Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A59890
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A sermon preached at the Temple-Church, December 30. 1694 upon the sad occasion of the death of our gracious Queen, and published at the earnest request of several masters of the bench of both societies / by William Sherlock ...
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Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing S3361; ESTC R9689
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7,956
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16
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nay which he industriously avoided Before this all England knew and owned his Worth and had it been put to the Poll there had been vast Odds on his side that he would have been voted into the See of Canterbury for no man had ever a clearer and brighter Reason a truer Judgment a more easie and happy Expression nor a more inflexible fearless Honesty he was a true and hearty Friend and was a true Friend wherever he professed to be so though he had many Enemies at last he took care to make none He was oblidging to all men and though he could not easily part with a Friend he could easily forgive an Enemy as that Bundel of Libels witnesses which was found among his other Papers with this Inscription These are Libels I pray God forgive them I do But I cannot give you the just Character of this Great Man now but what I have already said I confess is an Excursion which I hope you will pardon to the Passion of an old Friend and learn from two great Examples that neither the greatest Innocence Vertue or Merit can defend either Crowned or Mitred Heads from the lash of spiteful and envenomed Tongues But what a loss has Religion and the Church of England in such a critical Time in the Death of such a Queen and such a Prelate I pray God make up this Loss In a word That great Passion which afflicts and oppresses our good King gives an unexceptionable Testimony to the incomparable Worth of our deceased Queen The too severe and visible Effects of it shew that it is not an ordinary nor a dissembled Passion Nor is it an ordinary thing for a Prince of so great a Mind who can look the most formidable Dangers and Death it self in the face without fear whom all the Powers of France cannot make look pale or tremble to sink and faint and to feel all the Agonies of Death in the dying Looks of a Beloved Consort All Story cannot furnish us with many Examples of such soft and tender Passions in such a warlike and fearless Mind and what but a mighty Vertue could so charm a Prince as to forget his natural Constancy and Resolution I 'm sure though we pay very dear for the Experiment in the loss of an excellent Queen we have so much the more reason to think our selves happy in a King for a due mixture and temperament of such fearless Courage and Bravery and such tender Passions is the most perfect Composition of an excellent Prince And now it may be you will tell me that I have taken great Pains to confute my Text and that I have done it effectually for we ought not to be dumb but may very justly complain of such a loss as this This I readily grant That we may complain of such a loss but this is no confutation of my Text We may complain and give Ease and Vent to our Sorrows by such Complaints while we do not complain against God and accuse him foolishly To submit to the Will of God which is here exprest by being Dumb and not opening our Mouths does not signifie not to feel our Losses and Sufferings or not to complain of them but not to reproach the Divine Providence nor to cast off our Hope and Trust in God Job felt his Sufferings and complained of them in as moving and tragical expressions as any other Man could and yet is proposed to us as an Example of admirable Patience because he did not Charge God foolishly nor cast off his Hope in him This we never can have any reason for for whatever we suffer it is a wise and merciful Providence which inflicts it But yet Mankind are very apt when they suffer hard things either to deny a Providence or which is more absurd and unreasonable to reproach for if there be a God he is Wise and Good and Merciful and Just which is the Notion all Mankind have of God and if this God governs the World all Events are ordered with Wisdom Justice and Goodness and all thinking Men in cool and sober Thoughts will be ashamed to quarrel with such a providence But yet we are very apt to ask Questions which we cannot easily answer and then to make our own Ignorance an Objection against the Divine Providence As in the Case before us of the sudden and untimely Death of an excellent Princess who had Strength and Vigour of Age which promised a much longer Life and who would certainly have done great Good to the World as long as she had lived but is cut off in the Vigour and Strength of Age and all her Thoughts even all her great and excellent Designs of doing Good to the World perish with her while Tyrants and Oppressors live to be the Plagues and Scourges of Mankind Now though we do not know the particular Reasons of such Providences yet it is easie to frame some general Answers which may satisfie all the Friends of Providence If the Objection relates to our selves who suffer by this loss there is a very plain Answer to it but a very terrible one That God is Angry with us and by the untimely Death of an excellent Process who made it her whole Study and Design to do us Good threatens his Judgments against us if we do not take Care to prevent them by a timely Repentance If the Objection relates only to the untimely Death of an excellent Princess that she should so suddenly be snatched away from the Joys and Pleasures of a Throne this is no Objection at all at least not an Objection fit for Christians to make For can we think that the greatest and most happy Monarch loses any thing by the Exchange if he be translated from Earth to Heaven That the Joys of Paradise are not greater than a Crown Our good Queen did not think so who knew what a Earthly Crown meant but was willing to part with it for Heaven who saw Death approaching without fear and prepared to receive its Stroke with such calmness and sedateness of Mind as nothing could give but an innocent Conscience and much greater Hopes And yet as for your selves though we must acknowledge that we have received a very great Loss in the Death of an excellent Queen yet we have no reason to quarrel at Providence while God preserves our King to go in and out before us We had indeed perpetual Day and no sooner was one Sun withdrawen but another ascended our Horizon with equal Lustre and Brightness This was a peculiar Happiness which we never had before and which the Necessity of our Affairs required now but though God has cut us short in this we have a King still the Terror of France and the Protector of Europe a King whom Affection as well as Blood has Naturalized to us who loves our Nation and our Church which he has once delivered and God grant he may live long to settle and protect both We have no reason to fear our Enemies either at home or abroad while a Prince is at the Helm who wants neither Counsel nor Courage especially if we follow that noble Example which the Two Houses of Parliament have set us to give him such fresh Assurances of our Fidelity as may strengthen his Hands against his and our Enemies Abroad and make him easie and safe at Home To conclude this is God's doing and it becomes us to be dumb and not to open our Mouthes because he has done it He is the Soveraign and Unacountable Lord of the World who shal say unto him What dost thou Life and Death are in his Hands the Fates of Princes and Kingdoms That he has done it it should be a sufficient Reason to us to submit because though he does things great and wonderful and beyond our Understanding yet he never does any thing but what is wise and good This I 'm sure is the most effectual Way to turn even the severest Juâ—gements into Blessings to reverence God and to humble our selves under his mighty Hand and to implore his Mercy to repair those Breaches he has made upon us We must not complain of Providence but we may make our Complaints to God and be the more importunat in our Prayers for the Preservation of our King The Death of our Excellent Queen both calls for and will justifie and recommend such humble Importunities and the Preservation of our King will in a great measure make up this Loss to us Which God of his infinite Mercy grant through our Lord Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be Honour Glory and Power now and for ever Amen FINIS
such a universal influence on things below or to Nations and Publick Societies and to the several kinds and species of Beeings not to particular Men or Creatures And so far they were in the right that if the Divine Providence could not equally take care of the whole World and of every particular Creature in it it would certainly in the first place take care of the great Springs of Motion But though this be no reason for God's peculiar care of one thing more than another because his All-seeing Eye and Almighty Arm can equally take care of all yet our Saviour has taught us from the worth and value of things that God will certainly take the more care of them and in case of any Competition give the Preference to things of the greatest moment Behold the fowls of the air for they sow not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly Father feedeth them are ye not much better than they And if God so clothe the grass of the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven shall he not much more clothe you O ye of little faith Matth. 6.26 30. Where from God's care of mean inferior Creatures the Fowls of the Air and the Grass of the Field he more strongly concludes his care of men and by the same reason from his care of particular men we may more strongly conclude his care of Kingdoms and Nations and therefore of the Lives of Princes who are the great Ministers of his Government and Providence and whose Lives or Deaths make such a mighty Change in the Affairs of the World So that when or by what means soever Princes die it is Gods doing and how severe soever we may feel it We must be dumb and not open our mouths because he had done it which is the second thing to be explained 2. What is meant by being dumb and not opening our mouths For this seems a very hard saying in the strict literal sense that we must not complain of our Sufferings when we feel 'em smart Humane Nature can't bear this we must feel our Sufferings and when we feel them we must complain to have no sense of of what we suffer is Stupidity not Submission it is irreverence for the Judgments of God and in some cases the most unpardonable baseness and ingratitude to men to be unconcerned for the Death of our dearest Friends or greatest Patrons and Benefactors not to pay Natures Tribute to their Memories in a Sigh and a Tear not to long after them and send some vain Wishes to call them back not to preserve their Idea fresh in our minds and to think with some uneasiness of those happy hours which their Conversation sweetned to part with our Friends as if we suffered nothing by their loss and were as well without them is so far from being a Vertue that such a man is uncapable of everbeing a Friend never deserves to have any much more then when we loss a publick Friend and Benefactor the greatest of Friends and Benefactors which is a good Princes Let us briefly consider what we have lost in the loss of our Gracious Queen and try if we can bear the thoughts of it without complaining She was the Glory of her Sex and an Ornament to the Crown she wore made truly Great by Nature Birth and Education She had a large and capacious Mind a quick and lively Apprehension and a piercing and solid Judgment She had a strength and firmness of Mind beyond her Sex and such a dexterity in managing the greatest Affairs as would have become the greatest and most experienced Ministers Never was there greater skill in Government with less fondness for it which she could take up and lay down with the same equality and indifferency of Mind though I doubt I must unsay that for she was always grieved at the occasion of taking the Government and as glad to resign it Never was Majesty better tempered with easiness and sweetness She knew how to be familiar without making her self cheap and to condescend without meanness She had all the greatness of Majesty with all the Vertues of Conversation and knew very well what became her Table and what became the Council-Board She understood her Religion and loved it and practised it and was the greatest Example of the Age of a constant regular unaffected Devotion and of all the eminent Vertues of a Christian Life In the midst of all the great Affairs of State she would rather spare time from her sleep than from her Prayers where she always appeared with that great composure and seriousness of Mind as if her Court had been a Nunnery and she had had nothing else to do in the World In all the Ease Prosperity of Fortune she had that tenderness compassion for those who suffered which sufferings themselves cannot teach meaner Persons She was Charitable to the utmost of her Power amidst all the Expenses of War and Government and when a proper Object was presented to her was always pleased when she could grant their Requests and very uneasie to deny In short her greatest and most implacable enemies for Vertue it salf will meet with Enemies in this World had no other Fault to charge her with but her Throne which is the only thing for which most other Princes are valuable She ascended the Throne indeed before she desired it but was thrust into it not by an hasty Ambition but to save a sinking Church and Kingdom And I hope England will always have reason to say that an empty Throne could never have been filled with a nobler Pair But though the necessary absence of the King to give check to the Progress of a powerful and insulting Monarch engaged her more than she desired in State Affairs yet the promoting of True Religion and the service of the Church of England the greatest and best Nursery of it since the Apostolick Age was her constant and natural Care This her Thoughts were full of and she had formed great and noble Designs had she out-lived the Difficulties and Expenses of War and been at leasure to attend the peaceful Arts of Government I have reason to say this from those frequent Intimations I have had from our late admirable Primate who had great Designs himself to serve the Christian Religion and the Church of England in its truest Interests and had inspired their Majesties and particularly the Queen who had more leisure for such Thoughts with the same great and pious Designs it may be no Church-man ever had I am sure not more deservedly a greater Interest in his Prince's Favour and the great use he made of it was to do publick Service to Religion and whatever some men might suspect to the Church of England though it may be not perfectly in their way and the greatest Fault I know he had was that some envious and ambitious men could not bear his Greatness which he himself never courted