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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87093	The epitaph of a godly man, especially a man of God or, The happines by death of holines in life. Delineated in a sermon preached at the funerall of Mr Adam Pemberton late minister of the parish of St Fosters Foster-lane : who ended this mortall, April the 8th, 1655. and was buried in hope of an immortal life the 11th of the same moneth. / By Nath: Hardy M.A. and preacher to the parish of St Dionis Back Church.	Hardy, Nathaniel, 1618-1670.	1655 (1655)	Wing H720; Thomason E844_15	25,148	39

mine Enemy but he who liveth to Christ may say to it as David of Ahimaaz It cometh with good tidings And now my brethren would you on the one hand see the reason why you are so fearfull of death it is because your consciences accuse you that you have not lived to Christ suae quisque conscientia vulnus accuset non mortis acerbitatem we may thank our owne guilty consciences for our feares of death It was not without reason that St. Paul saith the sting of death is sin since death is onely venemous and deadly to them who live in sinne On the other hand would you see the way to a joyfull end would you have comfort in and gaine after death Oh let it be your study to live to Christ It is our Saviours counsell to his Disciples Take no thought for your life let me alter it a little take no thought for your death but for your life let your care be to advance Christ in your lives and it will be his care to confer the gaine of glory and immortality upon you at your death And thus I have finished the Text Time and your expectation hasten me to the sad occasion of this sorrowfull assembly The early and unexpected death of this hopefull servant of Christ in the worke of the Gospel Master Adam Pemberton What S. Paul said concerning Timothy I need not doubt to say of him that from a child he hath known the holy Scriptures being the Son of such a Father who strove to instill into his tender yeares both Religion and Learning It pleased God to bestow upon him many choice naturall endowments of an Acute wit a Ready expression and a good memory He wanted not acquired abilities in the knowledge of Tongues Arts those handmaids of Divinity which none contemne but the ignorant who because they cannot be like others would have others like them and so whilst darknesse covers the Hemisphere they may be thought to have as good eyes as any Besides these naturall and acquired parts I trust and what ever any proudly undertake Man can goe farther he had some measure of supernaturall and infused graces and experienced those saving operations of the blessed spirit on his owne heart Being thus competently nay farre more excellently then many of his yeares furnished for the work of the Ministry he entred into holy Orders and that by the right door preferring the beaten track of venerable Antiquity before the untroden by-path of Novelty And now having undertaken this sacred employment how studious and sedulous frequent and diligent he was in performing it I doubt not but a great part here present can attest Commonly twice this last halfe yeare thrice nay many times oftner within the compass of a week he dispensed the mysteries of the Gospel to the people so that I may truly say he exhausted himselfe his strength his health in this worke as it is reported of Archimedes is quibus obtinuit famam amisit vitam He lost his life by those studies which got him credit So I may truly affirme of him by labouring to gaine Soules to Christ he impaired the health of his owne body and in some sence accelerated his end As thus he did the worke of the Lord laboriously so in some measure sucessefully me thinkes I read in the eyes of many here present their deep sorrow for his losse and that chiefly upon this account the great good and comfort their Souls found in and by his labours yea it pleased God to give him as it were a seale of his Ministry at his last Sermon after which one that had been seduced by the errors of the times came to him humbly acknowledging his own folly heartily blessing God for his instructions and earnestly desiring confirmation by private conference with him And truly I cannot but take notice of Gods great mercy to himselfe in this regard that though he was but a tender plant and so the more apt to be bended any way yea though in this innovating age the ready way to preferment of which young men are usually Ambitious he to turn Novelist or in plaine termes Schismatick yet not consulting with flesh and blood he stood firme in the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints chose rather to side with suffering Truth then prospering Error He owned the Church of England and that as before this last deformed Reformation to be his Mother zealously preaching her Doctrine asserting her Discipline and bemoaning her sorrowes which caused him not many dayes before his death to take up Davids language Redeem Israel oh God out of all his troubles Nor did he onely pity her sufferings and pray for her deliverance but to the utmost of his power he was ready to help her children his fellow brethren and labourers in the Gospel who for her sake are reduced to extream necessity In this respect what St. Hierome said of Nepotian I may of him Caecorum baculus esurientium cibus spes miserorum Solamen lugentium fuit he was a staffe to the blind food to the hungry an Anchor of the afflicted and a comfort of the mourners And now whilst this young Tree was thus growing up in grace and knowledge in favour with God and Man so that they who sate under the shadow of his Ministry promised to themselves much comfort and contentment Alas who can mention it without teares in the spring of the yeare I and of his age the winde of a violent disease blasted him and death removeth him hence to be transplanted in the celestiall Paradice Having spent his life in the Lords worke he ended it on the last Lords day and on that day of rest yet withall of labour to a Minister he rested from his labours So that quem haeredem putavimus funus tenemus to use St. Hieromes phrase we are forced to bemoane his fall with teares who being Elder hoped to have left him a remaining Pillar in the Church of God Some few houres before his dissolution a Reverend Doctor of Divinity his and my very good friend coming to visit him and putting him upon the act of Resignation in yeilding up himself to Gods dispose his answer was That if he might doe God any further service in his Church he was willing to live but if not he was content to submit to Gods will saying in the words of my Text which since he made use of I made choice of To me to live is Christ and to dye is gaine and truly by what you have already heard there is reason to believe that he practised the former and hope that he now experienceth the latter Indeed his death in respect of us was a losse a great losse and that every way His Father hath lost the staffe of his age an observant Child his Wife an affectionate Husband and his Children poor babes whose sorrow is yet to come a carefull Father The Church hath lost an obedient Son

if you will know where Christ is you shall finde it by other Scriptures to be farre above all heavens at the right hand of God Indeed the contract between Christ and the soule is made on earth but the marriage is consummated in heaven here Christ is with us by his Spirit there we shall be with him first in our souls and at last in our persons It is much for a Prince to visit a poor man in his cottage but it is farre more for him to take the poor man home with him to his palace Esse Christum cum paulo magna securitas Esse paulum cum Christo summa foelicitas It is our great security while we live that Christ is with us but it shall be our felicity when we die that we shall be with Christ 3. Finally when we die our souls are endowed with perfect purity and spotlesse holinesse and grace receiveth its consummation by glory the Apostle maketh mention of the spirits of just men made perfect that is perfectly just and holy in their spirits Indeed the perfection of glory is not till the resurrection when soule and body shall be united but in the mean time the souls of them that die in Christ are adorned with a perfection of grace and if the beginnings of grace be pretious what is the completion of it if the first fruits be desirable what is the full crop if the soule which hath but one dram of grace be more truly noble than if it had all other naturall or morall endowments how glorious shall our souls be when they shall be as vessels filled to the brim with fulnesse of grace By all this which hath been said the truth of this Apostolical Assertion sufficiently appeareth but that all Objestions may be removed be pleased to consider it comparatively and to weigh a while in the scales of reason both the losse and the gain of death that we may see how much the gain preponderateth the loss and so this Doctrine will remaine undoubtedly true notwithstanding whatever may be pretended to the contrary It is true death bereaveth us of a mortall and transitory but it is an inlet to an immortall and everlasting life it despoileth us of our worldly possessions I but it putteth us into possession of our heavenly inheritance it taketh us from the society of our neighbours bosome of our friends I but it sends us to Abrahams bosome makes way for our society with Christ Finally it severs the soul from the body I but it unites the soul to God what is it for the candle to be put out whilst we enjoy the light of the Sun for the standing-pools to be dry so long as we may drink at the fountain for our earthly comforts to be taken from us when heavenly joyes are conferred on us The truth is death is not a privation but a permutation So holy Iob calleth it a change and that a blessed exchange of a cottage for a palace a wilderness for a paradise a house of bondage for a place of liberty of brass for gold pebles for pearls earth for heaven And now tell me if upon all these considerations S. Paul had not just cause to say To me to die is gain The meditation whereof may serve as a check to those passions of grief and fear which are apt in this matter to be exorbitant the one in respect of our friends and the other of our own death It is the use which Cyprian teacheth us to make of this very doctrine Ut neque charorum lugeamus excessum cum accessionis propriae dies venerit incunctanter libenter ad Deum ipso vocante veniamus That we should not too much bewail the departure of our dearest relations and when the day of our dissolution doth approach that we readily and chearfully obey Gods call 1. Let the gain of death moderate our sorrow for our friends who sleep in Iesus Why should we be troubled for them who are at rest sit down in sorrow for them who are entred into joy Why are we clad in black for them who walk in white and so many tears flow from our eyes for them who have all tears wiped from theirs It is storyed of the Thracians that they mourn at the birth and rejoice at the death of their friends Nec imprudenter saith S. Ambrose nor was it without reason that they should account those fit to be bewail'd who are launching forth into the tempestuous sea of this world and attend them with joy who are got into the harbour of rest We read concerning Lazarus that Christ rejoiced when he was dead but wept being to raise him to life And Chrysologus his note is very apt to our present purpose Christ us recipiens Lazarum flevit non amittens Christ bewaileth not the losing but restoring of his life according to which the Greek Fathers make the reason of our Saviours tears to be that he should now call him back to a miserable life Indeed as S. Hierome saith concerning Nepotian we may say of every one who departeth in Christ Non tam plangendus est qui hac luce caruerit quam gratulandum ei qui de tantis malis evaserit We are not so much to condole his losse of this life as to congratulate his deliverance from the miseries of this life Thou wilt say perhaps It is my friend my dearly beloved friend who is dead and can I choose but mourn But is he thy friend and dost thou envy him his happiness dost thou dearly love him and yet grieve at his welfare He is thy friend and death is his benefit and shall the benefit of another especially of thy friend be thy sorrow I but he is snatched from my arms I have a great losse in his departure and that is my trouble True this nature promteth to that we should be sensible of our own losse yea grace requireth that we should be sensible of such a losse as it is a crosse inflicted upon us by Divine Providence Thus patient Job when the news came to him of his childrens death shaved his head and rent his mantle signes of that sorrow which naturall affection put him upon yea he fell down upon the ground and worshipped signes that in his sorrow he looked higher at the hand of God which had done it But as with one eye we look on our losse and weep so with another eye we must look on their gain and rejoice as it is a chastisement to us we must be affected with sorrow as a mercy to them with joy and thus whilest we mingle these affections together our sorrow will not be exorbitant Indeed when any die to whom we have reason to fear death is the beginning of sorrrow there is sad cause of bitter mourning but not for them who die in the Lord Scribitur David justè flevisse filium parricidam qui alium parvulum