A90272:91
The labouring saints dismission to rest. A sermon / preached at the funeral of…
The labouring saints dismission to rest. A sermon / preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable Henry Ireton Lord Deputy of Ireland: in the Abbey Church at Westminster, the 6th. day of February 1651. By John Owen, minister of the Gospel. Licensed and entered according to order.
London: printed by R. and W· Leybourn for Philemon Stephens, 1652
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.
John Baptist goes and preaches the drawing nigh of the kingdom of God, but lived only to point out Christ with his finger, cries; Behold the Lamb of God, I must decrease, and is cut off. David makes the great preparation for the Temple, but he shall not see so much as the foundation laid. Men must take their appointed lot. God will send by the hand of him whom he will send. Daniel must rest until the end be. It is said of some they began to deliver Israel. The case of Zerubbabel was very rare, who saw the foundation, and also the top-stone of the Temple laid, and yet the work of Jerusalem was not half finished in his days, as you may see, Zach. chap. 1.
John Baptist goes and preaches the drawning nigh of the kingdom of God, but lived only to point out Christ with his finger, cryes; Behold the Lambe of God, I must decrease, and is cut off. David makes the great preparation for the Temple, but he shal not see so much as the foundation laid. Men must take their appointed lot. God will send by the hand of him whom he will send. Daniel must rest untill the end be. It is said of some they began to deliver Israel. The case of Zerobbabel was very rare, who saw the foundation, and also the top-stone of the Temple laid, and yet the work of Jerusalem was not halfe finished in his dayes, as you may see, Zach. chap. 1.
Reason 1. God oftentimes receives secret provocations from the choicest of his servants, which moves him to take them short of their desires. Those of his own whom he employs in great works, have great and close communion with him. God usually exercises their spirits in near acts of fellowship with himself: they receive much from him, and are constrained to unburden themselves frequently upon him; now when men are brought into an intimacy with God, and have received great engagements from him, the Lord takes notice of every working and acting of their souls in an especial manner, and is oftentimes grieved and provoked with that in them which others can take no notice of: let a man read the story of that action of Moses, upon which the Lord told him directly he should not see the finishing of the work he had in hand, nor enter into Canaan,