A SERMON Preached at St. MARTIN'S in the FIELDS, AT THE FUNERAL Of the Reverend Doctor HARDY, Dean of Rochester, June 9 th'. 1670.  
By Richard Meggott, D. D. Rector of St Olaves Southwark, and one of His Majesty's Chaplains in Ordinary.  
London, Printed by E. Tyler and R. Holt, for Joseph Clark, at the Star in Little Britain, 1670.   

To the Nobility, Gentry, and other Inhabitants of the Parish of St. MARTIN'S in the FIELDS.  
Right Honourable, Worthy and Beloved,  
WHen Epistles of this Nature are so much in Fashion, that all Things in Print are thought undressed, if they are without them; I hope I shall not be censured for this to You now: Because it is not an Affectation of Great Patrons, nor an overweening Opinion of a thin Discourse, but only the Condition and Relation of the Person, who was the Occasion of it, hath given me the Presumption. You all had a Common Right in Him, and he a Peculiar Interest in so many of You, that in this Case to have addressed to any One, might have been Interpreted to have forgotten Several.  
It is Pity that a Diamond should be set in Lead. Can I have had my Desires, this Excellent Person should have had a Proportionable Penicil to have drawn Him, than You could not but have begged His Picture, as Joseph of Arimathea did his Master's Body: But I had neither Art nor Time for such a Piece; This is so much fit to be covered with a Curtain, than hung out in Public View, that I am surprised either that you should expect it, or I permit it.  
I am not insensible that there want not some who are very industrious to represent Him very differently; Concerning whom I shall say no more, than that there are such Things, as Envy, Pride, and Spite, which like Smoak always fly in the Faces of the fairest: But while such as give him a slighty Character shall approve themselves more Serviceable to the Church, and such as give Him an ill one shall appear to be without any Fault themselves, I think they are neither to be wondered at nor regarded.  
I might have said much more to his Commendation, which was true: I appeal to his most Venomous Enemies, whether any thing I did say was false. That Passage concerning his Conference with Doctor Hammond, which some I hear have much questioned, I had from his own Mouth: as to that Objection against it, that he Preached before the Lords that sat at Westminster afterwards, if the Design of that Sermon, and the Temper of those Times, be well considered of, it is rather an Argument to confirm it.  
The best, and surely the greatest part of you are so well persuaded of Him, that such Vindications as these are unnecessary for your satisfaction: Lest they should be burdensome to your Patience, My Prayers that you may all live holily as He directed, and die happily as he desired, is all that shall be added by His unworthy Fellow servant,  
Your Servant in things appertaining unto God, RICHARD MEGGOTT.   
Job 14.14. Later Part. 
All the Days of my Appointed Time will I wait till my Change come.  
IT is a sad Change, a sad and sudden Change, This which hath now Assembled us; a strong man hath changed his vigorous health for rottenness; a Reverend Divine hath changed his frequented Pulpit for a Coffin; an Eloquent Orator hath changed his charming Rhetoric for Silence; a shining Star hath changed his Eminent Orb for the Grave and Darkness. And had I waved all Text but him, here had been Theme enough to have entertained your passionate and devout Attentions.  
This was the Ancients usual practice upon such Solemnities: Thus Nazienzen in his Funeral Oration for St. Basil, St. Ambrose in his for his Brother Satyrus; St. Bernard in his for Gerard, spend their whole discourses in the lamenting and commendation of the Parties that were deceased.  
But Christians are now grown so much worse, and the hearts of men so hardened, that Charity hath laid a necessity upon us of doing something else; and the danger of them we are to speak to, compelleth us to borrow the greatest part of that Time which was formerly employed in the Embalming of the Dead for the Benefit of the Living.  
Before therefore I attempt any account of him, whose great change is come, I shall make my Address to you whose change is to come, that you would prepare and provide for it. To this end it is I present you with this fair Copy to write after, this Excellent Example to follow, [Holy Job] whose Practice and Language in the Case you have in the Words I have now read; All the Days of my Appointed Time will I wait till my Change come.  
The Text falleth asunder of itself into two Generals; Here is Job's Dissolution and his Resolution.  
His Dissolution in these Words, My change will come.  
His Resolution to fit himself for it before it come, in these: All the days of my appointed time will I wait for it.  
But that we may the better come at it, I shall choose rather to Branch it into these three Particulars.  

1. Here is the term of man's life stinted, it is an appointed time.  
2. Here is the Nature of Death intimated; It is that which maketh an Alteration, a huge Alteration, when it cometh; It is a change.   
Lastly, Here is our Duty and Employment bespoke in one for the other; in life to make ourselves ready for death: All our days to wait for it. All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.  
The first of these Severals is the stinted term of man's Life. It is an appointed time. Although the Chaldee Paraphrast rendereth it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Vulgar Latin militiae, the days of my warfare; yet when the choicest Masters of Words confess that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is also often used as Synonimous with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 finis, extremum: And the Hebrew Scholiasts expound it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tempus praecisum, I shall adhere to our own Translation, which calleth the Days of our abode here in this World, an appointed time.  
An appointed time. It is but time at the most. The Inhabitants of the intellectual World, whether they be in Weale or Woe, Peace or Torment, have no varying nor shadow of change with them: Upon this account in some Parts of Africa they put their dead Bodies into the Ground sitting, a posture of rest and stay, to show that what ever place they were gone to then, they should never move nor stir more from it. But we are here on Earth upon other terms; this is only for a time, and then we must departed from it. The Fathers, do they live for ever? And the Prophets, where are they? Joseph is not, and Simeon is not; and we (alas!) must not we go also? Our time is  
Appointed. He that fashioned and framed our Bodies, hath not observed just the same hand in all, but hath made them with provident and wise Differences: Some are strong as Iron, others as brittle as Glass; This hath the toughness of the Oak, that the slightiness of the Reed: In one the Temperament of the Humours is more adjusted, in another more unequal, according to the duration he did intent them for. What is the reason that in the same Climate, Air, Diet, Exercise; Terentia liveth to 103 Years of Age, when her Sister Fulvia dieth at 27? Gesippus with all the care and helps of Art can be preserved no longer than 35. when Thanicus lasted while above 80? Whence (I say) ordinarily is this diversity, but from the diversity of their natural constitutions? God according to his design of our longer or shorter continuance here, giving to every one of us a body as it pleaseth him: This is the natural term of life, called by the Schools, the Time of God's Determination; so long men may live.  
Not that every one liveth just so long, and dieth no sooner: No, this course of Nature is often violated and prevented: Some die penally, by the Magistrate's Sentence; some die desperately, making away themselves; some die sottishly, by their own intemperance; some die mercifully, are taken away from the evil to come. Although none can live longer than this time, yet it is very common to die sooner; although they are Bounds which we cannot pass, yet they are such as we may fall short of.  
The reaching of this Term it is not absolute, but conditional; it is promised as a Blessing to Piety and Public Virtue, Ex. 23.25, 26. Ye shall serve the Lord your God, etc. And I will take sickness away from the midst of thee, etc. The number of thy days I will fulfil. Thy days, those which are thy first portion, thou shalt fulfil them: On the other hand it is threatened as a Curse to disorderly and wicked men, Psal. 55.23. That they shall not live out half their days: Theirs, those which otherwise they might have attained and arrived to. And this is the actual Term of life usually called the time of God's foreknowledge.  
Not that in any case whensoever, wheresoever, howsoever we go out of the World, the purpose of God is made of none effect, or his appointment disappointed: No, for the bounds which he hath set us they are not fatally immovable: Then all care in this case would prove as impertinent as Beverovitius objected his Calling: but only possibly attainable as appeareth by the enforcement of the fifth Commandment, and the case of Hezekiah. Upon susposition of, and with respect to, means and conditions it is, that our time is appointed. And that shall suffice to have been spoken to the first Part of the Text, the bounds of our life upon Earth: How and upon what account it is an appointed time. We now go on to consider what becometh of us, when this time is out and expired, as it followeth in my  
Next Particular: A change will come. This good man had experienced very many changes already: A change in his Estate, from abundant Wealth to Poverty; a change in his Family, from numerous Sons and Daughters to be Childless; a change in his Person, from Health and soundness of Body to Diseases and painful Sores; but he here expecteth another change, much greater and stranger than any of them. We may more than guess what that is, when we find the same word, Prov. 31.8. is rendered Destruction, and St. Paul, 1 Cor. 15.51. useth the Phrase for our Passage into the other World, We shall all be changed. Accordingly Codurcus here translateth it, obitus my death shall come; And so (abate very few who think it may refer to the Restitution of his former Prosperity) the generality both of Jewish Interpreters, and our own have expounded it, viz. of his death, and that which shall succeed it, his resurrection.  
This he here calleth his change, in a peculiar manner, my change, as if all his other changes were nothing to it. This is a change, a mighty change indeed: wicked men change for the worse; righteous men change for the better; both righteous and wicked undergo a change, a wonderful change, and that in four Particulars.  
First, it changeth our Enjoyments, for things of a quite different kind and species. All these visible things which here we prise, and are so fond of, disappear and have no place by it, Jam linquenda domus & tellus, etc.  
There Nabal hath no Sheep to shear, nor Ahab Vineyard to take possession of: There Samson hath no Dalilah to lie in the lap of, nor Belshazar bowls to carouse and revel in: There Agrippa and Berenice have no Train to attend them; nor is the rich man clothed with his Purple and fine Linen. The Spirit that is not purged and elevated above the fascinating Charms of these, that can taste and relish nothing higher, how discontented must it wander, seeking rest and finding none, when it cometh into these Regions. Esau might as well have taken Ship, to have hunted for Venison upon the Waves of the Ocean; or Peter have cast his Net to catch Fish, in the Wilderness or upon the Mountains; as to expect any gross or sensual things in the life that is hereafter. There all is spiritual and of another nature; That is a first change that Death maketh, a change of our Enjoyments.  
Secondly, A change it is, in respect of our Capacity; it changeth that also. Here the wicked is capable of Mercy, and the unconverted solicited to Repentance: Here the Golden Sceptre is held out, and the Door of Hope set open: But men had need take heed of wanton trifling: For though now God treat with us, than he will only judge us. Death is the longest date of the Gospel Proclamation, and after that our state is irreversable. Now God standeth at our doors and knocketh; but if we open not, then, though we stand at his door and knock, he will answer I know you not: Herodotus telleth us, that when the Jonians, who before had refused a Peace with Cyrus, afterwards in their extremity made addresses to him, he told them this Parable: That a Musician playing a long time to the Fish that were in the River, seeing they came not at him, fling in a Net and caught them: to whom, as they lay panting upon the Bank, he crieth out, you should have danced before, it is too late now. Let this be thought on while you are in better Circumstances; that although now God delighteth not in the death of a sinner, yet than he will laugh at his calamity: Although now he beseecheth to be reconciled, yet than he will be inexorable: For that is another change that Death maketh, a change of our capacity.  
Thirdly, A change it is, in respect of our condition, it changeth that also. Here it is, like ourselves, compounded; and partaketh both of good and evil. No state here so sweet but hath something to embitter it; nor is there any so embittered, but there is something to sweeten it. The Rose hath prickles, and the Nettle beareth a Flower on it. But when once the soul hath trod over the threshold of this Body, and is out of doors; what ever be our portion there, there will be no mixture in it. In Heaven there is pure Joy without any Sorrow: In Hell pure Sorrow without any Joy. They that are in Heaven will have nothing to disturb them; They that are in Hell will have nothing to divert them. It is of infinite importance what becometh of us when we go from hence, for there is no deprecating one of Agur's Extremes: The weight of glory, it is an exceeding weight, and the burden of wrath, it is a burden too heavy for us to bear. Here the righteous taste of the Joys of the Holy Ghost, but it is only as Jonathan did Honey in the Wilderness, a little thereof at the end of a Rod: Here the wicked may be chastised by God's Anger, but it is only as the Ten Tribes were by Jeroboam, with Rods and not with Scorpions: but in the other life, both mercy and fury will be in their Zenith, and have no restraint, but only the capacity of the Objects they are let out upon.  
Lastly, A change it is, in respect of our continuation. We are here but for a time, an appointed time: But wheresoever we go after Death it is for Eternity. Whether we are placed among the Sheep or the Goats; Whether we are to be crowned or burned, it is to be for ever; The Joy is an everlasting Joy, and the Punishment is everlasting Punishment: The Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and the Fire is everlasting Fire: The Life is everlasting Life, and the Destruction is an everlasting Destruction. The Ancients did use to represent this sometimes by the Hieroglyphic of a round Ring that hath no end in it: Sometimes of a boundless Ocean that hath no Shores to it: Sometimes of a Hydra's Head that groweth as fast as it is cut: Sometimes of a running Fountain that springeth as fast as it floweth; but all these come strangely short of it. Arithmetic hath her Figures to cast up the Sums of Numbers, Astronomy her Instruments to take the height of Stars, Mariners their. Plumets to sound the depth of the Seas; But what Invention can reach the height and depth and length and breadth of an unlimited Eternity? We may here take up the Words of Zophar in another case; It is as high as Heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than Hell, what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the Earth, and broader than the Sea. O Eternity! Eternity! the Line of our Fancy is too short to reach thee! We can imagine nothing to which we can resemble thee! A thousand, thousand, thousand Years are in thy sight but as Yesterday when it is past, and as a Watch in the Night! And into this Eternity do every one of us launch out, as soon as we shoot the Gulf of Death. Now it being such a change, so long a one, so important a one, so irremediable a one, so strong a one, which we all must undergo, had we not need to provide and prepare for it; and this is the  
Last Particular, our Duty and Employment in order to it, to fit and make ourselves ready for it; All our days to wait till it come: All the days of my appointed time will I wait: and here you have three Things couched in the Expression.  
First, Here is his pious Meditation of it, so the Vulgar readeth it, expectabo, he doth not put it far from him, but doth expect and look for it. Machiavelli in his Prince relateth of Caesar Borgia, whose Design was to make himself Lord of Italy, that he told them who were about him in his last sickness, how he had contrived all his Affairs in order to it: He had subjugated Romania, won over the Chief of both Factions the Vrsin and the Colonois to be his Creatures, he had cut off Messier Romiro's Head, made Alliance with the Spaniard, and in short foreseen and prevented all the Inconveniencies that could lie in his way, but only Death; which he said he never dreamt or imagined would have come so soon on him. Sure there is no oversight among men more common than this, to suppose Death farther off from them than indeed it is. If our forgetting Death would make Death forget us, we might pretend some Policy for it; but seeing it is a change, a change where the time is as uncertain, as the thing is unavoidable, what greater Folly! You that would avoid the Horrors of it when it cometh, familiarize to your thoughts before it cometh; so doth Holy Job here, and that is a first thing employed in his waiting, his awful Meditation of it.  
Secondly, It speaketh his comfortable Apprehensions of it. Waiting it is a cheerful Word, and argueth satisfaction in, and want of the thing we wait for. Aquila Theod. & Sym. read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, I will hope. Death like the Planet Mercury, it hath its Influence according as it is in Conjunction: Although upon evil men it hath a Malignant one, it being a Trap door whereby they fall into irrecoverable Misery; yet upon them that are good, it hath a benign one; it is a Golden Gate, through which they enter into Glory. Like St. James' unimaginable Fountain, it sendeth forth both sweet Waters and bitter; Although to the impenitent it sendeth forth bitter Waters, Tribulation and Anguish and Wrath: Yet to the pious it sendeth forth sweet ones, Glory and Honour and Immortality. And suitable to these two different Effects, the Children of men are differently affected with it; For although the ungodly are astonished at it, as at the approach of their Executioner; when Saul heareth he must die on the Morrow, as stout and valiant as he was, the Story telleth us, he fell all along on the Earth and was sore afraid; Yet the Godly they welcome it, as their Friend and Benefactor: St. Paul hath a desire to departed, and Holy Job speaketh of it as that which he longed for, I will wait.  
Once more, it speaketh his careful Preparation in order to it. I will wait, is as much as I will get me ready for it: And is there not need when it is above the reach of Words how much dependeth upon it? What Tragic Shrieks, what fearful Cries have some awakened Consciences sent out when they have found themselves surprised by it? O that I might live, said a Great Man of this Kingdom (when his Physician had given him over) O that I might live, if it were but in a loathsome Dungeon! O that I might live, if it were but the Life of a Toad, that I might have a space for my Repentance! Inducias domine usque ad mane, said the Young Man in St. Gregory, Lord spare me! but a little, little while, but while to Morrow Morning; but while I say my Prayers once more! and so expired in Horrors. Death will not wait for us, though we are unprepared; how doth it behoove us then to wait for it, and prepare for it? To wait for it with a considering Prospect? To wait for it with a circumspect Care? To wait for it with Oil in our Lamps? To wait for it with our Garments girt about us.  
And this not to be put off to one of these Days, not to be deferred while the latter end of our Days, not to be neglected while the evil Days come, but all our days. Our whole Life should have an habitual serious respect to it; doing every thing that may make it comfortable, keeping aloof from every thing that may make it formidable. Let us accost every Action as those Mariners that were going to Execution did the Emperor, morituri te salutant. You may die while you are thinking, die while you are visiting, die while you are talking, die while you are trading, die while you are sinning. Do therefore every Action as if it were your last, and live every day as those that know not whether you shall live another.  
This is the way to make your change, whensoever it shall come, to be a happy one; and whereas the lose and profane, the carnal and the debauch, change their Mirth and Jollity for anguish and gnashing of Teeth; Their Confidence and stupidity for Tremble and confused Distractions; Their Acquaintance and Companions for Devils and mischievous Spirits; their Gauds and Ornaments for flames and chains of Darkness: Your change shall be for the better: You shall change Frailty for Immortality, and Infirmity for Perfection: You shall change this troublsome World for the Jerusalem that is above, and the Society of corrupter Creatures, for the Church of the Firstborn which is in Heaven, and the Spirits of just men made perfect. Nay, even our Bodies that now at present change for the worse, from Beauty to Deformity, from Strength to Rottenness: Even these vile Bodies after a while shall be changed also, changed into the Likeness of Christ's glorious Body, to be shining as the Stars, hail as the Cherubin, and reunited to our Souls for ever, both together to enjoy the Presence of God and Pleasures for evermore. Which God of his Mercy grant us.  
I have done with the Text: But know there is another Subject you expect to hear something of: This Eminent Instrument, this useful Ornament of the Church, Our Reverend and Dear Brother, whose Funerals we are now celebrating: And here I am in a Strait between two, having much Objection both against speaking and being silent; To say nothing of him were to be injurious to his Worth by concealing it, and for me to say any thing will be the same, by underreaching it. When this Office is to be done for Dean Hardy; It is not fit that any but the Tongue of a Dean Hardy should have the doing it. I am in Phleton's case, who when he was to perform the Rites of Burial to the Body of the Great Agesilaus had no Honey; And with him must be forced to make use of Wax instead of it; Giving you a dry and naked Narrative for want of a sweeter and more proper Panegyric.  
HIs Birth as appeareth by that Sermon of his Preached to his Fellow Natives, and that other upon the burning of it, was in London; where his pious and careful Parents gave him all the Advantages of Education. A quick Apprehension and strong Memory helped him to his Learning with so much speed and ease, that he commenced Master of Arts in the University of Oxford, younger than many are admitted. So well furnished he then was with all those Abilities which might render him serviceable in the Church, that time was dispensed with, and he admitted into Holy Orders, several Years before the Canon Standard: And sooner than the Laws would have put the dispencing an Estate into his Hands; Such a one was He, that it was thought fit to put the dispencing the Mysteries of God there.  
That extraordinary which Tully mentioneth of Hortensius, that he pleaded in the Forum with great Applause, when he was but Nineteen Years Old; in him was more than paralleled, who when very little over, was a Preacher of Esteem, in, and about our Metropolis.  
Such was his Pregnancy: But instead of admiring this, I cannot but (rather) condole it as his Infelicity: For so it proved. The Subtle Faction that had great Occasion for such Parts as his were, in the Game they were then in playing, by their wont Arts of Insinuation set themselves to compass him: And the Bird was then so young, that with their Chaff they caught him. But it were both Unchristian and disingenuous for any to reproach his Memory with this, when every one knoweth he made such early and sincere amends for it: Nor can I suppose that any will upbraid it that he was so once, but only those that are angry he was not so always. He was none of those, the opening of whose Eyes is just of the same Age with his Majesty's Glorious Restauration; No, when Rebellion was Rampant, and Schism Triumphant; when Loyalty was condemned for Treason, and all Order in the Church bawled down for Antichristian; Then, than he left the Tents of those too prosperous men, and returned to his Duty, when there was nothing but Conscience to encourage him.  
Being at Uxbridge when the Treaty was there, he had the Happiness to be brought into the Company of that Hammer of all Innovation both Ecclesiastical and Civil, the never to be mentioned without Veneration, Doctor Hammond; and to his Solid Arguments, and Awful Advices, I have heard our deceased Brother say, he owed his first awakenings and reducing.  
He shown that he was converted himself, after a while; by improving all Opportunities for the strengthening of his Brethren: Not only in Private but in Public, with Courage and Faithfulness, reproving the Usurpation, Oppression, Perjury, Sacrilege, Hypocrisy, and the rest of the reigning Sins of those Times of Violence and Madness. I need not insist upon these Things, they were not done in a Corner, but in the Heart of England's chiefest City: And when the generality of the Pulpits there, poured out little but Noise or angry Nonsense, War or Enthusiastic Humour, His was a well of Water, where many an honest Jacob drank, himself, and his Children and his Servants, and were refreshed; Some being undeceived, and many confirmed by him.  
But that Magnanimous Zeal which he shown against the Murder of our Late Sovereign of Glorious Memory, ought not to be Buried in Oblivion: He not only gave warning against it, openly, and earnestly, while that daring Wickedness was but an Embryo: But every Year after on that Sunday which fell nearest the Black Day it was committed on; He failed not in his Prayers to deprecate, and in his Sermon composed for the Occasion to demonstrate, and bewail the Gild of it.  
Thus he continued while the Happy 1660. When he reaped the temporal Rewards of his conscientious Loyalty. In all which he acted Worthily: He had a Public Spirit, and hath left the Prints of it upon his several Preferments: Invenit Lateritia, reliquit Marmorea: They are all the better for him.  
In this Place he found a House, scarce one in these Parts so Ruinous, which, all, by his means, much, at his Charge, is re-edified, and so improved, that now there is scarce one so fair and goodly.  
At his Deanery, he found the Cathedral with the Stamps of the Reformation upon it, waist and much spoil; This by the industrious Employment of his Great Interest in the Gentry of that County, added to seven thousand pound, which he and the Chapter disbursed freely, he repaired, and adorned in some good measure.  
At Leyborn, a Living he was but a little while possessed of, He findeth the same occasion for his Munificence and Benefacture, a ruinous House again: And that found him the same; He hath well repaired it although it was a Place where his Circumstances (if God had given him longer Life) would not have allowed him to have made any stay, yet his Successors Good was a sufficient Motive to him.  
As he made his Preferments better, so his Preferments did not make him worse; He continued the same, the same humble, affable, obliging Person, he was, in his least Condition. Yea, to the confutation of the clamorous Rabble, he was the same constant diligent Preacher. Insomuch that I think I may adventure to say, there was not a Lords Day where ever he was, whereon (if Sickness hindered him not) he was not at lest once in the Pulpit.  
God grant them as much Grace, as they have cause, to repent, who have any way maliciously aspersed him. For although I am not so partial as to believe him without his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (let the that escape all themselves, cast Stones at him) Yet as to grosser Miscarriages I am highly persuaded, that not Truth and Reality, but Rage and Design were the movimenta Mechanica, that set their Tongues in going.  
Not only Charity, but common Reason thinketh no evil, where it findeth Evidences of Good: And in him were very many. In his Behaviour in his Family, He was a Joshua, He and his House serving the Lord: Daily, Morning and Evening, worshipping, with the Solemn Devotions of the Liturgy. In his sense of Mercies, He was an Hezekiah, writing upon the Wall, when he was recovered of his great Sickness, and every one of the Years after, that God added to his Life, He kept that Day on which it seized him religiously in Fasting and Prayer. In his Converse and Friendship, he was a Nathaniel, one in whom there was no Guile; Cordial and faithful without Baseness or low Dissimulation. In his Preaching, the Court, the City, the Country, all from Dan unto Beersheba, know, he was an Apollo's, an Eloquent Man, and mighty in the Scriptures.  
Such was this Worthy Person, who on the 28 th'. of May last past, was taken suddenly, and fatally. In a moment, quantum mutatus ab illo! How strange a change was there! That Head, which was the tenacious Receptacle of so much useful Learning, is now the stupefied Seat of a Disease: Those Eyes, which had read through so many sorts of Books, cannot now by any means be kept open: That Tongue, which dropped things sweeter than the Honycomb, cannot now pronounce an ordinary Sentence: That Person, whom so many of all Degrees and Ranks of People so rejoiced to see, is now become a sad and doleful Spectacle.  
His Distemper being of such a Nature, you cannot look for any thing from him in his Sickness: For though he had his Apprehension (which he discovered when any thing was said to him, and in a very particular manner, when Prayers were put up for him) yet he had not Expression: He could not so much as make a Will, or call his dearest Friends by their Names.  
Thus he lay notwithstanding all the Care and Art of the great Aesculapius of this Age, his Condition being more and more hopeless, while the First of June at Night, when, to the Grief of his Friends, the Loss of the Church, but (I hope) the great Gain and Joy of Himself, his great change came, and he fell asleep.  
And now he is gone to his Long Home, how many Mourners go about the Streets. I need not here break out into David's Apostrophes at the death of Saul, to beg Lamentations or publish a Brief for Tears, perhaps no man of his Quality and Station have had more to weep over him: His disconsolate Widow weepeth, that She hath lost so Dear and Tender a Husband. You of St. Martin's weep, that you have lost so Able and beloved a Pastor. The Poor and necessitous weep, that they have lost so importunate and effectual an Advocate. His crowding Auditors from all Parts weep, that they have lost so practical and melting a Preacher. His Friends and Acquaintance weep, that they have lost— But I must forbear: This is but to open the Flood Gates to a soft and troublesome Passion.  
We must improve such Providences as these to more manly and Christian Purposes. You that loved him (and who that knew him did not?) You that loved him must show greater and better Tokens of it. You that loved him, stand fast in the Truth, which he delivered to you; being dead he yet speaketh, that ye henceforth be no more Children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of Doctrine. You that loved him, mortify all the Lusts which he so pathetically did forewarn you of; Remember the Words that he spoke unto you while he was yet with you. You that loved him, exercise all the Graces, perform all the Duties, which he so faithfully did exhort you to, knowing that you all among whom he came, Preaching the Kingdom of God, shall see his Face no more. Finally, you that loved him, prepare to follow him; Let the Meditation of his so sudden change be one Motive to all the rest which you have, All the Days of your appointed time 〈◊〉 wait for your own. That so he, and we, are all the Children of God, who now at sundry times and in divers manners are parted sorrowfully, may meet together again joyfully, to enjoy the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one another, for ever and ever.  
Unto this King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the Only wise God, be Honour and Glory for ever and ever, Amen.  
FINIS.