FUNERALS MADE CORDIALS: IN A SERMON Prepared and (in part) Preached at the solemn Interment of the Corpse of the Right Honourable  
ROBERT RICH, Heir apparent to the Earldom of WARWICK. (Who aged 23. died Febr. 16. at Whitehall, and was honourably buried March 5. 1657. at Felsted in Essex.)  
By JOHN GAUDEN, D. D. of Bocking in Essex.  Therefore I hated life,— for all is vanity and vexation of spirit, Eccles. 2.17. But the things that are not seen are eternal, 2 Cor. 4.18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plato. 
LONDON, Printed by T. C. for Andrew Crook, and are to be sold at the Green Dragon in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1658.   

TO The Right Honourable the Lady FRANCES RICH.  
Madam,  
THough I am justly tender of exasperating so vehement and unfeigned a grief as your Ladyship hath constantly expressed to the noble Mr. Rich (both living and languishing, dying and dead) by my applying any such Balsam as may seem to renew your wound and pain; yet knowing that your Ladyship's greatest comforts (next those of divine infusion) arise from those proportions which your just sorrows bear to your generous affections, which are now become the occasion and measure of your affliction, I thought it would neither be offensive to your honour, nor unbeseeming my respects, if I justified your exceeding grief, by representing to the world how diservedly you have loved, and how worthily you have mourned, for that Gentleman, of whose honour and happiness (even from his infancy) I was most seriously ambitious.  
Hence it is that I have adventured to dedicate to your Name this Funeral Cordial, which was first devoted to adorn the Christian Interment, and revive the honoured Name of your dear Husband; that since You lived not long together in your marriage, yet You might, at least, be inseparable in this monument: which aims not to add any further secular pomp to his dust, much less to gratify the impertinent curiosity of this or after ages, touching his life, sickness, disease, or death, but rather to advance the glory of God in his unsearchable ways; also to summon such as yet survive him to consider their latter ends, that they may betimes, even in youth remember their Creator, and apply their hearts to true saving and eternal wisdom.  
To these great and good ends I presume your Ladyship's passionate piety will permit me to improve so sad a dispensation of providence, whose aspect not only looks to your Ladyship, but to all that stand within the view, reach and terror of so sharp a stroke, which deserves to be so far laid to heart by all spectators, until they find their hearts mollified and mended through that gracious virtue, which may by fear of death and grief for sin make way for faith in Christ and love of God. Certainly a penitent and pious use is the best that can be made of such dreadful monitions; that no seeming splendour of prosperity, no vain confidences of youth and life, no cumulations of worldly contents, no momentary honours and imaginary pleasures should either blind or divert any of us from daily taking a serious prospect of our sins and our souls, of our death and judgement, of our God and Saviour: Nothing in all my life's observation (except one unparallelled instance) hath ever fallen out of more pregnant and potent influence, to abate the presumption of human vanity, worldly confidence, and earthly glory, than the sudden Eclipse and fall of this great Star, which was but lately risen to its lustre and conspicuity. The contemplation of his so early death is no small warning to us, that are yet living, especially to those, who most dally with death, while they affect a dilatory indifferency as to any practice of repentance and true piety; being afraid of nothing so much as of being good too soon, as if they could be too soon in a capacity of happiness.  
I know the folly and madness of many, who have had not only ingenuous but religious breeding, is usually such, that though they please themselves in being civil and accomplist toward men, yet they make no scruple of being neglective, rude, affrontive, yea insolent toward God, and therein cruel to their own souls, forgetting (at once) both their moment and God's eternity: which desperate frolic usually holds with many, not only during the adventurous extravagancies of their youth and spring (which is the chief hour of temptation and power of darkness) but it extends by the hardening habits and deceitfulness of our sinful hearts to our Autumn and decline; God knows our vicious accesses to the vanities, and inordinacies of life are early and speedy; but our gracious recesses in order to an holy life and happy death are very flow and late if ever, unless special grace prevent the best of nature, and God's good Spirit perfect the best of our educations.  
Madame, I writ not at this rate, out of a Censorian vanity to reproach others; but out of an humble sense of my own infirmities; and out of a Christian sympathy to others impendent miseries. Alas 'tis too evident that many persons (otherways of excellent & useful parts) do live amidst the offers of eternal life, and the terrors of eternal death, as if they had never laid to heart, either their own or any others death; no nor the death of their blessed Saviour; by the price of whose blood they have been both meritoriously & Sacramentally, redeemed from their vain conversation; It is both a sad and shameful thing to consider, that the least and last thoughts of many (titularly Christians) are devoted to their God, their Saviour and their Souls. These grand concernments are late, unwelcome, and but hardly admitted after the surfeits of sensual pleasures, the crowds and pester of worldly affairs, the importunities of ambitious designs, and other busy vanities, which so engross the whole man and time, that there is little place allowed in most men's and women's hearts, or space in their lives (which are always upon the confines and brink of death) for that great point of wisdom and work of salvation, which consists in beginning betimes to resist and retrench those evils to which our depraved hearts do naturally prompt us; that so we might with greater speed and less impediment advance to that Supreme and immutable good to which as we are invited and beseeched by the tender mercies and love of God in Christ, so by the principles of true reason and religion, and no less by the real interests of our own safety, honour, and eternal felicity.  
The promoting of all which being my main design in publishing this grave piece, I hope both your Ladyship's great sadness and passion, and my own deep resentments for the dead, may be sufficient Apology for my freedom both of tongue and pen toward the living: not only my natural genius prompting me, but my conscience commanding me (specially in public and sacred remonstrances) to speak and write out, that is, to use such honest Parrhesie as will least smother wholesome truths or flatter secure sins. Nothing is more deformed then parasitick preachers, or mealymouthed Ministers: He that speaketh or writeth (which is a silent preaching, a speech without noise, or words without a voice) in Christ's name and authority to sinful and secure mortals had need be in very good earnest, fervent in spirit, unflattering in speech, charitably serious, yea kindly severe, with all meekness of wisdom. For Preachers of the Gospel are ordained of God to be Antiparasites, purposely to cross and encounter that pleasing but pernicious humour in mankind, which loves to deceive and flatter, even to the death, both themselves and others: the itching sores which others love to scratch, we must wound that we may heal them; and if ever we (the so despised Ministers of Christ) dare to own ourselves in our authority and commission (which is divine, or none) it should be at Funerals, when standinng, as it were, upon the Tombs and urns of the dead, we have more then ordinarily the higher ground above the the living; all whose pleasures, profits, pride, power, and pomp should be then like the Moon under our feet, when (as Gods Heralds, or lesser Angels) we summon all that hear or read us to Death and Judgement: the due and timely preparing for which is the great lesson Ministers have to preach and people to practise. For which purpose I have used such pathetic freedom of expressing myself, as may (by God's blessing) be useful and so acceptable to many, but justly offensive to none, that either are truly wise or would be good and happy in God's way and method, which is grace and holiness.  
The ensuing discourse is now (as your Honour easily perceives) much enlarged beyond the Horary limits of a Sermon, exceeding in length wosi of the ancient Orations; I wish it might equal them in usefulness, weight and worth. For in recollecting and ruminating my meditations, they easily multiplied, and in transcribing my notes as I had prepared them, I added with Baruch (Jer. 36.32.) many like words to what I had preached and had penned, but omitted, being necessarily and so excusably contracted in the Pulpit, but now more dilated in the Press, according to my own design and the desire of others, who have a great empire over me; What then was in my preaching more massive and rough hewn than I intended, I have now malleated and polished, not only to an ampler, but I hope to a more august proportion. That it may be somewhat answerable to those great respects of love and honour which I have not only to this noble Gentleman, but to his honourable Relations, and particularly to his most virtuous Mother; The few years of whose mortal life, as he oft foretold (in my hearing) he should not exceed, so he did not attain to equal them; God verifying his presages by his immature death; being so far distant from his excellent Mother that she might be said to die in her April, but he (her only child) in the February of his age, as many years sooner as a month hath weeks. Due regard to both their memories, also to Your Ladyship's honour, who had nearest relation to him, and so greatest affection for him. These, next my highest and more religious designs, may I hope, not only excuse the gravity and prolixity of this Epistle to so young a Lady, but also patronise my thus publishing myself (Madam)  
Your HONOURS most humble Servant J. GAUDEN. March 15. 1657.   

The ERRATA thus to be mended.  
PAge 3. line 23. read stone for sin, p. 4. l. 14. r. millenary of wives and concubines. p. 15. l. 20. r. revolve for resolve. p. 23. l. 27. r. wasting for washing. p. 52. l. 36. r. convictions for corrections. p. 58. l. 25. r. immoderate for moderate. p 105. l. 28. r. O my for to my. l 34. hlot out, the experience. p. 120. l. 6. r. parcreatis. l. 16. r. Inter. l. 17. r. scrophulosae.   

Books published by Dr. Gauden.  
A Defence of the Ministry of England.— Of Tithes. Three Sermons upon public occasions.   

FUNERALS MADE CORDIALS.  ECCLES. 7.1. 
It is better to go to the house of mourning then to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men: And the living will lay it to his heart.  
YOu have hitherto (right Honourable and Christian Auditors) either added to the Solemnity of this Funeral, by the honour of your presence and attendance, or enjoyed the pomp and ceremony of it as civil spectators: You have all contributed (what you can) to  this Sceleton with a robe of State, and to hold up the long train of death, till it hath carried its prey to the grave, which is its den and Throne; where after a most savage and Cyclopic manner it doth at once triumph over us, and gnaw upon us, till it hath quite devoured, not only our flesh, but our very bones; yea our names and memories, if they be only written in the dust, and not registered in heaven; if our record be only among men here below, and not with the most high God above, as holy Job speaketh. 
Job 16.19.  You have (indeed) made a very ample and stately Commentary, as to your civil respects, upon this Corpse and that Text, Eccl. 12.5. Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. It now remains to see what improvement may be made of so sad an occasion to your own interests, the inward, religious, spiritual and eternal advantages of your souls.  
Hitherto you have acted as men, according to the rules of honour, and methods of secular Heraldry; but you now seem (as Christians) by your earnest and patiented attention further to expect something from Me as an Herald of Diviner Honour, as a Minister of Christ and his Church, whereby to advance this Solemnity to Sanctity, this pageantry to piety; this ceremony or shadow which follows the dead, to some substance and reality of benefit as to the living. That it may not be fulfilled in you, what was spoken by Christ, 
Mat. 8.22.  not without a sharp and just reproach to the young man, Let the dead bury their dead; while we are more solicitous and pleased to follow a dead friend and relation to the grave, then to follow Christ, who will set us beyond the confines of death and mortality in a state of grace and glory, of honour and immortality. Your humane and civil respects to the remains of the dead are worthy of you, both as men and Christians; Religion being no enemy to the sense and expression of what honour is decent and due both to the living and dead, whose very dust as Christians is sacred, and their carcases so far consecrate, as they have been Temples of the holy Ghost, 
1 Cor. 6.19.  and are yet in God's special care and custody as precious relics, 
1 Cor. 15.42.  never to be lost, but reparable to a state of incorruption, candidates of heaven, and expectants (in a silent, but assured hope) of eternal glory with their blessed Saviour: whose once dead, but now risen and glorified body sitting at God's right hand (that is in the highest place, and state of celestial honour, next the Divine Essence, far above all Angels) is near of kin even to the dead bodies and dust of his servants, whom he will raise up again at the last day, and take them to he ever with the Lord.  
But it will be a work more worthy of you and me, to carry on this Corpse and Funeral till we bring them to our own hearts, where (possibly) we may find too much of the house and state of the dead. You see the wisdom of Solomon, or rather of God by his penitential pen, teacheth us how to turn Funerals into Cordials. Indeed nothing is more thrifty than true piety: Religion is a good husband of all opportunities, tempers, providences, 
John 6.12. Jam. 5.13.  events and dispensations, towards ourselves or others; it follows the frugal care and counsel of Christ, Let nothing be lost. Is any man merry (saith St. James) let him sing Psalms; is any man afflicted let him pray. Not only our own passions but others may be improved by holy Sympathies; mourning with those that mourn, 
Rom. 12.15.  and weeping with those that weep, as well as rejoicing with those that joy. It is a Stoical and Cynical sourness, yea a putid and barbarous stupidity in any Christian to forget he is a man, 
Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se ratura fatetur, Quum lachrymas dedit. Juv.  having an heart fitted [in the softness of nature) beyond all other creatures with bowels of compassion, with aptitude to be affected with others afflictions, and to testify this by our Tears, which indicate an harmony of hearts, moved by a secret symphony to an unison of affections. 
Ezek. 11.19.  Grace is so far from stupifying or petrifying men's hearts, that it takes away the heart of sin, and gives a heart of flesh; it softens us not only to God and ourselves, but to others also: nothing is further from a true and genuine Christian then either putrid affectation, or stupid in affectedness, I mean that surly apathy, and senseless indolency of soul, which argues a spirit and conscience rather scorched and seared in the furnace of private lusts and particular factions, than steeped in the blood of Jesus Christ, or suppled with the gentle oil of Catholic and Christian charity, which is the greatest ornament and improvement of every true Christian.  
We have this receipt how to make a right use of the Dead from Solomon's great experience and exact observation of things; whose accurate palate was not glutted or confounded, nor the edge of his taste blunted or dulled by the luxurious gusto, the delicacy, plenty, and variety of all things to which he applied his heart, whose wisdom remained with him; That wisdom which God gave him upon his wise choice of wisdom rather than of riches, honour, 
2 Chron. 1.10.  revenge, long life, or pleasure. The desire of wisdom is the surest way to obtain it; for the soul by unfeigned desires (like a crystal glass) is polished and prepared for it, that it easily receives the beams of wisdom into its self, which (like the Sun) shine equally upon all men, and are alike receptible by all; where the gross and opacous temper, the carnal and earthly lusts, the dull and dirty disposition of men's souls being wiped off, or purged and refined, there is no inward impediment or cloud to hinder.  
This is one great Instance that Solomon's wives, millions of concubines, with his other proportionable equipage and provisions of sensual pleasures, had not exhausted his wisdom, in that he now, as a Prince and Preacher, makes this wise choice, That it is better to go to the house of mourning then to the house of feasting.  
1. Better in many and great respects; chief for this, that it sadly and solemnly sets forth to us the end of all men.  
2. A consideration worthy of the living, who are infinitely concerned in the same fate and state attending them.  
3. And which they may then turn to a good account, when they seriously lay the matter and manner, the occasion and solemnity of Funerals to their hearts.  
4. Which they will do, if they are truly living, in a rational, prudent, and religious way of life.  
5. For than they must needs be very sensible what need their hearts have of such applications; even of death, and the house of mourning to them. And what advantages a wise man (one that hath an humble, holy, and gracious heart) may gain by such warnings and alarms, which in many regards are proper to be laid to heart by all those that are truly living to God and his grace; yea even such as are yet only living as beasts to their senses, and as men to civil conversation, being dead to the wisdom & life of God, these may hence learn to know God and themselves; yea they may be excited and enabled to live to his glory, and to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.  
1. This choice and receipt of Solomon is considerable in general, as to its chief ingredient, the house of mourning, or the condition of the dead; which 2. will be best set forth, if we consider the persons to whom he applies it, the living, whose duty and wisdom it is not to despise those spectacles and instances of mortality. 3. Consider that part of the living to which he would have this medicine applied, their heart; whose pestilent distempers stand in need of such applications. 4. The virtues, ends, and uses for which this receipt is sacred and sovereign, to be laid to the hearts of the living; which are all wrapped up in this one expression, For it is the end of all men.  
When I have given you this account of the Text, in order to the religious benefit of the living, I shall answer your wont curiosity and expectation, in giving you some account also of the Dead, upon whose occasion we are now met; that I may at once do Him and you so much right as truth and justice first, next my love and honour to him, together with my charity to you, command me to do; apart from all sinister fears or flatteries, without any partiality, or obliqne passion, toward the living, or the dead: which depraved distempers can at no time become me, or any Minister of Christ, and least of all now, when I have set before me, and am to set forth to you, such a sad and serious prospect of the dead, as aught to mortify all our impotent passions and inordinate affections.  
My first endeavour must be to set forth to you in general this part of Solomon's wisdom, which we may call a kind of sacred Necromancy, or Necromathy, by which he had learned himself, and instructs others, to make an holy use of the Dead; rather to go to the house of mourning in the blackest attire and representations of it (which are at Funerals) then to go to the house of feasting, or to frequent those Festivals, either civil or sacred, which invited poor mortals to more mirth and jollity of spirit, but to less of mortifiedness and humility than their sinful, frail, and dangerous condition did require.  
Solomon (no doubt) had observed that Feasts, like full diet to foul bodies, 
Morbum non hominem alentes. Morbi fomitem subducentes.  did but pamper their diseases; but Funerals, like Physic that is less palatable yet more wholesome, did help to purge the body, to lighten nature. Feasts, like fair weather, or Summer, are prone to beget many vermin, many putrid and pestilent savours, both in our minds and bodies; but Funerals, like frosty weather, give check to the luxuriancy of evil humours, of evil weeds, and offensive savours.  
Holy Job was jealous of the dangerous effects accompanying the Festivals of his children, 
Job 1.5.  however brought up both by his precept and example to all pious and just severities: He was afraid with a godly and paternal fear, lest they had cursed God in their hearts; that is, negatively or privatively, not blessing him at all, or not proportionably to the bounty they enjoyed, lest, partaking of his gifts, they might forget the Giver, and love, commend, or admire the creature more than the Creator. For no experience is more frequent then to see surfeiting bodies to be as the sepulchers of famished souls; to see plenty digested into impiety, as sweet and fat things turn to choler; from principles of love and civility, men study to treat their friends with plenty, 
Lenocinumi gustus.  variety, delicacy of meats and drinks. This, by the enchantment of the taste, tempts to superfluity and excess, beyond the modesty of holy mirth and sober satiety, which God doth neither deny, nor envy us; once beyond the banks of moderation, the wine and strong drink boil up men's spirits to madness, to begin and enforce so many unhealthful healths by a devilish kind of importunity and hellish civility, till surfeiting and drunkenness, till all manner of petulancy and violence, like a deluge or springtide, overwhelm all that is rational or religious, civil or humane in them; till their bodies are become the sinks of all fedities; till shameful spewing, as the Prophet speaks, is upon their tables, beds, and bosoms; till their comedies of feasting end in tragedies of fight, if not with their friends, yet with their God and their own souls; and this in so ingrate and indigne a manner, as is most impudent: for, armed with the weapons of God's bounty, power, and wisdom, they fly in his face, and fight against his holy Spirit, contrary to the gentleness and gratitude of beasts, which do not readily return any rude or offensive actions to those that are their feeders; so that the unholy and unthankful carriage of men in their excesses against God, is not far from cursing of him; yea many times men run out to such riot at Feasts, as to number their oaths by their glasses and dishes; every bit, and every draught must be sauced with the haugoust of swearing, of profane and Atheistical rallieries against God and Religion.  
This is (many times) the sad end of feasting, 
Non hos quaesitum munus in usus. Prov. 23.2.  which gins in luxury, and concludes in blasphemy; when men need more a knife to be put to their throat, then to cut their meat. When they begin without any grace, or that very formal, and only in their lips, and end in such riotous and ungracious conclusions; better to be with Lazarus on his dunghill wanting the crumbs of Dives his table, then to be such a beast as feeds without fear, 
Luke 16.19. Judas 12. Deus tuus porcorum Deus.  as owns no other God than the god of swine, or their own bellies, to eat and drink of the Eternals bounty, and never either crave, or own, or return a blessing in any duty, love, or fear to him; forgetting that there is not a crumb of bread we eat, or a drop of drink we take to refresh our hungry and thirsty souls, which we can either make or merit; they are the fruits and effects of omnipotent power, goodness, wisdom. Epicures forget there must be an Earth, an Air, a Sun, a Heaven, a World made, to bring forth the least creature we partake of, besides a divine benignity, which allows and enables us to use and enjoy them. We do not owe these comforts to ourselves, no more then to Bacchus or Ceres, to Pan or Apollo, to Saturn or Neptune, the imaginary Gods of the Heathen, but to the only true God, who is blessed for ever, the bountiful giver of all blessings, and who must needs be better than all, by the word of whose power they are made for us, and by the power of whose word they become blessings to us: 
Acts 14.17.  He, He it is that gives all mankind witness (as the Apostle preacheth to the Lystrians) of himself, by giving them fruitful seasons, and filling their hearts with joy and gladness: He is the Father of the former and lateer rain; he gives us all things liberally to enjoy, but not so as to turn himself out of our hearts and houses.  
These than are the frequent dangerous effects or consequences of Feast; but at the house of mourning (unless it be turned by a strange Metamorphosis to a house of most unseasonable feasting, 
Isa. 22.13.  by the riot and delicacy of those who in stead of weeping and lamentation at Funerals, to which God calls them, expect only wine and banquets) otherwise if Funerals keep their primitive gravity, severity, and solemnity, who is there so vain, so wanton, so sensual, so brutish, insolent, or Atheistical, that he is not ashamed not to seem at least grave, sober, devout, and to be almost religious? Who is there that feels not something of palpable darkness and cold when he is under or near the shadow and damp of death? Who can forbear something of horror, something that looks like penitential sadness, and breaths after the manner of religious and unaffected sighs?  
Thus as Laban's sheep, 
Gen. 30 38.  by the natural Magic which Jacob used of peeled rods laid before them, became spotted and ringstreaked; so doth ingenuous grief and sorrow by strange symbolizing work on all men's hearts; and this not so much precariously as imperiously, especially when that passion hath for a time got the Empire of all other, 
A lachrymis nemo tam ferreus ut teneat se.  and sits (though in sackcloth, dust, and ashes, like the King of Nineveh, on the Throne of a rational soul in its full and predominant majesty, which is then most conspicuous, when there is most of unfeigned sadness and obscurity, like the Sun in the greatest Eclipse.  
This lesson humanity taught the very Heathen; no Nation so barbarous but they adorned their Funerals with something, not only of the finest flowers of humanity, 
Nature imperio gemimus cum funus adultae Virginis occurrit, etc.  but even with the fairest garlands of their divinity, and a special regard to their Gods. For these sad spectacles mightily allayed their furies, tamed their most unruly lusts, disarmed their revenges, forced them to shed tears even over their enemy's corpse or graves, as Alexander the Great did over Darius, and Julius Caesar when he saw his potent Rival Pompey the Great's head deformedly parted from his body by treacherous villainy. These glasses showed to every man their own faces in the truest and most unflattering representations. 
Mors sola fatetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula.   
Some of the ancient Philosophers professed they profited most by conversing with the dead, that is, with good books, whose Authors were long ago dead, as to their bodies, but living in the noble monuments of their minds, 
Libri animorum urnae: Mentium magnarum aeterna monumenta. Lipsius.  their writings, which are the urns or repositories of souls here on earth. This was very elegant, and very true, there being as none more durable Monuments, so no better Monitors, Tutors, and Instructers than those that are farthest remote from all passions of fear or flattery, from the vices and parties of the age in which men live.  
Nor is the frequenting of dead men's funerals less effectual to work on living men's hearts. For (as some Nonconformists of old) the dead never speak louder than when they are most silenced, nor shine brighter than in that night of darkness which is sending them to their long homes, and to make their lasting beds in the cold grave, that dismal house of darkness. Dead men by an holy kind of Magic (which is a due meditation of them and ourselves) do in a sort revive to us, and walk with us, yea haunt us, and talk with us in a dumb but potent kind of oratory. Sometimes their noble deeds and good works praise them, and upbraid us who are strangers yet to their worth, and enemies to their holy examples. Sometimes they lift up their voice like a trumpet of terror to us, in the sad riot, and debaucheries, and security of of their lives, and in the suddenness, the despair and dreadfulness of their deaths: Sometimes the solemnity of their Funerals, the mementoes of their Epitaphs and those Inscriptions which give, 
Marmora animata.  as it were, breath to their dust, and a spirit or life to their marble monuments: All these summon us to serious reflections; that, as Pliny tells us, the dead sea affords some medicinals, and mummy itself is become a useful drug in medicaments; so great and special good use may be made of those that are (recens mortui) new dead among our neighbours, friends, acquaintance, relations, superiors, inferiors. 
Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa.  As no man's death should be precipitated, because life is invaluable, and once lost is irreparable; so nor is any man's death to be taken with a careless and useless indifferency, specially when it is near us, and like Balshazzars hand on the wall, by the fingers of a man pointing to us, 
Mortuorum funera viventium monita.  or writing, as it were, either some lesson for us, or terrors against us; some monition or instruction.  
One of the great Egyptian Kings (Sesostris, as I remember) commanded this to be written on his Tomb or Urn (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) Whoever looks on my Sepulchre, 
Discite justitiam moniti, & ne temerity dives.  let him learn to be religious, to fear and serve the gods. The Scythians, while yet Heathens, and synonymous with Barbarity; yet were so ingenuous to improve the Deaths of their most deserving Princes, that they cut their dead bodies into little pieces, which they kept about them as Jewels in precious boxes, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  as amulets or defensatives against vice and maladies, no less than incentives to virtue, and conservatives of their felicity. The Ethiopians in a different manner, yet to the same design, were wont to put the entire bodies of their Princes, exsuccated or dried by sweet spices and the Sun, into glass Urns, or transparent Coffins, which they set in public and most conspicuous places, as Varro tells us the Romans did their Statues, to be, as it were, the great Censors and Monitors, no less than the exemplary inciters of posterity to parallel virtues. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Infinite were the inventions of ingenious Antiquity, either to advance the honour of the dead, or to vindicate or revenge them, as much as might be done by poor mortals, from mortality; or, at least, to moderate and qualify the impotent passions and enormous grief of Survivors. Hence they not only held their Geniusses immortal (which they venerated by a will-worship, and is properly Superstition) but they built them stately and portentous Sepulchers for their bodies in Pyramids, Mausoles, and the like Fabrics, which were Miracles of Architecture, that their dust might have as stately palaces as themselves once living enjoyed. 
Ludos solennes.  Besides, they instituted solemn Sacrifices, and magnificent conventions, mixed with activity and bravery, 
Judg. 11. See Ludo. Caepel. votum Jephtae.  interludes and devotion, in memorial of them; as Jephtah did for his daughters being sacrificed, as a (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) curseor Anathema, so devoted to God, as was not redeemable. Alexander the great at the Funeral of Ephestion squandered in a profuseness of passion, and prodigality fit for none but himself, so many Talents as amounted to more than a million of pounds sterling: Nay, 
See Bish. Vsser his Chrono. Imp. Alex. M.  the Roman pride and glory dared (Coelum ipsum petere ambitiosà nimis stultitiâ) to vie with the Gods in Heaven, and by the sumptuous pomp of their Funeral Piles, and the Eagles mounting from the flames of them upward, to raise the vulgar credulity beyond the thoughts of their Prince's mortality to the imaginations of a Deity. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. vid. Lip. & alios.  Thus fearing that Heaven should not be fully planted, they sent them Colonies from earth; that such as had either deserved very well of mankind, or were able (unpunished) to do much mischief, by such sovereign impiety as was great, but not good, might fill up the lower forms of Heaven, which yet wanted Gods to supply them. Which fancy did not stray much from that of some Christian Fathers, who conceive the fall and defalcation of Angels, when they degenerated to Devils, is to be repaired by substituting as many Saints, or Christian Heroes, into their room.  
How the souls of all those got to Heaven, whom vulgar clamours and applauses, or politic Deifications, or Papal Canonisations lift up thither, I list not to inquire. I believe many of their Spirits went no higher than their Eagles might soar. I am sure popular Superstition or passion is prone to fix upon many a golden Calf this title and proclamation, 
Exod. 32.8.  These are thy Gods O Israel. Nor is any thing more frequent, than (as Crysologus observes) for the pomp of Funerals to lie and flatter, 
Mentitur funeris pompa fallaci vanitate adulantium. Multos pompa funeris ad coelum evehit, quos peccati pondus ad infernum deprimit.  both as to the living and the dead. Many are raised up to Heaven by the magnificence of the Burn, or Bury, whose souls are sunk down to Hell by the ponderous weight of their unrepented and unreformed sins.  
When sorrow affects too much state, and wraps up the sharpness of death in soft paradoes, mixing too much sensual sweet with the wormwood and bitterness of that cup which is offered to all men's lips, the good effects of Funerals are much defeated as to the living; the house of mourning is so far from being better in such an equipage, that it is worse than the sober house of feasting: for it flatters the dead and living too, making men deaf to God's warning-pieces, which are shot off at their ears, and leveled at their hearts. They are like woolsacks, or mounds of earth, 
1 John 2.16.  which disarm the great cannon-shot, which should batter down the (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) the strong holds of sin, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Empty and adulatory pomp, set up as it were by the higher ground of men's stately Funerals and Tombs, what God intends to pull down, namely those high and exalted imaginations with which poor sinful mortals are pestered and poisoned, who are then best when they see themselves and others at the worst; and then nearest to grace and glory too, when they see themselves as in their graves reduced to their dust and ashes; and in their very best estate, 
Psal. 39.5.  as the Psalmist speaks, to be but altogether vanity.  
2. Which is the great lesson that the great God intends to teach men by such pregnant instances of their mortality, which the living will learn, (i. e. such as live not only to sense, but to true reason; and not only to reason, but to true religion; not only to a moment, but eternity.) The aim of these severe Lectures is to bring sinful man down to the dust, within sight of the grave, and prospect of judgement and hell itself, that so he may be a meet object for God's grace and mercy. It is a shrewd sign of a heart dead in sins and trespasses, stupid in sensual security, buried in worldly lusts and vain pleasures, dead (as the Apostle says of some widows) even while they live, 
1 Tim. 5.6.  not to lay to heart the departures of those who are snatched out of the land of the living, to a state and place whence they shall not return, to a terra incognita, a land which is far off, a black Abyssus covered with profound darkness, of which no discovery hath ever been made by any that went thither, so as to give Survivers any Geographical map or account of it.  
Which terrible summons, like the decimating of soldiers to die one after another, cannot but infinitely affect the sober and serious living; to whose benefit only the death and Funerals, the solemnities and obsequies, civil and religious, prayers and Sermons too, may and aught to be duly improved.  
For to the Dead they reach not, nor can they turn to any account, further than such civil honour and respect as is due to their place, name, and merit yet surviving, or to their corpse, which rest in hope of a resurrection, and so deserve an handsome and Christian interment. But, as to any advantage to be made for the benefit of their souls, for redeeming them from Purgatory, for abating their purgative pains, for shortening or supplying their Penance, or obtaining remission for any sin or punishment in which they are engaged being once dead; this must be let alone for ever. There is no ground of hope to relieve them in any kind; no Scripture, no Catholic doctrine, no precept, no promise that gives any footing for Prayers or Sacrifices, Masses or Dirges, Oblations or Emptions, Remissions or Redemptions, by which to benefit the dead; they are vain solaces to the living, and none at all to the dead, arising first from the suggestions of the impotent grief and passion in survivors; next from an unwarranted charity and benevolence to the dead. At last, policy and covetousness grew so cunning, in the darkness and superstition of times, as to make no small advantages by the vulgar easiness and prodigality, sliding by insensible degrees from those memorial of benediction for their piety and constancy in religion, from the gratulations for their happy and hopeful delivery out of a dangerous and naufragous' Sea, and for their hoped arrival at a safe and happy heaven; together with a Catholic comprecation for the consummation and plenary bliss at the resurrection of them and all Saints departed in the true faith of Christ: 
See the excellent Primate of Arm. of praying to and for the dead, in his Jesuits Challenge.  From these commendable customs (I say) of pious Antiquity (of which Epiphanius and others give us an account) degenerous posterity warped not only to praying both for and to the dead, but indeed to make a notable mystery and trade of preying upon the devotion and simplicity of the living; uses and ends which we find neither Solomon, nor any Prophet, Apostle, or Evangelist, nor Christ himself any where teaching, nor in the least kind intimating to the living, either in order to give such honour or help to the dead; neither of which either our blessed Saviour's love of his completer Saints, or his charity to the more defective dead, (who had not fully done their penance here, and so stood in need of some grains of allowance from the charity of such as survived them) or his Apostles care would have failed to have taught the Primitive Church by word, or Epistle, or example, if such prayers had been available to the living, or for the dead: No, they may be profitable fancies to the Romanists, and plausible enough to their bigot and bountiful disciples; but they are not justifiable in true religion, by Old or New Testament, nor by any practice in the first and best Centuries. No known advantages can redound to the dead from the living, nor other advantages to the living from the dead, but only the laying their death seriously and devoutly to heart; the use that wise Solomon, and the wiser God here commends to us all.  
3. And this upon very great and pregnant reasons, if we consider, 1. The state of the living in respect of their hearts. 2. The proper virtues which are derivable from the dead, and fit to be applied to the hearts of the living: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Et vivens dabit ad cor suum. The wise and considerate living, will, upon such occasions, not only gape at the ceremony, glory in the pomp, talk of the person, discourse of the disease and manner of death after a vulgar and easy fashion; much less will they rejoice in another's death (though an enemy) or triumph in the advantages which accrue to them thereby, after a malicious and covetous rate. Such as lie under the power of these depraved distempers of soul, and are of no higher form of life, are scarce among Solomon's living, who lay things to heart, that is, Altâ ment reponunt: they deeply and devoutly, seriously and solemnly, rationally and religiously, consider, resolve and ponder in (intimis animi recessibus) the inward recesses of their souls or consciences, the whole purport of such occasions, what they mean in all their aspects. They make as it were a speculative Anatomy, and intellectual dissection of the dead, yea and of death itself, in all its forms and fashions; in its causes and effects; its antecedents, concomitants, and consequences: They look upon the face of it, which is near at hand, and the long train or extent of it, which reacheth to Eternity.  
This is the Lecture that the living read upon the dead, and many lessons they learn from them; because they are men that have an heart which is wise and understanding, duly weighing in the scale of true reason and divine wisdom, every occurrence and event of providence, which hath any remark or signal character upon it, as the death of any man or woman, young or old, infant or decrepit, hath to such as have an heart able to apply it; notwithstanding this frequency of such spectacles, which with many men and women, takes away the sense and regard of them, though such persons need every day a memento mori, some spectacle or remembrancer (as King Philip had) daily to put them in mind that they are but men. 
Philippe, memento te esse mortalem.  How necessary is it for them to remember their latter end? to consider in what a vain shadow they live, or rather die in their life, because they are without an heart, as silly birds, not ware of the snares of sin, the pits of death and hell, over which they carelessly and confidently pass every moment. Frequency of Funerals doth not lessen the right use and influence of them to such living as know how to lay them to heart. They do not as women and children, or country clowns, only start amain when some sudden and unexpected death befalls any, as if it were the discharging of a great cannon near them, which they never dreamt of; but as valiant Commanders, who finding that an hot battery and frequent shot slays men round about them, wisely consider that they may be the next mark whom death will hit; which thought is so far from discouraging or appalling a man of a good heart (that is, pious and generous) that it only summons him to muster up all the fortitude and strength of his soul, that whether he live or die, he may do neither like a fool, or a coward, or a beast, but like a valiant man, and a good Christian, who being engaged in a good Cause, having a good God and a good conscience, doubts not to make a good end, when God shall call him out of this life to a better.  
The Living, that is, the wise and considerable sort of mankind are the only persons who have hearts to consider all things as they ought; to reflect upon their own hearts, to commune with them; to try and examine their state and tempers, their defects and disorders, their extravagancies and necessities. The Living are they that duly consider the true interests and eternal concernments of their hearts and spirits, their souls and consciences, far beyond those of their bodies, senses, or fortunes. The Living do upon such occasions of mortality (in se descendere) make sober retreats home, looking to themselves, and searching into the (penetralia animae) their hearts above all.  
Which they know to be as the rudder or steerage of the soul, and of the whole man; of all thoughts, words, and actions; the card or compass by which our momentary and eternal course is shaped: They know the infinite importance of a well or ill constituted and managed heart. They find that verified which our Saviour tells us, That out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, 
Matth. 15.18.  adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies, etc. That God chief requires and regards this, as the Gem of the man, most precious in itself, most proper and proportionate for God. That all beauty, strength, wit, estate, honour, offered to God without the Heart, is but the sacrifice, nay the sacrilege and affront of fools and hypocrites. Therefore it is frequently inculcated from Heaven, and in the Scripture, 
Prov. 23.26.  to all sorts of men under all dispensations of Religion, to Jew and Gentile, Give me thy heart; an honest and good heart, 
Psal. 51.  a pure and peaceable heart, an humble and contrite heart God will not despise; yea in this he delights; all things else are loss and dung in comparison: Nothing else in man is worthy of God; and yet nothing less worthy of him, that is, 
Gen. 6.5.  naturally less fit and prepared for him. What God complained long ago, is verified in every man's experience, That every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was evil, and that continually.  
The (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) distempers, diseases, yea and deaths of the heart of man, are as many, as dangerous, and as desperate as those of the body; yea infinitely more: For the body's diseases do but kill us, as to man's society, and to a moment's life on earth; but the diseases of the heart kill us, as to the life of God, and an eternal happiness of conservation in Heaven. The living God (who delights not in the death of a sinner, nor yet in a dead heart, which is the first death of a sinner) as a gracious Father, and compassionate Physician, hath discovered to us the many plagues which are in our hearts; the sicknesses to which they are subject by the surfeits they take of the world and their senses.  
Sometimes the Heart swells with the tumour of intolerable pride; sometimes it burns withcholerick inflammations; sometimes it is scorched with passionate calentures of inordinate lusts; sometimes it is almost drowned (like hydropic and overgrown bodies) with its sensual luxuries and fullness, even to abominable fedities; sometimes it hath such a gout, as it is in great pain at any the least motion for God, or any good motion from him; sometime it pines away in a Consumption, amidst all its sensible pleasures, plenty, and honours, not finding any satisfactory, solid and durable good in them all. Sometimes the heart is shaken with paralytic tremble and terrors, like Earthquakes, which seem to arise from the dark and pestilent vapours in itself; sometimes it hath not only fits of the stone, refractory tempers, but a petrified habitude of a hard and stony heart, which nothing doth soften; neither mercy nor judgement; love nor wrath; bounty nor patience of God. Sometimes the heart falls into Lethargic and Apoplectic stupors (like Nabals and Achitophel's) it grows remorseless, benumbed, stupid, senseless; dull and dead within men, past fear or feeling of any thing, either sharp and pungent in the Law, or spiritful and reviving in the Gospel.  
Solomon (who was a great King of hearts, and had a very large sovereign knowledge of them, 
Eccl. 8.11.  beyond any mere man) tells us that the hearts of the sons of men are not only full of folly, 
1 Kings 8.38. Eccl. 9.3.  and set upon evil, and sick of several sorts of plagues, but frenzy, fury, and madness are in their hearts while they live, which is a distemper not easily (if ever perfectly) cured.  
But if any thing (as to humane applications) be likely to work any good upon the worst men's hearts; 
Job 41.7.  if any dart or weapon can reach and pierce these Leviathans (whose natural proneness and customary habits in sin are so closely fixed and hardened to all manner of sin, without any remorse) it is such as Death brings with it; not as it is pictured to scare children, but as it is really itself, and perceived among all sorts of men, good or bad, sparing none; surprising any one, even in the pride, hardness, deadness, and damnableness of his heart. Nothing in life is a more consummated fear then that which death carries with it: It is called the King of terrors, 
Job 18.14. Isa. 14.9, 11, 12. Ezek. 32.27.  Rex longimanus, whose Sceptre or sword reacheth all, even Kings themselves; such as were most impatient not to have all men living stoop down to their Sceptre and Empire, even these mighty Cedars, and Colossuses of Monarches hath death subdued in a short time, with a little labour, and brought them down to the pit, and bound them in chains of darkness, in the prison and dungeon of the grave, triumphing over these Triumphers with an ironic Epinition (as the Prophet expresseth) How art thou fallen! Art thou also become weak as we, who wert a terror in the land of the living, with thy sword lying in vain under thy head, while thine iniquities are upon thy bones!  
This representation of death to the living, should be laid to Heart by all men, and will be so by all such as truly live, and not only breath. There is a great difference between vixit and fuit, being and living; he lives, that liveth wisely and worthily: As bene valere is vivere, health is the life of life; so much more, bene vivere est vita vitalis, to live well is the welfare of life. For, as every disease of the body is a partial death to such a degree of health and life as is wanting; so every sinful distemper of the rational heart of man, is so far a deadness, as it is a disorder upon it.  
Which God seeks to cure and conquer, by setting before us frequent spectacles of mortality; which not to lay to heart, and to entertain merely with a specious formality, with a childish, historic, or histrionick indifferency, is the way (firmare morbum, & corroborare mortem) to increase the diseases, and confirm that death which is upon men's hearts, who are yet living in a vain shadow, or show of life only; which is to these  inconsiderate and sinful fools, not only (mortalis and moriens, but mortua, yea mortifera vita) a mortal and daily dying, but a dead, yea a deadly and kill life: while they live only to beasts, to men, to their bodies, and to a moment; but are dead to souls, to their own hearts, to God's Spirit, and to Eternity, as to their present impenitent state and posture of heart.  
God by the Prophet complains That the righteous perish, and no man laid it to heart. Yea when he sent many messengers and promiscuous executioners of death among the Jews, 
Isa. 57.1. Aezek. 14.21.  his four sore judgements; yet they laid not those terrors to heart, nor considered their latter end, that they might fear before God, and live no more presumptuously.  
Our blessed Lord at once reproacheth and threatneth those that had not so laid to heart the death of those on whom the tower of Siloa fell, and whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, 
Luke 13.4.  that except they repent they should likewise perish. Death's must be so laid to heart, that by the sadness of the countenance the heart may be made better, 
Eccl. 7.3.  as Solomon speaks. The house of laughter may afford the heart of a fool more seeming pleasure for a season; but the house of mourning affords a wise man's heart more solid and durable profit; 
Luke 17.37.  who, like the Eagle, will choose to be there where the body (not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) yea the dead corpse is, as our Saviour speaks in an higher sense (where the Eagle-eye of a believer, quick and clear, seeing afar off, eagerly hastens, firmly seizeth, pertinaciously holdeth, and greedily feedeth upon Christ's blessed body and blood, which is given to die for us, as the only food of our souls in its infinite merits.)  
As we must not take the name of God in vain by profane swearing, blaspheming, or jesting; nor may we receive his grace in vain, as to the means, the monitions and motions of his Spirit, within us, or without us: So neither may we pass by the dead, as the Priest and Levite did by the wounded and halfdead traveller, without much regard, as if we were unconcerned. God's dispenpensations in this kind must not be in vain to us; though we cannot do the dead any good, yet we may get good from them and by them; yea, account must be given, as of other things, so of this: Thou must not only (reddere rationem vitae tuae, but alienae) give an account of thy own life, but of another's too; who may sin at the charge of thy soul, while (as Eli) thou neglectest to hinder or reprove, or give them good example, or it may be soothest and encouragest them in sin; or whose pious life is set before thee as an excellent pattern, but ill followed by thee: yea further, we must (reddere rationem mortis alienae) give account to God of another's death; not only whom we unjustly slay, 
Gen. 9.5.  or neglect to save & deliver as much as is justly in our power, God will require the blood of these both for man and beast; but further we must give account of another's death, which we see, or hear of, and do not consider; which we celebrate only, but lay it not to heart in piety; when we are not warned or moved at all; when custom, as of sinning, so of seeing the dead, takes away all due sense; when being touched with so sharp a spur as that of another's death should be to thee, thou art like a dull jade, or tired hackney, not at all affected or moved to mend thy pace; not one sinners sigh or Christians tear; no sad reflection, or penitent remorse; no quickened endeavours, or confirmed resolutions, in order to prepare more intentively for death, for judgement and eternity; only thou joggest on after the wont rate and carriers place of a formal and coldhearted Christian.  
Which evil defects (arguments of a dead and unaffected heart, either totally or gradually) are the less excusable in men, because the uses or advantages to be made from the occasions and spectacles of mortality are excellent and many; yea as obvious and easy, as they are very useful and necessary for the state and heart of poor sinful mortals. One Commentator oppressed with the plenty and variety of the benefits which rise from the due contemplation of Death (of which he enumerates very few) wraps up his thoughts in this oratorious expression. He must be a potent and pathetic Orator, full of a copious and apt eloquence, who can sufficiently set them forth.  
Gregory the Great in his Morals gives us this in general, 

Mr Cartwright on Eccles.  
Fructus mortis tum esse muliplices ut illis recensendis prolixa oratio sufficeret.  
Oculos quos vitae voluptas claudit mortis amaritudo aperit.   That many times the bitterness of death opens those eyes which the sweetness of life had quite shut up. We read that the famous Thomas Waldo of Lions, the Father of the Waldenses, had his first death's wound, I mean as to his sin and luxury, made upon his heart, by his seeing one fall down suddenly dead in the streets: It was a dart which so strake through his liver, that he presently applied to a severe and pious reformation of life.  
It is your unhappiness (Right honourable and beloved) that you are not at present blessed with such a Preacher, who might most improve to you this sad occasion, by showing you according to the merit and import of it and the Text, what are the excellent advantages you may make of it, by laying it in the several aspects and instances of it to your heart: But if I were able to do it, yet the straits of time, and your other occasions urging upon you and me, would not permit me to use so diffused and ample a way of speaking as possibly I might in this particular case, and at this time attain, being myself none of the least pathetic mourners. And we know (as Synesius tells us) nothing is more eloquent than unfeigned sorrow; if I list not to be silent, or only to weep. Great grief hath something eecstatic, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and is capable of as high an Enthusiasm as love: Indeed both of them in their paroxysms, like some fits of sickness, do, as it were, lift a man above, and transport him beyond his wont and everyday Self.  
However, since your and my duty is not to leave this Text and occasion unapplyed to our hearts, give me leave, as far as I may with bounds of discretion, to set forth to you what advantages Solomon intended; and if they cannot reach your hearts, possibly they may mine own; but I hope by God's blessing they may come home to all our hearts.  
1. At the house of mourning upon Funeral occasions, lay to heart what is first in view and next to hand; 
Phil. 3.21.  that is, the state of thy frail and vile body. 1. As it is the prison, burden, snare, poison, and oppression many times of thy precious soul (which I do not now aggravate, or lay to its charge:) and at its best, 
Rom. 7.24.  it is but the cage of many foul, noxious and noisome humours and diseases; its truest stile and title is what Paul gives it, a body of death, it's own traitor, devourer, killer and destroyer, for the most part conceiving and hatching, carrying and contriving (many times) such principles of mortality, and methods of malignity in it, as lie in wait, and unawares break out to surprise thee in thy greatest security & confidence of life. Like a flattering and smiling Sea, so is a youthful, healthful, handsome and athletic body, soon cast into a dangerous storm of sickness, and dashing itself in pieces by violent and unexpected diseases. Thus is thy body in its seeming health.  
2. View the body in its sickness and inquietudes, its pains and anguishs, its various and tedious distempers; like the Demoniac in the Gospel, sometimes cast into the fire of Calentures, sometimes into the water of long and fainting sweats; sometimes it's in an African Syrteses, or hot sands, boiling its self in its own grease, and washing by its unnatural flames that native oil or Balsam of life, which sustains that lamp; otherwhile it is condemned to Scotish colds, and Northern torpors, having in the same little world both the inhabitable Climates. Thus, tormented between its Canicular frying, and its Hyperborean freezings, what tongue can express sufficiently the alternative torments which by a strange vicissitude seem to delight in taking turns to rack the poor and pitiful body of man.  
3. Which (now wasted with their intestine conflicts, and having nothing to complain of, or contend against so much as itself) grows faint and feeble, exsuccated, dis-spirited, loathing (as Job speaks) all manner of food, 
Job 33.20.  and rob of its sleep by those pestilent vapours which rise from itself. At length, helpless and hopeless, not able to remove or move itself, it would grow its own dunghill, and be buried in its own putrefaction and filth, if the humanity and charity of some, and the mercenary necessity of others did not move them to help this poor carcase; whose flesh falls; its skin shrivels; the beauty and majesty of the face vanisheth; the vigour of the eyes sink; the sinews are feeble; the whole fabric totters like a crazy house, ready to fall with its own weight.  
4. At last all the powers of nature fail, and the soul weary of so crazy and unquiet a lodging (which is haunted with so many evil spirits) flies away, leaving this poor carcase to itself. O then look seriously upon it, view it well, and lay to heart, whether the fanciful Poets and other amorous flatterers, did not lie strenuously, and blaspheme the Creator most wittily, when they were ready to swear that they saw a brighter and fairer Heaven in the face of such a body living then that which was over their heads; that the lustre of those eyes, now sadly and severely closed, was sufficient to supply the Sun's absence, or dazzle its noonday light; that those were the cheeks, whose orient beauty made the morning toblush for shame to see itself overcome; that those were the lips which contended with roses, and conquered all rubies; that the eloquence of that mouth and tongue, now shut and eternally silent, was the charm and amazement of all that were happy to hear it speak; that this rare creature was the centre and dispenser of all favours or terrors, life and death, to the world.  
Now (O fictitious fool) lay to heart, and see (Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore) what a sad and horrid change on a sudden is befallen this Spectre, this Empusa, this poor and pitiful body; how pallid, how livid, how dreadful, how menacing it is at first to all spectators: At length, how loathsome and putrid, how offensive and abominable, even to those that most loved, admired, adored it: You are forced at last to recant your foolery by removing it out of your sight, out of your scent, out of your doors, to hid it as carrion in the earth, commit it to the worms, and leave it to its own corruption. 

Ossa vides regum vacuis exhausta medullis.  
Vnus Pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis. Sarcophago contentus erit.   Even this body which was the lantern of so bright and noble a soul as Solomon's; The Citadel, or Fort of so great a strength as Sampson's; (who had an Army in each Arm) The Throne, or Metropolis of Beauty as Queen Esther's; The Magazeen of so much wit and knowledge as Achitophel's; The Seraglio of so much pleasure as Sardanapalus'; The Bell and Dagon of so much good cheer as Dives devoured; To this deformity, necessity, poverty, rottenness, baseness, sordidness, is it brought in a few days.  
Blessed God if we laid this to heart, could we so much dote and pamper, so much indulge and cocker our wretched bodies, to the neglect, prejudice, detriment and destruction of our precious souls? Go now, O you wanton Herodiasses, O you proud Jezebels, O you tender delicate women, (whose curiosity to adorn your bodies poseth Interpreters to know what those artifices and instruments were which you used in Isaiah's time, 
Isa. 3.  when luxury and curiosity were as it were under age, and in their minority; which now are much more ingenious, adult, and full grown after two thousand years' improvement.) Lay to heart what fine dishes you dress for worms, for fishes, for fowls, it may be for dogs to feed upon. Lay to heart and consider whether your ways be equal or your hour-glasses proportionate, which measure out many hours in a short day to dress your bodies, and scarce allow one half hour, or a few minutes in one or many days, to purge, to wash, to prepare and adorn your souls by prayers and tears, by reading and meditating, by humbling and repenting, by fitting and dressing them for God? Whether it be not an high degree of folly and madness, to bestow so much of a momentany and precious life, in doing that at morning which is to be undone at night; to spend the best and most of your time in a circle of vanity? Not that decency and elegancy, cost and comeliness are wholly denied by the severities of religion; but comparatively they are by the two great Apostles in respect of the inward, 
1 Tim. 2.9. 1 Pet. 3.3.  adorn of the soul.  
Go now, O you Shee-men, you delicate and effeminate Gallants of my own sex, lay to heart whether it be worthy of masculine wisdom and strength, of manly virtue and honour, of Christian gravity and modesty, to trifle out your time also in female studies of softness and luxury; in being your own babies, Idols, and Idolaters; in studying your backs and bellies, your food and raiment more than any good books, or any good men, or any good and great design worthy of you.  
Ad quid perditio haec? To what purpose is this waste of thoughts and time, of cost and pains in both sexes? O lay to heart what a rotten post you gild for a moment; and what a marble pillar you neglect to polish for eternity, I mean your souls, which are (divinae particulae aurae) the breath and beam of God in your original. Lay to heart, when either you see the deformed frowns and fedities of a newly dead body, or the black flesh and sordid dust which you may see in the coffins of those that have been long dead; think then how little cause you have to be proud of these rotten rags of the soul, this rubbish of mortality; how injurious you are to your divine and immortal souls, when you leave them to their own native decays and eternal ruins, when you neglect to raise, polish, and improve them, when you thus study by Atheistical luxuries to deprave, debase and debauch them much worse; being wholly, or chief intent to the trimming, feeding and pampering of your bodies, as if your souls were given you only for salt to keep you sweet; of which you never have so true a view and prospect as when they are represented to you in another's death. Let dead carkaesses be your looking-glasses; then bring forth all the flowers of Oratory, all the Poet's fancies, all the ornaments that art and wit can steal from all creatures, and see if by these Spices, Gums, and odours, thou canst keep thy vile body from appearing rotten and unsavoury to thee; or that by those colours and adorn thou canst preserve it from death and abominable deformity. Since then all these things (the whole frame and goodly fabric of our Microcosm, these little Epitomies of the great world) our petty and pygmy bodies, in which the heaven and earth, the light and darkness, the celestial and elementary bodies are as it were bound up in a small volume, (or decimo sexto;) Since (as St. Peter says) all these things shall be dissolved, 
2 Pet. 3.11.  What manner of persons ought we all to be in all holy conversation and godliness?  
2. When thou hast taken a full view of this sink of putrefaction, a dead body; then lay to heart and consider by way of Analogy or proportion, if a dead body be such a mass of corruption, such a summary of sordidness, such an abstract of loathsomeness to thyself and others, (though formerly endeared as friends and lovers to it, as wives or husbands, as parents or children, as friends and favourites) yet thou canst now no longer endure its company or sight. O how foul, how filthy, how nasty, how ugly, how loathsome, how abominable would a dead soul be and appear, if thou couldst see it, as God's pure eyes do! Tully had a very good fancy, and well expressed, That if we could see virtue, which is the rational beauty of the soul, with our bodily eyes, no man would be a suitor to, or lover of any other beauty; it would so excite, attract, and concentre all our affections to it. By a parallel allusion I may tell you, that if we could by any spectacles or optics, by our own or others eyes, heightened to a spiritual perspicacity, behold (as St. Bernard speaks) how rueful, dreadful, 
Quam foedum, quam horendū sit spectaculum Deo & Angelis anima cadaverosa, in peccatis mortua, libidinum tabe squalida, ira & invidia tota deformis & horrida.  and execrable an object the soul is to God and Angels when it is as a dead carcase, naturally and impenitently dead in sin, rotten with predominant vices, squalid with enormous lusts, dissolved into sensual pleasures, and deformed with all manner of confusions and corruptions. This alone would monopolise and engross all the irascible faculties of the soul, by which we hate, loath, abhor, detest and fly from any thing. Corruptio optimi est pessima; no carcase is so unsavoury or pestiferous as man's; Hence plagues oft follow great slaughters of men in war; unburied carcases poisoning and infecting the very air. No soul but that of man can putrefy or die; nor is any putrefaction like that of the divine and reasonable soul, become unreasonable, irreligious and devilish. A carrionly carcase of a man is aromatic, a very perfume in comparison of a dead and rotting soul. The body becomes dead, and so dissolves by the souls parting from it; but the soul by Gods being separated from it: first, out of its own choice, next by God's penal deserting of it. The soul is the salt, the light, and life of the body; so is God of the soul, Anima animae, the very soul of our souls: I mean his grace, love, and spiritual communion; separation from this is the souls death here and hereafter: For from the power, wrath, and vengeance of God the damned are not separated; who are dead, not to their being, but to their well being, or happiness; to the union at, and fruition of God in love.  
The soul apart from God, in grace, or glory, is not only an orphan, or a widow condemned to eternal sorrow and desolation; (for nothing can maintain, or entertain, woo, wed, or endow the soul to the least degree of happiness, or to any allay of misery, when once God hath quite forsaken it) But it is emortua, conclamata, in heaven, earth, and hell proclaimed as stark dead in Law and Gospel, 
Matth. 13.42.  to justice and mercy; so represented in Scripture, as the horridest expression, or the blackest colour to set forth its misery and horror, its regret and torpor, its weeping and wailing, its gnashing and despair.  
Doth then such a thick cloud of horror hang over the face and state of a dead body, which is senseless of its own death and deformity, of its noisome grave and dark dungeon? 
Sapiens ignis. & subtilis vermis, carpit & nutrit, urit & reficit. Chrysol.  O what a world of horror must lie upon a dead soul, when deservedly cast out of God's blessed presence, when it feels its death, and lives only to die, when it feels it is plunged in a dead Sea, which is boundless and bottomless; where the worm dies not, and the fire goeth not out; because it is as Crysologus calls it a subtle fire, and ingenious worm which burns, but consumes not; devours but destroys not. Who can dwell with everlasting burn, saith the Prophet in an ecstasy of holy horror? 
Isa 33.14.  Who can live in everlasting die? Who can abide his own everlasting rotting? Is it a gradual and lingering death to want food, raiment, light, liberty, fit company? Is it a total death to the body to want the little spark of the soul, which is the breath and spirit of life to the body? What is it then to the soul to want that God who is the breather of that breath of life, and Inspirer of that spirit? We want a word beyond death to express that state.  
Lay it then to heart, 
Phil. 3.11.  and consider what cause we have to be humble, to tremble and fear exceedingly, to escape most solicitously and diligently that second and eternal death, if by any means we may attain the resurrection of the dead to life eternal.  
3. Lay to heart, upon the sight of a dead body, and the meditation of a dead soul, whence it is that these fears and faintings, sicknesses and sorrows, deaths and darknesses, sordidness and desolation, corruption and condemnation, have thus mightily prevailed over the highest mountains, as the flood, over the most noble, beautiful and excellent of all God's works under heaven, even over mankind, good and bad, great and small, 
Eccles. 2.16.  wise and foolish; upon which nature the great and only God had set such characters of special glory, enduing it with a diviner spirit, so making man (as Moses saith) a living spirit, or a spirit of life: And this after counsel and deliberation, Faciamus hominem: 
Sanctius his animal mentis●; capa●ius ali●e. Gen. 2.7.  As in (re magni momenti) a matter of greater concern and weight than heaven and earth and all the host of them. They were made (ex tempore) as it were; Nudo verbo, Let there be, and there was: But man was made ex consilio, after Gods own Image, full of beauty, health, honour, riches, wisdom, the Spirit of the living God given him in an extraordinary beam. Whence is this lapse, to earth, to dust, to a sad and wretched, a decaying and dying condition, both temporal and eternal? Sure not from the impotency or envy of the blessed Creator, whose omnipotent goodness is inconsistent with such infirmities; nor yet from the frailty and inconsistency of the subject matter, which he raised to so goodly a fabric, little lower than the Angels, 
Psal 49.12.  as man was made; who should have been as long immortal as Angels, had he continued a man, that is, 
Rom. 6.23.  rational and religious, enjoying the Image of God on him, which forbids and excludes, as all shadow of sin and defection, so of all death or mutation to worse. No.  
The Psalmist tells us after the history of Genesis, Man being in honour did not so abide, but is become like to the beasts that perish, by the frailty of his will, which fell from adherence to God, as the durable and supreme Good. Sin hath leveled us to beasts, to death, to devils, to hell.  
This death, in all sizes and degrees, from the least ache and dolour, to the completeness of damnation, is the wages of fin. So the Apostle oft tells us, Rom. 5.17. by one man's offence death entered and reigned over all. The soul that sins, that shall die, Ezek. 18. Sin is the source of all our sorrows, the (lethalis arundo) poisoned arrow, whose infection drinks up the spirits, and eats up the health, flesh, bodies and souls of mankind. No wonder we die, since we sin at such a rate; the wonder is, that we live any one of us one moment. How much more is the miracle of God's love and mercy, that hath by Christ's death and merits brought forth to light eternal life, and offered it to all penitent and believing sinners, as purchased and prepared for them. Because sin once lived in us, we must once die; and till sin be dead or mortified in us, we cannot hope for life eternal. Through death than thou wilt best see the face of thy sin.  
What Poet, what Painter, what Orator, whose colours are most lively, can express the amazement, horror and astonishment that seized on the looks and hearts of Adam and Eve, 
Rom. 27. 2 Tim. 1.10.  when they had the dreadful prospect of their first great sin and curse, written with the blood, and portrayed on the face of their dead son Abel, who in that primitive paucity of mankind was barbarously slain by his brother Cain? Who can express or conceive the woeful lamentation they made over their dead son, in whom they first beheld the beauties of life swallowed up by the deformities of death?  
Is death then so dreadful, so dismal, so deformed, so putrid? O think what that sin is which thou so embracest and huggest. The fountain of bitterness is more bitter than the stream. Our madness and misery is, that we fear to die, but not to sin; when as all the sad aspects and events of death rise from sin, which is the Marah and Meribah, the Stygian spring or lake, whence our waters of bitterness and strife do flow; not to be healed, but by that sacred wood of Christ's cross cast into them, not in the natural relic, but in that mystical merit of him that hung upon it, and bore our sins, 1 Pet. 2.24. 
Pro. 19.4.  That sin which thou as a fool makest a mock of, how canst thou (O poor bubble) thus play with poison, dally with a dragon, sport with a devil, and caper over hell? Wilt thou die in thy sinful smiles and pleasures? Is it not horrid to be smothered in down-beds, or drowned in malmsy, as the Duke of Clarence was? Will it not be bitterness in the latter end? Remember this stream of Jordan in which thou swimmest runs to the dead sea. The end of all these things (as St. 
Rom. 6.23. Phil. 3.19. Rom. 1.33. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Paul tells us) is destruction and death in all senses: For these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience and sons of death.  
Peccati deformitatem & foetorem reputa; as a Commentator observes on this Text. As a dead carcase is to thee loathsome, and to be cast out of thy presence; so is a soul, a sinner that is dead in sin and impenitence while he lives. wouldst thou disarm the terror, power, 
Morticinia non erant sacrificia.  and sting of death, slay thy sin; let it not die (monte incruentâ) a natural death by age and infirmity, but a violent one by mortifying and crucifying. Sin must not die with us, but before us. 
Deut. 14.21.  Nothing that died of itself was to be offered to God as a sacrifice. No companion worse when we go to our long home then sin, if it be yet living in us, and with us, in the love, power, pleasure and purpose of sinning. This worm will never die after death. Now is the time to die to sin, while thou livest: Now or never. 
ohn 8.21.  Lay this to heart, lest thou die for ever in thy sins (as Christ tells the Jews) for want of timely dying to them. For in the sins a man hath committed, and not repent of, 
Ezek. 18.24.  he shall surely die, saith the Lord again & again by the Prophet Ezekiel. Nor is sin truly repent of, unless it be mortified, at least in the full and unfeigned resolutions of a believing, humble, contrite, and penitent (though dying) sinner. The will (here) shall be accepted for the deed, and the purpose bears the value of the practice. Wheresoever the black characters of sin are washed from the soul by penitent tears, 
2 Cor. 8.12.  and the blood of Christ, the lively image of God will appear, as the face of the dry land did when the flood was fully assuaged. The tyranny of death shall no more prevail, when once the dominion of sin is taken away; which hath no right, but is a mere usurpation upon the reasonable creature.  
4. 
Quàm fugax & fallax, quam certa & incerta, quam procax & procellosa: Bern.  Lay to heart the frailty and vanity, the misery and momentariness of this short, sinful, and sorrowful life; how fallacious and fading, how short and uncertain, how troublesome and importune, this gleam and storm of life is, as St Bernard speaks. How specious a bubble, how delightful a dream, how goodly a nothing it is for a reasonable soul to intent, to delight in, to dote upon, to rest, and root its happiness in: Wilt thou set thine heart (saith the Prophet) on that which is not? 
Job 7.17.  wilt thou lay out and lavish thy thoughts in such things as have no worth, and bear no price in that Country whither thou goest? so that when thy vain and vexatious life fails, all thy thoughts must perish; 
Psal. 146.4.  when this little cockboat of thy carcase comes a ground and splits, 
Magno viatico breve iter non ornatur sed opprimitur. Sen.  all thy voyage is lost; all thy good things, with which thou wert not more adorned then encumbered, and rather childishly pleased then really profited, these sink with thee, and are swallowed up in the Abyssus of forgetfulness, never to be buoyed up again, nor enjoyed any more by thee; as is expressed by Christ in the parabolical history of Dives, 
Luke 16.19. Luke 12.19.  which is too oft verified by sad experience of rich men.  
In order to show you the vanity of all things in this world, that you call great or good, high or honourable, sacred or civil, I shall not need beyond your own fresh experience to tell you (Right Honourable and Beloved) of those strange revolutions, and eccentric motions, which have befallen the highest Orbs of this British world; which have shaken Heaven and Earth, Church and State, turning the Sun into darkness, and the Moon into blood, to the terror and astonishment of all the world, at home and abroad. They are as beasts without understanding who learn not wisdom and humility by those Paradoxes of providence, which have posed the wise, exhausted the rich, debased the honourable, diminished the great: only the gracious heart reads these riddles, and the spiritual man understands God's meaning in all these intricacies; which are like Ezekiels wheels, full of dreadful and yet orderly confusions; very perplexed in their motions, yet evidently guided by that spirit within them, 
Ezek. 1.20.  which is wise and wonderful in all its ways. These are public lectures of the vanity and vexation of life, which God hath taught us all in this Nation with the sound of the drum & trumpet; lessons that are written with the point of the sword as their pens, and the blood of these Nations as their ink. They that run may read, and they that live the life of sober men, and good Christians, will learn God's meaning to be this, That the rich man should not glory in his riches, nor the strong man in his strength, 
Jer. 6.23, 24.  nor the wise man in his wisdom, nor the great man in his greatness, nor Princes in their Thrones; 
1 Cor. 1.32.  but he that glories should glory in the Lord, that he knows his blessed will in order to a better life.  
Look a little lower to this Noble Gentleman, whose Corpse are here before us, and his most Noble Mother, who Ires in her dust not far from us; There have seldom been afforded in any age, & in any one family, greater instances by which to confute the confidences of poor mortals, as to any thing  or enjoyable in this life. Nothing of education, honour, estate, comeliness, greatness of relations, ampleness of worldly enjoyments could be modestly wished beyond what they seemed to enjoy; both of them in the flower of their age, in the conspicuity of grand fortunes and honours, in the probability of long enjoying all those happinesses which are attainable under the Sun: yet have I lived to see both their lives ended; all their humane hopes, and joys, and honours buried in the dust; the one before she was 27. years old, the other before he had completed four and twenty. So great and near experiments are these two for the confirmation of those two verses, used to display the excellent emptiness and glorious nothingness of this world and present life; of which subject, as many pens and wits have largely descanted, so none have expressed more in few words than he that made this distich, 
Punctum, bulla, vitrum, glacies, flos, fabula, fumus,  
Vmbra, cinis, somnus, vox, sonus, aura, nihil.   
Thus in prose. No point is more concise, no bubble more pompously swelling and suddenly vanishing, no glass more brittle, no ice more self-dissolving, no flower more fair and fading, no tale more short and fabulous, no shadow less substantial, 
Introitus & exitus lugubris. Cum nascimur & mundi hospitio excipimur, initium a lacrymis auspicamur; & cum lacrymis extinguimur. Cyp. Ordimur vitam lacrymis, & claudimus omnes. Quisque suis natus, sic sepelitur aquis.  no ashes more easily scattered and never to be recollected, no sleep or dream more delighting and deceiving, no voice more vanishing, no sound more transient, no breath more soft and unseen; in sum, nothing is a truer emblem of absolute and perfect nothing then this poor life: which is begun (as St. Cyprian and many observe) continued, and ended with tears: An Egyptian reed, on which if the heart of man leans it soon fails, and the defeats of it pierce the very soul. O what a small thread is this on which we poor wretches hang the weight of our eternal state, the great interests of our immortal souls; while we delay our repentance, multiply our sins, daily and hourly adding burden to a crazy vessel, which is leakey with its own infirmities, and already over-laden with its (pondus mortalitatis) body of death.  
O ye sons and daughters of men, who are lifted up, filled and stretched to the highest pitch and uttermost extents of pride, self-conceit, vainglory; who have already deified yourselves in your own imaginations of your heaven upon earth, your humane happinesses; who expect that all that see you should admire and adore you, as creatures so completely blest that the Angels or Gods themselves have cause to envy you, when you are so fair, so fine, so young, so lovely, so witty, so nobly descended, so mightily befriended, so invested with honour, so fortified with power, so furnished with estate, so attended with servants, so lodged in sumptuous palaces, so surrounded with all manner of pleasures, so overflowing with all sensible contents of life. See, see in this and the like sad spectacles of vanity, mortality, and misery, What a perfection of folly, 
1 Tim. 6.17.  what an apparent madneus it is for you to be highminded, to be proud of any thing you enjoy here, to trust in your uncertain riches, and not in the living God. You may as justly swell, and look big, and magnify yourselves for taking up some rich Jewels in a shop, or for seeing and handling some fine and precious wares a little while in your hand, which you must shortly lay down and leave behind you; and then when thou art driven from the living, and thy soul taken from thee, 
Luke 12.19.  Thou egregious fool, whose shall all these things be.  
Experience hath taught us that a dead hand is an excellent means by rubbing it on wens and tumors of the body to allay, disperse, and as it were mortify that irregular and deformed excrescency. The same receipt of a dead hand might serve, if duly applied to our souls, for it would be a very sovereign remedy, as against all that is in the world, 
1 John 2.16.  which is of a puffing and exalting nature, (as the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life) so against all those flatuous and high imaginations of our hearts. For the world passeth away and the lust thereof; but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever, 1 John 2.17.  
Yea, in every Funeral there is as it were a special hand of providence, 
Dan. 5.5.  like that which Balshazzar saw upon the wall, which not only wrote his fate, but weighed him as it were in a balance, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Stobae.  and shown him by his own terrors and tremble how much he was too light in God's esteem, and in his own mistaken fancies of earthly felicity. It is among the mementoes of the ancient Greeks, Being momentany and mortal, it well becomes all mankind to be very lowly minded, 
Mich. 6.8.  to walk humbly before their God: Not to lay much weight upon so small pillars, as our legs and sinews are; not to build upon so lose a foundation, which like quicksands, or quagmires, in a short time swallow and bury up the building which is set upon them. How ridiculous would he be that should bestow much time to hue, and square, and polish cakes of ice, in order to build himself a splendid and perspicuous palace, which he should fancy to be like the Crystal Firmament, and comparable to the etherial mansions of heaven. (Magno conatu nugas agimus.) Truly such are the industrious self-cheats of those who fancy to themselves rare felicities or real fullness in this life, 
Isa. 44.20. Hos. 12.1. Edunt tanquam hodie morituri. Aedificant tanquam semper victuri.  so greedily feeding on the East-wind and ashes, the pleasures of sense, which blast our fouls and abase them, as if they had but one day to live, and yet so solicitous for the morrow, as if they were to live here for ever. No man takes the true dimensions of life, who doth (not as Pythagoras did the Pyramids) measure it by the shadows of death. Nor do we begin truly to live as rational and religious creatures, till we lay to heart the true state and proportion of this life; of which we are but Tenants at will, having no lease, much less see simple or inheritance, but are at the will of the Lord to be turned out of house and home at a moment's warning. Blessed God If we laid this to heart as we should, what manner of men and women should we be, in all humble, holy, 
2 Pet. 3.11. 1 Cor. 7.21. Frui utendis summa est dementia. Aug.  and heavenly conversation, as St. Peter writes; using this world as if we used it not, at least enjoyed it not. For as St. Austin observes, it is extreme fatuity to enjoy that as ours which is but lent us for a very little, yea for no time, but from one moment to another. The very ancient Heathens will rise up against Christians in this point, which they notably studied, variously and wittily expressed, yea, and in many things modestly practised.  
5. Add to the thoughts of life's frailty and vanity the certain uncertainty, and inevitable necessity of death: A subject adorned by many pens, illustrated by frequent Funerals, meeting us every moment, and at every turn; yet seldom laid to heart, but as a cloud it passeth over our heads without showering down any softening drops on our souls. These discourses, as hail on the hills, rattle in every Funeral Sermon and exhortation upon our ears and heads, but seldom enter and pierce into our hearts. They are like Ghosts or Phantasms that appear and vanish; scaring us a little, but they touch us not at all; notwithstanding the heaps upon heaps which are very ten and twenty years made up of our dead friends, kindred, and acquaintance, who are no sooner removed out of our sights but they are gone out of our memories, as to any pious improvement. Xerxes is reported to have wept, when seeing his vast Army, which made a million of fight men, he considered how one century of years would mow them all down as so many flowers, or spires of grass in a field. The softness of Christians hearts should go beyond the savageness of such an Heathen: He considered the breaking of the box, but he was not sensible of those sweet resentments, that savour of life unto life which a wise and gracious heart extracts out of the objects and meditations of death. He beheld the carcases of so many Lions, but he found no honey in any of them. He had only the eyes of experience, sense, and reason, but not of grace and religion, which looks through the dark mist and medium of death to the prospect of a true and eternal life. That great Persian Commander, as the Roman Emperors after him, 

Quos nec spectasset quisquam, nec spectatuus esset.  
Ludi Seculares Suet. in Claud.   (when they caused to be proclaimed at their greatest secular Interludes, and most solemn Pageants, which were presented but once in an hundred years, Come and see those shows, which no man living ever did see heretofore, nor shall ever see again.) These men, I say, had the Moon and Stars of common reason and experience, to show them their own and other men's mortality; but they wanted the beams of the Sun of righteousness, the light of God's word in the Scriptures; which every where sets so many afterisks, or memorable notes of emphasis and terror upon Death. In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die: 
Gen. 2.  An Oracle which presently began to be fulfilled as soon as the condition was forfeited, just as the sea ebbs from the very first minute of its recess or abatement, though (sensim & pedetentim) by silent steps, and almost insensible degrees, according to the patience and indulgence of a long-suffering God. Yet as the candle is dying or consuming as soon as it is lighted or burning, and the hourglass is emptying as soon as it is running; so the life of man ran to waste and the exhausting of death, so soon as it ceased to have communion and supplies of immortal influx from the God of life. When the intercourse between the spring and the current is once stopped and obstructed, the constancy, fullness, and perennity of the stream presently decays, and as it drieth up it dies.  
A sinful man is presently surrounded with a thousand deaths every moment: 
Mille modi mortis, etc.  and though we can die but one death in the conquest or completion, yet how many legions of deaths are ever marching in array against us, both as to the menacing preparation without us, and the disposition or infirmity within us, which expose us to die on every side. There is not only (mors in urna but in olla, in victu, vestitu, halitu) death in our coffins and urns, but in our cups and pots, in our meats and drinks, and in our bodies and bowels, yea in our breath and bread, which we use as the breath & staff of life; the short reciprocations & returns of which are the constant supports of our lives, and the chief (antemuralia) defensatives against death. Thus the Philosophers discoursed, when death striking upon their hard and flinty hearts, 
Poena ad unum, terror ad omnes  they saw by the sparks or strictures of reason their own mortal condition.  
But the Divine Oracles are like Thunderbolts falling here and there, and near to every one of us: though their execution light not presently on our heads, 
Heb. 9.27.  yet the terror and contrition should upon our hearts, because it is (by an unrepealable decree) appointed for all men once to die, and after that the judgement. Death as a great drag-net fetches all into its capacious bosom; this King of terror, as Job calls death, is (verè Rex Catholicus) truly a Catholic King, reigning over all, 
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. Hor.  as the Apostle Paul expresses it, even those that most glory in their royal privileges and titles. No Emperor hath any Empire over it nor against it, any more than the British King Canutus of Kent had against the seas encroaching upon his Throne. Or then that cunning Prince Lewis the 11th. of France, who, as Phil. Commines' reports, fenced himself, 
Phil. de Com. Histor. of France.  but in vain, with holy relics, surrounding his body and bed, to see if he could scare away death with those (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) holy terriculaments. Kings that have a just power of life and death as to their subjects, have no power over their own, to prolong their lives, or protract their deaths one moment. King's are conquered and cowed by death; Potentates are impotent in this conflict; for they assist they very enemy, and are traitors to themselves; and if no other force doth, the force of their own infirmities will certainly destroy them. No Protectors can protect themselves or others from this civil war, this intestine enemy, which is unavoidable, , which hath all the engines for battering, and arts of undermining us. (Non domus & fundus, etc.) neither house nor land, nor father nor friend, nor favour nor power, nor Courts nor Crowns, nor the surest defensative under heaven against men, which is a valiant and faithful Army, these are all as bulrushes and straws in the way of death, which is the way of all the living. Death in this absolute empire and unlimited sovereignty using not only (jure suo) its own right, but (jure divino) God's right, as the executioner of his just, irrevocable, and dreadful sentence upon all mankind: Among whom none ever was sufficient to answer that Question, 
Psal. 89.48.  What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?  
Yea, when the Son of the everliving God, who is God coessential and immortal with his Father, appeared among men, as one of us, in the form of sinful flesh, Death, though he had no just claim against him, because no guile or sin was found in him, 
Phil. 2.8. 1 Pet. 2.22. John 10.18.  yet used its prerogative. And though this blessed Messiah could not be forced (no man taking his life from him) yet he yielded to do the lowest homage to death as a man (not without great horror of that cup) yea, humbling himself even to the death of the cross, and to the prison of the grave, for a short time; that by dying he might overcome death in its own fort. 
1 Cor. 15.  By grappling with this Dragon, he pulled out his sting, and made him cast forth his poison, so far as to be innoxious now, and not very terrible to those that fly to this Jesus for protection and life, 
John 11.25.  who is the resurrection and the life to believers and holy livers; who maketh light to grow up to the righteous out of their darkness, and life out of his death.  
To others indeed, that are either Infidel Heathens, or unchristian Christians, which have but forms and no power of godliness, on whose hearts the death of Christ hath not yet wrought as a corrasive against sin, and a cordial against death; to these Death still appears as a direful Comet or blazing star in his full magnitude, truculent, threatening, formidable, inevitable: infinitely to be dreaded, because he threatens them with a total and entire death; not only to their estates and honours, pleasures, power, friends and bodies, but as to their souls, as to that after and eternal life.  
If death prevailed so far upon the Son of God, how far will its vastations reach upon those that are the children of the flesh only, that is, of the Devil, and properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of death. If the living Lion thus died, what must become of those that are but as dead dogs? A gracious Christian, as Jonathan did saul's javelin, avoids the stroke of death, as to the main; it may graze on his body, but it toucheth not his soul, 
Col. 3.3.  when his life is hidden with Christ in God. A natural man, though while he lived he blessed himself, yet dies wholly: Death, like the flood, prevaileth over his highest tops and mountains; it gnaweth upon them as sheep: Nothing is left him for ever, of which it may be said, In this he lives; as in the houses of the Egyptians there was none in which there was not one dead, yea the first born. For his children, they shall follow the generation of their fathers, and never see light, if they follow their evil steps: His lands which he called after his name, in a few years they are alienated, his lamp quite extinct, and his memorial perisheth: For his fair and costly Monument (Et habent sua fata Sepulchra.) These in revolutions of time, 
Psal. 49.19.  either by the rough hand of war, overturning all things; or by the gentle and leisurely thawings of peace, melt and moulder away, till they bury themselves in their own dust, which were designed as repositories and conservatories of their Masters. As for their souls, they never lived the life of God, nor can they hope to live in light with him; so that eternal death feedeth for ever upon the whole man, devouring every-limb of body, and faculty of soul, as the Lions did the accusers of Daniel, before ever they come to the ground. O how sad, how mad is that security among Christians, which sleeps on the top of a mast in so dangerous a sea; that dares to live in known and presumptuous sins, amidst these infinite and hourly adventures of death; playing over the head of that mine, where he knows is daily sapping under him and within him; nor doth a man know in what moment it may be sprung to his utter dissipation. We know not at what hour of the day, 
Mat. 24.42, 43.  or watch of the night this notable Thief will come to break up our house of clay, and spoil us of all our goods, together with our lives; and he is but the Vancourrier of our Judge, whose counsel is holy and wholesome, advising all his disciples to watch and pray, lest we be surprised at unawares by the arrests of Death and Judgement.  
Nothing concerns a wise man, or evidenceth a good man more, then to be never so employed as he shall not dare to die; that like an honest and able debtor, he may confidently walk at all hours of the day in every street of the City where he dwells, and where he owes a debt, which he is able and willing to pay; whereas the lewdness and riot of impenitent sinners makes them, like bankrupt debtors, shift and shark, hid and skulk up and down, in byways, and at twilight, for fear of those Creditors whom they are neither able nor willing to satisfy: and yet they cannot long escape the Bailiffs and Jailor's hand, nor by any artifices avoid that prison, out of which is no redemption till a man hath paid the uttermost farthing; that is never, unless while we are in the way we agree with our merciful Creditor, 
Mat. 5.29.  who is ready upon our humble request to forgive us all that we own him, like that gracious and generous Master in the Gospel. 
Mat. 18.27.   
6. Lay to heart what little cause any mother's child of us hath to presume to sin, and to procrastinate our repentance, since we have no cause to presume of life till to morrow; to neglect agreeing with our adversary while we are yet in the way, that is, under the means, offer, and capacity of reconciliation and happy accord; to adventure so precious and momentary an opportunity, upon which depends our everlasting fate in weal or woe; 
Ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas.  never stirring up any Sympathies in our souls toward our Saviour's death, nor any compassions to ourselves as to our own mortality; never to return any holy Echoes or humble Amens either to the precepts or promises, terrors or comforts of God's word; but as if stark deaf, and quite dead, so we are utterly dumb and unmoved as to all that is thundered and lightened from heaven, 
2 Cor. 5.20. 2 Cor. 6.1.  to all that God's Ambassadors, those Boanerges and Barnabasses, sons of thunder or of consolation, daily cry unto us with infinite counsels and reproofs, Sermons and prayers, inviting and beseeching men to pity themselves, to flee from the wrath that is to come, to disarm Death, and defeat the Devil of his expected prey.  
There is no rock that Ministers should more avoid thenthiss of giving people any encouragement to delay their repentance, which no man may upon good grounds do e that hath not any assurance of his life, nor any insurance against death. Nor doth any thing usually more contribute to this vulgar presumption and dilatories than the courting and complementing with the dead and living too in Funeral Sermons, making them rather Panegyrics and Harangues of commendation to the dead, then serious summons and alarms to the living; when neither the life nor the death of the interred gave any pregnant evidences of such grace and comfort as deserves either the commendation or imitation of the living. No; Funeral Sermons, as I hold them in many cases very fit, and of excellent use, so they ought to be serious, severe, and wholly circumcised, as to all danger of sowing pillows under the elbows of the living, or of daubing with any untempered mortar; and no less from whiting the Sepulchers of the dead, as if there were no rottenness in their bones. Preachers should in no point of their Embassy be more rigid, exact, precise and punctual, 
Matth. 3.2. Matth. 4.17.  then in urging that which was Christ's and his forerunners first Text and Sermon, Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. As the Roman Legate or Consul Marcus Popilius circumscribed with a wand he had in his hand the person and answer of the proud King Antiochus, 
Valerius Max. in M. Popilio.  when he, desiring time to resolve of war or peace, which was offered him, was confined to give his definitive answer before he stirred a step out of that little circle: So concise and peremptory are God's commands, and so must be our conjureings and requirings of all men every where to repent and turn to the Lord, 
Acts 17.30. Acts 3.26. Gen. 27.2. Heb. 3.11.  young as well as old; even daily exhorting them while it is called to day, because (as Isaac said) they know not the day of their deaths, nor we of ours; and if they die in their sins, unwarned, God will require their blood at our hands. 
Ezek. 33.6.  A dreadful account! as Chrys. calls it. Can you blame us (Ministers) O Christian people, if we be quick and importune in calling upon you; if we seem religiously rude, and piously uncivil with you, even pulling, and snatching, and haling you while you are lingering, as the Angels did Lot out of Sodom, or as firebrands out of the fire. Our deferring to call upon you, and your delay to repent, these run the hazard of your and our souls.  
You must therefore forgive those kind and charitable injuries we sometimes seem to do you by our Christian importunities, 
Currat poenitentia nè praecurrat poena. Amb.  which are but the effects of our fidelity to you, to our own souls, and to God. St. Ambrose's counsel is excellent, Let repentance make haste, lest vengeance overtake thee. True repentance only can bring thee to the City of refuge, Christ Jesus, where thou mayst be safe against the pursuits of death and wrath. Seneca in his concise and witty way can tell us, how necessary it is to be as passengers on the shore that expect a fair wind and passage by Sea, always in readiness, to have our packs and trunks packed up, that we may answer the first summons of the Master or Pilot, who when he calls to be gone, will stay for no man's occasions.  
If Heathens had such principles of prudence, who saw but one side of death, and that but darkly, in a very distant narrow view, as to Eternity; O how should Christians (who have so great discoveries) take the alarm of every night and sleep, which is a shadow of death; of every morn renewing, which is the dawning of Eternity; the gallicinium cock-crowing of the resurrection; of every infirmity in their own feeling; of every other Funeral and death they see or hear of; of every history they read, which always closeth with the work of death, drawing this black vail of burial and oblivion over all the pomp and glory, strength and victory, pleasures and passions of the world, and those great men in it, who in their greatest glister are but gloeworms, shining a while in this night of mortality, and then extinct for ever: yea every hour which men live is a monitor of death, being no sooner lived out, but they are so much dead; so is every meal they eat, which is but a daily subsidy given to the body to relieve its daily expenses and decays, which are the secret depredations and essays of death. We should take, yea and make many occasions to reflect soberly upon this meditation, and lay death to heart, that the defensative of repentance may the better work upon our souls, before death hath taken the suburbs of our bodies by age and sickness; which are not the constant procedures of death; nor may any man rationally expect it will deal with him upon such terms of Treaty or Parley: No, 'tis oft upon the snap, and sudden with us, and may be so to the ablest and youngest He or She. Sometimes indeed death plays with smaller shot upon us, and hews us down with many little chaps: But 'tis frequent that he batters us all in pieces with one great and sudden Cannon, and blows us up at once by a storm, either of inward Apoplectic strokes, or outward violences, as the wind overthrew the house on Jobs children; against which there is no foresight, no warning, or defence. Death doth not always so befriend either Physicians gains, or their patient's designs, as to vouchsafe them the benefit of a lingering sickness, or a leisurely death  
How infinitely then doth it concern us to be always (in procinctu) in our harness; never to wake or sleep, but with the complete armour of our souls upon us, or rather within us. 
Gen. 6.  Sure it was pitiful paddling work to be building of boats, or hewing down trees to make ships and vessels of then, when the flood began to be poured down upon the Old world of ungodly men, who so long neglected their temporal and eternal safety, by delaying their repentance when they had God's warning by Noah's preaching for an hundred years, 
1 Pet. 3.19. 2 Pet. 2.5.  that of so many millions of mankind which in that generative and vivacious age had peopled and overstocked the earth, there should be but eight persons found fit to be preserved alive in the Ark, which afforded room for birds, beasts, and serpents, but not for wicked and impenitent men, who had refused the voice of God calling them so long, so oft, to repentance; as he now doth every where, by that (Tuba Evangelii) Trumpet of the Gospel, which is but the (Preceptor) first peal and noise of the last Trumpet: The one calls us so to prepare for Death, that we may stand with comfort in the day of Judgement; the other will call us out of a state of death to the eternal doom of that last day of Judgement.  
The state and tenor of a Christians life should be a continued course of repentances, well begun, and daily renewed, never intermitted, because of daily failings. All the parenthesis of business, as to secular affairs, should not interrupt the series, nor confound the care of a Christians Repentance and daily proficiency. Blessed God What pity 'tis that men & women can find time for every thing else under the Sun, and none for their repentance; which is the work of works, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Opus operosissimum.  the first rough-hewing and foundation of the great building of our eternal salvation? Hast thou time to dress & undress thy body, to eat and drink, and sleep; to buy and sell, to sport and play; to fight and kill others; yea to gratify thy senses in all sorts of pleasures, and to attend nature in the most sordid necessities; and yet canst find no time to repent, no nor to admit one serious thought of repentance to lodge in thy soul one day, one hour, no not one minute? Yea, canst thou find time to sin all manner of sins over and over, that thou thinkest safe from the vengeance of man; and yet no time to repent of thy sins against God? No time in youth to repent of the sins of childhood or puerice; which St. Austin now an aged, yet tenderhearted penitent, did reflect upon, and repent of with tears: 
St. Austin's confession. Tantillus puer & tantus peccator.  No time in riper years to repent of the inordinate hears of youth, to quench the flames of extravagant lusts? (which God and nature, reason and Religion command to be confined, as fire, to their proper hearths and chimneys, the order of modesty and chastity, but they are not allowed to set fire on the housetop, to the fight against, and endangering both soul and body) Canst thou find no time in the high noon and Solstice of thy life, no nor yet in the decline and evening, when grey hairs are here and there, when thy eyes grow dim, and the shadows long, to repent of thy former misdemeanours, thy neglects and slight of God, thy despising his mercies, thy uncharitableness, sacrilege, 
Psal. 50.21.  cruelty, oppressions, hypocrisy, lying, swearing, murders, blasphemies, insolences, hardness and impenitency carried on against thy God and thy Saviour, thy Mediator and thy own soul, with so high an hand, so long a time?  
Sure thou either believest there is no God, or, that he is such an one as thyself; neither wise nor good, not holy nor just; that he hath revealed no Word or Will Law nor Gospel to mankind; that he is indifferent what we do, or impotent to reward or revenge; that he hath neither heaven nor hell, crowns nor flames for either good or bad; that they who fear God and they that fear him not shall be all blended by death in an eternal Chaos, medley, or confusion, without any distinction of reward or punishment according to their works: upon these persuasions only thou canst be hitherto impenitent.  
But if any one of those sharp arrows of divine truth which are shot from heaven, which thou hast heard of, 
Atheus est qui non tam credit, quam cupit non esse Deum.  seen, and received into thy breast, which thou canst with no colour of reason deny, or repel, and which with much ado thou bafflest and shufflest off to a kind of cavilling unbelief; I say, if but one of them had well fixed itself upon thy heart and conscience, it would move thee to the speedy thoughts and essays of repentance; at least to pair off the superfluity of thy sins, and that excess of riot, 
1 Pet. 4.4.  which argue more a monster then a man, and a Devil then a Christian, who loves darkness more than light, and in the midst of that glorious Gospel which hath shined from Patriarches, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, 
John 3.19.  all good Christians in all ages and places, yea, from Christ himself, confirmed to be the light & life, the Redeemer and Saviour of the world by many infallible signs and wonders. In this blight Temple thou affectest the dungeon and vault of thy rotten and nasty lusts, choosing death, and refusing life; digging deeper into hell then when thou mightest make an ascent to heaven, by those gracious means (as the ladders of heaven) which are offered thee in precepts, promises, terrors, comforts, holy patterns and great examples set before thee in all grace and virtue; which whoso seethe not must needs be blind; whoso sees and doth not praise, yea admire, must needs be unthankful; whoso is not proportionably affected to their truth and worth, 
Divinae veritatis majestatem, benignitatis gloriam, gratiarum nitorem, virtutum pulcherimam suavitatem qui non videt caecus est; qui videt & non laudat ingratus est; qui videns laudansque parili affectu non movetur aut mortuus est aut insanus. Eccles. 12.6.  must needs be either mad or dead, as St. Austin speaks. Surely if thou couldst once meet thyself, that is, thy conscience in the cool of the day, apart from the heats of thy passions, and the rapid torrent of thy foolish and hurtful lusts, thou wouldst bethink thyself at length, before thou diest, of the necessary work of Repentance, and not only before thou diest, but before thou declinest and droopest. It is indeed a sad, uncertain, and uncomfortable work to begin when a man is drawing to his end; then to tune thy soul for God when thy body is most out of tune, and thy mind too; then to begin to wind up the strings of an Instrument when the very ribs of it are flying in pieces. Who of a thousand can hope to draw waters out of the deep wells of salvation, when the golden bowl, and silver cord of life (as Solomon speaks) are almost broken and loosed? It must needs be an huddling and most confused work then to set thy house in order, I mean that (interiorem animae domum) inward withdrawing room of thy soul, thy heart, (which ought to be as a Temple always fitted for God, purged from sin, adorned with all gracious habits) then when the Tabernacle, or outhouse of thy body, in which thy soul dwells, is wholly out of order, either burning with feavorish flames, or tottering with consumptionary weakness, or burdened and falling with unnatural loads and painful obstructions. Thou couldst never have chosen a worse or unfitter time to repent, then when the pains of sickness, the inquietudes of body, the impertinent visits of friends, the cries of relations, the want of sleep, all extremities, the terrors of death, and the stupors of soul are before thee, or pressing upon thee.  
Repentance is a work to be begun seriously, in the most sedate temper of soul, and calmest state of life; when we enjoy the greatest serenity of body and mind; when we have most leisure, fewest interruptions, and least diversions, strongest temptations, potentest oppositions, and the greatest abilities of soul to resist them. Once well begun, it must at the same rate be carried on every day: For this, like oft pumping in a ship that hath but little leaks, will keep her afloat; but it is desperate plying the pump when a vessel hath now so many foot water in hold that it gins to sink. The early repentings in our health are the best Antidotes and Cordials in our sickness, like Summer provisions seasonably laid in against an hard Winter; nor is there any bitter potion which a sick man is less able or disposed to take then that of Repentance, when he is weak, languishing, sunk, dispirited, almost despairing in his sickness; which is like a man's setting himself to cleave logs, and therewith to make himself a fire, when he is so benumbed and feeble with cold that he can hardly lift his hands to his head.  
2. Besides, no man hath much cause to presume his repentance will be accepted of God when it comes perforce at the dregs and fag end of his life. Lastly, a man can then least relish and reflect upon such late and necessitated repentance, as to the comfort and joy of his own soul: for the best trial and taste of true repentance is to be had in health, amidst the exercises and assaults of temptations; then if it hold sound and firm, it argues it to be of proof and safe.  
Indeed there is nothing in our life so necessary to be done, and so worthy of our living, as our timely repenting; for if life were for nothing else but an enflaming the reckon of our sins here, and our miseries hereafter, it were a thousand times better never to be born, or to see the Sun. The great end of our life is first to remove the sordes and rubbish of our sins, next to build up our souls for God by grace to glory; which two make up the complete work of repentance, which like currant coin hath two sides stamped, or impressions on it, the one is as cross, the other is as pile; the first is as turning from sin, or dying to sin; the other is turning to God, and living to grace. These are wrought by a double stamp upon the soul: 1. Of fear and terror, scaring us from sin by the just apprehensions of the anger and wrath of God revealed from heaven, and in the heart. 2. Of love and mercy, winning us to God by the beauty of holiness, and the brightness of his goodness, which appears in the face of Jesus Christ, set forth in the Evangelical promifes.  
The first breaks, the second melts the heart: The one is commonly much hidden, where the other most appears to the soul, either in fear or love; which have their wholesome vicissitudes, till the work be perfected by mortification to amendment, by hatred of sin from the love of God. This seasonably, leisurely and seriously done, doth strangely advance the souls faith, comfort, and hope of God's love in Christ.  
But it is neither an easy nor a ready thing to discern the bright jewel of assurance, as God's love, mercy, and pardon, there where the soul is all in dust, and hurry, and confusion, moving and removing its lumber and rubbish. A troubled water, 
Isa. 57.20.  though it be pure, will not show a clear reflection of our own or another's face; no more will a troubled spirit, especially if it be foul with mire and dirt, as a wicked heart is; though a late repentant, may find favour in God's sight, who can see our sincerity amidst all our confusions; yet it is hard for us to have so clear a sight of God, as may amount to that plerophory, strong comfort and assurance, which a dying man, affected with his condition, would desire even beyond life itself, or a thousand worlds; having now before his eyes the dismal aspect of death, the black Abyssus of eternal night, without bounds or bottom, made up of desolation and oblivion at best, and (which is infinitely more horrid) of damnation and eternal torments; a Tophet that burns with much wood, kindled by the breath of God's displeasure, which none can quench.  
I know it is not fit to obstruct or shrink the mercies of God, where there is yet any hope, possibility, or capacity allowed us by God's indulgence. They found Manasses in a prison, and the thief on the Cross, and the prodigal son at the swine-trough; by which sharp pennances God brought them first to themselves, then to himself by repentance, and so accepted of them. I know God can, and I believe sometimes he doth sanctify sickness to the like good effects: But we have no one example of deathbed repentance so much as once recorded in Scripture, to give any instance of hope in that kind, or to occasion the least presumption impenitently to sin away our health, by putting off our turning to God, till the time that we can scarce turn our selves in our bed. Repentance like Poetry (for it is a new making of the soul for God, a composing of it to the holy metres or measures of his Word) requires solitude and recesses of mind, 
Psal. 4.4.  that the heart of man may commune with itself and be still; seriously reflecting upon a man's self, what he is; where he lives; whence he is sprung; whither he tends; to what end he lives; what he would have to make him happy; whether this world can do it; where he may best know, and how he may do the will of his Maker and Preserver, God; what he will do in age, sickness, death; what relation, proportion, and capacity above all things under heaven he hath as a reasonable creature toward the Creator; from what wisdom, power, and goodness all his visible and present comforts flow; what duty and gratitude, what justice and holiness befits him to God and man; what to himself and his own future interests, both as to soul and body; which may without doubt be as capable of an after-happiness or misery, which we call heaven and hell, in their aspects to the supreme and increated good, as they are here of health or sickness, poverty or riches, honour or disgrace, joy or grief, vexation or pleasure, a momentary heaven or hell in reference to those creature-comforts they enjoy or want. These, if a man will but recollect himself, and not shut the eyes of his soul, he may in seeing see God's will, and apply himself to do his duty: But this must be done apart, and by himself, when there are least diversions, no distractions of body or mind; that removed from the noise and tintamars both of secular encumbrances, or sick annoyances, he may better hear the gentle and orderly voice of God, who is oftener in these silent and soft motions of reason, then in those louder earthquakes and terrors of afflictions. Nor can any pious and prudent Divine, as the Confessor and Comforter of such a troubled spirit, whose inward troubles for sin never began, or were kindly entertained, till the unwelcome trouble of his sickness made him a prisoner to his bed (as the presage of his after-jayls, the grave and hell;) In such cases (I say) no wise and worthy Minister of Christ but will be very wary how by the keys of the Gospel he shut all disquiet for sin out of such a soul, or let in the peace of God suddenly, as to any particular confidences or personal assurance, which in such cases must needs be very dark.  
'Tis true, in the general he may and must so temper Evangelical dispensations, declaring the riches of God's mercy and sufficiencies of Christ's merits, even to the chiefest of sinners, as may never countenance despair, as on God's part, in the least kind; which is the dreadfullest fury of hell, hardly allayed when once conjured up by the black art of Satan: For this damps all endeavours, and at once doth both God and a poor sinner the greatest injury that can be, by belying the one, and lying most foully to the other. It must always be asserted on God's behalf, that when ever the sinner turns from his sins with all his heart, God will abundantly pardon: And whoever comes to Christ, shall in no sort be cast out. These are most true, as to God's readiness to receive; provided always on man's part, that he seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near, 
Isa. 57.7. Ezek. 18. John 6.37. Isa. 55.6.  in the means of grace, in the motions of his spirit, in the corrections of men's own consciences, in the enjoyments of many mercies, in the lengthning of sinner's tranquillity; else such a penal hardness, searedness, and benummedness, 
Rom. 1.24, 28.  such a giving over to a reprobate sense may befall a man, that he shall have no contrition though he have time, nor comfort though some terrors; either he shall be dumb before God, not daring to speak, 
Hos. 7.14.  or if he doth cry and howl as a natural man, or a beast, for pain and fear, yet God will not hear, 
Prov. 21.13. Pro. 1.26, 27, 28.  or answer them; yea their very prayers shall be abominable, because they so long refused to hear and answer Gods cry to them, setting at nought his counsel, etc. Therefore may the Lord justly laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear cometh as desolation, and their destruction as a whirlwind. These are terrible checks and coolings as to the hope of an after-crop, or deathbed repentance.  
In which, at the best advance and proficiency of it, especially in people of riper years and full age, who have filled up the measure of their iniquity, 
Rom. 2.5.  and heaped up nothing but wrath against the day of wrath; if there should be melting of this rock, and softening of this millstone, by the furnace of sickness, even so far as what God will accept for true repentance, who is the only searcher and judge of men's hearts; yet neither he that thus confesseth and deploreth his sins, nor he that as a Minister takes his confession, only as it is now in humane appearance and by real experience extorted by sickness and terrors, neither of them can think that it is either so ingenuous, or can be so comfortable to be driven to God by the scourge of fears, rather than to be drawn to him by the cords of his love so long despised. Nothing of force and compulsion is so acceptable to others, or so reflecting with honour and comfort to a man's self, as that which flows from the freedom of love, and such adherences as arise from choice and value. A forced Repentance begun on our sick beds, (possibly) may, as musk-melons and other tender plants, which are bred in hot beds, come to good; but they must be very carefully and warily tended, for a little cold chills and kills them. What fruit they may bear to another world, I must leave to God; but as to this world I am sure there are but rare, that is, few examples in all experience of any whose repentance began in sickness that did ever hold long in their after health and recovery. Commonly all prayers and purposes are put into the grave of forgetfulness, when ourselves are reprieved from it. Whether it may take a better effect in heaven then usually it doth on earth, I leave to all serious Christians to judge.  
Object. But I know it will be (here) retorted with quickness upon me by some more morose or petulant sinners, who are only witty to cavil with God, and delude their own souls; Must we not tarry the Lords leisure, when he will call us, at the sixth, or ninth, or eleventh hour? Is not repentance a grace, 
Matth. 20.6.  and so a gift of God? How vain is it to step unseasonably into the water if the Angel move it not? there may be a roiling of the pool by us, but no healing for us. Did not Christ and his Apostles heal many without scruple on their sick beds, as well as those that had firmer health? Nor is Christ to be thought a less ready Physician to sick men's souls then their bodies. Do not therefore torment us before our time; suffer us to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; it will not be long before we shall be unwilling, because weary or unable to sin; then we shall be much more at leisure and dispose to repent; mean time God gives us not, at least we have no mind to it, nor indeed any power (as you Preachers tell us) to attain or act it of ourselves; for till God turn us, we cannot be turned. So that it seems rather a passionate and imperious way of preaching in you, agreeable to your more choleric or melancholy tempers, which makes you impatient not to be presently obeyed by all men, than any true Divinity; you ought not to stretch man's authority, by shrinking God's mercy.  
Answ. Thus are many men (ingeniosè nequam & perditè periti, as St. Austin speaks) very acute Sophisters to deceive and damn their own & others souls; rather listening, as Ahab, to the 400 false Prophets of their own foolish hearts & deceitful lusts, then to one true Micaiah which is God's Prophet. 'Tis most true, that the life and soul of repentance, which crowns it with love, and endears it to God in Christ, as the highest good, is a special grace of God: Nor is any soul so far off from him, but he can easily and speedily reach them and win them to himself, by the attractions of his infinite goodness and mercy, discovered and offered to them in the blood of Christ. Divines that understand themselves, do not prejudice or diminish the sweet and sovereign power or freedom of God's grace, which completes man's weak endeavours, and crownes all means with good success: But yet they justly urge and inculcate upon sinners their daily duty, incumbent upon them and required of them as rational creatures, capable to discern and choose good and evil, sensible of fears and hopes; yea, and as Christians, compassed with a marvellous light, which convinceth them of sin, and righteousness, and judgement to come, with offers of mercy in Christ to the highest latitude, 
Jam. 1.21  and menaces of wrath to eternity upon their impenitency. This is that which is required of them, as in their power, to turn from sin, at least as to that (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) superfluity of wickedness, and excess of riot, in which they knowingly wallow, to greater impudicities and fedities than the sober Heathens would indulge. Since than even these men can deny many acts and degrees of sin, even for fear of man; why cannot, why do not they deny more for fear of God? 
Rom. 2.1.  They must needs be inexcusable and without Apology, yea self-condemned, because it is evident there is no sin so pleasing, or so prevalent upon any man or woman, but either fear, or shame, or sense of honour, or love, or ingenuity, or gratitude, or hope of reward, will restrain and resist, even in the greatest paroxy sins of lust and temptations of the Devil. If a man ascend not at first to the highest pitch of repentance, (namely the love of God and goodness, or perfect hatred of sin) to which special grace must conduct him; yet he may come to the first steps and porch of it, to deny the ontward acts of ungodliness, and the fulfilling of worldly lusts. Let a man by this negative part of repentance (ceasing to do evil) first make trial in his health to leave any sin to which he hath been addicted and long captivated: Let him prepare his heart thus to seek the Lord, though with fear and difficulty; yet the Lord will meet with such a soul, and bring him beyond his fears, terrors, and conflicts, as he did St. Austin, to the confines of love; through the wilderness of fiery serpents, and thirst, and weariness, to the Land of Canaan, to the state of rest: in which the soul shall not only enjoy the comfort of God's love, in its delight to do well, and being enamoured with the beauty of holiness, but he shall rejoice to see the blessings of God's grace following his first weak endeavours, and dubious industry, in contesting with, and conquering temptations, and resisting such sins as lay within the power and reach of his soul, as he is a reasonable creature, and an instructed, baptised and enlightened Christian; who furnished with such potent and moral means to do his part, must not only attend the means, but apply to do his duty. Nor shall any man have cause to complain of God's defect, as to the completion of his grace, who takes care not to turn that grace into wantonness, which hath appeared to him, and is manifested on purpose to lead us to repentance, to teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly in this present world. Labour to pull up the evil weeds of thy inordinate lusts, at least keep them from being rank and luxuriant: 
Tit. 2.11, 12.  attend also those means which are appointed of God in his Church to sow, plant, and water the good seeds of grace and virtue, thou wilt in a short time find those wholesome and lively plants grow in thee, to thy great comfort and pleasure; 
Jucundissima est vita in dies sentire se fieri meliorem.  which consists not only in finding a man's self daily less vain and vicious, but more serious and virtuous. As it is to covetous men an infinite content to see themselves daily grow richer, and to the ambitious man to be daily advancing; so to a mind impatient of being poor and base in his sin, it is an unspeakable joy to see himself every day mending in his judgement, prayers, desires, designs, and hearty endeavours.  
The misery is, health, and life, and liberty, and strength, and estate, and pleasure, and pride, embase our souls toward God, even to far lower degrees of ingratitude and unworthiness, than we can in honour, or will for shame show toward men that have any power to punish or oblige us: we abhor to seem uncivil, uningenuous, unthankful, insolent, presumptuous, affrontive to such as are our betters, and especially if they have merited many ways well of us; only to God we offer such rude and unkind, unholy and unthankful measure, as we would not to a Prince, to a Parent, to any Superior, no nor to an equal and inferior, nor a noble enemy; being so far from any thing of Christian and true Divinity, which is the approportioning of our duty, love, respect, and service to God, that we forget all humanity which becomes ourselves; sinning not only most shamefully & impudently against God, but also against our own consciences and principles, against our souls and bodies too, even that honour and decency which we own to ourselves. The first step to be a good Christian is to be a good man. Right reason is the fair suburbs of Religion: once cease to live as a beast without fear or understanding, and thou wilt begin to delight in the dignity which becomes a man, and a Christian. God waits for thy essays of repentance, 
Isa. 30.18.  that he may be gracious to thee, not only in pardoning thy sins, but in speaking peace to thee; which is far better to be perceived by thee, when thou seest it was not mere slavish fear and the bastinado that compelled thee to look from sin toward God and goodness, but something of a rational and religious principle, becoming a man and a Christian. God never fails there to apply by his special hand the sweet cordials of his love, and comforts of his mercies in Christ, where we apply the corrasives proper to repress our sins, and those bitter pills which work to the purgative part of repentance. They that cease to do evil will so learn to do good: 
Maxima pars impotentiae fluit ex voluntate. Aquinas. Isa. 1.16.  It is not impotency but unwillingness that holds us so long tame captives to gross sins.  
The least Sympathies of a sinner with his Redeemer, as suffering death and agonies inexpressible upon the Cross out of love to his soul, and upon the account of his sin, to purchase pardon, and work his redemption from hell to heaven. These reflections will work more kindly upon a man's heart to repentance, than all the sicknesses, crosses, and consternations in the world: For there is no compare between a man's sin and his Saviour to those that are not wholly blind, dead and buried in sin.  
And can any rational man, that takes with patience all those bitter potions, those nauseous and painful applications of Physic which are prescribed by Physicians in order to remove dangerous obstructions, to purge out noxious humours, and correct malignant spirits, thereby to prepare the way for recovering of the health of the body; Can these severe disciplines for the short and uncertain good of the outward man be endured, nay desired, yea with great charge be purchased, and shall we be impatient of those restraining and healing methods of repentance, which possibly are less for a time agreeable to our corrupted palates and vitiated appetites, yet are the means prescribed and dispensed by God himself as proper to heal us of our deadly sins (for so all are unrepented of) and to prepare us for that health which our souls may enjoy by Christ? When once they are rid of those scurvy habits or (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) which customary and prevailing sins bring upon us daily, 
Quò diutius peccamus, eò longinquius a Deo abscedimus. Greg.  disposing us to all evil, and indisposing to all that is good.  
However the operation or event may be, this I am sure, the duty and work of Ministers is not to dispute nor dispense the the secret workings of God's grace, or to search the hidden purpose of God's will, but to declare and preach his revealed will, which is our sanctification by our repenting and amending according to the tenor of the Gospel. Such as deaffen their ears, harden their hearts, and turn their backs on God and the means of grace all the time of their strength and health, will find it very hard to see or seek his face in the disorder, darkness, and clouds of sickness, which is the twilight and evening of Death. As in civil conversation, no man may so presume of God's providence as to neglect honest industry; so in religious respects, no man may hope for grace that doth not rationally, duly, and conscientiously apply to the use of those means which God hath appointed in his Church. All blessings temporal and eternal, which are acquirable by, and offered to reasonable creatures, are ordinarily the effects of God's mercy and man's industry, not of miracles or omnipotence. The means of grace given by God in his Church are never barren or ineffectual, but to those who neglect to attend them and use them as they may and aught to do, if they look upon them as from God, and in order to their souls good, which is to be attained by this or no way.  
7. In order therefore to promote and speed by God's assistance our repentance, while we are yet in life and health, we should lay to heart, specially at the summons of another death, What infinite patience and long-suffering it is that hitherto God hath showed toward thee for many years of vanity, sin, and desperate folly, 
Rom. 2.4.  in which he hath spared thee; notwithstanding thou hast daily provoked him to his face, yet thou art not to this day cut off from the land of the living, nor is the door of mercy and repentance shut upon thee. How many have been cut off by the sword, by sudden death, and by lingering sickness, here one, there another, while thou art reprieved? Should not this forbearance of God lead thee to repentance? Is it not enough in all conscience, and too much in all reason and gratitude, thus far to have offended a God that is loath to destroy thee, giving thee space to repent? Wilt thou after the hardness of thy heart, and vain confidence of life, still treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? The time past may suffice to give thee sufficient experience how unwilling God is thou shouldest die, 
1 Pet. 4.3.  and how willing thou shouldst repent and live: 
Ezek. 33.11.  For it is of the Lords mercy that thou art not consumed. Thou mightest have been the corpse now to be put into the grave, 
Lam. 3.22.  where is no device or wisdom of counsel, or repentance, or preaching, 
Eccl. 9.10.  or praying. O turn no longer the grace of God into wantonness, which is offered in Christ by his Ministers. (Breve sit quod turpiter audes.) Of a short, precious, and uncertain moment, the least part is too much to be lavished in those ways, 
Judas 4.  which are not only unprofitable but pernicious. Our whole lives, after the vanity of childhood and youth, are too little to be spent in well-doing, 
Isa. 20.15.  and in undoing what hath been either vain or wicked. To live as if we had made a covenant with death and hell, is not only a fool-hardiness but a madness, which hath by infinite, sad, and horrid instances been fearfully punished, but not yet sufficiently cured in mankind. 
Eccl. 8.12.  Though a sinner live an hundred years twice told, yet it shall not be well with him. 
Eccl. 11.9.  Though young and strong men please themselves in the delights of their eyes, and desires of their own hearts, yet they must know that for all these things God will bring them to judgement. A man's debts and dangers are not the less because he is not presently arrested, nor sees the books and specialties which are against him, or the Sergeants which will arrest him. 'Tis high time to cease to offend that God who is willing to remit all our former arrears and debts upon our return to him, begging his pardon, and resolving to live worthy of such grace. Do not then feed any longer on ashes; it is a deceived heart that turneth thee aside, 
Isa. 44.20. Jonah 2.8. Phil. 2.12. Heb. 2.9.  so that thou canst not deliver thy soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? Take heed of following lying vanities, lest thou forsake thy own mercies; which are offered us but from moment to moment, so as every minute of time that passeth, every clock that striketh, calls upon thee in the wise man's counsel, Eccles. 9.10. Whatever thine hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might. And what hast thou to do but to work out thy salvation with fear and trembling, as the Apostle calls upon the Philippians? All without this is time and labour lost.  
8. Lay to heart, upon the sight and reflections of death, the infinite want thou hast of such a Saviour, who may be able and willing to redeem thee, a captive to sin, and held all thy life in the fear of death, from both these miserable bondages. Lay to heart the infinite grace, transcendent love and mercy of Christ, 
Heb. 2.9.  who is offered thee as a sufficient Saviour to all purposes; Who hath tasted death for every man, and hath overcome death as well as satisfied for the death of the whole world, excluding none, nor excepting any, but putting all into a capacity of life and salvation upon their faith and repentance, 
John 5.40. John 6.37, 40. Ver. 54. John 8.52. John 11.25. Mark 16.15.  so that whoever will come to him, and believe in him, shall not die, but have eternal life: yea, though he die, as to the body, yet he shall continue to live in the happiness of his soul, and his body shall be raised to live in glory and immortality by Christ, who hath wrought this for us by his death, and brought it to light by his Gospel, which is commanded to be preached to every rational creature under heaven.  
Lay then to heart, that is, seriously and alone ponder with thyself, what Christ hath done and suffered for thee, what he hath deserved of thee, what he expects from thee as a man & Christian for whose sake he hath died. Wouldst thou have greater instances of his love to thee, 
John 10.11. John 15.13.  then thus to die for thee? Shall not thy unthankful and sinful importunity be satisfied with that which hath satisfied divine justice, stopped the Devil's mouth, conquered death, and purchased life eternal to every true believer? It wrought up blessed Ignatius' heart to an ambitious zeal of Martyrdom, that he might show his (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) reciprocal love to Christ, when he deeply considered and oft repeated, Christ my love hath been crucified. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Doth it become thee to neglect, despise, sin against such love any longer? Canst thou trample that blood under feet which hath been shed for thee? Wouldst thou have him daily crucified for thee? Canst thou fancy or desire greater benefits than those that accrue to thee, and are offered thee by Christ? who hath taken away the sting of death, 
1 Cor. 15.  which is sin, that when thou diest in the Lord, thou art sure to be eternally blessed with the Lord; 
Vitam non amittimus sed mutamus. Hieron.  for true Christians do not lose but exchange life by death. Like a turning chatr, which serves for a door; so death natural is but a moving us out of one room, which is an ontward (antecamera) chamber, or common gallery, or base court, into another which is most ample and nobly furnished with all company and other accomplishments befitting the Majesty, Palace, and presence of the King of Heaven. Death is but a transition or passage from grace to glory; the taking of the candle of our souls out of a dark and close lantern of our bodies, to set it on a fair candlestick in a stately chamber, till the body be restored fit for it, crystalline, celestial, incorruptible.  
When Christians defer their repentance and coming to Christ, they forget the privileges and benefits which are enjoyable only by them both in life and death, at resurrection and judgement to come; There being no other name under heaven by which we may be saved in any of these exigents, 
Acts 4.12.  which will in after-years overtake us all. O bethink thyself, and say in thy heart with David, What shall I render to the Lord for all his mercies? 
Psal. 116.12.  What shall I return to my blessed Saviour, who hath redeemed me by his precious blood from so many, and so great deaths? I will devote both soul and body to him as a living and acceptable sacrifice, 
Rom. 12.2.  which is but my reasonable service. Though I have done foolishy, ungratefully, unchristianly, and desperately hitherto, yet I will add no more drunkenness to thirst, or iniquity to sin; since he hath by his meritorious passion both redeemed my life from the death in sin, and my death from the penal horrors for sin: Yea in this he hath made my death better than my life, that while I live I shall sin by daily defects and infirmities; but when I die, sin shall wholly die in me. This one cordial is in every good Christians death, that his sin shall not be immortal; but as he shall be ever with the Lord, so he shall never sin more against him.  
9 Lay to heart, upon this and the like sad occasions, to what good end or purpose thou hast hitherto lived for many years, as a man or a Christian, in the sphere of reason, in the bosom of the Church, and in the light of true Religion. Bethink thyself how many hours, days, weeks, months, year's God hath given thee since thou cam'st to be master of reason, and instructed in Religion, knowing good and evil; as a space of repentance, and opportunity to show thy fear, love, duty, and obedience to God, that thou mightst be capable of his eternal rewards. There are in every year eight thousand seven hundred seventy five hours: if we should allow the greater half of these for sleep and necessary attending our bodies, take but four thousand hours for our work and business of consequence, how poor account can most men & women of ripe age, but not yet come to years of discretion, give of all these in a whole year? Not one hour in seven (which is as a Sabbatical hour in every day) not one hour in ten (which is but the Tithe of our time) is generally devoted to God or any good duty: Nay many are weary of doing nothing, 
Mark 11.20.  and how solicitous to ravel out their time in the most impertinent and excessive pastimes they can imagine. They are like to do very well, who know not what to do with themselves and their time. 
Phil. 3.19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  When they have most leisure to intent their spiritual and eternal improvement, then are they most lavish of their precious hours. Debuisti & boc tempus non perdere. So Pliny the elder checked his Nephew for loss of time when he saw him walking in the streets, and indisposed thereby to read or note any thing. Canst thou not tell how to spend this or that long day? Wouldst thou add spurs to the wings of time? I will tell thee; the very waste and seeming superfluity of thy time would serve thy turn for an eternal happiness, to work out thy salvation. Those lost shreds of hours which thou flingest away, lazing, and laughing, and chatting, and visiting, & stretching, & yawning, and playing, and fooling, so long, till from doing nothing, art tempted to do evil things) idleness being the Devil's anvil.) 
Incus Diaboli desidia. Cavene te Diabolus inveniat oriosum. Hieren. Pro. 17.16.  These parings and rags (I say) of thy precious time, which is infinitely more precious than the finest gold, is a price put into thy hand, if thou be not an egregious fool, of which infinite gain and advantage may be made for ever. In this and that good hour, which thou prodigally losest, not knowing how to spend it, thou mightest be seeking thy lost-self, thy lost soul, thy lost conscience, thy lost God, thy lost Saviour, who came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost. O what might not be done in that chain and circle, which St. Jerom commends to Laeta, 
Orationem lectio, lectionem meditatio, meditationem oratio sequebatur. Hieron.  of dispensing time! nay, if we wrought but now and then a link of grace. O what prayers, what tears, what meditation, what contrition, what compunction, what godly sorrow, what ingenuous shame, what self-abhorrence, what self-despairs might be wrought upon thy heart as to the reflection of thy sins past! Yea, what fear of God, what reverence of the Divine majesty, power, wisdom, justice, goodness, evident in his works, providences, word! What breathe, sigh, and seekings after God What purposes, vows, holy resolutions thou mightst take up and begin! What hatred and loathing of sin, as the greatest abasing of a reasonable creature! what search into and admiration of the mystery of Christ crucified! what longing after him! what faith in him! what sense of thy want of him! what zeal for him! what humility, meekness, charity, holy industry, sense of God's savour, sweet influence of his Spirit, power against corruptions, comforts against death, hopes of heaven, delight in well-doing, joy in God What serious considerations of the deformity and danger by sin, of the beauty and benefits by Christ, of the vanity of the world, the certain uncertainty of dying! These meditations, and many such like effects of our thoughts, and reflections of things, might be the happy fruits of thy true, of thy holy considerations, and sober endeavours, if thou wert worthy of one moment of that life which thou art so weary of, and wastest so impertinently; a little portion of which will be one day (when thy distresses and terrors come upon thee as an armed man, attended with death and judgement, sin and hell, an evil conscience and an angry God) then, I say, one day or hour will be as earnestly desired by thee, as one drop of water was by Dives, and it may be as justly and certainly be denied thee; the common fate of riotous Prodigals following thee in this, to be reduced to a morsel of bread, after sottish profuseness and shameful luxury  
We unjustly quarrel with God and nature (as Seneca observes) that our life is so short, when indeed our care is too little to live well, which is the only true life. It is one thing to be a man, and another to live as a man. It was a true figtree which was barren, and cursed by Christ. (Maximam partem hominum brutum occupat) In most men for a long time the beast in them overlayes the man. Sensual lusts are night and day the imperious Incubuses or (Ephialtae) of their reason. What one said with much salt to an Epicure (Deus tuus est porcorum Deus) is verified in most people during their youth, and in many long after, even through the whole course of their life, They own no other God than the God of swine, reverencing the Divine Majesty no more than hogs do, nor expecting more from him then may serve their bellies, which is the God they serve, as the Apostle speaks; nor returning more acknowledgement or service to him: yea they live (tanquam poeniteret non pecudes natos) as if they only repent they were not made only beasts with bodies. In titles perhaps noble, in estates splendid, in words rational, and in formalities civil, yea perhaps religious in shows, but in deeds they are debasers of their native and divine dignity, 
Victa libidine succeed it ambitio; victa ambitione succedit avaritia; victa avaritia succedit superbia, vitium inter ipsas virtutes timendum. Hieron.  dethroners of reason, despisers of their God and true Religion, doting on sensible objects all their lives, by a continued succession of vices and inordinate desires and delights, which (succenturiate, or) supply the places, decays, and recesses of one another (as St. Jerome observes) till they have wasted life, and spirits, and time, and talents, to the very last snuff: mean time they have done nothing (unde constet vixisse) worthy of themselves, their relations, their God, the Church of Christ, or their Country. From youthful and extravagant lusts they run to pride; from pride to hypocrisy; from hypocrisy to ambition; from ambition to covetousness; from covetousness to sacrilege; from sacrilege to Atheism; from Atheism to stupidity or despair: Mean time they have at first, it may be, with great mirth & jollity, next with affected gravity and severity, not only bought and sold, planted and builded, married and given in marriage, but, it may be, gripped and oppressed, killed and possessed, subverted and sacrificed all things sacred and civil, as much as they could, to their own lusts; but have never yet had leisure all this while to live, or to act any thing but dead works. Let them ask their own souls and consciences, not quàm fortiter & feliciter, but quam sanctè & justè? quid praeclarè, quid egregiè fecisti? Nay, let them ask apart from flatteries, Quid non turpiter, quid non pudendum, quid non poenitendum fecisti? What have they done conscientiously, justly, honestly, valiantly, for God, for the Truth, for their own souls, or their neighbours good? Nay, what have they done, which in the inward aspect of conscience, and many times to outward view of all men, is not vile, impious, to be ashamed of, to be repent of? They have (it may be, with Caesar Borgia, and Lewis the 11th.) had much art and Policy, but no true piety and charity in them; much selfseeking, but nothing of selfdenying (which is the truest touchstone of a Christian constitution.) They may have been prosperous, and yet not pious; they may have conquered others, but yet not themselves, which is the noblest victory. They may have gotten much, and yet shall be sure to lose all, for want of that one thing necessary, a good conscience, which is the end of living, and the (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) only provision for an eternal life. A temper of soul which is rightly instructed, and guided by the written word of God only, sanctified accordingly by his holy spirit, practically conformed to his blessed example in all manner of holy conversation; this, this temper purged by faith in the blood of Christ, and so accepted by God's mercy and dignation through Christ's merits, makes a good conscience, the getting and preserving of which is the main end of life, as to our private concern (next Gods glory) and this alone will bring a man peace in his latter end; this alone dares look death and devils in the face: to others that have a form of godliness yet deny the power of it, 
2 Tim. 3.5. John 3.19.  to whom the light of Christian Religion is come, and they love darkness more than light, their condemnation will be the greater.  
9 Lay to heart the sameness or variety of aspects wherein death represents to thee the faces and fates of all men living and dying, either so alike, 
Eccles. 2.16.  that as the fool dieth so dieth the wise man, as the wicked so the righteous, as to the kind and manner of death; by sickness, pains, violence, 
Vide Psal. 73.12. Behold these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches, etc. Job 21.7. Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea are mighty in power? Jer. 12.1, 2. Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? why are all they happy that deal very treacherously, etc. John 7.24. Psal. 73.15.  suddenness, in all shapes or figures of death. Besides, thou mayst observe the frequent riddles and Paradoxes not only of men's lives, but of their deaths; The righteous and godly, that eschew evil and do good, who fear God and walk uprightly before him, who choose to suffer rather than sin, these are oft persecuted and oppressed with poverty, prison, banishment, and distresses while they live; yea, and their innocency is many times persecuted to the death by violent and unjust men; whereas these live and thrive a long time, yea and end their days in prosperous impiety, to the great scandal of many that are godly, and infinite encouragement of wicked doers, as Job, David, and Jeremiah complain.  
Take heed you judge not (as Christ forewarns his Disciples) by outward appearance, or the fight of thine eyes, but judge righteous judgement, lest thou condemn the generation of God's people, many Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, and Confessors, who have (most what) been sufferers; yea lest thou condemn that Just One, Christ himself, who died as a Malefactor by popular suffrages, and the sentence of a timorous judge: nay, take heed lest thou condemn the righteous God, as if he were unjust in his providences and permissions. Take heed thy heart fret not against God, nor be alienated from his fear by the prosperity of any evil doers, 
Psal. 73.16.  or adversity of well doers in this life.  
But go into his Sanctuary with David, search the Scriptures and there thou shalt see the eternal counterpoising of these strange momentary dispensations; how the wicked go away to eternal darkness, 
Psal. 97.10, 11, etc. Luke 12.4.  and shall never see any light of comfort when his candle is once put out: but to the righteous, the Lord preserveth the souls of them from those that can but kill the body; 
Rom. 2.7.  yea, light is sown in their darkness, life in their death; a crown of eternal glory will grow out of their crown of thorns; rivers of everlasting refresh shall flow out of the rock of their patience and sufferings in well doing, in the midst of which fiery trials the spirit of glory rested upon them: 
1 Pet. 3.18. 1 Pet. 4.13, 14. Phil. 1.28.  they are made conformable to Christ in sufferings, that they may reign with him; hence they enjoy a most evident sign of their adversaries condition, but of their own salvation, and that of God, who is a righteous Judge, a God of truth and faithfulness; who will not forget the labour of love, or suffer those to go unrewarded who suffer for righteousness sake: 
Mat. 5.10.12.  great is their reward in heaven.  
Do not foolishly fret and envy Dives his delicates when thou seest Lazarus die on a dunghill; 
Luke 16.19. Matth. 14.8.  nor grudge Herod his throne when thou seest John Baptists head in a charger. There is not a greater argument, 
Certissimum futuri judicii praejudicium. Tert. Jer. 51.56. The Lord God of recompenses shall surely require. Mal. 3.17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  or more likely demonstration to confute Atheism, to confirm faith and hope in a better and another life, which the Lord God of recompenses hath certainly prepared for those that are his when he makes up his jewels. Can any man be loser for God's cause? Shall not the just God do right to himself, and to every man according to his own word, and every man's works? No man can think God is unable or unwilling to make such amends in another life as shall infinitely expiate and exceed all the seeming detriments here on the part of the godly, and the increments or advantages on the part of the wicked.  
Can he make such a world for the good and bad, the just and unjust, for men and beasts, enemies and servants, 
Matth. 5.45.  and cannot he prepare for and bestow a better state upon his friends and children? Is this mortal and momentary state worthy the name of life, with which we are so taken, and we are loath to leave? whose welfare consists only in the using and enjoying of creatures either without life, or only with life and sense, or (at best) adorned with reason added to their life and sense, 
Col. 2.22.  but yet perishing in the use, and dying as ourselves. Is this a life to be so desired and doted upon? and must not that excel which consists in communion with, and participation of the Creator, who must necessarily be better than all his creatures, and infinitely exceed them as much as light darkness, the sea a drop, or the Sun a mote or spark? Is it a small matter that the spirit or soul of a good man, like Lazarus' and Stephen's, 
Luke 16.  is presently attended and received by many blessed Angels, which light on it as a swarm of bees, to conduct it joyfully to its blessed God and Saviour; so that as soon as it parts out of the body, it enjoys spiritual Angelical and celestial joys. But the souls of the wicked, loath to leave their carcases, and lingering as it were about their corpse, are presently beset with so many evil spirits or spiteful devils, who like wasps and hornets fall upon it as it were to by't and sting, and vex it with such resentments and terrors, as they either feel or fear, to which the soul is first self-condemned, and presently selfe-tormented, being its own Hell or Tormentor now as it was its own betrayer or tempter heretofore.  
10. These and the like serious reflections may justly be laid to heart by all such as are yet but in the outward court of reason, on the bare forms of religion; and even by others who are come (or seem so at least) into the holy place, to clearer perceptions of piety, carrying sincere purposes in their souls, and professing to live in communion with God and Christ: I am to speak to the hearts of these also. How come they to live still encumbered with so many strange opinions, passions, lusts and affections, which seem very weak, partial, preposterous, disorderly, earthly and uncharitable? Is this to live as in the prospect of death, in the confines of heaven, in the aim at eternal life? yet so eager, solicitous, impatient, disquieted and concerned for these momentary and transeunt enjoyments of life, as if these were the main interests they were to carry on in life, or to provide for against death? Art thou a King's son and embracest dunghills? 
Lam. 4.5.  talkest so much of heaven and graspest only earth? Art thou among God's Nazarites, 
Lam. 4.7.  who profess to be separate from sinners, crucified to the world? whose heart and conversation should be whiter than milk, purer than snow, beautiful as the rubies, and more polished then Saphires, as Jeremiah laments, and yet is thy visage blacker than a coal? thy sin cleaveth to thy bones, such an hidebound Christian and politic professor, so carking and caring, so getting and gripping, so sharking and shifting to and fro in thy judgement and way of religion, that thou seemest more to regard the wind and weathercock of civil interests, favours and advantages, than the constant rule and compass of God's word, shifting thy sails to every point as may most fit thy worldly occasions, rather than thy conscience and eternal concernments? Whence is it, that thou a professed pilgrim and stranger in this world art so great an agitator, and so passionately engaged in secular sidings? whence is this strange Metamorphosis, or change of Christianity from the primitive beauty and Scriptural garb or fashion used by the Confessors, Martyrs, Apostles, by Christ himself, and his best followers in all ages, when hands and eyes, heads and hearts, lives and conversations of Christians were all lifted up toward heaven, and set upon heavenly things; how are they now become dross, so grovelling to the earth, joining Christ with Belial, and God with Mammon, 
2 Cor. 6.15. 1 Thes. 2.5. Col. 3.5. Rom. 2.22. Prov. 3.9. Mal. 3.8.  professions of light with operations of darkness, making Christian liberty a cloak for all licentiousness and malice, for all filthy lucre, and even sacrilegious covetousness, which is worse than Idolatry; for the Idolater honours a false god with his substance, but a Sacrilegious Christian robs the true God to increase his private substance. This temper is far from the mortifying thoughts of death, 
1 Cor. 7.31.  or using this world as if men used it not, being so little, so nothing of a true and generous Christians main design.  
Yea, not only in pursuance of secular and civil advantages with much warpings from law and equity, besides violent expressions of their uncharitable passions beyond what becomes men and women professing godliness, and tender of the scandals of Christian Religion; But further, under pretence of religious zeal, and special sanctity (Blessed Lord) what uncharitable fires, what unchristian furies are men's spirits ready to kindle in Churches and States, both Christian and reformed! (Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?) Can heavenly hearts burn with such Kitchin-fires, which must be inflamed by pouring the holy oil of religion upon them, until they come to such conflagrations as kill and destroy even in Gods holy mountain, 
Isa. 65.25.  raising such feuds and animosities among Christians as are not to be quenched but by each others bloods; yea they burn to the nehtermost hell, to mutual Anathemas and damnings to eternity. 
Mortales quum simus immortalia non debent esse odia.  Have we not forgot that we are mortals, who maintain such immortal hatred, despites, curse, condemnings? Do we remember the same condemnation from God under which we all naturally lie? or that we have the same Redeemer Jesus Christ, who hath purchased us to himself, and called us to peace, love and good order, as children of his heavenly Father, and brethren to himself and one another? 
Proximorum odia sunt accerbissima.  (Fratrum quoque gratia rara est) The nearer we are of kindred, must we have less kindness? and the more sharp contentions because of the same Country and Church heretofore? I beseech you tell me, O you torn and tottered flock of Christians now in Old England, Can the world in reason think that we Christians are brethren, the sons of one Father, going on't of Egypt homeward to him every day of this mortal pilgrimage, and yet we are every day falling out by the way, making religion itself one of the greatest occasions of our bitterest and bloodiest contentions, both with each other and with ourselves, even the more silly and less subtle sort of plain and (possibly) not ill meaning Christians; these are (most what) gnawing of bones, doting about questions, endlessly disputing and doubting, even while they are decaying and dying. So intent as Soldiers to plunder other men's opinions, and to live as it were upon the spoils of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion therein heretofore happily established and professed, (as if free quarter in professing, preaching, doubting, disputing and denying what ever they list) that they much neglect (as good husbands) the more painful, charitable and profitable duties of God's husbandry, planting, watering and weeding those principles and plants of religion which bear the graces of repentance, mortification, newness of life, charity, humility and good works: from being Isaac's and jacob's, plain and peaceable spirited, professors are turned ismael's and Esau's, rough handed, of a more ferine temper, living by their bow and sword, their hands against every man that is not of their faction and party, and their hearts alienated highly from such as were heretofore their Mother, Fathers and Brethren. These scorching heats of angry differences among Christians spirits do very much dry up all the dews of grace and sweeter influences of God's Spirit. Few consider how soon the Sun may go down upon their wrath; 
Ephes. 4.26.  not only that of a natural day (which should never be, for he that sleeps in uncharitable passions hath the Devil for his bedfellow that night, not only in his bed but in his bosom;) but that Sun of our natural life may go down before thy distempers are allayed to a Christian composure. Many Christians in our later dog days are so agitated and hurried up and down with the heat of the weather, 
1 Tim. 1.16.  and the vexatious gadflies of endless and vain janglings, that like  in Summer they cannot fall to their food, wasting much time and spirits in unprofitable disputes; following first this faction, next that mode in religion; 
2 Tim. 3.7.  ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of saving and necessary which are practical truths. So that like the poor Link-boys in winter-nights at London, they so spend their lights in running to and fro after every wind of doctrine, other men's fantasies, opinions, and humours, that they are fain to go to their own home and to be in the dark; going down to their graves in sorrow, neither so cheerful nor comfortable as Christians might do, 
Isa. 50.11.  who less delighted (living) in those sins and sparks which themselves have kindled.  
From this occasion and the like meditation of death lay to heart how much it concerns and becomes thee to carry great moderation, as in all things, 
Phil. 4.5.  so chief in thy passions; to be prudent in all the dispensations of thy endeavours, cares, fears, joys, loves, hopes, desires, and griefs, as well as of thy anger: these streams of thy soul must not be let go too plentifully at the flashes or floodgates which run to waste, lest thou robbest that course which should drive thy mill; I mean carry on the grand preparations for death and eternity by a sober, exact, and holy life, in which all passions and affections may have their holy use, and a comely part to act.  
It is great pity (in that one passion of grief, which is the softest and most human) to see tears plentifully shed for some temporal loss, 
Mollissima corda Humano generi dare se natura fatetur Quum lacrymas dedit.  or for the death of some dear friend, and yet so little, so seldom applied to soften and supple the hard and callous heart of a sinner. Men and women too are prone to be prodigal of these precious drops; which are as the pearls of a penitent sinners eyes and cheeks; whose water is turned into wine, even of Angels, when they rejoice to see a sinners penitent sorrows which end in eternal joys; 
Lacrymae poenitentium vinum Angelorum. Luke 15.10.  when every tear quencheth a fiery dart of the Devil, or rinseth the conscience of some remaining filth of sin. St. Austin confesseth and deploreth his excessive softness after his conversion in mourning for the death of his dear friend Alipius, 
Flebam Didonem occisam; cum animam meam mortuam non flebam.  as somewhat beyond the gravity and moderation of a Christians sorrow: And more he bewaileth those fond tears which before his conversion he wept when he read the fable of Dido's death, when at the same time he neither deplored nor considered (as he saith) the dead estate of his own heart and soul to God. The blessed Angels, if they did visibly converse with us, might justly ask most women and men too, as these did Mary at the Sepulchre, 
John 20.13. Ploratur lacrymis amissa pecunia veris.  Woman, why weepest thou? 'Tis hard for us to give a just reason and Christian account for most of our weep, and least of those that are most excessive: we weep more for any loss of a momentary toy then for the absence of our Lord, the loss of God's love, the loss of a good conscience, the Church's wastes, Jerusalem's ruins, and the sins of our own souls or of others, which call us to mourning. As our blessed Lord said to the women weeping when they saw him led to be crucified, so may every dead friend or other object of our weeping say to us, Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, 
Luke 23.28.  who many times have most cause to sorrow then when you sorrow lest: some tears are to be wept for again. Tears cannot profit the dead, but they may the living; yea, I recant, they may profit even dead souls, who are dead (as St. 
1 Tim. 5.6. Prov. 8.36. John 11.35.  Paul speaks) even while they live, who love death: tears and prayers may be a means by God's grace to revive these, as Jesus his tears were to bring to life Lazarus. Tears are the distillations of love, resolved into drops by the coolings of some ambient sorrow. We cannot love any thing in ourselves or others so justifiably as our and their souls. In reference to these all our passions and affections should be rightly disciplined, and ranged duly, and exercised, and improved, as most needing and deserving our cares and counsels, our prayers and tears.  
Nor can I here omit to lay to your hearts what this Noble Gentleman suggested to me, when being sent for, I came to him the morning before he died. He told me he was very sorry that it was so late with him, yea he feared very late; he had been long fed with some hopes of life, but now he believed his time was short, which he could wish he had more improved to his souls comfort while his strength of body had been somewhat better. I know men and women too have a feminine and foolish fear to dispirit or deject any patiented or decumbent with the serious thoughts or speech of their dying, for fear their sad physic and nauseous prescriptions should not operate well on the ill humours of their bodies. But the care of removing any burdens or obstructions upon their souls and consciences, this must be deferred and neglected till there is such a decline of life and spirits, as hangs out the black flag of death and despair; then (ubi desinit Medicus incipit Theologus) when Physicians have in vain done their best, the Divine must (God knows too oft) in vain do his best also: for (alas) he hath little time in the agonies of death and the precipitations of life to search and apply the necessary remedies or comforts of a languishing soul, which is as if a man should begin to read a long letter of great and present concernment when his candle was at the last twinkling; A method certainly not more preposterous than dangerous to sick bodies and diseased souls. If our Physicians were mere disciples of Galen and Hypocrates I should not wonder at their dilatory indifferencies as to men's souls, and intensiveness only to their bodies; but being many of them very learned men, and some of them very good Christians, I humbly conceive it would no way misbecome them, nor any way impede the success of their arts and applications, if they did upon the first perception of a dubious and dangerous state of any sick body, with Christian wisdom and charity advise them, yea and entreat them not to neglect the care of preparing their souls for God; that as they will do their best with Gods help to cure their bodily distempers, so it will no way hinder their skill or cure to carry on the concurrent welfare of their souls, so as becomes good Christians: because the event of all sickness is uncertain; diseases oft flatter where they destroy; therefore Physicians and Friends should be with all speed faithful to their Patient's souls as well as bodies. It bears no proportion for a sick patient to be visited twice or thrice in a day by Physicians in order to the body's health, and by a Divine once in a week it may be, and this not till the last exigent and gasp of life, as if this would abundantly serve the turn. When men begin more to value their precious and immortal souls, they will more prise the help of true Divines, whose prayers, counsels, and spiritual assistance being God's indulgence and ordinance in his Church, is usually followed with most gracious and comfortable successes toward sick persons that desire their help and send timely for them, as St. 
James 5.14.  James adviseth, yea commandeth to do when Christians are cast down in bodily or spiritual dejections; and when they are desirous to have the comfort of forgiveness of sins further sealed to them: yea, who is there so able, so knowing, so self-confident, so comfortable in health, that may not and usually doth not find great damps, dulness, and difficulties of soul in sickness; these are prone to be dispirited as well as the bodies of the best Christians, and may well bear with, nay most earnestly desire to have their weak hands supported, and feeble knees strengthened by the counsel, prayers, and comforts of true Ministers. Yea in the most desperate cases when dissolute livers are catched in God's net or toil, and now begin to make their addresses to God and preparations for eternity, even in these cases the diligent and frequent assistance of discreet Ministers, helping poor creatures to search and try their hearts, to see their sins, to look to God in Christ, to turn to him, and lay hold upon him, doth many times work miraculous effects, both to sanctify sickness and to save souls: so much doth God bless the means he hath appointed when duly used, which supinely neglected the end must needs fail.  
I know many men and women too are now turned Preachers (as not a few are turned Physicians) which truly in my judgement amount no higher (for the most part) then Empirics and Mountebancks in both, making more work for able Divines and Physicians too. This I am sure, few men in their wits and willing to live but court the best Physicians; nor do I see less reason why they should not desire and employ the best and truest Divines, such as are most able and skilful, most willing and faithful, most authorized and commissionated by Christ and his Church, to assist and comfort, to instruct and absolve (if need be) dying sinners, beyond what any man (ordinarily) can do in his health, much less in the distempers, dejections and darknesses of his sickness, both corporal and spiritual; who yet now affect in it most what in the frolic of their lives to be their own Teachers and Preachers, their own Ordainers and Confessors, their own Bishops and Presbyters too: contrary to the judgement of all pious Antiquity, who thought the Evangelical Ministry not an arbitrary business, but of Divine Authority and Institution, of highest necessity in the Church, so esteemed and so used by all good Christians. The modern neglect and indifferency to it either argues the Clergy miserably embased in all points from their ancient dignity, or the minds and actions of Christians to become very degenerous and licentious, unholy and unthankful; not to be mended till the majesty of Religion and the double honour of the Ministry be restored.  
11. Lay to heart (upon the whole matter, drawing all the beams of my discourse and your meditations into one point, arising from this or the like Funeral-occasions) in what posture thou art for death; how furnished, fitted, and prepared. I once told this Noble Gentleman two months before he died, when I saw his tedious cough very importune, and his dispiritings so great that I could say little to him; Sir, you have nothing so much concerns you as to prepare and to dare to die. Ask thy soul (O poor mortal) not what goods thou hast laid up for many years, not what beauty and virtue thou hast married, not what honours thou enjoyest, not what lands thou possessest or expectest, but what preparation thou hast made to meet thy God? what defensative to encounter death? how far the power of sin is weakened? how far the progress of grace is advanced? what (viaticum aeternitatis) provision for eternity thou hast made? A Christian must not only look to Augustus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Sueton. in vita Augusti.  (a gentle and civil, or well-natured death) but to a gracious, a comfortable death for himself, and also hopeful and exemplary to others about him. The last lightnings or coruscations of a good Christian should be (if his natural spirits permit) his brightest, as the praeludium of eternity, (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.) He should adorn his death as the last act of his life, with speaking good of God, with telling all about him what the Lord hath done for his soul, what experiences of trials and conflicts, of comforts and refresh by Christ, his Word and Spirit. I allow any man's or woman's deathbed to be their pulpit; let them then turn preachers as much as they can; let them show forth the loathsome and deadly deformities of sin, the worth and excellencies they have found in Christ and his grace, the benefit found in his Word, Spirit, Ministrations and true Ministers, that so the surviving world may be the better for those nails, which as Masters of the Assemblies, as now candidates and expectants, yea percipients of Heaven, dying Christians do happily fasten in the minds, memories and consciences of their weeping auditors. The best Sermons are those that dying men and women preach before their own Funerals; 
Gen. 29. Deut. 32. 1 Kings 2.1. Joshua 23. John 14, 15, 16, and 19 Chapters. 1 Sam. 25.37.  as Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and David did: yea our blessed Lord Jesus most expressed his inmost and sublimest sense to his Disciples a little before he died, as to heavenly comforts, prayers and praises. A Christian should avoid what possibly may be to die like Nabal, as if his heart were first quite dead as a stone within him; I mean when God gives spirits and strength to express themselves. None are such Infidels as not to believe these dying Orators, who are got beyond our pulpit-strains and affected forms, above all human fears and flatteries, all studies of sides and factions; 
Illum vita nondum dissimulatio deseruit. Sueton. in vita Tiberii.  then or never they are in good earnest. Few with Tiberius can be such hypocrites as to act a part only of piety when they are going off the stage of life.  
If we are grafted in the tree of life we shall bear some good fruits living or dying. I know the best experiments of grace, and the surest both (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) signs and indications of sincerity are from a good conscience kept up in our lives, not huddled up in haste a little before death, as goods in a scare-fire, only upon the alarm of sickness and death, but wisely, leisurely, gravely and practically methodised and digested, yea expressed in our health, in the humble and impartial constancy of attending holy duties private and public, in orderly waiting on the true and duly ordained Ministry of Christ in his Church, in frequent, devout and fervent partake of the Lord's Supper, in righteous, holy, charitable and exemplary lives toward all men, which are both useful to mankind by good works and acceptable to God in all humility, adorning the Christian and reformed Religion, highly magnifying the glory of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. An humble heart and an holy life are the best cordials in our deaths; for without peace and holiness (as the Apostle tells us) no man shall see God. And Heaven itself will not be welcome to us if holiness be not, 
Heb 12.14. Nec coelum ipsum placebit cui sanctitas displicet.  for its happiness is no other but perfected holiness; then we shall be such as we would be hereafter, when we like to be such as God would have us here.  
12. Last of all; The nearer, the more remarkable and emphatic any object of death or Funeral-occasion is, the more we should lay it to heart: As when great, wise, valiant and honest men, like mighty Cedars of Lebanon; fall by death, either natural or violent, by open hostility or treachery, as Abner died, 
2 Sam. 9.33.  whose Bier David himself followed, honouring by a most generous example that virtue, loyalty and fortitude which he found in an enemy toward him; nor doth he do it in a courtly formality, but with ample, public and unfeigned sorrow, even to weeping, looking upon that sad and shameful accident as a great reproach and affront to his own party and cause, as a dehonesting of his own honour and that Religion which he professed; to remove so great a scandal and dishonour from his person, conscience, Kingdom and profession, as attends all treacherous murtherings even of reconciled enemies and rivals, David himself doth Abner this honour at his burial to follow the Bier.  
1. So in the deaths of such excellent Princes as have been or were like to be the Patres patriae, Fathers of their Country, maintainers of law and justice, provident for the public good in peace and plenty, Patrons of learning, virtue, and established Religion, wise and valiant assertors (when need requires) of their own honour and their people's safety, merciful dispensers of such favours and remissions as may abate the rigours of law, with regard to human surprises and infirmities, and yet neither weaken the hands of justice nor strengthen the hands of malicious offenders; Such Kings and Princes, yea any sovereign Magistrates (under any title, as Joshua and other Judges) that are not wholly degenerate from their dignity, duty, and place, are to be duly lamented, and their deaths are seriously to be laid to heart, because they do not only show us the large extents of death's dominion and sovereignty above all, 
Psal. 8.6.  for even these Gods (Dii umbratiles) die like men, but they are frequently attended (as the succession of months in the year) with some alteration of weather, many times for the worse. So that where any people is blessed with good Kings and gracious Princes, it is happy if they do (serò in caelum redire) in this part of deity (Immortality) come nearest to the Gods by living long and happily with their people, and going as late as may be to Heaven. For as good Princes are by good Subjects justly esteemed (inter publica gentis bona & praecipua Dei dona) the chiefest worldly blessings that God can give mankind; so their death must needs be reckoned (inter luctus epidemicos & publica damna) among the greatest losses and grounds of most public sorrow. Although they die as Moses, Joshua, and David in good old ages, full of days and honour; as Augustus did among the Romans, 
Optimum esset & è Republicâ Rom. Severum aut non nasci aut nunquam denasci.  of whom it might truly be said, as was of Severus the Emperor, It had been happy for the Empire if either he had never been born, or never had died; for as he attained the Empire with much war and blood, so he settled it with so much justice, wisdom and honour for a long time, that it was a felicity not possible to survive him. But if good and hopeful Princes be cut off immaturely by death, as Josiah among the Jews, 
2 Chro. 35.25.  and our pious K. Ed. the 6. no wonder if they go to their graves by water, with infinite sad hearts and weeping eyes, becoming the piety and humanity of their people. Hence the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon became not only a Proverb, 
Zach. 12.11.  but the highest pattern for public lamentation at the sad fate and death of an excellent Prince. And not without cause may this be a superlative grief; because it ever follows, where the Shepherd is smitten the sheep are either scattered or wounded, or shrewdly warned of God to humble themselves under his mighty hand and unsearchable judgements. 
Matth. 26.31.   
2. Yea, when great and eminent Priests or Prophets of God and his Church, as Samuel, Jehojada, John Baptist, James, die a natural death, or are slain, who kept up the majesty of Religion, the beauty of holiness, and the order of God's worship, being the chariots and horsemen of Israel, as Eliah was; So among Christian Churches, 
1 Kings 2.12.  such Ministers as have been exemplary in their lives, potent in their true doctrine, severest exactors of discipline upon themselves, burning and shining lights, that have been valiant for the truth; not popular, not partial, but unblameable, venerable and admirable in all things, filling that sphere in which God and the Church had orderly set them either as Bishops or Presbyters, by preaching, praying, writing, living, and governing the Church, worthy of their holy order and function: So as did those ancient and renowned Bishops, Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. chrysostom of Constantinople, St. Iraeneus of Lions, St. Austin of Hippo, St. Gregory of Rome, with infinite other, worthy of their successions in that name and order in all Churches and ages, sufficient in my judgement to vindicate the office, degree, name, dignity and use of Bishops every where, and no where more than in England, which had of late as worthy Bishops as ever the Church enjoyed in any place or age since the Apostles.  
When, I say, such Fathers of the Church die, who were in their times, as was said of St. Ambrose, the (Munimenta & ornamenta urbis & orbis) defence and ornaments of their Churches and Countries, the personal death of such Fathers ought to be laid greatly to heart; such as was that, not long ago, of the most learned, pious, industrious, humble, indefatigable, and Apostolic Bishop, Bishop Usher, the late Lord Primate of Armagh: As also that of the most eloquent, and venerable, and painful Bishop of Norwich, Doctor Hall, with many others now at rest in the Lord, of whom the world was not worthy, which sought to bury them in silence, indignities, poverty, and obscurity before they were dead, or any way had ill deserved of this Church and State, or the reformed Religion, of which they were most able defenders.  
How much more when the very Function, order and degree of that Catholic race, the primitive, Apostolic, and most excellent government of the Church by Bishops comes in any Christian or reformed Church to be destroyed, extirpated, and buried as it were with the burial of an Ass, cast into the graves of the common people, and exposed to be trodden under the feet of plebeian contempt. Which venerable Order, though sixteen hundred years old in the Catholic Church, and above 1400 in 
* In the Council of Arles in France, before the first great Nicene Council, about the year of Christ 230. three British Bishops were present and subscribed, viz. Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, Adelphius of Colchester, as Bishop Usher observes in his De prim. Eccl. Brit. & Sirmondus. Concil. Gall. Tom. 1. p. 9 Lucius the King of the Britan's, as Bede tells us, Hist. l. 1. c. 4. received the faith by such as were sent from Elcutherius the 12th. Bishop of Rome, from the Apostles, as He●sippus tells us in Euseb. l. 4. c. 22. As Calvin in Epist. ad Sadoletum & de Necessi. Refor. Eccles. Zanchius' Epist. ad Elizab. Regin am Angl. & in Epist. ad Grindal Archiep. Cant. Isaac Casaub. Epist. ad Reg. Jacob. ante Exer. Baron Moulin. Ep. ad Epis. Winto. Beza Epist. ad Grindal Archiep. Cant. Pet. Martyr ad Juelli Apolog. praefat. Isa. 57.1. Psal. 116.15.  these British Churches, yet died not of old age, or only inward decays in the vitals, but by force and outward violence; which government in its due constitution no Christian or reformed Church, (not wholly under a democratic or popular spirit) yea no one eminent reformed Divine but did highly approve and desire the happiness to enjoy, as hath been made evident by their writings. But no testimony new or old, no reason or Scripture, no sense of justice or civility, no public honour of Church or State can preserve where men are resolved to destroy good and all. This is certainly a just ground of great and better lamentation to those that lay to heart the licentious fedities, indignities, insolences, popular confusions, and all sorts of irreligions, which must necessarily follow the want of due government in any Church, yea and the extirpation of that which is not more reverend for its primitive Institution and Catholic descent from the Apostles, then for its excellent use and admirable constitution, carrying with it the truest and best proportions, as well as benefits of grave and authoritative government, in which order and counsel make up complete authority, the want of which as we have no cause much to rejoice in or little to lament, so posterity both in Church and State will unfeignedly deplore.  
3. Yea, when any men or women that are eminently good and gracious, wise and worthy, are taken away either immaturely in their strength, or very many of them in a little times, these are Gods warnings, which are to be laid to heart; for the death of the righteous (poor or rich) is precious in the fight of the Lord, and should be so in the sense of all good men: they many times portend some great evil to come; when God pulls off his chief Jewels, it is a sign he means shortly to strip and undress a Church or Nation of their ornaments and defences. When men take off the principal and noblest parts of a fair ship, the main-masts, rudders, prow, and upper decks, it argues that they intent to break it quite in pieces, or to take it much lower and abase it. So is it when God pulls up those (repagula) sluices and banks, which either keep off inundations of judgements, or daily discharge the superfluities of epidemic sins, by their prayers and tears for the sins of the people. When Lot is out of Sodom, and Noah shipped in God's Ark, than fire and flood is to be expected.  
4. When our Parents, Fathers or Mothers, are taken away, though in a good old age, as Jacob, yet they may (frigidam suffundere) cast cold water by their deaths upon the varieties, heats, luxuries, and confidences of their young heirs and successors, who are prone to live as if they could never die out of this world, when yet they see their roots die, sure the branches cannot be everlasting. It was a notable Instance of filial sympathy which a son of the Duke of Montpensier shown, who coming to his father's monument in Italy at Puzzolo, where he had in the French wars died, being killed by ill air and inconveniencies, the young Gentleman could not bear the memory of his dead father, but amidst infinite passions and tears dies upon his father's Tomb, 
Guicciardin Hist. lib. 5. p. 261.  as Guicciardin reports of certainty. Yea, although estates, honours, and inheritances do descend upon men by the death of any, yet they may lay this to heart, that the more talents thou hast the greater account thou must give to God. 
Luke 12.48.  It is not considerable as to true, internal, and eternal comfort, what lands, moneys, honours, and titles a man hath, but how wisely and nobly, how piously and charitably he useth all things. The accession of estate is but more fuel cast upon a fire, that will at last consume riotous and inordinate livers. A man needs not much to be holy and happy; for a man may maintain all the virtues at a cheaper rate than any one vice: nothing of competency is too little for a virtuous mind, and nothing of plenty is sufficient to a vain and vicious spender. As dumbness had been a mercy to swearers, to profane and filthy speakers, so had poverty been riches to many a riotous liver, whose making was his marring, 
Luke 15.13.  as the Prodigals having his portion in his own hand utterly undid him. The more honour and estate any one is master of, the more he had need be master of himself, of his lusts and passions; for riotous expenses will end with Dives his gluttony, in eternal poverty, and such extreme necessities as shall everlastingly want a drop of comfort; there being no hope that God will bestow upon those men or women the blessings of eternity, which have been such debauched abusers of these blessings which are momentary: such as have not been faithful stewards to God's glory and the world's good in the little (comparatively) of this world's unrighteous mammon (as our Saviour tells us) how can they expect, 
Book 16.11.  when they come to die, that they should be trusted with eternal riches or honours, which are the rewards of well doing, and recompenses of comely suffering.  
5. If an excellent wife or husband are parted by death, who long lived, or were likely to live, as turtles in a peaceful sweetness and unspotted society, being of one mind and one heart in the Lord; joying each others joys, and grieving one another's griefs; who had nothing to envy or desire (beyond that love and content which they mutually enjoyed) save only the love of God, and the fruition of their blessed Saviour in the Kingdom of heaven; A blessed pair, who so lived that they were daily ready and preparing to die, having nothing to give them any regret at death but only the leaving each other in such a solitude for a season, as none but God could supply: I need not tell these how they ought to lay to heart either's death in point of humanity; the care must be not to lay it too much to heart, 
1 Thes. 4.13.  not to sorrow as mere men and women without hope, lest they be swallowed up with too much grief. A moderate mourning in such occasions is neither uncomely, nor unholy, nor unwholesome, but as the overflowings of land-floods is beneficial to low grounds when they seasonably abate and leave them dry; for if waters stay too long on the richest bottoms they make them cold, squalid, course, and barren: 
Non amissi sed ' praemissi.  the like effects follow moderate and excessive sorrows upon any worldly occasion whatsoever. They must consider each other not as lost, but as gone a little before in the same way to happiness.  
6. So in the loss of children, dear by nature, deserving by duty; especially if our only child; more if in the prime and pregnancy of their age; most if the hopes and honour of their families, the props and pillars of their houses; these wounds in the delights of our eyes are prone to go too deep to our hearts, to fester and gangrene to something of irreligous discontent and sowrness toward God, as if, like Jonah, 
Jonah 4.9.  we did well to be angry with God, and frown upon heaven for the loss of a gourd, which had its being from God, (as St. Austin says of his pregnant son who died at 14.) but its sin and mortality from thyself: nor can any parents tell how sharp a thorn that child might prove in their eyes and hearts afterward, which now seems so fair, sweet, and lovely a flower to their eyes. In such cases not only the highest cordials of divine comforts and Christian hopes, but the strictest charms of God's commands must be applied, lest we turn God's physic into our poison, and by a sullen stubbornness turn a father's cqastisement to the sharp punishment of an enemy: remember God is so much beforehand with us by his bounty, that his withdrawings can never be an injury to us: He, as the spring and ocean hath more right in any streams than the channel through which they pass; as all runs to him, so they come from him. So that after Job's example God is to be blessed taking as well as giving. Consider again, that parents' sins are oft visited by children's immature deaths, 
1 Kings 14.13.  as was threatened against Eli: yea, sometimes hopeful childron are cut off because some good thing was found in them, as in Jereboam's child's case. Sometimes they are the Idols of jealousy, which take up parents' hearts too much, and therefore are taken away from them, that there might be less distance between them and God their heavenly Father, 
Vnicum bonum, verum, summum, immutabile, immarcessibile, quod amittere non potes, quamdiu amare non desinis. Aug.  who hath the wisdom of a father and the tenderness of a mother, weaning us oft from those breasts which we were too fond of, and out of which we sucked more wind then wholesome nourishment. All losses are mercies which end in the souls gain; nor can that be a loss in any creature-comfort, if it finds recompenses in his love who is the only immutable and unloseable good.  
As for vain or vicious parents (who are rather peremptores quam parents) when their children are taken away from their contagion, I know not how they can have any greater summons from heaven, or motives on earth to move their hearts to speedy repentance and preparation for death, then when they see their prime branches lopped off, as presages that the whole bulk of the tree, root and branch, shall ere long be hewn down, and without repentance cast into unquenchable fire.  
7. Last of all; in the death of such as are remarkable for nothing but their sin and wickedness, for the dissoluteness of their lives, the stupidity or despair of their deaths, dying unawares, and cut off by unexpected strokes of heaven because their sin was great before God, it may be a violent, immature, and preposterous fate, yea, it may be (flagrante crimine) as Absalon in his unnatural rebellion against his Prince and parents, 
2 Sam. 18.  or possibly by the hand of human justice, or by private duels, or by their own debaucheries, which are a self-assasination; even these are not lightly to be laid to heart in any family, kindred, or acquaintance, or neighbourhood, because they are like God's thunderbolts, not every days terror, nor striking every one, therefore the more to be dreaded by all, though the punishment falls but on one; 
Poena ad unum, terror ad omnes  though the ruin falls upon the head but of one, yet the news may justly make the ears to tingle and hearts to tremble of all that see and hear of it. No man does, deserves, or suffers from God, or man, or himself, so bad, but the same might be exemplified in thee and me to the astonished world; we might be the beacons on fire that should scare all the Country, far more than any house on fire can do. We read of David, though otherways of a mind great and gracious, 
2 Sam. 18.33.  full of courage and constancy becoming the majesty of a pious King, yet he takes the dreadful fate of his son Absalon so to heart (the three streams of parental, penitent, and pious affections meeting in one current) that he forgets the comfort of victory, his own and the public safety, the suppressing of so dangerous and popular a rebellion, the restitution of his throne and dominion, which my young Master (under the colour of doing speedier and better justice, or reforming public disorders) had almost snatched from him, not without the ready applause and assistance of vulgar levity, giddiness, vileness and ingratitude to such a Prince; yet all these weighty concernments sink in David's soul, and only grief swims uppermost, publicly manifesting its either excess or just violence in words too high indeed for any Tragedy, and never heard from any father or son in the case of a Kingdom, Would God I had died for thee, O Absalon, my son, my son. The loss of a good child is tolerable, of a wicked one is intolerable, especially if bad by neglect or example, 
2 Sam. 12.23.  because he is eternally lost. David comforted himself, He should go to that Infant, whose innocency gave hopes of its safety, though it were the fruit of his sin; but in Asaloms' desperate case he deplores (geminam & aeternam mortem) a double and eternal death; and this alone may serve to justify the so great passions of David's soul in that particular. Yet besides this, Absaloms' sins and sufferings made secret reflections upon the father's offences, which had not only occasioned but deserved such unnatural fires to burn in his own bowels, which were only to be quenched with their own blood; nor had David been only excessive in his rebellious presuming against God, but defective too in his reproving of his sons: hence sad effects of paternal indulgence toward dangerous and comminitting children, whose sins are imputable in great part to their parents, 
1 Sam. 3.13.  and so their sufferings on all sides are but the punishments of such unzealous fondnesses as Eli used to the ruin of himself and his sons, yea of his whole house, by intolerable toleration of such impieties as will certainly overthrow roof and foundation, root and branch of any family under heaven.  
Would we have less cause to mourn in the death of any one we love, endeavour to make them as good as we can while they are with us: however, having done our duty, and expressed the best evidences of a true and faithful love to them in order to their eternal good, we shall with more comfort and patience bear their death, which many times gives us greater regrets for our own neglect of that Christian duty and holy love which we own to the souls of our relations then for their corporal absence; the one being reparable, the other never either in this or the world to come.  
I have now finished these instances of particular cases, in which the death of any is to be laid to heart, proportionably to the weight of the becasion; whose circumstances or manner of dying (as the feathers of some birds) are sometimes as heavy as their bodies and substances.  
It were too much for me to drive this discourse (which in the whole texture of it is pathetic and applicative) to a further thinness or fineness, like leafgold, by multiplied uses; which are there necessary where (as in the riveting or clinching of nails) we suspect the doctrines have not taken good hold on the hearer's minds and hearts: of which in this case I am not very jealous as to the most of you, whose affections may be read in your attention.  
There are only three Uses, which I conceive may not impertinently be added as advantages to, or deductions from the main of that I have hitherto set down.  
1. Use. To reprove the unchristian, barbarous, and inhuman temper of those hearts which are made of flint not flesh, who are so far from laying to heart with any humble, mortifying, and compassionating reflections the death of any, that they either carry it with a childish and stupid indifferency, or with a vulgar formality, or in some cases with a proud unchristian and unmanly insolency, rejoicing and triumphing in the death of those who possibly were thought their betters, or equals, or rivals, or enemies.  
As Ahaz in his distresses sinned yet more against the Lord, 
2 Chro. 28.22.  so do some men and women too amidst those Funerals which concerned them most to lay to heart. How doth covetousness, ambition, envy, and lasciviousness make many men and women unfeignedly rejoice in the death of Parents, Children, Husbands, Wives, Rivals, and Princes, that they can hardly suppress their odious joys, and unseasonable contentments from breaking forth into such abhorred expressions as Vitellius, a most ungenerous Prince, and profligate person used, when after the battle ended (which in civil wars, as that was, makes even victory itself sad and ashamed) was heard to say, when he road amidst the now putrid and unburied carcases of the slain Citizens, The smell of dead stranger's corpse is pleasing, 
Bonus odor hostis occisi, at melior civis.  but most of dead Roman Citizens, being my enemies: A speech which Suetonius brands with a stigma of just-infamy; so infinitely distant from the clemency of Julius Caesar, 
Quique dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox.  who ever in the chase commanded to spare the Roman Citizens, and was unfeignedly grieved to use necessary severities, which are next door to cruelty.  
Poor mortals forget in their revengeful impatiencies, military jollities, and victorious triumphs, how soon the wheel may come about, and the same measure may be meeted to them, 
Judg. 1.6.  which they meet to others. Adoni-Bezek may live to see his own thumbs and great toes one off. Should not we tremble before the great and terrible God, when we see his judgements so executed, that ourselves are sometimes made the sad executioners of them upon others, who it may be in God's sight are not greater sinners than ourselves. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Stobaeus. Matth. 5.28.  They that joy in another's calanity, or insult in their death (though just) do adopt a murder, and commit manslaughter in their hearts, as Christ speaks of Adultery. As a Judge (who pleaseth his private spite and malice in that (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) most depraved passion, which sucks honey out of another's gall) while he justly condemns a malefactor to die; he may be a just Judge according to the Law of man, but is unrighteous according to the Gospel of Christ, which commends charity and compassion, tenderness and bowels to Christians, beyond all  sacrifices.  
God's High Court of Justice will judge even judges themselves; and Death will in a few years, not only conquer, but triumph over those that are lifted up above the fate and pitch of poor mortals in their gloryings over an others ruins. Let him that stands upon a mountain never so high and fast, remember the day of death is coming; he shall also fall and perish like one of the Princes. Yet men's sins are not to be measured by the evil or seeming calamity of their death, but by the open wickedness and impieties of their lives. The same fate may befall good and bad; they may die in peace, as it is said of Josiah, who are slain in war, and of Zedekiah, 
2 Kin. 22.20. Jer. 34.5.  who died blind and in captivity. The death of men is the more to be laid to heart, by how much less they deserved it from men, and more from God.  
It serves to exhort and excite every one of us to search and try our own hearts, Use 2 to examine how far this or another Funeral is gone beyond our eyes and ears, so as it is or shall be laid to our hearts. What fear, what trembling, what holy purposes, and what humble resolutions are raised in thee? What sins mortified, what vanities left, what neglects repaired, what graces increased, what improving of life, what preparings for death by a constant and conscientious use of all duties, opportunities, and means, proper for so great ends as aim at eternity. Your mourning with never so great pomp and state, yea with unfeigned grief, out of humane and momentary reflections only, is not that just improvement which God expects. As Fuller's earth cleanseth spots of , and Wood-ashes rinse foul vessels; so should the contemplation of another's death, their dust and ashes, help to cleanse our souls. In vain do you wear black mourning on your bodies, if you still keep (pullatas & atratas animas) black and sullied souls, soiled and scorched with the inordinate flames of lust, pride, malice, covetousness, etc. which are the soot of hell. These sine black garments are but in stead of courser sackeloth, the fittest cover (indeed) for your bodies of sin and death; but they must put you in mind to get your souls clothed in white garments, the robes of Christ's righteousness, for justification and sanctification, without which thou wilt follow this corpse to thy grave also, with cause enough and too much for such everlasting mournings as admit no comforters or comforts.  
Let thy mourning be not only civil, formal, and humane, but Christian, humble, penitent: 
Acts 20.25.  As Jacob to the Angel, so let not a Funeral go without a blessing; as Felix at St. Paul's Preaching, so let thy heart tremble at these visible as well as audible instructions of death and judgement to come. Retine to thy closet after these Solemnities, and earnestly pray to God to give thee Funeral graces, that by an holy Christian Chemistry thou mayst extract spirits out of dead bones. Do not play with Death, lest it by't or sting thee next; as that serpent did a merry Greek of old; who jestingly putting his hand into the jaws of a Lion, that was figured of stone for an ornamental statue in one of the Temples of the Gods, was so stung with a scorpion which lay in the mouth of that Lion that he presently died, having first laughed with his companions at that monition he had the night before in his dream, as he told them, that he should next day be destroyed by a Lion; which beast never haunted that place, and so he thought himself most secure. Death many times lies then nearest us, and in wait for us, when we least mind the monitions or credit the warnings which may by providence be given us.  
I cannot but make use of this Text as a just vindication of this and the like religious solemnities at Christian Burials, Use 3 against those severe Aristarchus'es' and super-reforming Reformers, who cast most supercilious brows, and use very severe invectives against all Funeral Sermons, and much more against all Scriptures read, exhortations, and prayers, used by and to the living at the graves and interments of the dead; by which tetrick austerities they seem to me not only to reproach the piety, prudence, and charity of this deserved, famous, and well reformed Church, in its sacred offices and appointments on such occasions, which were seriously approved, happily established and used for above an hundred years by the most noble, wise, and religious persons in this Nation of all degrees, with no small benefit of piety to the living, especially the common people; but they cross also the permissions, yea the Institutions even of God himself in his holy word, as by Solomon's pen here, so by the Apostles afterward, enjoining us to Preach, and so to pray in season and out of season, to do all things to edification, and with decency, becoming Christians as well as men, especially in such eases as most affect the living, in reference both to their own & others mortal state; which dasheth all faith, hope, and holy industry of a godly life, the best men being of all men most miserable, 
1 Cor. 15.19.  if there be not a frequent and full Antidote against our dying and sorrowing condition duly applied from the holy word of God, as to the happy and hopeful state of such as live and die in the Lord, 
1 Cor. 14, 26, 40 2 Tim. 4.2.  both as to their spirits which return to God, and their bodies which rest in hopes of an happy resurrection to glory. For which purpose we see the Scripture hath furnished the Church with as many clear, 
1 Thess. 4.13. See the long discourse of the Resurrection, 1 Cor. 15.  large, and pregnant places to establish the faithful in that Article of their faith the body's resurrection, as any other point whatsoever. There needs no other Form of Liturgy, of exhortation, or consolation, or prayer, or gratulation, or benediction, or comprecation, than what is guided by and grounded upon the Scripture. Nor was there other prescribed or used in the Church of England by any discreet Minister.  
If such sad occasions may (nay must) in many respects be duly and devoutly laid to heart by the living, as I have showed you; what hinders, I beseech you, but that Sermons, instructions, exhortations, consolations, and prayers too may be used at them, in order to apply them most nearly to, and work most effectually upon the hearts of the living: And then especially, when the hearts of men and women, of parents and children, of neighbours and friends, yea of enemies and strangers too, are most prone to be moved and affected to good purpose; some being softened by common sympathies of humanity, others steeped in tears by their more endeared relations and tender affections, the whole assembly being, as it were, in the bath and furnace, more pliable, humble, and melting, then at any other time. If we Christians only brought the eyes, the hearts, and senses of beasts to these Funeral-occasions, it were venial to give our children, parents, friends, husbands, wives, kindred, and ourselves no other honour or comfort then the burial of an ass, or of a dead dog would afford and require; or if we came together only as so many Gymnosophists, brahmin's, and Philosophers, or so many Heathens, Indians, and mere men, without hope, and not as Christians, who have much to learn, to hear, to say, to pray, and to practice upon these texts of mortality, not only as to natural death, but as to the spiritual and eternal death, as to judgement to come, as to a resurrection and after recompenses, their scrupulous restraint were excusable: but, blessed be God, what a field of excellent matter, as to saith and manners, as to hope and comfort, in reference to both dead and living Christians, is there to be gone through, to be beaten oft over from the Scriptures suggestion and direction, that the living the living might duly, effectually, and frequently lay those things to heart, which are presented to them by every Funeral-occasion, but not easily improved by the generality of people, if they have nothing else but a dumb show and silent procession at their Funerals.  
Object. But some are afraid of superstition, lest we pray for the dead, or praise God on their behalf beyond that ancient gratulation for their departure in the faith, and that comprecation for a blessed consummation of the Kingdom of Christ and all his Church at and after the Resurrection, which is under a divine promise upon all good Christians hopes, hearts, and future expectations; blessings certainly no less lawful to be prayed for, as the ancient Churches did, then desired and expected by all the faithful living, as I believe they are by all the Saints departed.  
Answ. To these Objecters I answer. Let them forbear Funeral Sermons, exhortations, and prayers, till they get more wit to understand their own, good and more charity then to grudge others their Christian liberty either to do or get good in such ways as God's word and the customs of this Christian well reform Church allow us. This Indulgence I easily grant to such as are simply and honestly scrupulous; but to others, that are rudely captious and contemptuous, yea ridiculously clamorous and contumacious against any thing which they do not form and fancy, though they give no reason why they scruple or condemn it, my answer is, as that of our Saviour to the Pharisees, You hypocrites, 
Matth. 16.3.  can you discern the face of the sky, and can you not discern the signs of the times? Are you so fearful of praying for the dead, that you will not pray for and with the living? Can you endure the pomp of a Funeral, and not the piety of it? Can you bear with Trumpets, Banners, Escutcheons, and not with the word of God, with Sermons and Prayers, which sanctify all things in themselves lawful and expedient? Is not sanctity the best part of Christians Solemnities, who in all temporal things must look to things eternal? Are you so afraid of superstition, that you grudge us our devotions and holy exercises, as God gives us more signal calls and occasions? Can you endure Heraldry, and not the Liturgy, in this part of it which sets forth very handsomely and fully to the living, out of the lively oracles of God, those most pertinent places and excellent truths which make most for the good hope, comfort, and instruction of the living, both in respect of their dead relations and themselves? Take heed you swallow not camels, while you strain at gnats. If you think a dead Christian, that dies in the faith of Christ, and in the compass of our charity, differs not from a dead Heathen, or a dead beast; if their spirits go all one way with their bodies to the dust; if neither they dying, nor you living, have any lively hope of a resurrection, without which all your faith living is but dead and in vain; if you know not how to make a holy, rational, and religious use of their death, much good may you have with those dumb shows which you have lately taken up, with your silent solemnities and processions at the Funerals of your Christian friends; much comfort may you have in your  wine and biscuits, in your black cloaks and ribbons, in your mourning gloves and boxes of sweetmeats, which good you sometimes get & gape for at Funerals. These are toys fit for children, not to be denied or envied you; only please to give those Christians leave (who may without vanity think themselves, by God's mercy, as well advised and conscientious in their Religion as yourselves, yea and more cautious of superstition than you seem to be, 
Eccles. 7.16. Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself over-wise.  who are thus of late shrunk to be over-righteous, and negatively superstitious) I say give us leave to use such Christian liberty and duties as God hath allowed, Religion encourageth, and experience of pious proficiency highly recommends to us, by the vote and suffrage of your and our pious Progenitors in the Church of England, which in this, as many other excellent appointments, hath most undeservedly and indignly suffered, infinitely below its former reformed worth, its admired constitution, and most enviable condition, through the ignorance, petulancy, and insolency of some pitiful pretenders (God knows) for the most part of plebeian spirits and mechanic proportions; who undertake thus severely to catechise and discipline not only the Nobility, Gentry, and Commonalty of this Nation, but the Clergy and Ministry of this Church, which was not exceeded in all the world: as if they never knew how to spell the A b c, or primer of Religion (for so I esteem these outward orders and exercises of it) until some new Masters had lent them their sharp fescues, which were first made of a Scotch scabbard.  
This vindication as I own to the honour of this Nation, to the piety of this Reformed Church, to my own calling and conscience; so I cannot omit to ground it upon this Text, and express it upon this occasion, as very proper methods and pious means used to lay those things to heart which Solomon here commends, and the wisdom of God requires of the living in their respects to the dead, who in my judgement are far more becoming to the interests of both living and dead Christians, committed to their graves by the sound of the Evangelical trumpet, setting forth the hopes of both dead and living, by reading, prayer, or exhortation, then by those uncouth soundings of military trumpets, which seem only to add to the triumphs and pomp of death, but not to the hope, or faith, or comfort, or manners of Christians. If it be matter of civil state and decorum to persons of great quality, yet I see no sense or reason they should justle out of the Church any offices of Christian piety befitting the dead or the living.  
Thus I have done with the Text, and am now to give you (Right Honourable and Beloved) some little model of this house of mourning to which you are come this day, which is greater in many degrees than you are wont to go to. This sad occasion (if rightly understood) will make its own way to your hearts, when I have given you some account of those special regards for which it doth deserve not only a more than ordinary mourning, emphatic sympathies from you, but to make deeper impressions upon your spirits. And this I shall do briefly, not (tanquam conductitius orator, & venalis praeco) or as a man (professoriae linguae & truncae manus, as Agrippina called Seneca) no, I thank God I am above any such snares and servitudes of soul as will for fear or favour flatter either the dead or the living. What I shall speak of the dead shall be words of soberness and truth, as in the presence of God and of you his people (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) as a lover of truth and virtue, as an assertor of such honest and ingenuous freedom in speaking, as dares to oppose and confute, if need be, vulgar errors and false surmises. And however I am most unfeignedly sorry, as a man, for this sad occasion, yet I am, as a Minister, so far glad of this present employment, because, however I may be less proportionable to its dimensions and your expectations, yet I have (hereby) the opportunity given me to express such an honour, love, and respect to this noble person's name and memory now dead, as (I confess) was one of my highest ambitions in this world.  
Not only as he stood related a Grandchild, Son, and Heir apparent to that Right Honourable Family, whose happiness I have rather seriously wished, then been able ever effectually to promote. But taking him in his private sphere and personal confinements, you will give me leave to own him as a Gentleman many ways endeared to my particular love, care, honour, and prayers; first by long acquaintance, from his cradle to his coffin, which breeds secret and tacit endearments on our hearts, as Ivy that roots where it is long contiguous; Next by nearer and domestic conversation, he living four years in my house, with his Tutor and other attendants befitting his quality at those years, when being but a youth of 13 or 14 years, he carried himself with so much civility, modesty, ingenuity, and manliness, as made his company both worthy and fit for men; so little of petulancy, pride, or moroseness, incident to young Gentlemen of high parts and expectations, that he seemed by his gentleness, candour, and humility, as if he were ignorant both of his own high and noble quality, and also of others usual but ignoble vanities and vapourings, which ill become any men, but most of all those that pretend to any true honour or generous extraction.  
The confidence of his noble parents and relations committing him thus to my care and superintendency, gave me an opportunity as welcome to me as any could have befallen me, which was to discharge a solemn promise I made to his most noble Mother seven years before, not only with civility, but with sanctity, at her earnest and importune desiring of me to assure her, while I lived, I would not be wanting, what in me lay, to his honour and happiness; She also then bespoke his living with me, when ever it should be opportune for his breeding, and my reception of him.  
God's providence so ordered things, that what was passionately desired, and seriously promised, in time came to pass: in which I need not tell you how much the grateful memory of her most deserving virtue commanded me to contribute all the care and discretion I was capable of, for the absolving of my soul to God and the dead in that particular; that I might answer and follow with my best endeavours of counsels, prayers, and examples, those thoughts of virtue, piety, and honour, which his excellent Mother had (living) expressed toward him as her only child: a Son I am sure of her cares and counsels, prayers and tears, both living and dying; so oft and infinitely solicitous have I seen her noble and pious soul that this her Son might prove a person of such virtue and piety as are the only true foundations of temporal and eternal honour.  
From my domestic care of him he was sent (much at my instance and persuasion) to Trinity College in Cambridge, continuing there two years, that he might first add learning to his honour, (under the conduct of an excellent Governor, Mr. Mole, sometime University Orator, whom I cannot mention without such honour and love as are due to modest and most deserving worth.) Next, that he might add Honour to Learning, especially in an age where Ignorance, and Rusticity began very rudely to vie with both the famous Universities, decrying all good Learning and useful studies to make way for pitiful raptures and silly enthusiasms, that is, putting out the two great lights of heaven that hedg-creeping gloeworms might shine the better; that instead of a sage Nobility, a prudent Gentry, a learned Clergy, judicious Lawyers, and knowing Physicians, the honour, civility, piety, the souls, the estates, the Laws and Religion, the bodies and lives of this so renowned a Church and populous a Nation might be exposed to the wills and hands of John-a-Leidens and Jackstraw's, to Cnipperdolins and Muncers, to Hackets and Naylors, to Lack-latin preachers, pettifogging Barrators, and impudent Mountebanks, all of them perfect Impostors in their several professions. A project so unchristian, so inhuman, so barbarous, so diabolical, as suited no interest but that of the kingdom of darkness; which the wise and merciful God hath hitherto defeated, and I hope ever will, if he have any favour toward England beyond Turkey, Tartary, or Barbary.  
From Cambridge he traveled a second time into France, where he had been before he came to me, abiding there above two years, and gaining such improvements as are usually most aimed at by young Gallants, because most conspicuous and generally accepted by all persons of civility and breeding, who are glad to see that English roughness, moroseness, and surliness, (which commonly like rust, attends Country Gentlemen of only domestic and homespun education) taken off by that politure, douceur, debonaireté, and gentleness, which foreign conversation (in which young Masters are least flattered) contributes to Gentlemen that have any thing of candour and suppleness in their nature. In all places abroad his demeanour was generally such as became a person of his years and quality, which is testified to me by a Gentleman that is (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) worthy of credit, who attended him in all his motions.  
During his absence in France (that the world may see my respects to him were not flashy and formal, but serious and real) I had prepared a large volume for him against that time in which he could best bear and entertain it, (for even little books are great burdens to young Gallants, when their overactive spirits make then most busily idle) This great work I had furnished and fortified with all the strength of reason and religion, of virtue and honour, of grace and civility, of useful humanity and solid Divinity (gained by my reading or experience) in order to satisfy all his relations to God and man, yea to exceed all the expectations of his noble friends, who could not but expect and wish an accomplished Son to repair that loss which the world had of his excellent Mother. The matter of this composure I had advanced (as much as I could) with all the comely beauties of Oratory, and majesty of language, to avoid (what might be) all tediousness in the most curious and coy Readers of so copious a variety: the whole fabric was both founded and form after that great and goodly model, or Idea, of all true worth for judicious piety and useful virtue, which was most remarkable, and for many years observed by me in his noble Mother; that by his beholding so fair a figure, and so near an example of piety, virtue, and honour, he might not only grow in love with it, but (by the secret charm of reading) be transformed into it.  
But my attending the setledness of his station and condition of life (as most proper for such a present) caused my deferring so long the publishing of it, even until the fatal closing of his eyes (for whose sight it was chief designed) hath now condemned it to correspond with that silence and darkness to which he is gone as to this world.  
I now appeal to all Hearers and Readers (of any Nobleness and ingenuity) whether I am not excusable if I do with more than ordinary resentments of sorrow lay to heart the death of this young Nobleman, to whom I was so truly devoted and justly endeared. After that rate of care and kindness which the blessed St. John expressed so far to a young man of great hopes (as the Ecclesiastical Histories tell us) that when the good old man heard his dear depositum had deserted his breeding, 
Euseb. Histo. l. 3. c. 20.  and endangered his soul, he not only severely reproved that Bishop (for Bishops above Presbyters were so early) to whose custody he had committed him, but himself in his decrepit years (true love never growing old, or cold and infirm) sought him, found him, followed him, overtook him, overcame him, first with the young man's self-confusions, then with his own paternal prayers and tears, which never ceased till he had recovered so welcome a captive to Christ and his Church. So loath was that holy man, and so was I (though vastly short of that beloved Disciple) that either the labour of love should be lost upon any, or that any we love should be lost for want of any labour for their good; no defensative being too much to preserve a soul from the snares of sin, and the hazards of damnation.  
After he was returned into England, I shall but further afflict myself to tell you, how (amidst all the welcome receptions, visits, and caresses which he received or paid to his many noble and near relations) he forgot not (by any juvenile or supercilious negligence) to express to me and mine such civility, kindness, and noble gratitude, as shown both living and dying that he had a real value, love, and confidence of me. I confess I unfeignedly deplore my loss of him, not that I either hoped or expected any secular advantages by his private or public station beyond those civil courtesies which I have oft enjoyed from his other noble relations, which if I did never deserve, yet I hope I did never abuse. As for public favours, attainable by any man's mediation, I understand myself and the times so well in the point of preferment as not to look toward any, which are now rare to he seen in England for any Ecclesiastic of my proportions: nor am I so vain as to seek in vain those little great things for myself further than an Evangelical and unenviable plough in a poor Country village; where (as in most populous and plebeian Auditories) much good seed is lost, much study and pains frustrated, by falling on the thority, stony, and highway grounds. But my work and wages, I hope, are with Him who is a merciful Master, and most impartially bountiful Patron to all faithful Labourers in his husbandry, among which I beseech God I may be found one, in whom ability, industry, and fidelity may help to keep up the authority of Evangelical Ministry from being trodden under the feet of plebeian petulancy, and mechanic insolency, under which Incubuses in many places it is miserably fallen. No, my grief is partly that I have not so improved the opportunities of his life and my interest with him, as possibly I might and should had I been ware (though I confess for some months passed I was jealous) he would ere long deprive me and all the world of all capacities to serve him; which is the other part of my sorrow: this fear made me add of late such frequencies to my visits as I thought not unacceptable, still aiming to catch those (mollissima tempora fandi) seasonable advantages in respect of his urgent infirmities as might do him most good, in being his remembrancer for the main matters of life and death, that one thing necessary, his eternal interests, in comparison of which all things of Houses, Lands, Honours, Wife, Children, Crowns and Kingdoms, are as loss and dung.  
He seemed not to expect a long life since he could judge what it was to live; by I know not what secret presage, he would oft say in the height and vigour of his youth, He should not live beyond his Mother's age, who died under 27. and he under 24. God you see hath verified what was foretold, I believe more beyond all their expectations that knew him then his own, who certainly had some secret monition, which (I hope) he did not wholly neglect, though (possibly) he did not so much regard it as the event would have required, having the hopes and flattering confidences of youth and spirit yet attending him.  
This possibly encouraged him (as is usual) the more earnestly to pursue those allowed contentments of life, which he conceived might most contribute to his honour and happiness, than it may be he would have done if he had foreseen the speedy and impendent period of his life: and how much more necessary for his true interests, the eternal peace and happiness of his soul, the gracious improvements of his short time had been beyond the most deserving consort, and most splendid fortune in the world? the enjoyment of which God soon deprived him of, and (I hope) so far weaned his heart from them, and raised it above them, as became one that was shortly to leave them, after he had but a few months beheld them, not without much anxiety and bodily infirmity.  
A great and remarkable instance to confute all the glory, hopes, and confidence of us poor mortals, who at our best estate are altogether vanity, 
Psal. 39.5, 6.  disquieting ourselves in a vain shadow till we turn mere shadows and cyphers to this world. Let young sparks and Gallants of both sexes see their faces in the pieces of this, sometime so fair and fulgent, now broken and defaced glass or mirroir. If parentage and descent, if Nobility and honour, if youth and bravery, if courtly splendours and grandeurs, if an ample fortune and revenue, if human friendships and highest favours, if nearest alliance to a person he thought most deserving of his love and most capable to make him happy in the highest point of human felicity, if experience of virtuous love, conjugal respect, extraordinary tenderness, and passionate prudence, which he had (to comfort him) in his long and killing infirmity, immediately succeeding his so desired nuptials; if any one or all of these endearments and decoys of life had signified any thing to the preserving of it, or could have been advantaged by the care and skill of excellent Physicians, this young and noble Gentleman had not now been the subject of my discourse and your attention, of all our sorrows and tears, yea stupors and astonishments: for I assure you he is an object not lightly to be laid to all our hearts, and especially to the hearts of all his nearest kindred and relations.  
Warning all that have seen, 
Isa. 40.6. 1 Tim. 6.17.  or shall hear or read the sudden blast of this goodly flower (which is as all flesh, but grass) not to trust in this vain world, not in uncertain riches, 
Amos 6.3. Quamvis a Diis immortabibus prope absumus mortales, tardè tamen ad Deorum cognitionem, cultum, & usum accedimus; nisi aut maris tempestatibus jactati, aut terrae motibus perculsi, aut vitae infirmitatibus vexati, aut mortis terroribus attoniti potius quàm adducti.  honours, beauties, loves, relations, selves, not to put far from them the evil day (which is indeed never far from them) even in their sense, that is, the day of sickness, death, and judgement, and in God's sense it is then most upon them when they live least to God and their consciences, and most to their sinful lusts and pleasures. Such as are conscious their days and hearts are evil toward God, may justly fear his hand against them to cut them off from the land of the living.  
I know (as one of the ancients notably observed) although we are (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) near of kin to God, and he is not far from any of us (as the Apostle preacheth to the Athenians, Acts 17.27.) in being and bounty, in mercies or in judgements; yea he is nearest to us, round about and within us (intimior intimo nostri, as St. Bernard) by his omniscience and exact advertence of all our ways, words, thoughts and deeds, yet we naturally affect a reserve a strangeness and distance, yea an enmity toward God, that (if possible) he may not be in all our thoughts, who is, as the Psalmist saith, about our beds, and spieth out all our paths, Psal. 139.2. that we may live without him in this world, withoutwhom we can neither live, move, nor have our being.  
It is very late, very slowly, 
Isa. 51.13.  and but seldom that we come to the sense, service, and use of God, unless scared by tempests at Sea, or dreadful earthquakes, or bodily sufferings, or the terrors of death. It is a long time before the conceited (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) selfsufficiency of youth, which swims in plenty, pleasure, and honour, 
Acts 14.17.  can fancy any necessity of having or owning a God, forgetting the Lord that made them, and casting his commands behind their backs. Not that God is wanting to give them many witnesses of himself, and by many cords of a man to draw them to him; but the headiness, pride, and presumption of our own hearts, our lusts and humours is such, that (like Samson) we break all these cords of love and divine Philanthropy, the bonds of nature, providence, reason, conscience, Religion, and Baptism, in sunder.  
So that it is a mercy of God if at any time he stops the fleetness of our youthful passions, which are prone to run wild and counter to God's blessed will, to our own consciences and welfare. I hope this noble young Gentleman had a serious and humble, yea a gracious and thankful sense of God's merciful severities and indulgent afflictions. We are certainly undone if God be not better to us than we would have him; if, as a wise father, he do not give us seasonable Physic as well as food. Who knows but his bodily infirmities might be an holy means to cure those of his soul? of which, as he could not but be conscious, so he did with a very pathetic, humble, and I hope, penitent unfeigned sense confess them to God and myself, and possibly to others.  
His knowledge, as a Christian, was too great to suffer ●im to be ignorant or senseless of his sins, whereof he stood guilty before God. He is very miserable that flatters himself to be without them, or is reniorseless for them. Who can know (that is, acknowledge) sufficiently, with penitent shame and sorrow, the transgressions and errors of his youth, as David saith Psal. 25.7. (Optimus ille qui minimis urgetur) as St. Jerome by his own experience cries out, He is happiest that is least overcome by them, most humbled for them, and strives most against them, till he hath quite overcome them.  
Although I must profess to all the world my ignorance of any way either foul, riotous, notorious, scandalous, or debauched in him, as to swearing, profaneness, or luxury, in his later years, since he wrote man, and was out of his pupillage: not any thing (heretofore) did I observe or hear, beyond what is usual (but not therefore venial) in most young persons, as quick passions, and such surprises of the beast and devil within us as are incident to high, yea all spirits; together with the usual methods of young Gentlemen, by sports and idle travelings to unravel (by their after-neglect, and forgetting of all literature and serious studies) whatever learning their former education had wrought for them and woven in them. He did acknowledge that he had sins enough to exercise Gods infinite mercy, and to need all good Christians charity and prayers while he lived. Who is so happy as he can dispense with either of them? I know, after the rate not only of our times (which are bad and lose enough) but of all times, that a little modesty and civil restraint, short of the highest vices, seem a great virtue in young, great, and florid persons.  
The impotent and impudent debanchery of many makes their folly outvie their fortunes, 
Magnitudinem fortune peccandi licentia metiuntur.  deform their Honours, blaspheme their Baptism, corrupt the age in which they live, disdain their God, and damn their own with others souls; insomuch that many young people are ripe in sin while their years are yet green, and their experience of things but very raw. Commonly men and women flatter themselves, as if they were birds of a rare feather, and jewels of oriental lustre, if they be but civil, polite, formal, inoffensive to man; if they be but only apishly petulant, scenically affected, and fulsomly vain, and not monstrously vicious. To expect any thing from them at those years that is learned, serious, studious, judicious, virtuous, generous, conscientious, truly religious towards God, seems to them as unreasonable and unseasonable, as if one should look for ripe fruits in time of blossoms, or for harvest in the spring: as if life, time, strength, beauty, wit, and spirits, with all other talents which they have in their youth, were none of God's gifts, nor any good use or account to be made of them more than children do of their babies and rattles, to use and abuse them, to break and lose them. Whereas indeed so soon as we begin to be capable to sin knowingly and reflexively, we ought to begin to repent seriously. The smitings of our hearts, and checks of conscience (which this Gentleman told me he ever had after any known fin) should be minded and religiously considered as God's gracious rebukes, as Christ's looking back on Peter, which smote that rock so effectually that rivers of tears gushed out. As we are loath to be long or a little miserable, so we should be as loath to be long or little sinful. The civil and formal righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees will not bring us to the kingdom of heaven; it must be exceeded, or we shall be damned, both young and old. There must be Christian graces proportionable to Christ's doctrine, precepts, promises, baptism, sufferings, and love, to bring us to Christ's glory. They are undone that are afraid or ashamed in their youth to be too good. As we cannot be too soon happy in our own sense, nor can we be too soon holy in God's sense. Such as intent God's glory and their own eternal welfare in earnest, must not flatter themselves in youth, as if a little good nature would go a great way to save young men; because the highest praise (as Aristotle says) of young ones is (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) to be hopeful, accessible, tractable. (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) not to be (monitoribus asperi) morose, offensive, disdainful to all good counsel and counsellors. This is well spoken for heathen Philosophers and Poets; but this is not the height which Christian Preachers must require; and Christian people exact of themselves, if they mean to go to heaven in case they die (as they may) in their youth. Are not many cut off daily in their essays of repentance and delays of reforming; being miserable before they would, because they would not be good so soon as God would, and they should have been?  
As for those (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) refractory reluctancies and recalcitrations against all good counsel, monition, and example, to which high-crested and obstinate youth is too prone, this noble Gentleman was so far removed (as to my experience) from them, that a little before, and soon after he had completed what he imagined to be his chiefest worldly happiness, when I visited him, he did of himself desire me once and again, that I would advise him what I conceived the best method of living, to the improvement of his mind and time both for God and man; what books were most proper for his reading and study both in piety and prudence.  
The procedure of this good motion was prevented by his languishing sickness, and that valetudinary (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) indisposition which presently grew upon him, and after five months so prevailed that it banished all hopes of long lasting in this world. The importunity of his cough was such as forbade (almost) all long discourses with him; which perceiving, I thought it a work not unworthy of my faithful respects to him to send him my advice in writing, that he might at his best leisure either read it or have it read to him, which I know he did with as much regard and attention as could be expected in the course of his languishing & tedious state; yet he had some frequently to read choice places of Scripture to him, particularly when the 8th of the Romans was read to him by that person whom he most loved (whose tears in reading best interpreted not the Text but her own heart and sympathies to him) he would oft pray her to repeat some verses once and again, to give him leave to pause upon them; and sometimes he ended his meditation and conference with such an humble ejaculation, O how infinite is the mercy of our heavenly Father, that hath given us poor sinners such gracious promises to lay hold on!  
Afterward I was sent for to him, and went betimes that morning before he departed, which was at four afternoon. His weakness then was great and urgent; yet his calmness to speak and hear was better than I had found before. Then he deplored (as I formerly touched) the vain hopes of living which he had had, and that it was so late. There was now no delay to be made, no time to be lost in impertinent visiting and cold how-do-yous; I craved therefore his patience, privacy, and leave to do my duty as a Minister of Christ, in order to his souls present good. Then I did (according to the wisdom that God gave me) demand many things of him, in the clearest, exactest, and shortest method which I could, whereby to receive from him such a confession of his sins, and of his serious repentance, of his deep sense of the want of Christ as a Saviour, of owning the excellent worth that is in Christ, of the full and free grace of God offered by Christ, of his humble desires and hopes of it, also his patience and preparedness to die, if God would have it so; And in general, of his firm persuasion that those things were true which he had been taught by me and other Ministers of the Church of England out of God's word. To all the whole series of my questions & discourse he severally answered with such prayers & tears, such deep sighs, such fervent Amens, and such pathetic expressions, as I could expect in his weak condition. To my last query concerning his belief of the Truths of God in his Word, he replied with a vehemency of voice and spirit, Do I believe them? yes (Sr.) I thank God I do believe them, as most gracious and glorious truths, and I hope my heavenly Father will make them good to my soul. This last expression (my heavenly Father) he oft used as alone so to me and others; A sweet name and title, used oft in the private devotions which his pious and noble Mother had wrote with her own hand, as the effusions of her devout soul.  
After this my private discourse with him about a quarter of an hour, his noble friends joined with me in prayer to God for him, to which he was composedly intent and fervent. In the afternoon, soon after he had again spoken in his dying agonies some like passionate, pious, and humble words to me, as best befits the mouth of a dying Christian, he calmly and suddenly expired without any great contest with death.  
Far be it from me (who never flattered him or any man living except myself) to commend him (now dead and gone) after those riotous Hyperboles and envied excesses which the Greek and Roman Orators used at the Funeral piles (or busta) of their deceased friends. Nor will I scatter upon his hearse those flowers which ancient Fathers and other Christian Orators used gravely and more deservedly in their Funeral Sermons, Orations, and Epitaphs, applied to many holy men and women of old, who died either young, as Nepotian (whom St. Jerome so highly commends) or elder, as Martyrs, Confessors, and eminent professors of Christ crucified: it was but pious and prudent that their light both living and dead should so shine before men, 
Matth. 5.16.  both Christians and Heathens, that all might see their good works and glorify God. These were set forth by their accurate yet honest eloquence, that they were (Virtutum thesauri, gratiarum gazae, humanarum perfectionum cumuli, etc.) treasures of virtue, magazines of grace, heaps of divine perfections in the midst of human imperfections.  
No; 
Sancta illa anima nec laudes quaerit nec cupit humanas. Hieron.  I better understand the proportions of modesty, gravity, and verity, which become both living and dead. Great applauses (never so much deserved, as St. Jerome speaks) can do the dead no good, and may do the living much hurt when they seem not so eminently deserved. I am severely confined to the bounds of soberness and truth; therefore I shall say no more than this, that, as I hope, he was not far from the Kingdom of Heaven in his health, 
Mark 12.34.  so I trust his long sickness brought him not only nearer to it in the graces of true faith, unfeigned repentance, with charity, patience, humility, and willing submission to Gods will living and dying.  
I well know that the rack and screw of sickness and kill infirmity do commonly squeeze or force something of such expressions out of every one which sound to the tune of Christianity; the best verification of which is former frequent and faithful experiments in health, enjoyed in a man's own conscience, and given also to others by walking humbly with God, and keeping constant communion with Christ in all good duties and good works; the one affords nourishment, the other fruits of grace.  
Yet I conceive I may, without any offence to God or good men, say thus much, That if (sinite parvulos ad me venire) suffer little ones to come unto me, 
Mark 10.14.  be applicable to Infant graces; if the indulgent tenderness of Christ, 
Matth. 11.28.  bidding the weary laden with corporal and spiritual infirmities to come to him, and promising them rest; if that sweet promise, worthy of our blessed Saviour's beniguity to mankind, have any spirits and life in it for a poor dying and dejected, yet believing and trembling sinner to lay hold of, 
Matth. 12.20.  The smoking flax he will not quench, nor break the bruised reed; if these be significant to poor sinners in their contrite state, I may without presumption, or turning grace into wantonness, hope, that they were made good to this Gentleman, whose honour, health, hopes, happiness, and heart too were so long under the burdens and break of God's hand in his sickness, so early in his life, and so suddenly casting him down from the highest pinnacle of worldly happiness, where he fancied most to settle himself. Certainly there are many times great comforts & spiritual cordials secretly infused with God's bitter potions, 
Zach. 4.10.  which keep up our spirits under them, and mend us by them. I know God despiseth not the day of small things, if sincere; nor shall faith, like a grain of Mustardseed, 
Matth. 17.20.  be in vain to remove mountains of sin if it be true and lively, sown on Christ, and growing in him, growing up and fructifying to him. But I have done with the Anatomising of his soul to you, as far as I had time, opportunity, and skill.  
I could also give you a true and full account of the Anatomy of his body, as it was dissected the next day by six able Physicians and two skilful Surgeons (my self being an eye witness) whose testimony under their hands is hereafter printed in their own words. The account of their discovery amounts to no more than this, That he died of that scrofulous humour abounding in him, which we call the Struma, or Kings evil, full of little and great knots or kernels in his lungs and entrails, some as big as pullet's eggs, some larger, and adherent to the backbone on both sides; his lungs so full of that caseous or cheese-like substance that they were swelled and inflamed to a quantity too big for his breast and breathing, so that he died on the sudden, presently after he had spoken and removed himself with much seeming strength and earnestness; the heart being suddenly suffocated and wasted on one side or (Auricle) for want of due refreshing: and however the lungs began in some folds to be putrified, yet neither myself nor any other perceived either while he lived (though I spoke very near him) any thing offensive in his breath, or unsavoury from his pectorals or vitals.  
This was the disease and languor of which this poor Gentleman died: and I know by most assured experience it hath befallen such as have been both for unspotted virtue and exquisite handsomeness inferior to no persons living in their times. In a word, the means which providence permitted to put an end to this noble Gentleman's days was such as might well deserve the pity of all, but not the reproach of any good Christian, who being (at last) thus truly and fully informed will in all respects carry themselves as becometh humanity and Christianity, modesty and veracity.  
A more solicitous confutation of any vulgar surmises and false reports were to give them too much reputation; credulity not duly informed is venial though applied to calumnies, but clearly convinced it becomes venomous and mortal because malicious. How miserable a people are we, whose civil and religious feuds are such, that men are made to live and die, to be saved and damned, not as the mercy and justice of God wills, but as human adherencies or antipathies list to censure. No party, no passion here sways with me; I abhor to flatter or calumniate any man in Court or Country; I follow no dictates but those of experience, impartiality, certainty, upon which ground I presume no ingenuous man or woman can envy or deny me to apply even to the now dead body of this noble Gentleman these sweet perfumes and honest spices made up of nothing but evident truth, comely civility, just honour and upright conscience; which last office I perform, not so much a friend and servant to him, as to truth and the God of truth, to whose merciful dispose we leave his soul for ever.  
His Corpse, or bodily remains are brought (you see) to be deposited with you his kind friends, his loving neighbours, his honest tenants (in reversion) and his worthy Countrymen, to be laid up with the mortal relics of his excellent Mother, and other his noble Ancestors, to whom he is gone before his Father or Grandfather, by a preproperous fate, inverting the usual and by most parents desired methods of mortality.  
I need not tell your ingenuity (to my worthy Countrymen and you of this place) what causes you have more than other men to lay this death to heart, and to stand still at this dead Corpse as the men of Judah and Israel did that came to the place where Asahel fell down and died, as of a person eminently related, as to many other, 
2 Sam. 2.23.  so to a principal noble Family in this County; the experience of whose piety, hospitality, charity, and love of learning, poor and rich have had long experience, and some constant living monuments among you in this village, besides that to which they have committed their urns and bones, their dust and ashes as it were, to your safe custody. How far you are injured or detrimented by this noble persons death depends much on the piety, virtue, and honour of their minds and actions who now enjoy, or may after succeed to, those honours and revenues to which he was Heir apparent, which he now neither wants, nor envies, nor desires. How far you are or may be bettered by his death, and these endeavours for your good, depends much upon your care and conscience to lay to heart those many instances of improving a Funeral which I have told you; wherein God's grace upon your humble prayers and honest endeavours will enable you to live as becomes those that remember daily they must die and appear before God: For which last agony and great appearance the Lord in mercy fit us all, for his sake who died for us, Jesus Christ the righteous; To whom with the Father and holy Spirit be everlasting glory for ever. Amen.  
Phil. 1.21. To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.  
Id agamus ut vita sit jucunda, morbus non injucundus, mors verò jucundissima.   

A PRAYER in order to prepare for DEATH.  
O Lord, the everlasting God, the only giver and preserver of all life, natural, spiritual, temporal, and eternal; who hast breathed into these our vile bodies of dust the breath of life, even precious and immortal souls, by which we are capable to know, to love, to live with and enjoy Thee for ever as the only Supreme Good; who only art an object adequate to the vast capacities, and sufficient to satisfy those infinite desires of living happily to eternity, which thou hast planted in us. Thou hast justly passed upon all mankind for our sinful falling from thee (which is the present death of our souls, as to an holy and happy life) the irrevocable decree of once dying, and after that appearing before thy judgement, both which will certainly ere long overtake us all.  
Blessed Lord, the terrors of death and of judgement, of our present mortality and our deserved misery are infinite upon us; very fearful we are because very sinful, and loath because unfit to die a natural death; but we are wholly confounded, and even swallowed up with the thoughts and dread of that black Abyssus, an eternal death. If the death of our bodies by the soul's separation be so horrid and grievous to us, O what must the death of our souls be, which consists in an utter separation from thy love and favour, shutting us up in the chains of eternal darkness, and under the pains of everlasting burn. We confess how just cause we have to be ashamed to live, and yet afraid to die, having no hope of the least degree of life or happiness in our death, as from ourselves, where our own consciences have already passed a sentence of death, and an expectation of thy just vengeance to destroy us.  
In which sad state of dying and despairing we should have both lived and died, if thou hadst not made us, who were dead in sins and trespasses, to hear thy voice in Jesus Christ that we might live. As thou hast been a God of great goodness and long-suffering to us, not willing we should die in our sins, but repent of them and live; so (as a most merciful Father) thou hast made a new and living way to the throne of thy grace, by the meritorious death and passion of the Lord of life and glory, the great and promised Messiah, thy beloved Son, our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, who by suffering death hath both overcome death and satisfied thy justice for us, freeing all true believing and penitent sinners from the sting, curse, and fear of death both temporal and eternal, bringing by his glorious Gospel life and glory, honour and happiness to light.  
We beseech thee (O heavenly Father) for his sake (who hath tasted death for us all) to magnify thy infinite mercy upon us before we go from hence and be no more seen. O be better to us then ever we should be to ourselves, or we are utterly lost; Bestow upon us all those graces and gifts which may both teach and help us to lead an holy life and die an happy death: Prevent us graciously, and follow us effectually with the motions and operations of thy holy Spirit, which may excite and enable us speedily and throughly to mortify the life and power of every sin in us, even while it is called to day, lest death and hell prevent us in our delays and presumptions.  
Sanctify to us all those occasions, monitions, and warnings, by which thy providence presents the thoughts and state of death to us, as the truest glass of all earthly glory, that we may so lay them to heart as to die daily to all inordinate love of ourselves and of this world, which (at best) is loss and dung in comparison of the excellency of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom thy love to us is better than life itself.  
Thou hast by thy power given us our lives in this vain world, by thy providence thou hast preserved them, by thy patience thou hast spared them to this day, notwithstanding we have with many sins and much unthankefulness provoked thee to our hurt; yea by thy holy Word thou hast showed and offered to us the way and reward of a better life upon our turning to thee with all our hearts from dead works to serve the living God. O teach us so to number our days as to apply our hearts to true wisdom, to value this precious moment, not to misspend it, yea to redeem it, because the days past have been evil, and upon this moment depends our eternal fate. O thou that hast made our moment here (though it be sinful) not wholly miserable, but hast sweetened it with many mercies, let not our eternity be miserable and sinful. It is one great comfort in our mortality as to this life, that we consider our sins shall not be immortal in us. O let not sin die with us but before us, as a work of choice and grace, not of infirmity, force, and necessity.  
We humbly lay hold on that eternal life, which is thy gift through Jesus Christ our lord As we every day grow elder, so (Lord) make us every day somewhat better; as nearer to our graves, so fit for heaven: teach us to live every day as if it were our last, that we may never live in any such way wherein we cannot meet death comfortably: make us such as thou wouldst have us while we live, that we may find thee such as we would have thee when we die; that when we come to die we may have nothing else to do but to resign our bodies to thy custody, and our souls to thy mercy; who having made this life on earth common to the bad and good, the just and the unjust, haste (certainly) prepared another state in which shall be infinite difference, and everlasting distinction of recompenses to such as fear thee and such as fear thee not. O enable us to do our duty, and we are sure to receive thy rewards; writ thy name in our hearts, and we need not doubt but our names are written in heaven, even in thy Book of Life. Sweeten the bitter thoughts of death to us by our faith and hope in the meritorious death, the victorious resurrection, and glorious ascension of Jesus Christ for our sakes; let us find by our holiness and newness of life, by our being dead with Christ and living to him, that we are passed from death to life. That our departure hence may be a joyful passage to a better life, which consists in the vision and fruition of thyself, O blessed Creator, who must needs be better than all things thou hast made, and as more necessary, so infinitely more useful, sweet, and comfortable to us. O that we may be willing and fitted to leave all to come to thyself, that we may with all the blessed Angels and Saints for ever in heaven see, love, praise, admire, adore, and enjoy thee, O holy Father, Son, and Spirit, the only true God; To whom be glory and honour, life and power, thanks and dominion for ever. Amen.   

Februarii 17. Anno 1657.  
Observationes habitae  
In Dissectione Corporis Illustrissimi & Nobilissimi Viri D. ROBERTI RICH coram Medicinae Doctoribus & Chirurgis infra subscriptis.  
1. INventi sunt Pulmones substantiâ duriores quam secundùm naturam, & mole longè majores quam pro ratione pectoris, toti ferè scrophulosi, caseosâ materiâ magna ex parte purulentâ referti. Superiori parte lobi dextri lacuna reperta est pure plena ad quantitatem cochlearis unius.  
2. Aqua collecta in sinistra cavitate Thoracis ad fesque librae quantitatem, vel circiter.  
3. Auricula dextra Cordis major erat sinistrâ proportione ferè quintuplici.  
4. Mesenterium refertum glandulis scrophulosis, aliquibus magnitudinem Ovi Gallinacei aequantibus, aliis minoribus materiâ quadam sebaceâ plenis, cum purulentiae guttis hinc inde sparsis in aliquibus.  
5. In substantia Panchreatis glandulae peregrinae, huic annexus tumor scrophulosus grandis, ad hepar usque protensus, & Orisicium Venae Portae comprimens.  
6. Vesicula fellis exteriùs albicans, flaccida, aliquam quantitatem fellis dilutioris continens.  
7. Hepar colore Albidiori, & substantiâ debito majori.  
8. Splen satìs, laudabilis nisi quòd hinc & inde granulis scrophulosis refertus.  
9 Inte Musculos Lumbares glandulae duae ingentes scrophuloae à quinta vertebra sinistrae partis una ad Inguen usque se protendebat, ex dextra parte altera non adeo longa.  


Fran. Prujean.  
Geor Bates.  
Tho. Cox.  
Robertus Lloyd.  
J. Goddard.  
Theophilus Garancieres.  
Edward Arris Chirurgus.  
John Soper Chirurgus.     

I Have judged my publishing of this Funeral-Sermon upon the immature death of the Son the fittest occasion I am ever like to have, while I live, to present those who can look upon eminent goodness without evil eyes, with a short Epitome of the Mother's worth, as it was long since in way of Epitaph composed by a person, whose ambition is, That justice might be done to the dead, as well as to the living. Vicious minds and manners (like dead carcases) are then best, when so buried that nothing may appear to posterity of their noisome and contagious fedities: But exemplary and meritorious virtues must never wholly die, nor be buried in oblivion, because to the injury both of the dead and the living. The name of the wicked justly rots; but the name of the righteous aught to be had in everlasting remembrance. It is fit they should be quite forgotten, who never did any thing worthy of memory or imitation: Nor is it less fit to remember those with eternal honour, who did all things with honour, and in reference to Eternity. Commendation is the least reward due to Virtue: Imitation is the highest commendation of it; just commendation and imitation make the most noble and durable Monument for it. Which good ends are aimed at by this following Inscription, dedicated to the Mother's Urn, at the Son's Funeral; that seeing how Holy the Parent or Root was, mankind may conjecture how hopeful the Son or Branch might be, and how happy themselves may be by imitating both of Them in those things which were praiseworthy in Them; That God in all, may have the glory of all, as infinitely above all.   

Piae Memoriae Sacrum, Quam a Posteris meritò exigit Nobilissima Heroina ac Domina D. ANNA RICH.  
Illustrissimâ Devonienfis Comitis Familiâ oriunda, 
 Warwicensis Filio & Haeredi connubio juncta, 
 Ingens utriusque Gentis decus & ornamentum; 
 Praestantissimum verae Nobilitatis 
 Nobilissimarumque virtutum exemplar; 
 Optatissimis Animi Corporisque dotibus 
 Supra Invidiam Laudemque cumulata; 
 Animi excelsi, constantis, generosi, 
 Nec Aulae splendore, nec Sortis suae fastigio elati; 
 Ingenii vividi, elegantis, splendidi, 
 Ad summa pulcherrimaque nati, 
 Genii benigni, amoeni, mitissimi, 
 Ad infimorum usum suaviter demissi; 
 Sermonis politi, Rerum pondere magis, 
 quàm verborum numero copiosi; 
 Gestus decori, gratissima Majestatis 
 Comitatisque temperie venerandi; 
 Amoris puri, invicti, stupendi; 
 Amicitiae cordatae, fidae, amicissimae; 
 Vitae Admirationi quàm Laudi proximae. 
 Conscientiae probè instructae, 
 Christique sanguine perpurgatae; 
 Pietatis non vulgaris, non fictae, non verbosae; 
 Quanta quanta fuit, 
 Tota vera, solida, sincera: 
 Ad speciem, plausum, populumve 
 Nihil datum; 
 Ad Deum, ad Christum omnia. 
 Quicquid praeclari dixeris (Viator) cogitaverisve, 
 Par esse non potes meritis; nedum nimius. 
 Id enim omne quâ Fuit Fecitque superavit Illa, 
 Quantum Res verba superant, effectusque Cogitata. 
 Aureus reverâ 
 

Pudicitiae & Formae, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Candoris & Judicii, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Acuminis & prudentiae, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Humilitatis & honoris, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Gravitatis & dulcedinis, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Sublimitatis & patientiae, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Rationis & pietatis, Nodus & unio fulgentissimus  
Humanae divinaeque pulchritudinis,   Nodus & unio fulgentissimus 
 Sexum, Aetatem, Spem, & vota Amicorum, 
 Faecundissima virtute supergressa: 
 Cui ad summam Mortalium Claritatem 
 Nihil defuit; 
 Nec ipse poteris ultra desiderare 
 (Lector) 
 Praeter Vitam in Terris diuturniorem. 
 Quum enim Annos 
 Nondum 27. numerasset, 
 Caelo Matura, 
 Spectatissimos Parentes, Nobilissimum Conjugem, 
 Integerrimos Fratres, Numerosissimos Amicos, 
 Charissimum Filiolum (unicum castissimi Amoris pignus) 
 Mortales (denique) omnes 
 (Amplissimam sibi virtutum Messem pollicentes) 
 Pio certè pretiosoque Numini, 
 placido felicique Sibi, 
 Solis Invidis laeto, 
 Caeteris acerbo tristissimóque 
 FATO 
 (Infanda tam praesentis quam posterae aetatis Jactura) 
 deseruit. 
 Aug. 24. 1638. 
 Hoc 
 Devotissimi pectoris monumentum 
 Lubens Maerensque posuit 
  
J. G.   

AN EPITAPH UPON The LADY RICH.  

Possessed of all that Nature could bestow,  
All we can wish to be, or reach to know;  
Equal to all the patterns which our mind  
Can frame of good, beyond the good we find;  
All beauties which have power to bless the sight,  
Mixed with transparent virtues greater light;  
At once producing love and reverence,  
The admiration of the soul and sense:  
The most discerning thoughts, the calmest breast,  
Most apt to pardon, needing pardon lest;  
The largest mind, and which did most extend  
To all the Laws of Daughter, Wife, and Friend;  
The most allowed example, by what line  
To live, what path to follow, what decline;  
Who best all distant virtues reconciled;  
Strict, cheerful, humble, great, severe, and mild;  
Constantly pious to Her latest breath;  
Not more a Pattern in Her life then death;  
The Lady RICH lies here: More frequent Tears  
Have never honoured any Tomb then Hers.   
SIDNEY GODOLPHIN.   

THE SUMMARY OF THE SERMON.  

OF Funeral Solemnities, civil and religious Page 1  
1 Of Feasting, its danger and disadvantages p. 6  
2 Of the House of Mourning, its advantages p. 8  
Of Holy Necromancy, learning from the dead p. 9  
The Honour paid anciently to the dead p. 11  
3 Who the living are in the Text p. 12  
No advantages from the live devotion to the dead; Romish Superstition p. 13  
4 How the living may be benefitted by the dead p. 15  
5 The Hearts decays, dangers, distempers p. 17  
Account to be given of others deaths p. 21  
6 Fourteen considerations rising from the death of any to be laid to heart by the living  
1 Of our mortal and vile bodies, in their health, sickness, decay, death p. 24  
Not to be preferred before our souls p. 26  
How little cause we have to be proud of ourselves, or to flatter others  
2 Consid. By way of analogy, the putrid horror and fedity of a dead soul p. 27  
3 Consid. The fedity and horror of sin as the meritorious cause of all deaths p. 29  
4 Consid. The vanity of this life, and all things in it; set forth in the pregnant instance of this noble Gentleman.  
5 Consid. Of the certain uncertainty of death: Its Catholic Empire p. 37  
6 The danger of delaying Repentance p. 42 

The pious importunity of Ministers urging speedy Repentance p. 44  
Impenitence riseth from unbelief p. 47  
Deathbed Repentance less certain and less comfortable to ourselves and others p. 50  
Vulgar pleas for delaying repentance answered p. 54  
Of rational and religious living, how far in our power p. 57    
7 Consid. Of God's patience and long suffering to us p. 59  
8 Lay to heart the death of Christ, the only antidote against the curse and terror of death p. 61  
9 Cons●d. The chief end of our lives; unprofitable and pernicious waste of a short and precious life p. 63  
10. Consid. The seeming sameness of men's deaths after their various lives.  
Arguments for an after life or being p. 67  
11 The folly of Christians uncharitable and excessive passions as to any concerns of this life p. 70  
12 The wisdom of Christians moderation in all things; in their passion or grief for the dead p. 74 

Of timely disposing ourselves to die when we are sick p. 74  
Why sick men are more attended by Physicians then Divines p. 75    
13 Consider how prepared thou art at present for death; of adorning the last act of a Christians life p. 77 

All Christians may be preachers on their deathbeds p. 78    
14 What deaths are most emphatic, and chief to be laid to heart p. 79 

1 Of Kings and Sovereign Magistrates p. 80  
2 Of chief-Priests, Prophets and Ministers of God's Church p. 81  
3 Of any gracious and eminent Christian p. 83  
4 Of near Relations, as Parents, Husbands, Wives, Children p. 85  
5 Of such as have been very wicked, and die in their sin p. 87  
Of David's mourning so passionately for Absalon p. 88    
Three Uses. 1 Reproving such hearts as are senseless and unconcerned in any one's death, or joy in it p. 89  
2 Use exam. How we have improved this and the like spectacles of death p. 91  
3 Use vindicating religious as well as civil Solemnities at Christians burials p. 92  
Lastly, An account of this noble Personage Mr. ROBERT RICH, from his cradle to his coffin; His education, domestic, Academic, foreign; His temper of body and mind; His health, sickness, disease, death p. 92  
The conclusion; 

A Prayer preparatory for death p. 115  
The judgement of six Doctors in Physic, and two Surgeons upon the dissection of the Corpse p. 120    
An Epitaph upon His noble Mother, added as an honour to the Funeral urn and memory of this Her only Child.