A37028:34
The blessedness of the death of these that die in the Lord and more…The blessednesse of the death of these that die in the Lord and more…
The blessedness of the death of these that die in the Lord and more especially in an evil time excellently discoursed in seven very searching but sweet sermons on Revel. 14, v. 13 : wherein several weighty cases relating to death in general and to dying in Lord in particular are succinctly, solidly and satisfyingly handled / by James Durham.The blessednesse of the death of these that die in the Lord and more especially in ane evil time excellently discoursed in seven very searching but sweet sermons on Revel. 14, v. 13 : wherein several weighty cases relating to death in genereal and to dieing in Lord in particular are succinctly, solidly and satisfieingly handled / by James Durham.
Glasgow? : s.n., 1681
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.
Christian Reader.
Many and various are the vicissitudes and changes to which sin hath sadly subjected us poor, transient, itinerary, miserable Mortals, grieving, groaning, dwining, and decaying nothings; the Reireward of all which changes is at length brought up by Death, that last, great, and vastly momentuous change, which putts a final period to all the changes that shall ever befall us in this world; and whereby every one of us without exception of sex, age, descent, degree, calling or capacity, will be put into an eternally unchangeable state of happiness or of misery: If so, then sure it is very sad, and never enough to be lamented, if it were with tears of blood, that men and women who have rational and immortal souls endued with a discurring faculty, and capable of eternal happiness in the enjoyment of God, and of eternal misery in separation and destruction from his presence, should for most part, so much abstract from the serious thoughts of that most important change, followed with so long a train of everlastingly concerning consequents, and in their retired meditations, take so few turns in this long gallery of Eternity; As if all that the divinely inspired Scriptures say of it, and that many every day experience the truth of, were a mere Romance, or cunningly devised fable: And yet notwithstanding Death is most incontrovertibly certain, all men being by Divine appointment concluded under a necessity of dying; which appointment taketh in not only the infallible certainty of the thing, but the determination of the precise time, when, of the place, where, and of the manner, how; whither by a violent or natural death, whither by a more sudden and surprising, or by a more lent and lingering, death: ⟨image 15⟩For our times are in the hand of the Lord, the years, months, weeks, days, and moments of them, with all their incident changes and revolutions are at his dispose; There is an appointed time to man on earth, he hath determined the times before appointed; the times and seasons are kept in the Father's own power; our days are determined, the number of our Months is with him, he hath set bounds to us which we cannot transgress: