A88578:67
A Christians duty and safety in evil times Delivered in several sermons, upon four…A Christians duty and safety in evill times Delivered in severall sermons, upon four…
A Christians duty and safety in evil times Delivered in several sermons, upon four texts of scripture, viz. Christ's prayer the saints support, on John 17 15[.] A divine balance to weigh all doctrines by, on 1 Thes.5. 21[.] A Christians great enquiry, on Acts 16.30, 31[.] A description of true blessedness, on Luke 11. 28[.] By that faithful messenger of Jesus Christ, Mr Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence-jury, London. Whereunto is annexed The saints rest, or Their happy sleep in death. As it was delivered in a sermon at Aldermanbury, London. Aug. 24. 1651. By Edmund Calalmy. B. D.A Christians duty and safety in evill times Delivered in severall sermons, upon four texts of scripture, viz. Christ's prayer the saints support, on Iohn 17 15[.] A divine ballance to weigh all doctrines by, on 1 Thes.5. 21[.] A Christians great enquiry, on Acts 16.30, 31[.] A description of true blessedness, on Luke 11. 28[.] By that faithfull messenger of Jesus Christ, Mr Christopher Love, late minister of Laurence-jury, London. Whereunto is annexed The saints rest, or Their happy sleep in death. As it was delivered in a sermon at Aldermanbury, London. Aug. 24. 1651. By Edmund Calalmy. B. D.
London: printed for E. Brewster and George Sawbridge, 1653
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.
Have not I lived to 40.60. nay it may be 80 years, yet Lord thou knowest, my days are empty days, I have not done any good all my life time. In Scripture dialect, when good men die, they are said to die in a good old age; But an old Drunkard, an old Adulterer, or an old Swearer, dying in an old age, it is a bad old age, not a good old age. When you come to d•e, then Conscience will reflect upon you and say, I am an old man, but I have not done the work which God sent me in to the world for to do. I have read of an old Disciple, who was 90 years of age, and being asked the question, how old he was; he said he was 45 years of age: they answered, your grey-hairs discover ⟨p. 30⟩you to be much more: saith he, if that you reckon number of years, I have lived fourscore and ten, but if I compute how long I have lived a devoted life to God, then I am but 45, for the other half of my time I lived a dead man. O how many are there in the world, that have lived as dead men, all their days! There is a passage in Eccles. 7.17. 1Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish, why shouldest thou die before thy time. Some Interpreters carry it this way; A man walking in drunkenness, excess, and riot, doth, as it were, shorten his days: Others, That he that thus lives is dead whilst he lives, before his time of death, and when death comes he is twice dead. Indeed a man cannot die before Gods time. 2Job 14.5. Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds, that he cannot pass. Now though thou canst not die before Gods time, yet thou mayest die before thy time, that is, ⟨p. 31⟩when thou comest to die before thou art prepared and fitted to die, before thou hast done thy work, thou art the man that dost die before thy time. And that I take to be the meaning of those words. O think of it; Though thou canst not die before Gods time, yet thou mayest die before thy time, before thou art fitted for death, before thou hast done the work for which God gave thee thy life. If Jesus Christ did pray that his Disciples might not die before they had done their work, then what blame are they worthy of, from whom (if they should live till Dooms day) God should have no more service then now he hath; and in whom he should then see as much sin, as now he doth.