Paludibus Lacunis that is The holy Spirit dwells in dry and clean Souls not in Boggs and Fenns and Ditches and Plashes that are over-charged with Gluttony and Intemperance we may then justly suppose the holy Dove that sacred Spirit dwelt much in such a Temple I might instance in more particulars and consider him as a Friend Firm Faithful and Affectionate As a Master Just and Equal As a Husband Faithful Tender and Affectionate But this I will decline lest I draw more Tears from those eyes that have paid over and above the full Debt already Such as this was the discharge of his Duties to himself and Neighbour And now we may be sure 't is not likely that he should come short in those to his God whom he loved infinitely beyond both To whom he is now gone to exchange his Faith for Vision his Hope for Fruition his Devotions to be turn'd into Hallelujahs where he will alway love him without Abatement Cessation Diminution and Interruption and never more fear to offend him His immediate Duties I say to his God I have reasons to believe took up a considerable part of each day of his Life Thirdly I might consider him next as a Priest of the Holy Catholick Church as a Dispenser of all the Parts and Instances of Ministration to the Divine Glory Love and Obedience How Faithful how Constant how Able how Assiduous in his Preaching the Gospel in his Administration of the Sacraments and the other parts of his holy Function these lately of his Charge are his best Witnesses And his Master when he call'd for his Accounts and bid him lay aside his business here and come up to him Carne and found him so doing And blessed is That Servant says our Great Master St. Matth. 24.46 And thus much though too briefly as to his Life 2. As to his Death If the separation of the Soul and Body shall be call'd so For not Christians only but what 's much more remarkable and strange even the Heathens and particularly the Greek Tragedian would not allow the unfettering and unchaining of the Soul to be call'd a death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is who knows who can tell but that that Life which we live here is but a death and that to dye only is truly to live And 't is as strange what is said by another Hi vivunt qui ex corporum vinculis tanquam e carcere evolaverunt vestra vero quae dicitur vita mors est i. e. They truly live who have made their escape out of this prison of the Body but that which men commonly call Life that 's Death And a third speaks higher yet The Gods as they speak conceal from Men and will not let them know the sweetness of dying to make them patient and content to live But we need not the Testimony or Opinion of the Wisest Heathens who have the Revelation of the Son of God That Death only lets us in to that State which alone deserves the name of Life And how holy how Christian how truly devout his Passage was might be too long to mention at large For certainly all that stood near him have reason to wish in the words of Balaam Let my last end be like his Numb 23.10 Having given him several Visits in his Sickness which were voluntary and uncall'd for I found at last by his continual Languishments reason to believe the time of his Removal could be at no great distance With which Thoughts I faithfully acquainted him in a Letter As knowing 't was best to take all the Securities which our Lord has given us to make our Passage safe and holy And it being infinite Pity that a Regular a Holy and Exemplary Life should want any of the Advantages of a happy Death Accordingly the day before his Death he was pleased to send for me and call upon me to assist him in his Trimming of his Lamp for the coming of his Bridegroom whom he now apprehended to be near at hand and to help him to Dress and Adorn himself for his Funeral 'T will be a great Mistake for any Man or all Men living to expect a minute and particular Account of every word that might pass between us But when I came to him he told me he was going hence that he was very apprehensive that in a little time he should be call'd to change Worlds and desired I would assist him in his last Agonies How willing I was to undertake so welcome a Duty in which I could at once serve my Master and my Friend a Master above and a Friend below in the same Instance and in an Instance too in which I was never like to do it more is no part of my present Business to say At first he desired the Prayers of the Church in which he joyned with all possible Demonstrations of a lively Faith an unfeign'd Repentance a Seraphic Fervency and Zeal a holy Hope and religious Affections Which being ended he told me he designed the next day which proved to be that in which he Dyed for the receiving his Viaticum for his approaching Journy I mean the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper I told him I thought it might be very convenient and most safe to do it to day To which He after some Thoughts and Considerations most readily and willingly consented He complained I remember of his Unwillingness to receive his Saviour as he lay and could have wish'd if his Weakness would have permitted it might have been upon his Knees and in a more humble Posture of External Devotion But his great Weakness of Body considered this could be no Dispute and 't is pity that ever it should have been one in the Christian Church Which having devoutly Received he then seem'd more full of a Holy Joy and Pious Satisfaction and a Religious Peace And he express'd his Rejoycings in some chearful Ejaculations Thus in the mid'st of Blessing and Prayers and Eucharist he stands about a day longer upon the Threshold of the new World And then he is called to come in and he bows the Head and enters And Willingly and Chearfully Yields and Resigns up his Soul you may be sure not without the Peace of the Church into the Hands of the Great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls the Holy Jesus And now I 'le stay to ask one Question once more in the words before mentioned who of us here is there but must be inclin'd to say Let my last end be like his Thus he has left Mortality And tho he has left his Partner Disconsolate his Relatives Mourning his Friends Sighing yet above all he has left his People without a Pastor an Assistant and a Guide And tho all that knew him may possibly Lament his Removal yet certainly none have more cause than you that were the People of his Charge to whom I now speak And if the taking away so faithful a Conductor of you
not be safe without them In a late Sickness which you thought would have been unto Death Nothing was so welcome to you then as a Prayer-Book no Company like that of a Guide of Souls no Imployment like Devotion Tho it may be all these Thoughts vanished and disbanded again upon thy return to Health and Vigour But however if this have been thy Case or like it methinks you should now in Health be easily persuaded to argue thus Come my Soul we can easily remember that such religious Thoughts and Actions and Wishes and Intentions pleased us above all things in a late Sickness And I am very confident they will please us again above all things when we come to dye And why they should not please us now when we can best perform them is strange and unaccountable which brings me to the Third and last Use or Instance of Application If these things must be granted to be Wisdom then let us be prevailed upon to apply our selves to all these Instances of Divine Love and Obedience in a vigorous and a flourishing Age which we constantly find the Learnedst the Wisest and the Best of dying Men are infinitely in Love with But before I come to this last Use I shall remember that I have another subject of Discourse yet to be spoke to The Person I mean whose Vacancy I at present fill our Friend and our Brother here before us who after a long Conflict with Mortality has now paid his last Debt to Nature and to whom we are paying our last Offices of Friendship and Charity and Kindness The Truth is if Custom had not warranted and called for a short Discourse of this sort yet 't were infinite Pity so good an Example of Piety and Charity Sobriety and Purity of Life should have nothing said of it The Person whom scarce any ever knew and knew well but paid him and that justly too an equal portion of Love and Estimation It would take up too much time for the present Season to give a full Account of all the Accomplishments whether Natural or Acquired of this our Brother I shall therefore be sure to speak but to two briefly 1. As to his Life 2. As to his Death 'T is true indeed his Life may be as well known to most here present as to my self but I am sure his Death is not However First As to his Life And here I shall consider him and reflect on him in a threefold Capacity 1. As a Man 2. As a Christian 3. As a Priest That is I shall a little remark his Excellencies and Abilities Natural and Acquir'd Moral and Divine and in all of them shall find him well qualified for the Station which he held and perhaps for a higher than That from which he left Mortality 1. As a Man And here I need not stay to mention that for a considerable number of years he enjoyed the advantage of raising and improving his Natural Parts by a happy and successful Abode at one of the Fountains of Learning there to fit himself for his greater Usefulness in the Church And to how good Purposes is well known to those who were competent Judges of his Abilities and Learning And 't was his Lot to be removed hence before any Decays of Age had obliterated or ruffled any part of his Excellencies and Accomplishments Happy in this that he liv'd not to out-live himself as is often the Case of very great and excellent Persons This being the Infelicity of Human Nature that if either our Natural or Acquir'd Abilities are not sullied by the Vanities and Follies of Youth or the Iniquities of our growing years and a maturer Age yet they are sure to be clouded or razed out again and made searce legible by the decays of Old Age and the Weakness of our Intellectuals at the Evening of our Life Thus a little before we leave Mortality Age begins to make us useless here A little before our Sun sets Nature begins to draw the Curtain and to cast a Veil over us and to unfit us for this World for some time before we are removed to the other But this was not the Case of our Brother here before us who tho he lived to be long serviceable and useful in his Masters Vineyard yet as I said out-lived not himself and his Abilities And here indeed whether we reflect on the sufficiency of his Learning the goodness of his Judgment the readiness of his Invention the clearness of his Apprehension and his Notions the obliging Sweetness and Candour and Endearingness of his Deportment in all his Addresses and his Conversation If we consider all these in Conjunction we shall find he exceeded very many and equalled most of his Age. Upon each of which his Natural and Acquired Accomplishments I might stay to make larger Reflections but I hasten Secondly To consider him as a Christian Christianity being design'd by the great Authour of it to raise us above the pitch of Nature to defaecate and refine and spiritualize Mortality and to fit us for beatified Spirits and separate Intelligences and the bright and lovely Regions of a new World I begin first with his Hospitality and Charity His Hospitality was alway equal to his Estate but his Charity I suppose even beyond it The former of them had this Apostolical Qualification too 't was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Reter says it ought 1 Pet. 4.9 without Grudging without Murmuring without Repining Free and Generous Dis-interested and Undesigning 2. His Charity By this he made his poor Neighbourhood become his Bills of Exchange by whom he has return'd a great part of his Income into the other World before he himself was translated thither and before he was called to enter upon some enjoyment of the Treasure which he laid up like a good Husband for himself there where neither moth nor rust do corrupt or Thieves break through and steal Certainly if we consider the naked that he clothed and the Hungry that he frequently fed we may say to the poor Neighbourhood as our Saviour did St. Luke 23.28 when he was going to Mount Calvary to his Crucifixion Weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your Children And not inseriour to his Charity was his strictest Justice and Integrity by which he might I doubt not with his expiring Breath have askt the same question the Prophet Samuel did of old 1 Sam. 12.3 Whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed Thus did he by the constant discharge of this Vertue train up and trim the Soul for an admission to just Zacheus to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and above all to that righteous Lord that loveth Righteousness Psal 11.7 I might consider next his Temperance and Abstemiousness his Purity and Sobriety of Life Insomuch that if what Lessius in his Hygiasticon says I think from the Rabbins be true That Spiritus sanctus amat sicca corda and that Sapientia in sicco residet non in
to your future Hopes and Expectations one so truly willing that your Passage home to the Mansions of Glory might be safe and holy and whose Loss may not be so easily repaired may justly draw Tears from your Eyes or raise Sorrows in your Hearts I may then say to you once more in a Spiritual Sense as I did before with Reference to his Alms and Corporal Charities in the words of our dying Saviour Weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your Children One thing particularly I must mention to you the people of his Charge And that is That while he was yet living he has complain'd of and lamented your almost Universal neglect of the Holy Sacrament except one Family whose Modesty would not think it fit to be particulary mentioned Certainly Beloved if the words of dying Men use to be Influential and moving upon the Hearers methinks such a Complaint of your deceas'd Pastor here before you and that too in Conjunction with the dying words of your crucified Master should move and endear every Soul present henceforward to do this in Remembrance of the Lord that bought you But if neither the one nor the other can move or affect an obdurate Heart If neither the affectionate words of a dying Jesus nor the Complaint of your deceas'd Pastor can do it I 'le only add the words of the same Lord and leave them upon your Thoughts and Affections St. John 16.4 These things I have told you that when the time shall come you may remember that I told you of them But to return Thus he at length rests from his Labours and is called off from his Post and his Station here his painful Post and Station And no wonder if he who had a double Charge and Load and Burden upon his Shoulder was crusht into Dust and prest into the Confines of the Grave a little too soon But his better part is fixt in an Orb of Glory in a new World there to shine among his Brethren Stars who in their several Ages have turn'd many Souls to Righteousness Removed from his Work to his Reward From cultivating this corner of his Masters Vineyard to his Masters Home and to a Participation of his Felicities Where we hope after a blessed and joyful Resurrection he shall receive that Aureoln as if I mistake not some of the Latin Fathers call it that peculiar Coronet of Glory which our Master reserves for all those that with Purity of Intention sincere Alms and Designations have intended and desired the spreading of his Kingdom the Dissemination of his Gospel and the inlarging of his Glory his Love and his Obedience in this lower World And in those lovely Mansions shall in the midst of a little Quire of his own I mean in the midst of these beatified Spirits which by his holy Ministeries he had assisted in their safe and holy Passage thither and by the Exemplariness of his Life and Death conducted too In the midst I say of this Quire Sing the Hymns and Hosannna's and Hallelujah's of Eternal Ages These are Thoughts which as to him should justly lessen our Mournings for his Removal from a Laborious Station to a Society from which by this time he little desires to be removed and should inflame our Desires to come up to him He that has quitted the old World so fairly and has left behind him the Odour of an unblemish'd Vertue and no Remembrances but those of a holy Life and is gone to New and Richer Possessions deserves no more of our Tears and methinks should leave no Passions on us but those of Joys and Desires Joys for him and Desires for our selves Joys for him that he has been faithful unto Death and Desires for our selves that we may be so too when we change Worlds and may come up to him I have now just done with both parts of my Text Only upon a Review of the whole and the consideration of this Spectacle of Mortality here before us I shall now insist upon the third and last Vse which I mentioned before and shall have done Use III. Let us be so wise as to be perswaded to apply our selves to all these Instances of Divine Love and Obedience in a vigorous and a flourishing Age which we constantly find the Learnedst the wisest and the best of dying men to be infinitely in Love with Here lies one great fault of Mankind In the days of Health and Peace and Strength and Vigour some men seem to be ashamed of Religion And Piety and Vertue are look'd upon either to proceed from a Melancholy Temper or from a Weakness of Intellectuals and to be a humble a devout and a mortified Christian is too mean a Character to please us To scruple any thing is to be sure to be reproach'd and the very name of a Case of Conscience is turn'd into Ridicule Well if it must be so be it so a little longer but yet the Time hastens upon us when all our Actions of Piety and Charity Mortification and Devotion when Prayers and Tears Contrition and holy Confessions Humility and Self-denial severe Instances of Repentance the holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour when nothing but these or some of these will please us when nothing but these or some of these will be welcom to us when nothing but these or some of these will content and satisfie us when nothing but these would willingly be remembred by us Tell me now O tell me Christian or do but answer it to your own Conscience in your next Retirements what reason can we possibly give why we should not be in as good earnest with God and our invaluable Souls and with our future Hopes and Expectations in our days of Health and Ease as most men use to be when they come to change Worlds This is certain Our days of Health and Vigour are sittest for those Provisions Then only we can make them most safely and most acceptably too when we can be tempted to the contrary Then only we can shew most of our Choices and our Affections then only we can shew most of the Divine Love And besides all this these things are as true now as they can be then as true now as they can possibly be when we come to leave Mortality O come then let us be prevail'd upon seasonably and early to train up and trim the Soul for Immortality in our days of Health and Ease and Vigour by the Practice of these very Vertues which we verily believe we shall be in Love with when we come to dye and to enter upon our new and unknown State and Condition And then let us never think we have done enough till we are call'd to lay aside our business here till all be finish'd in a holy Life and in a happy Death After which and a joyful Resurrection we may together with this our Brother before us and with all the Saints departed and they with us and all with Angels and Arch-Angels sing Hallelujahs to him that sits on the Throne and the Lamb for ever and ever Amen FINIS Books sold by Henry Bonwicke at the Red Lyon in St. Pauls 's Church yard THe General History of the Reformation of the Church Written in Latin by John Sleidan faithfully Englished to which is added a Continuation to the end of the Council of Trent By E. Bohun Esq in Folio Two useful Cases resolved 1. Whether a Certainty of being in a State of Salvation be attainable 2. What is the Rule by which this Certainty is to be attain'd in Quarto A Sermon Preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Sons of the Clergy December 4th 1684. By Francis Lord Bishop of Ely The Importance of Religion to Young Persons Represented in a Sermon Preached at the Funeral of Sir Thomas Vinor Baronet in St. Hellens Church London May 3d. 1683. A Sermon Preached before the King in His Royal Chappel of Windsor July 27th 1684. Both by Henry Hesketh Vicar of St. Hellens An Answer to a Challenge made by a Jesuite in Ireland wherein the Judgment of Antiquity in the Points question'd is truly delivered and the Novelty of the now Romish Doctrin plainly discovered To which is added a Discourse of the Religion antiently Profess'd by the Irish and British By the most Reverend and Learned James Vsher late Lord Archbishop of Armagh Quarto The Country Parson's Advice to his Parishioners in two Parts 1. Containing a plain and serious Exhortation to a religious and vertuous Life 2. General Directions how to Live accordingly in Octavo Pia Desideri or Divine Addresses in three Books Illustrated with Forty Seven Copper Plates Written in Latin by Herm. Hugo Englished by Edmond Arwaker in Octavo A Discourse proving from Scripture and Reason that the Life of Man is not limited by any absolute Decree of God by the Author of the Duty of Man c. Octavo The Art of Catechising or the Compleat Catechist in Four parts 1. The Church-Catechism resolved into easie Questions to be answered only by Yes or No. 2. An Exposition of it in a continued full and plain Discourse 3. The Church Catechism resolved into Scripture Proofs 4. The whole Duty of Man reduced into Questions to be answered by a single Yes or No. Fitted for the meanest Capacities the weakest Memories the plainest Teachers and the most uninstructed Learners Hope and Peace in a Letter to a Person troubled in Mind who though a Vertuous Lady yet Laboured under great Scrupulosities Doubts and Fears and some uneasie Degrees of Desperation Both by a Divine of the Church of England The best Guide to Devotion being short Prayers Meditations and Thanksgivings taken only out of Scriptures and fitted to all occasions in 24 s. FINIS