Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A43723
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A sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable Julian Vicountess Camden at Camden Jan. 12, 1680/1
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Hicks, Henry, d. 1692.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing H1918B; ESTC R40987
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14,992
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36
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the Living he must have recanted his opinion or betray'd his faculties for it was in her embodied and he might have converst with it in an humane shape as if God had designed her to let us see how near to the divine Humane nature may approach So far was she from any indifferency in Religion that I dare challenge the most rigid Sectary I mean the most censorius Person in the world to produce one single suspition of the least hypocrisy formality or lukewarmness in her Profession and Devotion No the Religion of this excellent person was of another Constitution it took root downward in Humility and brought forth fruit upward in every thing that was praise-worthy If we know not what Vertue and Humanity are what is comely venerable what is lovely and praise-worthy what is fit and equal what is true and just we may learn by the words and actions and behaviour of this Noble person of a great and harmless Wit of chearful Gravity and obliging Behaviour She could be chearful without levity speak merrily without uttering folly adorn her self in rich apparel without pride and a phantastick dress She was constant to her promise and candid to others failures preferring fidelity before profit and mercy before rigour willing to reprove yet loath to exasperate Such an exact texture of Graces and Vertues that in her departure there is a universal Loss to the good because they 'l want the vertuous example which they love and to the bad because they 'l want the pious example which they need And for her several eminencies I may take up the speech of St. Paul in his Catalogue of those eminent Saints Heb. 11.32 and what shall I say more Thus lived this most Honourable Lady and thus she taught us to live Being so eminently pious we may well say with the true Emphasis that she lived to a good old age her years exceeding not only the lesser but the larger account given by Moses of Mans life 70 or 80 years being extended to 96 which we may look upon partly as a Guerdon of her pious Life and partly as a pledge and consignment of Eternal life hereafter But it is appointed to all men once to die and die she therefore must This house which our souls now inhabit is but earthly and sin hath put it into disorder and hath brought a Consumption upon it as well through God's anger as its own distempers and as it daily decays so it will so it must once dissolve and fall The pale messenger therefore comes to give her a summons to appear before her judge Death with all his gastly troops of Stone Spleen Aches storm and dismantle her body Est mihi crede virtuti etiam in lectulo locus said Seneca to his dear Lucilius Then are vertue and fortitude best displayed when our strength lies bed-rid and our diseases inwrap us in sheets of Torture And yet in the midst of all these pining agonies and faint languishings her patience stood unshaken and undisturbed in the face of Death And with that strength of faith and undaunted courage kept close to her God as if she would conquer Death before it encountered her still maintaining that firm trust in God through the merits of her Saviour that mortalitas potius finita est quam vita this frail body submitted to mortality and her heaven-born soul when death had opened the door breathed it self into the hand of her Redeemer triumphantly singing her 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death has lost his sting and I have got the victory Thus this Heavenly Lady bequeathed her sacred body to the Grave in assured hopes of the Resurrection to Eternal life There shall these hallowed ashes be mummoyed up and preserved by the protection of Angels and from thence shall every atome of her sacred dust be rallied and recomposed into the glorious image of the Son of God Then shall this purified body as it were again woe its glorified soul and Christ being the High Priest Eternity the Ring the new-Jerusalem the Church Angels the Choyre Peace of Conscience the Feast Christs Righteousness the Wedding Garment Soul and Body shall be Eternally married together and her Saviour and the whole Trinity shall approve and applaud the union saying Well done good and faithful servant enter into thy Masters joy joy unspeakable and full of glory And now I should here conclude but seeing such a solemn appearance of such honourable Mourners before mine eyes I cannot but humbly crave leave to commend a word or two to their more personal Meditations and the good Lord make them Operative and Impressive She was the Rock whence ye were most hewen the Pit whence most of you were digged O that her name might be Immortal in her Posterity and her Posterity Immortal in her vertues I do not believe the transmigration of Souls I only desire transmigration of Graces that as ye are enriched with her Possessions and Legacies so ye may all be enobled with her Vertues and Excellencies Then shall her remembrance shine in her Relations and her Relations shine in her example Patern out her Piety her Charity patern out her Zeal and Devotion her Justice and Chastity her Courtesy her Constancy Constancy in all that was good all that was praise-worthy and yee shall become not only her Posterity but her Monument A Monument of Gold which if sin does not corrupt time can never deface Now indeed her Silver Cord is loosed and her Golden Bowle is broken yet she is not dead but liveth liveth in you as long as you live in piety shineeth in you as long as you shine in goodness And be ye well assured that those who live as Saints on earth shall undoubtedly shine as Stars in Heaven Avoid as this good Lady did all appearances of evil and then at the day of the Great appearance yee shall be as glorious among others as yee are Noble above others Blessed be God that you do not defile the dignity of your persons with the indignities of sin This were to bring a Cloud upon the lustre of your line for alass they are Apostates unto honor that are Apostates unto grace The times indeed in which you live are as truly the worst as the last of days Wickedness grown up to the excess of abominations triumphing every where effraeni effronti audaciâ without the conscience of Shame or the controlings of Punishment So that except a man be an Abraham in Mesopotamia a Job in the Land of Vz a Lot in Sodom or a Joseph in Potaphars house It is as hard to keep himself from the Temptations of the times as to reform the times from their headlong Temptations But it will be the honour of all your Honours to look higher then the days in which you live You have great Examples in your own Family Piety Loyalty Charity Temperance Continence Religion have for many years past found a Sanctuary there Remember then that to carry on these Christian excellencies is to carry on the dignity of your Ancestors High Obligations lye upon you for Piety not only from your God but from your bloud Look upon the Herse that stands before you it speaks though dead St. Timothy was sent back to consider the faith of his Mother and the faith of his Grand-mother You have here also in this deceased Lady a Grand-mother Lois and a Mother Eunice The unfeigned faith and unstained goodness that dwelt in her must dwell in you likewise This will be your kindness to her and make her Name precious this will be your kindness to your selves and make your Souls precious Blessed is that Family where holyness is cultivated as if it were quartered in their Escutchions as well as in their hearts they shall inherit the blessing For the Lord our God is a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him but shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love him and keep his Commandements FINIS
shall become as the Angels of God freed from all those necessities and conveniencies of support which we are constrained to whilst here muffled up in matter A Change that will most compleatly and adequately satisfie our most outstretched desires so that we shall never be plunged into want or any jealousies ever so to be A Change that will cloth us with Glory and so we shall need no other apparel with immortality and so we shall never crave the supports and reparation of food nor any drugs and antidotes for we shall be above the power of an Elementary composition and the wounds of an Earthly constitution Diseases and Pains are but the Harbingers of death to usher in a final divorse of Soul and Body but our Change will conquer death it self so that there will be no farther use of his ghastly retinue We shall for ever bid adeiu to languishing pulses and broken sighs and we shall never again be in old Barzillai's condition who could neither tast nor hear but had outliv'd his senses for these shall be refined and sublimated beyond the power of Age and Decay We shall be admitted into the presence and enjoyment of an everlasting felicity and when we are fashioned to his glorious body shall be acknowledged Sons of the most highest and sure this is a happy Change 3. Which 3ly is wrought by our Saviour Jesus Christ Our Text tells us that he shall do it by that power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself A Power to which nothing is impossible or difficult a power that can rally the separated parcells and ruines of our body to an union as easily as at the first he spake them into being and activity and as easily cloth the united flesh with glory and immortality If he pleases he can dart such beams upon Man as he did upon Angels and can change him into such a life and lustre for he has all power given him both in Heaven and Earth and there wants nothing but his inclination to do this for us and that he will do it he has engag'd his word to keep us from doubt or fainting Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am that they may behold the glory which thou hast given me and he farther words himself thus And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them as it he had said O Father it is my endeavour and desire that all those faithful servants which thou hast given me may enjoy the full participation of my glory and that for this end they may at last be received up into thy Heavenly kingdom for the Glory which thou hast given me I have not received nor reserved for my self but will communicate it to the members of my body and will stamp them with the same glorious impression Thus did our faithful High Priest stoop to the infirmities of our nature that he might exalt it and instate us in an Eternity of glory if we shall faithfully approve our selves to him here by keeping Consciences void of offence towards God and towards man Which more then hints to us to consider the Practical part of our Text namely what we are to do in order to this glorious Change Which is To have our Conversation in Heaven By which is meant our leading such an holy and godly life here as our Religion bids us expect hereafter or in the words of the Apostle To be holy as he that hath called us is Holy To be holy in all manner of Conversation And indeed till we are so we should have no relish even of Heaven it self Nay we should grope for Paradice in the midst of it What satisfaction can there be in that happiness to a man drowned in sensualities which is the Object only of pure and refined Souls so that the pure in heart must only see God What should the Luxurious man who makes it the business and the design of his life to eat and provoke Hunger what relish can he have of the place where they neither hunger nor thirst What should the man of Wantonness and Dalliances who will sacrifice his manhood and his reason to a bruitish sensuality what should he do there where they neither marry nor are given in marriage What should the stormy revengeful man who delights only in Blood and Slaughter what should he do there where there is nought but concord and love and where there are no flames but such as kindle Seraphims Our senses cannot only not be admitted into Heaven but if they were to be so they could not enjoy it whilst blurr'd and sullied with the black characters of an ill spent life If we could suppose a Vicious man should carry his evil inclinations of Pride and Envy Malice and Revenge Lust and Intemperance to that glorious Kingdom with him Heaven would be no Heaven to such a one the Place would be odious the Company troublesome the Imployment ungrateful and the Eternity a burden intollerable he would be uneasy to holy Souls and they to him So that Flesh and Blood not only must not but cannot inherit the Kingdom of God not till our souls are conform'd to such a rectitude as they stand disposed in their respective offices to perform their Makers will are they fit to enjoy him So that our Conversation must be in Heaven whilst we are here in our earthly pilgrimage if ever we intend to be glorified Citizens of the Jerusalem above and we must endeavor to make good by our practise what we every day pretend to desire of God by our Prayers namely that his will may be done by us on earth with as much chearfulness and alacrity as it is by his Angels his winged messengers in Heaven 2. To which we must add the second part of our Text and that is To look for and expect our Saviours coming which implies Constancy and Perseverance in our duties to have our Account right stated and ready cast up because we know not how soon we shall be summoned to give an account of our stewardship The Text indeed seems to mean the last coming of Christ to Judgment but every mans particular doom to which the day of death consigns him is approaching even at the doors Theâ—efore it highly concerns us all to keep our faculties wakeful and vigilent that we may not be surpriz'd by the day of darkness that we may never go out of the world with the Fools Motto in our Mouths with a non putabam I did not think It concerns us whilst it is called to day to improve every advantage and opportunity to our great and only interest to settle our thoughts desires and affections upon Heavenly matters and by our prudence to anticipate that farewel which we must give to all the enjoyments of this life and to engage not only our desires but our endeavors also after that prize which God the righteous Judge will give to all those who shall so expect his