is the earth the common receptacle of the living and of the dead other Elements serve us in our life her service continues after death when our funerall fires have turn'd us to ashes when the Aire our Breath hath left us and the water belcht us up shee is to our tossed bodies a shore to our bodies turn'd to ashes an Urne to our bodies out of breath a place of Repose a Seat to rest in Thus much of my second part our returne to the earth I now come to our returne as the end of evills Hercules his Pillars were the terme of his Travailes the terme of his life was the terme of his labours Life and Labour goe hand in hand death and rest hence some did conclude it the prime good not to be borne the next to dye speedily Plinie thought so well of death that he conceived no other end of venemous Herbes than to rid men out of life siquando taedio esset when it grew wearisome But seek not said Solomon death in the errour of your lives Death is not to bee hastened and need not bee feared never did Pinace arrive at the blessed Islands that first passed not through the straights of Death God and Nature have set them between us and home There is a place sayes Iob meaning the grave where there is no order and yet this for our comfort there is no tumultuous confusion for Pompey and Caesar are at peace the Senate and the people nay Rome and Carthage Fortune there rules no Orbe anger and revenge lye chained up and they that divide the Empire of our living world pride ambition injustice fraud covetousnesse oppression have not so much as one little Province 'T was well done of Nature that condemned us not to any long stay here that cuts off our sins with our thred and our paines with our lives for did not men weep oftner before the floud than after and did not old Priamus shed more teares than young Troilus to all that float upon the troubled waves of this world there is one common and universall Haven the haven of death and yet even there in the very haven doe all men suffer ship-wrack which casts me on my fourth and last part the discourse on death as death is an evill Sin and the punishment of sin are members adequally dividing humane evils the former presupposed no evill or privation it presupposed imperfection in him that sinned as mutabilitie of will which is no evill or privation for it is universally actually in all individuals but no privation is actually affirmed of the whole species the later presupposed evill an inordination in free actions or omissions called Malum culpae which in Gods justice is payed with that other called Malum poenae the evill of punishment to which member I reduce the hate of Nature the last enemy the last of evils Death but not the least Can that be the least of evils which is so abhorred of all those appetites which God hath printed in the soule to wit the naturall animall and rationall Does not the nutritive facultie earnestly labour to maintaine us in being {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes Aristotle Mor. 1. even when wee are asleep Does not the irascible defend our being and the concupiscible together with the generative propagate it Does not that universall facultie as Suarez cals it the will love and desire the being and well being of all inferiour parts Shew mee but any thing of the most obscure being that desires not to maintaine that being and I shall the sooner with the Egyptians believe two Gods that made the nature of things the one good the other bad Stay then take notice see and be amazed too to see by what strange wayes and windings the derived rivers become tributarie to the sea all things flow from the deep of divine goodnesse see how hee fetches them back againe hee hath made them all at least by some analogie to love him in that they love themselves for they are drops of the bucket and so much as they love themselves which are by participation so much they must needs love him which is of himselfe they cannot love to bee but they must love him who swallowes up in his infinitenesse of being all being whose nature and essence it is to be let me tell you of a paradox if there bee any in afflicted Jobs case that weep that they died not from the womb that blesse the barren mother and the paps that never gave suck even these the damned spirits and unhappie soules out of a meere love to their being desire not to be such is our love to our being and God himselfe glories to say of himselfe I am and yet this our being does death as far as it can destroy Againe can that bee the least of evils which drownes in teares the eyes of widdowes and orphans that leaves the streets as a green field and changes the palaces of Princes into lodges of Bats and Owles that had not God for a father not Nature for a mother till she was adulterate that is ushered in by a thousand evils the sword pestilence and famine excesse in labour excesse in pleasure lingring griefe and sudden mirth with a thousand more Now that death is a passage from these to a more blessed mansion from these cloudy regions to those enlightned by the Lord God it is no thank to death death is still the ruine of Nature the demolisher of Gods Worke this is the goodnesse and power of God who will raise us againe out of the dust and the dark grave and then will blesse us and shew us the light of his countenance and say in the end of the world as hee said in the beginning let there be light and there shall bee light a light that no Cloud from thenceforth shall dim that shall never set to which light hee lighten us who lighteth every man nay who is that very light and for Iesus Christ his sake our onely Lord and Saviour Amen FINIS The second Sermon ECCELES. 12.1 Remember now thy Creatour in the dayes of thy youth THE Text naturally falls into these parts First an act Remember Secondly the object of that act and that first in a generall notion as the Creatour Secondly in a speciall with this restraint or appropriation thy Creatour Thirdly the time when set forth three wayes First in thy youth Secondly in the dayes of thy youth Thirdly now in the dayes of thy youth First of the act Remember But because the memorie of any thing does of necessitie suppose the former knowledge of that here comes in another act layd downe by way of supposition that we know God First then of this supposed Supremum in homine sayes S. August de Civit. Dei attingit supremum in mundo The noblest faculty in the little world man reacheth to the noblest thing in the great world God the builder of heaven and earth When God in the creation did
of the Historie that man is of the earth witnesse the like qualities of his nutriment his sinking in the water melancholy his compact flesh the drynesse of his bones the constancy of his figure and that which is not of least moment the base worldling that has fixt his eyes on the earth and by his life-preaching Gentilisme does sacrifice at Vesta's Altars and calls her the mother of gods and men it may be Lucretius read his Pedigree where hee tells of men whom the earth after certaine conversions of the heaven growne big brought forth and nursed with her owne milke But let the Poet dreame of prodigious birthes we know that God made man of the earth I doe not say as some did fetcht from the foure extremities of the earth to shew that his Dominion and the world had the same bounds but of earth First that wee might the more joy in our Ascension to heaven and glorifie our Maker for raising our heavie bodies to so high a place above the Ayre above the Fire above the Moon and though Leucippus taught {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that the Orb of the Sunne was the supreame Orb above the Sunne above all the Starres except those that praysed him in the morning Iob. 38. The blessed Angels whose early harmony eccho'd to the harmony of the new borne world Secondly of earth that we might have from whence to raise our soules but not why to raise our Crests that great ones might not look too big on the poore but resemble in this that glorious Planet the bright eye of the World the Sun the higher it is the lesse it looks that they might consider the humble shrub lives in Mount Lebanon as well as the stately Cedar and many times lives longer alway safer that 't is somecimes in States as in nature that gives to lighter bodies the higher place that all faces are drawn in dust though some in illustrious dust that very Cyrus who in his time was writ {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} now begs his memorie as Strabo writes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} O man I am Cyrus he that stiled himselfe great from the Empire of the earth stood but like the Embleme of inconstancie with his foot upon a Globe a slippery Globe earth upon earth he and poor Diogenes lived both but for a time and both in a time though not both in a Tub and Plutarch sayes they dyed both in one day Death you see makes no difference and Christ himselfe seemes to make none 't is noted to this purpose that on the mount there appeared with him Moses and Elias the one in his younger yeares was a mightie man in Aegypt after a leader of Gods people the other alway poore cold and hungrie cloathed with Goats haire Away then with that Knave Lisippus that must needs paint Alexander with a Thunder-bolt in his hand with Caligula that set his head on Jupiters shoulders and with Darius that by all meanes must bee a god though but for thirtie dayes better was that speculation of Philip the Macedonian who on a time falling and viewing in the dust his length cryed out Lord what a little portion of earth is not content with the whole earth he well took notice that as he had falne on the earth so hee came from the earth which is my first part and should returne to the earth which is my second {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Rhet. 2. Arist. who knowes not that he shall dye to consult about an escape were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} seriously to deliberate what course a man might take that the Sun should nor rise or set I have read of Temples dedicated to Feares but that no people did ever consecrate a Priest or Temple to death as being well knowne to bee inexorable who have not heard of the gates of Death who knowes not that they lye open and that for him yet because Evills that may bee farre off doe not much affect and wee while the bloud runs hot in our veines put farre from us that frozen and benumbed age as if eternall Hebe or Youth fild our Cups as Poets say shee does their Joves it will not be out of place or time in the middle of Summer to admonish of Winter 't was the Devills policy in old time to have the dead buried without the Walls out of sight that the living might not lay it to heart he that steeres well must sit at the end of his Boat and 't is the good Politician {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} when danger is farre off then to suppose it neate in this respect it cannot bee out of season this is my second part our returne to the earth The whole man came not from earth and therefore cannot returne to the earth the soule shall goe to places deputed to her the body to the earth one and the same our Mother our Nurse our House our Tombe that these two should part proceeds from causes Morall and Naturall the Morall cause is sinne that made a separation of God from the soule then followed a separation of the soule from the body for God made not Death neither taketh the Potter pleasure in bruising an earthen Pitcher two things I may safely say cannot God make a God and Sin of these take the word properly he has no Idea The Naturall causes of Death are either externall or internall exrernall O that I could number them I should then learne to number my dayes the internall cause is the mutuall conflict of contrarie qualities the brain being cold the Stomack and the Liver hot the Bones drie and the Reines moyst the soule comes from the Father of Spirits it selfe a Spirit into a body whose principles exercise naturall and irreconcileable enmitie me thinks at her first entrance into an house so divided against it selfe she should looke about her like that fellow in Libanius that comming home and finding painted on his Wall two ready and instructed Armies cries out {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} who has made my house a Military Campe The members of every mans body are at continuall Warre wee may bee at peace with forraine enemies our domestick are alway in armes 'T is false that Solinus writes of a people in Iurie that are so equally mixt their temper so arithmeticall without excesse defect or jarre ut aeternagons sit cessantibus puerperiis that there is alway the same number of people and yet no children borne Who shall make me believe that Iurie or any part or Jurie is exempted from death since life it selfe our Lord and Saviour Jesus did dye in Jurie Death erects her Trophies as well in Iuries as Greece and in Greece as Scythia her victories are here above her Captives lie below God made the face of the earth to bee inhabited sin and death the bowells this is the place of them that live that of them that have lived Thus
one body civill so by participation of the same specificall nature were all men as one man and like as the acts of any part of the body as theft or murder done by the hand doe not ascribe it to that part but as it is moved by that first and universall motive principle the will so is not that first sin layd to us as severall persons but as persons and individuals meeting in the same universall nature totally at once by one man depraved It is not I confesse the nature of positive Lawes to bind where they are not known or publisht so that if Cain had eaten of the forbidden fruit Enoch his son had not therefore been borne a sinner but it pleased God by a peculiar will to wrap up all men in one Adam whose will should be reputed as the will of all to come whose innocencie should be our innocencie whose sin our sin though his repentance not our repentance Let not dust and ashes wrangle and dispute how just this is how much safer is it to rest in his decree at whose right hand with the testimony of the Gentiles we proclaime that justice sits enthroned and in the infancie of time did sit when he examined nature in a true balance and weighed out to all things their being their properties their places their figures with most exact conformitie to their exemplarie cause So then you have seene how many came within the precincts of this prohibition Thou shalt not eat so many are guiltie of the breach of it and so many are sufferers Now I proceed to the sufferings Democritus and the Epicure whether flattering corrupt manners with promise of impunitie or trembling to joyne wrath with omnipotencie gave out that God was not angrie at all but that he sate in Heaven a Dispenser of good things only The Poet sang of an age that knew not whether Iove could thunder or no and wee have heard of an age when God as yet had not entered into judgement with the sons of men when death had no more name than it hath reall nature when mans labour was his pleasure his life contemplation and his dwelling Paradise But oh {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The very name of Troy is dolefull how much more of Paradise it adds to our misery since we have lost the thing to keep the name which at this day sounds no better than to the Mariner some unhappy place in the sea famous of old for the notorious wrack of some goodly vessell Well wee are now unparadised turned out of our pleasant walks and must fall to our work we must eat our bread in the sweat of our face this is our sentence wherein consider first the act eating of bread secondly the qualification of this act in sweat of thy face Man in his innocencie had not a body intrinsecally immortall but a naturall and elementary body composed of the same principles with ours and using for the reparation of nature food though not using the very same with us hee was to eat though not to eat in sweat And though he was not as Suarez sayes in a literall sense to eat bread by reason of the toyle in tillage in sowing in reaping in grinding yet was hee as the word is meant in my text to eat bread it being taken here for all manner of sustenance and here I cannot passe by that ridiculous conceit of some Rabbins who from this very word bread doe gather that God condemned all men to jog after the plow a thing which could not stand either with the nature of man or with the wisdome of God I declare it thus The light of nature a beame of that intelligible and eternall Son was not set our by the fall of man this lighted men out of caves and rocks into societies oeconomicall and politicall Politicall have for their end {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} selfe-sufficiencie never to bee found if all men were plow-men the multitude of our defects must be supplyed by the multitude and varietie of Arts and Artificials since then God gave man a naturall appetite of a civill and sociable life which appetite being naturall is not in vaine nor yet was lost by sin for Cain an hainous sinner built the first Citie it had not so well suted either with the nature of man or with the wisdome and goodnesse of God to have adjudged all men to that one condition of life besides what had become of Sciences liberall Arts Had not been mechanicall rude and inchoate manners as courtly as old Evander found them among the wild Aborigines the whole world had been benighted darknesse had beene on the face of the earth Aegyptian darknesse and yet not felt and God himselfe had scarce found an unblemishable Levite to serve at his Altar {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes the 7. of the Politicks The Plow-man is no sit Priest Thus much of the act I now come to the qualification of the act In the sweat of the face To sweat is proper to the body yet may be translated to the soule neither is it a bold metaphore Tully hath it de Oratore Commentatio stylus ille tuus multisudoris est so that Archimedes sitting still in his study did sweat as well as Marcellus his Souldiers then in the middest of Athens neither does the word face restraine the sense to bodily exercise since it is so frequent by metaphore to attribute to things incorporeall things proper to corporeall thus does Aristotle call the understanding {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and David prayes Turne away thy face from my sins O God when as God hath neither figure nor face Thus much de signo the word or the name now de signato or the thing signified Man is a continuall Actour the Sun riseth and sets upon his action waking he moves heares discourses and when his externall senses are lockt up his vegetative facultie is at work and his fansie dreams the whole man here never rests nay let it seeme a paradox I am sure it is true there is no rest in Heaven The grand Stoick denied motion I deny rest But yet take this distinction Rest is either a meere cessation from action a simple not operation or a cessation from some action that wearied the Agent there is a great deale of difference betweene these two In the former sense God rested the seventh day from production of new species In the latter it was not possible for him to rest In the former man in all his faculties all at once is never at rest In the latter hee is in the time of sleep in this sense our God wils neither perpetuall labour nor rest it was his providence that the Heavens should move that divers parts of the earth might be disposed by the influence of divers stars upon this motion followes a necessarie vicissitude of day and night upon that a vicissitude of rest and labour these two God