heard Moses and the Prophets now hear one from the dead whose life and death would each of them make an excellent Sermon if this dead man had a good interpreter for he being dead yet speaketh and calleth upon us to live well and to live quickly to watch perpetually and to work assiduously for we shall descend into the same shadows of death Linquenda tellus et domus et placens Vxor atque harum quas colis arborum Te praeter in visas Cupressos Nulla brevem Dominum sequetur Thou must leave thy rich land and thy well built house and thy pleasing wife and of all the trees of thy Orchard or thy wood nothing shall attend thee to thy grave but oak for thy Coffin and Cypress for thy funeral It shall not then be inquired how long thou hast liv'd but how well None below will be concerned whither thou wert rich or poor but all the spirits of light and darkness shall be busie in the scrutiny of thy life for the good Angels would fain carry thy soul to Christ and if they do the Devils will follow and accuse thee there and when thou appearest before the righteous judge what will become of thee unless Christ be thy advocate and God be merciful and appeased and the Angels be thy guards and a holy conscience be thy comfort There will to every one of us come a time when we shall with great passion and great interest inquire how have I spent my days how have I laid out my money how have I imployed my time how have I served God and how repented me of my sins and upon our answers to these questions depends a happy or an unhappy Eternitie and blessed is he who concerning these things takes care in time and of this care I may with much confidence and comfort propound to you the example of this good man whose reliques lie before you Sir George Dalston of Dalston in Cumberland a worthy man belov'd of his Country useful to his friends friendly to all men careful of his religion and a true servant of God He was descended of an Antient and a worthy house in Cumberland and he adorned his family and extraction with a more worthy comportment for to be of a worthy family and to bring to it no stock of our proper vertue is to be upbraided by our family and a worthy Father can be no honour to his Son when it shall be said behold the difference this crab descended from a goodly apple-tree but he who beautifies the eschutcheon of his Ancestors by worthy atchievements by learning or by wisdome by valour and by great imployments by a holy life and an useful converlation that man is the parent of his own fame and a new beginner of an Antient family for as conversation is a perpetual creation so is the progression of a family in a line of worthy descendants a dayly beginning of its honour and a new stabiliment He was bred in learning in which Cambridge was his tiring room and the Court of Queen Elizabeth was his stage in which he first represented the part of a hopeful young man but there he stayed not his friends not being desirous that the levities of youth should be fermented by the liberties of a rich and splendid Court caused him to lie in the restraints and to grow ripe in the sobrieties of a Country life and a married state In which as I am informed he behaved himself with so great worthiness thiness and gave such probation of his love of justice popular regards of his Countries good and abilities to serve them that for almost 40. years together his Country chose him for their Knight to serve in all the intervening parliaments Magistratus indicatorium imployment shews the man he was a leading man in Parliaments prevailing there by the great reputation of his justice and integrity and yet he was not unpleasant and hated at Court for he had well understood that the true interest of Courts and Parliaments were one and that they are like the humours of the body if you increase one beyond its limit that destroys all the rest and it self at last and when they look upon themselves as enemies and that hot and cold must fight the prevailing part is abated in the conflict and the vanquish'd part is destroyed but when they look upon themselves as varieties serving the differing aspects and necessities of the same body they are for the allay of each others exorbitances and excesses and by keeping their own measures they preserve the man this the good man well understood for so he comported himself that he was loud in Parliaments and valued at Court he was respected in very many Parliaments and was worthily regarded by the worthy Kings which without an Orator commends a man Gravissimi principis judicium in minoribus etiam rebus consequi pulchrum est said Rliny To be approved though but in lesser matters by the judgement of a wise Prince is a great ornament to the man For as King Theodoric in Cassiodore said Nequen dignus est à quopiam redargui qui nostro judicio meretur absolvi No man ought to reprove him whom the King commends But I need no artifices to represent him worthy his arguments of probation were within in the magazines of a good heart and represented themselves by worthy actions For God was pleased to invest him with a marvailous sweet Nature which is certainly to be reckoned as one half of the grace of God because a good nature being the reliques and remains of that ship wrack which Adam made is the proper and immediate disposition to holiness as the corruption of Adam was to disobedience and peevish Councels A good nature will not upbraid the more imperfect persons will not deride the ignorant will not reproach the erring man will not smite sinners on the face will not despise the penitent A good Nature is apt to forgive injuries to pitty the miserable to rescue the oppressed to make every ones condition as tolerable as he can and so would he For as when good Nature is heightned by the grace of God that which was natural becomes now spiritual so these actions which proceeded from an excellent nature and were pleasing and useful to men when they derive from a new principle of grace they become pleasant in the eyes of God then obedience to laws is duty to God justice is righteousness bounty becomes graciousness and alms is charity And indeed this is a grace in which this good man was very remarkable being very frequent and much in alms tender hearted to the poor open handed to relieve their needs the bellies of the poor did bless him he filled them with food and gladness and I have heard that he was so regular so constant so free in this duty that in these late unhappy wars being in a garison and neer the suffering some rude accidents the beggars made themselves his guard and rescued him
{non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes Aristotle But the soul only comes from abroad from a Divine principle for so saith the Scripture God breathed into Adam the spirit of life and that which in operation does not communicate with the body shall have no part in its corruption Thus far they were right but when they descended to particulars they fell into error That the rewards of vertue were to be hereafter that they were sure of that the soul was to survive the calamities of this world and the death of the body that they were sure of and upon this account they did bravely and vertuously and yet they that thought best amongst them believed that the souls departed should be reinvested with other bodies according to the dispositions and capacities of this life Thus Orpheus who sang well should transmigrate into a Swan and the soul of Thamyris who had as good a voice as he should wander till it were confined to the body of a Nightingal Ajax to a Lion Agamemnon to an Eagle Tyrant princes into wolvs and Hawks the lascivious into Asses and Goats the Drunkards into Swine the Crafty Statesmen into bees and pismires and Thersites to an Ape This fancy of theirs prevailed much amongst the common people and the uninstructed amongst the Jews for when Christ appeared so glorious in miracle Herod presently fancied him to be the soul of Iohn the Baptist in another body and the common people said he was Elias or Ieremias or one of the old Prophets And true it is that although God was pleased in all times to communicate to mankind notices of the other world sufficient to encourage vertues and to contest against the rencontres of the world yet he was ever sparing in telling the secrets of it and when St. Paul had his rapture into Heaven he saw fine things and heard strange words but they were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} words that he could not speak and secrets that he could not understand and secrets that he could not communicate For as a man staring upon the broad eye of the Sun at his noon of Solstice feels his heat and dwells in light and loses the sight of his eyes and perceives nothing distinctly but the Organ is confounded and the faculty amazed with too big a beauty So was S. Paul in his extasy he saw that he could see nothing to be told below and he perceived the glories were too big for flesh and blood and that the beauties of separate souls were not to be understood by the soul in Conjunction and therefore after all the fine things that he saw we only know what we knew before viz. that the soul can live when the body is dead that it can subsist without the body that there are very great glories reserved for them that serve God that they who die in Christ shall live with him that the body is a prison and the soul is in fetters while we are alive and that when the body dies the soul springs and leaps from her prison and enters into the first liberty of the sons of God Now much of this did rely upon the same argument upon which the wise Gentiles of old concluded the immortality of the soul even because we are here very miserable and very poor we are sick and we are afflicted we do well and are disgraced we speak well and we are derided we tell truths and few believe us but the proud are exalted and the wicked are delivered and evil men reign over us and the covetous snatch our little bundles of money from us and the Fiscus gathers our rents and every where the wisest and the best men are oppressed but therefore because it is thus and thus it is not well we hope for some great good thing hereafter For if in this life only we had hope then we Christians all we to whom persecution is allotted for our portion we who must be patient under the Crosse and receive injuries and say nothing but prayers we certainly were of all men the most miserable Well then in this life we see plainly that our portion is not here we have hopes but not here only we shall goe into another place where we shall have more hopes our faith shall have more evidence it shall be of things seen afar off and our hopes shall be of more certainty and perspicuity and next to possession we shall have very much good and be very sure of much more Here then are three propositions to be considered 1. The Servants of God in this world are very miserable were it not for their hopes of what is to come hereafter 2. Though this be a place of hopes yet we have not our hopes only here If in this life only we had hopes saith the Apostle meaning that in another life also we have hopes not only metonymically taking hopes for the things we hope for but properly and for the acts objects and causes of hope In the state of separation the godly shall have the vast joyes of a certain intuitive hope according to their several proportions and capacities 3. The consummation and perfection of their felicity when all their miseries shall be changed into glories is in the world to come after the resurrection of the dead which is the main thing which S. Paul here intends 1. The servants of God in this life are calamitous and afflicted they must live under the Crosse He that will be my Disciple let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me said our Glorious Lord and Master And we see this Prophetic precept for it is both a Prophecy and a Commandment and therefore shall be obeyed whether we will or no but I say we see it verified by the experience of every day For here the violent oppress the meek and they that are charitable shall receive injuries The Apostles who preach'd Christ crucified were themselves persecuted and put to violent deaths and Christianity it selfe for three hundred years was the publick hatred and yet then it was that men loved God best and suffered more for him then they did most good and least of evill In this world men thrive by villany and lying and deceiving is accounted just and to be rich is to be wise and tyranny is honourable and though little thefts and petty mischiefs are interrupted by the laws yet if a mischief become publick and great acted by Princes and effected by armies and robberies be done by whole fleets it is vertue and it is glory it fills the mouths of fools that wonder and imployes the pens of witty men that eat the bread of flattery How many thousand bottles of tears and how many millions of sighs does God every day record while the oppressed and the poor pray unto him worship him speak great things of his holy Name study to please him beg for helps that they may become gracious in his eyes and are so and yet never
from that trouble who had so often rescued them from hunger He was of a meek and gentle spirit but not too soft he knew how to do good and how to put by an injury but I have heard it told by them that knew his life that being by the unavoidable trouble of a great estate ingag'd in great suits at law he was never Plaintiffe but always upon the defensive part and that he had reason on his side and justice for him I need alledge no other testimony but that the sentence of his Judges so declared it But that in which I propound this good man most imitable was in his religion for he was a great lover of the Church a constant attender to the Sermons of the Church a diligent hearer of the prayers of the Church and and an obedient son to perform the commands of the Church He was diligent in his times and circumstances of devotion he would often be at Church so early that he was seen to walk long in the Churhyard before prayers being as ready to confess his sins at the beginning as to receive the blessing at the end of prayers Indeed he was so great a lover of Sermons that though he knew how to value that which was the best yet he was patient of that which was not so and if he could not learn any thing to improve his faith yet he would finde something to exercise his patience and something for charity yet this his great love of Sermons could not tempt him to a willingness of neglecting the prayers of the Church of which he was a great lover to his dying day Oves meae exaudiunt vocem meam says Christ my sheep hear my voice and so the Church says my sheep hear my voice they love my words they pray in my forms they observe my orders they delight in my offices they revere my Ministers and obey my constitutions and so did he loving to have his soul recommended to God and his needs represented and his sins confessed and his pardon implored in the words of his Mother in the voice and accent of her that nurs'd him up to a spiritual life to be a man in Christ Jesus He was indeed a great lover and had a great regard for Gods Ministers ever remembring the words of God keep my rest and reverence my Priests he honoured the calling in all but he loved and revered the persons of such who were conscientious keepers of their depositum that trust which was committed to them such which did not for interest quit their conscience and did not to preserve some parts of their revenue quit some portions of their religion He knew that what was true in 1639. was also true in 1644. and so to 57. and shall continue true to eternal ages and they that change their perswasions by force or interest did neither believe well nor ill upon competent and just grounds they are not just though they happen on the right side Hope of gain did by chance teach them well and fear of loss abuses them directly He pitied the persecuted and never would take part with persecutors he prayed for his Prince and serv'd him in what he could he loved God and lov'd the Church he was a lover of his Countries liberties and yet an observer of the laws of his King Thus he behaved himself to all his superior relatives to his equals and descendants he was also just and kinde and loving He was an excellent friend laying out his own interest to serve theirs sparing not himself that he might serve them as knowing society to be the advantage of mans nature and friendship the ornament of society and usefulness the ornament of friendship and in this he was known to be very worthy He was tender and carefull of his children and so provident and wife so loving and obliging to his whole family that he justly had that love and regard that duty and observance from them which his kindness and his care had merited He was a provident and carefull conductor of his estate but farre from covetousness as appeared toward the evening of his life in which that vice does usually prevail amongst old men who are more greedy when they have least need and and load their sumpters so much the more by how much neerer they are to their journeys end but he made a demonstration of the contrary for he washed his hands and heart of the world gave up his estate long before his death or sickness to be managed by his only son whom he left since but then first made and saw him his heir he emptied his hands of secular imployment medled not with money but for the uses of the poor for piety for justice and religion And now having devested himself of all objections and in his conversation with the world quitting his affections to it he wholly gave himself to religion and devotion He waken'd early and would presently be entertained with reading when he rose still he would be read to and hear some of the Psalms of David and excepting only what time he took for the necessities of his life and health all the rest he gave to prayer reading and meditation save only that he did not neglect or rudely entertain the visits and kinde offices of his neighbours But in this great vacation from the world he espied his advantages he knew well according to that saying of the Emperor Charles 5. oportet inter vitae negotia diem mortis spatium aliquod intercedere there ought to be a valley between two such mountains the businesses of our life and the troubles of our death and he stayed not till the noise of the bridegrooms coming did awaken and affright him but by daily prayers twice a day constantly with his family besides the piety and devotion of his own retirements by a monethly communion by weekly Sermons and by the religion of every day he stood in precincts ready with oyle in his lamp watching till his Lord should call And indeed when he was hearing what God did speak to him of duty he also received his summons to give his account For he was so pertinacious an attendant to Gods holy word and the services of the Church that though he found himself sick he would not off but stay till the solemnity was done but it pleased God at Church to give him his first arrest and since that time I have often visited him and found him alwayes doing his work with the greatest evennes and indifferency of spirit as to the event of life and death that I have observed in any He was not unwilling to live but if he should he resolved to spend his life wholly in the service of God but yet neither was he unwilling to die because he then knew he should weep no more and he should sin no more He was very confident but yet with great humility and great modesty of the pardon of his sins he had indeed lived