Catechist May his Sage Counsels abide by you even to old age which will be much Adorned and Comforted by your early Piety Wherefore see that ye convince a dissolute Age that Youth is as capable of Serious Religion as the Hoary Head by which you will answer the end of your Worthy Pastors Erecting and endowing a School for your Instruction And as for such of his Parishioners as are Aged who have lived some Thirty some Forty years under so Beneficial a Ministry Oh! Think what vast Accounts you have to make to God who will soon require at your hands the improvement of your many Talents What Proficiency then and Profit have you made by the many awakening Sermons and Expostulations you have heard Has your Fruit been answerable to your Tillage Can you not remember the time when your Hearts have been sensibly touch'd and warm'd by his Doctrine and resolved for the ways of God Be ye then stedfast and resolute in all Christian Duty and Conscientious in the discharge of your Vows God lays it to the Charge of the incorrigible Jews that they remained rough and unpolisht notwithstanding he had hewen them by his Servants the Prophets Hos 6. 5. It seems they were so hardened that all the stroaks of their Ministers level'd at their Lusts could not separate them from ' em May no share of this fault ever be laid to your Charge If you have been such ill Husbands for your Souls as not to Record his edifying Sermons yet his Care has left a standing warning to you and to the World Not to deferr your Repentance and to hasten your Peace with God which essential part of Wisdom I pray God encline us all to pursue and practise I must now conclude my Mournful Subject in which my Affection would carry me on and my weighty Subject would bear me out But I should be injurious to such whose Affection to their Deceased Friend has brought them far from their Habitations Let us therefore Pray That as God calls home some of his Faithful Servants so he would be pleased to raise up others in their room particularly to the supply of this place which has now sustain'd such a Loss May the great Shepherd of the Sheep continue Faithful Pastors to such as enjoy so great a Blessing And vouchsafe such to all places that want ' em That the whole Church of God may flourish particularly in these Nations not only in our days but till the Consummation of all things Which God of his infinite Mercy grant through Jesus Christ our Blessed Lord and Saviour Amen FINIS Books Printed for NATHANAEL RANEW at the Kings-Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard PRactical Preparation for Death the Interest and Wisdom of Christians the Folly and Misery of those that are negligent therein The great benefits of a life spent in a daily preparation for our latter end with Motives and Directions for the Performance thereof Recommended as proper to be given at Funerals Twelves The Glory and Happiness of the Saints in Heaven Or a Discourse concerning the Blessed State of the Righteous after Death With Motives and Encouragements unto all Christians to secure to themselves an Interest therein Twelves The Virtuous Woman or the Life of Mary Countess of Warwick With some of her Ladiships Pious Reflections on several Scriptures and Meditations on several Subjects Twelves The Holy Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Walker late Wife of Dr. Anthony Walker Octavo The great Evil and Danger of Procrastination or delaying our Repentance in four Funeral Sermons by Anthony Walker Twelves An Exposition on the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments with several Sermons on divers Subjects By Ezekiel Hopkins late Lord Bishop of London-derry Quarto
A SERMON Preached On the 18th of April 1692. AT THE FUNERAL Of the Reverend Dr. ANTHONY WALKER Late Rector of Fyfield in the County of Essex Deceased By JOSIAH WOODWARD Minister of Popler LONDON Printed for NATHANAEL RANEW at the King's Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. TO THE Mourning Relations and Friends Of the Reverend Dr. ANTHONY WALKER Lately Deceased My Friends IT must be look'd on as an Instance of your Affection to the Subject rather than your esteem of the management of it that you have requested the Publication of it with such an urgency as Civil Respect could not deny There being usually in Mourners a kind of satisfaction in humouring their Grief by viewing and reviewing any thing though never so mean that any way relates to a dear Friend taken from them And those who know any thing of my Sentiments in this Matter will deem it no low instance of my Respect that you so far gain the Ascendant over me as to induce me to yield to a thing so dissatisfactory to my self that I may contribute to your Satisfaction It being as I often assured you both beside all my former Intentins and contrary to my present Inclinations to commit these immature Thoughts to the Press which I could not have Pardoned my self for delivering in the Pulpit before such an Audience had I had leisure suitable to the Solemn Occasion But your Request being granted I only beg of God that it may improve any Teachable Mind and Honest Heart For as for such as are of another Temper What can either please or profit them To whom even our Sacred Religion it self is unsavoury and all serious thoughts about another World a sort of Melancholy-Madness Oh! May the God of Truth and Holiness vouchsafe a speedy stop to the rapid Floods of ungodliness by which we are almost overwhelm'd even to Destruction To contribute towards which it is a very small thing to hazzard our Reputation amongst the Enemies of Serious Religion For he that has the Temper of that Blessed Saviour and Religion that we profess will not think his Life dear if by the expence of it he could be Instrumental to stop up the way of such as hasten to Destruction which desirable end may it please the All-governing God to work out of what is here laid before you by Yours in all Sincere Affection and Respect J. W. A SERMON Preached at the funeral of Dr. ANTHONY WALKER Zech. 1. 5. The Prophets do they live for ever IT is not without deep Grief that I enter upon this Mournful Employment assign'd me by the Reverend Person whose Remains lie before us Every thought of it is afflicting and I am sure to find here many Partners in my Sorrows which deplorable Conjunction of our Grief would make it too exorbitant did we not consider that it would be a Violating rather than a Solemnizing of our Worthy Friend's Funerals to be sorry as Men without Hope And indeed as 't was never God's Will that good Men at least since the Fall should have their Happiness here So we act but an unkind part when we too much grudge and grieve that they are ascended above Sin and Mortality So that I shall hope The Sorrow of this Mournful Solemnity may be much Extenuated and in some measure Sanctified by considering That as the Death of the best is the usual course of that Providence which admits no Error so it is none of the unkindest of God's Dispensations to his Servants to put an end to the weary steps of their Pilgrimage 'T is well for the Prophets that they are not to live here for ever The Prophet indeed puts it to the Question in the Text yet so as to imply that there was no Question to be made of it since every body saw that the Prophets did not live for ever here As 't is said John 8. 53. Abraham is dead and the Prophets John 8. 53. are dead They fall sick and die as other Mortals though with better Hope more chearful Hearts and greater fitness for their Change than the Vain and Vicious part of the World That which ocasioned the Prophet Zechariah to make mention of the Mortality of his Brethren the Prophets was to make it a motive to the Hearers of the Prophets to Repent and Reform speedily according to their Doctrine As though he had said You had best improve your selves now by the Ministry of the Prophets They are as Mortal as your selves and your incorrigibleness may make the Death of the Prophets a Judicial stroak upon your selves Wherefore walk whilst you have the Light the Night cometh when none can work And when God draws his Noahs and Lots out of a place Woe be to those that remain behind The Judgments foretold by the Prophets usually attend their departure as it follows verse 6. But my Words and my Statutes which I Commanded my Servants the Prophets did they not take hold of your Fathers That is was not the Sanction of my Holy Statutes verified in the Execution of the Penalties Decreed to the breach of them Did not the Desolation fore-told by the Prophets come upon your disbelieving Fore-Fathers You canno but confess they did and that the Prediction proceeded to its accomplishment tho' the Oracle ceased Now the Duty and Office of a Prophet of old bears a substantial Analogy with that of Evangelical Ministers now Both had a Divine Commission to instruct People in the Mind and Will of God But with this difference The Prophets of old spake by immediate and extraordinary Revelation and Commission from God Whereas God's Ministers now have a Written and Established Rule by which they teach even that perfect System of Doctrine in our Holy Bible which fully contains the Faith once delivered to the Saints To which to presume to add is Enthusiastick Delusion as to diminish from it is Sacrilegious Violence All deviation from it on the right hand or on the left being Falshood and Folly But the End and Aim of God's Ministers the Prophets of old and his Ministers the Pastors now is the same viz. to bring Men to the Saving Knowledge of God in Jesus Christ and a filial Submission to his Sacred Will Upon which account we find the Holy Ghost using the words Prophesying and Preaching as Synonymous Terms for the same thing 1 Cor. 14. 3. and again verse 24. 1 Cor. 14. 3. and 24. And as God then did not discover future Events to Men only to gratifie their Childish Ears with Novels but to affect their Hearts and transform their Lives So is not the Christian Religion given us to be the Object of a curious Speculation but to be matter of our careful and Conscientious Practice So then the Holy Office of a Prophet under the Law and a Pastor under the Gospel being the same in substance the words of the Text will naturally apply themselves to our present occasion and shew us that neither the Sacred Dignity of the Ministerial Office
nor the Faithfullest discharge of it can be any Protection from Death This is sad News to this dark World That the Lights of it will so soon be put out And this alas is the sad cause of the present Mourning and Grief of this place Death hath closed those Compassionate Hands which so often Administred to your Wants and ended that Fatherly Care which so peculiarly consulted the Interests of your particular Persons and Families And what 's the saddest of all alas That Mouth which so often and so servently treated of the Great Things of God's Law in your Ears is now lock'd up in perfect silence till the Resurrection The Prophets are Mortals They do not live for ever So that the observable point in which the words instruct us is That the greatest Eminency in the Church below Prop. is no exemption from the Mortality common to Men. The Prophets are not Angels by Nature though they are Angels by Office as they are term'd Rev. 2. 1. as being the Messengers of God to the Churches and bringing them Tidings from Heaven But their Breath is in their Nostrils and is as soon blown out as other Mens The Text suggests That the Prophets do not live for ever Indeed the Faithful shall in the best sense live for ever For our Blessed Saviour The Truth and the Life has promised that such as believe in him shall never John 11. 26. die John 11. 26. They shall live for ever in his Presence and Kingdom So that if the Atheist should put the Question in the Text as a Scoff or Taunt The words are answerable in the affirmative The Prophets do and will live for ever in Beatifick Glory They are not capable of Diseases or Revel 21. 4. Death there Rev. 21. 4. There is no more Death nor Sorrow nor Crying neither shall there be any more Pain The Holy Prophets may be here excruciated with the grinding Pains of the Stone and Gout and Cholick and other acute Distempers But when once they put off their Corruptible all 's well All Humane Maladies are driven away by the Glorious Presence of God as Shadows when there is nothing to interpose betwixt them and the Sun So that it is very happy for the Faithful Servants of God that they are so soon to remove from this State of Darkness and Discord and Sin and Misery And indeed Eminency of Grace is so far from being a Protection from Death that it is often a Token of short Life The higher we grow in Grace the nearer we approach to Glory Enoch walked a Heavenly pace and God took him speedily to that place for which he was fit The Church here is but as an under-School to fit us for the Church above and when the Master sees Men such Proficients in Grace as to be fit for Glory he removes them and then they throw by their Mortal Flesh as graduates Shift the Habits of their Minor-State This is that Periodical Change which all the Prophets except Enoch and Elijah and all the Evangelists and Apostles underwent For though some thought that St. John was exempted from Death and some vain People would yet perswade us That he is even to this day walking about yet we find he did not think so himself Nor did our Saviour ever say he should not die as John 21. 23. we read John 21. 23. The extravagant pretence of the Wandering Jew not many years since was something like this who confidently affirm'd that he kept the door of the Hall where our Blessed Saviour was condemned at the time of his Trial before Pilate And that Christ for some roughness of carriage towards him destin'd him to live till his coming to Judgment and that he had been a Pilgrim in all parts of the World ever since and been an Eye-witness to the Destruction of Jerusalem and the greatest Transactions of the World ever since This I say was too palpable an Impostor or rather Madness to deceive any but such as were as Brain-sick as himself Let me speak freely says St. Peter of the Patriarch David That he is both dead and buried and his Sepulcre is with us unto this day Acts 2. 29. So Great a Progenitor and so Eminent a Type of the Messiah was compelled to yield to the necessary Decays and Decease of Natural Life His Lamp burnt long indeed and in a leisurely manner consum'd the Vital Moisture and Warmth those Stamina Vitae but it was at last extinguish'd or rather went out of it self And thus you see the scope of the Doctrine in the Text illustrated That the greatest Eminency in God's Church here is no exemption from the common Mortality Which great Truth I shall endeavour to improve and apply these two ways 1. Shewing how the Goodness and Wisdom of God's Providence appears in the Deaths of good Men particularly of Ministers 2. What use both Ministers and People ought to make of this Dispensation I begin to shew that the Goodness and Wisdom of God is seen in a peculiar manner in the Death of Faithful Ministers which may turn our Complaints of the severity of God's Providences into Admiration and Praise of the infinite Wisdom and Goodness which directed and dispensed them For 1. The Graciousness of God's Providence appears in the Death of Faithful Ministers in that God hereby gives them rest from their Labours The Laborious and Stedfast Servants of God are encourag'd by a Voice from Heaven to go on cheerfully in their present Labours in hope of the rest to come Rev. 14. 13. Blessed are the Dead which die in the Revel 14. 13. Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit That they may rest from their Labours Now a Faithful Minister is not only a Labourer but a Labourer in Harvest Matth. 9. 38. a time in which every one Matth 9. 38. puts out his strength to the utmost We are gathering up the Wheat in Christ's Field and there are many Adversaries interrupting and retarding our Work The envious Legions of Darkness are deluding and destroying of multitudes and what is worse too many love to have it so We see their pernicious ways and who leads them on in them yet all our Calls and Cries in their Ears will not make them consider and amend they love the works of Darkness and seem to value Temptations to Destruction This is that which makes our Labours very Afflictive as it was at once the Grief and Anger of our Supreme Pastor in the days of his Flesh Mark 3. 5. He look'd round Mark 3. 5. about on them with Anger being griev'd for the hardness of their Hearts Alas too great a part of our usual Audience are no more affected with the great Promises and Threatnings of God's Book than if we spake to the Graves of those who have been long dead However 't is our Great Master's Will that we Labour in Season and out of Season And the Laborious Minister who spends and is spent in God's