his untimly fall so cancelled the divine character His fall and misery whence all the faculties of our soul are corrupted continually prone to sin This now is the law of our members and the wages thereof is death O the hard condition of a man that before he can offend even from the womb he is necessitated to it Heraclitus therefore still wept in the consideration of our humane misery and Plinie accounted him most happy which should die unborn or being born should die Usually the new born babe that is a Male cryeth A and the Female E. Dicentes E vel A quotquot nascuntur ab Evah And what means Evah but Heu Ha both are interjections of sorrow expressing the greatnesse of their calamity There was some reason then for that custom amongst the Scythians who still wept at the birth of their children and did feast it out at the death of their parents because that then they were delivered out of all their troubles O how full of anxiety are mindes of mortal men cares and crosses still set upon them they are encompassed with afflictions on every side Experto crede Magistro Job 19. Job spake it by experience in his nineteenth Chapter If I am ungodly then woe is me and if just I cannot lift up my head being fill'd with misery And from this no estate condition nor age is free all is vanity and vexation of spirit Our infancie is full of folly youth of disorder and toil elder years of infirmity each time hath its burthen and that which may justly work our weariness Art thou poor O man why then thou shalt be opprest with need hunger nakedness and with cold But art thou rich why hereby then thine abundance will prove to be thine overthrow this gives thee reins to run after thy impious lust and to rush upon all unlawfull Acts. Again art thou a servant why then either thy mind is terrified with threats or thy body afflicted with many stripes Or art thou a Master and hast others at command why then if thou art cruel fear will possess thee of rebellious servants and if kinde and affable they will soon neglect thee and wax insolent Either thy rigour will draw hatred on thy head or familiarity contempt So that there is no estate on earth can make a man compleatly happy Yea who ever lived one day in perfect joy wherein either the guilt of conscience the violence of wrath or the motions of concupiscence did not trouble him wherein neither the spite of envie the love of avarice or swelling pride did not touch him and wherein neither loss offence or passion did not move him Yea that very time the night which is granted us for our rest and quiet is not granted to be quiet for dreams do terrifie and visions do molest us and although those things are not truly terrible and sorrowfull which Dreamers dream yet they are truly terrified and are sorrowful insomuch that sometimes sleeping they do weep and waking are much disturb'd Yet above and besides all this there are divers sicknesses whereunto our nature is continually incident All the industry of Physitians have not hitherto found out so many names for diseases as our humane frailty do dayly suffer Suffer did I say unsufferablenesse of diseases or unsufferable did I say sufferance The sence will be best if we take both for it is unsufferable from the bitternesse of the passions and sufferable for the necessitie of it JESUS therefore when he saw Mary lamenting her late diseased Brother John 11.35 was troubled in the spirit and wept John 11. perhaps not because that Lazarus was dead but rather for that being dead and at rest he was about to recall him into the misery of this present life But the Lord again will deliver both him and us out of all our troubles Job 14.5 for our time is determined and he hath appointed our bounds which we cannot pass therefore we must die Death is the wages of sin therefore we all shall die and for to die is the law of nature therefore we cannot chuse but die which sheweth you my second part The necessity of death The act in mans departing He yieldeth up Homo moritur Man yieldeth up Second part Eccles. 3.2 There is a time to be born and a time to die saith the Preacher but this Preacher could not tell us what year The necessitie of Death or in what time of the year this time of Death should be And that she is most to be feared in March and in Autumn is no more then a popular perswasion Every moneth every day is fitted unto death The Church yard is alwayes open and every hour may be heard the dolefull sound of the passing Bell. sooner or later we must all shake hands with impartial death Gen. 5.24 Thom. Aquin. in Haebr c. 11. It is true that Enoch is not yet dead yet saith Aquinas he must sometime die for it is an irrevocable sentence laid on sin Morte moriemini ye shall surely die or dying you shall die Motthamoth as it is in the original Gen. 2.17 Gen. 2.17 Which kinde of speech we may not call a Pleonasm or a vain Grammatical repetition and doubling of the word moriendi for in the Hebrew Dialect by this is meant Certissimè mori the certainty and necessity of death and not only this but citissimè mori the suddenness of death and not only this but violentèr mori the violence of death For as often as the Scripture makes mention of death and doubleth it there is not meant a natural death but * Philo-Judaus violent and judicial Our first parents died against nature their death being an act only of Gods Justice towards them for their disobedience The Lord made a Covenant with Adam wherein Adam tyed himself his Heirs and Executors but he forfeited his Bond and we that succeed him in his sin are lyable to the debt Death is the debt that we must all pay though never so unwilling as the word moriendum sheweth it would be bootless to resist Do we not receive our life but upon condition why then should we grieve to pay it at the first asking A wise man will make a vertue of necessity and when his soul that was lent him is required he will be thankfull unto God for its use and is very ready to render it to him again he yieldeth it up By death we restore but what was borrowed Homo vitae commodatus * Publius Mimus saith one non donatus est But I may well alter the case and say non homo vitae sed vita homini commodata est non donata Doth God then lend us one another and do we grudge when he calls for his own So have I seen ill Debters that borrow with prayers keep with thanks and repay with enmity We much mistake our Tenure and account that for gift which God intends for loan We are no
that justifie the ungodly by often abusing the Pulpit with their pleasing tongues that savour more of Flattery then of Truth so neither would I be perverse to condemn the Innocent and rob vertue of her reward which doth here principally consist in praise The Object here set before our eyes is the subject of my Text a sad spectacle of Mortality Man If we search the Records for his antiquity and descent it appeareth that his Father was an Amorite and his Mother a Hittite even one of Adams own ofspring in that he was made subject to the Act the curse when he yielded up the Ghost Morte moriêris thou shalt surely die an irrevocable sentence denounced by Gods own mouth for our former fault and disobedience But and if we come neerer to our selves of his Descent and Parentage I will not speak for he was known as well to many others here present as my self onely I shall desire thus much that none here amongst you will despise him because he was your Neighbour and your Countrey man nor to say of him disdainfully as the Nazarites did once of Christ His Father and his Mother we well did know his Brethren his Sisters and his Children are they not all with us whence then hath this man any vertuous or religious Works In the first place at his Birth-day when the curtain of the attiring room was drawn he then did enter upon the Stage of this present world where his Prologue was but short and he spoke but little by reason of his Infancie only he shewed to the world the meekness of his disposition and good inclination of his nature But when he came to some riper years of Judgement he then well acted his part which was variable and full of changes to the life expressing the vanity and uncertainness of humane kinde where he left his paths for our feet to tread upon and drawed forth a pattern for us to imitate by a pious conversation His Zeal to God was expressed not only by his delight he had to frequent the Temple of the Lord but also by his daily prayers in his private family The chastity of his words and actions did declare that he never violated his plighted troth to his loving wife for his soul solely clave unto her And the love that he alwayes had to his needy neighbour did promulge his charity who only not omitted the occasion of well doing but also sometimes sought it well knowing that he had lost that day wherein he had not done some good It would here be tedious to speak of his domestick discipline to recite his publick conversation which was alwayes just honest and vertuous and that the words I utter may the better appear to be impartial I take all you to record that hear me this day how that he was pure from offence to all men and I am verily perswaded that no man can justly say as much as black unto his eye Truth was placed in his words and constancie in his deeds There was a freedom in his presence and in his visage cheerfulnesse He was easie to forgive courteous unto all yea even to his enemies for some he had because vertue cannot be without them In a word he carried himself in all his Fortunes with an equal mind not too much puft up with the swelling floods of prosperitie neither sinking to despair at the lowest ebbe of adversity Of whom me thinks the more I say the more is still behinde and unsaid I am taken with the largeness of his goodness even the plenty of his praises were enough to make me eloquent What shall I say of this mans uprightness when that of Horace might more then an hundred times be repeated of him Integer vitae scelerisque purus and what shall I say of his Constancie Faith and Patience with all which he was so excellently well adorned that whereas he was not second unto any so you shall finde out few that can equal him but to be excelled by none Thus have I in him represented to your view a short platform for your imitation in the way of Godliness a moral Comedie which the soul of our deerest departed Friend hath here acted amongst us in this now dead Trunk this Carkass to the general applause of all the Spectators only I shall desire you to hear his Epilogue and I have done to finish his Pilgrimage although it be Tragical The same magnanimity of spirit that kept him all his life time did not now forsake him even in his greatest sickness for being visited of the Lord by divers as I suppose and strong diseases he bore them all most patiently insomuch that although I was after my own recovery very often with him yet could not at any time observe him either to grudg groan or sigh for grief under the rod of Gods correction neither was his heart any thing dismayed at the remembrance of his dissolution for he told me again and again that although his bodie was weak yet his soul was strong by Faith in Christ for the remission of his sins he well knew it was that mans property to be afraid of death who is unwilling for to go to Christ accounting that the earth was not given us for a dwelling place but an Inne that our being here which we call Life is not so properly a life indeed as a journey to it that his Hope was not here fixt on Earth but Heaven that he knew full well whither he was going not by his own merits but the mercies of Christ in whom alone he had placed his confidence of eternal safety And in this assurance he devoutly took the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper at my hands to furnish him with fit provision for his journey to his long home so that at length when his glass was run he willingly gave an ear to his Makers call and in the midst of his childrens tears their pious invocations he departed hence from this vale of misery He yielded up the Ghost and where is he As for his soul 't is fled we may go to him he cannot come to us why do we weep and mourn his gain doth far exceed our loss he is now in Paradise in Abrahams Bosom for the Angels have conveyed him to his place of rest But as for his Corps this breathless bodie which doth here remain with us let us accompanie it unto the Grave the last kinde office we can shew to our deerest Friend and interre it in the dust where it may lie in peace and rest until the resurrection at the last when we with him again may receive a joyfull union both of bodie and of soul and enter into that most glorious Heaven of everlasting happinesse Sing an eternal Halleluiah Salvation and Honour Justice and Power Mercie and Thanksgiving be ascribed unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for evermore Amen FINIS
A SERMON OR The Survey of Man Taken by J. B. As it was Delivered at his Fathers Funeral September 4 th 1638. Vt tibi Mors foelix contingat vivere disce Vt foelix possis vivere disce mori Cael. Calcagninus LONDON Printed in the Year M.DC.LII THE APOLOGIE Hearken O people as fellow-feeling members and look not but with moistned Eyes on my Complaints THe Lord hath filled my Cup full even to the brim yea it doth overflow but wo and alas it is with afflictions Did not these * The small Pox. Tokens of Gods wrath that here you see to be fixed on my Face portend the evils for to come just punishments for sin at once to be bereft of both my neerest Friends When Epaphroditus escaped death God was mercifull unto me said Paul lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow Phil. 2.17 I have escaped death God be merciful unto me that have sorrows upon sorrow not one or two but an heap of sorrows The sorrows of Death have compassed me about on every side may say now as once said Psal 18.3 David I meet with them at every turn on my right hand and on my left hand too Here on this we have these my Fathers Corps sad spectacle of Mortality present before our eyes There on that we may soon behold the place where she good Woman dear Mother * Twenty dayes before lately has been interred And which way now should I turn my self no place can be free from Grief I have no sanctuary to fly unto how then should the Pulpit shelter me In this perplexity you may perhaps expect to see a flood of Tears distilling from my blubbering eyes yet how should I weep at all when you know that where the water stands it is the deepest great * Parva loquuntur curae ingentes stupent sorrows strike dumb and the lesse the sound is of our grief the greater is the sense thereof In this perplexity you may perhaps expect to hear more sighs and sobs then words to issue through my mouth yet how should I be silent when the dead shall bid me speak Then blame not I pray my brethren though I presume to take this heavy task upon me and think not that I soar to high above my Sphear beeing thus deeply plunged in this Gulf of misery but rather beseech Almighty God to enable me in the performance of this my last duty which I owe to my Fathers Will and that my Passion may be over-ruled by Patience which will best manifest my self to be the true Son of this my deceased Parent who here remains a lively pattern of Patience unto us and Job was a pattern of Patience unto him that even in the midst of his afflictions offended not with his tongue only perchance he did like Job bewail the estate of our humane misery and therefore out of the complaints of Job I shall now derive the grounds of my present Discourse as it is written in his fourteenth Chapter and the tenth Verse Job the 14th and the 10th it is thus written Man dyeth and wasteth away Yea man yieldeth up the Ghost and where is he The latter part of the Verse Man yieldeth up the Ghost and where is he THE PROLOGUE Job 14.10 Text. Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he BOsrah a City on this side Jordan the Metropolis of Idumea was the Birth-place of most patient Job born not long before the dayes of Moses Johan Boldung since the Creation 2270. The fift or sixt in descent from Esau Zerah was his Father and himself called Jobab at Gen. 36. No less then a Duke by birth being Heir apparent and Lord Controuler of his Fathers Family One of great Hopes even from his Infancie and grown up unto riper years he begins to look about the World travelling a little Northward towards the land of Huz Job 1. Ver. 1. the confines of his Native Soil where his present conversation doth soon express the goodness of his disposition to be both temperate and wise just perfect and upright in all things This it is that won the hearts of the common people and their King Bela is no sooner dead but they set him in his Regal Throne where he soon became the most renowned Potentate of all the East for the name of Job was exceeding famous together with his wealth nothing was wanting to advance his happiness But stay a little and see the Vanity of our frail nature even in its best condition Job all this while is thus prosperous but to be made the more unhappy he is now climb'd up to the height of Fortunes wheel and at the next turn his fall will be but the greater What though God had placed him above the reach of humane malice yet his uprightness shall never want a Devil as long as hell can yield him one Sathan now is become his Calumniator and said unto the Lord Verse 9. Doth Job serve God for nought only destroy his wealth and substance then he will curse thee to thy face On this false suggestion 11. the Lord lets the Devil loose who begins with his asses and his oxen which he caused the Sabeans to steal away 15. and left but one servant alive to bring the newes next fire from Heaven consumed his sheep then the Chaldeans fell upon his camels 16. last of all 19. he lost his Children by the downfall of their feasting-house and still as the Devil would have it to augment their grief one only escaped to bring the newes 20. Notwithstanding all this Job was still upright he fell upon his face and worshipped Hereupon Sathan reneweth his suit unto the Lord Chap. 2. and gets a larger commission Verse 4. even to tempt Job in his proper person then he smote him with boils and blanes in every part 6. no place was left to rest him on all sick from top to toe 7. as many diseases as members in his body The most general was the worst of ulcers hence issued worms and streams of corrupted Humors whereunto is joyned a * Vt scripsit Galenus flesh-consuming leprosie He had the Quinsie in his neck and throat diseases of the joynts and gout morbus pedicularis the Dysenterie or bloody flix Colick and torments of the * Chap. 39. Reins * 16. Astma Difficulty of breathing Chap. 19.17 and the Hectick Feaver Plurisie and a frightful sleep Sore eyes and Head-ache and a whole diseased bodie all inflamed by the inward heat of a pestilent and biting humor The dunghill is now become his Throne and he that not long before did abound in silks Chap. 2.8 for want of linen and sound nails doth scrape his scabs with a broken Potsheard Oh the exceeding misery of a man that had a Kingdom at command yet now is ready to famish for want of bread He had not a morsel for his belly before his 1 Basil