virtue? Where is Gregory Nyssen, that great divine? And Ephrem the great Syrian, that stirred up the sluggish, and awakened the sleepers, and comforted the afflicted, and brought the young men to discipline; the looking-glass of the religious, the captain of the penitents, the destruction of heresies, the receptacle of graces, the habitation of the Holy Ghost?" These were the men that prevailed against error, because they lived according to truth: and whoever shall oppose you, and the truth you walk by, may better be confuted by your lives than by your disputations. Let your adversaries have no evil thing to say of you, and then you will best silence them : for all heresies and false doctrines are but like Myron's counterfeit cow, it deceived none but beasts; and these can cozen none but the wicked and the negligent, them that love a lie, and live according to it. But if

ye become burning and shining lights; if ye do not detain the truth in unrighteousness; if ye walk in light, and live in the Spirit; your doctrines will be true, and that truth will prevail. But if ye live wickedly and scandalously, every little schismatic shall put you to shame, and draw disciples after him, and abuse your flocks, and feed them with colocynths and hemlock, and place heresy in the chairs appointed for your religion.

I pray God give you all grace to follow this wisdom, to study this learning, to labour for the understanding of godliness; so your time and your studies, your persons and your labours, will be holy and useful, sanctified and blessed, beneficial to men, and pleasing to God, through him who is the wisdom of the Father, who is made to all that love him wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: "To whom with the Father," &c.

A

SERMON

PREACHED IN CHRIST'S CHURCH, DUBLIN,

JULY 16, 1663,

AT THE FUNERAL

OF

THE MOST reverend FATHER IN GOD,

JOHN,

LATE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH, AND PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND.

A

FUNERAL SERMON.

SERMON VII.

But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits: afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.-1 Cor. xv. 23.

THE Condition of man in this world is so limited and depressed, so relative and imperfect, that the best things he does, he does weakly,-and the best things he hath, are imperfections in their very constitution. I need not tell how little it is that we know; the greatest indication of this is, that we can never tell how many things we know not; and we may soon span our own knowledge, but our ignorance we can never fathom. Our very will, in which mankind pretends to be most noble and imperial, is a direct state of imperfection; and our very liberty of choosing good and evil is permitted to us, not to make us proud, but to make us humble; for it supposes weakness of reason and weakness of love. For if we understood all the degrees of amability in the service of God, or if we had such love to God as he deserves, and so perfect a conviction as were fit for his services, we could no more deliberate: for liberty of will is like the motion of a magnetic needle towards the north, full of trembling and uncertainty till it were fixed in the beloved point; it wavers as long as it is free, and is at rest, when it can choose no more. And truly what is the hope of man? It is indeed the resurrection of the soul in this world from sorrow and her saddest pressures, and like the twilight to the day, and the harbinger of joy; but still it is but a conjugation of infirmities, and proclaims our present calamity, only because it is uneasy here, it thrusts us forward toward the light and glories of the resurrection.

For as a worm creeping with her belly on the ground, with her portion and share of Adam's curse, lifts up its head to partake a little of the blessings of the air, and opens the junctures of her imperfect body, and curls her little rings into knots and combinations, drawing up her tail to a neighbourhood of the head's pleasure and motion; but still it must return to abide the fate of its own nature, and dwell and sleep upon the dust: so are the hopes of a mortal man; he opens his eyes, and looks upon fine things at distance, and shuts them again with weakness, because they are too glorious to behold; and the man rejoices because he hopes fine things are staying for him; but his heart aches, because he knows there are a thousand ways to fail and miss of those glories; and though he hopes, yet he enjoys not; he longs, but he possesses not, and must be content with his portion of dust; and being a worm, and no man,' must lie down in this portion, before he can receive the end of his hopes, the salvation of his soul in the resurrection of the dead. For as death is the end of our lives, so is the resurrection the end of our hopes and as we die daily, so we daily hope: but death, which is the end of our life, is the enlargement of our spirits from hope to certainty, from uncertain fears to certain expectations, from the death of the body to the life of the soul; that is, to partake of the light and life of Christ, to rise to life as he did; for his resurrection is the beginning of ours; he died for us alone, not for himself, but he rose again for himself and us too. So that if he did rise, so shall we; the resurrection shall be universal; good and bad, all shall rise, but not altogether: first Christ, then we that are Christ's; and yet there is a third resurrection, though not spoken of here; but thus it shall be. "The dead of Christ shall rise first;" that is, next to Christ; and after them, the wicked shall riseto condemnation.

So that you see here is the sum of affairs treated of in my text not whether it be lawful to eat a tortoise or a mushroom, or to tread with the foot bare upon the ground within the octaves of easter. It is not here inquired, whether angels be material or immaterial; or whether the dwellings of dead infants be within the air or in the regions of the earth? the inquiry here is, whether we are to be Christians or no? whether we are to live good lives or no? or whether it be