A funeral sermon on the death of that pious gentlewoman Mrs. Judith Hamond Late…

or that a temper of Spirit habitually and fixedly good or evil, should be signified by being alive, or dead, if we consider how perfect an equivalency there is between them in the moral sense, and being naturally alive or dead. For wherein do we usually state the notion of Natural Life, but in a self-moving power? Now let any ordinary Understanding be appealed to in the Case, and who would not say it were as good, not to be able to move at all, as to move in so perpetual disorder, as never to attain any end, such motion should serve for. The Ends of a reasonable Creatures motions, must be duty to its Maker, and felicity to it self. If all its motions be such as import constant hostility towards God, infelicity and torment to it self; this is to be dead not simply and naturally, 'tis true, but respectively, and not in some by-, and less considerable respect, but in respect of the principal and most important purposes of Life. So that, in full equivalency, such a one is, as dead, to all valuable intents and purposes whatsoever. Therefore such are only said to be alive in a true, and the most proper sense, that are alive [to God] through Jesus Christ, Rom. 6. 11. Or that do yield themselves [to God] as those that are alive from the dead, ver. 13. it being the proper business of their life to serve God, and enjoy him. Others that only live in sinful pleasure, are dead while they live, 1 Tim. 5. 6. Nor hath such a Notion of life and death been altogether strange even among Heathens, when we find it said by One of no mean note, That a wicked man is dead, as a soul may be said to die^*; and to it 'tis a death, when 'tis (too deeply) ^*plunged, immersed into the body so as ⟨p. 9⟩to be sunk down into matter, and replete with it. (Besides much more that might be produced from others of like import) and how agreeable is this passage to that Rom. 8. 6 To be carnally minded is death.

or that a temper of Spirit habitually and fixedly good or evil, should be signify'd by being alive, or dead, if we consider how perfect an equivalency there is between them in the moral sense, and being naturally alive or dead. For wherein do we usually state the notion of Natural Life, but in a self-moving power? Now let any ordinary Understanding be appeal'd to in the Case, and who would not say it were as good, not to be able to move at all, as to move in so perpetual disorder, as never to attain any end, such motion should serve for. The Ends of a reasonable Creatures motions, must be duty to its Maker, and felicity to it self. If all its motions be such as import constant hostility towards God, infelicity and torment to it self; this is to be dead not simply and naturally, 'tis true, but respectively, and not in some by-, and lessconsiderable respect, but in respect of the principal and most important purposes of Life. So that, in full equivalency, such a one is, as dead, to all valuable intents and purposes whatsoever. Therefore such are only said to be alive in a true, and the most proper sense, that are alive [to God] through Jesus Christ,