Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A47223
|
A letter to the author of a sermon entitled, A sermon preach'd at the funeral of Her Late Majesty Queen Mary, of ever blessed memory
|
Ken, Thomas, 1637-1711.
|
1695
(1695)
|
Wing K265; ESTC R14135
|
6,655
|
8
|
A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR of a SERMON ENTITLED A SERMON Preach'd AT THE FUNERAL Of Her Late MAJESTY Queen MARY Of ever Blessed Memory SIR WHen I heard of the Sickness of the Late Illustrious Princess whom I had never fail'd to recommend to God in my Daily Prayers and that your self was Her Confessor I could not but hope that at least on Her Death-bed you would have dealt faithfully with Her But when I had read the SERMON you preach'd at Her FUNERAL I was heartily griev'd to find my self disappointed and God knows how bitterly I bewail'd in Secret the manner of Her Death and Reflecting again and again on your Conduct of Her Soul methought a Spirit of slumber seem'd to have possess'd you otherwise it was impossible for one who so well understood the Duty of a Spiritual Guide as your self who had such happy Opportunities and such signal Encouragements to Practise it in Her Case should so grosly fail in your Performance as either to overlook or wilfully to omit that which all the World saw besides your self and expected from you and was of great Importance to Her Salvation You are a Person of Noted Abilities and had a full Knowledge of your Duty you had been many years a Parish Priest and exercised your Function with good repute no one could be better vers'd in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick than your self and the Sick Person was no stranger to you and you very well knew Her whole Story As you had a full Knowledge of the Person and of your Duty so you had happy Opportunities to have put that Duty in Practise You had free and frequent Accesses to Her at your Pleasure and on Monday when the flattering Disease occasioned some Hopes but especially on the next Day the Festival of Christ's Birth when those Hopes were rais'd to a kind of Assurance p. 25. and continued so till Night the Peculiar favour of Heaven seem'd to have indulg'd you all that inestimable Day on purpose that you might carefully Employ it in clearing Her Conscience with God and Man and in perfecting Her Preparations for Eternity which had She recover'd were as Necessary to render Her Life Holy and Happy as Her Death Your Ioy enduring but a Day and that Day being clos'd with a dismal Night you gave Her the Warning of Her approaching Death which you say She receiv'd with a Courage agreeable to the strength of Her Faith P. 26. You were set a Watchman over Her and if you did not give Her due Warning of Her Sin also especially when you had so proper a time for doing it and saw Her so capable of receiving it God will require Her Blood at your hands You had this advantage also which is often wanting to such Persons that in the Visits you made Her you did not find Her Delirious and the Orders She gave for Prayers p. 24. Her calling for Prayers a third time when She fear'd she had slept the time before the many most Christian things She said p. 26. Her appointing Psalms a Chapter concerning Trust in God and a Sermon more than once to be read by Her p. 29. are signs She was not at least that she was not so in the Intervals wherein you officiated by Her 'T is true she was often drowzy but she was so very sensible of Her drowziness that she call'd for Prayers before the time for fear that she should not be long compos'd p. 28. and when ever you apply'd your self to Her she was wakeful enough You said indeed p. 27. That at the Receiving the Holy Eucharist she found her self in a dozing Condition but add that she presently stirr'd up Her attention and from thence forth to the end of the Office had a perfect Command of Her understanding and was intent upon the Great Work she was going about And methinks Sir if you had been jealous over her Soul with a Godly Iealousy when you gave Her the Viaticum and saw that she had then a perfect Command of her Vnderstanding and that she was intent you had another fit Season offer'd you by Heaven to have minded Her of any but probable defects in Her Repentance and to have Exhorted Her to a short Supplemental Confession Nay to Her very last she seem'd not wholly uncapable of any pious Intimations you might have given her for her Understanding continued to that degree That nothing of Impertinece scarce a number of disjointed words were heard from Her insomuch that she said a devout AMEN to that very Prayer in which her Pious Soul was recommended to that God who gave it p. 49. So that your own Sermon will testifie against you that you had very happy Opportunitys of directing her Conscience I must add that you had as Signal Encouragements also You had to deal with a Person whose Knowledge and Wisdom you justly Commend p. 3. and who might easily have been Convinced if in any one Instance she had mistaken her Duty You had to deal with one whose Piety Charity and Humility you in many respects deservedly Magnifie p. 10. I only wish you had added her Iustice also to have made Her Character compleat However those three Virtues were powerful Inducements to have us'd a Consciencious freedom with Her You had as appears by the Character you give Her a Pious Charitable Humble Soul under your Care a Subject most happily dispos'd to work on who had always been very Reverent and Attentive at Sermons p. 9 who had an Averseness to Flattery p. 12. and who would thankfully have received any Pious or Charitable or humble Admonition you had given Her I now beseech you Sir to spend a few thoughtful Minutes in comparing your Performance as you yourself represent it in your own Sermon with your Knowledge with the Opportunities and Encouragements you had and with the Rubrick of the Church You mention a very Religious Saying which fell from Her That she had Learn'd from Her Youth a true Doctrine That Repentance was not to be put off to a Death-bed p. 26. But it was your Duty considering the Deceitfulness of all Hearts and the usual Infirmities and Forgetfulness and Indisposedness of Sick Persons to have Supplied all Her Oversights and Omissions and to have Examin'd the Truth of Her Repentance whether she truly Repented of her Sins and where you know any thing of Moment which had escap'd Her Observation you ought to have been Her Remembrancer I therefore challenge you to answer before God and the World Did you know of no weighty Matter which ought to have troubled this Princesses Conscience tho' at present she seem'd not to have felt it and for which you ought to have mov'd her to a special Confession in order to Absolution Were you satisfied that she was in Charity with all the World Did you know of no Enmity between Her and Her Sister Did you know of no Person who ever offended Her whom she was to forgive Did you know of no one
the first Commandment with Promise that it may be well with Thee and thou mayest live long on the Earth and if any even Princes for the Command makes no exception do visibly Dishonour Father and Mother and their lives are cut short the very Command of God assigns the cause of it and I hope the surviving Princess will consider and take warning and Repent lest God be provoked to cut her life as short as her Sisters You say p. 30. That having like David serv'd her own Generation by the Will of God she fell asleep and if you had been a true Nathan to her the Similitude had been very proper but her Virtue having like David's suffer'd an Eclipse you took no care that it should break out again in as Conspicuous a Repentance You metion the strong Hopes you have of her everlasting felicity p. 32. but as you managed her Conscience you should rather have call'd them strong Presumptions I have Hopes of her everlasting Felicity as well as you tho' not at all grounded on your Guidance but on the Infinite mercy of God who makes most gracious abatement for all our Infirmities and for all the degrees of excusability we can plead and when I consider her conjugal Love and Awe the horrid misrepresentations made to her of her Royal Father the various and studied Trains laid to delude her the plausible pretences of Religion of Scripture and of the Glory of God which she heard daily inculcated and the unfaithfulness of her Guides who had wholly possessed her Ear together with her subdued will her soft and ten der Sex and Temper her well-meaned tho' misguided Zeal the Piety of her Inclinations and her ardent Desire that her Soul might be without spot presented to God which she manifested in ordering that Collect to be read twice every day p. 24. I have Hopes that God accepted of her general Repentance and by a super-effluence of Grace supply'd the defects of it What therefore I have said is not in the least to derogate from any of her Virtues but to Expostulate with you for being the occasion that they did not shine out in their full Lustre and whether such Shepherds may not be said to feed themselves rather than the Flock whether your Behaviour to this dying Princess does not reach those Expressions of the Prophet Of crying Peace Peace when there is no Peace and of daubing with untemper'd Mortar whether it is not Healing a Spiritual Hurt slightly Let all my Reverend Brethren of the Clergy who are untainted with the Latitudinarian Leven whether they are Possessed of their Benefices or Depriv'd be the Judges Before I take my leave I cannot but remark that spiteful Reflection you bestow'd on the poor Sufferers which you thus express And Domestick Discontent reigning in those whose Resentments are stronger than their Reason p. 18. The Persons whom you thus Characterise will tell you that 't is much easier for you to revile their Reasons than to Answer them of which you are so very sensible that no one labours more industriously than your self to debar them the liberty of the Press As for their Resentments the greatest they have at present are against your self not for your Promotion which I know none of them that envy but for your misguidance of that Illustrious Princess whose everlasting Happiness they Prayed for and whose untimely Death they deplore In the mean time Sir none of that dirt which you cast at the faithful Remnant will stick but will recoyl on your self and I have reason to believe that That Great Prince whom such as you had rather flatter than imitate does esteem them at least Honest Men and indeed in their being tender of their former Oaths they have followed that Illustrious Example which he himself set them for there was a time when he being Prince of Orange had the Sovereignty of the Seven Provinces offered him and offered him by a Power which would have put him into Possession and he rejected that tempting offer with a most Heroick and Christian Answer to this purpose That he had lately taken an Oath to be true to his Countrey which he would by no means violate It was Wisdom not that which is Earthly but that which is from above which taught the Prince of Orange to prefer a good Conscience before a Kingdom a Blissful and an Eternal Crown before one that was Vexatious and Transitory and may the same Divine Wisdom in his present Circumstances vouchsafe to be his Councellour If then he when a Prince was so Consciencious in observing his Oath to the States can he have an ill Opinion of Priests and of Bishops who are alike Conscencious in observing their Oaths 'T is improbable he should unless he has such Confessors as your self to exasperate him against them but from such Confessors I beseech God to deliver him God of his Great Mercy grant that what I have written may awaken you out of your Slumber and conduce to your Repentance the only Preservative against all those Woes which are denounced against careless Shepherds Your faithful Friend in our Common Saviour March the 29th 1695.