the Spaces of your Lives I am here crowned with an incorruptible Diadem seated upon a Throne that cannot be shaken in the Bosom of God my Father in the Company of Angels and Saints and amongst my triumphant Forefathers Prepare your selves therefore and make ready to follow me You who were ready and willing to follow me in the hottest and most dangerous Places of the Field can you not resolve to follow me to this Abode of Glory to this Place of Triumph You who have this Opportunity to hear him crying and recommending things of this Importance improve and make good Use of this Voice of your dead Master let him be this Day your Master in a new Sense and you that formerly were his Servants become now his Disciples for certainly we shall never receive a more pressing Advertisement from Heaven or that can fix in our Souls more sharp Goads to spur us to a Contempt of this World This same Voice addresseth it self to all the Principalities and Powers that God hath raised to a Throne the Voice from Heaven cries I have said ye are Gods but ye shall die like Men. The Principalities and Powers of Heaven which are the Angels die not because they are not clothed with Flesh but it is appointed to all Men once to die I say once only for the Word of God shall rescue us from Death and shall make us to live again eternally with the Angels The second Voice is that of a young Prince whom Death hath cropp'd when he was but beginning to blossom and to shoot the first Buds of an extraordinary Vertue at the Age of Twenty four Alas why was this young Hero so soon snatch'd from us because though young in Years yet upon many Accounts he was ripe not with reference to what he would have been had he liv'd longer but to what others are at that Age which is but the first quarter of Man's Life O what Difference is there between twenty four and fourscore which is the term of Life the Prophet allots to the strongest Men. O had it pleased God to have preserv'd him till that term how well would he have answered his Name Posterity reading his great Acts would have demanded whether it were the Father or the Son or this our good Prince But considering the Shortness of his Life we may truly say our rare our wonderful Prince had not his Peer in our Days And being thus in his first Dawning what Beams what a Glory might not we justly have expected from his High-noon His Spring having shew'd so fair and pompous what Fruits what Advantages should not we have reap'd from his Autumn But then he could not have cried as he does now All Flesh is Grass and all the Glory thereof as the Flower of the Field After this who can warrant you that you shall be alive to morrow You 'll say why my Youth my hail Constitution my Vigour and Strength But say I was there ever any thing more gay more lively more blooming than his Royal Highness was full of good Blood and a quick Fire He was all Action and all Life he was like Jonathan swift like an Eagle strong as a Lion but yet neither the one nor the other could deliver him Go to now vain Mortals and sacrifice to your Muscles and admire your Agility as if Men of strong and Athletick Constitutions had an Exemption from Death and as if Glass that is new blown was not as brittle as that which was made long before The third Voice is that of a Great Prince for Princes like Stars are some of them of the first Magnitude some of the second c. they are all of them Great indeed but not all Equal for one excels the other in Glory There be many Princes that are of a sweet and good Temper who yet are neither good nor great Princes because they want the Princely Vertues that are so necessary to the Good of their Subjects But as for our Prince Is there any of those that knew him dares say that he was not of the highest Elevation and of the greatest Magnitude Alas had he liv'd longer what signal Proofs would he have given of it From the Rock whence he was hewn could proceed nothing but what was great on either side God had favour'd him with lofty Heroical Motions worthy of and well becoming that Princely Spirit mention'd by the Prophet Gifts very rare in our Age But yet the Voice cries notwithstanding all this Greatness and Excellency he is dead vanish'd and gone and faded away like the Flower of the Field Worship God therefore both great and small and knowing that there is no Greatness can stand before him without stooping to his Power cast down your Crowns at the Foot of his Throne and do him Obeisance The fourth Voice is that of our Prince the most sweet Voice and yet the most bitter of all the rest and which properly is address'd to us The World laments him but it is we have lost him Others bewail him but alas we are deprived of him and yet I know not by what Effect of a fatal Stupidity we whom it concerns most grieve less for him than they do God grant I be not the Prophet of your Disaster but whatever we may think God never withdraws such great Lights out of the World but at the Approach of some black Tempest which will certainly overtake us if to day that we hear his Voice we harden our Hearts If we prove insensible of this terrible Stroke God hath discharg'd on our Heads he 'll strike the whole Body He hath made a dreadful Step but don't think he will stop there for behold he comes in these dark Clouds and every Eye shall see him If we will not be sensible of the Thunder he hath levell'd at our Heads he 'l lift up his Rod of Iron and break Arms and Limbs and together with the Head of Gold will beat to pieces the Members of Silver Brass and Iron and make them become like the Chaff of the Summer-threshing Floors which the Wind carries away so that no Place shall be found for them Death hath taken away our Prince but something worse than Death may take away our Provinces His Magazien is not exhausted nor his Stores drawn dry he hath other Darts to shoot besides * The Prince died of the Small-Pox the small Pox he will send his pale black and red Horse Plague War and Famine that shall reap your Provinces and avenge the Contempt of his Name and if God hath spar'd you till now if you be the last that shall drink of his Cup which hath gone round the Nations assure your selves unless you prevent it by a timely Repentance you shall drink the very Dregs and Bottom of it Can you think that those on whom the Tower of Siloam fell in our Days were worse than you are who make no other Return for his most signal Benefits but that of Ingratitude and who turn his
Satisfaction to all our Wishes Treasures Pleasures and Honours without Stint or bound in their Nature Measure or Duration So that we are to understand by the Glory of the Flesh the condition of a Man who wants nothing neither Riches nor Pleasures nor Honours Take saith our Prophet Flesh in the fullest Enjoyment and Plenty of all things in the most flourishing Gayety Pomp Splendor and Lustre at the very top of Honour yea though upon a Throne though abounding with immense Riches though having his Enemies lying at his Feet and being Master of the whole World yet in the midst of all these Joys Elevations and Triumph he will be liable to that damping Thought But for all this thou art mortal and all this must end in Death All this Pomp and Triumph is but of one Day 't is but a Flower of the Field and this Flower is an Herb which though blown and flourishing yet is still but an Herb and all the Glory and Goodliness thereof nothing but Flesh well painted and trimly deck'd indeed yet for all that at the bottom nothing but Flesh A Flower is no less fading perishing nor less subject to be trod under foot or to be scorch'd and withered by the Sun than the Grass is As they grow in the same Field they are liable to be cut down with the Edge of the same Sithe or Sickle When the Harvest is come Death spares none singles out none but mows down all with his dreadful Sithe Rich and Poor Nobles and Commons Bond and Free Grass and Flowers without making any Distinction at all But the Word of our God shall stand for ever You expected probably that the Prophet would have opposed Flesh to Spirit and the Body to the Soul and that he would have express'd himself to this purpose All Flesh is as Grass but the Mind of Man is a Divine Flame and Celestial Light which can never be extinguish'd and his Soul is immortal But no such thing there is nothing saith he but the Word of God that is Eternal if the Soul of Man be not born again of the incorruptible Seed of this Word don't flatter it with lying Titles don't call it immortal after that the Judg of the World hath pronounc'd this unerring and irrevocable Sentence The Soul that sins it shall die This is the Stile of the Prophets not of the Philosophers these indeed take great Pains to evince by Arguments the Immortality of the Soul but the former teach us that Souls die an Eternal Death when the Word of the Lord is not found rooted and ingrafted in them This is the only Principle of Life and Immortality without which the Soul's Immortality will only serve to plunge it into a Death nay into a thousand cruel Deaths and that eternally The Immortality of the Soul consists only in its Holiness and Conformity to God But consider we further the Opposition the Prophet makes here of the Word of God to all the Glory of the World This latter cannot with all the Efforts of her Vanity so much as make one Flower nor the least Spire of Grass whereas the Word of God hath made all things and still supports and upholds all it hath made even the whole Universe The Glory of the World sheds and shews all its Lustre all its Force on the Surface of things if you pry beyond that the Inside is nothing but Misery nothing but Frailty The Word of God on the contrary carries its Treasure in an Earthen Vessel outwardly to look upon it nothing seems more weak nothing more contemptible 't is a Voice crying in the Wilderness 't is a Man that speaks a poor Mortal it seems but a beating of the Air a Sound which the Wind carries away as fast as it is uttered And yet by this weak Instrument by the Foolishness of Preaching God brings forth his Wonders gaining the Heart by the Ear and converting it to himself and planting in it by his Spirit the sacred Sprig of Eternal Life The Words that I speak they are Spirit they are Life The Heavens and Earth shall pass away but my Word shall never pass away And thus have I as briefly as I could consider'd my Text. I shall now in the next place apply it to the present occasion The Voice saith Cry but to whom shall I cry To thee O Lord but thou art offended To the Angels and Saints but they cannot hear me To the Thrones of the Earth * King Charles had been beheaded two Years before but they are cast down To our Prince but he can no longer hear and yet he speaks I will therefore repeat his Voice to thy People and cry All Flesh is Grass Here is a Voice that cries O my Son another O my Husband and others my Brother and another would cry †The Princess was then big with Child of this our King if he could O my Father So many other Voices cry my Fortune and Well being The whole Church hath mourned and all Europe hath lamented But all the Voices that compose the several Notes of this mournful Harmony do all accord and concenter in this Chorus that all Flesh is Grass and all the Glory thereof as the Flower of the Field Imagine his Highness by a Miracle standing again upon his Feet in this Place where he has so often appeared and where he did so often display the Beams of his Light and of his Joy and crying in this Assembly who would not be moved at it who would not be touch'd at the bottom of their Hearts But there is no need of all this when without standing without walking stark dead and without Motion as he is he ceaseth not to cry out Yea his very being without Motion is that which speaketh loudest to us and proclaims as by a Voice from Heaven that the empty Scheme and Fashion of this World passeth away and we our selves together with it The Throne leaves some and others leave it and as there is but one Kingdom that cannot be shaken in the Heavens so neither is there any more than one God who is the immortal King of Ages The Voice of our dead Prince therefore cries Don't weep for me but weep for your selves consider your own case O Mortals I shall come no more where you are but you shall come where I am And why are you afraid to come up hither You are surrounded with a World that is involv'd and plung'd in Sin and Evil and yet you are not willing to go out of it and you have over your Heads a glorious Heaven and yet are unwilling to ascend thither From this lofty Mansion whither I am got I behold your great Multitudes of People as so many busy Ants the World as a Shadow and the Earth as a Point I am here above your Enemies and Miseries above your Fears and Hopes above your Covetousness and Revenge out of the reach of Calumnies and Ingratitude and all those many Passions which divide all
Visitations and Judgments into Plays and Pasquils How greatly do you please the Devil and his Instruments by this your Behaviour How do you double your Enemies Joys and as if they had not sufficient Cause of Triumph from our Disaster we afford them new Occasions from our Ingratitude and Stupidity We would willingly cry nothing but Blessing but alas what good Presage can we draw from seeing many of us of the same Mind and entertaining the same Wishes with our Adversaries Surely a most unhappy Sign it is to see us seconding the Desires of our Enemies and unsensible of a Loss which is likely to prove the occasion of our utter Ruine Who is able to conceive or express the Desolation to which that House is reduc'd which formerly shone with the Lustre of so many glorious Lights When these Dominions lost their Maurice they presently lighted upon Frederick Henry his most worthy Brother and Successor and when he was withdrawn too you well remember how they immediately thereupon embraced Prince William his most worthy Son who then wiped the Tears from your Eyes and like a beautiful rising Sun dispell'd the Darkness and Shadows of your Night but instead thereof at present he draws Tears from your Eyes and leaves behind him as it were a Sun set without the Hopes of a Return the very Shadow of Death which is the Night of Life Not that he will want worthy Successors for the Blood of Nassau is not extinct in his Veins there are other Branches left still only there is never a Brother never a Son as formerly that yet appears in the World We have no more in our Eyes a Light like to those two twin Stars called Castor and Pollux whereof the one no sooner sets but the other riseth and calms the Storm by a pleasing Vicissitude We shall see no more a Phenix to be born of his Ashes an only Son appear upon the Throne immediately after the Death of a Father who seem'd the only Glory of the World and who yet would not have been so had his Son liv'd longer But there is a Budcover'd under the Earth which e're long will shoot up like a Sprig from a dry Ground which shall make his Name and our Hope to grow green and flourish again God grant it God bring it to pass God be pleased to kindle again the Lamp of his Anointed and cause our Lebanon to flourish Though I cannot but own that these are things at a distance and very uncertain very uncertain for the Event and very remote as to their Enjoyment for will it not be a Miracle of God if the sacred Fruit should be preserv'd in so surious a Storm in the midst of such rude Shakings and such terrible Convulsions and after all how many Years must pass over our Heads before he be ripe or capable of representing to us his Father his Grand-father or Great Grand-father or all three of them together but yet so he does but come we shall say Tandem fit Surculus Arbor the Sprig will at length come to be a Tree and our Wishes and Blessings shall haste forwards his Age and Vertue so that we shall see him grow to the very Eye in Authority over Men and Favour with God for why may we not promise our selves from the Son what we have seen in the Person of the Father I call him Father alas all trembling in the Stile of a Prophet who as yet hath never a Child and I call him Son who it may be will not be at all or it may be not a Son and who for certain will not see his Father save at the Resurrection But we we I say have seen him antedating his Years and anticipating our Expectations by Heroical advanc'd and mature Motions and in his first Season shewing in his Discourses all the Prudence and Sagacity of consummated old Age. Those who have seen him in Business and in Council have reason to know it better than we and I take them to witness whether they have not a thousand times admir'd the Gravity of his Youth the Sweetness of his Fire the Severity of his Joy the Heat that animated him and on the other hand the Prudence that restrained him Even those themselves who never saw him but at ordinary Audiences and in private Converse cannot be ignorant neither of the Authority that his Eyes shed on his Discourse nor of the Grace that was poured forth on his Lips nor of the Solidity of his Judgment which he made appear every where to be well worthy of a fourscore Years Experience In a word such he was that if a Stranger should have chanc'd at first to have seen him without his blew Ribbon in a common Dress amongst a Crowd of Gentlemen where he had only pronounced three Words he must have been stupid not to have presently said That is the Prince Even those very Persons who could not love yet did admire him When I speak of those who did not love him I do not mean any Person in the midst of us for I cannot conceive any one amongst us to be so great a Traitor to his Country as not to love the Head and Prince which God had set over them I speak of Strangers Do I say Strangers when it is apparent that Strangers loved him as well as we I mean his and our Enemies who are equally sworn Enemies of our Religion and his Illustrious Family They consider'd him as a Head fatal to their Tyranny the only but universal Heir of that Name and Vertue which has so often shook the Foundations of their Escurial O how many secret Bonfires will they kindle in their Hearts Can you question their chanting an inward Te Deum They had nothing so precious wherewith they would not have been willing to purchase this piece of News What would not they have given for the Advantage this Death hath cast in upon them Boast no more of your Trophies nor so many Victories you have gained over them Would to God Breda or Mastricht were still in their Hands so we had but our Prince who was of more Value to you than a whole Kingdom We have now great reason to own that there is nothing so low nothing so high which is not levell'd by Death You had the upper Hand both in War and Peace and that in a glorious manner over your Enemies You were their Masters but this Death hath set you upon even Ground and hath made them quit with you When you shall begin to reckon up your Triumphs your conquer'd Places the Battels you have won they will answer and dash this with a You have no more your Prince of Orange This only Word will be sufficient to comfort all their Disgraces and to damp and mortify all your Joy and Glory This Death alone may make you think that Peace advantageous which you had so much Difficulty to accept of But what would have become of you had your good Prince left you either before or