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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42350	The Christians labour and reward, or, A sermon, part of which was preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable the Lady Mary Vere, relict of Sir Horace Vere, Baron of Tilbury, on the 10th of January, 1671, at Castle Heviningham in Essex by William Gurnall ...	Gurnall, William, 1617-1679.	1672 (1672)	Wing G2258; ESTC R10932	62,221	185

IMPRIMATUR Robert Grove THE CHRISTIANS Labour and Reward OR A SERMON Part of which was Preached at the Funeral of the Right Honourable the Lady Mary Vere Relict of Sir Horace Vere Baron of Tilbury on the 10 th of January 1671. At Castle Heviningham in Essex The memory of the Just is Blessed Prov. 10.7 By humility and the fear of the Lord are Riches Honour and Life Prov. 22. ver 14. By William Gurnall M. A. of Emman Coll. now Pastor of Lavenham Suffolk Nobilis genere sed multo nobilior Sanctitate Hieron Epitaph Paulae Matris Ep. 27. LONDON printed by J. M. for Ralph Smith at the Bible under the Piazzo of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1672. TO THE Right Honourable Lady ELIZABETH Countess Dowager of Clare MADAM IT was a very merciful Providence which brought your Honour to your dear Mothers assistance in her dying sickness by which as you had the pleasure of recreating her Spirit with your presence and of giving an high Demonstration of your Piety to her in her low and weak state of body a vertue of great price with God and remarkably rewarded by him even in this life So also the happiness of being an eye witness to her Christian Deportment in her sharpest Pains and Agonies how her Faith and Patience triumphed over them all which no doubt did much sweeten the sorrow that her outward distress inflicted upon your tender Heart And indeed it is no wonder so holy a Life should have so Happy an end Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is Peace This Pretious Saint had made her Bed before she was to lye down on it Long had she been gathering these Spices Graces I mean for her dying Nest in the sweet Odours of which she at last so Holily and Peaceably breathed forth her Gracious Soul into the Arms of her beloved Saviour And now Madam seeing God hath determined your Will by declaring his it will highly become your Honour to bear her Decease as Saint Hierom did the death of the Noble Paula whom he so much honoured for her Piety Not by Mourning you have lost but by Praising God you had so Pretious a Saint to be your Mother and that you had her so long even to live to see and give her Blessing to your Childrens Children before her departure yea that you have her still Is there no way to have our Friends unless we have them in our sight She is not lost that still lives Her death was the end of her Mortality but there is no end of her Life In her Spirit she lives in Heaven with God to whom she lived on Earth In her good Name she lives with all that knew her or heard of her admirable Piety This like an after beam of the Sun-sett followed her to her bed of the Grave and still shines to her Honour The memory of the just is blessed though the name of the wicked rots even while it is remembred as the name of Pilate doth in the Creed to his reproach and curse And as to her Vertues she lives in your self and in as many other of her Noble Descendants as imitate her Piety It joyed this Blessed Saint while alive that she should leave her surviving Children and so many of her Grand-Children walking in the Truth And if an Heathen took such high content that the Honour which he arrived to befel him while his Parents were yet living whereby they had a pleasure in seeing his happiness How much more may it comfort the Pious Relations of this Saint that this their Pretious Parent had the joy of seeing them ennobled with Divine Grace and so in their way to Heaven before her self went thither I am sure it hath been an Heart-breaking-sorrow to some Children that they converted not to God before their Godly Parents bodies were converted into Dust and thereby cause them to go sighing with sorrow to their Graves who might they but first have seen them reclaimed would have gone down to them singing for joy It is a blessed sight to behold Children especially of Noble Persons imitating their Godly Parents Graces God is no respecter of Persons yet saith Saint Bernard I know not how it comes to pass that Vertue in a Noble Person doth more please Is it not haply because it is more conspicuous and so more attractive This Consideration made me more readily obey your Honours commands in publishing these mean Papers hoping that this great Example of Piety in so Noble a Lady together with the Honour that attended her to the Grave for it may cause some of high Birth a little more to consider their great mistake in thinking to overtake Honour in the dirty paths of Prophaneness and Irreligion and so be moved at last to change their way and turn into this clean road of Piety wherein this good Lady walking lived with so much esteem and dyed so wonderfully lamented The character that I have here given of her is True but not full nay far short of her worth Her Graces were of so high a strain that I may truly say what Saint Jerome did concerning his commending Marcella a Noble Roman Lady I was afraid to speak all I knew of her Wisdom Sanctity Charity and other Excellencies lest I should seem to exceed the belief of some those I mean who knew her not for as any were more and longer acquainted with her so their estimate of her advanced higher And must not that Piece be admirably well drawn which is most commended by those if able to judge that stand nearest and look longest on it And none I think will deny that famous light of his Age Bishop Usher to have been as able to judge in this case as any other and what an high esteem he had of this Lady and her Noble Lord and Husband also appears from a Letter written by him to her Forty years ago in which there is this passage The thing that I have most admired in your Noble Lord is that such lowliness of mind and such an high pitch of a brave Spirit should be yoaked together and lodged in one Breast And on the other side when I reflect upon you methinks I understand that saying of the Apostle better than I did That as the man is the Image and Glory of God so the woman is the Glory of the Man And to your comfort let me add this That if I have any insight in things of this Nature or have any judgment to discern of Spirits I have clearly beheld engraven in your Soul the Image and Superscription of my God Thus wrote this Excellent Person whose admirable judgment may keep any sober Person from thinking him in this high character guilty of rashness and light credulity and his known integrity is enough to free him from all suspicion of abusing his Pen to any servile flattery And they who knew the lowly Spirit of this good Lady and how

And again Oh taste and see how good the Lord is once I confess in the Paroxism of a sore Temptation he spake like one of the foolish world I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency Psalm 73.13 But will ye believe what a man saith when his head is hot and light in the fit of a Fever rather than when he is in his true and right temper No sooner was this fit off but he befools and be beasts himself and blesseth himself in his approaching happiness Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel and afterward receive me unto Glory verse 24. And from this hope takes faster hold of God and his Holy ways But it is good for me to draw near to God ver 28. And surely one affirmative testimony of a Saint in vindication of God and Religion is of more weight than a thousand negative testimonies of the wicked world to the contrary who speak evil of what they understand not condemn Religion before they have tryed it and disgrace that service they were never in Whereas the godly man hath served both Masters and speaks from his own experience where most is to be got professing that he hath nothing to shew of his gettings in the service of sin but shame But in the Lords service present fruit unto Holiness and a hope of Eternal life afterward In a word needs there any more to make this appear a false slander than to observe how these very wretches upon a sick-bed when they apprehend themselves on the marches of death do Court Religion which in their jollity they Cart and Scourge with their reviling Tongues Oh how glad would they then be to creep into a Saints cloaths and go by his name how desirous to dye the Righteous mans death and to have an end like his Oh how afraid to look into another world or to think of going hence as they are Doth not all this speak that they themselves secretly think there is more reality in Religion and the Eternal consequences of it than they will in their Prosperity confess The truth is God hath their Conscience on his side but their Lusts have their Hearts and these are they which gag their Conscience that it may not speak what it would but at last Conscience is even with them and revengeth the violence offered to it upon them And for stoping its mouth a while opens it the wider at last both in accusing them for this their past wickedness and terrifying them with the fearful expectation of the Dismal Tempest of Fire and Brimstone ready now to pour down upon them Thus as the hardest Frosts when they break leave the deepest slugs behind them so doth the greatest Dedolency and insensibility in an Irreligious life leave sinners when Conscience recovers its sense and feeling sticking fast in the deepest horror and desperation Secondly This convicts the carnal world of gross folly in refusing the service of God where the reward of their labour is so sure and incomprehensibly great and for misplacing their pains and labour for that which is neither sure to be obtained nor much worth the having if it be gotten and so in both respects labour in vain First the sinner labours for what he is not sure to obtain The world hath not to this day been able to give a certain rule whereby the covetous Worldling can be sure after all his toyl and drudgery that he shall be rich nor the ambitious that he shall get up the hill of honour and not catch a fall in climbing it the world is too like a Lottery where men know not whether they shall draw a Prize or Blank Though all come with heads full of hopes and projects into the world yet most go out with hearts full of shame and sorrow for their disappointments But in Religion there is such a certain rule laid down in the good Word of God that whoever walks by it Peace is upon him say ye to the Righteous it shall be well with him Mark the Perfect man and behold the Vpright for the end of that man is Peace Psalm 37.37 They that wait on the Lord shall not be ashamed because not disappointed of their hope but some carnal men will tell you whatever the world is to others yet they can say their labour is not in vain This worldling who hath prospered in his way can shew you his filled bags and tell you how many hundreds a year he puts up as clear gain into his Purse The Voluptuous person will tell you stories of the many merry Meetings he hath been at Months and Years of Pleasure he hath enjoyed saying with the carnal Jews These are the rewards our Lovers have given us Hosea 2.12 How then say you that we labour upon such uncertainties In the second place therefore the prize that sinners get by all their Labour it is not so much worth as to save them from losing their Labour For First What they have got will ere long leave them Secondly It will deceive them Thirdly It will damn them First It will leave them It is not in the power of mans wit to devise a way how the Ambitious man should keep his honour long except his preferment could change his Nature and make him immortal he is alas still of the same clay with other men as he was before The Rainbow is a common watry Cloud no more durable than the rest though painted for a time with gayer colours That which hath been is named already and it is known that it is man Eccles 6.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a lump of red earth that must return ere long to his first dust As impossible it is for the Covetous man to make his estate sure to him his Riches will make wings to themselves though he doth not as the Prodigal make wings for them fly away they will and that toward Heaven also to accuse him and be a witness against him at the last day If he should not see them flown from him while he lives yet to be sure when Death's Gun goes off these and all the sinners joys will flye away at once And how near a step it is to Death the very Heathens can tell you by their Hyroglyphick of an open eye for life and an eye shut for death intimating that death may come ictu oculi mans life may be closed up as soon as an eye can be shut And is it not folly and madness to bestow all a mans Labour to raise the hopes of his Felicity on such loose ground where his building may fall as soon as it is up this made Solomon hate all his labour under the Sun Eccles 2.17 Because when he had done all he must leave all Secondly What Carnal men labour for will deceive them Satan and the World are both very free of their Promises to their Vassals and Servants All these things will I give thee said he if thou wilt fall down and

like himself who is an accursed Devil Speeding so well by this stratagem he hath used it ever since to keep sinners from returning to their first rightful Lord and Master as he had done to entice man at first from his service that is by slandering God and Religion He must be a hard Master that reaps where he doth not sow or suffers not his Servants to reap what they do sow Either he exacts more than he gives ability to do or he doth not reward the work they have done and so makes them labour in vain Both false slanders The first I must pass over as foreign to my subject But the second lies in my way and God knows though it be as untrue as he is true yet it finds too easie credence among Sinners who are glad to have any pretence to excuse them from the service of God which their own corrupt hearts do so much dislike This therefore hath been the old Plea which wicked men have made for their aversation to Religion Job 22.17 Which said unto God depart from us and what can the Almighty do for them Oh what Sots doth sin make men their Plea had been more plausible if they had said what can the Unmighty do for them but to call him Almighty and then ask what he can do shews they were sunk beneath reason Who indeed can exercise reason against God you see here this prejudice against Piety is as Antient as Jobs time who is judged to have lived about if not before Moses his Age. Yet was it not then Novel for Eliphas speaks ver 15. Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden indeed Luther said right Cain would kill Abel to the end of the world and so had they and will have vile and cheap thoughts of Religion It held I am sure in Malachi his time Ye have said it is vain to serve God Chap. 3. ver 14. And have we any reason to think that the same prejudice against Religion continues not amongst many ungodly ones in these last times wherein the world is grown as older so colder to Religion Old Age indeed is not wont to cure but rather increase diseases that are hereditary the prodigious prophaneness and filthiness of our present Age with the scorn that is cast upon all serious endeavours after Holiness is no good indication that it is ceased but the contrary that such as these have a most vile and base opinion of Religion how else were it possible they would dub themselves while wallowing in their brutish lusts for the wise and happy men and despise others as doting Fools that dare not venture their Souls in their company by running with them into the same excess and riot If they did not first think Religion an insignificant thing Piety a needless scrupulosity and all the Christians pains therein in vain and those to be in the right and go away with all the gains who will have nothing to do with Religion but live in an open defiance of it Now though what hath been said already of the glorious reward which will certainly crown the Christians labour be enough to wipe of this dirt from the face of Religion and leave it on their own that throw it yet I shall a little and ex abundanti speak to the vindication of it in this point And who though but a stripling would not venture to cope with such Goliahs or Gyants of the Earth that defie the Living God and his Hosts of Saints Is it not strange that those poor wretches should not take notice in whose hand the Pencil is by the illfavouredness of the Portraicture that here is drawn of God and Religion Who but the Devil himself would present him and his holy ways in such black lines and lineaments to their thoughts and is it not more strange that any of mankind should so far forget or go against those common notions of the Divine goodness which naturally are impressed upon their minds as to believe God to be such an one as the Devil his sworn Enemy tells them he is But most of all strange it is that those who have read or heard the Gospel where God not only more fully makes known the goodness and graciousness of his Nature but also opens the counsel of his Will and Mercy to poor sinners and brings life and immortality to light as the sure reward of those who at his gracious call receive Christ as their Lord and Saviour should after all this sing the same old note with ignorant Heathens 'T is in vain to serve God And sutable to such apprehensions of him lead Irreligious and Flagitious Lives having nothing but the word of a lying Devil to secure them from Eternal misery This is such an infatuation as the world cannot shew the like but who so blind as he whose eyes are put out with Gospel-light into this righteous judgment upon them for rebelling against light we must resolve this their folly For judgment I am come into this world that they which see not might see and that they which see might be made blind John 9.39 But to reason a little with this sort of men can you think that the God of Truth hath made so many Promises to his people to deceive them with a false hope will he be unrighteous to forget their labour of Love after he hath made himself a Debtor if not to them yet to his own faithfulness by making his Promise Can he that rewards even the wicked for any work in which he useth them let his own faithful servants lose their pains Nebuchadnezzar had the Land of Egypt given him for his service against Tyrus Ezek. 29.18.19 Cyrus had a great Empire for his expedition against Babylon though these meant nothing less than the serving and glorifying of God but aimed at the enlargement of their Dominions and satisfying their own ambition yet because they were instruments to accomplish his secret Decrees in fauour of his People he gave them a reward And did he reward them for his peoples sake and will he let these his own people sit down with loss who out of pure Conscience and Love to him do his work and fight his Battels against Flesh World and Devil It cannot be he doth indeed make them stay longer than the other for their reward but they are sure to speed better at last they like Ishmael are sent away presently with bread and bottle Temporal rewards they have their Consolation here but when their portion is spent then the Saint shall receive his reward an Inheritance incorruptible and Eternal Be patient saith the Apostle and establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draws nigh And when he cometh their reward comes with him Again Do you not cross the experiences of all the Saints do they not they all give God and his service a good word proclaiming him the best Master they ever served In keeping thy commands is great reward saith David