Garments to view which she had made to cloath the Backs of the Naked with and set them before Peter and the rest that accompanied him to justify the ground of their Mourning or rather to heighten the Passion of their Sorrow from this sadning consideration that she was ever uncapable of making any more that the Poor were never like to be the better for her again They could not but Mourn that she was so soon taken off from prosecuting the many good projects she had in her Head arid Heart of being useful to the Poor and them that were in Distress Ah Sirs when we see a Man going to his Grave we may sadly cry out He will never he can never do any more good His opportunity of glorifying his Creator or of serving his fellow-Creature is past and gone and will never return again It is impossible he should be any farther serviceable in Church or Common-Wealth And surely this should enforce a Mourning from all who take delight in or are capable of receiving Comfort from the doing good of others But it may be you will say there are many Men that do no good at all while they Live but a great deal of harm who are so far from being useful that they are wholly unprofitable yea very prejudicial to God's honour and Man's welfare in their Generation That are a Plague to the place where their abode is and a Curse to all whose unhappiness it is to be near them Now should we Mourn for them should we Grieve when they are taken out of the World should we go as Mourners about the Streets when such barren Trees are cut down and carried to their Long Home Yes verily we should because while a wicked Man is alive there is hope or at least a possibility of his Recovery from his wicked State of his being washed and sanctified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God But when he dyes there is no possibility of his reclaiming or being renewed to Repentance for there is no work no device no invention and I may add no reformation in the Grave whither we are going Fourthly For that when a Man Dyes and goes to his Long Home we shall never see him more he vanishes as it were out of our sight and we are never more to behold him or cast our Eyes upon him He is both actively and passively in an invisible state So Job Mournfully speaks of himself chap. 7. ver 7 8. Oh remember that my Life is wind my Eyes shall no more see good The Eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more thy Eyes are upon me and I am not What more cutting Expression what more sadning Inculcation what more provoking Incitation to Mourning can there be than the Sence of this that we shall behold the Face of our beloved Friend after his departure from us no more Were Man to Return though after never so many Years absence from his home or continuance in the Grave Were he to visit his habitation again and become the objective delight of his poor Mourning Friends and Relations it might be some alleviation to their Grief when he takes his journey to his Long Home But Oh! What a prick to the Heart what a stab to the Soul what a deadning to the Spirits what an inundation of Sorrow like the opening of Pandora's Box is this lamentable Thought to an ingenious Man that he must never never never more behold the Face of this or that Relation in this Region of Mortality nor have any converse with him on this side the Bank of Eternity What Husband can think so of his Wife and not melt what Wife can have such a thought of her Husband and not faint what Parent can consider this with respect to his Child and not mourn what Child can reflect upon the impossibility of ever seeing his Father or Mother more and not be overwhelmed with grief In a word What Friend or Relation can ponder on such an eternal Farewel as is then given and not be dissolved into Tears yea and not to Mourning like the Mourning of Hada-drimmon when Cloystered up in Megiddo's Vale It is the opinion of Divines That the chiefest of the Saints happiness consists in Vision or in the use of the visive faculty which will then be enlarged and made glorious to perfection for they shall see the Face of God in Righteousness and be satisfied with his likeness they shall be for ever with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord and be changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Sure I am the Saints greatest comfort in this World consists in Vision or beholding God's Image in his People and that not only the work of his Power in their comely Features but the work of his Grace in the divine Characters of Wisdom engraven in their Souls and immediately reflected upon in all their Actions Therefore it cannot but cause Mourning when such delightful Objects are removed out of sight and never more to be beheld Fourthly Modifically There is a modifick Obligation upon the Living to Mourn for the Dead in respect of the manner of Mens Dying or the circumstances they are under in that great Hour First For that Sickness is the Prologue of it the Paleness of Death is generally ushered in with the Pains and Sorrows of Sickness Thus it was with the Child of the great Shunamite that had so courteously entertained Elisha and built a Chamber for him Furnishing it with those Utensils which she knew were most acceptable to a contemplative Man In requital of which kindness he promised her from God a Child and a Child she had but it Dyed but before it Dyed it fell Sick and was tormented with Pains So we are told 2 King chap. 4. ver 18 19. And when the Child was grown it fell on a day that he went out to his Father to the Reapers And he said unto his Father my Head my head and he said to a Lad carry him to his Mother And when he had taken him and brought him to his Mother he sate on her Knees till Noon and then Dyed His Head first Aked before his Breath Departed And this is the usual way of Men's Dying first to complain of some Disease in their Bodies before there is a separation between that and their Souls One crys out of his Head another of his Bowels one is Sore-pained another is Heart-sick upon his taking his leave of the World And as the Apostle Peter speaks of the last times The Sun shall be turned into Darkness and the Moon into Blood before the great and notable Day of the Lord comes So it is most true in this case Health shall be turned into Sickness Strength into Weakness Pleasure into Pain Delight into Sadness before the great and notable Day of Death comes Which indeed in it self considered abstracted from the hopes of
THE Dying Mans Destiny AND THE Living Mans Duty OPENED And Applyed in a SERMON PREACHED On Board the Loyal-Eagle upon the Coast of Cormodell in the East-Indies At the Solemn Obsequies of Mr. Richard Bernard Chyrurgeon Who at the Conclusion of it was with universal Sorrow thrown into the SEA Feb. 1. 1680. Together with an ELEGY on his Death By C. N. Minister of the same SHIP LONDON Printed for Dorman Newman at the King â—â—…rmâ— in the Poultrey MDCLXXXII Ecclesiast the 12th ver the 5th Because Man goeth to his Long Home and the Mourners go about the Street SO woful is the Corruption of Man by Original Apostacy that the whole of him is vitiated and he totally incapacitated either for prosecuting the great end of his Creation or for enjoying the great good unto which he was Created The end of his Making was the honour of his Maker whose Will was the first of Causes and whose Glory was the last of Ends. And for the accomplishing so great an End he was endued with faculties which truly enobled him with an understanding that highly advanced him even to a degree a little below Angels with a Majestick-Soveraignty which crowned him with glory and dignity above all the other Inhabitants of the Universe But the Current of these Faculties is now changed the strength of this Understanding is now weakned the glory of this Majesty is now eclipsed and Man is become a poor abject inconsiderable nothing nothing Creature unable to serve God his highest End and to enjoy God his chiefest Good He can do nothing now but commit iniquity nor pleasure himself with the Possession of any thing but Vanity The poyson of Sin hath so invenom'd enfeebled and wholly altered him that he can neither perform any duty to God or with any satisfaction receive mercy from God Oh! How bitter were the greatest Comforts to him in the day of his fall when he could no longer shine in that sphere he was created in nor be doing that work he was created for Then Oh then the pleasant walks of Edens Garden were too hot to hold him and the fragrant Roses of that Terrestial Paradise were too prickly for him And no wonder the Creature could afford him no Comfort when his Sin-sick-soul was uncapable of receiving any from the Creator The Fountain of Light was more terrible to him than the blackest Mists of Darkness the Father of Mercies more affrightning than the Complication of all Miseries for so we are told he was Afraid of God and went and hid himself in the Garden In this forlorn condition is all the Posterity of Man till they come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ who as a Brother was born for the day of Adversity to them by whom they must be formed into the New-Birth and so be brought spiritually to serve God and to enjoy God in the State of Regeneration whom they could never know in a natural condition But that which renders Man yet more despicable more contemptible is that since the Fall he not only fails and pitifully falls short of Theologicals but he is maimed and extreamly erroneous even in Naturals that is he cannot keep from extreams in any vicissitudes and changes he may go thorow in any circumstances he may be under though contrary to the dictates of his own Reason Hence he cannot enjoy Mercies without slighting them or placing his whole happiness in them He cannot feel Judgments without being hardned as Pharaoh was or filled with despair as Cain was He cannot love objects that safely and innocently may be beloved without being weary of them or too much over-prizing them He cannot Mourn at objects that really call for Mourning without Stupidity or an immoderate fluctuation of Sorrow Now the golden Mean between the extream of the latter as it is that implicit design of the words I have read unto you so it shall be the main scope and drift of my following Discourse among you and I doubt not but to make it evident that the practical Part of this is no less the Duty than the Glory of every wise Man which although it cannot be attained to without some difficulty yet it ought to be studiously indeavoured after by every one of us that pretend to Christianity that when we see Men go to their Long Home we may with Religious Prudence know how to act the part of Mourners in the Street I shall not trouble you with any Relative Consideration of these words or any Analitical Explication of the Chapter in which they are Though the Preachers most elegant and tropical Remarks on the Organical parts of Man's life highly deserve a serious review If I had time or were spirited to make inspection into them But alas I can better sigh than speak and far more easily pour out floods of tears than express any fluency of words I never Preached upon a more sad occasion nor never was so wholly indisposed for an Oratour as now My Harp is turned into Mourning and my Organ into the Voice of them that Weep And therefore I hope you will pardon my impoliteness and excuse my absurd transition from the Context to the Text In which without any farther Preface be pleased to observe First The Dying Man's Destiny expressed Because Man goeth to his Long Home Secondly The Living Man's Duty implyed And the Mourners go about the Street From both these I shall infer this Conclusion Doct. When Man goeth to his Long Home that is when he dyeth and is put in the Grave there is a Mourning due from his Survivers and ought especially to be paid by those that are near to him and do behold him It will not be incongruous if we take a little notice of the Periphrasis here in the Text of Man's Dying it is called a going to his Long Home In locum seculi sui unto the place of his time So Junius reads the words that is He goeth to the Grave where he must remain a great deal of time which is all one with our Translation that calls it His Long Home Now the Grave is a Long Home First Comparatively or with respect to our sojourning and abiding here in this World The time of the Bodies being in the Soul for so our modern and best Philosophers have chose rather to express it than to say the Soul is in the Body is but a very short space One of the Antients was so affected with the shortness of Man's abode in this vale of Tears that he was at a stand whether he should call his life Vitam morientem aut mortem viventem A dying Life or a living Death Indeed the Arithmetick of Man's time in Scripture is very small If we consider his Years they seldom exceed Fourscore yet then is his strength labour and sorrow he is soon cut off and he flies away If we reduce these years into days we are told Man that is Born of a Woman is of few dayes and full of trouble Oh! But
Center or the touched Needle to the North-pole What place so mete what home so proper for the earthly Tabernacle of of Mans body as the earthly Apartments in the Grave Indeed the Grave is no proper Home for the Soul the better part of Man because it is immaterial incorporeal not subject to deaths Soveraignity aiming at a future being and capable of being crowned with the glorious Diadem of everlasting Honour according to the Sence of that famous Pagan Terra Domus non est animis accomoda nostris Alrius it nostrae conditionis honor The Grave is also a proper Home for the Body by reason of the great change Death makes in the Body which renders it wholly unfit to continue upon the Earth without intolerable and insupportable offence to the Living When Death hath served his Writ of Arrest and fixed the Impession of his cold hand Oh! how miserably is the fairest Face then disfigured how pittifully is the sweetest Countenance then changed how horridly is the compleatest Body then corrupted and become a noisom spectacle to its nearest Relations Insomuch that the fondest Husband then abominates the presence of his most amiable Wife the tenderest Father then loaths the sight of his most beloved Child the dearest and most intimate Friend then stands aloof off from him whose company was once truly precious and acceptable to him Therefore the Grave is the properest home for the breathless-body of Man for there it sleeps and rests without offence to any Secondly God hath appointed the Grave as Man 's fixed setled home a place of rest after his tossings and hurryings to and fro in the World We are born to Dye yea we begin to Dye as soon as we are delivered out of our Mothers Womb Nascentes Morimur finisque ab origine pendet And we must expect no quiet till Death concludes the play of our lives The Apostle tells us that here we have no continuing City but we seek one to come Indeed like Noah's Dove we scarce know where to rest the Sole of our Foot in peace Here we are often forc'd to be moving and removing from one habitation to another from one country to another yea from one end of the earth to the other we are never fixed nor throughly setled till we come to the Grave and then there will be an end for ever of all our Wandrings and weary some Pilgrimages Man whilst travelling in the Regions of Mortallity under the circumstances of being obnoxious to divers contingencies may not unfitly be compared to a Ship under sail in the wide Ocean for that he is always rowling and tumbling beaten up and down with Winds and Waves of various providencies and fatal accidentalities that do attend him and so continually upon the Surfe of Motion that he never drops Anchor never is at quiet till warped into the Harbour of the Grave And then Oh then he is fast and rides secure from all Storms and Tempests For there the wicked cease from troubling and there the wearied are at rest Thirdly God hath appointed the Grave as Man 's bounded confined home The place where all his desires after and all his endeavours for the enlargement of worldly possessions will have their termination Whilst Man is upon the Earth he is unsatiable in his coveting earth and thinks he hath never enough of it His heart is like the daughter of the Horse-leech still crying Give give and is never satisfied As Juvenal speaks of Alexander Pâ—lâ—o juveni vix totus sufficit orbis The whole World was not enough to quench the thirst of his ambitious Humour yea some say he Wept because there were no more worlds to Conquer Oh! But when he comes to the Grave he is then confined to his breadth and length and uncapable of desiring any more he is then bounded in his dimentions without a thought of any enlargement When we see the most covetous or ambitious Man going to the Grave we may see in tanto a fulfilling of that Prophesy That the loftiness of Man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of Man shall be brought low Though I know as to the full completion of it it hath another tendency for then his high Aspirations and all his vain Expectations are at a Ne plus ultra and he confined to a narrow scantling of room in this Long Home Oh! consider this you whose greedy minds are never satisfied with terrene fruitions but are always craving and grasping after more that are contriving how to add house to house and lay field to field till there be no place that are sweating and toyling journying and travelling and taking a world of pains to increase the Store of your so much adored earthly Treasure Remember I beseech you there is no buying or selling no trading or traffiquing in the Grave No bettering or making finer or larger your accomodations there The poorest Codrus hath as much room as much conveniency in this dark Region as the richest Cresus For this is the Home where every Man hath enough to serve him and is confined to the dimentions of it Fourthly God hath appointed the Grave as Man's common epidemical home The place where all the Sons and Daughters of Adam must lye down together of what nation or language of what degree or quality soever they are The small and the great the good and the bad are there There is no distinction of persons or conditions of men in that Climate The most glorious Saint hath no more priviledge or better entertainment in the Grave than the worst of Sinners Job though he was a good Man one that put his whole trust and confidence in God one that was beloved of his God and therefore ascertain'd of his Souls possessing the Mansion of eternal Glory yet as to his Body he knew that must fare as the rest of the world did Hence we find him claiming kindred with the natives of that Country below whither he was going I have said to corruption thou art my Father and to the worm thou art my Mother and my Sister And again Though after my skin worms destroy this body yet in my flesh shall I see God Though he was so excellent a Saint and had so pure a Soul yet his Body was corruptible and must become food for worms We read of two and but two bodies of Adam's Line that were carried immediately from Earth to Heaven without stopping at the Grave with the rest of their Brethren The one was Encch of whom it is said He was not for God took him The other was Elijah who who in a Chariot of Fire with Fiery-horses was drawn up from beside the River Jordan to the New Jerusalem the holy Hill of Zion to be for ever with God and With the Spirits of just Men made perfect The very Body of our Lord Jesus for the absolute conquering of Death and full compleating the work of our Redemption was necessitated to go down into the Grave though not to corrupt
and perish there For David personating him thus prophetically spake Thou wilt not leave my Soul taken here figuratively for the outward Man in Hell that is the Grave for so Sheol signifieth Neither wilt Thou suffer thy holy One to see Corruption Implying that all other bodies must see corruption under whatever circumstances they may be considered when they come to this common home this general receptacle of the Grave For as all must lye down and take up their dwelling there together so all must perish and rot and be consumed there and that from the same cause and after the same manner The Grave is a common home for the wicked in Judgment it is their Jail where they are kept safe till the great and general Assizes of the Day of Judgment when the last Trumpet will sound and the Eccho of it will be heard from the one end of the Earth to the other with this doleful Summons Arise ye Dead and come to Judgment When the Vision of John will be made good to a tittle And I saw a great white Throne and him that sate on it from whose Face the Earth and Heaven fled away and there was found no place for them And I saw the Dead small and great stand before God and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the Book of Life and the Dead were judged out of those things that were written in the Book according to their Works And the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it and Death and Hell that is the Grave delivered up the Dead which were in them and thy were Judged every Man according to their Works And the effect of this great Tryal and dreadful Appearance will be the Bodies of the wicked shall be sent to Hell as well as their Souls and be Tormented there for ever God can and for the glorifying of his Justice he will Condemn both Body and Soul to Hell-fire at last Those Ears that have been always open to let in the Air of obscenity and tickled with delight in the hellish musick of prophane Language shall then be terrified with the doleful Howlings and Cryings and Gnashing of Teeth that will there be in an horrible manner among the wreached Miscreants Those Eyes that have been as Windows to let in Lust and all manner of wantonness and filthiness into the Soul shall then be punished with beholding the ghastly Looks of affrightning Devils that will be continually staring the damned in the Face Those Tongues that have been the Bellows of the Devil blown into from Hell always imploy'd in belching forth horrid Oaths blaspheming their Creator or thundring out direful Execrations cursing the Creature and that without either shame or remorse shall then be miserably scorched in that inextinquishable Fire which there burneth Day and Night In a word those Bodies that here have been vessels of uncleaness members of an harlot recepticles of all prophaness shall then be rowling on fiery Pillars in those everlasting Burnings in those devouring Flames which the Breath of the Lord hath kindled when that amazing and soul-confounding Sentence is pronounced upon them by the Month of the righteous Judge himself Depart from me ye Cursed into everlasting Fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But now the Grave is a common home to the Saints and People of God in Mercy it is the place where their Bodies are clarify'd and refined from all dross and corruption and so made fit for Glory Oh! what a glorious Morning what a joyful blessed day will that of the Resurrection be to All that sleep in Christ For then with their bodily Eyes shall they behold their Saviour and in the re-union of their Bodies with their Souls shall they be for ever with him hearing him speaking in that soul-reviving soul-refreshing yea soul-ravishing Language to them Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Foundation of the World Then the Body that is now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a body of meanness or a low abject vile Body by reason of its corruption shall in that day become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Body of Glory for it will be changed and made like unto the glorious Body of the Lord Jesus and in conformity to that Glory put on Stolam immortalitatis the Garment of immortality The dead bodies of Saints shall live yea together with the dead Body of Christ shall they arise They shall awake and sing though now they dwell in the Dust for their Dew is as the Dew of Herbs and the Earth shall give them up as the Lord 's Dead Now then if the Grave be Man's proper home his seltled home his confined home and his common home Ah! How should all of us whether rich or poor high or low old or young be familiarizing this home to our selves as that which we must all come to Oh Sirs Methinks you should have serious and awful thoughts of your ghastly paleness your loathsome blackness and your habitations in the dark And so I pass from the Dying Mar's Destiny He goes to his Long Home To the Living Man's Duty He ought to be a Mourner in the Street I told you in the Doctrine there was a Mourning due from the Survivers to the Deceased I shall now labour to make it appear and that upon a four-fould account First Naturally There is a natural Obligation to Mourn when any Man goes to his Long Home and surely they are very unnatural that do not pay it First For that they that Live are of the same Mould with them that Dye All are made and composed of the same perishing Earth Hence David speaks not only of himself but of all Men when he inscribes Vanity on them Psalm 39. ver 5 6. Behold thou hast made my Days as an hand 's breath and my Age is as nothing before Thee verily every Man at his best estate is altogether Vanity Surely every Man walketh in a vain show surely they are disquieted in vain He heapeth up Riches and knoweth not who shall enjoy them Here is a general Rule without any exception that every Man be he never so great or high or rich or wise or learned in the world and that in his best estate take him under what circumstances you will is Vanity yea altogether Vanity a poor crazy empty evanid thing Now when Man that is so vain so perishing in his own Nature sees one of the same Mould with himself carrying to the Grave to be placed in his Long Home the Law of Nature exacts a tribute of Tears from him though he had no particular acquaintance with or obligation to the person deceased because he beholds a crumbling away and a fading of that Earth whereof himself is made at which Nature cannot but have a reluctancy and vent its sympathetical Passion But as the Apostle speaks of some Monsters in filthiness and uncleaness that they did that which is against Nature so we may see
many so hardned in stupidity that contrary unto nature they are not affected with or concerned at the Death or going to the Grave of almost any person Secondly There is a natural Obligation on the Living to Mourn for the Dead for that Death is the thing which every Man in the world hath deserved as being lineally descended from Adam who brought Death into the World and inslaved not only himself but all his posterity unto its power So saith the Apostle Rom. 5. ver 12. Wherefore as by one Man Sin entered into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have Sinned Had Adam never sinned Adam had never dyed but in illo die saith God in that day thou eatest the Fruit thereof thou shalt surely dye or as it is in the Original dying thou shalt dye And indeed as he devolved Guilt so he entailed death the sad consequence of that Guilt upon all that should come after him unto the end of the World Oh! therefore how natural would such a reflection as this be at the news of any Mortals fall by the stroke of Death or at the sight of any deceased person going to his Long Home I am a Child of Adam as well as he and in the guilt and pollution of his original Disobedience was I shaped and subjected to all the Miseries that attended that iniquity did my Mother conceive me and bring me forth And surely I have added to the stock of original Corruption multitudes innumerable multitudes of actual Transgressions and therefore I have every way merited Death and deserved to be imprisoned in the Dungeon of the Grave as much as he that hath past through it and is gone down before me into it Should not I then be concerned at and deeply affected with what hath befallen him The extremity of pain that he was in the weary some nights that he enjoyed the tumblings and tossings that he under-went the bitter distress and anguish that possessed his Soul which enforced those doleful sighs and sobs those heart-fetcht-groans and shrikes from his dying Breast are all things that I in the same if not in a greater measure have deserved Oh! then that my Head were Waters and my Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I could mourn and weep and truly lament at this Mournful Spectacle and that from this consideration that as he the object of Mortality before my Eyes is deprived of life and all the comforts of it as he is snatcht away from all his Friends and Relations as he of a living Man is become a lump of dead Clay a piece of rotten putrifying Flesh fit for nothing but to feed worms in the Grave even so have I most justly merited in the like manner to be nothing hath befallen him but what is due to me Thirdly There is a natural Obligation on the Living to Mourn for the Dead for that there is no living person but must come to it himself Death is a debt we must all pay to Nature Job speaks of Man indefinitely thereby including every Man in what capacity so ever he is Chap. 14. ver 2. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not And we are elsewhere told that All flesh is grass and the glory thereof as the flower of the field the grass withereth the flower fladeth even so when the Hand of God is upon Man upon any Man he maketh his Beauty to consume away like a Moth for that every Man is Vanity Selah We have an Interrogation concerning this which implies a vehement Negation for so the Scripture often expresseth it self Psal 89. ver 48. What Man is he that liveth and shall not see Death shall he deliver his Soul from the hand of the Grave Selah That is there is no Man living but must see Death and come into the dominion of the Grave Now if Death be thus common to every Man then every Man ought certainly to be affected when he sees another under the power of it Would it not I pray you argue more than ordinary stupidity and sencelesness in that Malefactor that beholding a Partner in Guilt and Condemnation with himself dying a shameful painful Death according to the Sentence of the Law the which Death he himself must undergo the day following and yet not to be concerned at such a spectacle so much as to shed a Tear or manifest any meltings of Heart at so doleful a sight Oh! How unnaturally hard-hearted would you say this Man was Why Sirs this is our very case we are all real Malefactors before God condemned by him to death to the same death and sooner or later we must be laid on our sick Beds the common place of Execution and when we see any in pain and misery there before us Oh! we should remember it will be our turn ere long Do we see a dying Man in a languishing departing condition fetching his last sigh heaving for his last groan and giving up his last breath Oh! we should sadly reflect upon our selves as that Father of whom I have read did at the sight of any Coffin Ille hedie ego cras He is gone to day and so may I to morrow or to be sure must go one day or other then which nothing is more certain Fourthly It is not corrupted but refined Nature that especially enforces this duty of Mourning for the Dead and the more Nature is purged the more it is enlivened in the regular performance of this Work We find the Spirit of God inciting and calling upon Men solemnly to do it Jer. 9. ver 17 18. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Consider ye and call for the mourning Women that they may come and send for cunning Women that they may come And let them make hast and take up a wailing for us that our Eyes may run down with Tears and our Eye-lids gush out with Water Why What is the matter what is the cause there should be such a great general Mourning ver 21. For Death is come up into our windows is entered into our palaces to cut off the Children from without and the young Men from the streets Oh! When Death is taking its range about the streets it is an especial time for Mourners to be there to manifest a real Mourning under such a dispensation to put on Ashes for Beauty and instead of the Garment of Joy to be cloathed with the Spirit of Heaviness Religion doth not hinder any natural act it only regulates the mode and refines the end of the performance It doth not hinder natural love it only teacheth us how to love innocently nor doth it hinder natural sorrow it only guides us how to sorrow profitably As Divines say Though Religion be above reason yet it is not contrary to reason so though it be an enemy to all vitious corrupt motions of nature yet it obligeth no person to be unnatural that is to fail in doing
those things which the principals of natural being do require as necessary to the demonstration of its being but rather provokes to a lively and regular doing of them And surely this duty under our present consideration is that which the spirit of a Man dictates to him though in a dark mistaken way and the Spirit of God suggests to him in a right safe justifiable way That there is a time to Mourn is past dispute since the Word of Truth speaks it and that a Funeral Solemnity or seeing Man go to his Long Home is such a time is also out of doubt since the Word of Truth enjoyns it Hence we may warrantably and not uncharitably conclude That Man void of Reason or Religion of Nature or Grace yea of Love to God or Man that brings not a Mourning-heart along with him to the House of Mourning Secondly Relatively There is a relative obligation upon the living to Mourn for the dead which Relation either in a more large or strict sence takes in the whole Race of Mankind First For that all men are related in Adam as springing from his Loyns Though men are now distinguished into many sorts of Nations and divers Kinds and Manners of persons yet they all come from the same Root the same Off-spring all Children of the same Father of the same Mother So we are told Gen. 3. ver 20. And Adam called his Wives name Eve because she was the Mother of all Living All the vast numberless multitudes of People throughout the Universe that have been or still are in the World came originally from her Womb. She is the Parent from whence so many Millions of Souls may derive their pedigree The highest and most certain degree of Relation in natures Climax Methinks then we should not be so unmindful of our primitive Extraction as to be wholly unconcerned at the departure of one of the same Race with our selves There is none so remote from us in Country or Acquaintance but he is near to us yea related to us Secundum esse as he is a Son of Adam And can we afford never a tear never a sigh never a compassionate sob to accompany such an one be he who he will or what he will to his Long Home Ah! 'T is sign we are hardned against our own Flesh and that we shamefully forget the Father that begat us and the Mother of whom we are all Born Oh! what a debauched abominable Age do we live in wherein Men are so senceless and horridly stupid so intoxicated with Lusts and Vanities so bewitched to the Allurements of the World so feared in their evil ways and courses that Death though it be even at their doors is disregarded by them and the going to the Grave of others though their very Neighbours is a thing they take no notice of nor in the least Mourn for so long as they have their strength and health to drink and swear and indulge themselves in their lusts and pleasures they care not who are Sick or who Dye or who go to the Grave it is all one to them Truly such persons are so far from being like Christians that they are ten thousand times worse than Heathens Oh! how will the Egyptians rise up in Judgment against the Men of this Generation and condemn them for their melting and mourning Deportment at the Funeral of good old Jacob notwithstanding he was of another Nation and Religion when they came to the Threshing-floor of Arad which is beyond Jordan 't is said they Mourned with a very great and sore Lamentation insomuch that the place was called Abel-Mizraim the Mourning of the Egyptians But ah How little Mourning is there found amongst us upon such occasions Secondly As there is a Relation in the first Adam wherein all are concerned so there is a Relation in the second Adam wherein not a few are tied and obliged to be concerned one for another especially at so great a change as that of Death Now this Relation is either more Large or more Strict More Large and so all that own Jesus Christ the Son of God to be come in the Flesh are within the reach of it who are therefore called by one general and Catholick name Christians But more Strictly and so it is restrained peculiar to Believers who by the same work of Grace are made true Members of the Church-militant and by the same act of Faith are expecting the glory of the Church-triumphant Who are engaged in the same cause Souldiers under the same Banner Wrestlers against the same Enemy even Principalities and Powers and spiritual Wickednesses in high places Who are sighting the same Battle Runners of the same Race Pursuers after the same Crown even that which is incorruptible undefiled that fadeth not away Who are Inheritors of the same Promise Fellow-heirs of the same Kingdom Waiters for the same Adoption to wit the Redemption of the Body Who are Professors of the same Faith Believers in the same Christ Experiencers of the same happiness in the glimpses of Zion's glory and the fore-taste of the Joys of the Life to come In a word who are under the same Tye confirmed by the same Seals bound by the same Covenant to live according to the Rule and in the Fellowship of the Gospel This Relation is so near so great so obligatory that the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Brotherhood or a company of Brothers As all Men are Brothers in Adam naturally so Believers are Brothers in Christ spiritually and this nearness in Relation should certainly cause a Mourning when Death makes a Separation Oh! when a Godly Man goes to his Long Home then Godly-Mourning should Go about the Streets for that there is a great Loss and will be a real want of his Prayers his Tears his Holy Converse and the good he might farther have done in the World Upon this account Elishah Mourned for Elijah and sent his loud Acclamations of Sorrow to Heaven after him when he was taken up from him My Father my Father the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof This made the Ephesians Mourn so dolefully at Paul's departure because they were never to see him again So saith the Text And they all wept sore and fellon Pauls Neck and kissed him Sorrowing most of all for the words that he spake that they should See his Face no more Paul was their spiritual Father that had begotten them to God and therefore they could not but Mourn to think of parting with so dear a Relation especially since it was to be an eternal Farewel How must they never see his Face more never hear the sound of that golden Trumpet more that had been so charming to their Ears yea so ravishing to their Souls Oh! This strained up their Sorrow to the highest Peg this made them Mourn with a Mourning truly Mournful And we read Acts 8. ver 2. And devout Men carried Stephen to his Burial and made great Lamentation over him
description of the Body when it is prepared for and carrying to the Grave It is a filthy polluted a base ignominious a frail impotent a rotting perishing Body This is the outward state of every man when Death has mow'd him down And therefore we should Mourn at so great and sudden a Change Though I confess our Mourning should be in hope with respect to the departure of the Godly For though their Bodys be Sown in corruption they will be Raised in incorruption though Sown in dishonor they will be Raised in glory though Sown in weakness they will be Raised in Power though Sown natural they will be Raised spiritual Bodys For their corruptible must put on incorruption and their mortal must put on immortality and then Death it self shall be swallowed up in Victory But the present change in their Bodies by Death calls for a due Mourning from their Survivors Fourthly For the great change and alteration Death makes in the place of the Deceased the great Vacuum there is when Man is removed and carried away to his Long Home Concerning which Job excellently speaks chap. 7. v. 9 10 11. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the Grave shall come up no more He shall return no more to his house neither shall his place know him any more Therefore I will not refrain my Mouth I will speak in the anguish of my Spirit I will complain in the bitterness of my Soul Oh! It is very sad to consider what a great change one stroke of Death may make A Wife Husbandless poor Children Fatherless Servants Masterless and many Friends Comfortless And so great is the alteration in the Family that the whole House resents it and seems silently to Mourn for it There is as it were a Face of sadness in every place he was wont to be conversant in Look in his Parlour where he used to sit with his Wife and Children about him and there is nothing but a profound silence his voice is not to be heard Look at his Table where he used to sit with chearfulness eating his Bread with joy among his Relations and the dull demeaner and sorrowful posture of all the assessors do plainly yet dolefully speak Behold he is not here Look in his Shop where he used to be about his occasions and the disorder and confusion there proclaims aloud his being gone and not to be heard of In a word Look in every place where he us'd to be and you will find one mourning circumstance or other a legible Historian of his departure and being no more among them So that if you seek him you will not find him if you ask for him you will hear no news Now surely methinks the very miss of a Man in his Family the want of him in his place the great change immediately following his Departure in all his Affairs and Concerns should be cause enough to enforce a Mourning from his Survivors if there were no other consideration Thus I have shown you in what respects there is a Mourning due from the Surviving to the Deceased and why we ought to be Mourners in the Street when we see a Man going to his Long Home even from a Natural Relative Moral Modifical consideration obliging us thereunto I now pass from the Doctrinal to the Applicatory part of this sad and solemn Truth And the only use I shall make of it shall be a word of Exhortation to put this Duty in practise now in the day and season thereof Never was an occasion more doleful than that which has brought us hither this day Never was a Text more suitable than this which is now to be applyed to the Occasion So that what Application is to be made will be Verbum diei in die suo A word of day in its proper day Look Sirs in yonder Coffin lies a Man known unto us and beloved by us ready to go when we shall put our hands to carry him to his Long Home Oh! should not we this day be as Mourners in the Street Oh! that we could our selves as really evidence the Truth of the latter part of the words in being Mourners as our deceased Brother before us has done of the former part in going to his Long Home Verily Sirs This is the day the very day in which the Lord God of Hosts calls to Weeping and to Mourning to Baldness and to Girding with Sack-cloath And therefore I shall make use of the Apostles words for the pressing this Exhortation James 4. ver 9. Be Afflicted ana Mourn and Weep let your Laughter be turned to Mourning and your Joy to Heaviness Not a word here but has its Emphasis and deservies a special Notation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Be touched with a sense of misery and that in your Hearts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mourn in an exceeding great measure expressed in some outward overt-Act 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Weep from a broken and tender Heath This Weeping is Natures priviledge forbiddon by none as the Poet intimates Quis matrem nisi mentis inops in funore nati flere vet at Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let you Laughter or loud Acclamations of Mirth and Jollity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be turned into Mourning or into a Funeral Elegy or Lamentation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your Joy or the greatest Delight and Contentment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into Heaviness or into a Sorrow that dejects the Countenance and makes Men look down-ward upon the Earth Now Sirs put all this together that is it which I would press you to this day Oh! Be so Afflicted as to be touched with a sence of this awful dispensation of divine Providence in visiting us so sorely in this the day of his Anger And then Mourn in a visible real manner And Weep till your Hearts are even broken with Sorrow Let your Laughter or outward expressions of Mirth be turned into Mourning or grievous bursting forth into Tears And let your Joy or any thing of delight be turned into Heaviness or into a real dejectedness or calling down And the reason is very obvious this Coffin herd before us does justly call for it as containing one who was lately the Object of our Love and Esteem but now the deserved Subject of our Sighs and Tears It is not my principle nor usual practise to speak much on such occasions of the Person deceased The custom of some Predicants is rather to be bewailed than imitated who are inconsiderately Studious to hoise up the Names of those who they would stutter as high as Heaven when perhaps at the same time their Souls are roaring in the hottest Hell 'T is also of dangerous consequence to the Auditors Funeral Encomiasticks of the Dead prove often confections of poyson to the Living People may well grow careless of their Lives when custom layes an obligation upon the Preacher to Hackney them to Heaven in his Sermon when they Dye But here is something
extraordinary in this Funeral that may be my Apology for speaking something concerning him who is going to his Long Home this day He Dying here in a strange Country far from his Relations where none of his Fathers ever were and that befalling him which the Poet accounting a great misery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is true he was not drowned and so did not Dye in the Waters in that sence but he Dyed upon the Waters and is now to be Buried in the Waters And therefore I think it but highly just to strew some deserved Flowers on his Herse that we may all carry home the Fragrancy of his Name in our Memories since we cannot carry home his Body to his dear Mourning Relations Besides I look upon my self as obliged to speak because I knew more of him than any I believe in the World did He was pleased to make my Breast die Repository where he locked the very Secrets of his Soul Never two were more intimate we were pleasant to each other in our Lives Oh! that in our Deaths we had not been divided However my love to him and intimacy with him shall not trappan me into any thing of Flattery which I ever abhorred And hence I will not insist upon what I wish I could do more viz his exemplariness in Piety Although I am more than confident the Root of the matter was in him I know his unavoidable Association with all sorts of Company betrayed him to some tinctures of vanity which himself was sensible of and most deeply bewailed upon his dying Bed But for an example of Morality a modle of Civility a platform of all Humanity I dare presume to present you with as exact an one as has been seen in this Latter-Age I remember what the Orator sayes Frigida laudatio mera vituperatio A cold kind of praising is no better than a dispraising Hence what I shall say shall be in the words of Truth Sobriety and I think justifiable Fervency I will begin with his Extraction His Birth was truly honourable for he was Born of the race of the First-born being immediately descended from the Loyns of the Prophets and such as in their day were Stars of the first Magnitude enrowled in the Catalogue of those Worthyes of whom the World was not worthy His Grand-Father Mr. Richard Bernard of Batcomb a most famous elabourate Divine whose Name is as Oyntment poured forth whose Works praise him in the Gate and whose Memory will never dye so long as Religion lives in England His Father also an able eminent Minister the Husband of one Wife by whom he had I think One and Twenty Children of whom this our deceased Friend was the youngest So that he was their Benjamin the Staff of their Old Age they were careful of his Education and infused those great principles of Truth into his Infant-years the savor of which he retained to the last so true is that Quo Yemel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa Diu Or as Solomon Englishes it Train up a Child in the way wherein he should walk and when he is old he will not depart from it He was Filius Fidelium Precum A Child of the Covenant and a Child of Prayers There was a great stock of Prayers laid up for him and I am perswaded they were not lost After he had past his impuberous days under his Parents Wings in the Country he was sent up to London to his Brother Mr. John Bernard a pious holy Man in great esteem amongst the Godly who was more than a Brother yea a Father to him as I have often heard him acknowledge with a great sence of Gratitude he took great care about disposing of him in order to his future Settlement At length he placed him with an honest Master whom he faithfully and truly Served I have heard his Master say this of him He never had such a Servant His Calling obliged him to use the Seas which he was as unfit for as the Sea was unworthy of him He had a reach at higher things and his Heroick Spirit hardly brooked the Conversation genuine to this Element he had an exceeding good Natural Wit a Ripe Invention a Quick Fancy a Logical Head a Strong Memory and as a Crown to all a Great Judgment He was an universal accomplisht Man able to carry himself Aptly and to speak Congruously in all Companys from the King's Court to the Beggars Cottage He was endued with that Humility and Modesty which very well became his Young years and yet with that Depth and Judgment that was a great deal above his Years He was unsatiable after Knowledge especially in the best things He would often bring me some of the hardest Scriptures to explain and propose some of the abstrucest Points in Divinity to be resolved Indeed he had Notions of a very high Birth and Conceptions far above one under his Circumstances Insomuch that I have often admired him and said of him as the Multitude of our Saviour From whence hath this Man this Wisdom He was a constant hearer of the Word and a great Honourer of those that delivered it He dearly Lov'd a Learned Ministry and by such was he Beloved Several eminent Divines in London had an high Respect for him The truth is I knew not any whose Judgments was worth a minding that were acquainted with him but very deeply affected him and esteemed him as one of a more than ordinary Capacity He greatly delighted in reading good Books especially Dr. Bates Of the Existence of God His Harmony of the Divine Attributes and Mr. Baxters Directory which he mightily prized and would often say he looked upon it as the next Book to the Bible In his Match he preferred Virtue before Money contrary to the Genius of this corrupt Age. He advised with me and indeed gave himself up wholly to me to choose a Wife for him In order to which I brought him acquainted with an honest Religious Family to which he was soon Related by espousing a Wife that Heaven in Mercy had every way prepared an Help meet for him In whom he took great Delight as also in the Piety and Ingenuity of her Relations with whose Society he promised himself a great deal of Comfort and Satisfaction at his return from this Voyage But poor Gentleman he is now gone Death has frustrated all his Expectations of that kind Labitur Savo Rapiente Fato to use Senecas words he is taken away by the over-ruling Powers above never to be among his poor Relations or to be seen by them any more for ever He had an admirable mixture and mediocrity in the whole of his Deportment he was Facetious and yet Solid Affable and yet Reserved Courteous to all and yet Familiar with very few He was a most Just Upright Man in all his Dealings I never knew him guilty of the least dirty or disingenuous Action He was a faithful and true Friend Vsque ad aras I found him so
a great truth which the Poet tells us In recto medecina valent data Tempore prosunt Et data non apto Tempore vina nocent The truth is he was Skilful in every thing that conduced to his Patients Good So that great is our Loss in this respect Indeed the whole of that Judgment is come upon us which God threatned his antient People with in the days of old Isa 3. ver 1 2 3. For behold the Lord the Lord of Hosts doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff the whale stay of Bread and the whole staff of Water The Mighty Man and the Man of War the Judge and the Prophet and the Prudent and the Antient The Captain of Fifty and the Honourable Man and the Counsellor and the Cunning Artificer and the Eloquent Orator Ah! verily our stay and our staff is gone He that was the stay of our Strength and the staff of our Lives He that was a cunning artificer and a skilful Operator in the concerns of our Bodies is now taken away therefore we ought to be Mourners about his Hearse Fourthly Consider we have Lost an Useful Man yea a Man of the greatest Use amongst us The variety of Distempers Men are afflicted with and subject to in these Hot Climates do sufficiently infer the Usefulness yea the Necessity of an able Physitian I know you look upon your Minister as a needless Person because you are unsensible of the worth of your Souls if he had gone you would not have accounted it any great loss Ah! but now Sirs God knew how to take that Mercy from you which you are most sensible of the worth and use of He knew where to prick the Vein that will most Bleed and therefore he has taken away the Physitian of your Bodies whom you may most dearly miss before you go home And surely this bespeaks your Mourning in a grievous and bitter manner for this so sharp a Stroke What Paul told the Colossians chap. 4 ver 14. Luke the beloved Physician and Demas greet you May be truly applyed to him who was indeed a beloved Physician and he deserved no other for his diligent care and pains towards the meanest Patient He was seldome sent for to any sick Person being so forward of himself to go as soon as he heard of it Most Applications he made use of went through his own hands though the Disease was never so loathsome or the Person never so mean How then may I bespeak your Mourning over his Hearse this day us David did the Mourning of Israel over Saul Ye Daughters of Israel weep over Saul who cloathed you in Scarlet and ether delights who put on ornaments of Gold on your Apparel So O ye Seamen and Officers of this Ship Weep over this Painful Diligent Affectionate Physitian who refreshed you with Cordials and other delights Who was day and night serviceable to you and Dyed in that service amongst you He is now gone to his Long Home who retrieved many of us when we were almost there He helped us but we could not help him Ah! how can we think of parting with such an Useful Faithful Affectionate Friend and not Mourn How can we think of throwing him who was the very delight of our Souls Over-board into the wide Ocean to be made a Prey to the devouring Fishes and not break forth into doleful Crys and Lamentations Thus you see the cause we have to Mourn from the Consideration of the greatness of our present Loss But the many aggravating circumstances of this Loss do yet call for our Farther Mourning and the scruing up our Sorrow one Peg higher Hence consider First He is taken away before our Voyage is done It would have been a very considerable Loss if he had Lived with us to England and then have been removed by Death It would then have called for Mourning at our hands I but it would not have been so dismal a providence so afflictive a stroke as now it is having so long a way to run and so many difficulties to go through before we see our several Homes This was the cause of Israel's so long and so great Mourning for Moses Deut. 34. ver 8. And the Children of Israel wept for Moses in the Plains of Moab Thirty days So the days of Weeping and Mourning for Moses were ended Mark it they were yet in the Plains of Moab had they been in quiet and full possession of the Land of Canaan the present dispensation of Moses his Death though at any time bitter enough had not been so dreadful and dismal to them But this highly heightned their Misery and consequently their Sorrow that he was taken from them before he had brought them to the promised Rest So now in this case Oh! what cause have we to Mourn in an exceeding great measure for that Death has removed our Physitian so long before the conclusion of the Voyage Secondly Consider he is taken away whilst the Judgment of God is upon us in retarding our Passage and threatning no less than a Winter Voyage We have staid so long in the Indies that there is little likelyhood of our going Home this Year And at present we are here scorching in an hot sultry Climate the Winds so cross to us that we can neither go backward or forward and what will become of us the Lord knows But sure I am the hand of his Displeasure is stretched out against us and we feel in part that terrible Word threatned Mat. 26. ver 31. Then said Jesus unto them All ye shall be offended because of me this night for it is written I will smite the Sheapherd and the Sheep of the Flock shall be scattered abroad Ah! Sirs Death has smitten our Physitian and we arc like to be scattered abroad God Almighty knows where we may be forced to Winter where we may be driven for shelter from the Furious Ocean we cannot as yet tell But the great yea certain likelyhood of our being Tossed up and down the World for several Months before we can get about Cape of good Hope makes this Loss the more considerable and our Condition the more lamentable Thirdly Consider he is taken away in his Youthful days yea in the very flower of his Youth in the height and excellency of his Strength We ought to be Mourners in the Street when we see any Man go to his Long Home but to see a Young Man go there that 's newly come into the World That is beginning as it were to live that is but blossoming in the early Spring of his Years to see such an one so immaturely seized upon by the griping paw of Death Oh! this must needs aggravate Sorrow very greatly Upon this account it was that there was made such an heavy Lamentation for the Death of Josiah that Famous King of Judah 2 Chron. 35. ver 24 25. His servants therefore took him out of that Chariot and put him in the second
the Lice Exod. 8. ver 19. Then the Magicians said unto Pharaoh This is the finger of God And Pharaoh's heart was hardned and he hearkned not unto them as the Lord had said Oh! Sirs we should say this is the handy work of God of that God Whose Judgments are unsearchable and whose Ways are past finding out and therefore we ought with all holy filial Reverence to submit to what he has done Fourthly Oh! Mourn for this Loss by way of preparations for your own turn whensoever it shall please God to call you to it This was Moses his wish for Israel and it is mine for you Deut. 32. ver 29. O that they were wise that they knew this that they would consider their Latter End So to consider of it as to prepare for it And especially to consider of it when we see others taken away from among us Oh! How should Objects of Mortality before us be as pressing Lectures of Divinity to us to put us in mind of the certainty of our own Dying and the necessary prae-requisites to a Dying State that when we come to the Borders of Death instead of fearing it we may sarcasmally triumph over it in the words of the blessed Apostle O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory And when like Aaron upon Mount Hor we are stripped of the Robes of Mortality we may be invested with the more beauteous and transcendent Garment of everlasting Glory in our Fathers House where are many Mansions to enjoy the Soul-ravishing Communion of blessed Saints and Angels in the highest Heaven to sit under the shadow of our Glorified Lord Jesus with great delight and to have his Fruit for ever pleasant to our Tast wrapt up in the Joys and Consolations of the Spirit waiting for that one only additional Happiness even the Adoption to wit the Redemption of the Body In a word to be with our own God the God of all Peace and Comfort in whose Presence there is fulness of Joy and at whose Right Hand there are Pleasures for evermore FINIS AN ELEGY On the Death of the before-Named Mr. Rich Bernard Consecrated to his MEMORY BY ONE Who Loved him Dearly Prized him Highly And Laments him Greatly CAN Grief be silent Rather can Grief speak A Top-full Vessel scarce finds vent to Leak Hearts that are charg'd and over-press'd with Sorrow Deny to lend what Mourning Tongues would borrow Words may be form'd in saddest case no doubt But Sighs and Groans will stop their passage out Wonder not then we are so Mute even now Our Souls to Grief's most rigid Laws we bow And in the Dust seem liveless as we lye True Hieroglyphicks of our Misery Sense of our Loss deprives us of all Sense We more than Masters in Griefs-School Commence Like Weeping Niobes we are become Grief makes us sad but Horror strikes us dumb Our Tongues can't Accent what our Hearts direct Deep Groans and Sobs must be our Dialect We 'll Sob his Death and with an Heart-fetch'd Groan That Loss which ne're can be repair'd make known A Loss indeed beyond a Vulgar Loss As far as Ophir purest Gold 's from Dross Death hath not snatched one of our common Friends But one in whom the Life of Friendship ends The Soul of Love the Quintescence of Mirth Whose presence mid-wiv'd Joy into a Birth Who Lov'd and knew to blow where e're he came The Sparks of Pleasure to an open Flame So Apprehensive half-Ey'd Men might see He was ingenious to a Prodigie His rare and great Accomplishments inhanc'd His Price above all Value and Advanc'd Th' admir'd Capacity of his known Name To cope the glory of Machaons Fame In all the Rules of Physick he excell'd And very hardly to be Parallell'd Diseases own'd his Power and Heaven did Bless His Skill to most with wonderful Success Besides all this he had a greater Art To feel the Pulse of a Distemper'd Heart And by his Candid Carriage to unty The Gordian-Knot of inward Misery His Wit and Parts dispell'd the Clouds of Sadness And changed Sorrow into peals of Gladness Judge judge how Mournful now is our Condition That thus have lost a Duplicate-Physitian Well might the Cannons roar when he was gone The fittest Emblem of our general Moan They were our Organs thorough which we broke Griefs deadly silence and in Thunder spoke We sent by them our loud-mouth'd doleful Cryes Resounding Woe and Horror to the Skyes The Air was black with Smoke to let us see That Element did Mourn as well as we The Sea did Foam Neptune was full of Fears Lest he should shake his Kingdom 'bout his Ears And in our Fury rise to such a pass As to attempt the wresting of his Mace For having rob'd us of so rich a Jem More-priz'd by us than all his Diadem We needed not his Water for a Grave Unto our Friend each Tear more than a Wave Would soon have swel'd into a Sea for him And been enough for th' Coffin in 't to Swim Or rather sink true Sorrow 's such a freight To poize down more than many Thousand Weight I now despise great Aeolus and his storms Though represented in tremendious forms The raging of the Seas henceforth no more Shall fright my Soul thought Winds and Waves do roar Now he is there whose influencing charms Keep back their fury from inflicting harms And by his Art and Skill right Chymical Makes all their Waters more than Med'cinal 'T was often said The Sea abounds in Store More than the Earth I nere believ'd before But now I shall and readily submit With all my heart unto the Truth of it Since so much Learning Parts and Worth is in 't What can it be less than a peerless Mint Here stop my Pen no farther ' tempt to build Statues of Mourning in this sable Field Call for the Epilogue draw out the Screene And put Conclusion to this doleful Scene The Floods of Tears which from our Eyes have run With Sighs he 's wafted to Elisium The Epitaph FArewel dear Heart thy absence makes me sad The truest Friend that ever Mortal had My pleasant Sea-Consort the very Soul Of that delight which Sadness does Controul My Bosom-Friend to whom I could dispence The greatest Secrets with safe-Confidence My Counsellor with whom I could advise And learn by Imitation to be Wise A Brother dearer than by Nature can In Life and Death to me a Jonathan Rest rest in Peace within thy Watry-Urn Whilst I toss'd up and down shall Sigh and Mourn To think of my great Loss in losing Thee Once happy in thy sweet Society What! Art thou Dead My thought my Dream was so Ah! 't is too true a Dream the more the Woe Thou hadst thy Plea though cam'st unto thy Tryal Death was thy Judge and would have no Denyal Charles Nicholettes