Neighbours He brought honour to the preferments he possess'd and valued none but such as naturally fell to him in the true channel of Merit 3. LOOK upon him as a Counsellor to his Prince he never suggested in publick or in private but what was for the honour of the King the Peace and Tranquillity of the Subjects the regular administration of Justice and the safety of His Majesties Dominions on all hands His advice was always temper'd with Prudence Caution and Foresight he understood Mankind exactly and the particular genius of this Nation so all his Counsels were even calm and moderate never surpriz'd or hurry'd unto any thing precipitate or indeliberate No Man ever had the resolution of a Great Captain and the gravity of a Senator more happily contemper'd 4. WHAT need I mention his affability and candor his charming inoffensive and pleasant Conversation Nothing tempestuous nothing rough nothing disorderly in his Behaviour he was of easie access to all ranks of Men and knew that Men in high Places cannot live without their Inferiors And if at any time his Anger broke forth into any appearances of Indignation it was to chastise and drive from him what is base unjust ungentile mean and vicious Will you consider him in his more familiar Relations as a Neighbour as a Husband as a Father as a Friend how amiable in all of them did he appear Friendship seemed to be his very Element and his proper Air And as none knew better how to make a choice so none more stedfast to that sacred tye The last words he spoke distinctly were expressions of Friendship to a Person of Quality with what gratitude was he wont to acknowledge acts of Kindness and Civility done him in the time of his Imprisonment in England Take him altogether he was a proper standard of Vertue fit for the imitation of the present Age and the commendation of Posterity Would God there were but many such in our Nation who truly needed so little the artifice of Flattery and despised it as much as our Deceased General BUT my Lords and Gentlemen when I have said this if I had no more to say perhaps I had said nothing All that is splendid and glorious in the Eye of Mortals is nothing in compare with the Spirit of true Religion In all his Life-time and in all the different Occurrences and Periods of his Troubles he had deep impressions of the Divinity Religion in him was not an idle speculation but broke forth and shined in all his Actions his devotions to God were fervent sincere and constant The expressions of his Charity to his Neighbours were full of affection love and sincerity He took his Characters of a Religious Man not from the dreams and fooleries of Enthusiasm but from the plain words of S. James Who is a wise man and endow'd with knowledge amongst you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom And that other of the same Apostle Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world The instances of his Charity have been many and liberal and seasonably conveyed some of them visible great and lasting Let us follow him to his Death Bed and see his behaviour there BEING of a vigorous and cleanly Constitution he lived to the Age of Seventy notwithstanding of the constant fatigue of his Life When he felt that his Disease was like to prove stubborn and that it resisted the skill and care of the learnedst Physicians he sent for a pious and grave Divine of our Church with whom he took sweet Counsel how to order his Soul for its last flight to the other World And in this interval gave all evidences of the greatness and goodness of his Spirit ONE of the Physicians that waited on him did with all modesty and discretion insinuate that their endeavours were like to have no success He received the news of Death with all composure and equality of Spirit he never knew what fear meant and he met the King of Terrors not with that resolute sullenness and stupidity that is sometimes observable in the most profligate but with all calmness and resolution as became the strength of Faith the hopes of Immortality and the Majesty of Christian Religion THE frequent attacques of a lingring Disease had now brought him upon the coasts of Eternity he ordered his worldly Affairs with that speed and discretion that was always visible in all his actions he gave his Fatherly Advice and Blessing in the most Christian and composed manner to his dearest Relatives and marks of his Favour and Bounty to all his Servants And all this with that exactness of Memory and undisturb'd Judgment that ever attended him he omitted nothing that was to be done And then he beseeched such as were about him in the Bowels of Jesus Christ to give him no more trouble about worldly Affairs so be left the World in his Thoughts and Meditations and looked stedfastly to the things that are above and by frequent flights and ejaculations to Heaven was loosed from the Body from all the interests and concerns of it before he left his earthly habitation How weak are the strongest Chains that tye us to the Earth when we are thus illuminated when we are near our heavenly Country when the Soul begins to tast of the rivers of pleasure that are at Gods right hand Then she gathers together her spiritual Forces and the World becomes so insipid that she can relish nothing but the Fruits of the Tree of Life O happy day when we have run thorow the difficult stages of a wearisom World we then can say in the Apostles Language We know that if this our earthly house were broken down we have houses with God not made with hands eternal in the heavens LET us enter into the Grave before we are carried thither and from thence view the various tossings of mens thoughts to scramble together the heaviest pieces of the Earth how soon do the glories of it vanish into a shadow and the painted nothings that we foolishly admire are found empty and unsatisfying Are those the things we are to hunt after Are we made for them Have not we vast appetites and inclinations beyond them Can they serve us in our greatest extremities Let us remember then wherefore we are made For here we are but Pilgrims and Strangers Should not we pray with the Psalmist Lord teach me to know mine end and the measure of my days that I may know how frail I am Those dark habitations in which we live will shortly crumble to dust Upon this occasion we are to lift our Eyes from the Coffin where his earthly remains are laid to the place and company and employment of his Soul where we shall be cloathed with Light as the Angels of God and encompassed with the beams of
and disgrace This very consideration should move us the rather since by it we express the purest love and affection to his immediate Worship and Obedience therefore St. Paul tells us that by this we shew forth the Lords death till he come i. e. we openly display it we are not at all ashamed of it we flee unto it in our greatest difficulties and at the hour of death as to our safest Sanctuary and Refuge This is the strong Tower that defends us from the wrath of God the accusations of Devils and the remorse of our own Consciences We are in this Sacrament to shew forth the Lords death 1. To God as our Atonement 2. To Men as our Profession 3. To Devils as our strongest Refuge and Defiance 1. WE shew it forth unto God as our Atonement We come unto God the Father under the covert of his Mediation Having therefore such a high Priest we may come boldly unto the Throne of Grace a high Priest who is holy harmless and undefiled to whom all power in Heaven and in Earth is given who is now returned from the Grave victorious and by his Blood makes Intercession for us in the Holy of Holies he lives for ever at the right hand of God it is by this Blood and Sacrifice that we plead successfully for mercy and compassion This is the argument that God himself cannot resist if urg'd by Faith and Charity Our Saviour is the great favourite of Heaven and interposes in in all our necessities we lean on the Merit of his Sacrifice as on the surest Pillar of our hope and confidence and therefore we come unto God by him as by our Surety and our Advocate and if he gave us his Son how shall he not with him also give us all things we need 2. WE shew it forth unto Men we openly proclaim that we will not desert his Standard that we are not ashamed of Christ crucified that we are Disciples of the Cross in the strictest sense that we glory in it as our most honourable Character that we are resolved to Let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father which is in heaven and not to deny him before Men either in our profession or in our practices for he that nameth the name of Jesus must depart from all iniquity 3. WE shew forth his Death and Sacrifice in open defiance of all the Powers of Hell Who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us By the Death of Jesus our mouths are opened unto Songs of Triumph and Defiance and filled with joy and gladness the Devils may tremble unto fear and despair when they see us listed under the Standard of so great a Captain so famous a Warriour so stedfast and resolute a Friend who for us and for our Salvation came down from Heaven All their objections are silenced we have our feet upon a Rock and all the Armies of darkness cannot reach us the Legions of Hell may cloath themselves in their most terrible appearances and tell over all the sad stories of our miscarriages and aggravate them to the highest and declare how often we have sinned and in what instances we have provoked the Majesty of God against what Light what Reproofs what Illuminations and what checks of Conscience we have repelled how long we have neglected our repentance and how much we have abused his Patience against all these formidable accusations the Christian hath one solid answer and that is the Death of Jesus and his triumphant Resurrection from the dead 5. OUR Obligation doth appear from the efficacy and excellency of this very Sacrament It is the great Antidote against the frailties of our Nature the frequent assaults of Temptation and the wiles and stratagems of the Devil There is nothing discourages our Adversaries more than when we resolutely prepare our selves to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper It is the most sovereign Remedy against our most habitual Vices our most inveterate Prejudices our most stubborn evil Habits It is the most significant and sensible representation of the Death and Passion of our Lord and Saviour and therefore all the Graces of the Spirit do meet in their vigour and exaltation at this Sacrament This made some of the Ancients admit such as had fallen in the time of Persecution sooner to the peace and Communion of the Church than their ordinary discipline did allow because there was a Persecution shortly to follow therefore it was not thought fit to leave so many destitute of so strong a Cordial in time of danger but were the rather admitted to this highest act of Communion that they might be strengthened against the next Encounter of the Enemy When we remember how soon our highest zeal grows remiss our Devotion cold and flat our Purposes wavering our evil Habits grow strong and our Enemy gains ground of us and the Spirit of God begins to withdraw from us and we cannot tell how soon we may be judicially hardened against the most effectual Remedies of the Gospel How great need have we then of such a strong Remedy against our faintness and weariness to settle and confirm our resolutions to blow up our zeal into a bright and unquenchable flame to make us one with Christ to make us live no more the life of Nature but the life of the Faith of the Son of God 6. OUR Obligation to frequent this Sacrament doth appear from the nature of the Mystery it self for it resembles in its spiritual tendencies and design the Feast upon the remainders of the Sacrifice by which Feast the Votaries did solemnly resign themselves to the service and worship of that Deity of whose Sacrifices they did eat It is upon this ground that the Apostle proves the unlawfulness of Christians going to the Idol-feasts upon the invitation of their Pagan Friends for by just interpretation suchs as frequented the Idol-feasts were by the solemnities of their Worship oblig'd to adhere to the service of that Idol since they were partakers of the Altar of Idols they had the most solemn fellowship with Devils and therefore the Apostle concludes that they could not be partakers of the Lords table and of the table of Devils When we come to this Sacrament we are in the strictest league and union with Jesus Christ and consequently we proclaim to the World that we are entirely his that we not only renounce all idolatrous Worship but that we adhere to his service and obedience with greater zeal and fidelity 7. And lastly OUR Obligations do appear from the vanity and impertinence of those Excuses that are ordinarily pretended to divert Men from this Ordinance And 1. LET us consider their Excuses from their business and incumbrances as if their worldly Affairs might engross their whole time This
though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they be red like crimson they shall be as wooll 'T is in the vertue of this blood that we approach the Throne without fear and diffidence the God of Pity and Compassion cannot shut his ears against those prayers that are made under the mediation of Jesus Christ the hands of Justice are bound up when his bloody Sweat and Agony his Passion Death and Burial are commemorated How fixt and immoveable is this foundation of our Faith that we have such an High-Priest at the right hand of the Father who by one Oblation of himself through the Eternal Spirit sat down victorious on his Throne Powers Dominions and Principalities being put under him Though the Doctrine of the Cross be the Scorn of Jews and Gentiles yet let us say with S. Paul God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ And this is still so much the surer when we consider the Nature of that Attonement that our Saviour made This Sacrifice was propitiatory and piacular for he suffered not only for our good but in our room and they who would make him to act no more in all this than the part of a resolute Martyr destroy one of the prime foundations of our Religion and of our hope in the hour of death and at the day of Judgment Fourthly WHEN we fix our thoughts on the death of Jesus we ought to practise those Graces that then appear'd most eminently in him his Contempt of the World his Love to his Enemies his Patience and Resignation Can we dwell on the thoughts of his love towards Mankind and not be inflam'd with the highest Zeal to serve him How can we forget the glorious adventures of his Love who dyed for us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us Kings and Priests unto God Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword V. 38. For I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be all Power Praise and Dominion World without end Amen A SERMON ON 1. COR. ii V. 3 4 5. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling And my speech and my preaching was not with inticing words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God IN the First Chapter S. Paul had in his view the allaying the differences that had arisen amongst the Corinthians concerning their Teachers whom they should follow He puts them in mind how he had preached the Gospel amongst them and by what Arguments they had been perswaded to embrace it i. e. not with the wisdom of words And again not with enticing words of mans wisdom HE thought it not proper to advance his doctrine and design amongst them by the accurate and artificial reasonings of the wise men of the Gentiles but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power THE elegant Orations and Philosophical Discourses of the Learned Gentiles by which they were wont to put off their opinions to the people withal he did not judge proofs proper for and suitable to the nature of his Doctrine It being wholly Divine it required divine demonstration something above the reach of human speculation something yet untraced by their most accurate Disquisitions So the supernatural gifts bestowed on the followers of Christ by which they were made to interpret the sacred Oracles and ancient Prophecies concerning the Messias and accommodate those Prophecies to the most particular circumstances of his Kingdom By which they were enabled to discern Spirits and dispossess Devils such and such miraculours appearances together with the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles both upon the dead and the living were proofs of divinity in their own Nature far beyond the subtile reasonings of Orators and Philosophers more suitable to the design in hand more undeniable and authentick and therefore a proof much more solid and clear than if they had recommended the Doctrine of Christianity with all the eloquence and ostentation of words THIS method propos'd in the first Chapter He owns and vindicates in this from all the objections and carnal imputations that the admirers of Philosophy on the one hand and heretical Seducers on the other might lay to his charge He did not declare unto them the Testimony of God with the excellency of speech or wisdom It was not his design to read unto them Lectures of Plato's Philosophy but to recommend Christ and him Crucified to preach the humble doctrine of the Cross the plain and necessary Articles of Christianity the very first and indispensible principles of our Faith not the more abstruse mysteries of which as yet possibly they were not capable but those early lessons that we must know as soon as we become Disciples of that Heavenly Institution THIS Doctrine recommended at such a time and by such men so far above the genius of all the prevailing sects of Philosophers and appearing with so much modesty and humility had certainly been run down in triumph by the Patrons of Paganism and Infidelity if it had not been supported by another kind of proof and demonstration than that which was taught in the Athenian Schools Therefore the Corinthians ought not to be much stumbled at the petulancy and ignorance of false teachers who despis'd what they did not understand and measur'd wisdom by a standard of their own The Gospel was recommended amongst them by such proofs as were agreeable to its Nature that their belief might not depend upon any thing that was human and artificial but on the most solid and immoveable foundations the Wisdom and Power of God clearly display'd in vindication of the Gospel This is shortly the scope of the words that I have read The success and efficacy of what he preach'd did not at all depend on the order and composure of his periods tho one might observe Eloquence and Majesty in his Expressions if they were not too much addicted to what they valued amongst the Grecian Orators yet did he not at all affect that which the wise men of Greece most gloried in he design'd that it might be very clear That the success of his Doctrine should depend on supernatural proofs or the light and majesty and conviction that attends the power of miracles LET us view those words more closely and examine their phrase and dependance and see how clear a proof they contain of the excellency of Christian Religion And in them we have three particulars I. HIS uneasie
excellent beginnings that we shall be made more than Conquerours through Jesus Christ that loved us and we resign our selves to his conduct and goodness and by them we put to silence all our fears and anxieties Why art thou cast down O my Soul and why art thou disquieted within me hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my Countenance and my God To God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be all Praise Power and Dominion for evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Right Honourable WILLIAM Viscount of Strathallan Lieutenant-General of all His MAJESTIES Forces within the Kingdom of SCOTLAND At Inverpeffray April 4. 1688. LONDON Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh at the Golden Ball over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1693. A SERMON ON JOHN xi 25. Jesus said unto her I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live Compared with 1 Cor. 15.12 13 14. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no resurrection from the dead But if there be no resurrection of the dead then is Christ not not risen and if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain THE first Sentence that I have read is placed in the Frontispiece of the Office for the Burial of the Dead the clear foresight we have of our after subsistence being the only and the strongest Antidote against the Terrors of Death and the Solemnities of our Entrance into the Grave What more proper to be told the Sisters of Lazarus than that which rais'd their thoughts from the Corruptions of the Earth to that State of Celestial Vigour to which we shall arrive one day when we shake off the Dishonours of Weakness and Mortality The Article of the Resurrection is the great Pillar of the Christian Faith the Corner-stone of our Religion our Hope is founded on it and as the Apostle reasons our Belief without it is but one continued Fable and Imposture This alone hath in it the Strength and Quintescence of all Consolation and there is no remedy against our present Trouble but to believe our condition shall be changed into a better Humane Nature feels it self relieved by no other thought than the sure prospect of our happiness to come The wise sayings and pretty knacks of the Philosophers who had no view of the Resurrection did avail but little to support the Mind against Grief and Sorrow So S. Paul concludes that if in this life only we had hope we were of all men the most miserable There was indeed a general Tradition of the Immortality of the Soul that had overspread Mankind and so much we might gather from the Writings of Cicero and Seneca But to believe that the dispers'd parts of a Mans Body shall be rang'd and dispos'd into their true order and situation after they have been scatter'd thorough all the Corners of the Earth that they shall be reduc'd unto a temper fit to serve the Soul in all its Vital Functions that those Atoms shall be joyn'd to that Spirit from whom they have been separated was and is the peculiar Belief of the True Church WE cannot think of our utter Dissolution without horror and amazement we are naturally enemies to Sadducism and death in its strictest Notion The most barbarous Nations have something in their Rites and Religious Ceremonies that carry their thoughts beyond the Grave The very Phrase by which the ancient Romans did express Death let us see that they could not with patience think of being entirely extinct and annihilated when their Souls left their earthly habitations As for the Jews they could not but be fully acquainted with the Doctrine of the Resurrection though not from the Law of Moses yet the sayings of their Wise Men the Comments and Predictions of their Prophets the Traditions of the Patriarchs did establish them fully in the Belief of the Resurrection As we are informed by the Prophecies of Daniel and Job And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever Could any of the Christians prophesie with greater assurance of the Resurrection than Job I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth And though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my reins be consumed within me It s the Observation of S. Hierom upon these words that none spoke so clearly of our Saviours Resurrection and his own as Job before the Incarnation did And the following Prophets teach the same Doctrine Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise Awake and sing ye that dwell in dust for the dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead But the Doctrine of the Resurrection hath received much Evidence and Certainty from our Lord Jesus Christ himself who brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel who not only asserts it frequently but proves it convincingly from the Books of Moses by the clearest and most undeniable consequence I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living IT is needless for me or my design to trouble you with the more accurate inquiry of the order and coherence of those Words that I have read either out of the Gospel or the Epistle though we should disjoin them from their neighbour places yet they are entire in themselves full of light and comfort Martha told our Saviour her Faith now being almost overcome with Grief that he was highly in favour with God and so probably might prevail with him and obtain any thing he desired Our Saviour assures her that her Brother shall rise again this puts some life into her expectations and she seemed artificially to wave what she hoped and did insinuate that she understood him of the general Resurrection But he quickly saw into the darkest recesses of her mind and told her plainly that there was no necessity to let her thoughts fly so far off as the general Resurrection He who was the first efficient cause of the Resurrection and the Author of Life was himself present and so might when he pleas'd raise his subjects and followers from the captivity and dishonours of the Grave FROM both the places that I have read I invite your attention to Meditate First On the Resurrection of our Saviour as the Author and finisher of our Faith Secondly Our Resurrection who