Saints Memorials, Title page – To the reader
Saints Memorials: OR, Words fitly spoken, Like Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver.
Being, A COLLECTION OF Divine SENTENCES Written and Delivered By those late Reverend and Eminent Ministers of the Gospel, Mr. EDMUND CALAMY, Mr. JOSEPH CARYL, Mr. RALPH VENNING, Mr. JAMES JANEWAY.
Heb. 11.4.
Who being dead, yet speak.
Rev. 14.13.
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.
LONDON: Printed in the Year 1674.
To all the SAINTS BELOVED OF GOD, And Sanctified through OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, Grace and Peace be Multiplied.
THe dispensations of God, though never so seemingly strange towards his people, have always been propitious and favourable: according to that of the Apostle, he maketh all things work together for good to those that love him, and are called according to his purpose. How great love should we then have for them who love God, and are so beloved of him!
To the Reader.
My Friends, many there are whose beginning is better than their latter end: but blessed are they who dye in the Lord, who have an Interest in the Everlasting Covenant, and in the sure mercies of David: though God may visit their Iniquities with a Rod, and their Transgressions with Stripes, yet he will never suffer his loving kindness to depart. Who would then, depart from that God, who sticks so close to his? If we leave him whither shall we go? surely to broken Cisterns that hold no water.
Oh then, as you love your pretious and immortal Souls, endeavour close Vnion and strict Communion with him. As you are chosen by him, so let him be your choyce: Since he first loved you, let it not be lost. He cast his eye upon us when we were in our Blood, and no eye pittied us; and he spread his Skirt over us, and then was the time of love. Ah then, if he loved us so unlovely, what estimation should we have of him, who is love it self? Consider what he hath done for you, in giving life, health, and above all, his beloved Son to dye for you a most ignominious death, that you through him migh have everlasting life. That you may know how to value this transcendent love of God, weigh well the condition you were at that time in; lamentably helpless, Dead in Trespasses and Sins, without God, and without Christ in the world, strangers to the Commonwealth of Israel and to the Promises. This we were in the general: but what were we as to our best, our Righteousness? so bad, that nothing could be worse; no better than menstruous Cloaths and filthy Rags.
What Humiliation, what Lamentation doth our condition call for! Little reason to walk so haughtily as we do, and with the Pharisee to say, Stand farther off, I am holier than thou. For shame then, come with humble Job in his prostrate State, Abhor your selves, and repent in dust and ashes: or with the Prophet cry out, Wo is me, I am undone, a man of unclean lips; mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts: A dreadful sight undoubtedly, that should be so astonishing to one whom God honoured in making use of his blood for a Testimony of his truth: how much more must it needs be to us, whose lives are so unclean, that there is no soundness in us? What necessity is there then of finding out a way to look God in the face? there is but one; and Blessed, and for ever Blessed be his gratious Name, for the Revelation of it, and that is Jesus Christ, the onelyonly Mediator betwixt God and Man. What had become of us, had he not interposed betwixt the wrath of an incensed Majesty and sinful Creatures? Vengeance had been speedily Executed, and all that long-suffering and patience which is now exercised to us-ward had been prevented; we should not have had line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; his faithful Ministers instructing, exhorting, and dehorting, if hereby the torrent of his Ire had not been stopt.
How highly then ought we to prize this Talent, and to let no day nor time of it pass without doing him some service, who hath been so benigne and merciful to us! If men do kindnesses to ingenuous minds, what thoughtfulness is there of recompence, in so much that they declare it to all their friends, and enquire and advise what returns will best suit the nature of their received friendships: How much more should we with David declare what God hath done for us, and always walk in thankfulness towards him? For this the grace of God teacheth us, to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live righteously and soberly in this present evil world: Not to turn wanton Libertines, saying, God is good and merciful, and hath sent his Son to dye in our stead, nothing remaining for us to do, but like the children of the old world, to eat and to drink, and to rise up to play: This bespeaks men to be of that number of whom Jude in his general Epistle makes mention, ordained of old to this condemnation, denying the onelyonly Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. How indeed can we more disown him, than by casting his laws behinde our backs, and saying as those wicked wretches did, We will not have this man to reign over us; although he was Lord of all, and told them his yoak was easie and his burthen light, and that his ways were ways of pleasantness, and his paths were peace. Think not that these things were written for their instruction onelyonly, but ours also, on whom the ends of the world are come.
But lest I should burden you with too tedious an Epistle, I will rather invite you to feed on those wholesome remains which you will finde collected from the Writings of those Eminent and Renowned men prefixt in the Title of this Miscelany; whose worth should I undertake to display, it would prove an Eclipse, coming short of your Estimations, and those choice and elaborate Works which will eternize their Memories to all gratious hearts. The best use we can make of their loss is, to study diligently what they once designed for our benefit, and to be provoked by their good conversation to emulation. I beseech you therefore let not their, nor my poor Labours, in gathering these crums from their Tables, be lost; but that we may have cause to rejoyce in this, the Testimony of our Conscience, that in Simplicity and Godly Sincerity we have had our conversations in the World; as wisheth
Your Fellow-Servant in the Kingdom of Grace.