by the meritorious death and passion of the Lord of life and glory the great and promised Messias thy beloved Son our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ who by suffering death hath both overcome death and satisfied thy justice for us freeing all true believing and penitent sinners from the sting curse and fear of death both temporal and eternal bringing by his glorious Gospel life and glory honour and happiness to light We beseech thee O heavenly Father for his sake who hath tasted death for us all to magnifie thy infinite mercy upon us before we go from hence and be no more seen O be better to us then ever we should be to our selves or we are utterly lost Bestow upon us all those graces and gifts which may both teach and help us to lead an holy life and die an happy death Prevent us graciously and follow us effectually with the motions and operations of thy holy Spirit which may excite and inable us speedily and throughly to mortifie the life and power of every sin in us even while it is called to day lest death and hell prevent us in our delays and presumptions Sanctifie to us all those occasions monitions and warnings by which thy providence presents the thoughts and state of death to us as the truest glass of all earthly glory that we may so lay them to heart as to die dayly to all inordinate love of our selves and of this world which at best is loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom thy love to us is better then life it self Thou hast by thy power given us our lives in this vain world by thy providence thou hast preserved them by thy patience thou hast spared them to this day notwithstanding we have with many sins and much unthankefulness provoked thee to our hurt yea by thy holy Word thou hast shewed and offered to us the way and reward of a better life upon our turning to thee with all our hearts from dead works to serve the living God O teach us so to number our days as to apply our hearts to true wisedom to value this pretious moment not to mispend it yea to redeem it because the days past have been evil and upon this moment depends our eternal fate O thou that hast made our moment here though it be sinful not wholly miserable but hast sweetned it with many mercies let not our eternity be miserable and sinful It is one great comfort in our mortality as to this life that we consider our sins shall not be immortal in us O let not sin die with us but before us as a work of choise and grace not of infirmity force and necessity We humbly lay hold on that eternal life which is thy gift through Jesus Christ our Lord. As we every day grow elder so Lord make us every day somewhat better as neerer to our graves so fitter for heaven teach us to live every day as if it were our last that we may never live in any such way wherein we cannot meet death comfortably make us such as thou wouldst have us while we live that we may find thee such as we would have thee when we die that when we come to die we may have nothing else to do but to resign our bodies to thy custody and our souls to thy mercy who having made this life on earth common to the bad and good the just and the unjust hast certainly prepared another state in which shall be infinite difference and everlasting distinction of recompenses to such as fear thee and such as fear thee not O enable us to do our duty and we are sure to receive thy rewards write thy name in our hearts and we need not doubt but our names are written in heaven even in thy Book of Life Sweeten the bitter thoughts of death to us by our faith and hope in the meritorious death the victorious resurrection and glorious ascension of Jesus Christ for our sakes let us find by our holiness and newness of life by our being dead with Christ and living to him that we are passed from death to life That our departure hence may be a joyful passage to a better life which consists in the vision and fruition of thy self O blessed Creator who must needs be better then all things thou hast made and as more necessary so infinitely more useful sweet and comfortable to us O that we may be willing and fitted to leave all to come to thy self that we may with all the blessed Angels and Saints for ever in heaven see love praise admire adore and enjoy thee O holy Father Son and Spirit the only true God To whom be glory and honour life and power thanks and dominion for ever Amen Februarii 17. Anno 1657. Observationes habitae In Dissectione Corporis Illustrissimi Nobilissimi Viri D. ROBERTI RICH coram Medicinae Doctoribus Chirurgis infra subscriptis 1. INventi sunt Pulmones substantiâ duriores quam secundùm naturam mole longè majores quam pro ratione pectoris toti ferè scrophulosi caseosâ materiâ magna ex parte purulentâ referti Superiori parte lobi dextri lacuna reperta est pure plena ad quantitatem cochlearis unius 2. Aqua collecta in sinistra cavitate Thoracis ad fesque librae quantitatem vel circiter 3. Auricula dextra Cordis major erat sinistrâ proportione ferè quintuplici 4. Mesenterium refertum glandulis scrophulosis aliquibus magnitudinem Ovi Gallinacei aequantibus aliis minoribus materiâ quadam sebaceâ plenis cum purulentiae guttis hinc inde sparsis in aliquibus 5. In substantia Panchreatis glandulae peregrinae huic annexus tumor scrophulosus grandis ad hepar usque protensus Orisicium Venae Portae comprimens 6. Vesicula fellis exteriùs albicans flaccida aliquam quantitatem fellis dilutioris continens 7. Hepar colore Albidiori substantiâ debito majori 8. Splen satìs laudabilis nisi quòd hinc inde granulis scrophulosis refertus 9. Inte Musculos Lumbares glandulae duae ingentes scrophuloae à quinta vertebra sinistrae partis una ad Inguen usque se protendebat ex dextra parte altera non adeo longa Fran. Prujean Geor. Bates Tho. Coxe Robertus Lloyd J. Goddard Theophilus Garancieres Edward Arris Chirurgus John Soper Chirurgus I Have judged my publishing of this Funeral-Sermon upon the immature death of the Son the fittest occasion I am ever like to have while I live to present those who can look upon eminent goodness without evil eyes with a short Epitome of the Mothers worth as it was long since in way of Epitaph composed by a person whose ambition is That justice might be done to the dead as well as to the living Vicious minds and manners like dead carkasses are then best when so buried that nothing may appear to posterity of their noysome and contagious fedities But exemplary and meritorious
unreasonable irreligious and divelish A carrionly carkass of a man is aromatick a very perfume in comparison of a dead and rotting soul The body becomes dead and so dissolves by the souls parting from it but the soul by Gods being separated from it first out of its own choise next by Gods penal deserting of it The soul is the salt the light and life of the body so is God of the soul Anima animae the very soul of our souls I mean his grace love and spiritual communion separation from this is the souls death here and hereafter For from the power wrath and vengeance of God the damned are not separated who are dead not to their being but to their well being or happiness to the union at and fruition of God in love The soul apart from God in grace or glory is not only an orphan or a widow condemned to eternal sorrow and desolation for nothing can maintain or entertain wooe wed or indow the soul to the least degree of happines or to any allay of misery when once God hath quite forsaken it But it is emortua conclamata in heaven earth and hell proclaimed as starke dead in Law and Gospel Matth. 13.42 to justice and mercy so represented in Scripture as the horridest expression or the blackest colour to set forth its misery and horror its regret and torpor its weeping and wailing its gnashing and despair Doth then such a thick cloud of horror hang over the face and state of a dead body which is senseless of its own death and deformity of its noysome grave and dark dungeon Sapiens ignis subtilis vermis carpit nutrit urit reficit Chrysol O what a world of horror must lie upon a dead soul when deservedly cast out of God's blessed presence when it feels its death and lives only to die when it feels it is plunged in a dead Sea which is boundless and bottomlesse where the worm dies not and the fire goeth not out because it is as Crysologus calls it a subtil fire and ingenious worm which burns but consumes not devours but destroyes not Who can dwell with everlasting burnings saith the Prophet in an extasie of holy horrour Isa 33.14 Who can live in everlasting dyings Who can abide his own everlasting rottings Is it a gradual and lingring death to want food raiment light liberty fit company Is it a total death to the body to want the little spark of the soul which is the breath and spirit of life to the body What is it then to the soul to want that God who is the breather of that breath of life and Inspirer of that spirit We want a word beyond death to expresse that state Lay it then to heart Phil. 3.11 and consider what cause we have to be humble to tremble and fear exceedingly to escape most solicitously and diligently that second and eternal death if by any means we may attain the resurrection of the dead to life eternal 3. Lay to heart upon the sight of a dead body and the meditation of a dead soul whence it is that these fears and faintings sicknesses and sorrows deaths and darknesses sordidnesse and desolation corruption and condemnation have thus mightily prevailed over the highest mountains as the flood over the most noble beautiful and excellent of all Gods works under heaven even over mankind good and bad great and small Eccles 2.16 wise and foolish upon which nature the great and only God had set such characters of special glory enduing it with a diviner spirit so making man as Moses saith a living spirit or a spirit of life And this after counsel and deliberation Faciamus hominem Sanctius his animal mentisâ— capaâ—ius aliâ—e Gen. 2.7 As in re magni momenti a matter of greater concern and weight then heaven and earth and all the host of them They were made ex tempore as it were Nudo verbo Let there be and there was But man was made ex consilio after Gods own Image full of beauty health honour riches wisedome the Spirit of the living God given him in an extraordinary beam Whence is this lapse to earth to dust to a sad and wretched a decaying and dying condition both temporal and eternal Sure not from the impotencie or envy of the blessed Creator whose omnipotent goodnesse is inconsistent with such infirmities nor yet from the frailty and inconsistency of the subject matter which he raised to so goodly a fabrick little lower then the Angels Psal 49.12 as man was made who should have been as long immortal as Angels had he continued a man that is Rom. 6.23 rational and religious enjoying the Image of God on him which forbids and excludes as all shadow of sin and defection so of all death or mutation to worse No. The Psalmist tells us after the history of Genesis Man being in honour did not so abide but is become like to the beasts that perish by the frailty of his will which fell from adherence to God as the durable and supreme Good Sin hath levelled us to beasts to death to devils to hell This death in all sizes and degrees from the least ache and dolour to the compleatnesse of damnation is the wages of fin So the Apostle oft tells us Rom. 5.17 by one mans offence death entred and reigned over all The soul that sins that shall die Ezek. 18. Sin is the source of all our sorrows the lethalis arundo poysoned arrow whose infection drinks up the spirits and eats up the health flesh bodies and soules of mankind No wonder we die since we sin at such a rate the wonder is that we live any one of us one moment How much more is the miracle of Gods love and mercy that hath by Christs death and merits brought forth to light eternal life and offered it to all penitent and believing sinners as purchased and prepared for them Because sin once lived in us we must once die and till sin be dead or mortified in us we cannot hope for life eternal Through death then thou wilt best see the face of thy sin What Poet what Painter what Orator whose colours are most lively can expresse the amazement horrour and astonishment that seized on the looks and hearts of Adam and Eve Rom. 27. 2 Tim. 1.10 when they had the dreadful prospect of their first great sin and curse written with the blood and pourtrayed on the face of their dead son Abel who in that primitive paucity of mankind was barbarously slain by his brother Cain Who can expresse or conceive the woful lamentation they made over their dead son in whom they first beheld the beauties of life swallowed up by the deformities of death Is death then so dreadful so dismal so deformed so putid O think what that sin is which thou so embracest and huggest The fountain of bitternesse is more bitter then the stream Our madness and misery is
a fire when he is so benummed and feeble with cold that he can hardly lift his hands to his head 2. Besides no man hath much cause to presume his repentance will be accepted of God when it comes perforce at the dregs and fag end of his life Lastly a man can then least relish and reflect upon such late and necessitated repentance as to the comfort and joy of his own soul for the best trial and taste of true repentance is to be had in health amidst the exercises and assaults of temptations then if it hold sound and firm it argues it to be of proof and safe Indeed there is nothing in our life so necessary to be done and so worthy of our living as our timely repenting for if life were for nothing else but an enflaming the reckonings of our sins here and our miseries hereafter it were a thousand times better never to be born or to see the Sun The great end of our life is first to remove the sordes and rubbidg of our sins next to build up our souls for God by grace to glory which two make up the compleat work of repentance which like currant coin hath two sides stampt or impressions on it the one is as cross the other is as pile the first is as turning from sin or dying to sin the other is turning to God and living to grace These are wrought by a double stamp upon the soul 1. Of fear and terrour scaring us from sin by the just apprehensions of the anger and wrath of God revealed from heaven and in the heart 2. Of love and mercy winning us to God by the beauty of holiness and the brightness of his goodness which appears in the face of Jesus Christ set forth in the Evangelical promifes The first breaks the second melts the heart The one is commonly much hidden where the other most appears to the soule either in fear or love which have their wholsome vicissitudes till the work be perfected by mortification to amendment by hatred of sin from the love of God This seasonably leisurely and seriously done doth strangely advance the souls faith comfort and hope of Gods love in Christ But it is neither an easie nor a ready thing to discerne the bright jewel of assurance as Gods love mercy and pardon there where the soul is all in dust and hurry and confusion moving and removing its lumber and rubbish A troubled water Isa 57.20 though it be pure will not shew a clear reflexion of our own or anothers face no more will a troubled spirit especially if it be foul with mire and dirt as a wicked heart is though a late repentant may find favour in Gods sight who can see our sincerity amidst all our confusions yet it is hard for us to have so clear a sight of God as may amount to that plerophory strong comfort and assurance which a dying man affected with his condition would desire even beyond life it self or a thousand worlds having now before his eyes the dismal aspect of death the black Abyssus of eternal night without bounds or bottome made up of desolation and oblivion at best and which is insinitely more horrid of damnation and eternal torments a Tophet that burns with much wood kindled by the breath of Gods displeasure which none can quench I know it is not fit to obstruct or shrink the mercies of God where there is yet any hope possibility or capacity allowed us by Gods indulgence They found Manasses in a prison and the thief on the Crosse and the prodigal son at the swine-trough by which sharp pennances God brought them first to themselves then to himself by repentance and so accepted of them I know God can and I believe sometimes he doth sanctifie sickness to the like good effects But we have no one example of death-bed repentance so much as once recorded in Scripture to give any instance of hope in that kind or to occasion the least presumption impenitently to sin away our health by putting off our turning to God till the time that we can scarce turn our selves in our bed Repentance like Poetry for it is a new making of the soul for God a composing of it to the holy meeters or measures of his Word requires solitude and recesses of mind Psal 4.4 that the heart of man may commune with it self and be still seriously reflecting upon a mans self what he is where he lives whence he is sprung whither he tends to what end he lives what he would have to make him happy whether this world can doe it where he may best know and how he may doe the will of his Maker and Preserver God what he will doe in age sickness death what relation proportion and capacity above all things under heaven he hath as a reasonable creature toward the Creator from what wisedom power and goodness all his visible and present comforts flow what duty and gratitude what justice and holiness befits him to God and man what to himself and his own future interests both as to soul and body which may without doubt be as capable of an after-happiness or misery which we call heaven and hell in their aspects to the supreme and increated good as they are here of health or sickness poverty or riches honour or disgrace joy or grief vexation or pleasure a momentary heaven or hell in reference to those creature-comforts they enjoy or want These if a man will but recollect himself and not shut the eyes of his soul he may in seeing see Gods will and apply himself to do his duty But this must be done apart and by himself when there are least diversions no distractions of body or mind that removed from the noise and tintamars both of secular incumbrances or sick annoyances he may better hear the gentle and orderly voice of God who is oftner in these silent and soft motions of reason then in those louder earthquakes and terrours of afflictions Nor can any pious and prudent Divine as the Confessor and Comforter of such a troubled spirit whose inward troubles for sin never began or were kindly entertained till the unwelcome trouble of his sickness made him a prisoner to his bed as the presage of his after-jayls the grave and hell In such cases I say no wise and worthy Minister of Christ but will be very wary how by the keyes of the Gospel he shut all disquiet for sin out of such a soule or let in the peace of God suddenly as to any particular confidences or personal assurance which in such cases must needs be very dark 'T is true in the general he may and must so temper Evangelical dispensations declaring the riches of Gods mercy and sufficiencies of Christs merits even to the chiefest of sinners as may never countenance despair as on Gods part in the least kind which is the dreadfullest fury of hell hardly allayed when once conjured up by the black art of
Satan For this damps all indeavors and at once doth both God and a poor sinner the greatest injury that can be by belying the one and lying most foully to the other It must alwayes be asserted on Gods behalf that when ever the sinner turns from his sins with all his heart God will abundantly pardon And whoever comes to Christ shall in no sort be cast out These are most true as to Gods readiness to receive provided alwayes on mans part that he seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Isa 57.7 Ezek. 18. John 6.37 Isa 55.6 in the means of grace in the motions of his spirit in the corrections of mens own consciences in the enjoyments of many mercies in the lengthnings of sinners tranquillity else such a penal hardness searedness and benummedness Rom. 1.24 28. such a giving over to a reprobate sense may befall a man that he shall have no contrition though he have time nor comfort though some terrors either he shall be dumb before God not daring to speak Hos 7.14 or if he doth cry and howl as a natural man or a beast for pain and fear yet God will not hear Prov. 21.13 Pro. 1.26 27 28. or answer them yea their very prayers shall be abominable because they so long refused to hear and answer Gods cry to them setting at nought his counsel c. Therefore may the Lord justly laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh as desolation and their destruction as a whirlwind These are terrible checks and coolings as to the hope of an after-crop or death-bed repentance In which at the best advance and proficiency of it especially in people of riper years and full age who have filled up the measure of their iniquity Rom. 2.5 and heaped up nothing but wrath against the day of wrath if there should be melting of this rock and softening of this milstone by the furnace of sicknesse even so far as what God will accept for true repentance who is the only searcher and judge of mens hearts yet neither he that thus confesseth and deploreth his sins nor he that as a Minister takes his confession only as it is now in humane appearance and by real experience extorted by sickness and terrours neither of them can think that it is either so ingenuous or can be so comfortable to be driven to God by the scourge of fears rather then to be drawn to him by the cords of his love so long despised Nothing of force and compulsion is so acceptable to others or so reflecting with honour and comfort to a mans self as that which flowes from the freedome of love and such adherences as arise from choise and value A forced Repentance begun on our sick beds possibly may as muskmelons and other tender plants which are bred in hot beds come to good but they must be very carefully and warily tended for a little cold chills and kills them What fruit they may bear to another world I must leave to God but as to this world I am sure there are but rare that is few examples in all experience of any whose repentance began in sickness that did ever hold long in their after health and recovery Commonly all prayers and purposes are put into the grave of forgetfulness when our selves are reprieved from it Whether it may take a better effect in heaven then usually it doth on earth I leave to all serious Christians to judge Object But I know it will be here retorted with quickness upon me by some more morose or petulant sinners who are only witty to cavil with God and delude their own soules Must we not tarry the Lords leisure when he will call us at the sixth or ninth or eleventh hour Is not repentance a grace Matth. 20.6 and so a gift of God How vain is it to step unseasonably into the water if the Angel move it not there may be a royling of the pool by us but no healing for us Did not Christ and his Apostles heal many without scruple on their sick beds as well as those that had firmer health Nor is Christ to be thought a less ready Physician to sick mens soules then their bodies Do not therefore torment us before our time suffer us to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season it will not be long before we shall be unwilling because weary or unable to sinne then we shall be much more at leisure and dispose to repent mean time God gives us not at least we have no mind to it nor indeed any power as you Preachers tell us to attain or act it of our selves for till God turn us we cannot be turned So that it seems rather a passionate and imperious way of preaching in you agreeable to your more cholerick or melancholy tempers which makes you impatient not to be presently obeyed by all men then any true Divinity you ought not to stretch mans authority by shrinking Gods mercy Answ Thus are many men ingeniosè nequam perditè periti as St. Austin speaks very acute Sophisters to deceive and damn their own others souls rather listning as Ahab to the 400 false Prophets of their own foolish hearts deceitful lusts then to one true Micaiah which is Gods Prophet 'T is most true that the life and soul of repentance which crowns it with love and endears it to God in Christ as the highest good is a special grace of God Nor is any soul so far off from him but he can easily and speedily reach them and win them to himself by the attractions of his infinite goodness and mercy discovered and offered to them in the blood of Christ Divines that understand themselves doe not prejudice or diminish the sweet and soveraign power or freedome of Gods grace which compleats mans weak endeavours and crownes all meanes with good success But yet they justly urge and inculcate upon sinners their daily duty incumbent upon them and required of them as rational creatures capable to discern and chuse good and evil sensible of feares and hopes yea and as Christians compassed with a marvellous light which convinceth them of sin and righteousness and judgment to come with offers of mercy in Christ to the highest latitude Jam. 1.21 and menaces of wrath to eternity upon their impenitency This is that which is required of them as in their power to turn from sin at least as to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superfluity of wickedness and excess of riot in which they knowingly wallow to greater impudicities and fedities then the sober Heathens would indulge Since then even these men can deny many acts and degrees of sin even for fear of man why cannot why doe not they deny more for fear of God Rom. 2.1 They must needs be inexcusable and without Apology yea self-condemned because it is evident there is no sin so pleasing or so prevalent upon
God is to be blessed taking as well as giving Consider again that parents sins are oft visited by childrens immature deaths 1 Kings 14.13 as was threatned against Eli yea sometimes hopeful childron are cut off because some good thing was found in them as in Jereboam's childs case Sometimes they are the Idols of jealousie which take up parents hearts too much and therefore are taken away from them that there might be less distance between them and God their heavenly Father Vnicum bonum verum summum immutabile immarcessibile quod amittere non potes quamdiu amare non desinis Aug. who hath the wisedom of a father and the tenderness of a mother weaning us oft from those brests which we were too fond of and out of which we sucked more wind then wholesome nourishment All losses are mercies which end in the souls gain nor can that be a losse in any creature-comfort if it finds recompenses in his love who is the only immutable and unloseable good As for vain or vicious parents who are rather peremptores quam parentes when their children are taken away from their contagion I know not how they can have any greater summons from heaven or motives on earth to move their hearts to speedy repentance and preparation for death then when they see their prime branches lopped off as presages that the whole bulk of the tree root and branch shall ere long be hewn down and without repentance cast into unquenchable fire 7. Last of all in the death of such as are remarkable for nothing but their sin and wickedness for the dissoluteness of their lives the stupidity or despair of their deaths dying unawares and cut off by unexpected stroaks of heaven because their sin was great before God it may be a violent immature and preposterous fate yea it may be flagrante crimine as Absalom in his unnatural rebellion against his Prince and parents 2 Sam. 18. or possibly by the hand of human justice or by private duels or by their own debaucheries which are a self-assasination even these are not lightly to be laid to heart in any family kindred or acquaintance or neighbourhood because they are like Gods thunderbolts not every days terror nor striking every one therefore the more to be dreaded by all though the punishment falls but on one Poena ad unum terror ad omnes though the ruine falls upon the head but of one yet the news may justly make the ears to tingle and hearts to tremble of all that see and hear of it No man does deserves or suffers from God or man or himself so bad but the same might be exemplified in thee and me to the astonished world we might be the beacons on fire that should scare all the Country far more then any house on fire can do We read of David though otherways of a mind great and gracious 2 Sam. 18.33 full of courage and constancy becoming the majesty of a pious King yet he takes the dreadful fate of his son Absalom so to heart the three streams of parental penitent and pious affections meeting in one current that he forgets the comfort of victory his own and the publick safety the suppressing of so dangerous and popular a rebellion the restitution of his throne and dominion which my young Master under the colour of doing speedier and better justice or reforming publick disorders had almost snatched from him not without the ready applause and assistance of vulgar levity giddiness vileness and ingratitude to such a Prince yet all these weighty concernments sink in Davids soul and only grief swims uppermost publikely manifesting its either excess or just violence in words too high indeed for any Tragedy and never heard from any father or son in the case of a Kingdom Would God I had died for thee O Absalom my son my son The loss of a good child is tolerable of a wicked one is intolerable especially if bad by neglect or example 2 Sam. 12.23 because he is eternally lost David comforted himself He should go to that Infant whose innocency gave hopes of its safety though it were the fruit of his sin but in Asaloms desperate case he deplores geminam aeternam mortem a double and eternal death and this alone may serve to justifie the so great passions of Davids soul in that particular Yet besides this Absaloms sins and sufferings made secret reflexions upon the fathers offences which had not only occasioned but deserved such unnatural fires to burn in his own bowels which were only to be quenched with their own blood nor had David been only excessive in his rebellious presumings against God but defective too in his reproving of his sons hence sad effects of paternal indulgence toward dangerous and comminitting children whose sins are imputable in great part to their parents 1 Sam. 3.13 and so their sufferings on all sides are but the punishments of such unzealous fondnesses as Eli used to the ruine of himself and his sons yea of his whole house by intolerable toleration of such impieties as will certainly overthrow roof and foundation root and branch of any family under heaven Would we have less cause to mourn in the death of any one we love endeavour to make them as good as we can while they are with us however having done our duty and expressed the best evidences of a true and faithful love to them in order to their eternal good we shall with more comfort and patience bear their death which many times gives us greater regrets for our own neglect of that Christian duty and holy love which we owe to the souls of our relations then for their corporal absence the one being reparable the other never either in this or the world to come I have now finished these instances of particular cases in which the death of any is to be laid to heart proportionably to the weight of the becasion whose circumstances or manner of dying as the feathers of some birds are sometimes as heavy as their bodies and substances It were too much for me to drive this discourse which in the whole texture of it is pathetick and applicative to a further thinness or fineness like leaf-gold by multiplied uses which are there necessary where as in the riveting or clinching of nails we suspect the doctrines have not taken good hold on the hearers minds and hearts of which in this case I am not very jealous as to the most of you whose affections may be read in your attention There are only three Uses which I conceive may not impertinently be added as advantages to or deductions from the main of that I have hitherto set down 1. Vse To reprove the unchristian barbarous and inhuman temper of those hearts which are made of flint not flesh who are so far from laying to heart with any humble mortifying and compassionating reflexions the death of any that they either carry it with
conference with such an humble ejaculation O how infinite is the mercy of our heavenly Father that hath given us poor sinners such gracious promises to lay hold on Afterward I was sent for to him and went betimes that morning before he departed which was at four afternoon His weakness then was great and urgent yet his calmness to speak and hear was better then I had found before Then he deplored as I formerly touched the vain hopes of living which he had had and that it was so late There was now no delay to be made no time to be lost in impertinent visiting and cold how-do-yous I craved therefore his patience privacy and leave to doe my duty as a Minister of Christ in order to his souls present good Then I did according to the wisedome that God gave me demand many things of him in the cleerest exactest and shortest method which I could whereby to receive from him such a confession of his sins and of his serious repentance of his deep sense of the want of Christ as a Saviour of owning the excellent worth that is in Christ of the full and free grace of God offered by Christ of his humble desires and hopes of it also his patience and preparedness to die if God would have it so And in general of his firm perswasion that those things were true which he had been taught by me and other Ministers of the Church of England out of Gods word To all the whole series of my questions discourse he severally answered with such prayers tears such deep sighs such fervent Amens and such pathetick expressions as I could expect in his weak condition To my last query concerning his belief of the Truths of God in his Word he replyed with a vehemency of voice and spirit Do I believe them yes Sr. I thank God I do believe them as most gracious and glorious truths and I hope my heavenly Father will make them good to my soul This last expression my heavenly Father he oft used as alone so to me and others A sweet name and title used oft in the private devotions which his pious and noble Mother had wrote with her own hand as the effusions of her devout soul After this my private discourse with him about a quarter of an hour his noble friends joyned with me in prayer to God for him to which he was composedly intent and fervent In the afternoon soon after he had againe spoken in his dying agonies some like passionate pious and humble words to me as best befits the mouth of a dying Christian he calmly and suddenly expired without any great contest with death Far be it from me who never flattered him or any man living except my self to commend him now dead and gone after those riotous Hyperboles and envied excesses which the Greek and Roman Orators used at the Funeral piles or busta of their deceased friends Nor will I scatter upon his herse those flowers which ancient Fathers and other Christian Orators used gravely and more deservedly in their Funeral Sermons Orations and Epitaphs applied to many holy men and women of old who died either young as Nepotian whom St. Jerome so highly commends or elder as Martyrs Confessors and eminent professors of Christ crucified it was but pious and prudent that their light both living and dead should so shine before men Matth. 5.16 both Christians and Heathens that all might see their good works and glorifie God These were set forth by their accurate yet honest eloquence that they were Virtutum thesauri gratiarum gazae humanarum perfectionum cumuli c. treasures of virtue magazeens of grace heaps of divine perfections in the midst of human imperfections No Sancta illa anima nec laudes quaerit nec cupit humanas Hieron I better understand the proportions of modesty gravity and verity which become both living and dead Great applauses never so much deserved as St. Jerome speaks can do the dead no good and may do the living much hurt when they seem not so eminently deserved I am severely confined to the bounds of soberness and truth therefore I shall say no more then this that as I hope he was not far from the Kingdom of Heaven in his health Mark 12.34 so I trust his long sickness brought him not only neerer to it in the graces of true faith unfeigned repentance with charity patience humility and willing submission to Gods will living and dying I well know that the rack and skrew of sickness and killing infirmitie do commonly squeeze or force something of such expressions out of every one which sound to the tune of Christianity the best verification of which is former frequent and faithful experiments in health enjoyed in a mans own conscience and given also to others by walking humbly with God and keeping constant communion with Christ in all good duties and good works the one affords nourishment the other fruits of grace Yet I conceive I may without any offence to God or good men say thus much That if sinite parvulos ad me venire suffer little ones to come unto me Mark 10.14 be applicable to Infant graces if the indulgent tenderness of Christ Matth. 11.28 bidding the weary laden with corporal and spiritual infirmities to come to him and promising them rest if that sweet promise worthy of our blessed Saviours beniguity to mankind have any spirits and life in it for a poor dying and dejected yet believing and trembling sinner to lay hold of Matth. 12.20 The smoaking flax he will not quench nor break the bruised reed if these be significant to poor sinners in their contrite state I may without presumption or turning grace into wantonness hope that they were made good to this Gentleman whose honour health hopes happiness and heart too were so long under the burdens and breakings of Gods hand in his sickness so early in his life and so suddenly casting him down from the highest pinnacle of worldly happiness where he fancied most to settle himself Certainly there are many times great comforts spiritual cordials secretly infused with Gods bitter potions Zach. 4.10 which keep up our spirits under them and mend us by them I know God despiseth not the day of small things if sincere nor shall faith like a grain of Mustard-seed Matth. 17.20 be in vain to remove mountains of sin if it be true and lively sown on Christ and growing in him growing up and fructifying to him But I have done with the Anatomizing of his soul to you as far as I had time opportunity and skill I could also give you a true and full account of the Anatomy of his body as it was dissected the next day by six able Physitians and two skilful Surgeons my self being an eye witness whose testimony under their hands is hereafter printed in their own words The account of their discovery amounts to no more then this That