A SERMON Preached in the Metropolitical Church OF CANTERBURY October 17. MDCLXXII AT THE FUNERAL Of the very Reverend THOMAS TURNER D.D. Dean of the same Church By Peter du Moulin D.D. Canon there and One of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in S. 〈◊〉 Church-Yard near the West End 1672. PHIL. 1.21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain THE Gospel is the onely Doctrine of true Wisdom and therefore the onely direction to true Happiness Thereby the Christian learneth to walk before his God unto all pleasing and charitably and uprightly with his Neighbours to instruct his ignorance and correct his perversness to stand fast erected and contented in the several turns of this World to live well and to die well which is all That sacred Doctrine is then most effectual to those great ends when it comes seconded by example and attested by experience Give me lessons like my text and the two before where the Teacher teacheth himself and sets forth his doctrine by his practice The good Apostle was in bonds in imminent peril of death And besides the persecution from Pagans he was maligned by false brethren who preached Christ out of contention not sincerely supposing to adde affliction to his bonds In that double trial see how the holy champion puts on the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation and takes in one hand the sword of the Spirit in the other the buckler of faith Vers 19. I know saith he that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ According to my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldness as alwayes so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body whether it be by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain or to make it more English Either way or rather both the ways Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die Yet he had declared before and so he doth after that he held it a far greater gain for him to die for Christ and would rather glorify him by his death than life This was also the godly mind of our dear and highly honoured Dean in his last sickness especially So deep was the gaining of Christ in his pious soul that he could be sensible of no comfort but through death that he might gain Christ The mention of recovery did afflict him yea offend him I fear nothing so much would he say as to recover I long to be dissolved and to be with Christ That sentence was continually in his mouth That resolution was stedfastly fixt in his mind Did any speak to him of life and health and the comfort of his wife and children Away would he answer I have enjoyed all these long enough Christ I would have O when shall I be dissolved and be with Christ Much in the same stile as David As the hart panteth after the water-brooks Psal 42.1 so panteth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God When shall I come and appear before God One may tell me that I press the practice of my text before the doctrine But I will say for my self that in this text the practice is the leader of the doctrine Vnto me to live is Christ and to die is gain And to shew how Christ was a gain unto St. Paul and to those that are his followers as he also was of Christ it is the life of the text Yet because the doctrine is the pattern of the practice this is the kernel of the doctrine of the text and the order to be kept in the exposition Christ being sent unto men to be a gain unto them it is presupposed thereby that they are at a loss without him Mans natural losses are the deprivation of Gods knowledge in his understanding and of Gods righteousness in his will Whence follow heavy judgments upon him in his life and eternal woe after his death To help him in this sad condition The Son of God hath brought from the bosom of his Father unto mankind that heavenly doctrine of glory to God on high and on earth peace good will towards men Which being embraced with obedience of faith will prove such a gain unto him that those spiritual losses shall be repaired his temporal wants shall be supplied his afflictions shall be removed or so sanctified that they will prove lucrative unto him And Death that proper and dismal stipend of sin will prove unto him the greatest gain of all for instead of tumbling him down into hell it will powre him into the bosom of his Father which is in heaven that bottomless depth of goodness and glory Of which goodness and glory the summary is to be fully conformed in mans measure unto Christ his soveraine good and to be joined with him for ever To resume these consider a little what a wretched thing a man is that hath not learned Christ As for his understanding he is plunged in deep ignorance knowing neither God nor himself nor his danger nor his remedy Much like one who being fallen from a high place is so stunned with the fall that he knoweth not that he is fallen Carnal men are much like moles that dig under ground with great industry but are blind in the sunshine So naturally ignorant in the things of God that the wisest of this world the Philosophers were divided into more then two hundred opinions about the soveraine good And that the ingenious nations the Egyptians and Grecians were the most monstrous of all in their religions The Egyptians worshipping oxen and crocodiles onions and leeks The Grecians imagining in heaven feasts and combats and adulteries among their Gods And even in our days corrupt men have so intailed ignorance upon religion that we are taught by Popery that faith consisteth in ignorance which is a vertue easily attained Well to heal mens minds of ignorance in the things of God God hath sent his Son into the world 2 Tim. 1. who hath brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel Here is a gain indeed Mat. 13.46 Here is that pearl of great price which that a man may have he must sell all that he hath and buy it Prov. 3. Here is that wisedom the merchandise whereof is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof then fine gold She is more pretious then rubies and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her The excellency of that gain is then made most manifest when from the illuminating of our understanding it passeth to the regulating of our affections and the sanctifying of our hearts Christ enabling our spirits freely to join with his Spirit to subdue all our inward rebellions and bringing them captives under the throne of Christ say unto him Lord rule
thou in the midst of thine enemies Is not liberty a great gain to a slave and a prisoner To a man that served his lust his belly his money his revengeful mind and the Devil by them what a gain is it by serving God to become Master at home to feel in his breast instead of a storm of unruly passions the peace of God which passeth all understanding and to find to his great comfort that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty What a great gain is it to be made rich in good works rich in God What a great gain is it for us to give those goods which we cannot keep and thereby to purchase goods which we cannot loose To sow upon earth that which we shall be sure to reap in heaven To put out our money to Gods bank who will repay it an hundred fold And how great a gain is the practice of godliness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Godliness is a great gain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with sufficiency A great gain which brings along sufficiency and contentment for so the text must be understood Of that many a good soul could say much by feeling experience For although the great gain of godliness be not for this world as the kingdom of Christ is not of it Yet Christ who is the Sovereign Lord of nature as well as King of the Church engageth his Royal word that all that serve him and sincerely seek his glory shall not need to say What shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed because their heavenly Father knoweth that they have need of all these things Mat. 6.33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you This is the Charter of Christs Disciples that they may confidently cast their cares upon him for he careth for them and so forsake all interesses to follow him But this is the least gain that we get by Christ in this life The great gain is the beginning of eternal life For the spiritual life in a godly mans breast is of one piece with life everlasting after the temporal is ended To have at hand the directions of his word the counsels of his Spirit the comforts of his love the joyes of his salvation To have a free access unto the throne of grace at all times To make one already in the quire of Angels and Saints singing with them Holy Holy Holy Lord God of hosts heaven and earth is full of the Majesty of his glory To be joyful in hope looking up unto Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith who went up through the rough way of the Cross to glory to make us a plain way to the same This is the gain that comes to us even in this life by having Christ Join to these the comforts that we relish in all conditions Is it prosperity the true Christian takes it as an effect of Gods promise which was made good to this reverend godly Divine that by humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honour and life Pro. 22.4 and that godliness is profitable for all things having the promises of this life and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 In every morsel he will relish how the Lord is gracious In his health in his wealth in his hopeful family he will ever look more to the giver than to the gift and adore him in whom he liveth and moveth and hath his being and his well being Is he in adversity He will say I know whom I have believed God hath a hand in all this Psal 39. I will be dumb and not open my mouth to murmur for thou O Lord hast done it My cross is my Saviours livery My humble conformity to his sufferings will end in a conformity to his glory if I may have the same mind which was also in Christ Jesus who humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the Cross Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name Now that gain which we have by Christ in this life is but a preparative to that grand and unmatchable gain in Christ which his true Disciples attain unto by death Christ is a gain unto them to die two ways by avoyding the sting and the terrours of death and by a passage unto an eternal life of holiness and glory The sting and terrour of approaching death is most tormenting to those that have taken no pains to make Christ the gain of their life What a cutting of their heart is it when they have fixt it upon the beloved world and they must be violently torn off from the world Linquenda tellus domus placens uxor And of all the wealth which they have heapt up with anxious care and wicked labour they see they carry nothing away but a winding sheet But the worst sting of death is that which they feel in their conscience when it sets before them the years spent in deboish the unrighteousness of their purchases their contempt of Gods word their slighting of his service their blasphemous and unclean conversation and upon that pronounceth unto them as Gods Officer the doom of divine justice which must be shortly executed upon them It is true many of those sinners in grain die senseless Yet before their death the sting of eternal death meets with their consciences even in the midst of their jollities And many sinners of a lower form feel it all their lives time To heal consciences of that sting was the great end of the Son of God's coming and dying in our flesh As you have it illustriously set forth Heb. 2.14 That Christ took part of flesh and blood that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of death are all their lives time subject unto bondage This is the great remedy against that mortal sting of death sent by the Father of mercies to poor sinners A never sading remedy when sinners have the grace to receive it with a sincere faith effectual in an humble repentance and a serious amendment For then the soul reconciled with God looks upon death with quite another eye then before and saith O death where is thy sting Rom. 7. O grave where is thy victory Death do not look grim upon me I know who hath overcome thee Conscience do not think to fright me I know whom I have believed I have committed my spirit assoiled with Christs blood into his victorious hands And I know he is both willing and powerful to defend it against all the principalities and powers of hell that are roaring about me to devour me After that deliverance from the sting and the terrour of death followeth the attainment of eternal life and death it self is the passage unto it There is that difference between
the death of the reconciled and that of the unreconciled sinner as was between the Butler's and the Baker's of Pharaoh going out of the same prison the one to the gallowes the other to enter into the joy of his Master Oh the blessed hope of a soul arrived even into the mouth of that haven of salvation Psal 118. saying with a holy impatience Open me the gates of righteousness I will go into them and praise the Lord This gate of the Lord into which the righteous shall enter Lord Jesu thou art gone in before unto thy Father and our Father and to thy God and our God Oh make good now thy promise that thou wilt come to us and take us to thee Joh. 14.18 that where thou art there we may be also Let me have once let me have now the final completing of my Christian happiness 17.24 and of my gain in Christ It was a gracious speech of St. Ambrose on his death-bed to his friends weeping about him Non sic vixi ut pudeat me inter vos vivere Sed nec timeo mori quia bonum habemus Dominum I did not so live as to be afraid to live among you Neither do I fear to die because we have a good Lord. So did our Reverend dear Dean speak after him but went beyond him in his alacrity and being on the wing for heaven knowing that when this earthly house of this tabernacle was dissolved 2 Cor. 6.1 he had a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Therefore did he sigh and long and pant for that eternal house and in that house he now dwelleth beholding Gods face in righteousness My brethren I make no doubt but that every one that heareth me is desirous that Christ may be to him a gain to die so that when his soul departs out of his body it may be received by Christ and brought into his eternal habitations Who can blame you But then I must beseech you to take great heed of dis-joyning the parts of my text For be ye sure that Christ shall not be a gain unto you in your death if you neglect to make him a gain unto you in your life Piety saith St. Paul is a great gain Do you labour to make that great gain by Christ Do you study to follow him who left us an example that we should follow his steps Do you learn of him that he is meek and humble of heart that you may find rest unto your souls Do you learn of him not to seek your glory but that of him that sent him Do you go about doing good as he did Do you love your enemies Do you pray for those that persecute you as he did for those that crucified him I tell you if you do not endeavour to be conformable unto him and to be guided by his doctrine and example in your life you shall not find him a gain unto you in your death The spiritual life of the Christian in this world and his eternal life in the next world is but one life all the difference is in the growth in earth it is growing in heaven it is full grown O let us now to our power make Christ a gain to live so and no otherwise he shall be our gain to die and to live for ever with him after our death The nature of this text requiring an illustration of the doctrine by example Now God sends us here an example which makes a comment upon the text It is true St. Paul speaks here for himself Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die But he spake it for all to speak after him that could And when I look upon the life and death of our reverend holy and now glorified friend I find that he might have been exactly true in saying Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die In his tender years he began to dedicate himself unto Christ And though by the means which he was born to and by the goodness of his exâ—â—â—â—â—ion he might have applied his studies to 〈…〉 lucrative condition then that of the Mâ—â—â—â—â—â—y by which not one in fifty thrives in 〈◊〉 â—orld yet Christs espectial servant he would 〈…〉 that holy Office And 〈◊〉 â—â—uth is God had separated him from the womb for the Ministery giving him the â—â—oiceâ—â—â—â—â—owments for so high a calling 〈…〉 â—herished in him by his Tutor no 〈…〉 great and good man Archbishop 〈…〉 There is 〈…〉 of all the graces requisite for the Episcopâ—â— and pastoral Office in those hierarchical Epistles to Timâ—thy and Titus but may be exemplified in this excellent Divine For he was blameless the husband of one wife vigilant sober of good behaviour given to hospitality apt to teach not given to wine no striker not greedy of filthy lucre not a brawler not covetous one that ruled well his own house having his children in subjection with all gravity not self-willed not soon angry but patient just holy holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers Compare the rule with his practice the pattern with his qualities and let envy and detraction find an unconformity between them if they can He was at his first entrance into Holy Orders a most practical useful preacher which few young men attain unto A famous man for the pulpit near fifty years agoe and kept up that high genius to the very last His first step was into the domestick service of that rising active Bishop Laud who took a singular affection to his great parts of nature grace and study and kept him long for his houshold Chaplain But that excellent Judge and encourager of meriting persons King Charles the First being extremely pleased with his extraordinary pious and powerful way of rational preaching after he had heard him twice or thrice at the Court never left solliciting the Bishop to find some setled preferment for him to enable him to attend upon his own person And upon these easie terms came all his preferments And here it is most observable how Christ was a gain unto him for prosperity For in his whole life of above fourescore years he never opened his mouth for preferment never either directly or indirectly importuned any man for any thing never had contest with any competitor for any of his dignities Christ his great and good Master whose glory he sought as his only gain brought him to his fair places without his seeking For this partage of cares he had made with him Lord I will take care of thy service do thou take care of my well being And truly as he was a rare example of an easie advancement so was he a rare example of casting all his cares upon God because God cared for him Among the prosperities wrought for him by the fatherly care of God I must put in the first rank his matching with a wife
of excellent virtue and eminent extraction daughter to that Honourable Person Sir Francis Windehank then flourishing and in high favour at the Court and soon after sworn Privy Counsellor and Principal Secretary of State A match so wrought for him by his powerful friends that it may be sayd that God brought her by the hand to him as he brought the first wife to the first man Wealth and favour thus flowing upon him his moderation made him an observer of Solomons precept Pro. 23.4 Labour not to be rich For being possest of the great living of St Olave when the late King his gracious Master conferred upon him the Deanry of Canterbury which was done in his absence and ten days before he knew it he freely resigned St. Olave into his Majesties hands though the King never intended to lay any obligation upon him to resign his living Which he did not do quia infirmi est animi non posse pati divitiaâ— because he found his back too weak to bear wealth for he hath shew'd sufficiently that he could wield it and employ it to the best uses of charity wisdom and magnanimity with a serene and pious easiness as he could possess wealth he could also despise it and be abstinent in the midst of plenty Much about that time he shewed that he could relinquish his own patrimony as well as that of the Church for he resigned his paternal estate of considerable value to his younger brother and gave portions to several of his sisters and settled them and others of his kindred very handsomely in the world though he was then a married man and a father and in a time when the lowring face of the skie could make him presage the great imminent storm Yea when the storm was most raging and his own fortunes were at a lower ebbe even then he took into his care his aged parents harassed and ruined by the iniquity of the times for their most eminent loyalty and made them a very fai allowance that they might live like themselves For which they used to bless him and call him their second Joseph A great point of his prosperities and that on the score of Christ who ever was a gain unto him was the choice made of him by his late Majesty three several extraordinary times to attend him in his holy function The first time in his progress to Scotland for his coronation The second time when he was in the hands of the Army at Hampton Court The third time in the Isle of Wight in the time of that ugly Treaty Where the good King preparing himself for his Matyrdom gathered about him such spiritual forces as he might be allowed to have which might strengthen him in that great trial In that honourable and perillous employment of framing a King in his enemies power to be a Martyr our excellent friend was himself a great Confessor daring to own loyalty and obedience before those monsters who made high treason the highest pitch of godliness And now was the time for this Reverend good man to seek gain in Christ through adversity In the very beginning of the wars he had been sequestred plundered forced to flie rudely and barbarously carried away by a troop of Parliament horse and imprisoned at London But what this must be put among the mercies Since thereby he got that gain of conformity with the sufferings of Christ and had that glory to bear his cross with a patient erected and contented mind Could I now trace him in his several flights and shifts from place to place with his wife and little children during that long storm you might see a web of crosses and mercies enterlaced and that continual and never failing mercy the Christian constancy whereby God upheld that religious couple making Christ their gain and their joy in their losses But the storm being once over Christ must be again their gain in prosperity And here was eminent this reverend mans virtue For whereas at the Kings return he might have had a rochet he did studiously decline it contrahens vento nimium secundo turgida vela wisely and modesty chusing rather to set out too little than too much sail And rather than getting more he resigned a living of good value which he had recovered by the general reformation of the Church desiring to ease his aged shoulders of the burthen of cure of souls and caused it to be bestowed upon a person altogether unacquainted with him but recommended very justly under the character of a pious man and a sufferer for righteousness preferring him before one nearest to himself in blood His behaviour in his several stations at Canterbury and at Pauls must not be forgotten May it be remembred to his honour that he was affable and courteous to all kind and obliging to all deserving persons highly bountiful and compassionate to the poor hospitable to great and small especially to the Clergy of the Diocese and to his brethren With them he desired to live in a perfect fraternity and though he knew how to preserve his authority as well as any man it was without any supercilious distance If there happened any difference none was more peaceable or more reconcilable then he He did not only forgive injuries but many times he did perfectly forget them Which art of oblivion was a strange faculty in him whose memory till within three days of his death was incomparable I had almost said prodigious yet he could hardly remember many offensive passages against him till he was reminded of them What more He did not only forget the offences done to him but also some good works done by him or so litle minded them that he spake little of them Of which none can be a better witness than my self For when the most Reverend Archbishop Juxon made some doubt whether he should confirm me in the possession of Adsham by a new Collation this excellent Dean this peerless friend of mine shewed him that he could not in honour and gratefulness do otherwise In Clamore Regii sanguinis ad Coelum putting in his hands the true and honourable account which I had given to the world of his rarely virtuous behaviour in assisting our late holy King in his martyrdom and in his trials for his sake after his death This favour of the first magnitude of which I must ever have a grateful remembrance was like to have been buried in perpetual oblivion for the doer of it did not acquaint me with it but eleven years after a few moneths before his death upon an occasion given him to remind it This was doing good merely for God and goodness sake without expecting thankes from men which is the liveliest character of a really honest soul But above all let it be recorded of him that there was never a more publick-spirited Governour in this or in any other Church soever He was most zealously promoting and upholding the publick worship of God in the beauty of holiness
and decent splendor in the house of God advancing the good of the place wheresoever he presided what ever toil or censure or money it cost him Of which he hath given magnificent memorials to our Church and Library It is memorable that in thankfulness for a great deliverance from an imminent danger he vowed and dedicated to our Holy Table that costly Folio Bible with covers of beaten silver double gilt His behaviour at Pauls hath given many signal testimonies how much he preferred the honour of Gods house and the benefit of the Society before his private emolument The fair house which he lately built there for his successours having little hope to enjoy it himself and yet spent the better part of a thousand pounds upon it is a great proof of that truth and a lasting monument of his magnanimous and publick spirit In all the relations of a Son a Husband a Father a Kinsman or a Friend he ever acquitted himself with singular wisedom constant piety and almost unparalleled generosity Take him any way you shall find in him a right tetragonismus a firm cube equal on all sides I cannot but once more touch his superlative bounty to the poor who therefore were his constant attendants appropriating to him Christs saying to his Disciples The poor you shall have alwayes with you But his secret alms were far greater then the open Thereby indeed Christ was a gain unto him and the promise for this life made good The liberal soul shall be made fat and the greater promise of the heavenly kingdom to them that have fed and clothed Christ in his members is now fulfilled to him But may I not say that as Christ was a gain unto him he was also a gain unto Christ Why Hath not Christ said In as much as you have done it to one of the least of my brethren you have done it unto me Mat. 25 To Christ then he hath brought as much gain that way as any of his time and means His memory be ever blessed for it for so is his glorious soul Having then seen how Christ was to him a gain to live Let us see now how Christ was a gain to him to die which is the end that crowneth the work His good life was a continual preparation to a good death But he made a particular preparation for it without any design For when he preacht in his last course which was the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity being in perfect health he took for his text Into thy hands I commit my spirit Thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of truth His excellent Sermon he delivered with full vigour continued in that vigour four daies longer But on the Friday after that Critical or rather Prophetical Sermon he fell sick of the sickness of which he dyed And when his sickness began he could say that he had preacht his funeral Sermon How well did he teach us then to commit our spirits unto God while we live by a full resignation submission and obedience unto his holy will that in our death we may with confidence and joy commit and give up our spirits into the hands of our Redeemer that God of truth who will faithfully preserve perfect and glorifie the souls that have committed themselves to his keeping With these thoughts God armed his servant against his last combat at hand The sharp assaults of his disease the stone after thirty years of good health were not terrible enough to shake his constancy or give him any dreadful apprehensions except of living No man ever feared death more then he desired it Yet with all submission and resignation to Gods heavenly will No word so frequent in his mouth as Cupio dissolvi esse cum Christo I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ To which he would pray the company to say Amen The reading of a Penitential Psalm to him would melt him into tears of contrition and he would repeat it after the reader And when he said nothing he practised St Pauls precept Pray continually Wherefore he desired often that the prayers of the Liturgy when they were said near him should be shortened assuring his friends that he had said them all already to himself But he did not limit his devotions to the Liturgy but entertained himself with God with high and savoury expressions of his own with such a strength and serenity of mind that in his greatest weakness and in his sorest pains scarce did he speak one ill placed word to the last minute When his throat and tongue were most grievously parched being asked how he felt himself he answered that his soul was athirst for God for he had Davids longing to refresh and satiate his weary soul with the fountain of Gods life and the fatness of his house The day before he surrendred his blessed soul into the hands of God he received the Holy Sacrament very devoutly conquering his aversion against any thing offered to him to swallow And although he had not been able to take down any arid nutriment scarce any liquid in forty eight hours yet he forced himself to receive the Viaticum The innocent gayety of his humour which made his company so singularly agreeable to all sorts of men did not utterly forsake him to the last He would smile at his dear relations when he saw them flatter themselves with hopes of his recovery two or three hours before his death telling them pleasantly that what he took to please them would not do the work Yet was he extreme tractable to any thing prescribed however contrary to his discerning judgement of his own condition And when he was desired for Gods sake and for his and his friends conscience to submit to some painful applications but an hour before he expired he put forth his whole strength of body which was as well built as most in the world and raised himself twice in his bed to their admiration for it seemed that it was more the strength of conscience than that of his limbs that made him thus active He would be sure to thank any one most affectinately that prayed by him directing his friends to the use of the Liturgy or to call upon God in the words of the Holy Spirit either places of the new Testament or of the Psalms Most of his discourse was ghostly fatherly heavenly counsel And about an hour before his last breath he gave his blessing to all his by the imposition of his most reverend hand And gave up the ghost with the greatest Christian magnanimity and yet with the deepest sence imaginable of godly sorrow working repentance unto salvation not to be repented of So ended the life of that excellent man That great owner of those two heroique vertues Humility and a Publick spirit And of whom it may be said That never was Clergyman freer from Pride and Covetousness After such a life and such a death he deserved to have two banners carried before and after his herse The one inscribed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the honour of him that lived well The othe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To the honour of him that dyed well And the proper elogy on his Tomb is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is a gain unto me both to live and to die FINIS