designs and labours They slighted and trod upon all other things in compare with this which they valued infinitely above all the contentments and satisfactions of this present life There were none of them that studied to make any purchases in this world to lay to their earthly house They had no designs to grow rich and great to provide themselves with fair estates or to raise themselves a Name and a praise among men They did not follow the pleasures of this world nor contrived how their body might enjoy its ease and take its fill of sensual delights No though they wrought Miracles with a word of their mouth they never employed any of them for their temporal gain and advantage Silver and Gold they had none though they were inriched with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost They healed all manner of Diseases but received nothing for the Cure They spoke with Tongues taught Mysteries instructed men in heavenly knowledge but freely they received and freely they gave to all their Disciples None of them sought to advance himself to the degree of a Noble man or a Ruler of this world None of them laboured so much as to settle himself in a competent Estate but they went up and down as their Master did and had no certain dwelling-place They sought only for this building of God which is above the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in Heaven for us This was all the possessions that they aimed at They had nothing in their thoughts but to go to Jesus and to carry others along with them to those coelestial Mansions where he is A great token of the sincerity of their belief a manifest demonstration that they thought themselves sure of what they preached For otherwise they would not have been so foolish and unthrifty as not to have made some present temporal benefit of that great knowledge and power wherewith they were endowed IV. But more than this they were so sure of this building of God in the Heavens that they endured all sorts of miseries and pains in this life meerly in hopes and expectations of it So St. Paul tells us as I noted before in the fore-going Chapter and gives us a more particular account of his sufferings whereby he approved himself a Minister of God Chap. 6. 4 5 8 9 10. and afterward a larger Catalogue of them Chap. 11. 23 24 25 26 27. Which when you have read you will not doubt but that they knew whom they had trusted as he speaks in another place 2 Tim. 1. 12. and were perswaded that he was able to keep that which they had committed unto him against that day They exposed this house I mean this Body wherein they were to all the injuries and violence of an angry world They regarded not what breaches were made in it by cruel hands They suffered it to be rifled and spoiled of all its goods They let it be ripped up and laid bare that men might see into the sincerity of their hearts in this belief Nay they cared not though it were pulled down and laid even with the ground They let fire be set to it and contentedly saw it turn'd to ashes Which they could never have consented unto if they had not been assured of a better habitation a building of God eternal in the Heavens Were they think you the only fools who knew not what was good for themselves Were men of so great knowledge can you imagine destitute of so much Wit as not to understand the value of life Were they so grosly ignorant as not to know that pleasure is better than pain And a poor house better than none at all What should make them then forsake the common sense of mankind who by all means labour to preserve life and seek to maintain the comforts and enjoyments of it unless it were this belief which I speak of that they should gain a more happy life by leaving this and make an exchange of a mean and contemptible dwelling for one more honourable and glorious It was not a fancy that could prevail with such wise men as they appeared against sense and bodily feeling Though fools may carelesly throw themselves into dangers yet we cannot conceive how men of such divine reason could support themselves by meer imagination under so many dreadful sufferings We must rather conclude that it was the presence and real possession of some great good infinitely surpassing all others which made them quit so easily that which others hold so fast and endure so constantly that which others so solicitously labour to avoid And it is considerable that they not only suffered all the torments the world could inflict but under-went them with great patience and admirable quiet of mind Nay they endured not only with patience but with joy nay counted it all joy when they fell into divers tryals And more than this they gloried in tribulations nay esteemed it as a gift on the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but to suffer also for his sake As if they had looked on their sufferings with the same eye that they did on their coelestial habitations which they made account were a gift a grace and favour of God to them Nor was there any of them otherwise minded but they all departed from the presence of the Council where they had been beaten rejoycing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name Acts 5. 41. and as St. Paul testifies of himself none of these things moved them neither counted they their lives dear unto themselves so that they might finish their course with joy Acts 20. 24. There was not one of them that shrank back when his life was in danger and would not leave his possessions here which we may well think would have hapned if they had not verily believed as they spake Some or other of them would have discovered the fraud if they had gone about to abuse the world A Rack would have made them speak the truth a Gibbet the Fire or some other torture would have drawn from them another confession if they could have said any thing but this that the crucified Jesus was alive again and was gone to Heaven and lived for evermore and had all power in Heaven and Earth and would receive their Spirits and raise their dead bodies that they might live and reign for ever with him in the high and holy place where he is But in this they all agreed to lay down their lives and suffer themselves to be cast out of their present dwellings which was a sign they had good security given them of enjoying everlasting habitations as our Saviour calls them Luke 16. 9. which no power on earth can touch And that brings me to the last thing the Apostle took his security to be so unquestionable that he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have a building of God V. They were so sure of this that it seemed to them as if
A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF Mr. THOMAS GRIGG B. D AND Rector of St. Andrew-Vndershaft Septemb. 4. 1670. By Symon Patrick D. D. HEB. 13. 14. Here we have no continuing City but we seek one to come LONDON Printed by Robert White for Francis Tyton at the Sign of the three Daggers in Fleet-street 1670. Imprimatur Rob. Grove R. P. Humfr. D no. Episc Lond. Ã sac Dom. Octob. 4. 1670. To the RELATIONS and FRIENDS of the DECEASED TO satisfie your desires I have transcribed this Discourse as soon as my other occasions would suffer and exposed it to the publick view The main Body of it is printed just as it was delivered but I have taken liberty to add the Preface and some part of the Application which then I was constrained to omit If it prove effectual to the furtherance and joy of any ones Faith I doubt not but that very thing will help to mitigate the sorrow which you have conceived for the loss of so worthy a Person A man of so amiable a temper such an unbiassed judgement prudent simplicity unfeigned charity and discreet zeal that it is not to be expected you should ever think of his departure from us without a sigh But the more useful he was to the world and delightful to you the greater will your vertue be in humbly submitting to the will of God by whose order he is removed to a better place We must not teach him how to dispose of us nor repine at his wise appointments no nor suffer the just grief which we feel on such sad occasions to extinguish quite our joy in him who would have us rejoyce in the Lord alwayes What cause we have to do so the ensuing Meditations will in some measure demonstrate Which are plain but solid truths able to support and satisfie our Spirits if we lay them up not only in our Memories to keep safe but in our Understandings to consider and our wills to love and imitate Let us but often ruminate on them and press them on our hearts and live by the faith of the Son of God and there is no disaster in the world so great but we shall be able at least to possess our souls in patience when it threatens to overwhelm us Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope through Grace comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work Covent-Garden Octob. 15. 1670. Yours to serve you S. P. A Funeral Sermon UPON II CORINTH V. I. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens THE Apostle being at the time of his writing this Epistle in great troubles and dangers for the Testimony of Jesus professes himself notwithstanding so abundantly satisfied with the Ministry he had undertaken that he did not faint at aIl nor grow weary of it as you read in the first Verse of the foregoing Chapter That which made him so courageous as to preach under so many discouragements which he mentions V. 8 9. was the same Spirit of Faith which had ever been in the people of God but was now more lively and strong in him through the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead as he tells us V. 13 14. For this cause saith he we faint not c. V. 16. It was no fool-hardiness that made them expose themselves to so many calamities but the belief of some better things which would reward their sufferings For our light affliction saith he V. 17 18. which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen c. And if any one should think that these sufferings might end at last in death and bring them down to their Graves he would have them think withal that it was no great matter Let these Miseries proceed so far as to take away our lives this is the worst of it the best is We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens These sufferings it is true may pull down our present habitation but that is all they can do there is a better building which they cannot touch Besides we shall be no great losers by the demolishing of this dwelling for it is but an Earthly House Nay we shall be great gainers for we shall the sooner enter into the coelestial and eternal mansions THis is the sense of the words In which we may consider these three Things 1. The description which the Apostle makes of the present state in which we now are it is in our earthly house of this tabernacle which must be dissolved 2. His description of the future state in which the faithful shall be hereafter they have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens 3. The Certainty of that happy state It is a thing as evident in its kind as the other is As we know that this house of ours is to be dissolved so we know there is a building of God when it is thrown down which stands for ever The one is certain as well as the other Of the two first I have discoursed elsewhere upon the like occasion with this that hath now brought us together Shewing how poor and mean the dwelling is in which our souls lodge while they remain in this world and what goodly preparations our Lord hath made for them in the next There seems to be an opposition here of the one state to the other in five respects 1. We are here only in an house but there is a building for us 2. This is an house of ours but that is a building of God 3. We are now but an house of a Tabernacle then we shall have an house not made with bands 4. And this is an earthly house whereas that is in the Heavens 5. This is to be dissolved but that is eternal in the Heavens As much as to say We are here confined to a very strait and narrow room in which the nobler thoughts and affections of our souls are apt to be choak't and stifled And no wonder considering the meaneness of its original and the poorness of its beginning Our body was once a very small pile so small that it could be inclosed in our Mothers Womb. Then and a long time after our souls were so pent up that they could not find themselves They were forc'd to stay many years before they could gain so much liberty as to turn about reflect on themselves and know that they had a Being Nay so pitifully were they cooped up that the rational Spirit could not breathe or give any sign at all of life And though now
which he appealed for a proof of the truth of all his Promises They perceived a manifest difference in his condition now from what it was before and that his body was become more subtil and aiery than it was when he dwelt among them For on a sudden he appeared in the midst of them and again in a moment he vanished out of their fight His body was now in a preparation to an higher state and therefore though they felt really flesh and bones yet he shewed them by the hasty disappearance of it into what a pure substance it was shortly to be turn'd They saw it was to be so thin and rarified that it would be a Spirit rather than a body and was to suffer such a change that now it was not fit for them to converse withal while they were in this earthly tabernacle This was the reason that he came to them only at certain seasons and continued not alwayes with them and that he charged Mary not to touch him John 20. 17. as if she mean't to hold him fast and keep him with her For though he intended to afford them some of his company being not yet ascended to the Father yet he would have her know they must not expect his stay with them after his wonted manner but go to his Brethren the Disciples and say to them I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God IV. Accordingly they knew that he did ascend up to Heaven forty dayes after his Resurrection For they themselves saw him transported thither and had his own word for it that he went to prepare a place for them and would come again and receive them unto himself that where he was there they might be also John 14. 3. For this they had also the word of two of the Heavenly Court who stood by them in bright rayment as they gazed upon him when he was taken up saying This same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manâ—â—â— as ye have seen him go into Heaven Acts 1. 10. And how glorious his body was made after he came thither they also very well knew For St. Stephen at his tryal saw the Heavens opened and beheld the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God This he openly testified to the whole Council before whom he stood accused Acts 7. 55 56. and it signifies the illustrious condition wherein he was for as he was the Son of man he stood next to the Divine Majesty and was arrayed with the glory of God St. Paul also who so little believed Steven's words that he was consenting to his death as if he had been a Blasphemer saw our Saviour not long after this as he was journeying to Damascus But he beheld him in such an astonishing brightness that it struck him to the ground and put out his eyes which were not able to endure the glory of it Acts 9. 3 4 c. Which in his Apology to the people he calls a great light that shone round about him Acts 22. 6. and in his Apology to Agrippa a light from Heaven at mid-day above the brightness of the Sun Acts 26. 13. To these two you may add the Testimony of the beloved Disciple who when he was in the Isle of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus saw him in a Majestick shape and his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength And when he saw him he was so dismayed that he fell as dead at his feet Rev. 1. 16 17. By these means they knew to what an amazing glory they should one day be exalted a little glimpse of which in this mortal nature they were not strong enough to bear V. For they knew withal that their very bodies should be made like unto his 1. They remembred how he called them Brethren and told them that his Father was their Father and his God their God and therefore doubted not that what was done for him should be done for them 2. And how he prayed that they might be with him where he was and behold i. e. enjoy his glory which the Father hath given him John 17. 24. 3. And how he assured them it was the will of him that sent him that every one who seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and he should raise him up at the last day John 6. 40. Which made the Apostle say as you heard in the Chapter before my Text V. 14. they knew that he who raised up the Lord Jesus would raise us up by Jesus 4. And being raised up they knew that they should be carried into the air to meet the Lord 1 Thess 4. 17. Now these bodies which we wear at present are not of an aërial nature but altogether of an earthly They are not fit to be transported beyond this lower Region nor were made to live in any other Element than that in which they are Nay it would be a great terror to us in this body to be caught and lifted up above we should be in continual dread of falling down to this earth whether the heaviness of them doth incline us And therefore they must be changed if we go to meet the Lord in the air as he hath promised we shall For the Apostle saith he spake this by the word of the Lord V. 15. 5 And he promised by the same word that so we shall be ever with him Ib. V. 17. Which we cannot conceive how this earthly body should endure It would soon be weary of that strange place and groan and sigh there as much as the soul doth here It would be pined for want of meat and drink as the Spirit now is often too much stifled with them And therefore in pursuance of his Promise they must be made another kind of bodies fitted to that Countrey to which they shall be transported Where there is no earth nor water nor such creatures as live in them but pure light of unconceivable brightness Lastly they knew that the Members must needs be made conformable to the head and therefore his body being glorious so must this vile body of ours be made too as the Apostle tells us Phil. 3. 21. It would be but an ugly sight among us to behold an hansome beautiful face of the purest complexion joyned to a body black and sooty whose limbs were all deformed and dis-proportioned And much more ill-favoured to see an head of light glistering like the Sun and all the Members dark as pitch resembling this sluggish Earth They made no question therefore but that when he should appear again visibly with them attending on him they should be conformed to the condition and quality of his person to whom they related as members of his body that so he might be admired in his Saints and glorified in all that believe They look't for him to come from Heaven and fashion them after his own image i. e. to make them