A SERMON At the Funeral of the Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN Late Lord Bishop and Count Palatine of Durham THE EPITAPH OF THE DECEASED Prescribed by himself in his WILL was this Rev. xiv 13. Beati Mortui qui moriuntur in Domino requiescunt enim à Laboribus suis The dead Mans real Speech A FUNERAL SERMON Preached on Hebr. xi 4. Upon the 29 th day of April 1672 TOGETHER WITH A brief of the Life Dignities Benefactions Principal Actions and Sufferings and of the death of the said late Lord Bishop of DVRHAM Published upon earnest Request By Isaac Basire D. D. CHAPLAIN in ORDINARY to his MAJESTY and ARCH-DEACON of NORTHUMBERLAND LONDON Printed by E. T. and R. H. for James Collins at the Kings Arms in Ludgate-street 1673. TO THE Christian Reader THis untimely Conception might have proved an Abortive or if born a Benoni to the Parent then in sore Travel through sickness both in the Preparation deproperated as also in the present Production being at the earnest intreaty of the Noble Relations of our Lord Bishop deceased now pressed unto the Press When this was delivered vivâ voce out of a due Regard to the Solemn Confluence of so many Worthy Persons for some of them came from far as also out of a respect to the day then far spent I did purposely contract my Meditations and express them then under the Ancient Canonical measure of an Hour Esteeming it a point of Commendable Prudence and also of plausible Thrift to boote on such Solemn Occasions to shorten the double pains both of the Speaker and of the Hearers But since the delivery being desired as by sundry Worthy Relations of the deceased so at the request of my Friend the Honest and Industrious Book-seller I have been perswaded to enlarge the Sermon with the Addition of a Brief of the Life of the deceased Prelate and so my Brooke is become a River I wish it may not prove a Sea to deterr the Reader from launching out into it For the matter of Right done to the dead in General I refer my self to Gods Word For the matter of Fact in particular concerning the Person of the deceased I Report my self to their Report whose Information I have diligently and severally desired and faithfully delivered here relying upon their verity confirmed by the Authority of our late Lord Bishops Last Will in English which should be Sacred My honest Request to the Christian Reader is only for the same Candour in the Reading as was intended by me in the Writing All which commending to God for a Blessing I take leave Praying in K. Davids words That God would spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen AMEN Imprimatur Tho. Tomkins R. R. mo in Christo Patri ac Domino D no Gilberto Divinâ Providentiâ Archi-Episc Cant. à Sacris Domesticis Ex Aedibus Lambethanis Feb. 10. 1672. ERRATA PAg. 6. lin 1. deest but before upon l. 2. an bef uniform 1. 14. in comparison of eternity after span long l. ult and felicity after innocence p. 8. l. 12. for how read which way p. 9. l. 5. dele comma after Statute p. 24. l. 25. r. the Holy p. 37. l. 4. phrase it in p. 42. Marg. for Covarrus r. Covarruvius p. 43. l. 4. r. Calligraphy p. 50. l. 11. r. domestical p. 54. Marg. ad lin 11. r. Constantinopol p. 57. l. 2. add he before much p. 59. l. 29. after teaching add them p. 70. l. 12. after thrive add the. p. 71. l. 16. r. Proprietary p. 85. l. 15. after Character add Conscience p. 92. l. 13. r. Brâ—nâ— p. 93. l. 22. for with r. of p. 97. Marg. r. Switzerland p. 110. l. ult for still r. yet p. 118. after the Latin Will dele Vid. J. Will. c. p. 119. before Our help insert The Translation of the Latin Will. p. 121. l. 13. for shading r. shadowing THE Dead Man's REAL SPEECH Hebr. 11. 4. By it he being dead yet speaketh KNow you not that a great man is faln in Israel This was David's noble Epitaph over Abner though his Rebel and how much more may this be our Just Preface to this solemn Funeral to be sure over a better Man than was Abner Therefore in King David's words I may truly say again Know you not that a great Man is now faln in our Israel A great Man indeed as shall appear before we take our Final Leave of him We may be sure greater than Abner not only in his State but which is the crown of all true greatness in his Graces and Beneficence in this indeed and in truth greater than Abner yet Abner was a great man for he was a General in the Field but on the wrong side the Rebels side Our great man a General not only in the Field but which is much more a General in this Church I mean his Diocess a great one and in both these great Capacities constantly Loyal ad Exemplum And yet as high as this great man was so lately behold how low he is laid down now who yet must be laid down lower as you shall see by and by Such Spectacles of Mortality ought to be to us Survivours tot Specula so many true Looking-glasses wherein whatever our Artificial Looking-glasses may flatter us with what our living faces seem to be now this Natural Looking-glass tells us plainly to our faces what all our dead faces shall be must be then God knows how soon He being Dead yet speaketh out Mortality to us all so many Funerals so many Warning-pieces to us all to prepare for our last and greatest Issue This in the Judgment of the wise man is the best use we can make of our Access to the House of Mourning such as this house is at present therefore the Living should lay it to his Heart which that we may all do Let us pray with the Spirit and in the words of King David O teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Ye shall further pray for Christ's Holy Catholick Church c. Hebr. 11. 4. THe Scope of this Text which must be the Aim of the Sermon is this to stir up all the faithful living to imitate the faithful that are dead whereof this Chapter is the sacred Roll upon the Divine Records down from Abel unto the Patriarchs the Judges the Kings the Prophets c. that is that we should endeavour to become the followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises The Text is short but the Lesson is long that is to live so now as we may die well at last and by our good works speak when we are dead The Parts are two which do express two States of Man 1. The state of Death He being dead which is the privation of the life of nature common to all men on which frail life
most men doat so much because they have no care for nor hope of a better life 2. The state of a Life after Death that is the Life of Glory implied in these words He speaketh for Speech is the evidence of a living man Ergo Abel though dead in the Body yet is still alive in the Spirit The first is a Corrosive to the state of Nature but the Second comes in as a Cordial to all those who are in the state of Grace This Text appears much like the Israelites Guide in the Wilderness 't was a Cloud and that no ordinary Cloud but such a Cloud as was Dark on the one side and Light on the other side dark towards the Egyptians but Light towards the Israelites Even so is Death dark and sad to the Unbelievers and Impenitent but lightsome and welcome to all true Penitents and Believers 1. To begin with the first The state of Death Man in the state of Innocency was created capable of three Lives the Life Corporal Life Spiritual and Life Eternal The first is the Life of Nature a Transitory Life The second is the Life of Grace a Life permanent upon condition of perseverance in uniform obedience to God The third is Life Eternal the Life of Glory the Life of the Saints Triumphant of the Elect Angels yea the Life of God himself and therefore a Life immutable interminable 2. Two of these three Lives the Life natural and spiritual man had then in present possession and the third in a sure reversion after the expiration of but one Life and that a short one too but a span long this present life is no more by King David's just measure Behold thou hast made my days as it were a span long 3. Man by his Apostasie from God through the first original sin of willful incogitancy and through pride did soon deprive himself of all these three Lives at once and so according to the just sentence of God pronounced upon man aforehand for a fair warning Morte moriêris Thou shalt die the Death man was justly precipitated from that high state of Innocence into the base and damnable state of sin and misery whereby every man none excepted but the God and man Christ Jesus is now by original sin become subject to a threefold Death First Corporal Secondly Spiritual and thirdly without Repentance Eternal The first is Death Corporal which is a total but not final separation of the Soul from the Body the sad Real Text before our Eyes The second is Death Spiritual a far worse kind of death a state of sin which is a separation of the soul from the Grace and Favour of God which is life it self without which we are all by nature dead in trespasses and sins Children of wrath no better The third and worst of all is Death Eternal and therefore called in Holy Scripture The great Death the second Death because it is a final total and eternal separation of both Soul and Body from the Glorious Presence Beatifical Vision and admirable and unspeakable Fruition of God himself whom as to serve here on Earth is the Life of Grace so to enjoy in Heaven is the Life of Glory which is life everlasting 4. The first of these three Death Temporal none of us can avoid die we must die we shall God prepare us all for it But as the thing Death is certain for the matter so for the manner how we shall die in or out of our wits as in Frenzies c. where we shall die amongst Friends or amongst Foes when we shall die whether in youth or in old Age how we shall die whether by a suddain violent or painful Death which God in mercy avert from us all none of us all knows and therefore our best course is while we may by a lively faith timely repentance and real amendment of life to prepare for Death and then come Death in what shape it will and welcome we shall not die unprepared Yet it concerns us all frequently and seriously to think of these great Quatuor novissima Death Judgment Heaven and Hell 'T is Moses his passionate wish O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end Since 't is appointed for all men once to die and after that comes Judgment The Vulgar Translation renders it statutum est Death is an universal Statute Law to all mankind and so it is both for authority of coaction and certainty of execution for it is grounded upon two of the greatest Attributes of God which are First God's infallible Truth for the Commination was directed unto man and that also in mercy to forwarn him that he might not sin Secondly God's exact Justice which requires the execution of the Divine Sentence to be done upon the same nature that had sinned Man did sin therefore man must suffer that is man must die and because the first man Adam was the Original Root and General Representative of all mankind Adam's off-spring therefore all men must die pray God we all may die well or if they live to the end of the world yet they must suffer a Change at the least at the last which Change whatever ever it be for 't is a Mystery will be equivalent to a Death so that there lies an universal necessity to undergo a Death some kind of Death In the Antient Register of the Macrobii those long liv'd Patriarchs Adam liv'd 930 years and he died Methuselah the longest liver of all Mankind lived 969 years and he died c. that is the burthen song of them all Neither Methuselah the antientest nor Sampson the strongest nor Solomon the wisest of men could exempt themselves from the fatal necessity of Death Seneca himself though but a Heathen Philosopher being ignorant of the original cause of Death yet observing the generality of the event of Death drew his Topick of Consolation to his Friend Polybius sad for the Death of his Brother from this necessity of Death But God be thanked we Christians have better Topicks of Comfort for the Death of our Christian Friends past or our own Death a coming by opposing through Faith against the terrour of our Dissolution by Death the consideration of our admirable and comfortable conjunction with Christ our Head after Death This glorious state is by St. Paul styled the manifestation of the Sons of God for which by a natural instinct the whole Creation groaneth with an earnest expectation of the accomplishment The word in the Original is very significant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which betokens the looking for some Person or thing with lifting up of the Head or stretching out their Necks with earnest intention and observation to see when the person or thing looked for shall appear as a poor Prisoner condemned looks out at the Grates for a gracious Pardon And if the Creatures inanimate c. do so earnestly
to God Witness Cain and Abel in the Old Testament and the Publican and the Pharisee in the New For the true Religion is chiefly inward for the substance and not only outward for the circumstance and ceremony the Religion of too many I had almost said of most formal Professors now a days an Artificial Religion as being moved chiefly if not only by outward Respects and Objects without any inward Life the want of which did make a wide difference betwixt Cain and Abel the Speaker here from whom to pass unto his Speech we shall interpret it by a three fold Exposition 1. Grammatical 2. Doctrinal 3. Moral 11. As to the Grammatical Exposition I am not ignorant that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original may be verbum medium and so may be translated either in the passive sence he is spoken of as some few Interpreters have rendred it or in the active sence to which I am rather carried by the clear and strong current of almost all Interpreters and the Harmony of eight Translations both Antient and Modern who all render it actively He speaketh This Translation is confirmed by a clear Parallel Hebr. 12. 24. where comparison being made betwixt the precious blood of Jesus Christ and that of Abel 't is expressed in the active sence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not in the passive that the blood of sprinkling is better spoken of but in the active that it speaketh better things than that of Abel Ergo Abel being dead yet speaketh quod erat demonstrandum Enough of the Grammatical Exposition 12. We pass now to the Doctrinal Exposition The Doctrine is this That for the godly there is a life after this life for Abel being dead yet speaketh but we know that dead men are speechless and that speech is both a sign and an action of life Abel is not absolutely dead though dead in part he still lives We inlarge the instance from righteous Abel unto all the faithful the total summ is this That though good men die yet their good deeds die not but they survive and that in both Worlds First In this world to their due praise for their own good works praise them in the gates Secondly They live in the next world by their Reward and Coronation for their works do follow them So many good works so many living Tongues of good men after Death who are therefore styled in the Holy Gospel The Children of the Resurrection and again Abel still lives unto men in the memory of all good men for to such the memory of the just shall be blessed and the memory of their vertues calls for both our Commemoration and Imitation of them which leads me to the third point propounded which was the Moral Exposition 13. For I suppose none that hear this are so gross of understanding as to imagine a Vocal Speech of the Dead which would be a miracle but a Speech Analogical by such a Figure as the Heavens speak when they declare the Glory of God The parallel of St. Chrysostom upon the Speech of Abel our speaker in the Text the Father after his wonted Rhetorick amplifies it thus If Abel had a thousand voyces when he was alive he hath many more now he is dead speaking to our admiration and imitation But though the Dead Man's Speech be no vocal speech yet it is and will be a real speech for our conversion or condemnation to the end of the world for Abel being dead yet speaketh First He speaketh by his Repentance implied in his sacrifice not only for Homage due by all rational creatures whether Angels or men unto God their Creator but also as a tacit confession of sin to be expiated by the All-sufficient sacrifice of the promised blessed seed the Messiah to come and so Abel being dead yet speaketh and was by his typical sacrifice the first Prophet of the Old Testament The good examples of holy men are standing real Sermons For there are two wavs of preaching by word or deed The first is good the latter is better but both are best Secondly Abel being dead yet speaketh by his faith expressed here in the Text which faith is a never-dying Preacher to all Ages of the Church because it assureth all the faithful such as was Abel of both God's regard and reward of all his true Servants who follow Abel's faith Thirdly Abel being dead yet speaketh by his works of Righteousness the necessary and best evidences of a lively faith for which Abel stands canonized by God's own approbation and acceptance First of his person that he was righteous and then of his performance his sacrifice Therefore Abel is inrolled with Enoch vers 5. for his Communion of Faith Godliness and Happiness by which both Enoch and Abel pleased God The Jewish Rabbins and sundry Christian Interpreters offer as a tradition this sign of God's acceptance of the sacrifice of Abel to wit by sending Fire from Heaven as upon Aaron's and upon Solomon's and upon Eliah's sacrifice which kindled the sacrifice of Abel the younger Brother and not that of Cain who was the elder Brother Some Interpreters think that this acceptation of Abel's sacrifice was a designation of Abel the younger Brother to the Priesthood before Cain the elder Brother and that these were the occasion of Cain's envy and his envy the cause of Abel's murther By the way 't is worthy our observation that all that come to worship God are either Abels or Cains that is they come with faith or without faith and they speed accordingly Fourthly and lastly Abel being dead yet speaketh as in his Life by his Actions so at his Death by his patience and passion for as St. Stephen was the Proto-Martyr of the New Testament so was Abel the Proto-Martyr of the Old Testament for he died for righteousness sake Hence some Interpreters derive his name from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Holy Tongue signifies to mourn because he was the first man that did taste of Death for which and for whom his and our first Parents Adam and Eve did begin to mourn As it is certain that sin though but a beast hath a voyce and which is more strange in a beast sin hath an articulate voice and by a counter-passion which is lex talionis sin doth not only indite the sinner but also indorseth upon the sinners bill the parallel punishment for time or place person or action so that many times the punishment becomes the Anagram of the sin This even natural men do confess witness Adonibezeck As I have done so God hath requited me which was also King David's case Blood for Blood such was the voice of sin and of their own Consciences Sin hath a voice indeed and that a loud voice for it reacheth as high as Heaven to God's ear and from thence rebounds with an eccho upon a man 's own conscience We read
pant for the Final Redemption of the Sons of God how much more we being the Parties principally concerned This made St. Paul as it were with hoised-up sails of Hope and Desire the Affections of his Soul to long to be dissolved and to be with Christ The Original imports to loosen or to launch forth as a Ship from a Forreign Port for a happy voyage towards her wished for Haven at home 5. I have so much Christian charity for the surviving noble Relations of the Great man deceased as to believe that if they could with their wishes and tears waft him over back from Heaven to labour again on Earth they would not do it if they loved him indeed and not rather themselves 'T is an excellent observation of Isidore Pelusiota he lived above 1200. years ago who commenting on these words of our Saviour's compassion for Lazarus expressed by his tears that it was not at the Death of Lazarus but that it was at his Resurrection that Jesus wept a real demonstration of his Humanity both natural and moral This Father's note upon that difference is this That our Saviour Christ's Love towards Lazarus was a Rational Love yea a Divine Love not as Ours towards our dead Friends too too oft too carnal or natural or at the best a humane love if not a self-love we wish them alive for our own ends True it is that 't is very lawful and also very fit to pay our deceased Friends their due Tribute of Grief and to let Nature have her course lest we should seem or appear without natural affection but provided always that the Current of Nature do not overflow the Banks of Reason much more the Banks of Religion settled by St. Paul who would not have Christians to be sorry for their deceased Friends as others who have no hope For there is a lively hope of a joyful meeting again in the state of Glory if we in the state of Grace do follow the Saints deceased Upon this consideration is worth the observing the different manner of mourning of Joseph for his Father Jacob his dear and near Relation for Joseph mourned seven days only and of the Egyptians mourning seventy days for the same Jacob a stranger to them The reason of the difference is because the Egyptians were unbelievers but Joseph was a Believer of the Resurrection and of a glorious meeting once again with his deceased Father from thenceforth never to be separated This Posie of sacred Meditations I do now present to the Noble Relations of the deceased desiring them to accept this offer and to use it as a Spiritual Handkercheif to wipe off if not drain the Spring of Tears for this their deceased support 6. Mean-while our main care must be not to forfeit that glorious meeting by a course of life contrary to the good example of the Saints departed but instantly to resolve earnestly to study constantly to endeavour to live well that is to say To make the Will of God the Rule of our Life and the Honour of God the End of our Life This is to live unto the Lord that is in Subjection unto him and then we may be sure to die in the Lord that is under his Protection both of Body and Soul for evermore 7. You may be pleased to remember that our Text was two faced and therefore we compared it to the Israelites Guide through the Wilderness a Cloud we are now past the dark side of it Death He being Dead we must now face about and chearfully behold the bright side of the cloud wherein the Dead speaketh and here we have 1. The Speaker He 2. The Speech implied He speaketh 3. The time expressed Yet that is after Death He being Dead yet speaketh 8. First the Speaker is Abel whose name bears mankinds universal Motto in the Holy Tongue that is Vanity for when all is done Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity until the Spirit of man return to God who gave it till then whatever Pride may prompt vain man verily every man living in his best estate is altogether vanity Selah Secondly For his Trade he was an Heardsman for he offered to God the best of his Flock in due Homage and as a Figure of that Lamb of God which was to come to take away the sins of the World no doubt he was well instructed by his Parents Adam and Eve of whose Conversion and Salvation to doubt since the promise of the Blessed Seed preached unto them by Almighty God himself after their fall and which we must in reason suppose was apprehended and applyed by them to themselves through Faith lest God's preaching should prove vain such a suspicion or doubt of their eternal state were in us their Posterity an odious want of charity and against the Current of the Antient Fathers who give for it this probable reason That God did expresly curse the Serpent and the Earth but God did not at all curse either Adam or Eve but contrarywise God in mercy did bestow upon Adam and Eve the original and fundamental blessing of the Promised Seed the Messiah which is Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour in whom all Adam and Eve's Posterity should be blessed and therefore they are not to be concluded within the number of the damned crew upon whom shall be pronounced that dreadful final sentence of Ite maledicti Go ye cursed As a clear evidence of Adam and Eve's Faith we produce their Works namely the Godly Education of their Children Cain and Abel in God's true Religion to offer corporal sacrifices c. with a spiritual reference and therefore with faith in the only expiatory and satisfactory sacrifice to be performed in the fulness of time by the person of the Messiah the second Adam for the saving of mankind as the first Adam was in the damning of mankind both the Adams being publick Representatives of all mankind as the first in the Fall so the second in the Resurrection 9. This just Apology for our first Parents Adam Eve I thought it my filial duty to offer unto all mankind Adam's off-spring once for all to stop the mouths of censorious Children unmindful of their original duty and of the Rule Parentum Mores non sunt Arguendi Shem and Japhet were blessed for turning away their faces from their Father's nakedness but wicked Cham was for outfacing it cursed with a grievous curse 10. 'T is very observable that God had respect unto Abel first and then to his sacrifice to intimate that God first accepts the Person and then his service for Abel offered by Faith but Cain without Faith for want of which God rejected the person of Cain though the Elder Brother and consequently his sacrifice Hence observe that two men may come and worship God with the same kind of outward worship and yet differ much in the inward manner and success of their service
unto our late Lord Bishop an Exemption from the Annuity of eight hundred eighty pound per Ann. belonging to the late Queen Mother in Reversion after her death unto this our Bishop and his Successours much elder than the Queen Mother and so in the course of nature not likely to enjoy it in his own time but in his intention to procure it for the good of his Successours A special Royal Bounty for which no doubt God will reward the King and his Royal Successours Ninthly His Actions They are so intermixed with his Passions or Sufferings that in our Discourse we can hardly sever them but must sometimes coincide for instance when he was in Exile in France he did with much magnanimity do aforehand some of the Offices of a Bishop one part whereof is to stop the mouths of the gain-sayers to sound doctrine and that in a time of great necessity when both the Church and the King of England were dispersed and the members dissipated here is the patience and faith of the Saints One signal instance of his constancy and courage for the Liturgy of the Church of England may not be omitted that is Anno 1645. He did with the consent of the Ministers of the Reformed Church of Charenton near Paris solemnly in his Priestly Habit with his Surplice and with the Office of Burial used in the Church of England Interr there the body of Sir William Carnaby a Noble and Loyal Knight not without the troublesome contradiction and contention of the Romish Curate there At that time many that were pore-blind and not able to see the then less visible face of the Church of England then in the wain a Church in the wilderness because under persecution when sundry were wavering from the true Religion Our Bishop did then confirm some Eminent Persons against many Imminent and Importunate Seducers another Episcopal Office which is in such ambiguous times especially to confirm the Souls of the Disciples exhorting them to continue in the Faith teaching That we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God One notable instance of this our Bishops Constancy and Zeal in this kind we may not omit which was a solemn conference 〈◊〉 by word and writing betwixt him and the Prior of the English Benedictines at Paris supposed to be Robinson The Argument was concerning the validity of the Ordination of our Priests c. in the Church of England The Issue was our Doctor had the better so far that he could never get from the Prior any Reply to his last Answer This Conference was undertaken to fix a person of Honour then wavering about that point The summ of which Conference as I am imformed was written by Doctor Cosin to Doctor Morley the now Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Winchester in two Letters bearing date June 11. July 11. 1645. His Noble contempt of great preferment on the right hand and on the left if he would comply with or but connive at the erroneous positions and practices of the Seducers to all whom his real and resolute answer was that of St. Peter to Simon Magus Thy money perish with thee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So far was this Great Spirit from tottering much more from turning aside from the right way Great was his Communion of Charity towards all Christian Churches if agreeing in the fundamental Articles of Salvation though different in form of Discipline and outward Ceremonies which demonstrateth that he wore in his breast Animum Catholieum that is ready to communicate with all Christians Salvâ veritate if Dissenters would not do so reciprocally for want of Charity he by his Christian moderation would leave the Schism at their doors so far was he from the unseasonable that I say not unreasonable severity of some that presume to Non-Church whole Churches for such circumstantial differences as long as they hold the substance of Christian Doctrine and Worship And in this he did follow happily the wise Example of that Great Prelate Bishop Andrews so eminent for Primitive Piety Christian Prudence and Universal Learning For wise men do not think it safe to multiply Adversaries of whom we have enough already God knows we must be very wary to avoid the mischief of an unnecessary Schisme which may harden the worse Adversaries in Heresie This his Christian condescension towards the Reformed Churches was afterwards requited by a singular respect from the Chief Doctors of those Reformed Churches whom to ccondemn rashly is to storm whole Churches against Charity For our moderate connivance at their inordinate Ordination does not at all legitimate it but only declareth our Christian Charity to pity them for want of Episcopal Ordination because they cannot help themselves So long as they have Episcopatum in voto their words and writings testifie this ingenuously though to their grief they cannot have Episcopatum in Facto through Political necessity which rather deserves our compassion as blessed Bishop Morton did often bewail their infelicity for the want of Bishops they being Subjects living under a Great Monarch of a different Religion who for Reasons of State will not suffer in his Kingdome two several Bishops of two several Religions in one Diocess to preserve publick Peace and to prevent Contention and clashing of Jurisdictions to the disquiet of his Loyal Subjects much less would such a King suffer his Native Subjects of the Reformed Religion to go out of his Kingdome to a forreign Kingdome there to receive Episcopal Ordination from Protestant Bishops depending upon a forreign Prince to whom every person that is to be Ordained a Deacon Priest or Bishop must by the Statute Laws and Canons of that Land and Church and by the form of Ordination before he be Ordained swear Allegiance This that King or Prince will not permit neither in point of prudence to prevent defection or the falling away of his Subjects to a forreign Power His Works We pass now from our late Lord Bishops Actions transient to his Works more permanent his Scholastical Works whereof some are Printed and some yet unprinted for he observed the golden maxime of that modest and wise man of Greece Pythagoras who gave this very mystical but wise advice unto his Scholars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By no means to eat their own brains intending thereby as 't is conceived that they should not keep their Reason and Learning of which the brains are an immediate instrument unto themselves but still employ them for the advantage of others for whose benefit this our Learned Prelate did publish these following Tracts viz. Printed 1. Many years agoe he did publish a Book Entituled A Collection of Private Devotions extracted out of the publick Liturgies of the Churches both Ancient and Modern very useful for good Christians well disposed and which may teach them how to offer unto God a reasonable Service every way That work at first was looked upon with an
none of Solomon's Proverbs to be sure This great Man here lying before us may be a standing Monument for a real confutation and may rise up in judgment against all such base slanderers of our Church and Religion Behold how great and goodly works one single English Prelate hath done in so short a time and that after twenty years long Sequestration and voluntary Banishment only for his Religion and Allegiance Neither doth this our Bishop want his Peers even in this present age our great Arch-Bishops Dr. Laud that glorious Martyr Dr. Juxon Dr. Shelden Bishop Warner those constant Confessors and how many more whose eminent magnificence may on the other hand choak the mouth of that English Bel and the Dragon and of all such Rabshakehs who out of their Bulimia or the greedy worm do eat much but as it is observed thrive little are still gaping after the sweet morsel of Sacriledge though in the digestion it will prove first or last a bitter Pill in the maw of their conscience They I say looking upon the Bishops and Clergy with the squint eyes of envy and malice shoot out their venemous tongues against these good men and their whole order inhancing by a false rule of hyperbolical multiplication the Bishops revenues in Fines c. never talking the ingenuous pains to ballance in the account their Incomes with their just deductions in their vast publick and pious expences but through a diabolical detraction and malignant subtraction they do wilfully suppress the great Out-lets of these great Revenues This Example may restrain a third sort of censorious men who being more jealous than zealous of good works object the suspicion of vain Glory in the case wresting to their own damnation that passage of our Lord Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth though this Caution be expresly restrained by our Lord to secret Alms far different from the case of publick works of Charity concerning which our Lord gives an express command to the contrary else what mean these words Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven That they may see your good works not as though the sight of them should be intentio operantis but conditio operandi thereby to provoke others to a Godly imitation to the Glory of God which must be the ultimate end of all our actions for whilst we praise the Instruments such worthy men as in life and death have endeavonred to be beneficial unto their Generations We must not forget the Principal which is God the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good giving and every perfect gift Enough once for all to gagg those evil men who being out of charity with Charity it self want that Christian Charity which thinketh no evil His Passions or Sufferings For Multa fecit tulitque 1. Publick and that first at home Annis 1640 and 1641. when he was both Sequestred and Angariated before a Sacrilegious and Rebellious Assembly of Lay-men which the seduced Crew did nick-name A grand Committee for Religion his Magnanimity and Constancy in maintaining the truly Apostolick and Catholick Doctrine and Religion of our Holy Mother the Church of England was such that he came off clear from all calumnies laid to his charge in base Articles and Pamphlets to the notorious amazement disappointment and shame at last of his malicious false and furious Adversaries And this I can the better depose for that I had the honour then and there to be a fellow-sufferer not only by Sympathy with him and for him but also by my own Idiopathy yet God delivered him and my self out of all these troubles 2. His sufferings abroad as in France where he underwent another Tryal only for upholding under the King then in the French Court the Publick Liturgy or Common-Prayer-Book of the Church of England for wherever he was he retained still and exerted a publick spirit And his Constancy the Character of sincerity was so much the greater that for all those his Tryals both at home and abroad he was never moved much less removed from his stedfast Belief and Uniform Practice of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England when at home swarms of unstable men were carried away with the terrible torrent of the Times both from the True Religion and their due Allegiance For this great Man was resolved and resolute to be one of those not too many who would never defile his Holy Garment neither his Surplice when a Priest nor his Rochet if he could then have been a Bishop with any Sacrilegious Covenant or Rebellious Engagement and I thank God so was I whereby he saved himself the labour of a sad Repentance and requisite Recantation before God and Men for those great sins of Perjury Rebellion and Sacriledge and so he did wisely prevent that scruple or singultum cordis the hiccough of Conscience for so some do translate it which they of the Clergy who against their multiplyed Oaths to God the Church and the King have committed may be put upon here or hereafter which is the best way to clear themselves from shame and reproach 3. His Personal Sufferings which were by his frequent Sicknesses 1. By Nature acute as the Stone c. which usually he called his roaring Pains whereby he was at last overcome together with a Pectoral Dropsie 2. The length of his Disease for two years before his death he was much crazed by many furious fits and so he did bend his chief care to prepare for his latter end fore-feeled in himself and fore-told by himself to his private Friends and forespoken in his Last Will. 'T is the Observation both of Divines and Philosophers That when the Soul of Man is near its final though not total separation from the Body it withdraws it self and so becomes receptible of a kind of Prophetical or Prognostick Inspiration concerning its departure It was his blessing from God to give him such forewarnings and so to hear his prayer in the Letany to deliver him from suddain death which though to a Godly Man it may prove suddain in respect of expectation for the manner or circumstance concerning time and place for all things come alike to all yet in point of preparation for the matter and substance it 's never suddain This fore-sight of his departure at hand made him often in his sicknesses to ingeminate in the Royal Prophets words O that I had wings like a Dove for then would I fly away and be at rest His Death And thereat his last Actions as 1. His Benedictions to his Children and at their desires his blessing also upon the Divines then present and upon God's Church chiefly for Purity and Peace 2. His Solemn Invitation to God's Priest for his last Viaticum and then the Priest about him asking him whether by reason of his weakness he would have
the Bread only dipt he answered No but he would receive it in both kinds according to Christ's Institution and being through weakness lifted up into his Chair and having a violent pain in his head for the ease whereof it was fast bound he would needs have it all undone and sit bare-headed and so he received it an hour and a half before his death from the hands of Mr. William Flower his Lordships Domestical Chaplain 3. And when being so near unto death he could not kneel he then devoutly repeated often that part of the penitent Prayer of King Manasses Lord I bow the knee of my heart 4. Having often reiterated his Invitation of Christ in the words of the Spirit and of the Church Lord Jesus come quickly His last act was the Elevation of his hand with this his last Ejaculation Lord wherewith he expired without pain according to his frequent prayer to God That he might not dye of a suddain or painful death such was his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Augustus his wish and I pray God for every one of us that from heart and mouth our last breath may prove like that of our late Bishop Amen His Burial The Ecclesiastical Office was solemnly Celebrated by the Right Reverend Father in God Guy Lord Bishop of Bristol The Political Offices were performed decently and in order which was in all publick actions the method of our late Lord Bishop when living and the same he enjoyed at and after his death the particular Narration of which I do civilly recommend to those Dunmviri the worthy Heralds for the Funeral pomp was very solemn who did constantly attend his late Lordship's state at London and all the way to Durham and there and at Auckland the place of his Rest where requiescat in pace and from thence God send him a joyful Resurrection at which prayer none but ignorant or malicious men will take offence for the meaning is no more but that the dead may enjoy a happy Re-union of the Soul with the body at the general Resurrection and a final and full consummation of both in bliss and after the utter abolition of sin by death a blessed conjunction of us that survive with them that are dead which is the Orthodox sence of our Office at Burials the ancient sence of the Primitive Church when we pray over the dead whose Souls in Christian Charity we hope are past the necessity of our Prayers for their Relief or Release from any imaginary first Pagan after Popish Purgatory The Summ of all The Text and Sermon is a dead mans real speech To hear a dead man speak now were such a Prodigy as would certainly both stir up attention and strike amazement into us and all the hearers yet that Great Chancellour of Paris John Gerson relates a strange History which happened about the year 1060. at the Funeral of a Grave Doctor there a man otherwise reputed for the strictness of his life at the interring of whom when the Priest came to the then used form Râ—sponde mihi or answer me the Corps sat upright in the Biere and to the amazement of all there present the first day cryed out Justo Dei judicio accusatus sum At the Just Tribunal of God I am accused and so laid immediately down in its first posture the astonished Company deferring the burial till the next day when the dead man with a hideous noise cryed out again Justo Dei judicio judicatus sum By the just judgement of God I am judged whereupon the burial was deferred a day longer and the dead man rose up the third time and cryed out his last Justo Dci judicio condemnatus sum By the Just judgement of God I am condemned whereat as the whole company was sadly affrighted so Brimo then an Eminent Doctor in the same University being effectually affected calling his Scholars together retired from the world and as the manner of those Times was then became the Founder of the Order of the Carthusians A strange Prodigy and a loud warning-piece to us all living to admonish us not to confide much less presume upon our outward Righteousness for I dare not deny Historical Credit to this premised Relation from John Gerson But blessed be God dead Abel in the Text and the dead Bishop on this Hearse speak better things This Hearse is now our Bishop's Throne or his Pulpit and so our Bier must be the last Pulpit of us all of the Clergy high and low all must come to this God knows how soon I may be the next God send us all an happy Nunc dimittis of which we may live and dye assured if we imitate them for they being dead yet speak and as you have heard at large do preach unto us all Faith Hope and Charity the only strait way to Heaven all evidenced by their works of Piety which if not imitated by us may justly rise up in judgement against us To Recapitulate and summ up our Bishops Vertues under three Heads I will remind you with 1. His Intellectual 2. His Moral 3. His Theological Vertues 1. As to his Intellectual Vertues his Natural understanding he was endowed with a sound understanding which he enjoyed to the last a great blessing for though for the outward manner of death all things come alike to all and there may be one event to good and bad both may lose their understanding at their latter end through the malignity or vehemency of some acute sicknesses which should teach us all in health to make good use of our understandings yet for a man to dye sanâ mente or in his right wits is a great comfort both to the dying party and to the surviving friends 2. His acquired learning witness his writings fore-mentioned and his diligent researches into the magazine of the best Antiquity I may truly say Here lies now dead before us one of our Chief Ritualists 3. He was punctual in his Methods for to my knowledge he loved Order in his Studies and Functions and he often repeated and generally observed the Apostles Canon Let all things be done decently and in order He was so exact in putting in practice the Discipline of our Church that he strictly enjoyned according to the Rubrick the daily Publick Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer within the Churches of his Diocess which since the decay of the Primitive Devotion of daily Communions in the old Christianity is instead of the Juge Sacrificium of the Jews the daily sacrifice of a Lamb Morning and Evening And 't is both our sin and shame that since God is graciously pleased under the Gospel to spare our lambs we Christians should in requital grudge our good God except in case of real necessity the Calves of our lips to praise him daily in the publick Congregations Without vanity I have through Gods providence travelled and taken an impartial survey of both the Eastern and Western Churches and can assert upon