over the body the soul hath left, but let us mourn over the soul God hath left.