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A59759
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A sermon preach'd at the funeral of the Right Honorable Sir Maurice Eustace Kt. late Lord Chancelor of Ireland at St. Patrick's Dublin the fifth day of July 1665 : together with a short account of his life and death / by W.S.B.D.
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Sheridan, William, 1636-1711.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing S3233; ESTC R32139
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29,923
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53
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party is examin'd of the sincerity of his Repentance and Faith and purpose of new obedience Besides special remedies are to be apply'd to special cases as if it should happen that the Conscience is perplex'd through its apprehensions of the greatness and number of its sins then this Consolation is to be applied that nothing is unpardonable but final impenitence and that the hainousness and number of sins is no bar to the favour of God provided they be forsaken as appears by the example of the Prodigal and Christs own words who came not to call the righteous but sinners and that they are those very men whom Christ came to call and that there is a special favour to such and joy in Heaven for their conversion And lastly that oftentimes such prove the worthiest instruments of Gods glory as Paul who from a Persecutor of the Faith became a Propagator of and a Martyr for the Faith 2. If the cause of doubt proceed from sore and continual afflictions which are oftentimes magnifi'd by fancy or are but the products of passion or melancholy it is to be intimated that afflictions are not signs of Gods disfavour but rather tokens of his love Heb. 12.12 if they be born with patience and that they give good advantage against death for that they serve to make weary of life 3. If the dying person because he findes himself assaulted with many blasphemous temptations doubts of his salvation and concludes that God has given him over and is not at hand to help him he is to know that temptations not consented to are not sins but crosses and that he is made no more guilty thereby than a good Subject is for being tempted by a Traytor to kill his Prince or a chaste wife by an Adulterer to defile her husbands bed and that he is therefore to complain to God and to beseech him to rebuke the Devil and that he would give him grace and strength to resist the temptation and to endeavour to avoid all occasions as much as he can 4. Sometimes Gods children are so discourag'd by their relapses into some gross sins after reconciliation and through the sense of their corruptions and wants that they not onely doubt but pronounce of themselves that God has cast them away and they charge themselves with the sin against the Holy Ghost In this case they are to remember that while they carry flesh and blood about them they must not think to be exempted from its appendant inconveniences and that Justification does not carry with it perfection and freedom from all sin that many of Gods children as Noah David and Peter have committed grievous sins and yet have been forgiven and that Christs Prayer teaches the Apostles to pray for pardon and therefore if they have fallen they must confess their sins and Christ who is their Advocate is just and faithful and ready to forgive them and cleanse them from all iniquity and that being he will not censure them according to the Law of Bondage but of Liberty their defects shall not be examin'd in rigour but pitied in mercy Lastly Sometimes Gods children finde themselves forsaken to such a degree that they are not onely depriv'd of the least gleam of comfort but their very devotion seems for a time to be extinguist which so terrifies them that they anticipate the very torments of Hell In which case they are to take notice that their trouble affords them matter of comfort because that their being perplext by his absence is from the support of his Spirit maintaining love in their hearts which yet further appears for that they would give the whole world to be restor'd again to the comforts of his salvation and that though heaviness endures for a night yet joy cometh in the morning for he will at length return and quicken them and therefore they must earnestly entreat him so to do and learn to live by faith not feeling and with Abraham Rom. 4.18 against hope to believe in hope remembring that Christ our Lord was in this very condition when he cry'd out My God my God learning from his example in the greatest desertions still to depend upon him and this being done the most difficult part of fitting us for death is at an end for that then the soul has great boldness with God and can confidently cry out with old Hilarion Egredere anima egredere quid pertimescis and with S. Chrysostome Give me to be assured of the joys of heaven and then if thou wilt kill me presently and I shall give thee thanks for thy pains for that thereby thou sendest me out of hand into the possession of those good things Here it may be seasonable for a man to make his will and to dispose of his Estate which I account not onely necessary for that this may be a means as I intimated before of entailing peace on his Family and of the better qualifying of him for the making his particular peace with God but also because that the reviewing of his estate which is necessary in order to the settling of it will happily give him occasion to remember somewhat that he may have unjustly acquir'd whether of things dedicated to God or usurpt from men and so be induc'd to make restitution of it as he is bound by the Law Lev. 5.15 Where the Law that a fift part should be added to it binds not as I conceive to that just proportion at this day but onely enforces a compleat restitution and indeed since Gods blessing and favour is the best inheritance that can be left to children and that none can hope for his blessing either upon the robbery of him or man not to mention the sting of Conscience that ensues thereupon such ill gotten goods are but a foolish and bad provision for posterity Mich. 6.10 Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked and the scant measure that is abominable Certainly when God comes to visit for these things he will consume both these ill gotten goods and their nest together How much better were it for us to separate them from what we have justly acquir'd by restoring them to the right owners than thus to run the certain hazard of Gods displeasure Here I cannot without injustice omit praising our Ancestors for that they used in their last Wills to make restitution of their Tythes negligently paid or forgotten This sin I am sure is not yet left by some but the amends making nay the Tythes themselves are left out of their Testaments It would be for their credit to follow the example of that Honourable Person whose Funerals we now solemnize in this particular and though they were not conscious to themselves of the least defailance herein yet they would do well to make mention of them in their Wills for a president to others Neither can this consideration that a man by making such restitutions will happily expose his wife and children to
death But that description which the Wiseman gives of it does best express its nature where after he had set down the several incommodities and weaknesses of old age and coming to speak of the end of our life he saith Then shall the dust return to the earth Eccle. 12.7 as it was and the spirit shall return to God that gave it Whence it appears that death is the dissolution of the body and spirit before joyn'd together in one hypostasis they both remaining still the one in the matter of which it was made and the other in reserve with God from whom it came at first Secondly Its effects are these first It ends this life and all the thoughts actions and possibilities thereof The dead know not any thing neither have they any more a reward Eccl. 9.5 6. their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the Sun And this is to be understood of Supernatural and Religious as well as of natural and civil actions and possibilities for this life is the day death brings the night wherein no man can work John 12. The wickedest man in the world is in this life convertible Heb. 10.27 but after death there is no more hope but a fearful looking for of judgement Secondly it begins an unchangeable state both to the g dly and to the wicked for that to the one 't is the end of all joy the beginning of sorrow an everlasting night the gate of hell the locking up of the door of comfort and a sad farewell for ever and ever with the joys of eternity But to the other it is a step to blessedness the close of mortality and as Seneca saith Transitus à labore ad refrigerium a passage from labour to rest from expectation to a reward from a combat to a Crown from death to life from faith to knowledge from a pilgrimage to a Countrey and from the world to a Father A gate of glory to the servant of God S. Bernard Greg. Naz. August Ambr. de bono mort A deposition of this burthen of flesh which presseth down the free soul And a journey to the city of God The Midwife and birth-day of a better life a rest from labour a death of misery and a burial of sin I cannot here though I have a fair temptation offer'd me insist longer in confuting the dream of Purgatory which the Romanists so stifly maintain that they will sooner renounce their share of heaven then quit their portion in that then while I tell you that it was first hatch'd by Plato in his Gorgias or Phaedo and afterwards adopted by the Council of Florence about 1400 years after the death of Christ during which time it suffer'd many Metamorphosies and Transmutations as it met with several Merchants Discredited by the Scriptures wherein some of their own side confess it has no ground thrust out of doors by the Greek Church and so much discountenanc'd by them that the Council of Basil published an Apologie directly disallowing the Roman Doctrine of Purgatory and how little they yet regard Pope Eugenius his pressing them to receive it is so notoriously known that it needs no further declaration and though it was entertained by some Ancients as a stranger yet it was but upon trial of its good behaviour and was never made a free Denizon by the Latines untill they found how profitable this Heathenish Brat was like to prove Neither the ancient forms of Prayer for the dead which were rather Commemorations or Thanksgivings or a convoy to accompany the Saints into Heaven or had reference to their secret Receptacles which too many Fathers favour'd but is diametrically oppos'd to Purgatory or to their publique acquittal at the day of judgement or to the Consummation of their happiness at the Resurrection or to the time of their transmigration out of this life Origin S. Ambr. S. Basil S. Hil. S. Hier. Lactan. which it seems we do not abhor from at our Anniversary Feasts of Christmas Easter and the like as if Christ were that day to be born to suffer or to rise again will warrant their Purgatory no nor the Purgatory fire in sundry Fathers by which they meant no other than the fire of Conflagration which shall consume this world through which they held Bibloh l. 5. annot 171. as Sixtus Senensis affirms from their own words that all men both good and bad should pass Christ Jesus onely excepted All this I say can no way prove their Purgatory especially seeing the Scriptures know no other purgation for sin John 1. Heb. 1. Rev. 14.13 Heb. 9.27 then the blood of Jesus Christ and calls none blessed but those that dye in the Lord for they rest from their labours and after death follows judgement that is the particular judgement of every individual at the hour of his departure and the general of all at the last day Where observe by the way that it is appointed for all men once to die yet the hour is uncertain and kept from us that we might beware of security and not defer our repentance to the last stage of our life when happily the custom of sinning shall have so hardned us that t is ten thousand to one whether we shall find place for repentance I shall not now dispute whether death may be hastned or prorogued because that if this were granted it would argue a mutability in Gods unchangeable decrees and yet if it were not the Scriptures would seem contradictitious to themselves as The blood thirsty man shall not live out half his days Psal 55.23 and this of Adding fifteen years to Hezekiahs life Onely this I shall make bold to offer by way of Solution of this difficulty and reconciliation of this seeming dissonancy of Scripture That without all doubt according to the course of nature many might live long who by intemperance and ungodliness cut off their days and many who are sometimes in mercy taken away before their time from future evils Yet this is not against Providence because that as it appoints the end so likewise in that appointment it foresees and includes the means leading thereunto otherwise the same Objections would be in force against prayers and the obedience of children to their Parents on which condition long life is promised Exod. 20. Now it onely remains to enquire Whether death be good or evil Which cannot be easily resolved without some distinction of some persons or some respects for Gods appointment is good the punishment of sin is like sin it self evil an enemy is neither loved nor lovely Sleep is no evil thing the entrance of life is desireable the determination of the life of grace is dreadful we must therefore before we can resolve the question know of whom and of whose death the demand is made for the death of the Righteous is to be