A Sermon of Death hath then a double Advantage to make deep impressions upon us,1 when it is attended with a Spectacle of Mortality: Were there but the sad Pomp of a Funeral now presented before you, a dead Corpse brought to be interred, a Grave digged through into the Earth, dry and rotten Bones lying scattered about the Mouth of it in fearful confusion, a solemn Train ⟨p. 4⟩of Mourners tolled along the Streets by the doleful Moan of a Bell? Did you see the Dead laid down in the Dust, the Place of Darkness and Silence, their Friends groaning out their last Farewell, Clods of Earth falling in upon them, and striking a horrid murmur upon their Coffins: Had your Affections but such a Preparatory as this is, possibly this might more easily work and move upon them; for it must needs make Men serious and pensive to think, this is but the Pattern of what must befall themselves, and that all this must shortly be acted upon them, that they now see done unto others: But since this Day presents us with no such Solemnity, some perhaps may wonder that I have chosen this Text and Subject of Mortality to treat upon. Indeed Custom hath made it almost improper to preach of Death without a Funeral, and to speak to Men of their last End and Dissolution, without setting before their Eyes an Example of it: Look well therefore one upon another; what are we all as it were, but so many Corpses, so many Spectacles of Mortality, rather to be numbered among the Dead than among the Living; every Day and Hour wears ⟨p. 5⟩away part of our Lives; and so much of them as is already spent, so far are we already dead and buried. This present moment is the longest measure of our Lives; what is past is dead to us, and what is to come is not yet born, how soon God may put a final Period to our present state, how few times more our Pulses may beat, and this busy Breath in our Nostrils return to us again, we know not; so frail and so uncertain are our Lives, that this may be truly a Funeral Sermon to some one of us before the close of it. Since then we are all of us thus subject to the stroke of Death, it can never be unseasonable to warn you, that you be not surprised, and taken by it unprovided.
A Sermon of Death hath then a double Advantage to make deep impressions upon us,1 when it is attended with a Spectacle of Mortality: Were there but the sad Pomp of a Funeral now presented before you, a dead Corpse brought to be interred, a Grave digged through into the Earth, dry and rotten Bones lying scattered about the Mouth of it in fearful confusion, a solemn Train ⟨p. 4⟩of Mourners tolled along the Streets by the doleful Moan of a Bell? Did you see the Dead laid down in the Dust, the Place of Darkness and Silence, their Friends groaning out their last Farewell, Clods of Earth falling in upon them, and striking a horrid murmur upon their Coffins: Had your Affections but such a Preparatory as this is, possibly this might more easily work and move upon them; for it must needs make Men serious and pensive to think, this is but the Pattern of what must befall themselves, and that all this must shortly be acted upon them, that they now see done unto others: But since this Day presents us with no such Solemnity, some perhaps may wonder that I have chosen this Text and Subject of Mortality to treat upon. Indeed Custom hath made it almost improper to preach of Death without a Funeral, and to speak to Men of their last End and Dissolution, without setting before their Eyes an Example of it: Look well therefore one upon another; what are we all as it were, but so many Corpses, so many Spectacles of Mortality, rather to be numbred among the Dead than among the Living; every Day and Hour wears ⟨p. 5⟩away part of our Lives; and so much of them as is already spent, so far are we already dead and buried. This present moment is the longest measure of our Lives; what is past is dead to us, and what is to come is not yet born, how soon God may put a final Period to our present state, how few times more our Pulses may beat, and this busie Breath in our Nostrils return to us again, we know not; so frail and so uncertain are our Lives, that this may be truly a Funeral Sermon to some one of us before the close of it. Since then we are all of us thus subject to the stroke of Death, it can never be unseasonable to warn you, that you be not surprized, and taken by it unprovided.
- 1An Introduction.
