in an instant as if they had been may ancient Cronies and acquaintance But why should I grieve at parting with my friends below when I shall go to the best friends I have in all the world to God my Father to Jesus my Redeemer to the Holy Ghost my constant Comforter and Assistant And what though that state and the laws and customs of it be in a great measure unknown to me yet what I know is infinitely desirable From whence I may reasonably infer that what I know not is so too and if I have but the temper of Heaven I am sure I shall easily comply with the heavenly laws and customs of it so that in the whole I cannot imagine why any good man that seriously believes the doctrine of a blessed immortality and hath a just well-grounded hope of being made partaker of it when he dies should be so loth to leave this wretched world I do not deny but the circumstances of our affairs in this life are many times such as may justly excuse even a good man's unwillingness to die some great opportunities of doing good may present themselves and invite him to stay a little longer or his having begun his repentance late or not having made a competent provision for his family may for awhile justifie his unwillingness to depart but unless it be in these excepted cafes I can hardly reconcile our hopes of happiness with our fear of death For when I am verily perswaded that death is onely a narrow stream running between time and eternity and I see my God and my Saviour with Crowns of Glory in their hands beckoning to me from the farther shore calling to me to come over and receive those happy recompences of my industry and labour that I like a naked timorous boy should stand shivering on this bank of time as if I were afraid to dip my foot in the cold stream of Fate which as soon as I am in I am past and in the twinkling of an eye will land me on eternal bliss is such an extravagant inconsistency as if I did not feel it in me I should never believe I could be guilty of 4. Fourthly and lastly Hence I infer what unspeakable incouragement we have to endeavour after that Universal Righteousness which intitles us to this blessed state of eternal life since God hath proposed such a vast reward to encourage and animate our industry how can we account any work hard of which Heaven is the wages how can we faint in our Christian race when we see the Crown of Glory hang over the Goal Methinks this should be enough to infuse life and spirit into the most crest-fal'n Soul to make Cripples run and convert the most sneaking Coward into a bold and magnanimous Heroe For how much pains do we ordinarily take upon far less hopes in hope of a little transitory wealth which we know we shall enjoy but a few years and then part with for ever we thrust our selves into a perpetual croud and tumult of businesses where with vast concern and thoughtfulness with eager and passionate prosecutions with endless brawls and contentions with restless justlings and rancountring one another we toil and weary out our selves and make our lives a constant drudgery and shall we flag when Heaven is the object of our prosecutions who are so active in the pursuit of trifles Whensoever therefore we find our endeavours in Religion begin to tire and droop let 's lift up our eyes to the Crown of Glory and if we are capable of being moved by objects of the greatest value that must infuse new vigour into us and make us all life and spirit and wing for what though my way lyes up the hill and leads me along through thorns and precipices so that I am fain to sweat at every step and every ascent is a new toil to me yet when I am up I am sure to be entertained with such pleasant gales and glorious prospects as will fully recompence all my labour in climbing thither there with an over-joyed heart I shall sit down and bless my toils O blessed be ye my bitter agonies and sharp conflicts for ever blessed be ye my importunate prayers and well-spent tears for now I am fully repaid for you all and doe reap ten thousand times more joys from you than ever I endured pains For what are the pains of a moment to the pleasures of an eternity Wherefore hold out my faith and patience yet a little longer and your work will soon be at an end and after a few laborious week-days you shall keep an everlasting Sabbath What though my voyage lye through a stormy Sea yet 't is to the Indies of happiness and a few Leagues farther lies the blissfull Port where I shall be Crown'd as soon as I am landed Go on therefore O my Soul with thy utmost courage and alacrity for let the winds bluster and the waves swell never so much yet thou canst not miscarry unless thou wilt thou art not like other passengers left to the mercy of wind and weather but thy fate is in thy own hands and if thou wilt have but thy fruit unto holiness thy end shall be everlasting life Which God of his infinite mercy grant c. And so much shall suffice for the Text I shall now only crave your patience while I speak a few words of the sorrowfull occasion viz. the Funeral of our Deceased Brother Dr. Croun who whilst he lived was not onely a Friend but an Ornament to the whole Race of Mankind and whose breathless Carkass to which we are now rendring the last Offices of Friendship was e'erwhilst the seat of a mind so exalted and a Nature so refined as that had it but a few equals scattered through the world they might go far towards the retrieving the forfeited reputation of our degenerate kind for as for his Understanding it was a very learned University of Knowledge wherein Languages and Arts and Sciences flourish'd and every thing almost was comprehended that deserves the name of Learning he was a general Scholar as all his Learned Acquaintance will testify an accurate Linguist an acute Mathematician a well read Historian and a profound Philosopher and in that laborious course he had run through the whole Circle of Learning he contented not himself with a slight and cursory view of the several parts of it but took a full prospect of them all and was aliquis in singulis as well as in omnibus and as for that learned profession to which God's Providence determin'd and his own Genius more particularly addicted him though I verily believe England abounds with as many great and eminent Professours of it as ever any Age or Nation produced yet in this bright constellation Dr. Croun will be acknowledged by all that know and understood him a star of the first magnitude for besides the deep and accurate insight he had in the frame and structure of Humane Bodies of which he gave
TO THE Truly Pious and Virtuous Mrs CROUN MADAM WHen you requested me to Publish this Discourse I found you in that Mournfull condition that 't would have been a degree of Inhumanity not to have gratified your desire And therefore though I was sufficiently sensible how much short I had fain of both my Subjects viz. that comfortable one of the Text and that sorrowfull one of the Occasion yet my Compassion overswayed my Reason so that I can plead no other excuse to the World for this very defective Publication but that I had not ill nature enough to resist the Importunate Tears of an afflicted Friend and a sorrowful Widow As for the Sermon all I can say for it is this That it Treats of a very Noble Argument and such as carries comfort enough with it to ease and relieve the most dejected mind and therefore is of all others the most fit and proper for your Meditations for there is no present affliction no not yours can cause you to suppose your self miserable so long as you are within hope and expectance of the blessed state of eternal life O Good Madam while you are making your Mournfull descants on your dear Loss consider now and then that you are Iourneying towards that blessed place where you will find infinite Myriads of better Friends and dearer Lovers than that best of Husbands whose Loss you bewail and who love each other far more and better even than you and he did and have this peculiar advantage beyond the happiest Lovers here That they shall live an eternal life together and to everlasting Ages enjoy one another without being ever interrupted in their enjoyment with the Melancholy prospect of being at last divided from each others society and embraces This with all those other innumerable comforts wherewith this fruitfull Theme abounds you will find the best Cordial in the World for a drooping mind That therefore what I here present you may often put you in mind of Heaven and quicken your endeavours after it and refresh your sorrowfull heart with the joyfull prospect of it is the earnest prayer of MADAM Your most affectionate Friend and faithfull Servant John Scott A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL c. Matth. 25.46 But the Righteous into life eternal IN the foregoing verses of this Chapter our Saviour describes the process of the day of Judgment and the different Fates to which good and bad men whom he describes under the Characters of Sheep and Goats shall then be sentenced and consigned and then he summs up the whole discourse in the words of the Text These that is the Goats or the Wicked of whom he had been discoursing in the verses immediately preceding These shall go away into everlasting punishment but the Righteous into life eternal where by the Righteous we are to understand the truly Pious and Vertuous that is they who render to God to Men and to themselves all that duty they owe in their respective Relations and Circumstances for all our Duties being Dues our performance of them is nothing but the discharging of our Debts or being strictly Righteous in rendring to God and Men and our selves what we owe to each by an immutable obligation and hence the whole Duty of Man is in Scripture very often called by the name of Righteousness and those who comply with their whole Duty are frequently styled Righteous because to be Righteous is to render to every one his due and to render every one his due is the whole Duty of Man so that the meaning of the words is this they who have been good Men in all their respective Relations and Circumstances who have made it the business of their lives to render to God all that Piety and Devotion to their Neighbours all that Justice and Charity to themselves all that Sobriety and Temperance which is due from them both by the command of God and the judgment of right reason they as a reward of this their universal Righteousness shall by this final judgment be transmitted unto life eternal In the prosecution of which Argument I shall endeavour these two things First To shew what is here meant by life eternal Secondly Wherein this eternal life consists As for the first By life here is plainly meant happiness for so it 's very usual with Scripture to express the blessings it promises to Men whether they be temporal or eternal By life thus the temporal Blessings promised in the Old Testament are frequently exprest by this Phrase as you may see at your leisure Deut. 30.15.19 Lev. 18.5 Ezek. 20.21 and hence the Statutes of the Mosaick Law are called the Statutes of life Ezek. 33.15 and as the Temporal Blessings in the Old Testament are commonly expressed by life so are also those Eternal Blessings of the future life promised in the New so Matth. 18.8 Matth. 19.17 John 3.36 and because these Blessings are not Temporal but Eternal therefore that life by which they are expressed is styled eternal and everlasting so 1 Tim. 1.10 Rom. 6.22 23. and that it is not called eternal life merely as it is a state of endless Being and Existence is evident because Being and Existence are indifferent things abstracted from the sense of Happiness and Misery but eternal life is proposed to us as a thing that is infinitely desirable in it self as being the Crown and Reward of all our Obedience for which reason it is called the Crown of Life Iames 1.12 and therefore the reason why they are expressed by life is because life is the root of all our sense of pleasure without which we are nothing else but lumps of stupid and insensible flesh incapable of perceiving either pleasure or pain so that all sensation being founded in life and all pleasure being a sweet and gratefull sensation by a very easie figure the natural effect and operation of life is expressed by life it self and indeed all the advantage of living consists in living in a sense of pleasure and therefore it hath been very much disputed among Philosophers whether this Temporary state of ours in which there is so great an intermixture of pain with pleasure doth not better deserve the name of Death than Life and those of them who thought it more liable to Misery than Happiness affirmed it to be a state of death and stifly maintained this Paradox that at our birth we die into a worse state than non-existence and at our death are born into a true and proper state of life but they who counted our present life to be intermixed with more pleasure than misery esteemed it a privilege deserving the name of life which is an argument that both placed all the privilege of living in those pleasant perceptions that are founded in it and thus according to the Scripture Philospohy to live as it imports advantage to us is to live in the sense of joy and pleasure so Psal. 22.26 The Meek shall eat and be satisfied they shall praise the Lord
we are most strangely besotted who when we are born to live for ever above in the most ravishing glory and happiness can suffer our selves to doat upon this world and to be so strangely bewitched by its deluding vanities O could we but stand awhile in the mid-way between Heaven and Earth and at one prospect see the glories of both how faint and dim would all the splendours of this world appear to us in comparison with those above how would they sneak and disappear in the presence of that eternal brightness and be forced to shroud their vanquish'd glories as Stars do when the Sun appears And whilst we interchangeably turned our eyes from one to t'other with what shame and confusion should we reflect upon the wretched groveling temper of our own minds what poor mean-spirited creatures we are to satisfie our selves with the impertinent trifles of this world while we have all the joys of an everlasting Heaven before us and may if we please after a few moments obedience be admitted into them and enjoy them for evermore O foolish creatures that we are thus to prefer a far Countrey where we live on nothing but husks before the everlasting festivities of our Father's house where the meanest guest hath bread enough and to spare to chuse Nebuchadnezzar's fate and leave Crowns and Sceptres to live among the salvage herds of the Wilderness could but the blessed Saints above divert so much from their more happy employments as to look down a little from their Thrones of Glory and see how busie poor mortals are a scrambling for this wretched pelf which within a few moments they must leave for ever how they justle and rancounter defeat defraud and undermine one another what a most ridiculous spectacle would it appear to them with what scorn would they look on it or rather with what pity to see a company of heaven-born Souls capable of and designed for the same degree of glory and happiness with themselves groveling like Swine in dirt and mire one priding it self in a gay suit another hugging a bag of glistering earth a third stewing and dissolving it self in luxury and voluptuousness and all employed at that poor and mean and miserable rate as might justly make those blessed Spirits ashamed to own their kindred and alliance with us To tell you truly and seriously my thoughts I cannot imagine but if when we are thus extravagantly concerned about the pitifull trifles of this world those blessed Spirits do indeed see and converse with us it is a much more ludicrous and ridiculous spectacle in their eyes to see us thus foolishly concerned and employed than 't would be in ours to see a company of boys with mighty zeal and concern wrangling and scrambling for a bag of Cherry-stones Wherefore in the Name of God Sirs let us not expose our selves any longer to the just derision of all the world by our excessive dotage upon the vanities of this life but let us seriously consider that we are all concerned in matters of much higher importance even in the unspeakable felicity of an everlasting life 3. Hence I infer how unreasonable a thing it is for good men to be afraid of dying since just on t'other side the Grave ye see there is a state of endless bliss prepared to receive and entertain them so that to them Death is but a dark entry out of a Wilderness of sorrow into a Paradise of eternal pleasure And therefore if it be an unreasonable thing for sick men to dread their recovery for Slaves to tremble at their Jubilee or for Prisoners to quake at the news of their Gaol-delivery how much more unreasonable is it for good men to be afraid of Death which is but a momentary passage from sickness to eternal health from labour to eternal rest and from close confinement to eternal liberty For God's sake consider Sirs What is there in this world that ye are so fond of it what in the other that ye are so afraid of it Suppose that now your Souls were on the wing mounting towards the celestial Abodes and that at some convenient stand between Heaven and Earth from whence ye might take a prospect of both ye were now making a pause to survey and compare them with one another that having viewed over all the glories above you tasted the beatifical joys and heard the ravishing melodies of Angels ye were now looking down again with your minds filled with those glorious Idea's upon this miserable world and that all in a view ye beheld the vast numbers of men and women that at this time are fainting for want of bread of young men that are hewen down by the sword of Orphans that are weeping over the Graves of their Fathers of Mariners that are shrieking out in a storm because their Keel dashes against a Rock or Bulges under them of people that are groaning upon sick beds or wracked with agonies of conscience that are weeping with want mad with oppression or desperate with too quick a sense of a constant infelicity would ye not do ye think upon such a review of both states be infinitely glad that ye were gone from hence that ye are out of the noise and participation of so many evils and calamities would not the sight of the glories above and of the miseries beneath make you a thousand times more fearfull of returning hither than ever ye were of going hence Yes doubtless it would why then should not our sense of the miseries here and our belief of the happiness there produce the same effect in us make us willing to remove our quarters and exchange this Wilderness for that Canaan 'T is true indeed the passage from one to t'other is commonly very painfull and grievous but what of that in other cases we are willing enough to endure a present pain in order to a future ease and if a few mortal pangs will work a perfect cure on me and recover me to everlasting health and life methinks the hope of this blessed effect should be sufficient to indear that agony and render it easie and desirable But alas to die is to leave all our acquaintance to bid adieu to our dearest friends and relatives to pass into an unknown state to converse with strangers whose laws and customs we are not acquainted with Why now all that looks sad in this is a very great mistake for I verily hope that I have more friends and relatives in Heaven than I shall leave behind me here on Earth and if so I do but go from worse friends to better for one friend there is worth a thousand here in respect of all those indearing accomplishments that render a friend a Jewel But if I die a good man I shall carry into eternity with me the genius and temper of a glorified spirit and that will recommend me to all the society of Heaven and render the spirits of those just men whose name I never heard of as dear friends to me
John 6.50 that they who believe his Doctrine shall not die but that whosoever liveth and believeth in him shall never die Iohn 11.26 yea and not only so but that they shall never see death Iohn 8.51 i. e. shall never come within the prospect or danger of dying in Luke 20.36 he tells them not only that they shall not but that they cannot die any more for they are equal unto the Angels now what a mighty addition must this make to the joys of the blessed that they are such as shall never expire but indure as long as God and run parallel with Eternity that â—hey are not measured by moments or hours by years or centuries or myriads or Indictions but shall run on in an everlasting flux of duration every part whereof is equally because infinitely distant from a period for when time like fire hath devoured all it can prey on it shall at last die it self and go out into Eternity the nature of which is such as that after we have lived most blessedly Millions of Millions of Ages our Happiness shall be as far from an end as when it first began for our lives and our happiness shall be Coeternal our God shall live for ever and we shall live for ever to enjoy him and in the enjoyment of such an infinite good we need not doubt to find variety enough still to renew our pleasures and keep them fresh and flourishing for ever for as we shall always know God so we shall always know him more and more and every new beauty that Infinite Object discovers to us like the diversified Refractions of the same sparkling Diamond shall yield our minds fresh pleasures for ever and kindle a new flame of love in us and that a new rapture of joy and that a new desire of knowing and discovering more and so continually round again there will be knowing loving and rejoicing more and more for ever so that our happiness will be so immense as that we shall need as well as have an Eternity to enjoy it fully Now what an unspeakable pleasure must it be for the happy Soul thus to reflect upon her own condition O blessed for ever be the good God I am as happy now as ever my heart can hold every part of me is so thronged with joys that I have no room for any more and that which completes and crowns 'em all is that they shall never never end but still flow on to everlasting ages and the farther they flow the more they shall swell and increase And now having finished this short and imperfect description of this happy state of eternal life I shall conclude with some Inferences from the whole 1. Hence I infer how much reason we have to be contented and satisfied under all the present afflictions of this life For shall we receive so much good at the hands of God as everlasting life implies and not be contented to receive some evil When our good Father hath provided for us a Crown of endless bliss and glory hereafter with that conscience or modesty can we complain of these little paternal castigations he inflicts on us here especially considering that the great design of all his present severities is to prepare and discipline us for that heavenly state that by all these dismal Providences he is onely training us up for a Crown fitting instructing and disposing us to reign with himself in glory for ever Can any thing be unwelcome to us that is in order to so blessed an end Can any Physick be nauseous or distastfull that is prescribed to recover us into such an happy immortality No doubtless every thing that leads heavenwards though never so grievous is a blessing and all these kind severities that tend to our eternal welfare are favours for which we are bound to praise and adore the goodness of Heaven for ever When therefore we find our selves inclined to complain under our present afflictions let us lift up our eyes to yonder blessed regions and consider the joys and triumphs the crowns and pleasures that do there await us and how necessary these bitter trials are to prepare us for and waft us to them and if this doth not stop our mouths and silence our complaints for ever nay if it doth not cause us to rejoice in our tribulations and thank God for them on our bended knees if it doth not make us cheerfully submit and say Vre seca vulnera Lord cut or wound or burn me if thou seest fit strip me of all my dearest comforts handle me as severely as thou pleasest so I may have but my fruit unto holiness and my end everlasting life If I say we do not thus acquiesce in our present sufferings upon the consideration of that bliss they tend to we are infinitely foolish and ungratefull for 't is but a little while e'er all these storms will be composed into an everlasting calm e'er all these dismal clouds will vanish and an eternal day break forth upon us whose brightness shall never be obscured with the least spot or relique of darkness and when that blessed time comes Lord how trifling and inconsiderable will all our present griefs appear With that contempt shall we reflect upon our present cowardise and meanness of spirit that could not bear without murmuring a few incoveniencies on the road to such an immortal heaven of pleasures Wherefore if our voyage be not so pleasant as we would have it let us remember 't is not long we have but a short days sail to an eternity of happiness and when once we are landed on that blessed shore with what ravishing content and satisfaction shall we look back on the rough and boisterous Seas we have past and for ever bless the storms and winds that drave us to that happy port then will the remembrance of these light afflictions serve onely as a Foil and Anti-mask to our happiness to set off its joys and render them more sweet and ravishing Let us therefore comfort our selves with these things and when at any time our spirits are sinking under any worldly trouble consider that while we have a Heaven to hope for we can never be miserable for so long as we are fortified with this mighty hope our minds will be impregnable against all foreign events and its peace and comfort maugre all afflictions from without will shine as undisturbedly as the lights of Pharos in the midst of storms and tempests 2. Hence I infer what a vast deal of reason we have to slight and contemn this world For it 's plain that we are born to infinitely greater hopes than any this world can afford us even to the hopes of everlasting life and being so methinks our ambition should soar as high as our hopes and disdain such low and ignoble quarries as the pleasures and profits and honours of this life Certainly Sirs we mistake the scene of our eternity or imagine it to be removed from Heaven to Earth or else