death But that description which the Wiseman gives of it does best express its nature where after he had set down the several incommodities and weaknesses of old age and coming to speak of the end of our life he saith Then shall the dust return to the earth Eccle. 12.7 as it was and the spirit shall return to God that gave it Whence it appears that death is the dissolution of the body and spirit before joyn'd together in one hypostasis they both remaining still the one in the matter of which it was made and the other in reserve with God from whom it came at first Secondly Its effects are these first It ends this life and all the thoughts actions and possibilities thereof The dead know not any thing neither have they any more a reward Eccl. 9.5 6. their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun And this is to be understood of Supernatural and Religious as well as of natural and civil actions and possibilities for this life is the day death brings the night wherein no man can work John 12. The wickedest man in the world is in this life convertible Heb. 10.27 but after death there is no more hope but a fearful looking for of judgement Secondly it begins an unchangeable state both to the g dly and to the wicked for that to the one 't is the end of all joy the beginning of sorrow an everlasting night the gate of hell the locking up of the door of comfort and a sad farewell for ever and ever with the joys of eternity But to the other it is a step to blessedness the close of mortality and as Seneca saith Transitus à labore ad refrigerium a passage from labour to rest from expectation to a reward from a combat to a Crown from death to life from faith to knowledge from a pilgrimage to a Countrey and from the world to a Father A gate of glory to the servant of God S. Bernard Greg. Naz. August Ambr. de bono mort A deposition of this burthen of flesh which presseth down the free soul And a journey to the city of God The Midwife and birth-day of a better life a rest from labour a death of misery and a burial of sin I cannot here though I have a fair temptation offer'd me insist longer in confuting the dream of Purgatory which the Romanists so stifly maintain that they will sooner renounce their share of heaven then quit their portion in that then while I tell you that it was first hatch'd by Plato in his Gorgias or Phaedo and afterwards adopted by the Council of Florence about 1400 years after the death of Christ during which time it suffer'd many Metamorphosies and Transmutations as it met with several Merchants Discredited by the Scriptures wherein some of their own side confess it has no ground thrust out of doors by the Greek Church and so much discountenanc'd by them that the Council of Basil published an Apologie directly disallowing the Roman Doctrine of Purgatory and how little they yet regard Pope Eugenius his pressing them to receive it is so notoriously known that it needs no further declaration and though it was entertained by some Ancients as a stranger yet it was but upon trial of its good behaviour and was never made a free Denizon by the Latines untill they found how profitable this Heathenish Brat was like to prove Neither the ancient forms of Prayer for the dead which were rather Commemorations or Thanksgivings or a convoy to accompany the Saints into Heaven or had reference to their secret Receptacles which too many Fathers favour'd but is diametrically oppos'd to Purgatory or to their publique acquittal at the day of judgement or to the Consummation of their happiness at the Resurrection or to the time of their transmigration out of this life Origin S. Ambr. S. Basil S. Hil. S. Hier. Lactan. which it seems we do not abhor from at our Anniversary Feasts of Christmas Easter and the like as if Christ were that day to be born to suffer or to rise again will warrant their Purgatory no nor the Purgatory fire in sundry Fathers by which they meant no other than the fire of Conflagration which shall consume this world through which they held Bibloh l. 5. annot 171. as Sixtus Senensis affirms from their own words that all men both good and bad should pass Christ Jesus onely excepted All this I say can no way prove their Purgatory especially seeing the Scriptures know no other purgation for sin John 1. Heb. 1. Rev. 14.13 Heb. 9.27 then the blood of Jesus Christ and calls none blessed but those that dye in the Lord for they rest from their labours and after death follows judgement that is the particular judgement of every individual at the hour of his departure and the general of all at the last day Where observe by the way that it is appointed for all men once to die yet the hour is uncertain and kept from us that we might beware of security and not defer our repentance to the last stage of our life when happily the custom of sinning shall have so hardned us that t is ten thousand to one whether we shall find place for repentance I shall not now dispute whether death may be hastned or prorogued because that if this were granted it would argue a mutability in Gods unchangeable decrees and yet if it were not the Scriptures would seem contradictitious to themselves as The blood thirsty man shall not live out half his days Psal 55.23 and this of Adding fifteen years to Hezekiahs life Onely this I shall make bold to offer by way of Solution of this difficulty and reconciliation of this seeming dissonancy of Scripture That without all doubt according to the course of nature many might live long who by intemperance and ungodliness cut off their days and many who are sometimes in mercy taken away before their time from future evils Yet this is not against Providence because that as it appoints the end so likewise in that appointment it foresees and includes the means leading thereunto otherwise the same Objections would be in force against prayers and the obedience of children to their Parents on which condition long life is promised Exod. 20. Now it onely remains to enquire Whether death be good or evil Which cannot be easily resolved without some distinction of some persons or some respects for Gods appointment is good the punishment of sin is like sin it self evil an enemy is neither loved nor lovely Sleep is no evil thing the entrance of life is desireable the determination of the life of grace is dreadful we must therefore before we can resolve the question know of whom and of whose death the demand is made for the death of the Righteous is to be
wished for witness Balaam and the death of the wicked is wretched And though Solomon seems to say absolutely of all That the day of death Eccle. 4.2 is better that of life yet he must be understood to speak there as presupposing sin and the vanities and miseries that are annexed and consequent thereunto and so indeed a speedy death is much better than a sinful life and that because it is unfit to act that long which is very ill done and since life is often so desperately used it is expedient not being good that it be short that the shortness of the time may render the evil of it less hurtful But yet this does not absolutely prove that death is good or better than life in all respects for that an evil life may have and without the greater grace must have a worse death Death then in it self considering the state of man fallen unless we adde the quality of the death of the righteous is evil but considering man in a state of grace and as he is restor'd to the favour of God by Christ is good for that it is an entrance into everlasting joy And thus have I done with the first part of the Text or the Reason Thou shalt dye and not live The second part which is the Admonition follows Set thy house in order But before I speak of this give me leave to mind you of Isaiahs severe manner of delivering this Message Thou shalt dye Had he stopt there Hezekiah might have comforted himself with finding out some allay as Thou shalt dye at last or thou shalt dye and yet be miraculously restor'd again to life as the man was by touching the bones of Elisha 2 Kings 13.21 but he cuts off all such hopes by peremptorily adding Thou shalt not live Which clearly shews that the Prophet told him this by special appointment otherwise his prudence might be justly questioned for that so abrupt a declaration might so far deject him that though his sickness were not in it self mortal yet it would take away all possibility of his recovery And it likewise shews that even good men themselves such as Hezekiah was can hardly be beaten from hopes of life What we much desire we are loath to despair of and you shall meet with very few though never so desperately sick but they still reserve hopes of life Men are loath to take the sentence of death 2 Cor. 1.9 as S. Paul speaks and there 's scarcely any so old but he hopes to live one year longer Nay Grace it self doth not without some difficulty expel nature for S. Paul though he desires to be dissolv'd and to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 yet sindes himself in a straight between two But however by occasion of this special manner not used to us in any particular sickness as it was to Hezekiah it will not be amiss for us both for the crossing of our fond hopes and the convincing us of the uncertainty of our lives to fancy that this Message Thou shalt dye and not live is now sent to every one of us in particular nay more to consider that though we should equal the life of Methusalem or the Ancients before the Flood yet we shall die at last and that if Xerxes when he was mustering his Army of more than two millions Herodot Polymneia wept upon this reflection of his thoughts that not one of them should be alive a hundred years after how much more cause have we to weep and to be concern'd for that every one of us who are now in this Church shall not onely die within a hundred years but a far shorter time nay for ought we know before we get out of this place and therefore this being seriously consider'd ought to make us more attentive to what we shall hear in order to our preparations for death If we had an Enemy that vowed to set upon us where ever he should meet us we would do our best to prepare our selves accordingly with weapons and skill to encounter him Mortem optare malum timere pejus Senec. Trag. And being death is such an enemy nay not onely a sworn but a mortal enemy too it argues the greatest madness imaginable to be unprovided for its approach and the basest cowardize to run away from it And truly he that seriously considers how many intercepting casualties may hinder their preparing for death who defer that work any longer than while it is call'd to day not to mention that the very presumption does much discredit the purpose as the uncertainty of health the suddeness of death and the unfitness of the mind to learn to do well in the bodies weakness and how horror and amazement frenzy and distraction may take away all capacities for and possibilities of repentance I say he that soberly and sadly considers this will easily grant that then is the fittest time to make provisions for death when we are in health and prosperity and while that is not said Thou shalt dye and not live which shall or at least may be said to every one of us in particular at this instant And therefore that we may be so prepar'd for death as not to be dismaid when this King of terror shall assault us let us give heed to the Prophets advice or admonition which is the second thing to be spoken to in the Text Set thy house in order The Text is word for word in the Original Give charge or Commandment to thy house which I account not to be onely the making of a Will though that is a duty not to be omitted but also the giving the last charge to his friends and servants and the ordering and settling the affairs of his Kingdom which Hezekiah was the more concern'd to do because he had no heir Manasses being born three years after his recovery to whom the Crown might legally descend and therefore it was by so much the more necessary for preventing of divisions and quarrels in his Family and Kingdom after his death to settle it upon the right Successour But it may seem something strange that Isaiah should give counsel about that in the first place whereas it may be thought to be the duty of a man of God rather to advise him to settle his mind and conscience But the wonder will be removed if you consider these particulars First That besides that duty which obliges a man to settle his estate that others who have a just right thereunto either by promise or otherwise may not be prejudic'd by his omission the very settling of temporal affairs in time of sickness is no small part of preparing the mind and soul for God for that thereby all worldly thoughtfulness being laid aside he may the more vigorously betake himself to the making up of his accounts with God and with less distraction bend his thoughts on his inward condition And therefore they that blame Ministers in visiting of the sick for advising them to
party is examin'd of the sincerity of his Repentance and Faith and purpose of new obedience Besides special remedies are to be apply'd to special cases as if it should happen that the Conscience is perplex'd through its apprehensions of the greatness and number of its sins then this Consolation is to be applied that nothing is unpardonable but final impenitence and that the hainousness and number of sins is no bar to the favour of God provided they be forsaken as appears by the example of the Prodigal and Christs own words who came not to call the righteous but sinners and that they are those very men whom Christ came to call and that there is a special favour to such and joy in Heaven for their conversion And lastly that oftentimes such prove the worthiest instruments of Gods glory as Paul who from a Persecutor of the Faith became a Propagator of and a Martyr for the Faith 2. If the cause of doubt proceed from sore and continual afflictions which are oftentimes magnifi'd by fancy or are but the products of passion or melancholy it is to be intimated that afflictions are not signs of Gods disfavour but rather tokens of his love Heb. 12.12 if they be born with patience and that they give good advantage against death for that they serve to make weary of life 3. If the dying person because he findes himself assaulted with many blasphemous temptations doubts of his salvation and concludes that God has given him over and is not at hand to help him he is to know that temptations not consented to are not sins but crosses and that he is made no more guilty thereby than a good Subject is for being tempted by a Traytor to kill his Prince or a chaste wife by an Adulterer to defile her husbands bed and that he is therefore to complain to God and to beseech him to rebuke the Devil and that he would give him grace and strength to resist the temptation and to endeavour to avoid all occasions as much as he can 4. Sometimes Gods children are so discourag'd by their relapses into some gross sins after reconciliation and through the sense of their corruptions and wants that they not onely doubt but pronounce of themselves that God has cast them away and they charge themselves with the sin against the Holy Ghost In this case they are to remember that while they carry flesh and blood about them they must not think to be exempted from its appendant inconveniences and that Justification does not carry with it perfection and freedom from all sin that many of Gods children as Noah David and Peter have committed grievous sins and yet have been forgiven and that Christs Prayer teaches the Apostles to pray for pardon and therefore if they have fallen they must confess their sins and Christ who is their Advocate is just and faithful and ready to forgive them and cleanse them from all iniquity and that being he will not censure them according to the Law of Bondage but of Liberty their defects shall not be examin'd in rigour but pitied in mercy Lastly Sometimes Gods children finde themselves forsaken to such a degree that they are not onely depriv'd of the least gleam of comfort but their very devotion seems for a time to be extinguist which so terrifies them that they anticipate the very torments of Hell In which case they are to take notice that their trouble affords them matter of comfort because that their being perplext by his absence is from the support of his Spirit maintaining love in their hearts which yet further appears for that they would give the whole world to be restor'd again to the comforts of his salvation and that though heaviness endures for a night yet joy cometh in the morning for he will at length return and quicken them and therefore they must earnestly entreat him so to do and learn to live by faith not feeling and with Abraham Rom. 4.18 against hope to believe in hope remembring that Christ our Lord was in this very condition when he cry'd out My God my God learning from his example in the greatest desertions still to depend upon him and this being done the most difficult part of fitting us for death is at an end for that then the soul has great boldness with God and can confidently cry out with old Hilarion Egredere anima egredere quid pertimescis and with S. Chrysostome Give me to be assured of the joys of heaven and then if thou wilt kill me presently and I shall give thee thanks for thy pains for that thereby thou sendest me out of hand into the possession of those good things Here it may be seasonable for a man to make his will and to dispose of his Estate which I account not onely necessary for that this may be a means as I intimated before of entailing peace on his Family and of the better qualifying of him for the making his particular peace with God but also because that the reviewing of his estate which is necessary in order to the settling of it will happily give him occasion to remember somewhat that he may have unjustly acquir'd whether of things dedicated to God or usurpt from men and so be induc'd to make restitution of it as he is bound by the Law Lev. 5.15 Where the Law that a fift part should be added to it binds not as I conceive to that just proportion at this day but onely enforces a compleat restitution and indeed since Gods blessing and favour is the best inheritance that can be left to children and that none can hope for his blessing either upon the robbery of him or man not to mention the sting of Conscience that ensues thereupon such ill gotten goods are but a foolish and bad provision for posterity Mich. 6.10 Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the scant measure that is abominable Certainly when God comes to visit for these things he will consume both these ill gotten goods and their nest together How much better were it for us to separate them from what we have justly acquir'd by restoring them to the right owners than thus to run the certain hazard of Gods displeasure Here I cannot without injustice omit praising our Ancestors for that they used in their last Wills to make restitution of their Tythes negligently paid or forgotten This sin I am sure is not yet left by some but the amends making nay the Tythes themselves are left out of their Testaments It would be for their credit to follow the example of that Honourable Person whose Funerals we now solemnize in this particular and though they were not conscious to themselves of the least defailance herein yet they would do well to make mention of them in their Wills for a president to others Neither can this consideration that a man by making such restitutions will happily expose his wife and children to
misery and all the inconveniencies of poverty be a sufficient plea against it for that Gods friendship which is entail'd upon the childrens children of them that fear him is a far better provision than the Mammon of unrighteousness For he is the Father of the fatherless and the defendor of the Widdow and the committing of them to his care is a kind of obligation upon him to provide for them and therefore since his blessings make rich and that many from small or no beginnings have been rais'd by him to great fortunes and preferment in the world that should fortifie them against such solicitudes and induce them to busie their thoughts in studying how to make them vertuous and religious and to leave it to God to make them rich or at least to provide food and raiment for them And to this end it is very necessary that they give them a charge touching the fear of God as Moses Joshua and David and others of the Saints of God have done The last words you know of our dying friends make the deepest impressions and are usually best remembred and this being the weightiest point on which the happiness of our whole life depends ought not to be forgotten And thus having conducted the dying man as well as I could through all the streights and duties necessary to be perform'd by him in order to his dying in the favour of God and to give him comfort and assurance thereupon in the very conflict it self I shall now before I come to any particular application or to the performance of the saddest part of my task prescribe a few such tame and gentle Cordials as may onely help to keep up his spirits and in some measure allay the pains of death in its more immediate and nearer approaches and that is to mind him of the instances of Gods presence and faithfulness in trouble that he will not suffer any to be tempted above his strength And being there are many who suffer more from the fears of losing their reason for want of rest and their patience through the extremity of pain and so offend God they must know that the favour of God cannot be forfeited by the distempers of the brain or such accidents as are occasion'd by the disease and if while the body is free from such distempers they do for prevention hereof settle and confirm the Conscience in the love of God they may be sure that those passions of idleness raving swearing or blasphemy it self shall not be laid to their charge because that they are not of their own election For as a Father pitieth his son Psal 103. so doth the Lord those that fear him As touching the pain of death I am verily perswaded it is not neer so great as men apprehend nor comparable to a fit of the Cholick Gout Stone or Toothach it self and that for this reason because that in such diseases as are long and sensitive strength so much forsakes the body before death fecks it that a man cannot feel himself dye Whereas in sharper sicknesses it is otherwise for that nature not being wasted is able to make resistance and so renders its pain more pungent But yet the shortness of them makes them more supportable for that a man is cut off as it were at a blow and surpriz'd by death before he has time to consider of it However though this be so yet to encourage and fortifie the dying person against death it will not be amiss to have recourse to the assistance of God in it as that of the Psalmist Though I walk through the valley of death Psal 23. yet will I fear no evil to Christs Victory over death who by his death hath taken away its sting to the assurance of glory which shall succeed to the presence of Christ and of his Saints and Angels and lastly to oppose the very rest from labour which death shall shortly bring to the sharpness of the present pain And in the agony it self when the party is at the last gasp and the soul hovering in a trembling quandary between its desires of being freed from a Prison and its unwillingness to part with its old lodging Then the great business must be to recollect the miscarriages of his life past that so he may rally his forces to consummate his graces and to perfect his repentance and calling to minde that Christ sits at the right hand of God to be his Advocate he may confidently commend his spirit unto him as into the hands of a merciful Creator And when through the loss of his speech or senses he is rendred uncapable of such pious performances then they that are about him are to supply his inability with earnest prayer unto God for the pardon of his sins for the grace of Christ for the rebuking of Satan and for the guard guard and transport of the holy Angels and lastly when the soul is parted as we pray Thy will be done so we must rest satisfied therewith when it is done comforting our selves with S. Pauls Doctrine concerning the Resurrection and the coming of Christ And his bringing them that dye in him with him again in glory As touching the Funeral though it may seem neither agreeable with my title or purpose to speak any thing of it at this time yet I must needs say that as we are not on the one hand to bring in hired mourners like so many Tisiphones out of S. Ratricks Purgatory to fill the Church with howlings which has been deservedly condemn'd by the primitive Bishops as disagreeing with the Doctrine of the Resurrection and the life to come So on the other hand we must take heed that we run not into a contrary extreme with some Fanatical Innovators and insteed of a Christian burial bring in a dumb shew having not so much as the least expression of a Christian faith or hope Though it be true that it was no prejudice to the blessed Martyrs that their bodies were consum'd to ashes or devoured by ravenous beasts or drown'd in the sea for the sea shall give up her dead And in this case that of the Poet holds true Coelo tegitur qui non habet urnam Yet in an ordinary way there is a respect due to the bodies of the Saints deceased as to the Temples of the Holy Ghost the organs that he us'd to all good wash'd in the laver of Regeneration whose members were the weapons of Righteousness which did partake of the body and blood of Christ by which they glorified God in their bodies and which being rais'd again in due time shall be made conformable to the glorious body of Christ Hence are those offices we owe them to wait upon their Herse Luke 7.12 as David upon Abner and the Citizens upon the Widows Son to inter them decently in the earth our common Mother And some respect is likewise to be had to a consecrated place for Joseph desir'd that his bones should be buried in the
A SERMON Preach'd at the FUNERAL Of the RIGHT HONORABLE Sir MAVRICE EVSTACE Kt. Late Lord Chancelor OF IRELAND At St. Patrick's Dublin the fifth day of July 1665. Together with a short account of his Life and Death By W. S. B. D. sometimes Chaplain to his Lordship Memorare novissima in Aeternum non peccabis Seirach Dublin Printed by John Crook Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Maiesty and are to be sold by Sam. Dancer in Castle-street 1665. TO THE Most Reverend FATHER in GOD JAMES by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Armagh Primate and Metropolitane of all Ireland His Grace May it please Your Grace AS Your Graces Commands for publication of this ensuing Sermon has put it beyond my power to conceal that from your Eye which I thought very unwothy of your Ear though your Grace was pleas'd out of your great respect to my deceased Lord to Honor it with Your presence when it was deliverd so the small opinion I have of its worth and the no advantage which I am sure it will add to my reputation being designed for a Country Auditory where the Funeral was intended to be Selemnis'd forces me to prefix Your Graces Name unto it that I may not onely by its being own'd by Your Grace be secur'd from the many censures which I have cause to fear shall pass upon me but also that the thing it self may be render'd the more considerable and carry the greater authority with it I know my Lord Your Grace cannot be offended at this presumption because it makes for the vindicating of of a person who I am certain was no less Your Grace freind then Your Grace most justly deserv'd for that now your Grace has given the most convincing proofs of your Freindship by Your endeavouring seeing he cannot be his own compurgatour to wipe of that dirt which some 〈◊〉 out of malice and others for the supporting of their tottering interest bave cast upon him to which if what I have here said may give but the least assistance I have next unto your Graces pardon for this my confidence all I desire because I thereby discharge my duty unto my honored Lord and have this oportunity offer'd of publishing to the world that I own my self to be in the deepest sense of duty and gratitude imaginable May it please Your Grace August 22. 1665. Your Graces most obedient and most obliged Humble Servant William Sheridan 2 KINGS 20.1 ISA. 38.1 Set thy house in order for thou shalt dye and not live LIfe and Death are the two Poles on which all the Creatures rowl Life is the first act moveable and continual of the living thing and Death is the cessation of the same act And there is such a mutual successive change of the one into the other that the whole World has no other employment but to conform it self to their respective commands and Man himself though his soul be as it were a little god within him and therefore might be thought not to need any other help for the preservation of his being than what flows from his own essence yet lives not but by the groans of Creatures and they are forc'd to sacrifice their lives to preserve his yet at last he findes that the same day that lengthens his life in the morning shortens it in the evening and in the end he is reduced to the common fate of Mortals And God has decreed that this should be so because he hath designed man for noble things and ordained this life onely for a passage into another in which rewards and punishments are irreversibly adjudged with respect to his actings And being that Eternal happiness is the ultimate end which every man should propound to himself it ought to be his chief care to perform all that is requisite for the attainment thereof and that is to live and die well The latter whereof which does also implicitely comprehend the former cannot better be learnt than from the example of King Hezekiah to whom God sends a Message by the Prophet Isaiah admonishing him of his death in the words of the Text which does naturally divide it self into these two parts an Admonition and a Reason The Reason is first in order of nature Thou shalt dye and not live and the Admonition last Set thy house in order First of the Reason Thou shalt dye Where to omit speaking of the changeable state of our life now sick and now well now deliver'd out of one trouble and now entring into another which is the lot of all but especially of the godly otherwise Hezekiah might have pleaded an exemption I shall first enquire what death is yet not so as to seek an exact definition of it but to limit my Discourse with these particulars First its cause Secondly its effects Thirdly its attendants Which being discovered will assist us to conceive more rightly of it First then God is the cause of death though he did not in the first order of nature appoint it to have a place in our kind for notwithstanding that the body of man was of corruptible matter dust of the earth yet had he continued in his obedience the Tree of life as a supernatural remedy perhaps also as a Sacrament of the immediate communicating of life to mankinde had preserv'd him from death but in his secondary intention in case man should break his allegiance God ordained it as by the words Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye does appear for then came death by Gods appointment in right though not in event upon Adam and his whole off spring which is also confirm'd by S. Paul Rom. 5.12 By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin so that man was the wilful bringer in of death on himself by the permission and appointment of God who left him in the hands of his own choice to live by obedience or dye by sin Yet you are to take notice that this death is not in us as in other living creatures a final destruction of the soul nor is it fully understood by the names of sleep Joh. 11.13 1 Cor. 15.26 and of enemy given to it in scripture for they are not of its common and universal nature but are attributed unto it by way of similitude both in respect of our bodies which are in sleep as without sense and of the minde which does after sleep more freely exercise its functions as the minds of good men shall after the resurrection It is call'd an enemy for that it destroys the being of the Creature and is therefore hateful and hated even where no sin was as appears by our Saviours Agony before his death yet this enemy does Gods Saints a good turn for that it brings them to everlasting rest though that it does so is not from its self but from the grace of Christ Heb. 2.14 who by his death has overcome death and the Devil who had the power of