A SERMON PREACHED AT St. MARGARETS IN WESTMINSTER At the Funeral of M rs SUSANNA GRAY Daughter of Henry Gray Esq of Enfield in Staffordshire who on the 29 of October 1654. began her Eternal Sabbath Come Lord Iesus come quickly And it was a custom in Israel that the daughters of Israel went yeerly to lament the daughter of Jeptha the Gileadite four dayes in a year Judges 11. ult LONDON Printed by F. L. 1657. 2 Sam 12.15 to 24. v. 22 23. And he said while the Child was yet alive I fasted and wept For I said who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the Child may live 23 But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall goe to him but he shall not return to me IT is not only the wonder of of Davids Servants but of all that read the Story why David should fast and weep while the Child was yet alive and dry up his tears upon the first news of the Childs death why he should mourn and afflict himself while there was some hopes with the fear of that death which he mourn'd not when it happened This is so contrary to the Custom and Manners of most men that seek the chiefest relief and ease of their miseries from their complaints and sorrows and indulge the sad remembrance of their Losses as a kind of Reparation and Remedy while they recover them at least in their memories and find them represented in their tears and therefore at the death of friends they invite others to bear a part with them in their grief and lamentation Yet seeing David was a man after Gods own heart and therefore his Temper and very complexion more refin'd and purified with holy allayes and even his passions are more to be imitated by us for a good man is a living rule to others his example the best Sermon and most pleasing direction to us who are ever sociable sinners or Saints and regard more what we see others doe than what we ought to doe Let us Learn here from David not from the funeral Preacher how we are to behave our selves what we are to doe in the sicknesse and death of friends whether Children or other near Relations This one example leads us through all the Duties we owe to others in the saddest cases this directs us 1. How to behave our selves amidst the confusion of fears and hopes in the sicknesses of our friends 1st To seek to God before the Phisician to distill our Tears for Balm and apply our Prayers for their first Cure to lend them breath from our Petitions from our sobs and cryes before the sentence of death be pass'd Who can tell whether God will have mercy on us and not bereave us of so great content 2ly How to appease and moderate our grief after the death of others which we could not by our tears or prayers prevent But now he is dead wherefore should I fast should I mourn or afflict my self Can I bring him back again 3ly How to return to our selves having lost our Friends and from the death of others to prepare for our own I shall goe to him but he shall not return to me These 3 Considerations will best represent the Pattern in the most lively practical Lines for our imitation and serve best to turn this story into an usefull moral How we are to behave our selves in the sicknesses and visitations of others Here good nature will joyn with piety to enforce these duties We are to consider what ever present visitations as the effects and punishments of our sins as well as theirs who are visited particularly indeed This was manifest in this case of David where the Child being truly conceived in the sin of the Father and born in the iniquity of the Mother in adultery could have the shame and stain of his birth only blotted out by death and covered by the Grave But this may be a safe usefull and proper consideration in the visitation of any Friend to look upon his disease as bred from Gods anger against us his punishment of our sins as well as from his own distemper How know'st thou whether God takes him from thee as he did St. Austins friend to free him from thy corruptions who wert apter to delight in him as an associate or brother in Iniquity in Luxury as that friend in Minutius in erroribus socius in amoribus conscius as a partner in sins a ready assistant in unlawfull pleasures and confident in wild excesses endeared by mutual secrecy and society in vice then as that friend charactered by the Psalmist a friend with whom thou mightest take sweet counsell together and goe up together to the house of the Lord whence it is that God snatcheth him from thee as Lot out of Sodom to prevent his infection first and then his destruction by thy sins or else to free thee frō thy immoderate Love and Carnal Affection God removes the Object and thus with Iealousie courts thy affection he suffers thee to enjoy nothing over much which should share in that Love and Devotion which thou owest to God alone Thus looking on children on friends as greater stayes and contents of life as so many Pins to fasten your Tabernacle on the earth God loosens the Pins to loosen your affections from the earth and by degrees to bring you to a stricter dependance on him Out of the sence of this so affectionate design of our jealous God did the noble Matron Melania entertain the death of a Husband and two Sons at once with that pious Exclamation Expeditius tibi servitura sum Domine quia me tanto onere liberasti Thou hast O my Lord provided that I may henceforth serve thee more freely having released thy servant from so great incumbrances and distractions In this regard David here used the most proper Cure of Gods anger and his own carnal affections fasting weeping and praying Who can tell whether God will have mercy on me forgive me my sin and delinquency for which the Child is sentenc'd to death that the Child may live This Remedy of Praying and Fasting for our own sins in Another is like the weapon-salve that doth so strange and secret cures being apply'd to the putrify'd matter and the guilty weapon that made the wound not to the patient 2. This Consideration that sicknesses being but the Attachments and approaches of death are as death is said to be the wages of sin sets us on our first work To remove the Cause our sins before we may hope to take away the Effect the disease of our friend This Order the ancient Canons seem'd to point at which enjoyned the sick to send for his Confessor before his Physician Think then thy friends consumption proceeds from thy languishing towards God from the decay of holy heat and zeal in thee Think his Feaver but a just judgement on thy impure flames of Lust or Envy or Revenge or thy immoderate
distraction in Religion The Heaviness of heart for Christs departure caus'd the Disciples to sleep when they should have watched and pray'd St. Gregory breaks off his Comment on Ezekiel to write Epitaphs on his Son as Aaron omits the evening sacrifice or a great part of the Ceremonie at his Sons death 2 In regard of the object we are to mourn for sins first and then for afflictions sicknesses deaths as the Effects and Consequents of sin So that death and other evils are the improper and secondary objects of sorrow Sin the onely proper object of grief and just cause of tears Because 1st Sin is the only evil John 17.15 being the cause of all other evils and without which miseries themselves are not miserable but are turned to the innocent to Exercises of their graces and occasions of redoubled Rewards and Glories 2. Sorrow in other evils save in sins only is useless and brings no proper remedy but adds more disquiet to our troubles Our tears naturally fall upon our breasts as it were to wash the stains of that part and are not to be wasted over graves that may save souls Our tears 't was the complaint of St. Chrysâ—stome are most abus'd by us wee lavish and spend them where they are not availeable on outward evils or over the dead We seldom saith he weep in the right place But as sins first deserve our sorrow so affliction and misery the consequents of sin more sensibly provoke our griefs and are indeed the just but secondary cause and objects of Sorrow Whence Sicknesses and Deaths are to be considered look'd on as the wages nothing surer than the Hirelings wages the effects and consequents of Sin For first so Sin and Affliction in Scripture are both represented under the name of Death Open my eyes O Lord that I sleep not in death that is in Sin that leads unto Death Ps 13.3 Pray unto the Lord to take away this death only Exod. 10.17 that is the plague of Vermin that did not so much threaten to destroy as to disquiet Pharoabs life In the Prophet Ezek. 7. sword without and death within is threatned when Famine Plague and other messengers of death are denounced whereupon the wise man concludes safely Prov. 8.38 He that loves sin loves death 2. To look on Affliction otherwise as not sent by providence either to punish or to discipline us as the Fiery Tryal either to refine and purge to better us or to consume us as the Wind either to fanne or to scatter us utterly is to look on them no otherwise than the Heathen as Chances and the casual events of the Fates Thus to bear them as things of course without any thoughts of Sin is to say that afflictioÌ„ riseth out of the dust or what is a blasphemy God less endureth That God willingly grieveth the children of men Jupiter non nocet nisi ut prosit Sen. From this consideration that Death and all other evils are the effects and consequents of Sin will follow these father Inferences 1. Against security in health or youth that as Death came into the world by Sin so it came over all the world in that all have sinned that we may not wonder when we find Children conceived in Sin should have death bequeathed to them before they are well entred into life Whence they which are not marks large enough for any of Deaths darts for any wound are yet wounded so often by it and find their grave in the womb that even the Child that is not grown to Davids span is yet old enough to die No security in any place or state of life while we carry about us not a body only but a soule temper'd with contrary and corrupt humors and a body of sin and death as well as of flesh We may conclude with the Apostle Rom 8.10 The body is dead through sin VVhat wonder if so many are cut off in the flower of their strength e're they well know how to live and lesse how to die 'T is the sinner not the sick or aged person dies Paradice alone had the tree of Life in it when Adam was cast out of that into this our Farth he brought nothing but Death and the Emblemes of Mortality See him no sooner faln than cast out of Paradice a flaming sword and a destroying Angel driving him from the Tree of Life the skins of Beasts that is Mortality it self serving to cover him and at last he condemn'd to dig continually the earth and to prepare his own Grave His posterity ever since feeding their Luxury and sustaining their life with the death of birds and beasts mortibus vescimur doth not he seem to have planted in this our earth the tree of Death whereon all the fruits perish e'r they come to maturity some in the bud others in the growth VVe passe through so many deaths to Eternal life from the womb of the mother of the world of the earth to heaven In the midst of life we are in death and like sentenc'd persons under a reprieve however we are permitted to live yet to enjoy no certaintie of life as not knowing when we may be called forth to execution VVhile we walk upon earth we alwayes tread over our graves and know not whether our next step may bring us into it For our bed is made in the dark and our graves lie ready open for us but as pits covered with snow 2 Against impatience or Immoderat sorrow If sin brings forth death we are to coÌ„sider death as an evil not so much inflicted by God as drawn upon our selves by our own deserts as it were our own choice and therefore with more patience to be indured Wisd c. 1.13 16. God made not death adeo non est creatione sed ordinatione aut ultione in poenam peccati he fram'd it not he meant it not for a creature but ordain'd it for a punishment of his disobedient creature for then should the great work-man have destroy'd his own works which yet he allow'd to be good the Creator should have been the Abbaddon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Confounder of his own creature but death was the creature of Mans Invention and as his own brood makes way for its birth like the Viper by eating through the entrails of the Parent 3. Against fear of death as well as sorrow that as other Afflictions so death in its self is not simply evil and therefore not simply to be fear'd or mourn'd but in reference to sin the sting of death is sin Sin alone makes death deadly and miseries miserable Death like those creatures which take their colours from the place to which they cleave as the Polypus and Camaeleon becomes good or evill as the persons are to whom it happens It is the voice from Heaven could our dull earth be perswaded to hear it that they are blessed who die in the Lord What is it then we mourn for either our friends losse who is more
affection towards him his Lamenesse upbraids thy halting between God and the world his Stone the Symptome of the hardnesse of thy heart his bad spleen argues thy rotten malice and what ever corruptions answering still some more corrupt desires of thy Soul so wilt thou find as great necessity to Phisick and purge thy Soul as the others body 3. After the Cause is removed by washing away with thy tears thine own or thy friends stams then mayst thou safely orderly and as the Physicians prescribe secundum artem proceed to remove the Effect to use all the means God allows for recovery for to this end saith the wise man God created the Phisician as well as the herbs of the field for the time of need Only remember that you first beg the life of God before you seek it from the Phisician 'T was Asahs fault not that he sought the Phisician but that he did not seek the Lord 2 Chron. 16.12 only as you use the means so trust not in them but in Gods blessing and believe they have no farther operation or vertue than while they are joyn'd with your Prayers Epaphroditus Recovery St. Paul ascribes to Gods mercy on him and on the Corinthians but his mercy awakened by prayers Phil. 2.26 27. his own preservation from the sentence of death pass'd against him at Ephesus to combate with wild beasts 1 Cor. 15 32. which was drawn upon him by more Salvage Beasts Demetrius and his Silver Smithes Act. 19.24 he imputes to the Prayers of the Corinthians 2 Cor. 1.8 9 10 11. Who knowes whether our letting our hands fall from prayer hath not caus'd death to prevail over the person we now mourn for 2. Duty or enquiry How we are to moderate our grief in the death of near Relations which by these degrees will be discovered 1. Some affections some natural passions are not to be denied God doth not like the Lacedemonians load his Children with stripes and require that hardinesse in them that they should return no signs of griefs nor groans at all 'T is no stoical Apathy no senselesse stupidity God requires but only patience under his chastisements for if we did not feel the blow how should we look up to the hand that smites us How should affliction lead us to godly sorrow but by that sensible sorrow which is according to the world that which is natural is first and then that which is spiritual Even worldly sadnesse and melancholly is a good disposition to Devotion and a fair degree to an humble temper We find our Saviour weeping over Lazarus Grave insomuch as the people could inferr thence See how much he loved him John 11.35 36. I know no Divinity but that which the Sword and the Spirit unlike that which came in the shape of a Dove hath framed in this latter age that excludes humanity but delights always to plant it self in soft breasts and either makes or finds good nature I find in the Catalogue and Spawne of highest Crimes which the dreggs of these last times should bring forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 want of natural affection reckoned 2 Tim. 33. and that joyn'd with Haters of God Truce breakers False Accusers unthankfull cursed Speakers having a shew of godlinesse and denying the power thereof Rom. 1.30 And the Apostle argues it strongly How can he love God whom he hath not seen who loves not his brother whom he hath seen So then t is not only not unlawfull but a duty to mourn with those that mourn if you will receive the Apostles Prescription Rom. 12.15 It is in the Scripture noted as an extream judgement and curse on the wicked Job 27.15 Ps 78.64 his Widows shall not weep as either wanting leasure from other sorrows or liberty from their cruel enemies or oppressed with Gods sore displeasure so far as to yeeld and acknowledge the just curse with silence Jer 16.5.7 or else having spent their tears and grief and dryed up the fountain of sorrow their very heart Ezek. 24.16 17.22.23 that the heaviest judgement you shall not mourn nor weep but shall pine away in your iniquity and mourn one towards another for one to comfort another c. Tears are the first office we do for our selves and the last for others They may not please themselves that can with dryest eyes behold the sicknesses the losses the Funerals of Friends as who had attain'd a greater measure of Religion or Discretion or the Spirit or who had subdued their desires to a perfecter Resignation and submission to Gods will Let them question themselves whether this Apathy this stoutness proceeds not from a spirit void of sense and natural affection and not from an humble Resignation to the Providence and pleasure of God whether this calm arise not alike to that of the dead Sea from a curse 2. On the other side Though Religion forbids not mourning yet it forbids us to mourn as those that have no hopes Though it excludes not all grief yet it moderates our grief and teacheth us to turne our sadness to an holy sorrow our melancholly to devotion and convert our discontents to repentance Religion otherwise will require us to weep our Carnal Tears over again when they flow either from immoderate or mere worldly sorrow Hence then we are to enquire 3. How farr we are to mourn For what and how we are to grieve and and that either in regard of the Object or Measure of our grief 1. In regard of the measure of our grief we are so far to mourn as we joyn prayers with our tears so far which is the true measure of all our passions by which we may discern when they are immoderate as not to indulge fruitless tears and complaints instead of real duties When our passions hinder not the free use of reason and Religion and take not up the place of other Services when they cause us not to omit the Evening Sacrifice as Aaron did upon grief for the death of his two Sons Nadab and Abihu Lev. 10. ult which yet Moses is said to be content with and God to permit not that he indulgeth more the extremities of this passion which most banisheth the sense of Humanity or Piety but in regard of some holy Reflection in this his greif that included some sorrow for the scandal and breach of Gods worship This may be some cause why God would not permit his Priests that naturall Affection to mourn for any friends but their nearest kin Lev. 21.2 Lest it should make them lesse holy God would have them less humane then others He would have them esteem no relation so near to them as that of God and his Service He suffers them not to grieve for the loss of any thing while they may in so near a distance enjoy God the reason is alleaged verse 6. In them it is interpreted Profaneness what in others were but a commendable affection and sign of a good nature seeing sorrow indulg'd must needs bring with it some