thoughts of death 1 Cor. 7.31 or using this world as if men used it not being so little so nothing of a true and generous Christians main design Yea not only in pursuance of secular and civil advantages with much warpings from law and equity besides violent expressions of their uncharitable passions beyond what becomes men and women professing godliness and tender of the scandals of Christian Religion But further under pretence of religious zeal and special sanctity Blessed Lord what uncharitable fires what unchristian furies are mens spirits ready to kindle in Churches and States both Christian and reformed Tantaene animis coelestibus irae Can heavenly hearts burn with such Kitchin-fires which must be inflamed by pouring the holy oyl of religion upon them untill they come to such conflagrations as kill and destroy even in Gods holy mountain Isa 65.25 raising such fewds and animosities among Christians as are not to be quenched but by each others bloods yea they burn to the nehtermost hell to mutual Anathemas and damnings to eternity Mortales quum simus immortalia non debent esse odia Have we not forgot that we are mortals who maintain such immortal hatred despites cursings condemnings Do we remember the same condemnation from God under which we all naturally lie or that we have the same Redeemer Jesus Christ who hath purchased us to himself and called us to peace love and good order as children of his heavenly Father and brethren to himself and one another Proximorum odia sunt accerbissima Fratrum quoque gratia rara est The neerer we are of kindred must we have less kindness and the more sharp contentions because of the same Country and Church heretofore I beseech you tell me O you torn and tottered flock of Christians now in Old England Can the world in reason think that we Christians are brethren the sons of one Father going on t of Egypt homeward to him every day of this mortal pilgrimage and yet we are every day falling out by the way making religion it self one of the greatest occasions of our bitterest and bloodiest contentions both with each other and with our selves even the more silly and less subtil sort of plain and possibly not ill meaning Christians these are most what gnawing of bones doting about questions endlesly disputing and doubting even while they are decaying and dying So intent as Souldiers to plunder other mens opinions and to live as it were upon the spoils of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion therein heretofore happily established and professed as if free quarter in professing preaching doubting disputing and denying what ever they list that they much neglect as good husbands the more painful charitable and profitable duties of Gods husbandry planting watering and weeding those principles and plants of religion which bear the graces of repentance mortification newness of life charity humility and good works from being Isaacs and Jacobs plain and peaceable spirited professors are turned Ismaels and Esaus rough handed of a more ferine temper living by their bow and sword their hands against every man that is not of their faction and party and their hearts alienated highly from such as were heretofore their Mother Fathers and Brethren These scorching heats of angry differences among Christians spirits do very much dry up all the dews of grace and sweeter influences of Gods Spirit Few consider how soon the Sun may go down upon their wrath Ephes 4.26 not only that of a natural day which should never be for he that sleeps in uncharitable passions hath the Divel for his bed-fellow that night not only in his bed but in his bosome but that Sun of our natural life may go down before thy distempers are alaied to a Christian composure Many Christians in our later dog days are so agitated and hurried up and down with the heat of the weather 1 Tim. 1.16 and the vexatious gadflies of endless and vain janglings that like cattel in Summer they cannot fall to their food wasting much time and spirits in unprofitable disputes following first this faction next that mode in religion 2 Tim. 3.7 ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of saving and necessary which are practical truths So that like the poor Link-boys in winter-nights at London they so spend their lights in running to and fro after every wind of doctrine other mens fantasies opinions and humors that they are fain to go to their own home and to be in the dark going down to their graves in sorrow neither so chearful nor comfortable as Christians might do Isa 50.11 who less delighted living in those sins and sparks which themselves have kindled From this occasion and the like meditation of death lay to heart how much it concerns and becomes thee to carry great moderation as in all things Phil. 4.5 so chiefly in thy passions to be prudent in all the dispensations of thy endeavours cares fears joys loves hopes desires and griefs as well as of thy anger these streams of thy soul must not be let go too plentifully at the flashes or flood-gates which run to waste lest thou robbest that course which should drive thy mill I mean carry on the grand preparations for death and eternity by a sober exact and holy life in which all passions and affections may have their holy use and a comely part to act It is great pity in that one passion of grief which is the softest and most human to see tears plentifully shed for some temporal losse Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se natura fatetur Quum lacrymas dedit or for the death of some dear friend and yet so little so seldome applied to soften and supple the hard and callous heart of a sinner Men and women too are prone to be prodigal of these precious drops which are as the pearls of a penitent sinners eyes and cheeks whose water is turned into wine even of Angels when they rejoyce to see a sinners penitent sorrows which end in eternal joys Lacrymae poenitentium vinum Angelorum Luke 15.10 when every tear quencheth a fiery dart of the Divel or rinseth the conscience of some remaining filth of sin St. Austin confesseth and deploreth his excessive softness after his conversion in mourning for the death of his dear friend Alipius Flebam Didonem occisam cum animam meam mortuam non flebam as somewhat beyond the gravity and moderation of a Christians sorrow And more he bewaileth those fond tears which before his conversion he wept when he read the fable of Didoes death when at the same time he neither deplored nor considered as he saith the dead estate of his own heart and soul to God The blessed Angels if they did visibly converse with us might justly ask most women and men too as these did Mary at the Sepulchre John 20.13 Ploratur lacrymis amissa pecunia veris. Woman why weepest
fit for children not to be denied or envied you only please to give those Christians leave who may without vanity think themselves by Gods mercy as well advised and consciencious in their Religion as your selves yea and more cautious of superstition then you seem to be Eccles 7.16 Be not righteous overmuch neither make thy self over-wise who are thus of late shrunk to be over-righteous and negatively superstitious I say give us leave to use such Christian liberty and duties as God hath allowed Religion encourageth and experience of pious proficiency highly recommends to us by the vote and suffrage of your and our pious Progenitors in the Church of England which in this as many other excellent appointments hath most undeservedly and indignely suffered infinitely below its former reformed worth its admired constitution and most enviable condition through the ignorance petulancy and insolency of some pitiful pretenders God knows for the most part of plebeian spirits and mechanick proportions who undertake thus severely to catechise and discipline not only the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of this Nation but the Clergy and Ministry of this Church which was not exceeded in all the world as if they never knew how to spell the A b c or primer of Religion for so I esteem these outward orders and exercises of it until some new Masters had lent them their sharp fescues which were first made of a Scotch scabbard This vindication as I owe to the honour of this Nation to the piety of this Reformed Church to my own calling and conscience so I cannot omit to ground it upon this Text and express it upon this occasion as very proper methods and pious means used to lay those things to heart which Solomon here commends and the wisedome of God requires of the living in their respects to the dead who in my judgment are far more becoming to the interests of both living and dead Christians committed to their graves by the sound of the Evangelical trumpet setting forth the hopes of both dead and living by reading prayer or exhortation then by those uncouth soundings of military trumpets which seem only to add to the triumphs and pomp of death but not to the hope or faith or comfort or manners of Christians If it be matter of civil state and decorum to persons of great quality yet I see no sense or reason they should justle out of the Church any offices of Christian piety befitting the dead or the living Thus I have done with the Text and am now to give you Right Honorable and Beloved some little model of this house of mourning to which you are come this day which is greater in many degrees then you are wonted to go to This sad occasion if rightly understood will make its own way to your hearts when I have given you some account of those special regards for which it doth deserve not only a more then ordinary mourning emphatick sympathies from you but to make deeper impressions upon your spirits And this I shall do briefly not tanquam conductitius orator venalis praeco or as a man professoriae linguae truncae manus as Agrippina called Seneca no I thank God I am above any such snares and servitudes of soul as will for fear or favour flatter either the dead or the living What I shall speak of the dead shall be words of soberness and truth as in the presence of God and of you his people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a lover of truth and virtue as an assertor of such honest and ingenuous freedom in speaking as dares to oppose and confute if need be vulgar errors and false surmises And however I am most unfeignedly sorry as a man for this sad occasion yet I am as a Minister so far glad of this present imployment because however I may be less proportionable to its dimensions and your expectations yet I have hereby the opportunity given me to express such an honour love and respect to this noble person's name and memory now dead as I confess was one of my highest ambitions in this world Not only as he stood related a Grand-child Son and Heir apparent to that Right Honorable Family whose happiness I have rather seriously wished then been able ever effectually to promote But taking him in his private sphear and personal confinements you will give me leave to own him as a Gentleman many ways endeared to my particular love care honour and prayers first by long acquaintance from his cradle to his coffin which breeds secret and tacit endearments on our hearts as Ivy that roots where it is long contiguous Next by neerer and domestick conversation he living four years in my house with his Tutor and other attendants befitting his quality at those years when being but a youth of 13 or 14 years he carried himself with so much civility modesty ingenuity and manliness as made his company both worthy and fit for men so little of petulancy pride or moroseness incident to young Gentlemen of high parts and expectations that he seemed by his gentleness candor and humility as if he were ignorant both of his own high and noble quality and also of others usual but ignoble vanities and vapourings which ill become any men but most of all those that pretend to any true honour or generous extraction The confidence of his noble parents and relations committing him thus to my care and superintendency gave me an opportunity as welcome to me as any could have befaln me which was to discharge a solemn promise I made to his most noble Mother seven years before not only with civility but with sanctity at her earnest and importune desiring of me to assure her while I lived I would not be wanting what in me lay to his honour and happiness She also then bespake his living with me when ever it should be opportune for his breeding and my reception of him Gods providence so ordered things that what was passionately desired and seriously promised in time came to pass in which I need not tell you how much the grateful memory of her most deserving virtue commanded me to contribute all the care and discretion I was capable of for the absolving of my soul to God and the dead in that particular that I might answer and follow with my best endeavours of counsels prayers and examples those thoughts of virtue piety and honour which his excellent Mother had living expressed toward him as her only child a Son I am sure of her cares and counsels prayers and tears both living and dying so oft and infinitely solicitous have I seen her noble and pious soul that this her Son might prove a person of such virtue and piety as are the only true foundations of temporal and eternal honour From my domestick care of him he was sent much at my instance and perswasion to Trinity Colledge in Cambridge continuing there two years that he might first add learning to his
large extents of deaths dominion and soveraignty above all Psal 8.6 for even these Gods Dii umbratiles die like men but they are frequently attended as the succession of months in the year with some alteration of weather many times for the worse So that where any people is blessed with good Kings and gracious Princes it is happy if they do serò in caelum redire in this part of deity Immortality come neerest to the Gods by living long and happily with their people and going as late as may be to Heaven For as good Princes are by good Subjects justly esteemed inter publica gentis bona praecipua Dei dona the chiefest worldly blessings that God can give mankind so their death must needs be reckoned inter luctus epidemicos publica damna among the greatest losses and grounds of most publique sorrow Although they die as Moses Joshua and David in good old ages full of days and honour as Augustus did among the Romans Optimum esset è Republicâ Rom. Severum aut non nasci aut nunquam denasci of whom it might truly be said as was of Severus the Emperor It had been happy for the Empire if either he had never been born or never had died for as he attained the Empire with much war and blood so he setled it with so much justice wisedom and honour for a long time that it was a felicity not possible to survive him But if good and hopeful Princes be cut off immaturely by death as Josiah among the Jews 2 Chro. 35.25 and our pious K. Ed. the 6. no wonder if they go to their graves by water with infinite sad hearts and weeping eyes becoming the piety and humanity of their people Hence the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon became not only a Proverb Zach. 12.11 but the highest pattern for publick lamentation at the sad fate and death of an excellent Prince And not without cause may this be a superlative grief because it ever follows where the Shepheard is smitten the sheep are either scattered or wounded or shrewdly warned of God to humble themselves under his mighty hand and unsearchable judgements Matth. 26.31 2. Yea when great and eminent Priests or Prophets of God and his Church as Samuel Jehojada John Baptist James die a natural death or are slain who kept up the majesty of Religion the beauty of holiness and the order of Gods worship being the chariots and horsemen of Israel as Eliah was So among Christian Churches 1 Kings 2.12 such Ministers as have been exemplary in their lives potent in their true doctrine severest exactors of discipline upon themselves burning and shining lights that have been valiant for the truth not popular not partial but unblameable venerable and admirable in all things filling that sphear in which God and the Church had orderly set them either as Bishops or Presbyters by preaching praying writing living and governing the Church worthy of their holy order and function So as did those ancient and renowned Bishops Polycarp of Smyrna Ignatius of Antioch St. Ambrose of Milan St. Cyprian of Carthage St. Athanasius of Alexandria St. Chrysostome of Constantinople St. Iraeneus of Lions St. Austin of Hippo St. Gregory of Rome with infinite other worthy of their successions in that name and order in all Churches and ages sufficient in my judgement to vindicate the office degree name dignity and use of Bishops every where and no where more then in England which had of late as worthy Bishops as ever the Church enjoyed in any place or age since the Apostles When I say such Fathers of the Church die who were in their times as was said of St. Ambrose the Munimenta ornamenta urbis orbis defence and ornaments of their Churches and Countrys the personal death of such Fathers ought to be laid greatly to heart such as was that not long ago of the most learned pious industrious humble indefatigable and Apostolick Bishop Bishop Vsher the late Lord Primate of Armagh As also that of the most eloquent and venerable and painful Bishop of Norwich Doctor Hall with many others now at rest in the Lord of whom the world was not worthy which sought to bury them in silence indignities poverty and obscurity before they were dead or any way had ill deserved of this Church and State or the reformed Religion of which they were most able defenders How much more when the very Function order and degree of that Catholick race the primitive Apostolick and most excellent government of the Church by Bishops comes in any Christian or reformed Church to be destroyed extirpated and buried as it were with the burial of an Ass cast into the graves of the common people and exposed to be trodden under the feet of plebeian contempt Which venerable Order though sixteen hundred years old in the Catholick Church and above 1400 in * In the Council of Arles in France before the first great Nicene Council about the year of Christ 230. three Brittish Bishops were present and subscribed viz. Eborius of York Restitutus of London Adelphius of Colchester as Bishop Vsher observes in his De prim Eccl. Brit. Sirmondus Concil Gall. Tom. 1. p. 9. Lucius the King of the Britans as Bede tells us Hist l. 1. c. 4. received the faith by such as were sent from Elcutherius the 12th Bishop of Rome from the Apostles as Heâ—sippus tells us in Euseb l. 4. c. 22. As Calvin in Epist ad Sadoletum de Necessi Refor Eccles Zanchius Epist ad Elizab Regin am Angl. in Epist ad Grindal Archiep. Cant. Isaac Casaub Epist ad Reg. Jacob. ante Exer. Baron Moulin Ep. ad Epis Winto Beza Epist ad Grindal Archiep. Cant. Pet. Martyr ad Juelli Apolog. praefat Isa 57.1 Psal 116.15 these British Churches yet died not of old age or onely inward decays in the vitals but by force and outward violence which government in its due constitution no Christian or reformed Church not wholly under a democratick or popular spirit yea no one eminent reformed Divine but did highly approve and desire the happiness to enjoy as hath been made evident by their writings But no testimony new or old no reason or Scripture no sense of justice or civility no publick honour of Church or State can preserve where men are resolved to destroy good and all This is certainly a just ground of great and better lamentation to those that lay to heart the licentious fedities indignities insolencies popular confusions and all sorts of irreligions which must necessarily follow the want of due government in any Church yea and the extirpation of that which is not more reverend for its primitive Institution and Catholick descent from the Apostles then for its excellent use and admirable constitution carrying with it the truest and best proportions as well as benefits of grave and authoritative government in which order and counsel
ad infernum deprimit both as to the living and the dead Many are raised up to Heaven by the magnificence of the Burnings or Buryings whose souls are sunk down to Hell by the ponderous weight of their unrepented and unreformed sins When sorrow affects too much state and wraps up the sharpness of death in soft paradoes mixing too much sensual sweet with the wormwood and bitterness of that cup which is offered to all mens lips the good effects of Funerals are much defeated as to the living the house of mourning is so far from being better in such an equipage that it is worse then the sober house of feasting for it flatters the dead and living too making men deaf to Gods warning-pieces which are shot off at their ears and levelled at their hearts They are like wool-sacks or mounds of earth 1 John 2.16 which disarm the great cannon-shot which should batter down the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the strong holds of sin the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh the pride of life Empty and adulatory pomp set up as it were by the higher ground of mens stately Funerals and Tombs what God intends to pull down namely those high and exalted imaginations with which poor sinful mortals are pestered and poysoned who are then best when they see themselves and others at the worst and then nearest to grace and glory too when they see themselves as in their graves reduced to their dust and ashes and in their very best estate Psal 39.5 as the Psalmist speaks to be but altogether vanity 2. Which is the great lesson that the great God intends to teach men by such pregnant instances of their mortality which the living will learn i. e. such as live not only to sense but to true reason and not only to reason but to true religion not only to a moment but eternity The aym of these severe Lectures is to bring sinful man down to the dust within sight of the grave and prospect of judgment and hell it self that so he may be a meet object for Gods grace and mercy It is a shrewd sign of a heart dead in sins and trespasses stupid in sensual security buried in worldly lusts and vain pleasures dead as the Apostle sayes of some widows even while they live 1 Tim. 5.6 not to lay to heart the departures of those who are snatcht out of the land of the living to a state and place whence they shall not return to a terra incognita a land which is far off a black Abyssus covered with profound darkness of which no discovery hath ever been made by any that went thither so as to give Survivers any Geographical map or account of it Which terrible summons like the decimating of souldiers to die one after another cannot but infinitely affect the sober and serious living to whose benefit only the death and Funerals the solemnities and obsequies civil and religious prayers and Sermons too may and ought to be duely improved For to the Dead they reach not nor can they turn to any account further then such civil honour and respect as is due to their place name and merit yet surviving or to their corps which rest in hope of a refurrection and so deserve an handsome and Christian interment But as to any advantage to be made for the benefit of their soules for redeeming them from Purgatory for abating their purgative paines for shortning or supplying their Pennance or obtaining remission for any sin or punishment in which they are engaged being once dead this must be let alone for ever There is no ground of hope to relieve them in any kind no Scripture no Catholick doctrine no precept no promise that gives any footing for Prayers or Sacrifices Masses or Dirges Oblations or Emptions Remissions or Redemptions by which to benefit the dead they are vain solaces to the living and none at all to the dead arising first from the suggestions of the impotent grief and passion in survivors next from an unwarranted charity and benevolence to the dead At last policy and covetousness grew so cunning in the darkness and superstition of times as to make no small advantages by the vulgar easiness and prodigality sliding by insensible degrees from those memorials of benediction for their piety and constancy in religion from the gratulations for their happy and hopeful delivery out of a dangerous and naufragous Sea and for their hoped arrival at a safe and happy heaven together with a Catholick comprecation for the consummation and plenary bliss at the resurrection of them and all Saints departed in the true faith of Christ See the excellent Primate of Arm. of praying to and for the dead in his Jesuites Challenge From these commendable customes I say of pious Antiquity of which Epiphanius and others give us an account degenerous posterity warped not onely to praying both for and to the dead but indeed to make a notable mystery and trade of preying upon the devotion and simplicity of the living uses and ends which we find neither Solomon nor any Prophet Apostle or Evangelist nor Christ himself any where teaching nor in the least kind intimating to the living either in order to give such honour or help to the dead neither of which either our blessed Saviours love of his compleater Saints or his charity to the more defective dead who had not fully done their pennance here and so stood in need of some grains of allowance from the charity of such as survived them or his Apostles care would have failed to have taught the Primitive Church by word or Epistle or example if such prayers had been available to the living or for the dead No they may be profitable fancies to the Romanists and plausible enough to their bigot and bountiful disciples but they are not justifiable in true religion by Old or New Testament nor by any practise in the first and best Centuries No known advantages can redound to the dead from the living nor other advantages to the living from the dead but only the laying their death seriously and devoutly to heart the use that wise Solomon and the wiser God here commends to us all 3. And this upon very great and pregnant reasons if we consider 1. The state of the living in respect of their hearts 2. The proper vertues which are derivable from the dead and fit to be applied to the hearts of the living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et vivens dabit ad cor suum The wise and considerate living will upon such occasions not only gape at the ceremony glory in the pomp talk of the person discourse of the disease and manner of death after a vulgar and easie fashion much less will they rejoyce in anothers death though an enemy or triumph in the advantages which accrew to them thereby after a malicious and covetous rate Such as lie under the power of these depraved distempers of soul and are of no
daily crucified for thee Canst thou fancy or desire greater benefits then those that accrew to thee and are offered thee by Christ who hath taken away the sting of death 1 Cor. 15. which is sin that when thou diest in the Lord thou art sure to be eternally blessed with the Lord Vitam non amittimus sed mutamus Hieron for true Christians doe not lose but exchange life by death Like a turning chatr which serves for a door so death natural is but a moving us out of one room which is an ontward antecamera chamber or common gallery or base court into another which is most ample and nobly furnished with all company and other accomplishments befitting the Majesty Palace and presence of the King of Heaven Death is but a transition or passage from grace to glory the taking of the candle of our soules out of a dark and close lanthorn of our bodies to set it on a fair candlestick in a stately chamber till the body be restored fitter for it crystalline celestial incorruptible When Christians defer their repentance and comming to Christ they forget the priviledges and benefits which are enjoyable only by them both in life and death at resurrection and judgment to come There being no other name under heaven by which we may be saved in any of these exigents Acts 4.12 which will in after-years overtake us all O bethink thy self and say in thy heart with David What shall I render to the Lord for all his mercies Psal 116.12 What shall I return to my blessed Saviour who hath redeemed me by his precious blood from so many and so great deaths I will devote both soul and body to him as a living and acceptable sacrifice Rom. 12.2 which is but my reasonable service Though I have done foolishy ungratefully unchristianly and desperately hitherto yet I will adde no more drunkenness to thirst or iniquity to sinne since he hath by his meritorious passion both redeemed my life from the death in sin and my death from the penal horrors for sin Yea in this he hath made my death better then my life that while I live I shall sin by daily defects and infirmities but when I die sin shall wholly die in me This one cordial is in every good Christians death that his sin shall not be immortal but as he shall be ever with the Lord so he shall never sin more against him 9. Lay to heart upon this and the like sad occasions to what good end or purpose thou hast hitherto lived for many yeares as a man or a Christian in the sphear of reason in the bosome of the Church and in the light of true Religion Bethink thy self how many hours dayes weeks moneths yeares God hath given thee since thou cam'st to be master of reason and instructed in Religion knowing good and evil as a space of repentance and opportunity to shew thy fear love duty and obedience to God that thou mightst be capable of his eternal rewards There are in every year eight thousand seven hundred seventy five hours if we should allow the greater half of these for sleep and necessary attending our bodies take but four thousand houres for our work and business of consequence how poor account can most men women of ripe age but not yet come to yeares of discretion give of all these in a whole year Not one hour in seven which is as a Sabbatical hour in every day not one hour in ten which is but the Tithe of our time is generally devoted to God or any good duty Nay many are weary of doing nothing Mark 11.20 and how solicitous to ravel out their time in the most impertinent and excessive pastimes they can imagine They are like to doe very well who know not what to doe with themselves and their time Phil. 3.19 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they have most leisure to intend their spiritual and eternal improvement then are they most lavish of their precious houres Debuisti boc tempus non perdere So Pliny the elder checked his Nephew for losse of time when he saw him walking in the streets and indisposed thereby to read or note any thing Canst thou not tell how to spend this or that long day Wouldst thou adde spurs to the wings of time I will tell thee the very waste and seeming superfluity of thy time would serve thy turn for an eternal happiness to work out thy salvation Those lost shreds of hours which thou flingest away lazing and laughing and chatting and visiting stretching yawning and playing and fooling so long till from doing nothing art tempted to doe evil things idleness being the Devils anvil Incus Diaboli desidia Cavene te Diabolus inveniat oriosum Hieren Pro. 17.16 These parings and rags I say of thy precious time which is infinitely more precious then the finest gold is a price put into thy hand if thou be not an egregious fool of which infinite gain and advantage may be made for ever In this and that good hour which thou prodigally losest not knowing how to spend it thou mightest be seeking thy lost-self thy lost soul thy lost conscience thy lost God thy lost Saviour who came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost O what might not be done in that chain and circle which St. Jerom commends to Laeta Orationem lectio lectionem meditatio meditationē oratio sequebatur Hieron of dispensing time nay if we wrought but now and then a link of grace O what prayers what tears what meditation what contrition what compunction what godly sorrow what ingenuous shame what self-abhorrence what self-despairs might be wrought upon thy heart as to the reflection of thy sins past Yea what fear of God what reverence of the Divine majesty power wisedome justice goodness evident in his works providences word What breathings sighings and seekings after God! What purposes vowes holy resolutions thou mightst take up and begin What hatred and loathing of sin as the greatest abasing of a reasonable creature what search into and admiration of the mystery of Christ crucified what longing after him what faith in him what sense of thy want of him what zeal for him what humility meekness charity holy industry sense of Gods savour sweet influence of his Spirit power against corruptions comforts against death hopes of heaven delight in well-doing joy in God! What serious considerations of the deformity and danger by sin of the beauty and benefits by Christ of the vanity of the world the certain uncertainty of dying These meditations and many such like effects of our thoughts and reflexions of things might be the happy fruits of thy true of thy holy considerations and sober endeavours if thou wert worthy of one moment of that life which thou art so weary of and wastest so impertinently a little portion of which will be one day when thy distresses and terrors come upon
arbitrary business but of Divine Authority and Institution of highest necessity in the Church so esteemed and so used by all good Christians The modern neglect and indifferency to it either argues the Clergy miserably embased in all points from their ancient dignity or the minds and actions of Christians to become very degenerous and licentious unholy and unthankful not to be mended till the majesty of Religion and the double honour of the Ministry be restored 11. Lay to heart upon the whole matter drawing all the beams of my discourse and your meditations into one point arising from this or the like Funeral-occasions in what posture thou art for death how furnished fitted and prepared I once told this Noble Gentleman two months before he died when I saw his tedious cough very importune and his dispiritings so great that I could say little to him Sir you have nothing so much concerns you as to prepare and to dare to die Ask thy soul O poor mortal not what goods thou hast laid up for many years not what beauty and virtue thou hast married not what honours thou enjoyest not what lands thou possessest or expectest but what preparation thou hast made to meet thy God what defensative to encounter death how far the power of sin is weakned how far the progress of grace is advanced what viaticum aeternitatis provision for eternity thou hast made A Christian must not onely look to Augustus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sueton. in vita Augusti a gentle and civil or well-natured death but to a gracious a comfortable death for himself and also hopeful and exemplary to others about him The last lightnings or coruscations of a good Christian should be if his natural spirits permit his brightest as the preludium of eternity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He should adorn his death as the last act of his life with speaking good of God with telling all about him what the Lord hath done for his soul what experiences of trials and conflicts of comforts and refreshings by Christ his Word and Spirit I allow any mans or womans death-bed to be their pulpit let them then turn preachers as much as they can let them shew forth the loathsome and deadly deformities of sin the worth and excellencies they have found in Christ and his grace the benefit found in his Word Spirit Ministrations and true Ministers that so the surviving world may be the better for those nayles which as Masters of the Assemblies as now candidates and expectants yea percipients of Heaven dying Christians do happily fasten in the minds memories and consciences of their weeping auditors The best Sermons are those that dying men and women preach before their own Funerals Gen. 29. Deut. 32. 1 Kings 2.1 Joshua 23. John 14 15 16 and 19. Chapters 1 Sam. 25.37 as Jacob Moses Joshua and David did yea our blessed Lord Jesus most expressed his inmost and sublimest sense to his Disciples a little before he died as to heavenly comforts prayers and praises A Christian should avoid what possibly may be to die like Nabal as if his heart were first quite dead as a stone within him I mean when God gives spirits and strength to express themselves None are such Infidels as not to believe these dying Orators who are got beyond our pulpit-strains and affected forms above all human fears and flatteries all studies of sides and factions Illum vita nondum dissimulatio deseruit Sueton. in vita Tiberii then or never they are in good earnest Few with Tiberius can be such hypocrites as to act a part only of piety when they are going off the stage of life If we are grafted in the tree of life we shall bear some good fruits living or dying I know the best experiments of grace and the surest both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signes and indications of sincerity are from a good conscience kept up in our lives not hudled up in haste a little before death as goods in a scare-fire only upon the alarm of sickness and death but wisely leisurely gravely and practically methodised and digested yea expressed in our health in the humble and impartial constancy of attending holy duties private and publique in orderly waiting on the true and duly ordained Ministry of Christ in his Church in frequent devout and fervent partakings of the Lords Supper in righteous holy charitable and exemplary lives toward all men which are both useful to mankind by good works and acceptable to God in all humility adorning the Christian and reformed Religion highly magnifying the glory of the grace of God in Jesus Christ An humble heart and an holy life are the best cordials in our deaths for without peace and holiness as the Apostle tells us no man shall see God And Heaven it self will not be welcome to us if holiness be not Heb 12.14 Nec coelum ipsum placebit cui sanctitas displicet for its happiness is no other but perfected holiness then we shall be such as we would be hereafter when we like to be such as God would have us here 12. Last of all The neerer the more remarkable and emphatick any object of death or Funeral-occasion is the more we should lay it to heart As when great wise valiant and honest men like mighty Cedars of Lebanon fall by death either natural or violent by open hostility or treachery as Abner died 2 Sam. 9.33 whose Biere David himself followed honoring by a most generous example that virtue loyalty and fortitude which he found in an enemy toward him nor doth he do it in a courtly formality but with ample publick and unfeigned sorrow even to weeping looking upon that sad and shameful accident as a great reproach and affront to his own party and cause as a dehonesting of his own honour and that Religion which he professed to remove so great a scandal and dishonour from his person conscience Kingdom and profession as attends all treacherous murtherings even of reconciled enemies and rivals David himself doth Abner this honour at his burial to follow the Biere 1. So in the deaths of such excellent Princes as have been or were like to be the Patres patriae Fathers of their Country maintainers of law and justice provident for the publick good in peace and plenty Patrons of learning virtue and established Religion wise and valiant assertors when need requires of their own honour and their peoples safety merciful dispensers of such favours and remissions as may abate the rigors of law with regard to human surprises and infirmities and yet neither weaken the hands of justice nor strengthen the hands of malicious offenders Such Kings and Princes yea any soveraign Magistrates under any title as Joshua and other Judges that are not wholly degenerate from their dignity duty and place are to be duly lamented and their deaths are seriously to be laid to heart because they do not only shew us the