of which I have seen some and must say this of them that they express a most genuine and lively sense of Religion without any laboured Periods or Affectations of Words or Phrases but with a Simplicity which shews he writ as his Heart dictated of which I will give you an Essay taken out of the Letter he writ for them all in general The Lord bless you all and give you his Grace that you may love and fear him all your days O! labour with all your Might to be holy in all manner of Conversation eschewing all Evil and the Appearance thereof Be charitable to the Poor live in Unity and Love among your selves which if you do in Sincerity you may expect God's Blessings upon your Endeavours so far as they be lawful Forget not daily Prayers in your Families and walk humbly before him all your days if you do that which you ought as Christians you will find Mercy with the Lord and Respect with good Men. The Lord in Mercy bless you all my sweet Ones principally in Spiritual Blessings Amen It is I assure you my daily Prayer that you may so do Amen All my drift in all my Papers has been that you may live holily and righteously before the Lord in this your Pilgrimage that so you may be happy to Eternity when time shall be no more and that through his free Grace and Mercy in our Blessed Saviour and Precious Redeemer for without Holiness and Sanctification none shall see him with Comfort O love the Lord and all Men and live in Love one with another if you expect God's Blessing And in relation to the Government he left this Charge on them Fear the Lord and honour the King praying daily for all whom God hath set over you in Church and State that so you may under them live a godly and peaceable Life You see how fervently and seriously he recommends the Fear of God and mutual Love to his Children As he saw them to his great Joy live in this blessed Harmony during his own Life so he took all possible care to have it kept up after his Death for he charged them to enter into solemn Promises upon his removal to continue still to love one another which they are resolved religiously to perform and of which no doubt very happy Effects will appear As he was very sensible of the Blessing of Brethren dwelling together in Unity so his Love and Charity were more diffused than to be restrained only to his own Family He had an univesal Charity for all good and worthy Men against which let hot and angry Men say what they will it is and still wil be the Badg of a true Disciple of Christ. He never engaged in our unhappy Differences but without meddling in matters that did not belong to him he loved all that was good in all Men and extended his Charity to the Relief of proper Objects of all Perswasions both in City and Country Of which I need say the less because it was so eminent and so many did partake of it And he took particular care to manage this so secretly that often the Persons themselves knew not from whence their Relief came He did also industriously seek out such proper Objects for it without putting modest but necessitous Persons to the uneasines of asking it He himself while in the City did always joyn with the French Congregation but when he was in the Country he joyned in the Worship of the Church of England He looked on the Reformed Churches by reason of the unreformed Lives of the Members of them with great regret and did apprehend there was a severe Cup to go round them and was afraid England might drink the Dregs of it and might be again brought under the Tyranny of the Church of Rome and the inundation of a Forreign Power in which we have all reason to pray God that his Fears prove not too prophetical of this I have seen a full account in one of his Letters to one of his Children which was sealed up with his Will I need not enlarge upon other Particulars of his Justice and fairness in his Dealings of his gentle and affable Deportment to all Persons and of his readiness to do all the Good that was in his Power you all know so much of those things that I may well say the less for I find his Memory lives and is like to maintain it self long in this place the Witnesses of his Vertues being so many and the Instances of them having been so frequent and so signal Thus we see what a perfect and upright Man he was now let us a little consider what his latter end hath been This good Man had a great deal of that hundred-fold which our Saviour promised even in this Life to those who forsook their Houses Mat. 19. 29. Lands and Families for his sake This entail descended on him from his Father and he having taken care to secure and maintain his Title to so great a Blessing has had as visible and long a share of the good things of this Life as all things being put together any Man in this Age has had He lived 90 Years all to a few days and the last 35 years of his Life till a little before his Death he enjoyed a vigorous and perfect Health together with the greatest of all earthly Blessings the perfect use of his Senses his Memory and Judgment so that he continued to write many Letters weekly till his last Disease fell upon him About 47 years ago an unhappy Accident had almost cut him off when he was yet in the Strength of his Age he being at a Training near Morefields some Powder took fire by which he with several others were blown up but tho' some of the rest were struck dead outright yet God had a great deal of more Service for him in the World and so after an Illness of six or seven Weeks continuance of which it was long doubted whether he could ever recover he was again restored to his Family and lived to see his Childrens Children and some of their Children to so great an Increase that in his time a full hundred came into the World descended from him all born in full time and all baptized save one of these 67 are yet alive to which if eleven that are come into his Family by Marriages be joyned there wanted but two of fourscore that had right to his daily Blessing And so entirely did the first Blessing of Encrease and Multiply rest on him and his Children that there was never an Abortive nor a Child dead-born in all his numerous Family A rare and singular Happiness to which very few have ever been known to have attained I shall not add any thing of the Comfort he had in them tho' that is a necessary Ingredient to make such things Blessings indeed but that belongs too much to the Living to be insisted on by me Having thus lengthened out his Days
the lengthning out of our Tranquillity their very being in the World may be a mean to suspend such Judgments in which they might be involved and their Prayers and Intercessions have certainly great Efficacy so that every time we see such a Person it should rejoyce our Heart and we should conclude there goes one of the Preservers and Supporters of the Nation if not of the World for when the number of the Elect is accomplished then the rest are not to expect those common Favours of Day and Night of Times and Seasons of Sun-shine and Rain in which the wicked share more for their Neighbour-hood to good Men than upon their own account We are to do nothing to grieve them nor to make those Lives that are so usefull to us uncomfortable to themselves Every Man is to consider a truly Good Man as his Benefactor and as a sort of a Father to him but those who receive a more immediate Blessing from them owe greater returns of tender Affection and reverent Duty When they die we are not to afflict our selves with an unmanly Sorrow especially if they have lived out their course and die in a good old Age full of Dayes and full of Children but the true Decencies and Solemnities of a Religious Mourning require better and more useful Exercises Those more immediately concerned in them ought to reflect on their Lives and gather as the remains of a Shipwrack all that was memorable in them that so that which Humility and Modesty required should be kept secret while they lived may be then published to the honour of Religion and for the instruction of others and in particular to be a Remembrance to those relating to them or descended from them And above all things when such are withdrawn who as may be reasonably supposed were a publick Blessing to the Nation those who survive especially such as do more immediately fill up their room in other respects ought to set themselves with all possible care to make up that Loss to the Publick and so endeavour to imitate and as much as they can to out do them for in such a Case Emulation even with ones Father is a Vertue in all those excellent things in which they were a Pattern to them and a Blessing to the Nation or place where they lived Thus if we so mark Perfect and Upright Men as to keep the like temper in our selves then we fully comply with the Duty in my Text. The third Particular is the happy End and Conclusion of those Vertues and of them that possess them What ever the exact rendring of these Words may be of which I made mention in the beginning of this Discourse it comes all to one purpose that either those Men of Peace shall have a good End or that their End shall be Peace By this Peace in their End we are not to understand an easie or peaceable Death tho' perhaps in the old Dispensation that consisted much in Temporal Promises this might have been a part of their Reward But under the Religion of a Crucified Saviour and the Dispensation of the Crofs we are not to promise our selves an Exemption from uneasy and painful things neither in our lives nor at our death The greatest Glory of the Christian Church hath been in their Deaths literally burning and shining Lights and in those fiery Chariots have triumphed over the World and what the Psalmist observed under the Old Testament is much oftner verified under the New that the wicked have no Bands in their Death 73 B. 4. and both living and dying seem to have great Advantages over good and vertuous Men of whom as the World is not worthy so it does not know the Value it ought to set on them nor the Use it ought to make of them But verily there is a Reward for the Righteous Ps. 58. 2. because there is a God that judgeth in the Earth and since he doth not always give them their Reward in this Life it is certain he has provided one for them after it and in order to their having a full Reward and an higher degree of Happiness in the next State he does exercise them often very feverely as to all outward Appearance in this Life But if they have not a great measure of Peace neither living nor dying yet upon the Separation of their Souls and Bodies they do then enter into Peace and into the Ioy of their Lord into those blessed and peaceful Habitations where none of those Jars and Contentions with which this World is exercised disturb their Rest. No Disputes about Religion no Factions of State mar that everlasting Quiet Ps. 55. v. 6 7 8 9. which they always enjoy when they adore the God of Peace and follow the Lamb the Prince of Peace The Contests and Heats now among us must needs make all the Sons of Peace grow weary and wish with the Psalmist that they had Wings like a Dove so that they might fly away and be at rest and hasten their escape from the windy Storm and Tempest for certainly we are fallen heavily under the Curse in the following Words Destroy O Lord and divide their Tongues for I have seen Violence and Strife in the City and when it is come to that that to be a Man of Peace is look'd on as an ill Character of one that is either luke-warm and indifferent or is a false and temporizing Man who would not long for those cool and silent Shades of the Grave and for that Peace that is in the Regions beyond it And since this is not in a Man's Power to bring it sooner on him than as it is ordered by Divine Appointment it would at least make a Man seek a retreat in some solitary Place where he might neither hear nor see any more of the disorders and madness of a wicked World than were necessary to direct him in his Prayers and Intercessions or if this is likewise denied one and that his Station and Circumstances oblige him still to live in the World it will at least have this effect on him to make him have as little meddling and to live as much within himself as he can and to maintain within himself that Peace which he has ineffectually endeavoured to advance in the World and certainly when ever Death comes on a good Man it will be so much the more welcome to him because he can find very little Pleasure in living among People that seem to have lost both their Temper and their Wits Let us raise our Thoughts and Hopes above this present World and encourage our selves that tho' we live uneasy here and tho' we may be perhaps called to end our Days in a most terrible manner which may prove our Punishment for those many Sins for which tho' God will be merciful to us with relation to another State yet he may think fit to correct us severely for them in this Life yet if we continue so to mark the
perfect Man and so behold the Upright as to follow their Steps then as their End is Peace so shall ours likewise be I have now gone through those Particulars which I proposed the Application is still behind and this relates to this sad Occasion that now calls us together I am next to tell you what you are to mark in this perfect and upright Man who has now entered into Peace But how should I adventure to speak of one that lived so long and in so eminent a Condition amongst you of whose Praises you who knew him are now so full He that had not that Happiness must be forgiven if he doth not describe him with those Advantages that another might have who had observed him long and had known him intimately I will be strictly cautious in what I shall say because I know that excessive Commendations which are too ordinary on these Occasions have this ill Effect among many others that because perhaps there is a little too much said the whole is disbelieved and generally those Discourses are considered rather as a flattery of the Living than a peice of Justice to the Dead I shall therefore rather lessen things than enlarge them and shall tell you nothing but that of which I have good Assurance and that upon such Information that I have no reason to doubt of it It is I confess some comfort that I am to speak of a Man that was well known in this very place so that I am perswaded many that hear me shall say I have rather said too little than too much Mr. Iames Houblon was descended from that worthy Confessor Mr. Houblon a Gentleman of Flanders who above an hundred Years ago fled over to England from the Persecution that was raised there against all that embraced the Purity of the Christian Religion and rejected the Idolatry and Superstition of the Church of Rome by the Duke of Alva who proceeded in it with all the Rigor and Cruelty with which that bloody Religion could inspire a Man of so fierce a Temper acting under a King no less bloody than his Religion that as a second Herod defiled his own House with the Blood both of a Son and a Wife and having resolved to root out of the World the Purity of the Christian Religion and to that end having set up the bloody Tribunals of the Inquisition he put those Provinces under that implacable Governour Then all that received the Reformation were reduced to those hard Straits which how far they are from us the only wise God only knows either to act against their Consciences and worship as a God that which they believed was but a piece of Bread the most brutal and unaccountable of all the sorts of Idolatry or to seal their Faith with their Blood and that with all the Preparatives of Torments before it that merciless Inquisitors could invent and in Conclusion to be burnt at a Stake and destroyed in such numbers that no fewer than 18000 were reckoned to have suffered by the hand of the Executioner in seven Years time or as the least dreadful to sit down with the loss of all they had and fly for their Lives to other Countries This last being the most eligible where it can be done our Saviour having allowed us when we are persecuted in one City Mat. 10. 23. to flee to another was the choice of that noble Person who did by this Action both ennoble himself and all that descended from him It is true in such Persecutions every one cannot possibly fly tho' this is but a melancholy Comfort that one by leaving their Country and Friends and all they have may hope to get safe tho' almost naked to another Kingdom yet even this small Mercy is denied under the Influences of that cruel Religion Here in England in Q. Mary's Time the Strangers were suffered to go away yet care was taken no secure the Ports and not to suffer Natives to fly beyond Sea when they were resolved to burn them at home and now in France when Methods are taken to make those of the Reformed Religion either die of Famine and in Misery or to force them to commit Idolatry it is made capital to fly and those that endeavour it are to be condemned to the Gallies But I cannot leave this matter without encouraging you to go on in your Charities and Readiness to releive those that are forced to come and take Sanctuary among you You see what the Nation and this City has gained by the Reception of the Strangers that fled hither for refuge in the last Age You see how great a Citizen you had in him that is now dead and into how many he is now divided who by their Interest could almost make a City alone and you do not know how many such may be in the Loins of those that now come among you who may produce many to be as great Blessings to the next Age as this Family is to the present But to return to this Upright Man He was born in this City the 2d of Iuly 1592 so that he wanted but a few days of being 90 Years of Age when he died He was baptized in the French Congregation and continued a Member of it his whole Life he married one of his own Country-Women the Daughter of Mr. Ducane who fled over hither upon the same account so that this Family is descended from Confessors on both sides He was one of the chief Pillars of that Congregation in which he often served as Antient and to the support of which and of all the poor Exiles that came over he contributed always so liberally that if he did not still live in so many Children to whom God has given Hearts as well as Fortunes like his this loss would be very sensibly felt He did communicate once a month constantly and was never absent from their Assemblies either on the Lord's-day or on the Week-day and this was become so customary to him that it was not without difficulty that he was kept from going thither even during his Sickness He was known to be a very devout Man and frequent in Prayers both in publick and private he was always breathing out that deep Sense he had of Religon to those about him more particularly to his Children on whom as he took care to have them all religiously educated so as they grew up he continued still to exhort them to go on in that good way in which he had early initiated them and he often recommended to them secret Prayer as the great means of keeping up the Life of Religion which he thought could not be kept up without it and not being satisfied with what he said to them by word of Mouth while he lived he took care that after his Death he should still speak to them in a great many excellent Letters and Papers which he left behind him both for all his Children in general and for every one of them in particular