Grief allayed Death sweetned Hope raised A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE HONOURABLE CHRYSTOPHER SHERARD Esq Eldest Son to the RIGHT HONOURABLE BENNET Lord SHERARD February the 28 th 1681. By T. L. M.A. LONDON Printed by S. Roycroft for Robert Clavell at the Peacock in St. Pauls Church-yard 1682. To the Right Honourable the Lady Elizabeth Sherard Fulness of true Consolation in Christ Madam HAD not your Ladiship desired a Sight of this plain Sermon I should scarce have assumed the Confidence to have presented it to your perusal but as I receive your desire as a Command so your favourable Acceptance will add weight and worth to it If the witty Censurer shall say That I tell him nothing but what he knew lefore I shall be contented with it and rejoyce that he was so well Instructed and wish also that he needed not a Remembrancer howsoever no man ought to be offended that Sermons are not like curious Inquiries after New-nothings but pursuances of Old Truths I am very sensible your Ladiship is furnished from much more Learned Physicians than I am with very proper Receipts against the late cause of your Sorrow yet I hope Madam that this which I here present unto you may somewhat heighten and improve their efficacy And in so doing I shall esteem it amongst those Blessings with which God useth to reward those good Intentions which himself first puts into our hearts and then recompences upon our heads All Sermons are but Arguments against us unless they make us quit our Mistakes and suffer them in some instance and degree to do the work of God upon our Souls And the special design of this here present dedicated to your honourable Patronage and Protection is to describe the greater Lines of our Duty when our Faces are bedew'd with Tears and our Backs cloathed with Mourning And whatsoever rellish your Ladiship may find in the Comment yet I am sure the Text being carefully laid up in your Religious Breast will be sound wholesom and consolatory though what I have in much weakness perform'd is only in Duty expressing the many and great Obligations you daily renew upon Your Ladiships Most obliged Servant and devoted Chaplain Tho. Laxton 1 Thess 4.13 But I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope THE weeping Eyes and bleeding Hearts which are so plentifully discovered in this Assembly tell you the sum of my Errand our present Business the Work in hand a Funeral The Party deceased a most accomplisht ingenious pious well-natur'd well-nurtur'd Person The first Son and hopeful Heir to the Great and Generous Heroick and Ancient Family of the Sherards The Mourners not only all present but absent in numbers as great and considerable as our loss and tears are great and wonderful The Place of Burial the Sepulcher of his Progenitors When Samuel died 1 Sam. 25. all the Israelites were gathered together and lamented him and buried him in his House at Ramah To be buried is an honour buried in one's own Country much in his own Place more with solemn Lamentations most of all the Saints Honour For he that spends his days though few as this most excellent Branch of Vertue did upon God and Man shall at the last have all the Honour Heaven and Earth can cast upon him A holy and a vertuous Life ends in an happy and honourable Death Josiah having received his Death abroad is brought home in his Chariot and much Honour attends him to his Grave he is buried amongst his Fathers all Jerusalem nay all Judah and the Neighbouring Towns are Mourners God and Man concurred in this that Josiah's Name should never dye Good men never go to the Grave unlamented but generally are attended with Mourning as the Mourning of Hadradrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon And here lies the mistake of weak and frail man that too often performs actions in themselves lawfully good after an unlawful and immoderate manner The words therefore that I have chosen for our present Subject are a choice portion of Scripture teaching us to stere our Course and keep up our Heads that we neither sink nor drown in these Waters of Affliction And though I have before now treated on the same Text yet at this time and upon this occasion I have renew'd my Meditations and adapted them not only for Matter but also in such Order and Method as may be most proper for the end I propose even the allaying our Griefs and raising our Hopes I would not have you to be ignorant c. The Scope of the Apostle in these words is to regulate immoderate Sorrow for them that sleep in the Lord. For the Thessalonians ' though well instructed an confirm'd in the Faith and particularly of the Resurrection which Faith if it had its full working would necessarily infer and inforce a mean in Mourning for deceased Christians yet it seems overborn sometimes with immoderate Passion for their deceased Brethren they gave way to excess of Sorrow Against this Infirmity the Apostle gives this Exhortation as a seasonable and wholesom Remedy I would c. 1. Where observe The Substance of the Precept to keep a Mean in Mourning not to pour out our selves into excessive Sorrow for the Dead 2. Reasons to enforce it interwoven with the Precept From 1. The Nature of Death a Sleep 2. The Issue of Death a hopeful Resurrection Withal secretly taxing and reprehending this immoderate Sorrow as arguing too little knowledge practical knowledge of future Blessedness and too much savouring of Gentilism whose hopes were terminated with this present Life and of the blessed state to come were altogether hopeless The first in the first words I would not have you ignorant and the other in the last even as the Gentiles c. The first general Oservation is That Christians ought to moderate their Sorrow for the Dead To banish indeed all Affections out of the Nature of Man may be a part of Stoical but not Christian Philosophy Religion as it doth not abolish Reason but sanctifie and guide it nor deprive us of Sense but teacheth us a right use of the Senses so it destroys not the Affections but orders and husbands them aright as Joshuah did dot kill the Gibeonites but subjected them to the use and service of the Tabernacle They therefore are to be blamed that stupifie Nature and quench those Affections that are implanted in us by the Finger of God in our first Creation as that rigid Sect the Stoicks who would have their Wise-man or Philosophical Saint so mortified as in no Accident to Joy or Grieve or change a Countenance or in any Loss even of dearest Friends to suffer any relenting Such pains they took to cease to be Men that they subjected themselves below the degree of Beasts Patience they may count it insuperable Fortitude which is indeed rather the want of natural affection Rom. 1.
condemn'd by the Apostle as a blockish stupidity and may justly fall under that Censure Jer. 5.3 Thou hast smitten them but they have not grieved For certainly the death of Friends is a stroke Ezek. 24. I will take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke saith God to Ezekiel a stroke which toucheth all of dear relation and is it fit the strokes of God should fall upon a flinty and unrelenting heart Therefore we find that Abraham mourned for Sarah Joseph for Jacob the Israelites for Moses Aaron Samuel Customary it was among the Jews to mourn seven days sometimes longer with fasting and renting of the Clothes This perhaps more of Superstition than either of Necessity or Decency Yet there ought to be a Moderation for them that are dead in Christ. As all our Affections that they may be useful in a Christian Life must be bankt up within their due Bounds and bridled with a strong hand of Grace neither misapplied in their Object nor falling over or short in their Measure And therefore some of the very Heathen have placed the top of Wisdom in the Moderation of the Affections their Ethicks or Doctrine of Moral Vertues being exercised chiefly in this Task So particularly a special care is to be had that they overflow not the Banks in mourning for the Dead Hence God did forbid to his People those Heathen Rites of cutting themselves Deut. 14.1 and shaving of the hair Our blessed Saviour in the case of Jairus his Daughter newly dead when both the Father and Mother of the Child and the Disciples there present opened the Sluce of Tears to their Affections sets Bounds and Banks to that Passion in these words Weep not she is not dead but sleepeth For this cause he disliked in their Solemn Funerals the use of the Jewish Minstrelsy the end whereof was to encrease Sorrow by sad and doleful Tunes Detestandae sunt illae lacrymae quae non habent modum Thraenodiae Affection saith One in this Case hath need of a Bridle not a Spur. St. Hierom's Caution is worthy of Observation Those Tears are to be detested which have no measure Indeed some of Gods Children have Impotently yielded to the violence of this Passion as indeed it is most easie to slip into Excess where the Matter about which our Actions are conversant is of it self confessedly Lawful Hence Rachels Weeping Mourning and great Lamentation for her Children because as to her present sense they were not And Davids Passionate Ejaculations for Absolom O Absolom c. would God I had died for thee c. But these Examples are neither commendable nor imitable and rather Documents of Humane Infirmity than Precedents of Imitation And for the last he bewail'd not so much in St. Augustines Judgment his Sons death as that fearful state wherein he seem'd to die stain'd with horrid Incest against his Fathers Bed and Vnnatural practises against his Fathers Life How much more comly and Imitable was his Demeanour in the Death of his Child born to him by Bethshabe Seeking to the Lord by Prayer and Fasting for the Child while it was yet alive 2 Sam. 12.23 but when dead Wherefore saith he should I fast I shall go to him but he shall not return to me Now for the suppressing of this Inordinate Passion take into your serious Thoughts these Considerations 1. That it is Gods doing and we must give him leave to use his own Power and Soveraignty over his Creature Isai 64.2 in whose hands we are all as Clay in the hands of the Potter He that inspired the Breath of life may justly recal it Whatsoever the Weapon be the Hand is his that wields it This one Meditation is enough to silence all Repining and Impatient Thoughts as to draw from us that humble Resignation of St. Paul Acts 21.14 The Will of the Lord be fulfilled Of Eli It is the Lord let him do what seems good in his sight Of David I held my peace and opened not my Mouth for it was thy doing This Consideration allayed Jobs Sorrow in the loss of his Children He look'd not at the Rotten House or the Four Winds that smote it but at him that bringeth the Winds out of his Treasures and therefore sets up within himself this patient Resolution The Lord giveth Job 1.21 and the Lord taketh away Blessed be the Name of the Lord. 2. Consider the Vanity and Unprofitableness of Excessive Sorrow it profiteth neither the Living nor the Dead Not the Living Prov. 12.25 Heaviness in the heart of Man bringeth it down and Worldly sorrow worketh death As Fire lightly sprinkled burns more clearly too much overwhelm'd gives neither heat nor light So moderate Sorrow advantageth the Soul in many Natural Moral and Spiritual Actions Immoderate quencheth the Vigour of the Spirits and renders us unfit for every good Duty Again It profiteth not the Dead Should we fill their Tombs with Tears and spend our Lives in Lamentation we cannot redeem them Excessive Sorrow may bring us to them no Sorrow Care or Cost can bring them back to us As David I shall go to him but he shall not return to me 3. Consider the Necessity of Dying Ever since that necessitating Law Dust thou art and unto Dust shalt thou return Man is by the Chain of Gods irrevocable Decree tied unto Death It is appointed to all Men once to die and who shall disappoint his Appointment Whatsoever parts have been acted upon this Stage of Mortality Death is the Catastrophe and the Grave the place of Retyring The Wisdom of the Wise cannot prevent it the Tongue of the Eloquent cannot charm it the Strength of the Mighty cannot resist it It Reverenceth neither the Gray hairs of the Aged nor the Green locks of the Young No swiftness can over-run it no Prowess over-match it No gifts of Nature priviledges of Place endowments of Grace can free us from the stroke of it Where are those Millions of Generations that have hitherto Peopled the Earth Have they not made their Beds in the Dark And when they have serv'd their time have they not seen Corruption And shall We think to have our Friends Fathers Mothers Husbands Wives Children exempted from the Universal Law of Humane Nature 4. But that which is yet more effectual to moderate Sorrow for the Dead is that Death is indeed a Portal and passage unto Life If indeed they were utterly extinct shut up in Eternal Darkness some reason had we with Rachel to Mourn for them supposing that they are not But we know that they are and believe that they are happy and that when this Earthly house of our tabernacle is dissolved we have a building not made with hands eternal in the Heavens When the Soul taking her flight into a state of Bliss and leaving behind her this Clog of Mortality shall be removed an incomputable distance from this Vale of Sin and Misery And are we sorry for this
blessed Exchange shall we Mourn for their glorious preferment whom we profess to live with God Spei nostrae ac Fidei prevaricatores Simulata ficta fucata videntur esse quae dicicimus Cyprian What difference in this respect between the Hopeless Heathen and the Professed Christian St. Cyprian thinks it incongruous to Mourn for them in Black that follow the Lamb in White This perhaps may seem a Flower of Rhetorick but certainly Excessive Sorrow shews us to be of a defective Faith That Faith can hardly be thought sincere unto which we walk so contrary in Practice Especially seeing a very Heathen could say That we do not amittere but praemittere not lose them but send them before us in Hope as our Faith further teacheth us to follow and communicate with them in the same Glory and Blessedness And this leads me to the next General part of the Text the First Reason against Excessive Sorrow for the Dead the Nature of Death It is a sleep Sleep in phrase of Scripture admits of divers senses for we find First The sleep of Nature A binding of the Senses Somnus Naturae a Rest cessation and suspention of them from their Actual operations and consequently Ligatio sensuum of all the Members of the Body from executing their Natural offices and functions Thus Adam slept in Paradice Jesus in the Ship Peter in the Prison 2. The sleep of Sin A secure Spiritual Lethargy Somnus Culâ—ae Eph. 5.14 1 Thess 5.6 Awake thou that sleepest Let us not sleep as do others but let us watch and be sober that is Arise from the Grave of Infidelity and Sin unto the Life of Faith the Life of Righteousness and then to keep the Eyes of our Souls continually waking lest we be inveigled by the Devil or the Worlds Temptations 3. The sleep of Grace Somnus Gratiae A holy Peace and Tranquility of Mind arising from the apprehension of Gods favour in Christ I will lay me down and sleep If David can attain a glimpse of the light of Gods Countenance then he will lay him down and sleep 4. Somnus Sepulcri The sleep of the Grave The long sleep of Death when the Body lying in the Bed of Dust doth rest until it be awakened by the Sound of the last Trumpet Now to prevent Error and Mistake this Sleep is not to be conceiv'd of the separated Soul as some have vainly thought supposing it to be not only without Organical by a bodily Instrument action but without all Action Not considering that the Soul even in the state of Union and Commerce with the Body hath her proper and Immaterial acts of Thinking Reasoning Judging c. Yea the most perfect Acts of the Soul are exercised when the Bodily Senses are tied up as in Extasies and deep Contemplations Besides the Spirits of Men in and after their Transmigration are still Spirits but without motion and activity they would be no Spirits For the Nature and Essence of a Spirit consists in Act and it is not obscurely intimate Rev. 5.12 that they are employed in Magnifying and praising God Understand this Sleep therefore to be of the Body in the Grave a Metaphor very frequent in Holy Scripture Deu. 12.2 Many of them that sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake Of divers of the Kings of Israel and Judah 't is said that they slept with their Fathers St. Paul reproving the abuse of the Holy Sacrament in the Corinthian Church For this cause saith he many are sick and weak among you and many sleep And St. Stephen having commended his Spirit into the hands of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 7.59 fell asleep A Similitude used among the Heathen Hence their distinction of the Greater and Lesser Sleep Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One calls it Deaths Brother Another Deaths Sister Another Deaths Image Of one Gorgias it is said That being sick and heavy unto Death and very sleepy being ask'd how he did Virgil. Stulte quid est somnus gelidae nisi mortis Imago Jamme somnus incipit tradere fratri suo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 replied Now sleep begins to deliver me up to his Brother Death These although Ignorant of a Resurrection could easily find in Death the similitude of a Sleep Hence our Graves are called Beds and our Churchyards Sleeping-places or Dormitories And indeed if Death be a Sleep the Grave must needs be the Bed Isai 57.2 Unto this may fitly be applied that of the Propht They shall enter into peace they shall lie down upon their Beds each one walking in his uprightness Divers Reasons may be given of this Similitude I shall pitch upon two First Sweetness of Rest Secondly Certainty of Resurrection 1. Sweetness of Rest Rev. 14.13 Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their Labours Man is born to affliction as the sparks fly upwards No Family Age Sex or Condition of Men but hath experience of Humane Miseries A heavy yoak is laid upon the Sons of Men from the day of their Birth unto the day of their Death Afflictions like Waves come rolling one upon another the end of one misery is the beginning of another Hear we not one crying My belly my belly with the Prophet another My head my head with the Shunamites Son One My Father my Father with Elisha another My Son my Son with David One complaining of Cruel Enemies another of False Friends One of Sore Labour another of Hungry Meals One of Grief in the Body another of Sin in the Soul Here lies Jacob in the Fields there Joseph in Prison Here Jeremy in the Dungeon there David in the Wilderness Daniel among the Lions the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace It is not unsignificant that Nature sends us into the World Weeping a sad presage of our future Calamity Such our Ingress such our Progress through this Vale of Tears So that Man and Misery seem to be born under one Planet If Man had not been Sorrow upon Earth had never been And as we suffer many Evils so we do more the Flesh continually lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh so that the good which we would we do not and the evil which we would not that we do From all these this Sleep in my Text gives us a sweet discharge the Soul carried into Abrahams Bosom And what is the Fathers Bosom but a place of Repose unto the Child The Body laid up in a Couch of Sacred rest and security sweetned sanctified seasoned and perfumed by the most precious Death and Burial of Christ Cubile in quo mollius dormit quisquis durius se en hâc vitâ gesserit where our sleep shall be sweeter as our labour hath been harder The Body no sooner dead but it feels nothing the Soul no sooner fled but it feels it self happy 2. Certainty of Resurrection Indeed more certain than we are