Satan For this damps all indeavors and at once doth both God and a poor sinner the greatest injury that can be by belying the one and lying most foully to the other It must alwayes be asserted on Gods behalf that when ever the sinner turns from his sins with all his heart God will abundantly pardon And whoever comes to Christ shall in no sort be cast out These are most true as to Gods readiness to receive provided alwayes on mans part that he seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is near Isa 57.7 Ezek. 18. John 6.37 Isa 55.6 in the means of grace in the motions of his spirit in the corrections of mens own consciences in the enjoyments of many mercies in the lengthnings of sinners tranquillity else such a penal hardness searedness and benummedness Rom. 1.24 28. such a giving over to a reprobate sense may befall a man that he shall have no contrition though he have time nor comfort though some terrors either he shall be dumb before God not daring to speak Hos 7.14 or if he doth cry and howl as a natural man or a beast for pain and fear yet God will not hear Prov. 21.13 Pro. 1.26 27 28. or answer them yea their very prayers shall be abominable because they so long refused to hear and answer Gods cry to them setting at nought his counsel c. Therefore may the Lord justly laugh at their calamity and mock when their fear cometh as desolation and their destruction as a whirlwind These are terrible checks and coolings as to the hope of an after-crop or death-bed repentance In which at the best advance and proficiency of it especially in people of riper years and full age who have filled up the measure of their iniquity Rom. 2.5 and heaped up nothing but wrath against the day of wrath if there should be melting of this rock and softening of this milstone by the furnace of sicknesse even so far as what God will accept for true repentance who is the only searcher and judge of mens hearts yet neither he that thus confesseth and deploreth his sins nor he that as a Minister takes his confession only as it is now in humane appearance and by real experience extorted by sickness and terrours neither of them can think that it is either so ingenuous or can be so comfortable to be driven to God by the scourge of fears rather then to be drawn to him by the cords of his love so long despised Nothing of force and compulsion is so acceptable to others or so reflecting with honour and comfort to a mans self as that which flowes from the freedome of love and such adherences as arise from choise and value A forced Repentance begun on our sick beds possibly may as muskmelons and other tender plants which are bred in hot beds come to good but they must be very carefully and warily tended for a little cold chills and kills them What fruit they may bear to another world I must leave to God but as to this world I am sure there are but rare that is few examples in all experience of any whose repentance began in sickness that did ever hold long in their after health and recovery Commonly all prayers and purposes are put into the grave of forgetfulness when our selves are reprieved from it Whether it may take a better effect in heaven then usually it doth on earth I leave to all serious Christians to judge Object But I know it will be here retorted with quickness upon me by some more morose or petulant sinners who are only witty to cavil with God and delude their own soules Must we not tarry the Lords leisure when he will call us at the sixth or ninth or eleventh hour Is not repentance a grace Matth. 20.6 and so a gift of God How vain is it to step unseasonably into the water if the Angel move it not there may be a royling of the pool by us but no healing for us Did not Christ and his Apostles heal many without scruple on their sick beds as well as those that had firmer health Nor is Christ to be thought a less ready Physician to sick mens soules then their bodies Do not therefore torment us before our time suffer us to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season it will not be long before we shall be unwilling because weary or unable to sinne then we shall be much more at leisure and dispose to repent mean time God gives us not at least we have no mind to it nor indeed any power as you Preachers tell us to attain or act it of our selves for till God turn us we cannot be turned So that it seems rather a passionate and imperious way of preaching in you agreeable to your more cholerick or melancholy tempers which makes you impatient not to be presently obeyed by all men then any true Divinity you ought not to stretch mans authority by shrinking Gods mercy Answ Thus are many men ingeniosè nequam perditè periti as St. Austin speaks very acute Sophisters to deceive and damn their own others souls rather listning as Ahab to the 400 false Prophets of their own foolish hearts deceitful lusts then to one true Micaiah which is Gods Prophet 'T is most true that the life and soul of repentance which crowns it with love and endears it to God in Christ as the highest good is a special grace of God Nor is any soul so far off from him but he can easily and speedily reach them and win them to himself by the attractions of his infinite goodness and mercy discovered and offered to them in the blood of Christ Divines that understand themselves doe not prejudice or diminish the sweet and soveraign power or freedome of Gods grace which compleats mans weak endeavours and crownes all meanes with good success But yet they justly urge and inculcate upon sinners their daily duty incumbent upon them and required of them as rational creatures capable to discern and chuse good and evil sensible of feares and hopes yea and as Christians compassed with a marvellous light which convinceth them of sin and righteousness and judgment to come with offers of mercy in Christ to the highest latitude Jam. 1.21 and menaces of wrath to eternity upon their impenitency This is that which is required of them as in their power to turn from sin at least as to that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superfluity of wickedness and excess of riot in which they knowingly wallow to greater impudicities and fedities then the sober Heathens would indulge Since then even these men can deny many acts and degrees of sin even for fear of man why cannot why doe not they deny more for fear of God Rom. 2.1 They must needs be inexcusable and without Apology yea self-condemned because it is evident there is no sin so pleasing or so prevalent upon
by the meritorious death and passion of the Lord of life and glory the great and promised Messias thy beloved Son our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ who by suffering death hath both overcome death and satisfied thy justice for us freeing all true believing and penitent sinners from the sting curse and fear of death both temporal and eternal bringing by his glorious Gospel life and glory honour and happiness to light We beseech thee O heavenly Father for his sake who hath tasted death for us all to magnifie thy infinite mercy upon us before we go from hence and be no more seen O be better to us then ever we should be to our selves or we are utterly lost Bestow upon us all those graces and gifts which may both teach and help us to lead an holy life and die an happy death Prevent us graciously and follow us effectually with the motions and operations of thy holy Spirit which may excite and inable us speedily and throughly to mortifie the life and power of every sin in us even while it is called to day lest death and hell prevent us in our delays and presumptions Sanctifie to us all those occasions monitions and warnings by which thy providence presents the thoughts and state of death to us as the truest glass of all earthly glory that we may so lay them to heart as to die dayly to all inordinate love of our selves and of this world which at best is loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of our Lord Jesus Christ in whom thy love to us is better then life it self Thou hast by thy power given us our lives in this vain world by thy providence thou hast preserved them by thy patience thou hast spared them to this day notwithstanding we have with many sins and much unthankefulness provoked thee to our hurt yea by thy holy Word thou hast shewed and offered to us the way and reward of a better life upon our turning to thee with all our hearts from dead works to serve the living God O teach us so to number our days as to apply our hearts to true wisedom to value this pretious moment not to mispend it yea to redeem it because the days past have been evil and upon this moment depends our eternal fate O thou that hast made our moment here though it be sinful not wholly miserable but hast sweetned it with many mercies let not our eternity be miserable and sinful It is one great comfort in our mortality as to this life that we consider our sins shall not be immortal in us O let not sin die with us but before us as a work of choise and grace not of infirmity force and necessity We humbly lay hold on that eternal life which is thy gift through Jesus Christ our Lord. As we every day grow elder so Lord make us every day somewhat better as neerer to our graves so fitter for heaven teach us to live every day as if it were our last that we may never live in any such way wherein we cannot meet death comfortably make us such as thou wouldst have us while we live that we may find thee such as we would have thee when we die that when we come to die we may have nothing else to do but to resign our bodies to thy custody and our souls to thy mercy who having made this life on earth common to the bad and good the just and the unjust hast certainly prepared another state in which shall be infinite difference and everlasting distinction of recompenses to such as fear thee and such as fear thee not O enable us to do our duty and we are sure to receive thy rewards write thy name in our hearts and we need not doubt but our names are written in heaven even in thy Book of Life Sweeten the bitter thoughts of death to us by our faith and hope in the meritorious death the victorious resurrection and glorious ascension of Jesus Christ for our sakes let us find by our holiness and newness of life by our being dead with Christ and living to him that we are passed from death to life That our departure hence may be a joyful passage to a better life which consists in the vision and fruition of thy self O blessed Creator who must needs be better then all things thou hast made and as more necessary so infinitely more useful sweet and comfortable to us O that we may be willing and fitted to leave all to come to thy self that we may with all the blessed Angels and Saints for ever in heaven see love praise admire adore and enjoy thee O holy Father Son and Spirit the only true God To whom be glory and honour life and power thanks and dominion for ever Amen Februarii 17. Anno 1657. Observationes habitae In Dissectione Corporis Illustrissimi Nobilissimi Viri D. ROBERTI RICH coram Medicinae Doctoribus Chirurgis infra subscriptis 1. INventi sunt Pulmones substantiâ duriores quam secundùm naturam mole longè majores quam pro ratione pectoris toti ferè scrophulosi caseosâ materiâ magna ex parte purulentâ referti Superiori parte lobi dextri lacuna reperta est pure plena ad quantitatem cochlearis unius 2. Aqua collecta in sinistra cavitate Thoracis ad fesque librae quantitatem vel circiter 3. Auricula dextra Cordis major erat sinistrâ proportione ferè quintuplici 4. Mesenterium refertum glandulis scrophulosis aliquibus magnitudinem Ovi Gallinacei aequantibus aliis minoribus materiâ quadam sebaceâ plenis cum purulentiae guttis hinc inde sparsis in aliquibus 5. In substantia Panchreatis glandulae peregrinae huic annexus tumor scrophulosus grandis ad hepar usque protensus Orisicium Venae Portae comprimens 6. Vesicula fellis exteriùs albicans flaccida aliquam quantitatem fellis dilutioris continens 7. Hepar colore Albidiori substantiâ debito majori 8. Splen satìs laudabilis nisi quòd hinc inde granulis scrophulosis refertus 9. Inte Musculos Lumbares glandulae duae ingentes scrophuloae à quinta vertebra sinistrae partis una ad Inguen usque se protendebat ex dextra parte altera non adeo longa Fran. Prujean Geor. Bates Tho. Coxe Robertus Lloyd J. Goddard Theophilus Garancieres Edward Arris Chirurgus John Soper Chirurgus I Have judged my publishing of this Funeral-Sermon upon the immature death of the Son the fittest occasion I am ever like to have while I live to present those who can look upon eminent goodness without evil eyes with a short Epitome of the Mothers worth as it was long since in way of Epitaph composed by a person whose ambition is That justice might be done to the dead as well as to the living Vicious minds and manners like dead carkasses are then best when so buried that nothing may appear to posterity of their noysome and contagious fedities But exemplary and meritorious
FUNERALS MADE CORDIALS IN A SERMON Prepared and in part Preached at the solemn Interment of the Corps of the Right Honorable ROBERT RICH Heire apparent to the Earldom of WARWICK Who aged 23. died Febr. 16. at Whitehall and was honorably buried March 5. 1657. at Felsted in Essex By JOHN GAUDEN D. D. of Bocking in Essex Therefore I hated life for all is vanity and vexation of spirit Eccles 2.17 But the things that are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4.18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato LONDON Printed by T. C. for Andrew Crook and are to be sold at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1658. TO The Right Honorable the Lady FRANCES RICH. Madam THough I am justly tender of exasperating so vehement and unfeigned a grief as your Ladiship hath constantly expressed to the noble Mr. Rich both living and languishing dying and dead by my applying any such Balsame as may seem to renew your wound and pain yet knowing that your Ladiships greatest comforts next those of divine infusion arise from those proportions which your just sorrows bear to your generous affections which are now become the occasion and measure of your affliction I thought it would neither be offensive to your honour nor unbeseeming my respects if I justified your exceeding grief by representing to the world how diservedly you have loved and how worthily you have mourned for that Gentleman of whose honour and happiness even from his infancy I was most seriously ambitious Hence it is that I have adventured to dedicate to your Name this Funeral Cordial which was first devoted to adorn the Christian Interment and revive the honored Name of your dear Husband that since You lived not long together in your marriage yet You might at least be inseparable in this monument which aims not to add any further secular pomp to his dust much less to gratifie the impertinent curiosity of this or after ages touching his life sickness disease or death but rather to advance the glory of God in his unsearchable ways also to summon such as yet survive him to consider their latter ends that they may betimes even in youth remember their Creator and apply their hearts to true saving and eternal wisdom To these great and good ends I presume your Ladiships passionate piety will permit me to improve so sad a dispensation of providence whose aspect not only looks to your Ladiship but to all that stand within the view reach and terror of so sharp a stroak which deserves to be so far laid to heart by all spectators until they find their hearts mollified and mended through that gracious virtue which may by fear of death and grief for sin make way for faith in Christ and love of God Certainly a penitent and pious use is the best that can be made of such dreadful monitions that no seeming splendor of prosperity no vain confidences of youth and life no cumulations of worldly contents no momentary honours and imaginary pleasures should either blind or divert any of us from dayly taking a serious prospect of our sins and our souls of our death and judgement of our God and Saviour Nothing in all my lifes observation except one unparallel'd instance hath ever faln out of more pregnant and potent influence to abate the presumption of human vanity worldly confidence and earthly glory than the sudden Eclipse and fall of this great Star which was but lately risen to its lustre and conspicuity The contemplation of his so early death is no small warning to us that are yet living especially to those who most dally with death while they affect a dilatory indifferency as to any practise of repentance and true piety being afraid of nothing so much as of being good too soon as if they could be too soon in a capacity of happiness I know the folly and madness of many who have had not only ingenuous but religious breeding is usually such that though they please themselves in being civil and accomplist toward men yet they make no scruple of being neglective rude affrontive yea insolent toward God and therein cruel to their own souls forgetting at once both their moment and God's eternity which desperate frolick usually holds with many not only during the adventerous extravagancies of their youth and spring which is the chief hour of temptation and power of darkness but it extends by the hardning habits and deceitfulness of our sinful hearts to our Autumn and decline God knows our vicious accesses to the vanities and inordinacies of life are early and speedy but our gracious recesses in order to an holy life and happy death are very flow and late if ever unless special grace prevent the best of nature and God's good Spirit perfect the best of our educations Madame I write not at this rate out of a Censorian vanity to reproach others but out of an humble sense of my own infirmities and out of a Christian sympathy to others impendent miseries Alas 't is too evident that many persons otherways of excellent useful parts do live amidst the offers of eternal life and the terrors of eternal death as if they had never laid to heart either their own or any others death no nor the death of their blessed Saviour by the price of whose blood they have been both meritoriously Sacramentally redeemed from their vain conversation It is both a sad and shameful thing to consider that the least and last thoughts of many titularly Christians are devoted to their God their Saviour and their Souls These grand concernments are late unwelcome and but hardly admitted after the surfeits of sensual pleasures the crowds and pester of worldly affairs the importunities of ambitious designs and other busie vanities which so ingross the whole man and time that there is little place allowed in most mens and womens hearts or space in their lives which are always upon the confines and brink of death for that great point of wisedom and work of salvation which consists in beginning betimes to resist and retrench those evils to which our depraved hearts do naturally prompt us that so we might with greater speed and less impediment advance to that Supream and immutable good to which as we are invited and beseeched by the tender mercies and love of God in Christ so by the principles of true reason and religion and no less by the real interests of our own safety honour and eternal felicity The promoting of all which being my main design in publishing this grave piece I hope both your Ladiships great sadness and passion and my own deep resentments for the dead may be sufficient Apology for my freedom both of tongue and pen toward the living not only my natural genius prompting me but my conscience commanding me specially in publique and sacred remonstrances to speak and write out that is to use such honest Parrhesie as will least smother wholesome truths or flatter secure sins Nothing is more deformed
any man or woman but either fear or shame or sense of honour or love or ingenuity or gratitude or hope of reward will restrain and resist even in the greatest paroxy sins of lust and temptations of the Devil If a man ascend not at first to the highest pitch of repentance namely the love of God and goodness or perfect hatred of sin to which special grace must conduct him yet he may come to the first steps and porch of it to deny the ontward acts of ungodliness and the fulfilling of worldly lusts Let a man by this negative part of repentance ceasing to doe evil first make trial in his health to leave any sin to which he hath been addicted and long captivated Let him prepare his heart thus to seek the Lord though with fear and difficulty yet the Lord will meet with such a soul and bring him beyond his feares terrours and conflicts as he did St. Austin to the confines of love through the wilderness of fiery serpents and thirst and weariness to the Land of Canaan to the state of rest in which the soul shall not only enjoy the comfort of Gods love in its delight to doe well and being enamoured with the beauty of holiness but he shall rejoyce to see the blessings of Gods grace following his first weak endeavors and dubious industry in contesting with and conquering temptations and resisting such sins as lay within the power and reach of his soule as he is a reasonable creature and an instructed baptized and inlightned Christian who furnished with such potent and moral means to do his part must not only attend the meanes but apply to doe his duty Nor shall any man have cause to complain of Gods defect as to the completion of his grace who takes care not to turn that grace into wantonness which hath appeared to him and is manifested on purpose to lead us to repentance to teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly in this present world Labour to pull up the evil weeds of thy inordinate lusts at least keep them from being rank and luxuriant Tit. 2.11 12. attend also those meanes which are appointed of God in his Church to sow plant and water the good seeds of grace and vertue thou wilt in a short time find those wholsome and lively plants grow in thee to thy great comfort and pleasure Jucundissima est vita in dies sentire se fieri meliorem which consists not only in finding a mans self daily less vain and vicious but more serious and vertuous As it is to covetous men an infinite content to see themselves daily grow richer and to the ambitious man to be daily advancing so to a mind impatient of being poor and base in his sin it is an unspeakable joy to see himself every day mending in his judgment prayers desires designs and hearty endeavours The misery is health and life and liberty and strength and estate and pleasure and pride embase our souls toward God even to far lower degrees of ingratitude and unworthiness then we can in honour or will for shame shew toward men that have any power to punish or oblige us we abhor to seem uncivil uningenuous unthankful insolent presumptuous affrontive to such as are our betters and especially if they have merited many ways well of us only to God we offer such rude and unkind unholy and unthankful measure as we would not to a Prince to a Parent to any Superiour no nor to an equal and inferiour nor a noble enemy being so far from any thing of Christian and true Divinity which is the approportioning of our duty love respect and service to God that we forget all humanity which becoms our selves sinning not only most shamefully impudently against God but also against our own consciences and principles against our soules and bodies too even that honour and decency which we owe to our selves The first step to be a good Christian is to be a good man Right reason is the fair suburbs of Religion once cease to live as a beast without fear or understanding and thou wilt begin to delight in the dignity which becomes a man and a Christian God waits for thy essayes of repentance Isa 30.18 that he may be gracious to thee not only in pardoning thy sins but in speaking peace to thee which is far better to be perceived by thee when thou seest it was not meer slavish fear and the bastinado that compelled thee to look from sin toward God and goodness but something of a rational and religious principle becoming a man and a Christian God never failes there to apply by his special hand the sweet cordials of his love and comforts of his mercies in Christ where we apply the corrasives proper to repress our sins and those bitter pills which work to the purgative part of repentance They that cease to doe evil will so learn to doe good Maxima pars impotentiae fluit ex voluntate Aquinas Isa 1.16 It is not impotencie but unwillingnesse that holds us so long tame captives to grosse sins The least Sympathies of a sinner with his Redeemer as suffering death and agonies inexpressible upon the Cross out of love to his soul and upon the account of his sin to purchase pardon and work his redemption from hell to heaven These reflections will work more kindly upon a mans heart to repentance then all the sicknesses crosses and consternations in the world For there is no compare between a mans sin and his Saviour to those that are not wholly blind dead and buried in sin And can any rational man that takes with patience all those bitter potions those nauseous and painful applications of Physick which are prescribed by Physicians in order to remove dangerous obstructions to purge out noxious humours and correct malignant spirits thereby to prepare the way for recovering of the health of the body Can these severe disciplines for the short and uncertain good of the outward man be endured nay desired yea with great charge be purchased and shall we be impatient of those restraining and healing methods of repentance which possibly are less for a time agreable to our corrupted palats and viciated appetites yet are the meanes prescribed and dispensed by God himself as proper to heal us of our deadly sins for so all are unrepented of and to prepare us for that health which our soules may enjoy by Christ When once they are rid of those scurvy habits or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which customary and prevailing sins bring upon us daily Quò diutius peccamus eò longinquius a Deo abscedimus Greg. disposing us to all evil and indisposing to all that is good However the operation or event may be this I am sure the duty and work of Ministers is not to dispute nor dispense the the secret workings of Gods grace or to search the hidden purpose of Gods will but to declare and
established and used for above an hundred yeares by the most noble wise and religious persons in this Nation of all degrees with no small benefit of piety to the living especially the common people but they crosse also the permissions yea the Institutions even of God himself in his holy word as by Solomons pen here so by the Apostles afterward injoyning us to Preach and so to pray in season and out of season to doe all things to edification and with decency becomming Christians as well as men especially in such eases as most affect the living in reference both to their own others mortal state which dasheth all faith hope and holy industry of a godly life the best men being of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 if there be not a frequent and full Antidote against our dying and sorrowing condition duely applyed from the holy word of God as to the happy and hopeful state of such as live and die in the Lord 1 Cor. 14 26 40 2 Tim. 4.2 both as to their spirits which return to God and their bodies which rest in hopes of an happy resurrection to glory For which purpose we see the Scripture hath furnished the Church with as many clear 1 Thess 4.13 See the long discourse of the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. large and pregnant places to establish the faithful in that Article of their faith the bodies resurrection as any other point whatsoever There needs no other Form of Liturgy of exhortation or consolation or prayer or gratulation or benediction or comprecation then what is guided by and grounded upon the Scripture Nor was there other prescribed or used in the Church of England by any discreet Minister If such sad occasions may nay must in many respects be duely and devoutly laid to heart by the living as I have shewed you what hinders I beseech you but that Sermons instructions exhortations consolations and prayers too may be used at them in order to apply them most neerly to and work most effectually upon the hearts of the living And then especially when the hearts of men and women of parents and children of neighbours and friends yea of enemies and strangers too are most prone to be moved and affected to good purpose some being softened by common sympathies of humanity others steeped in teares by their more indeared relations and tender affections the whole assembly being as it were in the bath and furnace more pliable humble and melting then at any other time If we Christians only brought the eyes the hearts and senses of beasts to these Funeral-occasions it were venial to give our children parents friends husbands wives kindred and our selves no other honour or comfort then the burial of an asse or of a dead dog would afford and require or if we came together only as so many Gymnosophists Brachmans and Philosophers or so many Heathens Indians and meer men without hope and not as Christians who have much to learn to hear to say to pray and to practice upon these texts of mortality not only as to natural death but as to the spiritual and eternal death as to judgment to come as to a resurrection and after recompenses their scrupulous restraint were excusable but blessed be God what a field of excellent matter as to saith and manners as to hope and comfort in reference to both dead and living Christians is there to be gone through to be beaten oft over from the Scriptures suggestion and direction that the living the living might duely effectually and frequently lay those things to heart which are presented to them by every Funeral-occasion but not easily improved by the generality of people if they have nothing else but a dumb shew and silent procession at their Funerals Object But some are afraid of superstition lest we pray for the dead or praise God on their behalf beyond that ancient gratulation for their departure in the faith and that comprecation for a blessed consummation of the Kingdome of Christ and all his Church at and after the Resurrection which is under a divine promise upon all good Christians hopes hearts and future expectations blessings certainly no less lawful to be prayed for as the ancient Churches did then desired and expected by all the faithful living as I believe they are by all the Saints departed Answ To these Objecters I answer Let them forbear Funeral Sermons exhortations and prayers till they get more wit to understand their own good and more charity then to grudge others their Christian liberty either to do or get good in such wayes as Gods word and the customes of this Christian well reformed Church allow us This Indulgence I easily grant to such as are simply and honestly scrupulous but to others that are rudely captious and contemptuous yea ridiculously clamorous and contumacious against any thing which they doe not form and fancy though they give no reason why they scruple or condemn it my answer is as that of our Saviour to the Pharisees You hypocrites Matth. 16.3 can you discern the face of the sky and can you not discern the signs of the times Are you so fearful of praying for the dead that you will not pray for and with the living Can you endure the pomp of a Funeral and not the piety of it Can you bear with Trumpets Banners Escucheons and not with the word of God with Sermons and Prayers which sanctifie all things in themselves lawful and expedient Is not sanctity the best part of Christians Solemnities who in all temporal things must look to things eternal Are you so afraid of superstition that you grudge us our devotions and holy exercises as God gives us more signal calls and occasions Can you endure Heraldry and not the Liturgy in this part of it which sets forth very handsomely and fully to the living out of the lively oracles of God those most pertinent places and excellent truths which make most for the good hope comfort and instruction of the living both in respect of their dead relations and themselves Take heed you swallow not camels while you strain at gnats If you think a dead Christian that dies in the faith of Christ and in the compass of our charity differs not from a dead Heathen or a dead beast if their spirits goe all one way with their bodies to the dust if neither they dying nor you living have any lively hope of a resurrection without which all your faith living is but dead and in vain if you know not how to make a holy rational and religious use of their death much good may you have with those dumb shewes which you have lately taken up with your silent solemnities and processions at the Funerals of your Christian friends much comfort may you have in your burnt wine and biscuits in your black cloaks and ribbands in your mourning gloves and boxes of sweet-meats which good you somtimes get gape for at Funerals These are toyes
fit for children not to be denied or envied you only please to give those Christians leave who may without vanity think themselves by Gods mercy as well advised and consciencious in their Religion as your selves yea and more cautious of superstition then you seem to be Eccles 7.16 Be not righteous overmuch neither make thy self over-wise who are thus of late shrunk to be over-righteous and negatively superstitious I say give us leave to use such Christian liberty and duties as God hath allowed Religion encourageth and experience of pious proficiency highly recommends to us by the vote and suffrage of your and our pious Progenitors in the Church of England which in this as many other excellent appointments hath most undeservedly and indignely suffered infinitely below its former reformed worth its admired constitution and most enviable condition through the ignorance petulancy and insolency of some pitiful pretenders God knows for the most part of plebeian spirits and mechanick proportions who undertake thus severely to catechise and discipline not only the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of this Nation but the Clergy and Ministry of this Church which was not exceeded in all the world as if they never knew how to spell the A b c or primer of Religion for so I esteem these outward orders and exercises of it until some new Masters had lent them their sharp fescues which were first made of a Scotch scabbard This vindication as I owe to the honour of this Nation to the piety of this Reformed Church to my own calling and conscience so I cannot omit to ground it upon this Text and express it upon this occasion as very proper methods and pious means used to lay those things to heart which Solomon here commends and the wisedome of God requires of the living in their respects to the dead who in my judgment are far more becoming to the interests of both living and dead Christians committed to their graves by the sound of the Evangelical trumpet setting forth the hopes of both dead and living by reading prayer or exhortation then by those uncouth soundings of military trumpets which seem only to add to the triumphs and pomp of death but not to the hope or faith or comfort or manners of Christians If it be matter of civil state and decorum to persons of great quality yet I see no sense or reason they should justle out of the Church any offices of Christian piety befitting the dead or the living Thus I have done with the Text and am now to give you Right Honorable and Beloved some little model of this house of mourning to which you are come this day which is greater in many degrees then you are wonted to go to This sad occasion if rightly understood will make its own way to your hearts when I have given you some account of those special regards for which it doth deserve not only a more then ordinary mourning emphatick sympathies from you but to make deeper impressions upon your spirits And this I shall do briefly not tanquam conductitius orator venalis praeco or as a man professoriae linguae truncae manus as Agrippina called Seneca no I thank God I am above any such snares and servitudes of soul as will for fear or favour flatter either the dead or the living What I shall speak of the dead shall be words of soberness and truth as in the presence of God and of you his people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a lover of truth and virtue as an assertor of such honest and ingenuous freedom in speaking as dares to oppose and confute if need be vulgar errors and false surmises And however I am most unfeignedly sorry as a man for this sad occasion yet I am as a Minister so far glad of this present imployment because however I may be less proportionable to its dimensions and your expectations yet I have hereby the opportunity given me to express such an honour love and respect to this noble person's name and memory now dead as I confess was one of my highest ambitions in this world Not only as he stood related a Grand-child Son and Heir apparent to that Right Honorable Family whose happiness I have rather seriously wished then been able ever effectually to promote But taking him in his private sphear and personal confinements you will give me leave to own him as a Gentleman many ways endeared to my particular love care honour and prayers first by long acquaintance from his cradle to his coffin which breeds secret and tacit endearments on our hearts as Ivy that roots where it is long contiguous Next by neerer and domestick conversation he living four years in my house with his Tutor and other attendants befitting his quality at those years when being but a youth of 13 or 14 years he carried himself with so much civility modesty ingenuity and manliness as made his company both worthy and fit for men so little of petulancy pride or moroseness incident to young Gentlemen of high parts and expectations that he seemed by his gentleness candor and humility as if he were ignorant both of his own high and noble quality and also of others usual but ignoble vanities and vapourings which ill become any men but most of all those that pretend to any true honour or generous extraction The confidence of his noble parents and relations committing him thus to my care and superintendency gave me an opportunity as welcome to me as any could have befaln me which was to discharge a solemn promise I made to his most noble Mother seven years before not only with civility but with sanctity at her earnest and importune desiring of me to assure her while I lived I would not be wanting what in me lay to his honour and happiness She also then bespake his living with me when ever it should be opportune for his breeding and my reception of him Gods providence so ordered things that what was passionately desired and seriously promised in time came to pass in which I need not tell you how much the grateful memory of her most deserving virtue commanded me to contribute all the care and discretion I was capable of for the absolving of my soul to God and the dead in that particular that I might answer and follow with my best endeavours of counsels prayers and examples those thoughts of virtue piety and honour which his excellent Mother had living expressed toward him as her only child a Son I am sure of her cares and counsels prayers and tears both living and dying so oft and infinitely solicitous have I seen her noble and pious soul that this her Son might prove a person of such virtue and piety as are the only true foundations of temporal and eternal honour From my domestick care of him he was sent much at my instance and perswasion to Trinity Colledge in Cambridge continuing there two years that he might first add learning to his