many pens illustrated by frequent Funerals meeting us every moment and at every turn yet seldom laid to heart but as a cloud it passeth over our heads without showring down any softning drops on our souls These discourses as hail on the hills rattle in every Funeral Sermon and exhortation upon our ears and heads but seldome enter and pierce into our hearts They are like Ghosts or Fantasms that appear and vanish scaring us a little but they touch us not at all notwithstanding the heapes upon heapes which are very ten and twenty years made up of our dead friends kindred and acquaintance who are no sooner removed out of our sights but they are gone out of our memories as to any pious improvement Xerxes is reported to have wept when seeing his vast Army which made a million of fighting men he considered how one century of years would mow them all down as so many flowers or spires of grass in a field The softness of Christians hearts should go beyond the savageness of such an Heathen He considered the breaking of the box but he was not sensible of those sweet resentments that savour of life unto life which a wise and gracious heart extracts out of the objects and meditations of death He beheld the carkasses of so many Lions but he found no honey in any of them He had only the eyes of experience sense and reason but not of grace and religion which looks through the dark mist and medium of death to the prospect of a true and eternal life That great Persian Commander as the Roman Emperors after him Quos nec spectasset quisquā nec spectatuus esset Ludi Seculares Suet. in Claud. when they caused to be proclaimed at their greatest secular Interludes and most solemn Pageants which were presented but once in an hundred years Come and see those shows which no man living ever did see heretofore nor shall ever see again These men I say had the Moon and Stars of common reason and experience to shew them their own and other mens mortality but they wanted the beams of the Sun of righteousness the light of God's word in the Scriptures which every where sets so many afterisks or memorable notes of emphasis and terror upon Death In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die Gen. 2. An Oracle which presently began to be fulfilled as soon as the condition was forfeited just as the sea ebbs from the very first minute of its recess or abatement though sensim pedetentim by silent steps and almost insensible degrees according to the patience and indulgence of a long-suffering God Yet as the candle is dying or consuming as soon as it is lighted or burning and the hour-glass is emptying as soon as it is running so the life of man ran to waste and the exhaustings of death so soon as it ceased to have communion and supplies of immortal influx from the God of life When the intercourse between the spring and the current is once stopped and obstructed the constancy fulness and perennity of the stream presently decays and as it drieth up it dies A sinful man is presently surrounded with a thousand deaths every moment Mille modi mortis c. and though we can die but one death in the conquest or completion yet how many legions of deaths are ever marching in array against us both as to the menacing preparation without us and the disposition or infirmity within us which expose us to die on every side There is not only mors in urna but in olla in victu vestitu halitu death in our coffins and urns but in our cups and pots in our meats and drinks and in our bodies and bowels yea in our breath and bread which we use as the breath staff of life the short reciprocations returns of which are the constant supports of our lives and the chief antemuralia defensatives against death Thus the Philosophers discoursed when death striking upon their hard and flinty hearts Poena ad unum terror ad omnes they saw by the sparks or strictures of reason their own mortal condition But the Divine Oracles are like Thunderbolts falling here and there and neer to every one of us though their execution light not presently on our heads Heb. 9.27 yet the terror and contrition should upon our hearts because it is by an unrepealable decree appointed for all men once to die and after that the judgement Death as a great drag-net fetches all into its capacious bosome this King of terror as Job calls death is verè Rex Catholicus truely a Catholick King reigning over all Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres Hor. as the Apostle Paul expresses it even those that most glory in their royal priveledges and titles No Emperor hath any Empire over it nor against it any more then the Brittish King Canutus of Kent had against the seas incroaching upon his Throne Or then that cunning Prince Lewis the 11th of France who as Phil. Commines reports fenced himself Phil. de Com. Histor of France but in vain with holy reliques surrounding his body and bed to see if he could scare away death with those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy terriculaments Kings that have a just power of life and death as to their subjects have no power over their own to prolong their lives or protract their deaths one moment Kings are conquered and cow'd by death Potentates are impotent in this conflict for they assist they very enemy and are traytors to themselves and if no other force doth the force of their own infirmities will certainly destroy them No Protectors can protect themselves or others from this civil war this intestine enemy which is unavoidable irresistable which hath all the engines for battering and arts of undermining us Non domus fundus c. neither house nor land nor father nor friend nor favour nor power nor Courts nor Crowns nor the surest defensative under heaven against men which is a valiant and faithful Army these are all as bulrushes and straws in the way of death which is the way of all the living Death in this absolute empire and unlimited soveraignty using not only jure suo its own right but jure divino God's right as the executioner of his just irrevocable and dreadful sentence upon all mankind Among whom none ever was sufficient to answer that Question Psal 89.48 What man is he that liveth and shall not see death Shall he deliver his soule from the hand of the grave Yea when the Son of the everliving God who is God co-essential and immortal with his Father appeared among men as one of us in the form of sinful flesh Death though he had no just claim against him because no guile or sin was found in him Phil. 2.8 1 Pet. 2.22 John 10.18 yet used its prerogative And though this blessed Messias could
unreasonable irreligious and divelish A carrionly carkass of a man is aromatick a very perfume in comparison of a dead and rotting soul The body becomes dead and so dissolves by the souls parting from it but the soul by Gods being separated from it first out of its own choise next by Gods penal deserting of it The soul is the salt the light and life of the body so is God of the soul Anima animae the very soul of our souls I mean his grace love and spiritual communion separation from this is the souls death here and hereafter For from the power wrath and vengeance of God the damned are not separated who are dead not to their being but to their well being or happiness to the union at and fruition of God in love The soul apart from God in grace or glory is not only an orphan or a widow condemned to eternal sorrow and desolation for nothing can maintain or entertain wooe wed or indow the soul to the least degree of happines or to any allay of misery when once God hath quite forsaken it But it is emortua conclamata in heaven earth and hell proclaimed as starke dead in Law and Gospel Matth. 13.42 to justice and mercy so represented in Scripture as the horridest expression or the blackest colour to set forth its misery and horror its regret and torpor its weeping and wailing its gnashing and despair Doth then such a thick cloud of horror hang over the face and state of a dead body which is senseless of its own death and deformity of its noysome grave and dark dungeon Sapiens ignis subtilis vermis carpit nutrit urit reficit Chrysol O what a world of horror must lie upon a dead soul when deservedly cast out of God's blessed presence when it feels its death and lives only to die when it feels it is plunged in a dead Sea which is boundless and bottomlesse where the worm dies not and the fire goeth not out because it is as Crysologus calls it a subtil fire and ingenious worm which burns but consumes not devours but destroyes not Who can dwell with everlasting burnings saith the Prophet in an extasie of holy horrour Isa 33.14 Who can live in everlasting dyings Who can abide his own everlasting rottings Is it a gradual and lingring death to want food raiment light liberty fit company Is it a total death to the body to want the little spark of the soul which is the breath and spirit of life to the body What is it then to the soul to want that God who is the breather of that breath of life and Inspirer of that spirit We want a word beyond death to expresse that state Lay it then to heart Phil. 3.11 and consider what cause we have to be humble to tremble and fear exceedingly to escape most solicitously and diligently that second and eternal death if by any means we may attain the resurrection of the dead to life eternal 3. Lay to heart upon the sight of a dead body and the meditation of a dead soul whence it is that these fears and faintings sicknesses and sorrows deaths and darknesses sordidnesse and desolation corruption and condemnation have thus mightily prevailed over the highest mountains as the flood over the most noble beautiful and excellent of all Gods works under heaven even over mankind good and bad great and small Eccles 2.16 wise and foolish upon which nature the great and only God had set such characters of special glory enduing it with a diviner spirit so making man as Moses saith a living spirit or a spirit of life And this after counsel and deliberation Faciamus hominem Sanctius his animal mentisâ— capaâ—ius aliâ—e Gen. 2.7 As in re magni momenti a matter of greater concern and weight then heaven and earth and all the host of them They were made ex tempore as it were Nudo verbo Let there be and there was But man was made ex consilio after Gods own Image full of beauty health honour riches wisedome the Spirit of the living God given him in an extraordinary beam Whence is this lapse to earth to dust to a sad and wretched a decaying and dying condition both temporal and eternal Sure not from the impotencie or envy of the blessed Creator whose omnipotent goodnesse is inconsistent with such infirmities nor yet from the frailty and inconsistency of the subject matter which he raised to so goodly a fabrick little lower then the Angels Psal 49.12 as man was made who should have been as long immortal as Angels had he continued a man that is Rom. 6.23 rational and religious enjoying the Image of God on him which forbids and excludes as all shadow of sin and defection so of all death or mutation to worse No. The Psalmist tells us after the history of Genesis Man being in honour did not so abide but is become like to the beasts that perish by the frailty of his will which fell from adherence to God as the durable and supreme Good Sin hath levelled us to beasts to death to devils to hell This death in all sizes and degrees from the least ache and dolour to the compleatnesse of damnation is the wages of fin So the Apostle oft tells us Rom. 5.17 by one mans offence death entred and reigned over all The soul that sins that shall die Ezek. 18. Sin is the source of all our sorrows the lethalis arundo poysoned arrow whose infection drinks up the spirits and eats up the health flesh bodies and soules of mankind No wonder we die since we sin at such a rate the wonder is that we live any one of us one moment How much more is the miracle of Gods love and mercy that hath by Christs death and merits brought forth to light eternal life and offered it to all penitent and believing sinners as purchased and prepared for them Because sin once lived in us we must once die and till sin be dead or mortified in us we cannot hope for life eternal Through death then thou wilt best see the face of thy sin What Poet what Painter what Orator whose colours are most lively can expresse the amazement horrour and astonishment that seized on the looks and hearts of Adam and Eve Rom. 27. 2 Tim. 1.10 when they had the dreadful prospect of their first great sin and curse written with the blood and pourtrayed on the face of their dead son Abel who in that primitive paucity of mankind was barbarously slain by his brother Cain Who can expresse or conceive the woful lamentation they made over their dead son in whom they first beheld the beauties of life swallowed up by the deformities of death Is death then so dreadful so dismal so deformed so putid O think what that sin is which thou so embracest and huggest The fountain of bitternesse is more bitter then the stream Our madness and misery is
hold them in many cases very fit and of excellent use so they ought to be serious severe and wholly circumcised as to all danger of sowing pillows under the elbows of the living or of dawbing with any untempered mortar and no lesse from whiting the Sepulchres of the dead as if there were no rottenness in their bones Preachers should in no point of their Embassy be more rigid exact precise and punctual Matth. 3.2 Matth. 4.17 then in urging that which was Christs and his forerunners first Text and Sermon Repent for the Kingdome of God is at hand As the Roman Legate or Consul Marcus Popilius circumscribed with a wand he had in his hand the person and answer of the proud King Antiochus Valerius Max. in M. Popilio when he desiring time to resolve of war or peace which was offered him was confined to give his definitive answer before he stirred a step out of that litle circle So concise and peremptory are Gods commands and so must be our conjureings and requirings of all men every where to repent and turn to the Lord Acts 17.30 Acts 3.26 Gen. 27.2 Heb. 3.11 young as well as old even daily exhorting them while it is called to day because as Isaac said they know not the day of their deaths nor we of ours and if they die in their sins unwarned God wil require their blood at our hands Ezek. 33.6 A dreadful account as Chrys cals it Can you blame us Ministers O Christian people if we be quick and importune in calling upon you if we seem religiously rude and piously uncivil with you even pulling and snatching and haling you while you are lingring as the Angels did Lot out of Sodom or as fire-brands out of the fire Our deferring to call upon you and your delayings to repent these run the hazard of your and our souls You must therefore forgive those kind and charitable injuries we sometimes seem to doe you by our Christian importunities Currat poenitentia nè praecurrat poena Amb. which are but the effects of our fidelity to you to our own souls and to God St. Ambrose's counsel is excellent Let repentance make haste lest vengeance overtake thee True repentance only can bring thee to the City of refuge Christ Jesus where thou mayst be safe against the pursuits of death and wrath Seneca in his concise and witty way can tell us how necessary it is to be as passengers on the shore that expect a fair wind and passage by Sea alwayes in readiness to have our packs and truncks packed up that we may answer the first summons of the Master or Pilot who when he calls to be gone will stay for no mans occasions If Heathens had such principles of prudence who saw but one side of death and that but darkly in a very distant narrow view as to Eternity O how should Christians who have so great discoveries take the alarm of every night and sleep which is a shadow of death of every morn renewing which is the dawning of Eternity the gallicinium cock-crowing of the resurrection of every infirmity in their own feeling of every other Funeral and death they see or hear of of every history they read which alwayes closeth with the worke of death drawing this black vail of burial and oblivion over all the pomp and glory strength and victory pleasures and passions of the world and those great men in it who in their greatest glistering are but gloeworms shining a while in this night of mortality and then extinct for ever yea every hour which men live is a monitor of death being no sooner lived out but they are so much dead so is every meal they eat which is but a daily subsidy given to the body to relieve its daily expences and decays which are the secret depredations and essayes of death We should take yea and make many occasions to reflect soberly upon this meditation and lay death to heart that the defensative of repentance may the better work upon our souls before death hath taken the suburbs of our bodies by age and sickness which are not the constant procedures of death nor may any man rationally expect it will deal with him upon such termes of Treaty or Parly No 't is oft upon the snap and sudden with us and may be so to the ablest and youngest He or She. Sometimes indeed death plays with smaller shot upon us and hews us down with many little chops But 't is frequent that he batters us all in pieces with one great and sudden Cannon and blows us up at once by a storm either of inward Apoplectick stroaks or outward violences as the wind overthrew the house on Jobs children against which there is no foresight no warning or defence Death doth not alwayes so befriend either Physicians gaines or their patients designs as to vouchsafe them the benefit of a lingring sickness or a leisurely death How infinitely then doth it concern us to be alwayes in procinctu in our harnesse never to wake or sleep but with the compleat armour of our soules upon us or rather within us Gen. 6. Sure it was pitiful padling work to be building of boats or hewing down trees to make ships and vessels of then when the flood began to be poured down upon the Old world of ungodly men who so long neglected their temporal and eternal safety by delaying their repentance when they had Gods warning by Noahs preaching for an hundred years 1 Pet. 3.19 2 Pet. 2.5 that of so many millions of mankind which in that generative and vivacious age had peopled and overstock'd the earth there should be but eight persons found fit to be preserved alive in the Ark which afforded room for birds beasts and serpents but not for wicked and impenitent men who had refused the voice of God calling them so long so oft to repentance as he now doth every where by that Tuba Evangelii Trumpet of the Gospel which is but the Praecentor first peal and noise of the last Trumpet The one calls us so to prepare for Death that we may stand with comfort in the day of Judgment the other will call us out of a state of death to the eternal doom of that last day of Judgment The state and tenour of a Christians life should be a continued course of repentances well begun and daily renewed never intermitted because of daily failings All the parenthesis of businesse as to secular affairs should not interrupt the series nor confound the care of a Christians Repentance and daily proficiency Blessed God! What pity 't is that men women can find time for every thing else under the Sun and none for their repentance which is the work of works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Opus operosissimum the first rough-hewing and foundation of the great building of our eternal salvation Hast thou time to dresse undresse thy body to eat and drink and sleep to
a childish and stupid indifferency or with a vulgar formality or in some cases with a proud unchristian and unmanly insolency rejoycing and triumphing in the death of those who possibly were thought their betters or equals or rivals or enemies As Ahaz in his distresses sinned yet more against the Lord 2 Chro. 28.22 so do some men and women too amidst those Funerals which concerned them most to lay to heart How doth covetousness ambition envy and lasciviousness make many men and women unfeignedly rejoyce in the death of Parents Children Husbands Wives Rivals and Princes that they can hardly suppress their odious joys and unseasonable contentments from breaking forth into such abhorred expressions as Vitellius a most ungenerous Prince and profligate person used when after the battel ended which in civil wars as that was makes even victory it self sad and ashamed was heard to say when he rode amidst the now putid and unburied carkasses of the slain Citizens The smell of dead strangers corps is pleasing Bonus odor hostis occisi at melior civis but most of dead Roman Citizens being my enemies A speech which Suetonius brands with a stigma of just-infamy so infinitely distant from the clemency of Julius Caesar Quique dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox who ever in the chase commanded to spare the Roman Citizens and was unfeignedly grieved to use necessary severities which are next door to cruelty Poor mortals forget in their revengeful impatiencies military jollities and victorious triumphs how soon the wheel may come about and the same measure may be meeted to them Judg. 1.6 which they meet to others Adoni-Bezek may live to see his own thumbs and great toes one off Should not we tremble before the great and terrible God when we see his judgments so executed that our selves are sometimes made the sad executioners of them upon others who it may be in Gods sight are not greater sinners then our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stobaeus Matth. 5.28 They that joy in anothers calanity or insult in their death though just doe adopt a murther and commit man-slaughter in their hearts as Christ speaks of Adultery As a Judge who pleaseth his private spite and malice in that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most depraved passion which sucks honey out of anothers gall while he justly condemnes a malefactor to die he may be a just Judge according to the Law of man but is unrighteous according to the Gospel of Christ which commends charity and compassion tenderness and bowels to Christians beyond all burnt sacrifices Gods High Court of Justice will judge even judges themselves and Death will in a few years not only conquer but triumph over those that are lifted up above the fate and pitch of poor mortals in their gloryings over an others ruines Let him that stands upon a mountain never so high and fast remember the day of death is coming he shall also fall and perish like one of the Princes Yet mens sins are not to be measured by the evil or seeming calamity of their death but by the open wickedness and impieties of their lives The same fate may befall good and bad they may die in peace as it is said of Josiah who are slain in warre and of Zedekiah 2 Kin. 22.20 Jer. 34.5 who died blind and in captivity The death of men is the more to be laid to heart by how much less they deserved it from men and more from God It serves to exhort and excite every one of us to search and try our own hearts Vse 2 to examine how far this or another Funeral is gone beyond our eyes and eares so as it is or shall be laid to our hearts What fear what trembling what holy purposes and what humble resolutions are raised in thee What sins mortified what vanities left what neglects repaired what graces increased what improving of life what preparings for death by a constant and conscientious use of all duties opportunities and means proper for so great ends as aym at eternity Your mourning with never so great pomp and state yea with unfeigned grief out of humane and momentary reflexions onely is not that just improvement which God expects As Fullers earth cleanseth spots of cloaths and Wood-ashes rince foul vessels so should the contemplation of anothers death their dust and ashes help to cleanse our souls In vain do you wear black mourning on your bodies if you still keep pullatas atratas animas black and sullied soules soyled and scorched with the inordinate flames of lust pride malice covetousness c. which are the soot of hell These sine black garments are but in stead of courser sackeloth the fittest coverings indeed for your bodies of sin and death but they must put you in mind to get your soules cloathed in white garments the robes of Christs righteousness for justification and sanctification without which thou wilt follow this corps to thy grave also with cause enough and too much for such everlasting mournings as admit no comforters or comforts Let thy mourning be not only civil formal and humane but Christian humble penitent Acts 20.25 As Jacob to the Angel so let not a Funeral goe without a blessing as Felix at St. Pauls Preaching so let thy heart tremble at these visible as well as audible instructions of death and judgment to come Retine to thy closet after these Solemnities and earnestly pray to God to give thee Funeral graces that by an holy Christian Chymistry thou mayst extract spirits out of dead bones Doe not play with Death lest it bite or sting thee next as that serpent did a merry Greek of old who jestingly putting his hand into the jawes of a Lion that was figured of stone for an ornamental statue in one of the Temples of the Gods was so stung with a scorpion which lay in the mouth of that Lion that he presently died having first laughed with his companions at that monition he had the night before in his dream as he told them that he should next day be destroyed by a Lion which beast never haunted that place and so he thought himself most secure Death many times lies then nearest us and in wait for us when we least mind the monitions or credit the warnings which may by providence be given us I cannot but make use of this Text as a just vindication of this and the like religious solemnities at Christian Burials Vse 3 against those severe Aristarchus'es and super-reforming Reformers who cast most supercilious browes and use very severe invectives against all Funeral Sermons and much more against all Scriptures read exhortations and prayers used by and to the living at the graves and interments of the dead by which tetrick austerities they seem to me not only to reproach the piety prudence and charity of this deserved famous and well reformed Church in its sacred offices and appointments on such occasions which were seriously approved happily
by the meritorious death and passion of the Lord of life and glory the great and promised Messias thy beloved Son our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ who by suffering death hath both overcome death and satisfied thy justice for us freeing all true believing and penitent sinners from the sting curse and fear of death both temporal and eternal bringing by his glorious Gospel life and glory honour and happiness to light We beseech thee O heavenly Father for his sake who hath tasted death for us all to magnifie thy infinite mercy upon us before we go from hence and be no more seen O be better to us then ever we should be to our selves or we are utterly lost Bestow upon us all those graces and gifts which may both teach and help us to lead an holy life and die an happy death Prevent us graciously and follow us effectually with the motions and operations of thy holy Spirit which may excite and inable us speedily and throughly to mortifie the life and power of every sin in us even while it is called to day lest death and hell prevent us in our delays and presumptions Sanctifie to us all those occasions monitions and warnings by which thy providence presents the thoughts and state of death to us as the truest glass of all earthly glory that we may so lay them to heart as to die dayly to all inordinate love of our selves and of this world which at best is loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom thy love to us is better then life it self Thou hast by thy power given us our lives in this vain world by thy providence thou hast preserved them by thy patience thou hast spared them to this day notwithstanding we have with many sins and much unthankefulness provoked thee to our hurt yea by thy holy Word thou hast shewed and offered to us the way and reward of a better life upon our turning to thee with all our hearts from dead works to serve the living God O teach us so to number our days as to apply our hearts to true wisedom to value this pretious moment not to mispend it yea to redeem it because the days past have been evil and upon this moment depends our eternal fate O thou that hast made our moment here though it be sinful not wholly miserable but hast sweetned it with many mercies let not our eternity be miserable and sinful It is one great comfort in our mortality as to this life that we consider our sins shall not be immortal in us O let not sin die with us but before us as a work of choise and grace not of infirmity force and necessity We humbly lay hold on that eternal life which is thy gift through Jesus Christ our Lord. As we every day grow elder so Lord make us every day somewhat better as neerer to our graves so fitter for heaven teach us to live every day as if it were our last that we may never live in any such way wherein we cannot meet death comfortably make us such as thou wouldst have us while we live that we may find thee such as we would have thee when we die that when we come to die we may have nothing else to do but to resign our bodies to thy custody and our souls to thy mercy who having made this life on earth common to the bad and good the just and the unjust hast certainly prepared another state in which shall be infinite difference and everlasting distinction of recompenses to such as fear thee and such as fear thee not O enable us to do our duty and we are sure to receive thy rewards write thy name in our hearts and we need not doubt but our names are written in heaven even in thy Book of Life Sweeten the bitter thoughts of death to us by our faith and hope in the meritorious death the victorious resurrection and glorious ascension of Jesus Christ for our sakes let us find by our holiness and newness of life by our being dead with Christ and living to him that we are passed from death to life That our departure hence may be a joyful passage to a better life which consists in the vision and fruition of thy self O blessed Creator who must needs be better then all things thou hast made and as more necessary so infinitely more useful sweet and comfortable to us O that we may be willing and fitted to leave all to come to thy self that we may with all the blessed Angels and Saints for ever in heaven see love praise admire adore and enjoy thee O holy Father Son and Spirit the only true God To whom be glory and honour life and power thanks and dominion for ever Amen Februarii 17. Anno 1657. Observationes habitae In Dissectione Corporis Illustrissimi Nobilissimi Viri D. ROBERTI RICH coram Medicinae Doctoribus Chirurgis infra subscriptis 1. INventi sunt Pulmones substantiâ duriores quam secundùm naturam mole longè majores quam pro ratione pectoris toti ferè scrophulosi caseosâ materiâ magna ex parte purulentâ referti Superiori parte lobi dextri lacuna reperta est pure plena ad quantitatem cochlearis unius 2. Aqua collecta in sinistra cavitate Thoracis ad fesque librae quantitatem vel circiter 3. Auricula dextra Cordis major erat sinistrâ proportione ferè quintuplici 4. Mesenterium refertum glandulis scrophulosis aliquibus magnitudinem Ovi Gallinacei aequantibus aliis minoribus materiâ quadam sebaceâ plenis cum purulentiae guttis hinc inde sparsis in aliquibus 5. In substantia Panchreatis glandulae peregrinae huic annexus tumor scrophulosus grandis ad hepar usque protensus Orisicium Venae Portae comprimens 6. Vesicula fellis exteriùs albicans flaccida aliquam quantitatem fellis dilutioris continens 7. Hepar colore Albidiori substantiâ debito majori 8. Splen satìs laudabilis nisi quòd hinc inde granulis scrophulosis refertus 9. Inte Musculos Lumbares glandulae duae ingentes scrophuloae à quinta vertebra sinistrae partis una ad Inguen usque se protendebat ex dextra parte altera non adeo longa Fran. Prujean Geor. Bates Tho. Coxe Robertus Lloyd J. Goddard Theophilus Garancieres Edward Arris Chirurgus John Soper Chirurgus I Have judged my publishing of this Funeral-Sermon upon the immature death of the Son the fittest occasion I am ever like to have while I live to present those who can look upon eminent goodness without evil eyes with a short Epitome of the Mothers worth as it was long since in way of Epitaph composed by a person whose ambition is That justice might be done to the dead as well as to the living Vicious minds and manners like dead carkasses are then best when so buried that nothing may appear to posterity of their noysome and contagious fedities But exemplary and meritorious
Sun yet have I lived to see both their lives ended all their humane hopes and joys and honours buried in the dust the one before she was 27. years old the other before he had compleated four and twenty So great and neer experiments are these two for the confirmation of those two verses used to display the excellent emptiness and glorious nothingness of this world and present life of which subject as many pens and wits have largely descanted so none have expressed more in few words then he that made this distich Punctum bulla vitrum glacies flos fabula fumus Vmbra cinis somnus vox sonus aura nihil Thus in prose No point is more concise no bubble more pompously swelling and suddenly vanishing no glass more brittle no ice more self-dissolving no flower more fair and fading no tale more short and fabulous no shadow less substantial Introitus exitus lugubris Cum nascimur mundi hospitio excipimur initium a lacrymis auspicamur cum lacrymis extinguimur Cyp. Ordimur vitam lacrymis claudimus omnes Quisque suis natus sic sepelitur aquis no ashes more easily scattered and never to be recollected no sleep or dream more delighting and deceiving no voice more vanishing no sound more transient no breath more soft and unseen in sum nothing is a truer emblem of absolute and perfect nothing then this poor life which is begun as St. Cyprian and many observe continued and ended with tears An Egyptian reed on which if the heart of man leanes it soon fails and the defeats of it pierce the very soul O what a small thread is this on which we poor wretches hang the weight of our eternal state the great interests of our immortal souls while we delay our repentance multiply our sins dayly and hourly adding burthen to a crazy vessel which is leakey with its own infirmities and already over-laden with its pondus mortalitatis body of death O ye sons and daughters of men who are lifted up filled and stretched to the highest pitch and uttermost extents of pride self-conceit vain-glory who have already deified your selves in your owne imaginations of your heaven upon earth your humane happinesses who expect that all that see you should admire and adore you as creatures so compleatly blest that the Angels or Gods themselves have cause to envy you when you are so fair so fine so young so lovely so witty so nobly descended so mightily befriended so invested with honour so fortified with power so furnished with estate so attended with servants so lodged in sumptuous palaces so surrounded with all manner of pleasures so over-flowing with all sensible contents of life See see in this and the like sad spectacles of vanity mortality and misery What a perfection of folly 1 Tim. 6.17 what an apparent madnevs it is for you to be high-minded to be proud of any thing you enjoy here to trust in your uncertain riches and not in the living God You may as justly swell and look big and magnifie your selves for taking up some rich Jewels in a shop or for seeing and handling some fine and pretious wares a little while in your hand which you must shortly lay down and leave behind you and then when thou art driven from the living and thy soul taken from thee Luke 12.19 Thou egregious fool whose shall all these things be Experience hath taught us that a dead hand is an excellent means by rubbing it on wens and tumours of the body to allay disperse and as it were mortifie that irregular and deformed excrescency The same receipt of a dead hand might serve if duly applied to our souls for it would be a very soveraign remedy as against all that is in the world 1 John 2.16 which is of a puffing and exalting nature as the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life so against all those flatuous and high imaginations of our hearts For the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever 1 John 2.17 Yea in every Funeral there is as it were a special hand of providence Dan. 5.5 like that which Balshazzar saw upon the wall which not only wrote his fate but weighed him as it were in a ballance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stobae and shewed him by his own terrors and tremblings how much he was too light in God's esteem and in his own mistaken fancies of earthly felicity It is among the mementos of the ancient Greeks Being momentany and mortal it well becomes all mankind to be very lowly minded Mich. 6.8 to walk humbly before their God Not to lay much weight upon so small pillars as our legs and sinews are not to build upon so loose a foundation which like quick-sands or quagmires in a short time swallow and bury up the building which is set upon them How ridiculous would he be that should bestow much time to hew and square and polish cakes of ice in order to build himself a splendid and perspicuous palace which he should fancy to be like the Chrystal Firmament and comparable to the etherial mansions of heaven Magno conatu nugas agimus Truly such are the industrious self-cheats of those who fancy to themselves rare felicities or real fulness in this life Isa 44.20 Hos 12.1 Edunt tanquam hodie morituri Aedificant tanquam semper victuri so greedily feeding on the East-wind and ashes the pleasures of sense which blast our fouls and abase them as if they had but one day to live and yet so solicitous for the morrow as if they were to live here for ever No man takes the true dimensions of life who doth not as Pythagoras did the Pyramids measure it by the shadows of death Nor do we begin truly to live as rational and religious creatures till we lay to heart the true state and proportion of this life of which we are but Tenants at will having no lease much less see simple or inheritance but are at the will of the Lord to be turned out of house and home at a moments warning Blessed God! If we laid this to heart as we should what manner of men and women should we be in all humble holy 2 Pet. 3.11 1 Cor. 7.21 Frui utendis summa est dementia Aug. and heavenly conversation as St. Peter writes using this world as if we used it not at least enjoyed it not For as St. Austin observes it is extream fatuity to enjoy that as ours which is but lent us for a very little yea for no time but from one moment to another The very ancient Heathens will rise up against Christians in this point which they notably studied variously and wittily expressed yea and in many things modestly practised 5. Add to the thoughts of lifes frailty and vanity the certain uncertainty and inevitable necessity of death A subject adorned by
preach his revealed will which is our sanctification by our repenting and amending according to the tenour of the Gospel Such as deaffen their ears harden their hearts and turn their backs on God and the meanes of grace all the time of their strength and health will find it very hard to see or seek his face in the disorder darkness and clouds of sickness which is the twilight and evening of Death As in civil conversation no man may so presume of Gods providence as to neglect honest industry so in religious respects no man may hope for grace that doth not rationally duely and conscienciously apply to the use of those meanes which God hath appointed in his Church All blessings temporal and eternal which are acquirable by and offered to reasonable creatures are ordinarily the effects of Gods mercy and mans industry not of miracles or omnipotence The meanes of grace given by God in his Church are never barren or ineffectual but to those who neglect to attend them and use them as they may and ought to doe if they look upon them as from God and in order to their soules good which is to be attained by this or no way 7. In order therefore to promote and speed by Gods assistance our repentance while we are yet in life and health we should lay to heart specially at the summons of another death What infinite patience and long-suffering it is that hitherto God hath shewed toward thee for many years of vanity sin and desperate folly Rom. 2.4 in which he hath spared thee notwithstanding thou hast daily provoked him to his face yet thou art not to this day cut off from the land of the living nor is the door of mercy and repentance shut upon thee How many have been cut off by the sword by sudden death and by lingring sickness here one there another while thou art reprieved Should not this forbearance of God lead thee to repentance Is it not enough in all conscience and too much in all reason and gratitude thus far to have offended a God that is loth to destroy thee giving thee space to repent Wilt thou after the hardness of thy heart and vain confidence of life still treasure up wrath against the day of wrath The time past may suffice to give thee sufficient experience how unwilling God is thou shouldest die 1 Pet. 4.3 and how willing thou shouldst repent and live Ezek. 33.11 For it is of the Lords mercy that thou art not consumed Thou mightest have been the corps now to be put into the grave Lam. 3.22 where is no device or wisedome of counsel or repentance or preaching Eccl. 9.10 or praying O turn no longer the grace of God into wantonness which is offered in Christ by his Ministers Breve sit quod turpiter audes Of a short precious and uncertain moment the least part is too much to be lavished in those wayes Jude 4. which are not only unprofitable but pernicious Our whole lives after the vanity of childhood and youth are too little to be spent in well-doing Isa 20.15 and in undoing what hath been either vain or wicked To live as if we had made a covenant with death and hell is not onely a fool-hardiness but a madness which hath by infinite sad and horrid instances been fearfully punished but not yet sufficiently cured in mankind Eccl. 8.12 Though a sinner live an hundred years twice told yet it shall not be well with him Eccl. 11.9 Though young and strong men please themselves in the delights of their eyes and desires of their own hearts yet they must know that for all these things God will bring them to judgment A mans debts and dangers are not the lesse because he is not presently arrested nor sees the books and specialties which are against him or the Serjeants which will arrest him 'T is high time to cease to offend that God who is willing to remit all our former arrears and debts upon our return to him begging his pardon and resolving to live worthy of such grace Doe not then feed any longer on ashes it is a deceived heart that turneth thee aside Isa 44.20 Jonah 2.8 Phil. 2.12 Heb. 2.9 so that thou canst not deliver thy soul nor say Is there not a lye in my right hand Take heed of following lying vanities lest thou forsake thy own mercies which are offer'd us but from moment to moment so as every minute of time that passeth every clock that striketh calls upon thee in the wise man's counsell Eccles 9.10 Whatever thine hand findeth to do do it with all thy might And what hast thou to do but to work out thy salvation with feare and trembling as the Apostle calls upon the Philippians All without this is time and labour lost 8. Lay to heart upon the sight and reflexions of death the infinite want thou hast of such a Saviour who may be able and willing to redeem thee a captive to sin and held all thy life in the fear of death from both these miserable bondages Lay to heart the infinite grace transcendent love and mercy of Christ Heb. 2.9 who is offer'd thee as a sufficient Saviour to all purposes Who hath tasted death for every man and hath overcome death as well as satisfied for the death of the whole world excluding none nor excepting any but putting all into a capacity of life and salvation upon their faith and repentance John 5.40 John 6.37 40. Ver. 54. John 8.52 John 11.25 Mark 16.15 so that whoever will come to him and believe in him shall not die but have eternal life yea though he die as to the body yet he shall continue to live in the happiness of his soul and his body shall be raised to live in glory and immortality by Christ who hath wrought this for us by his death and brought it to light by his Gospel which is commanded to be preached to every rational creature under heaven Lay then to heart that is seriously and alone ponder with thy self what Christ hath done and suffered for thee what he hath deserved of thee what he expects from thee as a man Christian for whose sake he hath died Wouldst thou have greater instances of his love to thee John 10.11 John 15.13 then thus to die for thee Shall not thy unthankful and sinful importunity be satisfied with that which hath satisfied divine justice stopped the Devils mouth conquered death and purchased life eternal to every true believer It wrought up blessed Ignatius's heart to an ambitious zeal of Martyrdome that he might shew his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reciprocal love to Christ when he deeply considered and oft repeated Christ my love hath been crucified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doth it become thee to neglect despise sinne against such love any longer Canst thou trample that blood under feet which hath been shed for thee Wouldst thou have him
the feet of plebeian petulancy and mechanicke insolency under which Incubusses in many places it is miserably faln No my grief is partly that I have not so improved the opportunities of his life and my interest with him as possibly I might and should had I been aware though I confess for some months past I was jealous he would ere long deprive me and all the world of all capacities to serve him which is the other part of my sorrow this fear made me add of late such frequencies to my visits as I thought not unacceptable still aiming to catch those mollissima tempora fandi seasonable advantages in respect of his urgent infirmities as might do him most good in being his remembrancer for the main matters of life and death that one thing necessary his eternal interests in comparison of which all things of Houses Lands Honours Wife Children Crowns and Kingdoms are as losse and dung He seemed not to expect a long life since he could judge what it was to live by I know not what secret presage he would oft say in the height and vigor of his youth He should not live beyond his Mothers age who died under 27. and he under 24. God you see hath verified what was foretold I believe more beyond all their expectations that knew him then his own who certainly had some secret monition which I hope he did not wholly neglect though possibly he did not so much regard it as the event would have required having the hopes and flattering confidences of youth and spirit yet attending him This possibly encouraged him as is usual the more earnestly to pursue those allowed contentments of life which he conceived might most contribute to his honour and happiness then it may be he would have done if he had foreseen the speedy and impendent period of his life and how much more necessary for his true interests the eternal peace and happiness of his soul the gracious improvements of his short time had been beyond the most deserving consort and most splendid fortune in the world the enjoyment of which God soon deprived him of and I hope so far weaned his heart from them and raised it above them as became one that was shortly to leave them after he had but a few months beheld them not without much anxiety and bodily infirmity A great and remarkable instance to confute all the glory hopes and confidence of us poor mortals who at our best estate are altogether vanity Psal 39.5 6. disquieting our selves in a vain shadow till we turn meer shadows and cyphers to this world Let young sparks and Gallants of both sexes see their faces in the pieces of this sometime so fair and fulgent now broken and defaced glass or mirroir If parentage and descent if Nobility and honour if youth and bravery if courtly splendors and grandeurs if an ample fortune and revenue if human friendships and highest favours if neerest alliance to a person he thought most deserving of his love and most capable to make him happy in the highest point of human felicity if experience of virtuous love conjugal respect extraordinary tenderness and passionate prudence which he had to comfort him in his long and killing infirmity immediately succeeding his so desired nuptials if any one or all of these endearments and decoyes of life had signified any thing to the preserving of it or could have been advantaged by the care and skill of excellent Physitians this young and noble Gentleman had not now been the subject of my discourse and your attention of all our sorrows and tears yea stupors and astonishments for I assure you he is an object not lightly to be laid to all our hearts and especially to the hearts of all his neerest kindred and relations Warning all that have seen Isa 40.6 1 Tim. 6.17 or shall hear or read the sudden blastings of this goodly flower which is as all flesh but grass not to trust in this vain world not in uncertain riches Amos 6.3 Quamvis a Diis immortabibus prope absumus mortales tardè tamen ad Deorum cognitionem cultum usum accedimus nisi aut maris tempestatibus jactati aut terrae motibus perculsi aut vitae infirmitatibus vexati aut mortis terroribus attoniti potius quà m adducti honours beauties loves relations selves not to put far from them the evil day which is indeed never far from them even in their sense that is the day of sickness death and judgement and in Gods sense it is then most upon them when they live least to God and their consciences and most to their sinful lusts and pleasures Such as are conscious their days and hearts are evil toward God may justly fear his hand against them to cut them off from the land of the living I know as one of the ancients notably observed although we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neer of kin to God and he is not far from any of us as the Apostle preacheth to the Athenians Acts 17.27 in being and bounty in mercies or in judgements yea he is neerest to us round about and within us intimior intimo nostri as St. Bernard by his omniscience and exact advertence of all our ways words thoughts and deeds yet we naturally affect a reserve a strangeness and distance yea an enmity toward God that if possible he may not be in all our thoughts who is as the Psalmist saith about our beds and spieth out all our paths Psal 139.2 that we may live without him in this world withoutwhom we can neither live move nor have our being It is very late very slowly Isa 51.13 and but seldome that we come to the sense service and use of God unless scared by tempests at Sea or dreadful earthquakes or bodily sufferings or the terrours of death It is a long time before the conceited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-sufficiency of youth which swims in plenty pleasure and honour Acts 14.17 can fancy any necessity of having or owning a God forgetting the Lord that made them and casting his commands behind their backs Not that God is wanting to give them many witnesses of himself and by many cords of a man to draw them to him but the headiness pride and presumption of our own hearts our lusts and humours is such that like Sampson we break all these cords of love and divine Philanthropy the bonds of nature providence reason conscience Religion and Baptism in sunder So that it is a mercy of God if at any time he stops the fleetness of our youthful passions which are prone to run wilde and counter to Gods blessed will to our own consciences and welfare I hope this noble young Gentleman had a serious and humble yea a gracious and thankful sense of Gods merciful severities and indulgent afflictions We are certainly undone if God be not better to us then we would have him if as a wise father he doe not give us
daily crucified for thee Canst thou fancy or desire greater benefits then those that accrew to thee and are offered thee by Christ who hath taken away the sting of death 1 Cor. 15. which is sin that when thou diest in the Lord thou art sure to be eternally blessed with the Lord Vitam non amittimus sed mutamus Hieron for true Christians doe not lose but exchange life by death Like a turning chatr which serves for a door so death natural is but a moving us out of one room which is an ontward antecamera chamber or common gallery or base court into another which is most ample and nobly furnished with all company and other accomplishments befitting the Majesty Palace and presence of the King of Heaven Death is but a transition or passage from grace to glory the taking of the candle of our soules out of a dark and close lanthorn of our bodies to set it on a fair candlestick in a stately chamber till the body be restored fitter for it crystalline celestial incorruptible When Christians defer their repentance and comming to Christ they forget the priviledges and benefits which are enjoyable only by them both in life and death at resurrection and judgment to come There being no other name under heaven by which we may be saved in any of these exigents Acts 4.12 which will in after-years overtake us all O bethink thy self and say in thy heart with David What shall I render to the Lord for all his mercies Psal 116.12 What shall I return to my blessed Saviour who hath redeemed me by his precious blood from so many and so great deaths I will devote both soul and body to him as a living and acceptable sacrifice Rom. 12.2 which is but my reasonable service Though I have done foolishy ungratefully unchristianly and desperately hitherto yet I will adde no more drunkenness to thirst or iniquity to sinne since he hath by his meritorious passion both redeemed my life from the death in sin and my death from the penal horrors for sin Yea in this he hath made my death better then my life that while I live I shall sin by daily defects and infirmities but when I die sin shall wholly die in me This one cordial is in every good Christians death that his sin shall not be immortal but as he shall be ever with the Lord so he shall never sin more against him 9. Lay to heart upon this and the like sad occasions to what good end or purpose thou hast hitherto lived for many yeares as a man or a Christian in the sphear of reason in the bosome of the Church and in the light of true Religion Bethink thy self how many hours dayes weeks moneths yeares God hath given thee since thou cam'st to be master of reason and instructed in Religion knowing good and evil as a space of repentance and opportunity to shew thy fear love duty and obedience to God that thou mightst be capable of his eternal rewards There are in every year eight thousand seven hundred seventy five hours if we should allow the greater half of these for sleep and necessary attending our bodies take but four thousand houres for our work and business of consequence how poor account can most men women of ripe age but not yet come to yeares of discretion give of all these in a whole year Not one hour in seven which is as a Sabbatical hour in every day not one hour in ten which is but the Tithe of our time is generally devoted to God or any good duty Nay many are weary of doing nothing Mark 11.20 and how solicitous to ravel out their time in the most impertinent and excessive pastimes they can imagine They are like to doe very well who know not what to doe with themselves and their time Phil. 3.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they have most leisure to intend their spiritual and eternal improvement then are they most lavish of their precious houres Debuisti boc tempus non perdere So Pliny the elder checked his Nephew for losse of time when he saw him walking in the streets and indisposed thereby to read or note any thing Canst thou not tell how to spend this or that long day Wouldst thou adde spurs to the wings of time I will tell thee the very waste and seeming superfluity of thy time would serve thy turn for an eternal happiness to work out thy salvation Those lost shreds of hours which thou flingest away lazing and laughing and chatting and visiting stretching yawning and playing and fooling so long till from doing nothing art tempted to doe evil things idleness being the Devils anvil Incus Diaboli desidia Cavene te Diabolus inveniat oriosum Hieren Pro. 17.16 These parings and rags I say of thy precious time which is infinitely more precious then the finest gold is a price put into thy hand if thou be not an egregious fool of which infinite gain and advantage may be made for ever In this and that good hour which thou prodigally losest not knowing how to spend it thou mightest be seeking thy lost-self thy lost soul thy lost conscience thy lost God thy lost Saviour who came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost O what might not be done in that chain and circle which St. Jerom commends to Laeta Orationem lectio lectionem meditatio meditationē oratio sequebatur Hieron of dispensing time nay if we wrought but now and then a link of grace O what prayers what tears what meditation what contrition what compunction what godly sorrow what ingenuous shame what self-abhorrence what self-despairs might be wrought upon thy heart as to the reflection of thy sins past Yea what fear of God what reverence of the Divine majesty power wisedome justice goodness evident in his works providences word What breathings sighings and seekings after God! What purposes vowes holy resolutions thou mightst take up and begin What hatred and loathing of sin as the greatest abasing of a reasonable creature what search into and admiration of the mystery of Christ crucified what longing after him what faith in him what sense of thy want of him what zeal for him what humility meekness charity holy industry sense of Gods savour sweet influence of his Spirit power against corruptions comforts against death hopes of heaven delight in well-doing joy in God! What serious considerations of the deformity and danger by sin of the beauty and benefits by Christ of the vanity of the world the certain uncertainty of dying These meditations and many such like effects of our thoughts and reflexions of things might be the happy fruits of thy true of thy holy considerations and sober endeavours if thou wert worthy of one moment of that life which thou art so weary of and wastest so impertinently a little portion of which will be one day when thy distresses and terrors come upon
thee as an armed man attended with death and judgment sin and hell an evil conscience and an angry God then I say one day or hour will be as earnestly desired by thee as one drop of water was by Dives and it may be as justly and certainly be denied thee the common fate of riotous Prodigals following thee in this to be reduced to a morsel of bread after sottish profusenesse and shameful luxury We unjustly quarrel with God and nature as Seneca observes that our life is so short when indeed our care is too little to live well which is the onely true life It is one thing to be a man and another to live as a man It was a true fig-tree which was barren and cursed by Christ Maximam partem hominum brutum occupat In most men for a long time the beast in them overlayes the man Sensual lusts are night and day the imperious Incubusses or Ephialtae of their reason What one said with much salt to an Epicure Deus tuus est porcorum Deus is verified in most people during their youth and in many long after even through the whole course of their life They own no other God then the God of swine reverencing the Divine Majesty no more then hogs doe nor expecting more from him then may serve their bellies which is the God they serve as the Apostle speaks nor returning more acknowledgment or service to him yea they live tanquam poeniteret non pecudes natos as if they only repented they were not made only beasts with bodies In titles perhaps noble in estates splendid in words rational and in formalities civil yea perhaps religious in shews but in deeds they are debasers of their native and divine dignity Victa libidine succed it ambitio victa ambitione succedit avaritia victa avaritia succedit superbia vitium inter ipsas virtutes timendum Hieron dethroners of reason despisers of their God and true Religion doting on sensible objects all their lives by a continued succession of vices and inordinate defires and delights which succenturiate or supply the places decayes and recesses of one another as St. Jerome observes till they have wasted life and spirits and time and talents to the very last snuff mean time they have done nothing unde constet vixisse worthy of themselves their relations their God the Church of Christ or their Country From youthful and extravagant lusts they run to pride from pride to hypocrisie from hypocrisie to ambition from ambition to covetousness from covetousness to sacriledge from sacriledge to Atheism from Atheism to stupidity or despair Mean time they have at first it may be with great mirth jollity next with affected gravity and severity not only bought and sold planted and builded married and given in mariage but it may be griped and oppressed killed and possessed subverted and sacrificed all things sacred and civil as much as they could to their own lusts but have never yet had leisure all this while to live or to act any thing but dead works Let them ask their own souls and consciences not quà m fortiter feliciter but quam sanctè justè quid praeclarè quid egregiè fecisti Nay let them ask apart from flatteries Quid non turpiter quid non pudendum quid non poenitendum fecisti What have they done conscienciously justly honestly valiantly for God for the Truth for their own soules or their neighbours good Nay what have they done which in the inward aspect of conscience and many times to outward view of all men is not vile impious to be ashamed of to be repented of They have it may be with Caesar Borgia and Lewis the 11th had much art and Policie but no true piety and charity in them much self-seeking but nothing of self-denying which is the truest touchstone of a Christian constitution They may have been prosperous and yet not pious they may have conquered others but yet not themselves which is the noblest victory They may have gotten much and yet shall be sure to lose all for want of that one thing necessary a good conscience which is the end of living and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only provision for an eternal life A temper of soul which is rightly instructed and guided by the written word of God only sanctified accordingly by his holy spirit practically conformed to his blessed example in all manner of holy conversation this this temper purged by faith in the blood of Christ and so accepted by Gods mercy and dignation through Christs merits makes a good conscience the getting and preserving of which is the main end of life as to our private concern next Gods glory and this alone will bring a man peace in his latter end this alone dares look death and divels in the face to others that have a forme of godliness yet deny the power of it 2 Tim. 3.5 John 3.19 to whom the light of Christian Religion is come and they love darkness more then light their condemnation will be the greater 9. Lay to heart the sameness or variety of aspects wherein death represents to thee the faces and fates of all men living and dying either so alike Eccles 2.16 that as the fool dieth so dieth the wise man as the wicked so the righteous as to the kind and manner of death by sickness pains violence Vide Psal 73.12 Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the world they increase in riches c. Job 21.7 Wherefore do the wicked live become old yea are mighty in power Jer. 12.1 2. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper why are all they happy that deal very treacherously c. John 7.24 Psal 73.15 suddenness in all shapes or figures of death Besides thou maist observe the frequent riddles and Paradoxes not only of mens lives but of their deaths The righteous and godly that eschew evil and do good who fear God and walk uprightly before him who chuse to suffer rather then sin these are oft persecuted and oppressed with poverty prison banishment and distresses while they live yea and their innocency is many times persecuted to the death by violent and unjust men whereas these live and thrive a long time yea and end their days in prosperous impiety to the great scandal of many that are godly and infinite incouragement of wicked doers as Job David and Jeremiah complain Take heed you judge not as Christ forewarns his Disciples by outward appearance or the fight of thine eyes but judge righteous judgement lest thou condemn the generation of God's people many Prophets Apostles Martyrs and Confessors who have most what been sufferers yea lest thou condemne that Just One Christ himself who died as a Malefactor by popular suffrages and the sentence of a timerous judge nay take heed lest thou condemn the righteous God as if he were unjust in his providences and permissions Take heed thy heart fret not against God nor be