eye as that which speaks him to be one of the remarkable men in the Text whilst living and dying for those that knew him better then my self cannot but say this of him that he was a Perfect and an Vpright man He had the external form of Godliness and a name to live for as he was a constant attendant upon publick Ordinances of Divine Worship where he could enjoy them and whilst in health and strength so his Gesture and Behaviour therein was reverent and decent suited to their nature and kind His Speech was seasoned with Salt that it might administer Grace to the Hearer Yea as I have been informed when he went forth to take an oversight of Servants and Day-Labourers or when he met with poor people in his way he would be speaking to them of the things of God and that which concerned their eternal peace A rare Practice in a Gentleman As to the Education of his Children and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord I hope that the sobriety temperance and gracefulness of yours Dear Sir and your Sisters Lives are the genuine fruits thereof and yet this is not all For to the outward form without question there was the inward power He was nobly descended being born again not of Bloud nor of the will of the Flesh nor of the will of Man but of God Yea stampt with the Divine Image made partaker of the Divine Nature and richly adorned and beautified with the gifts and graces of Gods holy Spirit So that he did not act meerly from external motives but from internal principles that could not be hid and hence it was that he was filled with the fruits of Righteousness and like a Tree planted by the Rivers of water bringing forth his fruit in due season Or rather a Tree planted in the House of the Lord and flourishing in the Courts of our God still bringing forth fruit in old age so that his Gray Hairs were a Crown of Glory to him being found in the way of Righteousness He lived about ninety six years a natural life began the very day of his Death in Sabbath-work and finished the work of his Natural Life with the ending of the day and so went to his eternal rest in the bosom of his dear Jesus he lay down and slept in the Lord. But as he did not live though he lived long undesired so he did not dye unlamented witness the Throng and Concourse of serious Christians that accompanied his Corps to the Church where his Body was interr'd and laid to rest and that in sharp weather in a bitter Evening with a silent and grave deportment as true Spiritual Mournerrs are wont to do at the Funeral of some eminent and remarkable man Leves loquuntur ingentes stupent Honoured My design is not to renew your grief on the one hand nor to flatter you on the other but to be your Remembrancer and to put you in mind of those things which you know and are well assured of being Eye and Ear-witnesses thereof that you may be stirred up to make a right use of his holy Example and Copy which he left behind him and with you in particular to imitate and write after So shall you approve your selves to be of the number of the remarkable ones on the Earth and your End shall be in Peace I have nothing more to add but that I am Your very humble Servant Samuel Blackerby Stow-Market Decemb 2. 1673. Psal 37.37 Mark the Perfect man and behold the Vpright for the end of that man is peace COsmographers divide the inhabitable world into sundry and many parts and tell us that of those many the fewest are those that own the Christian Religion or the name of a Christ but alass how few of these are the men we find in my Text perfect and upright men the heap of chaff is far greater than the wheat and the number of Bristol or pebbles stones far greater then of Pearls and Diamonds Christs flock is a very little little flock as the Greek expresseth it Luk. 12.32 Many are called but few are chosen Matth. 20.16 Cast out the grosly ignorant the practical Atheist the debauched and prophane such as have made a covenant with death and are at an agreement with hell that can drink and whore swear and blaspheme the Sacred Name of God prophane his Sabbaths contemn his Ordinances cast his Law behind their backs and hate to be accounted serious in Religion least they should bear the odious title of Phanaticks I say cast out all these walking dunghils and monstrous miscreants what a small number will be left behind that have any colour or appearance of reason to account themselves of the number of those that are deciphered and characterized in my Text I but then cast out all hypocrites such as have a name to live and yet are dead such as have the form of godliness and yet deny the power thereof such as have their lamps of profession but are destitute of the oyl of saving grace Why then perhaps you will be at a stand and ready to say we scarce know where to find these heaven may be full of such but the earth bears but a few of them if any Herb-a-grace is very scarce and 't is very true such as these are very rare there are but a very very few of perfect and upright ones but where ever they are they ought to be marked and observed for so saith the Psalmist in my Text Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace In which words we have two considerables 1. A double duty enjoyned Mark the perfect man and behold the upright 2. A reason or motive to enforce the double duty For the end of that man is peace First Here is a double duty enjoyned Wherein you have 1. The Subject Matter or Act. 2. The Object 1. The Subject Matter or Act Mark and behold 2. The Object The perfect man and the upright First Here is the Subject Matter or Act. 1. To Mark. 2. To Behold 1. To Mark The Hebrew word Shamar in its Primitive signification signifies to keep or preserve one from danger And therefore a Noun coming from this Verb signifies a watch-tower a place to descry a danger for prevention of it Now because it is the duty of a watch-man that is set in a watch-tower to observe all commers and goers enemies as well as friends I and to be very diligent and accurate in his observation of them Therefore I conceive the Holy Ghost is pleased to make use of this word here in our Text For such a kind of observation we ought to make of the perfect and upright man that a watchman should of all commers and goers near the watch-tower We should be very accute herein as of a matter of great concern a slight thought of him is not sufficient No! we should take special notice of him as a person most remarkable
admiration of Angels the joy and delight of the eternal God he taketh pleasure in his Saints and therefore must needs be a taking object 't is very true 't is a great Paradox and Riddle to the men of the world For it is simplicity without foolery 't is gravity without moroseness 't is humility without will-worship 't is singularity without affectation 't is reservedness without narrowness and streightness of spirit 't is an holy freedom and liberty without licenciousness meekness without cowardize stoutness and valour of Spirit without pride and cruelty patient for God but impatient against sin a sufferer in its own cause but a warriour in Christs a death unto sin and the world but a new life unto righteousness and unto God The man dies to all things here below that are sinful vain and transitory and lives unto things above Nay which is the most to be admired in him is this that a Saints life is not only cross and contrary to the life and conversation of wicked and ungodly men but ever when others are worst then he labours to be best Thee have I seen righteous saith God to Noah I the worse they grow the better he labours to be like the glow-worm that shines brightest in a dark night Then Daniel opened his window when Prayer to the true God was decried and by the most restrained Then did Elijah plead for God when almost the whole Nation were for Baal and Baals Prophets were 450 here was great odds between them and yet the Prophets holy zeal carried him through his undertaking until he saw a good success thereof Holiness of heart and life hath ever carried away the Bell and Crown at last And therefore well might the Psalmist say in our Text Marke the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace The end of his actings and the end of his life is peace And that leads me to a 5. Demonstration of the excellency and admirableness of a godly man and is the second part of the Text viz. The motive or argument wherewith the Psalmist presseth and urgeth his exhortation and holy injunction Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace The finis cui the end for which he is set is for Peace And the finis cujus his end and winding up is Peace Arias Montanus renders it The last to the man is peace 'T is true he meets with many a brush by the way in the world Saints shall have trouble on every side none meets with so many all winds blow cross to him at one time or another Sin Satan and the World he is their But and Mark at which they level all their poisonous and deadly Arrows If an Heathen could say Nos fuimus Troes agitamur ventis What may not a Saint say in this respect Surely as the Prophet Esay 54.12 I am afflicted tossed with a tempest and not comforted Or as the Apostle St. Paul Without were fightings within were fears Or as the Church Psal 128.3 The plowers plowed upon my back they made long their furrows I but still mark and behold him in all this look not only to his setting out but to his Journeys end for though he sails through rough and rugged waves and is oft in danger of splitting upon Soul-ruining Rocks or sticking in the Sands yet at last he arrives at the Haven of Rest The end of that man is peace And it must needs be so for as Christ hath forewarn'd him of the one so he hath assured him of the other John 16.33 In the world you shall have trouble but in me ye shall have peace If they han't it in this life yet they shall not miss of it in the life to come The end of those men is peace The best Wine is reserved for the last and the Crown for the Conquest 'T is very true that Grace is given to men here in this life or else 't is never given I but 't is as true that if Peace be denied to a gracious Soul in this life yet it shall not be denied to her in the life to come Esay 32.17 Though the Soul sows in tears all the time of her abode in the body yet she shall reap in joy when she hath got her freedom from that prison Below she may haply spend her daies in mourning but above she shall spend an eternity in singing and rejoycing Here she mourns and sighs and cries because she is no better but there she shall rejoyce and sing because she is so well And indeed the word Peace is of large extent it comprehends all the desires of the Soul of man even felicity and happiness to the utmost And therefore the ancient Salutation of the Jews was Peace for that is the most desirable thing Heaven would be no Heaven if there were no Peace enjoyable there And Hell would be no Hell if Peace were enjoyable there Give a man true and solid Peace and you give him Heaven take Peace from him and he is in Hell Holiness and Wickedness divides the World and Peace and Trouble divides the states of men in the world To the wicked God saith There is no Peace to the godly he saith The end is Peace For 1. Then he is above all danger above the power of Sin the malice of Men and the rage of Hell He hath nothing to trouble or disquiet him no temptations from without nor from within he is now sinless and therefore sorrowless A godly man goes free into Heaven and there enjoyes the utmost freedom 2. Then he is at his Center and there enjoyes Rest and therefore Peace God is the proper Center of the Soul And therefore as the ancient Father hath it we are not at rest until we come to God I but when we come to God then we are at rest for then we are in our proper Sphear In thy presence is fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore I joy without sorrow and pleasure without pain I and such a fulness as puts an end to all anxious and painful desires for in God the Soul enjoyes full and perfect satisfaction without any glut When I awake saith the Psalmist I shall be satisfied with thy likeness And when the Appetite is satisfied and the Belly filled we say the Bones are at rest Sure I am when the Soul is full she is at rest here she is in motion travelling from Duty to Duty and from Ordinance to Ordinance and from Scripture to Scripture and all to get something of God whom she loves and after whom she breaths but in Heaven she is at rest for there she is filled with all the fulness of God God is the All of a gracious Soul here and there he will be all in all to her and all in her The lines of his glory will be compleatly drawn upon her then and she swallowed up in divine embraces without the least
interruption Alas Sirs here you have but a taste but there a Saint shall swim in the Ocean of divine goodness and love This this is the great end of a perfect and upright man who is born of God taught of God beautified by the indwelling of God and raised up by the power of the Divine Spirit to a most admirable converse with and conformity to the life of God The end of that man is peace As soon as ever he enters into the Mansion of Glory he enters into Peace As you have it Esay 57.2 And all the time he lodgeth there he dwells in peace For though the end of that man is Peace yet the Peace of that man shall never end the Crown of Life is a never-fading Crown not a Crown of Gold but of Glory The Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom Now Beloved put all these things together and see if a perfect and upright man be not a remarkable man and worthy of your observation and delightful contemplation The truth is he is oft the worlds wonder I but 't is very certain he is a person of whom the world is not worthy As you have it Heb. 11.38 Not that he hath any worth in and from himself no in himself he hath nothing that is good In my flesh saith Paul there dwells no good But as he lives from God and lives in God and receives communications from him he is an admirable piece next to the man Christ Jesus he is the Master-piece of Divine Love and Grace Oh where is the person so blind so sottish and mad as will not be taken with such a man for so are all those that are not taken with him but why should we wonder at this when as there are so many that take little or no notice of God so few that fix their eyes upon their maker so few that love him or take any delight in him If the Original be slighted no wonder if the Copy be The Panther bears an implacable enmity and hatred against Man and therefore can't endure the picture of a man and so here Men by nature are enemies to God and therefore they hate his Image where ever it appears Application But O Sirs let me beg of you that you will not be of that number No but let your hearts fall under the power of this Divine Truth in the Text. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright I know that unregenerate men ought to be marked and observed But how 1. That we may reprove them according as occasion offered 2. That we may pity and commiserate their lost and undone estate 3. That we may be stirred up to pray for them and commend their condition to God 4. That we may admire free Grace that makes the difference I but though we should mark and behold the wicked yet not as we should mark and behold the godly No we should mark the latter So as 1. To admire God in him for what is the perfection and uprightness of any man but God in the man working and framing him to such a gracious temper in his heart and life I tell you if you do admire the goodness and grace of any man and do not at that time look upon God as the fountain and efficient thereof you do but set up an Idol No God is the all and the do-all in the man and therefore he and he alone is to be admired Oh when you see the man in the Text say God is in the man and therefore I am taken with him 2. To mark and observe him so as to imitate him as far as he is imitable So saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.1 Be ye followers of me even as I am also of Christ I know that the best of men in themselves and left to themselves are but men and therefore not to be followed in all things at all times David Solomon c. are not to be imitated in all things I but so far as their acting and behaviour speaks forth God in them they are to be marked for our imitation and Copy after which we should write For you can never be like him in his end unless you be somewhat like him in his beginning and progress You must not only desire with Balaam that you may die the death of the righteous but you must also live the life the righteous you must be perfect and upright ones or else your end will not be Peace This eternal Crown will not be set upon any mans head but upon his that hath run the race of Gospel-perfection and uprightness and finished his course doth not only begin but holds out to the last For the Text tells us that 't is he and he only whose end and last or winding up shall be Peace Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is Peace FINIS