one by sense and experience We so know what it is to live in the Body and in a sensible World and among a corporeal People Of the other by Faith by believing as we are told by one that we are sure can have no design or inclination to deceive us There are many Mansions saith he in my Father's House as good Accommodations as suitable Society and sufficiently numerous which the many Mansions implies to be sure as any you have met with here Faith is in this case to serve us instead of Eyes It is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of the things not seen As we have the Notion of a Country where we have not been by the description of a Person whom we can trust and that we think intends not to abuse us by Forgeries and false Representations In reference to this Country we walk and guide our selves by sight in our Converses and Affairs wherein we have to do with it As to that other by Faith as vers 7. 't is implied 5 thly Yet further it is to be considered that this Body and this present bodily People and World have the present possession of us And though the spiritualiz'd Mind do as it were step forth and place it self betvveen both when it is to make its choice yet the Objects of the one sort are much nearer the other are far distant and much more remote 6 thly That it cannot but be apprehended that tho the one sort of things hath the faster hold the other sort are things of greater value The one hath the more entire present possession of us the other the better right Thus we see the Case stated II. We are next to shew What the temper is of an holy Soul i. e. it s proper and most genuine temper in reference to this supposed state of the case We are willing rather or have a more complacential inclination to be unpeopled from the Body and this bodily sort of People and to be peopled with the Lord and that sort of incorporeal People over which he more immediately presides in the upper World He speaks comparatively as the case requires And because all comparison is founded in somewhat absolute Therefore a simple disposition both ways is supposed Whence then 1 st This Temper is not to despise and hate the Body It imports no disdainful aversion to it or to this present State 2 ly Nor is it an impetuous precipitant tendency towards the Lord impatient of delay mutinous against the divine disposal or that declines present duty and catches at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Crown and Prize before the prescribed race be run out An holy Man is at once dutiful and wise As a Servant he refuses not the Obedience of Life and as a wise Man embraces the Gain of Death 3 ly But it is considerate the effect of much foregoing deliberation and of a thorough perspection of the case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vers. 6. knowing or considering that while we are at home in the Body we are absent from the Lord. This choice is not made blindly and in the dark 4 thly It is very determinate and full being made up of the mixture of Fortutide and Complacency as was said The one whereof copes with the evil of being severed from the Body The other entertains the good of being present with the Lord. Therefore this is the sense of a pious Soul in the present case q. d. I do indeed love this Body well and reckon it a grievous thing to be severed from it if that part of the Case be singly considered and alone by it self but considering it in comparison with the other part and what is this Body to me What is it as an Object of Love in comparison of being with the Lord What is Death to me as an Object of Fear in comparison of being absent from the Lord Which is a Death many thousand times more deadly than the other III. The agreeableness of this temper to the general frame and complexion of an holy Soul as such Which will appear if we consider 1. What sort of frame or impression in the general that is that doth distinguish a sincerely pious Person from another Man 2 ly The more eminent Principles in particular that are constituent of it and do as it were compose and make it up 1. The general frame of an Holy Soul as such is natural to it 'T is not an artificial thing a piece of Mechanism a lifeless Engine nor a superficial an external Form an evanid Impression It is the effect of a Creation as Scripture often speaks by which the Man becomes a new Creature and hath a Nature peculiar to him as other Creatures have Or of Regeneration by which he is said to be born anew Which forms of Speech whatever they have of different signification do agree in this that they signify a certain Nature to be the thing produc'd This Nature is said to be Divine 2 Pet. 1.4 somewhat born of God as it is exprest 1 John 5.4 and in many places more And it is an intellectual Nature or the restored Rectitude of such a Being Now who can think but what is so peculiarly from God a touch and impress from him upon an intelligent Subject should with design choice and complacency tend to him and make the Soul do so Especially when it is so purposely design'd for Remedy of the Apostacy wherein Men are revolted and gone off from him Will he suffer himself to be defeated in a Design upon which he is so industriously intent Or is it supposable the All-wise God should so mistake himself as to do such a Work upon the Spirit of Man on set purpose for an End which it is no way apt to serve Yea and when he now takes him in hand a second time Nor can it be but this Impression of God upon the Soul must have principal reference to our final State It is a kind of Nature and must therefore tend to what is most perfect in its own kind But we need not reason in a Matter wherein the Word of God so plainly unfolds the scope and the success of this his own Work By it we are said to be alive to God through Jesus Christ Rom. 6.11 To turn and move and act towards him as many Scriptures speak And towards him as he is most perfectly to be served and enjoyed in the most perfect state of Life We are said to be begotten again to a lively hope 1 Pet. 1.3 Where Hope is taken objectively as the following words shew to an Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us And when elsewhere it had been said Every one that doth Righteousness is born of him 1 John 2. ult There is immediately subjoined Chap. 3.1 2. a description of the future Blessedness whereto 't is presently added Vers. 3. And every Man that hath this Hope in him purifyeth himself even as
own Creature and it hath its end and rest in him 5 thly We see the admirable power of Divine Grace that it prevails against even the nature love of this bodily Life Not where discontent and weariness of Life contribute but even where there is a willingness to live too upon a valuable consideration as this Apostle doth elsewhere express himself viz. in the place before noted and how easily the Divine Pleasure could reconcile him to Life notwithstanding what is said in the Text is sufficiently signified in the words immediately following it And the Effect is permanent not a sudden transport wherein many are induced to throw away their Lives upon much lower Motives This appears to be an habitual Inclination At distant times we find the Apostle in the same temper That is not surely from the power of Nature that is so much against it as the stream of Nature now runs i. e. that a Man should be willing to be plucked in pieces and severed from himself And we see Vers. 5. whereto it is expresly ascribed He that hath wrought us to the self-same thing is God 6 thly How black is their Character and how sad their State that are more addicted to the Body and this bodily life than to the Lord and that holy blessed Life we are to partake in with him Their Character is black and horrid as it is divers from that which truly belongs to all the People of God that ever liv'd on Earth and so doth distinguish them from such and place them among another sort of Men that belong not to him such as have their portion in this Life their good things here and who are to expect nothing hereafter but woe and wailing And who would not be affrighted that finds a Mark upon him that severs him from the whole Assembly of the Just and the Blessed Their state is also therefore sad and dismal And in as much as what they place their highest felicity in their abode in the Body they know will continue but a little while Who could ever by their love of this bodily Life procure it to be perpetuated or by their dread of Mortality make themselves Immortal Have not others in all former Ages lov'd the Body and this World as much and what is become of them Hath not Death still swept the Stage from Generation to Generation and taken all away willingly or unwillingly To have all my good bound up in what I cannot keep and to be in a continual dread of what I cannot avoid What can be more disconsolate How grievous will it be to be torn out of the Body not to resign the Soul but have it drawn forth as a rusty Sword out of the Sheath A thing which our utmost willingness will make the more painful but cannot defer No Man hath power over the Spirit to retain the Spirit nor hath he power in death Eccles. 8.8 How uncomfortable when the Lord's Presence the common joy of all good Souls is to me a dread By the same degrees by which an abode in the Body is over-desired is that presence dreaded and disaffected And how deplorate is the case when this Body is the best shelter I have from that Presence Would I lurk in the Body and lie hid from the presence of the Lord How easily and how soon will my Fortress be beaten down and laid in the Dust and I be left naked and exposed and then how fearful things do ensue But what now doth this fearful Case admit of no remedy It can admit but of this only one which therefore I would now recommend and press The serious effectual endeavour of being to a just degree alienated from the Body and of having the undue Love represt and wrought down of this bodily Life Mistake not I go not about to perswade all promiscuously out of hand and without more ado to desire Death or absence from the Body The desires of reasonable Creatures should be reasonable the product of valuable Considerations and rational Inducements The present case of too many the Lord knows admits not they should be willing to die Who are they that they should desire the Day of the Lord a Day of such gloominess and darkness as it is likely should it now dawn to prove to them No but let all endeavour to get into that State and have their Affairs in such a posture that they may be upon good terms reconciled to the Grave and that separation from the Body may be the matter with them of a rational and truly Christian Choice And since as hath been said there are two terms between which the inclination and motion of our Souls in this case must lie from the one to the other viz. the Body and the Lord life in the Body and with the Lord. Let such things be considered on both hands as may justly tend to diminish and lessen our inclination and love to the one and increase it towards the other So as that all things being considered and upon the whole this may be the reasonable and self-justifying result to be well pleased rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. And 1. On the part of the Body and this bodily Life consider 1. How costly it is to you you lay out upon it the most do most of your Time Thoughts Cares The greater part most or even all of their Estates All the Callings you can think of in the World and which all help to maintain at no little expence are wholly for the Body What costly Attendants must it have of Cooks Bakers Brewers Mercers Physicians Lawyers and what not One only excepted that refers to the Soul And again when all is done how little serviceable is it when you would employ it sometimes it is sick sometimes lame sometimes lames the mind and intellect too that it cannot do its Office meerly thorough the distemper of bodily Organs is at all times dull sluggish indisposed The Spirit is willing but the Flesh weak Yea moreover how disserviceable hinders your doing good prompts to the doing much evil What a world of mischief is done among Men meerly by bodily Lusts and to serve fleshly Appetite These fill the World with confusion and miseries of all sorts All catch from others what they can for the Service of the Body Hence is competition of Interests and Designs No Man's Portion is enough for him to serve the Body or the mind as it is depraved by bodily Inclinations And so the World is torn by its Inhabitants Countries wasted and laid desolate Religion it self made subservient to fleshly Interest and thence is the occasion of many a bloody Contest of Oppressions Persecutions and Violences whereby many times it so falls out that such as are most vigorously engaged in a design of serving the Body destroy it their own as well as other Mens And which is most dreadful Souls are numerously lost and perish in the Scuffle Yea and very oft
the first Fruits of the Spirit that blessed Spirit of Adoption and groan for the Adoption the season of your being more solemnly own'd for Sons viz. the redemption of the Body Rom. 8.23 Which though it ultimately refer to the Resurrection may be allowed to have an incompleat meaning in reference to Death too For I see not but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may admit such a construction as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.15 i. e. that redemption of the Body may mean redemption from it wherein it is burthensome a grievance and penalty here as well as there The redemption of Transgressions doth truly mean liberation from the penalty of them From which penal Evil of and by the Body so materially at least it is we are not perfectly freed as our blessedness is not perfect till Mortality be swallowed up of Life and all the adopted the many Sons be all brought to glory together How happy in the mean time is your case when Death becomes the matter of your rational well-grounded hope You have many Hopes wherein you are liable to disappointment You will then have one sure Hope and that will be worth them all none can prevent you of this Hope Many other things you justly hope for are hindred by ill minded Men of their accomplishment But all the wit and power of your most spiteful Enemies can never hinder you from dying And how are you fenc'd against all the intervening Troubles of Life Nihil metuit qui optat mori You have nothing to fear if you desire to die nothing but what at least Death will shortly put an end to Make this your aim To have Life for the matter of your Patience and Death of your Desire 2 ly On the other part also labour to be upon good terms with the Lord secure it that he be yours Your way to that is short and expedite The same by which we become his Ezek. 16.8 I entred into Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Solemnly and unfeignedly accept him and surrender your selves Without this who can expect but to hear from him at last Depart from me I know you not Know of your selves demand an account Are you sincerely willing to be his and to take him for yours without limitation or reserves Matters are then agreed between him and you And who can break or disanul the Agreement Who can come between him and you I often think of the high transport wherewith those words are uttered The excellent knowledg of Christ Jesus my Lord Phil. 3.8 This is Christian Religion not in a System but as it is a vital principle and habit in the Soul inclining us making us propense towards our blessed Lord addicting and subduing us to him uniting us with him Whereby we come to know by inward sensations to feel the transfusions of his spiritful Light and Influence and our Souls thereby caught and bound up in the bundle of Life So we have Christ form'd within His Holy Truths Doctrines Precepts Promises inwrought into the temper of our Spirits And as it follows in that Context Phil. 3. to have him according to the States wherein he successively was by correspondent impressions represented in us So as that we come to bear the Image of him crucified and dying first then reviving and rising and afterwards ascending and glorifi'd To know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his Death If by any means we might attain unto the Resurrection of the Dead Vers. 10 11. Let us not be at rest till we find it thus in some measure with us If we feel our selves after this manner internally and initially conform'd to him this will be both a Preparative and a Pledg of our future perfect conformity both internal and external It will fit us to be ever with the Lord and assure us we shall and can be no where else That he and we shall not to eternity dwell asunder We shall neither fear to be externally conform'd to him in his Death to quit and lay down the Body as he did nor despair of attaining with him the Resurrection from the Dead and of being present with him in Glory Or that he shall recover for us out of the Dust our vile abject Bodies the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Body of our Humiliation wherein we were humbled as he was in his as it follows in that Phil. 3. vers 21. and make it like his own glorious Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conform and agreeable by that power by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself In the mean time as this present state admits converse much with him every day Be not strangers to him often recognize and renew your Engagements to him Revolve in your Thoughts his Interest in you and yours in him And the nearer relation which there is between him and you than that between you and this Body Recount with your selves the permanency and lastingness of that Relation That whereas this Body as now it is a terrestrial Body will not be yours long He is to be your God for ever and ever That though Death must shortly separate you from this Body Neither Life nor Death Principalities nor Powers things present nor things to come shall ever separate you from the Love of God which is in Christ our Jesus our Lord. While this Body is a Body of Death to you he is your Life your Hope and your exceeding Joy your better more laudable and more excellent Self more intimate to you than you can be to your self as hath been anciently and often said And for the obtaining whose presence absence from the Body is a very small matter A great Prince in an Epistle to that Philosopher tells him I seem to my self not to be a Man as the saying is while I am absent from Iamblichus or while I am not conversant with him That we can better endure our Lord's absence is surely a thing it self not to be endured We should labour our acquaintance with him such as is fit to be between so great a Majesty and such mean Creatures as we should grow daily Yea and endeavour to make the Thoughts more familiar to our selves of spiritual Beings in the general For we are to serve and converse with him in a glorious community of such Creatures An innumerable company of Angels The General Assembly and the Church of the First Born and the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12.23 In a Region where an earthly Body remaining such can have no place Why do we make the Thoughts of a Spirit out of a Body so strange to our selves We meet with hundreds of Spirits in Bodies and moving Bodies to and fro in the Streets every day and are not startled at it Is a Body so much nearer a-kin to us than a Spirit that we must have so mean a thing to come between to mediate and reconcile us to it
A Funeral Sermon On the Decease of That worthy Gentlewoman M rs Margaret Baxter Who died the 28th of June 1681. By JOHN HOWE Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1681. To the very Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter SIR WHen you assign'd unto me that part not of forming a Memorial for your excellent deceased Consort which is reserved to the fittest hand but of instructing the People upon the occasion of her decease This Text of Scripture occurring also to my thoughts which I reckon'd might sufficiently agree with the design you generally recommended to me tho I am sensible how little the prosecution did so it put me upon considering with how great disadvantage we set our selves at any time to reason against bodily Inclination the great Antagonist we have to contend against in all our Ministerial Labours An Attempt which if an higher Power set not in with us looks like the opposing of our faint Breath to the steady course of a mighty River I have often thought of Cicero's wonder That since we consist of a Mind and a Body the skill of curing and preserving the Body is so admir'd as to have been thought a Divine Invention That which refers to the Mind is neither so desired before it be found out nor so cultivated afterwards nor is approv'd and acceptable to so many yea is even to the most suspected and hateful Even the Tyrant Phalaris tells one in an Epistle tho by way of menace That whereas a good Physician may cure a distemper'd Body Death is the only Physician for a distemper'd Mind It works not indeed an universal Cure But of such on whom it may how few are there that count not the Remedy worse than the Disease Yet how many thousands are there that for greater hoped bodily advantages afterwards endure much more pain and trouble than there is in dying We are a mysterious sort of Creatures Yet I acknowledg the Wisdom of God is great and admirable in planting in our Natures so strong a love of this bodily Life without which the best would be more impatient of living on Earth so long as God thinks it requisite they should And to the worst Death would not be a sufficiently formidable punishment And consequently humane Laws and Justice would be in great part eluded And the same Divine Wisdom is not less admirable in providing there should so generally be so much of mutual Love as doth obtain among near Friends and Relatives For thereby their Cohabitation and mutual Offices towards each other are made more pleasant and easie which is a great compensation for the concomitant Evil that by the same Love their parting with one another cannot but be rendered grievous But for you who live so much upon the Borders and in the pleasant view of the other State The one separation is I doubt not much easier to your sense and the other to your fore-thoughts than they are with the most A perfect indifferency towards this present bodily State and Life is in mine eyes a most covetable thing and my daily aim Wherein I entreat your Prayers may assist Your most respectful though most unworthy fellow-Servant and Expectant in the Work and Hope of the Gospel JOHN HOWE A Funeral Sermon 2 COR. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. THe solemn Face of this Assembly seems to tell me that you already know the present special occasion of it And that I scarce need to tell any of you that our worthy honoured Friend Mrs. Baxter is dead You have 't is like most of you often met her in this place when her pleased looks were wont to shew what delight she took to have many share in those great Advantages wherein she had a more peculiar Interest You are now to meet her here no more but are met your selves to lament together that our World hath lost so desirable an Inhabitant And to learn as I hope you design what so instructive an occasion shall of it self or as it may be improv'd serve to teach us It doth of it self most obviously teach the common Document that we who are of the same make and mould must all die too And our own prudence should hereupon advance one step further and apprehend it a most covetable thing that the temper of our minds might comply with this unalterable state of our case And that we be in a disposition since we must die to die willingly and with our own consent Nothing can be more irrational or unhappy than to be engaged in a continual quarrel with Necessity which will prevail and be too hard for us at last No course is so wise in it self or good for us as to be reconciled to what we cannot avoid to bear a facile yielding mind towards a determination which admits of no repeal And the Subject now to be insisted on may help us to improve the sad occasion to this very important purpose And shew us that dying which cannot be willed for it self may be join'd with somewhat else which may and ought to be so and in that conjunction become the object of a rational and most complacential willingness A Subject recommended to me though not the special Text by one than whom I know no Man that was better able to make a fit choice as in the present case none could have that right to chuse I cannot stay to discuss and open the most fruitful pleasant series of discourse in the foregoing Verses though there will be occasion to reflect somewhat upon it by and by But in the Text the Apostle asserts two things concerning the temper of his Spirit in reference to Death His Confidence and Complacency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. His Confidence or his Courage and Fortitude We are confident I say He had said it before Vers. 6. We are always confident and assigned the Cause knowing that while we are present in the Body we are absent from the Lord. And declared the kind of that knowledg viz. which he had of that presence of the Lord whereof he was deprived by being present in the Body that is that it was the knowledg of Faith not of Sight Vers. 7. Now here he adds We are confident I say It notes a deliberate courage And the fixedness of it that it was not a suddain Fit a passion soon over He had said above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are confident at all times It was his habitual temper And here the ingemination signifies increase as if he had said We grow more and more bold and adventurous while we consider the state of our case and what we suffer by our presence in the Body Sense of injury or damage heightens and adds an edg unto true valour We would venture upon a thousand Deaths if the matter were left entirely to our own Option rather than be
upon the account or pretence of Religion whose only design it is to save Souls And how many to save their Bodies destroy even their own Souls Not having learn'd that instruction of our Saviour's not to fear them that can only kill the Body or being unable to suffer some lesser bodily Inconveniences apostatize and abandon their Religion whereby that and their Souls too become Sacrifices to the safety and accommodation of an idoliz'd lump of Clay And how certainly if a seasonable Repentance do not intervene do they who only thus tempt the Souls of other Men destroy their own Nor can it be doubted at this time of day and after the experience of so many Ages wherein Christianity hath been so visibly and grosly carnaliz'd but that it is a Religion perverted to the support of the bodily and animal Interest that hath thus embroiled the Christian World How plain is it that they who desire to make a fair shew in the Flesh to strut in pomp to glitter in secular grandieur and splendor to live in unrebuked sensual ease and fulness are the Men that would constrain others to their carnal Observances Men that serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Bellies Who can think it is pure love to Souls and zeal for the true ends of the holy peaceable Religion of our blessed Jesus that makes them so vexatious and troublesome to all whom their fleshly Arm can reach and ruin and whom their Spirit and way cannot allure and win Who that understands Religion and the true design of it and the blessed end wherein it will shortly terminate would not be glad to be rescued out of this large diffusive unquiet Empire of the Body that extends it self over all things mingling its odious impurities even with what is most Sacred Who would not long to be from under this Reign of the Beast if he might have a fair way of escape And where Religion is not in the case what multitudes of terrene Creatures earthly-minded Men are stupidly going down to Perdition daily and destroying their Souls by meer neglect while they are driving designs for the Body Which yet in the mean time is at the best but a Prison to the best of Souls O how could they love God! admire and praise him were they once out of this Body But it is not enough to a Subject wherein Love is implanted and is a part of its Nature to have only the prospect of what is unlovely or be told only what is not to be loved There must be somewhat to invite and draw as well as to depel and drive off Therefore 2 ly Consider also on the other part The Lord and that Life you are to transact and live with him Little can now be said You are not ignorant where much is and your own thoughts may upon much conversing with the Holy Oracles suggest yet more And you have need to use your Thoughts here the more largely where your sense doth not instruct you as on the other part it doth Consider the Descriptions which you are copiously furnish'd with both of him and of the state in which you are to be present with him Recount his glorious Excellencies his immense and all-sufficient Fulness his Wisdom Power Holiness and Love in absolute perfection Consider his high equal comely amiable Regency over the blessed Community above that spiritual incorporeal People the pleased joyful Inhabitants of the Celestial Regions And that he rules over them and communicates himself universally to them in a state of perfect Light Purity Peace Love and Pleasure that is also immutable and never to know end There is nothing capable of attracting an intellectual Nature which is not here But on both parts suffer your selves to be directed also 1. Take heed of over-indulging the Body keep it in subjection use it and serve it not Primitive Nature and the Creator's wise and holy Pleasure ordained it to serve Lose not your selves in it take heed you be not buried where you should but dwell and that you make not your Mansion your Grave Mansion do I say call it as this Apostle doth and another 2 Pet. 1. your Tabernacle only a Tent pitched for you but for a little while Every day look upon it and without fond pity as destin'd to rottenness and corruption And as that which when it ceases to be your cloathing must be Worms meat Labour to make the Thoughts easie and familiar to your selves of leaving it think it not an uncouth thing How doth that part of the Creation that is inferior to you abound with like Instances Of Fruits springing up out of this Earth and growing to ripeness and maturity with Husks Shells or other Integuments which then fall off such as never ripen they and their enfoldings rot together Esteem it your perfection when your Shell will fall off easily and cleaves not so close as to put you to pain when it is to be severed from you Endeavour the Holy and Heavenly Nature may grow more and more mature in you so Death will be the more also an unregretted thing to your Thoughts By all means labour to overcome the fear of it which that you might our Lord also took a Body Forasmuch as the Children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of Death were all their life-time subject to bondage Heb. 2.14 15. Reckon not much of that fear which is only the meer regret of sensitive Nature purely involuntary And that can no more obey the empire of the Mind or be regulated by it than you can make strait a crooked Leg by a meer act of your Will or make your Body not feel pain A fear from which the perfection of our Nature in our blessed Lord himself was not exempt But it is one thing to extinguish even that Fear another to overcome it The former is impossible to you the latter necessary It is overcome when a superior Principle governs you and your Resolutions and Course as it did our Lord. He did not because of it spare himself and decline dying You may feel perhaps somewhat of such a fear a secret shrug when you are to be let Blood or have a Wound search'd It governs not in such a less important Case when being convinc'd it is requisite you omit not the thing notwithstanding Labour herein to be hardy and merciless to this Flesh upon the fore-thoughts of the time when God will allow you to step forth and go out of the Body and say to it with an obdur'd mind For all thy craving and shrinking thou shalt be thrown off Labour it may not only not be the matter of your prevailing Fear but be the matter of your Hope Look towards the approaching Season with pleasant chearful expectation Aspire as it belongs to you to do who have received
Why are we afraid of what we are so nearly allyed unto Can we not endure to see or think of a Man at liberty suppose it were a Friend or a Brother if we our selves were in Prison The more easy you make the apprehension to your selves of a disembody'd Spirit i. e. free I mean of any terrestrial Body the better we shall relish the Thoughts of him who is the Head of that glorious Society you are to be gathered unto For the Lord is that Spirit the Eminent Almighty and All-governing Spirit to be ever beheld too in his glorified Body as an eternal Monument of his Undertaking for us and an assuring endearment of his Relation to us The better your Minds will comply with the preconceived Idea we are to entertain our selves with of the Constitution Order Employment and Delights of that vast Collection of Heavenly Associates we shall dwell with for ever And the more will you still incline to be absent from this Body that among them you may be ever present with the Lord. And if you thus cherish this pleasant Inclination think how grateful it will be when it comes to be satisfied How natural is that Rest that ends in the Center to which a thing is carried by a natural motion How pleasantly doth the departed Soul of that good Gentlewoman whose decease we lament solace it self in the presence of her Glorious Lord I shall say little concerning her You will have her just Memorial more at large e're long I had indeed the opportunity by an occasional abode some days under the same Roof several Years before she came into that Relation wherein she finish'd her Course to observe her strangely vivid and great Wit and very sober Conversation But the turn and bent of her Spirit towards God and Heaven more remarkably appear'd a considerable time after Which when it did she shew'd how much more she studied the Interest of her Soul than the Body and how much more she valued mental and spiritual Excellencies than worldly Advantages in the choice of her Consort whom she accepted to be the Companion and Guide of her Life She gave proof herein of the real greatness of her Spirit and how much she disdain'd to be guided by their vulgar Measures that have not Wit and Reason and Religion enough to value the Accomplishments of the Mind and inner Man And to understand that Knowledg Holiness an heavenly Heart entire devotedness to the Redeemer a willingness to spend and be spent in the Service of God are better and more valuable things than so many Hundreds or Thousands a Year And that no external Circumstances can so far dignify a Drunkard an Atheist a profane Wretch as that compared with one that bears such Characters he should deserve to be simply reckon'd the better Man And that meer sober carnality and ungodliness suffice not to cast the Ballance Or that have so little of these Qualifications for the making a true Judgment as to think that Calling dishonourable and a diminution to a Man that refers immediately to the Soul and the unseen World and that relates and sets him nearest to God She knew how to make her estimate of the Honour of a Family and a Pedigree as things valuable in their kind without allowing her self so much vanity as to reckon they were things of the most excellent kind and to which nothing personal could be equal And well understood of the personal Endowments of the Body and the Mind which were to have the preference Her Life might teach all those especially of her own Sex that a Life's time in the Body is for some other purposes than to indulge and trim and adorn the Body which is most minded by them who as that shows have in the mean time most neglected and God knows most depraved and deformed Souls I hope her Example more fully and publickly represented will more generally teach In the mean time this Instance of our common Mortality should teach us all We see this state of Life in the Body is not that we were finally made for Yet how few seriously look beyond it And it is amazing to think how little the Deaths of others signify to the making us mind our own We behave our selves as if Death were a thing only to be undergone by some few Persons here and there and that the most should 'scape and as if we took it for granted we should be of the exempted number How soon are Impressions from such occasions talk'd and trifled and laugh'd and jested away Shall we now learn more to study and understand our own Natures To contemplate our selves and our Duty thereupon That we are a mortal immortal sort of Creatures That we are sojourners only in a Body which we must shortly leave to Dust and Worms That we are Creatures united with Bodies but separable from them Let each of us think I am one that can live in a Body and can live out of a Body While I live in one that Body is not mine I dwell not in mine own That the Body must be for the the Lord as he will then be for the Body That we shall dwell comfortless and miserable in the Body if we dwell in it solitary and alone and have not with us a better Inhabitant That our Bodies are to be Mansions for a Deity Houses for Religion Temples of the Holy Ghost O the venerable thoughts we should have of these Bodies upon this account How careful should we be not to debase them not to alienate them If any Man corrupt the Temple of God him will he destroy 1 Cor. 3.16 Will a Man rob God break and violate his House how horrid a Burglary Shall we agree to resign these Bodies and this bodily Life Our meeting will have been to good purpose might this be the united sense of this dissolving Assembly Lord here we surrender and disclaim otherwise than for and under thee all right and title to these Bodies and Lives of ours We present our Bodies holy acceptable living yet living Sacrifices as our reasonable Service Let us do so and remember we are hereafter not to live to our selves nor to die at length to our selves but living and dying to be the Lord's FINIS Advertisement THere is lately printed A brief Exposition of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments To which is added The Doctrine of the Sacraments By Isaac Barrow D. D. and late Master of Trinity-College in Cambridg And now since his death publish'd by Dr. Tillotson Dean of Canterbury Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil In Octavo Psal. 16. Vers. 2. Vers. 3. Vers. 4. 2 Kin. 4. Heb. 11.1 Ambros. de bono mortis 2 Cor. 4.16 * Epict. Socrat. Anaxarch * Julian Ep. ad Iamblic †〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉