Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A26904
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A sermon, or, The survey of man taken by J.B. as it was delivered at his father's funeral, September 4th, 1638.
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J. B.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing B123; ESTC R32846
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17,502
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24
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passeth through the whole Heavens encompasseth the Earth and Seas this is invisible and cannot be perceived by sense For the operations of her Essence she hath Spirit Will and Judgement Sense Understanding Reason and for her Beauty Temperance Justice and other Vertues of the Minde in fine she is so divine that she can hardly be comprehended by Reason much less then be perceived by sense God hath given us a soul more to use it then to know it He only knows it perfectly that is above it we now know it only by the effects but shall come to a cleerer revelation in the eternal Heavens Neither do the Philosophers wrangle more concerning the Essence of our souls then they differ about the parts thereof Of the parts of the Soul Most and the latest writers would have them to be four Understanding Reason Anger and Desire but yet the best received opinion will allow no more then two under which they comprize the rest The one is spiritual intellectual and therein you have the discourse of Reason the other sensual brutish which is the Will wandering of it self disordered wherein all evil desires have their dwelling However the soul that is immortal cannot properly be said to be divided because what is divided dissolveth and what is dissolved perisheth yet it may be said to be compounded and made subject during the union with the body to these two principal parts the Will and Understanding The causes of Death The soul indeed may be said to be divided but in another sense to be separated from the body which may happen even in the best complexions Wherein Life consisteth if there be any excesse or defect in the Humors then it causeth Death in the Radical Humor I mean which is the root of Life for as the heat consumeth this Humidity so doth the party languish he dieth just like the flame which lesseneth her light and vigour as the oil wasteth in the Lamp till it be extinguished Again the life of man consisteth in his breath which is no more then winde or Air that refresh the Heart which if retained either in the Mouth or Artery the man is surely dead What then is death but the taking down of these sticks whereof this earthly Tent is built But the separation of two great Friends until they meet again but the Goal-delivery of a long Prisoner that rejoyces to be at liberty The sleep of the Body and the awaking of the Soul which hastneth to be gone flyeth away and where is she my last particular the Quere Man yieldeth up the Ghost and where is he Fourth part Vbi est Where is he Where the Body is Although it hath been a custom amongst some Heathenish people to burn the bodies of their dead and the more Barbarous for to eat them yet still the most civil nations had the humanity to bury the Corps of their deceased Friends for keep them we cannot because they corrupt they putrifie Their Bodies therefore are committed to the ground dust to dust and ashes to ashes as in THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER That the Bodies of the dead do return to the Earth from whence they were taken no man can deny But what is become of the soul Where the Soul there is the question Where is she Doth she vanish into nothing or wander in the Air doth she enter into beasts and so inform them is she idle and falls asleep or else doth she hasten into Purgatory or fly to Heaven There is the question Where is she Doth she vanish into nothing No. The Sadduces dare not die for fear of not being and do merrily sing with the Hogs of the Epicures Stye Ede bibe lude post mortem nulla voluptas But the Christian is assured that the soul is immortal otherwise he denyeth the hope of his resurrection and his faith is also vain he doth well know that his soul survives his body she cannot be annihilated nor vanish like a vapour why then where is she In the Air No. The spirits of the dead do not wander in the Earth nor Aia they frequent not Churchyards Sepulchers nor Tombs and what after death is seen is but the devil to deceive the people in their likeness she shall no more be beheld of men Why then where is she Doth she inform any other creature No. The transmigration of Souls was but a fable that the * Chrys hom 2. of Lazarus Egyptians had taught Pythagoras and Pythagoras the Platonists who * Herodian Lib. 2. Aug. Lib. 12. de civit Dei believed how that that in tract of time there should come a certain year wherein all causes and effects long past should return again and continue constant as for example that at Athens Plato himself who once had many Pupils there after a long appointed season 36000 thousand years the same Plato City and School should return again in which space Ptolomy the great Astronomer did conceive that the course and motion of the Sphere would be finished from West to East And in the mean time it is taught by these brutish men that when the soul doth depart the bodie she doth inform some Beast answerable to her former life that the soul of an hasty and an angry man should degenerate into a Serpent Thieves into Wolves and those that are delighted in swinish pleasure into Hogs Homer into a Peacock and Orpheus into a Swan Yea and Origen writeth * Origen lib. de proverb Solom that this Heresie of the souls departed hapned among some in his dayes that were seeming Christians occasioned by that they did not rightly understand the Scriptures as where it is said by Christ of John the Baptist He is Elias they refer that speech to the soul of John which was only meant to be in the Spirit or power of Elias to convert their souls unto God They did not know how a man doth become a Dog or an Asse Herod is a Fox it is by their resemblance in condition not that the soul doth depart into a Beast Why then where is she is she alwayes idle or asleep No. I saith the Lord am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. And if the soul departed live Matth. 22.32 she cannot be asleep nor idle for to live is to be in action and what action doth better agree unto a departed Soul then the love and contemplation of her God although Irenaeus and some others will not grant thus much before the resurrection day Whose opinion doth seem to be grounded on that in the sixth of the Apocalyps and the ninth verse Apoc. 6.9.10 where S. John saw lying under the Altar the souls of them that were slain but this is answered in the next verse That they cryed unto God and therefore were not asleep But where then doth this Altar stand when the soul is under it
that justifie the ungodly by often abusing the Pulpit with their pleasing tongues that savour more of Flattery then of Truth so neither would I be perverse to condemn the Innocent and rob vertue of her reward which doth here principally consist in praise The Object here set before our eyes is the subject of my Text a sad spectacle of Mortality Man If we search the Records for his antiquity and descent it appeareth that his Father was an Amorite and his Mother a Hittite even one of Adams own ofspring in that he was made subject to the Act the curse when he yielded up the Ghost Morte moriêris thou shalt surely die an irrevocable sentence denounced by Gods own mouth for our former fault and disobedience But and if we come neerer to our selves of his Descent and Parentage I will not speak for he was known as well to many others here present as my self onely I shall desire thus much that none here amongst you will despise him because he was your Neighbour and your Countrey man nor to say of him disdainfully as the Nazarites did once of Christ His Father and his Mother we well did know his Brethren his Sisters and his Children are they not all with us whence then hath this man any vertuous or religious Works In the first place at his Birth-day when the curtain of the attiring room was drawn he then did enter upon the Stage of this present world where his Prologue was but short and he spoke but little by reason of his Infancie only he shewed to the world the meekness of his disposition and good inclination of his nature But when he came to some riper years of Judgement he then well acted his part which was variable and full of changes to the life expressing the vanity and uncertainness of humane kinde where he left his paths for our feet to tread upon and drawed forth a pattern for us to imitate by a pious conversation His Zeal to God was expressed not only by his delight he had to frequent the Temple of the Lord but also by his daily prayers in his private family The chastity of his words and actions did declare that he never violated his plighted troth to his loving wife for his soul solely clave unto her And the love that he alwayes had to his needy neighbour did promulge his charity who only not omitted the occasion of well doing but also sometimes sought it well knowing that he had lost that day wherein he had not done some good It would here be tedious to speak of his domestick discipline to recite his publick conversation which was alwayes just honest and vertuous and that the words I utter may the better appear to be impartial I take all you to record that hear me this day how that he was pure from offence to all men and I am verily perswaded that no man can justly say as much as black unto his eye Truth was placed in his words and constancie in his deeds There was a freedom in his presence and in his visage cheerfulnesse He was easie to forgive courteous unto all yea even to his enemies for some he had because vertue cannot be without them In a word he carried himself in all his Fortunes with an equal mind not too much puft up with the swelling floods of prosperitie neither sinking to despair at the lowest ebbe of adversity Of whom me thinks the more I say the more is still behinde and unsaid I am taken with the largeness of his goodness even the plenty of his praises were enough to make me eloquent What shall I say of this mans uprightness when that of Horace might more then an hundred times be repeated of him Integer vitae scelerisque purus and what shall I say of his Constancie Faith and Patience with all which he was so excellently well adorned that whereas he was not second unto any so you shall finde out few that can equal him but to be excelled by none Thus have I in him represented to your view a short platform for your imitation in the way of Godliness a moral Comedie which the soul of our deerest departed Friend hath here acted amongst us in this now dead Trunk this Carkass to the general applause of all the Spectators only I shall desire you to hear his Epilogue and I have done to finish his Pilgrimage although it be Tragical The same magnanimity of spirit that kept him all his life time did not now forsake him even in his greatest sickness for being visited of the Lord by divers as I suppose and strong diseases he bore them all most patiently insomuch that although I was after my own recovery very often with him yet could not at any time observe him either to grudg groan or sigh for grief under the rod of Gods correction neither was his heart any thing dismayed at the remembrance of his dissolution for he told me again and again that although his bodie was weak yet his soul was strong by Faith in Christ for the remission of his sins he well knew it was that mans property to be afraid of death who is unwilling for to go to Christ accounting that the earth was not given us for a dwelling place but an Inne that our being here which we call Life is not so properly a life indeed as a journey to it that his Hope was not here fixt on Earth but Heaven that he knew full well whither he was going not by his own merits but the mercies of Christ in whom alone he had placed his confidence of eternal safety And in this assurance he devoutly took the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper at my hands to furnish him with fit provision for his journey to his long home so that at length when his glass was run he willingly gave an ear to his Makers call and in the midst of his childrens tears their pious invocations he departed hence from this vale of misery He yielded up the Ghost and where is he As for his soul 't is fled we may go to him he cannot come to us why do we weep and mourn his gain doth far exceed our loss he is now in Paradise in Abrahams Bosom for the Angels have conveyed him to his place of rest But as for his Corps this breathless bodie which doth here remain with us let us accompanie it unto the Grave the last kinde office we can shew to our deerest Friend and interre it in the dust where it may lie in peace and rest until the resurrection at the last when we with him again may receive a joyfull union both of bodie and of soul and enter into that most glorious Heaven of everlasting happinesse Sing an eternal Halleluiah Salvation and Honour Justice and Power Mercie and Thanksgiving be ascribed unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for evermore Amen FINIS