A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of the R ' Reverend Father in God BRYAN, Lord Bp. of WINCHESTER. At the Abbey Church in Westminster. April 24. 1662. By HENRY L. Bp. of Chichester. LONDON, Printed for Henry Herringman, and are to be sold at his Shop in the Lower Walk in the New Exchange. 1662. A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of the Right Reverend Father in God BRYAN, Lord Bp. of Winchester. At the Abbey Church in Westminster, April 24. 1662. Precious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints. Psal. 116.15 I Need not tell you the occasion of our Meeting; The sad Object lying before your Ey declares that. And though He who is gone be principally concerned in drawing you to this House of Mourning, yet must ye not repute yourselves wholly unconcerned, The benefit will redound to you, who Eccl s. 7 3. who know by whom ye are told how good it is to enter into it; I wish ye may think so too. I read of one Philoromus Galata who was so much in love with Death, he lived some years in a Tomb to prepare Himself for it This Spectacle, and this Discourse tends to this Preparation; So that I hope ye will not repent an hours stay here with me. The Grave is commonly as powerful an Orator as the Pulpit, and by presenting the fears of an III Death instructs us in the Rules of a Good Life: My assurance, is that as the winding Sheet fits every Body by dilating or contracting itself to each one's size, so my discourse will suit itself to every Hearer. Like Philipp's Boy, it holds out to Youth a Skull, to Age, a Coffin. Who next amongst us is likely to fall into this low Centre may be doubtful; 'Tis sure at one time or other we all must: And probably we shall not all of us a few days hence meet here again. Therefore wheresoever that final Lot may chance to fall, whether on some Hearer, or on the Speaker, You will allow this Text a pious remembrancer to Those who stay behind, and an antedated valediction to those who next go hence. So then as St. Paul told the Corinthians; Whether it be I or You, so I Preach, 1 Cor. 15 11. and so Ye justly must believe, That happy shall their condition be in the Next world, who after a Religious life die well in This. For Precious in the sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints. I trouble you not with any Curious but a Plain Division. Division The First Joint whereof is (that which disjoins Nature, 1. D●ath. and must Divide us from One another, Yea makes a Division of us from Ourselves by Disuniting Soul and Body, and taking asunder those Essential Parts by which we subsist) Death. Then follows the Subject of our Funeral, 2. Saints. Sancti All are concluded under the Necessity of Dying, Men, the Best of Men, Saints. Yet Thirdly there is a mixture of Comfort to sweeten the Meditation of Death, 3. Precious. It is Mors Pretiosa, Precious. 1 In that it puts an end to all Calamity. 2. Precious for that Their Memory survives when They are gone. 3. Precious in the Sight of Men, as being Honoured in their Exequys. Lastly it is Pretiosa in conspectu Dei. 4 In the s●ght of the Lord. Not Precious only in the Ey and Estimation of the world, But Precious in the Sight of the Lord. He who sees all things is a Spectator of the Death of his Servants, and shows how dearly he values Them. 1. By Avenging their Blood, if shed by violence in this world. 2. By Rewarding Them in the Next. This is the Frame on which my ensuing Discourse is carried; whose Foundation you see is laid as low as the Grave. I begin there where all must end, 1. Patt. Death. with Death; The full Period and Close of Nature. A Subject better defined by silence, than speech, and sounds more pathetically from a Tomb than a Pulpit. The Arguments of this place are (or should be God and His Works, But amidst the whole Catalogue of those works of His we find not Death: A thing of so unblessed a Being It cannot derive itself from His Hand and Facture who made All other things. Light was his Creature, Struck out and Kindled by His Fiat Lux, Gen. 1.3. Let there be Light: And Life was inspired by His Powerful Breath who breathed Spiraculum vitae into Man. Gen. 2.7. But Darkness and Death are Children of other Parentage. God made no Privations to Smother His Works, No Extinguishers of Light or Nature; No Sickness to supplant Health, nor Infirmity to dissolve Strength; Wis. 1.14 The Generations of the World were healthful, and there was no Poison of destruction amongst them. Darkness is but a defect of Light, and Death a Privation of Life, therefore none of His, ver. 13 For God hath not made Death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living. If you would have Death's Pedigree, search not in God's Book of Creatures, amongst the Records of Life, but see the Annals of Sin. That and Sin were Twins nursed up together, engendered of two accursed Parents, the Serpent's Active Malice, and Man's Disobedience. From hence do we derive this Monster, This Enemy to Nature, and Opposite to God: For so it is. This demolisheth what He Builds, The goodly frame of Mankind is by Death ruined and laid in Forth; This Reverseth what He enacted, Marrs and unmakes all that He made before. You see at what Breach Death entered, The breach of God's Covenant. There the Inundation ran in, whose furious torrent will not be stopped until it hath overwhelmed and covered the Universe. From Adam did this Tyrant begin his dangerous Reign: On his Fall was Death's Throne erected; his Body became the first Stair of the Ascent, since which time he hath still raised that fatal Mound by heaping on it all the Bodies of his Children, For in Adam we all die; 1 Cor. 15.22. His Fall maimed and Creepled Posterity, which hath ever since complained of that bruise; The Earth yet groans under the barren Curse thrown upon it for Adam's sake; Rom. 8.22. And Every Creature groans with us also travailing in pain unto this present. Thus as Ashur was the Rod of God's vengeance to scourge the rebellious Israelites, Esay 10.5. so Death became God's scourge to punish the Sin of Man: Aug. Ser. 21. in Mat. Neseis quia poena est, necesse esse ut moriamur? Here than you see, though Death were none of God's works, Yet is it over All His works: This Thing of No being, this Privation, this Nothing, devours All things; For what is free from this Gangrene? what Plant doth not this Worm strike? what Elementary Body Animate or Inanimate is not subject to Corruption? Templa, Saxa, Marmora, Aug. Ser. 17. Ferro plumboque consolidata tamèn cadunt, Miserable experience shows that Temples are not privileged from ruin; Those sheets of Lead wherein the Dead sleep taste of Corruption. — Sunt et sua fata sepulchris, Tombs themselves have their Dying day, And those Marble Quarries which stand over Princes moulder to dust as do the Bodies lying under them If than an inevitable Necessity of Death or some decay like it lies upon Metals and those solid Bodies which scarcely retain a Cause of Putrefaction within them, Certainly Man whose complexion is not Stone, nor his Ribs Brass, must be better acquainted with Dust and Rottenness: Job 17.14. Say to Corruption thou art my Father, and to the worm Thou art my Mother and my Sister. Yea so far is He unable to bear off by any Armour he can buckle on, the assaults of Death, That not the Armour of the Apostle, of more curious Temper and better proof than Steel, Ephes. 6.16. The Shield of Faith and Breastplate of Righteousness, which are able to resist the fiery Darts of Satan, can guard him from Death's Dart; For even the Best of Men, God's dearest Servants and Saints are the subject of Death's triumph, 2. Of Saints. It is Mors Sanctorum, the Death of Saints. That Nolite tangere Christos meos, Psal. 105. Touch not mine Anointed, which encircles God's Servants, and like a Charm Exorcises all other dangers, cannot guard Them from this Fiend, Death. Moses his Body found a Champion to defend It from the Devil. Jud. epist. ver. 9 He found no Champion to fight for Him against Death; The Decree is past and not to be reversed, Deut. 34.5. He must up to Mount Nebo and there Dye. There is no Gluttony like Death; The greatest Practitioners in the School of Riot have at length met a Surfeit which hath done that, nor Sea nor Land (Granges too narrow to serve their excess) could ever do, Choked their boundless Appetite: But Death is a Glutton unacquainted with Surfeit or Satiety, Of whom I may say as the Scythian Ambassador once did to Alexander, Q. Curt. Vnus es omnium qui satietate parasti famem, Satiety to Thee only serves to beget Hunger. Not all the Gross Meals, the Grand Feasts which War or Pestilence have dressed, could make Him say It is Enough: Not all those Messes in the Revelation, Revel. 19.18. The Flesh of Kings and Captains, the flesh of Bond or Freemen, Small and Great, (Provision sufficient for all the Vultures invited to that Supper) could make a Competent Meal for Death. ver. 17. Not all the Rarities of Nature, the choicest fruits the world affords, Youth gathered in the Bud, and Beauty cropped in the flower, could satisfy Death's Palate. But after all these services, He must have a Feast of Saints cooked in all the barbarous fashious Tyranny and Cruel invention could devise, They were Stoned, were saw'n in sunder, Hebr. 11.37. Roasted in the Fire, Broiled on Grid-irons, Flayed, Torn in pieces, Brayed in Mortars; I have not memory nor language to recite this horrid Bill of Fare, Search the Histories of the Church and see it upon Record. We should not grudge at this large Allowance made to Death, did He feed on Those that would not be miss amongst us, Lucan. Vulgares Animas, trivial Souls and— Frustrà peritura cadavera, Those unuseful burchens of the Earth who only walk about and talk out their Time, having no profession but that of the Athenians, to Hear and Telled News. Act. 17.21. Well were it for the world, did Death remove such unprofitable things as These, who like the fruitless Tree in the Gospel only cumber the Earth; Did He only exenterate Nature which at first hatched this devouring Cokatrice, and did not also eat through the Bowels of the Church, destroying those Holy Births which lie within her Womb. To our grief we must remember those heavy Strokes have fallen thick upon us. You had one Famous Light, Dr. Fern. Bp. of West Chester. whose Learning and Exemplary Life shone brightly in the Orb of our English Church extinguished very lately; And when that Earth which covered Him is scarcely made up, behold here Another worthy follows, ready to take his final Lodging in the same Dust. Thus doth this Tyrant double His Blow, depriving us of Two such incomparable Persons, that though you search Their whole Order and Run through our Jerusalem with Lanterns (as once the Prophet did) you shall not match again. Tune duos unâ saevissima vipera caenâ, Juven●l. Tune Duos?— Let me play the Satirist with Death: Cruel Viper as thou art, Can not One suffice thy ravenous appetite, but thou must have Two to gorge upon? I need not stay for the answer, I find it ready made there— Septem, Septem, si forte fuissent, were it possible to find out Seven more like Them, His dart is lifted up, as ready now to strike as He was then. We have cause (God knows) too much to lament these great Losses in such a barren Time as ours which produceth very few Saints, And where Good men are thinly found, Like the shaking of the Olive Tree which amongst many Leaves yield perhaps here and there a Berry. Knowing that Ten Righteous Persons (if so many may be found) are able to bear off a Shower of Vengeance and Fire nor less violent than that which fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. G●n. 1● 91. Nay One Aaron is authorised to stand in the Gap betwixt an Offended God and a Sinful People. Indeed the World is now in its Dotage Creepled and Bedrid, In the last and worst Age: So that had it not some few sound Crutches to support it, some few Pillars not eaten in by the vices of the Time, nor Cankered by those Opinions which madly fly about, not only to the disfiguring our Church's Decency and Order; but the shaking and undermining even Her Fundamental Truths, It could not subsist. Whensoever then a Good man dies a Shore of the declining world is taken away, and a Pillar of the Church, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Greg. Nazi anz. ora. 〈◊〉 Land. Pa●ris. threatening a Ruin to that part where the Stay was broken out. It is our best Course therefore to strengthen our remaining Stays by our Prayers; Knowing that the Devil's malice is ever planted against our Best Fortifications, assaulting Those most hotly who stand in the Breach. For he doth not wound us blindly or by chance, but by Election and Judgement. So doth his Agent Death cull out the Best, Garbling the Race of Men, and Commonly leave the refuse, Moes optima rapit, deterrima relinquit; Making us know to our grief that of Hieron: to be most true, Peccatores terrae habitatores, Justi peregrini Sinners are the proper Inhabitants here, Saints only sojourn in the world, I am a Stranger, Psal. 39.13. and a Sojourner as all my Fathers were. They who justly consider how many Hundreds of Men yield one Saint, How many years Religiously spent are required for His probation, and How many Virtues go to the Making up of a Saint: They who Corsider again how hard a th●ng it is to Pair and fellow Goodness when Death hath mis-matched it, and how unequally the successions of Virtue are preserved amongst us, who seldom ●nherit any thing of our Forefathers worth, but only their Imperfections and infirmity: They I say who in all these unfortunate consequences justly apprehend the loss of Good men, will not blame us to set that value upon their Death at which Sorrow and Affection deservedly prizes Them, Confessing that Sanctorum Mors Pretiosa. Their death is Precious. Precious indeed: 3. Precious. For how ill soever the bargain proves on our parts, it is good to Them, as in a hard Purchase what the Buyer loses, the Seller gets. 'Tis Mors pretiosa to Them in an other Capacity, That gainful sense the Apostle means, Mors Lucrum, Death is their Advantage, Phil. 1.21. whereby They gain an end to those Misery's Life exposed and the Worlds converse cast upon Them, and may seal their valediction to both in those words of the Poet, — Finitis gaude tot mihi Morte malis. Ovid. lib. 3. trist. El. 3. Hear how St. Bernard exalts Death's Market, and raiseth the Price of it. Pretiosa planè tanquàm finis Laborum, Bernard. tanquàm Victoriae consummatio, tanquàm vitae Janua, tanquàm perfectae Securitatis ingressus; It is Precious, as being an Antidote against all Infirmity; Though the Potion hath some bitterness, Ecclus 41.1. O Mors quàm amara! The effect is sweet. He who takes it down, in that draught takes his everlasting Quietus Though the infected Air spreads new diseases over the World, that infection pierces not so low as the Grave, such an Armour of proof are five feet of Earth: It is a Precious Receipt for Sleep beyond all the Opiate or Mandragoras Physic can prescribe: He who is lodged in Earth lies in an Inner Chamber which Noise cannot disturb: The wars of the Elements are not heard in that Quarter, The Wind contesting with the Wave, Nor the Breach of Waters, Nor the Tongue of Thunder, None of these can dispossess them of that slumber which only the Archangel's Trump shall waken, Nor any other way disturb their quiet habitation, upon whose door the Characters of Eternal Peace are engraven: Revel. 14.13. Writ, Blessed are Those that die in the Lord (so saith the Spirit) for they finally rest from their Labours. How Precious the death of Saints is, all from hence must grant, who from the sense of Pain can understand the benefit of Ease, Or from the miseries of war are instructed in the Blessings of Peace, And from the World's perpetual disquiet have learned what price they ought to set upon an endless Rest: This merely concerns Themselves. There be other differences which continue Their value unto us when They are gone. First, the Honour due to their Memory after Death, which distinguisheth Persons of Desert from Those of no Consideration. The whole circumference of natural Being meets in one Centre. Eccles. 3.19. That which befalleth the sons of Men befalleth Beasts, as the one dieth so dieth the other (saith the Preacher) And Wise Men Die as well as Fools. Psal. 49.10. But yet in this Fatal Heraldry there are differences to discriminate the Elder and the Younger house; Tacitus will tell you Mortem ex Naturâ omnibus aequalem oblivione apud posteros vel gloriâ distingui, Tacit. Annal. lib. 1. Death which is equal to all is distinguished by the honour shown to the Deceased, or the neglect to them when gone. Thus did the Romans distinguish their Two Emperors Augustus and Tiberius the Successor in his Empire though not in his Virtues: Augustus They Deified, but their hate to Tiberius was such, They would have His Memory survive not where unless in Hell: Sueton. in Tiberie. Deos Manes rogârunt, ut mortuo sedem nullam nisi intèr impios darent. Such is the fate of wicked ones to be forgotten, Psal. 149.9. and such honour have the Saints to Live in their Posterities remembrance. Which Honour is by a Second evidence demonstrated in their Exequys. Datur hoc illustrium virorum posteritati ut Exequiis à promiscuâ sepulturâ separentur. Tacitus. The Prophet could not threaten a greater Curse than to be cast out as unworthy of the Rites of Burial; Parricides and Traitors, Murderers of Parents or Murderers of Princes who are our Civil Parents of the whole Kingdom were thus used amongst the Heathen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, let them lie unburied, And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, let Dogs eat their Flesh upon earth as they did Jezabel's, and Fowls of Prey devour their Carcases when hanging in the Air. So God tells the King of Babylon, Esai. 15.19, 20. Thou art cast out like an abominable Branch, Thou shalt not be joined with them in Burial. True it is that Heraclitus is Charged by Origen, Origen. count. Cells. lib. 3. That He did think a Dead Body not worth a Grave or Rites of Burial, but to be cast out to the Frost of the Night and Heat of the Day as a contemptible Relic eternally lost in its separation from the Soul. So Hieron: Hieron. lib. 3. contra Vigilant. chargeth Vigilantius as one wedded to the superstition of the Samaritan and Jew, who reputed the Bodies of the Dead unclean Things, reproaching the Coemeteries & Consecrated Ground wherein they are laid, as follies to be laughed at, and terming Those who Buried Them, Cinerarios & Idololatras qui mortuorum ossa venerantur, Traders in dust and Idolaters of Dead men's Bones. The Brownists in their Apology come as near These I have named as may be, Against the Oxford answer 1602 ●o the Ministers Petition. Affirming Burial to be no Ecclesiastical Action, because not named by Timothy amongst the Ministerial duties. Barrow and Greenwood take it at bound from Them, Vid. Their Answer to Gifford. 1591. and ask where it was made an Ecclesiastical duty, or why to be performed in Hallowed Ground? as if we had no Fields. They forgot (it seems) Devout men carried Stephen to His Burial. Act. 3.2. And I must tell you, our Preciser sort of late have run in the same line; They would by no means endure the Body to come within the Church, but it must be left without in the Churchyard; Nor would They use in Committing the Corpse to Earth any word or Ceremony, but put it into the Ground as one would bury the meanest Creature that lay Dead; Let me ask without offence, what doth this differ from that Curse denounced by the Prophet against Jehojakim, Jer. 26.19. The Burial of an Ass? S. Augustin teaches Them more Civility if They would learn; Aug. de Civ. Del lib. 11. c. 13. Non contemnenda sunt & abjicienda Corpora Defunctorum, The Bodies of Dead Christians are not to be thus slightly and Contemptibly cast into the Earth. Mat. 23.24. Tender and soft Conscienced men as They are, who strain at Gnats and swallow Camels. They made no scruple to Preach up the Highest Rebellion in the State, & Foulest Disorder in the Church, that any Age ever knew; Yet their umbrageous Fantasies startle now at any thing of Decency & Order. As if Popery were obtruded in that Sign which hath no other meaning but to signify to the world that we are not ashamed of the Cross of Christ crucified, liturgy in Public Baptism. Or Antichrist lurked under that Innocent habit used in the Ministerial Office. But I am upon a Theme of Burial due to Christians, and in Christian Charity I would Bury these weaknesses too, if They be so, or not rather Obstinacies; only putting Them in mind, There cannot be too much Dignity given to the Body when Dead, which Living was a Temple of the Holy Ghost; That Body which Christ assumed when He took our Flesh; That Body In which and For which He Died, paying the price of his unvaluable Blood to redeem it; Lastly, That Body which He will hereafter Glorify and make it Like unto His own Glorious and Incorruptible Body. Philip. 3.1. Sure if the Prophet tells you with sorrow That it pitied all Eyes to see the ruins of decayed Zion, and that the dust and rubbish of it was prized and favoured by them, Psal. 102.14. Let none disvalue the Bodies of Saints demolished by Death, which are more Considerable than the Stones of Zion in her greatest beauty. But rather let it be a motive in the Honour of their Funeral Rites to declare how Precious their Death is in the sight of Men, when the Text assures you that it is Precious in the sight of God. 4. In the sight sight of God. Should man's ingratitude lose the Remembrance of Those who in their time have best deserved in the World, Yet God is not as Man to forget His Servants; They need no Monument to preserve, nor Epitaphe to ennoble them who live in God's Remembrance; The Memorial and Name of the wicked Men perisheth like the Dung, Psal. 9.5. and rots faster than their Corrupted Bodies, but the Just shall be had in everlasting Memory. Psal. 111.6 There can be no greater motive for Christians to live well, than to think Deus videt, Senec. God is a spectator of all their Actions whilst They live here; Nor can there be a greater terror to any who by Violence deprive them of that life, Than to consider He is the Avenger of His Servants and Saints. So the Price He puts upon Them is in Rewarding Them in the next world, and Avenging Their Blood in This. Yet I must tell you, 1. He Avengeth. this speculation of God's Vengeance upon their Destroyer's, if taken by our own Perspective, may deceive us. As God doth not always at first Call hear our Prayers when we Invoke His Mercy, but takes His own Time to perform what we desire; So He doth not ever when we implore His Justice let lose His Thunder to strike Those Men of Blood to whom His severest vengeance is due. Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth show Thyself, Psal. 93.2. is the Prophet's excitation of Him; And yet for all this Cry He tells you in another place God makes as if he heard not; Yea though he hath pronounced that the Bloodthirsty and deceitful should not live out half their days, Psal. 55.23. we have seen the Gray-haired Murderer finish a large Account of Time and number many years, Nay die in his Bed; when Those who deserved to be Canonised for Saints and Martyrs have died upon the Scaffold. If These men die the Common death of all men, Num. 16.29 than the Lord hath not sent me (saith Moses) with some indignation in the case of Korah and his fellow Conspirators. O Beloved! Ye must neither misdoubt us who preach the Certainty of God's Judgements, If in Your Ey these Judgements fall not on Them so soon or so severe as you expect: Much less must you misjudge God Himself either from the delay of His Vengeance or by permitting them to enjoy Augustus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Suetor. a quiet and Calm Death. We are no competent Judges of God's motion to Revenge, no more than of the Means by which He doth accomplish it. God says Their foot shall slide in due time, Deut. 32.35. But then he asks who shall appoint Me the time? Jer. 50.44. If He strikes not presently we must not think Him slow or forgetful, 2 Pet. 3.9. The Lord is not slack as some men count Slackness. Or if He permits any notorious Offenders to finish their days by a Natural Death in their Bed, do we know Qualem in conscientiâ sustinent Gehennam? what hard contests, what sharp Conflicts, what Hell their Consciences endure? When God threatens He will cast Jesabel upon a Bed, Rev. 2.22. Think you this done in favour of Her, who seduced His servants to commit Fornication? No, but to revenge Her Adulteries upon the very Bed whereon she committed them. So when He suffers the foulest Assassinate's to die in their Bed, it is not always Mercy, but rather as if He Hanged Them at their Own Door, making those very Beds on which they proudly stretched themselves, Amos 6.4. and where They contrived their Hellish Machinations, the Place of Execution and Torment to Them. For my part, I shall ever reckon these inverted forms of Justice among the Prodigies which Christ predicted of the Last and worst Times, When the Stars should fall from Heaven, Mat. 24.29. the Sun be darkened, the Moon turned to Blood. How many Stars in the Sphere of the Church (for those Lights are Stars in the Spirit's compellation) have since these unhappy times been darkened? Rev. 1.20. How many Nobles have been struck off by violent Death? who are Stars in the Orb of the Kingdom: How hath the Moon languished under Her Eclipse, Queens mourned in Widowhood and Exile? Nay (which is a Portent greater than that) how hath the most Glorious Sun which ever shone in the Firmament of our English Throne been turned to Blood? It was a Bloody Time wherein we lived of late; and sure it was believed the New Modelled State could not thrive unless, like the Vine, Blood were poured at the Root of it. Tertullian tells us the Heathen Persecutions gave the Precedent; who if the Seasons proved unkindly, or the Aspect of Heaven frowned on them in ill weather, If they suffered Famine or Pestilence, If their Designs miscarried by Land, or their Adventures by Sea, they ran down to the Amphitheatre, crying, Christiani ad Leones, Tertui. Apologet. Some Christians must be sacrificed to the Teeth of Beasts to mend those Mischiefs. You may remember how some Seduced People were incited to run down with Tumultuous Petitions, and Confused Clamours for Justice upon Delinquents; Alleging their Trade was improsperous for lack of execution done upon Delinquents. When they had prevailed, and by Gross prevarication (Law and no Law, Laws made for that purpose, than Abrogated when the Turn was served;) when (I say) by these Juggles they had got off some of the wisest Heads in the State, and Highest in the Church; Nay when they had struck the Vena Basilica, emptying the Blood of the Principal Veyn which gave Life and Spirit to the whole Kingdom, how well those abused People have thrived, and the Trades improved, Themselves feel to their utter undoing, and we all see. God grant this Unvaluable, this Guiltless, this yet unexpiated Blood, with many Thousands besides shed since the last eruption of our Civil War, be not charged upon the Heads of every one of us who survive. It is the Positive Law of God, Gen. 9 6. He who sheddeth Man's Blood, by Man shall his Blood be shed. And I know not what Power upon Earth can dispense with it. If there be any who frame excuse, or by Sophistry and False Reason endeavour to Palliate the Crime, let them take heed lest they pluck down the Gild upon Themselves. This Loud crying Sin will not easily be silenced: The Tongue of Blood is never hoarse by long crying; Gen 4.10. I have heard the Voice of thy Brother Abel's Blood crying to me from the Ground (saith God,) And This Blood (though shed so many hundred years past) Cries still. Heb. 11.4. Indeed how can it be otherwise? Psal. 56.8. He who Bottles every Tear shed in sorrow or contrition, and who numbers every drop of water distilled from the Eyes of His servants, shall He not much more keep a Tale of every Drop of Blood? Certainly He will, and in His Calculation each Drop hath its just value, to bring a fearful recompense upon the Heads of all their Murderers. Surely I have seen yesterday the Blood of Naboth, and the Blood of His sons, 3 King 9 26 and I will Requite Thee (saith the lord) 'Tis an Asseveration; He sees to Pity It, and He sees to Revenge it upon all the House of Ahab. It is ever in Conspectu ejus, In his sight. So precious is the death of His Saints. He puts a price upon Their Loss in His Revenge, and He puts a price upon Their Virtues in His Reward. You see how God looks down upon His servants, 2 Reward. with what Aspect He beholds their Sufferings here; They must now look up to Him from whence cometh their Salvation. Psal. 121.1. The Apostle directs their Eye, Hel. 12.2. Looking up to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith, who for the Joy set before Him endured the Cross, etc. There needs no better Reward, than to be in Conspectu Domini, Psal. 16.11. In God's sight; In Thy sight, and in Thy Presence there is fullness of Joy for evermore. The Pain of the Cross was eased to that poor dying Man Hanging upon it in the promise of his Saviour, Luke 23.43. Hodiè mecum eris, Thou shalt be where I am. Those who can sum up the Sorrows of a Miserable Life, may best collect the Blessings of the Life to come. It were a vain thing for us on Earth to attempt the defining of those Joys in Heaven which be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 & 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Eye hath not seen, nor Tongue can utter, nor Heart conceive Them. This only is the dictate of our Faith and best Evidence of Those unseen Joys, That the Beatifica Visio, The Sight of God, will both recompense all the Crosses laid on us, and supply all the Comforts which we wanted upon Earth; That Blessed Vision whereby we shall see God, not under the Dim Cloud of His Promises, but in the Clear Light, the Performance of His Reward. We must know for all this, Luke 16.26. there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, A great Gulf betwixt our expected Bliss and us; Deut. 1.19. Perhaps A Red Sea, and a Terrible Wilderness are interposed, and must be passed through before we can arrive at the Land of Promise. Happy shall Those be who are nor afraid to wade through a Red Sea discoloured by their own Blood, if God's Honour or His Cause require it; nor faint in the apprehension of a Wild Great Desert, if He think good to lay that tedious probation upon their Patience; Let this assurance Cheer both Their and Our dejected Spirits, we shall undoubtedly receive the Reward, if we Faint not, Heb. 12.3. And what contempt soever we endure in the Eyes of Men, we shall find a full Reparation In the Sight of God. I Have done with the Text. And now according to the Custom of a Funeral, You will expect I should say somewhat concerning the Subject of it. I confess Myself an ill Herald, and unversed in These Displays, It being the first time which brought me to perform this Office for the Dead; And if God so pleased, I wish from my Soul I might have miss it now. I cannot but remember at this Time was a Twelvemonth in the Highest Celebrity which our English Court can Boast, the Solemn Feast of St. George held at Windsor, His Infirmity Forced Him, by Particular Licence and Approbation of His Sovereign, to Depute me unto That Office, which in That place properly belonged to Him. I little thought that in a Mournful Solemnity where Himself became the Subject, I should the following Year, and the very next Day after that Triumph, be Deputed to this Last Service at His Grave. But thus You see how Joys and Sorrows by course exercise their several Jurisdictions over us, And how the Greatest Triumph Earth affords is attended at the Heels by such a Ghastly follower as Death. That I hearty Loved, and from the converse of many younger years Valued the Owner of that Dead Relic lying before me, is a real Truth: For that cause Ye therefore must not expect any large Panegyrics from me, lest happily Ye might think He needed them. Though Praise be a fit Gloss set upon Desert, there is danger, at least suspicion in the excess: As unskilful Painters by laying on too much Varnish dead the Colours and mar the Piece they would set off. Indeed in any Mournful Arguments, Invention is commonly most free, where with least interest and Concern it looks upon the Object. Passion or Affection mingling with them, render it too serious for any Rhetoric but Sorrow. This I profess to be my Case; And if it would not betray more of the weaker Sex than is fit for me to own, I could make good the words of St. Augustine, Potius libet flere quàm aliquid dicere, My Eyes could easily prove more fluent than my Tongue. Yet lest Ye fail of all Ye look for, As the Evening Sun immediately before his Set Unites, and in some short flashes casts forth his Beams before he bury them in that Cloud wherein he Sets, I will briefly sum up the Passages of His Life even from his Youth, which was His Sun-rise, unto the Declination of His Age, which brought Him to this Bed of Darkness. He was Born of Worthy and Virtuous Parents. His Education was in This Famous School, In This very College where He was admitted a King's Scholar of that Noble Foundation, which hath sent out so many excellent Proficients in Learning to each University. For Both those Fair Rivers doth this Spring by contributing some Supplies to Them annually feed. Here He had the greatest Dignity which the School could afford put upon Him, to be the Paedonomus at Christmas, Lord of His Fellow-Scholars: Which Title was a pledge and presage that from a Lord in Jest, He should in His riper Age become One in Earnest. From Hence He was translated by Election to Christs-Church in Oxford: where having run through some Offices in the College conferred both as Rewards and Trials upon the best Deservers, He was removed to All-souls; and when His Degree and Time made Him capable of Public Employment, Chosen Proctor of the University. After the taking His Degree of Doctor, in some few years He was by His Royal Master (whose Chaplain He had been) made Dean of Christ-Church, so becoming Head of that College into which He was first admitted Student. The more Public Office of Vicechancellor was then cast upon Him by that Martyred Archbishop, who well understood the Universities advantage from so deserving a Substitute. These Offices he supplied with such Ability and Integrity, That His Gracicious Master thought Him worthy to receive the Greatest Trust He possibly Can plant in Him, To be the Tutor and Educator of our Sovereign in His Minority, together with His Princely Brother. This Trust brought on Him the Honour of a Bishopric for His Reward, first Chichester, than Salisbury. Thus being lifted up Two Ascents by the bounty of His Old Master, He was easily raised to the Third by His Present Sovereign, The Bishopric of Winchester, in which He became Ex Officio Prelate of the Garter. That Honour being always annexed to This Office He so well Became, That None before Him Did, nor Any who follow can Better. For He was every way Qualified, both in the Comeliness of His Person, and the Gracefulness of His Deportment, and the Excellency of His Parts: All which Capacities rendered Him worthy the service of a Court, and every way fit to stand before Princes. Prov. 2●. ●9. He had this happiness, That from the very First Relation to those Tender years of His Gracious Sovereign during His Care and Tuition of Him, He held the same Degree and Station in His Favour, which never abated in the least measure, but continued to His Death. And as He was ever acceptable to the Presence of His Master whilst able to make His approaches to the Court: So when Infirmity (which confined Him to His Chamber) rendered Him fit only to be visited, He wanted not those Royal Visits made to Him by His Lord. Who though He could not say, as Christ to the Centurion imploring His Goodness to His sick servant, Ego veniens sanabo, I will come in presence to perform His Cure; Yet He performed the First part, Ego veniens, He came, not seldom neither, both to see Him in His weakness, and to comfort Him amidst His Pains. I must not omit to tell you, As once the King of Israel came to see the Dying Prophet Elisha, 2 King. 13.14. that he might take his Farewell, and with that Farewell a Blessing from One he never should see again: So did a Better King than He, the King of our Israel, repair to This dying Prelate a few hours before His Expiration, not only to See, but to require a Benediction from Him at Parting; which in the lowest Posture of Humility He besought. And let me tell you (not to Flatter Him) amongst His other Virtues, never was there a more affable Sweetness, or less Pride in so great a Prince. Both which He fairly expressed, when Kneeling down at the Bedside He begged His last Blessing, which He like Jacob on His Deathbed (and now as Dim-sighted as Jacob) with one Hand laid upon His Master's Head, Gen. 48.10. and the other lifted up to Heaven, He with a most Passionate Zeal Bestowed. And I Hope and Pray that, like the Last Blessing of Old Jacob pronounced over His Princely Son Judah, It shall remain in all Glorious Successes confirmed to Him. Gen. 49.10. That unto Him the People may be Gathered in all Loyalty, never seduced again to Run after the Seditious Trumpet of Those Sons of Bichri, 2 Sam. 20.1. who in these late Years usurped His Sceptre. That His Hand may be upon the Neck of His implacable Enemies, Gen 49 Verse 8. whom no Acts of favour or Indulgent Clemency can Reconcile: And lastly, that the Sceptre may not departed from Him and from His Royal Tribe until Shiloh come. Verse 9 I have very little more to say, Only tell you in addition to His former Honour, He was dignified with the Office of High Almoner, being entrusted with the bestowing His Majesty's Charity; which like a faithful Steward He so justly dispensed, That in evidence of His Integrity He Copied out that Office in his own Practice; Not only in His Legagacies to Christ-Church in Oxford and to Alsoules, to the Churches of Salisbury, of Chichester, and Winchester, But to a Famous Almehouse erected at His peculiar charge in Richmond, the place of His retirement, which stands a Conspicuous Monument and Memorial of Him whilst the World lasts. 'Tis well when our Good deeds follow us, but much better when they go before. In works of Charity performed whilst we live here we are God's immediate Almoners, what is done when we are Gone is more properly Our Executors than Ours. They are happy who by any hand bestow their Alms, but it is more honour and better sarisfaction when Our Charity needs no Executor but the Doners Hand to dispense, nor overseer but His own Eye. From His Charity you will easily Calculate His other Virtues. His Bounty was always eminent according to His ability; And when He came to be owner of a large and full Fortune He so well practised St. Paul's Lesson, 1 Tim. 3.2. A Bishop must be given to Hospitality, that in His generous way of living, to His own, and the Honour of His whole Order, He demonstrated That his Heart was no way undersized or too Narrow for His Fortune; Nor did He since His Advancement study the sordid Art of Gain, but rather how He might nobly Spend and Lay out what He got. His Disposition was most free & open, His Heart without close Angles or obliqne Corners: And in His long Relation to the Court had never studied that first Principle of the Court Grammar, Erasmus ●…gust. To speak one way and mean Another: Vbique sentires Illum hoc assici quod loquebatur, As Erasmus said of St. Augustine. His Learning was Great and General, and as Nicephorus Gregoras said of One, He was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. A walking Library: His Gifts in Preaching elegant and very excellent, yet not intended to delight the Ear, but to inform the Conscience. And I hearty wish Those elaborate Pieces of Devotion may not die with Him, but in their Publication remain amongst His other Legacies bequeathed to the World. I may apply to Him that Eulogy which Nazianzen bestows upon His Father, Gregor. N●ziarz●● Orat. in Landem Patris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was always so faithful to God in the service of His Church wherein He lived, that He never receded from His first Principles in any slackness either towards Her Doctrine or Her Discipline. Insomuch that His Sacred Majesty desirous to preserve the Succession of His English Church, & sensible of His Bishop's Decay, Most whereof were Dead, & Those Few who remained not likely to last long, was pleased to commit this Trust principally to His Solicitation. In discharge whereof how industrious He was, some who yet live know, and none better than Myself, who was His only associate in several travels undertaken to bring it to effect. 'Tis true, divers ways were propounded, yet all found dangerous, Under the Inquisition we then lived, both to the Undertakers and the Actors. His Majesty therefore at last thought of a safer & more certain Expedient, to call over to Him Two of the remaining Bishops, Bp. ●●●●hall now L. Primate of Armach. who joined to a worthy Praelate residing with Him in His Exile might Canonically Consecrate some of Those eminently deserving Divines who then attended Him; Thus Preserving the Order in a Few, until God gave opportunity to fill up the Other Vacancies. This desire was by a trusty Messenger sent over by His Majesty communicated only to Five; Rom. 11.31. whereof (I shall not Magnify my Office to say) Myself was One, who in the integrity of my Conscience can profess that in the willing acceptance of this Summons I never declined any hazard when I might do the King my Master or the Church Service. But great Age and greater Infirmity denying the concurrence of any One of the Rest (though otherwise most ready) that design fell: And God hath in the Miraculous Restoration of His Sacred Majesty Restored the Church to that Luster wherein (blessed be His Name) you now see it. He in whose presence I here stand bears me record, I mention not these Circumstances to any other End than my Sovereign's Honour; For it is not fit so meritorious an Act should be concealed and smothered, but that all might take notice how Careful He was to Preserve and Support the Church, at that Time when in His Exiled condition He could not well Support Himself. To conclude; This worthy Person now gone before us, often professed to Me, that He desired only Two Blessings in this World, and then He should cheerfully sing His Nunc Dimittis, Depart in Peace; To see the King His Gracious Masters Return unto His Throne, And the Churches happy Restitution to Her Rights. God gave Him the desire of His Lips: He lived to see Both, And, in a good old Age, full of Days, having completed Seaventy and three years, Psal. 90.10 (which is above the Standard of Humane Life in Moses his Calculation,) with some few days over. He exchanged His Painful Life for an everlasting Rest. Leaving His Virtues to be Imitated by Those that can, And His Loss to be Lamented by All who are left behind. God for his Mercies sake grant, Our Death may be so Precious in His sight, That when the Eyes which see us now, must see us no more, We may with These Eyes of Ours Eternally see Our Redeemer in His Kingdom. Amen. FINIS.