A47613:285
A summons to the grave, or, The necessity of a timely preparation for death…
A summons to the grave, or, The necessity of a timely preparation for death demonstrated in a sermon preached at the funeral of that most eminent and faithful servant of Jesus Christ Mr. John Norcot who departed this life March 24, 1675/6 / by Benjamin Keach.
London: printed for Ben Harris, 1676
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.
3. Reas. Lastly, Why God will bring all men to the grave; and I shall add no more, Because he would thereby magnify his glorious Attributes; as first out of infinite grace, commiseration and goodness, he brings his own children to the grave, knowing the miseries, sad afflictions and troubles that doth attend them in this life. Here most times poor Saints, with Lazarus, have their evil things; many are their afflictions, and this way God takes to deliver them out of them all. Death opens a door to glory to every gracious soul; and secondly God by death prepares the bodies of his Saints for ⟨p. 21⟩eternal bliss and happiness. He brings the body to the grave, that it may be purified and made a glorious and most amiable body; 'tis sown, that it might be raised more glorious, 1 Cor. 15. 42, 43, 44. God doth with the bodies of his Saints, with reverence be it spoken, as they do with their Earthen Vessels in China, they bury them in the earth for many years, and when they take them out, the nature and worth of them is far transcendent. 2. The ungodly must die, that God may magnify on them his own infinite Justice. Death having seized their body, their souls must go to its place, to suffer the intolerable pains and incensed wrath of the Almighty; and that their bodies also, with their souls, when they shall hereafter meet together again, might he made fit fuel for eternal flames to kindle upon: for now as they are in this mortal state they cannot endure the terrible wrath of God, but would soon ⟨p. 22⟩be freed of all bodily pain and extremity, were they cast into that Lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
3. Reas. Lastly, Why God will bring all men to the grave; and I shall add no more, Because he would thereby magnifie his glorious Attributes; as first out of infinite grace, commiseration and goodness, he brings his own children to the grave, knowing the miseries, sad afflictions and troubles that doth attend them in this life. Here most times poor Saints, with Lazarus, have their evil things; many are their afflictions, and this way God takes to deliver them out of them all. Death opens a door to glory to every gracious soul; and secondly God by death prepares the bodies of his Saints for ⟨p. 21⟩