Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A47338
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A sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. William Allen, August 17, 1686 by Richard Kidder ...
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Kidder, Richard, 1633-1703.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing K413; ESTC R2195
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15,443
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42
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consideration of the misery and uncertainty of this World be awakened to a timely care of our eternal interest Let the death of our friends awaken us to provide against our own The pain of our Bodies and the loss of our Goods excite us to a greater care to make sure of that blessed state where all tears shall be wiped from our eyes and labour and toil shall cease for ever It will not be long before we shall be stripped of these Bodies and divorced from these comforts of life which now we please our selves withal It is as much our Interest as it is our Duty to provide our selves a share and portion in these heavenly Mansions There is no example of mortality before our eyes but preaches this doctrine to us The World daily proclaims to us its own uncertainty and we are aloud called upon to provide that we may be receiv'd into everlasting habitations Luke 16.9 Now is the time of doing this and if we delay it any longer 't is a peradventure whether we shall ever do it or no. We are neither sure of our life nor can we be certain that the Grace of God if we now repulse it will follow us irresistibly to our last breath Life and death are before us unspeakable joys and everlasting burnings Let us shew our selves wise and do good to our selves let us no longer trifle but with all care and diligence pursue heavenly things I shall end all with the words of the Author of this Epistle Let us therefore fear Heb. 4.1 lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it It may be very justly expected that I should say something now of our deceased Brother and worthy Friend Mr. William Allen upon whose account we are met together We have great Cause to bless God for his mercies to him he is departed this life in his Faith and Fear he is discharged from the toil and contingencies of this mortal life And as he was a most conspicuous example of Christian Vertues so I make no doubt he hath received a most glorious reward and is passed into the City that continues for ever I do not intend to borrow any Topicks for his praise from his Country or Descent from his Quality or Rank as he was a Citizen of this great City I need not go so far out of the way He was valuable upon greater accounts than these He was a Citizen of a better City that of God He was an old and faithful Disciple of Jesus a great lover of God and of Righteousness This is more than all his other Properties 'T is Religion that exalts our Natures This is the great ornament of humane kind 'T is this makes us like that God whom we adore and whom we praise 'T is the best of all our Titles the highest of our Prerogatives and top of our Attainments There is nothing that is fit to vye with this antient Descent depth of Learning swelling Titles large Possessions Strength and Beauty Craft and Subtlety all these and more than these are in compare with Piety and Goodness lighter than Vanity Our dear Friend was a great lover and most devout worshipper of God He did it in Publick he did it in his Family he did it in his Closet He did with great reverence attend upon the publick Prayers hearing of the Word and frequently received the Holy Sacrament He taught his Children and Servants to serve God A true Child of Abraham the friend of God He kept up a sense of God in his Family and had his retirements and holy privacies He spent great portions of his time in retirement He was a most diligent inquirer after truth He sought Wisdom as Silver and searched for her as for hid Treasures Nor did his labour prove in vain for he did understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God God had given him a great and clear understanding a solid judgment and ability and he improved his Talent to a very great purpose He read the Holy Scriptures with wonderful care and diligence attained to great understanding of the more abstruse parts of them and though he had not the advantage of the Learned Languages to direct him yet by acquainting himself with those who had and by indefatigable diligence he did arrive to so great a measure of knowledge of those things which they do contain as would be very commendable in a well-studied Divine He wrote several excellent Books that need no recommendation to the World They are well known and well esteemed and the greatest Clerk will have no cause to be ashamed to have them placed among the other Authors with which he is furnished The Arguments he chose were weighty and of great use to the World He designed to detect Iniquity Enthusiasm and Superstition which had corrupted the Religion of Jesus He perswaded men to Unity and Peace and to shun all Schism and Faction He endeavoured to reduce those who were gone astray to mind them of the Divine Assistance and to perswade them to the profoundest humility and to comfort good men with a just expectation of the Church's emerging from its state of sin and misery into a better condition Such were the arguments which this wise and good Man chose I may truly say of him what one of the Ancients says of Socrates Liban Sophista Socrat Apol. that he did not apply himself to trifling and less useful things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He promoted that knowledge which was like to have the greatest efficacy upon men He menaged his Arguments with great judgment and Charity He spake the truth in love He did not contend for Victory but Truth His Writings speak a right Christian Temper all along He was no Gladiator in Theology no lover of Theological Contentions He had beaten his Sword into a Plough-share and his Spear into a Pruning-hook The Instruments he used served to cultivate and improve and to pare away what was superfluous and what was hurtful He had no skill to hurt and destroy in the mountain of the Lord. His great knowledge did not puff him up His Charity and Humility and Modesty held proportion to it He was far removed from an high conceit of himself or contempt of others He was far from being pert and talkative far from ostentation and shew from insulting over his Adversary or vaunting of his Victories With respect to his Neighbour He may be truly said to have been a Righteous Man in the most comprehensive sense of that word He was exactly just to all men in his Dealings and Trade of this there is no question And those that knew him well can tell that in making up his Accounts he was scrupulously so and took great care that an errour or mistake in his Correspondent should not be to his prejudice He was greatly careful to do no wrong and had learnt to forgive I doubt not but the
Character given to Pomponius Atticus belongs to him Nullas inimicitias gessit C. Nepos P. Attic. quod neque laedebat quenquam neque siquam injuriam acceperat non malebat ulcisci quam oblivisci He had no quarrels for he did no injury and if any were done to him he rather chose to forget than to revenge There are few men perhaps have passed through the World with less offence to it than this good man hath done His ways pleased God and He so provided that his Enemies if he had any such should be at peace with him But he did not only do no harm but did much good in the World He was not only just to all but merciful to the afflicted to the poor and needy He had a great sense of the miseries of others He was a most compassionate Christian He did not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and in truth The love of God dwelt in him and by this he was constrained and could not shut up his Bowels of Compassion from his Brother He needed no Motives or Arguments 't was enough to name the Objects He stood ready always and prepared and neither wanted Ability or Inclination to help the afflicted Indeed this humble Soul avoided the notice and the praise of men He that in other things was open and free studied concealment here He gave geverally with his own hands and wisely disposed of his Charity to those whom he thought the fittest Objects But yet for all his Care and his Art he could not altogether be concealed I have great reason to believe from what I have the certain knowledge of that he gave great summs and large proportions and that both the prisoners and other distressed persons have lost one of their greatest Friends and for his proportion one of their most generous Benefactors But since it was the pleasure of our dear Brother to bestow in secret out of respect and deference to his memory and his inclination I will not search after the particular instances of his Bounty Certain it is that shewing mercy is a great imitation of God Speaking the truth and doing good offices are the two things which render us like him The Heathen justly shews his indignation against the impudence of those who mention the quarrels and feuds and thefts and villanies of their Gods and adds Plin. Nat. Hist l. 2. c. 7. Deus est mortali juvare mortalem haec ad aeternam gloriam via To help another is to be like God and is the way to immortality 'T is the best of our properties Titulis fascibus olim major habebatur donandi gloria In a word our Dear Brother was a great example to us of modesty and humility of obedience to Superiours of diligence in improving all the portions of his time of fidelity and integrity of kindness and great calmness and prudence if we consider him as an Husband a Father a Neighbour or a Friend His latter end was like his former life 't was even and undisturbed He then shewed his Faith in God and resignation to his will his concern for the Church and his well-grounded hope of eternal life A little before his Death he called for his Family and as became a dying Christian and one that was sensible of his departure hence he exhorted them especially to two things First That they should preserve in their minds a lively sense and make a thankful acknowledgment of the love of Christ who for our sake was content to become a man and to submit to Death even the Death of the Cross He required them to consider that this was for our sakes purely and that Jesus could be induced by no interest to do this but that which was peculiarly and solely ours Secondly That they would be steady and constant in a course of Piety and true Religion well knowing the hazzards and temptations of this mortal life and that we lose our labour if we do not persevere unto the end Having said these things he prayed that God would send them an happy meeting in another and better World Having set his house in order and disposed himself for another World he gave up his Spirit into the hands of his God his merciful Creator which I make no doubt is added to the Spirits of Just Men made perfect Thus did our dear Friend live in the World and thus did he leave it He lived above it and was prepared to leave it He was one of the greatest Patterns of the Christian Life that this age hath produced and did by his life prove the truth and practicableness of the Christian Doctrine and express the lustre and goodliness of Christianity at the same time In him we might see the lovelyness of Religion and how well fitted it is to mend our own tempers and to render us useful to the World In him we might behold great knowledge and the profoundest humility An ability to teach others and the greatest docibility or readiness to learn The courage and resolution of a Confessor and at the same time the humility of a little Child A great Charity without vaunting a great Zeal without faction and a diligent pursuit of truth without dogmatizing or study of Parties In his converse with others he was grave but not morose very gentle and friendly highly civil and obliging His discourse was serious and heavenly not frothy and trifling He spake well of mankind and was very prone to hope the best of all He was not full of discourse but it was always like the good man modest and inoffensive and such as ministred to edifie or instruct He had a great sense of any evil that the Church of God felt and perhaps few men that lived were more concerned than he for the sufferings of his fellow Christians But still he was far from murmuring or diffidence but had a stedfast Faith in God's Providence and did greatly incourage others to hope in God He well considered the usefulness of afflictions and endeavoured to good purpose to awaken men to pray fervently for the Church of Christ and to depend upon God for the fulfilling all those excellent promises which have not as yet received their accomplishment He was for a very considerable part of his life a Man of Trade and worldly Business God blessed his endeavours and the good man plyed his calling but his great care was to labour for the Bread that endureth He was more careful to keep the World out of his heart than to get it into his possession He was not only just and charitable when he traffick'd and dealt in worldly things but heavenly also He did not relinquish the World and then pretend to despise it He overcame the World more generously He kept in it and was abstracted from it He used it but was as if he used it not He was Religious in his Shop Heavenly-minded upon the Exchange innocent and undefiled in the press and crowd of crafty and designing and depraved men For some time before his Death he left off Trading and gave himself to Reading and Devotion to fervent Prayers and Meditations of Heaven and heavenly things to Works of Piety and Charity and the close consideration of his state toward God He wisely considered that it was fit there should be a considerable space of time allowed between the hurries of life and the great work of dying well He knew when he had enough of the World and had learnt the true use of Riches And now he dispensed to others what he had gained in his younger time And he took care to season what he left behind him by Alms and acts of mercy and relief In a word He was a very eminent Example of Christian Vertues greatly esteem'd by all good and wise men who knew him and mean only in his own Eyes And what cause have we who survive to bless God for such an eminent example of Piety and Charity of meekness and humbleness of mind and those other Virtues which rendered him conspicuous I think upon the whole matter I may apply to him what Cicero said upon the Death of Crassus De Orat. l. 3. Non tam ereptam ei vitam à Diis immortalibus sed donatam mortem That God cannot so properly be said to have taken away his life as to have bestowed death upon him as a Boon and great Blessing God of his infinite mercy grant that we may follow the example of our Dear Brother and that we may not be slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise Heb. 6.12 THE END