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book_n	call_v	lord_n	see_v	1,851	5	3.3775	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63941	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 ...	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1650 (1650)	Wing T335; ESTC R11725	24,363	41

inclinations he directed 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 pleasing to her Lord and an act also of affection and conjugall 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 usually brings us to him by instruments of nature and affections 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 other 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 6 As she was a rare wife so she was an excellent Mother 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 sollicitous that they should be taught to observe all the circumstances 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 religion as they concerned her greatest temporall relations 7 But if we examine how she demeaned her self towards God there also you will find her not of a common 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 passions 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 beauties or the perfumes of a hopefull blossome But the religion of this excellent Lady was of another constitution It took root downward in humility and brought forth fruit upward in the substantiall graces of a Christian 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 morall 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 every 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 because 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 excellent 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 discerning 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 purposed to have a stock of Religion transcrib'd in such assistances as she would chuse that she might be readily furnished and instructed to every good work But God prevented that and hath filled her desires not out of cisterns 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 ages 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

it all there we shall see all and all the world shall see all then we shall be made fit to converse 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 blessednesse and in the exceeding joyes of a certain expectation 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 banished 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 compendium teach you how to live by telling you a plain narrative 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 Funerall Sermon discoursing of the resurrection and applying 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 into a more Noble family yet she felt such outward appendages to be none of hers because not of her choice but the purchase of the virtues of others which although 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 making 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 foundation of doing excellent things and suffering in good causes and despising dishonourable actions and in communicating 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 Christian 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 Honourable according to that which is the honour of a Christian 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 spirit 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 intending 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 businesses 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 affection 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 capable 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 affection 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

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 convers'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 manner of discoursing we are wholly ignorant what judgment 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 minutes conversing with an Angel any ray of God any communication extraordinary from the Spirit of comfort which God gives to his servants in strange and unknown 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 abbreviature 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 temperate plain and naturall diet without curiosity or an intemperate 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 understand her great worth and sweetnesse she was of an Honourable a nice and tender reputation and of the pleasures 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 portion 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 making 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 example 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 excellent 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 sufficiently FINIS a 2 Tim. 1.18 {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Eccle 1 Cor. 15. 18. 1 Thess. 4. 16. Rev. 14.13 John 5.24 2 Cor. 5. 8. 6. 1 Thes. 5.10 Prov. 2. 17.