of Infirmity and yet even for them she had as deep Humiliation and as Penitential a Sorrow as high a sense of the Divine forgiveness and lov'd as much as if she had had Much to be forgiven So that after a life of above Forty Years Nine of which were spent in the Court baiting her involuntary failings which are unavoidable and for which allowances are made in the Covenant of Grace she kept her self unspotted from the World and if it may be affirmed of any I dare venture to affirm it of this gracious Woman that by the peculiar favour of Heaven she past from the Font unsullied to her Grave Her understanding was admirable and she daily improv'd it by reading in which she employ'd most of her time and the Books she chose were only serious or devout and her memory was faithful to retain what she read She took not up her Religion on an implicite Faith or from education only but from a well-studied choice directed by God's Holy Spirit whose guidance she daily invok'd and when once she had made that choice she was immoveable as a rock and so well satisfi'd in the Catholick Faith profest in the Church of England that I make no doubt but that she always liv'd not only with the strictness of a Primitive Saint but with the resolution also of a Martyr It was strange to hear how strongly she would Argue how clearly she understood the force of a Consequence and how ready at all times she was to give a reason of the hope that was in her with meekness and fear Her Letters which were found in her Cabinet not to be deliver'd till after her death and very many others in the hands of her Relations sufficiently shew how good and how great she was In them this humble Saint before she was aware has her self made an exact impression of her own Graciousness They are pen'd in so proper and unaffected a Style and animated throughout with so Divine a Spirit with such Ardours of Devotion and Charity as might have become a Proba a Monica or the most eminent of her Sex Insomuch that her very absence was the more supportable to her friends in regard she compensated the want of her presence by Writing and sent them a Blessing by every return I cannot tell what one help she neglected to secure her perseverance and to heighten her graces that she might shine more and more to a perfect day Her Oratory was the place where she principally resided and where she was most at home and her chief employment was Prayer and Praise Out of several Authors she for her own use transcrib'd many excellent Forms the very choice of which does argue a most experienc'd Piety she had Devotions suited to all the primitive hours of Prayer which she us'd as far as her bodily Infirmities and necessary Avocations would permit and with David Prais'd God seven times a day or supply'd the want of those solemn hours by a kind of perpetuity of Ejaculations which she had ready to answer all occasions and to fill up all vacant intervals and if she happened to wake in the Night of proper Prayers even for mid-night she was never unprovided Thus did this gracious Soul having been enkindled by fire from Heaven in her Baptism live a continual Sacrifice and kept the fire always burning always in afcension always aspiring towards Heaven from whence it fell Besides her own private Prayers she Morning and Evening offer'd up to God the publick Offices and when she was not able to go to the House of Prayer she had it read to her in her Chamber To Prayers she added Fasting till her weakness had made it impossible to her constitution and yet even then on days of Abstinence she made amends for the Omission by other supplemental Mortifications Her Devotions she enlarg'd on the Fasts and Festivals of the Church but especially on the Lord's days dividing the hours between the Church and her Closet She never fail'd on all opportunities to approach the Holy Altar came with Spiritual hunger and thirst to that Heavenly Feast and Communicated with a lively with a Crucifying but yet endearing Remembrance of her Crucifi'd Saviour The Sermons she heard when she came home she recollected and wrote down out of her memory abstracts of them all which are in a great number among her Papers that she might be not only a hearer of the Word but a doer also The Holy Scripture she attentively read and on what she read she did devoutly meditate and did by Meditation appropriate to her self it was her Soul's daily Bread it was her delight and her Counsellour and like the most Blessed Virgin Mother she kept all things she read and ponder'd them in her heart Who is there can say they ever saw her idle no she had always affairs to transact with Heaven she was all her life long numbring her days and applying her Heart to Wisdom or to describe her with her own Pen she was making it her business to fit her self for her change knowing the moment of it to be uncertain and having no assurance that her warning would be great Oh happy Soul that was thus wise in a timely consideration of that which of all things in the World is of greatest importance to us to be consider'd namely our Latter end You may easily conclude that a Saint who was always thus conversant with her Grave and had Heaven always in her view must have little or no value for things below as indeed she had not she did not only conquer the World but she triumph'd over it had a noble contempt of Secular greatness liv'd several years in the very Court with the abstraction of a Recluse and was so far from being solicitous for Riches for her self or her Children that to use her own words she look'd on them as dangerous things which did only clog and press down our Souls to this Earth and judg'd a Competency to be certainly the best All the temporal blessings the divine Goodness was pleas'd to vouchsafe her she receiv'd with an overflowing thankfulness yet her affections were so disengag'd her temperance and moderation so habitual that she did rather use than injoy them and was always ready to restore them to the same gracious hand that gave them but no one can express her thoughts so pathetically as her own self O says that blessed Saint since God gives us all let us not be sorrowful though we are to part with all the Kingdom of Heaven is a prize that is worth striving for though it costs us dear Alas what is there in this World that links our hearts so close to it and elsewhere she affirms that All blessings are given on this condition that either they must be taken from us or we from them if then we lose any thing which we esteem a blessing we are to give God the glory and to resign it freely She was a perfect despiser
goodness that is visible in him shall retain honour To attempt any laborious Proof of so clear a Truth as this were needless do but consult the universal practice of Mankind and read it there What Rules do the Philosophers prescribe to render our lives most satisfactory to our selves and most commendable to others with what Colours do the Oratours paint those persons they intend to Celebrate what Images do the Poets form when they design an Heroe are they any other than the Rules and Colours and Images of moral Goodness Do not Hypocrites to court the esteem of the Vulgar personate the Saint and Politicians to make the People honour them pretend to Religion and why do they both put on this disguise but because they know that Wickedness bare-fac'd is in the eyes of all men most detestable and that the names of Saint and of Religion are creditable in the World Shew me that profligate Wretch who in his cool thoughts or on his Death-bed does not decline all his loose Companions and seeks out for men truly good and consciencious to whom he may intrust his Estate his Children and all that is dearest to him even his own Soul too for which he then begs their ghostly counsel What man is there so wicked who on his death-bed does not wish that he may die the death of the Righteous and that his latter end may be like his Look into the Histories and customs of Ages past see how greedily coveted how dearly purchast and how highly valued the Statues and all the little remains of Good Men have been The Heathens to express their great esteem of Goodness built Temples to Vertue and Honour and join'd these Temples together and made the former the only passage into the latter they thought Praise to Good men as just a Tribute as Sacrifice to their Gods and one of the Wisest of them wonderfully pleas'd himself in fancying how lovely and venerable how divine and transporting an Idea he should see could he but look into the breast of a Good-man We have then the practice and the judgment of the whole World to confirm this truth that Vertue has always had a great and a general esteem that the gracious Person retains honour On the contrary is there not a natural shame a sense of turpitude or a confusion of face in vicious and unclean actions why else are men afraid to commit them before the most inconsiderable Spectatour and chuse darkness for a thick Mantle to cover them why else do they blush to own them wish a thousand times they had never been done and reflect on them with dissatisfaction and horrour why else do their own Consciences lash and upbraid them whereas if we will but take the pains to make up an Induction of all Christian graces we shall easily see that there is none whose friendship is more ambitiously sought none with whom men would sooner change Persons none who are accounted of more substantial worth or more generally rever'd or more influential to the good of Mankind or sooner wanted in the World or who make a nobler figure in Story than the Devout the Humble the Just the Meek the Temperate the Charitable or to express all in one word the gracious Person who therefore shall always retain honour I need not reckon up the numerous places of Holy Scripture where Goodness and Honour are link'd together how the Wise are said to inherit glory the humble and meek to be exalted how we are commanded to keep our Vessels in sanctification and honour and how God has promis'd to honour those who honour him I need not mention the primitive Diptycks or how the Church Catholick has celebrated the Festivals and honour'd the memories of the Saints and of the Martyrs I need not suggest that obvious Conclusion That if gracious Persons can draw even wicked Men to a reverential love of their Vertue much more will they engage the friendship of all that are Holy and not only of holy Men but of holy Angels too who being all ministring Spirits deputed by God to attend them the more heavenly they see any committed to their charge does grow the more respectful attendance in all probability they give him And there is the highest reason in the World why there should be so honourable a loveliness in a gracious Person if we consider the likeness he bears to that great God whom we Adore For as there are on all men innate impressions of God's Existence so there are also of his Attributes and none ever yet in earnest believed there was a God but he also believed that God was a Being Infinite in all Perfections in Wisdom and Power Justice and Mercy Purity and Holiness Veracity and Beneficence and as these excite our Love and our Adoration to God so where ever we see any though but imperfect resemblances of his imitable perfections in the Saints here on earth where ever we see men in any measure Holy and Pure Just and Merciful Faithful and Beneficent we there see the image of God himself and cannot but pay them a suitable honour Thus as Goodness and Adorableness are co-eternal in God so are Sanctity and Venerableness co-eval in gracious Persons Nor are we only by Grace made like to God but he is also pleas'd actually to dwell in us and to consecrate our Souls to be his Temples and as God commanded the Jews to reverence his Sanctuary the place of his residence among them where he sat between the Cherubims and a glorious Light that shin'd on the Propitiatory was the Symbol of his Presence So when in gracious Souls we discover all the fruits of the Spirit a kind of glory brightning their Conversation and a sacred Amiableness breath'd on them from Heaven we are sure that God inhabits there and cannot but reverence his Temples Such Honour have all Gods Saints from even wicked men from all holy persons and from the good Angels and infinitely above all these from God himself who honours them with his Image after which they are renew'd and with his Presence of which they are possest Such Honour I say have all his Saints even in this life which if we did but seriously Contemplate would stir us up to a generous emulation would encourage us to implore the Divine Grace that we may bewail all our past sins cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of Flesh and of Spirit which produce nothing in the end but Shame and Horrour and daily grow more conformable to his Likeness which is the only way to assert the dignity of our Nature and to retain honour But when once our Souls shall be divorc'd from our bodies when the name of the wicked shall rot and stink sooner than his Carcase leaving no memorial behind unless it be of his Sin his Infamy his Madness or his Folly Precious then in the sight of the Lord shall be the death of his Saints blessed shall be
sooner begin to crop the Flower but it fades and sinks and dyes or it is often sowr'd with such inward dispositions which render it afflicting and insupportable But Grace creates to our minds an intire satisfaction has a goodness intrinsick and eternal grows more amiable the more it is enjoy'd so that the Woman that feareth the Lord she shall be prais'd she shall for ever retain honour As a Jewel of Gold in a Swines snout which is hung there on purpose to be defil'd to be roll'd in filth and mire and is one of the most notorious and ugly incongruities in the World Such a kind of absurdity if you will believe Solomon is a fair Woman without discretion her Beauty 't is true is a Jewel but a Jewel extremely ill plac'd and serves for no other purpose but to make her folly the more conspicuous to expose her the more to impurity and to a swinish sensuality But Grace makes a Woman a Crown to her Husband the glory of the Man and advances her price above Rubies So that a gracious Woman is a Jewel of a value inestimable she has worth and ornament and lustre and beauty and honour all combin'd together Most deservedly then did wise Solomon give the preference to Grace and did assure us that a strong Man is not more powerful to get and when gotten to retain his riches than a gracious Woman to acquire honour and to retain it when acquir'd It is now time to do all the right I am able to the noble Lady deceased who was a Woman so remarkably Gracious and retain'd an Honour so entire and unblemish'd that all the measures I have hitherto laid down either of Grace or of Honour are but a faint Copy drawn after her she was all the while before my thought her holy example is the original and though I will not say that among the many Daughters who have done virtuously she absolutely excells them all yet I am sure she deserves to be esteem'd one of the highest order But alas we have nothing now left except this poor relick of Clay which in a few minutes must be restor'd to its native earth and for ever hid from our eyes the gracious Soul that inform'd it is flown back again to God from whom it first stream'd and his most blessed will be done who is compassionate and adorable in all his chastisements yet as we are flesh and blood we cannot but feel the stroke which even his Fatherly hand has given us It is the Curse of the wicked to dye unlamented unless it be that they are sometimes carried to the Grave with the mercenary tears of those who make mourning a Trade But the death of the Righteous being a loss irrecoverable and a real calamity to us who survive must needs fill us with sad resentments when we consider of how great a blessing we are depriv'd Our Saviour himself has countenanc'd a moderate grief for our friends in weeping over his own dead friend Lazarus So that if we shed our tears over the Grave of this gracious and honourable Lady 't is but to be just to her ashes to ease our own sorrowful Spirits and to testifie to the World how dear a sense we have of her worth For had she had nothing but her Quality to have recommended her we might have perform'd her Funeral Ceremonies with a bare outward Solemnity but without any more concern than a common object of Mortality gives us But she was a Woman so truly gracious that we could not but most affectionately honour her and cannot but have a grief that bears some proportion to our loss For 't is our loss only we can bewail we grieve for our selves not for her She has a joyful deliverance from temptation and infirmity from sin and misery and from all the evil to come she is now past all the storms and dangers of this troubled life and is safely arriv'd at her everlasting Haven she is now fully possest of all that she desir'd which was to be dissolv'd and to be with Christ and we cannot lament her being happy When we weep for common Christians we are not to be sorry as men without hope but when we have so many so uninterrupted and so undeniable demonstrations of the sanctity of a Person as we have of this gracious Woman we have no reason at all to grieve on her account since we have not only a bare hope but an assurance rather that she is now in glory But why did I call her death a loss 't is rather our gain we were all travelling the same way as Pilgrims towards our heavenly Country she has only got the start of us and is gone before and is happy first and I am persuaded that we still enjoy her prayers for us above However I am sure that we enjoy her good works here below which now appear more illustrious and without that vail her modesty and her humility cast over them we still enjoy her example which being now set in its true light and at its proper distance and deliver'd from that cloud of flesh which did obscure and lessen it looks the more gracious and the more honourable and if we follow the track she trod we shall er'e long enjoy her society in Heaven Let us then alter our Note and rather honour than bewail her she was a gracious Woman and honour is her due Her good Name like a precious Oyntment poured forth has persum'd the whole Sphere in which she mov'd To paint her fully to the life I dare not undertake she had a graciousness in all her Conversation that cannot be exprest and should I endeavour to do it I must run over all the whole Catalogue of Evangelical Graces which do all concenter in her Character I must tell you how enflam'd she was with Heavenly love how well guided a Zeal she had for God's glory how particular a reverence she paid to all things and to all persons that were dedicated to His Service how God was always in her thoughts how great a tenderness she ' had to offend her Heavenly Father how great a delight to please him But you must be content with some rude strokes only for such particulars would be endless All my fear is that I shall speak too little but I am sure I can hardly speak too much Say All you who have been Eye-witnesses of her Life did you from her very Cradle ever know her any other than a gracious Woman As to my self I have had the honour to know her near twenty years and to be admitted to her most intimate thoughts and I cannot but think upon the utmost of my observation that she always preserv'd her Baptismal Innocence that she never commited any one mortal Sin which put her out of the state of Grace Insomuch that after all the frequent and severe examinations she made of her own Conscience her Confessions were made up of no other than sins
he sent her as preparatives of her last conflict and as earnests of Heaven whither he intended the day following to translate her How she behav'd her self in her sickness I cannot better express than by saying that she pray'd continually and when the Prayers of the Church were read by her or when the hour of her own private Prayer came though she was not able to stand or to help her self she would yet be plac'd on her Knees and when her Knees were no longer able to support her she would be put into the humblest posture she could possibly endure not being satisfied unless she gave God his entire Oblation and glorify'd him in her body as well as in her spirit which were both Gods own by purchase here and were both to be united in bliss hereafter On Whit-sunday she received her viaticum the most holy Body and Blood of her Saviour and had received it again had not her death surpriz'd us yet in the strength of that immortal food she was enabled to go out her journy and seem'd to have a new transfusion of Grace from it insomuch that though her Limbs were all convulst her Pains great and without intermission her strength quite exhausted and her Head disturbed with a perpetual drousiness yet above and beyond all seeming possibility she would use force to her self to keep her self waking to offer to God her customary Sacrifice to the full to recollect her thoughts and to lodge them in Heaven where her Heart and her Treasure was as if she had already taken possession of her mansion there or as if she was teaching her Soul to act independently from the Body and practising beforehand the state of Separation into which having receiv'd Absolution she in a short time happily lancht for all the bands of Union being untied her Soul was set at liberty and on the Wings of Angels took a direct and vigorous flight to its Native Country Heaven from whence it first flew down There then we must leave her in the Bosom of her heavenly Bridegroom where how radiant her Crown is how ecstatick her Joy how high exalted she is in degrees of Glory is impossible to be described for neither eye hath seen nor ear heard nor has it enter'd into the heart of Man to be conceiv'd the good things which God hath prepared for those that love him of all which she is now partaker We have nothing then to do but to congratulate this Gracious Woman her eternal and unchangeable honour and as she always and in all things gave God the Glory here so that his praise was continually in her mouth for all the multitude of his Mercies and of his loving Kindnesses towards her and is now praising him in Heaven Let us also offer up a Sacrifice of Praise for her great example her light has long shin'd before us and we have seen her good Works Let us therefore glorifie the Father of Lights at whose beams her Soul was first lighted Blessed then for ever be the infinite goodness of God who was so liberal of his Graces to this humble Saint who made her so lively a Picture of his own perfections so Gracious and so Honourable blessed be his mercy for indulging her to us so long for taking her in his good time to himself and for that happiness she has now in Heaven to God be the Glory of all that honour her Graciousness did here acquire for to him only it is due let therefore his most holy name have all the praise To our Thanksgiving let us add our Prayers also that God would vouchsafe us all his Holy Spirit so to assist and sanctifie and guide us that every one of our Souls may be grà cious like hers that our life may be like hers our latter end like hers and our portion in Heaven like hers which God of his infinite mercy grant for the sake of his most belov'd Son To whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit be all honour and glory adoration and obedience now and for ever Amen THE END Mat. 12. 24. Isa. 53. 3. Luke 7. 16 4 22. Mark 7. 16. John 6. 15 18 38. Luke 23. 47. 1 Pet. 2. 17 18. 1 Tim. 6. 2. Rom. 13. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 4. Prov. 3. 35. Luke 1. 52. 1 Thess. 4. 4. 1 Sam. 2. 30. Heb. 1. 14. 1 Cor. 3. 16. Lev. 19. 30. Gal. 5. 22. Prov. 10. 7. Psal. 116. 15. Psal. 112. 6. Prov. 31. 28 31. Luke 8. 3. Matt. 27. 55. Luke 23. 27. Matt. 28. 5. Matt. 26. 13. Psal. 45. 13. 1 Pet. 3. 3. Job 31. 1. Matt. 5. 28. Cant. 4. 16. Prov. 31. 30. Prov. 11. 22. Prov. 12. 4. 1 Cor. 11. 5. Prov. 31. 10. Prov. 31. 29. Jer. 16. 4. John 11. 35. 1 Thess. 4. 13. 1 James 27. 1 Pet. 3. 15. Prov. 4. 18. Prov. 31. 36. 1 Cor. 7. 32. Prov. 19. 14. Luke 10. 41 42. Eph. 6. 9. Exod. 34. 29. 1 Cor. 6. 20. Luke 16. 22. 1 Cor. 2. 9.