even in this place since I came among you so that I may say with Paul 1 Cor. 9. 2. and they indeed are and shall be unto me and I unto them a Crown of rejoicing at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and on their behalf I pray that their Faith may grow exceedingly and that their Love unto Jesus Christ and unto all Saints may every day more and more abound and I commend them unto God who is able to keep them from falling and to present them faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding Joy As for others I am jealous over them with a Godly Jealousie as the Apostle speaketh continually praying that they may not be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ but that they may hold fast the mystery of Faith in a pure Conscience Some indeed there are that cause me secretly to groan in my Spirit and my Heart I even bleed over them and I do pity them in the Bowels of Jesus Christ fearing least they should like the five foolish Virgins fall asleep and hereafter endeavour to enter into Glory when the Door is shut But now dearly beloved being come to Preach my last Sermon amongst you I request you all both good and bad to attend with double diligence to what shall be spoken unto you from that sweet portion of Scripture which you find recorded PHILIPIANS I. XXIII For I am in a straight between two having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better IN these Words are these two Parts First a Declaration of St. Pauls desire For I am in a streight between two having a desire to depart Secondly an Inclination of the ground of it which was this because he might be with Christ the word signifies solvere Anchoram to loosen the Anchor or to cut the Cable that the Ship may sail after While St. Pauls Spirit was tied up by the Flesh he desired it should be loosened by Death that it might Sail after into Glory Spiritual Desires they are always quickest and strongest whensoever they are nearest the perfect enjoyment of their desired Object Christ As the motion of every natural Body is quickest and strongest the nearer it comes to the Center so the nearer fulness of Glory the more fervent the Soul is in its desires after Christ Sirs my Text is usually the dying Expression of a living Saint for when a believer draws near to his End he sings most sweetly like the Swan and earnestly cries out Make haste my beloved he having a desire to depart to be with Christ evermore upon a dying Bed a Christians Pulse beats strongest Heaven-ward We groan as being in a great straight knowing to depart is far better much more better as if he should have said Oh! there is no comparison between the enjoyment of God in the State of Grace and the enjoyment of God in a State of Gloâ—y And here methinks I hear the dying Christian joyfully breathing out his earnest and longing desires for a Dissolution in the very words of a late Grave and Serious Poet who in an Heavenly Rapture and sweet Extasie of Spirit spake in the following manner viz. VVhy lingrest thou bright Lamp of Heaven why Do thy Steeds tread so slowly on must I Be forc'd to live when I desire to die Lash thou those Lazie Jades drive with full speed And end my slow-paced days that I may feed VVith Joy on Him for whom my heart doth bleed Post blessed Jesus come Lord flee away And turn this Night into the brightest Day By thine approach come Lord and do not stay Take thou Doves-Wings or give Doves Wings to me That I may leave this World and come to thee And even in thy glorious presence be I like not this vile VVorld it is meer dross Thou only art pure Gold then sure 't is loss To be without a Throne t' enjoy a Cross VVhat though I must pass through the Gates of Death It is to come to thee that gav'st me Breath And thou art better Lord than dung-hill-Dung-hill-Earth VVhen shall I come Lord tell me tell me when VVhat must I tarry Threescore years and Ten My Thirsty Soul cannot hold out 'till then Come dearest Saviour come unlock this Cage Of sinful Flesh lovingly stop the Rage Of my Desires end thou my Pilgrimage Give me a Place on High to Sit and Sing Anthems of Praise to thee mine only King Whose ratling Sounds may make the Heavens Ring But here I know the timerous Soul will object against this truth and say Oh how can the Christian so earnestly desire to be with Christ in the fulness of Glory were it indeed but a short step into Glory or were the way strewed with Roses and Flowers and with all the Spices of the Merchant it might be so but there is a Lion in the way as Solomon speaks in another case there is Death the King of Fears that stands srowning upon the Soul at the last cast when the Soul is upon its very Entrance into Christ his prepared Mansions of eternal Glory and therefore it were more desirable to dwell safely upon the Earth in a sensible Heaven made up of the greatest worldly profits and the most delightful creature Comfort rather than to venture over the terrible mountain of Death the very Epitomy of all Discouragements into the doubtful possession of those invissible Depths of spiritual Glory which the Scripture tells us is only attainable after this Life I answer that by nature of this Objection you may presently know the name of the Objector It comes from off a carnal heart and fully speaks the temper an Epiâ—urean Will that is against leaving its carnal interest in the Earth for uncertain interest in Heaven But Death though it be an intervening Cloud which seems to darken or cast a mist upon the Lustre and Comfort of a believers spiritual injoyment in God yet it doth but seem to do so and indeed it doth not at all extinguish the earnest desires of a serious lively Christian after Christ in the fulness of Glory and that especially when the believing Soul looks upon Death under these Considerations First that to die is no worse a rhing than to tread in the very steps of Jesus Christ we might indeed have been afraid to die if Jesus Christ had not first stept into the cold grave before us but if we will shew our selves true Soldiers unto Christ our Captain we must not fear to venture where he hath broken the way before us Now Christ hath died that he might by his Death procure the Death of Death and that he might free Believers from the fear of Death the sting being taken out of it Secondly Death is only ordained to refine and not to ruine Nature Death ends our sins and miseries and not our life as it may be made out unto you by this following Illustration those Trees which seem dead in the Winter yet they revive in the Spring because the
that immortal In-mate which for a little season hath been cloystered up in thy clay Breast And dost thou soundly believe that there is a future state of Infinite joy and eternal Sorrow And hast thou throughly pondered the certain uncertainty of all temporal Enjoyments And art thou heartily perswaded that Heaven is only worth the looking after What sayest thou to these things Oh my Soul Let the matter be urged home is everlasting damnation by all means possible to be prevented Or may Hell be supposed to be a tolerable Habitation Or can a poor guilty Worm endure with ease the burden of infinite Wrath Or is endless glory no whit desirable Or will it not repent thee Oh my Soul hereafter when it is too late if thou now neglect so great Salvation as is freely offered to thee in Christ Jesus Dost thou know Oh Man that thou must shortly give up the Ghost And yet hast thou not had one serious deep thought what place of entertainment thy naked Soul shall find in another world when it is stript of its present fleshly case and cloathing Oh press thy Soul hard with these thoughts how it is like to go with thee when thou first steppest into Eternity What sayest thou Oh my Soul are the things of time only or chiefly to be minded And are the precious things of Eternity utterly to be forgotten or disregarded Hath the infinitely wise and gracious God only given thee opportunities and abilities to desire and hasten thy eternal ruin And hast thou no time capacity understanding or will to work out thy Salvation with fear and trembling Canst thou once suppose thou shalt ever be an Inhabitant upon the Earth Or is the Earth with the sensual delights thereof which thou must certainly forego more valuable than Heaven with its fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore Or if thy judgment be clear in this case why doest thou no more think upon love and long to be dissolved and to be cloathed upon with that house which comes down from Heaven Will the enjoying of sinful pleasures or empty lying vanities for â— few minutes recompence the loss of Heaven â—t self Can any thing be counted an advantage when the Soul loseth God and it self â—n the getting of it Or can any thing be had upon Earth that will hold ever Awake Oh my drowsie Soul and let thy Conscience and Conversation no longer contradict one the other â—f thou judgest Heaven to be Heaven indeed and one moments Communion with God more â—orth than ten thousand Worlds then let thy Conversation be now in Heaven that thy Conâ—cience may not hereafter witness against â—hee Or tell me plainly Oh my Soul â—ost thou pretend that thou art really willing to â—o to Heaven and yet art unwilling for the preâ—ent through thy weakness of Faith to leave this Earth with all the sensible comforts of it Or â—oth thy natural timorousness or unpreparedness â—ut a check to the vehemency of thy Desires Or â—hat is it that thou so much stickest at Is there â— Lion in the way Wouldst thou not be detained one day one minute or moment longer from drinking thy fill at the Fountain of Living Waters and yet art afraid to pass over that narrow darksome Bridge of Death which leadeth thereunto Indeed Death is the King of Fears but yet a Serpent without a Sting may safely be put into thy Bosom Thou art then willing to be with thy glorious Redeemer upon the Throne only the sad Thoughts of giving 〈…〉 thy tender Flesh to be meat for the Worms thâ—…thing startles thee But weigh the matter well 〈…〉 thou be for ever happy and not be with Christ â—…st thou be where Christ is and not die Well thâ—… wâ—â—â—om death tho' not for thine own sake yet for his sake whose Messenger thou art and who hath sent thee to fetch me home to himself with whom I shall be as soon as ever I am but parted from thee Then I shall with joy look back upon thee O sad Messenger and triumph over thee saying Oh Death where is thy Sting Oh Grave where is thy Victory But thanks be unto God who hath given me the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ Oh Death though thy looks be terrible and thy last gripe paâ—nful yet is thy Message comfortable and I was more afraid than hurt For I see though thou leadest me through a dark Entry yet it is my Fathers House And as soon as I had passed from thee or ever I was aware my Soul made me like to the Chariots of Aminadib So come Lord Jesus come quickly He 's carry'd by Angels into Abraham's Bosom Sermon II. Luke XVI 32. And it came to pass that the Beggar died and was carryed by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom The whole Parable runs thus THere was a certain Rich Man which was cloathed in purple and fine Linnen and fared sumptuâ—â—sly every day And there was a certain Beggar namâ—â— Lazarus which was laid at his Gate full of sores â—ed desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from â—e Rich Man's Table moreover the Dogs came and â—â—ked his Sores And it came to pass that the Beggar â—ed and was carried by the Angels into Abraham ' s â—â—som The Rich Man also died and was buryed â—nd in Hell he lift up his Eyes being in torments and â—th Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his Bosom c. Dearly Beloved In my Discourse upon these words I will not be over tedious but with as much brevity as I can I will unfold some of the weighty Truths contained therein And the Lord grant that they may be of general use to all persons that shall either read or hear them These words have Relation unto the precedent Verses in this Chapter wherein our Saviour Christ from the thirteenth to the seventeenth verse reproveth the Covetousness of the Pharisees by shewing unto them that no man can serve two Masters that is God and Riches All these things heard the Pharisees which were covetous and they mocked him Whereupon he aptly and fitly taketh occasion to relate this Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus Hearken therefore now and I will speak of a great Rich Man that flourished here on Earth as a learned Divine observes In all pomp and abundance that shined in courtly purple Robes that was cloathed in Byssus and fine Silk and fared deliciously that was lodged softly that lived pleasantly But understand what became of this Rich Man his years being expired and his days numbred and his time determined he was invited to the fatal Banquet of black ugly Death that maketh all men sâ—bject to the rigour of his Law his Body was honourably buried in respect of his much Wealth but what became of his Soul That was carried from his Body to dwell with the Devils from his purple Robes to burning Flames from his soft Silk and white Byssus to cruel pains in black Abyssus from his Palace here on Earth to the Palace
thus with Daniel when the World was against him and would have thrown him to the Lions to be devoured the Lions shut their mouths at him so that there was not that hurt befel to him as was desired by the Adversaries Dan. 6. But now let us consider the Third Part which is the Death of the Beggar It was so that the Beggar died Here is the adage fulfilled Mors optima rapit deterrima relinquit Now must I speak of Tragical matters of Funerals and Obsequies of Dissolution and Death This Beggar died that represents the Godly and the Rich Man died that represents the Ungodly From whence Observe neither Godly nor Ungodly must live always without a change either by Death or Judgment The good man died and the bad man died that Scripture doth also back this Truth that good and bad must die marvellous well where it is said And it is appointed to men once to die and after that the Judgment Heb. 9. 27. Now when it is said the Beggar died and the Rich man died part of the meaning is they ceased to be any more in this World I say partly the meaning is so but not altogether though it be altogether the meaning when some of the Creatures die yet it is but in part the meaning when it is said that Men Women or Children die for there is to them something else to be said more than a barely going out of the World for if when unregenerate Men and Women die there were an end of them not only in this World but also in the World to come they would be more happy than now for when ungodly men and women die there is that to come after Death that will be very terrible to them namely to be carryed by the Angels of Darkness from their Death-beds to Hell there to be reserved to the Judgment of the great day when both Body and Soul shall meet and be united together again and made capable to undergo the uttermost vengeance of the Almighty to all Eternity Ah Beloved if this great Truth that men must die and depart this World and either enter into Joy or else into Prison to be reserved to the Day of Judgment were believed we should not have so many Wantons walk up and down the streets as there do at least it would put a mighty check to their filthy Carriages so that they would not could not walk so basely and sinfully as they do Belshazzar notwithstanding he was so far from the fear of God as he was yet when he did but see that God was but offended and threatned him for his Wickedness it made him hang down his head and knock his knees together Dan. 5. 5 6. If you read the Verses before you will find he was careless and satisfying his Lusts in Drinking and playing the Wanton with his Concubines But so soon as he did perceive the Finger of an hand writing Then saith the Scripture the King's countenance was changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joynts of his Loins were loosed and his knees smote one against another And when Paul told Felix of Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come it made him tremble Further this is a certain truth that not only the Wicked but the Godly also must have a time to depart this Life And the Beggar died the Saints of the Lord they must be deprived of this Life also they must yield up the Ghost into the hands of the Lord their God they must also be separated from their Wives Children Husbands Friends Goods and all that they have in the World for God hath decreed it It is appointed namely by the Lord for Men once to die and we must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ as it is 2 Cor. 5. 10 11. But again in the Death of the Beggar First we noted what became of his Soul It was carried by Angels into Abrahams Bosom Whereby we learn the Immortality of the Soul Pythagoras was the first among the Grecians that taught the Soul was Immortal The Philosophers also and Heathen Poets do prove the Immortality of the Soul Cedit enim retro de terra quod fuit ante In terram sed quod missum est ex aetheris oris Id rursum coeli fulgentia templa receptant The part of Man that was made of Earth went to Earth and that part as came from Heaven went to Heaven again But leaving these we prove by Scripture the Immortality of the Soul Man was made a living Soul Therefore the Soul is Immortal And here in the Text Lazarus being dead his Soul was carried into Abraham ' s Bosom Here therefore is the damnable Opinion of the Atheists overthrown For if they deny God they must also deny that they have Souls and so consequently that they are not men But St. John teacheth them that all things were made by the Word of God and without it nothing was made therefore if they are made they are made by the Word of God and of a reasonable Soul which do acknowledge and believe in the Creator Anima est primum principium vitae per se subsistens incorporea aâ— incorruptibilis The Soul is the first beginning of Life subsisting of it self incorporeal and incorruptible St. Austin Anima est spiritus est substantia incorporea corporis sui vita sensibilis invisibilis rationalis immortalis The Soul of man is a spiritual or incorporeal substance sensible invisible reasonable immortal For as he also saith Soluâ— homo habet animam rationalem Only Man with an Immortal Soul Lazarus Soul was carried into Abraham's Bosom which is a quiet Haven which the faithful have gotten by the troublesom Navigation of this Life that is the Kingdom of Heaven Here therefore we note that the Souls of the Elect being separated from their Bodies are presently in Joys and are carried into Abraham's Bosom so called because it belongeth only to the Faithful Well then Lazarus Soul went to Heaven and Christ said to the Thief on the Cross This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Not to morrow or next Year but this day Therefore the Souls of the Elect being separated from their Bodies are in Joy and Rest As also on the other side the soul of the Rich man and the Damned after they be separated from their Bodies are in Hell Torments And thus much concerning the place whither Lazarus soul was carried being dead namely into Abraham's Bosom Lastly We noted by whom by Angels It was carried by Angels into Abraham ' s Bosom And here an Objection ariseth viz. If this be so that the Godly die as well as the Wicked and if the Saints must appear before the Judgment-seat as well as the sinners then what Advantage have the Godly more than the Ungodly and how can the Saints be in a better condition than the Wicked Answ Read the 22d Verse over again and you shall find a marvellous difference between them as much as is
between Heaven and Hell everlasting Joy and everlasting Torment for you find when the Beggar died which represents the Godly he was carried by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom or into everlasting Joy Psal 1. But the Ungodly are not so but are hurried by the Devils into the Bottomless Pit drawn away in their Wickedness Prov. 14. 32. for he saith And in Hell he lift up his Eyes when the Ungodly do die their misery beginneth for then appear the Devils like so many Lions waiting every moment till the soul depart from the Body sometimes they are very visible to the dying Party but sometimes more invisible But always this is certain they never miss of the soul if it do die out of the Lord Jesus Christ but do hale it away to their Prison as I said before there to be tormented and reserved until the great and dreadful day of Judgment at which day they must Body and Soul receive a final Sentence from the Righteous Judge and from that time be shut out from the Presence of God into everlasting woe and distress But the Godly when the time of their departure is at hand then are also the Angels of the Lord at hand yea they are ready waiting on the â—oul to conduct it safely into Abraham's Bosom â— do not say but the Devils oft-times are very buâ—ie doubtless and attending the Saints in their â—ickness yes and no question but they would willingly deprive the soul of Glory But here â—s the comfort as the Devils come from Hell â—o devour the soul if it be possible at it's deâ—arture so the Angels of the Lord come from Heaven to watch over and conduct the soul in spight of the Devil safe into Abraham's boâ—om David had the comfort of this and speaks it â—orth for the comfort of his Brethren Psal 34. â— saying The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them Mark the Angel of the Lord encampeth round about his Children to deliver them From what From their Enemies of which the Devil is not the least This is an excellent comfort at any time to have the holy Angels of God to attend a Poor Man or Woman but especially â—it is comfortable in the time of distress at the time of Death when the Devils beset the Soul with all the Power that Hell can afford them â—ut now it may be that the glorious Angels of God do not appear at the first to the view of the Soul nay rather Hell stands before it and the Devils ready as if they would carry â—t thither but this is the comfort the Angels do always appear at the last and will not fail â—he soul but will carry it safe into Abraham's â—osom Ah! Friends consider here is an ungodâ—y man upon his Death-bed and he hath none â—o speak for him none to speak comfort unto â—im but it is not so with the Children of God â—or they have the spirit to comfort them Here â—s the ungodly and they have no Christ to pray for their safe Conduct to Glory but the Saints have an Intercessor John 17. 9 Here is the World when they die they have none of the Angels of God to attend upon them but the Saints have their Company In a word the unconverted person when he dieth he sinks into the bettomless Pit but the Saints when they die do ascend with and by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom or into unspeakable Glory Luke 23. 34. And so let us consider the fourth and last part which is the Death of the Rich Man The Rich Man died also c. Here â—…e may again see that Death is the way of all flesh Death shaketh Cedar and Shrub Death calleth away the Rich man from his pleasure and Lazarus from his Pain and all must obey when Death calleth It is not the Majesty of a Prince nor Holiness of a Priest strength of Body feature of Face Wisdom Beauty Riches Honour nor any such secular regard can plead against Death or priviledge a man from the Grave Statutum est omnibus semel mori The Decree is out all must die once all must taste of this distasteful cup of death Let us know then that the Pale Horse and he that sitteth thereon whose name is Death comes running on towards us fall that is within us and without us are Remembrancers of Death The Sun rising in the East and setting in the West sheweth our rising and alling our coming in and going out of this World All cry unto us we must away we must away we must hence as Christ said My Kingdom is not of this World Death is a separation of the Soul from the Body the Husband separated from the Wife of his youth the Father separated from his Children whom he dearly loved the Children from their Parents the Master from his Servant and the Servant from his Master thus Parents and Friends ' and all must part The first circumstance of the Rich man is to know what became of his Body It was honourably buried But here we see that honourable Burial doth not profit the damned soul Tares are sown as well as Wheat in all times if the one grow up for the fire the other for the barn Gather the Tares in bundles and burn them but gather â—â—e Wheat into my barn Matth. 1. 30. But let us lastly consider what became of his Soul And being in Hell Torments c. But because â—one can so well relate miseries and none can deâ—cribe the torments of Hell so well as he that hath â—elt the same let the Rich man himself speak and â—et us hear him what he saith he being in Hell torâ—ents he thus beginneth O wretch that I am why did I sâ—ffer Lazarus to starve at my Gate â—or which I am shut in the Gates of Hell Why did not give Lazarus a crumb of Bread for which â— cannot have here now one drop of Water to cooâ—â—y tongue Why did I shew Lazarus no mercy oâ—â—arth for which no mercy is shewed to me in Hell â—hat shall I do for I am tormented in this flame â— will cry unto Abraham Abraham have mercy â— me and send Lazarus that he may dip the â— of his finger in water to cool my tongue I â— tormented here Abraham I am torn in pieces â—e Abraham I am plagued and continually pained â—e Abraham here my purple Rayment is flames â—â—re my light is darkness my day night my comâ—ions are Devils O how they hale me O how â— pull me O how they vex and torment me â—e my feet are scorched my hands are seared my â—t is wounded my eyes are blinded my ears are â—d my senses confounded my tongue is hot it is very hot send Lazarus therefore Abraham with a drop of Water to comfort me one drop good Abraham one drop of Water But Abraham answered him Thou damned wretch once thou didst disdain Lazarus once thou didst refuse Lazarus once thou didst scorn Lazarus now Lazarus shall disdain refuse
parts of Minera's Plants Animals Elements should at the voice of God return into their Primitive shapes and joyn again to make up their primary and predestinate forms as it is evident by his own words for saith he I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin wormâ— 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 Job 19 25 26 27. what is made to be Immoâ—â—â—l nature cannot nor will the voice of God destroy As at the Creation of the World all that distinct species that we behold lay involved in one Mass till the fruitful voice of God separated this united multitude into its several species so at the last day when those corrupted relicks shall be scattered in the wilderness of forms and seem to have forgot their proper habits God by a powerful voice shall command them back into their proper shapes and call them out by their single and individuals then shall appear the fertility of Adam and the Magick of that sperm that hath dilated into so Many millions seeing our Souls are Immorral nature cannot nor will Almighty God destroy wherefore David that Princely Prophet and good King knowing this and being fully perswaded that his Child was gone to Heaven and that he should follow left off his Doleful mourning rised from his law and â—amentable lodging chang'd his cloaths washed his hands went to prayer and brake his long fast ever cheering up himself knowing that he should quickly follow as you may see here by his own words read unto you But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I stall go to him but he shall not return to me The EJACULATION GOod Lord is it so that there is no returning from the Grave Then assist us by thy divine Grace to improve every Inch of Time before we â—o down to the Grave and be seen no more Is â—t true that our Dear and Piâ—us Relations that are â—ead and gone will never return to us again â—hen let us prepare to follow them to an happy â—ternity Good Lord now seeing all this is reaâ—y â—tue let us live as men and women that have â—lready one foot in the Grave Oh let the death â— others shew the weakness of our own Bodies and â—e many Grey-hairs that are â—ere and there upon our head put us in mind of our winding-sheet and of the day of judgment which is approaching very swiftly towards every one of us Let the daily instances of our dying Relations take such a living Impression upon our hearts as may deaden then towards all objects on this side Heaven Good Lord let us all be all for Heaven let all our thoughts be Heavenly thoughts let all our speeches be Heavenly speeches and let all our Actions be Heavenly-Actions and let all thine ordinances prove Heavenly ordinances to us ever drawing up our Hearts from Earth to Heaven seeing we must quickly return to Dust Good Lord it is a vain Imagination for any Man to think that he can be happy without God who is the Author of all happiness or to think that finite and sensual objects can satisfie infinite and spirtual desires or to think that Temporal uncertainties are more valuable and more desirable than an interest in Jesus Christ and Eternal Glory What Joy what inexpressible Joy will a good Conscience afford us when we come to be arrested by the cold hands of Death when we come to make our beds in the silent Grave We must needs confess it is contrary to Reason and much more inconsistent with Grace that we should prefer Earth before Heaven Yea there is as little Reason for it that we should endeavour to grasp so much of the Creature into our handâ— when as one Death-Gripe will soon cause us to let go our fastest hold of Created Injoyments Oh! therefore why should we go about to build a nest for our selves among the Stars when we have seen so many of our dearest Aâ—quaintance and nearest Relations carried to the Grave before us and there made a Feast for the Worms to feed upon Good Lord therefore do thou make us to know our End and the measure of our Days what it is that so we may be throughly convinced how frail we dre let us remember that we have no continuing City here and therefore it will be necessary for us to seek one that is to come Let us not spend our flying Daieâ— in â—â—er Impertinences but let us look after that Eternal Inheritance which will never fade away O! let us all improve our Time and Talents for God that when our Bodies return to the Grave from whence there is no coming back our Souls may go to God that gave them Bury my Dead out of my sight SERMON V. GEN. xxiii 4. Give me a possession of a Burying place with you that I may bury my Dead out of my sight THis is the conclusion of all Flesh they were never so dear before but they come to be as loathsom and intollerable now When once the Lines and Picture of Death is drawn over the Fabrick of Man or Woman's Body as it is said here of Sarah all their Glory ceaseth all their good Respect vanisheth away their best Friends would be fainest rid of them even Sarah that was so goodly and amiable in Abraham's sight must now out of his sight he must bury his dead out of his sight But Abraham as the Father of faithful men and a Pattern to all loving Husbands in all Ages ensuing doth not this till such time as the dead Sarah groweth noysom to all that look upon her As long as he could by his Mourning and Lamentation prosecute her without offence to his Eyes and danger to his Health he did it but now the time is come when Earth must be put to Earth and Dust must return to Dust There is no place for the fairest Beauty above Ground when once God hath taken Life and Breath from it it must go to its own Elements and to the Rock and Pit from whence it was hewen thither it must return After he had performed this perhaps he mourned three or four Days for his Wife he knew this Mourning must have an end he knew that he must commit her to the Ground Therefore when he had thus moderated himself as first to shew by his Sorrow that he was a loving Husband and then to shew in the ceasing of his Sorrow that he was a wise man and a faithful Christian He cometh to desire a possession of burial Give me What A possession of burial First A possession He would have it so conveyed as no man might make claim of it but that it should be for him and his for ever Therefore it was as it were a Church-yard that he begged such a one as was capable and had sufficient scope and
his Cross daily Commanded not that we should bear upon our Backs that heavy burthen of the Wooden-Cross but that we should always set Death before our Eyes making that of the ever blessed Apostle St Paul to be our impress I die daily In the Second Book of Kings it is reckoned that the good King Josias did cleanse the People from their Altars Groves and high Places where innumerable Idolatries daily encreased And to amend this ill he placed there in their stead Bones Skulls and Ashes of dead Men. Whose Judgment herein was very discreet for from Man's forgetting of his Beginning and his End arise his Idolatries and so reviving by those Bones the remembrance of what they were before and what they shall be hereafter he did make them amend that mischief Very many nay numberless are those Men which adore the Nobleness of their Linage and out of a desire that they have to make good their Descent and beginning they multiply Coâ—ts one upon another hang up Escutcheons Blazon forth their Arms tell vou very large Histories of their Pedigrees and Genealogies and many â—mâ—s most of them meer Lyes and Fables The good Prophet Ezekâ—el â—â—d represent these unto us in those Twentâ— five young Men which were Besotred and 〈…〉 â—â— beholding the labouring Sun that glorious 〈…〉 and vast Eye of all the World whose gâ—… upon the Waters and hatched in Six Days all the World which by way of Exposition signifieth the adoring of the Glory of their Birth But leaving these to themselves as silly Fools who glory in the Gold that glisters God Almighty comes here unto old Adam with a 〈…〉 of Death and reacheth him another Lesson saying Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return The end ever holds a correspondence with its beginning Naked came I out of my Mother's Womb and naked shall I return The Rivers come from the Sea and thither again they return and so doth the labouring Sun from the East and thither it retires again That Image of Gold Silver Brass and Iron that had its Feet of Earth must in the end turn to dust Baâ—ak having asked Where are the Princes of the Nations makes answer himself and saith The earth hath swallowed them up all Now to comment upon this same place we may make the like question and give the very self-same Answer Nonne omnia Pulvis nonne Fabula nonne in paucis ossibus memoria eorum conservatur The very greatest and famousest of us all have been are and shall be but dust and there is no Memorial to be left of us but a few rotten and stinking Bones But to proceed because in Preaching Plainness is ever counted the best Eloquence In these words as they offer up themselves unto our consideration you may with me as they naturally arise from the express words in my Text observe these two regardable Circumstances First How these Mortal Bodies of ours are said to be Dust And then secondly How they shall return to Mother-Earth from whence they came Now of these two in their due order severally And first of the First and that is How we are said to be Dust Now as for the Walls of Flesh wherein the Soul doth seem to be immur'd before the Restauration it is nothing but an Elemental Composition and a Fabrick that may fall to Ashes All Flesh is Grass is not only Metaphorically but Literally trâ—e for all those Creatures we behold are but the Herbs of the Field digested into Flesh in them or more remotely Carnified in our selves Nay further we are what we all abhor Anthropophagi Cannibales Devourers not only of Men but of our selves and that not in Allegory but a positive Truth for all this huge Mass of Flesh which we behold came in at our Mouths yea this Frame which we look upon hath been upon our Trenchers In brief we have devoured ourselves Man is such a frail sorry and base Creature that the good Prophet Jeremy calls him to his own Face thrice Earth at one Breath saying O Earth Earth Earth hear the Word of the Lord Jer 22. 29. Man is Earth by Procreation Sustentation and by Corruption First He is Earth by Procreation for the first Man is called Adam that is red Earth Of the dust of the Earth made he Man Gen. 2. 7. The Patriarch Abraham acknowledging the baseness of his beginning said unto the Lord I am but dust and ashes Gen. 18. 27. Now Almighty God the Creator of all things made this Earth of which he made Man of nothing according to the Text God created the Heaven and the Earth He made not this Heaven and Earth of another Heaven and Earth but he Created both as having nothing but nothing whereby and wherewith to build this goodly Frame and so consequently proud Man in respect of his Materials is brought unto nothing And therefore our Princely Prophet David says Psalm 144. 4. That Man is like a thing of nought Yea and to confirm this the better St. Paul that ever blessed Apostle in his Epistle to the Galaâ—ians says If any Man seem to himself that he is something when he is nothing he deceiveth himself in his imagination Gal. 6. 3. Adam begat Cain and Abel Gen. 4. Cain signifieth Possession Abel Mourning or Vanity to teach us that Possessions are but Vanity and vexation of Spirit yea Vanity of Vanities all vanity Eccles 1. 2. And as Adam begat Sons like to himself so his Sons also Sons like to themselves of a loathsom Excrement carried in those Members of the Body which are least honourable brought forth into the World with intollerable Pain so vile and so soul that I shall spare to speak wanting Epithites whereby to express my self only give me leave to Cry out with our Princely Prophet David saying What is Man O God that thou art mindful of him and the Son of Man that thou visitest him or with St. Paul O Man what art thou who pleadest against God As if he should have said as Cyprian said once to Demetrius Consider how base thou art in respect of God even as Clay in the hand of the Potter and then I think thou wilt not enter into dispute with thy Creator That any Man is miserable let it suffice him that he is a Man that is Infelicitatis tabula nec non Calamitatis fabula a Map of Miseries and as it were the Table of Troy whomsoever thou seest to be miserable thou maiest without all doubt conclude he is a Man and therefore the first Voice uttered by the new-born Babe is Crying hereby Prophecying that he is come into a World full of Care and Grief Crying and taking it grievously to heart because he is a Man Blushing because he is Naked Weeping and wailing because he is born into a most wicked and miserable World and murmuring because indued but with a dull Genius and made up of so base matter which every Disease like a Storm is ready to totter down God Almighty Created Adam
her Life in wanton Ayres and Charms of Lust the treacherous Inticements to Destruction but when she dies she breathes out her Soul in Howlings Sighs and Sobs in Pangs and Horror The Swan who spends her days in Innocence as white as her Livery in pensive Notes of Sadness mournful and black as her Feet when she dies she expires in joyful Anthems the voice of joy and gladness So when Death calls the Aged Swan from Streams She dying sings her own glad Requiems Good People had you the Reversion of a Rich Living or Office would you weep because it is faln into your Possession Invidi non amantis 't were more of Envy than Love to bewail an Earthly Happiness I close as Jesus to the Daughters of Jerusalem Weep not for me â—ut weep for your selves not for me that am dying but for your selves that are living for your selves that have refused my Doctrine despised your Saviour condemned your Innocent and Righteous Prince For the Sins and Sufferings of the Living I confess there is weeping work enough for him who hath Jeremy's wish His Head a Fountain of Tears to weep day and night But for the dead that die in the Lord weep not Weep not she is not dead but sleepeth The Application Since the Faâ—e of Rest in the state of Separation and Happiness at meeting again of Soul and Body depends upon the Holiness at parting Let us be composed in both that neither the disorder of the Body nor multitude of Business either ill done or undone may disturb the quiet of the Soul Before Men go to Bed they put off their Cloaths or else they sleep both unhandsomely and uneasily So let your Souls divest those Habits which Sin and Custom hath too long made fashionable Lastly Good Men before they go to Bed they always pray St. Paul adviseth Pray always though not with the Lip yet with the Life When Survivors see a Soul that hath lived long in this Region of Holy Duty to ascend to Heaven as the Angel Judg. 13. 20. In the Flames of the Altar their Charity and Hopes are sufficiently instructed to say Nolite flere Weep not she is not dead but sleepeth The Character I have done with the Text that I brought hither to you and now apply my self and discourse to that Text that brought you hither to me from that I presented to your Ears to that presented to your Eyes I close the Book of Life and now open the Book of Death So St. Ambrose Interr'd Theodosius Nazianzen the Immortal Athanasius and St. Hierome the excellent Lady Marcella Nay St. John hath taken short Notes of a Sermon made by Christ at the Funeral of Lazarus John 11. 12 13 c. wherein are Discourses of Faith Resurrection and Glory raised from the Dead and applyed to the Living I need no other because I can follow no better precedent Therefore hear me or rather hear her speak for the Dead can speak Heb. 11. 4. Our dead Sister speaks first in the dignity of her Extraction fairly proclaim'd to you by the Herauldry of her Hearse but fairer far in the suitable Character of her Life the worthiness of her Birth had no other influence on her but to engage her to worthiness of Action which she so nobly improved that the Vertue of her Life dignified the Honour of her Descent so the Glory she received from her Father on Earth by the Acts of Humility and Charity she enhansed to the glorifying her Father which is in Heaven Her Beauty which was a depository from Heaven she beautified with so much Piety and adorned with so much Religion as if she had been intrusted to preserve both the Lustre and the Vertues of the Celestial Bodies in her Epiâ—ome But the Beauty of her Soul was a Sun to this Taper from whence her starry Actions received a mighty Splendor When she spake Wisdom dictated and Wit delivered she hung her Language at your Ears as Jewels much of worth in a small bulk and as Jewels her Speech was Rich both in Lustre and in Medicine the Conceits of her Mirth would raise a Smile but the Gravity of her Conveyance commanded Reverence Her Reproofs like Lightning quick but short such as would melt the Blade yet not singe the Scabbard kill the Sin but preserve the Sinner Her Promises were made in her Head but bept in her Hand as a Nail fastned in a sure place driven by Understanding and clenched by Affection Her Attire neither fordid nor curious nor too early in nor too late out of Fashion not like those Mushroom Gentry who declare their late rise from Peasantry and Poverty by the Herauldry of the Dirt and Rags on their Back Her Table was both wholesome and handsome enough to satisfie the Stomach of the hungry and well enough to fancy the Palate of the Curious yea when the Sword had Carved her Meat to the fifth part her good Chear was as much as ever Her Visits were like the Sun 's beneficial where-e're she came and treading in her Saviours steps She went up and down doing good Her Access was free but not loose her Door as her Heart was open to all Friends so that without much shifting the Scene she would easily make her House a Court an Almes-house a School and an Hospital all in a day She had Treatments for the Greatest who came as Agrippa and Bernice with great Pomp. She had Relief for the Poorest who as Lazarus lay at the Gateâ— Instructions for the Ignorant and Charitable Remedies for the Sick Christian Applications for all feeding the Hungry cooling the Thirsty cloathing the Naked visiting the Sick and harbouring the Traveller what God requires in acts of Neighbourhood here and Reward hereafter the whole Voyzenage can witness with me and for her that she was a great parallel to Dorcas Acts 9. 36. This Woman was full of good Works and Almes-deeds which she did Finally Brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report she did them therefore if there be any vertue or any praise let her have it Her Relation as a Wife shews her without disparagement a rare example and standard to her Sex Society is the most precious Comfort in Nature the richest Jewel in her Cabinet Adam not in perfect Paradise not happy without it of all Societies with Man that of a Wife is nearest being made of his own Rib and dearest lying in his own Bosom Her Affection was great as Jonathan's wonderful and passing the love of Women 2 Sam. 2. 26. Marriage made her Husband and her one Flesh but Love made them one Soul She Married not only his Person but his Interests and Concernments loved his Loves wished his Desire as inseparable as Ruth and her Mother-in-law Ruth 1. 16 17. not to be parted but by Death She owed him an Affection equal to her Life being often ready to lay
be perswaded that it is impossible that the Earth should hold down man God commanding it to cast up and therefore though the ship and the ship-master the Wagganer and the Waggan I mean the Soul the governour of the body and the body the receptable of the Soul may be severed and parted for a time by death yet they shall one day meet the one shall return to the other these whom the Almighty hath put assunder these can he joyn again at his pleasure For if he hath done the greater then need we not doubt but that he is able so do the less He which hath made the body of nothing doubtless is of power sufficient to raise it out of the dust at the last day To come then to some use Here then first of all is matrer of great consolation to the Children of God in that the Love will raise them up again to Glory at the last day The consideration whereof may comfort us exceedingly under the Cross For so many are the troubles and afflictions that the Children of God are subject unto in this life that if they did not call to mind and remember that there shall be a Resurrection that a time of refreshing shall come when they shall be freed of these miseries and these tears shall be wiped from their eyes they would never be able to hold out For if the Children of God had hope only in this Life they were of all men most miserable but here is there comfort that though they have their Hell in this life they shall have their Heaven hereafter all which is most lively set forth in this Text. When Rachel had born six sons to Jacob she said God hath endowed me now with an exccllent Dowry now will my husband dwell with me because I have born him six sons Beloved could we not be content to live yea to dye with this sentence which hath born and brought unto us these six places of consolation suerly it is a sentence much to be embraced for it offers exceedingly great comfort unto us Wherefore let us often meditate of it let us often have recourse unto it yea let it be as a Sanctuary or place of refuge for our troubled Souls to fly and resort unto when as we shall be pressed with any miserie or affliction whatsoever The EJACULATION Good Lord if it be true that at the last day the Earth shall Cast up all that ever it received into her cold imbraces and if it be likewise true that all the wicked shall then be doom'd down to Eternal Torment let us then be preparing our selves for that day that we may be able to receive it with joy when it comes and that we may hold up our heads with comfort to think that our Redemption draweth nigh Let not Death find us out of our way because such a surprize would be attended at last with a miserable Resurrection Let our conversation be in Heaven from whence we expect that our Saviour should come that he may change our vile Bodies into the likeness of his own most Glorious Body Good Lord let our hearts and souls be there now where we hope our Bodys and Souls shall be for ever hereafter and let our choicest Affection and chiefest Meditations be set early set and earnestly set upon that state which will be our Eternal State that so we may be everlastingly happy both in body and soul when our bodies shall arise to Judgment at the last day SERMON VII A Glorious Resurrection for them that sleep in Jesus ROM viii xi He that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you THese words Beloved are a most comfortable Conclusion shewing and declaring the certainty of the Resurrection of the Bodies of the Saints to an Immortal glorious happy life at the last day wherin we may more particularly note First The Action Quicken Secondly the Object or rather if ye will the Subject that shall be Quickned your mortal Bodis Thirthly the Author or Efficient Cause God deled by an effect the raising up of Christ Fourthly the means whereby God shall quicken them by his Spirit Lastly the Condition of the Persons whose mortal Bodies shall be quickened And they are such as have the Spirit of God dwelling in them as appear by the last words By his Spirit that dwelleth in you The Text thus opened and the sense thereof being made clear and manifest the main Point that offers it self to our considerations is this Doct. That there shall be a Resurrection of the Bodies of the Saints at the last day This for the general And this is a matter very comfortable to the people of God that there shall be a Resurrection Nulla consolatio tanta est quanta mortuorum Resurrectio saith Mr. Gualter There is no consolation of a Christian so great in this life as is the Resurrection of the Dead and therefore Tertullian calls it the Christian's hope and so it is indeed For if in this life only the Christian had hope he were of all Men most miserable 1 Cor. 15. 19. Tolle spem Resurrectionis c. resoluta erat observantia nimis pietatis Take away the hope of the Resurrection saith Chrysostome and you take away all care of Piety and Godliness out of the World And indeed what makes the Husbandman to take such pains in tilling manuring and sowing of his ground but the Hope of a joyfull harvest wherein he shall reap the fruits of his labours What makes the Labourer to subject himself to so much pains and labour all the day long but that he hopes for a time of rest wherein he may be refreshed What makes the liberal and charitable Man disperse his wealth unto the Poor but that he looks for a day of payment wherein he shall be sure that what he hath laid out shall be payed him again Prov. 19. 17. But all this is the Resurrection unto the Sants of God For first it is as the Christians Harvest For though he have Sowen in tears all his life time by reason of the continual afflictions thereof yet he shall be sure to reap in joy at the Resurrection And this did animate and encourage them to undergo any torture of the Body rather than they would be subject to the rack of an evil Conscience And this may serve as a strong ground of Comfort unto us if God at any time should call us to suffer for his Name for as yet we have not resisted unto bloud This is an honour that God doth not vouchsafe to all his Saints say this may serve as a notable means to support us in our sufferings that though Tyrants may rage never so much and Persecuters may wrack their malice upon the Bodies of the Saints as they did in the Primitive Church for they cast the Bodies of the Christians to be devoured of wild bests nay they threw them into Rodanus thinking thereby to hinder
the Comfort to his soul that one day he should rise again in which he should enjoy the glorious presence of his Redeemer See Job 19. 26. Secondly it may Comfort the Saints of God against the persecutions of the body yea and death it self We read of the Saints of God in the days of Antiochus that they were racked and would not be delivered and why so because they looked for a better Resurrection Heb. 11. 35. No doubt but they counted the Redemption from the rack a thing much to be desired yet they knew that the Redemption from Hell and the Resurrection to eternal life was much more to be sought for without which condition they would not be delivered and no marvel for what though the rack might rend their flesh and disjoint their Lims yet they knew well enough and were fully assured that at the Resurrection all should be conjoined and perfected again The EJACULATION GOod Lord let us when we die sleep in Jesus that we may obtain a Glorious Resurrection when this World shall have an end for though we are as we have heard but enlivened Dust gilded peices of Clay sinking Bubbles and dying shadows yet these dying Bodies of outs shall at the last day when the Trumpet shall sound arise ye Dead enter into Eternal Glory or Everlasting Peace Oh let us consider how glorious a Creature man was when he first came cut of his Creators hand for thou didst make him but a little lower than the Angels thou didst crown him with Glory and Honour thou didst make him the very Summons and Epitomy of the whole World he was made the very Master-peice of all thy works the very Flower and Miracle of Nature he was even then a small draught of the divine Nature and a bright Beam of the increated light But how Glorious indeed will he be when he shall be raised at the Resurrection and shall shine as a resplendent Sun in the Firmament of Glory Good Lord therefore let us not be strangers to the relish of Heavenly things but let us live as those who hope to be Heirs of Eternal Joys when this World shall have an end Let us look up to God and let us look out to Eternity let us consider that our hastening Time will soon have an end and we shall never more be trusted with another space of Time to prepare us for Heavens Glory Oh let us not therefore set our affections upon any things which we can carry no further with us then the Grave but let us live in a daily serious beleif and in a joyfull expectation of that endlest Glory and that Glorious Resurrection which will be the Portion of all those who live in the Love and die in the Faith of our Lord Jesus for thou hast promised a Glorious Resurrection to them that sleep in Jesus AN ELEGY Upon the Reverend Mr. John Dunton Author of the House of Weeping LIKE a bright Lamp whose mounting Flame aspires To its Original those Heavenly Fires Till the fomenting Oyl consume it turns Twinckling to Ashes and no longer burns So his Divineâ— Soul though clos'd within An interwoven case of flesh and sin Mounts to its pure Original and strives By lighting others to amend their lives 'Till nature quite extinct with fixt desires Of Heavens Enjoyments his blest Soul expires Farewel dear Sir had powerful art a Charm To snatch your Life from Deaths surprising Arm We would not fail to re-imbarque your Spirit Gon to possess what Glorious Souls Inherit In highest bliss that sweet Christaline Iste Where God and Saints for ever ever Smile T is lovely to be Humble Faithful Kind This was the Emblem of the Authors mind Who 's soar'd aloft leaving Earths dusty Round Where sweetest Joys in one ill hap are drown'd To those Harmonious Orbs where now he sings Melodious Anthems to the King of Kings Where in the glit'ring Rank of Angels bright He took his place with radiant Sons of light His race was long and nimbly he did run To reach Heavens Glory by that Setting Sun Which guilds the Spheres which garnisheth and braves The lower World which scores us out our Graves And being gon to th'place his heart design'd He here hath left a Weeping House behind Which dolefully like a loud Passing-bell Rings out to th' World the Authors last Farewel O. O. An EPITAPH upon the Author of this Book Mr. John Dunton who was Interred in the Chancel at Aston-Clinton Novemb. 9th 1676. IN spight o' th' Grave bright Saint thou shalt survive Our grateful Age will keep thy name alive Heav'ns great Ambassador on Earth thou 'st lain The League being struck Heav'n call'd thee home again Yet Death hath left of thee Great Soul behind So much that we our loss shan't quickly find Nor can thy Name a dull Oblivion know Thy Works will an Eternity bestow O're Time and Fate thou l't an Ovation have And now dost Triumph over Death and Grave S. A. FINIS Death-Bed THOUGHTS The PROEMIUM BVT Oh my Soul What ails thee to be thus suddenly backward and fearful no Friend hath more freely discours'd of Death in speculation no Tongue hath more extolled it in absence And now that it is come to thy Bed-side and hath drawn thy Curtains and takes thee by the hand and offers thee service thou shrinkest inward and by the paleness of thy Face and wildness of thine Eye bewrayest an amazement at the presence of such a Guest That Face which was so familiar to thy Thoughts is now unwelcome to thine Eye I am ashamed of this weak irresalution Whitherto have tended all thy serious Meditations What hath Christianity done to thee if thy fears be still Heathenish Is this thy Imitation of so many worthy Saints of God whom thou hast seen entertain the violentest Death with Smiles and Songs Is this the fruit of thy long and frequent Instruction Didâ—â— thou think Death would have been content with words Didst thou hope it would suffer thee to talk while all others suffer Where is thy Fath Shall Hereticks and Pagans give Death a better welcome than thee Hath God with this Serjeant of his sent his Angels to fetch thee and art thou loath to go Rouse up thy self for shame O my Soul and if ever thou hast truly believed shoke off this Vnchristian diffidence and address thy self joyfully for thy glory All motions tend to rest Return then to thy rest O my Soul for God hath dealt bountifully with thee But Lord spare me a little before I go hence and be seen no more that my DEATH-BED THOUGHTS may be all imployed in the Contemplating of that Eternity into which I am now a launching Sect. 1. The Daily Remembrance of Death HAppy is he who always and in every place so lives as to spend his every last moment of Light as if day were never to return Epictetur most wisely teaching this Death saith he and Banishment and all that we look upon as Evils let them be daily set before
their Soâ—â— that had been victors at the Olympick Games at the same time and in the same place presently expir'd Lastly Death has infinite accesses through which he breaks into our Houses Sometimes through the Windows sometimes through the Vaults sometimes through the Copings of the Wall sometimes through the Tyles and if he cannot meet with any Traytors either in the City or in the House I mean the humours of the Body Diseases Catarrhs Pleurisies and the like which the makes use of as Ministers in his Councils He â—tears up the Gates with Gunpowder Fire Water Pestilence Venom nay wild Monsters and Men themselves as bad he leaves no Engines untryed to snatch and force away our Lives Mephiboseth the Son of Saul was slain by Domestick Thieves as he was sleeping at Noon upon his Bed Fulco King of Jerusalem as he was Hunting a Hare fell from his Horle and was trampled to death by his Hoofs gave up the Ghost Josias of all the Kings of Judah David excepted for Piety Sanctimony and Liberality the chief was unexpectedly wounded with an Arrow and died in his Camp The Holy Ludovicus in the 57th year of his Age upon the African Shore in the midst of his Army the Pestilence there raging died of the Distemper Egillus King of the Goths a most excellent Prince was killed by a Mad Bull which the madder people not enduring the seveâ—ity of his Laws had let forth Malcolm the first King of Scotland after many examples of Justice while he was taking cognizance of the Actions of his Subjects by Night was on a sudden suffocated have not many gone well to Bed that have been â—ound dead in the Morning Of necessity the Soul â—â—ght to stand upon its guard Vzza a person of no small Note in Davids Lifeguard when he attempted to stay the shogging Ark as it was carry'd in Triumph to Jerusalem was presently struck from Heaven so that he died by the Ark. The hand of God arm'd a Lion out of a Wood against the Prophet that had eaten contrary to his command The sudden voice of Peter compelled Ananias and Saphira to expiate their Crime by as sudden a death whose Souls the greatest part of Divines believe to be freed from Eternal Punishment thereby But enough of Ancient Examples In the year 1559. Henry the Second King of France was slain in the midst of his Pastimes and Triumphs and in publick Joy of the people For while he Celebrated the Nuptials of his Daughter at Paris in a Tilting the Splinter of a broken Lance flew with that violence and pierced his Eye that he died immediately In the year 1491. Alphonsus the Son of John the Second King of Portugal being about Sixteen years of Age a Prince of great Hopes and Wit 〈◊〉 to Wife Isabella the Daughter of Ferdinand King of Spain whose Down was the Ample Inheritance of her Fathers Kingdoms The Nuptials were Celebrated with the preparations of six hundred Triumphs Every Plays Running Racing Tiâ—ting Banquets So much Plenty so much Luxury that the Horse-boy and Slaves glistered in Tissue But Oh immensâ— Grief hardly the seventh Month had passed wheâ—… the young Prince sporting a Horseback upon thâ—… Banks of Tagus was thrown from his Horse to thâ— ground so that his Scull was broken and 〈…〉 wounded to death He was carried to a Fisheâ—… House scarce big enough to contain him and 〈…〉 of his Followers There he lay down upon a Bed Straw and expired The King flies thither with tâ—… Queen his Mother There they behold the miseâ—â—ble Spectacle their Pomp turn'd into Lamentation the growing Youth of their Son his Vertues Wealth like Flowers on a sudden disrobed by the Northwinds blast and all to be Buried in a miserable Grave O the sudden Whirlwinds of Human Affairs O most precipitate Falls of the most constant things What shall I remember any more Basilius the Emperor was gored to death by a Hart while he was entar gled in a troublesom Bough The ancient Monument in the Camp of Ambrosius near Aeniponâ—us witnesses That a Noble Youth though under Age set Spurs to his Horse to make him leap a Ditch twenty foot broad The Horse took it but the Rider and the Horse fell by a sudden and almost the same kind of death That the Spoils of the Horse and the Garments of the Youth speak to this day But this sudden Fate is common as well to the good as to the bad neither does it argue an unhappy condition of the Soul unless any person in the Act of burning Impiety feel himself struck with the Dart of Divine Vengeance Such was the Exit of Dathan and Abiram whom the gaping Earth miserably swallowed up obstinate in their Rebellion against Moses Such was the End of those Souldiers whom for their irreverence to Elijah Heaven consumed with Balls of Fire Such was the End of the Hebrew whom the Revengers Sword pass'd thorough finding him in the Embraces of the Midianitess turning his Genial into his Funeral Bed So many Pores of the Body so many little doors for Death Death does not shew himself always near yet is he always at hand What is more stupid than to wonder that that should fall out at any time which may happen every day Our Limits are determined where the inexorable necessity of Fate has fix'd them But none of us knows how near they are prefixed So therefore let us form our Minds as if we were at the utmost extremity Let us make no delay Notes upon the first Paragraph DEath has infinite accesses So it is indeed and to what I have said I add It is reported that a certain person dreamt that he was torn by the Jaws of a Lion He rises careless of his Dream goes to Church with his Friends in the way he sees a Lion of Stone gaping that upheld a Pillar then declaring his Dream to his Companions not without Laughter Behold said he this is the Lion that tore me in the Night So saying he thrust his hand into the Lions Jaws crying to the Statue Thou hast thy Enemy now shut thy Jaws and if thou canst bite my hand He had no sooner said the word but he received a deadly wound in that place where he thought he could have no harm For at the bottom of the Lions Mouth lay a Scorpion which no sooner felt his hand but he put sorth his sting and stung the young Man to Death Are Stones thus endued with anger Where then is not Death if Lions of Stone can kill In the same manner died the young Hylas who was kill'd by a Viper that lay hid in the Mouth of a Bears resemblance in Stone What shall I mention the Child kill'd by an â—sicle dropping upon his Head from the Penthouse Of whom Martial laments in the following Verses Where next the Vipsan Pillars stands the Gate From whence the fâ—lling Rain wets Cloak and Hat A Child was passing by when strange to tell Vpon his Throat a frozen drop
man of life deprive But life reforms by keeping life alive Thus the best and all the best of men have the same beginning of Happiness as end of Mortality Sect. 32. Against those that Die unwillingly SO it is we generally fear Death neglect Life and die unwillingly And yet this is Ingratitude not to be content with our time allotted They will always be but a few Days saith Seneca if they be numbred The Prolongation of Life nothing avails to Happiness How much more satisfactory is it to put a good Value upon our own than to value the Years of another Did God think me worthy of this time This is enough He might have added more but this is a Favour Here opportunely Horace But having his compleated time enjoy'd Let him like a full Guest the Room avoid Who would endure a Guest that at the end of a Banquet should cry I have not filled my Belly Who can praise that man who departing out this life shall complain and say I have not lived long enough and bemoan himself as if his life were broken off in the third Act 'T is not only a shameful but a ridiculous Complaint The bounds are set but whether a long Life or a short there is to be an end of it So it pleases the Author of Life Th' hast eat and drank enough enough hast plaid And now Time calls that will not be delaid Most admirably Epictetus Thy Honour is at end be gone depart gratefully modestly give place to others Others must be born as thou wert and being born they must have Habitations and Food But should not the first depart what would be left Why art thou insatiable why art thou not satisfied why dost thou stifle and croud the World But more admirably than Epictetus St. Austin At what time soever God would have thee make thy departure let him find thee ready For thou art a Stranger and not Master of the House The House is only let to thee nor hast thou any certain Lease of it What said the Lord thy God When I please when I say the word be gone depart I will turn thee out of thy Inne but I will give thee a House Thou art a Pilgrim upon Earth thou shalt be a Tenant in Heaven He more earnestly expects more confidently hopes for Heavenly Pleasures who denies himself Earthly Delights Who life doth count severe Less cause hath death to fear Sect. 33. Delay is the Rock of dying People WE have admonished the Healthy the Sick we must also admonish the Dying to beware of this Rock Delay How many thousand People have made an ill end only because they have delaied those things which were not to be delaied Why O dying Friend dost thou set apart to Morrow or the next Day for thy Salvation To Morrow is not thine to Day is To Day this very Hour even now do what is to be done Where wilt thou be to Morrow or next Day Emylius and Pluterch that the approach of the Theban Exiles being reported to the Magistrates of the Thebans they being in the midst of their Jollity took no notice of it At the same time Letters being brought to the Chief Magistrate wherein all the Counsels of the Exiles were discover'd and deliver'd to him at the same Banquet he laid them under his Cushion Sealed as they were saying I defer serious Business till to Morrow But this Deferrer of Business with all his Friends was that Night surprized and killed Thus Death uses to surprize those that delay while they deliberate while they muse while they defer he comes and strikes with his unlookt for Dart. Sâ—aint Austin a most faithful Monitor thus instructs one that promises I will live to Morrow God has promised thee pardon but neither God nor Man has promised thee to Morrow If thou hast lived ill live well to Day Fool this Night thy Soul shall be taken from thee God calls thee now exhorts thee now expects that thou shouldst now repent and dost thou delay He is not so patient in suffering as never to be just in revenging He has divided his times Do not say then To morrow I will repent to Morrow I will serve God For though God has promised thee Pardon he has not promised to add to Morrow to thy delay Delay not thy Conversion to God for then God will be angry and destroy the work of thy hands The Day is to be prevented that so often is accustom'd to prevent Sect. 34. A ready Mind I Will receive the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. This Cup is bitterer yet my Saviour drank it up and from the bloody Cross drank the same to me that I should pledge him This Cup is the fatal Cup of Death which Christ which those most dear to Christ which all Mortals drink through an inevitable necessity Why should I alive refuse it Who ever began to live must cease to be that he may begin that life that never shall decay Both Good and Evil Life and Death Poverty and Riches proceed from God What meanest thou then vain Fear wouldst thou not that I should drink the Cup which the Father provided for me which Christ mingled for me I am Mortal and do I wonder at Death When Alexander the Macedonian lay sick and that some of his Spiritual Flatterers seemed to hint to him as if Philip his Physician had mingled Poyson in his Physick the King receives Philip just then coming to him with the Poyson prepared with one hand he gave him his Friends Letter with the other he received the Poyson from him and as he put it to his Mouth he fixed his Eye upon the Physician 's Face to try whether he could discover any Marks of Guilt in his Face but perceiving none and being thereby confirmed in the Fidelity of his Physician he forthwith drank off the Poyson So will I do when my dear Jesus my Physician and Saviour shall reach me that wholesome Cup that is to procure my Eternal Rest while I drink it I will fix my Eyes continually upon this Physician 's Face upon the Countenance of my Crucified Lord wherein I shall read his Love toward me and fearless I will take off the Cup which the more of Love it has the more it has of Salvation Sect. 35. The dying Person arms himself with Faith Hope and Charity THat this may be the more readily and easily done we have set down certain Forms for the Exercise of Faith Hope and Charity To Faith I do protest in the presence of God his Holy Angels and the Church both Triumphant and Militant that I believe what ever the Holy Universal Church believes and that I live and die in the Faith which the same Universal Church Profession in Union which and under her Head our Lord Jesus Christ From which whatever is dissonant I utterly reject and abandon To Hope I have set God always before me for he is on my right hand therefore I shall
not fail Wherefore my heart was glad and my glory rejoiced my flesh also shall rest in hope For why thou shalt not leave my Soul in Hell nor suffer thine Holy One to see Corruption Thou shalt shew me the Path of Life in thy presence is fulness of Joy and in thy right hand is pleasure for evermore Psal 16. v. 8. c. To Charity What shall I return to the Lord for all his Benefits I will receive the Cup of Death from the hand of God and call upon the Name of the Lord. I will call upon God with Praises and I shall be safe from my Enemies Into thy Hands O Lord I commend my Spirit Thou hast created me O God thou hast redeemed me thou hast sanctified me thine am I alive and dead I offer my self up entirely to thy will Jesu Son of David have mercy upon me Sect. 36. What is always to be in the thought and Mouth of a sick and dying Christian IN sickness O Christian if thou art asked how thou do'st or how is it with thee Beware of returning any other Answers but these As God will As God pleases As the Lord's pleasure is So let it be done According to the good pleasure of God As it pleases God so let his will be fulfilled in Earth as it is in Heaven Nor will it be amiss to have these threefold Prefaces continually in thy lips and in thy mind as well in thy Sickness as at the hour of thy Death 1. Blessed be God to all Eternity 2. Have mercy on me O Lord according to thy loving Kindness though I am not worthy of the least of thy mercies O God 3. Oh Lord my God I surrender my self wholly up to thy will let thy will be done Sect 37. Certain Precepts to be particularly observed by a dying Person FIrst Not to depend upon the Merits but with all thy Sins and Omissions to cast thy self into the Fathomeless Ocean of Divine Mercy Next To adhere stedfastly and constantly to the belief of the true Holy Church and to receive the Holy Sacrament Thirdly To forsake all the frail and passing Vanities of this Life and to unite thy self to God with all thy Soul and Affection To breath after the Land of Promise where thou may'st be able to offer up a lasting Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving to God for all his Mercies Fourthly To offer up thy self a Living Sacrifice to the Glory of God for his great good will toward thee and to endure patiently for his sake all the pains and troubles of Sickness and the bitterness of Death Fifthly To set continually before thy Eyes the terrible Death and Passion of thy Lord Christ that so thou mayst unite thy Body and Soul with the wounded Body and afflicted Soul of Christ But the safest way is whatever thou wouldst do in the utmost extremity of thy Sickness to begin to do that in the prime of thy Health Sect. 38. Refreshments for a dying Person COme my People enter thou into thy Chambers and shut thy Doors about thee Hide thy self for a little while till the Indignation be overpast Isa 26. â—0 When I was angry I hid my Face from thee for a little season but through everlasting goodness I have pardoned thee saith the Lord thy Redeemer Isa 54. 8. Why art thou so full of heaviness O my Soul And why art thou so unquieted within me Put thy trust in God for I will yet give him thanks for the help of his Countenance Psalm 42. 6. For we are the Children of the Holy Man and look for the Life which God shall give unto them that never turn their belief from him Tob. 2. 18. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish Mat. 13. 14. For God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have Everlasting Life John 3 16. But if any Man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous And he is the Attonement for our Sins not for our Sins only but for the Sins of all the World 1 John 2. 1. Verily verily I say unto you he that heareth my Word and believeth in him that sent me hath Everlasting Life and shall not come into Damnation but is escaped from Death unto Life John 5. 24. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out Joh. 6. 37. I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me yea though he were dead yet shall he live And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall not dye eternally Joh. 11. 25 26. In my Fathers House are many Mansions 14. 2. If God be on our side who can be against us Who spared not his own Son but gave him for us all how shall he not with him give us all things Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods chosen It is he that justifies who is he that coâ—demnesh It is Christ which dyed yea ratheâ— which is raised again which is also on the Righâ— Hand of God and maketh Intercession for us Roâ— 8. 31 c. For no Man livech to himself and no Man dyâ—th to himself for if we live we live unto the Lord. Whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords For we know that if our Earthly House of this Tabernacle were destroyed we should have a Building of God even a Habitation not made with Hands but Eternal in Heaven For therefore sigh we desiring to be farther cloathed with our House which is from Heaven for if that we be cloathed we shall not be found naked 2 Cor. 1 2 3. Now also Christ shall be magnified in my Body whether it be by Life or by death For Christ is to me Life and Death is to me Advantage Having a desire to depart and be with Christ Philip. 1. 20 21. But our Conversation is in Heaven whence also we look for the Saviour who shall change our vile Body that it may be fashioned like his glorious Body This is a fâ—ithful saying and by all means worthy to be received that Christ Jesus came into the World to save sinners of whom I am chief 1 Tim. 1. 15 But he that shall endure to the end the same shall be saved Mat. 24. 13. Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life Rev. 2. 10. These Fountains refresh and cool the hot Baths of death he shall happily swim therein who plunges himself over Head and Ears in these Rivolets Sect. 39. The Sighs and Prayers to God proper for a Dying Person ENlighten my Eyes O most merciful Jesu that I sleep not in death Lest my Enemies say I have prevailed against him Psal 13. 3 c. Lord Jesu Christ Son of the Living God Lay thy Passion Cross and Death between thy Judgment and my Soul O
Providence in the frequent Examples of Mortality before us continually and in our own sensible Approaches to the Gates of Death I say besides these and infinite more this Mourning-Ring by Gods blessing and our endeavours may prove no small furtherance in our Pilgrimage The whole Work being the most Comprehensive history of Death and Funeral Monuments yet extant each Sermon and Meditation therein is as a several Legacy bequeathed by those upon the Occasion of whose Deaths they were written as by so many Testators who themselves have made a real Experiment of Mortality and left these for our Instruction that surviveve them It is true the dayly Examples of Mortality are so many real Lectures that by a kind of Dumb Oratory perswade us to expect our End but as they are Transcient so our Thoughts of them Vanish Therefore it can be no small Advantage to have always before us this Mourning Ring which will abundantly furnish us with Meditations in this kind and be still constantly putting of us in Mind of our Departed Friend It was a Custom in former times for Great Men to make them Sepulchres in their Gardens to mind them of Death in the midst of the Pleasures of this Life This present Work may not unfitly be termed a Garden wherein whosoever takes a dayly walk will find that Titles of Honour are written in Dust and that Princes and Great Men must Die that their very Monuments are Mortal and will in time be found as Archemedes his Tomb by Cicero in vepretis overgrown with Thorns and Briars And that even Poor Men too who have no Comet Prodigy or Earthquake to Toll the Knell of their Departure But who do as it were steal into their silent Graves with no greater noise than can be made by a Branch of Rosemary Sprig of Lawrel or a Black Ribband have Precious and Immortal Souls to save as well as they with the Methods and Courses both should take to get Saving Grace and the Knowledge of Christ which will prove a Possession for them to Eternity In a word be thy Estate and Condition what it will be here thou maist have both Directions to guide thee and Comforts to support thee in thy Journey on Earth till thou arrive at thy Heavenly Countrey The Author of this Mourning-Ring spent a great part of his Time in Holy and Devout Contemplations upon the things of another Life as this Excellent Piece of his sufficiently shews Missenden gave him Breath And Cambridge Education His Studies are of Death Of Heaven his Meditation His great Care was so to fit and prepare himself for a Happy Death whilst in the World that after this Life ended he might enjoy Eternal Happiness in that which is to come Let us then imitate so great a pattern of Piety that so when we come to Die we may have nothing to do but to Die and willingly to resign up our Souls into the Hands of Almighty God And now being refreshed with these Fragrant Leaves what shall I say Blessed Author art thou yet Alive Breathe longer in this Fruitful Air and extract more out of this so Rich a Stock A Scribe so well Instructed cannot have spent all but must have new or old to bring out of his Treasury Do not hide but improve thy Talent be not only a good and wise but a faithful Steward and yield us more of thy pleasant Fruits Thou hast begun well who what shall hinder thee Thy present were there no succeeding Reward is Spur enough to future Work Religion is Recreation and Heaven is the way to Heaven Good Men are there on this side the Grave Thy longing Soul was still peeping into it and sending thy Thoughts as Spies to view this Promised Land But art thou at Rest from thy Labours This among others thy Work follows thee and hath here erected thy lasting Monument Where ever thou wer 't Buried Obscurity shall not swallow thee Every good Heart that knew thee is thy Tomb and every Tongue writes thee an Epitaph Good Men speak well of thee but above all God delights in thee Thy Thoughts were still fluttering upwards richly fraught with Divine Meditations and ever aspiring till unlading themselves in the Bosom of thy Beloved We are hugely thankful that a few dropt from thee for the Comfort and Example of fainting weeping Mortals below Thou lived'st in deed whilst others live only in shew and hast changed thy Place but not thy Company But my Paper is short and my time shorter I must therefore conclude for the Book is wholly Printed and stops only until I have told thee that I am Thy Friend and Servant till Death c. In Praise of the Author of the Mourning-Ring with the Explanation of the Frontispiece Annext to his Book WIth sighs and groans and plunged Eyes attend The doleful Map of every Mortals End Enter the Sable House of Weeping see The lively Scene of Humane Misery Our Reverend Author could not stop a stream Of tears when treating on so sâ—d a Theme Survey these pious Lines and there you 'l find The lively Pourtraict of the Authors Mind In tears he preacht with tears he seem'd to write And may be term'd the Christian Heraclite He wrote he spoke 'em thus whoever says Needs not another word to speak their praise Since all must follow him or soon or late His pattern let us strive to imitate Our Entrance and our Exit seem to meet Our Swadling Bands almost our Winding-sheet Poor Man from Mother Earth does just arise Then looks abroad returns again and dies Some forty years perhaps with much ado He has prolong'd his tedious Life unto Then under Griefs and Cares he sinks away His Carkass mouldring into native Clay See where his Friends surround the Sacred Urn Where all his fond Relations fondly Mourn And when the Solemn Bell does sadly call The drooping Pomp attends his Funeral How he from Fortunes store can only have A narrow Coffin and a scanty Grave Happy thrice happy they who had the Grace To fix their Treasures in a better place Who e're from hence they did their Lodgings move Were careful to lay in a Stock above Those Death may wound but never can destroy Their House of Weeping proves an House of Joy W. S. Another on the Frontispiece SEest thou frail Man the Emblem of thy State Th' exact Idea of thy hasting Fate The Figure 's drawn to th' Life yea ev'ry part Is grac'd and deckt with more than Zeuxian Art The first Scene shows when Man 's laid out for dead When th' sprightly Soul from the Body 's gone and fled His mournful Friends no longer can endure The lifeless Corps therefore they do immure And shut it close up in a Sable Hearse As totally unfit for all Commerce O're which they showre such store of tears that they Mourning exhaust their Moisture and decay With sorrow wounded Hearts they sob and cry Themselves to death they take their turns to die Because one's death from th'
other draws such grief As kills the Soul in spight of all relief Next is he brought on Shoulders of his friends Along the Streets where dismally attends A Croud of Mourners to the Church where they Are twice fore-told and warn'd they are but Clay First by the words of th' Preacher and then next The Corps tho' tacitly repeats the Text But lo the End 's more dismal than the rest Which brings the final Consummatum est Earth now is laid to Earth and Dust to Dust Earth ope's its Mouth the Coffin stop it must This is the Lâ—t of all none can it flee Earth's not quite full there 's room yet left for thee Sic raptim Scripsit H. C. AN ACROSTICK In the cold House of Mother Earth must lye Our Mortal Bodies Holy Souls will fly Home to their God their King their Native Lands Not th' weeping House but th' House not made with hands Death then thou King of Terrors do thy worst Unto Christs chosen Ones his only Trust Now now thou raging Hector 't is too late To turn them out this House this blessed state Of Bliss Therefore thou Tyrant I reply Now dolor's exil'd and a Weeping Eye S. S. THE CONTENTS OF THE FIRST Part OF THE Mourning-Ring THE Introduction to the House of Weeping from p. 1. to p. 15. The house of weeping p. 15. The Subjects Treated on under this General Head are viz. Jesus wept John 11. 35. Sermon 1. p. 15. Death parts the dearest Friends p. 30. The last sigh p. 36. Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he p. 44. He 's carried by Angels into Abraham's Bosom p. 49. The Winding-sheet p. 77. Tears for a Dead-Husband p. 99. The Dying Knell p. 111. Put on Mourning Apparel p. 117. But now he is dead wherefore should I fast p. 126. Bury my Dead out of my sight p. 146. The Funeral Procession p. 150. The Worms shall feed sweetly on him p. 172. Prepare to follow p. 174. Look upon every day as your last p. 205. The Swan-like Note of a Dying Christian 216. The Eye that hath seen him shall see him no more p. 231. The Good Mans Epitaph p. 235. Hopes of a Joyful Resurrection p. 244. The Yearly Mourner p. 253. Weep not she is not dead but sleepeth p. 255. Good-night p. 262. Death-Bed Thoughts p. 81. The Fatal Moment p. 281. The Treatment of the Dead in order to their Burial p. 284. The Funeral Solemnity p. 291. An Account of the Death and last Sayings of the most Eminent Persons from the Crucifixion of our Blessed Saviour down to this present time To which will be added in the second part of the Mourning Ring all the Remarkable Deaths omitted in the First Part. THE CONTENTS OF THE Second Part OF THE Mounrnig-Ring Which said Book is now going to the Press to supply what was wanting in the First Part and to compleat this Funeral Gift ADvice to those that are Diseased either in Body or Mind The solemn Wishes of ' a Person giving up the Ghost The Death watch The Sick-man's Passing-Bell A Conference between the Mourners The History of those that have died suddenly c. Observations on the weekly Bills of Mortality The Author's Tears or Meditations on his own Sickness Death and Funeral The Danger of a Death-bed Repentance A walk among the Tombs or a Discourse of Funeral Monuments of the several Customs of Burials from Adam to this time of Epitaphs and other Funeral Honours The Pilgrim's Guide from his Cradle to his Grave A Discourse of the Four last Things composed chiefly of the Authors own Experiences during his late Illness ☞ This Second Part will be Published in a few Weeks ERRATA IN Page 216. Of the House of Weeping or Dying Christian read The Swan-like Note of a Dying Christian THE Introduction TO THE HOUSE OF Weeping Vpon first hearing of the Death of a Neighbour or of a House-weeping for the loss of a Friend think with thy self and say HOW is my Neighbour Dead Then surely the Bell rings out and tells me in him that I am Dead also The Soul â—f my Neighbour is gone out and as a Man who â—ad a Lease of 1000 years after the expiration â—f a short one or an Inheritance after the Life â—f a Man in a Consumption he is now entred â—nto the possession of his better Estate Time was his Race but newly was begun Whose Glass is run He in the troubled Sea was heretofore Though now on Shore And 't is not long before it will be said Of me as 't is of him alas he 's Dead His Soul is gone whither Who saw it come â—n or who saw it go out No body yet every body is sure he had one and hath none If I will ask not a few Men but almost whole Bodies whole Churches What becomes of thâ— Souls of the Righteous at the departing thereof from the Body I shall be told by some That they attend an expiation a purification in a place of torment by some that they attend the fruition of the sight of God in a place of rest but yet but of expectation by some That they pass to aâ— immediate possession of the presence of God Saint Augustine studied the nature of the Soul as much as any thing but the salvation of the Soul and he sent an express Messenger to Saint Hierome to consult of some things concerning the Soul But he satisfies himself with this Let the departure of my Soul to Salvation be evident to my Faith and I care the less how dark the entrance of my Soul into my Body be to my Reason It is the going out more than the coming in that concerns us The Soul of my Neighbour this Bell tell me is gone out Whither Who shall tell me that I know not who it is much less what he was The condition of the Man and the course of his Life which should tell me whither he is gone I know not I was not there in his sickness nor at his death I saw not his way noâ— his end nor can ask them who did thereby tâ— conclude or argue whither he is gone But yet I have one nearer me than all these mine own Charity I ask that and that tells me he is gone to everlasting rest I owe him a good opinion it is but thankful Charity in me because I reâ—eived benefit and instruction from him when his â—â—ll tolled But for his Body How poor a wretched thing is that We cannot express it â— fast as it grows worse and worse That Boâ—y which scarce three minutes since was such a House as that that Soul which made but one â—tep from thence to Heaven was scarce throughâ—y content to leave that for Heaven That Boâ—y which had all the parts built up and knit â—y a lovely Soul now is but a Statue of Clay â—nd now these Limbs melted off as if that Clay â—ere but Snow and now the whole House is â—ut a handful of Sand so much Dust
7. 13. The Lord will love you and will bless you and multiply you He will also bless the fruit of the Womb unto you and the fruit of your Land and your Corn and your Wine and your Oyl and the increase of your kine and the flocks of your sheep in the places where ye shall live c. 28. 12. He will open unto you his good treasure the Heaven to give the rain unto your land in his season and to bless all the work of your hands and ye shall lend unto many and ye shall not borrow Gen. 49. 25. He shall help you and bless you with the blessings of heaven above blessings of the deep that lyeth under and blessings of the breasts and of the Womb. And that he may thus bless you the same Lord direct your hearts and preserve you in his Blessing All that I can do now is to pray for you and my weakness will hardly permit me to do that Yet so long as I can speak I trust I shall pray and in my petitions remember both my self and you While I am yet alive it is my duty to pray for you and it is your duty also to pray for me The Lord grant that we may all do what he requireth at our hands Do not ye grieve too much that I am so near my rest For it is the Decree of my God and the longing expectation of my wearied self The Lord give you patience to endure this Affliction and the Lord give me patience and perseverance unto the end 1 King 2. 2 3. Now I go the way of all the Earth Keep ye the charge of the Lord your God to walk in his ways to keep his statutes and his Commandments and his judgments and his testimonies as it is written in the Scriptures that ye may prosper in all that ye do and whithersoever ye turn your hands Deut. 33. 7. The Lord give you the blessing of Judah and hear your voices and let your hands be sufficient for you and let him be an helper to you from your Enemies And the Lord give you the blessing of Benjamin vers 12. The Lord cover you all the day long and dwell between your shoulders And the Lord give you the blessing of Joseph v. 13. Blessed of the Lord be your Land for the precious things of Heaven for the dew and for the deep that coucheth beneath v. 14. and for the precious Fruits brought forth by the Sun v. 16. and for the precious things put forth by the Moon and for the precious things of the Earth and fulness thereof and for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush v. 27. The eternal God be your Refuge and underneath you the everlasting Arms. 2 Sam. 7. 26 29. And now O Lord God let it please thee to bless the House of thy Servant and with thy blessing let the Family of thy Servant be blessed for ever Deut. 26. 15. Look down from thine holy Habitation from Heaven and bless them Psal 67. 1. O my God be merciful unto them and bless them and cause thy face to shine upon them And now with Jacob I have made an end of commanding you and ready I am to gather up my Feet into the Bed and to yield up the Ghost and to be gathered unto my Fathers Gen. 49. 33. Only come ye near my dear ones that I may kiss you and that my cold and clammy hands may be laid upon your heads that I may once more bless you and die Fare well my pretty ones farewell the children of my dear affection I must leave you and I hope I shall leave my God with you who will be unto you a Father of mercies and a God of all consolation 2 Cor. 13. 11. Once more farewell Love as brethren and the God oâ—… and peace be with you 1 Pet. 3. 8. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your Spirits Grace be with you all Amen 2 Tim. 4. 23. Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he AMong the many serious and weighty Questions which a sober considering Person may propound unto himself that is of none of the least concernment which is mentioned by the Holy Man Job Chap. 14. verse 10. Yea Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he We may take the words asunder and consider them apart Yea and as much as to say it is a Truth past all doubt there is no nay to be said to it it is sealed with Yea and Amen for it shall certainly come to pass at some time or other that Man must give up the Ghost and as much as to say his Soul shall be separated from his Body Those two loving twins being at the point of Death to go several ways they must part at last And for as much as it is evident to sense that the body returns to the dust what way the Soul taketh is the great Question as followeth Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he Or what becometh of his Soul when it hath once taken its leave of the body This Question may more easily than comfortably be answered by most thus every separated Soul goes either to Heaven or Hell But alas those two places are not more distant than different in their Natures Heaven is a place of eternal happiness Hell is a place of everlasting Misery And therefore O my Soul it is both good and necessary that thou shouldst think before hand what will be the place of thy future abode The Body which is the Souls present habitation it is not as Job speaketh a body of Brass but a body of Clay and therefore when the stroke of death shall knock that earthen Vessel in pieces where then Oh my Soul will be thy next lodging Either thou must lye down in everlasting burnings or else rest upon the Mountain of Myâ—rh and the Hill of Frankincense with sweet Jesus Man when he hath as an â—hireling accomplished his day ought seriously to consider of the approaching Night And seeing it may be said as of Ephraim thou hast here and there a gray hair upon thy head and the shadows of the Evening are lengthened out it is neither safe nor prudent Oh my Soul to be serious about trifles or to trifle about serious things Before the great and terrible day of account therefore Oh my Soul do thou call thy self to account and ask these questions of thy self Canst thou think of going to Hell with comfort Or can the thoughts of Heaven be any otherwise comfortable than as thou believest it to be thy Heaven Canst thou rejoice when thou thinkest how many shall put on Crowns of Glory and yet thy self have no part or lot in that matter Art thou deeply convinced Oh Man what â— glittering and a glorious Divine Ray doth quicken actuate and ennoble that Lump of Atoms which thy Body is composed of And when that Body of thine shall be crumbled into Ashes by one touch of the Almighty hast thou forethought what shall become of
and scorn thee once thou stoppedst thine ears from the cry of Lazarus now he â—lops his ears from thy cry once thou turnedst away thy face from Lazarus now he turneth away his face from thee once thou deniedst crumbs to Lazarus now he denieth water to thee not a spoonful not a drop of water Oh Abraham but now if I had my goods I would give Lazarus all for a drop of Water Now if I had a million of Gold I would give it all for a drop of water now if I had a world of wealth I would give iâ— all to Lazarus therefore good Abraham one droâ— But he answered No not a drop Not a drop Then cursed be the day wherein I wâ— born and cursed be the night wherein I was conceived cursed be my Father that begot me and cursed be â— Mother that bare me cursed be the place that kâ— me cursed be the delicate Robes that cloathed me curâ— be the delicate Meat that fed me let me be most accâ—sed of all creatures both in Heaven and Earth And â— leave we him cursing who indeed was most accused and learn that the souls of the damned bâ—ing separated from their bodies are in Hâ— Torments But to conclude all in one word and to appâ— all that hath been spoken to this present tâ— and place let us all in our vocations and placâ— follow the advice of a late Eminent â—â— viz. to learn to have mercy on Lazarus that iâ— on our poor Brethren that we may find merâ— and that mercy may rejoyce in Judgment aâ— you that are Magistrates of this City think apâ— Lazarus that lyeth in your Streets that pineth at your gates that starveth in your Prisons for want of Crumbs Heark how they cry Bread bread a loaf of bread for Jesus sake Who would not hear them who would not pity them who would not comfort them Also see that you chuse good and merciful Officers in your Spittles and Hospitals that may feed Lazarus and not fill their own Purses and Bellies as the rich man did And you that sit in the seat of Judgment and are Gods â—here on earth let the matter be rightly judged between the rich man and poor Lazarus let equiâ—ty be in your right hand and justice in your left consider that Lazarus is poor and that he is not aâ—le to wage Law against the rich man yet defend â—im and let him have right Defend the Fatherâ—ess and Widdow See that such as be in need â—nd necessity have their right then shall the â—ighteous God of Heaven bless you and bless the â—and for your sake then shall we be with Lazarus â— the blessed place of rest whilst wretched Dives â— tormented in Hell flames even in that burnâ—g prison where angry and enraged Devils shall â—e his Tormentors to Eternity where he will be â—r ever crying and groaning out in this kind of â—oleful manner following viz. â—h cursed cursed most accursed Soul â— Where am I now what Friends are those that howl â—ey seize upon me they torment me sore â— I Shreik with anguish they in fury roar Earths deep center dark and dreadful Cell Where only angry damned Spirits dwell grossest darkness yet my sight so clear Most hideous Visions to the same appear In Hell indeed where I endure that curse Which shall not cease but be hereafter worse In fire infernal out of measure hot Which ever burns and yet consumeth not I rave I curse and I accuse my fate As if such torments were unjust too great But Conscience nips me with not so I try To kill that worm but oh it will not die Most wretched I besides the Woes I have Methinks I hear my bones within my Grave As troubled with some fatal Trumpets sound Begin to shake and shiver in the ground Alas alas what shall of me become When wretched go ye cursed is my doom How shall my Soul and Body both affrighted Then curse the hour they were again united How shall the Devils then with fury driven Sieze me for Hell when sentenc'd out of Heaven And on me with much insultation rage As if my torments might their own asswage Then with the hideous howling heard of Hell I shall be thrown down to that dreadful Cell Where we in flames which never fail shall burn From whence we never never shall return The Winding-Sheet NOw where am I If I look behind me I see Death hastning after me nay that Death â—s at my Back If I look forward I see Heaven and Hell before me my self standing on the very brink of Time and my next step for ought I know may be into Eternity of joy or sorrow where I did but now by Faith see oâ—hers were there I my self must quickly really be there I shall rejoyce with them If I look a little before me I may see my self cast down upon a Bed of sickness my Friends weeping and fearing I shall die the Physicians are puzled and at a loss giving me over for the Grave and my self gasping for Life and breathing out my last If I look but a little before me I can as â—t were hear my Friends saying He is dead he is dead he is gone he is departed and then as it were I might see them haling me out of my bed and wrapping me in My Winding Sheet and nailing me up in my Coffin I might see my Grave a digging and men hired to carry me on their shoulders from my house to my Long Home Relations and Neighbours following after to see me lodged in the Dust to lye and rot among the Dead But before all this can be done to my Body my Soul hath taken it's flight into Eternity where it is without change or alteration for ever to be with God or Devils Oh that I â—ould then work it on my heart that I must quickly be either in Heaven or Hell that I have a long Race to run by a short breath if I enter Heaven a great way to go in a few hours The Sun who goes so many miles in a minute the stars of the firmament which go so very many more go not so fast as my body to the Earth In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease I feel the victory In the twinkling of an eye I can scarce see instantly the tast is insipid and faâ—uous instantly the appetite is dull and desireless instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless and in an instant sleep which is the Picture the copy of Death is taken away that the original Death it self may succeed and that so I might have death to the life To return from the dead is impossible all my life then I will prepare for death They call death Charons boat I am sure it wafts the Soul from a material to an immaterial World I have but one step to Eternity it is from life to death I will be preparing this body of mine to win the garland of a blessed Immortality O the
to live To die well is too busie a work to be done well on a sudden Deferring as well as presuming makes many men implicite Atheists It was a sweet Speech and might well have become an Elder Body which a young innocent Child of my own used in extremity of sickness Mother what shall I do I shall die before I know what death is I beseech you tell me what is Death and how I should die Now of the way to die well HE that would end his days well must spend them well 'T is no great matter to live all do as much but few die well But Death falls sad and heavy upon such Are little known at home abroad too much Man is ready to die before he lives but therefore he liveth a time in the world that he may die betime to the world His Years come to an end as a Tale that is told His days deceive him for they pass as a shadow by moon-shine then appearing longest when they draw nearest to an end Job saith My days are swifter than a Post they flee away and see no good The art of dying well is better learnt by Practice than by Precept Unto dying well three Things are most requisite First To be often meditating upon Death Secondly To be dying daily Thirdly To die by little and little The first step of dying well OFten meditation of Death brings a man to die in ease for it alleviates pains expels fear eases cares cures sins corrects death it self The very Thought of Eternity will make easie and pleasant all things we suffer in a miserable Life How can we be said not to die when we live among the dead We live with so many deaths about us as we cannot but often think of dying Every Humour in us engenders Diseases enough to kill us so that our Bodies are but living Graves and we die not because we are sick but because we live And when we recover from sickness we escape not sickness but the disease All this life is but a death of an hour Familiarity with Death a soveraign Cordial against Death THerefore be acquainted with Death betimes for through acquaintance death will lose his horror like unto an ill Face though it be as formidable as a monster yet often viewing will make it familiar and free it from distaste walk every day with Joseph a turn or two in thy Garden with death and thou shalt be well acquainted with the face of death but shalt never feel the sting of death Death is black but comely Philostrates lived seven years in his Tomb that he might be acquainted with it against his bones came to lye in it Some Philosophers have been so wrapt in this contemplation of Death and Immortality that they discourse so familiarly and pleasingly of it as if a fair death were to be preferred before a pleasant life This is well for Nature's part and Moralists think this enough for their part to conceive so But Christians must go farther and search deeper They must try where the power of death lyes They shall find that the power of every man's death lyes in his own sin That death never hurts a man but with his own weapons It always turns upon us some sin it finds in us The sting of Death is sin Pluck out the sting death cannot hurt us The way to die well is to die often Let a man often and seriously think of dying then let him sin if he can said Picus Mirandula In Sardis there grew an Herb called Appium Sardis that would make a Man lie laughing when he was deadly sick Such is the operation of sin Beware therefore of this Risus Sardonicus laughter of Sardis We count it a fearful thing for a man to be author of his own death but a sinful life slays the soul and so while we live we kill or lose our better life The Commandment that says Thou shalt not kill especially forbids the murthering of our own Souls And herein is our happiness though we live in sin yet we die without sin Therefore to me Death is welcome not as an end of troubles but of sin Into thy hands I commend my Spirit for thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of Truth The Second Step To be dying daily THE second step to dying-well is to die daily Methinks O my Soul it is but yesterday since we met and now we are upon parting neither shall we I hope be unwilling to take our leaves for what advantage can it be to us to hold out longer together Are we not assured 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 Why therefore O my Soul shouldst thou be loth to part upon fair terms Thou O my Soul to the possession of that happy Mansion which thy dear Saviour hath from all Eternity prepared for thee in his Father's house and thou O my body to that quiet repository of the grave till ye both shall happily meet in the blessed Resurrection of the Just I die that I may not die I die daily saith Saint Paul So many days as thou livest reckon so many lives for he that disposeth all his days as one life can neither wish nor fear to morrow The old saying is a good saying Do that every day which thou wouldst do the same day that thou diest 'T is an excellent thing to make all we can of life before Death To die by little and little the third step THE third step to dying well is to die by little and little Naturally we are every day dying by degrees the faculties of our minds the strength of our bodies our common senses are every day decaying by little and little every sin is more than a disease and a wicked life makes a continual death Impiè vivere est diu mori To live wickedly is to be long a dying Therefore saith the good Man We are killed all the day long He that useth this course every day To die by little and little to him let Death come when it will it can neither be terrible nor sudden If we keep a Courser to run a Race we lead him daily over the place to acquaint him by degrees with all things in the way that when he comes upon his speed he do not start or turn aside for any thing he sees So let us inure our souls and then we shall run with boldness the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the Author and finisher of our salvation To die by little and little is first to mortifie our lesser sins and not to say with Lot Is it not a little one There be also a sort of little deaths sickness of body loss of Friends and the like Use these in their kind and you may make them kindly helps to dying well Every change is a certain imitation of Death Let a man go out as he came into the World
which was first by a life of Vegetation then of Sense afterwards of Reason To die daily is this daily to attend upon and exercise that great duty of Mortification according to our solemn Vow and Covenant made to God at our Baptism which Vow and Covenant we renew at our first coming to the holy and blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper Alas how few do consider or understand this great duty of Mortification and fewer practise it And yet this above all others is the Grace which fitteth and prepareth us for Death this Grace putteth us into the possession of Life Spiritual and by perseverance in it into life Eternal Rom. 8. 13. But if ye live after the flesh that is after the appetites lusts affections of the flesh ye shall die But I bless God I have nothing to do with the World nor the World with me Riches Pleasures honours transport me not affect me not nor am I dejected and afflicted with poverty common pains sicknesses disgrace or scorn Christ liveth in me and I in him therefore I humbly thank the power of his grace I can die as willingly as I can go out of one Room into another For the manner of dying AMongst Men it is a matter of chief mark the manner of a man's death The chief good of Man is his good departure out of this life Before you die set your house in order He that hath not a house yet hath a soul no soul can want affairs to set in order for this final dissolution The chief grace of the Theatre is the last Scene It is the Evening that Crowns the day and we think it no good sign of a fair Morrow when the Sun sets in a Cloud The end Crowns every Work Most men wish a short Death because death is always accompanied with pain We die groaning To lie but an hour under Death is tedious but to be dying a whole day we think beyond the strength of humane patience He that desires to be dissolved and be with Christ dies not only patiently but delightfully Happy is he that after due preparation dies ere he be aware so likewise is he happy that by long sickness sees death afar off for the one dies like Elias the other like Elisha both blessedly The best posture to be found in when Death comes is in the exercise of our calling Press saith St. Paul towards the mark for the prize of the high calling Phil. 3. A good Man by his good will would die praying and do as the Pilgrim doth go on his way singing and so adds the pains of singing to that of going Who yet by this surplus of pain unwearies himself of pain But some wretches think God rather curious than they faulty if a few sighs with a Lord have mercy upon us be not enough at the last gasp But commonly good Men are best at last even when they are dying It was a Speech worthy the commendation and frequent remembrance of so divine a Bishop as Augustine which is reported of an aged Father in his time who when his Friends comforted him on his sick bed and told him they hoped he should recover answered If I shall not die at all well but if ever why not now Surely it is folly what we must do to do unwillingly I will never think my Soul in a good case so long as I am loth to think of dying There is no Spectacle in the World so profitable or more terrible than to behold a dying man to stand by and see a man dismanned Curiously didst thou make me in the lowest part of the Earth saith David but to see those Elements which compounded made the Body To see them divided and the man dissolved is a rusul sight Every dying man carries Heaven and Earth wrapped up in his bosom and at this time each part returns homeward Certainly death hath great dependency on the course of man's life and life it self is as frail as the Body which it animates Augustus Caesar accounted that to be the best death which is quick and unexpected and which beats not at our doors by any painful sickness So often as he heard of a man that had a quick passage with little sense of pain he wished for himself that Euthanafie While he lived he used to set himself between his two friends Groans and Tears When he died he called for his Looking-glass commanded to have his Hair and Beard kembed his reviled Cheeks smoothed up Then asking his Friends if he acted his part well when they answered Yes why then says he do you not all clap your hands for me Despair in dying may as well arise from weakness of Nature as from trouble of Mind But by neither of these can he be prejudiced that hath lived well Raving and other strange Passions are many times rather the effect of the Disease than coming from the mind For upon Death's approaches choler fuming to the Brain will cause distempers in the most patient Soul In these cases the fairest and truest judgment to be made is that sins of sickness occasioned by violence of Disease in a patient man are but sins of infirmity and not to be taken as ill signs or presages A Son of so many Tears cannot but be saved I will not despair in respect of that man's impatient dying whom the Worm of Conscience had not devoured living Seldom any enter into Glory with ease yet the Jews say of Moses His soul was sucked out of his mouth with a kiss David in this case the better to make his way prayed and cried Lord spare me a little O spare me that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more Indeed to Ezekias some Years of Days were lent But we are not worthy of that favour we must not expect that God will bring back the shadow of degrees when once it is gone down in the Dial of Ahaz we must time it as we may and be content to live and die at uncertainties Therefore as a sick man hearkens to the Clock so let us watch Death For sudden coming of Death finding a weak soul unprepared makes it desperate and leaves it miserable Death approaching what our last Thoughts should be SEneca saith the last day judgeth all the precedent The last is the best dying words are weightiest and make deepest impressions Our last thoughts are readiest to spend themselves upon somewhat that we loved best while we lived The soul it self when it is entring into glory breaths Divine things At this time a good man's tongue is in his breast not in his mouth his words are then so pithy and so pectoral that he cries O Lord Jesus take thine own into thy own custody Anatomists say there are strings in a man's tongue which go to his heart when these break Man speaks his heart Oh that they were wise said Moses and would understand and fore-see their latter end When he was dying Christs last words in the Bible
felicity for the remoter distance and separation of the bodies neither shall the bodies either be sensible of the disjunction or shall it retard their meeting at the general day Although the bones of Jacob were carried into the land of Canaan and buried in the cave of the field of Machpelah which Abraham bought according as he had made his son Joseph swear to him before his death Gen. 50. 13. 5. yet he had formerly buried his beloved Rachel in the way to Ephrah which is Bethlehem and there Jacob set a pillar upon her Grave which was called the pillar of Rachel's grave cap. 35. 19 20. Thus do I sit and muse about the burial of him whom so dearly I loved Yet methinks I could most readily preserve him from the dust if either it were in my power or might bring me content But go he must and I must follow him This narrow room of his coffin must be put in trust with his mouldring earth and he who in his life time was entertained with variety of spacious chambers must now securely sleep in the chamber of a Grave O how it grieveth me to see this effect of sin Had not Adam fallen my husband had not died But oh he 's dead and since nor tears nor sigh's nor groans nor cries have power to recall him it is therefore my duty and it shall be my care to express my love to him in the rites of his funeral Friends shall carry him neighbours shall attend on him and my tears shall embalm him The preacher shall be instructed in the vertue which adorned him that so he may commend them to others for their due imitation The hearers shall greedily attend to the praises of the dead and not only acknowledg their truth but contentedly wish like him to live and like him to die Now O now another storm approacheth in mine eyes for the company beginneth to approach my doors and my neighbours and my friends are hastening to my house But when they come let them not think to comfort me lest they add to my grief while they vainly strive to conquer my Passion I cannot allow an intermission or forbearance of Tears lest I should appear unnatural If I do not weep I I did not love O methinks I could willingly weep my self into a Statue that I might become his monument It is the height of injustice to forbid my Tears since the delight of mine Eyes is now to be carryed to the place of Oblivion Methinks every thing seemeth to call for a Tear which is the object of a Sense Those Bells which so mournfully accord in their Tunes invite my Neighbours to come to the Funeral yet not to appear with empty Eyes unless they come to learn how to weep These Herbs these Strewings which lately were fresh and at ease in their Beds are willing to lye even under the feet of these that will mourn And because they have no Eyes themselves to weep us a Tear they lye to receive what shall drop from the mourners These Sprigs of Rosemary do call to my remembrance with what joy and delight they pleased me at my Nuptials But lest I should forget the greater happiness of the marriage with the Lamb even this Herb which served at our Wedding does attend at the Funeral O methinks these Spriggs have sad Rhetorick sitting on their leaves for those drops of Water which hang upon them were once the Blood of the fragrant Flowers and now are the Tears of the drooping Plants So ready were these Spriggs to come when I desired them that they slipped from their stems to attend these Obsequies These exotick Perfumes which delight the sense are willing to be burned rather than the living shall be offended with the dead These sable Garments strike Terror into the Eye and command the spectator to lend us a Sigh And what other Lecture is read here or taught but God's decree of Man s Mortality The chief Speaker and Orator is he who hath now forgotten to speak for the locking up of his Senses the silence of his Tongue and the coldness of his pale and frozen Body have more force to prove the shortness of our Lives than the most Eloquent Strains of the best Rhetorician These Bells assure me that my Life is but a sound a noise an air These Persumes tell me That it is but a Vapour These Herbs do teach me that Flesh is as Grass 1 Pet. 1. 24. And these Tears these early Tears which so suddenly arise when my Heart doth call teach me Mortality in their hasty falling And who can choose but weep for the shortness of our Lives Who can forbear a Tear at the Funeral of a Friend It was a curse inflicted upon the wicked Jews that they neither should be buried nor yet lamented They shall die of grievous deaths saith the Prophet they shall not be lamented neither shall they be buried but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth and their carkasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and for the beasts of the earth Jer. 16. 4. Grace must and most willingly shall have the chief predominance but let Nature have likewise it s qualifyed Drops so they grow not immoderate Though my loss be the greatest to whom he was a Husband yet others may weep too to whom he was a Friend When Joseph went to bury his Father then all the servants of Pharaoh went with him and the Elders of his house and all the Elders of the Land of Egypt And all the house of Joseph and his Brethren and his Fathers House And they came to the Threshing-Floor of Arad and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation and he made a mourning for his Father seven days Gen. 50. 7 8 10. When Lazarus was buried and the Jews saw Mary rise up hastily and go out they little imagined that she went to meet the Lord of Life but they followed her saying She goeth unto the Grave to weep there Jo. 11. 31. When her Brother Lazarus was dead she wept and her sister wept and her friends the Jews wept And when Christ did see them all thus weeping he was so far from blaming them that he wept himself ver 35. When Josiah was slain his servants took him out of the Chariot wherein he was wounded and put him in the second Chariot which he had and they brought him to Jerusalem And he died and was buried in one of the Sepulchres of his Fathers and all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah 2 Chron. 35. 24. When Samuel was dead all Israel lamented him and buried him in Ramah in his own City 1 Sam. 28. 3. When the old Prophet took up the Carkass of the Man of God who had been slain by a Lion he laid it upon the Ass and brought it back and came to the City to mourn and to bury him And he laid his Carkass in his own grave and they mourned over him saying Alas my
fault ought not to have lessened my Love to which both Nature and Religion did strongly oblige me Had he loved me but coldly and faintly as divers do yet I ought to have warmed his affection with the fervency of mine But oh he dearly loved he cordially affected me and yet his love and his affection could not prolong his life Had my Brother and I been Idolaters together I might have believed that that sin had slain my Brother But as our Love was constant so our Religion was undefiled yea the strength of our Love was founded on the purity of our Religion and yet he hath payed his debt to Nature The Lord did threaten to set the Egyptians against the Egyptians and that they should fight every one against his Brother Is 19. 2. Those Egyptians were heathens and Enemies to the Church but my Brother and I were united both in the Profession and the Love of Christianity and yet through our sins I fear that even we destroy each other My sins are partly punished in his death and his death hath given me so deep a wound that peradventure I shall not long survive him Our love was so entire that methink's I could willingly sleep with him in his Grave for while I live my breast is but his walking monument Such love as ours did not always possess the hearts of some as nearly allyed which maketh me sigh to think that ever there were any which had layen successively in the self same womb and yet did not joyn in the unity of affection Methinks the complaint of the Church may be part of an Elegy upon my deceased brother for with her I may cry out and that justly too The good man is perished out of the earth But neither can I say that he was a Jew in supplanting or an enemy to the Church lying in wait for blood What secret Devil did guide both the tongue and the hand of Joab when under the colour of friendship he asked Amasa Art thou in health my brother And took him by the beard with the right hand to kiss him 2. Sam. 20. 9. and yet even at that time smote him with his sword in the fifth ribb and shed out his bowels to the ground that he died v. 10. What cursed fiend did guide the tongue of that wicked miscreant whom the Psalmist chargeth thus and saith Thou sittest and speaketh against thy brother thou slanderest thine own mothers son Psal 50. 20. Had my brother either supplanted me or hunted me with a net or sought to slay me or slandered me with his tongue then I might peradventure have saved this great expence of my Tears But he was always so good a Brother that I could never justly charge him with the least discourtesie O no we took sweet Counsel together and walked unto the House of God in company Psal 55. 14. I may say of him as Nehemiah spake of Hanani the Ruler of the Pallace He was a faithful man and feared God above many Neh. 7. 2. His blood was near to me but his Soul was nearer His person I loved as I was prompted to it by Nature But his inner man I more zealously affected to which I was allured by his gracious endowments yet neither his Counsel nor his society nor his fidelity nor his Religion could preserve him from the sentence of a temporal death O what would I not do to call him back again What would I not give to have him restored to life again But all that I can either do or give cannot perswade his Soul to return back to its Prison Well then seeing that I cannot fetch him from the Grave I will yet send up my sighs towards the place where he is blessed This I may do without any check either of reason or religion It was a curse which God did inflict upon Jehojakim for his sins That they should not lament for him saying Aâ— my Brother Jer. 22. 17 18. But on the contrary when Deborah though she was but Rebekah's Nurse was buried beneath Bethel under an Oak the name of it was called Allon-Bachuth the Oak of weeping Gen. 35. 8. When the enemies of David were visited by sickness he behaved himself as though they had been his Friends or his Brethren Yea he bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his Mother Ps 35. 14. But he who now is dead was not my enemy but my friend yea and no common friend but a Brother yea and not a Brother in the flesh so much as in affection even as dear as a Mother Why then should I not sorrow for the loss of such a Brother I will grieve I will lament when I remember the Love and the courtesies which he shewed unto me and I will speak in the language of the Church to Christ and say O thou that wert my Brother that sucked the breasts of my Mother when I should find thee without I would kiss thee yet I should not be despised Cant. 8. 1. I will lament him as David did Saul and Jonathan and say the Beauty of Israel is dead 2 Sam. 1 19. he was lovely and pleasant in his life ver 23. I am distressed for thee my Brother very pleasant hast thou been unto me thy love to me was wonderful passing the love of Women v. 26. But what advantage to the dead are the tears of the living Can my sighs inspire life into his bosom Can a draught of my tears fetch him back again to life O no 't is this 't is this therefore that doth heighten and increase my sorrows even that my tears cannot recover him whom I lament But cease fond woman cease thy sobbs and cryes of discontent By the extremity of thy passion thou mayest hasten to his Grave yet if thou murderest thy self with excessive sorrow thy soul may be deprived of the society of his 'T is true indeed 't is most true Little can I expect to come to heaven if I violently force my self from the earth Why then do I take on as if I either suspected his happiness or doubted of following him What comfort can it bring to his body of earth to have it cabined in the Grave with his dispersing ashes The dust of both of us may mix in the vault and yet no joy arise to our sensless ashes If his earth was that which drew mine affection I see my fondness in the corruption of that Earth but if his gracious soul was the object of my love I must strive to come where that surviveth To heaven he 's gone and to heaven I 'll hasten and because I will go the surest way I will walk in those paths which faith and patience shall direct me in I will no more disturb the peace of my mind since that cannot help me to the company of him Weep indeed I do I am enforced unto it 't is the law of nature 't is an act of necessity I cannot avoid it Yet though I weep I will labour for content
that was for his Son an innocent Babe who was no sooner born into this miserable World but visited with a mortal Disease and so cut off for the Life of Vrias in his Infancy The Life of his Son Ammon was not satisfaction sufficient nor of his dearly beloved Son Absalom nor yet the Life of his Son Adonijah but also this poor harmless Creature must suffer together with them now he is dead It is enacted by Almighty God in the high Court of Parliament in the Kingdom of Heaven unto all men that they shall once Die and therefore says David Psalm 89. 48. What man is he that liveth and shall not see death Shall he deliver his Soul from the Hand of the Grave There are two sorts of Deaths Corporal which is either natural or violent or Eternal Death which is called a Spiritual Death or the second Death The first being only a Separation of the Soul from the Body with all the evils that attend thereon this sweet Child suffered Death is like an Archer making man his Butt who when he shooteth pierceth in this manner following In shooting over us he wounds our Ancestors behind us our Servants on our right hand our Wives and Children on our left hand our Friends and in the midst our selves so that as St. Paul says Heb. 9. 27. No one can escape him So that you may see as Job saith man's time is appointed his months determined and his days which are but few upon Earth numbered yea and as our Saviour Christ says his very last hour is limited He was made of the mould of the Earth and therefore thither shall he return and as all have one entrance into Life the like going out shall they have to death Naked came we into this most miserable World and naked shall we return again If Adam had not eaten of the forbidden Fruit we had never known what Sin had been and so by consequence Death which is a thing that now cannot by any means be avoided before that we knew what sin was we had strong Houses But ever since God let 's us dwell in thatch'd Cottages and clay Walls every Disease like a storm is ready to totter us down In old time men us'd to live long but now many are thrust out of house and harbour at less than an hours warning yea and even in their infancy at their first coming into the world as this poor innocent Child was and not only for their own faults for their own transgressions but for their Parents In the Third of Gen. you may find mans Exodus and that is thou shalt die Ever since Old Adam our great great great Grandfather neglected his Duty towards God Death the lodge of all mens lives comes with insensible degrees upon the sons of men it 's impartial hand is always destroying no Wisdom can appease no Policy can prevent nor any earthly Riches redeem us from the Grave semel aâ—t bis morimur omnes some once some twice we must all die we have an old Statute for it that this earthly Tabernacle must suffer corruption and therefore the Poet sings sweetly Post hominem vermis post vermem foetor horror Sic in non hominem vertitur omnis hoâ—o As man came from the Earth so thither shall he return and become a habitation and food for Worms If any had been exempted from the fatal and general sentence of Death then without all question our most blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ had been who for our Sins and for our insufferable Iniquities suffer'd the sharpest death imaginable even to die upon the Cross who was equal to the Father touching his God-head Now seeing that this ever blessed Virgins Son Lion of the Tribe of Judah and harmless Lamb of God did suffer an ignominious Death to redeem us from Eternal Death let not us be unwilling for our own good to lay down our lives and to part without sorrow and grief with our dearest Friend or Relation but rather let us take up a full resolution when any of our Friends although never so near and dear unto us be departed and say with David now he is dead now he ceaseth to breath and now he hath taken a farewell of the Elements wherefore should I fast Can I bring him back again Good Christians can with patience embrace this Life yet in their best meditations they do commonly wish for Death they honour all that contemns it but cannot endure or heartily love any that is afraid of it this makes many naturally love a Souldier and honour those tattered and contemptible Regiments that will die at the command of a Sergeant For a Pagan there may be some motives to be in love with Life for a Christian to be amazed at Death I see not how he can escape this dilemma that is too sensible of this Life or careless of the Life to come If a Wife put forth her Child to Nurse and the Nurse having kept it long enough she taketh it home again can the Nurse or any other have any cause to complain so the cause stands between God and our Souls If God having inspired into these mortal Bodies of ours that which is immortal come and take it to himself lest it should come to harm can any one have any reason to Complain As seed unless sown in the Ground cannot bring forth so we until that Death come and we be laid in the Ground cannot expect our consummation and bliss with Gods Saints in his Kingdom of Glory Death freeth the godly from the Tyranny of Satan from Sin from the World from the Flesh and from eternal Damnation placing them with Christ for evermore in Heaven the Center of all good wishes where instead of Earthly Bodies they shall be cloathed with unspeakable Glory and all this holy David was not Ignorant of which made him as soon as his dearly beloved Son had taken his Farewell of this inferior Orb say Wherefore should I fast seeing my Child yea my precious Jewel has changed his Life out of a miserable world into a Kingdom where pleasures ineffable are to be had for evermore but now c. And this brings me now unto the Third thing considered in my Text which is the manner of his mourning and that was how he spun away his time in weeping fasting and praying for his dear child so long as he was alive he did not as Priamus did for his Son Hector Fast Weep and Pray after his Death or as many do now adays only in outward shew altering their Garments No his was far otherwise it was real true and hearty sorrow not countenanced in the least with a heavy look or with a solemn sigh blown from deceitful lungs No his was a Weeping Watching Mourning and Fasting Grief he was sequestered from all Worldly contentment imprisoning his Body from all the pleasures of this mortal Life ever making his bed to swim and watering his touch with tears He mourned as one
for his only Son eating ashes like Bread and mingling his Drink with weeping still weeping wailing and crying as one that had parted with his dear Mother Psalm 35. 14. or as a virgin girded with saâ—k-cloath for the husband of her youth Joel 11. 8. Nature being we are Members of one Body thinking the mishap of other men to be our own through the mutual compassion of Christ's Body makes us desirous to live together so long as is possible therefore was it possible for David to refrain from tears when he took his farewel of one Child part of his own Body No he could not forbear crying until he began to consider with himself that he was dead and that the Death of the Saints is precious in the sight of the Lord and the day thereof better to them than the day of their birth being then and not before as Saint John Says Revel 14. 13. they rest from their labour then yea then and not before he could rise change his cloaths wash his hands and break his fast Now such I say if they will mourn ought to be your manner that is so long as your friends are visited with Sickness they ought to sympathize condole and have a fellow-feeling of their Maladies ever providing to your power all good means for their Health and Recovery and for good looking to them in the time of their weakness yea you must pray for them and use all lawful and good means possible for their ease and succour so long as it shall please God to continue them with you in that sorrowful condition but then as soon as it shall please Almighty God to call any of your Relations from you although never so near and dear unto you yea although he be the staff of your Life and your only Joy and Comfort you ought to refrain from tears and immoderate mourning cheering up your selves and resolving fully in your mind as holy David did here lest that you displease the Creator and Preserver both of our Souls and Bodies saying Now he is dead c. for there is a time to Mourn and a time to Rejoice I took on saith he most sadly in the former verse so long as he was alive because I thought still that God would restore him to his Health again and grant him a longer time to stay with me his loving Father but now seeing that it cannot be obtained I 'll frâ—t my self no more for now he is dead dead dead now he is dead and gone now he is past calling back again wherefore or to what end should I fast can I bring him back again And thus much concerning the manner of David's Mourning for his Son wherefore that which shall have the next place in my discourse is concerning the reason this Princely Prophet and good King gave why he would not continue any longer in his sorrowful condition and that is Can I bring him back again can I revive him can I put life into him No it is beyond my Skill to add one Moment to any mans life I can neither call him back nor go to him my self now he is dead and gone all the world cannot save him alive I must follow him but he shall not return to me Here you may see an acknowledgment of his own imbecillity weakness in recovering his dead Child can I bring him back again It hath been experienced and found possible for a man from the ashes of a Plant to revive the Plant and from its cinder to recall it to its stalk and leaves again but to call those that are ascended up to Heaven or descended into the world of Damned Souls is far beyond the power of Man Abraham being full of faith as it is Evident Heb. 11. 19. having commanded that his son Isaac should be offered thought that God would raise him up again from the dead therefore why did not David hope the same the reason as Peter observes upon this place in my Text is diverse Abraham had the promise concerning his Son Isaac he knew that God would do whatsoever he desired rather than his promise should not be fulfilled therefore he came with a willing mind unto that offering but David had not such promises concerning this his dearly beloved Son but rather a threatning seeing he was ready to die or just newly dead wherefore being not encouraged in the least his own Conscience telling him how it was Impossible unless God the efficient cause of our Life by whom we live move and have our being would restore him to Life again fully desolved with himself to leave off sorrowing and to prepare himself to go to him seeing he was not to return But now c. and this brings me unto the last thing considered and that was his confidence how he should follow c. Here you may see how that David did not doubt in the least but that his sweet Babe was ascended up to Heaven which is far beyond thought and glorious beyond report and that he himself should follow quickly after some are of opinion and will not stick to maintain their damnable doctrine with devilish Arguments that Infants dying unbaptiz'd are not capable of salvation which is as false as God is true else what became of those Children of Bethlehem and in the coasts thereof from two years old and under among whom questionless some were uncircumsized or not baptized when Murthered by bloody Herod who would not suffer the King of Heaven and Earth and the whole World to Reign in Jury certainly their condition is very good for although he had power to hurt their innocent Bodies yet he had not power to hurt their poor harmless Souls being hid with Christ Jesus that sinless Babe in God Our Saviour seems to have a special love for Children above all other which made him say in his holy Gospel suffer the little Children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 10. 14. Now David knowing no less might well believe that his Child was received into Heaven O blessed Babe which came to the wished Haven without any Tempest enjoying the comâ—orts of another Life before thou knew the cruel miseries of this Life having thy head crowned with happiness before thou wert covered with hair thy dear Father although a King could never have pleasur'd thee in this vail of misery as thou art how in the Kingdom of Heaven where Likewise now the Father is But now he is dead so that you may see David's shall go came at last to is gone The life and spirit of all our actions is the Resurrection and stable apprehension that our ashes shall enjoy the fruit of our pious Endeavours without this all Religion is a fallacy how shall the dead arise is no question of a true Christians Faith Job was ever confident that our estranged and divided Ashes should unite again that our separated dust after so many pilgrimages and transformations into the
room for his whole Posterity in the time to come Give me a possession a burying-place Here is the end why he would have this Possession A strange kind of Possession Behold Abraham see how he beginneth to posâ—ess the World by no Land Pasture or earable Lordship The first thing is a Grave So every Christian must make his Resolution The first Houâ—hold-stuff that ever Seleâ—cus bought in Babylon was Sepulchre-stone a Stone to lay upon him when â—â— was dead that he kept in his Garden Give me a Burying Place to Bury my Dead Behold he calleth here Sarah his Dead he calleth her not Wife though it is said after in the Text that Abraham buried Sarah his Wife yet that is in repesct of the time of her life when they lived together and in respect of the former Society and Converse they had but now he speaks to the point she is no more his Wife but his Dead My Dead Yet notwithstanding though she was not Abraham's Wife yet she was Abraham's Dead This must teach a Man after he is freed by remaining for the Dead A Man is bound to lament and sorrow for his Dead as Abraham did here to love the Memory of the Dead to speak well of the Dead when occasion serveth to commend them for their Vertues to use the Friends of the Dead as far as is in their power with all Courtesie to be good to the Children of the Dead to be good to all that come of that Issue for their sakes Let me bury my Dead Lastly it followeth why he would bury his Dead Out of my sight A strange thing Out of my sight The best Friend in the world cannot endure the sight of a dead Body it is a gastly sight especially when it cometh to that dissolution that the parts begin to have an evil savour and smell as all have when they are Dead then to keep themselves in Life and Health it is necessary to avoid them to bury their Dead out of their sight And what so sweet a sight once to blessed Abraham as Sarah What so sweet a spectacle to the World as Sarah The great Kings of the World set her as a Parragon and she came no where but her Beauty enamoured them she was a sweet prospect in all Eyes every Man gaz'd on her with great content to see the Beauty of God as in so many lines marked out in the face of Sarah Yet now she is odious every Eye that looked upon her before now winks and cannot endure to look upon her she must be taken out of sight Oh bethink your selves of this you that take pride in this frail Flesh that prank up your selves to make you Graceful in every Eye you that study to please the Beholders you that are the great Minions of the World you that when Age beginneth to purle your Faces begin to redeem your selves with Paintings think of this Mother Sarah the beautifullest Woman in the World is loathsome to her Husband her sweetest Friend when once she is dead The Funeral Procession SERMON VI. ECCLES 12. 5. Man goeth to his long home and the Mourners go about the streets ALthough I might in the Kings King Solomon's name command yet I will rather in the Preachers his other style humbly entreat your religious Attention to the last Scene and Catastrophe of Man's Life consisting of two Acts and those very short 1. The Dead's Pass he goeth c. 2. The Mourners March they go about c. Little Children newly born take in their first Breath with a sigh and come crying into the World assoon as they open their Eyes they shed Tears to help fill up the Vale of Tears into which they were then brought and shall be after a short time carried out with a stream of them running from the Eyes of all their Friends And if the Prologue and Epilogue be no better what shall we judge of the Scenes and Acts of the Life of Man they yield so deep springs of Tears and such store of Arguments against our abode in this World that many reading them in the Books of Hegesiâ—s the Platonick presently brake the Prison of their Body and leaped out of the World into the Grave others concluded with Silenus Optimum non nasci proximum quam primum mori that it was simply best never to be born the next to it to die out of hand and give the World our salve and take our vale at once The dead go directly to their long home the living fetch a compass and round about the termini of which their motions shall be the bounds of my Discourse at this present Old Men are a kind of Antipodes to young Men it is evening with them when it is morning with these it is Autumn in their Bodies when it is Spring in these The Spring of the year to decrepit old men is as the Fall Summer is Winter to them and Winter death it is no pleasure to them to see the Almond-tree flourish which is the Prognosticatour of the Spring or the Grashopper leap and sing the Preludium of Summer for they now mind not the Almond-tree but the Cipress nor think of the Grashopper but of the Worm because they are far on in their way to their long home and the mourners are already in the streets marshalling as it were their Troops and setting all in equipage for their Funeral no dilectable objects affect their dull and dying Senses but are rather grievous unto them desire faileth because Man goeth to his long home that is it doth in the best and should in all for what a preposterous thing were it for a Man that hath one foot already in the Grave and is drawing the other after to desire to cut a cross Gaper and dance the Morrice or for him that is near his eternal Mansion-house to hanker by the way and feast and revel it in an Inne By long home according to the Chaldee Paraphrase is here meant the Grave or the place where our Bodies or to speak more properly our Remains are bestowed and abide till the time of the Restitution of all things the place where all meet who lived together the rendevouze of all our deceased Friends Allies and Kindred even as far as Adam this home may be called a long home in comparison of our short homes from which we remove daily these Houses we change at pleasure that we cannot there our Flessi or our Bones or at least our Ashes or Dust shall be kept in some place of the Earth or Sea till the Heavens shall be no more Job 14. 12. I answer By Mourners are here meant all that attend the Corps to the Funeral whether they mourn in truth or for fashion and they are said here to go about the Streets either for the reason alledged by Bonaventure quia predolore quiescere nequiunt because they cannot rest for Hearts Grief and Sorrow or they go about the Streets to call company to the Funeral
or because they fetch their compass that they might make a more solemn Procession to the Church or Sepulchre Among the Romans the Friends of the deceased hired certain Women whom they called Prefiâ—â—â— to lament over their dead for the most part among the Jews this sad task was put upon Widows for they took it upon themselves as the words of the Prophet imply and there were no VVidows to make lamentation and of the Evangelist also Acts 9. 39. and the Widows stood by weeping for Dorcas and indeed Widows are very proper for this imployment When a Pot of water is full to the Brim a little motion makes it run over Widows that are Widows indeed and have lost in their Husbands all the Joy and Comfort of their Life have their Eyes brim full of Tears and therefore most easily they over flow There are but Three things appertaining to Man here 1. Life 2. Death 3. Burial And see they are all Three in the Text. 1. Man goeth there is his Life 2. To his long home there is his Death 3. And the Mourners go about the Streets there is his Burial described by Pariphrasis And so I am upon the first Stage The Doctrine Man's Life is a Voyage his Death the term or period of this Voyage his Grave his home and Mourners his Attendance The Hour-Glass is running whether the Preacher proceeds or makes a pawse and the Ship is sayling whither it is bound when we sleep in our Cabbine so whether we wake or sleep move or rest be busie or idle mind it or mind it not we walk on toward our long home We are expiring and dying from the running of the first Sand in the Hour-glass of our life to the last from the moment we receive Breath to the moment that we breath out our last gasp Thus the Man in my Text goeth or rather runneth still in his natural Course that is every Man I need not direct any Man in his Natural Course from Life to Death every Man knows it and whether he knowes it or no he shall accomplish it the Spiritual Course is more considerable which is itinerarium ad Deum a Journal to Eternity a Progress from Earth to Heaven this Progress a Man begins at his Regeneration and in part endeth in his Dissolution by Death but wholly and fully after his Resurrection the way here is Christ the viaticum the blessed Sacraments the light the Scriptures the guides the Ministers of the Word the Thieves that lie in wait to rob us of our Spiritual Treasure the Divels our convoy the Angels our stages several vertues and degrees of Perfection the City to which we bend our course Jerusalem that is above wherein are many Mansions or eternal houses I am now come though long first to Man's long home which cannot be described in a short time and therefore I leap into my last stage which as you may remember was The Application of the Text to this sad Occasion I must now use in the Application of my Text a method direct contrary to that which I followed in my Explication for therein first I shewed you how the natural Man goeth to his long and the Spiritual to his eternal home and after how and why and what sort of Mourners went about the Screets lamenting the deceased but now I am to speak of the Mourners who have already finished their circular motion and then of the direct motion of the Man the man of quality the man of worth the Man of estate and credit who is already arrived at his long Lete and now entring into his long home Touching the Mourners I cannot but take notice of their number and quality the number is great we see yet we see not all who yet are the truest Mourners pouring out their Souls to God with tears in their private Closets Illa dolâ—t vere quae sine teste dolet Her portion of sorrow like Benyamins is five times more than any others whose loss of a Husband and such a Husband is invaluable Secondly the quality of the Mourners is not â—lightly to be passed by debeter iis religiosa mora for not only great store of the Gentry and Commons but some alâ—o of the Nobility the chief Officers of the Crown and Peers of the Realm not Religion only and Learning but Honour and Justice also hath put on Blacks for him thereby testifying to all men their joint-respect to him and miss of him Let them who have lived in credit die in honour let them who in their life time did many good Offices to the dead after they are dead receive the like Offices from the living Out of which number envy it self cannot exempt our deceased Brother Of whose natural parts perfected by Art and Learning and his moral much improved by Grace I shall say nothing by way of Amplification but this that nothing can be said of them by way of Amplification All Rhetorical Exaggeration will prove a diminution of them In sum he was a most provident Housholder loving Husband indulgent Father kind Landlord and liberal Patron The Night before he changed this Life for a better after an humble Confession of his Sins ingeneral and a particular Profession of the Articles of his Belief in which he had lived and now was resolved to die he added I renounce all Popish Superstition all Mans Merits trusting only upon the Merits of the Death and Passion of my Saviour and whosoever trusteth on any other shall find when he is dying if not before that he leaneth upon broken Reeds Here after the Benediction of his Wife and Children being required by me to ease his mind and declare if any thing â—ay heavy upon his Conscience he answered nothing he thanked God He besought all to pray for him and himself prayed most servently that God would enable him patiently to abide his good will and pleasure and to go through this last and greatest work of saith and Patience and the Pangs of Death soon after coming upon him he fixed his Eyes on Heaven from whence came his help and to the last gasp lifted up his hand as it were to lay hold on that Crown of Righteousness which Christ reacheth out to all his Children who hold out the good â—ight of Faith to the end Earth to Earth and Dust to Dust SERMON VII GEN. iii. 19. Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return THE Remembrance of Death among other Remembrances is as Bread amongst other Meaâ—s howbeit it is more necessary for the poor thirsty Soul than Bread for the hungry Body for a Man may live many Days without Bread but the Soul cannot do so without the remembrance of Death which like that Serpent Regulus by no Charms can be charmed And it is the general Opinion of the best and most Holy Writers That the most perfect Life is a codtinual Meditation of Death When our blessed Saviour said If any man will follow me let him deny himself and take up
of the basest matter even of very Dirt but this Dirt being Moulded by God's own Hand and Inspiring it with so much Wisdom Counsel and Prudence it may be called Cura Divini Ingenii the Curiousness of God's Wit But Man growing proud hereupon and hoping to be a God himself God doomed him to Death and wrapped him again in his dirty Swadling Clouts with this Inscription Pulvis es in pulverem reverteris Dust thou art and unto Dust thou shalt return Adam did not without some Mystery cloath himself with green Leaves for he gave therein as it were a sign and token of his vain and foolish hopes But as the Mother when the Bee hath stung her Childs Finger runs with all haste to get a little Dirt and claps it to her little One which doth asswage the Swelling and give it ease So those busie Bees of Hell daily stinging us and striking into our Breasts the Poyson of their Pride and Arrogancy Almighty God with a Memorandum of Death with a Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return abates this Pride and tells us of that swelling Arrogancy of ours In Ezekiel the King of Tyre said I am a God but he was answered that he was 〈…〉 man that is base vile and miserable So holy â—aâ—id said Let the Nations know that they aâ—â— but 〈…〉 that is base and vile and St. Paul said Are â—…ot men 1 Cor. 3. When we see a man swallowed up sometimes in the misery of the Body and sometimes of the Soul we say in the conclusion he is a Man Now if instead of the Gold of the Angels there was found Rust and that so fine Cloath as that was not without its Moths and that incorrupted Wood without its Worm what will become of those that are but Dust who dwell in Houses of Clay Verily they must as fearful of their own harm repeat this Lesson Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return One asking the question Why God having Created the Soul for Heaven did knit it with so straight a Knot to a Body of Earth so frail and so lumpish Whose answer was That the Angels being overthrown by their Pride He was willing to repair and to help this Presumption in Man a Creature in his superiour part as it were Angelical but having a heavy aâ—d miserable Body which might serve as a Stay unto him that if the nimbleness of his Understanding should puff him up yet that Earth which Clogged his Body should humble and keep him down Those that entred Triumphantly into Rome had a thousand occasions given them to incite them to Pride Arrogancy and Vanity As their great number of Captives their Troops of Horse their Chariots drawn with Elephants or Lions and their Ladies looking upon them from their Windows and the like But the Senate considering the great danger of the Triumpher ordered one to sit by his Side to whisper this still in his Ear Remember thy self to be a Man The Princes of the Earth have many Motives to make them forget themselves not regarding the Complaints of the Poor and Needy yet as the Wise Man saith Wisdom 7. 5. No King had ever any other beginning of Birth they are as other Men the Off-spring of the Earth and the Children of Men and to them it is also said Dust thou art c. But to proceed As Man is Dust and Earth by Procreation so likewise he is Dust and Earth by Sustentation and that in two respects In regard of Aliment and Indument Meat and Apparel It is truly said That of which we consist we are nourished with Elements are Aliments where we begin we do receive all Meats for our Bodies in Health and all Medicines for the same being Sick are Earth and Earthy even Dust and Ashes as we our selves are we feed on the Things of the Earth and walk and sleep thereon As for Apparel and Ornaments we borrow Wooll of the Sheep Hair of the Camel Silk of the Worm Furies of the Beasts and Feathers of the Fowls of the Air like unto Aesop's Crow having some Plume from every Bird something from every Creature Flowers are richly decked Plants with an infinite variety of coloured Leaves adorned and other Animals as well Vegetative as Sensitive comely covered only Man that unhappy and base Creature is born to nothing but Beggery and Misery So that we may justly exclaim and cry out with the good Prophet David saying What is Man c. Nay what are we If that the good Prophet Jeremy who was Sanctified in his Mothers Womb did bewail his Condition what may we do who are Born in Sin and Conceived in Iniquity being Formed of most base and unclean Matter God Created Stars and Planets out of Fire Birds out of Air Fish out of Water but Man with other Animals out of the Slime of the Earth therefore remember and consider O Mrn what thou art and thou shalt find thy self much worse than any other Creature whatsoever besides even Dust and Ashes Now from this Principle I will infer three or four Conclusions of very great Fruit and Consequence The First is this If thou art Dust and Ashes wherefore art thou proud thou Dust and Ashes Of thy Beginning No of thy End No Of what then If thou shouldest see thy self Seated between the Horns of the Moon think on the baseness of thy beginning and thou shalt then see clearly that Pride was not born for Man nor Anger and Pettishness appointed for Woman's Condition Pride cannot sute with Dirt nor Curstness with Woman's Softness Lord cleanse me from my secret sins and spare thy Servant from those that are strangers By Aliens you may understand those of Pride for it is a Stranger as it were and another kind of thing differing much from Man's base and vile Condition There is not any Sin more alien and strange to Man 's Condition than Pride or that doth carry with it less excuse Those Fools that are Painted forth going about to build a Tower that should overtop the Clouds and reach to Heaven Gen. 11. 4. did in their very first word say Come let us make us Bricks Bewraying their Foolishness What go about upon Earth to rear a Foundation that should emulate Heaven which is far beyond Thought and glorious beyond Report God Almighty said unto Ezekiel Take thou a Tile and pourtray upon it the City of Jerusalem the Walls the Ditches the Towers the Temple and a great Army of Men Ezek. 4. 1. Strange yet true we see it is that the Strength of Cities the Power of Armies is contained in a poor brittle Tile-stone The good Prophet Isaiah threatned those of Moâ—â— with Whips and Scourges Isa 16. because they insulted and proudly triumphed upon the Walls and Towers of his City Speak Punishment unto those that reioyce in Walls that are made of Brick What can earthen Walls raise up such Pride in Men Samuel being to Anoint Saul God gave him for a Sign that he
of the Years but Man is meerly a Tenant at will is put out of Possession at less than an Hours warning Wherefore now while it is said to day set your Houses in order seeing that you must die and not lâ—vâ— It is not sufficient at the last Hour of Death to say Lord have mercy on me or Lord into thy hands I commend my Soul But even in all our Life-time yea and especially in our youth we must strive ever to set our Houses in order for we shall die and not live Samson was very strong Solomon very wise and Methusalem lived many years yet at last they with many more were brought to Mother Earth If it seem pleasant unto you at the present to let your rotten and ruinous Houses stand out of order yet with all remember what the Prophet saith The day of Destruction is at hand and the times of perdition make haste to come on Art thou a young Man in the April of thine Age and hast thou thy Breasts full of Millâ— and doth thy Bones run full of Marrow as Job speaks and thereupon dost promise to thy self length of days yet thou must know also that a man even at the highest pitch of health when he hath that same Fencer-like kind of strength is nearest danger in the Judgment of the best Physicians remember with all that observation of Seneca Young Men saith he have Death behind them Old Men have Death before them and all men have Death not far from them we may in a manner complain already that the great God of Battle threatens an utter ruin to all the World the Earth hath trembled the Lights of Heaven have been often darkned Rebellions have been raised Treasons have not long since been practised Plagues of late have been dispersed Winds have blustered Waters have raged and what wants there now but those two Arrows of God even Sword and Fire from Heaven for us to be consumed Is it now think you a time to buy to sell to eat to drink and to live securely in sin as they did in the days of Noah and think of nothing else is it now a time to say unto Almighty God as the Nigard doth unto his Neighbour come again to me to morrow as that drousie Sluggard doth Prov. 6. 10. Yet a little sleep a little slumber a little foulding of the hands to sleep The foolish Virgins supposed that the Bridegroom would not have come like an Owl or a Batt in the night there is time enough said they what needs all this haste but poor Fools they were excluded Oh! I cannot forbear my very Heart even bleeds within me to think of it yea all the faculties of my Soul and Body are strucken with horrour and amazement while I declare unto you how that many Thousands now are doubtless in Hell who purposed in time to have set their Houses in order but being prevented by Death are for ever condemned O here I could heartily wish with Jeremy that I had in the Wilderness a Cottage Yeâ— I could wish with Job that I were a Brother to the Dragons and a Companion to the Ostriches whilst I think of that wish I am now uttering nay I could willingly desire with the Princely Prophet David that my Heart were full of Water and that mine Eyes were a Fountain of tears that I might weep Day and Night for the too too common Sins of this our Age in every kind Now you are in your preparations for Eternity and therefore had need to be very watchful over your selves to see that you set your Houses in order for you shall die and not live And this brings me now unto the very last thing observable in my Text and that is of the reason Negative and shalt not live set thy House c. Chrysostom prying into the base Nature of Man and finding him ever out of order teacheth him a seven-fold consideration of himself First What he is by nature what he is in himself Dust and Ashes Gen. 18. 2. Secondly What is within him much sin Thirdly What is before him a burning Lakâ— which is spoken of Isai 30. 33. Fourthly What is above him an offended Justice Deut. 32. 16. Fifthly What is against him Satan and Sin two notorious and deadly Eâ—… Sixthly What is before him 〈…〉 and worldly vanities And then seventhly and lastly He desires man seriously to consider what is behind him inâ—â—llable Death for semel aut bis morimur omnes Some once some twice we must all die and not live You cannot like Enocâ— Hâ—b 11. â—5 be translated but must suffer Death as well as other Men being common to all Whatsoever thou dost affect whatsoever thou dost project so do and so project all at once who for any thing thou knowest may at this very present depart out of this Life Hypocrates although he could not cure till Death came upon him Heraclitus who writ many natural Tracts concerning the last and general consolation of the World could not find out a Remedy or a Medicine for his Distemper but died out of hand Thus you may see how that God spares none but sends one thing or other to bring us to our long home And thus far concerning the Death of the Body shall suffice which was the Death good King Hezekiah was forewarned of Wherefore now I shall but only speak a word or two of the Soul and likewise of the Death of the Soul and Body and so conclude First as there is a Natural Death viz. the Death of the Body so likewise there is a Spiritual Death viz. of the Soul when it is deprived of those Graces which formerly God did bestow upon it for as the Soul is the light and life of the Body even so Almighty God is the light and life of the Soul When he takes his holy Spirit from us then we walk in the shadow of Death this Death is an ill Fruit of Sin therefore let us set our Houses in order But secondly As there is a natural Death and a spiritual Death so likewise there is an eternal Death called in the Ornament of Grace the second Death This Death as well as the Death of the poor Soul is lamented by God Esay 59. 2. As I live saith the Lord I desire not the Death of a Sinner but rather that he may turn from his Wickedness and live I might now likewise add a fourth Death and that is a civil Death an undoing of our Credit and honest Reputation which many Men die but this I shall leave to your consideration and so conclude O my dearly beloved Friends consider what you are all by nature What is within you What is above you What is below you What is against you What is before you What is behind you and that is infallible Death For here is not one here amongst you be he never so strong never so healthly but that within the Revolution of a few years shall be brought in spight of his
which doth much facilitate a Believers passage through Death into Glory I shall in the next place for a further Illustration of this truth present unto you the admirable carriage and department of some famous Christians since Christ his time as in Relation to their contempt of Death and earnest desiring to be with Christ in Glory and in this Relation I shall begin with Iâ—natiâ—â— who lived while Christ was upon the Earth and so proceed to several other remarkable Instances in successive Generations Ignatius when he was sent by Trajan the Emperour to Rome there to be devoured of Lyons for his free reproving of Idolatry instead of fearing Death he thus couragiously expressed himself I wish says he that I could see those wild Beasts that must tear me in pieces I would speak them fair to dispatch me quickly and if that would not do I would incite them to it Hierom of Prague the renowned Bohemian Martyr he uttered these words with much chearfulness at his very giving up the Ghost Hanc animam in flammis affero Christe tibi freely do I burn for the sake of Christ Oecolampadius lying upon his Death Bed and a certain Friend coming to him Oecolampadius asked him what news unto whom his Friend answered I know none but says he I can tell you some good news nam ego subitâ— cum Christo regnabor I shall suddainly be with Christ upon his Throne Melanchton a little before his Death he would often say capio ex hac vita migrare propter duas causas primum ut frurar desiderato conspectu filii Dei deinde ut liberer ab immunibus Theologorum odiis I desire to die to injoy a sight of Jesus Christ c. But what need I tell you of the resolute and undaunted Carriage of Christians in former ages we need look no further than upon the carriage of Christians in latter Ages Casper Obevian the famous Lawyer lying upon his Death Bed he would often say O Lord let not my journey be long deferred ere I be with thee I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ he had rather depart this Life and take but one Feast in Glory than take many fees and still live in this miserable World Strigelius the learned Suetzer falling sick he would often say Seperare se finem vitae suae ad esse He hoped this Sinful Life was now at an end that he might injoy God perfectly Grinâ—us the learned Helvetian died with these words in his mouth O praeclarum illum diem cum ad illud animarum concilium Caelumque profiscar Oh fairest day when I shall make a journey to Heaven that convocation of Souls should I but relate the dying Speeches of Mr. Rollock the learned and devout Scotch-man they would melt any Heart that shall hear them he breathed out these words with his Life I Bless God says he I have all perfect Sences but my Heart is in Heaven And Lord Jesus why shouldst thou not have it it hath been my Care all my Life time to devout it unto thee I pray thee therefore take it that it may live with thee for ever Come Lord Jesus put an end to this sinful miserable life haste Lord tarry not come Lord Jesus and give me that life for which thou hast redeemed me Nay further that I might Christians leave your Spirits in this sweet temper of contemning Death and desiring to be with Christ in Glory where I should much rejoice and indeed earnestly pray that I might meet you all I shall yet mind you of some remarkable instances in this kind even in our own Nation Mr. Cooper that famous Champion for the Truth when he was brought to be burnt at the Stake in Queen Mary's days and there having a box set before him with a pardon in it as soon as he perceived so much he cried out If you love my Soul away with it if you love my Soul away with it Dr. Taylor when he was brought to Hadly in Suffolk to suffer Martyrdom for his Profession of Christ the History says he was as merry in his going from London as though he had been a going to some Banquet or Bridal And when he was brought unto the place of Execution he kissed the Stake uttering these Words Now I am even at home Lord Jesus receive my Soul into thy Hands Before Mr. Bradford was Martyr`d his dear Wife came running into his Chamber and said Mr. Bradford I bring you heavy news for to morrow you must be burned your Chain it is now a buying but when Mr. Bradford had heard these Words he lifted up his Eyes to Heaven and said I thank God for it I have looked for this a long time this news comes not to me suddainly but as a thing that I waited for every day and hour the Lord make me worthy of it And when he was brought into Smithfield to be burnt where there was another young Man to suffer with him he turned himself to the young Man and said Be of good Comfort Brother for we shall have a merry Supper with the Lord Jesus Christ this Night Bishop Jewell lying upon his Death-bed he would often say Now Lord let thy Servant depart in Peace break off all delays Let me this day quickly see the Lord Jesus And observe further one standing by him and praying with Tears that the Lord would be pleased to restore this Godly Bishop unto his former Health he over-hearing of him seemed to be very much offended and replied thus I have not lived so that I am ashamed to live any longer neither do I fear to Die because I have a merciful Father And now truly Friends out of the tender Affection which I bear unto all your Souls I could heartily wish that this might be the dying Language of you all that you might every one be able to say from a good and clear Conscience at last I have not lived not so that I am ashamed to live longer neitheâ— do I fear to die because I have a merciful Father And further I do protest in the presence of God with Saint Paul in the 4th to the Phillip at the first Verse That it is my greatest joy and richest Crown if that ever since I came among you I have spoken any thing leading to mutual Love and Peace And if all my pains and endeavours among you in much weakness have taken any effect upon any of your Spirits to win you unto a love of Christ that so you may be holy here and happy hereafter I shall sincerely rejoice But I shall say no more at this time but only conclude with the words of Saint Paul Phill. 4. I pray mark the words for they will be the last I shall speak among you Verse 1. My Brethren dearly beloved and loâ—ged for my joy and crown so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved Verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord alway and again I say Rejoice Verse 5. Let your moderation be known
Bosom from this Vail of Tears to the Kingdom of Glory Moreover as Death helps us to our Rest so it is our Rest Why should we fear it The Scripture terms it but a taking away of the Soul to Peace a sweet Sleep of the Body Our friend Lazarus sleepeth and the Patriarchs are fallen asleep St. Stephen fell asleep Our Burying-places are but Dormitories Sleeping-places The Righteous is taken away from the Evil to come and he shall enter into Peace they shall rest in their Beds Such a Blessed Rest have the Righteous in Death as our Saviour wept because his Friend Lazarus was to be deprived of it it is both the Observation of an Ancient Father and the Resolution of an Ancient Council concerning Christs weeping over Lazarus John 11. 35. Doluit Lazarum non dormientem sed resurgentem Christ did not weep because Lazaras was dead and taken out of the World but because he was to return from the Grave into a Troublesome World after he was gone to his Rest It may be for the same Reason the Thracians of old used to lament at the Birth of their Children but rejoice at their Funeral The time will come that we must part with our Isaac's our Benjamin's nearest Friends and dearest Comforts Then remember my Text if they die in the Lord take no care for them they are Blessed they are at their Rest But some will say Shall we meet with our Friends again departed in the Faith Yes without peradventure if we walk in ways of Obedience to the end It was David's Comfort upon the death of his Child While the Child was living he fasted and wept and laâ— upon the Ground but when it was dead he arose and anointed himself aad eat Bread His Reason is very strong and convincing 1. An impossibility of Recovery He shall not come to me 2. An assured Hope of meeting again in Heaven But I shall go to him He shall not come to me that would be for his loss to part with his Rest in Heaven for a restless condition on Earth but I shall go to him I have not lost him for ever we shall meet again as comfortably as Jacob and Joseph met in Egypt meet again in Heaven and never part Now you know it never troubles us to see the Sun set because we know it will rise again in the Morning it never troubles us to part with a Friend when he goes to Bed because we hope to see him again in the Morning Beloved the Death of a Friend is but like the setting of the Sun or the uncloathing of a Man when he goes to Red there will be a glorious appearing in the Morning of the Resurrection and therefore St. Paul condemns immoderate sorrow for the dead I would not have you sorrow as those that have no hope Nature will be sorrowful but let Grace moderate the sorrow and keep it within the bounds of hope and the ground of hope is set down If ye believe that Jesus died and is risen again even so also them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him 'T is true the Scripture mention some that shall not die as they that shall be found alive at the Coming of Christ to Judgment St. Paul tells us in plain terms we shall not all sleep but we shall be changed The meaning is they shall not so sleep as to continue in the state of the dead but be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an Eye yet such a change as they shall have a dissolution and in the same moment a redintegration a real Death and a real Resurrection though no sleeping in the Grave of Corruption You see one Generation passing and another Generation coming one Friend and Neighbour drops into the Grave after another and when your turn shall be you know not This you may be assured of Death will come certainly and it may be speedily it may be suddenly What Man is he that liveth and shall not see Death Psal 89. 48. Now I beseech you embrace and improve these few directions in order to a Pious Life and a Peaceable Death First if you would live to the Lord and die in the Lord labour for exemplary purity of Life Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the Will of the Father Secondly If you would live to the Lord and die in the Lord give the World a Bill of Divorcement otherwise it will clip your Wings and clog your Souls and hinder your pursuit of Heaven there is nothing in all the World that is worthy of your Affections nothing but what is transitory and unsatisfactory and therefore look on it and pass away Gregory Nazianzen speaks of a Land which had abundance of Curious Flowers in it but no Corn for Bread to satisfie the Peoples Hunger the World is very like that Land here are many Flowers which may please our Sences and our Phantasies but here is no Corn for Bread no substantial satisfying Comforts As Death should be the Subject of your Meditation so Heaven the Center of your Affections Richard the First sometimes King of England gave charge that his Bowels should be Buried at Charron but his Heart at Roan the Faithful City the City of his Love Truely the World deserves but our waste parts we may Bury our Bowels in the Earth but our Hearts should be laid up in Heaven the Royal City the New Jerusalem That so after a troublesome Life we may have a peaceable Death and after Death a glorious Reward of Everlasting Rest in Heaven according to this voice from Heaven in the Text. Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord for they rest from their Labâ—urs and their Works follow them I have now done with the Text and now come to address my self unto that sad occasion which hath given my present Discourse this Mourning Suit The occasion of our present meeting is to Solemnize the Funeral of our deceased Neighbour and Friend to do our last office to her Body by affording it the benefit of a Christian and Comely Burial Concerning whom I might upon very good and warrantable Grounds enlarge my Discourse in the description of the blessedness both of her Life and Death but as the Orator said Quid opus est verbis What need is there of words when her deeds are so manifest She died the death of Moses he died leisurely God gave him notice of his Journey before-hand for his better preparation Go up to the Mount and die So departed she from the World not before she expected Death not before she provided for Death God was pleased in Mercy to give her warning before she flitted to ring her Passing-bell in her Soul many days before she died and whereas many are flattered with hopes of Life till the very Hour of Death yet she was upon a meditation of Death from the first beginning of her sickness Death was not sudden to her either in
it down for his Preservation as appears by her Swouning at any News might threaten ill to him as if her Soul conceived it but Duty to be Bail for her Husband The Head of the Woman is the Man 1 Cor. 11. 3. so her Husband wore the principality she received influence from him and gave conformity to him But a Vertuous Woman is a Crown to that Head Prov. 12. 14. so she gave safety plenty and honour to her head as Crown may signifie The Heart of her Husband did fasely trust in her she did do him good and not ill all the days of her life Longer she is not obliged Till death us depart was their agreement Death ends her natural Relation and enters her into a Divine which she began here by her Religion Her Religion was not as her Sex Female that is all Face and Tongue but pure and solid not despising the Form but delighting in the Power of Godliness She attired not her Devotion as the Lacedemonians did their Gods according to the several Fashions of each City so to gain Reputation from Man but she persevered in the constant substantials of Religion so to gain Grace and Favour from God To whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be Glory and Honour now and for ever Good Night NOW art thou drawing near thy home Heaven is within sight and its Melody almost within hearing thy Lord hath the Curtain in his hand ready to draw it to shew thee all that glory that hitherto he hath been but telling thee of and give thee a Possession of all that which hitherto thou hast enjoyed only in Hopes and Title What dost thou fear and shrug and tremble at Oh my Soul thou peevish froward Creature Shall his Angels stand waiting to convey thy departed Soul home with Songs of Triumph And shall nothing of all this abate thy Fears silence thy Complaints and bring thee to a Chearful Submission Fear not then my Soul but â—oldly throw thy self into his Arms who will certainly keep that safe which thou committest to him But what if I was willing to bid adieu to my Fathers House and leave this World and all its Enjoyments behind me as being sufficiently tired with the Frustrations of a pursued Happiness therein Yet methinks the change I shall pass at Death will be so very great and amazing I fear I shall not bear it To go hence from them I know to a Place and Company I never knew or saw in all my Life to leave my Friends Relations Neighbours with whom I have a long time lived and with whom I have familiarly conversed to go into a Country where I may not meet with one face I know how strangely shall we look on one another What little content do I take in any company on Earth where I meet with shâ—â—ess Will it not be so in Heaven Answ Art thou truly Godly said the pious Wadsworth in his Answer to the Fear of Death and dost thou say thou knowest none in Heaven that is strange Who is he whom you call Father every time you pray what are you born of God united to God by faith and love and hold communion with him and yet not know him Well sayst thou but if I know him it is bâ— very little I never saw him in all my Life 〈…〉 what if thou hast not seen him with thy 〈…〉 eyes yet hast thou not believed in him whom thou hast not seen and rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory Though thou hast not known him after the Flesh yet thou hast after the Spirit But comfort thy self though thou hast known him but little and that through a vail darkly yet he knoweth thee most perfectly He knows thee by name and separated thee to himself from the Womb and effectually called and justified thee he knows thee by thy name and knows thy dwelling and visiteth thee every morning and is with thee living and will not leave thee dying and when he hath taken thee to himself in the Heavens thou shalt know him as he knows thee that is intimately perfectly But sayst thou if I know in some measure God and his Son the Lord of that City I know no more There are ten thousands of Angels there and I know not one of them and as many Spirits of just men some little acquaintance I had with some of the latter on earth but since arrived thither they are so transfigured so wonderfully changed I shall not know one of them when I see them What if thou knowest not one Angel in all the Heavens is it not enough that many of them may know thee But how do I know that How thou hast been their special Charge ever since thou wast born to Jesus Christ Are they not all ministring Spirits to them that are Heirs of Glory How kindly did an Angel comfort Mary Magdalene and the other Mary when they early came to visit the holy Sepulchre of our Lord How well did he know their Persons and their Business when he said Mat. 28. 5. Fear not I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified he is not here for he is risen as he said Come see the place where the Lord lay and go quickly and tell his Disciples that he is risen from the Dead and behold he goeth before you into Galilee â—here shall ye see him so as I have told you What Discourse could be more kind friendly and famiâ—iar than this But that thou shouldst think thy self an utter stranger to all the Spirits of the Just is more strange when there may be some of thy near Relations â—here and many of those that thou hast had for many years such sweet Eellowship in the Ordinanâ—es of the Gospel If I shall sit down with Abraâ—am Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom surely I â—hall know them to be such Besides their Natures in Heaven are all perfectâ—y gracious and holy and I shall be like them and â—e shall all know each other to be so and what â—iness can there possible be among such who are â—â—tisfied in each others sincere love and affection â—hou mayst be acquainted with a thousand Saints â— Angels in an hours time as if thou hadst known â—â—em a thousand years And if this be so be not poor Soul amazed at this great change of Company at Death For it is but as dying Doctor Preston said I shall change my Place but not my Company Return therefore to thy Rest Oh my Soul for God will assuredly deal bountifully with thee So that Death will bring a Good-Night to thee here and a good Morrow hereafter The End of The House of Weeping The House of Weeping SERMON I. The certainty of a Dying Hour HEB. 9. v. 27. It is appointed unto Men once to Dye but after this the Judgment Dearly Beloved I Am now about to speak of that which will shortly render me unable to speak and you are now about to hear of that which will also shortly make you uncapable
Shall the weak Earthen Vessel as the Prophet speaketh rise up against the Potter and say Now I am made I will not be broken in pieces or dost thou know how to bribe Death that it may alwayes stand at a distance If any shall think that he may escape Eternal Judgment let me desire such a one to make sure how he may escape in the first place Death for if thy old sinful Companions to whom thou hast sometimes in thy Cups spoken thus desperately shall see that thou canst not Ward off the Stroke of Death they will not have any reason or thy self to believe that thou canst put by the Day of Judgment The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Death is from the root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to dye surely or to dye suddainly which fully intimates the nature of Death unto us which is alwayes sure and often suddain He that lives the longest if any may be said to live long must dye at the last and he that lives most Years lives but a few Minutes or Moments in respect of Eternity and upon this consideration Methuselah which was the longest Liv'd Man was indeed but a short Liv'd Man It was good old Jacob's Answer unto King Pharaoh when he asked him how old he was Few and evil saith he have been the dayes of the Years of my Pilgrimage and Job tells us that Man who is born of a Woman is but of few dayes in the Hebrew the Expression is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 short of Dayes Winter dayes are the shortest dayes and indeed the Life of Man is but a short Winter day as it followeth short of dayes and full of Trouble This Life is but a momentaneous Life and yet Ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas as short as our Life is yet we have a great work to do namely the securing and seeking the Salvation of our Souls and if this work be not done before our time be done we shall be undone to all Eternity 2. VSE of Reprehension And it serves justly to reprove those who being convinced in their Consciences and knowing very well even as well as the Preacher can tell them that they cannot possibly escape either Death or Judgment yet do they never prepare for Death or once think how they may stand in the day of Judgment Read what is written Psal 14. 5. The ungodly are not so and therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the Judgment If God himself knows who shall be Damned and who shall Perish for ever and ever this will be the case of all unrepenting and unbelieving Sinners as the Scripture saith Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish and whosoever believeth not shall be Damned and yet it may be thou art so far from Repenting and Believing though Death may be very near thee that thou dost not know to this very day what saving Repentance or a true justifying Faith is It may be necessary for you to think on Job's Question Man giveth up the Ghost and where is he or whither goes his Soul when it is once gone out of his Body Is his Soul gone to Heaven or to Hell into everlasting Happiness or into Everlasting Misery and Torments It will be worth the while to make this Preinquiry of the future Estate of thy Precious and Immortal Soul It is related of Saint Gregory Bishop of Neo-Caesarea that he blessed God for this great Mercy that when first he undertook that great Charge upon him he found not above seventy Believers and when he left them he had not in all his Jurisdiction so many Unbelievers It will be a Crown of Rejoycing to every good Minister that can say so much and much more cause of rejoycing will every one have to himself who can prove himself to be such an one in the great day of Judgment but Unbelievers as they must shortly pass under the Pangs of Death so they must next expect to pass under the Pains of Hell if God knows what will become of them after this short Life is ended 3. VSE of Consolation You that are Believers you must also expect to pass through Death and Judgment but yet this will be a great and sufficient ground of Confidence and Comfort unto you that Death shall meet you without a Sting and you shall have boldness in the day of Judgment upon the account of Jesus Christ the Righteous 1 Cor. 15. 54 55 56 57. I cannot say that any Believer shall not pass under a black Cloud or that he shall not Walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death but this I can say as once did Athanasius concerning the Persecution which was under the Emperour Valens Nubecula est citò transibit You shall but come under a little Cloud and when that hath once passed over your Heads you shall find and feel the Light of his glorious Face who Sits upon the Throne Shining sweetly and warmly upon your Souls Last VSE of Exhortation And that in a word or two is this Oh live as Men and Women that know and certainly believe that you must once Dye and after that come to Judgment It is an excellent Character that is given of Origen Quemadmodum doâ—uit sic vixit quemadmodum vixit sic docuit that is he Preached as he practised and he practised as he Preached he Taught as he Lived and he Lived as he Taught such a Preacher is indeed sent of God who having first read his Text in the Pulpit others may afterwards read the Exposition of it in his Life and Conversation And so I say unto every Hearer of me this day Do you talk as you walk and do you walk as you talk even like those that know and believe and consider that they must shortly and may suddenly pass through Death and Judgment Such a Consideration would I am sure put you upon new Thoughts new Resolutions new Discourses and new Actings shall I say of any of you that hear me this Day that you do not believe or think that you must once Dye and afterwards come to Judgment I dare not say so of any of you yet this I will say if you do verily believe so much it will soon appear in your Expressions and Actings For all such that shall enter into Heaven Heaven must first enter into them and they do here lead a Heavenly Conversation who shall Live in Heavenly Glory hereafter Amen The EJACULATION OH Lord our God in thee and by thee we live move and have our being As thou didst at the first breathe into Man the Breath of Life and he became a living Soul so when thou shalt be pleased to command that Breath again out of Mans Body then will he presently become a dead Carkass and so short is the Life of Man that many times he doth but Cry and Dye yea sometimes his Mothers Womb doth prove his Tomb so that he doth not once Cry to
most Evils of Life This is the general choice of most Men rather to suffer quickly what we ought than to continue long in fear and pain There is little difference saith the second Pliny between suffering and expecting Misfortunes Only that there is a Measure of Fear and not of Grief For thou mayst bewail and grieve for what thou knowest has happened thou fearest what may happen Therefore come Death I am thy Debtor I will pay what I owe when ever God requires me Therefore freely willingly Will I the number of my days compleat And straight surrender up my soul to fate Hoping to ascend from the dark Grave to everlasting Light Death is not an Evil but Punishment after Death is an Evil. Sect. 8. They fear Death who foresee it not MOST certain it is that nothing terrifies somuch as an unexpected necessity of dying Behold how they who are subject to the power of another being commanded a long Journey pack up their things in haste sollicitous and sad how they murmur because they had no longer warning As they are upon their departure they often look back pretending this and t'other Obstacle Now there is no longer Journey than to Die no way more crabbed more dark more hard to find none more suspitious and infested with Robbers Besides there is no return again Therefore we must the more heedfully take care that we leave nothing behind There is a necessity of going thither fellow Souldiers said the Roman Captain from whence there is no necessity of returning There is only one remedy to answer being called and to obey being commanded Alas How improvident are they who never take care to provide for thy Journey They take care to fare well the rest they commit to Fortune Smyndirides that debauched young Man was wont to brag that in Twenty Years he had not seen the Sun rising or setting being contiaually either a Bed or at his Rioâ— I fear one of you may find many like him among the Christians who make Gluttony Playing and Drinking their greatest Business To these will happen that which Cicero in his Epistles foretold to Brutus Believe me saith he you will be ruined unless you provide well Thus it will happen to all unwary People that want fore-sight Foresight is necessary in all things especially in those things that are never to be done but once where one mistake draws a thousand along with it This is the Condition of Death one Error causes a thousand Mistakes To err once there is to perish eternally O blind Mortals it will happen to you as it happens to them that shut their Eyes against their Enemies Swords in a Battle as if they were not to feel the danger which they see not Ye shall be smitten ye shall die ye shall be sensible and feel the stroke but whether blind or seeing that is at your choice You refuse to think upon Death which you must shortly think upon and seel The sufferance would soon follow when the Consideration precedes Sect. 9. They fear Death who are negligent of Life NEither is there any Question to be made of this They chiefly fear to die who know not how to live who believe no other Happiness but that of the Body Who only know how to eat well drink well and sleep well and place all their Heaven in pleasure persons certainly most obedient but to their Bellies not to the Divine Will Of whom St. Gregory truly said They know not what the Celestial Souls desire who set their Hearts upon Earthly Delights A prudent Christian that takes no more care of the Body than of a mean and abject Slave looks upon Death no otherwise than a Morning departure out of a dark unpleasant and incommodious Inn. Whoever thou art thou canst not fear thy Exit as of this Life if thou hopest to enter into the other Thy fear arises from hence For though there are many causes vulgarly given of this fear yet they all vanish upon the hopes of a more blessed Life He who seriously aspires to Heaven fears not these Baubles To such a Man Labour Sadness Grief Contempt Ignominy Loss Servitude Poverty Old Age are nothing else but the School of Experience the Time of Patience and the Honour of Victory Sect. 10. Three Things hardly supportable in Sickness IN almost all Sickness three things are hardly supportable Fear of Death Pain of the Body Discontinuance from Pleasure But as hot Diseases are Cur'd by cold cold by hot Medicines so are they Cur'd by their own Antidotes Therefore the fear of Death is to be Cur'd by Love but by Divine Love a little Dose of Divine Love will dispel the fumes of vain fear He that loves Christ will the less love Life and shall perceive the love of Christ to him By words alone this is not prov'd Love Marcus love if thou wouldst be belov'd Pain of the Body is to be asswag'd by tranquility of Conscience A guiltless Mind is a wonderful Consolation to the Sick And indeed a pure Conscience is a potent remedy against all Torments That also asswages pain as St. Gregory intimates in these words More easily will the Sick Person endure pain if he bear but this in his mind The most Just God will have me suffer this But Discontinuance from Pleasure will nothing at all afflict him who thinks upon Eternal Joys Those which leave are vain short and filthy and before they are forsaken frequently leave their admirers those which we promise our selves Immense Stable and Eternal He easily contemns Fading Delights who sincerely hopes for Eternal Sect. 11. Sickness the Sport of Vertue THou art well smitten if thy Conscience be smitten Sickness is the School of Vertue it is also called a kind of Slaughter-house of Vice whoever is sick is a Scholar in this School On the other side Sickness is the Slaughter-house of Vertue to some and the School of Vice while they are well they are mad While they are well they have a hundred Businesses the Business of God is their last care How many are Chaste while they are Sick when they recover they return to their former filthy Lusts Such people would do better Sick to whom health is so dangerous These therefore God tyes them to the Bed of Sickness that they may be at leisure to themselves and may mind their Salvation Forsake Vanity and look after Heaven Sickness intangles the Body in a thousand Miseries but frees the Soul from as many 'T is the saying of St. Paul Though our outward Man perish yet the inward Man is renewed day by day Hence though Sickness seem evil nay the worst of Sufferings it then becomes the best when it renders the Sick Person more holy Many when they feel the pain correct the crime A sick Soul seldom inhabits but in a healthy Body Sect. 12. The Sickness of the Body is the Salvation of the Soul SIckness exhorts to Parcimony disswades from Lust and is the Mistress of Modesty Do thou lay
aside all Care whatever happens to the Body thou art safe to the Mind be in health For the sickness of the Body has been of great advantage in many to the health of the Soul That sublime person rais'd from nothing from the Water below elevated to the Stars who keeps the Keys of Heaven whose only shadow expell'd the Distempers and Diseases of the Body being once ask'd why he suffer'd his own Daughter to lye under the Oppression of a violent Disease made answer It is convenient for her How knowest thou but that it may be as convenient for thee The same Person when he found his Dâ—ughter might be safely Cur'd recover'd her and made her fit to Cure others Do thou also take care that thy health may do thee good and perhaps thou shalt recover Lastly take care of thy Soul above all things and offer it up to the Heavenly Physician to be Cur'd And as to what remains hope if not for what is needful for yet for what is convenient fot thee Sickness is a very unpleasant Companion but a faithful which often pulls ye by the Sleeve and admonishes thee of thy condition A saithful Admonisher is a most certain safeguard in danger If the Sickness be remediless be silent and rejoice for that thou shalt be the sooner free from a loathsom and ruinous Prison Most excellent was the saying of Gregory Nazianzene A sick Soul is near to God Sect. 13. Sickness admonishes us of Eternity HOW great a Benefit is this that the Miseries of this present Life by a short Experience should admonish us of Eternity Therefore let the sick person labour to avoid infinite Miseries while so impatiently endures the Bitternesses here let him learn by pains not long lasting to avoid pains Eternal which neither Pothecary nor Physician no Drug nor Herb not Death it self can Cure There are several ways to Death but but one to Eternity Anaxagoras dying in a Foreign Countrey when his Friends ask'd him whether he would be carried back into his Countrey There is no necessity said he and added the reason for the way is wide enough every where to the Infernal Shades This answer may as well be fit those who are Travelling up to Heaven O happy and profitable Flame of a Fever because short O dreadful Funeral Piles of Hell because Eternal Some Remedies are made out of some Poysons and oft-times a small and present pain admonishes us to prevent the approach of Excessive pains that threaten to twinge us And that which was troublesome became profitable Thus every Disease the more it perplexes and torments us the more it admonishes us of Eternity either in perpetual Joy or Misery Let the healthy take care let the sick be mindful whither they go Pleasure and Sorrow here are bounded within very narrow limits All the Felicity of Mortals is Mortal and within the same bounds are all Miserie 's restrained For bright Eternity no limits knows So that an Age of Time a Tittle shows Sect. 14. Therefore is Death to be desir'd I Have said Infirmity of Body is often to be desired to the end thou maist be the sooner a Freeman and a Victor This did he desire who said Most gladlâ— therefore will I glory in my infiâ—mities For my strength is made perfect in weakness therefore have I delectation in Infirmities As a good Sword may be often in a bad Scabbard so in weak and sickly Body ofâ—-times lyes hid a stout and couragious Mind That strength is to be desired which neither Time nor Fortune decays A sick person is not fit to carry Burthens or for digging and delving but to exercise his patience and maintain and increase his Faith So a Shipboard the stronger Row but the more prudent stand at the Helm Life is like a Ship â—ossed with the Waves of Business and the Sea of the World it has its Oars and its Helm If thou canst not perform the meaner Offices apply thy self to the more noble The true and generous strength of Man is in his Soul The Body the Soul's House how strong or how weak it is is nothing to a Guest of a few days If the House fall there 's a necessity of removing somewhere else and being hence excluded that necessity carries us unto a perpetual Mansion Strength is perfected in weakness so that although it seem so bad yet is that evil so much the rather to be desired as being the prevention of a greater The condition of most is then most prosperous when most infirm and weak Sect. 15. What is to be read in Sickness ZEm the Son of Demius having consulted the Oracle to know how he might lead the best Life had this answer given him If he made himself of the same colour with the dead that is if he conversed with the dead Or as Suidas expounds it if he read the writings of the Ancients To dwell among Books being to live among the dead And this familiarity with the dead is the best Life But it is the same madness to lay before the Sick whole Libraries and huge Volumes as to set before them full Meals of Flesh A little Broth or a small Sallet must serve them so a little Book is enough for them for several Months However still something is to be read to the Sick if the Disease and Pain will give leave but they are to be read as they eat What they eat they do not presently swallow but chew first So what they read they must not carelesly pass over but they are to consider and as it were to weigh every little sentence Otherwise to read is to neglect But let the Sick Mans only Book be Christ Crucified Let him read that Book continually wherein he will find as many Comforts as Words and Wounds Sect. 16. In Sickness we are often to pray SO I say we must always pray in sickness Neither is this a thing of any great difficulty to a sick person For either with his Tongue if he have strength enough may he pronounce his Prayers to God Or if his Tongue be numm'd or that his voice be intercepted by weakness a suppliant Mind is to be lifted up to Heaven while the Body lyes quiet but only for some ardent groans that distinguish these private Colloquies with God in Sickness But there is also a sort of Sickness that does not only interrupt the voice but even oppresses the very Soul it self But then Patience and Suffering are to be offered up for Prayers to God to whom Pain is a grateful Sacrifice so that Patience be joined with it He prays well who suffers well Neither may he be said to pray but to obtain by Prayer of God who sends such Eloquent Messengers to him as Pain and Patience But let him be such a sick person whose Speech may be interrupted whose Mind may be broken and whose Patience may be at a loss Yet there is a way for him to pray Let him look about he shall see some sitting
against another and sometimes we make an absolute Shipwrack but are always in fear Neither is there any Port but that of Death to them that sail in this stormy and tempestuous Ocean But every Mans Credulity deceives him and a willing forgetfulness of Death for the sake of those things which he loves Daily we behold the Funerals of persons known and unknown yet we mind other business and account that unexpected which was foretold us all our life-time before 'T is not the injustice of Nature but the depravedness of humane Reason that takes it ill to forsake that place to which it was admitted but of Courtesie He is unjust who will not leave the disposal of the Gift to him that gave it And an extream piece of Covetousness it is not to look upon what a man has received as gain but what he restores as a loss Ingrateful is he that calls the end of Pleasure an Injury A Fool who thinks there is no good but what is present immediately all pleasure leaves us and is snatcht away almost before it comes Over-narrow and circumscrib'd are his Joys who thinks he possesses only what he has and sees Therefore let us rejoyce for what is given and restore it when 't is requir'd Death seises upon one at one time he will pass by none Therefore let the Soul lie upon the watch and never be asraid of that which will necessarily happen which is uncertain and always to be expected I know not whether it be a greater piece of Folly to be ignorant of that Law of Morality or more impudent to deny it All Men all Creatures look toward their latter end who ever is born is destin'd to die and prepared for an Eternity Sect. 21. Certain Theses which the Sick are to contend against with all their might The first Concerning God T Is an Impiety against God the chief Parent of the World to complain in the least as if he should send a Sickness either too troublesome or too unseasonable Rather let us say with Job As the Lord pleases let it be done the Name of the Lord be praised And with the blessed Quire let us sing He hath justly done all things For whether God wound or heal he shews the Care and Affection of a most compassionate Father towards us The second Concerning the sick Party himself A more violent Disease requires not longer or more constant Prayers but a longer and more constant Patience by which whatever is accounted difficult is more easily performed The seasonings that make Sickness pleasant are frequent Groans to Heaven the remembrance of Afflictions suffered by all the Saints Repeated Ejaculations sometimes to the Holy Trinity sometimes to Christ for constant Patience and a happy passage out of this Life The Third Concerning other Men. We are to submit as well to the Physicians of the Body as the Soul To those that come to visit us in Sickness we are to shew a good Example of Patience and a composed Mind And though the Disease be grievous though many things afflict us though some things displease us other things are not done to our minds never to fret and murmur All our Troubles are to be season'd with the hope of Reward Our Deeds and Sayings to be rendred commendable by Submission and Patience Sect. 22. The Thirst of a Sick-man how to be cur'd MOst sick People are afflicted with Thirst especially they that are in Feavers We will shew them Fountains whence they may take their fill A Thief notorious for the murther of several was taken in the lower Austria and fastned to the Wheel where his Thighs were first broken to prolong the Torment of an extraordinary Criminal for a terrour to others But this Malefactor shew'd himself a man and began to be a most Religious Christian in the midst of his Torments for at every word he breath'd out nothing but Patience and Repentance He called upon God continually implor'd Pardon for his Crimes and like a Pretcher began to dehort the Standers by from wicked Courses such as he had taken By this it grew towards Evening when the Multitude flockâ— some as Comforters of so great a Sufferer though indeed only as Spectators of a generous Patience For he prostrate to his Punishment that he might find a better Life asswag'd his present Pain with the Hope of future Happiness and gave God thanks who in his Wrath had remembered Mercy and had chastiz'd him to spare him But in that slow Torment which it was thought would have lasted three days he only pray'd a quick Death to end the Fury of his Pains or the opportunity of a Shower to asswage his burning Heat and Drought It was observ'd that he had the Assistance of both for towards Sun-set there fell a plentiful Shower and in short while after his Torments and his Life ended both together Behold O Christian thou hast also thy Wheel though a more gentle one thou art ty'd to thy Bed as to that Wheel And perhaps not only Pain but Drought may afflict thee Therefore that a seasonable Shower may fall upon thee cause thy Bed to be made in Golgotha at the foot of that Cross to which the Saviour of the World was nail'd from whose Body fell Showers of Blood There drink there refresh thy self there satisfie thy self being wellâ—ssured that thou shalt be the more perfectly cured the more largely thou drinkest Sect. 23. The Sick-man's Handkerchief CRosildis the Queen of the Franks as Gregory Turonicus reports being cruelly used by Amalanâ— her Husband sent a white linnen Cloth dipt in her Blood to her Brother Childebert as much as if she should have wrote to her Brother and have sayd Seest thou these Marks Childebert and canst thou brook them Canst thou behold the Sufferings of a Sister and wink at them Wilt thou not revenge and deserd mâ— Behold O Sick-man Christ sends thee a Handkerchief nay two the one from Mount Olivet liliberally dyed in his Blood in the other thou seest his Face besmear'd with Sweat Spittle Blood and Tears while he dragg'd his own Cross to Golgotha These linnen Cloaths Christ sends to thee be-purll'd with his Blood wherein he has wrote these words This Sweat O mortals your Sins forced from me Can you see these and not abandon your former wicked life Certainly no person moâ—e truly bewails suffering Christ than he who begins to hate those things for which Christ suffered Sect. 24. The Sick man's Bed THE Sick-mans Bed burns though upon Sardâ—nâ—paâ—â—s's Down â—r the Roses of Smyrdâ—â—ides is may be soft Smâ—ndiâ—â—des a young man samous for his Effeminacy finding that the tender Feathers hurt his Skin would needs try whether he could lie any softer upon a Bed of Roses and yet that fragrant and soft Lodging was too hard for his delicate and tender Sides because the Feathers had wheal'd his Skin the Night before A Sick-man though he lay upon Hare's-wool or Partridge Feathers would think he lay hard But he is
leans towards Death This it desires this it meditates upon covetous of higher Objects And how clear is that of Plato concerning a better Life He saith he that spends his Life in the study of Wisdom seems to be the person who will die with confidence full of good hope that he shall obtain great rewards if he die This the Ancients saw in the dark and thou canst not see it by the light of the Sun What then my sick Friend do the things of the Earth trouble thee Shortly thou shalt inhabit Heaven Thither aspire and whatever miseries thou feelest thou wilt feel them the less Sect. 30. True Hope is a Blessed Life I Do not for this make use of either Poets or Philosophers 'T is a serious thing I will drink to thee out of the Fountain of Divine Eloquence Therefore lay aside thy sadness and with a certain hope say with the Doctor of the World I know whom I have believed and I am perswaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day Wherefore art thou afraid O Man of short hope hear the Son of Syras Who feareth the Lord standeth in awe of no Man and is not afraid for the Lord is his hope and strength Blessed is the Soul of him that feareth the Lord in whom putteth he his trust and who is his strength The Eyes of the Lord have respect unto them that love him he is their mighty protection and strong ground a defence for the health a refuge for the hot of noon day a succour for stumbling and a help for falling He setteth up the Soul and lightneth the Eyes he giveth health life and blessing The Kingly Prophet how Couragious is he how undaunted having a prospect of his own Funeral I will lay me down in peace and take my rest for it is thou Lord only that makest me dwell in safety What that safety is he expresses in another place For thou hast been my hope and a strong Tower for me against the Enemy I will dwell in thy Tabernacle for ever and my trust shall be under the covering of thy wings But thou wilt say my Impatience makes me hope ill Here I will help thee again Cry with David Thou art my hope even from my youth Frequently this King cry'd out God is my Salvation God is my Hope and also exhorts others to do the same Trust in him O ye people pour out your hearts before him Wherefore dost thou not follow him that goes crying so loudly before thee Say therefore from thy Soul O think upon thy Servant according to thy word wherein thou hast caused me to put my trust The same is my Comfort in my Trouble And with Jeremy the Prophet I nevertheless obediently followed thee as a Shepherd and have not taken this Office upon me uncalled Thou knowest it well Be not thou terrible unto me O Lord. For thou art he in whom I hope when I am in peril Hear him in another place Leave off from weeping and crying with-hold thine Eyes from Tears for thy labour shall be rewarded c. Job is most confident in this Though he slay me I will trust in him The same he utters upon the brink of Death After darkness I hope for light Was there ever saith the Son of Syrach any one confounded that put his trust in the Lord Whoever continued in his fear and was forsaken Or whoever did he despise that called faithfully upon him For God is Gracious and Merciful He forgiveth sins in the time of Trouble and is a defender of all that seek him in the Truth And Hosea Therefore hope still in thy God for whoever put their trust in God are not overcome Besides That the Lord is good unto them that put their trust in him and to the Soul that seeketh after him The good Man with stilness and patience expecteth the health of the Lord. Truly saith Nahum the Lord is Gracious and a strong hold in the day of Tribulation and knoweth them that trust in him And we also know saith St. John that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is And every Man that has this hope in him purgeth himself even as he is also pure Hope therefore most firmly in the Goodness of God and thou shalt walk before the Lord in the Land of the Living Sect. 31. Tranquility proceeds from true Hope TVrn again O my Soul into thy rest for the Lord hath rewarded thee Art thou wearied with so many sorts of Labour behold the Lord is at hand and he will put an end to all thy Labours The beginning of thy rest is Sickness and Death Cease therefore O my Soul to be willing to be miserable and to consume thy self with so much turmoiling Painful Beginnings thou wilt say 'T is very true But thou knowst that no days are less quiet than those that are next to rest No days less Holidays than those that precede Festivals So it is with thee But thy rest shall be Eternal The preparation tires thee shortly the Paschal without end shall follow Go to then and expend a little Labour and Grief By and by thou shalt behold the Gate not that which leads out of this Life but that which leads to Eternity Then hadst thou but begun to labour it would prove sufficient if he for whom thou labourest think it so Therefore O my Soul dismiss vain things to vain people and turn thee to the Lord who hath rewarded thee His Mercies toward thee hath been innumerable thou maist sooner number the Sand of the Sea than them by which he designs to open thee the way to Heaven Bernardus Clarevallensis recommended this particularly to his Friends to cast the Anchor of their hope in the safe Bay of Divine Mercy Therefore let that Verse of the Psalmist In thee O Lord have I put my trust let me never be put to confusion Sect. 32. Comfort in Pain THen should I have some comfort yea I would desire him in my pain that he would not spare for I will not deny the words of the Holy One. With this Comfort therefore while my pains do burn me I will warm my Zeal and recollect my Courage when the Excess of my Torments shall bring me certain hope of Death For I know that while the pains as it were of Childbirth Crucifie me the Rest and Tranquility of another Life is preparing for me and that the Mercy of God shines over me either inflicting Death or defending my Life Therefore let not God be delayed through any commiseration of me For if I die I shall escape free and secure from my Sins nor shall I ever any more resist the will of God as one that has left this Life and the Inconstancy of Mortals Yet I am very much afraid of my weakness lest I should faint in the right road and in my holy
just Indignation Thy Mercy Lord that is a vast and immense Ocean Into this Ocean into this Gulph I throw my self headlong out of a certain hope that in those Waters I shall be safe from the Flames of Hell I cry out therefore with David Have mercy on me O God according to thy mercy According to the multitude of thy mercies blot out my iniquity But in the utmost of my Extremities in the last hour of my Life when my Soul is departing out of this Tabernacle let all my Sighs and Gaspings repeat this wholesom Prayer Have mercy on me O God according to thy Infinite mercy Sect. 48. The sick Patient Covenants with God THat great and almost the last Ornament of the African Church Fulgentius conspicuous for his Learning and Sanctimony seventy days before his Death continually cried out Lord give me first Patience then Pardon This the holy man used as a Buckler against the violence of his Sickness Yea the more vehemently his Grief assail'd him the more vehemently he cried out Patience Lord patience After that Pardon This is a most sweet way of Covenanting with God neither to desire Wages before Labour nor Triumph before Victory nor to shake off the Yoak of Death without Pain Thus as Death is a Punishment to the Wicked so to the Righteous it is a Bridge and entry that leads to Eternity So true it is that Death commands the unwilling but serves and obeys the Willing Sect. 49. Thanks be to God should be the continual Song of the sick Patient SAint Cyprian when he heard Galerias the Proconsuls Sentence read to him It is our pleasure that Thuscius Cyprianus die by the Sword gave no other Answer but Thanks be to God Saint Laurence Roasted upon a Gridiron cried out Thanks be to God Euplius the Martyr who was Beheaded with the Gospel hanging about his Neck often repeated these words God be thanked Truly said Saint Augustin What better thing can we bear in our Minds or utter with our Lips or express with our Pens than Thanks be to God! Nothing can be more quickly said more gladly heard nor more acceptably understood than Thanks be to God who has endued thee with so much Faith In Adversity saith Saint Chrysostom the Wicked curse the Christians give thanks When we please God we shame the Devil For at the same time thou givest Thanks God eases thy Pain and the Devil departs There is nothing more holy than the Tongue which in Adversity Gives God thanks Tertullian commending Job That good man said he upon the receit of all his had tidings still used no other expression but Thanks be to God John Avila the most skilful Teacher of the Inward man was wont to say That in Calamities and Afflictions one Thanks be to God was worth more than six thousand in prosperity and health For in Prosperity to give Thanks is common to all men but in Adversity particular to the Righteous Therefore O my sick Friend so frame thy Mind and Tongue that the worse it is with thee the more readily thou mayst say Thanks be to God Then shalt thou be said to imitate thy Crucified Lord when thou shalt have the Courage in the midst of thy Sorrows to say Let Troubles vex me Grief torment me Want Oppress me Thanks be to God Let my Pains rage my Torments multiply Thanks be to God These Ejaculations penetrate Heaven This is Musick most pleasing to God To this St. Paul exhorts us In all things give thanks in Sickness in Health in Want in Plenty in Adversity in Prosperity In all things give thanks For many times Sickness Want a comfortless Condition loss of Dignities are a greater benefit of God than of all things flowing according to thy wish In no pains at no time let the Sick-person think it a burthen for the Sick-person to cry Thanks be to God So much the more noble is thy Patience so much more graceful thy Giving of thanks by how the more vehement thy Disease and Pains are Sect. 50. The true Confidence of a Sick-man in God TO Die is a serious business And we may well demand of the Patient Wilt thou commit thy self to the Cast of Eternity Thou art going a long and unknown Journey and whither wouldst thou To this the sick Patient does best to answer that does not murmur I am grived I am compelled But rather replies with a chearful Mind willingly freely I resign my Spirit to God Thus I commit my sef to Eternity Thus glady to God Leâ— the Healthy be of this mind of the number of which rightly said one I have already begun to die now I die I waste and am consumed now I travel to Eternity And because the Mercy of God knows no end therefore I travel undauntedly In the O Lord I have put my trust Let me never be put to confusion And though the Sacred Scriptures afford me a thousand Instances I will not despise the Light of Reason which enlightneâ— the wise Roman For what the ancient Heathen thought of Death and our passage from Death into Eternity he thus teaches us When that Day shall come which shall seperate this mixture of Divine and Humane I will leave this Body where I sound it and return my self to God Nor am I now without him though detained by this Ponderosity of Earth These delays of Mortal Age are but a Prelude to a better and a longer Life As we are Nine Months in the Mothers Womb before we are sent forth into this Place so by that space of time between our Infancy and old Age we are prepared for another Birth of Nature Another Original attends us another Condition of Life That Interval fits us to brook the Brightness of Heaven therefore let us undauntedly expect that peremptory Hour noâ— the last to the Soul but to the Body That Day which thou art afraid of as thy last is the Birth-day of thy Eternity These Thoughts will suffer nothing abject nothing sordid to reside in thy Mind These Thoughts command us to approve our selves to God to prepare our selves to God to propose Eternity to our selves of which he that has a true Hope and Confidence shall not fear those numerous Hosts when awakened by the trembling Sound of the last Trumpet Sect. 51. Constantly COnstantly I beseech thee Constantly there is no Patience if Constancy be wanting But one will say it is not two three four or five Weeks that I have layn thus Another will say this is the sixth the tenth the sixteenth Month that I have layn in this miserable Condition Others will cry they have been visited ten thirteen or more Years Persevere I beseech ye persevere and reserve your selves for a Celestial amendment The patient Man continues though he has been afflicted for many more years It is but a point of time saith he that this Sickness has held me when I consider Eternity Happy was that Servant who has the Great Gregory for his Applauder who
Syllogisme is the Conclusion the Conclusion of Life Death But the Conclusion is either true or false according to the Nature of the Antecedents so is Death good or bad as the Life before was good or bad Thus St. Paul severely prononnces saying Whose end shall be according to their VVorks 2 Cor. 11. 15. Memorable is the Death of that Holy Martyr Felix who being led to Execution rejoicing to himself with a loud Voice I have said he preserved my Virginity I have kept the Gospels I have preached the Truth and now I bow my Head a Victim to God There is a Relation of one who died suddenly in his Study and was found with his Finger pointing to that Verse in the Book of VVisdom câ— 4. v. 7. which says Though the Righteous be overtaken with Death yet he shall find rest pretious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints whether slow or suddain The Copious St. Bernard being near his end Because saith he I cannot leave you great Examples of Religion yet I commend Three things to your Observation which I remember observed by my self 1. I less believed my own than the Judgment of another 2. Being injured I never sought Revenge 3. I never would offend any Person Gerard the Brother of St. Bernard upon his Death-Bed broke out into that Davidean Rapture Praise the Lord in Heaven Praise him in the Highest Where is thy Victory O Death Where is thy Sting O Grave Gerard through the midst of thy very Jaws passes not only securely but joyfully and triumphantly to his Country He cannot die ill who has lived well Sect. 16. As we Live so shall we Die The weary Huntsman in his rest all Night Dreams of new Sports and of his past Delight IN the same manner those things that pleased us in our Health we are delighted with at our Deaths Antiochus miserably afflicted the Jews and Maximinâ—s the Emperour had designed the utter Exterpation of the Christians At length they both fell into a most lamentable Disease and when they saw no other way the one besought the Jews the other the Christians to pray to their God for their Recovery Like Esops Crew which being taken desperately sick cautioned his Mother as she sate by him not to weep for him but rather pray ro the Gods for his Recovery To whom she replied O my Son which of the Gods dost thou think will be propitious to thee that has robbed the Altars of every one of them Therefore as we live so we die so are we reprieved and condemed so destined to Heaven or to Hell Sect. 17. A good Death to be desired I Pray God my Soul may die the Death of the Righteous and that my last end may be like his cried the Prophet Balaam How much more rightly had he wished Let my Soul live the Life of the Just that it may also die the Death of the Just 'T is a Ridiculous thing to desire a good Death and flie a good Life 'T is a Labour to live well but a Happiness to die well he that refuses to pass the Red Sea must not think to eat Manna He that loves the Egyptian Servitude shall never reach the Land of Canaan Piously and Elegantly St. Bernard Oh that I may fall saith he frequently by this Death that I may escape the Snares of Death that I may not feel the deadly Allurements of a Luxurious Life that I may not besot my self in sensual Lust in Covetousnes Impatience Care and Trouble for worldly Affairs This is that Death which every one ought to wish for who designs a Life that shall never know Death Before Death to die to Sin and Vice is the best Death of all Sect. 18. Sleep the Brother of Death PAusanias relates that he saw a Statue of Night in the shape of a Woman holding in her right Hand a little white Boy sleeping in her left a little black Boy like one that were a sleep The one was called Somnus Sleep and the other Lethum Death but both the Sons of Night Hence it is that Virgil calls Sleep the Kinsman of Death Gorgias Leontinus being very old was taken ill In his Sickness he was visited by a Friend who finding him fall'n asleep when he waked asked how he did To whom Gorgias made answer Now Sleep is about to deliver me to his Brother Whoever thou art O Christan before thou layst thy self to Sleep examine thy Conscience and wipe away the stains and spots that defile it There are many who have begun to sleep and die both together and ended their Lives before they had stept out of their Sleep The Brother of Death is to be feared and not only cautiously but chastly to be fallen into He that sleeps not chastly shall hardly wake chastly Sect. 19. The fore-runners of Death THE fore-runners of Eternity is Death the fore-runners of Death are Pains and deadly Symptoms One deadly Symptome if we believe Pliny in the height of Madness is Laughter in other Diseases an unequal Pulse But the Eyes and the Ears shew most undoubted Prognosticks of Death Experience teacheth us that when sick People talk of going Journeys and endeavoured to escape ouâ— of their Beds when they pull and pick the Blankets they are near Death Augustus the Emperor a little before he expired suddainly terrified complained that he was carried away by Forty young Men. Which saith Suetonius was rather a Presage than a sign of any Delirium for so many Pretorian Souldiers when he was dead carried him to his Funeral Pile When Alexander went by Water to Babylon a sudden Wind rising blew off the Regal Ornament of his Head and the Diadem fixt to it This was lookt upon as a Presage of Alexander's Death which happened soon after In the Year of Christ 1185. the last and most fatal end of Andronicus Commenus being at hand the Statue of St. Paul which the Emperour had caused to be set up in the great Church of Constantinople abundantly wept Nor were these Tears in vain which the Emperour washt off with his own Blood Barbara Princess of Bavaria having shut her self up in a Nunnery among other things allowed her for her peculiar Recreation she had a Marjoram-Tree of an extraordinary bigness a small Aviary and a Gold Chain which she wore about her Neck but fourteen days before she died the Marjoram-Tree dried up the Bâ—rds the next Night were all found dead and after that the Chain broke in two in the middle Then Barbara calling for the Abbess told her that all those Warnings were for her and in a few days after died in the Seventeenth Year of her Age After her death above twenty other Virgins died out of the same Nunnery Several other Presages there are that foretold the death of Princes and great Men As the uuwonted Howlings of Dogs the unseasonable noise of Bells the Roaring of Lions c. Therefore said Pliny The Signs of Death are innumerable and that there are
none or very few Signs of Safety or Security What do all these things Admonish us but only this Remember O man that thou art a man think upon Eternity to which thou art hastening Go to prepare thy self thou art called to that Tribunal of God as thou didst live shalt thou be judged Sect. â—o What Answer is to be given to the Messenger of Death SAint Ambrose having received the News of his Death when his Friends bewailed him and begg'd of God to grant him a longer space of Life I have not lived as to be ashamed to lieve among you neither do I fâ—â—r to die because we have a graciâ—us God Saint Austin nothing troubled at the News of his Death He never shall be great saith he who thinks it strange that Stones and Wood fall and that Mortals die Saint Chrysostom a little before his Death in Exile wrote to Innocentius We have been these three Years in Banishment exposed to Peâ—â—ilence Famine continual Iucursions unspeakable Solitude and continual Death But when he was ready to give up the ghost He cryed out aloud Glory be to thee â—O God â—or all things Let a dying Christian imitate these most holy Persons and repeat these Sayings often to himself Thanks be to God Glory be to thee O God for all things I have watcht long enough among thornâ— Labour'd long enough in Storms Now because I see the end of my Watching and my Labour Thanks be to God Glory be to God for all things For Life is tedious Death a certain gain Sect. 21. Death is better than a sorrowful Life IT is better once to Die than to be always Dying We daily Die we have lost â—â—â— Childhood our Youth is gone All our Time even to Yesterday is slid away These things Gregory Nazianzene comprehending in a few words There is no good among men with which there is not something of evil mixt Riches are a Snare Poverty a Fetter Honour a meer Dream Empire dangerous Subjection troublesom Youth is the Summer of Life Grey hairs the Sun-set of Life Matrimony a Bond Children the growing Crop of Care Fulness breeds Petulance Want begets Impatience Whatever we behold in this World is like the World in a perpetual motion Whatever seemed stable is now doubtful 〈…〉 with the perpetual volubility of Day-night 〈…〉 Diseases Sorrows Pleasures and Calamities Death is most certain Elegantly St. Austin Death saith he is only certain all things else uncertain A Child once Conceived perhaps is born perhaps not but perishes in Abortion If he be born perhaps he grows up perhaps not perhaps he grows old perhaps not Peradventure he shall be Rich peradventure Poor perhaps he shall attain to Honour peradventure live Contemned perhaps he shall have Children it may be not perhaps he shall die in his Bed it may be slain in the Field But who can say perhaps he shall die perhaps not The first Book of Maccabees thus describes the Death of Alexander Then he fell sick and when he perceived that he should die Alexander had wished for several Worlds in hopes of Victory and thought with himself that he had performed Atchievements that deserved Eternal Annals Nevertheless after so many and such great Victories overcome at length he fell not only into his Bed but into his Tomb contented with a small Coffin Peter Alfonsus reports That several Philosophers flockt together and variously descaâ—ted upon the King â— Death One there was that said Behold now four Yards of Ground is enough for him whom the spacious Earth could not comprehend before Another added Yesterday could Alexander save whom he pleas'd from Death to Day he cannot free himself Another viewing the Golden Coffin of the Deceased Yesterday said he Alexander heaped up a Treasure of Gold now Gold makes a Treasure of Alexander This was their Learned Contention yet all ended in this Then he fell sick and died Thus forgetful of our selves what Mountains do we raise to our selves in Thought We revolve in our Minds Immortal I wish they were Heavenly Things whilst Death surprizes us in the midst of our vast Undertakings and that which we call Old Age is but the Circuit of a few Years Wherefore do we trust to Death Behold through what slight Occasions we lose our Lives Our Food our Moisture our Watchings our Sleep are unwholesome to us without their due measure A small hurt of a Toe a light pain of the Ear a Worm in the Tooth make way for Death The little Body of Man is weak frail subject to Diseases this Air these Winds those Waters offend him therefore let us believe the Son of Syras Death is better than â— bitter Life and Eternal Rest better than continual Sickness So that it is much better to be an Inhabitant on Earth than a Pilgrim in Heaven Sect. 22. The Happiness of Death BLessed are the dead that die in the Lord even so saith the Spirit that they may rest from their â—â—bours and their works follow them To die in the â—â—rd is the same thing as to die a Servant of the â—â—rd as the Scripture speaks concerning Moses Moses my Servant is dead As if God had said saith Cajetan Though he were once a Sinner and was not then my Servant nevertheless he died my Servant He so died that whatever he was or whatever he did was mine for a Servant wholly belongs to the Master And let such a Servant of the Lord sing that Song of Simeon at his death Lord now let thy Servant depart in peace according to thy word Altogether in peace and that Eternal in the beginning whereof all the Warfare of good men is at an end never more to be rekindl'd For such Servants of God die in the Lord who dying rest in the Besom of God and so resting sweetly sleep in death Thus Stephen among so many Showers of Stones in such in the midst of the Tumult and Dinn of the Enraged Multitude slept in the Lord. Thus Moses the Servant of the Lord died by the command of God Thrice happy and blessed are such that never more shall be miserable The death of the Just faith St. Bernard is good because of its Rest better because of its Novelty best of all by reason of its Security Blessed and again thrice blessed are such for their Works follow them They follow them as Children follow their Parents as Servants follow their Masters as Scholars follow their Teacher and Souldiers their Captain They follow them to the Tribunal of God to the Court of Heaven as Peers follow their Prince whither these Noble Servants are only admitted Sect. 23. The Farewel of a dying Person to the living which are to go the same way THere are many things of which it behoves me to Repent of Vertue often neglected and Time ill spent How much did it become me to have been more patient more submissive more studious of daily Death How small a Spark of Divine Love did glow in me Pity me O God pity me
according to thy great Mercy Spare a Sinner O Infinite God through the Passion and Blood of thy dear Son But I have also offended you both in Word and Deed Pardon me you find me both Consessing and Sorry and deny me not this Provision for my Journey the pardon of all my Transgressions Let not your Vertue decrease by my Example which was always bad You have before your Eyes the Lives of the Saints to which yours must conform Enable their Patience Submission and Obedience to the utmost of your power I also return you thanks for your Pains for your Assistance for your Advice and for your Love God the inexhaustible Fountain of Goodness and the Immense Ocean of Love recompence your Affection God is certainly most Liberal to those that Commit themselves to his most holy Providence Obedience is a most Noble Vertue Patience is absolutely necessary Submission is a most excellent Vertue and Contempt of our selves Poverty is a Vertue belov'd of Christ Charity is the Queen of Vertue Yet above all the Vertues Faith in God seems to me to have something singular and most excellent and a Plenary Resignation of a Man's self to Divine Providence which the holy Scripture so commends and which is continually in the Mouth of the Kingly Prophet and which Christ endeavours to inculcate into us by so many Arguments drawn from Flowers c. little Birds The Vertues of this Faith and the Tranquility that attends it he only knows and finds who in every thing as well small as great most perfectly trusts in God and confines himself to rely upon his Providence and Will Neither do I believe there is any man who had this Hope and Trust in God but that strange and hidden Mysteries befell him Therefore let us trust in God and commit our selves wholly to his Will and Protection I whom ye here see am cited to the Tribunal of God to give an Account of Sixty Years All my Deeds Words and Thoughts are open to this Judge Nothing is concealed from him All my Lifes Actions shall receive their definitive Sentence How I tremble for it is a terrible thing to stand in Judgment before God But in this Extremity there is that which comforts me Therefore though I am a wicked Servant my Lord is Gracious and Infinitely Good who will acknowledge his Servant though he have been bad And now God be with you all that Survive Farewel all you that are to follow me in your order Sect. 24. The last Admonitions of Dying People AS the Sun towards his Setting shines often forth more pleasantly So Man the nearer he is to Death the wiser he is Hence those Admonitions of dying People which Wisdom has so much applauded Cyrus being about to die My Son said he when I am dead close up my Body neither in Silver nor in any other Mettal but return its own Earth to the Earth again His last Words were Be grateful to your Friends and you will never want the Power to punish your Enemies Farewel my dear Son and tell these my Words to your Mother also Wisely saith Theophrastus upon his Death Bed Many fine and pleasant things doth Life impose upon us under the pretence of Glory then the Love of which there is nothing more vain Hither may be referred the saying of Severus the Emperor I was all things but nothing avails Constantius Father of Constantine the Great upon his Death-Bed as he was resigning his Empire to his Son with a wonderful Chearfulness Now said he do I almost esteem Death above Immortality I leave a Son Emperor Here is the Man that after 270 years has wiped away the Tears of the Christians and avenged the Cruelty of Tyrants Christ was truly in Arms with Constantius Lewis King of France gave these his last Admonitions to his Son Beware my Son that thou never commit any deadly Sin rather suffer all manner of Torments First chose such about thee as will not be afraid to tell thee what thou art to do and what to beware To thy Parents give all Obedience Love and Reverence Ferdinand the Great King of Castile falling sick of his last Sickness caused himself to be carried to the great Church in all his Royal Robes where putting off all his Royal Ornaments and as it were restoring God his own he put on a Hair Cloth and casting himself upon the Ground with Tears in his Eyes Lord said he the Kingdom which thou gavest me I return to thee again seat me I beseech thee in Eternal Light Charles King of Sicily spoke these Words Oh the Vain Thoughts of Men Miserable Creatures we are delighted with Honour heap up Treasure and neglect Heaven O the happy Fate of the poor who content with little Sleep in Tranquility What does now my Kingdom what do all my Guards avail me I might have been Miserable without all this Pomp. Where is now the power and strength of my Empire The same necessity involves me as hampers the meanest Begger Of so many Thousands of Clyents Servants and Flatterers there is not one that will or can accompany to the Tribunal of God Go Mortals go and swell your Breasts with great Thoughts to Day or â—â—â—orrow ye must die Farewel Earth would I could say welcom Heaven Nor must we forget the most Holy and Opulent of Kings the Son of the Hebrew Nation David who being near Death I saith he am going the way of all the Earth and then turning to his Son But thou my Son Solomon said he keep thou the watch of the Lord thy God that thou walk in his Ways and keep his Statutes and Precepts If thou seek the Lord thou shalt find him but if thou forsakest him he shall cast thee off to Eternity A terrible Exhortation and enough to have pierced a Heart of Adamant Thus Death devours all cuts off Kings lays Nations wast and swallows the People up deaf to Prayers Riches Tears noâ— to be overcome by any humane force Only the wise-Man dies contented the Fool murmurs at his departure Sect. 25. Christ is invited ABide with me O Lord for it draweth toward Night and the day is far passed The day of my Life hastens towards Night and there is no Joshua to stay the Sun or prolong the Day But as the Sun is daily buried under ground yet every Morning revives so I and all that live shall go to the Earth but we shall return from the Earth clearer than the Sun it self Therefore O Christ O my most Gracious Saviour abide with me behold it draweth towards Night My Eyes my Ears all my Senses fail me but do thou I beseech thee not fail me O most loving Jesu and all the rest I most willingly abandon Begon all other things I dismiss and give ye leave My Creator is with me it is enough It is well with me But that thou may'st tarry with me till Night even till Death still I cry abide with me O Lord for it draweth towards Night
Sect. 26. The dying Man is encouraged WHen thou hast not the convenience of reading much behold a few Verses not a little useful to ease thy Troubles and confirm thy mind Consider that St. Cyprian whispers these Words into thy Ears When we die we pass to Immortality Nor can we attain to eternal Life unless we depart from hence Neither is this an Exit but a Passage and a flight to Eternity after the short Conclusion of a Temperate Race How preposterous how perverse a thing it is when we desire that the Will of God should be done when he calls us forth of this World that we should not streight be obedient to his Will We strive we struggle and like head-strong Servants we are haled into the presence of God with Sadness and Sorrow forc'd rather by Necessity than won by the tie of our Obedience and is it reasonable we should be honoured by him with Celestial rewards to whom we go unwillingly Wherefore do we desire and pray that the Heavenly Kingdom may come when our Earthly Captivity so much delighteth us Wherefore do we so earnestly wish for the fulfilling of Christs Kingdom when we had rather serve the Devil here then raign with Christ there Then shall the Servants of God injoy Peace and a calm and quiet Rest when freed from the troubles of this World when having vanquished Death we come to immortality When to see Christ it shall be our joy when we can have no joy but by seeing Christ What blindness of mind what madness is it to be in love with the Oppressions Pains and Tears of this World and not rather to make haste to that joy which can never be â—ak'n from us Death is therefore the Hav'n of all Mortals O happy Shore O secure Port wherein none but the obstinate can Shipwrack Sect. 27. Faith in the Resurrection THis Flesh of ours now lives though shortly to return to its Clay to its mouldring Dust to be the Food of Fish Locusts Ants and poysonous Vermin And yet after all this the same Flesh shall rise and the Butcheries of Executioners and the Coats of Martyrs shall be crown'd Neither â—â— thou dream of any Flesh than the former unless thou canst imagine God unjust to give the reward to any other than that which has won the Prize or that he should receive another to his Heavenly Rest than that which won the Prize The same Soul in all things which in this Flesh fought the good fight stood stedfast learnt God put on Christ sowed the hope of Salvation the same shall reap The same Flesh that with the Soul ran through the whole Order of Life endured bled with the same Soul its Companion shall reap the reward Lazarus was the same after he had been four days in the Sepulchre as before The same the Son after the Mothers Tears were tried up as before The same was Christ after his being entombed as before Neither does any aid of Sepulture deprive God of his Omnipotency or put a stop to his Goodness The sâ—me was the Tongue of the Rich Man that was fed with Banquets and that which was scorched in the Infernal Flames and begg'd to be relieved by the Finger of the more happy Begger the same Flesh shall be rewarded or punished according to its Merits Is not God able to enliv'n the Clay with the same breathing of his Spirit as formerly He that formed the Muscles the Bones the Nerves the Veins the Marrow out of the same Clay Can he not form the same out of the same again Is there a necessity that what perishes once should always Perish By what Law Behold that I may not stumble thee with any higher Philosophy behold thy Universal returning Order of all things that is a testimony and argument of returning Man Summers and Winters revolve Springs and Autums have their turns The light of Sun and Stars return with the morning Splendor or the natural Darkness had obscured Thou wouldst think the 〈…〉 dead and the Branches only fit for the Fiâ—e yet we see them revive again and thicker clad than before and what the cold Kills the heat of Summer restores more Beautiful as if decay it self paid use Not that these things in all things prove the Reparation of Human Life but lead us to it Wouldst thou have more signal Arguments We have a pledge in Christ in whom we Usurp Heaven and the Kingdom of God Wouldst thou have it in Man The mortified and putrified Flesh of Lazarus wise Flesh Moses and Elias made known to the Apostles demonstrated that the same Habit and Condition of Body is still preserv'd in Glory And the departed Souls delivered out of the Prisons of this Flesh and returned to their own pure Light and Substance yet desire nothing more than to be clad with this refin'd Clay and in the former Matrimonial Society to continue a Life with the same Flesh never to be dissolved that they which endured together may injoy the same equality of Glory like Christ their Captain who ascended Flesh and Bone into Heaven a Pledge and Argument of our future Purity Therefore let us not be sad When the old House falls a fairer will rise in the stead He not only believed without a Cause but lived for no Cause that thought himself born to Perish Sect. 28. The hope of Resurrection our greatest Comfort JOB almost buried in the Grave of innumerable Calamities yet with a vast alacrity of Mind I know saith he that my Redeemer Lives and that I shall rise out of the Earth at the latter day and shall be covered again with my Skin and shall see God in my Flesh when I my self shall see and mine Eyes shall behold and none other for me This my hope is laid up in my Bosome Christ also as it were returning an Answer to Job I am the Resurrection and Life saith he whoever believeth in me though he be dead shall live There will most certainly come a day that will restore us to Light and therefore ought to depart contentedly 'T is reported that there is a Bird in the East Indies called Semenda which being sensible of her approaching Death fetches Wood into her Nest sings sweetly and by the clapping of her Wings sets it a Fire where being consumed out of the Ashes grows a Worm which afterwards comes to be a Bird of the same Nature A plain Symbolum of the Resurrection Mirmeius the Roman Orator a great Antagonist of the Christians see saith he how for our comfort all nature points out our Resurrection The Sun sets and rises the Stars fall and return Flowers decay and refluorish the withered Trees recover their Vendure Seeds return their several species Thus the Body deceased like Trees in Winter cover their Vigour with a feigned dryness We are also to expect the Spring of the Body I know that my Redeemer Lives and that I shall rise again at the last day Sect. 29. The hope of Heaven WHat wouldst thou What
his Conversion declaring the Christian Faith to be the only means of Salvation declaring that he was ready to die for the same which accordingly he did they being both Beheaded at the same time As for the Body of our Apostle it being Interred near Jerusalem was from thence brought into Spain and there said to do many Miracles but what Credit is to be given to that I leave to the Reader 's Judgment The Death of St. JOHN HE died said the Arabian as Kirsten has it in the Lives of the Four Evangelists in the expectation of his blessedness from which he infers that he died peaceably and not a violent Death although Theophylact and others do conceive that he died a Martyr Many there are likewise who have cherished a fond Opinion that he never died but rather that sleeps in his Grave alluding to the words of our Saviour upon Peter's enquiry If I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee John 21. 23. Others say that having commanded his Grave to be dug he went into it and ordered such as went with him to fasten down a great Stone upon the same and come the next Morning and look into it which they did and found nothing there but the Grave-cloaths from which as Nicephorus relates they concluded he was Ascended he having intimated some such thing before his lying down The Death of St. PHILIP THis Apostle was seized and carried to Prison and being Sentenced he was cruelly Scourged and hanged by the Neck against a Pillar though some would have it that he was Crucified but however during the Execution such a terrible Earthquake happened that the Earth began to open so that the affrighted people cried to Heaven for Mercy upon which it instantly staied The Apostle being dead his Body was taken down by St. Barnabas his Companion in the Ministery of the Gospel at that time and Mariamne St. Philip's Sister who bore him Company in all his Travels After they had taken him down they decently Interred him and when they had confirmed the people in the Faith of Christ they departed thence The Death of St. BARTHOLOMEW HIS Sentence was to be Crucified and when the Day of Execution came he went chearfully to embrace his Death Comforting and Exhorting his Profelytes to keep stedfast in the Faith and Doctrine that they had received which was able to make them wise unto Salvation and so continued to instruct them to the last moment of his Life Several there are that affirm he was Crucified with his Head downwards and that he was fleied alive which cruel usage as Plutarch relateth was common in that Country After his Death his Body was removed to Darus a City in the Borders of Persia from thence to Beuevent in Italy and from thence to Rome The Death of St. MATTHEW the Evangelist WE find in an ancient Author that he suffered Martyrdom at Naddabar a City of Aethiopia but what kind of Death he died is not mentioned and as Dorotheus reports he was Buried at Hierapolis During his Lifetime he was a great Assertor of the true Religion a Contemner of Worldly Treasure which is evident by his leaving so gainful a Calling to follow our Saviour As for his Humility he exceeded many of his Fellows which may well be observed in his Writings where he gives them the Pre-eminency His Age at the time of his Death is not certainly known though some are of Opinion he died in the Seventy Year â— The Death of St. THOMAS THE Brachamans or Heathen Priests were so enraged against St. Thomas that they sought always to destroy the Apostle as hoping by that means to extirpate his Doctrine which by being embraced on all hands had near spoiled their Trade So that one Day when he was praying alone in a solitary place they came upon him with Stones Darts and Spears and having grievously wounded him one of them run him through the Body with a Spear His Body being taken up by his Well-willers was Buried with great Solemnity in the Church that he had built which was afterwards greatly enlarged The Death of St. JAMES HE was took up by force and thrown down from the Battlements notwithstanding which Fall He reared himself upon his Knees and prayed for them the which whilst he was doing such Villains as they had appointed for that purpose fell upon him with Clubs and Stones till one among the rest notwithstanding the entreaty of many to save his Life with a Fuller's Club beat out his Brains and by that means gave his Soul a passage to the Eternal habitations of Bliss and Joy that fade not away He died in the Ninty fourth year of his Age and Twenty four after Christ's Ascension to the grief of all good men Gregory Bishop of Tours informs us that he was buried upon Mouâ—t Olivet in a Tomb which he had caused to be erected during his Life In which â—e had buried old Simeon and Zacharias though Hegesippus will have it that he was buried near the Temple in the place where he was Martyr'd and that there being a Monument erected for him it continued there for many years after The Death of SIMEON the Zelot THE Devil that great Enemy of our Salvation stirred up the Multitude to persecute him whose barbarous rage in a short time after Crowned him with Martyrdom as not only Dorotheus and Nicephorus affirm but also expressed in the Menologies where we are informed that St. Simeon went at last into Britain and having enlightned the Minds of many with the Doctrine of the Gospel he at length was Crucified by the Infidels and buried there but as to any particular place of his Burial no mention is made Some there are who tell us that after he had Preached the Gospel in Aegypt he went to Mesopotamia where meeting with St. Jude they journeyed together into Persia where having planted the Gospel they were both Crowned with Martyrdome The Death of St. JUDE NIcephorus tells us that after all he came tâ— Edessa where Aâ—garus was Governour anâ— where the other Thaddaeus who was one of the Seventy had been before him and there perfecteâ— what was begun and having by his Preaching anâ— Miracles established the Gospel he died a peaceable and quiet Death But Dorotheus affirms thâ— he was slain at Berytus and buried there in a stately Tomb although by the General Consent of the Latin Church he went Preaching the Gospel in Persia where after he had brought many over to the Faith and established the Christian Religion there for many years he at last was for his reproving and strongly opposing Idolatrous and Diabolick Devices of the Magi by their procurement cruelly put to Death The Death of St. MATTHIAS the Apostle HE was treated with all manner of Rudeness and Inhumanity from whom for all his Pains and Labour about saving their Immortal Souls and directing them in the way to everlasting Life he was at last Marty'd by them Anno Christo 59
Death of HILARIUS HE Travelled to Italy and France instructing the Bishops in those parts in the Catholick â—aith He was very Eloquent and wrote many Treatises in Latin also Twelve Books of the Triniâ—â— Expounding the Canon containing the Clause 〈…〉 One Substance being of sufficient proof against the Arrians He died under Valentinian and Valence Anno 355. The Death of CYRILLUS IN the midst of all his Affictions he kept his resolution to die in the Faith He used to say concerning the benefit of Hearing Some come to Church to see Fashions others to meet their Friends yet it 's better to come so than not at all In the mean time the Net is cast out and they which intended nothing less are drawn into Christ who catches them not to destroy them but that being dead he may bring them to Life Eternal He died Anno 365. The Death of EPHREM SYRUS HE died Anno 404. He used to say concerning Perseverance The resolute Traveller knows that his Journey is long and the way dirty yet goes on in hopes to come to his House So let a Christian though the way to Heaven be narrow though it be seâ— with Troubles and Persecutions yet let him go on till he has finished his Course with Joy for Heaven is his Home Concerning the Soul he used to say ` He that feasts his Body and starves his Soul is like him that feasts his Slave and starves his Wife He died Anno 404. The Death of BASIL Bâ—sil died at Caesarea when he had sat Bishop there eight years departing this Life Anno Christi 370. At his departure he uttered these words Into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit He used to say of Self-knowledge To know thy Self is very difficult For as the Eye can see all things but it self so some can discern all faults but their own Of Love Divine Love is a never-failing Treasure he that hath it is Rich and he that wanteth it is Poor Of the Scriptures It 's a Physicians Shop of Preservatives against Poysonous Heresies A pattern of profitable Laws against Rebellious Spirits A Treasury of most costly Jewels against Beggarly Elements And a Fountain of most pure Water springing up to Eternal Life The Last Sayings of GREGORY NAZIENZEN IN his Minority he joined Studies with Basil and accompanied him to Athens and Antioch where he became an Excellent Orator There is so much Perfection in all his Writings and such a peculiar Grace that he never tires his Reader but he always dismisseth him with a thirst after more Concerning Pâ—eaching he used to say That in a great multitude of people of several Ages and Conditions who are like a Harp with many Strings it is hard to give every one such a touch in Preaching as may please all and offend none He lived under Theodosius Anno 370. The Death of EPIPHANIUS VVHen he found himself Sick he said to his Friends God bless you my Children â—or I shall see you no more in this Life He died Aged 115. He used to say this was his Antidote against Hatred That he never let his Adversary sleep not that he disturbed him in his sleep but because he agreed with him presently and would not let the Sun go down upon his Wrath. The Death of AMBROSE AFter Ambrose had sate Bishop about Sixteen years Death summoned him to lay down this troublesom Life for a Life more lasting Before his Death he resolved to provide a Shepherd for his Flock and for that purpose sent for one Simplicianus and ordained him Bishop in his stead after having given many Godly Exhortations tâ— such as were about him he gave up the Ghosâ— dying in the third Year of Theodorus Anno Christ 397. He used to say of Repentance When Gold 〈…〉 offered to thee thou usest not to say I will come again to morrow and take it but art glad of present possession But Salvation being proffered 〈…〉 our Souls few Men haste to embrace it He used to say of true Charity It is not much to be enquired how much thou givest with what Heart It 's not Liberality when the takest by Oppression from one and givest it to another Of Conscience A clear Conscience should not regard slanderous Speeches nor think that they have more power to Condemn him than his own Conscience hath to clear him The Death of GREGORY NISSEN HE lived under Constantins Julian Jovian Valentinian Valence Gratian and Theodosius the Great He was President in the Council of Constantinople against the Macedonian Hereticks 492. Amongst his Similitudes he compared the Userer to a Man giving Water to one in a Burning Fever which proves prejudicial So the Userer though he seems for the present to relieve his Brother yet afterwards he torments him This Character he also gave the Userer He loves no Labour but a Sedentary Life A Pen is his Plough Parchment his Field Ink his Seed Time is the Rain to Ripen his greedy desires his Sickle is calling in his Forfeitures his House the Barn where he Winnows his Clients he follows his Debtors as Eagles and Vultures do Armies to prey upon dead Corps Again Men come to Userers as Birds to a heap of Corn they covet the Corn but are caâ—cht in the Nets He died under Valentine and Valence The Death of THEODORET HE died in the Reign of Theodosius Junior not with Age but hard Studies He used to say That the Delights of the Soul are to know her Maker to consider his Works and to know her own Estate The Death of HIEROM HE died Anno Christi 422 and of his Age 91. He wrote many large Volumes being a Man of singular Chastity of great Wit slow to Anger aud in Learning exceeding most of his Time His usual Prayer was Lord let me know my self that I may the better know thee the Saviour of the World An Excellent Saying he had of Christian Fortitude If my Father was weeping on his Knees before me my Mother leaning on my Neck behind my Brethren Sisters Children and Kinsfolks howling on every side to retain me in a single Life I would sling my Mother to the ground run over my Father despise all my Kindred and tread them under my Feet that I might run to Christ Of Chastity That Woman is truly Chaste that hath liberty and opportunity to Sin and will not Of Vertue All Vertues are so linked together that he that hath one hath all and he that wants one wants all In all his Actions he ever fansied this sound in his Ears Arise ye Dead and come â—â— Judgment The Death of CHRYSOSTOM THE exact year of his death I find no where set down but that he flourished in the 〈…〉 shoprick of Constantinople Anno Christi 400 is 〈…〉 certain He used to say of Lust As a great shower of Rain extinguisheth the force of Fire so Meditation of Gods Word puts out the Fire of Lust in the Soul Of the danger of Riches ` As a Boat over-laden sinks so
much Wealth drowns Men in perdition Of Love A Bulwark of Adamant is not more Impregnable then the Love of Brethren Of Temptations The Devils first Assault is violent resist that and his second will be weaker and that being resisted he proves a Coward The Death of AUGUSTIN HE died Anno Christi 430 of his Age 75 and of his Ministry 40. He was a Man of a Charitable Disposition very sparing in Diet and a hearty Lover of all good Men. His Table was more for Disputation than for Revelling and had Engraven upon it He that doth love an absent Friend to jeer May hence depart no room is for him here He Collected together several Precepts of a Christian Life which whoever perused it might see their Duty this he called A Looking-glass His usual Wish was That Christ when he came might find him either Praying or Preaching When the Dâ—naâ—ists upbraided him of Levity in his Minority Look said he how much they blame my former faults by so much the more I commend and praise my Physicians He used to say of Marriage Humble Marriage is better than Proud Virginity Of Death There is nothing that more abateth Sin than the frequent Meditation of Death he cannot die ill that lived well and seldom doth he die well who lived ill Of Christian Thoughts A Christian at home in his House must think himself a Stranger and that his Countrey is above Of Riches If Men want Wealth it is not to be unjustly gotten if they have it they ought by good Works to lay it up in Heaven He so admired the Seven Penitential Psalms that he had them hung up in great Letters within his Bed-Curtains that so he might depart in the Contemplation of them The Death of CYKIL of Alexandria HE was Famous for Wit Eloquence and Piety Concerning Charity he used to say 'T is the best way for a Rich Man to make the Bellies of the Poor his Barn and thereby to lay up Treasure in Heaven Of Modesty Where the Scripture wants a Tongue of Expression we need not lend an Ear of Attention we may safely knock at the Council-door of Gods Secrets but if we go further we may be more bold than welcome He lived under Theodosius Junior and died Anno 448. The Death of PETER CHRYSOLOGUS HE was a Man of an Excellent Wit and by his Example and Ministry wrought upon many Souls He used to say of Charity Let not thy Care be to have thy hands full whilst the Poors are empty for the only way to have full Barns is to have Charitable Hands And Vertues separated are annihilated Equity without Goodness is Severity and Justice without Piety Cruelty He lived under Martian the Emperor having been Rishop above 60 Years He died Anno 500. The Death of PROSPER PRosper having under Martian continued 20 years in that Episcopal See he fell sick many of his Friends coming to vâ—â—it him and perceiving them to weep bitterly he comforted them with these words The Life which I have enjoyed said he was but given me upon condition to render it up again not grudgingly but gladly for me to have stayed longer here might seem better for you but for me it is better to be dissolved So falling into fervent Prayer he with great Alacrity resigned up his Spirit into the hands of his Creator dying Anno Christi 466. His usual Sayings was of Conscience That it was his utmost endeavour to keep a Conscience void of offence towards God and Man Of Vice Thou shalt neither hate the Man for his Vice nor love the Vice for the Mans sake Of Pride Consider what thou art by Sin and shalt be in the Grave and thy Plumes will fall for every proud Man forgets himself Of Gods Secrets Those things which God would have searched into are not to be neglected but those which God would have hidden are not to be searched into by the latter we become unlawfully Curious and by the neglect of the former damnably Ingrateful The Death of FULGENTIUS WHen Fulgentius fell Sick during which sickness he behaved himself with wonderful Patience and Humility and when his Physicians told him a Bath would do well for the recovery of his Health he answered What tell you me of a Bath can any Bath preserve the life of him who has run his natural course that he shall not die and why perswade you me now I am at the point of death to abate of that rigor which I all my life have used When having taken leave of those that came to visit him and distributed what Money he had to pious uses he yielded up the Ghost dying Anno Christi 529 and of his Age 65 having sat Bishop 25 years He used to say If want of Charity be tormented in Hell what will become of the Covetous In his greatest Suffering he would say We must suffer more than this for Christ The Death of GREGORY the Great HE never could read these words Son remember that thou in thy Life-time receivedst thy good things c. without Horror and Amazement lest he by enjoying such Dignities and Honours should lose his Portion in Heaven He dyed Anno 605. The Death of ISIDORE HE so wasted his Body with Labours and enriched his Soul with Divine Contemplations that he seemed to live an Angelical Life upon Earth He used to say of a Guilty Conscience All things may be shunned but a Man 's own Heart a Man cannot run from himself a Guilty Conscience will not forsake him wheresoever he goâ—s Of the danger of Pride He that begins to grow better let him beware lest he grow proud lest Vain-glory give him a greater overthrow than his former Vices He dyed 675. The Death of Venerable BEDE IN his Sickness he was wont to encourage himself with the words of the postle Heb. 12. 6. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every Son whom he receiveth And when he beheld some of his Scholars weeping over him he comforted them with these words The time is come â—â— my Creator pleaseth that being freed from the Flâ—â—â— I shall go to him who made me when I was not ouâ— of nothing I have lived long and the time of mâ— dissolution is approaching and my Soul desireth to see my Saviour Christ in his Glory And so gave up the â—host Anno Christi 735 and of his Age 64. Some affirm that whilst he was Preaching to his Congregation a loud Voice was heard but from whence it came none could tell Well done Venerable Bede Upon his Tomb was found this Epitaph Here lyes Entombed in these Stones Of Venerable BEDE the Bones The Death of JOHN DAMASCENE DAmascene having finished his Course he yielded to Death in certain hope of a Glorious Crown of Life and Immortality dying about the Year 750. He wrote many Books but especially his Three Books of Parallels of the Holy Scriptures and his Four Books of the Orthodox Faith The Death of THEOPHILACT HIS Chief Work was
help I may bear and suffer this Ignominious Death whereunto I am Condemned for the preaching thy most Holy Gospel As they were binding him to the Stake with a Chain he said with a merry Countenance That he would embrace that Chain for Christ's sake who for his sake had been bound with a far worse When the Fire was kindled he began to sing with a loud Voice Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God have mercy upon me The which after he had repeated three times the flame stopped his Breath his Heart being afterwards found they roasted it upon a Stake and gathering up his Ashes they cast them into the Rhine He suffered Martyrdom Anno Christi 1415. The Death of Hierom of Prague HIS Enemies passed Sentence upon him after which they put a Paper about him painted with red Devils to make him odious to the People as likewise a Paper Mitre on his Head which he took very patiently saying Our Lord Jesus Christ when he suffered Death for me did wear a Crown of Thorns upon his Head and for his sake I will wear this Cap. As he went to the place of Execution he sung Psalms and coming to the place whâ—re John Huss was Burned he upon his Knees put up his Prayers to Heaven after a while they bound him to the Imáge of John Huss Carved in Wood which they had set up instead of a Stake and there with admirable patience he sustained the sury of the Flames when at the giving up the Ghost he with an Audible Voice said This Soul of mine in flames of Fire set free O! Christ my Saviour now I offer thee The Death of Martin Luther FAlling Sick he soon grew exceeding weak yet putting his trust in God he supported himself to Comfort his Friends beyond measure Insomuch that the day before his Death he dined and supped with Melancthene and the rest of his Accomplices But after Supper his Pain increasing he retired to pray and then went to Bed and slept till Midnight but being awakened by the Pain and perceiving his Life near at an end he called his Friends about him and said I pray God to preserve the Doctrine of the Gospel amongst us for the Pope and the Council of Trent have grievous things in hand After which he prayed and earnestly desired of God that he would defend his Church against the Pope and all his Adherents When he was about to die Justus Jonas and Caelius bid him be constant and persevere in the Faith he had taught and held to the last To which he answered Yea and soon after gave up the Ghost dying Anno Christi 1546. He was a Man of great Temperance and Abstenence oftentimes had the Papists hired Ruffians to kill him but they had never the power to do it the Devil one time appeared to him as he was walking in his Garden in the shape of a huge Boar but he so flouâ—ed him that he soon vauished He was wont to say God would give Peace to Germany during his Life but woe to them that should live after him The Death of Zuinglius ZVinglius being the soutâ—h time run in with a Spear he fell down upon his Knees and said Well they can kill the Body but cannot kill the Soul When the Soldiers came to strip the slain Zuinglius was fonnd alive lying upon his Back with his Eyes up to Heaven whereupon they asked him if he would have a Priest to Confess him to which he answered No they then bid him call upon the Virgin Mary which he refusing they thrust him in with a Sword and so expired without setching a Groan as soon as they knew it to be him they cut his Body in four pieces and burnt it the next day his Heart was sound unperished by the Fire tho' the rest of his Body was consumed Before this Battel a Comet appeared which he said Prognosticated his Death and declared it openly in his Sermons Fourteen days before he fell in Battel He was slain in the year 1531. The Death of Oecolampadius AN Ulcer broke cut in his Os Sacrum that he was forced to keep his Bed and though all means was used for his Cure he told 'em his Disease was Mortal and said I shall be presently with the Lord. Then putting his hand to his heart said Here is abundance of Light Next Morning he repeated the 51 Psalm and presently after said O Christ save me and so fell asleep in the Lord Anno 1531. aged 51. The Death of John Frith HE was condemned to be burnt as an Heretick When â—e came into Smithfield he with an undaunted Courage went to the Stake no sooner fastened but the fire was kindled He continued till the last with such Constancy and Patience thâ—t many were converted and began to pray to God to receive his Soul but Dr. Cook forbidding them saying They ought to pray for him no more than they would for a Dog which uncharitable Expression made many blame him He suffered Martyrdom Aano Christi 1531. He wrote many Treatises some were burnt during the Reigns of King Henry the Eight and Queen Mary and some were saved by Providence for on Midsummer-Eve Anno 1626. A Cod-Fish being brought into Cambridge Market when it was cut up these Writings of John Frith were found in its Belly wrapt in Canvas which were afterwards Printed to the rejoicing of all good Christians viz. A Preparation for Death A Preparation to the Cross The Treasure of Knowledge A Mirror to know your self A Brief Instruction to teach one willingly to die and not to fear Death Which Treatises preserved Providence have no doubt prâ— The Death of Thomas Bilney HE Preached the Gospel till the Bishop of Norwich imprisoned him who would have persuaded him from his stedfastness but upon refusal he received Sentence of Condemnation The day before his Execution eating heartily he said I imitate those who have a ruinous House to dwell in yet bestow cost as long as they may to hold it up Then discoursing about Fire he â—ut his Finger in the Candle and said I find by Experience that Fire is hot yet I believe though the Stubble of my Body be wasted my Soul will be purged At his Execution the fire being kindled he lift up his Hands crying Lord I believe â—o yielded up his Spirit unto God Anno 1531. The Death of William Tyndal THE English Merchants at Antwerp hearing of his Imprisonment became suitors for his Deliverance but Philips with his Money prevailed beyond their Entreaties Being at last brought to his Answer although his Enemies could lay nothing to his Charge yet the Attorney proceeded to condemn him and delivered him to the Magistrates to execute him When brought to the Stake he cried with an audible voice Lord open the Eyes of the King of England then being strangled fire was sâ—t to the Wood and he consumed to Ashes Anno Christi 1536. Within a short time after the Judgment of God overtook Phillips who betrayed
were permitted to come to him with whom he prayed very servently and gave them all his Benediction The next Morning the Sherist received him and by the way he was greatly solicited by the Sheriff of Essex to Recant To which he only answered Well I perceive that I now have been deceived my self and shall deceive many in Hadly of their Expectations At which the Sheriff told him It was a gracious Saying and desired him to explain it hoping he intended to Recant Why said Doctor Taylor I did propose to my self once that I should have been buried in Hadly Church-yard in which I now see I shall be deceived and as for my deceiving of others of their Expectations is that I being a man of a Corpulent Body might have fed many Worms who now must be content without me Bing come within two Miles of Hadly a great number of people came to meet him greatly lamenting the state into which he was fallen but he comforted them saying Be patient as for me I thank God I am almost at home and have not past two Miles more to go over before I come to my Father's House When the Fire was kindled he extended his Arms toward Heaven and with a Voice ravished with Joy continued saying Most merciful Father of Heaven for Jesus Christ my Saviour's sake receive my Soul into thy Hands till one with a Halbert beat out his Brains Thus died this blessed Martyr Anno 1555. The Death of John Bradford VVHhen he came to Newgate several came to visit him to whom he gave Ghostly Consolation and the next Morning the Sheriff came and conveyed him together with a Youth of about 18 years of Age to Smithfield where the Stake was prepared When he came at the Stake he kissed it as likewise a Faggot that he took up and then falling flat upon his Face in token of Humility he prayed for a good space till the Sheriff ordered him to rise putting off his Raiment he was together with the Youth fastned to the Stake when as he cried with a loud Voice Repent O England of thy Sins beware of Idolatry beware of false Antichrists take heed they do not deceive thee Then turning to the young Man who was an Apprentice to a Merchant in London he said Be of good comfort Bothers for we shall have a merry Supper with the Lord this Night And then embracing the Reeds he said Strait is the Way and narrow is the Gate that leadeth unto everlasting life aud few there be that find it The Fire being kindled he held his Hands in the Flames and with a Christian patience suffered the burning without so much as stirring the Body dying a Glorious Martyr in the Bloody Year Anno 1555. The Death of Nicholas Ridley AFter his Degradation he was delivered in order to his Execution At Supper-time his Keepers Wife weeping to think he must suffer the the next day he comforted her saying I pray be patient and chearful as I am for by this Grief you express 't is plain you love me not and with a chearful Countenance invited them all to his Wedding saying To Morrow I shall be married And when some offered to watch with him he refused their kindness saying That he should sleep as well that Night as ever he did in his life When the Morning was come the Sheriff and others came with a great Guard to convey him to the place of Execution also Dr. Latimer who was Condemned with him Dr. Ridley dressed himself in his Episcopal Garments and shaved himself as if he had been going to an Earthly Wedding Upon his way he looking behind him espied Dr. Latimer coming after and called to him with a chearful Voice saying O Brother are you there Yes said Dr. Latimer I have after you as fast as I can Then turning to Dr. Latimer at the place of Execution he embraced him and bid him be of good comfort For said he ` God will either asswage the heat of the Fire or give us strength to endure its Fury with patience And so going to the Stake he kissed it then kneeled down and prayed for a good space when rising up and being about to speak to the people the Popish Locust run and stopped his Mouth When the Smith was knocking in the Staple that fastned the Chains he said I pray thee good Fellow drive it in fast for the Flesh will have its course The Fire being kindled he stood in the Flame a long while before he died by reason of the ill making of the Fire and then saying Into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit Lord receive my Soul he gave up the ghost suffering Martyrdom Anno Christi 1555. One thing is worthy of Note and may be counted a Prophecy which was this Dr. Ridley then Bishop of London long before King Edward's death as he was crossing the Thames in a Boat the Wind arose so high that all that were with him were in fear of present drowning but he comforted them saying Fear not for this Boat carries a Bishop that must be burned and not drowned The Death of Hugh Latimer WHen he was brought to the Stake he looked with a chearful Countenance not being dismaied at the approach of Death After he had prayed awhile he unstripped himself and said to Bishop Ridley Brother be of good comfort and play the Man for I trust by God's Grace we shall this Day light such a Candle in England as shall never be put out adding That he knew God was Faithful and would not suffer him to be tempted above what he was able to bear Then embracing Dr. Ridley he was bound to the Stake and the Fire kindled then he cried with a loud Voice O Father of Heaven receive my Soul and stroaking his Face with his Hand he gave up the ghost dying a glorious Martyr at Oxford Anno Christi 1555. The Death of John Philpot. WHen he came to Newgate he was put into a place by himself and had word brought him the next Morning that he must suffer when with a cheerful Countenance he replied I am ready God grant me strength and a joyful Resurrection And after having retired awhile to pray he came forth and was conveyed into Smithfield where he no sooner came But he â—e'l on his Knees and with a loud Voice cried I will pay my Vâ—ws in thee O Smithfield then rising up he kisled and embraced the Stake saying Shall I disdain to suffer at this Stake when my Lord and Saviour refused not to suffer a most vile Death for me Having poured out his Soul to God he suffered himself to be bound with the Chain and when the Fire was kindled he commended his Spirit into the Hands of the Father of all Spirits and patiently gave up the ghost suffering Martyrdom Anno Christi 1555 and of his Age about Forty Nine The Death of Thomas Cranmer Arch-Bishop of Canterbury THE Popish Doctors frequently visited him in Prison and used all the Arguments