A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

A DISCOURSE ON MAN's MORTALITY, FROM

HEB. IX. 27. It is appointed unto Men once to die; and after this the Judgment.

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⟩