Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A29270
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A sermon preacht in Madrid, July 4, 1666. s.n. occasioned by the sad and much lamented death of his late Excellency Sir Richard Fanshaw Knight and Baronet ... / by Henry Bagshaw.
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Bagshaw, Henry, 1632-1709.
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1667
(1667)
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Wing B431; ESTC R9009
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17,214
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42
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how to act that are unable to prescribe our own remedy But a sober considerer will be far from taxing the Orders of Divine Providence which he knows should he oppose it is a fruitlesse work because they are unconquerable should he judge it is an absurd action because their end is not known Let us first understand our own disease before we scruple at the Physick given us let us first find out the evil of Death before we quarrel at the Dispensation Otherwise we do but bruitishly repine and besides affront God at our own peril like a foolish people I have read of Saavedra Hisp De Gothis that shot their Arrows at Heaven when it Thundred but those Arrows instead of appeasing the noyse turned Instruments of Heavens Justice by coming down upon their heads to punish their presumption Whoever he be that complaineth let me ask him if Grief can allow Reason a hearing what evil is there in this accident that should breed any murmuring in his soul Can the chastening be thought grievous to the person departed or to us left behind To him Then Rest must be Torment and Immortality a Penance But alas we consider not how a good mans sighs go away with his breath and his tears are sealed up with his eyes whose soul now freed from the dregs and contagion of body can have no trouble without you 'l call pity one which may be raised in Saints above should they behold the mistakes of us Mortals below Lies then the burden of this affliction upon us So Interest pleads in our Grief and not Love But wherein are we properly losers when God sends this and the like Tryals meerly to exercise us for Glory The Storm that frighted S. Peter in the Ship had not its blacknesse from the grossnesse of Air without but from a dark Cloud within because his Master was asleep there Now his and our Master is uncapable of sleep for when he arose he threw off all the weaknesse of Humanity He is now watchful and vigilant over every accident that befalls us whence we may look upon the bitterest storm of an affliction since Mercy governs it with as pleasant a regard as we look upon Dew or seasonable showres that refresh the Earth with their fall I need not I hope fetch Reasons from Phylosophy to cure the distemper of our passions which Scripture can with more truth and fulnesse supply us with out of the abundance of its store The old Heathens derived their cure of Death both from the necessity of that blow as likewise from the period it put to Sense and lastly from a wandring Immortality the Soul by it enjoyed Necessity they thought would give Reason such a Law so as to cause its submission A destroying of Sense would remove their fears and a wandring Immortality be a sufficient object of desire The first of these is indeed so convincing as may silence our complaints but the two last that annihilate one part of our being and leave the other imperfect are but poor reliefs to support us either at our own or our friends departure Christianity affords us better Medicines to heal our wound by setting before us no Airy Phantome or Apparition of good but a substantial happinesse wherein the body shal share with the soul in a Beatifick vision and sensetaste of those divine joys that shall fill the understanding so that it makes a perfect object received by a compleat subject when God shall be the reward and the whole man enjoy him But we are apt to make melancholly reflections upon that scene of mortality Death presents us in a pale look sunk eyes breathless body and a dark vault to which it must be carry'd All these are but Artificial figures of its loss to delude our Sense no real tokens of it and therefore a right Faith is not mov'd with that spectacle which dwels upon another scene of lasting colours for therein is shown the endless spring and Vigour of a Resurrection This is the great stay of a Christians Hope and the corner-stone of our building which were it wanting all our Preaching would be vain and all your Mourning desperate But being grounded in the truth of it We hence learn to perswade as you should learn to rejoyce with that expectation This is that state will truly instruct us in the knowledge of our Natures whereas the Life we have here and the Death that follows it are but ill Schools to teach it us Life that swells us with an opinion of good is but a false Dress to hide its Imperfections Death that breaks mans Frame and disorders his dust is a false Dress too to hide the Glory of his rising but a Resurrection that instates us in a full fruition of Bliss that takes away all our corruption and a proness of falling into it again this breaks forth upon a devout Soul in such beauty and lustre that it makes all the Apprehensions of good in this Life all the Fears of Evil in Death to vanish before it What is there then here in comparison of this state can be worth a minutes desire when the Life we prize so much begins in Tears continues with Cares and ends with Torments What is there in Death if we reflect on this glory can claim a minutes discomfort when death we lament so much has but a sick stomach in swallowing its prize and will ere long throw it up upon a Land of Immortality Go then and bee discontented that thou hast left here deposited thy Friend thy Husband thy Father thy Master Is it not madness like his Grief that is troubled he has put his Mony to the Exchangers to receive his own again with Usury For it is but a little while wee stay here and while we stay God tries how we use and how we surrender our Talents which if we can give a good account of at the day of Death that great day of collecting Gods rents We shall then be taken up into the Clouds that now seem to us so dark and there behold the brightness of those Saints wee have here mournfully lamented There wee shall joyntly with them sing Praises making this no small part of our Song that God would use so severe a method to bring us together One Word in the close We are now leaving this Land and our Offices together Suffer me at the end of my Preaching to make a plain but true profession before a Great Judge to whom wee must all give an account of our Actions that I have endeavour'd according to my poor ability a faithful discharge of my Function throughout the whole course of this Service To God I leave the judgment of my heart To you I leave the tryal of my Passions the errours of my Nature the weaknesse of my performance but if God uses to accept the heart these other Infirmities I hope Man will pardon Now to God the Father to God the Son and to God the Holy Ghost bee ascribed all Honour Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS
it often settles in judgement whereby we come to consider the Nature and end of an affliction the result of which is Patience and tranquility of temper Therefore you read of the Saints rejoycing in Persecution the bitternesse of that stream being lost by a customary tasting it That Sense should work thus 't is not by any Virtue of its own but by Grace that sanctifies it the Dictates of this Law of Flesh are soft as its make is pleasure and ease are the two desirable goods it propounds to its subjects but when once the Spirit rules it so exercises this Flesh that all the softnesse is worn off whereby it can receive rougher impressions So then Sense of it self is alwayes quick to mind us of pain but the good Angel that walks in the Furnace keeps Christians from scorching 5 Hence it is that the grievance of suffering is not felt but should we once relye upon Natural strength or Phylosophical Principles the flame would quickly devoure us and show by our Ashes the frailty of our Composition Who can resist God in that terrible Shape of a Consuming Fire Who can meet him when he is armed or wrastle with him in the strength of his Power Old Experiences and new Arguings will of themselves little avail to the curing of our wound if God once hides his face in afflicting us as he hides it sometimes from the best of his people to discover to them the falsenesse of their own hearts and the terrour of his Arm. David had long thrived in troubles and sharpened his Sword at the Forge of his Enemies when he cut his way couragiously through the hatred of Saul the Wars of Israel and the Invasions of Philistims but at last lest he should forget whence that courage came and loose the memory of his own weaknesse God sends him a Joabs Arrow 2 Sam. 18.14 which pierces his heart with the same point wherewith Absalom was slain Here he weakly complains under Gods hand 33. and the death of one Son though a perverse and rebellious Childe blots out of his mind all the Idea's of former Conquests If such an accident were for the present so powerful over a Davids Spirit what trouble would this Spectacle have caused in him had he beheld Wisdomes Tragedy and Virtues sudden fall A losse every one is concerned in and therefore they may find excuse for their sorrow Let us take care the affliction of this place produce not worse effects Grief indeed we are not deny'd for though it be a passion first caused by sin yet it is now purged by Christs weeping and made a Hand-maid to Charity but if we would preserve it pure as he left it then the stream of our grief like his must be mild and have Banks to direct it in its Flow that so we may Piously lament our losse of a Person whose Life Envy blind and dumb as it is yet might learn to admire his Death Malice hard and cruel as it is yet might be taught to deplore Shall I here represent before you his Birth his Learning his Travels the Reverence of his Age and the like these were all Ornaments that belonged to him and yet the least of his Praise The Noblenesse of his Birth was a good he little valued nay he strove to hide it with Dignity acquir'd as desiring to be begotten anew by Virtue and thence receive his Honour which the Fortune of Birth lazily bestows His Learning as it was great and choice so he used it only as a Servant to higher ends bare knowledge he never doated on nor Wit his Knowledge was set off with but as they both conduced to practice the one as the Weight the other as the Edge of his Actings His Travels consider'd in themselves were common to him with others but the mannagement of those Travels was peculiar to him and therefore may give him a Property in Fame For they were so many Victories over the times and the Vices of those Kingdomes he lived in the knowledge he had of the worlds frauds never byass'd his Soul nor could his sight of Sin in its several Shapes bend him from Noble Designs Who was such a follower of Virtue that he learnt from bad Customes a stricter practise of it such a Lover of Truth that he who was Master of Forreign Languages yet taught those Languages to speak it A strange Current this that has passed through several Lands and yet received no Taint from the Soil nor ever travelled from his own Nature Lastly The Reverence of his Age and the Dignity of Grey Heirs these were a Grace indeed to his Person but a Grace of it self not to be prized for it is an effect of Time Folly as well as Wisdome may partake of but in him Age created Respect because it show'd a Head that Crown'd it 'T was like an old Monument that has NOble Acts written upon it and so becomes Honourable for that History Therefore passing by these Qualities give me leave to go higher and consider him in a threefold Capacity As a Subject As a Publick Minister As a Christian 1. As a Subject Still times may prove happy to a State but not glorious to the Liver they are dead calmes wherein the courage and fidelity of the Subject cannot move but Heaven had ordered a Tryal of his Loyalty in such an Age wherein Loyalty seem'd a Crime when Rebellion looked gay with successe and Sacriledge had Providences to gild it yet ran he then constantly the hazards of his Prince and Triumpht in an afflicted cause as seeing Heavens Justice through the blacknesse of its course Earths sin through its prosperous Usurpation Such services without worldly hope to allure could have only pure Conscience for their Principle and it was the bare Right of his Master joyn'd with a love to the Owner made him digest all the misfortune This is a Quality for which many then Listed in as Subjects were not known that generally fram'd their Maximes as Seamen do their course according to the vantage of Wind and so ordered their Sails But to oppose the wildnesse of a Torrent to steer against popular Gusts and dare good actions as he did though ill countenanced this was looked upon as monstrous in the State whose great Rule was compliance with Power whence they ordinarily proved dangerous because their Faith could not be proved Who will commend Shimei for making one in the throng to bring back his King 2 Sam. 19.26 whom a little before in his flight he blasphem'd 'T was the striving of the people for David made him forget his Curses and come with words of Allegiance in his mouth that were as little to be trusted 2 Sam. 16 6. as the stones in his hand the one being but Treasons closer work the other an open Defiance But flattering Arts and cunning Practises were far from the temper of this Person who had a Brest large and open made indeed to hide his Masters Secrets but