many so hardned in stupidity that contrary unto nature they are not affected with or concerned at the Death or going to the Grave of almost any person Secondly There is a natural Obligation on the Living to Mourn for the Dead for that Death is the thing which every Man in the world hath deserved as being lineally descended from Adam who brought Death into the World and inslaved not only himself but all his posterity unto its power So saith the Apostle Rom. 5. ver 12. Wherefore as by one Man Sin entered into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have Sinned Had Adam never sinned Adam had never dyed but in illo die saith God in that day thou eatest the Fruit thereof thou shalt surely dye or as it is in the Original dying thou shalt dye And indeed as he devolved Guilt so he entailed death the sad consequence of that Guilt upon all that should come after him unto the end of the World Oh! therefore how natural would such a reflection as this be at the news of any Mortals fall by the stroke of Death or at the sight of any deceased person going to his Long Home I am a Child of Adam as well as he and in the guilt and pollution of his original Disobedience was I shaped and subjected to all the Miseries that attended that iniquity did my Mother conceive me and bring me forth And surely I have added to the stock of original Corruption multitudes innumerable multitudes of actual Transgressions and therefore I have every way merited Death and deserved to be imprisoned in the Dungeon of the Grave as much as he that hath past through it and is gone down before me into it Should not I then be concerned at and deeply affected with what hath befallen him The extremity of pain that he was in the weary some nights that he enjoyed the tumblings and tossings that he under-went the bitter distress and anguish that possessed his Soul which enforced those doleful sighs and sobs those heart-fetcht-groans and shrikes from his dying Breast are all things that I in the same if not in a greater measure have deserved Oh! then that my Head were Waters and my Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I could mourn and weep and truly lament at this Mournful Spectacle and that from this consideration that as he the object of Mortality before my Eyes is deprived of life and all the comforts of it as he is snatcht away from all his Friends and Relations as he of a living Man is become a lump of dead Clay a piece of rotten putrifying Flesh fit for nothing but to feed worms in the Grave even so have I most justly merited in the like manner to be nothing hath befallen him but what is due to me Thirdly There is a natural Obligation on the Living to Mourn for the Dead for that there is no living person but must come to it himself Death is a debt we must all pay to Nature Job speaks of Man indefinitely thereby including every Man in what capacity so ever he is Chap. 14. ver 2. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not And we are elsewhere told that All flesh is grass and the glory thereof as the flower of the field the grass withereth the flower fladeth even so when the Hand of God is upon Man upon any Man he maketh his Beauty to consume away like a Moth for that every Man is Vanity Selah We have an Interrogation concerning this which implies a vehement Negation for so the Scripture often expresseth it self Psal 89. ver 48. What Man is he that liveth and shall not see Death shall he deliver his Soul from the hand of the Grave Selah That is there is no Man living but must see Death and come into the dominion of the Grave Now if Death be thus common to every Man then every Man ought certainly to be affected when he sees another under the power of it Would it not I pray you argue more than ordinary stupidity and sencelesness in that Malefactor that beholding a Partner in Guilt and Condemnation with himself dying a shameful painful Death according to the Sentence of the Law the which Death he himself must undergo the day following and yet not to be concerned at such a spectacle so much as to shed a Tear or manifest any meltings of Heart at so doleful a sight Oh! How unnaturally hard-hearted would you say this Man was Why Sirs this is our very case we are all real Malefactors before God condemned by him to death to the same death and sooner or later we must be laid on our sick Beds the common place of Execution and when we see any in pain and misery there before us Oh! we should remember it will be our turn ere long Do we see a dying Man in a languishing departing condition fetching his last sigh heaving for his last groan and giving up his last breath Oh! we should sadly reflect upon our selves as that Father of whom I have read did at the sight of any Coffin Ille hedie ego cras He is gone to day and so may I to morrow or to be sure must go one day or other then which nothing is more certain Fourthly It is not corrupted but refined Nature that especially enforces this duty of Mourning for the Dead and the more Nature is purged the more it is enlivened in the regular performance of this Work We find the Spirit of God inciting and calling upon Men solemnly to do it Jer. 9. ver 17 18. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Consider ye and call for the mourning Women that they may come and send for cunning Women that they may come And let them make hast and take up a wailing for us that our Eyes may run down with Tears and our Eye-lids gush out with Water Why What is the matter what is the cause there should be such a great general Mourning ver 21. For Death is come up into our windows is entered into our palaces to cut off the Children from without and the young Men from the streets Oh! When Death is taking its range about the streets it is an especial time for Mourners to be there to manifest a real Mourning under such a dispensation to put on Ashes for Beauty and instead of the Garment of Joy to be cloathed with the Spirit of Heaviness Religion doth not hinder any natural act it only regulates the mode and refines the end of the performance It doth not hinder natural love it only teacheth us how to love innocently nor doth it hinder natural sorrow it only guides us how to sorrow profitably As Divines say Though Religion be above reason yet it is not contrary to reason so though it be an enemy to all vitious corrupt motions of nature yet it obligeth no person to be unnatural that is to fail in doing
when the Marriage-knot between the Soul and Body is dissolved when there is a Writ of Divorce issued from the Court of Heaven to separate them then the Body is laid up in the Grave and there it remains a long long time even till the day of the Resurrection The Apostle speaks of an Home in this World 2 Cor. 5. ver 6. Therefore we are always confident knowing that whilst we are at Home in the Body we are absent from the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here I conceive might be better rendred with than in and so the Sence will be supposing it as indeed we must the Breathings of the Spirit of Man we are here as strangers sojourning or dwelling with the Body as though we were at Home for a small time The Supersicies of the Earth is Man's Short Home the Bowels of it is his Long Home Now if we compare the time of the longest-lived-man that ever was upon the Earth which was Methuselah whose days amounted to Nine Hundred Sixty and Nine Years with the time that he hath since lived in the Grave we shall find the Grave to be his Long Home in comparison of the Earth notwithstanding his days were lengthened so exceedingly upon it Thus you see the Grave is a Long Home Comparatively But Secondly The Grave is a Long Home Really and Positivily The Time of Man's commoration in this dark Mansion is not for days or years but ages yea for many ages So that we may call it a small Branch of the vast Ocean of Eternity If we look at Abel the first Lord of this Mannor the first that took Possession of this retired Place how many Thousand Years hath he kept house in this gloomy Tabernacle of the Grave It hath been a long a very Long Home to him The Grave hath been an inhabited Tennament by Adam's posterity above Five Thousand Years And we that are yet alive waiting to go down into it how long our abode may be in it we are uncertain because We know not in what day or hour the Son of Man shall come to break open the Prison Doors of the Grave and to set us at liberty that are in the Prison-House Job speaks of the Grave as the House he was most certain to go unto and take up his dwelling in Chap. 30. vor 23. For I know that thou wilt bring me to Death and to the House appointed for all Living It is an House of a long standing and will be of long duration even as long as time it self it runs parallel with it The Creation of the World and the Resurrection of Man out of the Grave are the two Tropicks of time or the sacred boundaries that Heaven hath put to it A parte post a parte ante as the Philosopher speaks For as before the former it had no Existence so after the latter it shall have no longer continuance but be swallowed up in the fathomless Gulph of Eternity Time that now is always running Mobâ—li cursu with a swift pace will then be stopt in its motion and be no more But there are several things that must precede this Great and weighty Matters must be brought about by the hand of Divine Power before the End cometh as we may plainly see if we consult the sacred Oracles Anti-christ must be brought down with all his Usurpations and Idolatrys The Jews must be converted The number of the Gentiles must be brought in and the House of the Lord must be set upon the Mountains and exalted above the Hills that all Nations may flow unto it For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem But till this be done the Grave is the appointed house for all Living and therefore it is a Long Home Having thus considered the Grave as to its Duration It is a Long Home We will now speak a little of the Grave with respect to its Qualification what kind of Home it is In the general it is Man 's designed and appointed Home In the Text but now quoted out of Job it is said to be the House appointed for all Living God hath appointed by a decree like the Laws of the Medes Persians which never can be changed or revoked that the Grave shall be the one Repository for all the Carcasses of Adams Children to be laid up in and kept till the day of the Resurrection The Apostle speaks of the appointment of Death Heb. 9. ver 27 And as it is appointed unto Men once to Dye but after this the Judgment Men are appointed to Dye that they may go to their appointed home the Grave God hath appointed Mans being and the time of his being in this World as Job stedfastly believed All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come And he hath appointed Man a place of resting after he goes out of this World and that is the Grave Oh! How should this suppress Fears and banish Cowardise from the Hearts of all timorous Christians that are slavishly afraid of the Paleness of Death and tremble to think of going down into the darkness of the Grave Why Sirs though it be never so dark and gloomy though it be an house of Rotterness a place of Putrefaction it is the home prepared and appointed by our Heavenly Father for us And therefore Why should we scruple to lye down in it Or why should we have any fearful apprehensions about it Such persons and lose all the comfort of their lives as an Heathen well observed Qui metuit Mortem quod vivit perdit id ipsum Oh! We should be always remembring it and rest satisfied in it that the Wise the Righteous the Holy the blessed GOD hath appointed the Grave for our Long Home First God hath appointed die Grave as Man's proper suitable home the home that doth naturally suite with his Complexion and Constitution When Adam by his Rebellion had shaken off the glorious Theocrasy he was under which would assuredly have protected him from the power of Death however Homogeneal to his body by reason of the contrariety of qualities in it God left him and that justly to Fall to Dye according to the perishing nature of that matter of which his Body was composed Gen. 3. ver 19. In the sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return As if he had said Hadst thou continued in thy Obedience and hadst kept thy self in thy Innocency sitting under the shadow of my immediate Government I would by my Almighty Power have preserved thy Body notwithstanding its Materiality from ever seeing corruption or being in the least tainted with putrefaction But now I 'le leave thee to go down to the caverns of the Earth where thy Body being dust naturally inclines with as much propensity as the Stone to its
Center or the touched Needle to the North-pole What place so mete what home so proper for the earthly Tabernacle of of Mans body as the earthly Apartments in the Grave Indeed the Grave is no proper Home for the Soul the better part of Man because it is immaterial incorporeal not subject to deaths Soveraignity aiming at a future being and capable of being crowned with the glorious Diadem of everlasting Honour according to the Sence of that famous Pagan Terra Domus non est animis accomoda nostris Alrius it nostrae conditionis honor The Grave is also a proper Home for the Body by reason of the great change Death makes in the Body which renders it wholly unfit to continue upon the Earth without intolerable and insupportable offence to the Living When Death hath served his Writ of Arrest and fixed the Impession of his cold hand Oh! how miserably is the fairest Face then disfigured how pittifully is the sweetest Countenance then changed how horridly is the compleatest Body then corrupted and become a noisom spectacle to its nearest Relations Insomuch that the fondest Husband then abominates the presence of his most amiable Wife the tenderest Father then loaths the sight of his most beloved Child the dearest and most intimate Friend then stands aloof off from him whose company was once truly precious and acceptable to him Therefore the Grave is the properest home for the breathless-body of Man for there it sleeps and rests without offence to any Secondly God hath appointed the Grave as Man 's fixed setled home a place of rest after his tossings and hurryings to and fro in the World We are born to Dye yea we begin to Dye as soon as we are delivered out of our Mothers Womb Nascentes Morimur finisque ab origine pendet And we must expect no quiet till Death concludes the play of our lives The Apostle tells us that here we have no continuing City but we seek one to come Indeed like Noah's Dove we scarce know where to rest the Sole of our Foot in peace Here we are often forc'd to be moving and removing from one habitation to another from one country to another yea from one end of the earth to the other we are never fixed nor throughly setled till we come to the Grave and then there will be an end for ever of all our Wandrings and weary some Pilgrimages Man whilst travelling in the Regions of Mortallity under the circumstances of being obnoxious to divers contingencies may not unfitly be compared to a Ship under sail in the wide Ocean for that he is always rowling and tumbling beaten up and down with Winds and Waves of various providencies and fatal accidentalities that do attend him and so continually upon the Surfe of Motion that he never drops Anchor never is at quiet till warped into the Harbour of the Grave And then Oh then he is fast and rides secure from all Storms and Tempests For there the wicked cease from troubling and there the wearied are at rest Thirdly God hath appointed the Grave as Man 's bounded confined home The place where all his desires after and all his endeavours for the enlargement of worldly possessions will have their termination Whilst Man is upon the Earth he is unsatiable in his coveting earth and thinks he hath never enough of it His heart is like the daughter of the Horse-leech still crying Give give and is never satisfied As Juvenal speaks of Alexander Pâ—lâ—o juveni vix totus sufficit orbis The whole World was not enough to quench the thirst of his ambitious Humour yea some say he Wept because there were no more worlds to Conquer Oh! But when he comes to the Grave he is then confined to his breadth and length and uncapable of desiring any more he is then bounded in his dimentions without a thought of any enlargement When we see the most covetous or ambitious Man going to the Grave we may see in tanto a fulfilling of that Prophesy That the loftiness of Man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of Man shall be brought low Though I know as to the full completion of it it hath another tendency for then his high Aspirations and all his vain Expectations are at a Ne plus ultra and he confined to a narrow scantling of room in this Long Home Oh! consider this you whose greedy minds are never satisfied with terrene fruitions but are always craving and grasping after more that are contriving how to add house to house and lay field to field till there be no place that are sweating and toyling journying and travelling and taking a world of pains to increase the Store of your so much adored earthly Treasure Remember I beseech you there is no buying or selling no trading or traffiquing in the Grave No bettering or making finer or larger your accomodations there The poorest Codrus hath as much room as much conveniency in this dark Region as the richest Cresus For this is the Home where every Man hath enough to serve him and is confined to the dimentions of it Fourthly God hath appointed the Grave as Man's common epidemical home The place where all the Sons and Daughters of Adam must lye down together of what nation or language of what degree or quality soever they are The small and the great the good and the bad are there There is no distinction of persons or conditions of men in that Climate The most glorious Saint hath no more priviledge or better entertainment in the Grave than the worst of Sinners Job though he was a good Man one that put his whole trust and confidence in God one that was beloved of his God and therefore ascertain'd of his Souls possessing the Mansion of eternal Glory yet as to his Body he knew that must fare as the rest of the world did Hence we find him claiming kindred with the natives of that Country below whither he was going I have said to corruption thou art my Father and to the worm thou art my Mother and my Sister And again Though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God Though he was so excellent a Saint and had so pure a Soul yet his Body was corruptible and must become food for worms We read of two and but two bodies of Adam's Line that were carried immediately from Earth to Heaven without stopping at the Grave with the rest of their Brethren The one was Encch of whom it is said He was not for God took him The other was Elijah who who in a Chariot of Fire with Fiery-horses was drawn up from beside the River Jordan to the New Jerusalem the holy Hill of Zion to be for ever with God and With the Spirits of just Men made perfect The very Body of our Lord Jesus for the absolute conquering of Death and full compleating the work of our Redemption was necessitated to go down into the Grave though not to corrupt
which was the occasion of their Fall as some learned Writers have supposed And what God speaks of forming the World in general we way apply to the Creating of Man in particular with respect to the excellency of the Work when he was presented on the Theatre of the World How did the Morning Stars in that day sing together and how did all the Sons of God shout for joy And surely the Dissolution of Man affords as much cause of sorrow as his Making did of gladness especially considering that it is in Scripture called a destroying of him Thou turnest Man into destruction and then thou sayst Return again ye Children of Men. When Man is in the midst of his honour in the height of his glory in the greatest of his power in a moment in the twinckling of an Eye he may be dashed in pieces and be destroyed from off the Earth for by the blast of God he perisheth and by the breath of his Nostrils he is consumed One small puff blows him away and he is no more to be heard of as though he had never been And should not this be matter of grief and lamentation to the Living to see so excellent a Creature as Man deprived of his Being bereaved of his Breath stript of his Enjoyments and all his Glory to be laid in the Dust Ah! What Eye can behold such a sight what Ear can hear of such a thing and not be deeply affected with it and Heart-pricked with sorrow at it Oh! How was our blessed Lord Jesus concerned how Mournfully was he touched when he heard the tydings of Lazarus decease though he was determined very well knew how to raise him up and bring him to Life again Pray hear what is said of him John 11. ver 33. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her he groaned in the Spirit and was troubled Here are two words in the Greek and both emphatical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he roared or cried out in the Spirit That is he Mourned inwardly and Lamentably at the loss of Lazarus Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He vehemently troubled or disturbed himself He was mightily affected with the change Death had made in that Family which he had so great and peculiar a Love for Our Saviour shewed this great example of Morality that he might modestly and moderately express the sentiments of Grief which we ought to have at the departure of Man from the Land of the Living Secondly For that when a Man goes to his Long Home all the pleasure in his society is dead with him nothing remains of it but the remembrance which serves only to aggravate and heighten the Grief of the Surviver 'T was a true saying of one Aura secunda bonus socius A good companion is as a prosperous Gale carrying a Man pleasantly and with comfort through the Tempestuous Sea of this World And again Bonum sodalitium optimum solatium Good Company is the best solace Indeed suitable society is the comfort of Life the improvement of parts the joy of the Intellect the only distinguishing Priviledge that gives the Preference to Men above Beasts Take away this and what happiness is it to be a Man or what is humane Life any thing to be accounted of But when Man is dead there can be no more delight in him or comfort received by society with him There is no converse in the shades below no interlocution in those gloomy Regions The Grave is a silent house where the Eyes of all the Inhabitants are closed in the Dust and their Mouths filled with cold Clay And therefore this should cause Mourning in the Streets when we see a Man going to his Long Home especially such a Man whom we have had any intimacy with because we shall never have the opportunity of enjoying any pleasant hours with him or delighting our selves in the Spiknard of his friendship which was wont to send forth so fragrant a smell We must then bid farewel to all discoursing upon any subject to all advising about any difficulties to all profiting by any Polemick Notions started and improved in an amicable way In a word we must bid an eternal Adieu to any pleasure or satisfaction we received in communing with him for we shall enjoy no more of it for ever Oh! surely this cannot but cut deep in a generous Soul this cannot but greatly wound a spirit whose thoughts are drained from the dross of Plebeian conversation that has any esteem at all for the advantages of a rational Life Upon this account it was that the old Prophet in Bethel Lamented over the Man of God which came from Judah who was slain by a Lyon as he rode upon an Ass in the High-way He bitterly Bewailed and Mourned for his Death crying out Ah! alas my Brother As if he had said I have been extreamly refreshed by thy company in hearing the Word of the Lord from thy Mouth concerning the destruction of the Priests that burn Incense upon the Altar and the pulling down the House of Jereboam Oh! How have I been strengthned in my Courage confirmed in my Faith and the more resolved in the Ways of God by this thy Prophesy But now thou art gone I shall never have any more of this profitable and spiritual Discourse with thee This made him Weep over his torn Carcass and bitterly Lament his untimely Fall and to give a solemn Charge to his Sons that when he was Dead they should Bury him in the Sepulchre wherein this Man of God was Buried and lay his Bones close by the Bones of this Prophet Thirdly For that when a Man Dyes and goes to his Long Home he is past doing any more good or being any farther serviceable in his Generation There is no praising or praying in the Grave or any remembrance of God or Man As the Tree falls by Death it will lye till Judgment without bringing forth any fruit at all Whilst Man is in the Land of the Living he is capable of doing some good or being useful in that place and condition wherein God hath set him But when Death cuts him off his day of opportunity is at an end and the night is come upon him in which he cannot work nor do any more as he hath done And therefore there is just cause of Mourning and Lamenting at his Decease Thus the Widows of Joppa Bewailed the Death of Tabitha a Woman full of good Works and Alms-deeds which she had done Acts 9. ver 39. Then Peter arose and went with them when he was come they brought him into the upper Chamber and all the Widows stood by him Weeping and shewing the Coats and Garments which Dorcas made while she was with them By which they commended her Charity and bitterly Bewailed her fatal Exit The thoughts of parting with such a Woman who was so charitable so useful even broke their Hearts with Sorrow and dissolved their Eyes with Tears They brought the
Garments to view which she had made to cloath the Backs of the Naked with and set them before Peter and the rest that accompanied him to justify the ground of their Mourning or rather to heighten the Passion of their Sorrow from this sadning consideration that she was ever uncapable of making any more that the Poor were never like to be the better for her again They could not but Mourn that she was so soon taken off from prosecuting the many good projects she had in her Head arid Heart of being useful to the Poor and them that were in Distress Ah Sirs when we see a Man going to his Grave we may sadly cry out He will never he can never do any more good His opportunity of glorifying his Creator or of serving his fellow-Creature is past and gone and will never return again It is impossible he should be any farther serviceable in Church or Common-Wealth And surely this should enforce a Mourning from all who take delight in or are capable of receiving Comfort from the doing good of others But it may be you will say there are many Men that do no good at all while they Live but a great deal of harm who are so far from being useful that they are wholly unprofitable yea very prejudicial to God's honour and Man's welfare in their Generation That are a Plague to the place where their abode is and a Curse to all whose unhappiness it is to be near them Now should we Mourn for them should we Grieve when they are taken out of the World should we go as Mourners about the Streets when such barren Trees are cut down and carried to their Long Home Yes verily we should because while a wicked Man is alive there is hope or at least a possibility of his Recovery from his wicked State of his being washed and sanctified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God But when he dyes there is no possibility of his reclaiming or being renewed to Repentance for there is no work no device no invention and I may add no reformation in the Grave whither we are going Fourthly For that when a Man Dyes and goes to his Long Home we shall never see him more he vanishes as it were out of our sight and we are never more to behold him or cast our Eyes upon him He is both actively and passively in an invisible state So Job Mournfully speaks of himself chap. 7. ver 7 8. Oh remember that my Life is wind my Eyes shall no more see good The Eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more thy Eyes are upon me and I am not What more cutting Expression what more sadning Inculcation what more provoking Incitation to Mourning can there be than the Sence of this that we shall behold the Face of our beloved Friend after his departure from us no more Were Man to Return though after never so many Years absence from his home or continuance in the Grave Were he to visit his habitation again and become the objective delight of his poor Mourning Friends and Relations it might be some alleviation to their Grief when he takes his journey to his Long Home But Oh! What a prick to the Heart what a stab to the Soul what a deadning to the Spirits what an inundation of Sorrow like the opening of Pandora's Box is this lamentable Thought to an ingenious Man that he must never never never more behold the Face of this or that Relation in this Region of Mortality nor have any converse with him on this side the Bank of Eternity What Husband can think so of his Wife and not melt what Wife can have such a thought of her Husband and not faint what Parent can consider this with respect to his Child and not mourn what Child can reflect upon the impossibility of ever seeing his Father or Mother more and not be overwhelmed with grief In a word What Friend or Relation can ponder on such an eternal Farewel as is then given and not be dissolved into Tears yea and not to Mourning like the Mourning of Hada-drimmon when Cloystered up in Megiddo's Vale It is the opinion of Divines That the chiefest of the Saints happiness consists in Vision or in the use of the visive faculty which will then be enlarged and made glorious to perfection for they shall see the Face of God in Righteousness and be satisfied with his likeness they shall be for ever with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord and be changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Sure I am the Saints greatest comfort in this World consists in Vision or beholding God's Image in his People and that not only the work of his Power in their comely Features but the work of his Grace in the divine Characters of Wisdom engraven in their Souls and immediately reflected upon in all their Actions Therefore it cannot but cause Mourning when such delightful Objects are removed out of sight and never more to be beheld Fourthly Modifically There is a modifick Obligation upon the Living to Mourn for the Dead in respect of the manner of Mens Dying or the circumstances they are under in that great Hour First For that Sickness is the Prologue of it the Paleness of Death is generally ushered in with the Pains and Sorrows of Sickness Thus it was with the Child of the great Shunamite that had so courteously entertained Elisha and built a Chamber for him Furnishing it with those Utensils which she knew were most acceptable to a contemplative Man In requital of which kindness he promised her from God a Child and a Child she had but it Dyed but before it Dyed it fell Sick and was tormented with Pains So we are told 2 King chap. 4. ver 18 19. And when the Child was grown it fell on a day that he went out to his Father to the Reapers And he said unto his Father my Head my head and he said to a Lad carry him to his Mother And when he had taken him and brought him to his Mother he sate on her Knees till Noon and then Dyed His Head first Aked before his Breath Departed And this is the usual way of Men's Dying first to complain of some Disease in their Bodies before there is a separation between that and their Souls One crys out of his Head another of his Bowels one is Sore-pained another is Heart-sick upon his taking his leave of the World And as the Apostle Peter speaks of the last times The Sun shall be turned into Darkness and the Moon into Blood before the great and notable Day of the Lord comes So it is most true in this case Health shall be turned into Sickness Strength into Weakness Pleasure into Pain Delight into Sadness before the great and notable Day of Death comes Which indeed in it self considered abstracted from the hopes of
a future Being is a day of Wrath a day of Trouble and Distress a day of Wastness and Desolation a day of Darkness and Gloomyness a day of Clouds and thick Darkness a day of the Trumpet and Alarum against the senced Cities and against the high Tower Now who can behold a Friend in any pain or under the power of any Distemper upon a sick Bed and not Grieve at it What Object calls more for Pity and Commiseration yea for Grief and Lamentation than a pained Heart-sick-man who cannot help himself or receive Ease from any Application especially of that pain that precedes his Dissolution for Contra vim mortis non est medicamen in hortis And as Distempers are coroding and tormenting in their Natures so they are Multitudinous in their number There are innumerable Diseases that go before Death that are as pursivants in the same Livery warning the Sons of Men to be ready at Deaths approach according to the Poet Mille modis lethi miseros mors una fatigat And as another well expresseth it Mille modis Morimur miseri sed Nascimur uno There is but one way of our coming into the World but a Thousand of our going out 'T was a Curse upon Man after his Fall that he should live by the Sweat of his Brow and the same Curse hath entailed this misery upon him that he must Dye in the Anguish of his Soul As he Lives in Sweat so he Dyes in Pain and this Pain cannot but enforce Mourning from all tender-hearted Spectators that are about him Secondly For that a Dying-man is really himself a Mourning-man When Man is going to his Long Home his Soul is clad with Cypress his Spirits are drooping and in a sorrowful trembling posture he is waiting the finishing of Deaths last stroke He lies groaning and pitifully crying out on his sick-bed and with rowling-eyes lifted-up hands and panting breasts he sighs he sobs he dyes And from this condition good Men are no more exempted than wicked at their deaths nay we find the best of Men even buried in Sorrow in the day of his humiliation when he was going to his Death Matth. 26. ver 38. Then saith he unto them my Soul is exceeding Sorrowful even unto Death tarry ye here and watch with me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word signifies Fear on every side The faculties of his Soul were as it were beset and besieged with Grief Sorrow went round about him Indeed Aristotle would not own that a Man of Spirit could be capable of such a Sorrow but 't was his ignorance in the things of God which made him think so And our Saviour's sorrowful posture is a sufficient confutation of that Notion Verily Sirs when the terrors of Death notwithstanding the Sting of it is taken away takes hold upon the most Heroick-spirited yea upon the most gracious qualified among the Sons of Men it makes him presently hang his Harp upon the Willow-tree and hide his Face within the drawn Curtains converting his Songs into Sighs his Laughing into Mourning and all his Rejoycing into heavy Groans Emblematically be speaking to all that are round about him with a shaking head and ghastly look what Job did so passionately Have pity upon me Oh ye my Friends have pity upon me for the Hand of God yea the hand of Death hath touched mt Help help O Wife O Children What shall I do my Spirits are fainting my Breath is going my Soul is departing and I must leave you all And then turning sighs and sobs to that sorrowful Note of Jobs Oh that I were as in Months past as in the day when God preserved me When his Candle shined upon my Head and when by his Light I walked through Darkness as I was in the dayes of my Youth when the Secret of God was upon my Tabernacle Thus poor Man concludes the Tragick-Scene of his troublesome Life inbreathing out such doleful Epicediums He came into the World Crying and he goes out Sighing He Crys the first thing he does after he is Born and he Sobs the last thing he does before he Dyes Now what Heart can be so obdurate to behold Man expiring in the midst of his Sigh and not say as Thomas said of Lazarus Lord let its go that we may Dye with him So let me go and Sob with him and bear him company in the bitter Agony he is now in Thirdly For the great change Death makes in the person Deceased of an active lively Man he is become a dead lump of Clay so changed and wholly altered in the Physiognomy and outward appearance of the Body that we may say with the Poet Qui color albus erat nunc est contrarius albo The Man that a day or two ago lookt so fresh and fair Oh how pale how wan how ghastly how affrightning does he look now The Man that was so pleasant so every way desirable in his conversation a little while ago how loathsome and detestable does he appear now That it makes his dearest Relations say of him as Abraham said of Sarah Gen. 23. ver 4. I am a stranger and a sojourner with you give me a possession of a Burying place with you that I may Bury my Dead out of my sight Sad was the Change death made in Sarah which enforced this so seeming unnatural Resolution in Abraham to put her out of his sight He could no longer look upon her as his delightful Wife to sleep in his Bosom but as a rotten piece of Flesh that must be removed away Man in his Coffin is like a growing flower how splendidly does it look how fragrantly does it smell whilst upon the stalk but no sooner cropt but it presently fades and in a few hours is trodden under foot as dirt So that we may say of him as the Nations said of the King of Babylon His Pomp is brought down to the Grave and the noise of his Viols the Worm is spread under him and the Worms cover him Oh! Sirs All Man's Pomp his Beauty his Glory is then withered away And as it was said of our Redeemer in his state of humiliation There is no from or comeliness to look upon him nor no beauty in him that we should desire him His Body is then a contemptible despicable abominable thing Hence the Apostle makes use of these expressions of meanness and contemptibleness concerning man's going to his Long Home elegantly shewing thereby what his Body under those circumstances is It is sown in corruption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a state of filthiness and contamination Again It is sown in dishonor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a state of ignominy and contempt Again It is sown in weakness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a state of inability to withstand the Power of Death Once more It is sown a natural Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Body subjected to all the miseries appertaining to and entailed upon Apostate Nature From all this we may gather the proper
extraordinary in this Funeral that may be my Apology for speaking something concerning him who is going to his Long Home this day He Dying here in a strange Country far from his Relations where none of his Fathers ever were and that befalling him which the Poet accounting a great misery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is true he was not drowned and so did not Dye in the Waters in that sence but he Dyed upon the Waters and is now to be Buried in the Waters And therefore I think it but highly just to strew some deserved Flowers on his Herse that we may all carry home the Fragrancy of his Name in our Memories since we cannot carry home his Body to his dear Mourning Relations Besides I look upon my self as obliged to speak because I knew more of him than any I believe in the World did He was pleased to make my Breast die Repository where he locked the very Secrets of his Soul Never two were more intimate we were pleasant to each other in our Lives Oh! that in our Deaths we had not been divided However my love to him and intimacy with him shall not trappan me into any thing of Flattery which I ever abhorred And hence I will not insist upon what I wish I could do more viz his exemplariness in Piety Although I am more than confident the Root of the matter was in him I know his unavoidable Association with all sorts of Company betrayed him to some tinctures of vanity which himself was sensible of and most deeply bewailed upon his dying Bed But for an example of Morality a modle of Civility a platform of all Humanity I dare presume to present you with as exact an one as has been seen in this Latter-Age I remember what the Orator sayes Frigida laudatio mera vituperatio A cold kind of praising is no better than a dispraising Hence what I shall say shall be in the words of Truth Sobriety and I think justifiable Fervency I will begin with his Extraction His Birth was truly honourable for he was Born of the race of the First-born being immediately descended from the Loyns of the Prophets and such as in their day were Stars of the first Magnitude enrowled in the Catalogue of those Worthyes of whom the World was not worthy His Grand-Father Mr. Richard Bernard of Batcomb a most famous elabourate Divine whose Name is as Oyntment poured forth whose Works praise him in the Gate and whose Memory will never dye so long as Religion lives in England His Father also an able eminent Minister the Husband of one Wife by whom he had I think One and Twenty Children of whom this our deceased Friend was the youngest So that he was their Benjamin the Staff of their Old Age they were careful of his Education and infused those great principles of Truth into his Infant-years the savor of which he retained to the last so true is that Quo Yemel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa Diu Or as Solomon Englishes it Train up a Child in the way wherein he should walk and when he is old he will not depart from it He was Filius Fidelium Precum A Child of the Covenant and a Child of Prayers There was a great stock of Prayers laid up for him and I am perswaded they were not lost After he had past his impuberous days under his Parents Wings in the Country he was sent up to London to his Brother Mr. John Bernard a pious holy Man in great esteem amongst the Godly who was more than a Brother yea a Father to him as I have often heard him acknowledge with a great sence of Gratitude he took great care about disposing of him in order to his future Settlement At length he placed him with an honest Master whom he faithfully and truly Served I have heard his Master say this of him He never had such a Servant His Calling obliged him to use the Seas which he was as unfit for as the Sea was unworthy of him He had a reach at higher things and his Heroick Spirit hardly brooked the Conversation genuine to this Element he had an exceeding good Natural Wit a Ripe Invention a Quick Fancy a Logical Head a Strong Memory and as a Crown to all a Great Judgment He was an universal accomplisht Man able to carry himself Aptly and to speak Congruously in all Companys from the King's Court to the Beggars Cottage He was endued with that Humility and Modesty which very well became his Young years and yet with that Depth and Judgment that was a great deal above his Years He was unsatiable after Knowledge especially in the best things He would often bring me some of the hardest Scriptures to explain and propose some of the abstrucest Points in Divinity to be resolved Indeed he had Notions of a very high Birth and Conceptions far above one under his Circumstances Insomuch that I have often admired him and said of him as the Multitude of our Saviour From whence hath this Man this Wisdom He was a constant hearer of the Word and a great Honourer of those that delivered it He dearly Lov'd a Learned Ministry and by such was he Beloved Several eminent Divines in London had an high Respect for him The truth is I knew not any whose Judgments was worth a minding that were acquainted with him but very deeply affected him and esteemed him as one of a more than ordinary Capacity He greatly delighted in reading good Books especially Dr. Bates Of the Existence of God His Harmony of the Divine Attributes and Mr. Baxters Directory which he mightily prized and would often say he looked upon it as the next Book to the Bible In his Match he preferred Virtue before Money contrary to the Genius of this corrupt Age. He advised with me and indeed gave himself up wholly to me to choose a Wife for him In order to which I brought him acquainted with an honest Religious Family to which he was soon Related by espousing a Wife that Heaven in Mercy had every way prepared an Help meet for him In whom he took great Delight as also in the Piety and Ingenuity of her Relations with whose Society he promised himself a great deal of Comfort and Satisfaction at his return from this Voyage But poor Gentleman he is now gone Death has frustrated all his Expectations of that kind Labitur Savo Rapiente Fato to use Senecas words he is taken away by the over-ruling Powers above never to be among his poor Relations or to be seen by them any more for ever He had an admirable mixture and mediocrity in the whole of his Deportment he was Facetious and yet Solid Affable and yet Reserved Courteous to all and yet Familiar with very few He was a most Just Upright Man in all his Dealings I never knew him guilty of the least dirty or disingenuous Action He was a faithful and true Friend Vsque ad aras I found him so
the Lice Exod. 8. ver 19. Then the Magicians said unto Pharaoh This is the finger of God And Pharaoh's heart was hardned and he hearkned not unto them as the Lord had said Oh! Sirs we should say this is the handy work of God of that God Whose Judgments are unsearchable and whose Ways are past finding out and therefore we ought with all holy filial Reverence to submit to what he has done Fourthly Oh! Mourn for this Loss by way of preparations for your own turn whensoever it shall please God to call you to it This was Moses his wish for Israel and it is mine for you Deut. 32. ver 29. O that they were wise that they knew this that they would consider their Latter End So to consider of it as to prepare for it And especially to consider of it when we see others taken away from among us Oh! How should Objects of Mortality before us be as pressing Lectures of Divinity to us to put us in mind of the certainty of our own Dying and the necessary prae-requisites to a Dying State that when we come to the Borders of Death instead of fearing it we may sarcasmally triumph over it in the words of the blessed Apostle O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory And when like Aaron upon Mount Hor we are stripped of the Robes of Mortality we may be invested with the more beauteous and transcendent Garment of everlasting Glory in our Fathers House where are many Mansions to enjoy the Soul-ravishing Communion of blessed Saints and Angels in the highest Heaven to sit under the shadow of our Glorified Lord Jesus with great delight and to have his Fruit for ever pleasant to our Tast wrapt up in the Joys and Consolations of the Spirit waiting for that one only additional Happiness even the Adoption to wit the Redemption of the Body In a word to be with our own God the God of all Peace and Comfort in whose Presence there is fulness of Joy and at whose Right Hand there are Pleasures for evermore FINIS AN ELEGY On the Death of the before-Named Mr. Rich Bernard Consecrated to his MEMORY BY ONE Who Loved him Dearly Prized him Highly And Laments him Greatly CAN Grief be silent Rather can Grief speak A Top-full Vessel scarce finds vent to Leak Hearts that are charg'd and over-press'd with Sorrow Deny to lend what Mourning Tongues would borrow Words may be form'd in saddest case no doubt But Sighs and Groans will stop their passage out Wonder not then we are so Mute even now Our Souls to Grief's most rigid Laws we bow And in the Dust seem liveless as we lye True Hieroglyphicks of our Misery Sense of our Loss deprives us of all Sense We more than Masters in Griefs-School Commence Like Weeping Niobes we are become Grief makes us sad but Horror strikes us dumb Our Tongues can't Accent what our Hearts direct Deep Groans and Sobs must be our Dialect We 'll Sob his Death and with an Heart-fetch'd Groan That Loss which ne're can be repair'd make known A Loss indeed beyond a Vulgar Loss As far as Ophir purest Gold 's from Dross Death hath not snatched one of our common Friends But one in whom the Life of Friendship ends The Soul of Love the Quintescence of Mirth Whose presence mid-wiv'd Joy into a Birth Who Lov'd and knew to blow where e're he came The Sparks of Pleasure to an open Flame So Apprehensive half-Ey'd Men might see He was ingenious to a Prodigie His rare and great Accomplishments inhanc'd His Price above all Value and Advanc'd Th' admir'd Capacity of his known Name To cope the glory of Machaons Fame In all the Rules of Physick he excell'd And very hardly to be Parallell'd Diseases own'd his Power and Heaven did Bless His Skill to most with wonderful Success Besides all this he had a greater Art To feel the Pulse of a Distemper'd Heart And by his Candid Carriage to unty The Gordian-Knot of inward Misery His Wit and Parts dispell'd the Clouds of Sadness And changed Sorrow into peals of Gladness Judge judge how Mournful now is our Condition That thus have lost a Duplicate-Physitian Well might the Cannons roar when he was gone The fittest Emblem of our general Moan They were our Organs thorough which we broke Griefs deadly silence and in Thunder spoke We sent by them our loud-mouth'd doleful Cryes Resounding Woe and Horror to the Skyes The Air was black with Smoke to let us see That Element did Mourn as well as we The Sea did Foam Neptune was full of Fears Lest he should shake his Kingdom 'bout his Ears And in our Fury rise to such a pass As to attempt the wresting of his Mace For having rob'd us of so rich a Jem More-priz'd by us than all his Diadem We needed not his Water for a Grave Unto our Friend each Tear more than a Wave Would soon have swel'd into a Sea for him And been enough for th' Coffin in 't to Swim Or rather sink true Sorrow 's such a freight To poize down more than many Thousand Weight I now despise great Aeolus and his storms Though represented in tremendious forms The raging of the Seas henceforth no more Shall fright my Soul thought Winds and Waves do roar Now he is there whose influencing charms Keep back their fury from inflicting harms And by his Art and Skill right Chymical Makes all their Waters more than Med'cinal 'T was often said The Sea abounds in Store More than the Earth I nere believ'd before But now I shall and readily submit With all my heart unto the Truth of it Since so much Learning Parts and Worth is in 't What can it be less than a peerless Mint Here stop my Pen no farther ' tempt to build Statues of Mourning in this sable Field Call for the Epilogue draw out the Screene And put Conclusion to this doleful Scene The Floods of Tears which from our Eyes have run With Sighs he 's wafted to Elisium The Epitaph FArewel dear Heart thy absence makes me sad The truest Friend that ever Mortal had My pleasant Sea-Consort the very Soul Of that delight which Sadness does Controul My Bosom-Friend to whom I could dispence The greatest Secrets with safe-Confidence My Counsellor with whom I could advise And learn by Imitation to be Wise A Brother dearer than by Nature can In Life and Death to me a Jonathan Rest rest in Peace within thy Watry-Urn Whilst I toss'd up and down shall Sigh and Mourn To think of my great Loss in losing Thee Once happy in thy sweet Society What! Art thou Dead My thought my Dream was so Ah! 't is too true a Dream the more the Woe Thou hadst thy Plea though cam'st unto thy Tryal Death was thy Judge and would have no Denyal Charles Nicholettes