Vpon which place Bullinger giueth this comfortable Comment If the beginnings and progresse be good happy and blessed we may without wauering in absolute perseuerance build at last vpon a blessed end as namely that at the Day of Christ by which the Apostle meaneth the houre of death Christus fidelibus dexter propitius apparet saith learned Sarcerius in his Comment vpon the place that is Christ will then shew himselfe both mercifull and fauourable vnto his faithfull Ones and not onely so but by the Day of Christ is likewise vnderstood the generall Day of Iudgement vnto which Day also euen from the day of death the faithfull are in the power and gouernment of God Marl. in Phil. to whom hee vouchsafeth then also a progresse and increase vnto the Day of the resurrection of the flesh for though the faithfull Ones be by death deliuered from their bodies and warre not any more with the concupiscence of the flesh yet I hold it no absurdity to affirme that they yet increase and goe forward because they haue not yet attained to that height of felicity and excellency of glory to which they still hope to bee aduanced and therefore through hope doe stedfastly set their eyes toward the Day of the last Resurrection as to their onely marke wherein they shall receiue of God the fulnesse of their hoped glory and so raigne with him in blisse for euer And thus I say both in life and death the faithfull are alwayes in the power of God And what should the meditation and consideration of this great benefit and grace but moue vs all with one accord to cry with the Apostle Rom. 8. Who shall separate vs from the loue of Christ Shall tribulation distresse persecution and such like No but be perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come shall be able to separate vs from the loue of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. And thus be it spoken of the two generall poynts obserued in the Text first that none of the faithfull doth liue or dye vnto themselues but vnto God Secondly that all and euery one of them both in life and death are in the power of God Now let me passe to my application to shew according as I know it is expected at my hands of all you that are present how both the life and death of this my honored friend concerning whom I cannot but with griefe of heart confesse that I count it one of the greatest parts of my vnhappinesse to see the period and complement of his dayes expired to shew I say againe how both the life and death of this worshipfull worshipfully descended and religious Gentleman was still and alwayes not vnto himselfe but vnto God and how both in life and death he submitted himselfe vnto the power of God which may best be done by speaking somewhat vnto you concerning the sanctifyed life and blessed death of this worthy Saint whom because the world was vnworthy of God hath taken to his mercy and translated by death from a life of misery vnto a Kingdome as full of happinesse and glory as the Sunne is full of light and the Sea of waters where he is now sanctified in the presence of his God with the fulnesse of ioy and pleasures at his right hand for euermore O te felicem si tibi mortuo talis esset Praeco qualis Homerus Achilli O noble Wight happy should I deeme thee now to be if as Achilles had thou hast such a Trumpeter of thy praise as Homer was As for my selfe the meanest of ten thousand vpon whom this taske is layd at this time by thine owne command O how doe I desire that my sufficiency were answerable to my willingnes O how do I wish with the Prophet Dauid Psal 45 1. Psal 45.1 that I had a tongue as the penne of a ready writer that I might set out the prayses of thy vertues thy holy and thy honorable life that thy righteousnesse might be had in an euerlasting remembrance and so shine in the Church of God as a patterne to them that liue and an example for them to imitate But how insufficient doe I feele my selfe for this great businesse Vouchsafe therefore I beseech you all to accept and giue attention to this small ensuing testimony of my great desire And by Gods assistance I will proceed Happy life blessed death beginning with his happy birth and ending with his blessed death First concerning his Birth as I haue once already testified he was worshipfully borne the Son and heire of a right worthy and iudicious Counseller and the fruite of a vertuous Gentlewomans wombe who was as a fruitfull Vine vpon the walls of her husbands house by whom as blessings from God in token of his loue he hath had an houshold of many sweet and beautifull sons and daughters to fit round about his table amongst whom this right worthy Wight that now heere lyeth before our eyes ready to be interred was the first that God did send her as blessings of her wombe of full nineteene that were borne vnto her From his birth I will descend vnto his education he being a child indued by God with the best of natures gifts which are necessary to a progresse and proceeding on in vertue by instruction for as Plutarch testifieth without natures gifts vertue cannot but haue her manifold defects for doctrine and teaching without the gifts of nature is defectuous and nature without doctrine is altogether blind but this man indued as I sayd with the best of natures gifts as reason vnderstanding and such like being by the carefull industry and painfull diligence of his learned Master yet liuing taught and instructed in the rules and rudiments of the Latine and Greeke tongues by his owne diligent exercise and practice a vertue worthy of high commendation especially in yong Gentlemen to the comfort of his parents to the good of himselfe and the admiration of others hee soone attained vnto a large measure of vnderstanding in those beginnings of Arts and learning And being by the care of his tender and louing parents translated at length from the Country vnto the most famous of Englands Vniuersities Broad-gates Hall in Oxford placed in that ancient of houses from which haue sprung most famous members both of the Church and Commonwealth in many places now liuing in our Kingdome being entered there by the carefull diligence of his parents in whom there was as there ought to be in all an especiall care vnder whom they set their children to be trayned vp he was committed vnto the charge and gouernment of a learned a discreet and religious Tutor a man wel giuen and of right good nature who was held amongst them of that society to be as a second Phoenix that had the breeding and education of Achilles vnder whose gouernment and by whose instruction in the space of little more
need not to report seeing all the Countrey round cannot but with one consent confesse and acknowledge that he was a man worthy of great commendations and a rare patterne for men of his ranke and fashion to looke vpon Thirdly for his charity and loue toward the poore many of them being here present can testifie that in their necessities he was to them more like a father than a friend a man that was euer open-handed in any good cause especially to the reliefe of such whom he knew to be in necessity and want I speake but what I know hauing a long time had my being here where his Worship had his dwelling and besides my priuate testimony his Liberality at the last Feast of Christs Natiuity and his Legacy now at his death of twenty pound to the vse and benefit of the poore and this Parish are sufficient testimonies of the same Last of all as concerning his loue to those that were his as is said enemies and aduersaries of his state and fortunes hauing receiued especiall commandement from his owne mouth I cannot but say something Confesse I must that loth I am to speake too much and yet his owne request no lesse to me than a command compelleth me to speake a little because I heard him say so much There are saith hee that to my thinking by sinister courses vpon supposed grounds endeuour to arme themselues against me and my state but in the meane while God knowes my heart how willing I haue still been to liue with them in peace without reuenge and hereupon hee made this comparison in my vnderstanding most fitting to his former words My hart saith he resembleth the vpper part of the world which you know saith hee is alwayes cleere and bright of it selfe though the ayre below bee neuer so much distempered with stormes and thunders So I quoth he I thanke my God notwithstanding these things haue still a patient mind I am still contented and my heart remaining still ioyfull in the Lord I stand resolued in all things to yeeld vp my selfe in holy obedience to the will of God And thus sitting then with my selfe alone in the Porch of this Temple wherin we are I shall intreat you when you shall stand to preach my Funeral Sermō in this Church where I intend to lye when God shall call me saith he to deliuer and testifie these things vnto the world both of me and from mee By this that hath been said you may then plainly see that the life of this good man was not vnto himselfe but vnto to God If we liue wee liue vnto the Lord. Lastly to speake of his death I must begin with sicknesse which was to him is to al the messenger of death I must confesse that hee was but a young man for yeeres yet hauing been long visited with exceeding sicknesse he hath long waited as it were for his exchanging time and for that cause as I know and as others whom he loued can testifie hee did daily exercise himselfe in the meditation of mortality and in time of ease cared to set his house in order to the intent that if sicknesse should come suddenly he might bee free from worldly cares and so more cheerfully prepare himselfe to God for this cause for the space well-nye of two yeers past as I can remember he hath had his Testament alwayes ready So that being now at last suddenly arrested with the messenger of death all the whiles hee lay in the mercyes of God vpon his death-bed to the comfort of all those that saw and heard him hee alwayes called vpon the Name of Christ yea as often as hee receiued any Phisicall help for no meanes was neglected for his preseruation and life if God would he neuer receiued any ayde but he prayed vnto God to giue it a blessing and when he spake to none hee would yet lift vp his eyes in token of lifting his heart to God and the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ he receiued in his extremities most cheerfully most thankfully And at last in a great conflict he got a glorious victory and shortly after in peace and meeknesse resigned his spirit into the hands of God Thus he that was in his life religious in his sicknesse comfortable and in his death most blessed by dying to the Lord is gone to God and now enioyes the blessednesse of heauen in the fruition whereof let vs leaue him now to dwell for euer and striue and endeuour in our liues to imitate his vertues that we as he hath done may dye at last the death of the righteous and that our last ends may be like his and that we may be fellow-heires as hee was of the same inheritance with Iesus Christ To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost bee all honour and glory now and foreuer Amen FINIS
of the difference of dayes and meates or if at any time they neglected or omitted them they did it with a weake consent and a doubting conscience Hereupon those that well vnderstood the Christian liberty despised those others and vsed the liberty of certaine meates whereby they were an offence vnto those weaker ones And of the other side the weaker sort condemned the rest as profane men and contemners of the Law of God S. Paul therefore a seruant of Christ by his condition and an Apostle called of God by dignity as hee witnesseth of him Rom. 1.1 Rom. 1.1 se commendando saith one non ad ostensionem sed ad reprimendam Romanorum superbiam arrogantiam Commending himselfe thus not in vaunting or vaine bragging sort to shew thereby vaine glory but to represse the arrogancie and pride of the Romanes to whom he then wrote as contemning his office and Apostleship This Apostle I say to both these fore-named euils addeth wisely a sufficient remedy first by exhorting those that were stronger to intreat those with brotherly loue that were more weake lest they should by contemning them discomfort and discourage them in or withdraw and turne them from the profession of the Gospell Secondly he giueth commaundement vnto both how they should behaue themselues one towards another neither of them contemning or condemning the other but to vse a good conscience one towards another concerning the vse of those indifferent things as the difference of meates and obseruing of dayes In the next place he addeth a new reason drawne from the end which both of them proposed vnto themselues which was to the honour of Christ which appeareth as hee proueth by this that both of them the one in regarding the other in not regarding a day did it vnto the Lord and the one in eating the other in not eating did it likewise vnto the Lord that is as if it had beene said Vtrique Christo gratias agunt both of them giue thankes to God and therefore he concludeth that argument seeing the end of both is one therefore for these indifferent things neither of them should contemne or condemne the other Lastly to come home to our Text hee confirmeth that his reason thus drawne from the end of both their actions by another argument drawne from the common and generall end of the life of Christians which is wholly appointed and consecrated for the manifestation of Gods glory and this hee amplifies againe by an euen conferring or comparing of two contraries as when he saith None of vs liueth nor dieth to himselfe but liuing we liue and dying wee dye vnto the Lord. Last of all he amplifies againe that comparison of those contraries by an addition wherein hee concludeth that all both great and small both high and low both rich and poore both weake and strong both in our life and in our death are in the power of God and therefore saith Whether we liue or die we are the Lords And thus of the Analysis Now before I proceed to the deduction of Doctrines from these particulars giue me leaue I beseech you to stay a little in the explication of two things in this my Text most necessary to be known the one what it is to liue vnto the Lord the other what it is to die vnto the Lord and wherein both of these consist To liue vnto the Lord saith learned Aurelius is Non propter nosmetipsos nostráque commoda sed Christo viuere that is Not for our selues nor for our aduantage but to Christ and to liue thus vnto the Lord consisteth in foure things the first is to recognize and acknowledge this our Lord Christ in our life namely that wee are not at our owne liberty and freedome but seruants vnto Christ and in subiection vnto the Lord in so much that the end of our vocation and Redemption is to serue the liuing God as the Apostle witnesseth 1. Thes 1.9 1. Thes 1.9 where he saith vnto them Ye haue turned to God from Idols to serue the liuing and true God and in 1. Cor. 6.19 20. 1. Cor. 6.19 20. the same Apostle saith Yee are not your owne for yee are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are Gods Secondly to liue vnto the Lord is to order and submit all our life and actions vnto his onely becke For because hee onely out of the bottomlesse depth of his owne bounty reacheth vnto vs whatsoeuer gifts wee haue whether of the body or the mind whether of nature or of grace for all things as the Apostle witnesseth Rom. 11.36 are of God through God Rom. 11.36 and for God which place of the Apostle is worthy a little to be stood vpon because in these words is noted vnto vs the Trinity of persons and their distinctiue property of causing First he sheweth here that God is the cause of all things in a three-fold kind of causing Secondly hee sheweth how First that God is the efficient cause in respect of his power by which he created all things secondly that hee is the forming cause of all things in respect of his wisdome whereby he disposed and distinguished all things thirdly he is the finall cause of all things in respect of his goodnesse whereby hee reconciled all things vnto himselfe and doth still preserue and conserue them directing them vnto their proper ends therefore when hee saith All things are of God hee vnderstandeth the Father to whom power belongeth when he saith All things are through God he vnderstandeth the Sonne that is the wisedome of the Father when he saith All things are for God hee vnderstandeth the holy Ghost who in respect of clemency is said to be the conseruer preseruer and directer of all things to the best Thirdly to liue vnto the Lord is to referre the whole course of our life to the extolling of Gods glory as to the chiefest marke whereunto we aime hee therefore that is of God ought to walke as Christ walked 1. Ioh. 2.6 1. Ioh. 2.6 that is he must walke in the steps of Christ follow his vertues and obserue his Lawes for he that doth otherwise doth vainly take his name of Christ and is called a Christian to his greater condemnation Hence is that of Christ in the Gospell saying Why call ye me Master Master and doe not the things that I speake and in another place If I be a Father where is my honour if I be a Master where is my feare Fourthly and lastly to liue vnto the Lord is in all painfull labours and heauinesse of minde in our miseries and carefull infelicities to trust in the Lord as one that careth sufficiently for them that are his people as you may plainly see in Leuit. 26. from vers 3. to vers 13. Leu. 26.3 to 13. saying If ye trust in me and keepe my Commandements I will giue you raine in due season I will giue you peace I will chase your enemies
kinde of life I call a death because it were better many thousand times not to liue at all in respect of themselues then to bee cast headlong into such endlesse and remedilesse miseries vnto which all the miseries and torments which we can any wayes deuise to be inflicted vpon man in this world being compared are nothing to those flames and torments which the damned dying this eternall death shall endure in hell world without end Now as of the three sorts of life the naturall is common vnto the godly and the reprobate but the spirituall and eternall life are onely proper and peculiar to the Elect of God So of the other side among those three sorts of death the two last come not to the faithfull ones but the first onely which is the naturall death is common to all both good and bad in so much that it is a true and noted lesson long since learned of euery man that It is appointed vnto all men that they shall once dye as well the iust as the vniust as well the beleeuer as the Infidell This the Apostle Paul doth plainly proue in Rom. 5.14 Rom. 5.14 Death raigned from Adam to Moses euen ouer them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression In which place the Apostle diuideth mankinde into two sorts that is into those that sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression and those that sinned not after his similitude affirming that death raigned not onely ouer those but also ouer them Heere let me stand and shew you this difference which will make the poynt most cleere Some there are that hold Adams transgression to be the violating of that expresse Commandement Thou shalt not eate of it and so affirme that they doe sinne after the similitude of Adams transgression that doe transgresse onely against the expresse Law of God and not those that sinne without the written Law which opinion answereth not to the meaning of the Apostle whose purpose in these words is to teach that euen before the Law death raigned not onely ouer those which by their proper actuall sinnes did voluntarily stirre vp against themselues the wrath of God as Adam did when he transgressed the Law of God by his actuall disobedience but that it raigned also ouer those which actually could commit no sinne which as the best expositors expound is to be vnderstood of Infants that haue no actuall sinnes in them Hence is that saying Ab Adamo mors est tyrannus omnibus ex aequo imperans Euen from the time of Adam which must not be vnderstood of Adam in his integrity but in the state of corruption for Ante peccatum solus regnabat Deus Before sinne was God did only raigne death is a tyrant that raigneth ouer all but now there are two principall raignes the one of life the other of death and yet in both these both in life and death we liue and dye not to our selues but vnto God who both can and will preserue them that liue and restore to life them that are dead he can I say because hee is God omnipotent the supremest Lord and generall Iudge to whom euery knee doth bow of things in heauen and things in earth he will also because he hath chosen vs and purchased vs with a price not of pure gold but of precious blood to be his owne Inheritance Hence is that of the holy Ghost Ioh. 1. He that beleeueth in me though he dye yet shall he liue and whosoeuer liueth and beleeueth in me shall neuer dye And thus much bee spoken of the first generall poynt of doctrine expressed in the first part of my Text where the Apostle saith Whether wee liue wee liue vnto the Lord and whether we die we die vnto the Lord. Now the second The second followeth which is this that all and euery one of vs both in our liues and in our deaths are euer and alwayes in the power of God 1. Sam. 2.9 It is the Lord saith the holy Ghost 1. Sam. 2.9 that keepeth the feet of his Saints the feet that is all their actions all their counsels all their studies and indeuours all which if God doe but once withdraw his fauour and his goodnesse from them they by and by faile and perish as we see it often commeth to passe by daily practice in naturall things for as long as God doth vouchsafe to communicate of his power vnto them so long they doe continue and liue but that being taken away they forthwith dye and perish True it is I must notwithstanding confesse that God sometimes suffereth euen those that are his Saints on earth to fall and slip into many sinnes teaching them thereby truly to vnderstand what their owne power is and what and how great is the corruption and deprauation of the humane nature to the intent that they should not attribute any thing vnto their owne power and strength Neither doth God alwayes preserue and defend euen those that are his from euery outward trouble and danger whereunto man is subiect but often hee is pleased to try them with many and sundry crosses and afflictions howbeit yet so that he still auerteth and turneth from those that are his all such noxious and hurtfull crosses as might abolish or destroy in them the hope of saluation and life euerlasting therefore is it that the Prophet Dauid cryeth saying Psal 66.8 9. Blessed be the Lord Psal 66.8 9. that holdeth our soules in life and suffereth not our feet to be moued Where the Prophet saith that God holdeth our soules in life the meaning is as if he had said It is God alone who by his power in all our life time keepeth vs safe as vnder the shadow of his wings that we might not faint and perish vnder the great burthen of affliction For many and great are the dangerous euils that hang ouer our heads continually whereby we may soone be brought to death and perish except the Lord defend vs from them Againe where he saith It is the Lord that suffereth not our feet to be moued it is as much as if he had said God so comforteth and confirmeth those that are his with his holy Spirit that while they liue they can with patience endure aduersities and are not so ouercome with sorrowes and impatience as once so much to murmurer against God or to forsake God and seeke for remedy in distresse by any other power or meanes than by the grace and power of God Thus I say the life of Gods Saints on earth is euer and alwayes in the power of God and not their liues onely but their deaths also for as my Text saith Whether we liue therefore or dye we are the Lords for God is and still will be Omega as well as Alpha Reuel 1.8 Reuel 1.8 And hauing once begun his good worke in those that are his Saints he will performe it saith the Apostle Philip. 1.6 Phil. 1.6 euen till the Day of Iesus Christ