A SERMON Preached in the Parish Church of St. Giles in the Fields At the FUNERAL of Bernard Connor M. D. Who departed this Life Oct. 30. 1698. With a Short Account of his Life and Death By William Hayley D. D. Rector of the said Church and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed for Iacob Tonson at the Iudges-Head near the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleetstreet and at Grays-Inn Gate in Grays-Inn Lane 1699. A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of Doctor Connor PSALM XC 12. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom THere is nothing more apparent to the capacity of all men than the uncertainty of life and nothing of which mankind is more universally perswaded than the necessity of Death these are truths so self-evident that there needs no labour to demonstrate them the fate of past Genenerations has given us palpable arguments to imprint them upon our minds and the present and every such like occasion of meeting are so many fresh renewals of the impression so that as to the Doctrinal part all men seem to be 〈◊〉 wise and the most ignorant does not want an instructor to tell him that he must Die and that every day of his Life brings him one Step nearer to the Grave And yet though men are thus universally wise in the Theory we find them almost as universally unwise in the more necessary point that of practice Men know they must Die they daily discourse and complain of it nay in their temporal concerns their covenants projects and securities they consider and provide for it and yet they are so blind that they seldom apply it to their great their eternal concerns or draw from it those plain and easy conclusions which it naturally furnishes to perswade to a circumspect and religious manner of living Some look upon it as a great truth indeed but so plain as not to need the being reflected on and therefore neglect it as hardly worth their notice or at least think the consideration of it may be assumed at their leisure Some again know it is too true and they are afraid of it they see 't is pointed and must prick their consciences if they suffer themselves to dwell upon it and therefore put away the evil day far from them remove the thought of it from their minds as they wish they could do the thing from their persons and say in their hearts to such suggestions as the Demoniacks did to our Saviour that they should not come to torment them before the time And others use the important truth yet worse if possible and endeavour to distort it to patronize folly and levity they conclude since life is short 't is best enjoy its delights as fast as they can and live apace because they must shortly depart and so advance for their common Motto Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die Thus the great and useful lesson of the brevity of life which Nature teaches and the word of God inculcates misses of its true end which is the reformation of our manners is overlook'd by the negligent dreaded by the voluptuous and perverted and abused by the daring and prophane The Sacred Author therefore of this Psalm who is supposed to have been Moses the favorite of God makes it his petition that he might be directed by the aid of Heaven in the application of this piece of knowledge and since the world was generally so unfortunate as not to make a due use of it that God would graciously please to teach him and his people the way to profit by it He knew very well that our days pass on insensibly and that we bring our years to an end as it were a tale that is told that the days of our years are threescore years and ten that if they exceed 't is but to bring an accession of labour and sorrow and that their date is made much shorter by our own ill conduct and the just punishment that it deserves that the divine anger frequently cuts the thread of a dissolute life and the divine providence sometimes straitens the bounds of a pious one and therefore that all are concerned to reflect seriously on their frail and uncertain state and to make that consideration a motive to a wise and a watchful conduct and since all wisdom comes from above and 't is God himself that must direct our goings in his paths or else our foot-steps will slip he makes this his supplication and thereby directs us to do the same that God the Author of all that is good in us or useful for us would so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Wisdom is in the sense of my text the prudent administration of our life the disposal of our ways agreeably to reason and religion the careful preservation of our innocence in this world and the securing our happiness in a future one these being the great ends of Man and consequently the obtaining of them being the main of our hopes and the due prosecution of them the most exalted wisdom And the applying our hearts to this wisdom is the making it the ultimate design of all our thoughts and actions the fixing our minds upon it the entertaining it with such serious meditation as the dignity of the subject requires the keeping it still in our view and not letting it either escape by inadvertency or grow remiss by its becoming familiar but the persisting in a constant uniform contrivance and endeavour to order the little time we have so wisely as to secure our eternity by it and so work out our own salvation with fear and trembling This is to be the great important result of the numbring our days or the reflecting seriously on the shortness and uncertainty of human life this is the excellent lesson that we are to learn by the present and by all other like occasions of assembling which were piously designed not for vain useless ostentation but for our real instruction and improvement and were not so much intended for ceremony to the dead as for advantage to the living this being an opportunity when our hearts are supposed to be more mollified and more capable of serious impressions when our tears should soften and prepare the soyl for the reception of God's word and further its fruitfulness when our senses being fill'd with the demonstration of the vanity of this world we should sensibly rellish the joys of another And O! that it would please God so to bless what I am now about to deliver that it might effectually engage us all not to a faint reflection on mortality which passes away with the pomp of the funeral but to such an habitual remembrance of it as might work its natural effect the applying of our hearts to true wisdom to unfeigned holiness and the fear of God This would be an effect truly answering the charity of our deceased Brother who being now as we
for the things that belong to our peace before they are hid from our eyes And if those only are addmitted into the company of the lamb who are sanctified by his blood and cloathed with innocence will not common sense tell us that we ought to lay hold on the merits of his blood and passion by a zealous performance of the duties of that covenant which was sealed by it and by a careful preservation of our integrity and an affectionate doing of his Will while we are in the flesh make our selves meet to be received into his glory cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and Spirit and perfect holiness in the fear of God that when we come to die we may do it with joy and embrace our dissolution as that which will crown the pious life on earth with an immortal one in Heaven These are the genuine applications of some of the most considerable reflections that arise from the numbring our days whereby it appears that this lesson furnishes us with excellent motives to a holy life I come now to shew II. That the applying of them to this end is the highest piece of wisdom And that whether wisdom be taken for judging aright or for the doing what is most for our interest and advantage 1. If wisdom be taken for judging aright or deducing just consequences from evident truths what can be more evident than the wisdom of these conclusions if we must quit this world and then enter upon an eternity of joy or misery is it not rational to take care how we steer our present course that we do not make a fatal mistake at last if the time we have to stay be but short is it not just and fit that we be cautious of loosing and misapplying it if its duration be uncertain and futurity be out of our knowledge does it not highly become an understanding creature to be prepared for what may happen and if this opportunity being once lost there be no other to retrieve our hopes does not common reason urge us immediately to embrace and employ it and do we not all act thus in those affairs that relate to our temporal concerns and how then should it not be prudence to judge alike with reference to our eternal ones the contrary judgments which Libertinism raises how unconclusive and absurd are they life must end therefore 't is no matter how we spend it 't is short therefore 't is not worth our improving 't is uncertain and therefore 't is in vain to design any thing in it and 't is our only opportunity and therefore what that we must neglect pervert and abuse it O senseless folly and unmanly stupidity we pretend in vain to reason if we can judge no better we have no pretence to understanding no not so much as to that of the beasts that perish 2. But then if we take wisdom for the doing of that which is most for our interest and advantage one should think there were no need of proof to evince that to spend our life in goodness and piety is the most useful deduction we can make from the vanity and brevity of it for what do we loose by it or what do we gain by the contrary if there be certainly a future judgment an eternity of bliss and a lake of everlasting fire we are then sure nothing but piety can bear the one can be admitted into the other or delivered from the last And I would ask a prophane and impenitent person how he thinks he can bear the pomp of the last tribunal what thoughts would be raised in him from the sight of a distant Heaven and what sense he would have of the torments of a present Hell if these things must be sure reason as well as religion must make the Apostles reflection what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness But what if these things were only probabilities and conjectures what if we were not fully assured that there were to be a future state but only apprehended and dreaded it a pious life would still be the most advantageous conclusion we could deduce from this for what do we loose by it nothing but some of the deceitful pleasures of sense which alwasy fall short of our hopes end in dissatisfaction and never fully gratify and yet we gain in exchange the delights of vertue which are deep real and lasting And what great pleasure is it that we have from vice is it enough to make amends for the fears and dread we have least the checks of our conscience and the voice of reason and religion should prove true at last does it ballance the dismal apprehensions we have upon a sickbed or upon approaching death No I am fully perswaded that as there is no one so wicked but he would die the death of the righteous and wishes it whilst he lives so there is not any so profligate but when he sees his last hour is coming he would most willingly choose to have had all his years confin'd to a bed of weakness and debar'd all the sensual delights of the world so that he might die like the good man and have that peace of conscience and comfortable assurance of happiness which the pious Christian has when he departs this life I shall therefore make no question but that every one that hears me is fully convinced of the wisdom of applying the thoughts of death to the reformation of life and so may be all mankind are when they do but reflect and yet we see these reflections are like man himself short-lived uncertain and too often fruitless and therefore that they may not be so with us let us if we can find out the causes of this unhappiness in order to avoid them and this I am to endeavour in my third General III. Where I am to enquire how it comes to pass that these things have generally so little influence on the minds of men as not to engage them seriously to constant and habitual piety Now to omit others I conceive it generally owing to one of these two reasons 1. Men do not generally consider seriously or reflect on these truths with that attention and meditation as is proper for a matter of so great importance the world is most commonly taken up with interest and pleasure and mens thoughts are habitually possest with contrivances of another nature and when a person is so overbusy in raising his fortune gratifying his appetite or combating with necessity matters of religion and particularly preparation for death may wait long before they are admitted and when they are they have but a short hearing and are presently dismist with a be gone for this time and when I have a convenient opportunity I will resume ye Now inconsideration is a certain obstruction to the most excellent rules or motives that can be given a man the Doctrine I now press is a soveraign medicine indeed but it must be applied and
hold a discourse in examining his present sincerity and directing him in his last work thn in enquiring into the occasions and reasons that brought him to a change of his Religion He had in his sickness before his distemper arrived to a great heighth and while he was in his perfect senses made his Will in which he left five pounds to the poor of this Parish where he now lived and desired that if it should please God to take him out of this world I might preach him a Funeral Sermon and that it might be made publick his friends let me know this and at his and their request I visited him I found him very much decayed in his strength but perfectly sensible as he had still been in the intervals of his fits though the heighth of his Feaver put him into ravings As soon as I saw him he requested of me what his friends had told me beforehand and I presumed his design in it was that he might be vindicated from the suspicion of some Heterodox opinions which his censurers imputed to him as well as that his death might be the occasion of an useful discourse to the living I therefore told him that in case I complyed with his desire I thought it would be expected I should say something of a person whose writings and character had rendered him so much known to the world and had given occasion to some people to speak doubtfully of his principles in Religion and that for this reason among others it would be very proper for me to have some satisfaction from him as to his Faith upon which I put several questions to him as whether he believed the Gospel whether he gave credit to the Miracles that are there recorded and lookt upon them as attestations of the truth of the Christian Religion whether he believed that Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the world and that he came to be our Propitiation and to satisfy divine justice for the sins of mankind to which and such-like questions he answer'd affirmatively with great earnestness and when I discoursed him on the subject of that Book of his which occasion'd suspicion of his Principles he declared that he had no intention to prejudice Religion thereby and remitted me to his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury for farther satisfaction to whom he said he had explain'd himself in this matter and as an attestation of his sincerity had received the Sacrament upon it at the Parish Church of St. Martin's in the Fields which I have since found to be true I then began to examine him as to the state of his Soul what sense he had of his sins and what remorse for having at any time offended God and whether he were perswaded of the necessity of repentance and amendment of life in order to gain the Salvation purchased by Iesus Christ to all which he gave me very satisfactory answers and expressed great sorrow for the sins and errors of his life past and then join'd with us very devouty in the Prayers of the Church in the Office for the Visitation of the Sick In the afternoon of the same day I went with a desire to have had some farther discourse with him but the violence of his fit being upon him he was not in a condition to be spoken with The next morning I visited him again and found him in one of his intervals still sensible but very much weakned I took this occasion to talk with him more particularly concerning his principles and upon mentioning the merits of our Saviour askt him whether he depended entirely on the merits of Jesus Christ and his intercession for pardon of his sins and reconcilement to God and he made answer that he relied only on the merits of his Saviour He was then put in mind of receiving the Sacrament and he said he desir'd it with all his Soul I asked him whether in receiving the Sacrament he had in his view the professing himself a disciple of Christ and a Member of his Body the Church and if in receiving it from my hands he desired to profess himself a Member of the Church of England which question being a second time distinctly put to him by a friend of his then present he answered with very great seriousness that he did then I put him in mind of his neglect of receiving the Sacrament which he had not done since about two years ago when he communicated at St. Martins and he express'd a sorrow for it by all this I thought he sufficiently purged himself from the imputation of Deism Socinianism or Popery I lookt on him as a true penitent Member of the Church of England and I gave him the Sacrament He received it with signs of very great devotion with expressions of hearty repentance for all the sins and follies of his life and earnest petitions for pardon and so I left him as far as we could judge in a Christian disposition for death which I look'd upon as very near These are things which I think my self obliged to give a particular account of partly to answer what I conceive was the design of the deceased and partly upon occasion of an accident that happen'd some hours after I left him which perhaps it will be thought not fair to conceal A certain person who it seems was a Romish Priest came to the Doctor 's Lodgings and desired very earnestly to see him declaring that he was his Country-man his Friend and his Relation those about him looking upon him as very near his departure were unwilling he should be disturbed but upon great importunity did at last grant the stranger admittance who coming to the Bed side call'd the Doctor by his name and saluted him in his native Language three times before he regarded but at the third time he cry'd out for God's sake assist me Upon which the company was prevailed with to leave the Room but the Doctor 's most intimate friend returned to the door and heard the Doctor repeating over his Confiteor in Latin in a very huddled manner upon which the Priest gave him Absolution and then asked him whether he would have extream Unction and the Doctor said yes after which it is suspected it was given him Now here could I imagine the Doctor was in his senses and that he was really in his heart of the Roman Communion while he only acted this part in the last scene of his life I should look upon it as a very great stain on his memory and I am perswaded it would give everybody a shocking Idea of that Religion which would allow a person so to prevaricate both with God and Man But I confess I believe his judgment was now quite decayed and that he did not know what he did for he was thought dying by those about him though he recover'd out of that Agony and liv'd till next day His friend assures me that in his sickness he turned away another Romish Priest who would have seen him