N01109:167
Meditations on death. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is showedMeditations on death. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is shewed
Meditations on death. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is showed; I. That some true believers on Christ are afraid of death, but that they have no just cause to be so. II. That good men as well as others may be taken out of the world by a sudden death. III. That not earth but heaven is the Christians home. / By Increase Mather, D.D. ; [Two lines from Hebrews]Meditations on death. Delivered in several sermons, wherein is shewed; I. That some true believers on Christ are afraid of death, but that they have no just cause to be so. II. That good men as well as others may be taken out of the world by a sudden death. III. That not earth but heaven is the Christians home. / By Increase Mather, D.D. ; [Two lines from Hebrews]
printed by Timothy Green, 1707
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.
USE II. For EXHORTATION.
Let the Servants of God make not the Earth but Heaven to be their Home.
Consider 1. How undesirable a world this is. This World is not Paradise now, but a Prison rather to the Children of God. Tis a Vain World: Vain because Unprofitable. What profit has a man of all his Labour under the Sun? What profit when he has Laboured for the Wind? A great Emperor who had passed through many Offices, and at last obtained the whole Roman Empire, the mightiest that ever was, after all made this Protestation before the world, Omnia fui sed rihil profuit; I have been all things, but it profited ⟨p. 164⟩me nothing at all. Could a man grasp the whole World into his hands, it would not yield satisfaction to his Soul. They say of Alexander the Great, that he wept because there was but one world for him to enlarge his Conquests in. The Eye is not satisfied with seeing. Some have Expressed it too argutely when they have said, A round World will never fill a triangular Heart. But it is a serious Truth, that all the things of this world cannot satisfy the vast desires of an immortal Soul, but it will be wishing for something better than the best Earthly Enjoyments, or than them all. Solomon was as Competent a judge of what this world could afford as any man that ever lived in it. And the account which he gives of it, yea, the Sum Total is that in Eccl. 1.2. All is Vanity. Not only Vain, but Vanity it self. So that if a man could possess all the things that are in the world, they are Nothing, for he possesseth Vanity. 'Twas the Expression of a Famous man, If all the World were to ⟨p. 165⟩