redound to the advantage of our Friends alfo, that their debts be paid even beyond the Inventory of their moveables. Befides this, let us right their causes, and affert their honour. When Marcus Regulus had injured the memory of Herennius Senecio, Metius Carus asked him, what he had to do with his dead; and became his Advocate after death, of whofe caufe he was Patron when he was alive. And David added this also, that he did kindness to Mephibofheth for Jonathan's lake: and Solomon pleaded his Father's caufe by the sword against Joab and Shimei. And certainly it is the nobleft thing in the world to do an act of kindnefs to him whom we fhall never fee, but yet hath deferved it of us, and to whom we would do it if he were prefent; and unless we do fo, our chari'ty is mercenary, and our friendfhips are direct merchandize, and our gifts are brokage: but what we do to the dead, or to the living for their fakes, is gratitude, and ver tue for vertue's fake, and the noblest portion of humanity. Χρὴ ἢ καὶ τω προγόνων ποιήσαθαι -Mifenum in littore Teucri ferebant. Aneid. 6. And yet I remember that the moft excellent Prince Cyrus,in his last exhortation to his fons upon his deathbed, charms them into peace and union of hearts and defigns, by telling them that his Soul would be ftill alive, and therefore fit to be revered and accounted as awful and venerable as when he was alive: and what we do to our dead friends is not done to perfons undifcerning, as a fallen Tree, but to fuch who better attend to their relatives, and to greater purposes, though in other manner than they did here below. And therefore thofe wife perfons, who in their Funeral Orations made their doubt, with an [εἴ τις αίθησις τετελευτηκόσι πεί ο ενθάδε γιγνομένων, if the dead have any perception of what is done below] which are the words of Ifocrates, in the Funeral Encomium of Evagoras, did it upon the uncertain Opinion of the Soul's Immortality; but made no question, if they were living, they did allo understand understand what could concern them. The fame words Nazianzen ufes at the exequies of his fifter Gorgonia, and in the former invective against Julian: but this was upon another reafon; even because it was uncertain what the state of feparation was, and whether our dead perceive any thing of us till we fhall meet in the day of Judgment. If it was uncertain then, it is certain, fince that time we have had no new revelation concerning it; but it is ten to one but when we die we fhall find the ftate of affairs wholly differing from all our opinions here, and that no man or fect hath gueffed any thing at all of it as it is. Here I intend not to difpute, but to perfuade: and therefore in the general, if it be probable that they know or feel the benefits done to them, though but by a reflex revelation from God, or fome under-communication from an Angel, or the ftock of acquired notices here below, it may the rather endear us to our charities or duties to them refpectively; fince our vertues ufe not to live upon abstractions, and Metaphyfical perfections or inducements, but Ἦλθε δ' ἐπὶ ψυχὴ ΠατροκλΘ δειλοίο, then thrive when καί μιν προς μύθον έειπεν, they have material Ενδεις, αὐτὰρ ἐμεῖο λελασμένΘ- πλευ, ΑχιλArguments, fuch Οὐ μὲν μου ζώον] ἀκήδεις, ἀλλὰ θανόντG. which are not too Iliad. far from fenfe. However it be, it is certain they are not dead; and though we no more see the Souls of our dead friends than we did when they were alive, yet we have reafon to believe them to know more things and better; And if our fleep be an image of death, we may alfo obferve concerning it, that it is a state of life to feparate from communications with the body, that it is one of the ways of Oracle and Prophecy by which the Soul beft declares her immortality, and the noblenets of her actions, and powers if she could get free from Cyrus apud Xenoph. 1b. 8. Inftit. the body, (as in the state of feparation) or a clear dominion over it, (as in the refurrection.) To which allo (λεϋ ; Ἡ ἢ τ' ἀνθρώπε ψυχὴ τότε δεπε θεο τατη καταφαίνεται, και τότε τι 5 μελ λό των προορᾶ, τότε 8 ὡς ἔοικε μάλιστα ἐλευθερί -Tis ἐκ ένε πάμπαν. Iliad. 4. this confideration may be added, that men a long eiv di time live the life of fenfe, before they ufe their reaSadour-fon; until they have furnished their head with experiments and notices of many things, they cannot είδωλο α who, at all difcourfe of any thing: but when they come to Tap péves ufe their realon, all their knowledge is nothing but remembrance; and we know by proportions, by fimilitudes and diffimilitudes, by relations and oppofitions, by caufes and effects, by comparing things with things; all which are nothing but operations of understanding upon the ftock of former notices, of fomething we knew betore, nothing but remembrances: all the heads of Tropicks, which are the stock of all arguments and sciences in the world, are a certain demonftration of this; and he is the wifest man that remembers moft, and joins thofe remembrances together to the beft purposes of difcourfe. From whence it may not be improbably gathered, that in the state of feparation, if there be any act of understanding, that is, if the understanding be alive, it must be relative to the notices it had in this world, and therefore the acts of it must be difcourfes upon all the parts and perfons of the converfation and relation, excepting only fuch new revelations which may be communicated to it; concerning which we know nothing. But if by feeing Socrates I think upon Plato, and by feeing a piЯure I remember a man, and by beholding two friends I remember my own and my friend's need, (and he is wifeft that draws moft lines from the fame Centre and moft difcourfes from the fame Notices) it cannot but be very probable to believe, fince the feparate Souls understand better, if they understand at all, that from the notices they carried from hence, and what they find there equal or unequal to thofe notices, they can better difcover the things of their friends than we can here by our conjectures and craftieft imaginations; and yet many men here can guess fhrewdly at the thoughts and defigns of fuch men with whom they difcourfe, or of whom they have heard, or whofe characters they prudently have perceived. I have no other end in this Difcourfe, but that that we may be engaged to do our duty to our Dead; left peradventure they fhould perceive our neglect, and be witneffes of our tranfient affections and forgetfulness. Dead perfons have religion paffed upon them, and a folemn reverence: and if we think a Ghoft beholds us, it may be we may have upon us the impreffions likely to be made by love, and fear, and Religion. However we are fure that God fees us, and the world fees us: and if it be matter of duty towards our Dead, God will exact it; if it be matter of kindness, the world will; and as Religion is the band of that, fo fame and reputation is the endearment of this. It remains, that we who are alive fhould fo live, and by the Actions of Religion attend the coming of the day of the Lord, that we neither be furprized nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our fins uncancelled, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased: but that when we defcend to our graves we may rest in the bofom of the Lord, till the manfions be prepared where we shall fing and feast eternally. Amen. Te Deum Laudamus. THE END. S 2 |