to heart the death of our Friends and Relations and to pine away meerly for sorrow that they are gone whereas they are now freed from all the sorrow and contagion of bodily distempers and have escaped those sore burthens which we are like to feel and suffer if we stay here Methinks we should rather comfort our selves as we may well suppose David did to think that our Relations when they are dead and gone are past the shock and fury of a Disease that they have endured one brunt for all that they have charg'd that Enemy home which we so much fear and must expect every day to encounter withal so that considering how we that are left behind are to run the Gantlet through Troops of sorrow and to pass the Pikes of a thousand Diseases 't is highly unreasonable to mourn and sorrow for the dead they being past all possibility of Diseases and far removed from this Climate of Sickness and Death Sixthly Another thing which might restrain Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration That it was releas'd from the great pains and miseries which it lately felt and endured 'T is certain and indubitable that the Soul does not quit its Mansion of the Body without great strivings and reluctancy and though it be consider'd that the Child was but in its Infancy and newly in possession of life and that the Soul and Body had contracted but a late acquaintance and that the Friendship was very new yet where there is such a strict Conjunction as there is between the Soul and the Body though but for a moment of time the separation cannot be without great grief and sorrow where there is such a close union and intimacy there is no parting without pain and trouble and consequently though the Soul of the Child was now just enter'd into its New Tenement yet it was so firmly setled and had taken that deep rooting that it could not be remov'd or ejected out of possession without great disturbance And therefore to see a Child strugling for life and to have only breath enough to intitle it to life could not but wonderfully affect and produce great Agonies of sorrows in the hearts of the Spectators And we may observe that men have naturally that compassion as to pity even a Brute when it lies in pain and misery and look upon it as an act of mercy to dispatch it out of the way And therefore David seeing his Child in that extream anguish and distress in that sickness to Death and that there was no way to ease and relieve it could not but reflect upon it as a singular mercy of God to take away the Child and to put an end to such a painful and miserable life David could not forbear weeping and sadly lamenting over his Child when he saw it in the pangs of Death and in those frightful Convulsions which were precedaneous to its dissolution But when it pleas'd God to seal up its breath and to give it a happy Issue out of this troublesome World then David began to be better satisfied and to be somewhat comforted with the consideration that God had in mercy released his Child from that pain and misery which it lately underwent and the sight whereof would have pierc'd the hardest heart living So that all those that have the sad opportunity of standing by their Relations and Friends when they are upon their sick Beds and in the approaches of Death and there to observe what a tumult and commotion nature is in at that time and with what pain and trouble the Soul and Body take their leave one of the other must needs conclude their parting and separation to be a more dismal and amazing sight than a Divorce between the most desperate Lovers Let us but be present with our Friends in the heat and rage of their Distemper or in the ultimate efforts of life and we shall then see a tremendous and ghastly spectacle which is hardly to be related without tears and cannot be seen without horror and astonishment O the hollow sighs and the deep sobs and pierceing groans of our dying Friends which are enough to wound any heart living and to strike that dread upon us that the sound of their cries and groans shall never be forgotten and can we pretend to pity them when we see them in so much anguish and distress and in the depths of misery and shall we so contradict our pretences to sorrow and our compassion for them in the bitterness of Death as to be troubled when they are out of misery and to deplore their going to rest Shall we weep and mourn to see our Friends upon the Rack and in great torment and shall we take on the more when they are past the sense and feeling of any pain How can we reconcile this Posthumous Passion to common reason Or can we think to perswade people that we lov'd our Relations dearly when they see us grieve when they were in misery but to grieve more when they are stept into happiness In a word we may yield to the meltings of nature or the tenderness of our affections and gratify our compassions in mourning for our Friends when they are in great misery and the Agonies of Death For a compassionate grief is both natural and reasonable and if we have any spark of good nature we cannot but be mollify'd at the mournful accents of the most despicable Creature when 't is in pain and great extremities But then to mourn excessively for our Friends when they are out of pain and the bitterness of Death is past is both unreasonable and unchristian unreasonable because they have endured and pass'd the worst and are perfectly discharg'd from those troubles and sorrows which those that remain alive are subject unto and 't is unchristian because it gives occasion to people to suspect our belief of a Resurrection and a future Life and that we are not really perswaded that our Friends are removed for the better and much for their advantage And therefore the Apostle in the first to the Thessal 4. ch and 13. v. admonishes Christians not to grieve and take on for the dead as others which have no hope lest they should by that means scandalize their Religion and render their belief of a Resurrection suspected and dubitable so that we are concern'd as Christians and as we tender the reputation of our Christian Faith not to be lavish of our tears nor over profuse in our expences of sorrow for the dead lest we should be suspected of believing our Friends happier here than they will be hereafter But we should rather in a manner rejoice at the departure of those who have liv'd well and innocently and die in the Lord Forasmuch as the Apostle tells us they shall rest from their labours and have all tears wip't away from their Eyes Revel 7. 17. And we should as our Church wisely directs us in the office for the Burial of
habitum non datur regressus our Philosophy tells us that is though it be possible to recover the sight when the Organ of the Eye is only inflam'd or distemper'd or grown over with a film yet when a man is stark blind and his Eyes are dropt out of his Head then such a recovery is utterly impossible and so Death being a total privation of motion sensation and all the acts of the animal life there is no returning after that has once pass'd upon us to any such vital operations we are says the Prophet Samuel 2 Sam. 14. and 14. ver as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again that is as Water spilt upon the ground presently vanishes out of sight and sinks into the Earth and by the diffluence of its parts is so disperst and wasted that there is no gathering it up again in the same quantity that it fell so Death causes such a dissolution of the parts of our Bodies that there is no reuniting them in the same manner or forming them into the same orderly lively Fabrick by all the power and art in the World Can these dry bones live says the Prophet is a Question that might very well be askt as being a thing almost incredible but that nothing is impossible with God But then how is it that these dry bones will live surely not in the same way as formerly nor can they be enlivened by any humane power or Art but they shall be quickned by a miraculous power by the same power which raised Jesus from the Dead but at present during the time and reign of mortality they must remain rotten and shatter'd and liveless and only in a possibility to return to life by the wonderful power of God in the Morning of the Resurrection And Job in the 24. c. and 14. v. asks much the same question If a man die shall he live again where Job does not so much doubt or question the truth of a Resurrection as puts it out of all doubt by so propounding it if a man die shall he live yes he shall but not by any power of nature to restore it self nor that there is any remains of spirit in man after death which can quicken into new life of its own accord nor that there is any seed of immortality in humane Bodies as some of the Jews did fondly conceive when they imputed the Resurrection to the vertue of a Worm in the back-bone which never dies And therefore though we are to believe another life yet we must believe it in another place For when our life here is once expir'd there is no return of it till God breath into us a new spirit of life and inspire us with new vigour and motion And therefore pray'd in another place that God would continue his life a little longer upon Earth as verily believing he should never see it any more when he had once left it Spare me O Lord a little longer before I go hence and be no more seen Ps 39. and 13. v. Man sayes Solomon goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets long indeed whence there will be no moving or stirring a foot till the great day of Judgment And not improper to our purpose is that observation of the Fox in the Fable who when he was much urg'd and importun'd to go and pay a Visit to the Lyon in the time of his sickness and told that his Company would be more useful and serviceable to the Lyon in order to the helping him to make his will as being one famous for his wisdom and sagacity answered by no means for there was a great deal of danger in going to visit this King of Beasts For he had observ'd a great resort to the Lyon but saw no marks or footsteps of any that ever return'd from him Vestigia nulla retrorsum and so may we say that we have known millions that have enter'd into the shades below but none that ever came back from thence and therefore we find that when Dives was in torment and made this earnest request to Abraham that one might rise from the dead and inform his Brethren of the truth of Hell torments and by such a wonderful information might scare them from doing any thing that might bring them thither yet this request was denied him upon this account Joh. 7. and 9. v. there being so great a publication of a future State by Moses and the Prophets and other divine testimonies and besides Abraham told him that between us and you there is a great Gulf fixed which place is enough to evince the impossibility of a return to this World after Death and therefore we imagin that David at the parting of his Child took his final leave of him bidding him an Eternal farewel and an Everlasting good night For he considered that there was no hopes of seeing him again under the same circumstances or conversing with him in the flesh and therefore having decently committed his Body to the ground and laid him in the bosom of our common Mother Earth and perhaps dropping a tear or two upon the Hearse and besprinkling the Grave with tears as our Saviour did Lazarus in testimony how much he lov'd him he retires from the Funeral with great Solemnity we may imagine but without any further Lamentations saying wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me But then perhaps several may be ready to tax this Discourse with impertinency and say what needs there all this stir and ado to prove a thing that never was gainsaid or contradicted as namely the impossibility of the dead coming to life again and rising out of their Graves to live anew in this World who is so silly or credulous as to expect such a thing or who would desire to see the Ghosts or any representations of their Friends when they are dead and gone To which I answer That I believe there is none so silly or whimsical or deeply melancholy as to expect a return of their Friends and Relations from the Grave But then people make a great Argument against themselves and do highly condemn themselves of the greatest folly in their inordinate sorrowings for the Dead For why should they take on and weep so bitterly for the loss of a Child or Relation when they believe no such thing as a return from Death why do they wound themselves with such mighty and piercing sorrows for their Relations when they know they are dead and gone and that there is no hopes of seeing them again as long as the World endures This indeed is their folly to grieve for an irrecoverable loss and to weep incessantly at the remembrance of deceased Friends For t is the vainest idlest thing that can be to mourn when all the mourning in the World will do no good neither to us or our Friends and therefore this consideration that all our
reason should not do that which a little time will effect that it should not put a stop to our tears which within a little while will dry up of themselves Multum autem interest utrum tibi permittas moerere an imperes says the same Seneca 't is more honourable to suppress our passions than to let them run themselves out of breath and to sink of their own accord And in another place he tells Marcia that it is wisdom to husband our tears well and not to let them stream too plentifully but to be sparing of them and to reserve some against another time Lachrymae nobis deerunt antequam dolendi causae For if we live in the World we shall meet with many occasions to weep and mourn and shall never want matter of sorrow and trouble And therefore we should make it evident by our ceasing to mourn for the dead in just and convenient time that our reason has that ascendant over our Passion as not to let it run too far or spend it self quite at once whereas there may be great reason and occasion for it at some other time Lastly and to conclude all Let none suspect that this Discourse had any aim to promote or introduce a Stoical Apathy among Christians whose Religion is a compleat body of mercy and a perfect systeme of tender-heartedness and compassions and teaches men to be pitiful and compassionate and melting above the common standard of humanity Let none I say so misconstrue it as because it argues against excessive and immoderate mourning for the dead that therefore it intends to harden mens hearts and to bar them from paying a just tribute of tears and sorrow to the memory of their Deceased Friends or because it declares against effeminate weepings and lamentations that therefore it will not allow us the sense and feeling of men Nec verò credi velim sayes Cicero me quia dolori nimio repugnem idcirco dolorem omni ex parte improbare omnesque illius ex animo filias evellendas existimare c. But our design is chiefly to perswade men to curb and moderate their Passions and sorrows for the Dead by shewing that if they would but listen to the Counsels and Dictates of reason it would inform and convince them of the folly of grieving and afflicting themselves to no purpose and when all the sorrowing in the World will do no good Parcamus Lachrymis sayes Seneca nihil proficientibus and also how contradictory it is to the Faith of a Christian to continue mourning for the Dead as if they were irreversibly gone and lost to all intents and purposes of happiness as if Death were an utter extinction and annihilation of their beings and as if there were no immortality after this short and fading life is ended 'T is true that the Stoicks injoined their Disciples to dam up the current of their natural affections and passions and not to let them forth in the least degree upon any occasion whatsoever And this Apathy they pretended and boasted to be the aim and perfection of their Philosophy whereas the Christian Philosophy is not near so rigid but allows us to give way to our passions in some measure and upon just and solemn occasions We read of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and how that the Death of the good King Josiah was solemniz'd with great mournings and lamentations all Israel mourned for Josiah and Judah lamented Josiah 2 Chro. 35. 24. And that which doth more authorize our Mourning for our Friends is the carriage and practice of those devout men in the Gospel who carried Stephen to his Burial and made great Lamentation over him Acts 8. 2. Nay a further Confirmation of the lawfulness of mourning for our deceased Friends is the Example of our Saviour himself who wept over Lazarus's Grave as we may see John 11. 35. which the standers by made a great Argument of his love and concernment for the Death of Lazarus And 't is very well known that the Jews lookt upon tears and mourning to be so natural and proper at a Funeral that they hired Women called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jer. 9. 17. and so had the Romans their Praeficae for the very same purpose to weep at Burials for the greater solemnity so that rather than there should be any want of tears upon such sad occasions they Celebrated the Obsequies of their Friends with a mercenary sorrow and therefore it was a severe and unnatural Injunction of Tiberius to charge the Friends and Relations of those persons that he put to Death not to mourn for them or so much as shed a tear at their Execution upon pain of his highest displeasure Interdictum ne capite damnatos lugerent Suetonius Whereas our Religion does not require us to put off bowels of pity and compassion as the Philosophy of the Stoicks or the cruelty of the Tyrant did but only prohibits us to pluck up the Sluces or to open the Flood-gate of our Passions so as to let them run with a mighty Torrent and to over-flow the bounds of reason and moderation But then although we are permitted by the Example of our Saviour to sympathize with the sufferings of humane nature and to grieve according to the proportions of humanity for the loss of our Friends and Relations yet we are to have a special care that our sorrows are not unreasonable or immoderate for as no sorrow shews want of humanity so too much shews the want of Religion For by our immoderate grievings we seem to renounce our Creed or at least to distrust the truth of one of its prime and fundamental Articles which is the Resurrection of the Dead And therefore St. Paul seeing the Christians in his days were apt to grow exorbitant in their sorrowings for the Dead thinks fit to give them this instruction 1 Thess 4. 13. But I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him in which words he does plainly declare that we do in a manner confute and dissolve our Belief of the great Article of the Resurrection if we lay the loss of our Friends so much to heart and ingulph our selves in sorrows as those that have no hope And indeed what can be more unlike or contrary to the Faith and Belief of Christians than that unruly and excessive sorrow of Rachel for the loss of her Children whom the Scripture seems not only to note but to brand and stigmatize for her impatience in that she wept for her Children and would not be comforted because they were not Ah Lord what a sad thing is this to contradict our profession to say we believe a Resurrection and yet sorrow as if there were none But in short either we believe a Resurrection or we do not if we do
believe it why do we bewail the Death of our Friends with so much bitterness and lamentation as if they were utterly lost and gone as if they were past all joys and comfort and were to perish for ever Si enim à miseriis abstrahit si in meliorem vitam inducit si neque misera ipsa est nec ullius particeps miseriae cur mala censetur sin hoc largitur ut sempiternis bonis potiamur vitamque quam mortalem habemus aeternam adipiscamur quid morte beatius esse possit that is says Cicero if we do really believe that death doth abstract and deliver us from the miseries of this World and sets us far out of harms way and that 't is an entrance and introduction to a better life then what reason have we to look upon it as such a sad and grievous thing to die But if it be further granted that Death puts us into the possession of Eternal and never-failing blessings and that it slides us from a short and fading to an Everlasting Life we are then to repute Death our best and dearest Friend in that it leads and ushers us to such Endless Happiness But if we do not believe a Resurrection why are we so rash and formal as to own an Article that we dare not rely on Ah! We little think that the greatest Atheist in the World cannot make a greater Argument against our Religion than we do our selves when we let loose the reins of our passions and refuse to be comforted for the dead and wound and pierce our hearts thorough with great and mighty sorrows thereby testifying that we little believe a Life to come or a better State than this is or that our Friends have exchang'd for the better and therefore we had best look to it and endeavour to curb and check our passions that we do not give occasion to our Enemies to blaspheme and say where is that Heaven that place of rest and blessedness which you so much talk of where is that Faith of a future Life and a judgment to come which you so zealously profess how can you perswade us that you believe what you profess seeing that upon the trial you are ready to kill your selves with very grief for the Death of your Friends and Relations and thereby give a strong suspicion that you think this World the best Paradise for your Friends to live in and the other the best only to talk of To conclude Let us endeavour to possess our hearts and minds with a firm hope and perswasion of a future State and Eternal Life and then we shall be the freer to think of our own Death and be less troubled to part with our Friends and Relations when God thinks fit to take them away Simplicius in his Comment upon Epictetus cap. 33. does rightly observe how variously we are affected at the Death of others and the Death of our own Relations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we hear sayes he of the Death of anothers Wife or Children we are not much concern'd but put it off very slightly and say that their dying is no wonder at all and that there is no reason to be much troubled at it forasmuch as Death is natural and common to all But then sayes he when we happen to lose any of our own Relations we seem to have another guise opinion of Death and to change our note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is We hear of and see the death and burial of others patiently enough and without being much troubled or inwardly concern'd but when it comes home to our selves and we lose any of our own dear Friends and Relations we are presently in a storm and rise into a supream passion and in the bitterness of our Souls cry out that we are miserable and undone and the unhappiest people in the World and that there is no loss like our loss and that none has such great afflictions as we and then there is nothing to be heard or seen but great Lamentations and Mourning and a huge Scene of sorrows In which words the Philosopher does rightly note our partiality to our selves and how that we esteem and look upon Death to be only unkind and cruel to our selves and those that belong to us and that we can hear and think kindly enough of it at a distance but when it comes nigh us and touches us in our Relations then we are all mutiny and confusion And therefore it is a great Argument of our folly and indiscretion to waver and alter so much in our opinion of Death as to entertain worse thoughts of it at one time than another For albeit the more than ordinary sympathy that is between us and our Relations may defend and justifie our sorrowing somewhat more for them than for perfect Strangers yet it is against common sense and reason that we should be so desperately disquieted at that Providence which deprives us of our Relations whereas we are so little concern'd at the common fatality of Mankind And therefore it behoves us in point of Prudence to labour to have always the same thoughts and opinions of Death and to count it no more cruel no more an Enemy when it seizeth upon our own flesh and blood than when it seizeth upon the rest of humane race And if we make no great matter of the death of others whom we see daily fall to the ground looking upon it as a natural thing for them to die so let us consider that 't is every whit as natural for our Relations to die and nothing happens to them but what is common to all flesh living And this consideration the Philosopher looks upon as very just and reasonable and prescribes it as an excellent Remedy and Antidote against all immoderate sorrowing for the loss of our dearest Friends and Relations But alas why do I urge such a poor consideration as that of Death being common to all men to asswage and mitigate our sorrows for the Dead as if any consideration in the World could do it more effectually than our Christian Hope and the belief of another and better life hereafter Some indeed may attempt and endeavour to quiet and silence their sorrows by Arguments drawn from reason and the acute sayings of Philosophers and think they may be able from meer natural courage and some bold principles to laugh at and despise Death as well as the Stoicks did in their high rants and sullen moods but no Arguments or the most stubborn Principles in the World can be of equal force with our Christian Hope for that purpose A Hope that opens to us the Casements of Heaven and represents to us in a great measure the glories of the Resurrection the exact and full knowledge whereof cannot be attain'd in this narrow state of mortality and is far transcending all humane reach and comprehension so that for me to go about to make a full and compleat description of the excellencies and perfections