unreasonable irreligious and divelish A carrionly carkass of a man is aromatick a very perfume in comparison of a dead and rotting soul The body becomes dead and so dissolves by the souls parting from it but the soul by Gods being separated from it first out of its own choise next by Gods penal deserting of it The soul is the salt the light and life of the body so is God of the soul Anima animae the very soul of our souls I mean his grace love and spiritual communion separation from this is the souls death here and hereafter For from the power wrath and vengeance of God the damned are not separated who are dead not to their being but to their well being or happiness to the union at and fruition of God in love The soul apart from God in grace or glory is not only an orphan or a widow condemned to eternal sorrow and desolation for nothing can maintain or entertain wooe wed or indow the soul to the least degree of happines or to any allay of misery when once God hath quite forsaken it But it is emortua conclamata in heaven earth and hell proclaimed as starke dead in Law and Gospel Matth. 13.42 to justice and mercy so represented in Scripture as the horridest expression or the blackest colour to set forth its misery and horror its regret and torpor its weeping and wailing its gnashing and despair Doth then such a thick cloud of horror hang over the face and state of a dead body which is senseless of its own death and deformity of its noysome grave and dark dungeon Sapiens ignis subtilis vermis carpit nutrit urit reficit Chrysol O what a world of horror must lie upon a dead soul when deservedly cast out of God's blessed presence when it feels its death and lives only to die when it feels it is plunged in a dead Sea which is boundless and bottomlesse where the worm dies not and the fire goeth not out because it is as Crysologus calls it a subtil fire and ingenious worm which burns but consumes not devours but destroyes not Who can dwell with everlasting burnings saith the Prophet in an extasie of holy horrour Isa 33.14 Who can live in everlasting dyings Who can abide his own everlasting rottings Is it a gradual and lingring death to want food raiment light liberty fit company Is it a total death to the body to want the little spark of the soul which is the breath and spirit of life to the body What is it then to the soul to want that God who is the breather of that breath of life and Inspirer of that spirit We want a word beyond death to expresse that state Lay it then to heart Phil. 3.11 and consider what cause we have to be humble to tremble and fear exceedingly to escape most solicitously and diligently that second and eternal death if by any means we may attain the resurrection of the dead to life eternal 3. Lay to heart upon the sight of a dead body and the meditation of a dead soul whence it is that these fears and faintings sicknesses and sorrows deaths and darknesses sordidnesse and desolation corruption and condemnation have thus mightily prevailed over the highest mountains as the flood over the most noble beautiful and excellent of all Gods works under heaven even over mankind good and bad great and small Eccles 2.16 wise and foolish upon which nature the great and only God had set such characters of special glory enduing it with a diviner spirit so making man as Moses saith a living spirit or a spirit of life And this after counsel and deliberation Faciamus hominem Sanctius his animal mentisâ— capaâ—ius aliâ—e Gen. 2.7 As in re magni momenti a matter of greater concern and weight then heaven and earth and all the host of them They were made ex tempore as it were Nudo verbo Let there be and there was But man was made ex consilio after Gods own Image full of beauty health honour riches wisedome the Spirit of the living God given him in an extraordinary beam Whence is this lapse to earth to dust to a sad and wretched a decaying and dying condition both temporal and eternal Sure not from the impotencie or envy of the blessed Creator whose omnipotent goodnesse is inconsistent with such infirmities nor yet from the frailty and inconsistency of the subject matter which he raised to so goodly a fabrick little lower then the Angels Psal 49.12 as man was made who should have been as long immortal as Angels had he continued a man that is Rom. 6.23 rational and religious enjoying the Image of God on him which forbids and excludes as all shadow of sin and defection so of all death or mutation to worse No. The Psalmist tells us after the history of Genesis Man being in honour did not so abide but is become like to the beasts that perish by the frailty of his will which fell from adherence to God as the durable and supreme Good Sin hath levelled us to beasts to death to devils to hell This death in all sizes and degrees from the least ache and dolour to the compleatnesse of damnation is the wages of fin So the Apostle oft tells us Rom. 5.17 by one mans offence death entred and reigned over all The soul that sins that shall die Ezek. 18. Sin is the source of all our sorrows the lethalis arundo poysoned arrow whose infection drinks up the spirits and eats up the health flesh bodies and soules of mankind No wonder we die since we sin at such a rate the wonder is that we live any one of us one moment How much more is the miracle of Gods love and mercy that hath by Christs death and merits brought forth to light eternal life and offered it to all penitent and believing sinners as purchased and prepared for them Because sin once lived in us we must once die and till sin be dead or mortified in us we cannot hope for life eternal Through death then thou wilt best see the face of thy sin What Poet what Painter what Orator whose colours are most lively can expresse the amazement horrour and astonishment that seized on the looks and hearts of Adam and Eve Rom. 27. 2 Tim. 1.10 when they had the dreadful prospect of their first great sin and curse written with the blood and pourtrayed on the face of their dead son Abel who in that primitive paucity of mankind was barbarously slain by his brother Cain Who can expresse or conceive the woful lamentation they made over their dead son in whom they first beheld the beauties of life swallowed up by the deformities of death Is death then so dreadful so dismal so deformed so putid O think what that sin is which thou so embracest and huggest The fountain of bitternesse is more bitter then the stream Our madness and misery is
alienated from his fear by the prosperity of any evil doers Psal 73.16 or adversity of well doers in this life But go into his Sanctuary with David search the Scriptures and there thou shalt see the eternal counterpoisings of these strange momentary dispensations how the wicked go away to eternal darkness Psal 97.10 11 c. Luke 12.4 and shall never see any light of comfort when his candle is once put out but to the righteous the Lord preserveth the souls of them from those that can but kill the body Rom. 2.7 yea light is sown in their darkness life in their death a crown of eternal glory will grow out of their crown of thorns rivers of everlasting refreshings shall flow out of the rock of their patience and sufferings in well doing in the midst of which fiery trials the spirit of glory rested upon them 1 Pet. 3.18 1 Pet. 4.13 14. Phil. 1.28 they are made conformable to Christ in sufferings that they may reign with him hence they enjoy a most evident sign of their adversaries condition but of their own salvation and that of God who is a righteous Judge a God of truth and faithfulness who will not forget the labour of love or suffer those to go unrewarded who suffer for righteousness sake Mat. 5.10.12 great is their reward in heaven Do not foolishly fret and envy Dives his delicates when thou seest Lazarus die on a dunghil Luke 16.19 Matth. 14.8 nor grudge Herod his throne when thou seest John Baptists head in a charger There is not a greater argument Certissimum futuri judicii praejudicium Tert. Jer. 51.56 The Lord God of recompenses shall surely require Mal. 3.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or more likely demonstration to confute Atheism to confirm faith and hope in a better and another life which the Lord God of recompenses hath certainly prepared for those that are his when he makes up his jewels Can any man be loser for Gods cause Shall not the just God do right to himself and to every man according to his own word and every mans works No man can think God is unable or unwilling to make such amends in another life as shall infinitely expiate and exceed all the seeming detriments here on the part of the godly and the increments or advantages on the part of the wicked Could he make such a world for the good and bad the just and unjust for men and beasts enemies and servants Matth. 5.45 and cannot he prepare for and bestow a better state upon his friends and children Is this mortal and momentary state worthy the name of life with which we are so taken and we are loth to leave whose welfare consists only in the using and enjoying of creatures either without life or only with life and sense or at best adorned with reason added to their life and sense Col. 2.22 but yet perishing in the use and dying as our selves Is this a life to be so desired and doted upon and must not that excel which consists in communion with and participation of the Creator who must necessarily be better then all his creatures and infinitely exceed them as much as light darkness the sea a drop or the Sun a mote or spark Is it a small matter that the spirit or soul of a good man like Lazarus's and Stephens Luke 16. is presently attended and received by many blessed Angels which light on it as a swarm of bees to conduct it joyfully to its blessed God and Saviour so that as soon as it parts out of the body it enjoys spiritual Angelical and celestial joys But the souls of the wicked loth to leave their carkasses and lingring as it were about their corps are presently beset with so many evil spirits or spiteful divels who like wasps and hornets fall upon it as it were to bite and sting and vex it with such resentments and terrors as they either feel or fear to which the soul is first self-condemned and presently selfe-tormented being its own Hell or Tormentor now as it was its own betrayer or tempter heretofore 10. These and the like serious reflexions may justly be laid to heart by all such as are yet but in the outward court of reason on the bare forms of religion and even by others who are come or seem so at least into the holy place to clearer perceptions of piety carrying sincere purposes in their souls and professing to live in communion with God and Christ I am to speak to the hearts of these also How come they to live still incumbred with so many strange opinions passions lusts and affections which seem very weak partial preposterous disorderly earthly and uncharitable Is this to live as in the prospect of death in the confines of heaven in the aim at eternal life yet so eager solicitous impatient disquieted and concerned for these momentary and transeunt enjoyments of life as if these were the main interests they were to carry on in life or to provide for against death Art thou a Kings son and embracest dunghils Lam. 4.5 talkest so much of heaven and graspest only earth Art thou among Gods Nazarites Lam. 4.7 who profess to be separate from sinners crucified to the world whose heart and conversation should be whiter then milk purer then snow beautiful as the rubies and more polished then Saphirs as Jeremiah laments and yet is thy visage blacker then a coal thy sin cleaveth to thy bones such an hidebound Christian and politick professor so carking and caring so getting and griping so sharking and shifting to and fro in thy judgement and way of religion that thou seemest more to regard the wind and weathercock of civil interests favours and advantages then the constant rule and compass of Gods word shifting thy sails to every point as may most fit thy worldly occasions rather then thy conscience and eternal concernments Whence is it that thou a profest pilgrim and stranger in this world art so great an agitator and so passionately engaged in secular sidings whence is this strange Metamorphosis or change of Christianity from the primitive beauty and Scriptural garb or fashion used by the Confessors Martyrs Apostles by Christ himself and his best followers in all ages when hands and eyes heads and hearts lives and conversations of Christians were all lifted up toward heaven and set upon heavenly things how are they now become dross so groveling to the earth joyning Christ with Belial and God with Mammon 2 Cor. 6.15 1 Thes 2.5 Col. 3.5 Rom. 2.22 Prov. 3.9 Mal. 3.8 professions of light with operations of darkness making Christian liberty a cloke for all licentiousness and malice for all filthy lucre and even sacrilegious covetousness which is worse then Idolatry for the Idolater honours a false god with his substance but a Sacrilegious Christian robs the true God to increase his private substance This temper is far from the mortifying
higher form of life are scarce among Solomons living who lay things to heart that is Altâ mente reponunt they deeply and devoutly seriously and solemnly rationally and religiously consider resolve and ponder in intimis animi recessibus the inward recesses of their soules or consciences the whole purport of such occasions what they mean in all their aspects They make as it were a speculative Anatomy and intellectual dissection of the dead yea and of death it self in all its forms and fashions in its causes and effects its antecedents concomitants and consequences They look upon the face of it which is neer at hand and the long train or extent of it which reacheth to Eternity This is the Lecture that the living read upon the dead and many lessons they learn from them because they are men that have an heart which is wise and understanding duely weighing in the scale of true reason and divine wisdom every occurrence and event of providence which hath any remark or signal character upon it as the death of any man or woman young or old infant or decrepit hath to such as have an heart able to apply it notwithstanding this frequency of such spectacles which with many men and women takes away the sense and regard of them though such persons need every day a memento mori some spectacle or remembrancer as King Philip had daily to put them in mind that they are but men Philippe memento te esse mortalem How necessary is it for them to remember their latter end to consider in what a vain shadow they live or rather die in their life because they are without an heart as silly birds not aware of the snares of sin the pits of death and hell over which they carelesly and confidently passe every moment Frequencie of Funerals doth not lessen the right use and influence of them to such living as know how to lay them to heart They doe not as women and children or country clowns only start amain when some sudden and unexpected death befals any as if it were the discharging of a great cannon near them which they never dreamed of but as valiant Commanders who finding that an hot battery and frequent shot slayes men round about them wisely consider that they may be the next mark whom death will hit which thought is so far from discouraging or appalling a man of a good heart that is pious and generous that it onely summons him to muster up all the fortitude and strength of his soul that whether he live or die he may do neither like a fool or a coward or a beast but like a valiant man and a good Christian who being engaged in a good Canse having a good God and a good conscience doubts not to make a good end when God shall call him out of this life to a better The Living that is the wise and considerable sort of mankind are the only persons who have hearts to consider all things as they ought to reflect upon their own hearts to commune with them to try and examine their state and tempers their defects and disorders their extravagancies and necessities The Living are they that duely consider the true interests and eternal concernments of their hearts and spirits their soules and consciences far beyond those of their bodies senses or fortunes The Living doe upon such occasions of mortality in se descendere make sober retreats home looking to themselves and searching into the penetralia animae their hearts above all Which they know to be as the rudder or steerage of the soule and of the whole man of all thoughts words and actions the card or compass by which our momentary and eternal course is shaped They know the infinite importance of a well or ill constituted and managed heart They find that verified which our Saviour tells us That out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts murders Matth. 15.18 adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies c. That God chiefly requires and regards this as the Gemme of the man most precious in it self most proper and proportionate for God That all beauty strength wit estate honour offered to God without the Heart is but the sacrifice nay the sacriledge and affront of fools and hypocrites Therefore it is frequently inculcated from Heaven and in the Scripture Prov. 23.26 to all sorts of men under all dispensations of Religion to Jew and Gentile Give me thy heart an honest and good heart Psal 51. a pure and peaceable heart an humble and contrite heart God will not despise yea in this he delights all things else are loss and dung in comparison Nothing else in man is worthy of God and yet nothing less worthy of him that is Gen. 6.5 naturally less fit and prepared for him What God complained long ago is verified in every mans experience That every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart was evil and that continually The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distempers diseases yea and deaths of the heart of man are as many as dangerous and as desperate as those of the body yea infinitely more For the bodies diseases doe but kill us as to mans society and to a moments life on earth but the diseases of the heart kill us as to the life of God and an eternal happiness of conservation in Heaven The living God who delights not in the death of a sinner nor yet in a dead heart which is the first death of a sinner as a gracious Father and compassionate Physitian hath discovered to us the many plagues which are in our hearts the sicknesses to which they are subject by the surfets they take of the world and their senses Sometimes the Heart swels with the tumor of intolerable pride sometimes it burns withcholerick inflammations sometimes it is scorched with passionate calentures of inordinate lusts sometimes it is almost drowned like hydropick and overgrown bodies with its sensual luxuries and fulness even to abominable fedities sometimes it hath such a gout as it is in great pain at any the least motion for God or any good motion from him sometime it pines away in a Consumption amidst all its sensible pleasures plenty and honours not finding any satisfactory solid and durable good in them all Sometimes the heart is shaken with paralytick tremblings and terrors like Earthquakes which seem to arise from the dark and pestilent vapors in it self sometimes it hath not only fits of the stone refractory tempers but a petrified habitude of a hard and stony heart which nothing doth soften neither mercy nor judgment love nor wrath bounty nor patience of God Sometimes the heart falls into Lethargick and Apoplectick stupors like Nabals and Achitophels it growes remorseless benummed stupid senselesse dull and dead within men past fear or feeling of any thing either sharp and pungent in the Law or spiritful and reviving in the Gospel Solomon who was a great King of hearts and had a
very large soveraign knowledge of them Eccl. 8.11 beyond any meer man tells us that the hearts of the sons of men are not onely full of folly 1 Kings 8.38 Eccl. 9.3 and set upon evill and sick of several sorts of plagues but frenzy fury and madness are in their hearts while they live which is a distemper not easily if ever perfectly cured But if any thing as to humane applications be likely to work any good upon the worst mens hearts Job 41.7 if any dart or weapon can reach and pierce these Leviathans whose natural proneness and customary habits in sin are so closely fixed and hardened to all manner of sin without any remorse it is such as Death brings with it not as it is pictured to scare children but as it is really it self and perceived among all sorts of men good or bad sparing none surprising any one even in the pride hardness deadness and damnableness of his heart Nothing in life is a more consummated fear then that which death carries with it It is called the King of terrors Job 18.14 Isa 14.9 11 12. Ezek. 32.27 Rex longimanus whose Scepter or sword reacheth all even Kings themselves such as were most impatient not to have all men living stoop down to their Scepter and Empire even these mighty Cedars and Colosses of Monarchs hath death subdued in a short time with a little labour and brought them down to the pit and bound them in chaines of darkness in the prison and dungeon of the grave triumphing over these Triumphers with an ironick Epinicion as the Prophet expresseth How art thou faln Art thou also become weak as we who wert a terror in the land of the living with thy sword lying in vain under thy head while thine iniquities are upon thy bones This representation of death to the living should be laid to Heart by all men and will be so by all such as truly live and not only breath There is a great difference between vixit and fuit being and living he lives that liveth wisely and worthily As bene valere is vivere health is the life of life so much more bene vivere est vita vitalis to live well is the welfare of life For as every disease of the body is a partial death to such a degree of health and life as is wanting so every sinful distemper of the rational heart of man is so far a deadness as it is a disorder upon it Which God seeks to cure and conquer by setting before us frequent spectacles of mortality which not to lay to heart and to entertain meerly with a specious formality with a childish historick or histrionick indifferency is the way firmare morbum corroborare mortem to increase the diseases and confirm that death which is upon mens hearts who are yet living in a vain shadow or shew of life only which is to these filly inconsiderate and sinful fooles not only mortalis and moriens but mortua yea mortifera vita a mortal and dayly dying but a dead yea a deadly and killing life while they live onely to beasts to men to their bodies and to a moment but are dead to soules to their own hearts to Gods Spirit and to Eternity as to their present impenitent state and posture of heart God by the Prophet complaines That the righteous perish and no man laid it to heart Yea when he sent many messengers and promiscuous executioners of death among the Jewes Isa 57.1 Aezek 14.21 his four sore judgments yet they laid not those terrors to heart nor considered their latter end that they might fear before God and live no more presumptuously Our blessed Lord at once reproacheth and threatneth those that had not so laid to heart the death of those on whom the tower of Siloa fell and whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices Luke 13.4 that except they repent they should likewise perish Deaths must be so laid to heart that by the sadness of the countenance the heart may be made better Eccl. 7.3 as Solomon speaks The house of laughter may afford the heart of a fool more seeming pleasure for a season but the house of mourning affords a wise mans heart more solid and durable profit Luke 17.37 who like the Eagle will chuse to be there where the body not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea the dead corps is as our Saviour speaks in an higher sense where the Eagle-eye of a believer quick and clear seeing afar off eagerly hastens firmly seizeth pertinaciously holdeth and greedily feedeth upon Christs blessed body and blood which is given to die for us as the only food of our soules in its infinite merits As we must not take the name of God in vain by profane swearing blaspheming or jesting nor may we receive his grace in vain as to the meanes the monitions and motions of his Spirit within us or without us So neither may we passe by the dead as the Priest and Levite did by the wounded and half-dead traveller without much regard as if we were unconcerned Gods dispenpensations in this kind must not be in vain to us though we cannot doe the dead any good yet we may get good from them and by them yea account must be given as of other things so of this Thou must not only reddere rationem vitae tuae but alienae give an account of thy own life but of anothers too who may sin at the charge of thy soule while as Eli thou neglectest to hinder or reprove or give them good example or it may be soothest and encouragest them in sin or whose pious life is set before thee as an excellent pattern but ill followed by thee yea further we must reddere rationem mortis alienae give account to God of anothers death not only whom we unjustly slay Gen. 9.5 or neglect to save deliver asmuch as is justly in our power God will require the blood of these both for man and beast but further we must give account of anothers death which we see or hear of and doe not consider which we celebrate onely but lay it not to heart in piety when we are not warned or moved at all when custome as of sinning so of seeing the dead takes away all due sense when being touched with so sharp a spur as that of anothers death should be to thee thou art like a dull jade or tired hackney not at all affected or moved to mend thy pace not one sinners sigh or Christians tear no sad reflection or penitent remorse no quickened endeavours or confirmed resolutions in order to prepare more intentively for death for judgment and eternity only thou joggest on after the wonted rate and carriers pace of a formal and cold-hearted Christian Which evil defects arguments of a dead and unaffected heart either totally or gradually are the lesse excusable in men because the uses or advantages to be
thou 'T is hard for us to give a just reason and Christian account for most of our weepings and least of those that are most excessive we weep more for any loss of a momentary toy then for the absence of our Lord the loss of Gods love the loss of a good conscience the Churches wastes Jerusalems ruines and the sins of our own souls or of others which call us to mourning As our blessed Lord said to the women weeping when they saw him led to be crucified so may every dead friend or other object of our weeping say to us Weep not for me but weep for your selves Luke 23.28 who many times have most cause to sorrow then when you sorrow least some tears are to be wept for again Tears cannot profit the dead but they may the living yea I recant they may profit even dead souls who are dead as St. 1 Tim. 5.6 Prov. 8.36 John 11.35 Paul speaks even while they live who love death tears and prayers may be a means by Gods grace to revive these as Jesus his tears were to bring to life Lazarus Tears are the distillations of love resolved into drops by the coolings of some ambient sorrow We cannot love any thing in our selves or others so justifiably as our and their souls In reference to these all our passions and affections should be rightly disciplined and ranged duly and exercised and improved as most needing and deserving our cares and counsels our prayers and tears Nor can I here omit to lay to your hearts what this Noble Gentleman suggested to me when being sent for I came to him the morning before he died He told me he was very sorry that it was so late with him yea he feared very late he had been long fed with some hopes of life but now he believed his time was short which he could wish he had more improved to his souls comfort while his strength of body had been somewhat better I know men and women too have a feminine and foolish fear to dispirit or deject any patient or decumbent with the serious thoughts or speech of their dying for fear their sad physick and nauseous prescriptions should not operate well on the ill humors of their bodies But the care of removing any burthens or obstructions upon their souls and consciences this must be deferred and neglected till there is such a decline of life and spirits as hangs out the black flag of death and despair then ubi desinit Medicus incipit Theologus when Physitians have in vain done their best the Divine must God knows too oft in vain do his best also for alas he hath little time in the agonies of death and the precipitations of life to search and apply the necessary remedies or comforts of a languishing soul which is as if a man should begin to read a long letter of great and present concernment when his candle was at the last twinkling A method certainly not more preposterous then dangerous to sick bodies and diseased souls If our Physitians were meer disciples of Galen and Hippocrates I should not wonder at their dilatory indifferencies as to mens souls and intensiveness only to their bodies but being many of them very learned men and some of them very good Christians I humbly conceive it would no way misbecome them nor any way impede the success of their arts and applications if they did upon the first perception of a dubious and dangerous state of any sick body with Christian wisedom and charity advise them yea and intreat them not to neglect the care of preparing their souls for God that as they will do their best with Gods help to cure their bodily distempers so it will no way hinder their skill or cure to carry on the concurrent welfare of their souls so as becomes good Christians because the event of all sickness is uncertain diseases oft flatter where they destroy therefore Physitians and Friends should be with all speed faithful to their Patients souls as well as bodies It bears no proportion for a sick patient to be visited twice or thrice in a day by Physitians in order to the bodies health and by a Divine once in a week it may be and this not till the last exigent and gasp of life as if this would abundantly serve the turn When men begin more to value their pretious and immortal souls they will more prize the help of true Divines whose prayers connsels and spiritual assistance being Gods indulgence and ordinance in his Church is usually followed with most gracious and comfortable successes toward sick persons that desire their help and send timely for them as St. James 5.14 James adviseth yea commandeth to do when Christians are cast down in bodily or spiritual dejections and when they are desirous to have the comfort of forgiveness of sins further sealed to them yea who is there so able so knowing so self-confident so comfortable in health that may not and usually doth not finde great damps dulness and difficulties of soul in sickness these are prone to be dispirited as well as the bodies of the best Christians and may well bear with nay most earnestly desire to have their weak hands supported and feeble knees strengthned by the counsel prayers and comforts of true Ministers Yea in the most desperate cases when dissolute livers are catched in Gods net or toile and now begin to make their addresses to God and preparations for eternity even in these cases the diligent and frequent assistance of discreet Ministers helping poor creatures to search and try their hearts to see their sins to look to God in Christ to turn to him and lay hold upon him doth many times work miraculous effects both to sanctifie sickness and to save souls so much doth God blesse the means he hath appointed when duly used which supinely neglected the end must needs fail I know many men and women too are now turned Preachers as not a few are turn'd Physitians which truly in my judgement amount no higher for the most part then Empiricks and Mountebancks in both making more work for able Divines and Physitians too This I am sure few men in their wits and willing to live but court the best Physitians nor do I see less reason why they should not desire and employ the best and truest Divines such as are most able and skilful most willing and faithful most authorized and commissionated by Christ and his Church to assist and comfort to instruct and absolve if need be dying sinners beyond what any man ordinarily can do in his health much less in the distempers dejections and darknesses of his sickness both corporal and spiritual who yet now affect in it most what in the frolick of their lives to be their own Teachers and Preachers their own Ordainers and Confessors their own Bishops and Presbyters too contrary to the judgment of all pious Antiquity who thought the Evangelical Ministry not an
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
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
conference with such an humble ejaculation O how infinite is the mercy of our heavenly Father that hath given us poor sinners such gracious promises to lay hold on Afterward I was sent for to him and went betimes that morning before he departed which was at four afternoon His weakness then was great and urgent yet his calmness to speak and hear was better then I had found before Then he deplored as I formerly touched the vain hopes of living which he had had and that it was so late There was now no delay to be made no time to be lost in impertinent visiting and cold how-do-yous I craved therefore his patience privacy and leave to doe my duty as a Minister of Christ in order to his souls present good Then I did according to the wisedome that God gave me demand many things of him in the cleerest exactest and shortest method which I could whereby to receive from him such a confession of his sins and of his serious repentance of his deep sense of the want of Christ as a Saviour of owning the excellent worth that is in Christ of the full and free grace of God offered by Christ of his humble desires and hopes of it also his patience and preparedness to die if God would have it so And in general of his firm perswasion that those things were true which he had been taught by me and other Ministers of the Church of England out of Gods word To all the whole series of my questions discourse he severally answered with such prayers tears such deep sighs such fervent Amens and such pathetick expressions as I could expect in his weak condition To my last query concerning his belief of the Truths of God in his Word he replyed with a vehemency of voice and spirit Do I believe them yes Sr. I thank God I do believe them as most gracious and glorious truths and I hope my heavenly Father will make them good to my soul This last expression my heavenly Father he oft used as alone so to me and others A sweet name and title used oft in the private devotions which his pious and noble Mother had wrote with her own hand as the effusions of her devout soul After this my private discourse with him about a quarter of an hour his noble friends joyned with me in prayer to God for him to which he was composedly intent and fervent In the afternoon soon after he had againe spoken in his dying agonies some like passionate pious and humble words to me as best befits the mouth of a dying Christian he calmly and suddenly expired without any great contest with death Far be it from me who never flattered him or any man living except my self to commend him now dead and gone after those riotous Hyperboles and envied excesses which the Greek and Roman Orators used at the Funeral piles or busta of their deceased friends Nor will I scatter upon his herse those flowers which ancient Fathers and other Christian Orators used gravely and more deservedly in their Funeral Sermons Orations and Epitaphs applied to many holy men and women of old who died either young as Nepotian whom St. Jerome so highly commends or elder as Martyrs Confessors and eminent professors of Christ crucified it was but pious and prudent that their light both living and dead should so shine before men Matth. 5.16 both Christians and Heathens that all might see their good works and glorifie God These were set forth by their accurate yet honest eloquence that they were Virtutum thesauri gratiarum gazae humanarum perfectionum cumuli c. treasures of virtue magazeens of grace heaps of divine perfections in the midst of human imperfections No Sancta illa anima nec laudes quaerit nec cupit humanas Hieron I better understand the proportions of modesty gravity and verity which become both living and dead Great applauses never so much deserved as St. Jerome speaks can do the dead no good and may do the living much hurt when they seem not so eminently deserved I am severely confined to the bounds of soberness and truth therefore I shall say no more then this that as I hope he was not far from the Kingdom of Heaven in his health Mark 12.34 so I trust his long sickness brought him not only neerer to it in the graces of true faith unfeigned repentance with charity patience humility and willing submission to Gods will living and dying I well know that the rack and skrew of sickness and killing infirmitie do commonly squeeze or force something of such expressions out of every one which sound to the tune of Christianity the best verification of which is former frequent and faithful experiments in health enjoyed in a mans own conscience and given also to others by walking humbly with God and keeping constant communion with Christ in all good duties and good works the one affords nourishment the other fruits of grace Yet I conceive I may without any offence to God or good men say thus much That if sinite parvulos ad me venire suffer little ones to come unto me Mark 10.14 be applicable to Infant graces if the indulgent tenderness of Christ Matth. 11.28 bidding the weary laden with corporal and spiritual infirmities to come to him and promising them rest if that sweet promise worthy of our blessed Saviours beniguity to mankind have any spirits and life in it for a poor dying and dejected yet believing and trembling sinner to lay hold of Matth. 12.20 The smoaking flax he will not quench nor break the bruised reed if these be significant to poor sinners in their contrite state I may without presumption or turning grace into wantonness hope that they were made good to this Gentleman whose honour health hopes happiness and heart too were so long under the burdens and breakings of Gods hand in his sickness so early in his life and so suddenly casting him down from the highest pinnacle of worldly happiness where he fancied most to settle himself Certainly there are many times great comforts spiritual cordials secretly infused with Gods bitter potions Zach. 4.10 which keep up our spirits under them and mend us by them I know God despiseth not the day of small things if sincere nor shall faith like a grain of Mustard-seed Matth. 17.20 be in vain to remove mountains of sin if it be true and lively sown on Christ and growing in him growing up and fructifying to him But I have done with the Anatomizing of his soul to you as far as I had time opportunity and skill I could also give you a true and full account of the Anatomy of his body as it was dissected the next day by six able Physitians and two skilful Surgeons my self being an eye witness whose testimony under their hands is hereafter printed in their own words The account of their discovery amounts to no more then this That