His house was seldom without a godly minister in it ; and loth he was to cat his pleasant morsels alone. It was the joy of his heart to see his house filled on this account : How many witnesses to the truth of this are here this day ! Like another Joseph, he provided food for your souls; he loved, honoured, received, and encouraged the ministers of the gospel in their deepest sufferings ; gave them op- portunities of service, when some durst not own them, and others violently persecuted them.
4. When God called him to public employments in the common- wealth, he neither purchased, nor abused that trust ; but with a true English, rather a Christian, zeal and courage, he dedicated himself to the service of God and his country; cheerfully quitting all domes- tic concerns, spent his estate, time, and pains, to heal the breaches of England. I know not a man, whose zeal for the common good ■would have carried him nearer to the example of that noble Roman, who, when a chcism was made by an earthquake, and the oracle had declared, that it could never be closed, except something of value w^as thrown into it, cast in himself to close it.
I could truly have said, had there been conveniency and opportu- nity for it, when he was laid in his grave. ' Here lies a man that
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' never betrayed nor deserted the public, for any private interest of *^ his own.'
5. He was a man that came as near Josiah in tenderness of heart, as ever I had the happiness to be acquainted with. The church's troubles were his troubles ; they all met in him as lines in a centre ; he even hved and died with the interest of religion : And of him I will say, as the apostle said of Timothy, Phil. ii. 20, 21. "I have " no man like-minded, who will naturally care for your state, for « all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's."" Na- turally, in this place, is not opposed to spiritually^ but to artificially. Many can artificially act the part of a zealot, when their own inte- rest lies in it ; but he naturally^ and therefore, freely, cheerfully, and constantly.
6. But though these excellencies were in him, he had his 7ioevi^ blemishes, and imperfections. Elias was a man of like passions and weaknesses of spirit. All these I doubt not but God hath covered, and he is now perfectly freed from them all.
There is now no passion left within him to be stirred by tempta- tion ; no despondencies and sinkings of spirit under dismal aspects of providence. His graces are perfected, and his corruptions finally eradicated.
T. To conclude ; He was a man of great afflictions, as well as tender affections. And as the Lord greatly honoured him in the course of active obedience, so he greatly proved and tried him in a course oi passive obedience. He not only gave the cross'm. his coat^hnt bare it upon his shoulders : For besides those troubles which were properly sympathetical, he had his idiopatheticcd sufferings also, and that both from the hands of men, and from the hand of God. His piety made and marked him for an object of persecution ; the ar- chers shot at him, and sorely grieved him ; he and his family were hunted with a net : The Lord lay it not to their cliarge ; Ef hinc nice lachrymce. The sad effects thereof I chose rather at this time to pass over with a sigh, than in this place to commemorate.
And as the hand of man was upon him, so the hand of his God also: first lopping off all the pleasant branches that sprang from him, and that one after another, when come to the endearing age, open- ing and disclosing the bud ; and, as the complement and issue of all, breaking his constitutional strength with a long languishing disease, which at last extinguished this bright lamp, and hath left his family and neighbourhood in darkness and sorrow. His poor heart was the anvil on which many hammers of affliction had been a long time beat- ing ; and no v/onder it appeared relaxed and tumified when it was inspected, having endured so many successive strokes of sorrow.
And now what the Lord spake of Israel, in Jer. xi. 16. is fulfilled upon this worthy person : " The Lord called thy name a green olive " tree, fair and of goodly fruit : with the noise of a great tumult he
130 A SERMOX PREACHED AT TlJE
" hath kindled a fire upon it, and the branches of it are brot^en.''* Use S. Thirdli)^ I shall wind up tlie vhole in several seasonable and necessary counsels ; some more general, others more particular, and some most particularly and especially.
Firsts Counsel to all in jreneral to awaken themselves, and recovei^ a due sense of such sore rebukes of God as this is. When Saul fell, " David lamented it, saying, The beauty of Israel was slain on thy *' high places."
God hath this day stript off an ornament from this country. Such dispensations of Providence speak indignations coming on : It requires almost an age to breed and furnish a man with due qualifications foi* the service of the church and commonwealth. England doth not so abound with pious, zealous, and faithful gentlemen at this time, but that it may sensibly feel the loss of such a man.
Secondly^ jMore particularly, let the ministers of Christ lament his fall, as Jeremiah did the fall of Josiah in the text. He was a true friend to Christ's faithful ministers, and had them in honour for their work's sake. It is true, he hath no more need of us, he is now wiser than his teachers ; but we greatly need him, and men of his spirit, in such a dull degenerate age as we live in.
Thirdly, And most particularly, I shall apply and close all with a few words of counsel to the dear and now desolate relict of this wor- thy person, whose sad lot it is this day, to overlive the mercies and comforts she once enjoyed in him.
Madam, God hath this day covered you with sables, written bitter things against you, broken you with ])reach upon breach. Your sorrows need not to be excited, but regulated. It is my trouble that I cannot discharge my duty to the memory of your dear husband, without exasperating your griefs, which, alas, were too acute before; but rods have their voices ; " Blessed is the man whom God cor- " recteth, and teacheth him out of his law."" Hear you the rod, and who hath appointed it ; and, oh ! that your soul may this day take in these necessary counsels and cautions, without which your afflic- tions cannot be sanctified to the advantage of your soul I And,