the dead give hearty thanks to God that it hath pleased him to deliver our Dear Friends and Relations out of the miseries of this sinful World which may furnish us with another consideration that might possibly incur into Davids mind and help to suspend and allay his sorrowing for his dead Child and that is this That it was remov'd far above the power of sin and temptation We at present as the Apostle Paul complains carry about us a Body of sin and death We are subject to manifold sins and temptations and have brought with us into the World those corruptions which in time will ripen into and sally forth in great actual transgressions Job makes a kind of wonder at it that any man should think he can be perfectly pure and innocent in this body of flesh For what is man that he should be clean or he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Job 15. 14. and so David tells us Psal 51. 5. That sin is the Inheritance of our Parents that we are infected with it in the Womb and that we are born with propensions to evil Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me So that the seeds of disobedience are lodged in our nature and the ground-work of sin is laid deep within us and there is nothing wanting but time and opportunity to make it bring forth in abundance So that when our Children die very young and go early to their Graves we may comfort our selves with this consideration that we lose them in good time and before they have added any actual to original sin and that if they had liv'd much longer they would have contracted a new and further guilt and perhaps have advanc'd in sin as they did in Years for 't is certain that the strength of nature gives strength to our sins too and 't is only Age that qualifies and fits us for great and notorious wickedness So that that sin which was only in Embryo in our infancy comes within a few years to a perfect shape and our propensions to evil in a small process of time are reduced to real and visible acts My meaning is that although there is a natural aptness and proclivity in Mankind to sin and err from the Laws of our Maker yet sin does lie hid and brooding in the time of our infancy and is only hatcht into perfection by the addition of longer time and although we have all the principles of wickedness inherent in us at the very first moment of our Nativity yet we are too impotent to commit evil and to offend God at that rate as when we come to a full stature in Years and knowledge We may be full of bad inclinations when we are young and Children but 't is only Age that can make us capable of doing mischief and to be workers of iniquity and we cannot so highly provoke God when we are ignorant and childish and know nothing of him as when we come to the perfect use of reason and to know his will and yet run Counter to it And therefore the Death of our Children may be a happy prevention of their sining and if they live so long as to receive the benefit of Baptism and to be regenerate and born anew of Water and the Holy Ghost and so be made lively members of Christs Church we are bound to thank God for the mercy of their Regeneration and that they had their sins wash'd away in the laver of Holy Baptism so as that they go much purer out of the World than they came into it whereas if they had liv'd longer in the World they would have contracted a greater guilt and had more sins to answer for they would have been continually liable to temptations and in danger of falling into great and grievous sins and to be corrupted by the bad examples which abound in all places of the World And therefore there is no reason why Parents should so much lament their Childrens leaving them so soon if they do seriously consider that 't is a naughty World we live in and that mens love and practice of wickedness is exceeding great and that 't is impossible to escape all the pollutions that are in it and if they do further consider how much humane nature is tainted with original sin and corruption which prompts us on to evil continually and what a subtile and vigilant Adversary we have who is always seeking to beguile and destroy us and how thick set the World is with snares and temptations I say if this consideration did but enter into our minds it would be of great force and power to asswage our Passion and to allay our sorrow for the death of our Friends and Relations it being a very comfortable thing to contemplate the happiness and priviledge of those that have shook of the clogs and fetters of the flesh and let fall their Bodies the troublesome Mantles of their Souls and are now expatiating in Regions of Bliss and Happiness and live in the pure Element of Goodness and where 't is impossible that any temptation should approach or sin have any Dominion over them Lastly Another thing which might stop Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration that it was the will of God it should be so He considered that it was altogether foolish and in vain to enter into any controversie with God about his dealings with his Child or to stand expostulating the justice of God in taking it away For he was convinc'd that Gods will ought to be a Law unto us and that there is no need of disputing the Righteousness and Equity thereof it being always rul'd and determin'd by his wisdom and justice and goodness For though God be of an infinite and uncontroulable power and can do whatsoever he pleases both in Heaven and Earth yet there is a Maxime in Theology as well as Policy That the King of Heaven can do no wrong It must be acknowledg'd by us all that our life and being is the gift and blessing of God and so is the life of our Children too and therefore when God does in mercy give us Children so he may with justice take them away For may not he dispose of his gifts and do with his own as he pleases God lent us Children for a little time on purpose to please us shall we be troubled when he resumes them to himself or griev'd when he requires them back we are to observe that there is a great difference between Gods way of disposing his gifts and that of mens For though it be common with men to make a Deed of Gift and to transfer their own right to a thing wholly to another so as to lose all propriety in it yet God does not make the same disposition of his gifts in that absolute manner but when he gives us Riches or Honour or Children or any other gifts he does not make over to us all
attend our Children and those great infirmities which they often labour under and the more reason to be humbled when we reflect upon our selves as the Authors of them The truth is we have laid a train of mischiefs in our Bodies by our Vices which will certainly ruine and blow up our Children we have Created Diseases in our Bodies by trespassing too much upon nature and offering great violencies to our Constitution we have broken and shattered our Bodies by great excess by hard and unseasonable Drinkings and that may be one reason why we deliver down such a weak and crasie Progeny We have turn'd our Bodies into Bogs of uncleanness and putrefaction by our lust and wantonness and that may be a very proper reason why our Children carry about them such an Hospital of Diseases We have made our Bodies Sepulchres and burying places of Wine and that may be another reason why our Children become Corpses so soon and go so early to their Graves we eat and drink destruction to our Children by our Gluttony and Drunkenness we dig their Graves as well as our own with our Teeth and by swallowing down over-much we prepare them for the devoration of the Worms and 't is not any whit probable or likely that our Children should prove sound and healthful when we distemper our Bodies and treasure up Diseases And we may consider that we do propagate Diseases many times as well as our nature and there are Diseases which our Posterity find by woful experience run in a blood And therefore it is the duty of all Parents who desire the good of their Posterity and have a regard to the welfare and happiness of their Children to be very strict and punctual in observing the Rules of temperance and sobriety and in keeping their Bodies pure and undefil'd forasmuch as by a vicious and debaucht life we store up Diseases for Posterity and transmit great evils to our Generation For 't is certain that by great excesses and impure mixtures we do corrupt our bloud and consequently must convey a taint to our Off-spring and a rotten Father seldom produces any other than a Consumptive Child and besides our Vices are as communicable to our Children as our Diseases and who knows but that God might determine to take away Davids Child for this very reason lest he should Patrissare take after his Father he being the Child of an Incontinent Father and the Issue of such unhallowed Embraces And therefore when David was devoting his Enemies he makes this one of his dreadful Curses Let the iniquity of his Father be remembred with the Lord and let not the sin of his Mother be blotted out in the 119. Ps and 14. v. And truly I fear that there are too many ungodly Fathers and Mothers in the World whose wickedness and folly is such as that their Children suffer for it deeply being cover'd with Sores and Boils and having such Diseases breaking forth as are plain marks and tokens of their Parents sins God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children and not suffering the iniquity of the Father to be conceal'd nor the sin of the Mother to be blotted out And therefore those Parents that are conscious to themselves of any such great and foul sin as Davids was have very great reason to lament the Diseases and Death of their Children when they consider that they themselves were the great Instruments of bringing all those miseries upon their Children and that their sins have had the greatest hand in their destruction And 't is very well worth our observation that in the first Age of the World it was never seen that the Son died before the Father but the oldest always went first But then when the wickedness of men grew great and their Pride so great that they were too high for their Station and would needs be building Castles in the Air and climbing up to the Battlements of Heaven it hapned presently afterwards that Terahs Son died before his Father and there is a special note and mark set upon it as a kind of wonder in the 9. of Genesis and 28. v. And Haran died before his Father Terah in the Land of his Nativity From whence we may observe that the wickedness of a Father is enough to alter the course of nature and to shorten his Childrens days and to accelerate their Death and bring them to the dust before their time And thus I have been somewhat long on this Argument that I might represent to you the danger of a sinning Father and Mother and what a fatal mischief they do their Children by their wickedness in that they bring a Curse upon their Family and by their sin occasion the Death and ruin of an Innocent Child as is clear and manifest in this one instance of Davids Child being taken away for the sin of his Father And we may also remember what a greivous Curse God entailed upon old Eli's Family and Posterity that they should die in the Flower of their Age and be cut off in their very prime and that chiefly upon the account of old Eli. And therefore Parents had need take a care to please God and that they do commit no great offence and to keep from great transgressions that so their Children may not repent that ever they were born of them and suffer sadly for their miscarriages And indeed all Parents that desire it should be well with their Children and that they should live long and see good days are concern'd to live a pure and unspotted life to possess their Vessels in sanctification and honour not in the lust of Concupisence otherwise they may bring great miseries upon their Children and perhaps a sudden Death and if they are resolv'd to continue their debaucheries and lewd Amours they had even as good strangle their Children when they are newly born and it may be a mercy to tear them in pieces as Medea did her Brother Absyrtus rather than they should live to inherit their Phthisicks Consumptions and loathsome Diseases and to be plagu'd all their life long with the miserable effects of their Parents sins And truly all vitious and ungodly Parents have the same grounds that David had to lament over their Children when they shall see them sick of their Diseases consuming with their Lusts and expiring under the curse of their sins And therefore if Parents would but take care to live better and more vertuously possibly their Children would not prove so sickly and might live longer for 't is certain that Davids Child was sick and died so soon for the wickedness of the Father Secondly Davids great grief and mourning for his Child during the time of its sickness was very just and reasonable upon another account as being an expression of humanity and the result of a natural affection For our Religion has not like the Stoick seal'd up the fountain of tears and wip'd them away from our eyes whilst we are in this bitter Achor
should I fast Why should I trouble and grieve my self any longer But how oddly and strangely may some say doth this look in a Father to dry his Eyes and clear up his Countenance presently upon the death and loss of his Child Is not this a thing out of course and a very strange temper to sorrow so much for the Child when it was sick and to cease sorrowing when it was absolutely dead and gone Surely this giving over mourning at the death of so near and dear a Relation as a Child must needs proceed fromhard-heartedness or the want of natural affection and of common humanity But then we may observe that David both to excuse and justifie his not mourning for the Death of his Child nor taking on so grievously as he did before alledges these good and substantial reasons as first The consideration of the necessity of his own dying and secondly The impossibility of his Childs coming to life again And we may also suppose that he had some further considerations at that time which helpt to allay and silence his sorrows as namely First the consideration of the Childs dying in its Age of Innocency Secondly That it was gone out of a wicked and troublesome World Thirdly That it was freed from those pains and sicknesses and diseases which are incident to this mortal condition Fourthly That it was released from those pains and miseries which it underwent And fifthly That it was the will of God it should be so And it is but very reasonable to imagine that all these considerations though not verbally exprest might occur to Davids mind or any mans else upon the like emergency I begin with the first consideration that put a stop to Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child and that was the necessity of his own dying Can I bring him back again I shall go to him David considered that Death was common to all and that 't is appointed for all men once to die What man is he that liveth and shall not see death in the 89. Ps and 48. v. And I know says Job that thou wilt bring me to death and to the House appointed for all the living and so David was convinced that he must as surely die as he was then alive and that life is but a short preamble to death and why then should he grieve and torment himself for the loss of his Child when nothing had hapned to that but what must also happen to himself and to all men living For he was only gone the way of all flesh and had paid that debt to Nature which every one must do at one time or other sooner or later His Child indeed was dead but that was but a common natural and unavoidable thing and the beaten road to the Grave and the usual way of going out of the World He considered wisely with himself that his Child was only gone before him and that he must prepare to follow that his death indeed was somewhat early and immature and sooner than ordinary but the Father must not stay long behind He saw that sometimes the buds and blossoms were nipt and fell to the ground and that ripe fruit would certainly drop off He observed that sometimes the Lambs went to the slaughter and that there was no escaping for the old Sheep And therefore it was in vain to be troubled at a thing which was past and gone and could not be helpt and which all must submit to young and old the Father as well as the Child And what though it was a Princely Babe and Heir to a Crown and if it had liv'd might have been valued at as great a rate as his Father worth ten thousand of the ordinary sort of people yet Death was no respecter of persons makes no distinction and takes the ignoble and noble the Prince and the Peasant and sweeps away all alike 't is not a Crown or a great Inheritance that will purchase life or deliver from Death 't is not a high descent or being of the Royal Blood that will priviledge or exempt from the Grave But David himself must surrender up and lay down his Scepter at the summons of the King of Terrours which had so lately cut off and prevented his Sons Inheriting the Fathers Glory the branch is now lopt off and ere long the root will be taken up and carried away And therefore 't is not long says David before I shall go to the same place and be laid equal with my Child in the dust He has only made the first hancel of my Tomb and taken the first possession of my Grave He has had the misfortune or rather priviledge to go before me but I am going apace to meet him He was snatcht away betimes and I only wait Gods leisure and look when my change will come and expect every day to be called away and therefore I do not think it reasonable to imbitter this short life or to make my self uneasy and uncomfortable the rest of my days by a great and violent sorrow for the loss of my Child when I know that I have not much longer to live and that the days of my Pilgrimage will shortly be at an end and that his condition will shortly be mine and we shall both meet together in the Grave and be fellow Lodgers in the Dust and sleep together in the same Chambers of Darkness and therefore says David why should I fast why should I macerate and wast my self why should I grieve and pine away why should I go and throw away my life in sorrowing for the Death of my Child when I know that all the sorrow in the World will do no good and that my Child has passed those Gates of Death which I my self must after a little while strive and struggle to get thorough and that he is now in his Grave out of which I cannot keep long and why then should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me But he shall not return to me That 's another Consideration which might well serve to pacify Davids sorrow and discontent at the loss of his Child namely the impossibility of its coming to life again or returning to the same condition as formerly I shall go to him but he shall not return to me Death is that which puts a perfect and absolute end to this present life and when we are committed to the Dust and laid up in the Grave there is no breaking forth no expecting our liberty or enlargement till the day of the general Resurrection We are Prisoners of hope sayes the Prophet that is though we have a Promise and assurance of our rising again and being delivered from the Grave yet still we are Prisoners till the time of our Redemption comes and consequently must remain in hold and under the strict custody and durance of the Grave Death is a total privation of life and à totali Privatione ad
habitum non datur regressus our Philosophy tells us that is though it be possible to recover the sight when the Organ of the Eye is only inflam'd or distemper'd or grown over with a film yet when a man is stark blind and his Eyes are dropt out of his Head then such a recovery is utterly impossible and so Death being a total privation of motion sensation and all the acts of the animal life there is no returning after that has once pass'd upon us to any such vital operations we are says the Prophet Samuel 2 Sam. 14. and 14. ver as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again that is as Water spilt upon the ground presently vanishes out of sight and sinks into the Earth and by the diffluence of its parts is so disperst and wasted that there is no gathering it up again in the same quantity that it fell so Death causes such a dissolution of the parts of our Bodies that there is no reuniting them in the same manner or forming them into the same orderly lively Fabrick by all the power and art in the World Can these dry bones live says the Prophet is a Question that might very well be askt as being a thing almost incredible but that nothing is impossible with God But then how is it that these dry bones will live surely not in the same way as formerly nor can they be enlivened by any humane power or Art but they shall be quickned by a miraculous power by the same power which raised Jesus from the Dead but at present during the time and reign of mortality they must remain rotten and shatter'd and liveless and only in a possibility to return to life by the wonderful power of God in the Morning of the Resurrection And Job in the 24. c. and 14. v. asks much the same question If a man die shall he live again where Job does not so much doubt or question the truth of a Resurrection as puts it out of all doubt by so propounding it if a man die shall he live yes he shall but not by any power of nature to restore it self nor that there is any remains of spirit in man after death which can quicken into new life of its own accord nor that there is any seed of immortality in humane Bodies as some of the Jews did fondly conceive when they imputed the Resurrection to the vertue of a Worm in the back-bone which never dies And therefore though we are to believe another life yet we must believe it in another place For when our life here is once expir'd there is no return of it till God breath into us a new spirit of life and inspire us with new vigour and motion And therefore pray'd in another place that God would continue his life a little longer upon Earth as verily believing he should never see it any more when he had once left it Spare me O Lord a little longer before I go hence and be no more seen Ps 39. and 13. v. Man sayes Solomon goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets long indeed whence there will be no moving or stirring a foot till the great day of Judgment And not improper to our purpose is that observation of the Fox in the Fable who when he was much urg'd and importun'd to go and pay a Visit to the Lyon in the time of his sickness and told that his Company would be more useful and serviceable to the Lyon in order to the helping him to make his will as being one famous for his wisdom and sagacity answered by no means for there was a great deal of danger in going to visit this King of Beasts For he had observ'd a great resort to the Lyon but saw no marks or footsteps of any that ever return'd from him Vestigia nulla retrorsum and so may we say that we have known millions that have enter'd into the shades below but none that ever came back from thence and therefore we find that when Dives was in torment and made this earnest request to Abraham that one might rise from the dead and inform his Brethren of the truth of Hell torments and by such a wonderful information might scare them from doing any thing that might bring them thither yet this request was denied him upon this account Joh. 7. and 9. v. there being so great a publication of a future State by Moses and the Prophets and other divine testimonies and besides Abraham told him that between us and you there is a great Gulf fixed which place is enough to evince the impossibility of a return to this World after Death and therefore we imagin that David at the parting of his Child took his final leave of him bidding him an Eternal farewel and an Everlasting good night For he considered that there was no hopes of seeing him again under the same circumstances or conversing with him in the flesh and therefore having decently committed his Body to the ground and laid him in the bosom of our common Mother Earth and perhaps dropping a tear or two upon the Hearse and besprinkling the Grave with tears as our Saviour did Lazarus in testimony how much he lov'd him he retires from the Funeral with great Solemnity we may imagine but without any further Lamentations saying wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me But then perhaps several may be ready to tax this Discourse with impertinency and say what needs there all this stir and ado to prove a thing that never was gainsaid or contradicted as namely the impossibility of the dead coming to life again and rising out of their Graves to live anew in this World who is so silly or credulous as to expect such a thing or who would desire to see the Ghosts or any representations of their Friends when they are dead and gone To which I answer That I believe there is none so silly or whimsical or deeply melancholy as to expect a return of their Friends and Relations from the Grave But then people make a great Argument against themselves and do highly condemn themselves of the greatest folly in their inordinate sorrowings for the Dead For why should they take on and weep so bitterly for the loss of a Child or Relation when they believe no such thing as a return from Death why do they wound themselves with such mighty and piercing sorrows for their Relations when they know they are dead and gone and that there is no hopes of seeing them again as long as the World endures This indeed is their folly to grieve for an irrecoverable loss and to weep incessantly at the remembrance of deceased Friends For t is the vainest idlest thing that can be to mourn when all the mourning in the World will do no good neither to us or our Friends and therefore this consideration that all our
us And if we do but look into the Proverbs we may be easily convinc't and observe how we read there that Children are not always such blessings that we should desire so much their living for they may be Curses as well as Blessings to us according as they shall prove A wise Son maketh a glad Father but a foolish Son is the heaviness of his Mother Prov. 10. 1. and in the 23. of Prov. and 24. v. The Father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice and he that begetteth a wise Child shall have joy of him and in the 17. ch and 21. v. He that begetteth a Fool doth it to his sorrow and the Father of a Fool hath no joy and in the 25. v. A foolish Son is a grief to his Father and a bitterness to her that bare him In all which expressions we may see that a man is much happier in having no Children than such as are foolish and vitious and that nothing can be a greater grief and dishonour to Parents than to have silly and wicked Children What comfort is there in having such lewd and profane Sons as old Eli's who brought a scandal upon their Father and a Curse upon their Family the whole Generation Oâ— what can be a greater grief to a Father than to have such a Son as Jeroboam the Son of Nebat who made Israel to sin that is one that shalâ— prove the pest of the Age and theâ— bane of Mankind And thereforâ— we need not be so greedy and desirous of Children or so loth to parâ— with them when we have them unless we could have a better prospect of their conditions and assuredly knew that they would prove Comforts and Ornaments to us by theiâ— wisdom and good conversation Anâ— therefore David might well comforâ— himself and take heart after the loâ—â— of his Child to think that though he had lost a Child yet it was aâ— Innocent Child one that had nâ— great sin if any to answer for onâ— that had not sullied its Soul with the least tincture of any actual sin or transgression and that it went as pure out of the World as it came into it whereas if it had liv'd to maturity it might have been like the rest of the World or died with some great sin upon it unrepented of as well as some of his Children had done And truly the same consideration may well be made use of by all Parents to bring them quietly to sustain the loss of their Children when they die in their nonage and very young And what can be a more comfortable consideration than for Parents under such losses to think that their Childrens Virtue if they had liv'd was very uncertain and that Vice was the most likely to prevail that sin reigned more in the World than goodness that the greater part of the World was stark naught and that but few continued in it but contracted some spot or stain and none that was perfectly Innocent And therefore it might be a mercy to their Children to be set out of the reach of sin and temptation and to have such an early translation to Heaven before they had done any thing to hazard their Salvation or to forfeit the love of God and title to Eternal Life and Happiness Well may Parents pronounce their Children blessed when they die in such a state of Innocency For of such says our Saviour is the Kingdom of Heaven Fourthly Another consideration which pacify'd Davids sorrows for the loss of his Child might very well be this That it was remov'd from the great Evils and Calamity of the World This World God knows is but a troublesome place at the best to live in and no man must think to go scot-free from troubles of one kind or other The Thracians as Cicero reports out of Herodotus were wont to weep at the Birth and Nativity of their Children to think what a sad and troublesome Theatre they entered upon and that they were born to know a great deal of sorrow and misery but to rejoice at their departure and going off the Stage to think that they then retired from the distracting cares and inquietudes of a troublesome World and were past the reach and grievance of all misfortunes This World is too low a Region to be free from storms and tempests and there is no expecting a perfect serenity but above the Clouds and there is no such happiness to be enjoy'd here as a freedom from all misery and trouble he being the happiest man at present that meets with the least trouble or perplexity and therefore no man of experience in the World needs to be told that all here is Vanity and vexation of Spirit and whoever shall consider the great changes of misery that are in the World from War to Pestilence from Pestilence to Fire from Fire to great Confusions which have hapned not only in the memory of many but in our days and within the compass of a few Years and moreover what great and terrible judgments are continually impending over our Heads and full upon the Inhabitants of the Earth because their wickedness is great and also the continual losses and crosses the sorrows and disappointments which come of course and happen according to the mutable condition of things below Whoever I say shall seriously consider this sad revolution and mixture of sorrows cannot judge it in reason good being here or look upon the World as a desirable place to live in much less think his Children or Relations the happier for being here And therefore David might well think it unreasonable to mourn for the loss of his Child when it was consider'd that it was gone out of a cross and troublesome World where the highest and most advantageous condition as himself had found by sad and woful experience could not exempt a man from great Calamities when he who was his Father and a King was forc'd from his Throne and put to his shifts and driven from Post to Pillar and perhaps was reduc'd to such great straits and extremities that he would have exchang'd his condition with the meanest of his Subjects How could he mourn for the Death of his Child when he considered that it was subject to the same Calamities as himself and perhaps might prove every whit as unfortunate in the World if it had liv'd to succeed him and might have Inherited his troubles as well as his Crown And therefore he lookt upon it as a kind Providence that God had so happily prevented the Childs seeing any of those miseries which the Father had felt and thought it a singular happiness and favour of Heaven that his Child went out of the World without knowing or being sensible what a trouble meant whereas himself had been sufficiently tossed up and down upon the waves of affliction and miserably broken with the cares and inquietudes of a troublesome World and knew the World better than to esteem it the best or happiest place that his Child could be
in And truly all Parents would do well to consider how it has far'd with them what usages and entertainment they have met with in the World what reproaches and slanders what losses and vexations have faln to their share and how troublesome a passage they have had and I do not question but that upon a serious reflexion upon the Calamities in their days and their own private personal sufferings they will be ready to confess with old Jacob that the days of their Pilgrimage have been few and evil and conclude them happiest that are out of it And therefore all Parents have reason to cease mourning for the loss and death of their Children upon the same consideration which we may well suppose David made use of namely that they are past the Waves of this troublesome World and are taken away from the evil to come Fifthly Another thing which might well prevent Davids extream sorrowing for the Death of his Child might be this consideration That it was freed from those sicknesses and diseases which attend this mortal life No doubt but David upon the loss of his Child did consider what innumerable Diseases do continually accost and prey upon humane Bodies as first the many weaknesses and diseases that are natural to and attend our Infancy and Childhood as the great pain of breeding teeth the being subject to the small Pox to ingender Worms to fall into the Rickets and many other distempers which are common and peculiar to Childhood besides the many dangers that Children are apt to run into and the sad accidents that often do befal them whereby they contract either lameness or deformity or come to an untimely end And if we have the good fortune to get safe over our Childhood and to come to riper years yet as we grow strong so our diseases are stronger and in our youth our blood is hot and feavourish and quickly in a flame and our very strength of nature helps to augment our distempers and makes them prove the more fatal to us and when we come to the perfect state of Manhood our very dependance and presumption upon the strength and benefit of nature makes us bold with those Vices which oftentimes help to cut us off in the midst of our days and then if we live to old Age that is a Disease of it self and nothing but sorrow is our Portion and the pains of Death lay hold on us so that if we take a survey of our whole life and of our passage from the Womb to the Tomb we shall find that every stage and period of this mortal life is way-laid and beset with Death And we know that there are certain dangerous seasons in the Age of Man which we call Climacterical Years wherein our life is in great Controversy and we have a push for it whether we shall live or die And truly there are so many Diseases that are of course and many more that are incidental and happen between our infancy and youth that 't is a great wonder that we ever live to be men and much more that we should pass all those casualties and misfortunes which lie all along in our way to the Age of threescore Years and ten And moreover it may be considered what a great fatality Gods Judgments make what a great depopulation and vast havock of Mankind the Plague and Sword and Famine do make and that when these come they sweep away Millions as with the Besom of Destruction But then secondly If we do further observe how many sorts and kinds of Diseases there are in the World how that new Diseases daily start up and that old ones so vary and alter in their circumstances and contract such strange degrees of malignity that they become new too how also that some Diseases are acute others Chronical and that some are rackt with the Stone others tortured with the Gout some are drown'd in a Dropsie others burnt up with a Feavour and that there is scarce a man but has a Disease peculiar to himself and proper to his constitution and dies something a several way from his fellow Mortals I say whoever shall make this observation of the great swarm and multiplicity of Diseases which assault Mankind and that whereas the Diseases now mention'd do kill their thousands so there is a Consumption which kills its ten thousands and deserves the Name of Apollyon the great Destroyer of Mankind must needs grant that the life of man is in jeopardy every moment And that he is obnoxious to a great deal of misery whilst he lives But if my Courage or your Hearts would serve you to go into the Hospital and there turn over the great Volume of Diseases and see what huge havock they make to behold how the Canker has par'd off the side of one mans Face and rotted off anothers Nose and eaten out an Eye and carried away a Limb to see how the Palsy has mortified another and struck him half dead and how many either by natural or vitious Consumptions are turn'd into meer Skeletons and walking Ghosts and are only the shadows of men Here you will say are sad spectacles of mortality here are such sights of humane frailty as are enough to make the hardest heart to bleed and to squeeze tears from a stock Who can forbear weeping and lamenting to see Man that is born of a Woman become the spoils of so many Diseases and to be Anatomized and Dissected even alive Here then we may see the sad and dismal ruins of these fleshly Bodies and what miserable Creatures we are when God is pleas'd to afflict and to lay sore and grievous Diseases upon us And truly we are all subject to various and manifold Diseases which issue forth in effects according to their several kinds and qualities the matter of most Diseases lies lodg'd in our nature and brooding within us and we have the unhappiness to inherit some Diseases by traduction from our Parents and there are many more which are hatcht by our Vices and prove the most deadly and mortiferous Some Diseases are so favourable as to carry off quietly and speedily and others are more cruel and like the Tyrant multiply our Deaths and kill us by piece-meals and nothing is a truer observation than this that we no sooner begin to live but we proceed to die and are every day going forward and stepping towards the Grave But then although life be a sweet and precious thing in it self and it be natural for all men to desire to spin out the thread of life to the utmost length yet God may send those Diseases upon us which may make us weary of our lives and to wish for Death and the Grave and so we find that Job was so pester'd with Diseases that his Life was a burthen to him and he does frequently and passionately beg of God to do him the favour to dispatch him and put an end to his days as we may see in the 6. ch of
to heart the death of our Friends and Relations and to pine away meerly for sorrow that they are gone whereas they are now freed from all the sorrow and contagion of bodily distempers and have escaped those sore burthens which we are like to feel and suffer if we stay here Methinks we should rather comfort our selves as we may well suppose David did to think that our Relations when they are dead and gone are past the shock and fury of a Disease that they have endured one brunt for all that they have charg'd that Enemy home which we so much fear and must expect every day to encounter withal so that considering how we that are left behind are to run the Gantlet through Troops of sorrow and to pass the Pikes of a thousand Diseases 't is highly unreasonable to mourn and sorrow for the dead they being past all possibility of Diseases and far removed from this Climate of Sickness and Death Sixthly Another thing which might restrain Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration That it was releas'd from the great pains and miseries which it lately felt and endured 'T is certain and indubitable that the Soul does not quit its Mansion of the Body without great strivings and reluctancy and though it be consider'd that the Child was but in its Infancy and newly in possession of life and that the Soul and Body had contracted but a late acquaintance and that the Friendship was very new yet where there is such a strict Conjunction as there is between the Soul and the Body though but for a moment of time the separation cannot be without great grief and sorrow where there is such a close union and intimacy there is no parting without pain and trouble and consequently though the Soul of the Child was now just enter'd into its New Tenement yet it was so firmly setled and had taken that deep rooting that it could not be remov'd or ejected out of possession without great disturbance And therefore to see a Child strugling for life and to have only breath enough to intitle it to life could not but wonderfully affect and produce great Agonies of sorrows in the hearts of the Spectators And we may observe that men have naturally that compassion as to pity even a Brute when it lies in pain and misery and look upon it as an act of mercy to dispatch it out of the way And therefore David seeing his Child in that extream anguish and distress in that sickness to Death and that there was no way to ease and relieve it could not but reflect upon it as a singular mercy of God to take away the Child and to put an end to such a painful and miserable life David could not forbear weeping and sadly lamenting over his Child when he saw it in the pangs of Death and in those frightful Convulsions which were precedaneous to its dissolution But when it pleas'd God to seal up its breath and to give it a happy Issue out of this troublesome World then David began to be better satisfied and to be somewhat comforted with the consideration that God had in mercy released his Child from that pain and misery which it lately underwent and the sight whereof would have pierc'd the hardest heart living So that all those that have the sad opportunity of standing by their Relations and Friends when they are upon their sick Beds and in the approaches of Death and there to observe what a tumult and commotion nature is in at that time and with what pain and trouble the Soul and Body take their leave one of the other must needs conclude their parting and separation to be a more dismal and amazing sight than a Divorce between the most desperate Lovers Let us but be present with our Friends in the heat and rage of their Distemper or in the ultimate efforts of life and we shall then see a tremendous and ghastly spectacle which is hardly to be related without tears and cannot be seen without horror and astonishment O the hollow sighs and the deep sobs and pierceing groans of our dying Friends which are enough to wound any heart living and to strike that dread upon us that the sound of their cries and groans shall never be forgotten and can we pretend to pity them when we see them in so much anguish and distress and in the depths of misery and shall we so contradict our pretences to sorrow and our compassion for them in the bitterness of Death as to be troubled when they are out of misery and to deplore their going to rest Shall we weep and mourn to see our Friends upon the Rack and in great torment and shall we take on the more when they are past the sense and feeling of any pain How can we reconcile this Posthumous Passion to common reason Or can we think to perswade people that we lov'd our Relations dearly when they see us grieve when they were in misery but to grieve more when they are stept into happiness In a word we may yield to the meltings of nature or the tenderness of our affections and gratify our compassions in mourning for our Friends when they are in great misery and the Agonies of Death For a compassionate grief is both natural and reasonable and if we have any spark of good nature we cannot but be mollify'd at the mournful accents of the most despicable Creature when 't is in pain and great extremities But then to mourn excessively for our Friends when they are out of pain and the bitterness of Death is past is both unreasonable and unchristian unreasonable because they have endured and pass'd the worst and are perfectly discharg'd from those troubles and sorrows which those that remain alive are subject unto and 't is unchristian because it gives occasion to people to suspect our belief of a Resurrection and a future Life and that we are not really perswaded that our Friends are removed for the better and much for their advantage And therefore the Apostle in the first to the Thessal 4. ch and 13. v. admonishes Christians not to grieve and take on for the dead as others which have no hope lest they should by that means scandalize their Religion and render their belief of a Resurrection suspected and dubitable so that we are concern'd as Christians and as we tender the reputation of our Christian Faith not to be lavish of our tears nor over profuse in our expences of sorrow for the dead lest we should be suspected of believing our Friends happier here than they will be hereafter But we should rather in a manner rejoice at the departure of those who have liv'd well and innocently and die in the Lord Forasmuch as the Apostle tells us they shall rest from their labours and have all tears wip't away from their Eyes Revel 7. 17. And we should as our Church wisely directs us in the office for the Burial of
believe it why do we bewail the Death of our Friends with so much bitterness and lamentation as if they were utterly lost and gone as if they were past all joys and comfort and were to perish for ever Si enim à miseriis abstrahit si in meliorem vitam inducit si neque misera ipsa est nec ullius particeps miseriae cur mala censetur sin hoc largitur ut sempiternis bonis potiamur vitamque quam mortalem habemus aeternam adipiscamur quid morte beatius esse possit that is says Cicero if we do really believe that death doth abstract and deliver us from the miseries of this World and sets us far out of harms way and that 't is an entrance and introduction to a better life then what reason have we to look upon it as such a sad and grievous thing to die But if it be further granted that Death puts us into the possession of Eternal and never-failing blessings and that it slides us from a short and fading to an Everlasting Life we are then to repute Death our best and dearest Friend in that it leads and ushers us to such Endless Happiness But if we do not believe a Resurrection why are we so rash and formal as to own an Article that we dare not rely on Ah! We little think that the greatest Atheist in the World cannot make a greater Argument against our Religion than we do our selves when we let loose the reins of our passions and refuse to be comforted for the dead and wound and pierce our hearts thorough with great and mighty sorrows thereby testifying that we little believe a Life to come or a better State than this is or that our Friends have exchang'd for the better and therefore we had best look to it and endeavour to curb and check our passions that we do not give occasion to our Enemies to blaspheme and say where is that Heaven that place of rest and blessedness which you so much talk of where is that Faith of a future Life and a judgment to come which you so zealously profess how can you perswade us that you believe what you profess seeing that upon the trial you are ready to kill your selves with very grief for the Death of your Friends and Relations and thereby give a strong suspicion that you think this World the best Paradise for your Friends to live in and the other the best only to talk of To conclude Let us endeavour to possess our hearts and minds with a firm hope and perswasion of a future State and Eternal Life and then we shall be the freer to think of our own Death and be less troubled to part with our Friends and Relations when God thinks fit to take them away Simplicius in his Comment upon Epictetus cap. 33. does rightly observe how variously we are affected at the Death of others and the Death of our own Relations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we hear sayes he of the Death of anothers Wife or Children we are not much concern'd but put it off very slightly and say that their dying is no wonder at all and that there is no reason to be much troubled at it forasmuch as Death is natural and common to all But then sayes he when we happen to lose any of our own Relations we seem to have another guise opinion of Death and to change our note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is We hear of and see the death and burial of others patiently enough and without being much troubled or inwardly concern'd but when it comes home to our selves and we lose any of our own dear Friends and Relations we are presently in a storm and rise into a supream passion and in the bitterness of our Souls cry out that we are miserable and undone and the unhappiest people in the World and that there is no loss like our loss and that none has such great afflictions as we and then there is nothing to be heard or seen but great Lamentations and Mourning and a huge Scene of sorrows In which words the Philosopher does rightly note our partiality to our selves and how that we esteem and look upon Death to be only unkind and cruel to our selves and those that belong to us and that we can hear and think kindly enough of it at a distance but when it comes nigh us and touches us in our Relations then we are all mutiny and confusion And therefore it is a great Argument of our folly and indiscretion to waver and alter so much in our opinion of Death as to entertain worse thoughts of it at one time than another For albeit the more than ordinary sympathy that is between us and our Relations may defend and justifie our sorrowing somewhat more for them than for perfect Strangers yet it is against common sense and reason that we should be so desperately disquieted at that Providence which deprives us of our Relations whereas we are so little concern'd at the common fatality of Mankind And therefore it behoves us in point of Prudence to labour to have always the same thoughts and opinions of Death and to count it no more cruel no more an Enemy when it seizeth upon our own flesh and blood than when it seizeth upon the rest of humane race And if we make no great matter of the death of others whom we see daily fall to the ground looking upon it as a natural thing for them to die so let us consider that 't is every whit as natural for our Relations to die and nothing happens to them but what is common to all flesh living And this consideration the Philosopher looks upon as very just and reasonable and prescribes it as an excellent Remedy and Antidote against all immoderate sorrowing for the loss of our dearest Friends and Relations But alas why do I urge such a poor consideration as that of Death being common to all men to asswage and mitigate our sorrows for the Dead as if any consideration in the World could do it more effectually than our Christian Hope and the belief of another and better life hereafter Some indeed may attempt and endeavour to quiet and silence their sorrows by Arguments drawn from reason and the acute sayings of Philosophers and think they may be able from meer natural courage and some bold principles to laugh at and despise Death as well as the Stoicks did in their high rants and sullen moods but no Arguments or the most stubborn Principles in the World can be of equal force with our Christian Hope for that purpose A Hope that opens to us the Casements of Heaven and represents to us in a great measure the glories of the Resurrection the exact and full knowledge whereof cannot be attain'd in this narrow state of mortality and is far transcending all humane reach and comprehension so that for me to go about to make a full and compleat description of the excellencies and perfections