A funerall sermon preached at the obsequies of the Right Hon[oura]ble and most vertuous Lady, the Lady Frances, Countesse of Carbery who deceased October the 9th, 1650, at her house Golden-Grove in Carmarthen-shire / by Jer. Taylor ...

A Funerall Sermon, &c.

2 SAMUEL 14. 14.

For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth God re∣spect any person: yet doth he devise means that his ba∣nished be not expelled from him.

WHen our blessed Saviour and his Di∣sciples viewed the Temple, some one amongst them cried out, Magister aspi∣ce, quales lapides! Master behold what faire, what great stones are here! Christ made no other reply but foretold their dissolution and a world of sad∣ness and sorrow which should bury that whole Nation when the teeming cloud of Gods displeasure should produce a storm which was the daughter of the biggest anger, and the mother of the greatest calamity which ever crush'd any of the sons of Adam. [The time shall come, that there shall not be left one stone upon another.] The whole Temple and the Religion, the ceremonies ordai∣ned by God, and the Nation beloved by God, and the fabrick erected for the service of God, shall run to their own period and lie down in their severall graves. What∣soever

had a beginning can also have an ending, and it shall die, unless it be daily watered with the purles flow∣ing from the fountain of life, and refreshed with the dew of Heaven and the wells of God. And therefore God had provided a tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificiall immortality: Immortality was not in his nature, but in the hands, and arts, in the favour and su∣peradditions of God. Man was alwaies the same mix∣ture of heat and cold, of dryness and moisture; ever the same weak thing, apt to feel rebellion in the humors, and to suffer the evils of a civil warre in his body natu∣rall: and therefore health and life was to descend upon him from Heaven, and he was to suck life from a tree on earth; himself being but ingraffed into a tree of life, and adopted into the condition of an immortall nature: But he that in the best of his daies was but a Cien of this tree of life, by his sinne was cut off from thence quickly, and planted upon thorns, and his portion was for ever after among the flowers, which to day spring and look like health and beauty, and in the evening they are sick, and at night are dead, and the oven is their grave. And as before, even from our first spring from the dust of the earth, we might have died if we had not been preserved by the continuall flux of a rare provi∣dence; so now that we are reduced to the laws of our own nature, we must needs die. It is naturall, and there∣fore necessary; It is become a punishment to us, and therefore it is unavoidable, and God hath bound the evil upon us by bands of naturall and inseparable pro∣priety, and by a supervening unalterable decree of Hea∣ven: and we are fallen from our privilege, and are retur∣ned to the condition of beasts, and buildings, and com∣mon things: And we see Temples defiled unto the

ground, and they die by Sacrilege: and great Empires die by their own plenty and ease, full humors, and facti∣ous Subjects: and huge buildings fall by their owne weight, and the violence of many winters eating and consuming the cement which is the marrow of their bones: and Princes die like the meanest of their Ser∣vants: and every thing finds a grave and a tombe; and the very tomb it self dies by the bigness of its pompous∣ness and luxury,

— Phario nutantia pondera saxo Quae cineri vanus dat ruitura labor,

and becomes as friable and uncombined dust as the ashes of the Sinner or the Saint that lay under it, and is now forgotten in his bed of darkness: And to this Ca∣talogue of mortality Man is inrolled with a [Statutum est] It is appointed for all men once to die, and after death comes judgment; and if a man can be stronger then na∣ture, or can wrestle with a decree of Heaven, or can e∣scape from a Divine punishment by his own arts, so that neither the power nor the providence of God, nor the laws of nature, nor the bands of eternall predestination can hold him, then he may live beyond the fate and pe∣riod of flesh, and last longer then a flower: But if all these can hold us and tie us to conditions, then we must lay our heads down upon a turfe and entertain creeping things in the cells and little chambers of our eyes, and dwell with worms till time and death shall be no more. We must needs die] That's our sentence. But that's not all.

We are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be ga∣thered up again] Stay. 1. We are as water, weak and of no consistence, alwaies descending, abiding in no certain place, unlesse where we are detained with violence: and

every little breath of winde makes us rough and tempe∣stuous, and troubles our faces: every trifling accident discomposes us; and as the face of the waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles it self that it makes upon its fore∣head furrows deep, and hollow like a grave: so doe our great and little cares and trifles, first make the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us: And there is in nature nothing so contemptible, but it may meet with us in such circumstances, that it may be too hard for us in our weaknesses: and the sting of a Bee is a wea∣pon sharp enough to pierce the finger of a childe, or the lip of a man: and those creatures which nature hath left without weapons, yet they are arm'd sufficiently to vex those parts of men which are left defenselesse and obnoxious to a sun beame, to the roughness of a sowre grape to the unevenness of a gravel-stone, to the dust of a wheel, or the unwholsome breath of a starre looking awry upon a sinner.

[ 2] 2 But besides the weaknesses and naturall decayings of our bodies, if chances and contingencies be innume∣rable, then no man can reckon our dangers, and the praeternaturall causes of our deaths. So that he is a vain person whose hopes of life are too confidently increased by reason of his health: and he is too unreasonably ti∣morous, who thinks his hopes at an end when he dwels in sicknesse. For men die without rule; and with, and without occasions; and no man suspecting or foreseeing any of deaths addresses, and no man in his whole con∣dition is weaker then another. A man in a long Con∣sumption is fallen under one of the solemnities and pre∣parations to death: but at the same instant the most healthfull person is as neer death, upon a more fatall, and a more sudden, but a lesse discerned cause. There

are but few persons upon whose foreheads every man can read the sentence of death written in the lines of a lingring sicknesse, but they (sometimes) hear the pas∣sing bell ring for stronger men, even long before their own knell cals at the house of their mother to open her womb and make a bed for them. No man is surer of tomorrow then the weakest of his brethren: and when Lepidus and Aufidius stumbled at the threshold of the Senate and fell down and dyed, the blow came from heaven in a cloud but it struck more suddenly then upon the poor slave that made sport upon the Theatre with a praemeditated and foredescribed death: Quod quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas. There are sicknesses that walk in darknesse, and there are extermi∣nating Angels that fly wrapt up in the curtains of im∣materiality and an uncommunicating nature; whom we cannot see, but we feel their force, and sink under their sword, and from heaven the vail descends that wraps our heads in the fatall sentence. There is no age of man but it hath proper to it self some posterns and outlets for death, besides those infinite and open ports out of which myriads of men and women every day passe into the dark and the land of forgetfulnesse. Infancie hath life but in effigie, or like a spark dwelling in a pile of wood: the candle is so newly lighted, that every little shaking of the taper, and every ruder breath of air, puts it out, and it dies. Childhood is so tender, and yet so un∣wary; so soft to all the impressions of chance, and yet so forward to run into them, that God knew there could be no security without the care and vigilance of an Angel-keeper: and the eies of Parents and the armes of Nurses, the provisions of art, and all the effects of Humane love and Providence are not sufficient to keep

one child from horrid mischiefs, from strange and early calamities and deaths, unlesse a messenger be sent from heaven to stand sentinell, and watch the very playings and the sleepings, the eatings and the drinkings of the children; and it is a long time before nature makes them capable of help: for there are many deaths, and very many diseases to which poor babes are exposed; but they have but very few capacities of physick; to shew, that infancy is as liable to death as old age, and equally exposed to danger, and equally uncapable of a remedy: with this onely difference, that old age hath diseases in∣curable by nature, and the diseases of childhood are in∣curable by art; and both the states are the next heirs of death.

[ 3] 3 But all the middle way the case is altered. Nature is strong, and art is apt to give ease and remedy: but still, there is no security; and there, the case is not alter∣ed. 1 For there are so many diseases in men that are not understood. 2 So many new ones every year. 3 The old ones are so changed in circumstance, and intermin∣gled with so many collaterall complications. 4 The Symptoms are oftentimes so alike. 5 Sometimes so hidden and fallacious. 6 Sometimes none at all (as in the most sudden and the most dangerous imposthuma∣tions.) 7 And then, the diseases in the inward parts of the body, are oftentimes such, to which no application can be made. 8 They are so far off, that the effects of all medicines can no otherwise come to them, then the effect and juices of all meats, that is, not till after two or three alterations, and decoctions, which change the ve∣ry species of the medicament. 9 And after all this, ve∣ry many principles in the art of Physick are so uncer∣tain, that after they have been believed seven or eight a∣ges,

and that upon them much of the practise hath been established; they come to be considered by a witty man, and others established in their stead; by which, men must practise, and by which three or four generations of men more (as happens) must live or die. 10 And all this while, the men are sick, and they take things that certainly make them sicker for the present, and very un∣certainly restore health for the future: that it may ap∣pear of what a large extent is humane calamity; when Gods providence hath not onely made it weak and mi∣serable upon the certain stock of a various nature, and upon the accidents of an infinite contingency; but even from the remedies which are appointed, our dangers and our troubles are certainly increased: so that we may well be likened to water; our nature is no stronger, our a∣bode no more certain; If the sluces be opened, it falls away and runneth apace; if its current be stopped; it swels and grows troublesome, and spils over with a greater dif∣fusion; If it be made to stand stil it putrefies: and all this we doe. For

4. In all the processe of our health we are running to our grave: we open our own sluces by vitiousness and unworthy actions; we powre in drink, and let out life; we increase diseases and know not how to bear them; we strangle our selves with our own intemperance; we suffer the feavers and the inflammations of lust, and we quench our soules with drunkennesse; we bury our un∣derstandings in loads of meat and surfets: and then we lie down upon our beds and roar with pain and disqui∣etness of our soules: Nay, we kill one anothers souls and bodies with violence and folly, with the effects of pride and uncharitablenesse; we live and die like fools, and bring a new mortality upon our selves; wars and vex∣atious

cares, and private duels, and publike disorders, and every thing that is unreasonable, and every thing that is violent: so that now we may adde this fourth gate to the grave: Besides Nature and Chance, and the mistakes of art, men die with their own sins, and then en∣ter into the grave in haste and passion and pull the hea∣vy stone of the monument upon their own heads. And thus we make our selves like water spilt on the ground: we throw away our lives as if they were unprofitable, (and indeed most men make them so) we let our years slip through our fingers like water; and nothing is to be seen, but like a showr of tears upon a spot of ground; there is a grave digged, and a solemn mourning and a great talk in the neigbourhood, and when the daies are finished, they shall be, and they shall be remembred, no more: And that's like water too, when it is spilt, it can∣not be gathered up again.

There is no redemption from the grave.

—inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cur sores vitäi lampada tradunt.

Men live in their course and by turns: their light burns a while, and then it burns blew and faint, and men go to converse with Spirits, and then they reach the taper to another; and as the hours of yesterday can never return again, so neither can the man whose hours they were, and who lived them over once, he shall never come to live them again, and live them better. When Lazarus, and the widows Son of Naim, and Tabitha, and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the rusurrection of our blessed Lord, arose; they came into this world, some as strangers onely to make a visit, and all of them to manifest a glory: but none came upon the stock of a new life, or entred upon the stage as at first, or to per∣form

the course of a new nature: and therefore it is ob∣servable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead: Dives would fain have retur∣ned to his brothers house; but neither he, nor any from him could be sent: but all the rest in the New Testa∣ment (one onely excepted) were expressed to have been holy persons, or else by their age were declared inno∣cent. Lazarus was beloved of Christ: those souls that appeared at the resurrection were the souls of Saints: Tabitha raised by S Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian: and the maiden of twelve years old, raised by our blessed Saviour, had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulnesse: and the onely exception of the widows son, is indeed none at all; for in it the Scripture is wholly silent; and therefore it is very pro∣bable that the same processe was used, God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of na∣ture to purposes of the Spirit, and in spirituall capacities. So that although the Lord of nature did not break the bands of nature in some instances, to manifest his glory to succeeding, great and never failing purposes; yet (be∣sides that this shall be no more) it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent, and within the verge and comprehensions of the eternall mercy. We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle, or was raised from the grave to try the second time for a Crown; but where he fell, there he lay down dead, and saw the light no more.

This consideration I intend to you as a severe Moni∣tor and an advice of carefulness, that you order your af∣fairs so that you may be partakers of the first resurrecti∣on, that is, from sin to grace, from the death of vitious habits, to the vigour, life and efficacy of an habituall

righteousnesse: For (as it hapned to those persons in the New Testament now mentioned, to them (I say) in the literall sense) Blessed are they that have part in the first resurrection, upon them the second death shall have no power: meaning that they who by the power of Christ and his holy Spirit were raised to life again, were holy and bles∣sed souls, and such who were written in the book of God; and that this grace happened to no wicked and vitious person: so it is most true in the spirituall and in∣tended sense: You onely that serve God in a holy life; you who are not dead in trespasses and sins; you who serve God with an early diligence and an unwearied in∣dustry, and a holy religion, you and you onely shal come to life eternall, you onely shall be called from death to life; the rest of mankind shall never live again but passe from death to death; from one death to another, to a worse; from the death of the body, to the eternall death of body and soul: and therefore in the Apostles Creed there is no mention made of the resurrection of wicked persons: but of the resurrection of the body to everlasting life. The wicked indeed shall be haled forth from their graves, from their everlasting prisons, where in chains of darknesse they are kept unto the judgement of the great day: But this therefore cannot be called in sensu favoris, a resurrection, but the solennities of the eternall death; It is nothing but a new capacity of dying again; such a dying as cannot signifie rest; but where death means nothing but an intolerable and never ceasing ca∣lamity: and therefore these words of my text are other∣wise to be understood of the wicked, otherwise of the godly: The wicked are spilt like water and shall never be gathered up again; no not in the gatherings of eter∣nity; They shall be put into vessels of wrath and set up∣on

on the flames of hell; but that is not a gathering, but a scattering from the face and presence of God. But the godly also come under the sense of these words. They descend into their graves, and shall no more be reckon∣ed among the living; they have no concernment in all that is done under the sun. Agamemnon hath no more to do with the Turks armies invading and possessing that part of Greece where he reigned, then had the Hip∣pocentaur, who never had a beeing: and Cicero hath no more interest in the present evils of Christendome, then we have to doe with his boasted discovery of Catilines conspiracie. What is it to me that Rome was taken by the Gaules? and what is it now to Camillus if different religions be tolerated amongst us? These things that now happen concern the living, and they are made the scenes of our duty or danger respectively: and when our wives are dead and sleep in charnel houses, they are not troubled when we laugh loudly at the songs sung at the next marriage feast; nor do they envy when another snatches away the gleanings of their husbands passion.

It is true they envy not, and they lie in a bosome where there can be no murmure, and they that are con∣signed to Kingdomes, and to the feast of the marriage supper of the Lamb, the glorious and eternall Bride-groom of holy souls, they cannot think our marriages here, our lighter laughings and vain rejoycings conside∣rable as to them. And yet there is a relation continued stil. Aristotle said, that to affirm the dead take no thought for the good of the living is a disparagement to the laws of that friendship which in their state of separation they cannot be tempted to rescind. And the Church hath taught in generall that they pray for us, they recom∣mend to God the state of all their Relatives, in the u∣nion

of the intercession that our blessed Lord makes for them and us: and S. Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus, that he should do for him in the other world: he gave it him (I say) when he was dying, not when he was dead. And certain it is that though our dead friends affection to us is not to be esti∣mated according to our low conceptions, yet it is not lesse, but much more then ever it was; it is greater in degree, and of another kind.

But then we should do well also to remember, that in this world we are something besides flesh and bloud; that we may not without violent necessities run into new relations, but preserve the affections we bear to our dead when they were alive: We must not so live as if they were perished, but so as pressing forward to the most intimate participation of the communion of Saints. And we also have some waies to expresse this relation, and to bear a part in this communion, by acti∣ons of intercourse with them, and yet proper to our state: such as are strictly performing the will of the dead, providing for, and tenderly and wisely educating their children, paying their debts, imitating their good example, preserving their memories privately, and pub∣likely keeping their memorials, and desiring of God with hearty and constant prayer that God would give them a joyfull resurrection, and a mercifull judgement, (for so S. Paul prayed in behalf of Onesiphorus) that God would shew them a 1.1 mercy in that day, that fearfull, and yet much to be desired day, in which the most righteous person hath need of much mercy and pity, and shall find it. Now these instances of duty shew that the relation remains still; and though the Relict of a man or wo∣man hath liberty to contract new relations; yet I doe

not finde they have liberty to cast off the old; as if there were no such thing as immortality of souls. Remember that we shall converse together again: let us therefore never doe any thing of reference to them which we shall be asham'd of in the day when all secrets shall be dis∣covered, and that we shall meet again in the presence of God: In the mean time, God watcheth concerning all their interest, and he will in his time both discover and recompense. For though, as to us, they are like water spilt, yet, to God, they are as water fallen into the sea, safe and united in his comprehension, and inclosures.

But we are not yet passed the consideration of the sentence: This descending to the grave is the lot of all men, [neither doth God respect the person of any man] The rich is not protected for favour, nor the poor for pity, the old man is not reverenced for his age, nor the infant regarded for his tenderness; youth and beauty, learning and prudence, wit and strength lie down equally in the dishonours of the grave. All men, and all natures, and all persons resist the addresses and solennities of death, and strive to preserve a miserable and an unpleasant life; and yet they all sink down and die. For so have I seen the pillars of a building assisted with artificiall props bending under the pressure of a roof, and pertinaciously resisting the infallible and prepared ruine,

Donec certa dies omni compage solutâ Ipsum cum rebus subruat auxilium,

till the determin'd day comes, and then the burden sunk upon the pillars, and disorder'd the aides and auxiliary rafters into a common ruine and a ruder grave: so are the desires and weak arts of man, with little aides and assistances of care and physick we strive to support our decaying bodies, and to put off the evil day; but quick∣ly that day will come, and then neither Angels nor men

can rescue us from our grave; but the roof sinks down upon the walls, and the walls descend to the foundati∣on; and the beauty of the face, and the dishonours of the belly, the discerning head and the servile feet, the thinking heart and the working hand, the eyes and the guts together shall be crush'd into the confusion of a heap, and dwell with creatures of an equivocall produ∣ction, with worms and serpents, the sons and daughters of our own bones, in a house of durt and darkness.

Let not us think to be excepted or deferred. If beau∣ty, or wit, or youth, or Nobleness, or wealth, or vertue could have been a defence, and an excuse from the grave, we had not met here to day to mourn upon the hearse of an excellent Lady: and God only knows for which of us next the Mourners shall go about the streets or weep in houses.

* 1.2〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

We have liv'd so many years; and every day and every minute we make an escape from those thousands of dan∣gers and deaths that encompasse us round about: and such escapings we must reckon to be an extraordinary fortune, and therefore that it cannot last long. Vain are the thoughts of Man, who when he is young or health∣full, thinks he hath a long thread of life to run over, and that it is violent and strange for young persons to die; and naturall and proper onely for the aged. It is as na∣turall for a man to die by drowning as by a feaver: And what greater violence or more unnaturall thing is it, that the horse threw his Rider into the river, then that a drunken meeting cast him into a feaver; and the strengths of youth are as soon broken by the strong sicknesses of youth, and the stronger intemperance, as

the weaknesse of old age by a cough, or an asthma, or a continuall rheume: Nay, it is more naturall for young Men and Women to die, then for old; because that is more naturall which hath more naturall causes; and that is more naturall which is most common: but to die with age is an extreme rare thing; and there are more persons carried forth to buriall before the five and thir∣tieth year of their age, then after it. And therefore let no vain confidence make you hope for long life. If you have liv'd but little, and are still in youth, remember that now you are in your bigg'st throng of dangers both of body and soul; and the proper sins of youth to which they rush infinitely and without consideration, are also the proper and immediate instruments of death. But if you be old you have escaped long and wonderfully, and the time of your escaping is out: you must not for ever think to live upon wonders, or that God will work mi∣racles to satisfie your longing follies, and unreasonable desires of living longer to sin and to the world. Goe home and think to die, and what you would choose to be doing when you die, that doe daily: for you will all come to that passe, to rejoice that you did so, or wish that you had: that will be the condition of every one of us; for God regardeth no mans person.

Well! but all this you will think is but a sad story. What? we must die, and go to darknesse and dishonour; and we must die quickly, and we must quit all our de∣lights, and all our sins, or doe worse, infinitely worse; and this is the condition of us all from which none can be excepted; every man shall be spilt and fall into the ground, and be gathered up no more. Is there no comfort after all this? shall we go from hence, and be no more seen, and have no recompense?

Miser, ô miser, aiunt, omnia ademit Una die infausta mihi tot praemia vitae.

Shall we exchange our fair dwellings for a coffin, our softer beds for the moistned and weeping turfe, and our pretty children for worms, and is there no allay to this huge calamity? yes, there is. There is a [yet] in the text: [For all this, yet doth God devise meanes that his bani∣shed be not expelled from him.] All this sorrow & trouble is but a phantasme, and receives its account and degrees from our present conceptions and the proportion to our relishes and gust.

When Pompey saw the Ghost of his first Lady Iulia who vexed his rest and his conscience for superinducing Cornelia upon her bed within the ten months of mour∣ning, he presently fancied it, either to be an illusion, or else that death could be no very great evil,

Aut nihil est sensus animis in morte relictum, Aut mors ipsa nihil —

Either my dead wife knows not of my unhandsome marriage, and forgetfulnesse of her; or if she does, then the dead live.

— longae, canitis si cognita, vitae Mors media est —

Death is nothing but the middle point between two lives between this and another: concerning which com∣fortable mystery the holy Scripture instructs our faith and entertains our hope in these words. God is still the God of Abraham, Isaak, and Iacob; for all doe live to him: and the souls of Saints are with Christ:* 1.3 I desire to be dissolv'd saith S. Paul) and to be with Christ, for that is much better: and, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; they rest from their labours, and their works follow them: For we know, that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dis∣solv'd,

we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternall in the heavens: and this state of separati∣on S. Paul calls, a being absent from the body, and being present with the Lord:* 1.4 This is one of Gods means which he hath devised, that although our Dead are like persons banished from this world, yet they are not expelled from God: They are in the hands of Christ; they are in his presence; they are, or shall be clothed with a house of Gods making; they rest from all their labours; all tears are wiped from their eyes, and all discontents from their spirits; and in the state of separation before the soul be reinvested with her new house, the spirits of all persons are with God, so secur'd and so blessed, and so sealed up for glory, that this state of intervall and imperfection is in respect of its certain event and end, infinitely more desirable then all the riches and all the pleasures, and all the vanities, and all the Kingdomes of this world.

I will not venture to determine what are the circum∣stances of the abode of Holy Souls in their separate dwellings; and yet possibly that might be easier then to tell what or how the soul is and works in this world, where it is in the body tanquam in alienâ demo, as in a prison, in fetters and restraints: for here the soul is dis∣composed and hindred, it is not as it shall be, as it ought to be, as it was intended to be; it is not permitted to its own freedome, and proper operation; so that all that we can understand of it here, is that it is so incommo∣dated with a troubled and abated instrument, that the object we are to consider cannot be offered to us in a right line, in just and equall propositions; or if it could, yet because we are to understand the soul by the soul, it becomes not onely a troubled and abused object, but a crooked instrument; and we here can consider it, just as a

weak eye can behold a staffe thrust into the waters of a troubled river; the very water makes a refraction, and the storme doubles the refraction, and the water of the eye doubles the species, and there is nothing right in the thing, the object is out of its just place, and the medium is troubled, and the organ is impotent: At cum exierit & in liberum coelum quasi in domum suam venerit, when the soule is entred into her own house, into the free regions of the rest and the neighbour∣hood of heavenly joyes, then its operations are more spirituall, proper, and proportion'd to its being; and though we cannot see at such a distance, yet the object is more fitted if we had a capable understanding; it is in it self in a more excellent and free condition.

Certain it is, that the body does hinder many actions of the soul: it is an imperfect body, and a diseased brain, or a violent passion that makes fools: no man hath a foolish soul; and the reasonings of men have infinite dif∣ference and degrees by reason of the bodies constitu∣tion. Among beasts which have no reason, there is a greater likeness then between men, who have: and as by faces it is easier to know a man from a man, then a spar∣row from a sparrow, or a squirrel from a squirrel: so the difference is very great in our souls; which difference because it is not originally in the soul (and indeed can∣not be in simple and spirituall substances of the same species or kind) it must needs derive wholly from the body, from its accidents & circumstances: from whence it follows, that because the body casts fetters and re∣straints, hindrances and impediments upon the soul, that the soul is much freer in the state of separation; and if it hath any act of life, it is much more noble and expedite.

That the soul is alive after our death, S. Paul affirms

[Christ died for us, that whether we wake or sleep,* 1.5 we should live together with him.] Now it were strange that we should be alive, and live with Christ, and yet do no act of life: the body when it is asleep does many: and if the soul does none, the principle is less active then the instru∣ment; but if it does any act at all in separation, it must necessarily be an act or effect of understanding; there is nothing else it can doe. But this it can. For it is but a weak and an unlearned proposition to say, That the Soule can doe nothing of it self, nothing without the phantasmes and provisions of the body. For 1. In this life the soule hath one principle clearly separate, abstra∣cted and immateriall, I mean, the Spirit of grace, which is a principle of life and action, and in many instances does not at all communicate with matter, as in the in∣fusion, superinduction and the creation of spiritual gra∣ces. 2. As nutrition, generation, eating and drinking are actions proper to the body and its state: so, extasies, vi∣sions, raptures, intuitive knowledge, and consideration of its self, acts of volition, and reflex acts of understan∣ding are proper to the soule. 3. And therefore it is ob∣servable that S. Paul said that he knew not whether his vi∣sion; and raptures were in or out of the body: for by that we see his judgment of the thing, that one was as like∣ly as the other, neither of them impossible or unrea∣sonable; and therefore that the soule is as capable of action alone as in conjunction. 4 If in the state of bles∣sedness there are some actions of the soule which doe not passe through the body, such as contemplation of God, and conversing with spirits, and receiving those influences and rare immissions which coming from the H. and mysterious Trinity make up the crown of glo∣ry; it follows that the necessity of the bodies mini∣stery

is but during the state of this life, and as long as it converses with fire and water, and lives with corne and flesh, and is fed by the satisfaction of materiall ap∣petites; which necessity and manner of conversation when it ceases, it can be no longer necessary for the soul to be served by phantasmes and materiall representati∣ons. 5. And therefore when the body shall be re-uni∣ted, it shall be so ordered that then the body shall con∣fesse it gives not any thing, but receives all its being and operation, its manner and abode from the soul, and that then it comes not to serve a necessity, but to partake a glory. For as the operations of the soule in this life, be∣gin in the body, and by it the object is transmitted to the soule: so then they shall begin in the soule and pass to the body; and as the operations of the soule by reason of its dependence on the body are animall, naturall and materiall: so in the resurrection, the body shall be spiritu∣all by reason of the preeminence, influence, and prime operation of the soule. Now between these two states, stands the state of separation, in which the operations of the soule are of a middle nature, that is, not so spirituall as in the resurrection, and not so animal and naturall as in the state of conjunction.

To all which, I adde this consideration. That our soules have the same condition that Christs soule had in the state of separation; because he took on him all our nature, and all our condition; and it is certain, Christs soule in the three daies of his separation did ex∣ercise acts of life, of joy and triumph, and did not sleep, but visited the souls of the Fathers, trampled upon the pride of Devils, and satisfied those longing souls which were Prisoners of hope; and from all this we may con∣clude that the souls of all the servants of Christ are a∣live,

and therefore doe the actions of life, and proper to their state; and therefore it is highly probable that the soul works clearer, and understands brighter, and discourses wiser, and rejoyces louder, and loves noblier, and desires purer, and hopes stronger then it can do here.

But if these arguments should fail, yet the felicity of Gods Saints cannot fail. For suppose, the body to be a necessary instrument but out of tune, and discomposed by sin and anger, by accident and chance, by defect and imperfections, yet, that it is better then none at all; and that if the soul works imperfectly with an imperfect bo∣dy, that then she works not at all when she hath none; and suppose also that the soul should be as much with∣out sense or perception in death, as it is in a deep sleep which is the image and shadow of death; yet then God devises other means that his banished be not expelled from him. For,

2 God will restore the soul to the body, and raise the body to such a perfection, that it shall be an Organ fit to praise him upon; it shall be made spirituall to mi∣nister to the soul, when the soul is turned into a Spirit; then the soul shall be brought forth by Angels from her incomparable and easie bed, from her rest in Christs Holy Bosome, and bee made perfect in her beeing, and in all her operations; And this shall first appear by that perfection which the soul shall receive as instru∣mentall to the last judgement: for then she shall see clearly all the Records of this world, all the Register of her own memory. For all that we did in this life, is laid up in our memories: and though dust and forget∣fulness be drawn upon them, yet when God shall lift us from our dust, then shall appear clearly all that we

have done, written in the Tables of our conscience, which is the souls memory. We see many times, and in many instances, that a great memory is hindred and put out, and we thirty years after come to think of something that lay so long under a curtain; we think of it suddenly and without a line of deduction, or proper consequence: And all those famous memories of Si∣monides and Theodectes, of Hortensius and Seneca, of Sce∣ptius Metrodorus and Carneades, of Cyneas the Em∣bassadour of Pyrrhus, are onely the Records better kept, and lesse disturbed by accident and disease. For even the memory of Herods son of Athens, of Bathyllus and the dullest person now alive is so great, and by God made so sure record of all that ever he did, that assoon as ever God shall but tune our instrument, and draw the curtains, and but light up the candle of immortality, there we shall find it all, there we shall see all, and all the world shall see all; then we shall be made fit to con∣verse with God after the manner of Spirits, we shall be like to Angels.

In the mean time, although upon the perswasion of the former discourse it be highly probable that the souls of Gods servants do live in a state of present bles∣sednesse; and in the exceeding joyes of a certain expe∣ctation of the revelation of the day of the Lord, and the coming of Jesus; yet it will concern us onely to secure our state by holy living, and leave the event to God; that (as S. Paul said) whether present or absent, whether sleeping or waking, whether perceiving or perceiving not, we may be accepted of him: that when we are ba∣nished this world, and from the light of the sun, we may not be expelled from God, and from the light of his countenance, but that from our beds of sorrows, our

may passe into the bosome of Christ, and from thence to his right hand in the day of sentence: For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, and then if we have done well in the body, we shall never be expelled from the beatificall presence of God, but be domesticks of his family, and heires of his Kingdome, and partakers of his glory. Amen.

I Have now done with my Text, but yet am to make you another Sermon. I have told you the necessity and the state of death; it may be too largely for such a sad story; I shall therefore now with a better compen∣dium teach you how to live by telling you a plain narra∣tive of a life, which if you imitate and write after the copy, it will make, that death shall not be an evill, but a thing to be desired, and to be reckoned amongst the purchases and advantages of your fortune. When Martha and Mary went to weep over the grave of their brother, Christ met them there and preached a Fune∣rall Sermon, discoursing of the resurrection, and apply∣ing to the purposes of faith, and confession of Christ, and glorification of God: We have no other, we can have no better precedent to follow: and now that we are come to weep over the grave of our Dear Sister, this rare personage, we cannot chuse but have many virtues to learn, many to imitate, and some to exercise.

I chose, not to declare her extraction and genealogy. It was indeed fair and Honourable; but having the blessing to be descended from worthy and Honoured Ancestors, and her self to be adopted and ingraffed in∣to a more Noble family, yet she felt such outward ap∣pendages to be none of hers, because not of her choice, but the purchase of the virtues of others, which al∣though

though they did ingage her to do noble things, yet they would upbraid all degenerate and lesse honourable lives then were those which began and increased the honour of the families. She did not love her fortune for ma∣king her noble; but thought it would be a dishonour to her if she did not continue a Noblenesse and excellency of virtue fit to be owned by persons relating to such Ancestors. It is fit for all us to honour the Noblenesse of a family: but it is also fit for them that are Noble to despise it, and to establish their honour upon the foun∣dation of doing excellent things, and suffering in good causes, and despising dishonourable actions, and in com∣municating good things to others. For this is the rule in Nature: Those creatures are most Honourable which have the greatest power, and do the greatest good: And accordingly my self have been a witnesse of it, how this excellent Lady would by an act of humility, and Chri∣stian abstraction strip her self of all that fair appendage of exteriour honour which decked her person and her fortune; and desired to be owned by nothing but what was her own, that she might onely be esteemed Honou∣rable according to that which is the honour of a Chri∣stian, and a wise person.

2 She had a strict and severe education, and it was one of Gods graces and favours to her. For being the Heiresse of a great fortune, and living amongst the throng of persons in the sight of vanities and empty temptations, that is, in that part of the Kingdome where greatnesse is too often expressed in great follies, and great vices, God had provided a severe and angry education to chastise the forwardnesses of a young spi∣rit, and a fair fortune; that she might for ever be so far distant from a vice, that she might onely see it and loath

it, but never tast of it, so much as to be put to her choice whether she would be virtuous or no. God in∣tending to secure this soul to himself, would not suffer the follies of the world to seize upon her by way of too neer a triall, or busie temptation.

3 She was married young; and besides her busines∣ses of religion seemed to be ordained in the providence of God to bring to this Honourable family a part of a fair fortune, and to leave behind her a fairer issue, worth ten thousand times her portion: and as if this had been all the publike businesse of her life; when she had so far served Gods ends, God in mercy would also serve hers, and take her to an early blessednesse.

4 In passing through which line of providence, she had the art to secure her eternall interest, by turning her condition into duty, and expressing her duty in the greatest eminency of a virtuous, prudent and rare affe∣ction, that hath been known in any example. I will not give her so low a testimony, as to say onely, that she was chast; She was a person of that severity, modesty, and close religion (as to that particular) that she was not ca∣pable of uncivill temptation; and you might as well have suspected the sun to smell of the poppy that he looks on, as that she could have been a person apt to be sullyed by the breath of a foul question.

5. But that which I shall note in her, is that which I would have exemplar to all Ladies, and to all women. She had a love so great for her Lord, so intirely given up to a dear affection, that she thought the same things, and loved the same loves, and hated according to the same enmities, and breathed in his soul, and lived in his presence, and languished in his absence: and all that she was or did, was onely for and to her Dearest Lord,

Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hunc loquitur. Coenat, propinat, poscit, negat, innuit, unu;

Naevius est:— and although this was a great enamell to the beauty of her soul, yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the virtue of her Lord: For she would often discourse it to them that conversed with her; that he would improve that interest which he had in her af∣fection to the advantages of God, and of religion: and she would delight to say, that he called her to her devotions, he incouraged her good inclinations, he di∣rected her piety, he invited her with good books: and then she loved religion, which she saw was not onely pleasing to God, and an act or state of duty, but plea∣sing to her Lord, and an act also of affection and con∣jugall obedience: and what at first she loved the more forwardly for his sake; in the using of religion left such relishes upon her spirit, that she found in it amability enough, to make her love it for its own. So God usu∣ally brings us to him by instruments of nature and affe∣ctions, and then incorporates us into his inheritance, by the more immediate relishes of Heaven, and the secret things of the Spirit. He onely was (under God) the light of her eies, and the cordiall of her spirits, and the guide of her actions, and the measure of her affections, till her affections swelled up into a religion, and then it could go no higher, but was confederate with those o∣ther duties which made her dear to God. Which rare combination of duty and religion, I choose to express in the words of Solomon: She forsook not the guide of her youth, nor brake the Covenant of her God.* 1.6

6 As she was a rare wife: so she was an excellent Mo∣ther. For in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was, and in so great a kindness towards her children,

there hath seldome been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons, their deportment, their nature, their disposition, their learning, and their customes: And if ever kindness and care did contest, and make parties in her, yet her care and her severity was ever victorious; and she knew not how to doe an ill turn to their severer part, by her more tender and forward kindnesse. And as her custome was, she turned this also into love to her Lord. For she was not onely diligent to have them bred nobly and religiously, but also was carefull and sollici∣tous, that they should be taught to observe all the cir∣cumstances and inclinations, the desires and wishes of their Father; as thinking, that virtue to have no good circumstances which was not dressed by his copy, and ruled by his lines, and his affections: And her prudence in the managing her children was so singular and rare, that when ever you mean to blesse this family, and pray a hearty and a profitable prayer for it, beg of God, that the children may have those excellent things which she designed to them, and provided for them in her heart and wishes, that they may live by her purposes, and may grow thither, whither she would fain have brought them. All these were great parts of an excellent religi∣on as they concerned her greatest temporall relations.

7 But if we examine how she demeaned her self to∣wards God, there also you will find her, not of a com∣mon, but of an exemplar piety. She was a great reader of Scripture, confining herself to great portions every day; which she read, not to the purposes of vanity, and impertinent curiosities, not to seem knowing, or to become talking, not to expound and Rule; but to teach her all her duty, to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her Neighbours; to make her

more humble, and to teach her to despise the world, and all its gilded vanities; and that she might entertain passi∣ons wholly in design and order to heaven. I have seen a female religion that wholly dwelt upon the face and tongue; that like a wanton and an undressed tree spends all its juice in suckers and irregular branches, in leafs and gumme, and after all such goodly outsides you should never eat an apple, or be delighted with the beau∣ties, or the perfumes of a hopefull blossome. But the religion of this excellent Lady was of another constitu∣tion; It took root downward in humility, and brought forth fruit upward in the substantiall graces of a Chri∣stian, in charity and justice, in chastity and modesty, in fair friendships and sweetnesse of society: She had not very much of the forms and outsides of godlinesse; but she was hugely carefull for the power of it, for the mo∣rall, essentiall, and usefull parts; such which would make her be, not seem to be religious.

8 She was a very constant person at her prayers, and spent all her time which Nature did permit to her choice, in her devotions, and reading and meditating and the necessary offices of houshold government, eve∣ry one of which is an action of religion, some by nature, some by adoption. To these also God gave her a very great love to hear the word of God preached; in which be∣cause I had sometimes the honour to minister to her, I can give this certain testimony, that she was a diligent, watchfull and attentive hearer: and to this had so ex∣cellent a judgement, that if ever I saw a woman whose judgement was to be revered, it was hers alone: and I have sometimes thought that the eminency of her dis∣cerning faculties did reward a pious discourse, & placed it in the regions of honour and usefulnesse, and gathered

it up from the ground, where commonly such homilies are spilt, or scattered in neglect and inconsideration. But her appetite was not soon satisfied with what was usefull to her soul: she was also a constant Reader of Sermons, and seldome missed to read one every day; and that she might be full of instruction and holy principles, she had lately designed to have a large Book in which she pur∣posed to have a stock of Religion transcrib'd in such as∣sistances as she would chuse, that she might be readily furnished and instructed to every good work. But God pre∣vented that, and hath filled her desires not out of ci∣sterns and little aquaeducts, but hath carried her to the fountain, where she drinks of the pleasures of the river, and is full of God.

9. She alwaies liv'd a life of much Innocence, free from the violences of great sins: her person, her breeding, her modesty, her honour, her religion her early marriage, the Guide of her soul & the Guide of her youth, were as so many fountains of restraining grace to her, to keep her from the dishonors of a crime. Bonum est portare jugū ab adolescentiâ: it is good to bear the yoke of the Lord from our youth; and though she did so, being guarded by a mighty providence, and a great favour & grace of God from staining her fail soul with the spots of hell, yet she had strange fears & early cares upon her; but these were not only for her self, but in order to others, to her neer'st Relatives. For she was so great a lover of this Honorable family of which now she was a Mother, that she desired to become a chanel of great blessings to it unto future a∣ges, and was extremely jealous lest any thing should be done, or lest any thing had been done, though an age or two since, which should intail a curse upon the innocent posterity; and therefore (although I doe not know that

ever she was tempted with an offer of the crime) yet she did infinitely remove all sacrilege from her thoughts, and delighted to see her estate of a clear and disintangled interest: she would have no mingled rights with it; she would not receive any thing from the Church, but reli∣gion and a blessing: and she never thought a curse and a sin farre enough off, but would desire it to be infinitely distant; and that as to this family God had given much honour and a wise head to Govern it, so he would also for ever give many more blessings; And because she knew that the sins of Parents descend upon Children, she endevoured by justice and religion, by charity and honour to secure that her chanel should convey nothing but health, and a faire example and a blessing.

10. And though her accounts to God was made up of nothing but small parcels, little passions, and angry words, and trifling discontents, which are the allayes of the piety of the most holy persons, yet she was early at her repentance; and toward the latter end of her daies, grew so fast in religion as if she had had a revelation of her approaching end; and therefore that she must go a great way in a little time: her discourses more full of religion, her prayers more frequent, her charity increa∣sing, her forgiveness more forward, her friendships more communicative, her passion more under discipline, and so she trimm'd her lamp, not thinking her night was so neer, but that it might shine also in the day time, in the Temple, and before the Altar of incense.

But in this course of hers there were some circum∣stances, and some appendages of substance, which were highly remarkable.

1. In all her Religion, and in all her actions of rela∣tion towards God, she had a strange evenness and un∣troubled

passage, sliding toward her ocean of God and of infinity with a certain and silent motion. So have I seen a river deep and smooth passing with a still foot and a sober face, and paying to the Fiscus, the great Ex∣chequer of the Sea, the Prince of all the watry bodies, a tribute large and full: and hard by it a little brook skipping and making a noise upon its unequall and neighbour bottom; and after all its talking and bragged motion, it payd to its common Audit no more then the revenues of a little cloud, or a contemptible vessel: So have I sometimes compar'd the issues of her religion to the solemnities and fam'd outsides of anothers piety. It dwelt upon her spirit, and was incorporated with the pe∣riodicall work of every day: she did not believe that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputati∣on, but to pardon of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salvation of souls. For religion is like the breath of Heaven; if it goes abroad into the open aire, it scatters and dissolves like camphyre: but if it enters into a secret hollownesse, into a close conveyance, it is strong and mighty, and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end, at the other side of this life, in the daies of death and judgment.

2. The other appendage of her religion, which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life, was a rare modesty and humility of spirit, a confident despi∣sing and undervaluing of her self. For though she had the greatest judgment, and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth, and sex, and circumstances; yet as if she knew nothing of it she had the meanest opinion of her self; and like a fair taper when she shin'd to all the room, yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and

a cloud, and she shin'd to every body but her self. But the perfectnesse of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid; and all her humility, and arts of con∣cealment, made the vertues more amiable and illustri∣ous. For as pride sullies the beauty of the fairest ver∣tues, and makes our understanding but like the craft and learning of a Devil: so humility is the greatest eminen∣cy, and art of publication in the whole world; and she in all her arts of secrecy and hiding her worthy things, was but like one that hideth the winde, and covers the oynt∣ment of her right hand.

I know not by what instrument it hapned; but when death drew neer, before it made any show upon her bo∣dy, or reveal'd it self by a naturall signification, it was conveyed to her spirit: she had a strange secret perswa∣sion that the bringing this Childe should be her last scene of life: and we have known, that the soul when she is about to disrobe her self of her upper garment, sometimes speaks rarely, Magnifica verba mors propè ad∣mo••a excutit; sometimes it is Propheticall; sometimes God by a superinduced perswasion wrought by instru∣ments, or accidents of his own, serves the ends of his own providence and the salvation of the soul: But so it was, that the thought of death dwelt long with her, and grew from the first steps of fancy and feare, to a consent, from thence to a strange credulity, and expe∣ctation of it; and without the violence of sicknesse she died, as if she had done it voluntarily, and by design, and for feare her expectation should have been deceiv'd, or that she should seem to have had an unreasonable feare, or apprehension; or rather (as one said of Cato) sic abiit è vitâ ut causam moriendi nactam se esse gauderet, she died, as if she had been glad of the opportunity.

And in this I cannot but adore the providence and ad∣mire the wisdome and infinite mercies of God. For ha∣ving a tender and soft, a delicate and fine constitution and breeding, she was tender to pain, and apprehensive of it, as a childs shoulder is of a load and burden: Grave est tenerae cervici jugum; and in her often discourses of death, which she would renew willingly and frequently, she would tell, that she fear'd not death, but she fear'd the sharp pains of death: Emori nolo, me esse mortuam non curo: The being dead, and being freed from the troubles and dangers of this world, she hop'd would be for her advantage; and therefore that was no part of her feare: But she believing the pangs of death were great, and the use and aids of reason little, had reason to fear lest they should doe violence to her spirit and the decency of her resolution. But God that knew her fears and her jealou∣sie concerning her self, fitted her with a death so easie, so harmlesse, so painlesse, that it did not put her patience to a severe triall. It was not (in all appearance) of so much trouble, as two sits of a common ague; so carefull was God to remonstrate to all that stood in that sad at∣tendance, that this soule was dear to him: and that since she had done so much of her duty towards it, he that be∣gan, would also finish her redemption, by an act of a rare providence, and a singular mercy. Blessed be that goodness of God, who does so carefull actions of mercy for the ease and security of his servants. But this one instance was a great demonstration that the apprehension of death is worse then the pains of death: and that God loves to reprove the unreasonablenesse of our feares, by the mightinesse, and by the arts of his mercy.

She had in her sickness (if I may so call it, or rather in the solemnities, and graver preparations towards death)

some curious and well-becoming feares, concerning the finall state of her soul. But from thence she pass'd into a deliquium, or a kinde of trance, and as soon as she came forth of it, as if it had been a vision, or that she had con∣vers'd with an Angel, and from his hand had receiv'd a labell or scroll of the book of life, and there seen her name enrolled, she cried out aloud, [Glory be to God on high: Now I am sure I shall be saved.] Concerning which man∣ner of discoursing we are wholly ignorant what judg∣ment can be made: but certainly there are strange things in the other world; and so there are in all the immediate preparations to it; and a little glimps of heaven, a mi∣nutes conversing with an Angel, any ray of God, any communication extraordinary from the Spirit of com∣fort which God gives to his servants in strange and un∣known manners, are infinitely far from illusions; and they shall then be understood by us, when we feel them, and when our new and strange needs shall be refreshed by such unusuall visitations.

But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of ab∣breviature in the enumerating those things in which this rare Personage was dear to God & to all her Relatives.

If we consider her Person, she was in the flower of her age, Iucundum cum aetas slorida ver ageret; of a tempe∣rate, plain and naturall diet, without curiosity or an in∣temperate palate; she spent lesse time in dressing, then many servants; her recreations were little & seldom, her prayers often, her reading much: she was of a most noble and charitable soul; a great lover of honourable actions, and as great a despiser of base things; hugely loving to oblige others, and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon the stock of courtesies and liberality; so free in all acts of favour, that she would not stay to hear her self

thank'd, as being unwilling that what good went from her to a needfull or an obliged person should ever return to her again; she was an excellent friend, and hugely dear to very many, especially to the best and most discerning persons, to all that convers'd with her, and could under∣stand her great worth and sweetnesse: she was of an Ho∣nourable, a nice and tender reputation; and of the plea∣sures of this world which were laid before her in heaps she took a very small and inconsiderable share, as not loving to glut her self with vanity, or to take her porti∣on of good things here below.

If we look on her as a Wife, she was chast and loving, fruitfull and discreet, humble and pleasant, witty and complyant, rich and fair, and wanted nothing to the ma∣king her a principall and a precedent to the Wives of the world, but a long life, and a full age.

If we remember her as a Mother, she was kinde and severe, carefull and prudent, very tender, and not at all fond, a greater lover of her Childrens soules, then of their bodies, and one that would value them more by the strict rules of honour and proper worth, then by their relation to her self.

Her Servants found her prudent, and fit to Govern, and yet open-handed and apt to reward; a just Exactor of their duty and a great Rewarder of their diligence.

She was in her house a comfort to her dearest Lord, a Guide to her Children, a Rule to her Servants, an ex∣ample to all.

But as she related to God in the offices of Religion, she was even and constant, silent and devout, prudent and materiall: she lov'd what she now enjoyes, and she fear'd, what she never felt, and God did for her what she never did expect. Her fears went beyond all her evil; and yet

the good which she hath receiv'd was, and is, and ever shall be beyond all her hopes.

She liv'd as we all should live, and she died as I fai•• would die—

Et cum supremos Lachesis perneverit annos, Non aliter cineres mando jacere meos.

I pray God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt, and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance which she feels of the many degrees of he•• innocence. Such was her death that she did not die too soon; and her life was so usefull and so excellent that she could not have liv'd too long. Nemo parum diu vixit qu•• virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere: and as now in the grave it shall not be inquired concerning her, how long she liv'd, but how well? so to us who live after her to suffer a longer calamity, it may be some ease to our sorrows, and some guide to our lives, and some security to our conditions, to consider that God hath brought the piety of a yong Lady to the early rewards of a never ceasing, and never dying eternity of glory. And we also, if we live as she did, shal partake of the same glories; not only having the honour of a good name and a dear and honour'd memory, but the glories of these glories, the end of all excellent labours, and all prudent counsels and all holy religion, even the salvation of our souls in that day, when all the Saints, and amongst them this ex∣cellent Woman shall be shown to all the world to have done more, and more excellent things then we know of or can describe. Mors illos consecrat, quorum exitum & qu•• timent, laudant: Death consecrates and makes sacred that person whose excellency was such, that they that are not displeased at the death, cannot dispraise the life; but they that mourn sadly, think they can never commend suffi∣ciently.

FINIS.

Notes

• a 1.1

  2 Tim. 1.18.
• * 1.2

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.3

  Eccle 1 Cor. 15. 18. 1 Thess. 4. 16. Rev. 14.13 John 5.24.
• * 1.4

  2 Cor. 5. 8. & 6.
• * 1.5

  1 Thes. 5.10.
• * 1.6

  Prov. 2. 17.