Resurrection hath entertained the greatest Demonstration in the world That nothing can make us happy but the Knowledge of God and Conformity to the life and death of the Holy Jesus Here therefore are the great Hinges of all Religion 1. Christ is already risen from the dead 2. We also shall rise in Gods time and our order Christ is the first fruits But there shall be a full Harvest of the Resurrection and all shall rise My Text speaks only of the Resurrection of the just of them that belong to Christ explicitely I say of these and therefore directly of Resurrection to life Eternal But because he also says there shall be an order for every man and yet every man does not belong to Christ therefore indirectly also he implies the more universal Resurrection unto Judgment But this shall be the last thing that shall be done for according to the Proverb of the Jews Michael flies but with one wing and Gabriel with two God is quick in sending Angels of peace and they flie apace but the messengers of wrath come slowly God is more hasty to glorifie his Servants than to condemn the wicked And therefore in the story of Dives and Lazarus we find that the beggar dyed first the good man Lazarus was first taken away from his misery to his comfort and afterwards the rich man dyed and as the good many times die first so all of them rise first as if it were a matter of haste And as the mothers breasts swell and shoot and long to give food to her babe so Gods bowels did yearn over his banished Children and he longs to cause them to eat and drink in his Kingdom And at last the wicked shall rise unto condemnation for that must be done too every man in his own order First Christ then Christs Servants and at last Christs Enemies The first of these is the great ground of our Faith the second is the consummation of all our hopes the first is the foundation of God that stands sure the second is that superstructure that shall never perish by the first we believe in God unto righteousness by the second we live in God unto salvation But the third for that also is true and must be considered is the great affrightment of all them that live ungodly But in the whole Christs Resurrection and ours is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Christian that as Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day and the same for ever so may we in Christ become the morrow of the Resurrection the same or better than yesterday in our natural life the same body and the same soul tyed together in the same essential union with this only difference that not Nature but Grace and Glory with an Hermetick seal give us a new signature whereby we shall no more be changed but like unto Christ our head we shall become the same for ever Of these I shall discourse in order 1. That Christ who is the first fruits is the first in this order he is already risen from the dead 2. We shall all take our turns we shall die and as sure as death we shall all rise again And 3. This very order is effective of the thing it self That Christ is first risen is the demonstration and certainty of ours for because there is an order in this oeconomy the first in the kind is the measure of the rest If Christ be the first fruits we are the whole vintage and we shall all die in the order of Nature and shall rise again in the order of Christ They that are Christ's and are found so at his coming shall partake of his Resurrection But Christ first then they that are Christ's that 's the order 1. Christ is the first fruits he is already risen from the dead For he alone could not be held by death Free among the dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death was Sins eldest Daughter and the Grave-cloaths were her first mantle but Christ was Conqueror over both and came to take that away and to disarm this This was a glory fit for the head of mankind but it was too great and too good to be easily believed by incredulous and weak-hearted Man It was at first doubted of by all that were concerned but they that saw it had no reason to doubt any longer But what 's that to us who saw it not Yes very much Valde dubitatum est ab illis ne dubitaretur à nobis saith S. Augustine They doubted very much that by their confirmation we might be established and doubt no more Mary Magdalene saw him first and she ran with joy and said she had seen the Lord and that he was risen from the dead but they believed her not After that divers women together saw him and they told it but had no thanks for their pains and obtained no credit among the Disciples The two Disciples that went to Emaus saw him talked with him eat with him and they ran and told it they told true but no body believed them Then S. Peter saw him but he was not yet got into the Chair of the Catholick Church they did not think him infallible and so they believed him not at all Five times in one day he appeared for after all this he appeared to the Eleven they were indeed transported with joy and wonder but they would scarce believe their own eyes and though they saw him they doubted Well all this was not enough he was seen also of James and suffered Thomas to thrust his hand into his side and appeared to S. Paul and was seen by five hundred brethren at once So that there is no capacity of mankind no time no place but had an ocular demonstration of his Resurrection He appeared to Men and Women to the Clergy and the Laity to sinners of both sexes to weak men and to criminals to doubters and denyers at home and abroad in publick and in private in their houses and their journeys unexpected and by appointment betimes in the morning and late at night to them in conjunction and to them in dispersion when they did look for him and when they did not he appeared upon earth to many and to S. Paul and S. Stephen from Heaven So that we can require no greater testimony than all these are able to give us and they saw for themselves and for us too that the Faith and certainty of the Resurrection of Jesus might be conveyed to all that shall die and follow Christ in their own order Now this being matter of fact cannot be supposed infinite but limited to time and place and therefore to be proved by them who at that time were upon the place good men and true simple and yet losers by the bargain many and united confident and constant preaching it all their life and stoutly maintaining it at their death Men that would not deceive others and Men
believing his Word praying for his Spirit supported with his Hope refreshed by his Promises recreated by his Comforts and wholly and in all things conformable to his Life that is the true Communion The Sacraments are not made for Sinners until they do repent they are the food of our Souls but our Souls must be alive unto God or else they cannot eat It is good to confess our sins as St. James sayes and to open our wounds to the Ministers of Religion but they absolve none but such as are are truly penitent Solemn Prayers and the Sacraments and the Assemblies of the Faithful and fasting days and acts of external worship are the solemnities and rites of Religion but the Religion of a Christian is in the Heart and Spirit And this is that by which Clemens Alexandrinus defined the Righteousness of a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the parts and faculties that make up a man must make up our Religion but the heart is Domus principalis it is the Court of the great King and he is properly served with interior graces and moral Vertues with a humble and a good mind with a bountiful heart and a willing Soul and these will command the eye and give laws to the hand and make the shoulders stoop but anima cujusque est quisque a mans soul is the man and so is his Religion and so you are bound to understand it True it is God works in us his Graces by the Sacrament but we must dispose our selves to a reception of the Divine blessing by Moral instruments The Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must work together with God and the body works together with the soul But no external action can purifie the soul because its Nature and Operations being Spiritual it can no more be changed by a Ceremony or an external Solemnity than an Angel can be caressed with sweet Meats or a a Mans belly can be filled with Musick or long Orations The sum is this No Christian does his Duty to God but he that serves him with all his heart And although it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness even the external also yet that which makes us gracious in his Eyes is not the external it is the love of the heart and the real change of the mind and obedience of the spirit that 's the first great measure of the Righteousness Evangelical 2. The Righteousness Evangelical must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees by extension of our Obedience to things of the same signification Leges non ex verbis sed ex mente intelligendas sayes the Law There must be a Commentary of kindness in the understanding the Laws of Christ. We must understand all Gods meaning we must secure his service we must be far removed from the dangers of his displeasure And therefore our Righteousness must be the purification and the perfection of the Spirit So that it will be nothing for us not to commit Adultery unless our Eyes and Hands be chast and the desires be clean A Christian must not look upon a woman to lust after her He must hate Sin in all dimensions and in all distances and in every angle of its reception A Christian must not sin and he must not be willing to sin if he durst He must not be lustful and therefore he must not feed high nor drink deep for these make provisions for lust and amongst Christians great eatings and drinkings are acts of uncleanness as well as of intemperance and whatever ministers to sin and is the way of it partakes of its nature and its curse For it is remarkable that in good and evil the case is greatly different Mortification e. g is a duty of Christianity but there is no Law concerning the Instruments of it We are not commanded to roll our selves on thorns as St. Benedict did or to burn our flesh like St. Martinian or to tumble in Snows with St. Francis or in pools of water with St. Bernard A man may chew Aloes or ly upon the ground or wear sackcloth if he have a mind to it and if he finds it good in his circumstances and to his purposes of mortification but it may be he may do it alone by the Instrumentalities of Fear and Love and so the thing be done no special Instrument is under a command * But although the Instruments of vertue are free yet the Instruments and ministeries of vice are not Not only the sin is forbidden but all the wayes that lead to it The Instruments of vertue are of themselves indifferent that is not naturally but good only for their relation sake and in order to their end But the Instruments of vice are of themselves vitious they are part of the sin they have a share in the phantastick pleasure and they begin to estrange a mans heart from God and are directly in the prohibition For we are commanded to fly from temptation to pray against it to abstain from all appearances of evil to make a covenant with our eyes to pluck them out if there be need And if Christians do not understand the Commandments to this extension of signification they will be innocent only by the measures of humane Laws but not by the righteousness of God 3. Of the same consideration it is also that we understand Christs Commandments to extend our Duty not only to what is named and what is not named of the same nature and design but that we abstain from all such things as are like to sins * Of this nature there are many All violences of Passion Irregularities in Gaming Prodigality of our time Undecency of action doing things unworthy of our Birth or our Profession aptness to go to Law Ambitus or a fierce prosecution even of honourable employments misconstruction of the words and actions of our brother easiness to believe evil of others willingness to report the evil which we hear curiosity of Dyet peevishness toward servants indiscreet and importune standing for place and all excess in ornaments for even this little instance is directly prohibited by the Christian and Royal Law of Charity For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul the word is a word hard to be understood we render it well enough Charity vaunteth not it self and upon this S. Basil says that an Ecclesiastick person and so every Christian in his proportion ought not to go in splendid and vain Ornaments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing that is not wisely useful or proportioned to the state of the Christian but ministers only to vanity is a part of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a vaunting which the Charity and the Grace of a Christian does not well endure * These things are like to sins they are of a suspicious nature and not easily to be reconcil'd to the Righteousness Evangelical It is no wonder if Christianity be nice and curious it is the cleanness and the purification of the Soul and Christ intends
he runs to commit his sin with as certain an event and resolution as if he knew no Argument against it These notices of things terrible and true pass through his Understanding as an Eagle through the Air as long as her flight lasted the air was shaken but there remains no path behind her Now since at the same time we see other persons not so learned it may be not so much versed in Scriptures yet they say a thing is good and lay hold of it they believe glorious things of Heaven and they live accordingly as men that believe themselves half a word is enough to make them understand a nod is a sufficient reproof the crowing of a Cock the singing of a Lark the dawning of the day and the washing their hands are to them competent memorials of Religion and warnings of their duty What is the reason of this difference They both read the Scriptures they read and hear the same Sermons they have capable Understandings they both believe what they hear and what they read and yet the event is vastly different The reason is that which I am now speaking of the one understands by one Principle the other by another the one understands by Nature and the other by Grace the one by Humane Learning and the other by Divine the one reads the Scriptures without and the other within the one understands as a Son of Man the other as a Son of God the one perceives by the proportions of the world and the other by the measures of the Spirit the one understands by Reason and the other by Love and therefore he does not only understand the Sermons of the Spirit and perceives their meaning but he pierces deeper and knows the meaning of that meaning that is the secret of the Spirit that which is spiritually discerned that which gives life to the Proposition and activity to the Soul And the reason is because he hath a Divine Principle within him and a new Understanding that is plainly he hath Love and that 's more than Knowledge as was rarely well observed by S. Paul Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth that is Charity makes the best Scholars No Sermons can edifie you no Scriptures can build you up a holy Building to God unless the Love of God be in your hearts and purifie your Souls from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit But so it is in the regions of Stars where a vast body of Fire is so divided by excentrick motions that it looks as if Nature had parted them into Orbs and round shells of plain and purest materials But where the cause is simple and the matter without variety the motions must be uniform and in Heaven we should either espy no motion or no variety But God who designed the Heavens to be the causes of all changes and motions here below hath placed his Angels in their houses of light and given to every one of his appointed Officers a portion of the fiery matter to circumagitate and roll and now the wonder ceases for if it be enquired why this part of the fire runs Eastward and the other to the South they being both indifferent to either it is because an Angel of God sits in the Centre and makes the same matter turn not by the bent of its own mobility and inclination but in order to the needs of Man and the great purposes of God And so it is in the Understandings of Men when they all receive the same Notions and are taught by the same Master and give full consent to all the Propositions and can of themselves have nothing to distinguish them in the events it is because God has sent his Divine Spirit and kindles a new fire and creates a braver capacity and applies the Actives to the Passives and blesses their operation For there is in the heart of man such a dead sea and an indisposition to holy flames like as in the cold Rivers in the North so as the fires will not burn them and the Sun it self will never warm them till Gods holy Spirit does from the Temple of the New Jerusalem bring a holy flame and make it shine and burn The Natural man saith the holy Apostle cannot preceive the things of the Spirit they are foolishness unto him for they are spiritually discerned For he that discourses of things by the measures of sense thinks nothing good but that which is delicious to the palate or pleases the brutish part of Man and therefore while he estimates the secrets of Religion by such measures they must needs seem as insipid as Cork or the uncondited Mushrom for they have nothing at all of that in their constitution A voluptuous person is like the Dogs of Sicily so fill'd with the deliciousness of Plants that grow in every furrow and hedge that they can never keep the scent of their Game 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Chrysostom The fire and water can never mingle so neither can sensuality and the watchfulness and wise discerning of the Spirit Pilato interroganti de veritate Christus non respondit When the wicked Governour asked of Christ concerning Truth Christ gave him no answer He was not fit to hear it He therefore who so understands the Words of God that he not only believes but loves the Proposition he who consents with all his heart and being convinc'd of the truth does also apprehend the necessity and obeys the precept and delights in the discovery and lays his hand upon his heart and reduces the notices of things to the practice of duty he who dares trust his proposition and drives it on to the utmost issue resolving to go after it whithersoever it can invite him this Man walks in the Spirit at least thus far he is gone towards it his Understanding is brought in obsequium Christi into the obedience of Christ. This is a loving God with all our mind and whatever goes less than this is but Memory and not Understanding or else such notice of things by which a man is neither the wiser nor the better 3. Sometimes God gives to his choicest his most elect and precious Servants a knowledge even of secret things which he communicates not to others We finde it greatly remark'd in the case of Abraham Gen. 18. 17. And the Lord said Shall I hide from Abraham that thing that I do Why not from Abraham God tells us ver 19. For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment And though this be irregular and infrequent yet it is a reward of their piety and the proper increase also of the spiritual man We find this spoken by God to Daniel and promised to be the lot of the righteous man in the days of the Messias Dan. 12. 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tryed but the wicked shall do wickedly and what then None of
than all the Riches and all the Pleasures and all the Vanities and all the Kingdoms of this world I will not venture to determine what are the circumstances of the abode of Holy Souls in their separate dwellings and yet possibly that might be easier than to tell what or how the Soul is and works in this world where it is in the Body tanquam in alienâ domo as in a prison in fetters and restraints for here the Soul is discomposed and hindred it is not as it shall be as it ought to be as it was intended to be it is not permitted to its own freedom and proper operation so that all that we can understand of it here is that it is so incommodated with a troubled and abated instrument that the object we are to consider cannot be offered to us in a right line in just and equal propositions or if it could yet because we are to understand the Soul by the Soul it becomes not only a troubled and abused object but a crooked instrument and we here can consider it just as a weak eye can behold a staff thrust into the waters of a troubled River the very water makes a refraction and the storm doubles the refraction and the water of the eye doubles the species and there is nothing right in the thing the object is out of its just place and the medium is troubled and the organ is impotent At cum exierit in liberum coelum quasi in dontum suam venerit when the Soul is entred into her own house into the free regions of the rest and the neighbourhood of heavenly Joys then its operations are more spiritual proper and proportion'd to its being and though we cannot see at such a distance yet the object is more fitted if we had a capable Understanding it is in it self in a more excellent and free condition Certain it is that the Body does hinder many actions of the Soul It is an imperfect Body and a diseased Brain or a violent passion that makes Fools No man hath a foolish Soul and the reasonings of men have infinite difference and degrees by reason of the Bodies constitution Among Beasts which have no Reason there is a greater likeness than between Men who have And as by Faces it is easier to know a Man from a Man than a Sparrow from a Sparrow or a Squirrel from a Squirrel so the difference is very great in our Souls which difference because it is not originally in the Soul and indeed cannot be in simple or spiritual substances of the same species or kind it must needs derive wholly from the Body from its accidents and circumstances from whence it follows that because the Body casts fetters and restraints hinderances and impediments upon the Soul that the Soul is much freer in the state of separation and if it hath any act of life it is much more noble and expedite That the Soul is alive after our death St. Paul affirms Christ died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him Now it were strange that we should be alive and live with Christ and yet do no act of life The Body when it is asleep does many and if the Soul does none the Principle is less active than the Instrument but if it does any act at all in separation it must necessarily be an act or effect of Understanding there is nothing else it can do but this it can For it is but a weak and an unlearned Proposition to say That the Soul can do nothing of it self nothing without the phantasms and provisions of the Body For 1. In this life the Soul hath one principle clearly separate abstracted and immaterial I mean the Spirit of Grace which is a principle of life and action and in many instances does not at all communicate with matter as in the infusion superinduction and creation of spiritual Graces 2. As nutrition generation eating and drinking are actions proper to the Body and its state so extasies visions raptures intuitive knowledg and consideration of its self acts of volition and reflex acts of understanding are proper to the Soul 3. And therefore it is observable that St. Paul said that he knew not whether his visions and raptures were in or out of the body for by that we see his judgment of the thing that one was as likely as the other neither of them impossible or unreasonable and therefore that the Soul is as capable of action alone as in conjunction 4. If in the state of Blessedness there are some actions of the Soul which do not pass through the Body such as contemplation of God and conversing with Spirits and receiving those influences and rare immissions which coming from the Holy and Mysterious Trinity make up the Crown of Glory it follows that the necessity of the Bodies ministery is but during the state of this life and as long as it converses with fire and water and lives with corn and flesh and is fed by the satisfaction of material appetites which necessity and manner of conversation when it ceases it can be no longer necessary for the Soul to be served by phantasms and material representations 5. And therefore when the Body shall be re-united it shall be so ordered that then the Body shall confess it gives not any thing but receives all its being and operation its manner and abode from the Soul and that then it comes not to serve a necessity but to partake a Glory For as the operations of the Soul in this life begin in the Body and by it the object is transmitted to the Soul so then they shall begin in the Soul and pass to the Body And as the operations of the Soul by reason of its dependence on the Body are animal natural and material so in the resurrection the body shall be spiritual by reason of the preeminence influence and prime operation of the Soul Now between these two states stands the state of separation in which the operations of the Soul are of a middle nature that is not so spiritual as in the resurrection and not so animal and natural as in the state of conjunction To all which I add this consideration That our Souls have the same condition that Christs Soul had in the state of separation because he took on him all our Nature and all our Condition and it is certain Christs Soul in the three days of his separation did exercise acts of life of joy and triumph and did not sleep but visited the Souls of the Fathers trampled upon the pride of Devils and satisfied those longing Souls which were Prisoners of hope And from all this we may conclude That the Souls of all the Servants of Christ are alive and therefore do the actions of life and proper to their state and therefore it is highly probable that the Soul works clearer and understands brighter and discourses wiser and rejoyces louder and
the great Syrian that stirred up the sluggish and awakened the sleepers and comforted the afflicted and brought the young men to discipline the Looking-glass of the Religious the Captain of the Penitents the destruction of Heresies the receptacle of Graces the habitation of the Holy Ghost These were the men that prevailed against Errour because they lived according to Truth and whoever shall oppose you and the Truth you walk by may better be confuted by your Lives than by your Disputations Let your adversaries have no evil thing to say of you and then you will best silence them For all Heresies and false Doctrines are but like Myron's counterfeit Cow it deceived none but Beasts and these can cozen none but the wicked and the negligent them that love a Lie and live according to it But if ye become burning and shining lights if ye do not detain the truth in unrighteousness if ye walk in light and live in the Spirit your Doctrines will be true and that Truth will prevail But if ye live wickedly and scandalously every little Schismatick shall put you to shame and draw Disciples after him and abuse your Flocks and feed them with Colocynths and Hemlock and place Heresie in the Chairs appointed for your Religion I pray God give you all Grace to follow this Wisdom to study this Learning to labour for the understanding of Godliness so your Time and your Studies your Persons and your Labours will be holy and useful sanctified and blessed beneficial to men and pleasing to God through him who is the Wisdom of the Father who is made to all that love him Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption To whom with the Father c. FINIS A SERMON Preached in Christs-Church Dublin July 16. 1663. AT THE FUNERAL Of the Most Reverend Father in God JOHN Late Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland WITH A Succinct Narrative of His whole Life The fourth Edition enlarged By the Right Reverend Father in God Jeremy Lord Bishop of Down and Connor LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty 1666. A Funeral Sermon SERM. VII 1 Cor. XV. 23. But every Man in his own Order Christ the first fruits afterward they that are Christ's at his coming THE Condition of Man in this world is so limited and depressed so relative and imperfect that the best things he does he does weakly and the best things he hath are imperfections in their very constitution I need not tell how little it is that we know the greatest indication of this is That we can never tell how many things we know not and we may soon span our own Knowledge but our Ignorance we can never fathom Our very Will in which Mankind pretends to be most noble and imperial is a direct state of imperfection and our very liberty of Chusing good and evil is permitted to us not to make us proud but to make us humble for it supposes weakness of Reason and weakness of Love For if we understood all the degrees of Amability in the Service of God or if we had such love to God as he deserves and so perfect a conviction as were fit for his Services we could no more Deliberate For Liberty of Will is like the motion of a Magnetick Needle toward the North full of trembling and uncertainty till it were fixed in the beloved Point it wavers as long as it is free and is at rest when it can chuse no more And truly what is the hope of man It is indeed the Resurrection of of the Soul in this world from sorrow and her saddest pressures and like the Twilight to the Day and the Harbinger of joy but still it is but a conjugation of Infirmities and proclaims our present calamity only because it is uneasie here it thrusts us forwards toward the light and glories of the Resurrection For as a Worm creeping with her belly on the ground with her portion and share of Adam's Curse lifts up its head to partake a little of the blessings of the air and opens the junctures of her imperfect body and curles her little rings into knots and combinations drawing up her tail to a neighbourhood of the heads pleasure and motion but still it must return to abide the fate of its own nature and dwell and sleep upon the dust So are the hopes of a mortal man he opens his eyes and looks upon fine things at distance and shuts them again with weakness because they are too glorious to behold and the Man rejoices because he hopes fine things are staying for him but his heart akes because he knows there are a thousand ways to fail and miss of those glories and though he hopes yet he enjoys not he longs but he possesses not and must be content with his portion of dust and being a worm and no man must lie down in this portion before he can receive the end of his hopes the salvation of his Soul in the Resurrection of the dead For as Death is the end of our lives so is the Resurrection the end of our hopes and as we dye daily so we daily hope but Death which is the end of our life is the enlargement of our Spirits from hope to certainty from uncertain fears to certain expectations from the death of the Body to the life of the Soul that is to partake of the light and life of Christ to rise to life as he did for his Resurrection is the beginning of ours He dyed for us alone not for himself but he rose again for himself and us too So that if he did rise so shall we the Resurrection shall be universal good and bad all shall rise but not altogether First Christ then we that are Christs and yet there is a third Resurrection though not spoken of here but thus it shall be The dead of Christ shall rise first that is next to Christ and after them the wicked shall rise to condemnation So that you see here is the sum of affairs treated of in my Text Not whether it be lawful to eat a Tortoise or a Mushroom or to tread with the foot bare upon the ground within the Octaves of Easter It is not here inquired whether Angels be material or immaterial or whether the dwellings of dead Infants be within the Air or in the Regions of the Earth the inquiry here is whether we are to be Christians or no whether we are to live good lives or no or whether it be permitted to us to live with Lust or Covetousness acted with all the Daughters of Rapine and Ambition whether there be any such thing as sin any judicatory for Consciences any rewards of Piety any difference of Good and Bad any rewards after this life This is the design of these words by proper interpretation for if men shall dye like Dogs and Sheep they will certainly live like Wolves and Foxes but he that believes the Article of the
that could not be deceived themselves in a matter so notorious and so proved and so seen and if this be not sufficient credibility in a matter of fact as this was then we can have no story credibly transmitted to us no Records kept no Acts of Courts no Narratives of the dayes of old no Traditions of our Fathers no memorials of them in the third Generation Nay if from these we have not sufficient causes and arguments of Faith how shall we be able to know the will of Heaven upon Earth unless God do not only tell it once but always and not only always to some men but always to all men for if some men must believe others they can never do it in any thing more reasonably than in this and if we may not trust them in this then without a perpetual miracle no man could have Faith for Faith could never come by hearing by nothing but by seeing But if there be any use of History any Faith in men any honesty in manners any truth in humane entercourse if there be any use of Apostles or Teachers of Ambassadors or Letters of ears or hearing if there be any such thing as the Grace of Faith that is less than demonstration or intuition then we may be as sure that Christ the first Fruits is already risen as all these credibilities can make us But let us take heed as God hates a a lie so he hates incredulity an obstinate a foolish and pertinacious understanding What we do every minute of our lives in matters of title and great concernment if we refuse to do it in Religion which yet is to be conducted as all humane affairs are by humane instruments and arguments of perswasion proper to the nature of the thing it is an obstinacy as cross to humane reason as it is to Divine Faith But this Article was so clearly proved that presently it came to pass that men were no longer ashamed of the Cross but it was worn upon breasts printed in the air drawn upon foreheads carried upon Banners put upon Crowns Imperial presently it came to pass that the Religion of the despised Jesus did infinitely prevail a Religion that taught men to be meek and humble apt to receive injuries but unapt to do any a Religion that gave countenance to the poor and pitiful in a time when riches were adored and ambition and pleasure had possessed the heart of all mankind a Religion that would change the face of things and the hearts of men and break vile habits into gentleness and counsel that such a Religion in such a time by the Sermons and conduct of Fishermen men of mean breeding and illiberal Arts should so speedily triumph over the Philosophy of the world and the arguments of the subtle and the Sermons of the Eloquent the Power of Princes and the Interests of States the inclinations of nature and the blindness of zeal the force of custom and the sollicitation of passions the pleasures of sin and the busie Arts of the Devil that is against Wit and Power Superstition and Wilfulness Fame and Money Nature and Empire which are all the causes in this World that can make a thing impossible this this is to be ascribed to the power of God and is the great demonstration of the Resurrection of Jesus Every thing was an Argument for it and improved it no Objection could hinder it no Enemies destroy it whatsoever was for them it made the Religion to encrease whatsoever was against them made it to encrease Sun-shine and Storms fair Weather or foul it was all one as to the event of things for they were instruments in the hands of God who could make what himself should chuse to be the product of any cause so that if the Christians had peace they went abroad and brought in Converts if they had no peace but persecution the Converts came in to them In prosperity they allured and enticed the World by the beauty of holiness in affliction and trouble they amazed all men with the splendour of their Innocence and the glories of their patience and quickly it was that the World became Disciple to the glorious Nazarene and men could no longer doubt of the Resurrection of Jesus when it became so demonstrated by the certainty of them that saw it and the courage of them that dyed for it and the multitude of them that believed it who by their Sermons and their Actions by their publick Offices and Discourses by Festivals and Eucharists by Arguments of Experience and Sense by Reason and Religion by perswading rational Men and establishing believing Christians by their living in the obedience of Jesus and dying for the testimony of Jesus have greatly advanced his Kingdom and his Power and his Glory into which he entred after his Resurrection from the dead For he is the first Fruits and if we hope to rise through him we must confess that himself is first risen from the dead That 's the first particular 2. There is an order for us also We also shall rise again Combustúsque senex tumulo procedit adultus Consumens dat membra rogus The ashes of old Camillus shall stand up spritely from his Urn and the Funeral fires shall produce a new warmth to the dead bones of all those who dyed under the arms of all the Enemies of the Roman greatness This is a less wonder than the former for admonetur omnis aetas jam fieri posse quod aliquando factum est If it was done once it may be done again for since it could never have been done but by a power that is infinite that infinite must also be eternal and indeficient By the same Almighty power which restored life to the dead body of our living Lord we may all be restored to a new life in the Resurrection of the dead When Man was not what power what causes made him to be whatsoever it was it did then as great a work as to raise his body to the same being again and because we know not the method of Natures secret changes and how we can be fashioned beneath in secreto terrae and cannot handle and discern the possibilities and seminal powers in the ashes of dissolved bones must our ignorance in Philosophy be put in balance against the Articles of Religion the hopes of Mankind the Faith of Nations and the truth of God and are our opinions of the power of God so low that our understanding must be his measure and he shall be confessed to do nothing unless it be made plain in our Philosophy Certainly we have a low opinion of God unless we believe he can do more things than we can understand But let us hear S. Paul's demonstration If the Corn dies and lives again if it lays its body down suffers alteration dissolution and death but at the Spring rises again in the verdure of a leaf in the fulness of the ear in the kidneys of Wheat if it proceeds from
to his deeds whether they be good or whether they be evil I conclude with the words of Caius Plinius Equidem beatos puto quibus Deorum munere datum est aut facere scribenda aut scribere legenda he wrote many things fit to be read and did very many things worthy to be written which if we wisely imitate we may hope to meet him in the Resurrection of the just and feast with him in the eternal Supper of the Lamb there to sing perpetual Anthems to the honour of God the Father Son and Holy Ghost To whom be all honour c. FINIS A Funeral Sermon Preached at the OBSEQUIES Of the Right Honourable and most Vertuous Lady The Lady FRANCES Countess of CARBERY Who deceased October the 9th 1650. at her House Golden-Grove in Caermarthen-shire By Jeremy Taylor D.D. LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty 1666. To the RIGHT HONOURABLE And TRULY NOBLE Richard Lord Vaughan Earl of Carbery Baron of Emlim and Molinger Knight of the Honourable Order of the Bath My Lord I Am not ashamed to profess that I pay this part of Service to your Lordship most unwillingly for it is a sad office to be the chief Minister in a house of mourning and to present an interested person with a branch of Cypress and a bottle of tears And indeed my Lord it were more proportionable to your needs to bring something that might alleviate or divert your sorrow than to dress the Hearse of your Dear Lady and to furnish it with such circumstances that it may dwell with you and lie in your Closet and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings But because the Divine providence hath taken from you a person so excellent a woman fit to converse with Angels and Apostles with Saints and Martyrs give me leave to present you with her Picture drawn in little and in water-colours sullyed indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow but drawn with a faithful hand and taken from the life and indeed it were too great a loss to be deprived of her example and of her rule of the original and of the copy too The age is very evil and deserved her not but because it is so evil it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory to instruct our piety or upbraid our wickedness For now that God hath cut this tree of Paradise down from its seat of earth yet so the dead trunk may support a part of the declining Temple or at least serve to kindle the fire on the Altar My Lord I pray God this heap of sorrow may swell your piety till it breaks into the greatest joys of God and of Religion and remember when you pay a tear upon the Grave or to the memory of your Lady that Dear and most excellent Soul that you pay two more one of repentance for those things that may have caused this breach and another of joy for the mercies of God to your Dear departed Saint that he hath taken her into a place where she can weep no more My Lord I think I shall so long as I live that is so long as I am Your Lordships most humble Servant Jer. Taylor Pietati Memoriae Sacrum MOnumentum doloris singularis paris fati conditionis posuit Richardus Comes Carberiensis sibi vivo mortem nec exoptanti nec metuenti Et dilectissimae suae Conjugi Franciscae Comitissae in flore aetatis casibus puerperii raptae ex amplexibus Sanctissimi amoris Fuit illa descendat lachrymula Amice Lector fuit inter castissimas prima inter Conjuges amantissima Mater optima placidi oris severae virturis conversationis suavissimae vultum hilarem fecit bona conscientia amabilem forma plusquam Uxoria Claris orta Natalibus fortunam non mediocrem habuit erat enim cum Unicâ Germanâ Haeres ex asse Annos XIII Menses IV supra Biduum vixit in Sanctissimo Matrimonio cum SUO quem effusissimè dilexit sanctè observavit quem novit Prudentissimum sensit Amantissimum virum Optimum vidit laetata est Enixa prolem numerosam pulchram ingenuam formae Spei optimae quatuor Masculos Franciscum Dominum Vaughan Johannem Althamum quartum immaturum foeminas sex Dom Franciscam Elizabethas duas Mariam Margaretam Althamiam post cujus partum paucis diebus obdormiit Totam prolem Masculam si demas abortivum illum foeminas omnes praeter Elizabetham alteram Mariam superstites reliquit Pietatis adeóque Spei plena obiit ix Octobr. MDC.L Lachrymis suorum omnium tota irrigua conditur in hoc coemeterio ubi cùm Deo Opt. Max. visum fuerit sperat se reponendum Conjux moestissimus intereà temporis luctui sed pietati magis vacat ut in suo tempore simul laetentur Par tam Pium tam Nobile tam Christianum in gremio Jesu usque dum Coronae adornentur accipiendae in Adventu Domini AMEN Cum ille vitâ defunctus fuerit Marmor loquetur quod adhuc tacere jubet virtus Modesta interim vitam ejus observa leges quod posteà hîc inscriptum amabunt colent Posteri Ora abi A Funeral Sermon c. SERM. VIII 2 Sam. XIV 14. For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him WHen our Blessed Saviour and his Disciples viewed the Temple some one amongst them cried out Magister aspice quales lapides Master behold what fair what great stones are here Christ made no other reply but foretold their dissolution and a world of sadness and sorrow which should bury that whole Nation when the teeming cloud of Gods displeasure should produce a storm which was the daughter of the biggest anger and the mother of the greatest calamity which ever crush'd any of the Sons of Adam The time shall come that there shall not be left one stone upon another The whole Temple and the Religion the Ceremonies ordained by God and the Nation beloved by God and the Fabrick erected for the Service of God shall run to their own Period and lye down in their several Graves Whatsoever had a beginning can also have an ending and it shall die unless it be daily watered with the Purles flowing from the Fountain of Life and refreshed with the Dew of Heaven and the Wells of God And therefore God had provided a Tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificial Immortality Immortality was not in his Nature but in the Hands and Arts in the Favour and Superadditions of God Man was always the same mixture of Heat and Cold of Dryness and Moisture ever the same weak thing apt to feel rebellion in the humours and to suffer the evils of a civil war in his body
natural and therefore health and life was to descend upon him from Heaven and he was to suck life from a Tree on Earth himself being but ingraffed into a Tree of Life and adopted into the condition of an immortal Nature But he that in the best of his days was but a Cien of this Tree of Life by his sin was cut off from thence quickly and planted upon Thorns and his portion was for ever after among the Flowers which to day spring and look like health and beauty and in the evening they are sick and at night are dead and the oven is their grave And as before oven from our first spring from the dust on earth we might have died if we had not been preserved by the continual flux of a rare providence so now that we are reduced to the Laws of our own Nature we must needs die It is natural and therefore necessary It is become a punishment to us and therefore it is unavoidable and God hath bound the evil upon us by bands of natural and inseparable propriety and by a supervening unalterable Decree of Heaven and we are fallen from our privilege and are returned to the condition of Beasts and Buildings and common things And we see Temples defiled unto the ground and they die by Sacrilege and great Empires die by their own plenty and ease full Humours and factious Subjects and huge Buildings fall by their own weight and the violence of many Winters eating and consuming the Cement which is the marrow of their bones and Princes die like the meanest of their Servants and every thing finds a Grave and a Tomb and the very Tomb it self dies by the bigness of its pompousness and luxury Phario nutantia pondera saxo Quae cineri vanus dat ruitura labor and becomes as friable and uncombined dust as the ashes of the Sinner or the Saint that lay under it and is now forgotten in his bed of darkness And to this Catalogue of mortality Man is inrolled with a Statutum est It is appointed for all men to once die and after death comes judgment And if a Man can be stronger than Nature or can wrestle with a Decree of Heaven or can escape from a divine punishment by his own arts so that neither the Power nor the Providence of God nor the Laws of Nature nor the Bands of eternal Predestination can hold him then he may live beyond the fate and period of Flesh and last longer than a Flower But if all these can hold us and tie us to conditions then we must lay our heads down upon a turf and entertain creeping things in the cells and little chambers of our eyes and dwell with worms till time and death shall be no more We must needs die That 's our Sentence But that 's not all We are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again Stay 1. We are as water weak and of no consistence always descending abiding in no certain place unless where we are detained with violence and every little breath of wind makes us rough and tempestuous and troubles our faces every trifling accident discomposes us and as the face of the waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles it self that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow like a grave so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age and then they dig a grave for us And there is in Nature nothing so contemptible but it may meet with us in such circumstances that it may be too hard for us in our weaknesses and the sting of a Bee is a weapon sharp enough to pierce the finger of a child or the lip of a Man and those Creatures which Nature hath left without weapons yet they are armed sufficiently to vex those parts of men which are left defenceless and obnoxious to a Sun-beam to the roughness of a sowre Grape to the unevenness of a Gravel-stone to the dust of a Wheel or the unwholsom breath of a Star looking awry upon a sinner 2. But besides the weaknesses and natural decayings of our bodies if chances and contingencies be innumerable then no man can reckon our dangers and the praeternatural causes of our deaths So that he is a vain person whose hopes of life are too confidently encreas'd by reason of his health and he is too unreasonably timerous who thinks his hopes at an end when he dwels in sickness For men die without rule and with and without occasions and no man suspecting or foreseeing any of deaths addresses and no man in his whole condition is weaker than another A man in a long Consumption is fallen under one of the solemnities and preparations to death but at the same instant the most healthful person is as neer death upon a more fatal and a more sudden but a less discerned cause There are but few persons upon whose foreheads every man can read the sentence of death written in the lines of a lingring sickness but they sometimes hear the passing-bell ring for stronger men even long before their own knell calls at the house of their mother to open her womb make a bed for them No man is surer of to morrow than the weakest of his brethren and when Lepidus and Aufidius stumbled at the threshold of the Senate and fell down and dyed the blow came from Heaven in a cloud but it struck more suddenly than upon the poor slave that made sport upon the Theatre with a praemeditated and fore-described death Quod quisque vitet nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas There are sicknesses that walk in darkness and there are exterminating Angels that fly wrapt up in the curtains of immateriality and an uncommunicating nature whom we cannot see but we feel their force and sink under their Sword and from Heaven the vail descends that wraps our heads in the fatal sentence There is no age of man but it hath proper to it self some posterns and outlets for death besides those infinite and open ports out of which myriads of men and women every day pass into the dark and the land of forgetfulness Infancy hath life but in effigie or like a spark dwelling in a pile of wood the candle is so newly lighted that every little shaking of the taper and every ruder breath of air puts it out and it dies Childhood is so tender and yet so unwary so soft to all the impressions of Chance and yet so forward to run into them that God knew there could be no security without the care and vigilance of an Angel-keeper and the eyes of Parents and the arms of Nurses the provisions of art and all the effects of Humane love and Providence are not sufficient to keep one child from horrid mischiefs from strange and early calamities and deaths unless a messenger be sent from Heaven to stand sentinel and watch the very playings and sleepings the eatings and drinkings of the Children