N00280:52
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.
1. Because he hath loved them in Christ with an everlasting Love: where there is love, it renders that object beloved, precious to him that loves it; though another can discern no excellency or worthiness in it, and may thereupon wonder what he loves it for, yet love apprehends it to be of worth: now God hath loved his Saints from everlasting, Jer. 31.3. and inasmuch as that which is everlasting, is by consequence immutable; hence this love of his abides to, in, and after death, and makes it precious.
2. Because they are his: Propriety and Peculiarity engage the care, and exit the affections to a suitable proportion unto the Subject; the Saints are God's Peculium, they are called his Anointed, and his Prophets, Psal. 105.15. they are firmly and closely united unto him through Christ, and Death doth not dissolve that indissoluble Bond; dead Believers continue in union with Christ, and shall his own die then, and he not be deeply concerned in it? it cannot be.
2. Because they are his: Propriety and Peculiarity engage the care, and exite the affections to a suitable proportion unto the Subject; the Saints are God's Peculium, they are called his Anointed, and his Prophets, Psal. 105.15. they are firmly and closely united unto him through Christ, and Death doth not dissolve that indissoluble Bond; dead Believers continue in union with Christ, and shall his own die then, and he not be deeply concerned in it? it cannot be.
3. Because they are Saints: They are Holy Ones, such as are sanctified by his Grace, and so are made precious: there is a Worth put upon, and a Worth put into a Believer that makes him more precious than the Gold of Ophir; it makes him a Jewel, a Pearl of great price; and for that reason he must not be lost, but bound up,