N00280:23
The high esteem which God hath of the death of his saints. As it…
The high esteem which God hath of the death of his saints. As it was delivered in a sermon preached October 7. 1683. Occasioned by the death of the Worshipful John Hull Esq: who deceased October 1, 1683. / By Samuel Willard teacher to a church in Boston. ; [Four lines of quotations]
printed by Samuel Green for Samuel Sewall, 1683
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.
God sets an high price, not only upon the Lives, but upon the Deaths too of his Children: they are dear and honourable to him, not living only, but dying also.
For the clearing up of this Truth we may consider: 1. Who are those Saints of God of whom this is asserted? 2. What is implied in their Death, being precious in Gods sight? 3. Whence it comes to pass that it is so?
1. Who are those Saints whose death is thus precious?
A. I have already hinted the meaning of the Word, and shall not need to make many Discourses upon the thing, or enter a treatise about the quality and kind of Sanctity. There is none on this side the Grave is so holy, but to have in him some defilement, none so clean but there may be some spots and blemishes found in him, Eccles. 7.20. There is not a just Man upon Earth that doth good and sinneth not: But a Saint in a Gospel sense may be described to be One who being powerfully wrought upon in effectual vocation, and therein converted throughly unto God, hath the Grace of Sanctification wrought in him, and the Spirit of Holiness given to him, to dwell in him, and to purge his Heart and Conscience. There are Saints in Heaven, and they are just Men made perfect; and there are Saints on the Earth too,