Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A47412
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A sermon preached at the funeral of the R' Reverend Father in God, Bryan, Lord Bp. of Winchester, at the Abby Church in Westminster, April 24, 1662 by Henry, L. Bp. of Chichester.
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King, Henry, 1592-1669.
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1662
(1662)
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Wing K505; ESTC R4884
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16,120
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47
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A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of the R ' Reverend Father in God BRYAN Lord Bp. of WINCHESTER At the Abby Church in Westminster April 24. 1662. By HENRY L. Bp. of Chichester LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman and are to be sold at his Shop in the Lower Walk in the New Exchange 1662. A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of the Right Reverend Father in God BRYAN Lord Bp. of Winchester At the Abby Church in Westminster April 24. 1662. Pretious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints Psal 116.15 I Need not tell you the occasion of our Meeting The sad Object lying before your Ey declares that And though He who is gone be principally concerned in drawing you to this House of Mourning yet must ye not repute your selves wholly unconcern'd The benefit will redound to you who Eccl s 7 3. who know by whom ye are told how good it is to enter into it I wish ye may think so too I read of one Philoromus Galata who was so much in love with Death he liv'd some years in a Tomb to prepare Himself for it This Spectacle and this Discourse tends to this Preparation So that I hope ye will not repent an hours stay here with me The Grave is commonly as powerful an Oratour as the Pulpit and by presenting the fears of an III Death instructs us in the Rules of a Good Life My assurance is that as the winding Sheet fits every Body by dilating or contracting it self to each ones size so my discourse will suit it self to every Hearer Like Philipp's Boy it holds out to Youth a Skull to Age a Coffin Who next amongst us is likely to fall into this low Centre may be doubtfull 'T is sure at one time or other we all must And probably we shall not all of us a few dayes hence meet here again Therefore wheresoever that final Lot may chance to fall whether on some Hearer or on the Speaker You will allow this Text a pious remembrancer to Those who stay behind and an antidated valediction to those who next go hence So then as St. Paul told the Corinthians Whether it be I or You so I Preach 1 Cor. 15 11. and so Yee justly must believe That happy shall their condition be in the Next world who after a Religious life dye well in This. For Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints I trouble you not with any Curious but a Plain Division Division The First Joint whereof is that which disjoins Nature 1. Dâ—ath and must Divide us from One another Yea makes a Division of us from Our selves by Disuniting Soul and Body and taking asunder those Essential Parts by which we subsist Death Then follows the Subject of our Funeral 2. Saints Sancti All are concluded under the Necessity of Dying Men the Best of Men Saints Yet Thirdly there is a mixture of Comfort to sweeten the Meditation of Death 3. Pretious It is Mors Pretiosa Pretious 1 In that it puts an end to all Calamity 2. Pretious for that Their Memory survives when They are gone 3. Pretious in the Sight of Men as being Honoured in their Exequies Lastly it is Pretiosa in conspectu Dei 4 In the sâ—ght of the Lord. Not Pretious only in the Ey and Estimation of the world But Precious in the Sight of the Lord. He who sees all things is a Spectator of the Death of his Servants and shews how dearly he values Them 1. By Avenging their Blood if shed by violence in this world 2. By Rewarding Them in the Next This is the Frame on which my ensuing Discourse is carried whose Foundation you see is laid as low as the Grave I begin there where all must end 1. Patt Death with Death The full Period and Close of Nature A Subject better defin'd by silence than speech and sounds more pathetically from a Tomb than a Pulpit The Arguments of this place are or should be God and His VVorks But amidst the whole Catalogue of those works of His we find not Death A thing of so unblest a Being It cannot derive it self from His Hand and Facture who made All other things Light was his Creature Strook out and Kindled by His Fiat Lux Gen. 1.3 Let there be Light And Life was inspired by His Powerful Breath who breathed Spiraculum vitae into Man Gen. 2.7 But Darkness and Death are Children of other Parentage God made no Privations to Smother His Works No Extinguishers of Light or Nature No Sickness to supplant Health nor Infirmity to dissolve Strength VVis 1.14 The Generations of the World were healthful and there was no Poison of destruction amongst them Darkness is but a defect of Light and Death a Privation of Life therefore none of His ver 13 For God hath not made Death neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living If you would have Death's Pedigree search not in God's Book of Creatures amongst the Records of Life but see the Annals of Sin That and Sin were Twins nursed up together engendred of two accursed Parents the Serpent's Active Malice and Man's Disobedience From hence do we derive this Monster This Enemy to Nature and Opposite to God For so it is This demolisheth what He Builds The goodly frame of Mankind is by Death ruined and layd in Farth This Reverseth what He enacted Marrs and unmakes all that He made before You see at what Breach Death enter'd The breach of God's Covenant There the Inundation ran in whose furious torrent will not be stopp'd until it hath overwhelm'd and cover'd the Universe From Adam did this Tyrant begin his dangerous Reign On his Fall was Death's Throne crected his Body became the first Stair of the Ascent since which time he hath still raised that fatal Mound by heaping on it all the Bodies of his Children For in Adam we all dye 1 Cor. 15.22 His Fall maim'd and Creepled Posterity which hath ever since complained of that bruise The Earth yet groans under the barren Curse thrown upon it for Adam's sake Rom. 8.22 And Every Creature groans with us also travailing in pain unto this present Thus as Ashur was the Rod of Gods vengeance to scourge the rebellious Israelites Esay 10.5 so Death became God's scourge to punish the Sin of Man Aug. Ser. 21. in Mat. Neseis quia poena est necesse esse ut moriamur Here then you see though Death were none of God's works Yet is it over All His works This Thing of No being this Privation this Nothing devours All things For what is free from this Gangrene what Plant doth not this Worm strike what Elementary Body Animate or Inanimate is not subject to Corruption Templa Saxa Marmora Aug. Ser. 17. Ferro plumboque consolidata tamèn cadunt Miserable experience shews that Temples are not privileg'd from ruine Those sheets of Lead
a thâ—ng it is to Pair and fellow Goodness when Death hath mis-matched it and how unequally the successions of Virtue are preserv'd amongst us who seldome â—nherit any thing of our Fore-fathers worth but only their Imperfections and â—nfirmities They I say who in all these unfortunate consequences justly apprehend the loss of Good men will not blame us to set that value upon their Death at which Sorrow and Affection deservedly prizes Them Confessing that Sanctorum Mors Pretiosa Their death is Pretious Pretious indeed 3. Pretious For how ill soever the bargain proves on our parts it is good to Them as in a hard Purchase what the Buyer loses the Seller gets 'T is Mors pretiosa to Them in an other Capacity That gainful sense the Apostle means Mors Lucrum Death is their Advantage Phil. 1.21 whereby They gain an end to those Miseries Life exposed and the Worlds converse cast upon Them and may seal their valediction to both in those words of the Poet Finitis gaude tot mihi Morte malis Ovid. lib. 3. trist El. 3. Hear how St. Bernard exalts Death's Market and raiseth the Price of it Pretiosa planè tanquà m finis Laborum Bernard tanquà m Victoriae consummatio tanquà m vitae Janua tanquà m perfectae Securitatis ingressus It is Pretious as being an Antidote against all Infirmity Though the Potion hath some bitterness Ecclus 41.1 O Mors quà m amara The effect is sweet He who takes it down in that draught takes his everlasting Quietus Though the infected Air spreads new diseases over the World that infection pierces not so low as the Grave such an Armour of proof are five feet of Earth It is a Pretious Receipt for Sleep beyond all the Opiate or Mandragoras Physick can prescribe He who is lodg'd in Earth lies in an Inner Chamber which Noise cannot disturb The wars of the Elements are not heard in that Quarter The Wind contesting with the Wave Nor the Breach of Waters Nor the Tongue of Thunder None of these can dispossess them of that slumber which only the Archangel's Trump shall waken Nor any other way disturb their quiet habitation upon whose door the Characters of Eternal Peace are engraven Revel 14.13 Write Blessed are Those that dy in the Lord so saith the Spirit for they finally rest from their Labours How Pretious the death of Saints is all from hence must graunt who from the sense of Pain can understand the benefit of Ease Or from the miseries of war are instructed in the Blessings of Peace And from the Worlds perpetual disquiet have learnt what price they ought to set upon an endless Rest This meerly concerns Themselves There be other differences which continue Their value unto us when They are gone First the Honour due to their Memory after Death which distinguisheth Persons of Desert from Those of no Consideration The whole circumference of natural Being meets in one Centre Eccles 3.19 That which befalleth the sons of Men befalleth Beasts as the one dieth so dieth the other saith the Preacher And Wise Men Dy as well as Fools Psal 49.10 But yet in this Fatal Heraldry there are differences to discriminate the Elder and the Younger house Tacitus will tell you Mortem ex Naturâ omnibus aequalem oblivione apud posteros vel gloriâ distingui Tacit. Annal lib. 1. Death which is equal to all is distinguished by the honour shewed to the Deceased or the neglect to them when gone Thus did the Romans distinguish their Two Emperours Augustus and Tiberius the Successor in his Empire though not in his Virtues Augustus They Deified but their hate to Tiberius was such They would have His Memory survive no where unless in Hell Sueton. in Tiberie Deos Manes rogârunt ut mortuo sedem nullam nisi intèr impios darent Such is the fate of wicked ones to be forgotten Psal 149.9 and such honour have the Saints to Live in their Posterities remembrance VVhich Honour is by a Second evidence demonstrated in their Exequies Datur hoc illustrium virorum posteritati ut Exequiis à promiscuâ sepulturâ separentur Tacitus The Prophet could not threaten a greater Curse than to be cast out as unworthy of the Rites of Burial Paricides and Traitors Murtherers of Parents or Murtherers of Princes who are our Civil Parents of the whole Kingdom were thus used amongst the Heathen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let them ly unburied And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let Dogs eat their Flesh upon earth as they did Jezabel's and Fowls of Prey devour their Carcasses when hanging in the Air. So God tells the King of Babylon Esai 15.19 20. Thou art cast out like an abominable Branch Thou shalt not be joined with them in Burial True it is that Heraclitus is Charg'd by Origen Origen cont Cels lib. 3. That He did think a Dead Body not worth a Grave or Rites of Burial but to be cast out to the Frost of the Night and Heat of the Day as a contemptible Relick eternally lost in it's separation from the Soul So Hieron Hieron lib. 3. contra Vigilant chargeth Vigilantius as one wedded to the superstition of the Samaritan and Jew who reputed the Bodies of the Dead unclean Things reproaching the Coemeteries Consecrated Ground wherein they are lay'd as follies to be laught at and terming Those who Buried Them Cinerarios Idololatras qui mortuorum ossa venerantur Traders in dust and Idolaters of Dead Mens Bones The Brownists in their Apology come as neer These I have named as may be Against the Oxford answer 1602 â—o the Ministers Petition Affirming Burial to be no Ecclesiastical Action because not named by Timothy amongst the Ministerial duties Barrow and Greenwood take it at bâ—wnd from Them Vid. Their Answer to Gifford 1591. and ask where it was made an Ecclesiastical duty or why to be performed in Hallowed Ground as if we had no Fields They forgot it seems Devout men carried Stephen to His Burial Act. 3.2 And I must tell you our Preciser sort of late have run in the same line They would by no means endure the Body to come within the Church but it must be left without in the Church-yard Nor would They use in Committing the Corps to Earth any word or Ceremony but put it into the Ground as one would bury the meanest Creature that lay Dead Let me ask without offence what doth this differ from that Curse denounced by the Prophet against Jehojakim Jer. 26.19 The Burial of an Ass S. Augustin teaches Them more Civility if They would learn Aug. de Civ Del lib. 11. c. 13. Non contemnenda sunt abjicienda Corpora Defunctorum The Bodies of Dead Christians are not to be thus slightly and Contemptibly cast into the Earth Mat. 23.24 Tender and soft Conscienc'd men as They are who strain at Gnats and swallow Camels They made no scruple to