THE DEATH OF God's Moses CONSIDERED: Being the substance of a SERMON Preached at the Funeral of Mr. Francis Johnson, Minister of the Gospel, sometimes Fellow of All-souls, and afterwards Master of University College in Oxford. Who died in London, October the 9th. 1677.  
By J. Ll.  
He being dead, yet speaketh,  Heb. 11.4. 
LONDON, Printed for, and are to be sold by Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and Three-Crowns over against the Great Conduit at the lower end of Cheapside, 1678.   

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.  
READER,  
THis Sermon when Preached was not in the least designed for thy view, but by a true friend of the deceased Person, much against my inclination, is violenced out of my hands into the Press. The triteness of the Apology will (likely enough) make it less believed: but sure I am, wheresover, how often soever it hath been false here it is very true. If I deserve not thy belief and so I am denied it, I cannot help it. Though the discourse doth not, assuredly the subject and the worthy Minister deceased abundantly deserves to be known and published. In it thou wilt find somewhat more, and possibly somewhat less than was Preached: Some will judge here is too much, and some it may be too little: Censure as thou pleasest, or rather as thou oughtest. Labour (with me) to imitate his virtues who is gone, and if this Sermon shall prove instrumental to the reformation and preparing of any for the serious hour of death, I shall be very thankful, and I pray God it may. I earnestly beg young Ministers their favourable interpretation, as well as conscientious consideration of the last use. I presume only humbly to advise my Juniors, nor them neither as though I thought not some, so as to years, much my Seniors otherwise. Nor is my advice intended for any, more or further, than it is for myself: if none else have any need of it, I am glad of it, and hope they will pardon me that I have used the Plural, if I ought to have used the Singular Number. What any full fraught with humour, that yet want ability to be Critics, who have more Brow than Brain, and more Forehead than Head, more Supercilious Confidence than Modesty and Understanding, shall say or think of it, I am not at all solicitous.   

THE DEATH OF GOD'S MOSES CONSIDERED.  Joshua 1.2. 
Moses my Servant is dead.  
YOu may possibly wonder why I chose such a Text concerning so great and so public a person as Moses was, to speak of, and from him whose death is the sad occasion of our coming here this day: but when you know and remember how great and public a person he also hath been in former days, though of late years buried in obscurity; and of what Magnitude this Star that is fallen, was, who in his last Winter stormy nights of trouble and persecution was indeed enveloped in the clouds as if quite set, and for ever disappeared, yet in fairer times gave as great a light in his lesser Sphere, and shone as much in his more confined Orb, as did Moses in his greater. When you have thought of this, you will need no Rhetoric to persuade you to abate your marvel; but readily think the Text enough adapted to the Providence: and sure it cannot be much amiss to ground his Euneral Sermon, who (as if repute and estimation were some great afflictions, and to be likely to be valued according to his deserts, were to be in danger) studiously concealed himself and his great worth from being known and honoured, to ground it (I say) upon him, who was hid in an ark of Bulrushes.  
Joshua, to whom God here speaks, is supposed to have writ, as this Book, which goes under his name, so the later end of the former from the mention of the death of Moses.  
When God spoke these words to Joshua, whether when the thirty days of mourning for Moses were expired as some think: or whether after the elapsing of a longer time (as seems probable from the last clause of the 6. v. of the 34. of Deut.) is uncertain.  
The words are the great God's little and short (yet full and comprehensive) account of the great man Moses: and in them we have two parts:  

1. His Life, My servant.  
2. His Death, is dead.   
He wore out, and bestowed all his life in the Service of his God, and so died. His obedience was not interrupted by any chasin of idleness or apostasy: but as he lived God's servant, he took care to die so: He would not die without living, nor live without dying his.  
As to his name (Moses) called by the Egyptians Hermes, by Manetho Osarseph, by the Grecians with a small alteration of the Hebrew (as some think) Museus: Whether he was first named by Pharaoh's daughter, being an Egyptian, in that language Monies which signifies the same with Moses: whether it be derived from More, water and Hyse Kept, or (as seems most likely) from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he drew, because he was drawn from the water side, with a prophetic intimation, how he should draw the Israelites out of Egypt, and how much he should rule the Element of Water in their behalf, and draw them through it, as he was drawn from it: (Which name or at least the thing signified by it, Orpheus seems to allude to in that verse which is upon a good reason understood of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) or whether Pharaoh's daughter being instructed by Moses his mother and sister that he was an Hebrew, learned this name from them, and so gave it him. Whether he had any other name given him before upon his Circumcision, and whether that was Joachim as Clemens Alexandrinus thinks, (possibly from Numerius the Philosopher) who says he was so called: or whether he was called Melchi, that is, my King, after his reception into heaven, as the same Clemens Alexandrinus fancies; and many such like questions of him, are uncertain, not worth our while to dispute: but this is certain that a great man he was, so great that some of the Jewish Rabbis, because it is said, Deut. 34.7. That when he died his eyes were not dim, nor his natural force abated, say, that therefore he was an Angel and did not properly die: and others of them, that with his rod he waned off the Angel of death: insomuch that had not God himself taken away his soul with a kiss, he could not have died: So great was he in the Jews esteem, that they would not look upon him as man, and therefore was he privately buried, and for ever hid that they might not worship him as God, as some conjecture, who from the Apocryphal writings conclude, that was the cause of the dispute between Michael and the Devil about the body of Moses, Judas v. 9 and it is not improbable. A servant of God he was, and a very great and eminent one, and yet die he must, and though he was so great, and there was no Prophet in Israel like to him; yet, He that is the least (Minister) in the Kingdom of God, in Gospel times, is upon some account greater than he: and yet (as we see) they die too. Which brings me to the Observation, which not only with respect to him upon whose account we are here, but several other Ministers who very lately have dropped one after another, almost all together, is much to be observed.  
That God's Servants, even his Moses's die.  
In speaking to the Doctrine, I shall show,  

1. What Gods servants are or how men come to be so.  
2. Further explain the Text, by describing Moses and proving him Gods servant by, 

1. Some of his actions.  
2. Some of the Characters the Scriptures give of him, and speak to both these as far as they will freely go with us without force compulsion, with regard to death, and the Reverend Minister we are now concerned with.    
3. Show you the Reasons why God's Moses' die, (lastly) make Application.   
1. What God's servants are, or how men come to be so? and to this purpose two things are necessary.  

1. A solemn serious choosing and taking God for their Master, and resigning up themselves to him, to be his thorough faithful servants. Those who would be avouched by God, to be his peculiar people, Deut. 26.18. and enjoy the performance of his promise, must solemnly avouch him to be their God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his Statutes and Commandments, Deut. 26.17. Though they may not mercenarily capitulate with him for his reward, yet they may and must seriously indent with him for their service, cheerfully undertake it, and faithfully promise by his assistance to do those works he is pleased to allot them. Every little resentment of Religion, every faint wish, or small velleities for holiness will not serve the turn in so great a matter; nor yet will every real purpose, every true resolution, nor every hearty promise, nor any of them, nor all of them, wrested by some black and threatening providence, or some very awakening importunate Sermon that will not be denied, if only light, transient, and accidental, and not brought into the solemnity of some such thing as a day of Fast and Humiliation, deliberately and unreservedly to resign up all to God. Baptism, which is our solemn entrance into the Church of God, requires our serious and solemn owning of it, and will not be put off with a small touch by the word, and now and then some good motions of the Spirit of God, that (it may be) produce a few sighs and tears, and then vanish, and we hear no more of them. That there are so many rotten professors, so many half Christians, so many wavering and scandalous Church-members, so many vain Religionists, and so many disorderly and lose pretenders to holiness: such multitudes that despond, unbelieve and despair, and so great a plenty of backsliders and apostates; may (I conceive) be very reasonably imputed to the general neglect of embarking into serious Christianity, by private as well as public days of Fasting and Humiliation. Some such thing our Saviour seems to intimate when he adviseth us to sit down and consider, Luk. 14.28, 29, etc. when we are about to commence Christians. It is no wonder that they stumble and fall, and miss to reach the end of their Christian race, that set not out fairly and considerately. It is not probable that a few faint dispositions and well-meaning but volatile inclinations to virtue, will ever carry a man to heaven, unless fixed and brought to a consistency by a deliberate covenanting with God. Mistake not thyself, man, eternal happiness will never be thy portion, for all thy good wishes and good meanings, the good will and good heart, thou sayest thou hast; without solemn and remorseful reflections upon the past part of thy life, with careful, studied and sincere resolutions against all thy sins for the time to come: nor will these avail, though never so hearty and stated, unless thy subsequent demeanours correspond and be consistent with them: which leads in the next thing that makes men God's Servants, and how they come to be so, which is  
2. A careful and conscientious practice according to their choice of God for their Lord and Master; doing the work he consigns them, performing their promises to, and keeping their Covenants with him. That man is no servant that says he will do his Masters Will and doth it not; how fairly soever he might promise, if he spends his time in idleness, or in doing his own, and not his Master's pleasure. Such are those men, who yet will needs usurp the name of Christians, that are very liberal of their Vows, Promises, and Covenants with Almighty God, but as prodigal of their violations of them, that break as soon as they make them, that will do what Christ will have them, so he will be bound to command them nothing, but what they will have him; and willingly obey his Will, so it be not against their own: but this is not to be his Servants, but their own Masters; and they that are so, shall be their own rewarders too. If we pick and choose out of the Commands of God what likes us best, what suits our humours, or our tempers, our Callings, or our Opinions, and neglect the rest; we violate our Covenants, and must not expect to be treated as his Servants, but as his enemies. How often doth he complain of his People's Covenant-Breaking, and how severely doth he punish them for it? nor are we like to escape his strokes, be our Professions, be our Promises, be our Prayers, be our Pretences never so high; If we live after the Flesh, we shall die, Rom. 8. Let us therefore labour after both these qualifications: let us seriously bind ourselves to God, and faithfully serve all our time with him. Such a Servant of God was Moses; who was dedicated to him, and made good his Dedication in the whole course of his life, may we be such too, so shall we have (as Moses had) his good testimony of us in another World, which is infinitely better than living in this. God's Enter thou faithful Servant into the joy of thy Master, is far more comfortable, than the Sinners, Eat, Drink, and be Merry; his good Word will pass for us through all eternity. Thrice happy is that Man, whom God styles his Servant, when he is dead. Men and Angels may be too charitable, and give too favourable judgements of us; they that see not the heart, may think and say it is very good: Alas! many are here Canonised for Saints, that in the other World are damned amongst the Devils; and lavishly commended for eminent Christians, who are condemned by God for Impenitent Wretches. Men praise they know not what, they know not who, they know not why: but God's Elegies tell no lies, nor do his Encomiums flatter or dissemble. He is a good Man indeed whose Panegyric is made by God.   
But Moses was not only a Servant of God, but he was so in a public Station, he had the care of the House of God, and so he was Typical of the succeeding Ministers of the Gospel, which is one of our proper concerns to consider at this time; and therefore from the notice God takes of the Death of Moses, we also have taken notice of the death of his Successors, and have observed that his Moseses die. But,  
2. Further to explain the Text, and the Doctrine, I shall describe Moses, and prove to you that he was God's Servant, and I do both these,  

1. By some of his actions, particularly as, 

1. The Series of Miracles which by the Authority and Command of God, he wrought in Opposition to the Egyptians, and in Defence of the Israelites, Exod. 4.16. to whom as well as to Aaron he was instead of God; he had the command of Heaven, and the Water, and Earth, and the Meteors of the Air, and therein as well as in other things was a clear Type of our blessed Saviour, The Wind and the Sea obeyed him; and seemed to have succeeded or rather exceeded Adam in his Original Power: The Animals come at his Call to infest the Egyptians, march in Battalia to Pharaoh's Court, conquer and force him to yield and surrender: without any more words, upon the King's refusal he sends an army of Sensitives to subdue him (as he after victualled the Israelites with a regiment of Quails, and a shower of Manna, Exo. 16.) He had the disposal of the King of Terrors, killed and saved alive whom and what he pleased: and yet even he, maugre this strange authority he had over, must be subject to the Empire, and feel the stroke of death. This great Moses also died.  
2. He conquered Amalek for the Israelites, and yet himself used no weapon, nor no hostility, Ex. 11. & 13. when the lifting up of his hands did more injure the Amalekites, and more befriend the Israelites than the lifting up of Joshua's and his armies, and there was as much fear of the falling of Moses his hand as there was of the hosts of Israel, and because his hands were steady, therefore Joshua discomfited Amalek and his people, 12, 13, v. yet for all this great service he did God and his Church, he was not exempted from mortality: this so triumphant conqueror, and so select a Servant of God is dead.  
3. He fasted forty days and forty nights: and so typified our blessed Lord, whose meat and drink was to receive and do his Father's will: and one would think, having lived so long, notwithstanding the decayableness of nature without continued sustenance, he would prove for ever after (as some Jewish Rabbis fancy he did) death-proof and immortal; but no, it was appointed also for him to die.  
4. He wrote by the inspiration of God the beginning, the first five Books of the holy Scriptures: if they hear not Moses, Luk. 16.31. says our Saviour: and the Apostle when Moses is read, 2 Cor. 3.15. that is that part of the Scripture which was written by him. One of the Fathers seems to understand by the five words of the Apostle in the 1 Cor. 14.19. the five Books of Moses, as if he were preferring the preaching, the necessary injunctions of the law before the miraculous gift of tongues. Moses (some think) was born A. M. 2373. and wrote before Homer the first Grecian writer 540 years, before Sanconiathan the first Phenician writer 200 years: though in Phenicia some (I suppose falsely) conjecture letters were first found out. He was the first man the Holy Ghost ever inspired in writing: yet and though he ever lives in those writings he must die.    
2. The second way I proposed to describe Moses and prove him the servant of God, was by the Characters the Scriptures give of him: and we find in the Word of God that, 

1. He was a man of prayer, an Israelite indeed, that always conquered men and prevailed with God, had even what he would of him: and in some sense reversed the decrees of Heaven: Numb. 32.10, 11, 14. So powerful was he in prayer, that when God absolutely and peremptorily designs the ruin of a people, he makes it appear by this Argument that Moses, Jer. 15.1. if he were praying for them, should not be able to retrieve them, q. d. he who once did strangely pray my mind toward this people should now fail to do it. And what a strange spirit of prayer had this second Moses whose departure from us hath brought us here this day! what an unheard of fluency of tears, word and matter would he altogether pour upon his hearers! how would the Rhetoric of his boiling affections and most serious earnestness disturb and yet greatly recommend the oratory of his words! have you not seen rivers of tears running down his eyes, when he hath been confessing and praying for you? with what brokenness of spirit, with what self-abhorrency, and with what deep reverence would he speak to God?  
2. Moses was a man of learning, which he employed for God: Acts 22. he was versed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; which (it is likely) was then couched in Hieroglyphics, if (as some think) they had not then the use of letters which were not then invented, or at least, they had them not: though its possible they might have had them from the Phoenicians, as they from Abraham. So was our Moses, though he made no pompous show of it. Amongst other of his excellencies in learning, he was well read in controversies, particularly he was an able defender of the Truth against the growing and so much improved errors of Arminianism: and his learning was the more lovely and valuable because richly enamelled with modesty, for as,  
3. Moses was a modest man, who could by no means be persuaded to think himself fit for so worthy an employment as God designed him; Exod. 4.10, 13. so was our Moses, his thoughts of himself were as little, and as low as were his accomplishments great and high: He was so far from blurting out his knowledge in all companies, or waiting his opportunity to be guilty of ostentation (as some do) that with too great care he hid his eminent parts from the view of all, and (just like Moses) as his modesty was (if there was any unequalness in his graces) one of his most resplendent virtues: So the excess of it was his most apparent infirmity. How hardly was he drawn, and how difficultly tolled into that wortk which he was prompted too by his free and religious education, and wherein he did far surpass and excel most of the most famed Preachers, and what could be the reason of this his very injurious unwillingness to be public? what, but a too modest sense, (I speak what I know) I say a too modest sense of that unfitness, which from him was always at remotest distance. But to hasten, we find in Scripture that,  
4. Lastly, Moses was a very meek and patiented man above all the men which were upon the face of the earth: amongst the many close and unkind provocations of a stubborn and refractory people, and very uncivil affronts that were put upon him by the obstinate children of Israel, we find him but once guilty of any thing like a passionate word, and that was when they did abundantly deserve it, at least upon God's account: and sure it could not be a sinful (though it were an angry) expression, to call them Rebels, Num. 20.2, 3, 4, 5, & 10. v. who were so indeed: and so plainly and notoriously rebelled against their God, when they repined and murmured not against Moses and Aaron only, but against him too, and against him most: and therefore though I know some Commentators think this one of Moses his faults for which he was excluded Canaan, yet (with submission) I cannot think so. So patiented was Moses, thus was the Original, and just like him was our Copy. Fancy a man the best of mere men, who formerly was followed with continual affluences of the things of this world, through the whirl of Providence, brought to a condition next to poor and indigent: that was the desired company of the greater and more refined sort, forced to converse with the poorer and more ordinary: and who governed the highest rank of men in their advances in the superior liberal Arts and Sciences, and chiefest Professions, compelled (more indeed to divert a greater noise than by want and necessity) to sit amidst the cries and clamours of children, and instruct them in the Rudiments of Reading: and in a word (not to enumerate, for it would be much too tedious and too sorrowful) fancy one once encompassed with all the afflictions of Job, and amongst the rest that worst than all, the dines of a foolish woman: perfectly endued with Jobs patience too, that bears all with as great an unmovedness of mind as if in the highest Apex of prosperity: and then will you but begin to think equally of his patience. In short, none but Moses, Job, and Mr. Johnson would bear what he did. And thus I have done with the description of Moses and of his second. We now come to show you,    
3. The Reasons why God's Moseses, his Ministers die, and they are these, 

1. They have the same causes of death with others. These spiritual men have bodies that contain humours fermentable into distempers as well as others: and dwell in houses of clay, that are tottering and decaying as others do. They are not secured by their studies, nor by their employment, nor by their piety from the miseries of humane nature, but rather the more exposed to them (as I shall show you under the next head). These Angels of Churches assume, lodge in and inform material vehicles compounded of divisible parts and easy separable Elements, that lie open to the wind and weather, sicknesses, pains and casualties, and often need repair and Physic, which if they miss of, or prove ineffectual, they take their flight and leave us, they are not yet immortal but must die to be so. So these Stars that shine in our firmament, will not always keep above our Horizon, but will at length take time to set and disappear. These men of God are men, penetrable by the arrows of the King of terrors, not privileged nor exempted from the common fate of mortality, neither their more elevated degrees of grace, their more exemplary holiness, nor their continued, though still ripening preparedness for heaven, can perpetuate their lives on earth. Their zeal for holiness, their warmest affections, though the flames there kindled rise never so high towards God, will not preserve them from colds, those small introductions to all distempers: nor the coolest of their spirits in opposition to the heats of passion, from burning and malignant Fevers: nor the most vigorous activeness for Religion from the Gout or Palsy, and though their hard hearts are never so broken, they may yet meet with the painful agonies of the Stone: nor groans, nor sighs for sin, nor prayers, nor praises are any Antidotes against an infectious Air, though sometimes preternaturally through the Divine Goodness they correct its malignancy. Though our graces are lively, and though our corruptions are mortified, yet we must die.  
2. They have more causes of dying than others: they lie more in the road of diseases, dangers and death: their constant studies weary their flesh, and tyre their spirits out of their bodies: their cares and fears (which powerfully wast the life) are greater and more consuming than those of other employments, because terminated upon the souls of men, and concerned about Heaven and Hell, everlasting happiness and everlasting misery. Their anxious cares are that all under their charge may reach the former, and their continual fears lest they fall into the latter. I doubt not but when we come into another world, it will be found that more Ministers have died of their people than of diseases, the unkind and undutiful carriages, the irraclamable lives, and the unchristian demeanours of their hearers, of their communicants, these are the things that kill and destroy them. The single thought that some who constantly attend their ministry are like to be damned, and all their pains and labours utterly lost upon them, this, this breaks their sleeps and their hearts too, and sends them groaning against you into another world. Besides they have ordinarily more enemies than others: upon every little stir and disorder, every fear and jealousy, every ill news and disappointment in the state, they are presently sought for, harassed and sometimes murdered too. Every storm blows at these lights and would said extinguish them: against them are mainly leveled the plots and contrivances of Earth and Hell. The Devil and his agents, his diligent and industrious substitutes chiefly desiring their ruin. It is no wonder then that they whom all strike at, whom every one wounds and whom every thing conspires to drive out of this world, at length departed and leave us.  
3. God in great love calls them away from the miseries of this world, to secure them from the evils to come, Is. 57.1. He will not always suffer his Ministers to be affronted, his Ambassadors to be abused, nor his Representatives to be rudely treated, by wicked and impenitent people: but mercifully recall them, and usually he send, in their room some severe calamity to scourge the world: this therefore is no wonder that God inflicts evils upon those who think the death of his Minister none, and though it may be esteemed a fanatical fancy, yet it is very certain that there is no such sure prognostic of an approaching judgement, as a considerable mortality of Preachers. Possibly God bids them now die in their beds that they may not hereafter be butchered, and massacred by violent & cruel hands: However he gives them a quietus est, sends death to sing requiems to their souls, & kindly remous them from their cares, their fears, and all their pains & studies to receive the reward of their pious labours. Ministers die, because death is better than life, thereby God fixes an eternal period to all their griefs and sorrows, and renders them for ever impassable. And thus I have done with the doctrinal Part I proceed now to the Applicatory. And 

1. Learn from hence to bewail the loss of your Moseses, hearty lament the death of your Ministers: and be truly troubled (as well you may) at their departure. The days of mourning for God's Moseses are religiously to be observed: and not speedily to expend but extend as you feel the want of them: I need use no Arguments to work upon your grief at the extinction of the lights of Heaven, you may well  your souls with blackness and sorrow, when they depart and leave you in the dark. Yet consider 

1. Who they are, and  
2. The time of their deaths, and you will dissolve into tears of yourselves. 

1. Who they are, they are Gods Ambassadors, that treat with you for your fouls: and whose business is to persuade you to be at peace with him, against whom its utterly in vain to war; and to be reconciled to him with whom there is no contesting. Many private Israelites might better be spared than one Moses. The loss of a Minister is (to appearance) the loss of as many souls as might have been converted by him. Mourn therefore that they die, for their decease may be the death of thy soul.  
2. The time of their death: when they can least be spared, and are most dearly miss. That Moses should die at such a time, when the Israelites were advanced very near the land of Canaan, and just entering into their rest; that he should so long lead them, and now leave them, when their hopes and joys were even consummated, was no doubt of itself, a very fore and pungent addition to their sorrow: and that our Moses should now die just at his resurrection into public employment should be so to ours.      
2. Inquire into your lives whether you have not one way or other, less or more procured their removal; and lament and bewail yourselves as far as you have been the unhappy causes of their death, and do this, 

1. You who are more nearly concerned by natural relation to him, who is now gone. It happens but too often that even Ministers have Domestic concauses of their grief, and consequently of their sicknesses and death: the extravagance of a Wife and the Headiness of Children are sometimes their greatest and most mortal ails: but usually where relations live most squablingly, when one of them is dead, the remaining, if there be any grace, any good nature, any sense of Religion or morality, if the conscience be not quite seared, and the heart incurably hardened, if it be not every jot of it adamant: there will then be some relenting remembrances, and some penitent reflections upon former miscarriages. Bear with me, you know I do not use to flatter: Are here any that need this advice? if there be, I charge you if you have been guilty of any disobedience, any undutiful demeanours or of propagating any calumniating aspersions of this deceased Minister, make haste to be sorry, and sleep in penitential tears, and the more because your reformation in one sense is utterly impossible, be expeditious and weep hearty for yourselves, if God perhaps will forgive you.  
2. You who are more remotely (and yet near enough) concerned by a religious relation, as you have at any time been hearers of this departed Minister, take you this advice also. Who knows but because you did not return to God, when he last preached to you, he is dead, and shall preach no more. obstinate and unreforming hearers are, in too true and too sad a sense, the murderers of their preachers: they are more affected more afflicted with your sins than their own diseases. And will you by your iniquities murder the Ambassadors of Heaven? will nothing serve you, nothing satiate you but the blood of Ministers? can you love those your vices that have laid them bleeding at your feet? O mourn, mourn, drench yourselves with tears and let it be for a perpetual lamentation, not so much that your Moseses die, as that you have killed them. If this doth not call for sorrow, I know not what doth.  
3. Use. As you ever loved Gods Ministers, as you honour the remembrance of them, be careful to imitate (the holiness of their lives) and practically repeat their Sermons in your heavenly conversations; let them always echo, and continually reverberate in your ears, praise their virtues by your own, and by an unwearied practice of, applaud their Sermons. Was he a good man? the viler wretch art thou, who livest so bad. Did he preach, did he pray well? the worse art thou who livest so ill. Dost thou commend him? and yet wilt thou swear or curse, or take the name of God in vain? Hast thou a respect for his memory? come, let us see it, show it by thy works, what sin wilt thou leave? what religious duty wilt thou engage in for his sake? in vain art thou so lavish of thy commendations, if thou dost not lessen the number of thy sins. My friends, I am come to speak for, and from him who is in his settled state (of happiness no doubt) who not long ago spoke to you from Almighty God; and whom you shall never hear again, unless at the day of Judgement when he shall publicly accuse those who praised his preaching, but would not live it. And my request from him is that you would speedily repent and return to God, and oh that his death may be a means to convert those that his life and labours missed to do! Will you do it? or will you not? if you could hear him call you out of another World, would you deny? and will you because you are treated in a more familiar and less startling way? It would be some allay to the sorrows of this day, if the death of this Moses might be so far improved, as to augment his own joy and the Angels with him in the Regions above by the conversion of some Sinners: and our own here, that we may not only weep for sorrow that he is dead, but weep also for joy that by his means the Sinner lives.  
Use 4. Learn from hence to prepare for your own deaths, if God cuts down the fruitful trees, the barren that cumber the ground cannot long stand. And to keep to the work of this day all the arguments I shall use to persuade you to provide for death is, consider how terrible it will be to you if you do not. Death is the King of Terrors, it brings to a terrible God, to a terrible Bar, to a terrible work, it plucks asunder and divides between the two constituent principles of man, draws a screen of darkness between him and all the light, the goods, the glories of this world, and fixeth an unmoveable non ultra to all his temporal employments, which is very sad and doleful tidings to the impenitent and unprovided sinner, who hath no hopes, no happiness beyond the confines of time. That death is terrible most that ever past into another World are serious witnesses: and who of us all fears not greatly this frightful and impartial leveller, and O that we all did so as we ought! that we might not as we ought not, as we would not, as we should not. When thou art ill and weak in body, and far worse and weaker in thy soul: when thy breaths are short and few, and thy vices great and many: thy life e'en done, and thou not born again, when the Doctor hath given thee up, and the Divine too: when there is no hopes of thy body, and as little of thy soul, O how dreadful will the sight of Millions of unpardoned sins be, as easily and freely as thou now committest them? How grievous and burdensome the remembrance of a Crucified and so often rejected Saviour? And how intolerable the thoughts of those Sermons which now thou wretchedly neglectest? when thou shalt by thy e'en extinguished light of the Lord within and almost out of thee, most sadly see all the sins thou hast committed, and the mercies thou hast abused in an eager and a close pursuit of thy expiring soul, crying with most dreadful and undeniable importunity, Justice, Justice, Vengeance, Vengeance: above thee nothing but an unreconciled frowning God, and blackest clouds of fluid flaming Brmstone, e'en ready to pour upon thee? nothing before thee but an open Hell, its flames furiously catching at thy trembling soul, where there is no retreating, but as thy breath grows shorter, thou still approachest nearer: Conscience violently pushing thee forward: and on each hand and round about thee, thy weeping friends that now can yield thee no relief at all; and the Devil and his Angels belching out Sulphureous Flames, waiting for Orders to tear thee in pieces, or carry thee away into endless miseries. O the horrors that will then fill thy now unconcerned and careless soul! O that a man could but see into it! what dreadful sights would there appear? And is it not worth the while to prepare for so terrible anenemy as death will be, when clothed with all these dreadful circumstances, that he may be thy friend and stripped of every thing frightful? Is it not requisite to make some provision for so serious an hour? And to hint a Direction how you should prepare: Be prevailed with to come to Christ: I doubt not but all out of Christ are bound by all ways they can to make timely provision for their great Change: But I cannot think any can be sufficiently provided to receive the King of Terrors, that hath not first received the King of Heaven, the Lord Jesus as he is offered in the Gospel. And to move you towards him: I will only (remembering death is our present subject) peremptorily prophesy and presage to you, that when you come to die you will, you must come to Christ, to be for ever disposed of by him, and therefore the rather do it now, that he may place you in the mansions of bliss above. Wilt thou refuse when the Doctor turns Divine, having dreined thy purse, and to no purpose tried all the Apothecary's shop; feels thy weak, but hasty pulse in full speed to death; shakes his posed, his puzzled head, and his last prescription is, Take Jesus Christ, make your peace with God, and prepare for another world, put your house and your soul in order, for you cannot live, and you must die, when thy friends take the by thy clammy claiy hand, as cold as are those of great men's statues upon their tombstones, to take their leaves of thee, and it falls again like a log: when thou hast done breathing short, and art fetching a long groan to Eternity, wilt thou then refuse to come to Christ? wilt thou when thou art passing to God, thy Spirit is going to him that gave it, when death comes with positive and peremptory orders to bring thee to the Judgement seat, when forced out of thy bed, secured by a guard of Devils, and haled before the inexorable Justice to answer for all thy misdemeanours here: when thy soul is wrested out of thy body, God knows very unwilling to part: and cruelly pulled along for all thy weakness, for all thy wickedness, to the great tribunal of that God, whose mercy thou now slightest, whose grace thou rejectest, and whose tenderest bowels thou wickedly spurnest against, when the news is gone that thou art dead, and there remains nothing but an empty body: when thy friends anxiously feel for breath, and with great fear apply the looking glass to see a little but can find none: Wilt thou then refuse to go to Christ? If not, O be persuaded to go now that thou mayst obtain his pardoning grace and mercy.  
Use. Do God's Moseses die, then pray for Joshua's to succeed them. Pray that they may fill their rooms, and pray that they may lead you, and that you may cheerfully and constantly follow them into the heavenly Canaan, and to that purpose conscientiously take their advice, and obey their command from God, always remembering that your Joshuas will also die, and that you know not how soon. Some of you its likely remember an expression of this man of God when he last preached here, to this purpose. I Know not whether I may ever preach again to you: such kind of expressions do we sometimes drop, & you esteem them melancholy fancies, hut when neither you nor we are ware we become prophets indeed, and read our own destinies. Be it fanatical or no, I cannot but take notice of the hand of God in your neighbourhood that hath taken away his Ministers two in one week and left you but one, and when his mouth also shall be stopped with earth and worms, he only that knows all things, knows. O that you would now hear, and be reform, as sure you would, if he who now speaks to you, were to go at this time from this pulpit to his grave and judgement. Well, remember this hereafter, when you are at the funeral of this body: be it sooner, be it later.  
6. The last Use, If there be any Joshuas, any sons of the Prophets, pardon me, being it lies so dirctly in my way, if I let fall one applicatory word for you with myself. Do God's Moseses die? and are his ancient servants successively (and indeed by clusters) dropping and wearing away, succeed them then, and may you have their success and greater too. Jos. 1.2. N. now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, the remainder of the wilderness: and by your painful ardent preaching, & your holy exemplary living conduct the people into the holy land. And to this purpose, if I were worthy to advise, it should be, that we would take a right level of our reformation, begin it early and high enough, propose to our careful imitation the commands and example of our Blessed Saviour, his Apostles and the purest primitive Churches, without taking any great notice of the usages and practices of any since: and yet bear due regard & a becoming charitable reverence for the whole Christian world, that we would love and honour all, whatever is truly commendable in all parties but espouse none, that we would profoundly venerate and highly respect our superiors, predecessors and seniors in the Church: but not think ourselves obliged to be in all things of their opinion, to be their seconds, or abettors in all controversies, some of which perhaps were engaged in, at least fomented by state or secular interests: nevertheless far be it from us to slight & under value their persons, or scoff and jeer at their Sermons, if they suit not our palates and do not so well accommodate with our juvenile fancies, let's leave that to the ishmael's of another Church, that we would not meddle with state quarrels & affairs, nor embroil ourselves in needless Divinity duels; nor (like Church Barrators) run ourselves into every Ecclesiastical squabble: that we would endeavour to maintain the scriptuaall authority and the rightful power of pastors, and yet willingly concede their just rights and liberties to the people. That we would cheerfully submit to the church or Magistrates prudent determinations of necessary circumstances: and yet carefully see what ever pretends to religious decency well proved so, before we practise. That we would eagerly emulate the gifts and graces of our departed and our dying Moseses; that we would carefully beware of those faults, that stateliness, confidence, conceitedness or what ever else we are apt to blame them for, when we come to their age and circumstances, and also studiously labour with deepest humility to exceed, to excel, to outvie them.         

1. In our Studies.  
2. In our Pulpits, and  
3. In our necessary Converses with the world.   
1. In our Studies. Let us study peace & love, unity and concord; to find out healing and not dividing principles. Let us make no more differences than indeed there are: and by no means magnify those that really are, by the glasses of prejudice or partiality: but leave them to wrangle about the no or lesser differences that have nothing else to do, and no greater matters to mind. Let us hope for Justification upon the sole account of the merits of the Son of God; and yet (without scolding) about conditions and instrumentalities) assert the absolute and indispensible necessity of holiness to the beatifical vision. Let us hold freewill, and not justle out free grace; and our necessary concurrence to our own salvation, and not depress nor depreciate the assistances of God by advancing too high the natural abilities of man. Let us believe that man can do nothing savingly without supernatural infused grace, and yet that all men can do something, and are bound (as it is very reasonable) to do all they can. Let us sit up later, and rise up earlier, and suffer ourselves to be diverted seldomer from our Studies than they.  
2. In our public approaches to God, let our deportment be grave and reverend, without too much or too little action: let us not move on all four, as if the actions of a Thresher and of a Preacher were to be much alike; and we had been used to the former as a preparatory for the latter: nor yet let us be fixed like Statues, lest we teach our Auditors to be no more moved than Images. Let us wear and possess in Prayer the lowest humility, in Preaching the highestawfulness, and most serious but unforced Majesty, and let us do both with that fervour and ardency in our affections, as well as that cleanness, masculiness in our expressions, that men may see that we intent their souls good and not our own applause: not with too formal a setness, an over finess of words and Rhetoric, like those who all week long anxiously hunt after Plays and Romances, wherewith to treat their hearers on the Sabbath, as if they designed the tickling of their fancies and the gratifying their curiosities, and not the reforming of their lives, and the saving of their souls: nor yet to make work for jeering debate-makers. Hereafter cloth the great things of God with rude and clownish speech, like those that Santer up and down, that Chat and Coffe-house away their time, and then entertain their Auditors with their sudden effusions and idle impertinences, slovenly metaphors and numberless tautologies, as if to invoke God, and represent him were the easiest province in the world. Let us remember both to inflame the affections and lighten the understanding, and not belabour the one with out regarding the other, let us offer the promises, and fire the theatningst to draw or to drive men from their sins, not valuing their jeers who scoff at the preaching of grace; nor their censure of legal preachers who fancy Christ menaces no part of his Gospel. In a word let us in this (as in all things) make the Apostles our Precedents, since it is very likely their way of preaching will do most good.  
3. In our needful converses with this world, let us make it appear we are of another: and in providing the necessaries of our pilgrimage that we seek another country. When employed about the urgent businesses (the little other things of ourselves as men) let us first seek the Kingdom of God; Mat. 6.33. and not lose ourselves and forget our spiritual concerns by too long parentheses in our secular. Let our flames of love, our beams of knowledge so burn, so shine as theirs should, who are the burning shining light, of the world, that others may find by us the way to happiness, that they may see our good works and glorify our father which is in Heaven. Mat. 5.16. Let there be no discord, but the sweetest harmony between our instructions and our conversations.  
Let us not forget what we spoke for God, when we come to deal with men, like those (I hope otherwise) good Ministers, who will make a heavy ado about love and unity in the pulpit, and then look shy upon one another when they come down: and talk loudly against divisions and animosiities amongst different persuasions and yet deny communion to any but those of their own: that in their prayers confess they are very sorry for the distances amongst good people of divers judgements, and yet will not give the Lords supper to any that are not of their own size, and that come not full up to themselves. Away Hyprocrisies! Let us (my brethren) do that which hath been long vainly talked of: let us (whether our opinions jump or no) love, converse and communicate together. Be we strong and of good Courage; be we not afraid, nor at all dismayed, Josh. 1.6. Come what can come between this and Heaven. Observe we carefully the laws of God, turn we neither to the right hand of Popery, Will Worship, and Idolotry, nor to the left of Heresy, Error and Anarchy: run we not to the Church of Rome nor any superstitious one for fear of Schism, nor into no Churches. to avoid Superstition and formality. Meditate we upon the word of God day and night v. 8. and do we accordingly, so shall we prosper wherever we go, so shall we have good success, and so will the Lord be with us as be was with Moses. He will not fail us, nor forsake us, Joshua 1.5.  
FINIS.   

Reader,  
THat thou mayst not wrong either thyself or the Author, be persuaded before thou readest to correct, as thou art here instructed.  
Pag. 2 lin. 17. r. Monios. l. 18. r. be. l. 24. deal a. p. 3. l. 20. r. force or compulsion. l. 36. r. velliety, p. 7. l. 21. r. words. p. 8. l. 31. r. whirls. p. 9 l. 17 r. easily. l. 20. r. or they prove. l. 21. blot so before these. l. 31. r. coolness. 32. r. nor their. p. 11. l. 8. r. expire not expend. p. 12. l. 10. r. steep not sleep. Some other lessor errors there are which thy own discretion will correct without giving thee any further trouble here.