of

And to the end with the end of all, in die mortis, in the day of my death, and that which is beyond the end of all, and without end in itself, the day of judgment, if I have the testimony of a rectified conscience, that I have accustomed myself to that access to God, by prayer, and such prayer, as though it have had a body of supplication, and desire of future things, yet the soul and spirit of that prayer, that is, my principal intention in that prayer, hath been praise and thanksgiving, if I be involved in St. Chrysostom's patent, Orantes, non natura, sed dispensatione angeli fiunt, That those who pray so, that is, pray by way of praise, (which is the most proper office of angels) as they shall be better than angels in the next world, (for they shall be glorifying spirits, as the angels are, but they shall also be glorified bodies, which the angels shall never be) so in this world they shall be as angels, because they are employed in the office of angels, to pray by way praise, if, as St. Basil reads those words of that psalm, not spiritus meus, but respiratio mea laudet Dominum, not only my spirit, but my very breath, not my heart only, but my tongue, and my hands be accustomed to glorify God, in die mortis, in the day of my death, when a mist of sorrow, and of sighs shall fill my chamber, and a cloud exhaled and condensed from tears, shall be the curtains of my bed, when those that love me, shall be sorry to see me die, and the devil himself that hates me, sorry to see me die so, in the favour of God; and in die judicii, in the day of judgment, when as all time shall cease, so all measures shall cease; the joy, and the sorrow that shall be then, shall be eternal, no end, and infinite, no measure, no limitation, when every circumstance of sin shall aggravate the condemnation of the unrepentant sinner, and the very substance of my sin shall be washed away, in the blood of my Saviour, when I shall see them, who sinned for my sake, perish eternally, because they proceeded in that sin, and I myself, who occasioned their sin received into glory, because God upon my prayer, and repentance had satisfied me early with his mercy, early, that is, before my transmigration, in omnibus diebus, in all these days, the days of youth, and the wantonnesses of that, the days of age, and the tastelessness of that, the days of mirth, and the sportfulness of that, and of inordinate melancholy, and the disconsolateness of that, the days of such miseries,

as astonish us with their suddenness, and of such as aggravate their own weight with a heavy expectation; in the day of death, which pieces up that circle, and in that day which enters another circle that hath no pieces, but is one equal everlastingness, the day of judgment, either I shall rejoice, be able to declare my faith, and zeal to the assistance of others, or at least be glad in mine own heart, in a firm hope of mine own salvation.

And, therefore, beloved, as they, whom lighter affections carry to shows, and masks, and comedies; as you yourselves, whom better dispositions bring to these exercises, conceive some contentment, and some kind of joy, in that you are well and commodiously placed, they to see the show, you to hear the sermon, when the time comes, though your greater joy be reserved to the coming of that time; so though the fulness of joy be reserved to the last times in heaven, yet rejoice and be glad that you are well and commodiously placed in the mean time, and that you sit but in expectation of the fulness of those future joys: return to God, with a joyful thankfulness that he hath placed you in a church, which withholds nothing from you, that is necessary to salvation, whereas in another church they lack a great part of the word, and half the sacrament; and which obtrudes nothing to you, that is not necessary to salvation, whereas in another church, the additional things exceed the fundamental; the occasional, the original; the collateral, the direct: and the traditions of men, the commandments of God. Maintain and hold up this holy alacrity, this religious cheerfulness; for inordinate sadness is a great degree and evidence of unthankfulness, and the departing from joy in this world, is a departing with one piece of our evidence, for the joys of the world to come.

469

SERMON LXXX.

PREACHED AT THE FUNERALS OF SIR WILLIAM COKAYNE, KNT,, ALDERMAN OF LONDON, DECEMBER 12, 1626.

JOHN xi. 21.

Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

GOD made the first marriage, and man made the first divorce; God married the body and soul in the creation, and man divorced the body and soul by death through sin, in his fall. God doth not admit, not justify, not authorize such super-inductions upon such divorces, as some have imagined; that the soul departing from one body, should become the soul of another body, in a perpetual revolution and transmigration of souls through bodies, which hath been the giddiness of some philosophers to think; or that the body of the dead should become the body of an evil spirit, that that spirit might at his will, and to his purposes inform, and inanimate that dead body; God allows no such super-inductions, no such second marriages upon such divorces by death, no such disposition of soul or body, after their dissolution by death, but because God hath made the band of marriage indissoluble but by death, farther than man can die, this divorce cannot fall upon man; as far as man is immortal, man is a married man still, still in possession of a soul, and a body too; and man is for ever immortal in both; immortal in his soul by preservation, and immortal in his body by reparation in the resurrection. For, though they be separated à thoro et mensa, from bed and board, they are not divorced; though the soul be at the table of the Lamb, in glory, and the body but at the table of the serpent, in dust; though the soul be in lecto florido', in that bed which is always green, in an everlasting spring, in Abraham's bosom ; and the body but in that green-bed, whose covering is but a yard and a half of turf, and a rug of grass, and the sheet but a winding-sheet, yet they are not divorced; they shall return to one another again, in an inseparable reunion in the resurrection. To establish this assurance of a resurrection

1 Cant. i. 16.

3

in us, God does sometimes in this life, that which he hath promised for the next; that is, he gives a resurrection to life, after a bodily death here. God hath made two testaments, two wills; and in both, he hath declared his power, and his will, to give this new life after death, in this world. To the widow's son of Zarephtha, he bequeaths new life; and to the Shunamite's son' he gives the same legacy, in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, to the widow of Naim's son', he bequeaths new life; and to Jairus' daughter he gives the same legacy and out of the surplusage of his inexhaustible estate, out of the overflowing of his power, he enables his executors to do as he did; for Peter gives Dorcas this resurrection too. Divers examples hath he given us, of the resurrection of every particular man, in particular resurrections; such as we have named; and one of the general resurrection, in the resurrection of Christ himself; for, in him, we all rose; for, he was all in all; Con-virificavit, says the apostle; and Considere nos fecit, God hath quickened us, (all us; not only St. Paul, and his Ephesians, but all) and God hath raised us, and God hath made us to sit together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. They that are not fallen yet by any actual sin, (children newly baptized) are risen already in him; and they are not dead yet, nay, not alive yet, not yet born, have a resurrection in him, who was not only the Lamb slain from the beginning, but from before all beginnings was risen too; and all that shall ever have part in the second resurrection, are risen with him from that time. Now, next to that great prophetical action, that type of the general resurrection, in the resurrection of Christ, the most illustrious evidence, of the resurrection of particular men, is this resuscitation of Lazarus; whose sister Martha, directed by faith, and yet transported by passion, seeks to entender and mollify, and supple him to impressions of mercy and compassion, who was himself the mould, in which all mercy was cast, nay, the substance, of which all mercy does consist, Christ Jesus, with this imperfect piece of devotion, which hath a tincture of faith, but is deeper dyed in passion, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

This text which you hear, Martha's single words, complicated with this text which you see, the dead body of this our brother, makes up between them this body of instruction for the soul; first, that there is nothing in this world perfect; and then, that` such as it is, there is nothing constant, nothing permanent. We consider the first, that there is nothing perfect, in the best things, in spiritual things; even Martha's devotion and faith hath imperfections in it; and we consider the other, that nothing is permanent in temporal things; riches prosperously multiplied, children honourably bestowed, additions of honour and titles, fairly acquired, places of command and government, justly received, and duly executed; all testimonies, all evidences of worldly happiness, have a dissolution, a determination in the death of this, and of every such man: there is nothing, no spiritual thing, perfect in this world; nothing, no temporal thing, permanent and durable; and these two considerations shall be our two parts; and then, these the branches from these two roots; first, in the first, we shall see in general, the weakness of man's best actions; and secondly, more particularly, the weaknesses in Martha's action; and yet, in a third place, the easiness, the propenscness, the largeness of God's goodness towards us, in the acceptation of our imperfect sacrifices; for, Christ does not refuse, nor discourage Martha, though her action have these imperfections; and in this largeness of his mercy, which is the end of all, we shall end this part. And in our second, that as in spiritual things nothing is perfect, so in temporal things nothing is permanent, we shall, by the same three steps, as in the former, look first upon the general consideration, the fluidness, the transitoriness of all such temporal things; and then, consider it more particularly, in God's master-piece, amongst mortal things, the body of man, that even that flows into putrefaction; and then lastly, return to that, in which we determined the former part, the largeness of God's goodness to us, in affording even to man's body, so dissolved into putrefaction, an incorruptible and a glorious state. So have you the frame set up, and the rooms divided; the two parts, and the three branches of each; and to the furnishing of them, with meditations fit for this occasion, we pass now.

In entering upon the first branch of our first part, that in