Text do truly agree That God giveth to him that is good in his sight Wisdom Knowledg and Joy The Text that is here before us does so agree to this that I have read that the Application will be so easie that it will be almost needless after I have a little opened it A man that is good in the sight of God is a Character of great extent Goodness is the probity and purity of the mind shewing it self in a course of sedate Tranquility of a contented state of Life and of Vertuous and Generous Actions A good man is one that considers what are the best Principles of his Nature and the highest powers of his Soul and what are the greatest and the best things that they are capable of and that likewise observes what are the disorders and depressions the inward diseases and miseries which tend really to lesson and to corrupt him and that therefore intends to be the purest the wisest and the noblest Creature that his nature can carry him to be that renders himself as clean and innocent as free from designs and passions as much above appetite and pleasure and all that sinks the Soul deeper into the body that is as tender and compassionate as gentle and good natured as he can possibly make himself to be This is the good man in my Text that rises as much as he can above his body and above this world above his senses and the impressions that sensible objects make upon him that thinks the greatest and best thing he can do is to awaken and improve the seeds and capacities to Vertue and Knowledge that are in his nature to raise those to the Noblest objects to put them into the rightest method and to keep them ever in tune and temper and that with relation to the rest of Mankind considers himself as a Citizen of the whole world and as a piece of Humane Nature that enters into the concerns of as many persons as come within his Sphere without the narrowness or partiality of meaner regards that thinks he ought to extend his care and kindness as far as his capacity can go that stretches the Instances of this to the utmost corners of the earth if occasion is given for it and that intends to make mankind the better the wiser and the happier for him in the succeeding as well as in the present Generation This is the truly Good man in God's sight who does not act a part or put on a Mask who is not for some time in a constraint till the design is compast for which he put himself under that force but is truly and uniformly good and is really a better man in secret than even he appears to be since all his designs and projects are worthy and great And Nature Accidents and Surprizes may be sometimes too quick and too hard for him yet these cannot reach his heart nor change the setled measures of his life which are all pure and noble And tho the errors of this good man's conduct may in some things give advantages to bad men who are always severe censurers yet his unspeakable comfort is That he can make his secret Appeals to God who knows the whole of his heart as well as the whole of his life and tho here and there things may be found that look not quite so well and that do indeed appear worst of all to himself who reflects the oftenest and thinks the most heinously of them yet by measuring Infinite Goodness with his own proportion of it and by finding that he can very gently pass over many and great defects in one whose principles and designs seem to be all pure and good he from that concludes That those allowances must be yet infinitely greater where the Goodness is infinite so being assured within himself that his vitals his inward principles and the scheme and course of his life are good he from thence raises an humble confidence in himself which tho it does not as indeed it ought not free him from having still low thoughts of himself yet it delivers him from all dispiriting fear and sorrow and gives him a firm confidence in the love and goodness of God out of which he will often feel an incredible source of satisfaction and joy springing up in his mind A man who is thus good in the sight of God has as one may truly think happiness enough within himself But this is not all his reward nor is it all turned over into a Reversion We have here a fair particular given us by one that dealt as much both in Wisdom and Folly as ever man did who run the whole compass of pleasure business and learning with the freest range and in the greatest variety and who by many repeated Experiments knew the strong and the weak sides of things He then who had sound the vanity the labour the sore travel and the vexation of spirit that was in all other things the many disappointments that were given by them and the painful reflections that did arise out of them so sensibly that they made him hate life for the sake of all the labour that belonged to it and even to make his heart despair of all the travel he had undergone gives us in these words another view of the effect of true Goodness and of the happy consequences that follow it The first of these is Wisdom not the art of craft and dissimulation the cunning of deceiving or undermining others not only the views that some men may have of the springs of humane nature and the art of turning these which is indeed a Nobler Scene of Wisdom by which Societies are conducted and maintained But the chief acts and instances of true Wisdom are once to form right Judgments of all things of their value and of their solidity to form great and noble thoughts of God and just and proper ones of our selves to know what we are capable of and fit for to know what is the true good and happiness of Mankind which makes Societies safe and Nations flourish This is solid Wisdom that is not mis-led by false appearances nor imposed on by vulgar opinions This was the Wisdom that first brought men together that tamed and corrected their natures and established all the art and good Government that was once in the world but which has been almost totally defaced by the arts of Robbery and Murder the true names for Conquest a specious colour for the two worst things that humane nature is capable of Injustice and Cruelty Wisdom in gross is the forming true Principles the laying good Schemes the imploying proper Instruments and the chusing fit seasons for doing the best and noblest things that can arise out of humane nature This is the defence as well as the glory of Mankind Wisdom gives life to him that hath it it is better than strength and better than weapons of war it is in one word The Image of God and the Excellency of Man It is
A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE HONOURABLE Robert Boyle AT St. MARTINS in the Fields JANUARY 7. 1691 2 By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARUM LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Iohn Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCII ECCLES II. 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom knowledge and joy WHEN the Author of this Book the Wisest of Men applied his heart to know and to search to seek out wisdom and the reason or nature of things and summed up the Account of all Article by Article one by one to find out the thread of Nature and the Plann of its great Author tho his Soul sought after it yet the Riddle was too dark he even he could not discover it But one man among a thousand he did find and happy was he in that discovery if among all the Thousands that he knew he found One counting Figure for so many Cyphers which tho they encreased the Number yet did not swell up the Account but were so many Nothings or less and worse than Nothings according to his estimate of Men and Things We have reason rather to think that by a Thousand is to be meant a vast and indefinite number otherwise it must be confessed that Solomon's Age was indeed a Golden one if it produced one Man to a Thousand that carry only the name and figure but that do not answer the end and excellency of their being The different Degrees and Ranks of Men with relation to their inward powers and excellencies is a surprizing but melancholy Observation Many seem to have only a Mechanical Life as if there were a moving and speaking Spring within them equally void both of Reason and Goodness The whole race of men is for so many years of Life little better than encreasing Puppits many are Children to their Lives end The Soul does for a large portion of Life sink wholly into the Body in that shadow of death Sleep that consumes so much of our time the several disorders of the Body the Blood and the Spirits do so far subdue and master the Mind as to make it think act and speak according to the different ferments that are in the humours of the Body and when these cease to play the Soul is able to hold its tenure no longer all these are strange and amazing speculations and force one to cry out Why did such a perfect Being make such feeble and imperfect Creatures Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain The Secret is yet more astonishing when the frowardness the pride and ill-nature the ignorance folly and fury that hang upon this poor flattered Creature are likewise brought into the Account He that by all his observation and encrease of knowledge only encreaseth sorrow while he sees that what is wanting cannot be numbred and that which is crooked cannot be made straight is tempted to go about and with Solomon to make his heart to despair of all the labour wherein he has travelled But as there is a dark side of Humane Nature so there is likewise a bright one The flights and compass of awakened Souls is no less amazing The vast croud of Figures that lie in a very narrow corner of the Brain which a good memory and a lively imagination can fetch out in great order and with much beauty The strange reaches of the Mind in abstracted Speculations and the amazing progress that is made from some simple Truths into Theories that are the admiration as well as the entertainment of the thinking part of mankind The sagacity of apprehending and judging even at the greatest distance The elevation that is given to Sense and the Sensible powers by the invention of Instruments and which is above all the strength that a few thoughts do spread into the mind by which it is made capable of doing or suffering the hardest things the Life which they give and the Calm which they bring are all so unaccountable that take all together a Man is a strange huddle of Light and Darkness of Good and Evil and of Wisdom and Folly The same Man not to mention the difference that the several Ages of Life make upon him feels himself in some minutes so different from what he is in the other parts of his Life that as the one fly away with him into the transports of joy so the other do no less sink him into the depressions of sorrow He scarce knows himself in the one by what he was in the other Upon all which when one considers a Man both within and without he concludes that he is both wonderfully and also fearfully made That in one side of him he is but a little lower than Angels and in another a little a very little higher than Beasts But how astonishing soever this Speculation of the medly and contrariety in our composition may be it contributes to raise our esteem the higher of such persons as seem to have arisen above if not all yet all the eminent frailties of humane nature that have used their Bodies only as Engines and Instruments to their Minds without any other care about them but to keep them in good case fit for the uses they put them to that have brought their souls to a purity which can scarce appear credible to those who do not imagine that to be possible to another which is so far out of their own reach and whose Lives have shined in a course of many years with no more allay nor mixture than what just served to shew that they were of the same humane nature with others who have lived in a constant contempt of Wealth Pleasure or the Greatness of this World whose minds have been in as constant a pursuit of Knowledge in all the several ways in which they could trace it who have added new Regions of their own discoveries and that in a vast variety to all that they had found made before them who have directed all their enquiries into Nature to the Honour of its great Maker And have joyned two things that how much soever they may seem related yet have been sound so seldom together that the World has been tempted to think them inconsistent A constant looking into Nature and a yet more constant study of Religion and a Directing and improving of the one by the other and who to a depth of Knowledg which often makes men morose and to a heighth of Piety which too often makes them severe have added all the softness of Humanity and all the tenderness of Charity an obliging Civility as well as a melting kindness when all these do meet in the same person and that in eminent degrees we may justly pretend that we have also made Solomon's observation of one man but alas the Age is not so fruitful of such that we can add one among a thousand To such a man the Characters given in the words of my
preparations to it from God There are also many happy openings of thought which arise within the minds of the Searchers after it to which they did not lead themselves by any previous inferences or by the comparing of things together That which the Language of the World calls chance happy accidents or good stars but is according to a more sanctified dialect Providence has brought many wonderful secrets by unlookt for hits to the knowledge of men The use of the Loadstone and the extent of sight by Telescopes besides a vast variety of other things that might be named were indeed the immediate gifts of God to those who first fell upon them And the profoundest Inquiries into the greatest mysteries of Nature have and still do own this in so particular a manner that they affirm that things that in some hands and at some times are successful almost to a Prodigy when managed by others with all possible exactness do fail in the effects of them so totally that the difference can be resolved into nothing but a secret direction and blessing of Providence The third gift that God bestows on the Good man is joy and how can it be otherwise but that a good a wise and knowing Man should rejoyce both in God and in himself in observing the works and ways of God and in feeling the Testimony of a good Conscience with himself He is happy in the situation of his own mind which he possesses in a calm contented evenues of Spirit He has not the agitations of Passions the ferment of Designs and Interests nor the disorders of Appetite which darken the Mind and create to it many imaginary Troubles as well as it encreases the Sense of the real Ones which may lye upon ones Person or Affairs He rejoyces in God when he sees so many of the hidden beauties of his Works the wonderful fitness and contrivance the curious disposition and the vast usefulness of them to the general good of the whole These things afford him so great a variety of Thought that he can dwell long on that noble exercise without flatness or weariness He rejoyces in all that he does his imployments are much diversified for the newness of his discoveries which returns often gives him as often a newness of joy His views are great and his designs are noble even to know the works of God the better and to render them the more useful to Mankind He can discover in the most despised Plant and the most contemptible Mineral that which may allay the miseries of humane Life and render multitudes of men easie and happy Now to one that loves Mankind and that adores the Author of our Nature every thing that may tend to Celebrate his praises and to sweeten the lives of Mortals affords a joy that is of an exalted and generous kind If this at any time goes so far as to make him a little too well pleased with the discoveries he has made and perhaps too nicely jealous of the honour of having done those Services to the World even this which is the chief and the most observed defect that is much magnified by the ill-natured censures of great Men who must fix on it because they can find nothing else yet I say even this shews the fullness of joy which wisdom and knowledge bring to good minds they can give them so sensible a pleasure that it cannot be at all times governed and if it break out in any time in less decent instances yet certainly those who have deserved so highly of the Age in which they have lived and who have been the Instruments of so much good to the World receive a very unworthy return if the great services they have done Mankind do not cover any little imperfection especially when that is all the Allay that can be found in them and the only instance of humane Frailty that has appeared in them But if the joy that wisdom and knowledge give is of so pure and so sublime a Nature there is yet another occasion for joy that far exceeds this it arises from their integrity and goodness which receives a vast accession from this that it is in the sight of God seen and observed by him who accepts of it now and will in due time reward it The terror of mind and the confusion of face that follows bad actions and the calm of thought and chearfulness of look that follows good ones are such infallible indications of the suitableness or unsuitableness that is in these things to our natures that all the contempt with which Libertines may treat the Argument will never be able to overcome and alter the plain and simple sense that Mankind agrees in upon this head A good Man finds that he is acting according to his nature and to the best principles in it that he is living to some good end that he is an useful piece of the World and is a mean of making both himself and others wiser and happier greater and better These things give him a solid and lasting joy and when he dares appeal to that God to whom he desires chiefly to approve himself who knows his Integrity and sees how thoroughly good he is even in his secretest Thoughts and Intentions he does upon that feel a joy with in himself that carries him through all the difficulties of Life and makes most accidents that happen to him pleasant and all the rest supportable He believes he is in the favour of God he hopes he has some Title to it from the Promises of God to him and his grace in him He can see Clouds gather about him and threaten a Storm and though he may be in circumstances that render him very unfit to suffer much hardship yet he can endure and bear all things because he believes all God's Promises He may sometimes from the severe Sense that he has of his duty be too hard and even injust to himself and the seriousness of his Temper may give some harsher thoughts too great occasion to raise disquiet within him but when he takes a full view of the infinite goodness of God of the extent of his Mercy and of the riches of his Grace he is forced to throw out any of those Impressions which Melancholy may be able to make upon him and even those when reflected on in a truer light though they might have a little interrupted his joy yet tend to encrease it when by them he perceives that true strictness of principles that governs him which makes him tender of every thing that might seem to make the least breach upon his purity and holiness even in the smallest Matters I will go no further upon my Text nor will I enter upon the Reverse of it that is in the following words but to the Sinner he giveth travel to gather and to heap up that he may give to him that is good before God These I leave to your Observation they are too foreign to my subject to be spoke to
upon this occasion that leads me now to the melancholy part of this sad Solemnity I confess I enter upon it with the just Apprehensions that it ought to raise in me I know I ought here to raise my stile a little and to triumph upon the Honour that belongs to Religion and Virtue and that appeared so eminently in a life which may be considered as a Pattern of living and a Pattern so perfect that it will perhaps seem a little too far out of sight too much above the hopes and by consequence above the Endeavours of any that might pretend to draw after such an Original which must ever be reckoned amongst the Master-pieces even of that Great Hand that made it I might here challenge the whole Tribe of Libertines to come and view the usefulness as well as the Excellence of the Christian Religion in a Life that was entirely Dedicated to it and see what they can object I ought to call on all that were so happy as to know him well to observe his temper and course of life and charge them to sum up and lay together the many great and good things that they saw in him and from thence to remember always to how vast a Sublimity the Christian Religion can raise a mind that does both throughly believe it and is entirely governed by it I might here also call up the Multitudes the vast Multitudes of those who have been made both the wiser and the easier the better and the happier by his means but that I might do all this with the more advantage I ought to bring all at once into my memory the many happy hours that in a course of nine and twenty years conversation have fallen to my own share which were very frequent and free for above half that time that have so often both humbled and raised me by seeing how Exalted he was and in that feeling more sensibly my own Nothing and Depression and which have always edified and never once nor in any one thing been uneasie to me When I remember how much I saw in him and learned or at least might have learned from him When I reflect on the gravity of his very Appearance the elevation of his Thoughts and Discourses the modesty of his Temper and the humility of his whole Deportment which might have served to have forced the best thoughts even upon the worst minds when I say I bring all this together into my mind as I form upon it too bright an Idea to be easily received by such as did not know him so I am very sensible that I cannot raise it equal to the thoughts of such as did I know the limits that custom gives to Discourses of this kind and the hard Censures which commonly follow them These will not suffer me to say all I think as I perceive I cannot bring out into distinct thoughts all that of which I have the imperfect hints and ruder draughts in my mind which cannot think Equal to a Subject so far above my own level I shall now therefore shew him only in Perspective and give a General a very general View of him reserving to more leisure and better opportunities a farther and fuller account of him I will be content at present to say but a Little of him but that Little will be so very much that I must expect that those who do never intend to imitate any part of it will be displeased with it all I am resolved to use great Reserves and to manage a tenderness which how much soever it may melt me shall not carry me beyond the strictest measures and I will study to keep as much within bounds as he lived beyond them I will say nothing of the Stem from which he sprang that watered Garden watered with the blessings and dew of Heaven as well as fed with the best Portions of this life that has produced so many noble Plants and has stocked the most Families in these Kingdoms of any in our Age Which has so signally felt the effects of their humble and Christian Motto God's Providence is my Inheritance He was the only Brother of five that had none of these Titles that sound high in the World but he procured one to himself which without derogating from the dignity of Kings must be acknowledged to be beyond their Prerogative He had a great and noble Fortune but it was chiefly so to him because he had a great and noble Mind to imploy it to the best Uses He began early to shew both a Probity and a Capacity that promised great things and he passed through the Youthful parts of life with so little of the Youth in him that in his travels while he was very young and wholly the Master of himself he seemed to be out of the reach of the disorders of that Age and those Countries through which he passed He had a modesty and a purity laid so deep in his Nature that those who knew him the earliest have often told me that even then Nature seemed entirely sanctified in him His piety received a vast encrease as he often owned to me from his Acquaintance with the great Primate of Ireland the never enough admired Vsher who as he was very particularly the Friend of the whole Family so seeing such Seed and beginnings in him studied to cultivate them with due care He set him chiefly to the Study of the Scriptures in their Original Languages which he followed in a course of many Years with so great exactness he could have quoted all remarkable Passages very readily in Hebrew and he read the New Testament so diligently in the Greek that there never occurred to me an occasion to mention any one passage of it that he did not readily repeat in that language The use of this he continued to the last for he could read it with other mens Eyes but the weakness of his sight forced him to disuse the other since he had none about him that could read it to him He had studied the Scriptures to so good purpose and with so critical a strictness that few men whose Profession oblige them chiefly to that fort of learning have gone beyond him in it and he had so great a regard to that Sacred Book that if any one in Discourse had dropped any thing that gave him a clearer view of any passage in it he received it with great pleasure he examined it accurately and if it was not uneasie to him that offered it he desired to have it in writing He had the profoundest Veneration for the great God of Heaven and Earth that I have ever observed in any Person The very Name of God was never mentioned by him without a Pause and a visible stop in his Discourse in which one that knew him most particularly above twenty Years has told me that he was so exact that he does not remember to have observed him once to fail in it He was most constant and serious in his