A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of the R ' Reverend Father in God BRYAN Lord Bp. of WINCHESTER At the Abby Church in Westminster April 24. 1662. By HENRY L. Bp. of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman and are to be sold at his Shop in the Lower Walk in the New Exchange 1662. A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of the Right Reverend Father in God BRYAN Lord Bp. of Winchester At the Abby Church in Westminster April 24. 1662. Pretious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints Psal 116.15 I Need not tell you the occasion of our Meeting The sad Object lying before your Ey declares that And though He who is gone be principally concerned in drawing you to this House of Mourning yet must ye not repute your selves wholly unconcern'd The benefit will redound to you who Eccl s 7 3. who know by whom ye are told how good it is to enter into it I wish ye may think so too I read of one Philoromus Galata who was so much in love with Death he liv'd some years in a Tomb to prepare Himself for it This Spectacle and this Discourse tends to this Preparation So that I hope ye will not repent an hours stay here with me The Grave is commonly as powerful an Oratour as the Pulpit and by presenting the fears of an III Death instructs us in the Rules of a Good Life My assurance is that as the winding Sheet fits every Body by dilating or contracting it self to each ones size so my discourse will suit it self to every Hearer Like Philipp's Boy it holds out to Youth a Skull to Age a Coffin Who next amongst us is likely to fall into this low Centre may be doubtfull 'T is sure at one time or other we all must And probably we shall not all of us a few dayes hence meet here again Therefore wheresoever that final Lot may chance to fall whether on some Hearer or on the Speaker You will allow this Text a pious remembrancer to Those who stay behind and an antidated valediction to those who next go hence So then as St. Paul told the Corinthians Whether it be I or You so I Preach 1 Cor. 15 11. and so Yee justly must believe That happy shall their condition be in the Next world who after a Religious life dye well in This. For Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints I trouble you not with any Curious but a Plain Division Division The First Joint whereof is that which disjoins Nature 1. Dâ—ath and must Divide us from One another Yea makes a Division of us from Our selves by Disuniting Soul and Body and taking asunder those Essential Parts by which we subsist Death Then follows the Subject of our Funeral 2. Saints Sancti All are concluded under the Necessity of Dying Men the Best of Men Saints Yet Thirdly there is a mixture of Comfort to sweeten the Meditation of Death 3. Pretious It is Mors Pretiosa Pretious 1 In that it puts an end to all Calamity 2. Pretious for that Their Memory survives when They are gone 3. Pretious in the Sight of Men as being Honoured in their Exequies Lastly it is Pretiosa in conspectu Dei 4 In the sâ—ght of the Lord. Not Pretious only in the Ey and Estimation of the world But Precious in the Sight of the Lord. He who sees all things is a Spectator of the Death of his Servants and shews how dearly he values Them 1. By Avenging their Blood if shed by violence in this world 2. By Rewarding Them in the Next This is the Frame on which my ensuing Discourse is carried whose Foundation you see is laid as low as the Grave I begin there where all must end 1. Patt Death with Death The full Period and Close of Nature A Subject better defin'd by silence than speech and sounds more pathetically from a Tomb than a Pulpit The Arguments of this place are or should be God and His VVorks But amidst the whole Catalogue of those works of His we find not Death A thing of so unblest a Being It cannot derive it self from His Hand and Facture who made All other things Light was his Creature Strook out and Kindled by His Fiat Lux Gen. 1.3 Let there be Light And Life was inspired by His Powerful Breath who breathed Spiraculum vitae into Man Gen. 2.7 But Darkness and Death are Children of other Parentage God made no Privations to Smother His Works No Extinguishers of Light or Nature No Sickness to supplant Health nor Infirmity to dissolve Strength VVis 1.14 The Generations of the World were healthful and there was no Poison of destruction amongst them Darkness is but a defect of Light and Death a Privation of Life therefore none of His ver 13 For God hath not made Death neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living If you would have Death's Pedigree search not in God's Book of Creatures amongst the Records of Life but see the Annals of Sin That and Sin were Twins nursed up together engendred of two accursed Parents the Serpent's Active Malice and Man's Disobedience From hence do we derive this Monster This Enemy to Nature and Opposite to God For so it is This demolisheth what He Builds The goodly frame of Mankind is by Death ruined and layd in Farth This Reverseth what He enacted Marrs and unmakes all that He made before You see at what Breach Death enter'd The breach of God's Covenant There the Inundation ran in whose furious torrent will not be stopp'd until it hath overwhelm'd and cover'd the Universe From Adam did this Tyrant begin his dangerous Reign On his Fall was Death's Throne crected his Body became the first Stair of the Ascent since which time he hath still raised that fatal Mound by heaping on it all the Bodies of his Children For in Adam we all dye 1 Cor. 15.22 His Fall maim'd and Creepled Posterity which hath ever since complained of that bruise The Earth yet groans under the barren Curse thrown upon it for Adam's sake Rom. 8.22 And Every Creature groans with us also travailing in pain unto this present Thus as Ashur was the Rod of Gods vengeance to scourge the rebellious Israelites Esay 10.5 so Death became God's scourge to punish the Sin of Man Aug. Ser. 21. in Mat. Neseis quia poena est necesse esse ut moriamur Here then you see though Death were none of God's works Yet is it over All His works This Thing of No being this Privation this Nothing devours All things For what is free from this Gangrene what Plant doth not this Worm strike what Elementary Body Animate or Inanimate is not subject to Corruption Templa Saxa Marmora Aug. Ser. 17. Ferro plumboque consolidata tamèn cadunt Miserable experience shews that Temples are not privileg'd from ruine Those sheets of Lead
wherein the Dead sleep tast of Corruption Sunt et sua fata sepulchris Tombs themselves have their Dying day And those Marble Quarryes which stand over Princes moulder to dust as do the Bodies lying under them If then an inevitable Necessity of Death or some decay like it lies upon Metals and those solid Bodies which scarcely retain a Cause of Putrefaction within them Certainly Man whose complexion is not Stone nor his Ribbs Brass must be better acquainted with Dust and Rottenness Job 17.14 Say to Corruption thou art my Father and to the worm Thou art my Mother and my Sister Yea so far is He unable to bear off by any Armour he can buckle on the assaults of Death That not the Armour of the Apostle of more curious Temper and better proof than Steel Ephes 6.16 The Shield of Faith and Brest-plate of Righteousness which are able to resist the fiery Darts of Satan can guard him from Death's Dart For even the Best of Men Gods dearest Servants and Saints are the subject of Deaths triumph 2. Of Saints It is Mors Sanctorum the Death of Saints That Nolite tangere Christos meos Psal 105. Touch not mine Annointed which encircles God's Servants and like a Charm Exorcises all other dangers cannot guard Them from this Fiend Death Moses his Body found a Champion to defend It from the Devil Jud. epist ver 9. He found no Champion to fight for Him against Death The Decree is past and not to be reversed Deut. 34.5 He must up to Mount Nebo and there Dye There is no Gluttony like Death The greatest Practitioners in the School of Ryot have at length met a Surfet which hath done that nor Sea nor Land Granges too narrow to serve their excess could ever do Choaked their boundless Appetite But Death is a Glutton unacquainted with Surfet or Satiety Of whom I may say as the Scithian Embassadour once did to Alexander Q. Curt. Vnus es omnium qui satietate parasti famem Satiety to Thee only serves to beget Hunger Not all the Gross Meals the Grand Feasts which Warr or Pestilence have drest could make Him say It is Enough Not all those Messes in the Revelation Revel 19.18 The Flesh of Kings and Captains the flesh of Bond or Free-men Small and Great Provision sufficient for all the Vultures invited to that Supper could make a Competent Meal for Death ver 17. Not all the Rarities of Nature the choicest fruits the world affords Youth gather'd in the Bud and Beauty cropp'd in the flower could satisfie Deaths Palate But after all these services He must have a Feast of Saints cooked in all the barbarous fashious Tyranny and Cruel invention could devise They were Ston'd were saw'n in sunder Hebr. 11.37 Rosted in the Fire Broyl'd on Grid-irons Flead Torn in pieces Brayed in Mortars I have not memory nor language to recite this horrid Bill of Fare Search the Histories of the Church and see it upon Record We should not grudge at this large Allowance made to Death did He feed on Those that would not be missed amongst us Lucan Vulgares Animas trivial Soules and Frustrà peritura cadavera Those unusefull burchens of the Earth who only walk about and talk out their Time having no profession but that of the Athenians to Hear and Telt News Act. 17.21 Well were it for the world did Death remove such unprofitable things as These who like the fruitless Tree in the Gospel only cumber the Earth Did He only exenterate Nature which at first hatch'd this devouring Cokatrice and did not also eat through the Bowels of the Church destroying those Holy Births which lye within her Womb. To our grief we must remember those heavy Stroaks have fallen thick upon us You had one Famous Light Dr. Fern. Bp. of West Chester whose Learning and Exemplary Life shone brightly in the Orb of our English Church extinguished very lately And when that Earth which covered Him is scarcely made up behold here Another worthy follows ready to take his final Lodging in the same Dust Thus doth this Tyrant double His Blow depriving us of Two such incomparable Persons that though you search Their whole Order and Run through our Hierusalem with Lanterns as once the Prophet did you shall not match again Tune duos unâ saevissima vipera caenâ Juvenâ—l Tune Duos Let me play the Satyrist with Death Cruel Viper as thou art Could not One suffice thy ravenous appetite but thou must have Two to gorge upon I need not stay for the answer I find it ready made there Septem Septem si forte fuissent were it possible to find out Seven more like Them His dart is lifted up as ready now to strike as He was then We have cause God knows too much to lament these great Losses in such a barren Time as ours which produceth very few Saints And where Good men are thinly found Like the shaking of the Olive Tree which amongst many Leaves yield perhaps here and there a Berry Knowing that Ten Righteous Persons if so many may be found are able to bear off a Showr of Vengeance and Fire nor less violent than that which fell on Sodom and Gomorrah Gâ—n 1â— 91. Nay One Aaron is authoriz'd to stand in the Gapp betwixt an Offended God and a Sinfull People Indeed the World is now in it's Dotage Creepled and Bed-rid In the last and worst Age So that had it not some few sound Crutches to support it some few Pillars not eaten in by the vices of the Time nor Canker'd by those Opinions which madly fly about not only to the disfiguring our Churches Decency and Order but the shaking and undermining even Her Fundamental Truths It could not subsist Whensoever then a Good man dyes a Shore of the declining world is taken away and a Pillar of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nazi anz ora 〈◊〉 Land Paâ—ris threatning a Ruine to that part where the Stay was broken out It is our best Course therefore to strengthen our remaining Stayes by our Prayers Knowing that the Devil's malice is ever planted against our Best Fortifications assaulting Those most hotly who stand in the Breach For he doth not wound us blindly or by chance but by Election and Judgement So doth his Agent Death cull out the Best Garbling the Race of Men and Commonly leave the refuse Moes optima rapit deterrima relinquit Making us know to our grief that of Hieron to be most true Peccatores terrae habitatores Justi peregrini Sinners are the proper Inhabitants here Saints only sojourn in the world I am a Stranger Psal 39.13 and a Sojourner as all my Fathers were They who justly consider how many Hundreds of Men yield one Saint How many years Religiously spent are required for His probation and How many Virtues go to the Making up of a Saint They who Corsider again how hard
Preach up the Highest Rebellion in the State Fowlâ—st Disorder in the Church that any Age ever knew Yet their umbrageous Phantasies startle now at any thing of Decency Order As if Popery were obtruded in that Sign which hath no other meaning but to signify to the world that we are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ crucified â—iturgy in Publick Bapâ—ism Or Antichrist lurked under that Innocent habit used in the Ministerial Office But I am upon a Theam of Burial due to Christians and in Christian Charity I would Bury these weaknesses too if They be so or not rather Obstinacies only putting Them in mind There cannot be too much Dignity given to the Body when Dead which Living was a Temple of the Holy Ghost That Body which Christ assumed when He took our Flesh That Body In which and For which He Died paying the price of his unvaluable Blood to redeem it Lastly That Body which He will hereafter Glorify and make it Like unto His own Glorious and Incorruptible Body Philip. 3.1 Sure if the Prophet tells you with sorrow That it pitty'd all Eies to see the ruins of decay'd Sion and that the dust and rubbish of it was priz'd and favour'd by them Psal 102.14 Let none disvalue the Bodies of Saints demolished by Death which are more Considerable than the Stones of Sion in her greatest beauty But rather let it be a motive in the Honour of their Funeral Rites to declare how Pretious their Death is in the sight of Men when the Text assures you that it is Pretious in the sight of God 4. In the sight sight of God Should man's ingratitude lose the Remembrance of Those who in their time have best deserved in the World Yet God is not as Man to forget His Servants They need no Monument to preserve nor Epitaphe to innoble them who live in God's Remembrance The Memorial and Name of the wicked Men perisheth like the Dung Psal 9.5 and rotts faster than their Corrupted Bodies but the Just shall be had in everlasting Memory Psal 111.6 There can be no greater motive for Christians to live well than to think Deus videt Senec. God is a spectator of all their Actions whilst They live here Nor can there be a greater terrour to any who by Violence deprive them of that life Than to consider He is the Avenger of His Servants and Saints So the Price He puts upon Them is in Rewarding Them in the next world and Avenging Their Blood in This. Yet I must tell you 1. He Avengeth this speculation of God's Vengeance upon their Destroyers if taken by our own Perspective may deceive us As God doth not alwaies at first Call hear our Prayers when we Invoke His Mercy but takes His own Time to perform what we desire So He doth not ever when we implore His Justice let loose His Thunder to strike Those Men of Blood to whom His severest vengeance is due Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth shew Thy self Psal 93.2 is the Prophets excitation of Him And yet for al this Cry He tells you in another place God makes as if he heard not Yea though he hath pronounced that the Blood-thirsty and deceitful should not live out half their dayes Psal 55.23 we have seen the Gray-hair'd Murtherer finish a large Account of Time and number many years Nay dye in his Bed when Those who deserv'd to be Canoniz'd for Saints and Martyrs have dy'd upon the Scaffold If These men dy the Common death of all men Num. 16.29 then the Lord hath not sent me saith Moses with some indignation in the case of Korah and his fellow Conspirators O Beloved Yee must neither misdoubt us who preach the Certainty of God's Judgments If in Your Ey these Judgments fall not on Them so soon or so severe as you expect Much less must you misjudge God Himself either from the delay of His Vengeance or by permitting them to enjoy Augustus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suetor a quiet and Calm Death We are no competent Judges of God's motion to Revenge no more than of the Means by which He doth accomplish it God sayes Their foot shall slide in due time Deut. 32.35 But then he asks who shall appoint Me the time Jer. 50.44 If He strikes not presently we must not think Him slow or forgetfull 2 Pet. 3.9 The Lord is not slack as some men count Slackness Or if He permits any notorious Offenders to finish their dayes by a Natural Death in their Bed do we know Qualem in conscientiâ sustinent Gehennam what hard contests what sharp Conflicts what Hell their Consciences endure When God threatens He will cast Jesabel upon a Bed Rev. 2.22 Think you this done in favour of Her who seduced His servants to commit Fornication No but to revenge Her Adulteries upon the very Bed whereon she committed them So when He suffers the fowlest Assasinates to dy in their Bed it is not alwayes Mercy but rather as if He Hanged Them at their Own Door making those very Beds on which they proudly stretcht themselves Amos 6.4 and where They contrived their Hellish Machinations the Place of Execution and Torment to Them For my part I shall ever reckon these inverted forms of Justice among the Prodigies which Christ predicted of the Last and worst Times When the Stars should fall from Heaven Mat. 24.29 the Sun be darkned the Moon turn'd to Blood How many Stars in the Sphear of the Church for those Lights are Stars in the Spirit 's compellation have since these unhappy times been darkned Rev. 1.20 How many Nobles have been strook off by violent Death who are Stars in the Orb of the Kingdom How hath the Moon languished under Her Eclipse Queens mourned in Widdowhood and Exile Nay which is a Portent greater than that how hath the most Glorious Sun which ever shone in the Firmament of our English Throne been turn'd to Blood It was a Bloody Time wherein we liv'd of late and sure it was believ'd the New Modell'd State could not thrive unless like the Vine Blood were powr'd at the Root of it Tertullian tells us the Heathen Persecutions gave the President who if the Seasons prov'd unkindly or the Aspect of Heaven frown'd on them in ill weather If they suffer'd Famine or Pestilence If their Designs miscarried by Land or their Adventures by Sea they ran down to the Amphitheater crying Christiani ad Leones Tertui Apologet. Some Christians must be sacrifized to the Teeth of Beasts to mend those Mischiefs You may remember how some Seduced People were incited to run down with Tumultuous Petitions and Confused Clamours for Justice upon Delinquents Alleging their Trade was improsperous for lack of execution done upon Delinquents When they had prevayl'd and by Gross prevarication Law and no Law Laws made for that purpose then Abrogated when the Turn was