laid aside only to succour them The Congregations where she then usually communicated were those of the reverend and Pious Dr. Thruscross and Dr. Mossom both now in Heaven and that of the then Mr. Gunning the now most worthy Bishop of Ely for whom she ever after had a peculiar Veneration But I must by no means pass by the Right Reverend Father in God Bishop Duppa then of Salisbury afterwards of Winchester but now with God who was then put out of all and an Exemplary Confessour for the King and the Church This Holy Man when she resided in the Countrey liv'd in the Neighbourhood and she often visited him and he seem'd to be design'd on purpose by God's most gracious direction to be her spiritual Guide to confirm her in all her holy Resolutions to satisfy all those Scruples to becalm all those Fears and regulate all those Fervours which are incident to an early and tender Piety and God's goodness render'd him so successful that she retain'd the happy influence of his ghostly Advice to her dying day Before the Age of twenty she was Married to the Right Honourable William Lord Mainard to whom in her Letters she often gives the most affectionate thanks imaginable for his unvaluable and unparallel'd kindness towards her as she her self terms it and most servently prays That the Lord Jesus Christ would be his exceeding great reward and his portion for ever But I forbear to offer violence to the modesty of the Survivor and will content my self to say only in general that when she was a Wife she still retain'd her accustomed devotion which she practis'd when a Virgin and her greatest concern was for the things of the Lord how she might please the Lord how in a Marriage honourable and a Bed undefil'd she might be Holy both in Body and in Spirit and attend upon the Lord without distraction And since as Solomon affirms a prudent Wife is from the Lord she was certainly the immediate gift of God and sent by propitious Heaven for a good Angel as well as for a Wife As a Mother she was unspeakably tender and careful of the two Children with which God had blest her but her Zeal for their eternal welfare was predominant and she made it her dying request that in their education their piety should be principally regarded or to speak her own words That the chief care should be to make them Pious Christians which would be the best Provision that could be made for them In reference to her Son it was her express desire that he should be good rather than either rich or great that he should be bred in the strictest Principles of Sobriety Piety and Charity of Temperance and Innocency of life that could be that he should never be indulg'd in the least sin that he should never be that which these corrupt days call a Wit or a fine Gentile man but an honest and sincere Christian she desir'd he might be She profest there was nothing hard to be parted with but her Lord and her dear Children but though her passion for them was as intense as can well be imagin'd yet for the sake of her God whom she lov'd infinitely better she was willing to part with them also had long foreseen the parting and prepar'd for it and humbly beg'd of her heavenly Father to take them into his protection she took care of their Souls even after her death in the Letters she left behind her and comforted her self with an entire acquiescence in the good pleasure of her beloved with hopes that she should still pray for them in Heaven and that she should e're long meet them there and this consideration of meeting above put her into a transport which makes her in one of her Letters cry out O how joyful shall we be to meet at Christ 's right hand if we may be admitted into that Elect number In her Family she always united Martha and Mary together took a due care of all her domestick Affairs and manag'd them with a wise frugality with a constant deference to Gods merciful Providence and without either covetous fears or a restless anxiety but withal she sate at the feet of Jesus and heard his word and of the two was still most intent on the better part She studiously endeavour'd by private and particular and warm applications to make all that attended her more Gods Servants than her own and treated them with a meekness and indulgence and condescension like one who was always mindful that she her self also had a Master in Heaven Her near Relations and all that were blest with her friendship had a daily share in her intercessions all their concerns all their afflictions were really her own her chief kindness was for their Souls and she lov'd them with a charity like that which the Blessed shew to one another in Heaven in their reciprocal complacence at each others happiness and mutual incitements to devotion In respect of the Publick which she often laid sadly to heart her eyes ran down in secret for all our National Provocations and she had a particular Office on fasting Days for that purpose which shews how importunate she was at the Throne of Grace to avert Gods Judgments and to implore his Blessing on the Land. And now after all these great truths which I have said of this Excellent Lady one Grace I must add greater than all I have hitherto mention'd and it is her Humility she was so little given to talk and had that art to conceal her goodness that it did not appear at first sight but after some time her Vertue would break out whether she would or no she seem'd to be wholly ignorant of her own Graces and had as mean an opinion of her self as if she had had no Excellence at all like Moses her Face shin'd and she did not know it others she esteem'd so much the better had that abasing sense of her own Infirmities and that profound awe of the Divine Majesty that though she was great in Gods eyes she was always little in her own After the Whitson-week was over she remov'd from White-hall to Eastonlodge in Essex not out of any hopes of recovery but only that she might have some little present relief from the Air or that she might die in a place which she lov'd in which God had made her an instrument of so great good to the Country and which was near her Grave and you may easily imagine that after a life so holy the death of this gracious Woman must needs be signally happy and so it was not but that during her pains she had often doubts and fears that afflicted her with which in her health she was unmolested and which did manifestly arise from her Distemper and did cease as that intermitted but the day before she died God was pleased to vouchsafe her some clearer manifestations of His mercy which in the tenderness of His compassion
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
their memories They shall be had in everlasting remembrance and their good Names being Registred in the book of Life shall flourish to Immortality All this while I have not done Justice to my Subject by affirming only in general that Goodness is honourable I must therefore be more particular and enquire why Solomon does here instance in the Woman rather than in the Man A gracious Woman retains honour And the reason seems to me to be either this that as Vice is more odious and more detested so on the other hand Vertue is more attractive and looks more lovely in Women than it usually does in Men insomuch that the gracious Woman shall be sure to purchase and to retain honour Or it is because Men have more advantages of aspiring to honour in all publick stations of the Church the Court the Camp the Bar and the City than Women have and the only way for a Woman to gain honour is an exemplary Holiness This makes her Children rise up and call her blessed her Husband and her own works to praise her in the gate the sole glory then of that Sex is to be good for 't is a gracious Woman only who retains honour Or it is because Women are made of a temper more soft and frail are more endanger'd by snares and temptations less able to control their passions and more inclinable to extreams of good or bad than Men and generally speaking Goodness is a tenderer thing more hazardous and brittle in the former than in the latter and consequently a firm and steady Vertue is more to be valued in the weaker Sex than in the stronger So that a gracious Woman is most worthy to recieve and to retain honour Or it is because Women in all Ages have given many Heroick examples of Sanctity besides those recorded in the Old Testament many of them are named with great honour in the New. For their Assiduity and Zeal in following our Saviour and their Charity in Ministring to him of their substance they accompanied him to Mount Calvary lamented his Sufferings waited on the Cross attended the Sepulchre prepared Spices and Oyntments and regardless either of the Insolence of the rude Souldiers or of the Malice of the Jews with a love that cast out all fear they came on the first day of the Week before the morning light to Embalm him and God was pleas'd to honour these Holy Women accordingly for they first saw the Angel who told them the joyful news that he was risen and as if an Angel had not been a Messenger honourable enough Jesus himself first appear'd to the Women the Women first saw and ador'd him and it was these very gracious Women whom our Lord sent to his Disciples that Women might be the first Publishers of his Resurrection as Angels had been of his Nativity Our Saviour himself has erected an everlasting Monument in the Gospel for the penitent Woman that anointed him and God Incarnate honour'd the Sex to the highest degree imaginable in being born of a Woman in becoming the Son of a Virgin Mother whom all Generations shall call Blessed and I know not how to call it but there is a meltingness of Disposition and affectionateness of Devotion an easie Sensibility an industrious Alacrity a languishing Ardour in Piety peculiar to the Sex which naturally renders them Subjects more pliable to the Divine Grace than Men commonly are So that Solomon had reason to bestow the Epithete Gracious particularly on them and to say that a gracious Woman retains honour I am well aware that if we consult the sensual and debaucht rank of men 't is not the Gracious or the Chast Woman they esteem but only the Fair or the Lascivious Esteem did I say Men may court an idle or a wanton Beauty for their Lust but they can only esteem a Gracious and a Chast one and when all is done she only deserves the name of Beautiful As for the Lascivious and the Prostitute against whom Solomon so often and so pathetically warns the Young man She is so utterly impure that I will not so much as name her in the same discourse with a gracious Woman I will then make the Comparison between meer Beauty only and Grace and you will soon perceive the difference For Beauty if it be Natural is from a Womans birth 't is her chance and not her merit if it be Artificial it makes her no other than a painted Sepulchre Gaudy without and that has nothing but Rottenness and Stanch within But Grace is the free gift of God and our own free choice in a happy conjunction 't is no other than a God-like loveliness imprest on our Spirit Beauty is often incident to stark Fools and to the Profane and Irreligious But Grace is peculiar to holy Persons who like the Kings-Daughter are all glorious within Beauty is prone to admire its self and to swell with Pride Grace instills a just sense of our own vileness and teaches Humility That is apt to invite Temptation This is a Preservative against it The former spends her morning hours at her glass The latter at her Prayers That most delights her self in new fashions and fine cloaths in plaiting the hair and wearing of Gold This puts on the ornament of a meek and quiet Spirit which is in the sight of God of great price Beauty has been often to the best and wisest of Men witness Solomon himself destructive and fatal for which reason holy Job made a Covenant with his eyes and our Saviour commands us not to look on a Woman to lust after her and the fairer she is the greater is the danger But Grace secures our Innocence awes men into Sobriety looks them into Chastity and the more intense it grows its influence is the more soveraign and efficacious Beauty gratifies only our outward sense 't is a mixture of Colour and Figure and Feature and Parts all in a due Proportion and Symmetry or indeed 't is a well shap'd Frame of dust and ashes belov'd by fond men only who like the most stupid of Idolaters worship the bare Statue without regard to the Deity there enshrin'd But Grace is a confluence of all Attractives which approves it self to our own most deliberate judgments and is belov'd by God Do but imagine you were in the Spouse's Garden where when the South-wind blows the several Spices and Gumms the Spikenard and the Cinamon the Frankincense and the Myrrhe send forth their various smells which meeting together and mixing in the Air make a compounded Odour Such a composition of all Vertues such an universal and uniform Agreeableness is there in a gracious Soul which in a manner whether we will or no engages our affections Beauty is vain and Favour is deceitful says the Wise man it soon evaporates and cheats our expectation in a little time it decays by cares or Child-bearing or Sickness or a thousand other accidents Men no