XXX sermons lately preached at the parish church of Saint Mary Magdalen Milkstreet, London to which is annexed, A sermon preached at the funerall of George Whitmore, Knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City / by Anthony Farindon.

[illustration] blazon or royal coat of arms of England and Wales

HONI •…•…T QVI MAL Y PENSE

A SERMON PREACHED AT THE FUNERALL OF THE RIGHT WORSHIPFULL Sir GEORGE VVHITMORE, Knight, Sometime Lord Mayor of the City of LONDON: VVho departed this life Decemb. 12. 1654. At his house at Bawmes in MIDDLESEX. (Book funeral)

PSAL. 119.19.

I am a stranger in the earth, hide not thy command∣ments from me.

THis Psalme is a Psalme of David (so Saint Au∣gustine, and Hilary, and others) or gathered by him, or out of him, and it is nothing else but a Collection of Prayers and Praises, a body of devout ejaculations, which the Greek Fathers call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, lively sparkles breathed forth from a heart on fire, and even sick with love; and they fly so thick, that observation can hardly take the order of them. The method of devotion followes and keeps time with the motion

of the heart, which is as various and different, as those impressions which joy or griefe, feare or hope make in it; which either con∣tract and bind it up and then it struggles and labours within it self, and conceives sighs and grones which cannot be expressed or breaks forth into complaints and strong supplications; Take away the rebuke that I feare, v. 39. Let thy tender mercies come unto me that I may live, v. 77. and the like; or else dilate and open it, and then it leaps out of it self, and breaths it self forth with exultation and triumph, in songs of praise and Hallelujahs, O Lord, thou art my por∣tion, v. 57. O how I love thy Law! v. 79. The Law of thy mouth is bet∣ter unto me then thousands of gold and silver.

In this which I have read unto you, and chosen as the fittest sub∣ject for this present occasion; The heart having looked abroad, having lookt out of it self, and reflected back into it self, drawes out in it selfe the picture of a stranger or a Pilgrime, and having well lookt upon it with the serious eye of contemplation (which is the heart of the heart, and the soul of the soul) having surveyed the place of its habitation, how fraile and ruinous it is, as a tent sub∣ject to the winds, and beat upon by every storm, and at last to be re∣moved; it goes out of it self, and seeks for shelter under the shadow of Gods wing, sends forth strong desires for supply and support; in hoc inquilinatûs sui tempore, as Tertullian speaks, in this time of its sojourning and Pilgrimage; and for that supply which is most an∣swerable to the condition of a stranger upon earth, and which may best conduct him to the place for which he was born and bound. He asketh not for riches; they have wings and will fly away, and leave him in his walk, or if they stay with him they will but mock and delude him, and lead him out of his way; not for honour, that's but a breath, but aire, and may breath upon him at one stage, and at the next leave him, but never forward him in his way; not for delightfull vanities; these are but ill companions and will lead him out of his way: the best supply for a stranger here upon earth is from heaven; from the place not where he sojournes, but to which he is going; the best convoy, the will and commandments of God; the word of God, the best lantern to his feet; for whilest these are in his eye and heart, he shall passe by slippery places, and not fall; he shall passe through fire and water, he shall walk upon the Lion and the Aspe, he shall meet with flattering objects, and loath them with terrorus, & contemn them; use the world as if he used it not; in poverty, & yet not poor; in affliction, but not distrest; in many a storm, and passe through, and rejoyce in it; living in the world, and yet dead in the world, and so make his way through the valley and shadow of death to his jour∣neyes end, to that rest which remaines for the people of God, who are but Strangers and Pilgrimes upon earth. This is the best supply, and for this the Prophet puts up his petition in the words of my text,

I am a stranger upon earth, hide not thy commandments from mee.

They are the words of the Kingly Prophet, and in the thirty ninth Psalme he hath the very same; Hold not thy peace at my teares, for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner as all my Fathers were; and in them he presents unto us his state and condition, and in his own, of all mankind. Menander fecit Andriam & Perinthiam, one man is the map of all mankind, and he that knows one knows them all. David was, and then all men are but accolae, inquilini, and howsoever their Pomp and Glory may dazle the eyes of men, yet if we will define them aright, and set them out as they are, they are but stran∣gers and Pilgrimes upon earth.

So that we have here first, a doctrine; declaring what we are; we are but strangers upon earth, that's our condition; he that is least in it is so, and he that hath most and is Lord of it, is no more; secondly, the use or inference; hide not thy commandments from me. For he that hath one eye upon his frailty and defects, will have another upon a supply; he that knows himself a stranger will desire a guide.

Or you have our character, we are Accolae, strangers; and our 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or viaticum, our provision in our way, the commandments of God.

Or if you please you may consider first the person, I, King David; secondly, his quality and condition, a King and yet a stranger on the earth; and these two draw together into one the two most different states of the world, a powerfull Prince and a poor Pilgrime, him that sits on the Throne, and him that grinds at the mill, the crowned head, and that head which hath not a hole to hide it self. And thirdly, the reason why the Holy Ghost, to teach us our condition, doth make choice of a King; out of which we shall raise this doctrine, which is but a Paraphrase of the text, first, that man by nature is but a stranger to the world; secondly, that he is to make himself so. And that you may, I must hold out to you your viaticum, your provision, the commandments of God, and shew you of what use they have been to you in this your peregrination and pilgrimage.

I am a stranger in the earth, &c.

And first we must look on the person that speaks, and we may per∣adventure wonder that he speaks it; that he who was as a God upon the earth, and one of those whom God himselfe calleth so, should yet speak in the low and humble language of a Lazar, and count himself a stranger. We may well think the character doth but ill befit him: It may seem rather to be the speech of some one of the Rechabites, who by their Father Jonadab were forbad to build hou∣ses, to sow seed, to plant vineyards, or to have any, but all their lives to

live in Tents, Jer. 35.6,7. Or of some of the Essenes, a Sect amongst the Jews, who left the City, and betook themselves to Fields and Mountains, * 1.1 (Gens aeterna, in qua tamen nemo nascitur, said Pliny of them; a lasting Nation, in which notwithstanding none were born, for they begat Sectaries and not Children) or of some of them of whom the Apostle speaks, Heb. 11. that wandred in desarts and moun∣tains, in dens and caves of the earth: or of some Asceticall Monk, devoted and shut up in some cloyster; or of some Anchoret, shut up between two walls. This speech had well befitted one of these; and had Demosthenes or Tully been to draw the character of a stranger up∣on earth, they would have brought him out of the streets or high∣wayes, out of some Cell or Prison, with all the marks about him; but their imagination would have passed by the Palaces of Princes, as yeelding nothing of him; For a King is but a nick-name, but a soloecisme, if he be not at home in every place. But the holy Ghost regards not this Rhetorick, observes not this art, which indeed is made up but by the eye; his method is è chola Coeli, drawn out by that wisdome which formed and fashioned us, and knows whereof and what we are made; and that which flesh and blood counts a so∣loecisme, with him is the most exact propriety of language; what with us is lookt upon as that which is against the rules of art, with him is most regular. I may say, truth is the spirits art, and those words which convey it are the best Elegancies; and thus to com∣mend this lesson to us, he makes choice of a person to an eye of flesh most unlikely, as Elias in the book of Kings takes water to kindle the fire upon the Lords Altar. A King on the earth and a stranger on the earth non benè convenient, and will hardly be coupled together in the same proposition. For how can they be strangers on earth, who are the onely Lords and proprietaries of it? Kings are Domini rerum temporumque, are Lords of the times, and of all affaires, and they carry all before them; this shall be the manner of the King, saith Samuel 1.7. He shall take your sonnes and your daughters, and make them his servants. He shall take your fields and your vineyards, and turn them to his own use. A King; the very name strikes a terrour in us, and puts out of the best eye we have, our reason, that we cannot discern between the King and the Man, nor the man and the stran∣ger; that we judge of him by what he is: Si libet, licet, His will is his Law, and what he doth is just, or he will make it so, for who dares say what doest thou? And yet this King, this God, is but a stran∣ger, take him in his zenith: take all his broad-blown glories, his swelling titles, his over-spreading power, and all are drawn together and shrunk up in this one word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, Accola; whatsoever he is, whatsoever he appeares, he is but a stranger. Behold here the King∣ly Prophet makes it his profession, layes by the title of a King as guilty of a Misnomer, and calls himself a Pilgrime; and as in the darknesse of Popery he that vowed a Pilgrimage either to our Lady,

or some Saint, to Rome or to Jerusalem, did present himself before the Altar, and then receive his Scrip and Staff. So am I here this day occasioned by this Pilgrime, this honoured Knight, to exhort you to vow a Pilgrimage, not to this or that Saint, but to the King of Saints, and this you may do and stay at home; In your house and private closets this Pilgrimage is best vowed, for the way to hea∣ven is as neere out of Brittany as Jerusalem; and here you have a King to lead you, and his example to accompany you. For the words which I now read, doe as it were bring him to the Church, where he presents himself before the Altar, layes down his Crown and Scep∣ter, and takes as it were his scrip and his staffe, and vows himself a Pilgrim.

I am a stranger in the earth, hide not, &c.

And now to give you some reason why the holy Ghost makes choice of a King to teach this lesson: First, in this he setteth over us the best and wisest Masters, * 1.2 because the Scholars and Disciples of Experience, Quam usus genuit, & mater peperit memoria, Begot by use and conversation in the world, and brought forth by memory. For those Conclusions which we gain by evidence of Reason, may be as sure, but not so operative and impressive as those which are drawn out by frequent and sensible observation. Those we behold as we doe our face in a glasse (as Saint James speaks) and then goe away and forget them; and commonly they beget a knowledge which ends in it self, and so becomes more fatall then Ignorance. But those Lessons which Experience brings us, doe leave a mark and impres∣sion behind them, and even characterize the soul, and so fill it that it must vent and evaporate, discourse to it selfe, and discourse to others what it hath seen and felt; and it flows naturally and forci∣bly from the very depth of Apprehension. He makes the fairest and the livelyest shew of a stranger, who shews him in purple and on the throne. He will soonest perswade you that you are mortall, who first shews you Death in his own face. He writes most effectually, who doth 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, dip his pen in his mind, and then draw out those conclusions which long and sad experience hath taught him: For who fitter to declame against Riot, then he that hath fed with Swine? who can be a better Orator against Intempe∣rance, then he that hath found the delusion of Wine, and the rage of Drink? who can disgrace beauty more then he that hath felt it bite like a Cockatrice? when Dives was in hell, how ready was he to be a Preacher of righteousnesse to his brethren? Experience doth make men both willing and able Instructers. And certainly to cast a slur on vanity, to decry the glory of the world, to teach the un∣certainty of riches, and the folly of Ambition, to demonstrate that there is no solid or lasting Joy to be founded on any thing un∣der the moon, they can best do who have had experience, and are

examples of both fortunes, who have wallowed in wealth, and been mockt by it; who have lain in pleasure, and been stung; who have catcht at any evil that might carry them to that height they aimed at, and then been thrown down by the same evil that brought them up; who by long experience know what riches and Pleasures are; what wings the one have, and what horrour the other leave be∣hind them when they turn their back; who having had all their vain wishes made good, are brought at last to unwish and execrate them all, and forced to make this their last, that they had never had what they so much desired. Never was the world more severely censured then by those who have made most triall of it. No theme more usually handled by all sorts, then that of the contempt of the world, nusquam tamen humanum genus tam incredulum, tam surdum est, and yet who heares what himself sayes? or who believes his own report? the greatest part of men that speak against it, do it not out of hatred, but out of love to the world; for who more desi∣rous to pluck the purple robe off from the rich mans back, then he that longs to weare it himself? how greedily do men surfeit on that meat which their injustice hath pluckt out of the mouthes of others? * 1.3 It is with the world as with money let out upon use, men hate and revile it, yet are willing and use all meanes to bring it into their hands, though upon the hard and so much loathed condition of interest. The Philosophers have largely written of this subject, but most of that they wrote they wrote upon conjecture and guesse, and scarce believed themselves in what they wrote; they have writ best who have been disciplined by their own folly, and have been taught not by the best, but yet by the surest mistrisse, experience; who have been so roughly handled in the waies which they chose and delighted in, that at last they were even forced to that proficiencie, that they did indeed believe themselves. Solomon, who was a King, & wrote a bitter Satyre against the world, did first taste the gall of e∣very vanity, and then he wrote more fully, more profitably, then ever yet any Philosopher did in his cell; for having run over the whole work of the creation of the world, having watched the course of things, and every motion of his own heart; having been turned round as it were on the wheel of vicissitude and change, at last settles and rests upon this conclusion, which was drawn forth out of the full treasurie of his experience: First he thought in his heart of what he had seen; and then he said in his heart, and fixt it up in lasting chara∣cters to be read in the world to the end of it, That, all that was in it was vanity. And therefore when a King thus pronounceth of him∣self that he is but a stranger, it must needs carry a far greater weight and argument of truth, then if a private unexperienced man had spoken it. David had experience of peace and war, of riches and poverty, of pleasures and woe; He had been a private and publick person; a shepherd, a painfull calling; a souldier, a bloody trade; a

courtier, an honourable slavery, which joynes together in one the Lord and the Parasite; the Gentleman and the Drudg; and he was a King, a glorious name, filled up with feares and cares; all these he had passed through, and found least rest when he was at the highest, lesse content in the Throne then in the sheepfolds; all this he had observed and laid up in his memory, and this his confession is an E∣pitome and briefe of all; and in effect he tells us, that whatsoever he had seen in this his passage, whatsoever he had enjoyed, yet he found nothing so certain as this, that he had found nothing certain, nothing that he could abide with, or would abide with him, but was still as a passenger, and stranger on the earth.

Now (to give you a second reason, why the spirit of God makes choice of a King to preach this lesson) as he chuseth the best and most experienced masters, so doth he condescend, and indulge to our infirmity, and appoints the fittest for us, and those of whom we will soonest learn; whose first question commonly is, who is the Preacher? who deliver up our judgements to our affections, and converse rather with mens fortunes then their persons, and make use of no other rule in our censure of what is done or said, then the man himself that did or spake it: if honour, or power, or wealth have made the man great in our eyes, then whatsoever he speaks is an Oracle, though it be the doctrine of devils, and have the same Fa∣ther which all other lyes have. Truth doth seldome goe down with us, unlesse it be presented in the cup in which we love to di∣vine and prophesie. There was a poor wise man found, saith Solomon, that delivered the City by his wisdome, Eccles. 9.15. but none remembred or considered this poor wise man. For poverty is a cloud, and casts a darknesse over that which is begot of light, sullies every perfection that is in us, hides it from an eye of flesh, which cannot see wisdome and poverty together in one man; whereas folly it self shall go for wisdome, and carry away that applause which is due to it, if it dwell in the heart, or issue from the mouth of a purple and gallant fool; ut sumus sic judicamus, as we are so we judge; and it is not our reason which concludes, but our sence and affection. If we love beauty, e∣very painted wanton is as the Queen of Sheba, and may ask Solomon a question; If riches, Dives with us will be a better Evangelist then Saint Luke; If our eyes dazle at Majesty, Herods royall apparrell will be a more eloquent orator then he that speaks, and the people shall give a shout and cry, the voice of God and not of man. Doe but ask your selves the question, doth not affection to the person be∣get admiration in you, and admiration commend whatsoever he sayes, and gild over errour and sinne it self, and make them current? do not your hopes or feares or love make up every opinion in you, and build you up in your most unholy faith? Is not the Coward, or the Dotard, or the Worldling in your Creed and profession? do

you not measure out one another as you do a tree by the bulk and trunk, and count him best who is most worth? Is not this the com∣passe by which you steere? the bond of your peace? Is not this the cement of all your friendship? doth not this outward respect serene or cloud your countenance, and as the wind, the state of things change, make you to day the dearest friends, and to morrow the deadliest enemies? can you think ill of them you gain by? or speak ill of them you fear? or can he be evil who is powerfull? or dare you be more wise then he that hath thirty legions? We may say this is a great evil under the sunne, but it is the property of the bles∣sed spirit to work good out of evil, to teach us to remember what we are, by those who so soon make us forget what we are; to make use of riches which we dote on, of power, which we tremble at, of that glory which we have in Admiration, to instruct us to the knowledge of our condition, and to put us in mind of our mortality and frailty by Kings, whom we count as Gods. Behold a King from his Throne proclaimes it to his subjects and all the world, That his power is but as a shadow cast from a mortall; his glory, but his garment which he cannot weare long; and his riches, but the embroidery, which will be as soon worn out. And when we have gaz'd and fallen down and worshipt, and are thus lost in our own thoughts, if we could take away the filme from our eye, which the world hath drawn over it, and see every thing in its nature and sub∣stance as it is, we should behold in all these raies of glorie, and po∣wer, and wealth, nothing but David the stranger. So that we see Kings, who are our nursing Fathers, are become our School-ma∣sters to teach us. For we see the ignorant and foolish men perish, and they dye as fooles dye, not remembred nor thought on, as if no∣thing fell to the ground, but their folly. The begger dyes, but what is that to the rich, who cannot see him carried by the Angels into Abrahams bosome? the righteous also perish, and no man layes it to heart. I but Kings of the earth fall, and cannot fall but with obser∣vation, but they fall as a star, are soon mist in their orbe, and soon forgot. But then living Kings make their Throne a Pulpit, and preach from thence and publish to the world their own fraile and fading condition, measure out their life by a span, and prophesie the end of it, call their life a Pilgrimage; and shall we not hearken what the Lord God doth say by such royall Prophets? shall their power make us beasts of burden to carry it whithersoever their beck shall direct us, and shall not their doctrine and example per∣swade us that we are men, travelling men, hasting to another coun∣try? behold then here David a Prophet and a King, made and set up an ensample to us; and if David be a stranger upon the earth, we can draw no other conclusion then this, then certainly much more we. If David and all his Fathers, If pious Kings and bloody Tyrants, If good and bad found no settled estate, no abiding place here, why

should we be so foolish and ignorant, as to turmoile, or sport and de∣light our selves under the expectation of it? If Kings be pulled down from their Thrones, and fall to the dust, we have reason to cast up our accounts, and reckon upon it that we are gliding and passing, nay posting and flying as so many shadows, and that our re∣movall is at hand. For these things happened to them for en∣samples, and they are written for our admonition. They prophe∣sied to us, and they spake to us, I may say, they died to us, and to all that shall follow them, to the last man that shall stand upon the earth. When Adam had lived nine hundred and thirty yeares, he dyed, lead the way to his posterity, not that they should live so long, but that they should surely dye, to every sonne of his, till the coming of the second and last Adam; Abraham a stranger, and Moses a stranger, and David a stranger, that we might look back upon them, and see our condition. And when Patriarchs and Prophets, when Kings preach, not onely living but dying, not onely dying but dead, we shall not onely dye, but dye in our sinnes if we take not out the lesson; and learn to speak in their dialect and language, Accolae sumus & peregrini, we are strangers and Pilgrimes on the earth. And so we passe from the person, I King David, and come to take a neerer view of his condition, and quality;

I am a stranger on the earth.

We passe now from the King to the stranger and Pilgrime, and yet we cannot passe from the one to the other, for they are ever together; for there is so neer a conjunction between them, that though the one appeare in glory, the other in dishonour; the one sits on a Throne, the other lyes in the dust; yet they can never be put asunder, nor separated the one from the other; for he that is a King is but a Pilgrime, and he that is a stranger was born and design∣ed unto a Kingdome, and a greater Kingdome then Davids was. Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests, and we shall reigne upon the earth. This is the song of Pilgrimes, and they sing it to the Lamb, in the fifth of the Revelation, v. 10. The Kingdome of hea∣ven is taken by violence, and the violent take it by force, Mat. 11.12. And these violent men are such as are Pilgrims and strangers; to that place they travell, endure many a storm, many a fall and bruise in their way; so that the immediate way to be a King, is first to be a stranger in the earth.

Now that Man is naturally a stranger on the earth, we have the Word of God written, and the Word of God within us; we have both the holy Scripture, and right Reason to instruct us; both these are as the voice of God, and by these he speaks unto us, and calls us by our name when he calls us strangers.

And first in the Old Testament, the life of Man is every where almost term'd a pilgrimage; so Jacob in the 47. of Genesis, when Pha∣raoh asked him, How long he hath lived? in his answer doth as it were correct his language; The dayes, saith he, not of my life, but of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. So that in the lan∣guage of Jacob Life and Pilgrimage are all one. The same is the language of the New Testament: Whilst we are in the flesh, Pere∣grinamur à Domino, saith Saint Paul, 2 Cor. 5.6. we are absent, we are travellers, we are wanderers from God; but we are returning to him, on our way, pressing forward to our home. And though we make haste out of the world, yet as S. Bernard observes, some savour, some taste, something that is from the earth earthy, we shall carry about with us till we come to our journeys end. Not onely they are stran∣gers, who with the Prodigall take their journey into a far countrey, and cleave to every vanity there; but they who are shaking them off every day, yet look more then they should, and like more then they should, and are not yet made perfect; Not onely they are strangers from God who are Aliens from the house of Israel, but they who with the Patriarchs in the 11. to the Heb. confesse themselves stran∣gers in the land which is allotted them, and look for a City whose Foundation and Builder is God. It is the observation of S. Hierome in his Epistle to Dardanus, That the Saints in Scripture were no where called Inhabitatores terrae, the inhabitants of the earth. There is a woe, saith he denounced, against sinners, in the eighth of the Re∣velation, and under that name; vae habitatoribus terrae, woe to the In∣habitants of the earth. And Saint Austin almost speaks the same, where he puts this difference and distinction between them; that the righteous can onely be said esse in Tabernaculo carnis, to be in this tabernacle of the flesh, to be there, as the Angels are said by the schoolmen to be in uno loco, quòd non sint in alio, to be in one place, because they are not in another, but to be circumscribed no where; and they are onely said to be on the earth, because they are not yet in heaven, but neverthelesse have their conversation there; but the wicked do habitare in Tabernaculo carnis, do dwell on earth, and have their residence in it, and may passe into a worse, but never into a better place; and these though they will not be strangers to it, yet are strangers on the earth, and passe away from that to which their soul was knit, on which they fixed their hope, and glutted their de∣sires, and raised their joy, which was their heaven; they passe away and fall from it, and shall see it no more.

This then is the voice and language of Scripture; and in the se∣cond place, this even common reason may teach us, which is the voice of God, and is our God upon earth, and should be in his stead and place to command and regulate us here, and if we were not first lost in our selves, if we were not strangers to our selves, we

should not seek for a place of rest in that world, whose fashion every day changeth, and which must at last with its work be burnt with fire. For do we not see by this common light, that the mind of man is a thing of infinite capacity, and utterly insatiable, and here on earth never receives full content? content is that which all men have desired, but never yet any did attain; but still as one desire is satisfied, another riseth; and when we have all that we desired, we will have more; now we would have but this, and when we have it, it is nothing, for our measures are enlarged by being filled. Are you learned enough? nay, but there be yet more conclusions to be tried. Are you ever wise enough? If but once you be deceived, you will complain that a thousand things which might have been observed have past your sight. But are you ever rich enough? The fool in the Gospel was not, till his soul was fetched away, nor Dives, till he was in hell. Nay, are you not most miserably poor when you are most abundantly rich? do you not want most, when you have most? or was ever your heart so much set on riches as when they did increase? or hath the Ambitious any highest place, any verti∣call point? one world was not enough for Alexander; and had there been as many as those Atomes of which Democritus made it up, he would have wished after more. Our appetite comes by eat∣ing, and our desires are made keen and earnest by enjoying, majora cupere ex his discimus, the obtaining of something doth but prompt us to desire more. And now to draw this to our present purpose; If the things of this world be not able to satisfie us, if never man yet found full content, if nothing on earth can allay this infinite hunger of the soul, which certainly was not imprinted in us in vain; If we cannot find it here, though we should double and treble Methusa∣lems age; If we cannot find it in the world, though we should live to the end of it, we cannot think that the earth should be our coun∣try, but that the things which we so highly esteem more then our life, more then our soul, are unnaturall and strangers to us, and we unto them, and we must turn our selves about, and look towards something else which may meet and fill our desires, which here find nothing to stay, but every thing to enlarge them. Here are delights that vanish, and then shew their foulest side; here are riches that makes us poor, and honour that makes us slaves; here are nothing but phantasmes and apparitions, which will never fill us, but feed the very hunger of our soules, and increase it; there in our country, at our journeys end, there is fulnesse of joy, which alone can sa∣tisfie this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and infinite appetite: and therefore the earth is but our stage to walk through, heaven is our proper place and coun∣try, and to this we are bound; here we are but strangers, si velimus accolae, si nolimus acccolae, if we will we may be strangers, and if we will not, but love to dwell and stay here, yet we shall be strangers whether we will or no.

And as we are, so our abode here is that of strangers in ano∣ther country, as of those who are ever in their way, and moving forwards, never standing still, but striving to go out of it; and his whole motion and progresse is a leaving it behind him. When Adam was Lord of all the world, he was but a stranger in it; for God made him naked in Paradise, and withall gave him no sense of his nakednesse, and the reason is given by Saint Basil, that man might not be distracted and called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, from me∣ditation upon God; that the care of his flesh might not steal away his mind from him that made him; so that Adam was made a stran∣ger, when he was made the sole Emperour of the world. But when he was fallen, God clothes him with skins, ut illum veluti morte qua∣dam indueret, saith Proclus in Epiphanius, that he might clothe him as it were with death it self, which was represented unto him in the skins of dead beasts; that he might alwaies carry about with him the remembrance of it, the most suitable garment that a stranger or Pil∣grime can weare. A stranger comes not to stay long in a place, he is here (as we say) to day and gone to morrow, so is man; he flyeth as a post, or rather as a shadow, and continueth not, Job 14. At an end as soone as a tale that is told, and not so long remembred. There may be many errours in his way, but there is none in his end; and which way soever he travels, wheresoever he pitcheth his tent, his journeyes end is the grave. * 1.4 Hoc stipulata est Dei vox, hoc spopondit omne quod nascitur, saith Tertullian; this is the stipulation and bar∣gain, which God hath made with every soul, and by being born we made a promise, and obliged our selves to dye. We are bound in a sure obligation, and received our soules upon condition to resign them pure and unspotted of the world. Would you know when we pay this debt? we begin with our first breath, and are paying it till we breathe out our last; hoc quod loquor indè est, whilest I speak, and you heare, we are paying part of the summe, and whe∣ther this be our last payment we cannot tell. I am dying whilest I am a speaking; every breath I fetch to preserve life, is a part taken from my life: I am in a manner entombed already, and every place I breathe in is a grave; for in every place I moulder and consume away, * 1.5 in every place I draw neerer and neerer to putrefaction. We may say as those mariners who were to fight and dye did, as they say'ld by Claudius the Emperour, Morituri te salutant, O Emperour dying men salute thee; and so we passe by and salute one another, not so much as living but as dying men; and whilest I say good morrow, I am neerer to my end, and he to whom I wisht it, is neerer to his; one dying man blesseth, and one dying man persecutes ano∣ther, that is, one Pilgrime robs another. In what relation soever we stand, either as Kings or subjects, of masters or servants, of Fa∣thers or children, we are all Morituri, but dying men, all but stran∣gers and pilgrims. Comfort thou thy self then thou oppressed inno∣cent;

'Twas a dying man that put the yoke about thy neck; and why dost thou boast in mischief, thou man of power? In the midst of all thy triumphs and glories thou art but a dying man: He that kisseth thy lips is but a dying man; and he that strikes thee on the face is but a dying man. The whole world is but a Colonie, every age new planted with dying men, with pilgrims and strangers.

This you will say is a common theme and argument, and indeed so it is; for what more common then death? and yet as common as it is, I know no lesson so much forgotten as this: for who almost considers how he came into the world, or how he shall goe out of it? Ask the Wanton, the Mammonist, the Ambitious of their minute, and they will call it Eternity, Sol iste, dies nos decipit, &c. The pre∣sent, the present time, that deceives us, and we draw that out to a lasting perpetuity, which is past whilst we think on't; such a bewitch∣ing power hath the love of the world, to make our minute eternity, and eternity nothing; and the day of our death as hard and difficult to our faith as our resurrection. For though day unto day uttereth knowledge, though the preacher open his mouth, and the grave o∣pen hers, and we every day see so many pilgrimes falling in, though they who have been dead long ago, and they who now dye, speak un∣to us; yet we can hardly be induced to believe that we are strangers, but embrace the world, and rivet our selves into it as if we should never part, and we deny that which we cannot deny, resolve on that which we cannot think, will not be perswaded of that which we do believe, or believe not that which we confesse, but place immortality upon our mortal, & so live as if we should never dye. And can we who thus every day enlarge our thoughts and hopes, and let them out at length beyond our threescore yeares and ten, measuring out Lord∣ships, building of Palaces, anticipating pleasures and honours, creating that which will never have a being, and yet delighting in it as if we now had it in possession; can we who love the world as that friend from which we would never part, but lose all others for it; can we who would have this to be the world without end, and have scarce one thought left to reach at that which is so, and to come; can we who love, and admire, and pride our selves in no∣thing more, in nothing else, say or thinke we are pilgrimes, and so∣journers, and strangers in the earth?

'Tis true, strangers we are (for all are so) and passing forward a∣pace to our journeyes end, but not to that end for which we were made; and therefore that we may reach and attain to it, we must make our selves so, put off the old man, which loves to dwell here, take off our hopes and desires from it, look upon all its glories as dung, look upon the world as a strange place, and upon our selves as strangers in it; and look upon the place to which we are going,

and fling off every weight, and shake off every vanity; every thing that is of the earth, earthy, make haste and delay not, but leave it behind us, even while we are in it; for a Christian mans life is nothing else but a going out of it.

And to this end (in the last place) you must take along with you your viaticum, * 1.6 your provision, The Commandments of God: (Hide not thy commandments from me, saith David; and he spoke as a stran∣ger, and as in a strange place, as in a place of danger, as in a dark place, where he could not walk with safety, if this light did not shine upon him.) For here we meet with variety of objects; here are serpents to flatter us, and serpents to bite us; here are pleasures and terrors, all to deceive and detaine us. Here we meet with that arch-enemy to all strangers and pilgrims in severall shapes, now as a roaring Li∣on, and sometimes as an Angel of light; and though we try it not out at Fists with him (as those foolish Monks boasted they had of∣ten tried this kind of hardiment) though we meet him not as a Hyppocentaure, * 1.7 as the story tells us Paul the Hermite did; as a Sa∣tyre, or shee-wolf, as Hilarion did, to whom were presented many fearefull things, the roaring of lions, the noise of an Army, and cha∣riots of fire coming upon him, wolves and foxes, and sword-plaiers, and I cannot tell what. Though we do not feel him as a Satyre, yet we feel him as voluptuous; though we do not see him as a wolf, yet we apprehend him thirsting after blood; though we meet him not in the shape of a fox, yet non ignoramus versutias, we are not ig∣norant of his wiles and enterprises; though we do not see him in the tempest, we may in our feare; and though his hand be invisible, yet we may feel him in our impatience, and falling from the truth; we cannot say in our affliction, this is his blow, but we may heare him roare in our murmuring: or we may see him in that mungrell Christian made up of ignorance and fury, of a man and a beast, which is more monstrous then any centaure: we may see him in that hypocrite, that deceitfull man, who is a fox, and the worst of the cub; we may meet him in that oppressor who is a wolf; in that Ty∣rant and persecutor who is a roaring lion.

And in some of these shapes we meet him every day in this our Pilgrimage; and here in the world we can find nothing to secure us against the world; adversity may swallow up pleasure in victo∣ry, but not the love of it; impotency and inhability may bridle and stay my Anger, but not quench it; Providence may defend me from evil, but not from feare of it; nor can the world yield us any weapon against it self: and therefore God hath opened his Armory of heaven, and given us his commandments to be our light, our provision, our defence in our way; to be as our Pilgrimes staff, our Scrip, our letters commendatory, to be our Angels to keep us in all

our waies, and there is no safe walking for a stranger without them. And as when the children of Israel were in the wildernesse, he rained down Manna upon them, and led them as it were by the hand, till he brought them to the land of promise, so he deales with them, with all that call upon his name whilest they are in via, in this their peregrination, ever and anon beset with temptations which may de∣tain and hinder them; he raines down abundance of his grace, which like that Manna will serve the appetite of him that takes it, and is like to that which every man wants, applies it self to every taste, to all the callings and conditions, to all the necessities of a stranger. Thus we walk by faith, 2 Cor. 7. Festina fides, and faith is on the wing, and leaves the world behind us, is the substance and evidence of things not seen, and looks not on those things which are seen, and please a carnall eye; or if it do, looks upon them as Joshua did upon Ai, and first turnes the back, and then all its strength against them, makes us fly from them that we may overcome them. For this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. And Fe∣stina spes, hope too is in her flight, and follows our fore-runner Jesus, to enter with him that which is within the vaile, Heb. 6.19. even the holy of holies, heaven it self; spe jam sumus in coelo, we are already there by hope, and to him that hath seen the beauty of holinesse, the world is but a loathsome spectacle; to him that truly trusteth in God, it is lighter then vanity, and he passeth from it. And then our love of God is our going forth, our peregrination; it is a perishing, a death of the soul to the world, and if it be truely fixt, no pleasure, no terror, nothing in the world can concern us, but they are to us as those things which the travellour in his way sees, and leaves e∣very day; and we think no more of the glory of them then they who have been dead long ago. For we are dead, saith the Apostle, Coloss. 3.3. and our life is hid, hid from the world with Christ in God: our temperance tasteth not, our chastity toucheth not, our poverty in spirit handleth not those things which lye in our way, but passeth by them as impertinencies, as dangers, as those things which may pollute a soul more then a dead body could under the Law. The stranger, the pilgrime passeth by all, his meeknesse makes injuries, and his patience afflictions, light; and his Christian fortitude casteth down every strong hold, every imagination, which may hinder him in his course. Every act of piety is a kind of sequestration, and drives us, if not from the right, yet from the use of the world. Eve∣ry virtue is to us as the Angel was to Lot, and bids arise, and go out of it; takes us by the hands, and bids us haste and escape for our life, and not to look behind us. And with this provision, as it were with the two Tables in our hand, we come neerer and neerer to the end of our faith, the end of our hope, and the end of our love. For he that looks upon the commandments and keeps them hath the will of God, and he that hath his will, hath all that wisdome can find out,

or power bring to passe, hath Gods providence and almightinesse his companions, his guides, his protection in his way, and the world, the pomp and vanity of it can no more prevaile against him then it can against God himself; but where God is there shall this stranger be also, when passing through all these he shall come to his journeys end.

For first, (that we may make some use of this, and so conclude) this our conformity to the will of God in keeping his command∣ments, will make us observe a Decorum, and being strangers in the earth to behave our selves as strangers in it, for necessities sake give a perfunctory and slight salute, not look upon it as a friend, not to trust it, not to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, as Saint Paul exhorteth, 1 Tim. 17. but to suspect and be jealous of every thing in it, * 1.8 as we use to be of every man we meet in a strange place; and as plain country-men, who are ignorant of coines, suspect and try every piece they see, and though it be current, yet feare it may be counterfeit. So to say within our selves, this beauty which smiles may bite as a cockatrice; this wine which looks red may be a mocker; these riches may be my last receit; this strength may ruine me; this wit may befool me; that which makes me great in my own eyes, that for which I flatter and worship my self, and tread all others with scorn under my feet, may make me the least in the Kingdom of heaven, nay quite shut me out; this beauty may bring deformity into my soul; this wine may be as the Manichees called Fel principis tenebrarum, the gall of the Prince of darknesse, and these riches may begger me, and my Perfections undoe me. Far better is it for a stranger to be cautelous and wary, then too ven∣turous and fool-hardy; better for him to feare where no feare is, then to be ready to meet and embrace every toy and trifle that smiles and kils. Now, by this we arme our selves against all casu∣alties and misfortunes, which is more then all the conveyances and devises of the Law, more then the providence of the wisest can do. For what can fall out by chance to him who is ever under the wing of the almighty? or what can be lose who hath denied all unto himself, and himself too in every aspect and relation to the world? This is our provision, and this is our security; & he that will be secure must learn to be a stranger; he that will lose nothing must learn to have nothing; and then as our obedience to Gods will doth keep us in a decorum, so it teacheth us by looking on the world with an eye of jealousie to make it our friend, a friend of Mammon, and a friend of a temptation; for so we make that which was dangerous benefici∣all unto us, and rise up as high as heaven upon that which might have been our ruine, by looking upon it with the suspicious and jealous eye of a stranger.

Secondly, It supplies us with armes, and strengthens us against all afflictions, which may beat upon us, all miseries which befall us, all contumelies which may affront us in our way; for what are all these poor sprinklings, these weak breathings of wind and aire to us, when we remember we are but strangers in the world? The world knows us not, because it knows not God, as Saint John tells us, 1 Ep. 3.1. peregrini deorsùm, cives sursùm, strangers here below, but Citizens above. What can they who are so unlike to the world, who con∣temn the world, expect lesse? here there will be Shimeis to revile us, Zedekiahs to smite us on the cheek, oppressors to grind us, and Ty∣rants to rob and spoile us when they please; and if we will have them our friends, we must make our selves like them, and go to hell along with them; but the commandments of God are an Anti∣dote against all these. For these evils cannot trouble us if we make use of the right remedy, which is no where to be found but in Christ, in whom all the treasuries of wisdome are hid. But one errour of our lives it is, and a great one, to mistake the remedy of evils, nec tam morbis laboramus quàm remediis, nor doth our disease and malady so much molest us, as the remedies themselves. The poor man thinks there is no other remedy for poverty, but riches; the reven∣ger cannot purge his gall and bitternesse, but with the blood of his enemy; the sick is quieted with nothing but with health: but in∣deed these are not remedies answerable to the nature and operation of these severall diseases, for the poor man may become rich, and be poorer then before; the revenger may draw blood, and be more enraged then before; the sick man may be restored to health, and be worse then before; the will of God is the truest, and most sove∣raign physick, and his will is that we estrange our selves from the world; that our hearts be fixed on him, and on those pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore. And then there will be no such things as Poverty, or Injuries, or Sicknesse, or at least they will not appeare so to us, which is all one; nay, which is more, for now they are not what they are unto us, nor do we see that horrour in them, which they that dwell in the world do, but as Saint Paul speaks, when we are poor then we are rich, when we are weak then we are strong, when we are in disgrace then we are honourable, when we are persecuted then we are happy, when we are sick then we are best in health, and even see our journeys end. Nihil impe∣ritius impatientia, Impatience which ever accompanies the neglect of Gods commands, is the most ignorant, unskilfull, inexperi∣enced, the most ungodly thing in the world. For these complaints in poverty, this impatience of injuries, this murmuring in our sick∣nesse, are ill signes that we love the pleasures of the world more then the will of God; that we see more glory in a piece of earth, then virtue; that we are more afraid of a disgrace then of sin; that we bowe with more devotion and affection to the world then to

God, and so cannot make this glorious confession with our Kingly Prophet, that we are Accolae and peregrini, strangers and pilgrims up∣on the earth.

Thirdly, our conformity to the will of God is a precious Antidote against the feare of death; the feare of death? why we were deli∣vered from that, when Christ took part with us of flesh and blood, Heb. 2.14. and through death destroyed him who had the power of death, the devil, why should any mortall now feare to dye? It is most true, Christ dyed, and by his death shook the powers of the grave; Con∣summatum est, all is finished, and he is returned victoriously with the spoils of his enemies, and of this last enemy death. But for all this his triumph, death may be still the King of terrours, and as dread∣full as before. All is finisht on his part, but a covenant consists of two, and something is required on ours. He doth not turn Con∣ditions into Promises, as some have been willing to perswade them∣selves, and others; It must be done, is not, thou shalt do it; If thou wilt believe, is not, thou shalt believe. But every promise, every act of grace of his implies a condition. He delivers those that are wil∣ling to be delivered, who do not feed death, and supply this enemy with such weapons as make him terrible. All the terrour death hath is from our selves, our sin, our disobedience to the commands of God, that's his sting. And our part of the covenant is, by the power & virtue of Christs death every day to be plucking it from him, and at last to take it quite away. We, we our selves must rise up against this King of terrours, and in the Name and Power of Christ take the Scepter out of his hand, and spoile him of his strength and terrour. And this we may do by parts and degrees, now cut from him this sin, now that; now this desire, and anon another, and so dye daily, as Saint Paul speaks, dye to profit, dye to pleasure, dye to Honour, be as dead to every temptation which may beget sin in us, and a sting in him; and so leave him nothing to take from us, not a desire, not a hope, not a thought, nothing that can make us feare death. Then we shall look upon it not as a divorcement from those delights which we have cast off already, or a passage into a worse condition from that we loved too well, to that we never feared enough; but we shall consider it as a sleep, as it is to all wearied pilgrims, as a message sent from Heaven to tell us our walk is at an end, and now we are to lay down our staffe and scrip, and rest in that Jerusalem which is above, for which we vowed this pilgrimage: Et quis non ad meliora festinat? * 1.9 What stranger will be afraid to return to his Fathers house, or lose that life, quam sibi jam supervacuam fe∣cit, which by dying daily to the world he hath already made super∣fluous and unnecessary? To conclude this: He that truly fears God can feare nothing else, nor is Death terrible to any but to those who would build their tabernacle here, who love to feed with swine on

husks, because they have not tasted of the powers of the world to come, who wish immortality to this mortall, before they put it on; who are willing to converse and trade with vanity for ever, who desire not with David to be spared a little, but would never goe hence.

Last of all, It will moderate our sorrow for those our friends who are dead, or rather fallen asleep, or rather at their journeys end. For why should any man who knows the condition of a stranger, how many dangers, how many cares, how many stormes and tempests he was obnoxious to, hang down the head and com∣plain that he had now passed through them all, and was set down at his journeys end? why should he who looks for a City to come, be troubled that his fellow pilgrime came thither, and entred be∣fore him? It might be a matter of holy Emulation perhaps, but why it should afflict us with grief I cannot see, unlesse it be because we have not made it our meat and drink to keep Gods command∣ments, which might give us a taste of a better estate to come, un∣lesse it be because we have not well learnt to act the part of a stran∣ger. Miserable men that we are, that we will be; that know not our own quality and condition that are strangers, and yet unwilling to draw neer our selves, or to see others come to their home, but think them lost where they are made perfect. We stand by the bed of our sick and dying friend as if he were now removed to a place of torment and not of rest, and to be either nothing or more miserable then he was in a region of misery; we send out shreeks and outcries to keep time with his gasps, to call him back, if it were possible, from heaven, and to keep him still under the yoke and har∣row; when as the fainting of his spirits, the failing of his eyes, the trembling of his joynts, are but as the motion of bodies to their cen∣ter, most violent when they are neerest to their end. And then we close up his eyes, and with them our hopes, as if with his last gasp he had breathed out his soul into aire; when indeed there is no more then this, one pilgrime is gone before his fellows, one gone, and left others in their way in trouble, and more troubled that he is gone to rest. Migrantem migrantes praemisimus, saith Saint Hierom, we are passing forward apace, and have sent one before us to his jour∣neys end, his everlasting sabbath. With this contemplation doth reli∣gion comfort and uphold us in our way, and keeps us in that temper which the Philosopher commends as best, in which we do sentire desiderium & opprimere, she gives nature leave to draw teares, but then she brings in faith and hope to wipe them off; * 1.10 she suffers us to mourn for our friends, but not as men without hope. Nature will vent, and love is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith the Orator, ever querulous and full of complaints when the object is removed out of sight; and God remembers whereof we are made, is not angry with our love, and will suffer us to be men, but then we must silence one love with

another, our naturall affection with the love of God; at least divide our language thus, Alas my Father, Alas my Husband, Alas my Friend; but then he was a stranger, and now at his journeys end; and here we must raise our note; and speak it more heartily, Blessed are such strangers, blessed are they that dye in the Lord, even so saith the spirit, that they rest from their labours.

For conclusion; let us feare God, and keep his commandments, this is the whole duty of a stranger, to observe those Lawes, which came from that place to which he is going, let these his Lawes be in our heart, and our heart will be an elaboratory, a limbeck, to work the water of life out of the vanities and very dregs of world, through which we are to passe. It shall be as a rock firm and solid against every wave and temptation that shall beat against it, and a shop of precious receipts, and proper remedies against every evil; It shall be spoliarium mortis, a place where death shall be stript and spoiled of its sting, and of its terrour. In a word; It shall be the Temple of God, an house of feasting and joy, where sorrow may look in at the window, at the sensitive part, but be soon chased away: It shall be even ashamed of its Tabernacle of flesh, and pant and beat to get out, that it may be clothed upon, and mortality be swallowed up of life. In brief, it will make us strangers, and keep us strangers, even such strangers, which shall be made like unto the An∣gels, and whom when they come to their journeys end, the Angels shall meet, and welcome, and receive into their Fathers house, where they shall rest, and rejoyce for evermore.

I have done with my Text, and now must turn your eyes and thoughts upon this pilgrime here, this Honoured and worthy Knight, who hath now passed through the busie noise and tumults of this world to his long home and rest. In which passage of his (as I have received it from men of place and worth, and unquestioned integri∣ty) he hath so exactly performed the part and office of a stranger and pilgrime, that he is followed with the applause of them that knew him; and as in his death he is become an argument to prove the doctrine which I have taught, so in his life he made himself a great ensample for them to look upon who are now travelling and labouring in the same way.

Look upon him then in every capacity and relation, either as a part of the Common-wealth, or a member of the City, or a Father of a Family, and you shall discover the image and faire representa∣tion of a stranger in every one of these relations; for no man can take this honour to himself to be a good Common-wealths-man, a good master of a family but he who is as David was, a stranger. All the ataxie and disorder, all the noise we heare, and mischiefs we see

in the world, are from men who love it too well, and would live and dwell and delight themselves in it for ever.

For the first; I may truly say as Lampridius did of Alexander Severus, he was vir bonus & Reipublicae necessarius, he was a good man and of necessary use in a Common-wealth, and laid all the strength he had to uphold it, and preferred the peace and well-fare of it to his own, as well knowing that a private house might sink and fall to the ground, and yet the Common-wealth stand and flou∣rish; but that the ruine of the whole must necessarily draw with it the other parts, and at last bury them in the same grave. And here he found as rough a passage as Aufidienus Rufus in Tacitus did in that commotion and rebellion of Percennius, * 1.11 who was pulled out of his chariot, loaded first with scoffs and reproches, and then with a fardell of stuffe, and made to march foremost of all the company, and then ask'd in scorn, whether he bore his burden willingly? or whether so long a journey was not tedious and irksome to him? so was this worthy Knight taken from his wife whom he entirely loved, and from his children those pledges of his love, conveyed to ship, and by ship to prison in a remote City, where he found some friends, and then brought back from thence to a prison neerer home, where (if the providence of God had not gone along with him, and sha∣dowed him) he had met the plague; so that in some measure that befell him which Saint Paul speaks of himself, He was in journeying often, in perills of waters, in perills of his own Country-men, in perills in the City, in perills on the Sea, in perills amongst false brethren.

But it may be said, what praise is it to suffer all this, if he suffer as an evil doer, and for conscience towards God? I come not hither to dispute that, but am willing to refer it to the great triall which shall open every eye to behold that truth, which now being dazled with feares and hopes, and even blinded with the love of the world, it cannot see. But if it were an errour, and not knowledg but mis∣take drove him upon these pricks, yet sure it was an errour of a faire descent, begot in him by looking stedfastly on the truth, by having a steddy eye on the oath of God, Eccles. 8.2. and if here he fell, he fell like a Christian, who did exercise himself to keep a good conscience; for he that follows not his conscience when it errs, will be as far from hearkning to it when it speaks the truth; for even errour it self shews the face of truth to him that erres, or else he could not erre at all. And yet (I need not feare to say it) It is an errour of such a nature, that it may rather deserve applause then censure, even from those who call it by that name; for we do not use to fall wil∣lingly into so dangerous, vexatious, and costly errours; errours, which will strip us, which will put a yoke upon us; errours which will put us in prison; no, to fly from these we too oft fly from the truth it self,

when 'tis as open as the day, and commands or faith though not our tongue, and forceth our assent, when we renounce it. Private interest, love of our selves, feare of restraint, hope of advancement, these are the mothers commonly of this monster which we call errour when we do not erre, and in these it is ingendred and bred, as serpents are in carrion or dung. He that erres and loseth by it, erres most excusably, and shews plainly that he would not erre, for who would do that which will undoe him?

Again, take him in the City, in which he bore the highest honour, and filled the greatest place, and was rather an ornament to it then that unto him; for he sate in it as a stranger and a pilgrime, as a man going out of the world, nor did so much consider his power as his duty, which lookt forward, and had respect on that which cannot be found in this, but is the riches and glory of another world; and therefore this world was never in his thoughts, never came in to sowre Justice, to turn judgement into worm-wood by corrupting it, or into vinegar by delaying it; no cries of orphans, no teares of the widdow, no loud complaints of the oppressed to disquiet him in his passage, which use to follow the oppressor even to the gates of hell, and there deliver him up to those howlings which are ever∣lasting. How oft hath he been presented to me, and that by prudent and judicious men, as the honour and glory of the City? And thus he went on his way full of temptations and troubles, and full of ho∣nours, even of those honours which he refused, for you may remem∣ber how he bore this great office, and you may remember how he refused it, and gained as much honour in the hearts of men by the last as by the first; as much honour by withdrawing himself and staying below, as he did formerly in sitting in the highest place with the sword in his hand. For the state and face of things may be such, as may warrant Demosthenes wish and choice, and make it more commendable in exilium ire quàm tribunal, to go into banishment then to ascend the tribunal; for he best deserves honour, who can in wisdome withdraw himself; he can best manage power, who knows when to lay it down.

Bring him now from the publick stage of honour to his private house, and there you might have seen him walking, as David speaks, in the midst of his house in innocency and with a perfect heart, as an Angel or intelligence moving in his own sphere, and car∣rying on every thing in it with that order and Decorum which is the glory of a stranger; whose moving in it is but a going out of it to render an account of every act and motion; you might have be∣held him looking with a settled and immoveable eye of love on his wife, walking hand in hand with her for forty foure yeares, and walking with her as his fellow-traveller, with that love which

might bring both at last to the same place of rest. You might be∣hold him looking on his children with an eye of care as well as of affection, initiating them into the same fellowship of pilgrims; and on his servants, not as on slaves, * 1.12 but as his humble and inferiour friends, as Seneca calls them, and as his fellow-pilgrims too; and thus he was Domesticus Magistratus, a Domestick Magi∣strate, a lover and example of that truth which Socrates taught, that they who are good Fathers of their family will make the best and wisest Magistrates; they who can manage their own cock-boat may be fit at last to sit at the stern of the common-wealth; for a pri∣vate family is a type and representation of it, nay, saith Eusebius, (in the life of Constantine) of the Church it self.

I confesse I knew but in his evening, when he was neer his jour∣neys end, and then too but at some distance; but even then I could discover in him that sweetnesse of disposition, that courteous affabi∣bility, which Saint Paul commends as virtues, but have lost that name with Hypocrites, with proud and supercilious men, who make it a great part of their Religion to pardon none but themselves, and then think that they have put off the old man when they have put off all humanity. In these Omilitick vertues I could discern a fair proficiency in this reverend Knight, and what my knowledg could not reach was abundantly supplied and brought unto me by the joynt testimony of those who knew him, and by a testimony which commends him to heaven, and God himself, the mouthes of the poor which he so often filled. Thus did he walk on as a stranger, comforting and supporting his fellow-Pilgrims, and reaching forth his charity to them as a staffe. Thus he exprest himself living, and thus he hath exprest himself in his last Will, which is voluntas ultra mortem, the Will, the Mandate, the Language of a Dead man; Spe∣culum morum, saith Pliny, the Glasse, wherein you may see the Cha∣rity, that is, the Face, the Image of a Pilgrim, by which he hath be∣queathed a Legacy of Comfort and Supply (a plain acknowledge∣ment that he was but a stranger on the earth) to every Prison, and to many Parishes within this City, and remembers them who are in bonds, as one who himself was in the body, and sometimes a prisoner as they. I know, in this world it is a hard thing Justum esse sine infa∣mia, to be good and not to heare ill; expedit enim malis neminem esse bonum, for evil men make it their work to deface every faire image of virtue, and then think well of themselves when they have made all as evil as themselves; but it was this our honoured brothers hap∣pinesse to find no accuser but himself, I may truly say, I never yet heard any; but report hath given him an honourable passe: the voice of the poor was, He was full of good works; the voice of the City, he was a good Magistrate; the voice of his equalls, he was a true friend; the voice of all that I have heard, he was a just man; and then our

charity will soon conclude he was a good Christian, for he lived and died a son of the Church, of the reformed, and according to the way which some call Heresy, some Superstition, so worshipped he the God of his Fathers.

And now he is gone to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: He is gone to the grave in a full age, when that was well neer expired which is but Labour and sorrow, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as Cyril speaks, grown in wisdom and grace, which is a fairer testimony of age then the gray haires or fourscore yeares; his body must return to the dust, and his soul is return'd to God that gave it; and being dead he yet speaketh, speaketh by his Charity to the Poore, speaketh by his faire example to his Brethren of the City, to honour and reverence their Conscience more then their Purse,

— vitam{que} impendere vero,

and to be ready to resign all, even life it self for the truth; he speaks to his friends, and he speaks to his relict, his virtuous and reverend Lady, once partner of his cares and joyes, his fellow-travellour, and to his children, who are now on their way, and following a pace after him, weep not for me, why should you weep? I have laid by my Staff, my Scrip, my provision, and am at my journeys end at rest; I have left you in a valley, in a busie tumultuous world, but the same hand, the same provision, the same obedience to Gods commands will guide you also, and promote you to the same place, where we shall rest and rejoyce together for evermore. There let us leave him in his eternall rest with Abraham and Isaac and Ja∣cob, with all the Patriarchs, and prophets, and Apostles, all his fellow-Pilgrims and strangers, in the Kingdom of Heaven.

FINIS.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 6.17.
• * 1.2

  Peripatetici di∣cunt generari prudentiam 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. A Gell. Noct. Att. l. 13. c. 8.
• * 1.3

  His invisa sae∣noratio quibus succurrere vi∣detur. Columel.
• * 1.4

  Tertull. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Anima. c. 50.
• * 1.5

  Suit. vit. Claud. Caes.
• * 1.6

  Hide not thy commandments from me.
• * 1.7

  Hieron. de vita Pauli Eremitae, & Malchi & Hilarionis.
• * 1.8

  Theophr. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.9

  Tert. de patientia.
• * 1.10

  Sen. ad Marci∣am.
• * 1.11

  Tacit. l. 1. Annal.
• * 1.12

  Quid Servus? Amicus hu∣milis.