unreasonable irreligious and divelish A carrionly carkass of a man is aromatick a very perfume in comparison of a dead and rotting soul The body becomes dead and so dissolves by the souls parting from it but the soul by Gods being separated from it first out of its own choise next by Gods penal deserting of it The soul is the salt the light and life of the body so is God of the soul Anima animae the very soul of our souls I mean his grace love and spiritual communion separation from this is the souls death here and hereafter For from the power wrath and vengeance of God the damned are not separated who are dead not to their being but to their well being or happiness to the union at and fruition of God in love The soul apart from God in grace or glory is not only an orphan or a widow condemned to eternal sorrow and desolation for nothing can maintain or entertain wooe wed or indow the soul to the least degree of happines or to any allay of misery when once God hath quite forsaken it But it is emortua conclamata in heaven earth and hell proclaimed as starke dead in Law and Gospel Matth. 13.42 to justice and mercy so represented in Scripture as the horridest expression or the blackest colour to set forth its misery and horror its regret and torpor its weeping and wailing its gnashing and despair Doth then such a thick cloud of horror hang over the face and state of a dead body which is senseless of its own death and deformity of its noysome grave and dark dungeon Sapiens ignis subtilis vermis carpit nutrit urit reficit Chrysol O what a world of horror must lie upon a dead soul when deservedly cast out of God's blessed presence when it feels its death and lives only to die when it feels it is plunged in a dead Sea which is boundless and bottomlesse where the worm dies not and the fire goeth not out because it is as Crysologus calls it a subtil fire and ingenious worm which burns but consumes not devours but destroyes not Who can dwell with everlasting burnings saith the Prophet in an extasie of holy horrour Isa 33.14 Who can live in everlasting dyings Who can abide his own everlasting rottings Is it a gradual and lingring death to want food raiment light liberty fit company Is it a total death to the body to want the little spark of the soul which is the breath and spirit of life to the body What is it then to the soul to want that God who is the breather of that breath of life and Inspirer of that spirit We want a word beyond death to expresse that state Lay it then to heart Phil. 3.11 and consider what cause we have to be humble to tremble and fear exceedingly to escape most solicitously and diligently that second and eternal death if by any means we may attain the resurrection of the dead to life eternal 3. Lay to heart upon the sight of a dead body and the meditation of a dead soul whence it is that these fears and faintings sicknesses and sorrows deaths and darknesses sordidnesse and desolation corruption and condemnation have thus mightily prevailed over the highest mountains as the flood over the most noble beautiful and excellent of all Gods works under heaven even over mankind good and bad great and small Eccles 2.16 wise and foolish upon which nature the great and only God had set such characters of special glory enduing it with a diviner spirit so making man as Moses saith a living spirit or a spirit of life And this after counsel and deliberation Faciamus hominem Sanctius his animal mentisâ— capaâ—ius aliâ—e Gen. 2.7 As in re magni momenti a matter of greater concern and weight then heaven and earth and all the host of them They were made ex tempore as it were Nudo verbo Let there be and there was But man was made ex consilio after Gods own Image full of beauty health honour riches wisedome the Spirit of the living God given him in an extraordinary beam Whence is this lapse to earth to dust to a sad and wretched a decaying and dying condition both temporal and eternal Sure not from the impotencie or envy of the blessed Creator whose omnipotent goodnesse is inconsistent with such infirmities nor yet from the frailty and inconsistency of the subject matter which he raised to so goodly a fabrick little lower then the Angels Psal 49.12 as man was made who should have been as long immortal as Angels had he continued a man that is Rom. 6.23 rational and religious enjoying the Image of God on him which forbids and excludes as all shadow of sin and defection so of all death or mutation to worse No. The Psalmist tells us after the history of Genesis Man being in honour did not so abide but is become like to the beasts that perish by the frailty of his will which fell from adherence to God as the durable and supreme Good Sin hath levelled us to beasts to death to devils to hell This death in all sizes and degrees from the least ache and dolour to the compleatnesse of damnation is the wages of fin So the Apostle oft tells us Rom. 5.17 by one mans offence death entred and reigned over all The soul that sins that shall die Ezek. 18. Sin is the source of all our sorrows the lethalis arundo poysoned arrow whose infection drinks up the spirits and eats up the health flesh bodies and soules of mankind No wonder we die since we sin at such a rate the wonder is that we live any one of us one moment How much more is the miracle of Gods love and mercy that hath by Christs death and merits brought forth to light eternal life and offered it to all penitent and believing sinners as purchased and prepared for them Because sin once lived in us we must once die and till sin be dead or mortified in us we cannot hope for life eternal Through death then thou wilt best see the face of thy sin What Poet what Painter what Orator whose colours are most lively can expresse the amazement horrour and astonishment that seized on the looks and hearts of Adam and Eve Rom. 27. 2 Tim. 1.10 when they had the dreadful prospect of their first great sin and curse written with the blood and pourtrayed on the face of their dead son Abel who in that primitive paucity of mankind was barbarously slain by his brother Cain Who can expresse or conceive the woful lamentation they made over their dead son in whom they first beheld the beauties of life swallowed up by the deformities of death Is death then so dreadful so dismal so deformed so putid O think what that sin is which thou so embracest and huggest The fountain of bitternesse is more bitter then the stream Our madness and misery is
not be forced no man taking his life from him yet he yielded to doe the lowest homage to death as a man not without great horror of that cup yea humbling himself even to the death of the crosse and to the prison of the grave for a short time that by dying he might overcome death in its own fort 1 Cor. 15. By grapling with this Dragon he pulled out his sting and made him cast forth his poyson so far as to be innoxious now and not very terrible to those that fly to this Jesus for protection and life John 11.25 who is the resurrection and the life to believers and holy livers who maketh light to grow up to the righteous out of their darkness and life out of his death To others indeed that are either Infidel Heathens or unchristian Christians which have but forms and no power of godliness on whose hearts the death of Christ hath not yet wrought as a corrasive against sin and a cordial against death to these Death still appears as a direful Comet or blazing star in his full magnitude truculent threatning formidable inevitable infinitely to be dreaded because he threatens them with a total and entire death not onely to their estates and honours pleasures power friends and bodies but as to their soules as to that after and eternal life If death prevailed so far upon the Son of God how far will its vastations reach upon those that are the children of the flesh only that is of the Devil and properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of death If the living Lion thus died what must become of those that are but as dead dogs A gracious Christian as Jonathan did Sauls javelin avoids the stroak of death as to the main it may graze on his body but it toucheth not his soul Col. 3.3 when his life is hidden with Christ in God A natural man though while he lived he blessed himself yet dies wholly Death like the flood prevaileth over his highest tops and mountains it gnaweth upon them as sheep Nothing is left him for ever of which it may be said In this he lives as in the houses of the Egyptians there was none in which there was not one dead yea the first born For his children they shal follow the generation of their fathers and never see light if they follow their evil steps His lands which he called after his name in a few years they are alienated his lamp quite extinct and his memorial perisheth For his fair and costly Monument Et habent sua fata Sepulchra These in revolutions of time Psal 49.19 either by the rough hand of war overturning all things or by the gentle and leisurely thawings of peace melt and moulder away till they bury themselves in their own dust which were designed as repositories and conservatories of their Masters As for their souls they never lived the life of God nor can they hope to live in light with him so that eternal death feedeth for ever upon the whole man devouring every-limb of body and faculty of soul as the Lions did the accusers of Daniel before ever they come to the ground O how sad how mad is that security among Christians which sleeps on the top of a mast in so dangerous a sea that dares to live in known and presumptuous sins amidst these infinite and hourly adventures of death playing over the head of that mine where he knows is daily sapping under him and within him nor doth a man know in what moment it may be sprung to his utter dissipation We know not at what hour of the day Mat. 24.42 43. or watch of the night this notable Thief will come to break up our house of clay and spoil us of all our goods together with our lives and he is but the Vancourrier of our Judge whose counsel is holy and wholsome advising all his disciples to watch and pray lest we be surprised at unawares by the arrests of Death and Judgment Nothing concerns a wise man or evidenceth a good man more then to be never so imployed as he shall not dare to die that like an honest and able debtor he may confidently walk at all hours of the day in every street of the City where he dwells and where he owes a debt which he is able and willing to pay whereas the lewdnesse and riot of impenitent sinners makes them like bankrupt debtors shift and shark hide and skulk up and down in by-wayes and at twilight for fear of those Creditors whom they are neither able nor willing to satisfie and yet they cannot long escape the Bayliffs and Jaylors hand nor by any artifices avoid that prison out of which is no redemption till a man hath paid the uttermost farthing that is never unlesse while we are in the way we agree with our merciful Creditor Mat. 5.29 who is ready upon our humble request to forgive us all that we owe him like that gracious and generous Master in the Gospel Mat. 18.27 6. Lay to heart what little cause any mothers child of us hath to presume to sin and to procrastinate our repentance since we have no cause to presume of life till to morrow to neglect agreeing with our adversary while we are yet in the way that is under the meanes offer and capacity of reconciliation and happy accord to adventure so precious and momentary an opportunity upon which depends our everlasting fate in weal or woe Ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas never stirring up any Sympathies in our souls toward our Saviours death nor any compassions to our selves as to our own mortality never to return any holy Ecchoes or humble Amens either to the precepts or promises terrors or comforts of Gods word but as if stark deaf and quite dead so we are utterly dumb and unmoved as to all that is thundred and lightned from heaven 2 Cor. 5.20 2 Cor. 6.1 to all that Gods Embassadors those Boanerges and Barnabasses sonnes of thunder or of consolation daily cry unto us with infinite counsels and reproofs Sermons and prayers inviting and beseeching men to pity themselves to flee from the wrath that is to come to disarm Death and defeat the Devil of his expected prey There is no rock that Ministers should more avoid thenthis of giving people any encouragement to delay their repentance which no man may upon good grounds do e that hath not any assurance of his life nor any insurance against death Nor doth any thing usually more contribute to this vulgar presumption and dilatories then the courting and complementing with the dead and living too in Funeral Sermons making them rather Panegyricks and Harangues of commendation to the dead then serious summons and alarms to the living when neither the life nor the death of the interred gave any pregnant evidences of such grace and comfort as deserves either the commendation or imitation of the living No Funeral Sermons as I
thou 'T is hard for us to give a just reason and Christian account for most of our weepings and least of those that are most excessive we weep more for any loss of a momentary toy then for the absence of our Lord the loss of Gods love the loss of a good conscience the Churches wastes Jerusalems ruines and the sins of our own souls or of others which call us to mourning As our blessed Lord said to the women weeping when they saw him led to be crucified so may every dead friend or other object of our weeping say to us Weep not for me but weep for your selves Luke 23.28 who many times have most cause to sorrow then when you sorrow least some tears are to be wept for again Tears cannot profit the dead but they may the living yea I recant they may profit even dead souls who are dead as St. 1 Tim. 5.6 Prov. 8.36 John 11.35 Paul speaks even while they live who love death tears and prayers may be a means by Gods grace to revive these as Jesus his tears were to bring to life Lazarus Tears are the distillations of love resolved into drops by the coolings of some ambient sorrow We cannot love any thing in our selves or others so justifiably as our and their souls In reference to these all our passions and affections should be rightly disciplined and ranged duly and exercised and improved as most needing and deserving our cares and counsels our prayers and tears Nor can I here omit to lay to your hearts what this Noble Gentleman suggested to me when being sent for I came to him the morning before he died He told me he was very sorry that it was so late with him yea he feared very late he had been long fed with some hopes of life but now he believed his time was short which he could wish he had more improved to his souls comfort while his strength of body had been somewhat better I know men and women too have a feminine and foolish fear to dispirit or deject any patient or decumbent with the serious thoughts or speech of their dying for fear their sad physick and nauseous prescriptions should not operate well on the ill humors of their bodies But the care of removing any burthens or obstructions upon their souls and consciences this must be deferred and neglected till there is such a decline of life and spirits as hangs out the black flag of death and despair then ubi desinit Medicus incipit Theologus when Physitians have in vain done their best the Divine must God knows too oft in vain do his best also for alas he hath little time in the agonies of death and the precipitations of life to search and apply the necessary remedies or comforts of a languishing soul which is as if a man should begin to read a long letter of great and present concernment when his candle was at the last twinkling A method certainly not more preposterous then dangerous to sick bodies and diseased souls If our Physitians were meer disciples of Galen and Hippocrates I should not wonder at their dilatory indifferencies as to mens souls and intensiveness only to their bodies but being many of them very learned men and some of them very good Christians I humbly conceive it would no way misbecome them nor any way impede the success of their arts and applications if they did upon the first perception of a dubious and dangerous state of any sick body with Christian wisedom and charity advise them yea and intreat them not to neglect the care of preparing their souls for God that as they will do their best with Gods help to cure their bodily distempers so it will no way hinder their skill or cure to carry on the concurrent welfare of their souls so as becomes good Christians because the event of all sickness is uncertain diseases oft flatter where they destroy therefore Physitians and Friends should be with all speed faithful to their Patients souls as well as bodies It bears no proportion for a sick patient to be visited twice or thrice in a day by Physitians in order to the bodies health and by a Divine once in a week it may be and this not till the last exigent and gasp of life as if this would abundantly serve the turn When men begin more to value their pretious and immortal souls they will more prize the help of true Divines whose prayers connsels and spiritual assistance being Gods indulgence and ordinance in his Church is usually followed with most gracious and comfortable successes toward sick persons that desire their help and send timely for them as St. James 5.14 James adviseth yea commandeth to do when Christians are cast down in bodily or spiritual dejections and when they are desirous to have the comfort of forgiveness of sins further sealed to them yea who is there so able so knowing so self-confident so comfortable in health that may not and usually doth not finde great damps dulness and difficulties of soul in sickness these are prone to be dispirited as well as the bodies of the best Christians and may well bear with nay most earnestly desire to have their weak hands supported and feeble knees strengthned by the counsel prayers and comforts of true Ministers Yea in the most desperate cases when dissolute livers are catched in Gods net or toile and now begin to make their addresses to God and preparations for eternity even in these cases the diligent and frequent assistance of discreet Ministers helping poor creatures to search and try their hearts to see their sins to look to God in Christ to turn to him and lay hold upon him doth many times work miraculous effects both to sanctifie sickness and to save souls so much doth God blesse the means he hath appointed when duly used which supinely neglected the end must needs fail I know many men and women too are now turned Preachers as not a few are turn'd Physitians which truly in my judgement amount no higher for the most part then Empiricks and Mountebancks in both making more work for able Divines and Physitians too This I am sure few men in their wits and willing to live but court the best Physitians nor do I see less reason why they should not desire and employ the best and truest Divines such as are most able and skilful most willing and faithful most authorized and commissionated by Christ and his Church to assist and comfort to instruct and absolve if need be dying sinners beyond what any man ordinarily can do in his health much less in the distempers dejections and darknesses of his sickness both corporal and spiritual who yet now affect in it most what in the frolick of their lives to be their own Teachers and Preachers their own Ordainers and Confessors their own Bishops and Presbyters too contrary to the judgment of all pious Antiquity who thought the Evangelical Ministry not an
spirit but to less of mortifiedness and humility then their sinful frail and dangerous condition did require Solomon no doubt had observed that Feasts like full diet to foul bodies Morbum non hominem alentes Morbi fomitem subducentes did but pamper their diseases but Funerals like Physick that is less palatable yet more wholsome did help to purge the body to lighten nature Feasts like fair weather or Summer are prone to beget many vermine many putid and pestilent savours both in our minds and bodies but Funerals like frosty weather give check to the luxuriancy of evil humours of evil weeds and offensive savours Holy Job was jealous of the dangerous effects accompanying the Festivals of his children Job 1.5 however brought up both by his precept and example to all pious and just severities He was afraid with a godly and paternal fear lest they had cursed God in their hearts that is negatively or privatively not blessing him at all or not proportionably to the bounty they enjoyed lest partaking of his gifts they might forget the Giver and love commend or admire the creature more then the Creator For no experience is more frequent then to see surfeiting bodies to be as the sepulchres of famished soules to see plenty digested into impiety as sweet and fat things turn to choler from principles of love and civility men study to treat their friends with plenty Lenocinumi gustus variety delicacy of meats and drinks This by the inchantment of the taste tempts to superfluity and excess beyond the modesty of holy mirth and sober satiety which God doth neither deny nor envy us once beyond the banks of moderation the wine and strong drink boyl up mens spirits to madness to begin and enforce so many unhealthful healths by a devilish kind of importunity and hellish civility till surfeiting and drunkenness till all manner of petulancy and violence like a deluge or spring-tide overwhelm all that is rational or religious civil or humane in them till their bodies are become the sinks of all fedities till shameful spewing as the Prophet speaks is upon their tables beds and bosoms till their comedies of feasting end in tragedies of fighting if not with their friends yet with their God and their own soules and this in so ingrate and indigne a manner as is most impudent for armed with the weapons of Gods bounty power and wisedome they fly in his face and fight against his holy Spirit contrary to the gentleness and gratitude of beasts which doe not readily return any rude or offensive actions to those that are their feeders so that the unholy and unthankful carriage of men in their excesses against God is not far from cursing of him yea many times men run out to such riot at Feasts as to number their oathes by their glasses and dishes every bit and every draught must be sawced with the haugoust of swearing of profane and Atheistical rallieries against God and Religion This is many times the sad end of feasting Non hos quaesitum munus in usus Prov. 23.2 which begins in luxury and concludes in blasphemy when men need more a knife to be put to their throat then to cut their meat When they begin without any grace or that very formal and only in their lips and end in such riotous and ungracious conclusions better to be with Lazarus on his dunghil wanting the crums of Dives his table then to be such a beast as feeds without fear Luke 16.19 Jude 12. Deus tuus porcorum Deus as owns no other God then the god of swine or their own bellies to eat and drink of the Eternals bounty and never either crave or own or return a blessing in any duty love or fear to him forgetting that there is not a crum of bread we eat or a drop of drink we take to refresh our hungry and thirsty soules which we can either make or merit they are the fruits and effects of omnipotent power goodness wisedome Epicures forget there must be an Earth an Air a Sun a Heaven a World made to bring forth the least creature we partake of besides a divine benignity which allowes and enables us to use and enjoy them We doe not owe these comforts to our selves no more then to Bacchus or Ceres to Pan or Apollo to Saturn or Neptune the imaginary Gods of the Heathen but to the only true God who is blessed for ever the bountiful giver of all blessings and who must needs be better then all by the word of whose power they are made for us and by the power of whose word they become blessings to us Acts 14.17 He He it is that gives all mankind witness as the Apostle preacheth to the Lystrians of himself by giving them fruitful seasons and filling their hearts with joy and gladness He is the Father of the former and lateer rain he gives us all things liberally to enjoy but not so as to turn himself out of our hearts and houses These then are the frequent dangerous effects or consequences of Feastings but at the house of mourning unless it be turned by a strange Metamorphosis to a house of most unseasonable feasting Isa 22.13 by the riot and delicacy of those who in stead of weeping and lamentation at Funerals to which God calls them expect onely wine and banquets otherwise if Funerals keep their primitive gravity severity and solemnity who is there so vain so wanton so sensual so brutish insolent or Atheistical that he is not ashamed not to seem at least grave sober devout and to be almost religious Who is there that feels not something of palpable darknesse and cold when he is under or near the shadow and damp of death Who can forbear something of horror something that looks like penitential sadness and breaths after the manner of religious and unaffected sighs Thus as Labans sheep Gen. 30 38. by the natural Magick which Jacob used of peeled rods laid before them became spotted and ring-streaked so doth ingenuous grief and sorrow by strange symbolizings work on all mens hearts and this not so much precariously as imperiously especially when that passion hath for a time got the Empire of all other A lachrymis nemo tam ferreus ut teneat se and sits though in sackcloth dust and ashes like the King of Nineveh on the Throne of a rational soul in its full and predominant majesty which is then most conspicuous when there is most of unfeigned sadness and obscurity like the Sun in the greatest Eclipse This lesson humanity taught the very Heathen no Nation so barbarous but they adorned their Funerals with something not only of the finest flowers of humanity Nature imperio gemimus cum funus adultae Virginis occurrit c. but even with the fairest garlands of their divinity and a special regard to their Gods For these sad spectacles mightily allayed their furies tamed their most unruly lusts
to hide it as carrion in the earth commit it to the wormes and leave it to its own corruption Ossa vides regum vacuis exhausta medullis Vnus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis Sarcophago contentus erit Even this body which was the lanthorn of so bright and noble a soul as Solomon's The Citadel or Fort of so great a strength as Sampson's who had an Army in each Arm The Throne or Metropolis of Beauty as Queen Esther's The Magazeen of so much wit and knowledge as Achitophel's The Seraglio of so much pleasure as Sardanapalus's The Bel and Dagon of so much good cheer as Dives devoured To this deformity necessity poverty rottenness baseness sordidness is it brought in a few days Blessed God! if we laid this to heart could we so much dote and pamper so much indulge and cocker our wretched bodies to the neglect prejudice detriment and destruction of our precious souls Go now O you wanton Herodiasses O you proud Jezebels O you tender delicate women whose curiosity to adorn your bodies poseth Interpreters to know what those artifices and instruments were which you used in Isaiah's time Isa 3. when luxury and curiosity were as it were under age and in their minority which now are much more ingenious adult and full grown after two thousand years improvement Lay to heart what fine dishes you dress for worms for fishes for fowls it may be for dogs to feed upon Lay to heart and consider whether your ways be equal or your hour-glasses proportionate which measure out many hours in a short day to dress your bodies and scarce allow one half hour or a few minutes in one or many days to purge to wash to prepare and adorn your souls by prayers and tears by reading and meditating by humbling and repenting by fitting and dressing them for God Whether it be not an high degree of folly and madness to bestow so much of a momentany and precious life in doing that at morning which is to be undone at night to spend the best and most of your time in a circle of vanity Not that decency and elegancy cost and comeliness are wholly denied by the severities of religion but comparatively they are by the two great Apostles in respect of the inward 1 Tim. 2.9 1 Pet. 3.3 adornings of the soul Go now O you Shee-men you delicate and effeminate Gallants of my own sex lay to heart whether it be worthy of masculine wisedome and strength of manly vertue and honour of Christian gravity and modesty to trifle out your time also in female studies of softness and luxury in being your own babies Idols and Idolaters in studying your backs and bellies your food and raiment more then any good books or any good men or any good and great design worthy of you Ad quid perditio haec To what purpose is this waste of thoughts and time of cost and pains in both sexes O lay to heart what a rotten post you guild for a moment and what a marble pillar you neglect to polish for eternity I mean your souls which are divinae particulae aurae the breath and beam of God in your original Lay to heart when either you see the deformed frowns and fedities of a newly dead body or the black flesh and sordid dust which you may see in the coffins of those that have been long dead think then how little cause you have to be proud of these rotten rags of the soule this rubbidg of mortality how injurious you are to your divine and immortal souls when you leave them to their own native decays and eternal ruines when you neglect to raise polish and improve them when you thus study by Atheistical luxuries to deprave debase and debauch them much worse being wholly or chiefly intent to the trimming feeding and pampering of your bodies as if your souls were given you only for salt to keep you sweet of which you never have so true a view and prospect as when they are represented to you in anothers death Let dead carkaesses be your looking-glasses then bring forth all the flowers of Oratory all the Poets fancies all the ornaments that art and wit can steal from all creatures and see if by these Spices Gums and odours thou canst keep thy vile body from appearing rotten and unsavoury to thee or that by those colours and adornings thou canst preserve it from death and abominable deformity Since then all these things the whole frame and goodly fabrick of our Microcosm these little Epitomies of the great world our petty and pygmy bodies in which the heaven and earth the light and darkness the celestial and elementary bodies are as it were bound up in a small volume or decimo sexto Since as St. Peter says all these things shall be dissolved 2 Pet. 3.11 What manner of persons ought we all to be in all holy conversation and godliness 2. When thou hast taken a full view of this sink of putrefaction a dead body then lay to heart and consider by way of Analogy or proportion if a dead body be such a mass of corruption such a summary of sordidness such an abstract of loathsomness to thy self and others though formerly indeared as friends and lovers to it as wives or husbands as parents or children as friends and favourites yet thou canst now no longer indure its company or sight O how foul how filthy how nasty how ugly how loathsome how abominable would a dead soul be and appear if thou couldst see it as God's pure eyes do Tully had a very good fancy and well expressed That if we could see vertue which is the rational beauty of the soul with our bodily eyes no man would be a suiter to or lover of any other beauty it would so excite attract and concenter all our affections to it By a parallel allusion I may tell you that if we could by any spectacles or opticks by our owne or others eyes heightned to a spiritual perspicacity behold as St. Bernard speaks how rueful dreadful Quam foedum quam horendū sit spectaculum Deo Angelis anima cadaverosa in peccatis mortua libidinum tabe squalida ira invidia tota deformis horrida and execrable an object the soul is to God and Angels when it is as a dead carkass naturally and impenitently dead in sin rotten with predominant vices squallid with enormous lusts dissolved into sensual pleasures and deformed with all manner of confusions and corruptions This alone would monopolize and ingross all the irascible faculties of the soul by which we hate loath abhor detest and fly from any thing Corruptio optimi est pessima no carkass is so unsavoury or pestiferous as mans Hence plagues oft follow great slaughters of men in war unburied carkasses poysoning and infecting the very air No soul but that of man can putrefie or die nor is any putrefaction like that of the divine and reasonable soul become
buy and sell to sport and play to fight and kill others yea to gratifie thy senses in all sorts of pleasures and to attend nature in the most sordid necessities and yet canst find no time to repent no nor to admit one serious thought of repentance to lodge in thy soul one day one hour no not one minute Yea canst thou find time to sin all manner of sins over and over that thou thinkest safe from the vengeance of man and yet no time to repent of thy sins against God No time in youth to repent of the sins of childhood or puerice which St. Austin now an aged yet tender-hearted penitent did reflect upon and repent of with tears St. Austin's confession Tantillus puer tantus peccator No time in riper years to repent of the inordinate hears of youth to quench the flames of extravagant lusts which God and nature reason and Religion command to be confined as fire to their proper hearths and chimneys the order of modesty and chastity but they are not allowed to set fire on the house-top to the fighting against and endangering both soul and body Canst thou find no time in the high noon and Solstice of thy life no nor yet in the decline and evening when gray hairs are here and there when thy eyes grow dim and the shadowes long to repent of thy former misdemeanors thy neglects and slightings of God thy despising his mercies thy uncharitableness sacriledge Psal 50.21 cruelty oppressions hypocrisie lying swearing murthers blasphemies insolencies hardness and impenitency carried on against thy God and thy Saviour thy Mediator and thy own soul with so high an hand so long a time Sure thou either believest there is no God or that he is such an one as thy self neither wise nor good not holy nor just that he hath revealed no Word or Will Law nor Gospel to mankind that he is indifferent what we do or impotent to reward or revenge that he hath neither heaven nor hel crowns nor flames for either good or bad that they who feare God and they that feare him not shall be all blended by death in an eternal Chaos medly or confusion without any distinction of reward or punishment according to their works upon these perswasions only thou canst be hitherto impenitent But if any one of those sharp arrows of divine truth which are shot from heaven which thou hast heard of Atheus est qui non tam credit quam cupit non esse Deum seen and received into thy brest which thou canst with no colour of reason deny or repel and which with much adoe thou bafflest and shufflest off to a kind of cavilling unbelief I say if but one of them had well fixed it selfe upon thy heart and conscience it would move thee to the speedy thoughts and essays of repentance at least to pare off the superfluity of thy sins and that excess of riot 1 Pet. 4.4 which argue more a monster then a man and a Divel then a Christian who loves darkness more then light and in the midst of that glorious Gospel which hath shined from Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs Confessors John 3.19 all good Christians in all ages and places yea from Christ himself confirmed to be the light life the Redeemer and Saviour of the world by many infallible signs and wonders In this blight Temple thou affectest the dungeon and vault of thy rotten and nasty lusts chusing death and refusing life digging deeper into hell then when thou mightest make an ascent to heaven by those gracious means as the ladders of heaven which are offer'd thee in precepts promises terrors comforts holy patterns and great examples set before thee in all grace and virtue which whoso seeth not must needs be blind whoso sees and doth not praise yea admire must needs be unthankful whoso is not proportionably affected to their truth and worth Divinae veritatis majestatem benignitatis gloriam gratiarum nitorem virtutum pulcherimam suavitatem qui non videt caecus est qui videt non laudat ingratus est qui videns laudansque parili affectu non movetur aut mortuus est aut insanus Eccles 12.6 must needs be either mad or dead as St. Austin speaks Surely if thou couldst once meet thy self that is thy conscience in the cool of the day apart from the heats of thy passions and the rapid torrent of thy foolish and hurtful lusts thou wouldst bethink thy selfe at length before thou diest of the necessary work of Repentance and not only before thou diest but before thou declinest and droopest It is indeed a sad uncertain and uncomfortable work to begin when a man is drawing to his end then to tune thy soul for God when thy body is most out of tune and thy mind too then to begin to wind up the strings of an Instrument when the very ribs of it are flying in pieces Who of a thousand can hope to draw waters out of the deep wells of salvation when the golden bowl and silver cord of life as Solomon speaks are almost broken and loosed It must needs be an hudling and most confused work then to set thy house in order I mean that interiorem animae domum inward withdrawing room of thy soul thy heart which ought to be as a Temple always fitted for God purged from sin adorned with all gracious habits then when the Tabernacle or out-house of thy body in which thy soul dwels is wholly out of order either burning with feavorish flames or tottering with consumptionary weakness or burdened and falling with unnatural loads and painful obstructions Thou couldst never have chosen a worse or unfitter time to repent then when the pains of sickness the inquietudes of body the impertinent visits of friends the cryes of relations the want of sleep all extremities the terrors of death and the stupors of soul are before thee or pressing upon thee Repentance is a work to be begun seriously in the most sedate temper of soul and calmest state of life when we enjoy the greatest serenity of body and mind when we have most leisure fewest interruptions and least diversions strongest temptations potentest oppositions and the greatest abilities of soul to resist them Once well begun it must at the same rate be carried on every day For this like oft pumping in a ship that hath but little leaks will keep her afloat but it is desperate plying the pump when a vessel hath now so many foot water in hold that it begins to sink The early repentings in our health are the best Antidotes and Cordials in our sickness like Summer provisions seasonably laid in against an hard Winter nor is there any bitter potion which a sick man is less able or disposed to take then that of Repentance when he is weak languishing sunk dispirited almost despairing in his sickness which is like a mans setting himself to cleave logs and therewith to make himself
alienated from his fear by the prosperity of any evil doers Psal 73.16 or adversity of well doers in this life But go into his Sanctuary with David search the Scriptures and there thou shalt see the eternal counterpoisings of these strange momentary dispensations how the wicked go away to eternal darkness Psal 97.10 11 c. Luke 12.4 and shall never see any light of comfort when his candle is once put out but to the righteous the Lord preserveth the souls of them from those that can but kill the body Rom. 2.7 yea light is sown in their darkness life in their death a crown of eternal glory will grow out of their crown of thorns rivers of everlasting refreshings shall flow out of the rock of their patience and sufferings in well doing in the midst of which fiery trials the spirit of glory rested upon them 1 Pet. 3.18 1 Pet. 4.13 14. Phil. 1.28 they are made conformable to Christ in sufferings that they may reign with him hence they enjoy a most evident sign of their adversaries condition but of their own salvation and that of God who is a righteous Judge a God of truth and faithfulness who will not forget the labour of love or suffer those to go unrewarded who suffer for righteousness sake Mat. 5.10.12 great is their reward in heaven Do not foolishly fret and envy Dives his delicates when thou seest Lazarus die on a dunghil Luke 16.19 Matth. 14.8 nor grudge Herod his throne when thou seest John Baptists head in a charger There is not a greater argument Certissimum futuri judicii praejudicium Tert. Jer. 51.56 The Lord God of recompenses shall surely require Mal. 3.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or more likely demonstration to confute Atheism to confirm faith and hope in a better and another life which the Lord God of recompenses hath certainly prepared for those that are his when he makes up his jewels Can any man be loser for Gods cause Shall not the just God do right to himself and to every man according to his own word and every mans works No man can think God is unable or unwilling to make such amends in another life as shall infinitely expiate and exceed all the seeming detriments here on the part of the godly and the increments or advantages on the part of the wicked Could he make such a world for the good and bad the just and unjust for men and beasts enemies and servants Matth. 5.45 and cannot he prepare for and bestow a better state upon his friends and children Is this mortal and momentary state worthy the name of life with which we are so taken and we are loth to leave whose welfare consists only in the using and enjoying of creatures either without life or only with life and sense or at best adorned with reason added to their life and sense Col. 2.22 but yet perishing in the use and dying as our selves Is this a life to be so desired and doted upon and must not that excel which consists in communion with and participation of the Creator who must necessarily be better then all his creatures and infinitely exceed them as much as light darkness the sea a drop or the Sun a mote or spark Is it a small matter that the spirit or soul of a good man like Lazarus's and Stephens Luke 16. is presently attended and received by many blessed Angels which light on it as a swarm of bees to conduct it joyfully to its blessed God and Saviour so that as soon as it parts out of the body it enjoys spiritual Angelical and celestial joys But the souls of the wicked loth to leave their carkasses and lingring as it were about their corps are presently beset with so many evil spirits or spiteful divels who like wasps and hornets fall upon it as it were to bite and sting and vex it with such resentments and terrors as they either feel or fear to which the soul is first self-condemned and presently selfe-tormented being its own Hell or Tormentor now as it was its own betrayer or tempter heretofore 10. These and the like serious reflexions may justly be laid to heart by all such as are yet but in the outward court of reason on the bare forms of religion and even by others who are come or seem so at least into the holy place to clearer perceptions of piety carrying sincere purposes in their souls and professing to live in communion with God and Christ I am to speak to the hearts of these also How come they to live still incumbred with so many strange opinions passions lusts and affections which seem very weak partial preposterous disorderly earthly and uncharitable Is this to live as in the prospect of death in the confines of heaven in the aim at eternal life yet so eager solicitous impatient disquieted and concerned for these momentary and transeunt enjoyments of life as if these were the main interests they were to carry on in life or to provide for against death Art thou a Kings son and embracest dunghils Lam. 4.5 talkest so much of heaven and graspest only earth Art thou among Gods Nazarites Lam. 4.7 who profess to be separate from sinners crucified to the world whose heart and conversation should be whiter then milk purer then snow beautiful as the rubies and more polished then Saphirs as Jeremiah laments and yet is thy visage blacker then a coal thy sin cleaveth to thy bones such an hidebound Christian and politick professor so carking and caring so getting and griping so sharking and shifting to and fro in thy judgement and way of religion that thou seemest more to regard the wind and weathercock of civil interests favours and advantages then the constant rule and compass of Gods word shifting thy sails to every point as may most fit thy worldly occasions rather then thy conscience and eternal concernments Whence is it that thou a profest pilgrim and stranger in this world art so great an agitator and so passionately engaged in secular sidings whence is this strange Metamorphosis or change of Christianity from the primitive beauty and Scriptural garb or fashion used by the Confessors Martyrs Apostles by Christ himself and his best followers in all ages when hands and eyes heads and hearts lives and conversations of Christians were all lifted up toward heaven and set upon heavenly things how are they now become dross so groveling to the earth joyning Christ with Belial and God with Mammon 2 Cor. 6.15 1 Thes 2.5 Col. 3.5 Rom. 2.22 Prov. 3.9 Mal. 3.8 professions of light with operations of darkness making Christian liberty a cloke for all licentiousness and malice for all filthy lucre and even sacrilegious covetousness which is worse then Idolatry for the Idolater honours a false god with his substance but a Sacrilegious Christian robs the true God to increase his private substance This temper is far from the mortifying
thoughts of death 1 Cor. 7.31 or using this world as if men used it not being so little so nothing of a true and generous Christians main design Yea not only in pursuance of secular and civil advantages with much warpings from law and equity besides violent expressions of their uncharitable passions beyond what becomes men and women professing godliness and tender of the scandals of Christian Religion But further under pretence of religious zeal and special sanctity Blessed Lord what uncharitable fires what unchristian furies are mens spirits ready to kindle in Churches and States both Christian and reformed Tantaene animis coelestibus irae Can heavenly hearts burn with such Kitchin-fires which must be inflamed by pouring the holy oyl of religion upon them untill they come to such conflagrations as kill and destroy even in Gods holy mountain Isa 65.25 raising such fewds and animosities among Christians as are not to be quenched but by each others bloods yea they burn to the nehtermost hell to mutual Anathemas and damnings to eternity Mortales quum simus immortalia non debent esse odia Have we not forgot that we are mortals who maintain such immortal hatred despites cursings condemnings Do we remember the same condemnation from God under which we all naturally lie or that we have the same Redeemer Jesus Christ who hath purchased us to himself and called us to peace love and good order as children of his heavenly Father and brethren to himself and one another Proximorum odia sunt accerbissima Fratrum quoque gratia rara est The neerer we are of kindred must we have less kindness and the more sharp contentions because of the same Country and Church heretofore I beseech you tell me O you torn and tottered flock of Christians now in Old England Can the world in reason think that we Christians are brethren the sons of one Father going on t of Egypt homeward to him every day of this mortal pilgrimage and yet we are every day falling out by the way making religion it self one of the greatest occasions of our bitterest and bloodiest contentions both with each other and with our selves even the more silly and less subtil sort of plain and possibly not ill meaning Christians these are most what gnawing of bones doting about questions endlesly disputing and doubting even while they are decaying and dying So intent as Souldiers to plunder other mens opinions and to live as it were upon the spoils of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion therein heretofore happily established and professed as if free quarter in professing preaching doubting disputing and denying what ever they list that they much neglect as good husbands the more painful charitable and profitable duties of Gods husbandry planting watering and weeding those principles and plants of religion which bear the graces of repentance mortification newness of life charity humility and good works from being Isaacs and Jacobs plain and peaceable spirited professors are turned Ismaels and Esaus rough handed of a more ferine temper living by their bow and sword their hands against every man that is not of their faction and party and their hearts alienated highly from such as were heretofore their Mother Fathers and Brethren These scorching heats of angry differences among Christians spirits do very much dry up all the dews of grace and sweeter influences of Gods Spirit Few consider how soon the Sun may go down upon their wrath Ephes 4.26 not only that of a natural day which should never be for he that sleeps in uncharitable passions hath the Divel for his bed-fellow that night not only in his bed but in his bosome but that Sun of our natural life may go down before thy distempers are alaied to a Christian composure Many Christians in our later dog days are so agitated and hurried up and down with the heat of the weather 1 Tim. 1.16 and the vexatious gadflies of endless and vain janglings that like cattel in Summer they cannot fall to their food wasting much time and spirits in unprofitable disputes following first this faction next that mode in religion 2 Tim. 3.7 ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of saving and necessary which are practical truths So that like the poor Link-boys in winter-nights at London they so spend their lights in running to and fro after every wind of doctrine other mens fantasies opinions and humors that they are fain to go to their own home and to be in the dark going down to their graves in sorrow neither so chearful nor comfortable as Christians might do Isa 50.11 who less delighted living in those sins and sparks which themselves have kindled From this occasion and the like meditation of death lay to heart how much it concerns and becomes thee to carry great moderation as in all things Phil. 4.5 so chiefly in thy passions to be prudent in all the dispensations of thy endeavours cares fears joys loves hopes desires and griefs as well as of thy anger these streams of thy soul must not be let go too plentifully at the flashes or flood-gates which run to waste lest thou robbest that course which should drive thy mill I mean carry on the grand preparations for death and eternity by a sober exact and holy life in which all passions and affections may have their holy use and a comely part to act It is great pity in that one passion of grief which is the softest and most human to see tears plentifully shed for some temporal losse Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se natura fatetur Quum lacrymas dedit or for the death of some dear friend and yet so little so seldome applied to soften and supple the hard and callous heart of a sinner Men and women too are prone to be prodigal of these precious drops which are as the pearls of a penitent sinners eyes and cheeks whose water is turned into wine even of Angels when they rejoyce to see a sinners penitent sorrows which end in eternal joys Lacrymae poenitentium vinum Angelorum Luke 15.10 when every tear quencheth a fiery dart of the Divel or rinseth the conscience of some remaining filth of sin St. Austin confesseth and deploreth his excessive softness after his conversion in mourning for the death of his dear friend Alipius Flebam Didonem occisam cum animam meam mortuam non flebam as somewhat beyond the gravity and moderation of a Christians sorrow And more he bewaileth those fond tears which before his conversion he wept when he read the fable of Didoes death when at the same time he neither deplored nor considered as he saith the dead estate of his own heart and soul to God The blessed Angels if they did visibly converse with us might justly ask most women and men too as these did Mary at the Sepulchre John 20.13 Ploratur lacrymis amissa pecunia veris. Woman why weepest
honour under the conduct of an excellent Governour Mr. Mole sometime Vniversity Orator whom I cannot mention without such honour and love as are due to modest and most deserving worth Next that he might add Honour to Learning especially in an age where Ignorance and Rusticity began very rudely to vie with both the famous Vniversities decrying all good Learning and useful studies to make way for pitiful raptures and silly enthusiasms that is putting out the two great lights of heaven that hedg-creeping gloe-worms might shine the better that instead of a sage Nobility a prudent Gentry a learned Clergy judicious Lawyers and knowing Physitians the honour civility piety the souls the estates the Laws and Religion the bodies and lives of this so renowned a Church and populous a Nation might be exposed to the wills and hands of John-a-Leidens and Jackstraw's to Cnipperdolins and Muncers to Hackets and Naylors to Lack-latin preachers pettifogging Barretors and impudent Mountebanks all of them perfect Impostors in their several professions A project so unchristian so inhuman so barbarous so diabolical as suted no interest but that of the kingdom of darkness which the wise and merciful God hath hitherto defeated and I hope ever will if he have any favour toward England beyond Turkey Tartary or Barbary From Cambridge he travelled a second time into France where he had been before he came to me abiding there above two years and gaining such improvements as are usually most aimed at by young Gallants because most conspicuous and generally accepted by all persons of civility and breeding who are glad to see that English roughness moroseness and surliness which commonly like rust attends Country Gentlemen of only domestick and home-spun education taken off by that politure douceur debonaireté and gentlenesse which forraigne conversation in which young Masters are least flattered contributes to Gentlemen that have any thing of candor and suppleness in their nature In all places abroad his demeanour was generally such as became a person of his years and quality which is testified to me by a Gentleman that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worthy of credit who attended him in all his motions During his absence in France that the world may see my respects to him were not flashy and formal but serious and real I had prepared a large volume for him against that time in which he could best bear and entertain it for even little books are great burthens to young Gallants when their overactive spirits make then most busily idle This great work I had furnished and fortified with all the strength of reason and religion of virtue and honour of grace and civility of useful humanity and solid Divinity gained by my reading or experience in order to satisfie all his relations to God and man yea to exceed all the expectations of his noble friends who could not but expect and wish an accomplished Son to repair that loss which the world had of his excellent Mother The matter of this composure I had advanced as much as I could with all the comely beauties of Oratory and majesty of language to avoid what might be all tediousness in the most curious and coy Readers of so copious a variety the whole fabrick was both founded and formed after that great and goodly model or Idea of all true worth for judicious piety and useful virtue which was most remarkable and for many years observed by me in his noble Mother that by his beholding so fair a figure and so neer an example of piety virtue and honour he might not only grow in love with it but by the secret charm of reading be transformed into it But my attending the setledness of his station and condition of life as most proper for such a present caused my deferring so long the publishing of it even untill the fatal closing of his eyes for whose sight it was chiefly designed hath now condemned it to correspond with that silence and darkness to which he is gone as to this world I now appeal to all Hearers and Readers of any Nobleness and ingenuity whether I am not excusable if I do with more then ordinary resentments of sorrow lay to heart the death of this young Nobleman to whom I was so truly devoted and justly indeared After that rate of care and kindness which the blessed St. John expressed so far to a young man of great hopes as the Ecclesiastical Histories tell us that when the good old man heard his dear depositum had deserted his breeding Euseb Histo l. 3. c. 20. and endangered his soul he not only severely reproved that Bishop for Bishops above Presbyters were so early to whose custody he had committed him but himself in his decrepit years true love never growing old or cold and infirm sought him found him followed him overtook him overcame him first with the young mans self-confusions then with his own paternal prayers and tears which never ceased till he had recovered so welcome a captive to Christ and his Church So loth was that holy man and so was I though vastly short of that beloved Disciple that either the labour of love should be lost upon any or that any we love should be lost for want of any labour for their good no defensative being too much to preserve a soul from the snares of sin and the hazzards of damnation After he was returned into England I shall but further afflict my self to tell you how amidst all the welcome receptions visits and caresses which he received or payed to his many noble and neer relations he forgot not by any juvenile or supercilious negligence to express to me and mine such civility kindness and noble gratitude as shewed both living and dying that he had a real value love and confidence of me I confess I unfeignedly deplore my loss of him not that I either hoped or expected any secular advantages by his private or publique station beyond those civil courtesies which I have oft enjoyed from his other noble relations which if I did never deserve yet I hope I did never abuse As for publique favours attainable by any mans mediation I understand my self and the times so well in the point of preferment as not to look toward any which are now rare to he seen in England for any Ecclesiastick of my proportions nor am I so vain as to seek in vain those little great things for my self further then an Evangelical and unenviable plow in a poor Country village where as in most populous and plebeian Auditories much good seed is lost much study and pains frustrated by falling on the thority stony and high-way grounds But my work and wages I hope are with Him who is a merciful Master and most impartially bountiful Patron to all faithful Labourers in his husbandry among which I beseech God I may be found one in whom ability industry and fidelity may help to keep up the authority of Evangelical Ministry from being trodden under
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
very large soveraign knowledge of them Eccl. 8.11 beyond any meer man tells us that the hearts of the sons of men are not onely full of folly 1 Kings 8.38 Eccl. 9.3 and set upon evill and sick of several sorts of plagues but frenzy fury and madness are in their hearts while they live which is a distemper not easily if ever perfectly cured But if any thing as to humane applications be likely to work any good upon the worst mens hearts Job 41.7 if any dart or weapon can reach and pierce these Leviathans whose natural proneness and customary habits in sin are so closely fixed and hardened to all manner of sin without any remorse it is such as Death brings with it not as it is pictured to scare children but as it is really it self and perceived among all sorts of men good or bad sparing none surprising any one even in the pride hardness deadness and damnableness of his heart Nothing in life is a more consummated fear then that which death carries with it It is called the King of terrors Job 18.14 Isa 14.9 11 12. Ezek. 32.27 Rex longimanus whose Scepter or sword reacheth all even Kings themselves such as were most impatient not to have all men living stoop down to their Scepter and Empire even these mighty Cedars and Colosses of Monarchs hath death subdued in a short time with a little labour and brought them down to the pit and bound them in chaines of darkness in the prison and dungeon of the grave triumphing over these Triumphers with an ironick Epinicion as the Prophet expresseth How art thou faln Art thou also become weak as we who wert a terror in the land of the living with thy sword lying in vain under thy head while thine iniquities are upon thy bones This representation of death to the living should be laid to Heart by all men and will be so by all such as truly live and not only breath There is a great difference between vixit and fuit being and living he lives that liveth wisely and worthily As bene valere is vivere health is the life of life so much more bene vivere est vita vitalis to live well is the welfare of life For as every disease of the body is a partial death to such a degree of health and life as is wanting so every sinful distemper of the rational heart of man is so far a deadness as it is a disorder upon it Which God seeks to cure and conquer by setting before us frequent spectacles of mortality which not to lay to heart and to entertain meerly with a specious formality with a childish historick or histrionick indifferency is the way firmare morbum corroborare mortem to increase the diseases and confirm that death which is upon mens hearts who are yet living in a vain shadow or shew of life only which is to these filly inconsiderate and sinful fooles not only mortalis and moriens but mortua yea mortifera vita a mortal and dayly dying but a dead yea a deadly and killing life while they live onely to beasts to men to their bodies and to a moment but are dead to soules to their own hearts to Gods Spirit and to Eternity as to their present impenitent state and posture of heart God by the Prophet complaines That the righteous perish and no man laid it to heart Yea when he sent many messengers and promiscuous executioners of death among the Jewes Isa 57.1 Aezek 14.21 his four sore judgments yet they laid not those terrors to heart nor considered their latter end that they might fear before God and live no more presumptuously Our blessed Lord at once reproacheth and threatneth those that had not so laid to heart the death of those on whom the tower of Siloa fell and whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices Luke 13.4 that except they repent they should likewise perish Deaths must be so laid to heart that by the sadness of the countenance the heart may be made better Eccl. 7.3 as Solomon speaks The house of laughter may afford the heart of a fool more seeming pleasure for a season but the house of mourning affords a wise mans heart more solid and durable profit Luke 17.37 who like the Eagle will chuse to be there where the body not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea the dead corps is as our Saviour speaks in an higher sense where the Eagle-eye of a believer quick and clear seeing afar off eagerly hastens firmly seizeth pertinaciously holdeth and greedily feedeth upon Christs blessed body and blood which is given to die for us as the only food of our soules in its infinite merits As we must not take the name of God in vain by profane swearing blaspheming or jesting nor may we receive his grace in vain as to the meanes the monitions and motions of his Spirit within us or without us So neither may we passe by the dead as the Priest and Levite did by the wounded and half-dead traveller without much regard as if we were unconcerned Gods dispenpensations in this kind must not be in vain to us though we cannot doe the dead any good yet we may get good from them and by them yea account must be given as of other things so of this Thou must not only reddere rationem vitae tuae but alienae give an account of thy own life but of anothers too who may sin at the charge of thy soule while as Eli thou neglectest to hinder or reprove or give them good example or it may be soothest and encouragest them in sin or whose pious life is set before thee as an excellent pattern but ill followed by thee yea further we must reddere rationem mortis alienae give account to God of anothers death not only whom we unjustly slay Gen. 9.5 or neglect to save deliver asmuch as is justly in our power God will require the blood of these both for man and beast but further we must give account of anothers death which we see or hear of and doe not consider which we celebrate onely but lay it not to heart in piety when we are not warned or moved at all when custome as of sinning so of seeing the dead takes away all due sense when being touched with so sharp a spur as that of anothers death should be to thee thou art like a dull jade or tired hackney not at all affected or moved to mend thy pace not one sinners sigh or Christians tear no sad reflection or penitent remorse no quickened endeavours or confirmed resolutions in order to prepare more intentively for death for judgment and eternity only thou joggest on after the wonted rate and carriers pace of a formal and cold-hearted Christian Which evil defects arguments of a dead and unaffected heart either totally or gradually are the lesse excusable in men because the uses or advantages to be
Sun yet have I lived to see both their lives ended all their humane hopes and joys and honours buried in the dust the one before she was 27. years old the other before he had compleated four and twenty So great and neer experiments are these two for the confirmation of those two verses used to display the excellent emptiness and glorious nothingness of this world and present life of which subject as many pens and wits have largely descanted so none have expressed more in few words then he that made this distich Punctum bulla vitrum glacies flos fabula fumus Vmbra cinis somnus vox sonus aura nihil Thus in prose No point is more concise no bubble more pompously swelling and suddenly vanishing no glass more brittle no ice more self-dissolving no flower more fair and fading no tale more short and fabulous no shadow less substantial Introitus exitus lugubris Cum nascimur mundi hospitio excipimur initium a lacrymis auspicamur cum lacrymis extinguimur Cyp. Ordimur vitam lacrymis claudimus omnes Quisque suis natus sic sepelitur aquis no ashes more easily scattered and never to be recollected no sleep or dream more delighting and deceiving no voice more vanishing no sound more transient no breath more soft and unseen in sum nothing is a truer emblem of absolute and perfect nothing then this poor life which is begun as St. Cyprian and many observe continued and ended with tears An Egyptian reed on which if the heart of man leanes it soon fails and the defeats of it pierce the very soul O what a small thread is this on which we poor wretches hang the weight of our eternal state the great interests of our immortal souls while we delay our repentance multiply our sins dayly and hourly adding burthen to a crazy vessel which is leakey with its own infirmities and already over-laden with its pondus mortalitatis body of death O ye sons and daughters of men who are lifted up filled and stretched to the highest pitch and uttermost extents of pride self-conceit vain-glory who have already deified your selves in your owne imaginations of your heaven upon earth your humane happinesses who expect that all that see you should admire and adore you as creatures so compleatly blest that the Angels or Gods themselves have cause to envy you when you are so fair so fine so young so lovely so witty so nobly descended so mightily befriended so invested with honour so fortified with power so furnished with estate so attended with servants so lodged in sumptuous palaces so surrounded with all manner of pleasures so over-flowing with all sensible contents of life See see in this and the like sad spectacles of vanity mortality and misery What a perfection of folly 1 Tim. 6.17 what an apparent madnevs it is for you to be high-minded to be proud of any thing you enjoy here to trust in your uncertain riches and not in the living God You may as justly swell and look big and magnifie your selves for taking up some rich Jewels in a shop or for seeing and handling some fine and pretious wares a little while in your hand which you must shortly lay down and leave behind you and then when thou art driven from the living and thy soul taken from thee Luke 12.19 Thou egregious fool whose shall all these things be Experience hath taught us that a dead hand is an excellent means by rubbing it on wens and tumours of the body to allay disperse and as it were mortifie that irregular and deformed excrescency The same receipt of a dead hand might serve if duly applied to our souls for it would be a very soveraign remedy as against all that is in the world 1 John 2.16 which is of a puffing and exalting nature as the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh and the pride of life so against all those flatuous and high imaginations of our hearts For the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever 1 John 2.17 Yea in every Funeral there is as it were a special hand of providence Dan. 5.5 like that which Balshazzar saw upon the wall which not only wrote his fate but weighed him as it were in a ballance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stobae and shewed him by his own terrors and tremblings how much he was too light in God's esteem and in his own mistaken fancies of earthly felicity It is among the mementos of the ancient Greeks Being momentany and mortal it well becomes all mankind to be very lowly minded Mich. 6.8 to walk humbly before their God Not to lay much weight upon so small pillars as our legs and sinews are not to build upon so loose a foundation which like quick-sands or quagmires in a short time swallow and bury up the building which is set upon them How ridiculous would he be that should bestow much time to hew and square and polish cakes of ice in order to build himself a splendid and perspicuous palace which he should fancy to be like the Chrystal Firmament and comparable to the etherial mansions of heaven Magno conatu nugas agimus Truly such are the industrious self-cheats of those who fancy to themselves rare felicities or real fulness in this life Isa 44.20 Hos 12.1 Edunt tanquam hodie morituri Aedificant tanquam semper victuri so greedily feeding on the East-wind and ashes the pleasures of sense which blast our fouls and abase them as if they had but one day to live and yet so solicitous for the morrow as if they were to live here for ever No man takes the true dimensions of life who doth not as Pythagoras did the Pyramids measure it by the shadows of death Nor do we begin truly to live as rational and religious creatures till we lay to heart the true state and proportion of this life of which we are but Tenants at will having no lease much less see simple or inheritance but are at the will of the Lord to be turned out of house and home at a moments warning Blessed God! If we laid this to heart as we should what manner of men and women should we be in all humble holy 2 Pet. 3.11 1 Cor. 7.21 Frui utendis summa est dementia Aug. and heavenly conversation as St. Peter writes using this world as if we used it not at least enjoyed it not For as St. Austin observes it is extream fatuity to enjoy that as ours which is but lent us for a very little yea for no time but from one moment to another The very ancient Heathens will rise up against Christians in this point which they notably studied variously and wittily expressed yea and in many things modestly practised 5. Add to the thoughts of lifes frailty and vanity the certain uncertainty and inevitable necessity of death A subject adorned by
a fire when he is so benummed and feeble with cold that he can hardly lift his hands to his head 2. Besides no man hath much cause to presume his repentance will be accepted of God when it comes perforce at the dregs and fag end of his life Lastly a man can then least relish and reflect upon such late and necessitated repentance as to the comfort and joy of his own soul for the best trial and taste of true repentance is to be had in health amidst the exercises and assaults of temptations then if it hold sound and firm it argues it to be of proof and safe Indeed there is nothing in our life so necessary to be done and so worthy of our living as our timely repenting for if life were for nothing else but an enflaming the reckonings of our sins here and our miseries hereafter it were a thousand times better never to be born or to see the Sun The great end of our life is first to remove the sordes and rubbidg of our sins next to build up our souls for God by grace to glory which two make up the compleat work of repentance which like currant coin hath two sides stampt or impressions on it the one is as cross the other is as pile the first is as turning from sin or dying to sin the other is turning to God and living to grace These are wrought by a double stamp upon the soul 1. Of fear and terrour scaring us from sin by the just apprehensions of the anger and wrath of God revealed from heaven and in the heart 2. Of love and mercy winning us to God by the beauty of holiness and the brightness of his goodness which appears in the face of Jesus Christ set forth in the Evangelical promifes The first breaks the second melts the heart The one is commonly much hidden where the other most appears to the soule either in fear or love which have their wholsome vicissitudes till the work be perfected by mortification to amendment by hatred of sin from the love of God This seasonably leisurely and seriously done doth strangely advance the souls faith comfort and hope of Gods love in Christ But it is neither an easie nor a ready thing to discerne the bright jewel of assurance as Gods love mercy and pardon there where the soul is all in dust and hurry and confusion moving and removing its lumber and rubbish A troubled water Isa 57.20 though it be pure will not shew a clear reflexion of our own or anothers face no more will a troubled spirit especially if it be foul with mire and dirt as a wicked heart is though a late repentant may find favour in Gods sight who can see our sincerity amidst all our confusions yet it is hard for us to have so clear a sight of God as may amount to that plerophory strong comfort and assurance which a dying man affected with his condition would desire even beyond life it self or a thousand worlds having now before his eyes the dismal aspect of death the black Abyssus of eternal night without bounds or bottome made up of desolation and oblivion at best and which is insinitely more horrid of damnation and eternal torments a Tophet that burns with much wood kindled by the breath of Gods displeasure which none can quench I know it is not fit to obstruct or shrink the mercies of God where there is yet any hope possibility or capacity allowed us by Gods indulgence They found Manasses in a prison and the thief on the Crosse and the prodigal son at the swine-trough by which sharp pennances God brought them first to themselves then to himself by repentance and so accepted of them I know God can and I believe sometimes he doth sanctifie sickness to the like good effects But we have no one example of death-bed repentance so much as once recorded in Scripture to give any instance of hope in that kind or to occasion the least presumption impenitently to sin away our health by putting off our turning to God till the time that we can scarce turn our selves in our bed Repentance like Poetry for it is a new making of the soul for God a composing of it to the holy meeters or measures of his Word requires solitude and recesses of mind Psal 4.4 that the heart of man may commune with it self and be still seriously reflecting upon a mans self what he is where he lives whence he is sprung whither he tends to what end he lives what he would have to make him happy whether this world can doe it where he may best know and how he may doe the will of his Maker and Preserver God what he will doe in age sickness death what relation proportion and capacity above all things under heaven he hath as a reasonable creature toward the Creator from what wisedom power and goodness all his visible and present comforts flow what duty and gratitude what justice and holiness befits him to God and man what to himself and his own future interests both as to soul and body which may without doubt be as capable of an after-happiness or misery which we call heaven and hell in their aspects to the supreme and increated good as they are here of health or sickness poverty or riches honour or disgrace joy or grief vexation or pleasure a momentary heaven or hell in reference to those creature-comforts they enjoy or want These if a man will but recollect himself and not shut the eyes of his soul he may in seeing see Gods will and apply himself to do his duty But this must be done apart and by himself when there are least diversions no distractions of body or mind that removed from the noise and tintamars both of secular incumbrances or sick annoyances he may better hear the gentle and orderly voice of God who is oftner in these silent and soft motions of reason then in those louder earthquakes and terrours of afflictions Nor can any pious and prudent Divine as the Confessor and Comforter of such a troubled spirit whose inward troubles for sin never began or were kindly entertained till the unwelcome trouble of his sickness made him a prisoner to his bed as the presage of his after-jayls the grave and hell In such cases I say no wise and worthy Minister of Christ but will be very wary how by the keyes of the Gospel he shut all disquiet for sin out of such a soule or let in the peace of God suddenly as to any particular confidences or personal assurance which in such cases must needs be very dark 'T is true in the general he may and must so temper Evangelical dispensations declaring the riches of Gods mercy and sufficiencies of Christs merits even to the chiefest of sinners as may never countenance despair as on Gods part in the least kind which is the dreadfullest fury of hell hardly allayed when once conjured up by the black art of
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
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
preach his revealed will which is our sanctification by our repenting and amending according to the tenour of the Gospel Such as deaffen their ears harden their hearts and turn their backs on God and the meanes of grace all the time of their strength and health will find it very hard to see or seek his face in the disorder darkness and clouds of sickness which is the twilight and evening of Death As in civil conversation no man may so presume of Gods providence as to neglect honest industry so in religious respects no man may hope for grace that doth not rationally duely and conscienciously apply to the use of those meanes which God hath appointed in his Church All blessings temporal and eternal which are acquirable by and offered to reasonable creatures are ordinarily the effects of Gods mercy and mans industry not of miracles or omnipotence The meanes of grace given by God in his Church are never barren or ineffectual but to those who neglect to attend them and use them as they may and ought to doe if they look upon them as from God and in order to their soules good which is to be attained by this or no way 7. In order therefore to promote and speed by Gods assistance our repentance while we are yet in life and health we should lay to heart specially at the summons of another death What infinite patience and long-suffering it is that hitherto God hath shewed toward thee for many years of vanity sin and desperate folly Rom. 2.4 in which he hath spared thee notwithstanding thou hast daily provoked him to his face yet thou art not to this day cut off from the land of the living nor is the door of mercy and repentance shut upon thee How many have been cut off by the sword by sudden death and by lingring sickness here one there another while thou art reprieved Should not this forbearance of God lead thee to repentance Is it not enough in all conscience and too much in all reason and gratitude thus far to have offended a God that is loth to destroy thee giving thee space to repent Wilt thou after the hardness of thy heart and vain confidence of life still treasure up wrath against the day of wrath The time past may suffice to give thee sufficient experience how unwilling God is thou shouldest die 1 Pet. 4.3 and how willing thou shouldst repent and live Ezek. 33.11 For it is of the Lords mercy that thou art not consumed Thou mightest have been the corps now to be put into the grave Lam. 3.22 where is no device or wisedome of counsel or repentance or preaching Eccl. 9.10 or praying O turn no longer the grace of God into wantonness which is offered in Christ by his Ministers Breve sit quod turpiter audes Of a short precious and uncertain moment the least part is too much to be lavished in those wayes Jude 4. which are not only unprofitable but pernicious Our whole lives after the vanity of childhood and youth are too little to be spent in well-doing Isa 20.15 and in undoing what hath been either vain or wicked To live as if we had made a covenant with death and hell is not onely a fool-hardiness but a madness which hath by infinite sad and horrid instances been fearfully punished but not yet sufficiently cured in mankind Eccl. 8.12 Though a sinner live an hundred years twice told yet it shall not be well with him Eccl. 11.9 Though young and strong men please themselves in the delights of their eyes and desires of their own hearts yet they must know that for all these things God will bring them to judgment A mans debts and dangers are not the lesse because he is not presently arrested nor sees the books and specialties which are against him or the Serjeants which will arrest him 'T is high time to cease to offend that God who is willing to remit all our former arrears and debts upon our return to him begging his pardon and resolving to live worthy of such grace Doe not then feed any longer on ashes it is a deceived heart that turneth thee aside Isa 44.20 Jonah 2.8 Phil. 2.12 Heb. 2.9 so that thou canst not deliver thy soul nor say Is there not a lye in my right hand Take heed of following lying vanities lest thou forsake thy own mercies which are offer'd us but from moment to moment so as every minute of time that passeth every clock that striketh calls upon thee in the wise man's counsell Eccles 9.10 Whatever thine hand findeth to do do it with all thy might And what hast thou to do but to work out thy salvation with feare and trembling as the Apostle calls upon the Philippians All without this is time and labour lost 8. Lay to heart upon the sight and reflexions of death the infinite want thou hast of such a Saviour who may be able and willing to redeem thee a captive to sin and held all thy life in the fear of death from both these miserable bondages Lay to heart the infinite grace transcendent love and mercy of Christ Heb. 2.9 who is offer'd thee as a sufficient Saviour to all purposes Who hath tasted death for every man and hath overcome death as well as satisfied for the death of the whole world excluding none nor excepting any but putting all into a capacity of life and salvation upon their faith and repentance John 5.40 John 6.37 40. Ver. 54. John 8.52 John 11.25 Mark 16.15 so that whoever will come to him and believe in him shall not die but have eternal life yea though he die as to the body yet he shall continue to live in the happiness of his soul and his body shall be raised to live in glory and immortality by Christ who hath wrought this for us by his death and brought it to light by his Gospel which is commanded to be preached to every rational creature under heaven Lay then to heart that is seriously and alone ponder with thy self what Christ hath done and suffered for thee what he hath deserved of thee what he expects from thee as a man Christian for whose sake he hath died Wouldst thou have greater instances of his love to thee John 10.11 John 15.13 then thus to die for thee Shall not thy unthankful and sinful importunity be satisfied with that which hath satisfied divine justice stopped the Devils mouth conquered death and purchased life eternal to every true believer It wrought up blessed Ignatius's heart to an ambitious zeal of Martyrdome that he might shew his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 reciprocal love to Christ when he deeply considered and oft repeated Christ my love hath been crucified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Doth it become thee to neglect despise sinne against such love any longer Canst thou trample that blood under feet which hath been shed for thee Wouldst thou have him
he died of that scrophulous humor abounding in him which we call the Struma or Kings evil full of little and great knots or kernels in his lungs and entrails some as big as pullets eggs some larger and adherent to the backbone on both sides his lungs so full of that caseous or cheese-like substance that they were swelled and inflamed to a quantity too big for his brest and breathing so that he died on the suddain presently after he had spoken and removed himself with much seeming strength and earnestness the heart being suddenly suffocated and wasted on one side or Auricle for want of due refreshing and however the lungs began in some folds to be putrified yet neither my self nor any other perceived either while he lived though I spake very neer him any thing offensive in his breath or unsavoury from his pectorals or vitals This was the disease and languor of which this poor Gentleman died and I know by most assured experience it hath befaln such as have been both for unspotted virtue and exquisite handsomeness inferiour to no persons living in their times In a word the means which providence permitted to put an end to this noble Gentlemans days was such as might well deserve the pity of all but not the reproach of any good Christian who being at last thus truly and fully informed will in all respects carry themselves as becometh humanity and Christianity modesty and veracity A more solicitous confutation of any vulgar surmises and false reports were to give them too much reputation credulity not duly informed is venial though applied to calumnies but clearly convinced it becomes venomous and mortal because malicious How miserable a people are we whose civil and religious fewds are such that men are made to live and die to be saved and damned not as the mercy and justice of God wills but as human adherencies or antipathies list to censure No party no passion here sways with me I abhor to flatter or calumniate any man in Court or Country I follow no dictates but those of experience impartiality certainty upon which ground I presume no ingenuous man or woman can envy or deny me to apply even to the now dead body of this noble Gentleman these sweet persumes and honest spices made up of nothing but evident truth comely civility just honour and upright conscience which last office I perform not so much a friend and servant to him as to truth and the God of truth to whose merciful dispose we leave his soul for ever His Corps or bodily remains are brought you see to be deposited with you his kind friends his loving neighbours his honest tenants in reversion and his worthy Country-men to be laid up with the mortal reliques of his excellent Mother and other his noble Ancestors to whom he is gone before his Father or Grandfather by a preproperous fate inverting the usual and by most parents desired methods of mortality I need not tell your ingenuity to my worthy Country-men and you of this place what causes you have more then other men to lay this death to heart and to stand still at this dead Corps as the men of Judah and Israel did that came to the place where Asahel fell down and died as of a person eminently related as to many other 2 Sam. 2.23 so to a principal noble Family in this County the experience of whose piety hospitality charity and love of learning poor and rich have had long experience and some constant living monuments among you in this village besides that to which they have committed their urns and bones their dust and ashes as it were to your safe custody How far you are injured or detrimented by this noble persons death depends much on the piety vertue and honour of their minds and actions who now enjoy or may after succeed to those honours and revenews to which he was Heir apparent which he now neither wants nor envies nor desires How far you are or may be bettered by his death and these endeavours for your good depends much upon your care and conscience to lay to heart those many instances of improving a Funeral which I have told you wherein Gods grace upon your humble prayers and honest endeavours will enable you to live as becomes those that remember dayly they must die and appear before God For which last agony and great appearance the Lord in mercy fit us all for his sake who died for us Jesus Christ the righteous To whom with the Father and holy Spirit be everlasting glory for ever Amen Phil. 1.21 To me to live is Christ and to die is gain Id agamus ut vita sit jucunda morbus non injucundus mors verò jucundissima A PRAYER in order to prepare for DEATH O Lord the everlasting God the only giver and preserver of all life natural spiritual temporal and eternal who hast breathed into these our vile bodies of dust the breath of life even pretious and immortal souls by which we are capable to know to love to live with and enjoy Thee for ever as the only Supream Good who only art an object adequate to the vast capacities and sufficient to satisfie those infinite desires of living happily to eternity which thou hast planted in us Thou hast justly passed upon all mankind for our sinful falling from thee which is the present death of our souls as to an holy and happy life the irrevocable decree of once dying and after that appearing before thy judgement both which will certainly ere long overtake us all Blessed Lord the terrors of death and of judgement of our present mortality and our deserved misery are infinite upon us very fearful we are because very sinful and loth because unfit to die a natural death but we are wholly confounded and even swallowed up with the thoughts and dread of that black Abyssus an eternal death If the death of our bodies by the soules separation be so horrid and grievous to us O what must the death of our souls be which consists in an utter separation from thy love and favour shutting us up in the chains of eternal darkness and under the pains of everlasting burnings We confess how just cause we have to be ashamed to live and yet afraid to die having no hope of the least degree of life or happiness in our death as from our selves where our own consciences have already passed a sentence of death and an expectation of thy just vengeance to destroy us In which sad state of dying and despairing we should have both lived and died if thou hadst not made us who were dead in sins and trespasses to hear thy voice in Jesus Christ that we might live As thou hast been a God of great goodness and long-suffering to us not willing we should die in our sins but repent of them and live so as a most merciful Father thou hast made a new and living way to the throne of thy grace
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
vertues must never wholly die nor be buried in oblivion because to the injury both of the dead and the living The name of the wicked justly rots but the name of the righteous ought to be had in everlasting remembrance It is fit they should be quite forgotten who never did any thing worthy of memory or imitation Nor is it less fit to remember those with eternal honour who did all things with honour and in reference to Eternity Commendation is the least reward due to Vertue Imitation is the highest commendation of it just commendation and imitation make the most noble and durable Monument for it Which good ends are aimed at by this following Inscription dedicated to the Mothers Vrne at the Sons Funeral that seeing how Holy the Parent or Root was mankind may conjecture how hopeful the Son or Branch might be and how happy themselves may be by imitating both of Them in those things which were praise-worthy in Them That God in all may have the glory of all as infinitely above all Piae Memoriae Sacrum Quam a Posteris meritò exigit Nobilissima Heroina ac Domina D. ANNA RICH. Illustrissimâ Devonienfis Comitis Familiâ oriunda Warwicensis Filio Haeredi connubio juncta Ingens utriusque Gentis decus ornamentum Praestantissimum verae Nobilitatis Nobilissimarumque virtutum exemplar Optatissimis Animi Corporisque dotibus Supra Invidiam Laudemque cumulata Animi excelsi constantis generosi Nec Aulae splendore nec Sortis suae fastigio elati Ingenii vividi elegantis splendidi Ad summa pulcherrimaque nati Genii benigni amoeni mitissimi Ad infimorum usum suaviter demissi Sermonis politi Rerum pondere magis quà m verborum numero copiosi Gestus decori gratissima Majestatis Comitatisque temperie venerandi Amoris puri invicti stupendi Amicitiae cordatae fidae amicissimae Vitae Admirationi quà m Laudi proximae Conscientiae probè instructae Christique sanguine perpurgatae Pietatis non vulgaris non fictae non verbosae Quanta quanta fuit Tota vera solida sincera Ad speciem plausum populumve Nihil datum Ad Deum ad Christum omnia Quicquid praeclari dixeris Viator cogitaverisve Par esse non potes meritis nedum nimius Id enim omne quâ Fuit Fecitque superavit Illa Quantum Res verba superant effectusque Cogitata Aureus reverâ Pudicitiae Formae Nodus unio fulgentissimus Candoris Judicii Nodus unio fulgentissimus Acuminis prudentiae Nodus unio fulgentissimus Humilitatis honoris Nodus unio fulgentissimus Gravitatis dulcedinis Nodus unio fulgentissimus Sublimitatis patientiae Nodus unio fulgentissimus Rationis pietatis Nodus unio fulgentissimus Humanae divinaeque pulchritudinis Nodus unio fulgentissimus Sexum Aetatem Spem vota Amicorum Faecundissima virtute supergressa Cui ad summam Mortalium Claritatem Nihil defuit Nec ipse poteris ultra desiderare Lector Praeter Vitam in Terris diuturniorem Quum enim Annos Nondum 27. numerasset Caelo Matura Spectatissimos Parentes Nobilissimum Conjugem Integerrimos Fratres Numerosissimos Amicos Charissimum Filiolum unicum castissimi Amoris pignus Mortales denique omnes Amplissimam sibi virtutum Messem pollicentes Pio certè pretiosoque Numini placido felicique Sibi Solis Invidis laeto Caeteris acerbo tristissimóque FATO Infanda tam praesentis quam posterae aetatis Jactura deseruit Aug. 24. 1638. Hoc Devotissimi pectoris monumentum Lubens Maerensque posuit J. G. AN EPITAPH UPON The LADY RICH. POssest of all that Nature could bestow All we can wish to be or reach to know Equal to all the patterns which our mind Can frame of good beyond the good we find All beauties which have power to bless the sight Mixt with transparent vertues greater light At once producing love and reverence The admiration of the soul and sense The most discerning thoughts the calmest breast Most apt to pardon needing pardon least The largest mind and which did most extend To all the Lawes of Daughter Wife and Friend The most allow'd example by what line To live what path to follow what decline Who best all distant vertues reconcil'd Strict cheerful humble great severe and mild Constantly pious to Her latest breath Not more a Pattern in Her life then death The Lady RICH lies here More frequent Tears Have never honour'd any Tomb then Hers. SIDNEY GODOLPHIN THE SUMMARY OF THE SERMON OF Funeral Solemnities civil and religious Page 1 1 Of Feasting its danger and disadvantages p. 6 2 Of the House of Mourning its advantages p. 8 Of Holy Necromancy learning from the dead p. 9 The Honour paid antiently to the dead p. 11 3 Who the living are in the Text p. 12 No advantages from the livings devotion to the dead Romish Superstition p. 13 4 How the living may be benefitted by the dead p. 15 5 The Hearts decays dangers distempers p. 17 Account to be given of others deaths p. 21 6 Fourteen considerations rising from the death of any to be laid to heart by the living 1 Of our mortal and vile bodies in their health sickness decay death p. 24 Not to be preferred before our souls p. 26 How little cause we have to be proud of our selves or to flatter others 2 Consid By way of analogy the putid horror and fedity of a dead soul p. 27 3 Consid The fedity and horror of sin as the meritorious cause of all deaths p. 29 4 Consid The vanity of this life and all things in it set forth in the pregnant instance of this noble Gentleman 5 Consid Of the certain uncertainty of death Its Catholick Empire p. 37 6 The danger of delaying Repentance p. 42 The pious importunity of Ministers urging speedy Repentance p. 44 Impenitence riseth from unbelief p. 47 Death-bed Repentance less certain and less comfortable to our selves and others p. 50 Vulgar pleas for delaying repentance answered p. 54 Of rational and religious living how far in our power p. 57 7 Consid Of God's patience and long suffering to us p. 59 8 Lay to heart the death of Christ the onely antidote against the curse and terror of death p. 61 9 Consâ—d The chiefe end of our lives unprofitable and pernicious waste of a short and pretious life p. 63 10. Consid The seeming samenesse of mens deaths after their various lives Arguments for an after life or being p. 67 11 The folly of Christians uncharitable and excessive passions as to any concerns of this life p. 70 12 The wisedom of Christians moderation in all things in their passion or grief for the dead p. 74 Of timely disposing our selves to die when we are sick p. 74 Why sick men are more attended by Physitians then Divines p. 75 13 Consider how prepared thou art at present for death of adorning the last act of a Christians life p. 77 All Christians may be preachers on their death-beds p. 78 14 What deaths are most emphatick and chiefly to be laid to heart p. 79 1 Of Kings and Soveraign Magistrates p. 80 2 Of chief-Priests Prophets and Ministers of God's Church p. 81 3 Of any gracious and eminent Christian p. 83 4 Of neer Relations as Parents Husbands Wives Children p. 85 5 Of such as have been very wicked and die in their sin p. 87 Of David's mourning so passionately for Absalom p. 88 Three Vses 1 Reproving such hearts as are senseless and unconcerned in any ones death or joy in it p. 89 2 Vse exam How we have improved this and the like spectacles of death p. 91 3 Vse vindicating religious as well as civil Solemnities at Christians burials p. 92 Lastly An account of this noble Personage Mr. ROBERT RICH from his cradle to his coffin His education domestick Academick forraign His temper of body and mind His health sickness disease death p. 92 The conclusion A Prayer preparatory for death p. 115 The judgement of six Doctors in Physick and two Chirurgeons upon the dissection of the Corps p. 120 An Epitaph upon His noble Mother added as an honour to the Funeral urne and memory of this Her onely Child
ad infernum deprimit both as to the living and the dead Many are raised up to Heaven by the magnificence of the Burnings or Buryings whose souls are sunk down to Hell by the ponderous weight of their unrepented and unreformed sins When sorrow affects too much state and wraps up the sharpness of death in soft paradoes mixing too much sensual sweet with the wormwood and bitterness of that cup which is offered to all mens lips the good effects of Funerals are much defeated as to the living the house of mourning is so far from being better in such an equipage that it is worse then the sober house of feasting for it flatters the dead and living too making men deaf to Gods warning-pieces which are shot off at their ears and levelled at their hearts They are like wool-sacks or mounds of earth 1 John 2.16 which disarm the great cannon-shot which should batter down the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the strong holds of sin the lust of the eyes the lust of the flesh the pride of life Empty and adulatory pomp set up as it were by the higher ground of mens stately Funerals and Tombs what God intends to pull down namely those high and exalted imaginations with which poor sinful mortals are pestered and poysoned who are then best when they see themselves and others at the worst and then nearest to grace and glory too when they see themselves as in their graves reduced to their dust and ashes and in their very best estate Psal 39.5 as the Psalmist speaks to be but altogether vanity 2. Which is the great lesson that the great God intends to teach men by such pregnant instances of their mortality which the living will learn i. e. such as live not only to sense but to true reason and not only to reason but to true religion not only to a moment but eternity The aym of these severe Lectures is to bring sinful man down to the dust within sight of the grave and prospect of judgment and hell it self that so he may be a meet object for Gods grace and mercy It is a shrewd sign of a heart dead in sins and trespasses stupid in sensual security buried in worldly lusts and vain pleasures dead as the Apostle sayes of some widows even while they live 1 Tim. 5.6 not to lay to heart the departures of those who are snatcht out of the land of the living to a state and place whence they shall not return to a terra incognita a land which is far off a black Abyssus covered with profound darkness of which no discovery hath ever been made by any that went thither so as to give Survivers any Geographical map or account of it Which terrible summons like the decimating of souldiers to die one after another cannot but infinitely affect the sober and serious living to whose benefit only the death and Funerals the solemnities and obsequies civil and religious prayers and Sermons too may and ought to be duely improved For to the Dead they reach not nor can they turn to any account further then such civil honour and respect as is due to their place name and merit yet surviving or to their corps which rest in hope of a refurrection and so deserve an handsome and Christian interment But as to any advantage to be made for the benefit of their soules for redeeming them from Purgatory for abating their purgative paines for shortning or supplying their Pennance or obtaining remission for any sin or punishment in which they are engaged being once dead this must be let alone for ever There is no ground of hope to relieve them in any kind no Scripture no Catholick doctrine no precept no promise that gives any footing for Prayers or Sacrifices Masses or Dirges Oblations or Emptions Remissions or Redemptions by which to benefit the dead they are vain solaces to the living and none at all to the dead arising first from the suggestions of the impotent grief and passion in survivors next from an unwarranted charity and benevolence to the dead At last policy and covetousness grew so cunning in the darkness and superstition of times as to make no small advantages by the vulgar easiness and prodigality sliding by insensible degrees from those memorials of benediction for their piety and constancy in religion from the gratulations for their happy and hopeful delivery out of a dangerous and naufragous Sea and for their hoped arrival at a safe and happy heaven together with a Catholick comprecation for the consummation and plenary bliss at the resurrection of them and all Saints departed in the true faith of Christ See the excellent Primate of Arm. of praying to and for the dead in his Jesuites Challenge From these commendable customes I say of pious Antiquity of which Epiphanius and others give us an account degenerous posterity warped not onely to praying both for and to the dead but indeed to make a notable mystery and trade of preying upon the devotion and simplicity of the living uses and ends which we find neither Solomon nor any Prophet Apostle or Evangelist nor Christ himself any where teaching nor in the least kind intimating to the living either in order to give such honour or help to the dead neither of which either our blessed Saviours love of his compleater Saints or his charity to the more defective dead who had not fully done their pennance here and so stood in need of some grains of allowance from the charity of such as survived them or his Apostles care would have failed to have taught the Primitive Church by word or Epistle or example if such prayers had been available to the living or for the dead No they may be profitable fancies to the Romanists and plausible enough to their bigot and bountiful disciples but they are not justifiable in true religion by Old or New Testament nor by any practise in the first and best Centuries No known advantages can redound to the dead from the living nor other advantages to the living from the dead but only the laying their death seriously and devoutly to heart the use that wise Solomon and the wiser God here commends to us all 3. And this upon very great and pregnant reasons if we consider 1. The state of the living in respect of their hearts 2. The proper vertues which are derivable from the dead and fit to be applied to the hearts of the living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Et vivens dabit ad cor suum The wise and considerate living will upon such occasions not only gape at the ceremony glory in the pomp talk of the person discourse of the disease and manner of death after a vulgar and easie fashion much less will they rejoyce in anothers death though an enemy or triumph in the advantages which accrew to them thereby after a malicious and covetous rate Such as lie under the power of these depraved distempers of soul and are of no
higher form of life are scarce among Solomons living who lay things to heart that is Altâ mente reponunt they deeply and devoutly seriously and solemnly rationally and religiously consider resolve and ponder in intimis animi recessibus the inward recesses of their soules or consciences the whole purport of such occasions what they mean in all their aspects They make as it were a speculative Anatomy and intellectual dissection of the dead yea and of death it self in all its forms and fashions in its causes and effects its antecedents concomitants and consequences They look upon the face of it which is neer at hand and the long train or extent of it which reacheth to Eternity This is the Lecture that the living read upon the dead and many lessons they learn from them because they are men that have an heart which is wise and understanding duely weighing in the scale of true reason and divine wisdom every occurrence and event of providence which hath any remark or signal character upon it as the death of any man or woman young or old infant or decrepit hath to such as have an heart able to apply it notwithstanding this frequency of such spectacles which with many men and women takes away the sense and regard of them though such persons need every day a memento mori some spectacle or remembrancer as King Philip had daily to put them in mind that they are but men Philippe memento te esse mortalem How necessary is it for them to remember their latter end to consider in what a vain shadow they live or rather die in their life because they are without an heart as silly birds not aware of the snares of sin the pits of death and hell over which they carelesly and confidently passe every moment Frequencie of Funerals doth not lessen the right use and influence of them to such living as know how to lay them to heart They doe not as women and children or country clowns only start amain when some sudden and unexpected death befals any as if it were the discharging of a great cannon near them which they never dreamed of but as valiant Commanders who finding that an hot battery and frequent shot slayes men round about them wisely consider that they may be the next mark whom death will hit which thought is so far from discouraging or appalling a man of a good heart that is pious and generous that it onely summons him to muster up all the fortitude and strength of his soul that whether he live or die he may do neither like a fool or a coward or a beast but like a valiant man and a good Christian who being engaged in a good Canse having a good God and a good conscience doubts not to make a good end when God shall call him out of this life to a better The Living that is the wise and considerable sort of mankind are the only persons who have hearts to consider all things as they ought to reflect upon their own hearts to commune with them to try and examine their state and tempers their defects and disorders their extravagancies and necessities The Living are they that duely consider the true interests and eternal concernments of their hearts and spirits their soules and consciences far beyond those of their bodies senses or fortunes The Living doe upon such occasions of mortality in se descendere make sober retreats home looking to themselves and searching into the penetralia animae their hearts above all Which they know to be as the rudder or steerage of the soule and of the whole man of all thoughts words and actions the card or compass by which our momentary and eternal course is shaped They know the infinite importance of a well or ill constituted and managed heart They find that verified which our Saviour tells us That out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts murders Matth. 15.18 adulteries fornications thefts false witness blasphemies c. That God chiefly requires and regards this as the Gemme of the man most precious in it self most proper and proportionate for God That all beauty strength wit estate honour offered to God without the Heart is but the sacrifice nay the sacriledge and affront of fools and hypocrites Therefore it is frequently inculcated from Heaven and in the Scripture Prov. 23.26 to all sorts of men under all dispensations of Religion to Jew and Gentile Give me thy heart an honest and good heart Psal 51. a pure and peaceable heart an humble and contrite heart God will not despise yea in this he delights all things else are loss and dung in comparison Nothing else in man is worthy of God and yet nothing less worthy of him that is Gen. 6.5 naturally less fit and prepared for him What God complained long ago is verified in every mans experience That every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart was evil and that continually The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 distempers diseases yea and deaths of the heart of man are as many as dangerous and as desperate as those of the body yea infinitely more For the bodies diseases doe but kill us as to mans society and to a moments life on earth but the diseases of the heart kill us as to the life of God and an eternal happiness of conservation in Heaven The living God who delights not in the death of a sinner nor yet in a dead heart which is the first death of a sinner as a gracious Father and compassionate Physitian hath discovered to us the many plagues which are in our hearts the sicknesses to which they are subject by the surfets they take of the world and their senses Sometimes the Heart swels with the tumor of intolerable pride sometimes it burns withcholerick inflammations sometimes it is scorched with passionate calentures of inordinate lusts sometimes it is almost drowned like hydropick and overgrown bodies with its sensual luxuries and fulness even to abominable fedities sometimes it hath such a gout as it is in great pain at any the least motion for God or any good motion from him sometime it pines away in a Consumption amidst all its sensible pleasures plenty and honours not finding any satisfactory solid and durable good in them all Sometimes the heart is shaken with paralytick tremblings and terrors like Earthquakes which seem to arise from the dark and pestilent vapors in it self sometimes it hath not only fits of the stone refractory tempers but a petrified habitude of a hard and stony heart which nothing doth soften neither mercy nor judgment love nor wrath bounty nor patience of God Sometimes the heart falls into Lethargick and Apoplectick stupors like Nabals and Achitophels it growes remorseless benummed stupid senselesse dull and dead within men past fear or feeling of any thing either sharp and pungent in the Law or spiritful and reviving in the Gospel Solomon who was a great King of hearts and had a