and daunted his following enemies Even as a friend of yours a Commander did look that day upon the guilty faces of your Funerall-disturbers whom they answered with making faces altero ad frontem sublato altero ad mentum depresso supercilio by pulling one eye-brow up and the other down or else turning their backs God keep every good man from envy hatred malice and uncharitable men So entreating I may be excused for so long detaining your right from you which you had received long since in a better character but that mine adversaries stony hearts have bred upon me Calculum in renibus the Stone in the Kidneys a disease I never knew till I fell into the gravell-pits of their digging where I have suffered by paine and griefe a petty martyrdome But God I hope who hath will still deliver me from unreasonable men and from every evill way To whom I commit you and all your worthy family resting Your devoted servant in Christ Jesus Benjamin Spencer TO THE READER WHosoever reades this Copy I suppose will find nothing in it worth so much adoe as Envy made to prevent the preaching of it But as Envy is a Monoculus so also she is suspicious She had but one eye and that is a bad one but many jealousies of those she lookes asquint upon Doe not thou looke throw her spectacles and thou wilt find in the Author rather worke for pitty then Envy and his Sermon rather craving mercy then deserving malice Read then whithout prejudice this dumb Sermon of his whom his adversaries account no better of then a dead dog Thou needst not think the worse of him 1 Cor. 4.13 nor it The Apostles were reckoned as the filth and off-scouring of all things And Turks call Christians dogs And I wonder not when brethren of the same Family are falne out to hear them miscall one another For from among our selves must men arise speaking perverse things saith S. Paul Well Acts 20.30 let them speak doe thou read It may be Mutimagistri dumb teachers such as Books are may give thee more light then some great talkers God direct thee Farewell Errata Pag. 6. lin 27. r. Cerinthus p. 15. l. 17. r. Sesostris p. 22. l. 18. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 31. l. 26. r. vagula blandula ibid. l. 27. r. wandring sporting soule p. 42. l. 23. r. disposall p. 45. l. 22. r. the Living An Introduction to the Sermon THe Directory His speech intended before naming the Text. set forth by the Reverent Synod gives Ministers leave at Funeralls to put the living in remembrance of their dutie And I will doe no more And I hope that will give no offence to any good Christian since that is not to strow complementall flowers upon the hearse of the dead but will rather prove supplementall ornaments to the living I therefore being partly acquainted with our deceased Sisters life and death and requested therefore to this office by her friends who seing her lamp went not out in darknesse was loth that her earthen vessell should be interred without some light which might direct others how to walk from the womb to the tomb Leave therefore being first obtained of your Minister and Officers of this Church I have thought good to present you as a subject of your contemplation with such a peice of scripture as may both answer to our dead Sister the patterne and to us the living portraictures Which you shall find delineated by Saint Paul himselfe Philip. 1.21 PHILIP 1.21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gaine WISE SOLOMON said in the old Testement that this is the summ of all Eccles 12.19 Feare God and keep his Commandements this is the whole duty of man So I say to live rightly by faith and to dye in hope are the two chiefe lessons of Christianity But because they under the Law saw Christ like Moses in a veile therfore was their lesson legall Fac hoc et vive do this and live But since Christ was revealed who is our life we must find our life in him that in our death we may find him with comfort To this tendeth the whol Law and Gospell For this life was veil'd in the old Testament and revealed in the new To this life tend all the examples of the Patriarchs Prophets Apostles which were written for our learning Rom. 15.4 of which St. Paul was not the least who could averre thus confidently of himselfe that to him to live was Christ and to dye was gain This blessed Apostle having saluted this Church of Philippi with grace and peace ver 2. and having shewed them his thankefulnesse to God and his love to them for the fruits of their faith and fellowship of his sufferings which he prayeth God to continue ver 4.5 to the 9. he makes in the next place an accompt to them of his labours at Rome and sheweth them that the talent wherewith Christ had entrusted him had encreased by his sufferings there ver 12. So that many waxed confident to preach as well as to believe ver 14. though it may be some of envy some of good will All which he saith he knoweth shall turne to his salvation according to his expectation to magnify Christ in his body whether by life or death ver 19.20 the reason of which confidence this verse sheweth in these words For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain As if he should have said If it please God that I shall magnify Christ in my body living Christ is to me my way of living or my life shall be spent to set forth or set up the Kingdom of Christ It is life to me to do his worke as you may perceive it to be expounded in the next verse If I live in the flesh that is the fruit of my labour viz. To advance the Kingdome of Christ And to dye is gaine because I shall enjoy him for whom I laboured But this is not so to all yet to me it is who desire to magnifie Christ both in my Life and Death whom I finding to be my life I know death must needs be my gain because thereby I receive the end of my hopes the salvation of my soule There needs no accurate division of these words onely consider these three things First what is common to Christians and other creatures To Live and Dye Secondly What is proper in life and death to a true Christian besides to others viz. First to find Christ to be their Life Secondly Death to be their gaine Thirdly to find the fruit of this assurance which is included in the word FOR having relation to the former verse which is a resolution to glorify God in his body whether by Life or Death Which fruit will also prove this assurance to be good as all Gods graces are proved or improved one by another For upon such a resolution a man may well say that Christ is his life and death
may die with him Joh. 11.16 Love sleights death A certaine Neapolitane leapt into the Sea when his wife was taken by Pyrates Tiberius Graocus having two snakes in his house male and female was told by the Southsayer that if he killed the female his wife should die if the male himselfe should He killed the male and dyed first himselfe Beauxamonts wife the Moore would be buryed with her husband Porcia the wife of Brutus dyed by eating hot burning coales for griefe her husband was dead But all these sorrowed as men without hope and did not prepare for death but provoked him against themselves Others of the Heathen dyed with lesse passion though for ought I know with as little hope As great Augustus in a faire complement with Livia Conjugii nostrimemor esto vive vale saying Be mindfull Livia of our wedlock bands live still and prosper But there is more to be done in this businesse First therefore be acquainted with death by dying to one sinne or other that liveth in thee or by killing that love to the world ease riches friends which makes death so bitter as saith Syracides Ecclus. 41.1 O Death how bitter is thy remembrance to a man that lives at ease in his possessions Secondly be temperate in all things against this fight So the Apostle counselleth the Corinthians 1 Cor. 9.25 They that strive for masteries are temperate in all things lest when he comes to fight you are loth to lose your delicates as many are loth to die so long as they can but receive meat These are such who make their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3.19 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For banquetting is vinculum animae the bond of the soule and the fetters of the affections As we read of Philoxenus who would not leave the Polypus his head behind him though his Physitian told him that what he had eat already would kill him in seven houres Many there are Qui Curios simulant who seeme abstemious a while yet scarce a Fasting day but like the fish Musipula they suck up their frie againe which they had formerly vomited Thirdly Challenge death in thy shirt strip thee naked of all worldly habiliments He fights but as some Souldiers doe for booty If he finde nothing to spoile thee of he hath no spirit to fight with thee Job wooed him to wound him but he would not Job 4.13 It is our hugging of the world which makes death violent and our security that makes him so eager to obtain a Habeas Corpus But if he finde a man that Nil nisi cutem morti concesserit atrae Horat. who has nothing for death but his skin he is willing to let him alone till some better advantage happen to his liking Fourthly yet doe not take deaths part against thy selfe by lying at too open a ward of despair For that is it he would have and therefore makes thee beleeve that he will end all thy paine and grief shame and sorrows if thou wilt betray thy life unto him by some violent death Whereas indeed then begins thy misery for while there is life there is hope I waited long and at the last God heard me Psal 40.1 Know ye not that Blessed is the man that endureth temptation Jam. 1.12 for he shall receive at last a crown that fadeth not away You must like a faithfull Sentinell wait till your change come No Souldier is praised for marching without the word of command nor no Christian for spending his life till God take it I read of a Roman Conful that whipt a builder for using other timber then he had appointed though it may be more fit for the purpose If a practicall Carpenter was so served wanting onely the complement of obedience what have your pragmaticall builders deserved who out of the spirit of disobedience will have no cake but of Thamars making though it prove their owne ruine Well let us not call death upon our selves by the errour of our lives but prepare onely for it Dediscas vivere oportet si discas mori You must forget to live if you would learne to die as Saint Paul did who said By the rejoycing I have in Christ Jesus I thanke God I die daily 1 Cor. 15.31 Nor count death evill as those that dye without hope as one Mecaenas of whom Seneca saith He was of so weak a heart that he would refuse no torment Nec acutam crucem dummodo inter haec mala spiritus vita prorogentur He was content to endure any torment so his life might be prolonged Which saith Seneca was pessimum votum the worst desire and wish and argued him effeminate and base Quia distulit id quod est in malis optimum supplicii finē because Death is the end of all misery and punishment Yet the man could not be much blamed not knowing with Adrian what life was to come after whether any or none Which made him so discourse with his soule Animula vagra blanda quae nunc abibis in loca Little vagrant tender soule into what regions art thou posting hence And indeed if we know not that I wonder not to see folké loth to die for a living dog is better then a dead lion But death is not evill in it selfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to die is evill but to die ill is evill Which that we may not doe wee must so prepare our selves that we may look back upon our lives with comfort and forward upon the object of our hope with joy that so it may prove an advantage to us So I come to the other thing in death which is proper to a true Christian viz. a Gaine Death is to me a gaine Obj. Death is a privation therefore a losse How is it then a gaine Ans Not in it self but in regard of the over-ruling power of Christ who hath conquered him and altered his nature so that of a privation it is become but a commutation from a losse to a gaine Therefore those that live to Christ lose nothing by death but gaine by it All things else lose by it as either life or pleasure or wealth But all these are gained by a good man in death first life Christ came that wee might have it more abundantly 1. Joh. 10.10 And for pleasure and joy In his presence is the fulnesse of joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore Psal 16.11 And for wealth there is no want Luk. 12.32 Wee change a Cottage for a Court and a Farme for a Kingdome This is not hard to prove if we could beleeve Scripture which tells us that no eye hath seen nor care heard nor tongue is able to expresse what God hath laid up for them that love him 2 Cor. 4.17 Saint Paul tells us of a crowne of Righteousnesse of a weight yea an everlasting weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17
In a word let sin die before thee and then it cannot follow thee to judgment Feare not death but looke to the errour of your life break off sinne by repentance and entertaine Christ and death will be found without sting yea no crosse but a crowne no dart but a scepter shalt thou find in Christs hand or an olive in token of our victorie As confidently thou maist passe deaths teeth as once Ignat. did the teeth of wild beasts who said before hand when he was condemned I care not what death I suffer for seeing I am Gods corn I care not with what flaile of death he please to beat me out for I am willing to beground even by the teeth of these beasts that I may make cleane bread for Christ who became the bread of life for me How cheerfully may we then say Egredere anima mea egredere Goe forth my Soul Ps 142.9 to meet thy Saviour with David pray Lord bring my soul out of this prison that I may praise thy Name And with Saint Aug. Creasti nos ob te and Lord thou hast created us for thy selfe and I cannot be quiet til I come to thee And then shall begin that heavenly Epithalamium or wedding song of foure parts sung in Antiphona's and Responsories The Lamb saith Come and the Spirit saith Come and the Bride saith Come and thy soule shall say Come Lord Jesus come quickly So did this our deceased Sister Mrs MARY OVERMAN descended of an ancient and worthy Family of the Breretons marryed into an accomplished Family of the Overmans with whom though she found sufficiencie and satisfaction to her owne hearts desire yet she breathed after another life Not because she was sullenly faln out of love with the world but in love with Christ as appeared by her dying words which must eternize her memory when as a little before her dissolution this earnest and pious prayer departed from her first Lord when shall I come and appear before the presence of Christ my JESVS Dying MARY it seemes by this was ready for living CHRIST and living CHRIST as willing to receive dying MARY for soone after he took her to himselfe Who though she was weak in body yet was she strong in faith and hope which viaticum she had with her to strengthen her in her journey and to convey her soule into the hands of her Redeemer Herein as well approving as professing her selfe a true MARY in choosing that better part which now shall never be taken from her Next to Christ her Head in heaven she loved her Head on earth whom God had given her and like the Turtle loved her Mate yet was not like Rachel importunate for children nor yet dejected for want of them She spent her time not idly as many of her degree too usually doe even in these times whose miseries call to baldnesse and sackcloth but like another Dorcas she seemed to those that have seene her constant employment so farre from being idle that she was most an end well busied and full of good works So that as it was written of the Ladie Paula so it may be of Her too that she spent most of her time either in good workes or Gods worship Her chamber was not onely a shop of Confection as the fashion is but an Oratorie for Devotion Thirdly In a long and tedious consumption she behaved her selfe very patiently and knowing under whose hand she suffered opened not her mouth in any discontent and well perceiving it was the Lords doing thus to permit her to suffer she laid her downe and possest her soule in patience only with the meeke spirit of Iob intending Saint-like to imitate him in this her sanctified affliction in the depth of her consumption yet in the height of her devotion applyed ever and anon Jobs deploring words to her languishing selfe and like him wholy submitting her selfe to Gods dispoall said My months are moneths of vanity and sad nights are appointed for me And at other times in Davids words for she conversed much with dead Saints whiles she was living and had therefore learnt to use their language now she was dying when in his prayer he deciphered his miseries that he might the easier implore mercy Psalm 31.10 My life is consumed with greif and my years with sighing So that as Saint Ambrose said of one dying of such a disease so may we of hers that it seemd a martyrdome Yet was she not childishly afraid of death nor struggled she much to retaine life as some doe from whom God is faine as it were to teare away their soules but she offered up hers as a free-will-offering with a contempt of the world saying Away with all these things and with an earnest desire besides to be with Christ who having beene her life made death her gaine Which Text it seemes was some time since her owne meditation as appeares by her notes under her owne hand with this her devout paraphrase found upon them Heaven is my home I am a stranger here Which undoubtedly was the language of her heart as well as of her hand And if so what can we lesse perswade our selves she is then what she made her selfe by her pious endeavours a true a very MARY that is by interpretation Excellent Excellent in Contemplation thereby anticipating the joyes of heaven whilst she walkt upon the earth and excellent in action too her actions speaking her a perfect servant of the Almighty And therefore now no doubt after death a partaker of his glory with her fellow Saints for right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of such Saints so deare that he takes them into his bosome And for our parts we may say of her as Saint Hierome said of Fabiola Ex annulo Ecclesiae monile perdidimus We even wee have lost a precious jewell out of the Ring of the Church But lost she is not I doe her wrong to say so of her whom God hath found She is not dead but sleepeth And her flesh doth rest in hope that what is sowne in weaknesse shall rise in power according to his mightie working who is able to subdue all things unto himselfe who bringeth downe to the grave and raiseth up by whom death is already swallowed up in victorie and so made an advantage to us Thus passed this precious Saint from sicknesse to perfect health from weaknesse to perfect strength from bondage to perfect freedome from trouble to perfect peace from losse to perfect gaine from heavinesse to perfect joyes In a word she is passed from death to life and from earth to heaven to be for ever in perfect happinesse where wee leave her safe and come to cloze with you Now therefore as the death of Christ doth for us make a gaine of death so may the death of good men and women worke some advantage also for us in that point and so their death may be a gaine to us Therefore Solomon sayes
of her constancie in reading nay and in writing too some divine tract or other throughout the day to exercise her hand as well as heart and both to God-ward thereby on earth to traine her selfe for heaven And to my knowledge who have perused her pious papers since her death both these were daily busied and piously lifted up her heart in ejaculalory devotions and her hand in devout transcriptions So that nor here nor else where neither is any handwriting against but for her Who was so sincerely constant in all her devotions that she seldome I may say never willingly missed her dutie to God in prayer either in closet Church or familie This was her piety to God And for the prosecution of the dutie or obedience to her Mother I have veiwed the deep impressions of it long since to expresse it will give it you in her Mothers owne phrase as neere as I can as she was heard to utter this spontancous good testimony of her This dutifull daughter was alwayes won by love not feare and that by a motherly admonition onely but never did I force her to her duty by a severe correction So that conclude of her we may justly from these good premises That the innocence of her nature made this meek reverence coupled with love not feare in her behaviour to her mother Give me leave yet farther to go within the sphere of mine owne knowledge in her due commendations in some other relations Her love and loyalty to her husband with whom she ran a five yeares race so even that I may justly say we were true yoak fellows and good fellowes well met Our loves were reciprocall and equally swayd us both till Death dissolv'd this Gordian knot and left me alone to mourne for this lost Turtle For though this match on earth was made in heaven for her she rested unsatisfied till she reached heaven to obtaine a better which will admit of no divorce by death where marryed now she is to that eternall Bridegroome of her soule Christ Jesus Stay here with her faine I would but I must leave her to goe on This Jewell had more Diamonds which did adorne her other spirituall graces which were resplendent endowments in her I will make them transparent God had given her that discreet piety in her deportment as that she constantly held a respective carriage towards her superiours a friendly correspondencie towards her equalls being ever ready to pleasure all and loth to offend any A love she bore to her kindred both naturall and adopted and an innate curtesie to all she knew Besides she had Sobriety and Moderation in her selfe and lastly Modesty and Humility in the possession of all these All which deserve our Commemoration Imitation and Admiration also Hereby adorning not her selfe alone but spreading the pious care of her parents in her religious education And thus you see how in all relations she ran the course of her health constantly well So that by this time I hope you are resolv'd to say what you see That she led the life of the righteous and all good men will be glad thereof I shall now draw on my Speech towards her better end that you may not doubt but that she dyed the death of the righteous too And indeed her last end was like his in perfect peace For having thus wholly dedicated her first fruits of sanctity to God by a pious life her next studie is to triumph in the assurance of a comfortable death endeavouring thereby to adjoyne her selfe to him who is become the first fruits of them that sleep Nothing doubting but as she was Gods servant on earth so to be his Saint in heaven It should seeme sicknesse was to this good woman no other then as indeed it is Death 's elder brother For Omnis passio being Janua lethi every paine giving to the soule of every Christian an Item of his mortality she beganne to thinke with her selfe what she afterwards felt by experience that her Consumption might crack her earthen vessell and reduce her to her first principles Whereupon shee gave that attention to sicknesse which sick Hezekiah gave to Esaiah she put her house in order that shee might die and so composed her selfe wholly in heavenly meditations the better to prepare her soule for heaven as well as her body for death Seeming thereby to say Quo propinquior morti eo latior that the neerer she was to her dissolution the firmer she was in her resolution Et vicinior coelo longior à terrâ the neerer she was to heaven the farther her thoughts were from the earth In her sicknesse being often asked How she did she still answered Not sick as if then she would thank God for being heart-whole And having laid one hand on her heart and lifting up the other heaven-ward said sighing I am opprest yet thy grace Lord from above gives no roome to sicknesse Each day was to her a new life and that daily life but one continued sicknesse ever in a Consumption and decaying daily Yet had God so sanctified this her tedious visitation that she did every day promote her owne good by it in so much that it did rather improve then impaire her for it did not onely draw her nigher to her end but to God also So that it seemes this fornace did but refine her from her drosse and purifie her for God himselfe Death came not to her more sudden then expected not feared but embraced yea earnestly desired For being conscious every day what might befall her ere the next betaking her selfe at last wholly to her bed she doth likewise to her continuall prayers Which she ceased not till her selfe ceased to be And having now armed her selfe for death feared no more to goe to her grave then to her bed since she was certainly assured both tended to her rest When shee lay downe to sleepe she thought it her last knowing then onely she should truly be at rest when she should be no more here And having obtained the end of her dying prayers and of her never dying hopes having thus set her house in order for a more durable repaire sweetly composeth her selfe for death and falls asleep in peace When she awakes againe she will account her life not continued but restored which shee was ascertained should be made good to her at the Resurrection of the just And thus our friend sleepeth Now blessed be the God of peace who gave her his peace so abundantly both in life and death For she being one of Christs disciples whilst she lived tooke her Masters legacie hee left his Saints on earth to heaven with her Where shee enjoyes God the Father of peace her Redeemer the Prince of peace his Angels her fellows the messengers of peace and heaven her inheritance the place to perfect peace as well as her For in the presence of all these must needs be the fullnesse of peace else in a word we know not what it
his gain For what life can stirre up this resolution in a man but the life of Christ onely And what advantage are we like to make by gloryfying Christ in our bodies in life and death if death yeeld not an advantage when all is lost in this world But therefore he finding this fruit of resolution shewes the reason of it thus For to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain That makes me so bold to do as I say and because God hath given me grace to magnify Christ I am no lesse comforted for Christ is life to me and death advantage 1. What is common to man with other creatures To Live First let us see what is common to man with other creatures to wit to live and dye This is also common to all men to Heathens as Christians To live is no priviledge from the Ant to the Elophant every creature can boast as much a Dog hath his day a Flower hath its flourish and fading every leafe hath its spring and fall and wherein doth a man exceed these if he do but live Nay wherein do not these exceed him in naturall life For they have a certaine time of life man hath not Eccles 3.1 He that said there was a time for all things said not there was a time to live So they renew their age every yeare but man is in a continuall decay or decrease from his very birth Gen. 1.25 26. The Beasts and he were made all upon one day to forewarn him that he became not like one of them But man remained not in honour Psalm 49.12 but became like the Beasts that perish Nay worse He commeth up and is cut down like a flower Wee scarce can peep out our heads but Times Scyth is ready to mow us down For all flesh is grasse saith Isaiah It is not so good our bodies are like baskets of dust which a little wind can scatter and all our glory like a bladder of wind which the least incision will soon empty What is there in life to boast of but either A Being A Lasting or A Seeming happy Accident 1. Being First for a Being It is not worth boasting of every Emmet hath an Esse this makes a small difference let Solomon teach them better who boast of this Eccles 3.18 where he wisheth that God would so manifest himselfe to the sons of men that they who trust to an Esse or meer being might see themselves to be but Beasts Yet some men are infinitely in love with life why I know not I thinke if they found as many checks in it as some doe they would rather cry with Moses and Eliah 1 Kings 19.4 Lord take me out of the world that I may not see my wretchednesse But it may be they know no other happynesse which makes them dote on this life like Birds and Brutes and onely dream of worldly felicity as the Iews lookt for Christ in a temporall Kingdome and as the Turkes did and do looke for their great Prophet Mahomet who hath promised at his return to his Disciples the world to enioy at pleasure and all other men to be their slaves A doctrine taken up by some Christians long since Euseb 7. lib. cap. 24. as Ebion and Corinthus damnable Hereticks both and by others of late onely to keep up the lean hopes of their hungry followers who gape but onely after carnall felicity what ever they pretend to piety if they can be bewitched by such stuffe as this Poore soules All this is but an externall being Micah 2.10 which is not the place of your rest no more then your Lords Kingdome is of this world But these kind of teachers have cozened you of your meat and now for feare like children you should cry and scratch they fain would please you with a Puppet Beloved Believe not every Spirit 2 Pet. 2.18 19. Phil. 3.20 St. Iude tels you of dreamers Be not led by a dreamer of dreames nor be thou carryed away by high swelling words of vanity by which the hearts of the simple are deceived Look for Christ your life to appeare but not according to the fashion of this life Prepare to meet the Lord in the aire Coloss 3.2 not upon the earth set not your mind on things that are beneath but on the things that are above Let no man spoil you of your reward by thrusting himselfe into things he hath not seen vainly puffed up in his fleshly mind Let them enioy their thousand yeares upon earth without envy look thou to enjoy Heaven forever For that thousand yeares the Millenaries talk of so much Brightman on the Revelation taken from Rev. 20.4 is not any earthly Kingdome of Christ with his Saints Because it is called the first resurrection and seemeth to entail eternity onely upon those who did enjoy it Which if so I pray what shall become of the rest of the Saints who shall arise after the thousand years be past who maintain the war against Gog and Magog Are not they blessed though they did not partake of that thousand yeares Or are these the same Saints which did enjoy the thousand yeares If so then they must live upon earth more then a thousand yeares and so the truth of the 4th verse will be doubted Or what shall become of the Saints who never were beheaded for the testimony of Christ and yet good Christians shall not they be delivered from death at the second resurrection because of the first they could not partake being no martyrs Apage I willtrouble you nor my selfe no further with raking in this mud Yet some love life more then these it seemes who say that an evill Being is better then none at all First because say they a Being is good but no being is no good Secondly because a being has a capability of exaltation but no being hath none Nay some have been bold to say that it is better to be in hell then not to be at all But there I leave them For Solomon saith that a nonens Eccles 4.3 a not being is better then them both viz. who were oppressors or were oppressed though the one had power to do mischiefe which is a kind of unhappynes and the other had no power to resist it which is a great misery so ver 1. Yea Eccles 4.1 he preferres it before them that were dead whom yet he thinkes in better state then the living because the dead have had life and lost it and the living are subject to vanity and mutability while they have it And Christ himselfe saith Math. 26.24 It had been better for Iudas if he had never been born For certainly though that Being simply considered in it selfe is better then not to be yet it is not better to be in an evill condition then not at all because that which was never had was never lost and therefore no griefe vexeth one for that But to be and to be
deprived of a good is worse then never to have it Life simply considered is but a way to death therefore not to be doted upon The second thing in living to be boasted of 2. Length of dayes is length of dayes for if there be any good in life the longer life we have the better it is still for us But if nothing but vanity then length of life is not worth boasting of Solomon therefore calls life All the time of thy vanity Eccles 9.9 For indeed a man commeth in with vanity and departeth with darknes his life begins with sports and ends with griefes like Venus Image that seemed to smile upon all that came into her Temple but frown'd on all that went out to shew that solace ends in sorrow Therefore saith that Wiseman Eccles 6.3 If a man live an hundred yeares and beget many children and his soul be not satisfied with good an untimely birth is better then he because it hath lesse experience of evill and more rest Yet of this length of time many creatures can boast more then wee as the Oake Stag Black-Bird and the Raven Every one of which if Naturians say true can number hundreds of yeeres onely you will say they are obvious to chances more then you yet therein we are deceived for as a Bird is taken in the snare and the Fish with a hooke so is a man in the evill day when it commeth sodainly upon him Eccles 9.12 Besides every creature hath a power to hurt as well as to help me and any man that careth not for his own life hath a kind of power over another mans Surely then long life being hazardous is to live in doubt and suspend in feare and therefore not to be boasted of 3 Seeming happynes The third thing to be boasted of in life is the Accidents thereof which conduce to some good in possibility at least such as is Nobility Power Riches and Friends all which are subject to a change or check 1. Nobility Nobility is the finer meale yet is the Common man and the Noble man ground all in one Mill of Nature The rich and the poore meet together the Lord is the maker of them both Pro. 22.2 And it is a great check to Nobility that it can neither it selfe hinder a Begger from rising from the dunghill to be set with Princes nor prevent it selfe though cloathed in scarlet from embracing the dunghill It is but the moth of industry and a bank upon which the Begger rests or on which the eyes of envy like the Sun-beames beate extreamly even to the mouldring of it away to nothing 2. Power 2. Pet. 2.19 The other accident is Power which while some men seek they lose liberty and while they desire to get power over others they lose it over themselves and become servants either to Fame or Busines In which when they have toyled themselves it comes to passe that they fall into disgraces as they first rose by indignities and though at their first rising they seemed Lords of their Ascendent yet they prove darkened in their declining Their standing is slippery and their failing melancholy and though their felicity stands much in other mens thoughts yet they shall not have my opinion to make them happy because I perceive they are dying every day but have no leisure to thinke of it yet they first find their griefes but last if not too late see their errours 3. Riches Another Accident of life is wealth or Riches which are a strong hold in a mans imagination yet will prove hardly a ransome for a mans life Pro. 18.11 sometimes either to the Physitian or the Souldier What happynesse is there in that whose reall use is but rightly to leave it Which whosoever doth not is but bought and sold with his own money I am sure the ancient Wise men called them irritamenta malorum the incentives to evil and they prove impedimenta virtutum the impediments of vertue I confesse them to be adminicula vitae props to this fraile life of ours lest wee should loath it but not such additaments as may make us love it 4. Friends Fourthly Friends are the last good accident of life without whom wee live like beasts in a wood they multiply all our joyes and divide our griefes when wee impart them But when I consider amongst so many friends there be so few true life seemes tedious as to Ieremy Jerem. 9.2 Oh that I had a Cottage in the Wildernesse that I might flee away from the assembly of treacherous men For men without true friendship are but like pictures in a room fair and uselesse Yet there be other concomitants of life which seem to give some content for though all other degenerate as Nobility into servility Riches to Beggery Power into Tyranny Friendship to Flattery by which life is imbitter'd yet there be vertues which better and graces which sublime life to a supernaturall condition even while we live here in this tabernacle of flesh Yet when I see even these have their mixtures of imperfection and that the Epiphonema of them Coloss 1.19 is above summed up in our mysticall head Christ Jesus under whom we and they must be reduced and when I see that many who thinke they stand are apt to fall and with Demas to imbrace the present world though it may be with David they thought they should never be moved then do I wish for the wings of a Dove to flee away and be at rest for who can set his mind on that which is unsettled For as life is but mansio animae in corpore the sojourning of the soule in the body which is apt to remove so to live long is but Remansura a little longer stay then ordinary and that in bonds For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the body is but a shackle to the soule His flesh is called by the Hebrews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lecham bread because bread for wormes as Abenezra and other observe from Iob 20.23 in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Senex is but Seminex an old man is like one halfe dead Jam. 3.6 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 generation is so called because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an intrusion into the earth which must have an extrusion One Generation goeth and another commeth St. Iames cals it a wheel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a course of nature which goeth alwaies round a thing well observed by a King that drew amongst others the chariot of Selestris whom the Tyrant asking what he ayl'd to looke back so often upon the chariot wheel answered to observe how that Spoke which is now uppermost is anon deprest in the dirt which answer made the Tyrant more mild afterward It is indeed but a vapour of which there is no hold therefore saith Solomon Ne glorieris in crastinum Pro. 27.1 boast not of to morrow thou knowest not what
of twelve in the pound Secondly The other sign of the Spirit is to have the mind of Christ which St. Paul so much urgeth Phil. 2.5 Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ the spirit of God appeared like a Dove like a Fire and like a tongne Mar. 3.16 Act. 2.3 a Dove to shew simplicity a Fire to shew ardency and a Tongue to shew it loved to informe ignorance So did Christ he did no harm but much good and the zeal of Gods house did even consume him and his tongue never ceased to preach the glad tidings of salvation see then if you have pure simplicity without hypocrisie zeal without ignorance or partiality and a tongue ready to glorifie God then sure Christ is your life Thirdly the third sign is to love Christ for himselfe and all those that love Christ though I know not their persons or if I do yet to love them for this reason onely because they love Christ Thus wee passe from death to life if wee love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 And that it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without dissimulation Rom. 12.9 But before wee passe to that life there is a vale of death to be passed which though it be common to all yet it is not advantagious to all but onely to such to whom Christ is life therefore wee will first looke upon it as it is common to all then how it is a peculiar benefit to some First Death is common to all Statutum est omnibus semel mori It is appointed unto all men once to dye Rom. 6.23 the reason is Man sinned and the wages of sin is death Ob. But some will say if man had not sinned yet he would have dyed because no body consisting of elements can be eternall Ans Wee answer that this is more then can be proved for though it be true according to Philosophy yet it will make no axiome in Divinity for wee must know that Phylosophers spoke according to the effects which sinne had brought upon the creature and to that estate in which the offence left mankind which sin it may be was unknown to the Phylosophers Besides we find death to be the issue of sin And threatned onely for sin and therefore surely had not Adam sinned Gen. 2.17 he had not been mortall Besides a change might have been without death as wee see in divers creatures the Eagle by casting or breaking off her Bill the Snake by shiftting off his old rugged skin becomes more lively and active Lastly the Tree of Life for ought we know might be as well restaurative as sacramental an help to Nature as well as a type of Christ Obj. Why then do other creatures dye which sinned not Ans They are subjected to vanity for our sakes They were made for man and therfore for man subjected Rom. 8.20 that man by them might be served and not starved for want of them therefore there is no injury done to the creature by God but by man when he doth abuse them by cruelty or surquedry Therefore being that to dye is common to man it behooves man to expect it Mat. 24.43 to suspect it as a thiefe that would steal upon him this contemplation when it proceeds not from Panick feare is holy and pious I mean when I do not feare death so much as a debt of nature but as the wages of sin for so to fear it is childish for many go out of the world easier then they came in and the vitall parts are not so quick of sense as other parts are therefore a religious fear of death is profitable because it prepares us to dye by making us to cast up our accompt and make all even before-hand 1 Cor. 11.31 And to judge our selves that wee may not be judged that so as by sin wee have made life away unto death so by a true preparation we may make death a passage to everlasting life for as saith S. Bernard Cecidimus omnes super lapidem in luto unde inquinati et vulnerati sumus Wee are fallen upon a stone in the dirt by which wee are both defiled and wounded wee must therefore before wee dye be washed in the laver of regeneration and cured by the blood of the Covenant There be three sorts of People can never prepare well for death The first is the Epicure and Socinian who deny the soules immortality such were in St. Pauls time who said Let us eate and drinke for to morrow wee shall dye 1 Cor. 15.32 and though that these thought of no resurrection at all yet it will not excuse them who imagine the soule to have no subsisting after this life as to be capable either of joy or sorrow and therefore they count the Parable of Dives and Lazarus Jos Stegman Disp not to be a thing propounded in a figure which may have a corresponding reddition but a meer fiction as of the Poets Tartarus and Elysium whom the Popes policy in setting up Purgatory will condemn to have lessereligion then himselfe these men can never prepare for death but rather for the continuance of life because with death their happynesse ends like a birds or a beasts But this error is confuted divers wayes First from the very instinct of nature which desires perpetuity of name fame 2 Sam. 18.18 and family which is but the shadow of eternity in the soule so also because the soul is no bodyly thing and therefore not corruptible it finds no satisfaction in finite things and therefore except it be made in vain cannot cease to be till it hath enjoyed the object adequated to it Greg. Nyss and then it can neither because that object doth quicken it the more for the vision of God is the life of the soule which vision it apprehendeth when it is separated from the body therefore God is said to be the God of Abraham Mar. 12.27 of Isaac and Jacob though they were dead because they lived to him Heb. 12.23 so in the Epistle to the Hebrews the 12. and 23. there is mention made of the spirits of just men made perfect which must needs be in heaven by the sight of God though their bodyes be not yet raised If wee thinke not thus how shall wee prepare to leave the certainty wee have here to enjoy we know not what nor when Nor doe they rightly prepare for death who sleight it for it is the King of terrours It is not putting on the ignorant bravery of a Roman spirit who knowes not what comes after that gives Death right entertainment Desperate resolutions are not heroicall Christian vertues For see revenge of wrongs dares death a man in griefe wooes death and the feare of dying hath prevented the cruelty of it Some have dyed in pittying of others as some of Otho's friends did And Christs Disciples had a touch of this when they said hearing Lazarus was dead Let us goe that we
a day may bring forth Being without well-being is not worth our desires wee must looke to another life if wee desire to see good dayes and that is the life Christian which doth difference our lives from all others For our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 and from this life wee are denominated as righteousnesse doth a righteous man for as Non vivere sed valere est vita not to live but to be in health is life the rest is sicknes and deaths equipage so not to live is a Christian life but to live godly God lookes Non tam multum sed quam bene not how long but how well wee live there is therefore not onely a life naturall but a life spirituall which prepares us for a life eternall as the wildernes of Sin and the Kingdome of Bashan did lead to Canaan This is when wee lead a naturall life after a spirituall manner as to be a Mary in contemplation and so anticipate the joyes of heaven or a Martha by good actions and so become our own rewarders by laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that wee may lay hold of eternall life or like Lazarus to come out of the grave at the call of Christ or to make Christ our pattern who hath left us an example that wee should follow his steps or like St. Paul to make Christ our life that death may be our gain So I come to that life which puts a difference between other men The life different of a Christian and a Christian viz. to be their life Of this St. Paul speakes who made not the world his life nor his pleasure his life but as the worke of Christ was his meat and drinke so Christ was his life also This may be understood Operativè Or Objectivè First Operatively that is if I live Christ is my life by the operation of faith Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me For Christ lives in a man by his Spirit by faith and by love First by his Spirit justifying me that his righteousnes is mine in the merit of it that he hath deserved for me to be held guiltlesse of all sin in the sight of God so by his spirit also sanctifying me to a new and true spirituall obedience lastly Rom. 8.16 exciting me by the same spirit to every good worke To this purpose St. Paul saith The spirit witnesseth to our spirits that wee are the sons of God This is Pignus salutis the pledge of our salvation Greg. which never goeth alone without the other for that spirit that gives the pledge of salvation giveth also the Robur vitae the strength of life by which those things are easie which before seemed hard and lastly Lumen scientiae the life of knowledge which like light doth illuminate what was darke and produceth what lay hid in our earthy natures Secondly Christ lives in me by faith urging me to believe that by his grace I am that I am Thirdly He lives in me by love by which fayth worketh me first to acknowledge my selfe to be his in all true obliegement and then to do him all manner of service Therefore St. Austin prayeth to God that his spirit may thus live in him Sanctum semper opus in me spira ut cogitem suade ut diligam urge ut faciam inspire me with thy holy worke perswade me to love urge me to do And so comes in the second sence of this text viz. Objectivè which I take to be here especially meant namely To me to live is Christ that is I accompt my life Christs to be spent and disposed of in him and for him to be spent in his service as David saith Psal 116.16 I am thy servant So all the Apostles write themselves CHRISTS and the CHURCHES servants the Pope writes himselfe so but t is meerly titular he Lords it too much over Gods inheritance to be a servant This is a good Christian complement when it is essentiall that whether wee live wee live to to the Lord or whether wee dye Rom. 14.8 wee dye to the Lord. Secondly To live to me is Christ if my life be willingly at his disposall as St. Paul said Acts 21.13 I am not ready onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Iesus so that here we see if Christ be our life then our life must be Christs the one of these depends upon the other Christ hath bought us wee are not our owne Glorifie therefore saith the Apostle God in your bodies and in your spirits for they are Gods Wee must not live to our selves 1 Cor. 6.20 2 Cor. 5.15 let us first find that Christ is our life then the other wil be found also that our life shall be Christs for such an unionthere is between Christ and us as there is between the Head and the Members the Vine and the branches If the Body have a living Head the sense of the Body is derived from the Head and disposed of to the good of the Head and therfore here is set down that Christ is to me life because Christ is all in all to them that are his in the flux reflux of grace in the preventing operating in the donation and retribution Quest How shall I know Christ to be in me that I may say comfortably to my selfe That Christ is life to me Answ By the Spirit that he hath given us 1. Joh. 3.24 which Spirit is known by divers motions First by a purpose to obey God and an inclination to that purpose Therefore Christ minded Gods work with David Joh. 4.34 more then his dayly food and he was straitned till that was accomplished that he was sent to suffer but you must observe this purpose and inclination is in us not onely in extremities as in Pharaoh Exo. 9.28 while the rod was upon him he promised fair but even while we are in health and have the world at will God loves to be chosen as freely as he was forsaken and it is a great comfort to a man and a good token of Gods spirit when a man can say This good I did embrace and this evill I did forsake meerely for Gods cause without any other respect or constraint as Ioseph did Gen. 39 9. How can I do this great wickednes and sin against God The Devil as the Proverb is when he was sick would be a Monke which savours of more religion then those Monkes who while they be well will be devils but being well he was the devill still so many of us cry in affliction and pretend repentance but the storme being over we doe as he did that vowed to a Saint if he came safe to shore a wax Candle of twelve pound weight but when he came there he gave one
Now it is not so in this life For all that wee have here is either toilsome to get carefull to keep or fulsome to continue with as Seneca saith of satiety Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris Mori velle non tantum fortis miser sed etiam fastidiosus potest A man would die with wearinesse of reiterating the same thing though he were neither valiant nor miserable The best thing here is of a perishing nature but our inheritance there is incorruptible undefiled and fadeth not away and reserved in heaven where there is no feare of robbing 1 Pet. 1.4 or spoiling us of it either by the violence of the Souldier or the crast of the deceiver or the deceitfulnesse of the Lawyer But all things here are fading saving Grace and yet that hath much adoe to stick by us as saith Saint Paul I find a Law in my members fighting against the law of my mind Rom. 7.23 Who feels or sees not this decay except those whose eyes are too much fixed upon the worlds toyes whom the god of this world hath blinded Excellens sensibile destruit sensum They look too much much on the world and so are blinded by it They hold it not at a just distance from God and Godlinesse or look not upon it with a right spectacle of Gods Word which discovers to us all her adulterate ware That is the Reason why we see not the envie of honour the allurements of pleasure the inconstancy of riches the impediments of Poverty the temptings of the flesh the baits of beautie the infirmities of the body the certainty of evill and the danger of losing good What then is all this to what wee lose by being absent from the Lord whilst we are in the body 2 Cor. 5.6 Wee lose the blessed vision the sight of God the presence of Christ the full enjoyment of the holy Ghost the company of Angels and the Society of Saints all which we know but in part here but then we shall know even as we are knowne To ensure your self hereof look you that you have the fruit of this confidence that Christ is your life The fruit of this confidence and death is your gaine included in the word For which hath relation to that Resolution which this confidence bred namely to glorifie God in his body whether by life or death because Christ was his life and death was to him advantage And surely hee that desireth so to doe cannot chuse but find the other For Christ being his life makes him apt to glorifie God in life and in death And this he resolving to doe must needs produce this effect that death must be his gain For he that will lose his life for my sake shall find it Mat. 10.39 And not such a life simply but better an hundred fold in the happinesse of it and for the continuance everlasting The summe then of all is this Consider we are Christians which doth give us a right to a better life then nature can viz. a spirituall life in Christ and an eternall life with Christ To obtain either of these we must avoid the voluptuousnes of life naturall and let Christ be our contemplation and his example our pattern This is in mundo vivere vana mundi contemnere to live in the world Gal. 6.14 and yet despise it to use the world as not using it The world must be crucified to me as looking on it as a cursed thing Totus mundus positus in maligno and I must be crucified to the world by its hatred of me So that we must live as Saint Paul directs our loynes girded with truth lamps burning in our hand viz. shining in good workes and lastly watching in devotion lest we be found sleeping This being done we may bid death welcome for he brings advantage with him And if yet our infirmities present death formidable Consider what is death but a fall to rise like the setting of the Sunne A medicine to those miseries which sinne brought upon us For we having fallen by sinne into all manner of woe it was mercy as well as Justice in God to make us mortall lest we should live for ever miserable Pluto guessed well when he said Death was the Law of Nature Adrian said better and more full that Death was Paver divitum pauper is defiderium the feare of the rich and the desire of the poore Seneca said more divinely that it was Finis or Transitus an end to the wicked mans happinesse a passage to the good mans blessednesse Death cannot bite Innocence but smiles upon it Which made Saint Augustine to say He desired to see death as Christ had made it Secondly consider not so much the seares it has as the joyes it brings It is strange to see how light they made of it who had no such hopes as we have I meane the Heathen And we that count our selves the true Israelites need not be ashamed to borrow a jewel of these Egyptians Cato sent Caesar word that he feared more his pardon then his pain The joyes of death are such to those that live well as that they rejoyce when it draweth nigh For it is but a sleep and the grave a dormitorie where men rest from their labours In vitâ vigilant justi ideo in morte dicuntur dormire saith Saint Augustine Righteous men watch while they live and therefore are said to sleep when they be dead A certaine wise Roman said Non puerascam si Deus mihi largiatur He would not be a child again though God would permit it His reason was because now sayes he Ex hospitio ad domum discedam I shall goe from my Inne to my home For indeed the soule Non est ubi nunc est is not where it would be It looks ad futura to that which is to come And he that doth not beleeves not certainly the soules immortality nor the paine of death which being once apprehended makes us impatient to live in Mesech Ps 120.5 and desirous of dissolution with S. Paul Which gaine if thou wouldest make of death die to the world betimes He that begins a journey early makes a pleasure of it rather then a paine Such men are neither ashamed to live because they have lived well nor affraid to die because they are are but going whither they have beene alwaies travelling Remember therefore thy Creatour in the daies of thy youth Eccl. 12.1 before the evill day come Like the Bee and the Ant let not your provision be to make in the winter Christ taught us to prevent impediments of safety when he said to the people concerning the destruction of Jerusalem pray Mat. 25.20 that your flight be not in the winter nor on the Sabbath day because hee knew their opinion of the Sabbath would hinder their flight one way as the winter another So provide against this blustring day of death lest it hinder you in your passage to heaven
Eccles 7.2 It is better to goe into the house of mourning then of feasting because that is the end of all men and the wicked will lay it to his heart For when I see a man die I get this by it to remember my end also that my day of accompt will come too When I see one die willingly it comforts me against death that it is to be embraced rather then seared If I see one die resolutely it gives me advantage to be valiant also and so make the blood of the Martyrs to be the seed of the Church When I see one patient in sicknesse and hopefull in death I gaine some confirmation of my assurance that surely there is a reward for the righteous and the patient abiding of the meek shall not perish for ever For I see there is hope laid up in their bosomes from which Death cannot make them start And thus the dust of the dead is like fresh mold cast into a garden which makes all things spring the better Quot justi tot miserationes So many good-men so many mercies if they live to keep off judgements if they die to guide us by examples that they and we may at last meet together in one CHRIST JESUS who hath left us an example that we should follow his steps that he may both in life and death be of so great power with us that death may prove a gaine to us and we a glory to him To whom together with the Father and the holy Spirit three Persons and one onely true and ever-living Lord God be rendred as is most due all honour and glory and praise now and for ever AMEN Memoriale Sacrum AN APPENDIX TO THE Pious and Learned Sermon OF Mr BENJAMIN SPENCER To the perpetuall Memory of the most Vertuous Gentlewoman Mrs MARY OVERMAN Who departed this life to live with the Saints on a double Saints day being that of S. Philip and Jacob. BEING A Speech written not spoken by her sorrowfull Husband THOMAS OVERMAN PROV 10.7 The memory of the just is blessed but the name of the wicked shall rot PSAL. 112.6 The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance 164◠Memoriale Sacrum To my friends at the Funerall not at the Sermon YOu all had I Confesse deare friends upon the sad occasion of this Invitation an undenyable Civil Right to this Funerall not Factious Sermon falsly so christned by some ill-meaning men who would give it no other name before it went to Church or the Pulpit but what a factious Conventicle begat Which it seemes has this priviledge unknowne till now to miscall any thing And since Innocence never is in greater danger then when Detraction acts its part against it be pleased now to see what would not then be suffered in your hearing this dumbe Sermon speake both for it selfe and your deceased Sister a choice young Christian silenced by death Whose blessed innocence hath made her uncapable of speaking here but by a proxie who being dead yet speaketh by her surviving husband her proximated friend by Gods appointment Who as hee must not be injurious in the least respect to a deceased loving Wife that being wholy inconsistent with his last dutie to her to whom he must ever owe a pretious memorie so must he now publish to the impartiall world that she had an unquestionable right as dying a Christian to a peacefull buriall For as she lived in faith fixt so she died in the full hope of a very good Christian What Antichristians then were they that hindred it I leave for you to judge I will therefore crave leave to be at this present what indeed I am your sorrowfull Historian yet my historie must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sad glad relation of this our sister who is now gathered to her heavenly Father I have therefore first presented you with the Sermon it selfe which was then supprest but not obliterated as you may perceive you need not feare what Faction saith against it here 's no such infection The Sermon you shall finde attend the Text and the occasion onely and after take its leave of you So that all the way till it bring you home it will entertaine you with no other discourse but the livelie Character of a true Christian dead to the world betimes And the example of our deceased friend will doe no lesse A good and full account she made of that pretious time God left her here which you will plainly perceive both by the rejoycings she had in her well-spent life and with firme hopes in earnest of a full assurance of a comfortable death And withall have her dying example for your living patterne which will guide you like wise how to make up your accompts well that you may be happie too when ere you goe hence and be no more seen which wee all sooner or later inevtablie must So that it highly concerns us whilst wee are here to make good our accompts first if at last wee would not misse of that happinesse of good Christians And blessed be God that of his fullnesse this our deceased sister did receive grace for grace Who driving on towards the marke of her high calling and aiming at perfection went on from one degree of grace unto another till glory came upon her So that wee doubt not in the least measure of her fullnesse of glory whither she is gone A Progresse you shall see she had and that in goodnes being well acquainted with that truely divine maxime That not to goe forward is to goe backward and not to thrive in goodnes not to be good at all But she stood not at such an unhappy stay for I may safely affirme that piety throve with her even from her infancy humilitie with either both strove to out-strip each other neither came to full stature yet perseverance crowned all She well knew she must carry her goodnes to the grave if shee meant to goe to heaven For without holynes no hopes of that happinesse to see the face of God Minoritie and Sanctity do not usually meet yet here both we see a young Woman dead to sinne and ready for death which is no lesse admirable then rare A reason then you see I am ready to give you of our good hope wee have of this dead Sister t was such indeed of which wee need not bee ashamed no more then she was So truly lively that I may confidently say The just mans and the just womans hope were here all one Her end then must needs be like his I will therefore first shew you how she led the life of the righteous and next how shee dyed the death of the righteous too And this taske I shall truly performe if you please to consider with me First What she did And in this I must beare her witnes that in all her actions God had her early day for in them she constanstly looked heaven-ward first and let religion in Full oft have I been an eye-witnes with joy
is nor what she has Yet this we know of this deare Saint our Sister A peace she had internall and externall too even whilst she lived here and they are good forerunners of that eternall in the heavens Where to be sure it concernes them she be at peace who were the uncivill disturbers of her Funerall Rites or they might feare thence a suddaine requitall for those disturbances However such is the Saints insuperable happinesse not to be touch'd with things below And such is hers Who though she might not be permitted to goe downe to the earth her Mother in peace no more then so me of them yet can she not be hindred from sitting downe in peace with those holy ones in the bosome of her Father which is in heaven It is enough then that God has plac'd her in so serene a Region as that she is beyond the sphere of malice though not to envie yet to reach her blisse or to molest the quiet of her better part No wonder then this young sweet Saint hasted thither whither her early perfections did convey her timely holinesse being to God most acceptable Yet did she stay Gods leasure here and went not hence without his great Commission till patience had her full effect in her and seal'd her up for heaven Where now her innocence and patience have captivated death in perfect tryumph And this may comfort us who here remaine behind her that God in his due time will silence such who ere they be who thus like foule-mouth'd earth-wormes not Christians fasten thier teeth Caniball-like upon a dead corps However yet such times we live to see Depart in peace we may not buried be But God forgive them I doe this unseasonable malice to my dearest spousesse whose death gave life to this Funerall Sermon Yet you will find as it is in the naturall so in this spirituall body this pious Sermon it could not quicken except it selfe dyed first It did so for it lay speechlesse and so dead all this while and now it lyes in thine owne power by Gods grace assisting to let it quicken both it self and us Nay let the power of God accompany this power of godlinesse we need not doubt its fruitfulnesse but expect rather a very plentifull harvest even from those envious men who pluckt these eares too soon So farre were they in practise from his precept who bad them let even the tares grow untill the harvest So hope we will and pray we must that those rude hands who would not let alone a peacefull Sermon may yet at least reape somthing better by it then the shamefull fruits of their inhumanities from it However here it is a Treatise I may say able to rectify those spirits of contention and blind zeale which led them thus to violate the dead even before they could come into their dormitories And now they have the Sermon in their eyes and at their hand when ere they please to take it They cannot say but that they have it ready to convey it to their hearts one way or other if God have not deny'd or they refus'd humility to entertaine it Else I am sure it cannot prove to the living a dead letter but serve to quicken them as well as bury her which was intended The presse must be the Preacher and as it falls out anticipate the Pulpit This now supplies that then A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I confesse no good decorum here Yet let it not trouble thee good reader in order unto truth to see it come to light in such disorder Let this content thee Truth hath so prevaild as that it comes at length in greater power Ready for birth this Sermon was before yet it has gaind perfection by staying in the wombe and here that presseth forth in greater strength which was supprest by some mistaking men even at the Pulpit Yet this must I say had we had the happinesse to have heard it from the Authors lips wee had met with Chrysostomes lively voice and golden mouth in the delivery which would have mov'd us more yet writing teacheth more This giveth thee leasure for thy contemplation and leave thou hast to bore thine eare and tansack thine owne heart when ere thou wilt Words spoken have their wings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though never so eloquently or aptlie spoken And though like apples of gold in pictures of Silver they doe too neerly resemble those apples of Sodome which turne to nothing with a touch and doe too often teach but for one houre But hee that writeth seemes to teach for ever By voice we profit those in compasse onely by penne those at the greatest distance yea the yet unborne Which consideration moved me with so much zeale though little skill to penne this Funerall Oration in honour of my most beloved Spouse who though dead justly bespake this blessed memory of her selfe in the sad heart of her surviving Husband who hath no better Trophee to erect worthy so much vertue And if in this last duty to my dearest I seeme a passionate admirer of her I have reason to appeare so And you must pardon me to take my leave with some solemnity of that same house wherein did lately dwell that soule which was indeed the soule of my contentment And you may well conceive none else knew how to value this jewell so well as did the owner who must acknowledge it no low-priz'd happinesse to have enjoyed the society of so sweet a companion Yet if you thinke I glory too much in this particular I must tell you as concerning my selfe I doe not glory but in the Crosse of Christ who was pleased to take from me this crowne of my rejoycing upon earth But I must remember my selfe and not dwell too long in this kind of speech Onely thus I leave her the joy of my life is gone before and I must be patient till I can follow after You all see by this time That as Sampson did with honey so have I all this while done with my speech of this blessed woman imparted some of her spirituall endowments that you also might have a taste of her heavenly consolations And now to you my loving friends will I addresse my speech Yet first present you with the Sermon Ye had had it sooner had the learned Author enjoy'd his wonted health to have transcrib'd a Copie It is now at last in your possession you have had it long enough in expectation and you deserve it now You travelled for it first since thirsted for it and now at last t is come home to you to make amends for your lost journey then I cannot be so inhumane to the dead nor yet so injurious to the living as to defraud either of their due Nor shall it ere be said I engrossed that to my selfe which did so truly belong unto you all You all did honour me I thank you to follow the body of my deare Bed-fellow with solemnity to her bed of rest But see
what happened to my greater griefe I speake it for it added much to my affliction then you were dismist without your spirituall banquet Uncivill men dispoyled you of your Feast and having fasted from it ever since you needs must have it now And here it is Fall to it when you please I doe perswade my selfe you came so well resolved as that you meant to profit by the dead why should I frustrate this chiefe end of yours I need not others did who promised well but ill performd it They spake of peace yet would not let it follow her to the grave If to excuse themselves they aske What profit is a Sermon to the dead I must answer it is the businesse of the living who were by them defrauded of this excellent Sermon wherein the Prophet Ezechiels dead and dry bones are gathered together to a happy Resurrection Death it selfe enlivened by the pious Authors eloquence into a profitable life By whose skilfull guidance thou mayst be instructed so to live that thou shalt never dye and so to dye that thou shalt live for ever What kind of Adders then were those who did not onely stoppe their owne but others eares against the voyce of this wise Charmer here Who how injuriously he was accused upon suspicion for this Sermon has by the publication of it made you judges and the world besides And now high time it is to cloze with you deare Mother and to remove my foot a little from this house of sorrow at least from the depth of it to comfort you And you will give me leave to say after the story of so much goodnesse eminent in our departed friend wee have something to rejoyce in in the midst of all our teares that she both lived and dyed so exemplarily well It hath pleased God indeed to call you and me in a more especiall manner to the house of mourning A sad truth if wee consult with flesh and blood onely God hath of late deprived us of a very neere relation to each of us You of an obedient daughter in her youth Me of a bosome friend too soone Both these were deare relations in our affections which having had a Benjamins portion in our love must needs have the same proportion in our sorrow for her losse I can no more forget my wife then you your daughter I must acknowledge the separation of an obedient daughter from an indulgent mother to be cause sufficient of lamentation yet you will pardon me if I say that I have more If you consider us in those sacred bonds wherein heaven had joyned us where I met with so much mutuall conversation and affection with such an union that as living I could not over-love so neither now over-grieve the separation The tribute of my teares must needs be larger then who beare a larger share in the same losse But we will not vie teares in this sad contention but rather strive to beare our selves as Christian Mourners Not so full of teares as hope She dyed in hope let us mourne too as for our Freind who is but gone before to that place of joy whither we hope to follow her in Gods due time Hee onely make us ready as she was and then wee shall not need to feare our Masters call how soone or late soever So shall not death over-master us but we shall conquer it through him that tooke away its hurtfull sting And let us now remember all teares are wiped from her eyes why should ours then stand full of teares for her If all her sorrowes be fallen asleepe and buried in the grave Why should ours live too passionatly to bemoane her Let us not then drop a teare more here but rather lend each other both our hands to helpe us beare this weighty crosse betweene us I must confesse no crosses doe so much affect us as those which teare away the things wee dearliest love and when the cheife object of our affections is taken from us a generall lamentation followes it through all the powers both of soule and body We cannot suffer it to be divided from us without abundance of teares I neede not applie it Yet must I give my Soule this consolation for the losse If I doe not so miscall the blessed death of my deare Spouse she is not dead but sleepeth And if no more I may thinke further Worldly occasions have many nights separated our bodies when the next morning has rejoyned us and it is but one night one short night of this dull life she shall be from me when the morning of glory shall appeare wee shall appear together And since this comfort of my life could not here stay with me this comfort is my stay of life that a little time of patience will bring mee to her And for you deare Mother the Argument is as good you may mourn excessively as David did for Absalom Yet you must expect a loab to chide you for it So much the more in that David had more cause to bewaile his Absolom then you your Mary hee knew not how God would deale with that rebellious Sonne but you cannot doubt but he has dealt well with your obedient daughter My advice therefore to you shall be no other then this in briefe neither too much to remember nor altogether to forget so good a daughter Could she not have dyed it had been worthy of wonder not at all that she is dead I might save you and my selfe this quere Whether we loved her whom we lately have forgone and could we love her and not wish her happie Could she be happie and not die God gave you this daughter as a gift and me this wife and hee hath againe taken her as his due may hee not doe with his Theodosia his owne gift as hee pleases It was Iobs saying in the midst of all his losses The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the Name of the Lord. In all afflictions we must consider both what we have lost and what we have left and blesse God in every losse that we have lost no more having so many things to be deprived of T is some comfort in calamity not to be altogether miserable And it is as much as we can expect whilst we are here to part with our earthly happinesse by degrees t is but a kindlie passage to those eternall ones above which will sufficiently recompence all our losses here below This must be the consideration which in this and the like occasions must satisfy both you and me For any other satisfaction we must not expect Nor must the deniall of that Christian solemnity which was designed for her more honourable interment afflict or trouble us we know the times and men And if we looke abroad we shall behold great noble farnous persons thrust into their graves with lesser ceremony And we must not thinke much to sympathize a little with the disquiet of the times And if yet any be so censorious to look upon this speech or that Sermon with an ill aspect in respect that it is now made publicke It suffices me that I have hereby given my cheife freinds their owne content which is my duty For sure I am they were sufficiently discontented with what befell at the Funerall And I have hereby decently interred my deare Wife having no ether way left me to performe it as became the last duty of an affectionate Husband For till now she was buried in silence whom no man can blame me if I perpetually speake of as well as continually remember And I must further professe that both the Preacher and my selfe have modestly and truly deciphered her proper Character as became her by the law of Christianity to be reported of If now all this vertue and goodnesse make thee whoever thou art that readest presse forward to the same practise Thou wilt sufficiently justifie the justnesse of this true though ceremonious commendation And you my freinds as you will acknowledge that I have thus but paid the honour I owed to her beloved ashes So you will confesse your selves honoured by the interests and relations you once had to so deserving a Saint And for her sake retaine with love the antient respects and freindship to her lately beloved Husband and still your freind and Servant THO OVERMAN FINIS