The righteous mans death lamented. A sermon preached at St. Austins, London, Aug.23. 1662…

2dly, It is a great sin; and therefore the Prophet Jeremiah in the former Chapter calls to all the Beasts of the Field to devour, that is, all the Enemies of the Church to destroy the Children of Israel, because they drank strong drink, filling themselves with merriment, and promised themselves happy days, but did not consider that the righteous were taken away from the evil to come.

2dly, It is a great sin; and therefore the Prophet Jeremy in the former Chapter calls to all the Beasts of the Field to devour, that is, all the Enemies of the Church to destroy the Children of Israel, because they drank strong drink, filling themselves with merriment, and promised themselves happy dayes, but did not consider that the righteous were taken away from the evil to come.

I shall begin with the first, That the righteous perish as well as the unrighteous.

How is it that the righteous perish? not in their soul, they cannot perish so; nay, the truth is, they cannot perish properly in their bodies; for the bodies of the Saints never totally and finally perish; for the very dust of the Saints in the grave, is precious in God's sight, and they are asleep in Jesus, and by the power of Jesus Christ they shall be raised again glorious bodies: Nothing perisheth of a righteous man by death totally, and finally, but sin; and therefore the meaning of the word is, as Musculus and Justin Martyr observe, perit, perisheth; that is, not according to the truth of the thing, but according to the opinion of the world; and the proper language of this expression ⟨p. 4⟩is this, The righteous perish, that is, the righteous must dye, and go down to the house of rottenness, as well as others, and that upon a four-fold account,