employment in the seruice of God then he may say Egredere anima mea go out my soule why shouldst thou feare approaching vnto him whom thou hast serued so long when Elias can plead a sufficit then tolle animam may come after it O the secure life of good men when death is expected without feare entertained with chearefull welcome nay prayed and wished for with sweet deuotion In the second Argument take notice of his modesty he esteemes himselfe though wonderfully qualified no better then his Fathers If some small portion of Elias modesty were left in the world any blush of vertuous bashfulnesse the vile would not in the Prophets phrase presume aboue the Honourable nor the vpstart so highly disdaine their Ancesters preferring the false and fading beauty of recent opinions before the amiable wrinkles in the face of aged truth St. Paul says he serued God from his elders and progenitors from whom hee receiued his being and existencie from them hee tooke his piety and religion and he commends the deriuatiue faith of Timothy descending from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice And here Elias making honourable mention of his Predecessors tels vs wee owe vnto them a double memory First of their liues as Adamants to draw vs to the imitating of their vertues Secondly of their deaths as monitors to put vs in minde of our owne mortality All vertues Morall and Diuine haue beene by our Ancestors most fully exemplified when a Poet would encourage a young Sparke to noble vndertakings hee doth it by this very way Te Pater Aeneas auunculus excitet Hector Let thy father Aeneas and thy vncle Hector bee thy Guides Would you learne faith and confidence in God thinke vpon your Predecessor Abraham the Father of the faithfull Desire you to leade a pure chaste life thinke vpon your Predecessor Joseph Would you meekly sustaine afflictions of minde and tormenting diseases of body thinke vpon your Predecessor Iob would you bee zealous in the cause of God and his Orthodox truth thinke vpon your Predecessor Elias The Wisemen of the East had but one Starre to guide them vnto our Sauiours cradle but we so many of our Predecessors as haue led holy and Regular liues so many Starres enlightning our way so many Loadstones to draw vs vnto goodnesse our Ancestors hauing runne their Race resigned the torches of their life and withall left vs the lampes and lights of their example 2. It is very good and wholsome for them also who spend their dayes in sinne and vanity to reflect their eye vpon theyr Predecessors Let the couetous ayming at wealth and doing no good with it thinke vpon his Predecessor Nabal who tenne dayes together lay as a block without sence motion or shew of life Let the Ambitious aspirer thinke vpon his Predecessor Absolon meeting with a tree in the forrest which heard not his fathers Caueat for his life but became the Reuenger of his ingratitude and the fatall instrument of his destruction Let the Lasciuious wanton wallowing in sensuall delights thinke of his Predecessor Zimri dying in the act of his sinne Let the Capacious Funnell able to do as much alone as Zerxes multitudinous Army dry vp an Hellespont thinke vpon his Predecessor Balthazar perishing in his carowsing Bowles Let the vayne-glorious boaster proud of what is not his own think of his predecessor worm-eaten Herode cut off in the midst of his glorious Harangue And let all true Repentant sinners thinke on theyr Predecessor Dauid whose bed swamme in teares and of the three sillables reconciling his angry God vnto him of his Predecessor Peter recouering more grace by weeping then hee lost by sinning of his Predecessor Mary Magdalen who became a Lebete Phiala of a Cauldron seething and boyling in lust a Christall viall of pure Chastity And let all disconsolate soules flying with Elias for shelten to the Iunipertree thinke of their Predecessor Jesus who dyed on the tree vnder his Crosse is the true shade Oh good and desirable is the shadow vnder thy wings Lord Jesus there is the safe Sanctuary to flye vnto the most comfortable refreshing of all sinne and sorrow whatsoeuer cups of affliction this life propines vnto vs is nothing to the bitter draughts hee dranke vpon the Crosse who inuites to heauen Let vs all thinke of our Predecessor treading the Paths of death before vs wee haue erred with our Fathers wee are Pilgrimes and strangers vpon earth as all our Fathers were wee must dye as our Fathers did For we are no better then our Fathers The third and last part is the prayer it selfe Tolle animam out of it there doe naturally flow these two Corallaries The first that life is no such Iewell but a good man may finde time and cause to bee weary of it or else Elias had neuer beene at tolle animam The second that there is a more blessed life after this life or else Elias could not haue bene so mad as prodigally to cast away his life present To the first Life may be considered two wayes First as God at first gaue it Secondly as wee now enioy it The life which God gaue had fiue prerogatiues two without man three within him without him God and his blessed Angels to protect him besides Paradise the pleasing seate of his Habitation Within him Knowledge Righteousnesse and Immortality his knowledge exceeding ours in three particulars First in amplitude and extent reaching to God the creatures and himselfe Secondly in the excellent manner not as we by coniecturall probability deriued from effects but by euident demonstration out of the causes Thirdly for duration or continuance ours is gotten with difficulty aud easily lost either by discontinued intermission and cessation or the braine and fancy may be distempered as in a Phrensy or the memory dulled as in a Lethargy Secondly man was created Righteous that Righteousnesse was the rectitude and integrity of the whole man whereby his soule was obedient vnto God his body to the soule This was the Crowne and Diadem of mans life Thou hast Crowned him with glory and worshippe adorned him with grace and holinesse An happy life was that wherein Methusalem liuing almost a thousand yeeres should not haue offended once whereas now the most righteous man fals seauen times that is often-times a day Lastly that was a kinde of Immortall life a thing is said to be incorruptible three wayes First in respect of the matter either which it hath not as the Angels are immortall those pure and immateriall substances or in respect of the matter which it hath as the Heauens the matter whereof they are made being insusceptible of any forme but one Secondly in regard of the forme so the body of Adam was immortall as the widdowes oyle lasted in the cruse without diminution so might his body haue endured without corruption and that by the third the efficient cause not by any inherent quality or disposition in the body but
ELIAH'S WISH A PRAYER FOR DEATH A Sermon preached at the Funerall of the Right Honourable Viscount Sudbury Lord BAYNING By Ro WILLAN D. D. Chaplaine to his Maiesty Vita vitae mortalis spes vitae immortalis Aug. Printed at London for I. S. Hypo Bibliothecary of Syon Colledge and are to be sold by Richâ—rd Royston at his shoppe in Iuie-Lane 1630. To the Right Honourable ANNE Viscountesse of Sudbury c. Right Honourable THis exiguous Tract belongs vnto you by a manifold Right First it is a Sermon of Elias and whither should Elias goe for succour but vnto the widdow of Sareptah such an one are you a Noble Patronesse of the Prophets besides you haue a sad interest in it as being preached for him who when hee obtained the Lawrell left you the Cypres not to lament him for it is a kind of enuy to bewayle those in happinesse but your owne hard condition vnder the miserable title of a widdow Last of all as the Egiptian law made women Recluses forbidding them to goe abroad so custome barring noble widdowes from ceremoniall and solemne sorrow confining them to closset mourning secret greefe is most sharpe and teares shed in priuate as they fall lesse visible so lesse forced it had beene inhumanity in mee to deny you reading of what you could not heare Accept then these lines wherein you may behold so true a Portrayture of your deceased Lord that those which enuyed him cannot obiect flattery nor such as lou'd and honour'd him detraction to the Pencill Thus hauing full filled your desired wish I fall to my owne wishes which are that whether you remaine in the disconsolate estate you are as Anna did or God hath designed you to bee a Ruth the fundatresse of another Noble family the God of Heauen who hath already giuen you the blessings at his left hand Honour Riches and all endowments adorning your sexe may adde length of dayes in the practice of Religious duties and charitable deedes vntill hee bring you to the blissefull vision of himselfe so hee prayes who is Your deuoted Beads-man Ro WILLAN To the Reader HAuing by much importune labour receiued from Noble hands a Coppy of this Sermon out of a confidence that one passage therein celebrating our first Benefactor Viscount Sudbury may doe good to the Library of Syon Colledge whereof I am a Keeper I haue aduentured without consent of the Author to put it vpon thy censure not doubting if I can procure his pardon to promerit thy thankes and so Farewell From Syon Colledge Aprill 12. 1630. Thine Iohn Spencer ELIAH'S WISH 1 KINGS 19. 4 It is now enough O Lord take my soule for I am no better then my Fathers THere are no thoughts more wholsome then those of death not any lesse frequently possessing the mindes of men wee thinke of death as the Athenians did treate of peace neuer but when we are in blacks As they which aduenture to the Indies take not so much into their considerations how many shippes haue beene swallowed in the waues as what some few haue gotten by the voyage So it is with vs we seldome meditate of the Millions dead before vs but of the small Remainder suruiuing with vs. They report that the birds of Norway flye faster then the fowles of any other Countrey not because nature hath giuen more nimblenesse or agility to their wings but by an instinct they know the dayes in that Climate to bee very short not aboue three houres long and therefore they make more haste vnto their nests Strange that birds should make such vse of their obseruation and wee practically knowing the shortnesse of our liues yet make no haste to our home the house appointed for all liuing This God complaineth of The Storke knoweth her appointed time but my people know not the Judgement of the Lord And by another he wisheth their vnderstandings were not so deordinate as to forget their last end Our eyes behold all things yet see they not themselues but by reflection in a looking glasse Here are two looking glasses one vpon the Hearse informing vs that neither Wisedome nor Honour nor Wealth nor Strength nor Friends nor Physicke nor Prayers are sufficient Parapets to shelter vs from the stroke of death Here is another looking glasse in the Text expressing the miserable condition of our liues If all the inuentions of Hierogliphicall learning which St. Origen compared to the Jewes Manna falling downe in round and little Cakes yet affoording good nourishment so they in small shadowes conueyed excel-cellent wisedomes If all of them had strained their wits for an Embleme to decipher the wretched estate of a liuing man they could not come neere the patterne in the Text. Doe but paint Elias sitting vnder the Iuniper tree in a forlorne posture with his face betweene his knees The Motto the words of the Text It is now enough O Lord take away my soule for I am no better then my Fathers and you haue life portrayed to life Elias was the first man vnto whom God resigned his key of life and gaue him power to raise the dead Elias was the sole man whom God honoured with a Charriot for his conueiance into the other world Elias was the second man elected to represent heauenly glory vpon earth at the transfiguration of our Lord Jesus and this man whilst hee was in this life was weary of his life and puts vp a Supplication to almighty God to take it from him The words containe a Prayer Good is the proper obiect of prayer we may deprecate euill but pray onely for that which is good This prayer is for death which in it selfe is neither good nor euill That we may the better conceiue the true scope it is fit that wee should take into our considerations these three particulars 1 The motiues preceding and producing the Prayer 2 The Arguments enforcing the Prayer 3 The third and last The Prayer it selfe A question will be asked in the Porch entrance is Elias in earnest would he liue or dye If he would liue why doth he beg death If dye why did he shun death by flying into the wilder nesse One Executioner from Jesabell would haue giuen him his longing The satisfaction is easy It is some comfort when a man is ouercome that hee bee conquered by a noble enemy Aeneae magni dextra cadis Dauid was vnwilling to dye by the fury and malice of Saul contented to receiue it by the hands of his friend Jonathan If there bee iniquity found in mee kill mee thy selfe but bring mee not to tby father As Moses rod lying vpon the Ground had the shape and poyson of a serpent but in his owne hand it lost that affrighting figure and venemous quality so death from Jezabell was an vgly serpent in Elias apprehension but from the hand of God a Caduceus a wand to waft him into a better life The hands of the spouse are fall of Rings beset with Iemmes the
Berill and the Hyacinth God his hands are full of blessings full of all goodnesse death it selfe which seemes to bee a priuation of God from his hand must needs be good from whom no euill can descend This may qualify his eschuing death by Jezabell but being past danger and out of his Persecutors reach what were the motiues to desire it now Jt is now enough The Expositors do vary finding not only seueral but contrary motiues some make it the euaporation of a discontented minde the weaknesse of a frayle man others attribute it to the deuotion of an holy man I will strike these seuerall flints each of them may afford a sparke to enlighten our text Chrysostome in his Rhetoricall way demands where is that spirit of Elias wher that terrible countenance that put Achab to silence where is that tongue the gouernesse of the Elements why sits he puling vnder a tree wooing death which will not come at his call Hee answeres by a similitude As a strong gale of wind filling the spread sayles of a ship hurries it from the intended port so a violent gust of feare rushing vpon the Prophet draue him into this sad melancholy Eucherius propounds it another way Whence came his potency to worke wonders whence his weaknesse to be weary ofhis life his power was from God weaknes was his owne God gaue him a parcell of his power marke I pray his bare word brought a drought vpon Palestine his prayer like a burning Feauer entred into the bowells of the earth and scorcht vp lakes Riuers Springs fountaines and left no moisture in them but being left a small while to himselfe all his courage is dryed vp to nothing From hence 2. lessons First that no prerogatiue of greatnes no profession of holynesse exempt men from common infirmities where is that Heretike Pelagius belching out this contagious poyson that a man may attayne such perfection as to bee free from all weaknesse and when hee prayes for forgiuenesse of sinne it is rather humiliter then veraciter Let him looke vpon Elias and bee confounded As the Curtezan Lais sayd Philosophers knockt at her gate as well as others so the best of men are ouertaken To goe no further then our patterne The seer is fallen blinde the guide hath lost his way the charmer is stung by the serpent the man of God becomes a man of passion fayling in the common Rules of ordinary goodnesse and wisdome for good and wise men may pray for better times then those they liue in but beare with patience all sinister and sad euents whereas our great Prophet whines and repines denoyd of hope that any alteration should better his condition because the would will not be guided by the Polestarre of his direction hee will stay no longer in it Oh lett the weakenesse of a Saint be our warning greene wood will warpe and shrinke if seasoned tymber hold not out and slender tressells must giue way when strong pillers bend vnder the burden Especially it behooueth vs which is the next poynt of instruction neuer to bee so deiected at the view of our fraylety as to forbeare our resorting to God in prayer St. Iames to encourage Christians to that holy duty brings in this very example Elias was a man subiect to the like passions as wee are Elias body was a clod of earth as ours is his minde obnoxious to the same perturbations yet he prayed so let vs for God is not the God of Elias onely but a God rich in mercy to all that call vpon him So I passe to the second motiue as the prayer proceedes from a Zealous deuotion Caietan his Glosse is that he was more affrayd of Gods honour then of his owne life and this is grownded vpon the reiterated Apology he makes vnto the Angell being in the wildernesse The children of Israel haue forsaken thy Couenant throwne downe thy Altar slayne thy Prophets I euen I am left alone and they seeke to take away my life By which it is probable his feare and care was cheefely for the honour of God least in the ouerthrow of his Person after so signall a victory and noble Conquest and triumph ouer Idolatry the Orthodoxe Religion might suffer some reproach or diminution Elias was the liuely patterne of Heroike Zeale Chrysostomes opinion is that soone after God tooke away Elias lest his Zeale should destroy this inferiour Globe he was so seuere against sinne that hee tooke no compassion of the sinners so the God of mercy least fire and stubble should dwell together he remoued him to the Company of blessed and holy spirits where he might see all good no euill St. Paul seemes to taxe Elias he doth it with a Notandum ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias that he made intercession to God agaynst Israel Good men pray for sinners not agaynst them Abraham prayed for the wicked Sodomites and doth Elias pray against the Idolatrous Jsraelits Ieremy prayed assiduously for his nation till hee was forbidden to pray any more and did Elias pray for the vexation of his country The Husbandman in the Parable entreateth his Master to spare the vnfruitefull tree doth Elias wish the destruction of men vndoubtedly holy men haue mercifull not cruell bowells when they call for punishments they are medicines not execrations but predictions either by outward afflictions to procure their conuersion or by death to intercept the progresse of sin or by some wholsome example to terrifie others from the like offence So Elias did and so he might pray against Jsrael And it is no maruell he praied agaynst them for he bends his Zeale agaynst himselfe rather then he would liue to see his God dishonoured hee is willing to resigne his pretious life This should bee the affection of all Gods Seruants to hold nothing so deare as the honour of theyr Master Let me parallell this story with another like it of St. Chrysostome Elias was persecuted by Iezabell a Queene Chrysostome by Eudoxia an Empresse both threatened with death The holy Father taking it into his meditations writing to his friend thus hee Resolues What if the angry Empresse banish mee my natiue soile and sweete country all the earth is the Lords and I shall be as neare to heauen any where as at Constantinople what if I bee throwne into the sea Ionah prayed in the whales belly say I shal bee sawne asunder the noble Prophett Esay vnderwent that condition What if my head bee taken from my shoulders Herodias heeles trip't off Iohn Baptists head what if I bee stoned to death Stephen the Proto-martyr passed to heauen through a showre of stones Suppose my Bishoppricke be taken away I will remember Job Naked came I out of my Mothers wombe and naked I will returne Memorable is that in Josephus when Titus had taken and sackt Jerusalem the Priests came beged their liues of him that mercifull Prince and Darling of mankind caused
them to bee slayne as degenerate wretches that would ouerliue their Temple and their Religion hee is not worthy of life who will not aduenture it for the author of life To conclude this second motiue lett vs alwayes haue that preparation of mind in the phrase of Tertullian to retaliate bloud with bloud our Sauiour in great plenty shed his most precious bloud for vs bee wee ready to spend our liues for him and with Paul and Barnabas to ieopard them for his Gospell although our liues in respect of his are but stubble to Pearle yet being the greatest oblation wee can offer it will bee most acceptable most rewardable The losse of life for his cause is the sauing of it Elias sute for death was neuer granted he neuer died at all but was conueyed not into Earthly Paradise the Deluge made that pleasure desolation nor stayed he in the Aeriall Heauens too vnquiet and disconsolate a place amongst Stormes and Thunders Lightnings and Tempests St. Chrysostome saies it affrighted the Prince of the Ayre to see him ride so gloriously through his quartér Nor did he rest among the Spheres to be rapt and whirled about by their diurnall motion not to the highest heauens that Prerogatiue was reserued for the Worlds Sauiour no Souldier triumphs before his Generall but God translated his enflamed Zelot and earthly Seraphin into a happy and blessed estate in the bosome of Abraham with this Priuiledge others were there before in soule hee both in soule and body Now proceede wee from the Motiues forerunning the Prayer to the Reasons attending vpon it You haue heard of some as of St. Paul eloquently pleading without any Aduocate to saue his life before Felix Fesius and Agrippa and by an Appeale taking truce with death But here is one in the Text pleading for death and finding Reasons why he should liue no longer His Arguments are in number two The first is drawne from the satiety of life It is now enough as if hee should say thus in effect I haue liued long enough to my selfe long enough to my Countrey First to my selfe it pleased thy diuine goodnesse by making mee an instrument of thy glory to aduance my owne so as I shall leaue an high reputation and a venerable name to all posterity and for my Countrey such thy mercy by my meanes they enioyed much good spirituall good I reclaimed them although they bee now relapsed from Idolatry to the Seruice of thee their true and onely God I was the Reformer of their corrupted manners my rugged Robes and hairy Habit condemned their proud attyre my austere and strict life taught them to amend their loose and licentious conuersations As a retyred Heremite I sequestred my selfe from humane society to let them see 't was lesse dangerous to dwell among brutes then beastiall men And for good temporall I turned their drought into Raine and their famine into Plenty hauing in my whole course equalled nay transcended the period of Mortality It is now enough O Lord. His second Argument is drawne from the common law of nature I am no better then my Fathers my Ancesters in time my Predecessors in profession are all arriued at their wished Port why shouldst thou prolong my dayes by miracle sometimes appointing the Rauens those vncleane birds by thy law and vnnaturall in their kinde to be my Caters as at the brooke Carith Sometimes by multiplication of the old store or by creation of new prouision turne meale barrels into Granaries and cruets of oyle into Fountaines as at the Widdowes of Sareptah I desire not the producing of my misery the preseruation of my life by extraordinary wayes let me passe O Lord the common way of all my Fathers For J am no better then my Fathers Obserue in Elias Arguments his method and modesty how orderly hee rankes his Reasons There goes a sufficit before tolle animam Hee doth not aske death of God vntill hee hath performed great seruice vnto the Lord in his life for it is a preposterous course to demand wages before the worke bee done Rest comes after labour no Souldier lookes for a donatiue vntill the warre bee ouerpast no Marriner cals for a faire winde vntill his vessell bee full fraught It is no matter how long or how short our liues be but how good The Morall man saw this Life is long enough if full of good St. Austins similitude expresseth this well As a Musitian tarrying long vpon one string little vpon another his lightest touch makes not perhappes so loude a sound but as sweet an harmony So in God his Consort who as the Prophet speakes keepes true time they make as good musicke that is glorifie God in their calling vnto whom he vouchsafeth a short life it being both ornatus ordinatus cursus as they who enioy the longest The Sunne and Moone those Fountaines of light and guides of time fulfill their courses in a short season The dimmer Plannets are a longer while wheeling about The Scripture compares our life to Hearbes and Flowers A Flower is Res Spectaculi Spiraculi Delighting our eyes with various colours pleasing our sense with sweete sauours but withall of a fading substance Say they escape the browsing mouth of the beast the pruning knife the plucking hand the nipping ayre the violent winde they will wither of themselues Of such mettall are wee made Imagine wee could be free from Asaes Gowt Naamans Leprosie Jorams Iliaca passio Jobs vnsauory breath Hezekiabs botch Lazarus biles the woman of Syrophenissa's dysentery Publius Feuer and all diseases whereof the body of man is a Lazaretto and Receptacle Galen found in one little part of the eye an hundred seuerall infirmities could all these be auoyded yet our bodies of their owne accord would moulder into earth from whence they came Since they are Flowers vse wee them like Flowers which last long if they bee distilled into sweete waters distill wee our liues into holy and vertuous Actions distill them into the works of Piety distill them into the workes of Charity this is the way to make a short life last long no Babylonian Tower no Aegyptian Pyramis no Rhodian Colossus no Mausolian Tombe no Triumphall Arche no life-counterfeiting Statua can giue such life of memory as a life it selfe transacted in worthy designes for Glorious sayes the Wiseman is the fruite of good labours perpetuall is the memory of the Righteous one generation proclaiming their vertues vnto another So then haue wee in our allotted stations serued God in vprightnesse and sincerity of heart haue wee endeauoured in the vtmost extent of our ability to doe good to our Religion our King our Countrey our Brethren is there a sufficit in our liues Wee must hold our life in patience but wee may put death in our prayers when Paul may say hee hath fought a good fight kept the faith finished his course then he may come to his Cupio dissolui When Hilarion can alleadge his 70. yeeres