Garments to view which she had made to cloath the Backs of the Naked with and set them before Peter and the rest that accompanied him to justify the ground of their Mourning or rather to heighten the Passion of their Sorrow from this sadning consideration that she was ever uncapable of making any more that the Poor were never like to be the better for her again They could not but Mourn that she was so soon taken off from prosecuting the many good projects she had in her Head arid Heart of being useful to the Poor and them that were in Distress Ah Sirs when we see a Man going to his Grave we may sadly cry out He will never he can never do any more good His opportunity of glorifying his Creator or of serving his fellow-Creature is past and gone and will never return again It is impossible he should be any farther serviceable in Church or Common-Wealth And surely this should enforce a Mourning from all who take delight in or are capable of receiving Comfort from the doing good of others But it may be you will say there are many Men that do no good at all while they Live but a great deal of harm who are so far from being useful that they are wholly unprofitable yea very prejudicial to God's honour and Man's welfare in their Generation That are a Plague to the place where their abode is and a Curse to all whose unhappiness it is to be near them Now should we Mourn for them should we Grieve when they are taken out of the World should we go as Mourners about the Streets when such barren Trees are cut down and carried to their Long Home Yes verily we should because while a wicked Man is alive there is hope or at least a possibility of his Recovery from his wicked State of his being washed and sanctified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God But when he dyes there is no possibility of his reclaiming or being renewed to Repentance for there is no work no device no invention and I may add no reformation in the Grave whither we are going Fourthly For that when a Man Dyes and goes to his Long Home we shall never see him more he vanishes as it were out of our sight and we are never more to behold him or cast our Eyes upon him He is both actively and passively in an invisible state So Job Mournfully speaks of himself chap. 7. ver 7 8. Oh remember that my Life is wind my Eyes shall no more see good The Eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more thy Eyes are upon me and I am not What more cutting Expression what more sadning Inculcation what more provoking Incitation to Mourning can there be than the Sence of this that we shall behold the Face of our beloved Friend after his departure from us no more Were Man to Return though after never so many Years absence from his home or continuance in the Grave Were he to visit his habitation again and become the objective delight of his poor Mourning Friends and Relations it might be some alleviation to their Grief when he takes his journey to his Long Home But Oh! What a prick to the Heart what a stab to the Soul what a deadning to the Spirits what an inundation of Sorrow like the opening of Pandora's Box is this lamentable Thought to an ingenious Man that he must never never never more behold the Face of this or that Relation in this Region of Mortality nor have any converse with him on this side the Bank of Eternity What Husband can think so of his Wife and not melt what Wife can have such a thought of her Husband and not faint what Parent can consider this with respect to his Child and not mourn what Child can reflect upon the impossibility of ever seeing his Father or Mother more and not be overwhelmed with grief In a word What Friend or Relation can ponder on such an eternal Farewel as is then given and not be dissolved into Tears yea and not to Mourning like the Mourning of Hada-drimmon when Cloystered up in Megiddo's Vale It is the opinion of Divines That the chiefest of the Saints happiness consists in Vision or in the use of the visive faculty which will then be enlarged and made glorious to perfection for they shall see the Face of God in Righteousness and be satisfied with his likeness they shall be for ever with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord and be changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Sure I am the Saints greatest comfort in this World consists in Vision or beholding God's Image in his People and that not only the work of his Power in their comely Features but the work of his Grace in the divine Characters of Wisdom engraven in their Souls and immediately reflected upon in all their Actions Therefore it cannot but cause Mourning when such delightful Objects are removed out of sight and never more to be beheld Fourthly Modifically There is a modifick Obligation upon the Living to Mourn for the Dead in respect of the manner of Mens Dying or the circumstances they are under in that great Hour First For that Sickness is the Prologue of it the Paleness of Death is generally ushered in with the Pains and Sorrows of Sickness Thus it was with the Child of the great Shunamite that had so courteously entertained Elisha and built a Chamber for him Furnishing it with those Utensils which she knew were most acceptable to a contemplative Man In requital of which kindness he promised her from God a Child and a Child she had but it Dyed but before it Dyed it fell Sick and was tormented with Pains So we are told 2 King chap. 4. ver 18 19. And when the Child was grown it fell on a day that he went out to his Father to the Reapers And he said unto his Father my Head my head and he said to a Lad carry him to his Mother And when he had taken him and brought him to his Mother he sate on her Knees till Noon and then Dyed His Head first Aked before his Breath Departed And this is the usual way of Men's Dying first to complain of some Disease in their Bodies before there is a separation between that and their Souls One crys out of his Head another of his Bowels one is Sore-pained another is Heart-sick upon his taking his leave of the World And as the Apostle Peter speaks of the last times The Sun shall be turned into Darkness and the Moon into Blood before the great and notable Day of the Lord comes So it is most true in this case Health shall be turned into Sickness Strength into Weakness Pleasure into Pain Delight into Sadness before the great and notable Day of Death comes Which indeed in it self considered abstracted from the hopes of
Center or the touched Needle to the North-pole What place so mete what home so proper for the earthly Tabernacle of of Mans body as the earthly Apartments in the Grave Indeed the Grave is no proper Home for the Soul the better part of Man because it is immaterial incorporeal not subject to deaths Soveraignity aiming at a future being and capable of being crowned with the glorious Diadem of everlasting Honour according to the Sence of that famous Pagan Terra Domus non est animis accomoda nostris Alrius it nostrae conditionis honor The Grave is also a proper Home for the Body by reason of the great change Death makes in the Body which renders it wholly unfit to continue upon the Earth without intolerable and insupportable offence to the Living When Death hath served his Writ of Arrest and fixed the Impession of his cold hand Oh! how miserably is the fairest Face then disfigured how pittifully is the sweetest Countenance then changed how horridly is the compleatest Body then corrupted and become a noisom spectacle to its nearest Relations Insomuch that the fondest Husband then abominates the presence of his most amiable Wife the tenderest Father then loaths the sight of his most beloved Child the dearest and most intimate Friend then stands aloof off from him whose company was once truly precious and acceptable to him Therefore the Grave is the properest home for the breathless-body of Man for there it sleeps and rests without offence to any Secondly God hath appointed the Grave as Man 's fixed setled home a place of rest after his tossings and hurryings to and fro in the World We are born to Dye yea we begin to Dye as soon as we are delivered out of our Mothers Womb Nascentes Morimur finisque ab origine pendet And we must expect no quiet till Death concludes the play of our lives The Apostle tells us that here we have no continuing City but we seek one to come Indeed like Noah's Dove we scarce know where to rest the Sole of our Foot in peace Here we are often forc'd to be moving and removing from one habitation to another from one country to another yea from one end of the earth to the other we are never fixed nor throughly setled till we come to the Grave and then there will be an end for ever of all our Wandrings and weary some Pilgrimages Man whilst travelling in the Regions of Mortallity under the circumstances of being obnoxious to divers contingencies may not unfitly be compared to a Ship under sail in the wide Ocean for that he is always rowling and tumbling beaten up and down with Winds and Waves of various providencies and fatal accidentalities that do attend him and so continually upon the Surfe of Motion that he never drops Anchor never is at quiet till warped into the Harbour of the Grave And then Oh then he is fast and rides secure from all Storms and Tempests For there the wicked cease from troubling and there the wearied are at rest Thirdly God hath appointed the Grave as Man 's bounded confined home The place where all his desires after and all his endeavours for the enlargement of worldly possessions will have their termination Whilst Man is upon the Earth he is unsatiable in his coveting earth and thinks he hath never enough of it His heart is like the daughter of the Horse-leech still crying Give give and is never satisfied As Juvenal speaks of Alexander Pâ—lâ—o juveni vix totus sufficit orbis The whole World was not enough to quench the thirst of his ambitious Humour yea some say he Wept because there were no more worlds to Conquer Oh! But when he comes to the Grave he is then confined to his breadth and length and uncapable of desiring any more he is then bounded in his dimentions without a thought of any enlargement When we see the most covetous or ambitious Man going to the Grave we may see in tanto a fulfilling of that Prophesy That the loftiness of Man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of Man shall be brought low Though I know as to the full completion of it it hath another tendency for then his high Aspirations and all his vain Expectations are at a Ne plus ultra and he confined to a narrow scantling of room in this Long Home Oh! consider this you whose greedy minds are never satisfied with terrene fruitions but are always craving and grasping after more that are contriving how to add house to house and lay field to field till there be no place that are sweating and toyling journying and travelling and taking a world of pains to increase the Store of your so much adored earthly Treasure Remember I beseech you there is no buying or selling no trading or traffiquing in the Grave No bettering or making finer or larger your accomodations there The poorest Codrus hath as much room as much conveniency in this dark Region as the richest Cresus For this is the Home where every Man hath enough to serve him and is confined to the dimentions of it Fourthly God hath appointed the Grave as Man's common epidemical home The place where all the Sons and Daughters of Adam must lye down together of what nation or language of what degree or quality soever they are The small and the great the good and the bad are there There is no distinction of persons or conditions of men in that Climate The most glorious Saint hath no more priviledge or better entertainment in the Grave than the worst of Sinners Job though he was a good Man one that put his whole trust and confidence in God one that was beloved of his God and therefore ascertain'd of his Souls possessing the Mansion of eternal Glory yet as to his Body he knew that must fare as the rest of the world did Hence we find him claiming kindred with the natives of that Country below whither he was going I have said to corruption thou art my Father and to the worm thou art my Mother and my Sister And again Though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God Though he was so excellent a Saint and had so pure a Soul yet his Body was corruptible and must become food for worms We read of two and but two bodies of Adam's Line that were carried immediately from Earth to Heaven without stopping at the Grave with the rest of their Brethren The one was Encch of whom it is said He was not for God took him The other was Elijah who who in a Chariot of Fire with Fiery-horses was drawn up from beside the River Jordan to the New Jerusalem the holy Hill of Zion to be for ever with God and With the Spirits of just Men made perfect The very Body of our Lord Jesus for the absolute conquering of Death and full compleating the work of our Redemption was necessitated to go down into the Grave though not to corrupt
many so hardned in stupidity that contrary unto nature they are not affected with or concerned at the Death or going to the Grave of almost any person Secondly There is a natural Obligation on the Living to Mourn for the Dead for that Death is the thing which every Man in the world hath deserved as being lineally descended from Adam who brought Death into the World and inslaved not only himself but all his posterity unto its power So saith the Apostle Rom. 5. ver 12. Wherefore as by one Man Sin entered into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have Sinned Had Adam never sinned Adam had never dyed but in illo die saith God in that day thou eatest the Fruit thereof thou shalt surely dye or as it is in the Original dying thou shalt dye And indeed as he devolved Guilt so he entailed death the sad consequence of that Guilt upon all that should come after him unto the end of the World Oh! therefore how natural would such a reflection as this be at the news of any Mortals fall by the stroke of Death or at the sight of any deceased person going to his Long Home I am a Child of Adam as well as he and in the guilt and pollution of his original Disobedience was I shaped and subjected to all the Miseries that attended that iniquity did my Mother conceive me and bring me forth And surely I have added to the stock of original Corruption multitudes innumerable multitudes of actual Transgressions and therefore I have every way merited Death and deserved to be imprisoned in the Dungeon of the Grave as much as he that hath past through it and is gone down before me into it Should not I then be concerned at and deeply affected with what hath befallen him The extremity of pain that he was in the weary some nights that he enjoyed the tumblings and tossings that he under-went the bitter distress and anguish that possessed his Soul which enforced those doleful sighs and sobs those heart-fetcht-groans and shrikes from his dying Breast are all things that I in the same if not in a greater measure have deserved Oh! then that my Head were Waters and my Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I could mourn and weep and truly lament at this Mournful Spectacle and that from this consideration that as he the object of Mortality before my Eyes is deprived of life and all the comforts of it as he is snatcht away from all his Friends and Relations as he of a living Man is become a lump of dead Clay a piece of rotten putrifying Flesh fit for nothing but to feed worms in the Grave even so have I most justly merited in the like manner to be nothing hath befallen him but what is due to me Thirdly There is a natural Obligation on the Living to Mourn for the Dead for that there is no living person but must come to it himself Death is a debt we must all pay to Nature Job speaks of Man indefinitely thereby including every Man in what capacity so ever he is Chap. 14. ver 2. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not And we are elsewhere told that All flesh is grass and the glory thereof as the flower of the field the grass withereth the flower fladeth even so when the Hand of God is upon Man upon any Man he maketh his Beauty to consume away like a Moth for that every Man is Vanity Selah We have an Interrogation concerning this which implies a vehement Negation for so the Scripture often expresseth it self Psal 89. ver 48. What Man is he that liveth and shall not see Death shall he deliver his Soul from the hand of the Grave Selah That is there is no Man living but must see Death and come into the dominion of the Grave Now if Death be thus common to every Man then every Man ought certainly to be affected when he sees another under the power of it Would it not I pray you argue more than ordinary stupidity and sencelesness in that Malefactor that beholding a Partner in Guilt and Condemnation with himself dying a shameful painful Death according to the Sentence of the Law the which Death he himself must undergo the day following and yet not to be concerned at such a spectacle so much as to shed a Tear or manifest any meltings of Heart at so doleful a sight Oh! How unnaturally hard-hearted would you say this Man was Why Sirs this is our very case we are all real Malefactors before God condemned by him to death to the same death and sooner or later we must be laid on our sick Beds the common place of Execution and when we see any in pain and misery there before us Oh! we should remember it will be our turn ere long Do we see a dying Man in a languishing departing condition fetching his last sigh heaving for his last groan and giving up his last breath Oh! we should sadly reflect upon our selves as that Father of whom I have read did at the sight of any Coffin Ille hedie ego cras He is gone to day and so may I to morrow or to be sure must go one day or other then which nothing is more certain Fourthly It is not corrupted but refined Nature that especially enforces this duty of Mourning for the Dead and the more Nature is purged the more it is enlivened in the regular performance of this Work We find the Spirit of God inciting and calling upon Men solemnly to do it Jer. 9. ver 17 18. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Consider ye and call for the mourning Women that they may come and send for cunning Women that they may come And let them make hast and take up a wailing for us that our Eyes may run down with Tears and our Eye-lids gush out with Water Why What is the matter what is the cause there should be such a great general Mourning ver 21. For Death is come up into our windows is entered into our palaces to cut off the Children from without and the young Men from the streets Oh! When Death is taking its range about the streets it is an especial time for Mourners to be there to manifest a real Mourning under such a dispensation to put on Ashes for Beauty and instead of the Garment of Joy to be cloathed with the Spirit of Heaviness Religion doth not hinder any natural act it only regulates the mode and refines the end of the performance It doth not hinder natural love it only teacheth us how to love innocently nor doth it hinder natural sorrow it only guides us how to sorrow profitably As Divines say Though Religion be above reason yet it is not contrary to reason so though it be an enemy to all vitious corrupt motions of nature yet it obligeth no person to be unnatural that is to fail in doing
Chariot that he had and they brought him to Jerusalem and he Dyed and was Buried in one of the Sepulchers of his Fathers and all Judah and Jerusalem Mourned for Josiah And Jeremiah Lamented for Josiah and all the Singing Men and the Singing Women spake of Josiah in their Lamentations to this day and made them an Ordinance in Israel and behold they are written in the Lamentations He had not Lived out half his days but was unexspectedly taken off from farther doing of Good and this made them Lament so sorely over him And the same cause have we to Lament this day for this our Deceased Friend who contrary to the thoughts and expectations of us all was on a sudden snatched from us before he had arrived to the Thirtyeth Year of his Age. He was an healthy strong Man I remember not above two days before he sickned he was Jocosely telling me he looked upon himself as the most healthy and likeliest Man to Live in the Ship Indeed I thought he was But Ah! how soon was he gone A little sickness carryed him away Lord How vain a thing is Man How subject to Fade and Perish in his strongest and most advantagious state I will not say of our Friend as Virgil said of his Mecenas Longius annoso vivere dignus avo But 't was pity had it been the Will of God that a few Years more had not been added to his Life And his being so untimely removed bespake our greater Lamentation Fourthly Consider he is taken away in the midst of desires and wishes for his Life If Prayers if Tears if Endeavors of all sorts could have laved his Life this Sorrowfull and Mournful day had not been 'T is a great Judgment for a Man to Live undesired and to Dye unlamented And hence when the Lord would express his Anger to Jchoiakim for his wickedness he threatens him with this Judgment Jer. 22. ver 18 19. Therefore thus saith the Lord converning Jchoiakim the Son of Josiah King of Judah they shall not Lament for him saying Ah! my Brother or Ah! my Sister they shall not Lament for him saying Ah! Lord or Ah! his Glory He shall be buryed with the Eurial of an Asse drawn and cast forth beyond the Gates of Jerusalem But it is not so with our Friend I am consident not a Person here but does really Lament his Death I see the Characters of Sorrow engraven in all your Faces I know you Loved him Living and now Dead you are Mourners for him And I â—aâ—e farther 〈◊〉 had your Sorrow been as Effectual as it was Cordial you had prevented his Decease So that Hand opus est Calearibus There 's no need of any Spurs to your Lamentation that Labor is happily obviated I have indeed been shewing you for your Satisfaction and Consolation the just grounds of your Sorrow to secure you from the imputation of Irrational I shall now conclude only with a few words to put your Sorrow in the right Channel that you may sorrow as the Apostle phrases it after a Godly sort First Mourn for this Loss by way of Reflection That is Reflect on the condition you might have been in if God had called you to an account for your manifold Sins Is a Man of such Use and Worth taken away so suddenly by Death from us Oh! How should we Fear and Tremble to think what will become of us who are of so little Use in the World who have lived unprositably and unfruitfully all our days who have done little or no good in the several Capacities we have been How should it also incite us to a speedy and unfeigned Repentance lest a worse Death come upon us according to the advice of our blessed Lord Luke 13. ver 2 3. And Jesus answering said unto them Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things I tell ye nay but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Oh! Sirs do you think that this our dear and worthy Brother was a Sinner above all of us because he is gone down into the shades of Death before us I tell you nay but except you and I repent we shall all likewise perish Oh! Therefore I beseech you let this sad providence be a loud call to Repentance and Reformation and to say with the Church Come let us turn to the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal us he hath smitten and he will bind us up Secondly Mourn for this Loss by way of Humiliation Oh! labor to be so sensible of this sad Stroke as to be humbled under it and to lye low before the Lord who hath so sorely visited us in this most grievous manner Humiliation is the great expected and designed End of Correction God led his antient People through the Wilderness and exercised them with manifold Temptations that he might humble them and consequently do them good in their latter end 'T is sign of an hardned and obdurate Heart induced when there is no humbling under the mighty Hand of God And Reprobate-Silver shall Men call them that are not Resined in the Fuâ—â—â—ce of Affliction 'T was spoken as an horrid Aggravation of Israels Iniquity and Impenitency that after all the Lashes and Scourges of God's Rod and all his proceedings in way of Judgment against them Yet says the Text they are not humbled even unto this day Ah! Sirs How Lamentably would our Sins be heightned how exceedingly would our Souls be ripened for Destruction if we should not be humbled under this present awful Dispensation For verily the Lord is risen up as in Mount Perizim He is Wroth as in the Valley of Gideon and is doing his Work his strange Work and is bringing to pass his Act his strange Act in visiting our Transgressions with this smarting Rod and our Iniquities with this wounding Stripe And shall we say the Shadow of the Mountain and make but a light thing of it Oh! God forbid But rather I beseech you let us whilst our Spirits are dejected by this Loss endeavor to have our hearts humbled in the Sence of the Lord's anger that he may not farther be provoked to bring worse evils and calamities upon us How was David humbled and melted at the News of the Death of Saul and Jonathan How did he brake forth into this bitter Lamentation 2 Sam. 1. ver 19. The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places how are the mighty fallen Truly we may justly take up the same Complaint in the same words The beauty of our society the glory of our company the excellency of our community is fallen and perished from among us this day which bespeaks not only Heart-contrition but Soul-humiliation Thirdly Mourn for this Loss by way of submission and resignation of your Wills to the good Will and Pleasure of Almighty God and ceasing to murmur or complain because that he has done it We should say of this Dispensation as the Magicians said of