not convert gain-sayers and if he could not perswade them yet he would pitty and pray for them His Judgment as to the foundations and solemn administration of the Reformed Religion His fixedness in there formed Religion settled in the Church of England and so in other Reformed Churches which were for the main consonant to it was such that he was unmoveable even to a martyrdom Never more offended as I have sometimes heard him express his displeasure than with those men that affected to be Hybridae Religionis Mungrils or Mephibosheths in Religion and halters in opinion a kinde of ambiguous and dough-baked Protestants that are afraid to own their discommunion and distance from the Church politick or Court of Rome even so far as they see by Scripture and antiquity that it hath evidently divorced from communion with the word of God and Institutions of Jesus Christ walking contrary to the judgement and practice of the Primitive Churches To both which he always appealed in the grand concerns of Religion not allowing that pollicy which incroached upon truth and piety though in matters of outward Rites and Ceremonies he allowed latitudes and liberty without breach of charity It was a maxime I have heard him use That nothing was less to be stickled for or against than matters of reremony which were as shadows not substances of Religion As they did not build so they could not burthen if kept within their bounds as was done in Englands Reformation § Yea he had so far both pity and charity for those plain and honest-hearted people of the Roman communion as either their errors presumed by them to be truths or their ignorance in some things not fundamental did not betray them either to unbelief or self-presumption or to final impenitence or to immorality or uncharitableness If there were hope to close the â—ad breaches of these Western Churches no man was more able and willing to have poured balme into them But he feared the gangreen of Jesuitism had festred and inflamed things to an uncurableness which he oft deplored § His temper is latter dispute among reformed Divines As for the differences of other parties in some opinions which then began to grow very quick and warm in England as well as the Netherlands he seemed always most conformed to and satisfied with the judgement of his learned and reverend friends Bishop Vsher Bishop Davenant and Dr. Ward who were great Disciples of St. Austin and Prosper in their contests against the Pelagians Not that he could indure no difference among learned and godly men in opinions especially sublime and obscure without dissentions and distance in affection but he wished all men to look well to the humility and sincerity of their hearts whose heads were most prone and able to manage points of controversie the heat of which is ready to make the fullest souls to boil over to some immoderation and study of sides He thought that Scripture it self was in some points left us less clear and positive as to mysterious not necessary verities that Christians might have wherewith to exercise both humility in themselves and charity towards others § He very much venerated the first worthy Reformers of Religion at home and abroad yet was he not so addicted to any one Master as not freely to use that great and mature judgement which he had so as to sift and separate between their easie opinions and native passions as men and their solider probations and sober practices as great and good Divines He suffered not prejudices against any mans person or opinion to heighten animosities in him against either He hoped every good man had his retractations either actual or intentional that died in true faith and repentance however all had not time to write their retractations as St. Austin did § If against any thing next sin and gross errors he had an antipathy and impatience it was against those unquiet and pragmatick spirits which affect endless controversies varieties and novelties in Religion that hereby they may carry on that study of sides and parties in which they glory and under which skreen they hope to advance their private interests and politick designs This he saw by experience was commonly the Scorpions tail and sting of those opinions which at their first broaching and variating from the pristine and Catholick Doctrine might seem to have the face of women modest and harmless but in time grew very pernicious to Church and State When the clouds of nonconformity which was formerly reduced to an hand breadth in the Church of England began now His constancy in the late vertigious times partly by a spirit or breath of super-conformity and chiefly by those vehement winds which blew from the North to cover the whole English heaven with blackness and to threaten a great storm of blood which after followed yet did this excellent person then hold to his former principles and practice not because he was a Bishop but because he was a judicious and consciencious man where he saw Scripture and Law bound him to duty and to that constancy of his judgement in matters of Religion both essential and circumstantial substantial and ornamental which became a wise and honest man He was too ponderous a person to be tossed too and fro with every wind of doctrine or discipline nor was he ever either so scared or in so merry and frolick a sit as to dance after the Scottish pipe he had learned another and a better tune as from the Catholick Church in general so particularly from this Church and State the Princes and Prelates the Parliments and Convocations of the Reformed Church of England now too old to affect any new jigg after an hundred years most flourishing State the wisdom gravity and majesty of which he thought was not now either to be either disciplined or reformed or chastened by the pedantique authority pretended necessity or obtruded insolency of any Church or Nation under heaven much less by any party in it self which was less than the authority of a full and free Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons counselled as to matters of Religion by a full and free Convocation or Synod which he thought the most laudable way of managing Religion and most probable by doing good impartially to be blest of God and approved by good men He saw the Church and State of England had been sufficient every way for it self heretofore while united and was then happiest when it enjoyed its own peaceable and Parliamentary Counsels and results without any others partial dictates which were as improsperous as importune and impertinent § For the Liturgie His esteem of the liturgy of the Church of England or publick form of Prayer and solemn Administration in the Church of England though he needed a set form as little as any yet he had a particular great esteem of it 1. For the honor and piety of its Martyrly Composers who enduring such a fiery trial
there are pious perturbations which are as it were the ecchos of devout souls to the louder sound of Gods voyce vehement yet sanctified passions as of Love Joy Desire and Hope so of Fear and Terror of Admiration and Dejection of Horror and Consternation yea and self-despair as St. 2 Cor. 1.8 Paul says of himself are in some occasions and instances of Providence not only comely but commendable especially in the extraordinary appearances of Gods glory or dispensations of his providence and power So there fell upon Abraham an horror of great darkness at one time in his converse with God Gen. 15.12 So upon Job to the abhorring himself in dust and ashes Iob 42.6 thus Moses exceedingly feared and trembled Heb. 12.21 no less than the whole Congregation of Israel when God gave the Law from Mount Sina thus he broke the Tables which God had given him when he was transported with just indignation against the calvish Idolaters Phineas by a commendable zeal brake the usual bounds of native modesty Numb 25.8 slaying Zimri and Cosbi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 David greatly feared when God smote Vzzah for his rash touching of the Ark 2 Sam. 6.8 other times he forgot the gravity of Kingly Majesty in an high zeal and holy frolick of dancing before the Ark and the same David more than once roared for the disquietness of his soul Psalm 38.8 We read Ezra tore his own hair as a distracted man Ezra 9.3 and Nehemiah the hair of others Neh. 13.12 out of a pious impatience to see the deformity of Religion unreformed Gen. 27.38 yea Esau himself though a man of a curst and fierce spirit yet cried out with a very loud and bitter cry when he was supplanted of his Fathers primogenite blessing A Stoical restiveness doth not become the Saints and Servants of God Iob 4.14 Eliphaz expresseth well the terror he had when a spirit from God passed before his face Fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake Steteruntque comae vox faucibus haesit the hair of his flesh stood up Iudg. 13.20 22. Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground and cryed they should surely dye because they had seen the Angel of God doing wonderfully by fire Holy men highly beloved of God Dan. 8.17 27. Dan. 10.8 17 as Daniel grew pale dispirited and half dead in some of their visions Good Josiah rent his cloaths when he heard the book of the Law written 2 Kings 22.11 and the terrors of God there set forth against a sinful people § Of holy Quakers God calls sometimes not only to fasting and mourning but to fear and trembling There are some holy Quakers not such as affect to act a part like the old Sybils in their frantick correptions and Diabolical possessions to amuse the vulgar to no purpose as to any holy motions or improvements of their own or others souls and lives but humbly to conform themselves to that posture gesture passion and perturbation which the hand of God upon them doth really rationally and religiously require § Christs holy passions and extasies Yea we finde the Son of God our Saviour Jesus Christ who enjoyed the greatest serenity and exactest harmony of body and minde did not carry on an Apathy but answered in his temper the stroke and tune of the occasion sometimes he rejoyced in spirit otherwhile he grieved sighed weeped Ioh. 11.38 groaned yea he expressed his just anger and indignation Sometime he was in such holy extasies Mark 3.21 that those about him thought him beside himself Mat. 26.36 In his Agony also he began to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surrounded with sorrow Mark 14.33 nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be amazed and perplexed with the horror of that cup he was to drink mixed with mans sins and Gods wrath § When God smites it becomes us to feel his strokes and express our sence sullen and stupid souls argue a senseless temper an hard heart and a seared conscience God that hath planted all affections and passions in us knows how to use and improve them as a skilful Lutenist strikes on all strings and at every stop Though our passions are indeed grown wilde and sowr naturally like crab-stocks yet grace can graft fit cyons on every one The holy improvement of our constitutions yea and make use of mens complexions and constitutions to the advantages of his glory So Solomon an amorous Prince when penitent for his extravagancies or possibly before in his best estate is the penman of that holy Song which is a cypher and signifies nothing in the Bible unless we understand the mystical sense of it which is to present Christ the most lovely object and to engage the soul to be passionately enamored of him Cant. 5.8 even to be sick of love impatient of his absence that the froth and folly of our love which perisheth upon perishable objects as fire on straw or stubble may be fixed on that excellency which is eternal and worthy of that affection which is the gold and jewel of our souls most precious and most durable whose satisfactions are our Heaven and happiness Ier. 9.1 as its defeats our hell and misery In like sort Jeremy a man of sorrows naturally sad weeping and melancholy fits the sad times he lived to see with a most pathetick Lamentation Psal 88 so Hemans Psalmody is still to a doleful ditty and tune as sorting with the sense and experiments of his dark spirit and sad constitution § Gods choice of fit instruments God not only useth but chuseth instruments fit for his work especially when they are to work things out of the fire and are to contest with hard mettals Isai 48.4 he makes their foreheads brass and their hands steel he furnisheth them with such high and undaunted spirits as will do his work and sometimes as men they may a little over-do it as Moses did at his smiting the rock So the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Beza and others observe in Luther and Calvin both men of hot quick and cholerick complexions did so far adapt them for the rugged business they were to do as good and great men which was to help to cleanse an Augaean Stable to bring the Sun of Christianity back again the degrees by which it was gone down in these Western Churches to releive oppressed Truth and Religion against infinite prejudices and potent oppressions and although in some things they shewed themselves to be but men and needed grains of allowance as did Sampson yet their adversaries found them such Gyants as brake the gates and carried away the bars and posts of great Babylon beyond their recruiting or recovering to this day though all power and policy have been used The great impression then which Elisha found and expressed by this his crying out is not only justifiable
but commendable and imitable in parallel occasions when they are real unwonted and wonderful in whch Good men do not deserve blame if they seem to forget themselves while they remember God a great and terrible Majesty it is meet for us to hear the voyce or rod of God and who hath appointed it Secondly 2 The matter or words of Elisha But passions alone and their expressions by crying out or any outward emotion disorder which signifie no more than interjections or broken and inarticulate sounds but as the leaves of the barren figtree without fruit Of rational and religious exstasies or as clouds without water these are neither the intents nor usual effects of divine manifestations and extraordinary impressions for however they may give some exstatick terror and amazement at first by the newness suddenness and wonder of them so as to discompose a while both Reason and Religions clearness yet they are not considerable further than God is discernable in them and glorified by them as that vision of Moses and Elias on the mount with Christ at his transfiguration Luke 9.8 9 10 which gave St. Peter such a present shake and astonishment that though he spake of making three Tabernacles and staying there yet he knew not what he said that is he did not well consider the unseasonableness and unreasonableness of his proposals yet afterward upon composed reflections and calmer thoughts 2 Pet. 1.17 he makes a very holy and excellent use of that vision to confirm the faith of Christians in Christ as in the beloved Son of God which voyce we heard saith he in the holy mount coming from the excellent glory of God the Father § Why Elisha thus cryed after Eliab Elisha's cry is not vox praeterea nihil a bare clamor insignificant as one scared and forehared but his wisdom remained with him he cries out as still importune and eager for the blessing of the doubled spirit that Eliah might see he saw him crying now at the instant of his departing which was the compact and agreement and he now laid claim to the accomplishment using this potent Charm of My Father my Father as begging his last blessing that he might be heir of his spirit Here we may observe Observ That divine manifestations or extasies in whatever way they are applied to our discomposure Oâ— holy transports and impressions still preserve the good man as to grace and the man as to right reason they do not speak either evilly or uncivilly or senselesly or unadvisedly with their lips whilst heart and senses divine Creeds or impulses do affect either they pray or praise God either they fear or rejoyce before him either they admire or adore and set forth the glory of God as Balaam himself did when he was in his Prophetick trances and was over-byassed by Gods Spirit against his own covetousness and ambition So the poor Shepherds at the Angelick Quire and Hymn Luke 2.9 10 11 12. visibly appearing and speaking audibly to them of Christs birth went away believing and rejoycing wondering and reporting the truth they first heard of and then found true in the birth of Christ It is an opinion worthy of the Mahometan blindness to fancy that mad men are inspired and see Angels when they rave and talk wildely Insani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes They are the madder of the two that do think these harsh strings to be touched with Gods holy Spirit § Of fanatick and frantick deliâ—ancies Certainly all extasies of delirancy and dotage that bring men first to strange fancies or to fits of quaking and convulsion then to vent either nonsense or blasphemous and scurrillous extravagancies these must be imputed as learned Dr. Merick Causabon observes either to natural distempers of disease and melancholy or to jugling affectations or to Diabolical delusions and possessions to which some of the Montanists Maniches Circumcellians and others of the Energumeni of old and of late have pretended who made first popular ostentations of special inspirations and correptions or raptures of the Spirit of God but afterwards the leaves and trash the toys and impertinencies they vented by words together with the pernicious extravagancies of their actions proclaimed as loud as the Devil of Mascon to all hearers and spectators that their troubles or tempests with the following dirt and mud arose not from the flowings or emanations of the pure spring of Gods Spirit but either from the Devils filthy injections or from the foul puddle of their own perturbed fancy and corrupt hearts or over-heated brains possibly intoxicated with the fumes of some new opinions and the gallant advantages they fancy to make by them § Of demoniac correptions It is an observation which St. Chrysostom makes that Demoniac correptions as those of the Sybils and other Oracles of old were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such shakings and transports as dispossessed the possessed for a time of themselves both as to their reason and senses but divine Oracles and inspirations greater or lesse like loud or still musick preserve the harmony of the soul though they make for a time quick and smart strokes upon the strings of holy mens constitutions understandings passions and affections The words of Eliah are as St. Godâ— Spirit suggests and utters only words of soberness and truth Acts 26.24 Acts 2.4 Paul refuted Festus his supposal of his madness words of soberness and truth they that should then have heard them as now we read them must confess that God was in him of a truth 1 Pet. 1.2 he spake which St. Peter gives as the character of a true Prophet and Apostle as the Spirit gave him utterance and guidance as intentive to the last object the fatal signal token of his obtaining the desired Spirit and blessing This affected him so highly as the ingemination imports twice crying out My Father My Father § Expressing first a genuine and great sense of his private love respect duty and honor to Eliah whose relation and merit was to him as a father so he had found him so he valued him so he shall misse him remaining without him as an Orphan in minority desolate and exposed to injuries as well as indiscretions We may observe the great ingenuity and humility of Elisha Observ 1 The filial respects of Elisha to Eliah as his Father though anointed a Prophet and thought meet to succeed Eliah though now of the same order yet he doth not disdain to count and call Eliah his father because first his elder secondly his better and ordainer thirdly his superiour in merits graces no less than in degree and authority in his power or place in the Church Thus the antient Christian people yea and the antient Christian Presbyters owned their Bishops as Fathers The father of the Christian Churches in a precedency and presidency of place degree dignity and authority Ecclesiastical Thus did St. Jerom write with
mortality in this world wilt thou set thy heart on that which is not leaning on a reed and feeding on the wind O lay hold the self and help others to fasten on eternal life for this is the only improvement of this short 1 Tim. 6.12 uncertain and mutable yet precious moment and the only entertainment worthy of thy immortal soul which nothing but the supream eternal and immutable good that is God himself can satisfie Take heed life be not done before we think of living or dying as we should and would lest our candle be out or but a feeble snuff in the socket before we set to work Remember upon this moment depends eternity Nor is the accurate work of our Salvation which must last to eternity and be seen in heaven to be done by a dim and foul light Lastly Let us so live here in our short society on earth that we may not be ashamed to see one another at the last day when all shall appear before the Judgement seat of Christ Rom. 14.10 that when we must see one another no more on earth yet we may depart in good hope to meet in heaven in the beatifick Vision of God where it is not only probably disputed but strongly presumed by many learned and holy men that we shall see and know each other as Angels do who certainly are not as strangers to each other Fifthly The sorrow and shew of it in Elisha The last particular observable in Elisha is his sense and sorrow when he saw that Eliah was quite gone and he saw him no more he doth here parentare adorn luctum solemnem a solemn mourning after the ceremony of the Jews by rending his own garment in two peices a custom in that Nation upon any sad occasion so the High Priest upon the pretended blasphemy which Christ should speak Mar. 26.65 not that the Jews were such ill husbands in their grief as to tear their clothes inconveniently but at the bosom of their garments was a seam slightly sowed which they easily rent in sunder and mended afterwards again 1. Funeral sorrow why set forth by rending garments This they did to shew the deep sense they had of that publick breach or rent God had made by the death of eminent persons so David when he heard of Sauls and Jonathans deaths whom he loved by a rare miracle of heroick and generous affection the one being his Enemy the other his Rival in a Kingdom 2. Next they would hereby give vent to their grief and some ease by the ceremonious and visible renting of it inviting others by the prospect to pitty and compassion 3. They set forth the rending of their hearts the wounds which sorrow made on their souls therefore at the death of Christ on the cross Luk. 23.45 the most dismal and prodigious sight that ever was in the world to supply the senselesness and want of mourning in the Jews the Sun became a mourner and the vale of the Temple was rent in twain to shew how much the whole creation mourned and the Church was concerned in that Tragedy so full of cruelty and blasphemy 4. Lastly They hereby humbly testified before God and the world how sensible they were to have deserved of his Justice that either all blessings and comforts of life should be rent from them or they from those enjoyments that as Jacob said Gen. 32.10 they were less than the least of the mercies of God that it was his mercy and compassion not failing which afforded them any friend or comfort Lam. 3.22 or relation or blessing all which they had oft forfeited and yet they were not consumed Notice to be taken of Gods deprivations Hence we may observe First That it is humane Christian and comely to take notice of Gods Providence in the death or loss of any thing he takes from us which was endeared to us Secondly It is lawful and commendable to have a sense of sorrow and to mourn with a solemnity proportionable to the stroke breach or wound which God inflicts by the death of any whose either worth or wickedness makes them considerable Stupidity I told you is no ingredient in piety Gen. 50.7 Joseph did so for Jacob David for Jonathan and Absolom Acts 8.2 and the Church made great lamentation for Stephen yet not as men without hope Thirdly This sense of sorrow may be with outward formality and with ceremony expressed yea solemnly adorned to funeral Obsequies and honorable attendance as David at Abners who followed the Bier and made a Funeral oration for that great Captain 2 Sam. 3.31 yea nothing becomes Christian Funerals better than holy and religious duties which from the occasion of the dead may make pious apt and seasonable applications to the living either to our selves or others As the antient Fathers St. Basil Greg. Naz. Nissen Chrysostom and others did in their Funeral Orations for those excellent persons men and women who were departed this life with the honor of dying in the faith of Christ and communion of his true Church leaving noble examples of all graces and vertues to posterity Benefit of Funeral Sermons among Christians In which as those holy Panegyrists took special notice of Gods hand and prayed for his Grace to sanctifie the spectacle to the living that they might lay it to their heart so they craved of God and excited their Auditors or Readers to such a supply of others in their room or broken ranks that there might be no great or long defects or vacancy in that place they held and filled in the Church They also set forth the exemplary riches and pregnant graces of the departed that by others remembring what they had well spoken or done worthily or suffered patiently they might so imitate them that being dead they might seem yet to live in the life and influence of their holy patterns for constancy as Martyrs and Confessors for Zeal Charity Hospitality Patience Meekness and Perseverance c. This Humanity yea Christianity allows nay commands and justifies when done as all things ought in the Church of Christ to edification not for superstition or meer pomp and vain ostentation such as by flattering the dead and speaking good of those who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 haters and hated or abhorred of God do either delude or barden the living in careless and secure ways to the deferring of their repentance and hazzard of their souls These wise and worthy ends being in due and comely sort observed at the Funerals of our Christian friends who are not to be buried with the burial of an Ass with a dumb shew as if they might never be spoken of any more because we can see them no more Nor need we to fear the coy reserve and supercilious restiveness of some who envy others this use and freedom in the Church the truth is few are against who deserve to enjoy those that are hollow loose or