thred of his life drawn out to the full length according to the course of nature The goodliness of all flesh is like the flower of the field Isa. 40.6 not of the garden exposed to all hardships and hazards whatsoever 3. God in his wise providence hath set such limits unto our age least we should grow into extremities as namely into extremity of sinning in the beginning of the world men were more upright and innocent and then God lent them a longer time but afterward when iniquity began to abound he decreed to shorten their days least sin should be out of measure sinful Thou hast set our iniquity before thee saith Moses to God Psal. 90.8 and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance and then it follows our days are passed away in thy wrath even as a tale that is told and our yeers are but threescore and ten And our blessed Saviour foretelling his Disciples what persecution should befal them says unless those days of persecution should be shortened no flesh should be saved Mat. 24.22 there would be no living in the world the malice of their enemies would know neither bank nor bottom would not keep within any bounds There would be likewise extremities of miseries if men should live always in the world if our days indeed were good the more they were we might be the merrier but seeing they are so miserable it s well that God in his mercy hath made them so few Do but think with your selves if Adam and Eve our first Parents had been tyed to have lived until this day whether they would not have been the most miserable couple that ever lived they should have had a share in all the calamities that have light upon the world God therefore out of his goodness will shorten our days the sooner to put an end to our sorrows Object Some perhaps will here think that our life is not so short as we make it seeing many live till they be Seventy or Fighty years old which seems to be a long time Answ. To whom I answer that yet this is nothing in comparison of Eternity a thousand years with God are but as one day nay it is nothing in comparison of the time that the Fathers lived before the Flood to which it seems Jacob in this place had reference though he were an hundred and thirty years old yet saith he I have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my Fathers In the days of their Pilgrimage some whereof lived seven some eight some nine hundred years and upwards Nay of that small pittance of life which we have there is a great part of it which deserves not the name As the time 1. Of sleeping that 's but a short kind of death as anger is a short fury and their names are promiscuously used Our friend Lazarus sleepeth Awake thou that sleepest and stand up from the dead I found him dead said Epaminondas when he slew the sleeping Sentinal and I left him dead and this time is well nigh the third part of our lives Vitae fur malus ille mae saith Martial of sleep 2. Of Child-hood and Old-age Homo est fatuus usque ad anum quadragessimum deinde ubi novit se esse fatuum vita consumpti est said Luther its long before a man begin to live childhood and youth are vanity Eccl. 11.10 and when he grows in yeers he dies dayly as the old man Alexis in Stobaeus going easily upon his staff said to one that asked him whether he went pedetentem morior I am going step by step into my grave 3. Of Eating and drinking these are a repairing not an injoying of nature and yet how much is bestowed in these reparations Isa. 5.11 The Germans live as they pronounce vivere and bibere with them is all one thing and if we ply our liquor as we begin they are like to lose their Charter and how many rich gluttons are there among us who fair deliciously every day and so every day lose so much more of their life howsoever usually this time is one part of twelve 4. Of Recreations Amici diem perdidimus said he my friends we have lost the day which we spent in idleness yet how many stand all the day idle 5. Of Sining Ep. 2.1 You hath he quickened who were dead in sins and trespasses saith Paul to his Ephesians and he tells Timothy That a widow that lives in pleasures is dead whiles she lives 1 Tim. 5.6 6. Of Sickness or suffering non est vita vivere sed valere to live is not to be but to be well we say of some delights that a man cannot live without them Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life to the bitter in soul saith Job 3.20 as if he should say he had as good be without it and speaking of the day of his birth which was the beginning of his misery vers. 6. Let not that saith he be joyned unto the days of the yeers let it not come within the number of the Months and Noahs Ark wherein he was imprisoned is called his Coffin or his ten Months Sepulchre and the men in Hell are said to die the death to wit because of their sufferings though there shall be alway a conjunction of soul and body in them Now when all this is abstracted after all these deductions from the time of our life that which remains will be little or nothing our days will be shrunk into a narrow compass The meditation of the shortness of our lives this fewness of our days will be useful to teach us 1. Use Not to be too much taken with the things of this world Not with Honours when Samuel was to annoint Saul God gave him for a sign that he would have him for a Prince over his people that as soon as he was gone from him he should find two men neer unto Rachels Sepulchre 1 Sam. 10.2 God might have given him some other sign but he chose rather to give him this it may be to quel the pride and haughtiness of his new preferment that the ashes of so fair a creature as Rachel was should mind him what he should be afterward Not with wives and children these which are now the pleasures of thine eyes shall shortly be loathsome and stinking carcases insomuch that Abraham shall desire that his beloved Sarah might be buried out of his sight that he may not behold her and therefore Isaac on the night of his Nuptials placed his wives bed in the Chamber where his Mother did dye to temper their Nuptial delights with the remembrance of death Gen. 24.67 Are these the things ye look upon said Christ to his Disciples when they told him of the goodly buildings of the Temple there shall not be left one stone upon another which shall not be thrown down so do ye look upon the world and the glory and beauty and pleasure in it these you must soon
part withal the time is short as Paul saith 1 Cor. 7.29 and Esau excuseth the selling of his Birth-right because he saw his death was so nigh I am at the point to die saith he and what good will this Birth-right do me Gen. 25.32 so shalt thou say ere long of all the Titles the houses the riches the relations thou enjoyest let therefore those that have wives be as though they had none those that buy as though they possessed not those that use this world as not abusing it modicum non videbimur a little while and we shall not be seen our places shall know us no more 2. Not to be too much cast down with adversities if our affliction be great it shall be but short Sigravis brevis though it hold out to the end of our life yet this will not belong with this you may comfort your selves in all your troubles tarry and wait the Lords leisure a very little and he that shall come wil come and wil not tarry though the way of your Pilgrimage be tedious and wearisom yet the days thereof are but few 3. Not to make our lives shorter by neglect or abuses of them a man may speak as much in few words as in many and a man my live more in a day then another doth in a yeer our life consists in action so much as we doe so much do we live and so much of our life as is unprofitable so much of our life death possesseth take heed therefore of melting away so many hours in pleasure he that lives in pleasure is dead while he lives though he thinks with the Italians that onely he and such as himself know how to live 1 Tim. 4.6 4. Not to defer our repentance our turning to him who is our life the length of our days Deu. 30.20 to him who is the resurrection and the life Joh. 11.25 seeing our time is so short there were certain fools in Pauls time that said Let us eat drink for to morrow we shal die of the same humor is the Devil who hath great wrath because his time is short but the holy Apostle made no such consequence but the contrary Let us awake to live righteously and cease to sin 1 Cor. 15.34 and 't is the misery of these times also though we all row forward to deaths shore yet like Watermen we look backward we dare not look death in the face nor trouble our selves with thinking of it It may seize upon us before we be aware Old and young like Peter and John we both run to the Sepulchre our life is a race thither and sometimes John the younger out-runs Peter and comes first to it God may take you away while you are in the heat and fury of your youth and while your wanton blood boils in your veins therefore what manner of men ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness how should we with Job 14.14 All the days of our appointed time wait tell the change came 3. Conclus So we have done with the second Conclusion The days of our Pilgrimage are but few few in comparison of Eternity of the first fathers and few in themselves the greatest part being diverted and otherwise employed and it were well that the old Text were bound up in a lesser and better Volume their silver changed into gold if our lives as shorter so were happier then theirs but it is not so with us even these few days of our Pilgrimage are also evil which is our third conclusion as there is want of days so store of miseries Iob who was wel seen in this Theme tyes these two conclusions both together Job 9.25 My days are swifter then a Post they fly away and they see no good and as of himself so of other men Job 14.1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days and ful of trouble If we look upon Jacob we shal find him a very Map of misery experience he had of many wearisome winters in his younger years in his Fathers house he lived in continual fear of his brother Esau and at last was freed to fly the country afterwards he endured a long and hard service under his Uncle Laban who changed his wages ten times in the day the draught consumed him and the frost by night and then had a trick put upon him in his marriage heard every day the bitter contentions and emulations of his wives when he comes home the first welcome is the death of his Rachel then follows the news how his Joseph was devoured that Dinah was defloured that Simon and Levi had murdered the Shechemites that Ruben had defiled his own bed I might tell you likewise of David and all his troubles as he calls them Psal. 132.1 But why should I instance in two or three as if it were not a common condition every man is a Benoni a son of sorrow It is a lot which every one must draw in their course every man hath his task of affliction We come weeping into the world tears are the first presage of our future condition Nundum loquiter infans saith Austin tamen prophetat Tears are our first Rhetorique before we can speak we prophesie and by a dumb kind of divination wail out the story of our after life And when we have done our lives we go weeping or groaning out our Genesis and our Exodus our entrance and our ending do both agree Nor is that little point of time that runs betwixt these any whit happier Our life as you hear before is a Pilgrimage subject to colds and draughts exposed to dangers of beasts and robbers and a thousand such like a continual warfare upon Earth where we are encompased with enemies a Navigation calamity follows upon calamity as one wave treads upon the heel of another a very Babylonish captivity The days of our age threescore years ten saith the Psalmist and just so long lasted the captivity of Israel We have sold our selves for nought as slaves and the world is no better then an house of correction where every one of us is set to his labour and every one of us must look for his stripes no state or condition of man is exempted even Kings Crowns are so full of cares that if a man knew them indeed he would not take one up though he found it lying upon the ground The life of the Student which some account a fair idle life is called by Solomon a sore travail Ec. 1.13 which God hath given to the sons of men to exercise or to afflict them withal as it is in the Margent and verse 18. He that encreaseth knowledg encreaseth sorrow much sorrow and vexation it costs before he have got it and when he hath got it it brings many with it a wise man finds many defects foresees his miseries and so makes them longer can look into all the corners of them and knows how to aggravate them he sees many things
OLD Jacobs Accompt Cast up and owned by one of his Seed A young Lady c. OR A SERMON PREACHED At Laurence Jury Feb. 13. 1654. At the Funerall of the Honorable and Most Virtuous Lady SVSANNA REYNOLDS Wife to the Honorable Commiss. Gen. Reynolds By THOMAS HARRISON Preacher of the Gospel LONDON Printed by J. Macock for Lodowick Lloyd H. Cripps at their shops next to the Castle in Cornhill and in Popes head Alley 1655. To the truly Noble Commissary-General Reynolds Honoured Sir I Account this Discourse as holding no proportion with the Greatness of the Occasion which brought it forth nor with the rest of that Evening-Service on which it was brought forth there-being nothing mean in that Funeral but the Sermon so also unmeet to make one amongst so many already extant upon this subject And the truth is unless the Law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Iesus set in with it to free us from the power of sin and to prepare us for death This wil 〈◊〉 prove to some a◠present an Object to provoke their contempt and hereafter a Witness to aggravate their impenitency However I resist not its going forth so our Lord may in any sort serve himself therewith Any of his find any sweetness or helpfulness in it My great observance towards your self be attested by it and the lustre of her Name and Memory not darkened from it Who really was and universally was known to be one of the chiefest Ornaments of her Sex in this Nation Sir You have it now not onely under my hand but before many Witnesses that I am SIR Your affectionate Servant to love and honor your Person Graces and Virtues T. H. Dunstans in the East this 16th of 12th Mo. 1654. Old Jacobs account cast up and owned by one of his Seed a young Lady c. GEN 47.9 Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been and have not attained unto the days of the yeers of the life of my Fathers in the days of their Pilgrimage THese are the words of the Patriarch Jacob and with what evidence of truth might that Daughter of Abraham whose Exequies we now celebrate stand up and say them after him Few and evil have the days of the yeers of my life been c. Yea excepting the number of his yeers in that indeed more happy then he I think we may all repeat them after him as will better appear in the sequel A subject not unseasonable for our thoughts at any time for our whole life should be as Philosophers could say a continual meditation of death much less then unseasonable when God doth offer unto us either in our selves or others about us some eminent occasions and provocations to such meditations The words do present unto your consideration our common condition and we may resolve them into these three Propositions or Conclusions 1. Our life here is but a Pilgrimage 2. The days of this our Pilgrimage are but few 3. These few days of our Pilgrimage are evil To begin with the first of these from the last word in the Text Our life here is but a Pilgrimage this was shaddowed out in the continuall flitings of the Patriarchs they dwelt but in Tents and Tabernacles and did never stick to confess that they were but Pilgrimes and strangers upon earth as the Holy Ghost bears them witnesse Heb. 11.13 Aye they might well say so may some think for they had not yet obtained the Land of promise but was it so afterwards yes mark what David says when he was King of the Country King I say of that country in comparison of whose Inhabitants al Nations besides were strangers and that not then when he was out-lawed by Absalom and went weeping up the Mount of Olives but in the time of his solemn joy and festivity when his Son Solomon was installed as his successor 1 Chron. 29.14.15 All things saith he come of thee and of thine own have we given thee for we are strangers before thee and Sojourners as were all our fore-Fathers And therefore he calls the Church a Tabernacle Psal. 15.1 Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle And Peter the time of our life a being in this Tabernacle 2. Pet. 1.13 Our Lord Jesus whose members we are was born in an Inn a lodging for strangers in his life time he had not a house where to lay his head and when he was dead he was buried in another mans Sepulchre and the price of his blood did buy a field for the burial of strangers nor were these onely strangers in Israel for we may all subscribe in the same schedule every man is an Hebrew a Passenger a Gersham a stranger in the Land Hebraei i.e. transitores from Gnabar migrare And no marvel for while we are here we are absent from our Fathers hous whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord 2 Cor. 5.6 and from the best of our friends our elder brother Christ Jesus and all our fellow brethren the glorified Saints and Angels we are absent from our own home our house is in Heaven When this Earthly Tabernacle is dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands Eternal in the Heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 Houses indeed we have here as Foxes have their holes and Birds their nests and Bees their hives to be chased and driven from them but here we have no continuing City In my Fathers House saith Christ are many Mansions or settled dwellings there must be our abode that 's our long home Beth Gnolam our house of Eternity and there lyes our means that Inheritance that fades not away is reserved for us in the Heavens Nany profitable instructions we learn from hence As Use 1. Not to seek great things for our selves 't is the same Use that God by Jeremy makes upon the like occasion Jer. 45.4.5 saith he to Barach I will break down and pluck up this whole Land it shall be given up into the hands of strangers thou must but Sojourn a while in it and seekest thou great things for thy self seek them not Travellers do not seek for honours and offices in the way as they go all their care is how they may pass well and quietly on they do not look over every Pale nor step aside into every corn field when as they have enough at home if we have but as much as will bear our charges by the way as will carry us to our journeys end we need not care much or if they do traffique buy or sell in the way it is but for some Viands some necessaries in the way or to advance their estate at home We who are Citizens of another corporation must meddle no more with the world then needs must if we have any thing to do with it it must be to get some competent provision for the way or to make us a fairer and surer estate in our Country to further
all Those Sacred Similes that speak mans fall His life is likened to a Vapour vain To Shepherds Booth soon up and down again To flying shadows To a fading flower Grows up is green pluck't withered in an hour To dreams i th' morning ended ere begun To a short stories Race that 's quickly run To Dust that 's blown away with every blast To Wind that goes and comes no more in hast To Weavers Shuttle moving fast away To flying Eagles hasting to the prey To the swift sayling Ships that hasten most To the swift riding of a winged Post All these made good in one so justly dear May fill Survivors hearts with care and Fear To her worthy Husband Y' have lost your softest sweetest half a part Is rent from off that Cawl that hides your heart How great 's your loss You but begun to know What you to God for such a Mate did owe The Throne of Beauty seated in her Face Loves Loadstone in her pure and peerless grace A Soul so full of that diviner flame Of love next God to you Oh love her Name Her name and memory And love the Lord Who once though but a while was pleas'd t' afford And lend you such a Jewel but few such Do shine on Earth all th' earth will say as much And now She shines above behold her there By Faith and follow her up to that Sphaere Where centred both in him whom we adore You 'le meet e're long neer to be parted more To her Noble Parents Y' have lost part of your selves a Child a Friend The seed of fairest hopes which might extend To after times in her your selves set forth In a new Volume the same Grace and worth Might to the world and Saints have lived still When Heaven your souls and earth your bodies fil But why do thoughts 'gainst him arise and mount Who of his matters giveth no account Death like the Serpent's dieted and must Meddle no further onely feed on dust And give up that at last as he that 's bold To chop up morsels too too hot to hold That part which you were Organs to convey Shall be restored in that glorious day To her Brethren and onely Sister Y' have lost your selves repeated and no less A loss then of a Glass wherein to dress Your souls you still might learn a staff a stay She might have proov'd to you another day Y' have lost a Right hand and a Non-such friend When once your precious Parents days shall end Strive to make up this Breach Strive to exceed Excel your selves in every worthy Deed Resemble her that 's gone pray to inherit A double portion of your Sisters Spirit Sic deflevit Hodieque deflet Thomas Harison In Excellentissimam Charissimam Dom. Susannam Reynolds Sic Flevit H. P. HEr matchless worth had I not known My rustick Reed had never blown But cause I knew this Phenix well My Tit-mouse joyns with Philomel And though unskil'd in Sol Fa Re Can bear a part in Lachrimae The little Spanlet of her life She past a Child a Maid a Wife The first was such a lovely story Her Parents had that joy that glory So sweet it was that they can tell Obedience beyond Paralel She could subscribe with guileless breath Obedient Daughter unto death There needed not a Fathers frown Or Mothers lowrings to take down An awless Spirit where an eye Or hint commanded Loyalty Deer heart so anxious to obey She grew all duty as some say She carryed duty or it her Unto the Grave if I don't erre A Virgin so unsoild so chast That to bee a Wife she made no hast Such vertue lay in Beauty hid That all absurd attempts forbid Honour and Greatness came a wooing And Riches offer'd to be dooing But in her bosome find's no place It was so taken up with Grace Curled Locks and powdered Loyns The Votaries to Beauties shrines Painted Puppets and fine things Like men with Watches and with Rings Presenting Love in Ryme and Prose Were answered I will none of those Unless I meant to see some feats Playd by Baboons or Marmosets At length her Nobler thoughts she plac'd On one whom Heaven and Earth had grac'd But how like to a Rock she stood 'gainst Waves and Seas to make vows good And how through thick thin hot and cold She travel'd and through ways untold And how her worth did swim above Frowns and disdains to answer love Yea how withal she did contest To gain a long'd for short-liv'd rest Must be the work of a Steel'd Pen I can but weep it ore agen A Wife she is Oh give me back That word agen though words I lack To tell how good she was and yet Whether a Wife I ev'n forget For ere the Sun had run its round Nor Child nor Maid nor Wife was found But dainty Dust layd up in Clay Onely Deer Shade this must I say Religion and not Phancical Prudence and meekness not formal And faithfulness without deceit A spirit most humble and as great Birth worth and sweetness met in thee All strove for place yet all agree But what of these Alas she dies Let other Muses write mine cries For sorrows tears drop not from Pens blest Sue But hearts and eyes Adew adew adew H. P. In Conjugalem Amicitiam JOHANNIS REYNOLDS SVSANNAE REYNOLDS I Ask no Muse's help to write Nor yet of Venus flame or light My Fancie's mov'd by Nobler love Such as virtuous minds approve Beauties fair colour and its Shape Is Natures gift or Natures Ape By love which of two Souls made one Two Spirits composition And Friendships Sacred Bond so knit Death's Sword alone could severe it Pythagoras and Plato may Of Scepticks eas'ly gain the day Old Poets some blind Prophets call Since love 's become Ethereall Our Gospel ground-work and no less Then hearts enjoyments as we guess More of Souls love I can't reherse In tear's Floud ends my Swan-like Verse In obitum Susanna Piissimae Sponsae magnanimi illius Renoldi Exercitûs imperialis Commissarii publici Sic allocutus est conjux QUo cuis unfaelix nunquam sat flebile fatum Non mala sat sentis nisi sis sub pondere stratus Connubiine diem celer es celebrare reversum Festinant nimium dicis tua carbasa ventis En quid habet thalamus Lectum mors occupat atra Quid facis ah Fatum Cujus praecordia rumpis Clepsydra quid properas graciles diffundere arenas Quid peragis viduum gaza de ludere mundum Te nihil attonuit qui tantis emicat ignis Ingenii radiis Te nil tot fulgura mentis Nil pietas nil cara fides nil inclyta virtus Eximius candor nil nobilitasque parentam Suadet ut infaustum poteris divertere telum Parcarum quid sunt nisi nomina vana recenses Parcere quae nostrae nondum didicere Renoldae Si pietatis opus Si quid pia numina Spectant Omnia circumstant Nec desunt
semina vitae Ne scia solae ne cis quae Sanctâ pascitur aurâ Possumus interne nullum mortale videre Sed quod ad huc maneat post vani tempora mundi Creditur aeternii hominem vixisse diebus Si deerant maculae Quae sunt hôc pectore mendae Pulchra Venus naeros circumtulit Inclyta nullas Continet Haec sorces animo ut sic corpore pura Mors injussa venis non est tibi lata potestas Ut sponsa dirimas In me convertito telum Quid facii ah jaculi fi sit mea pectora tentet Adsum qui morior me me tua spicula sternant Siccine faeminio gaudes vicisse triumpho Siccine deliciam nostri prosternis amoris Viscera quid solitas servatis corpore fedes Turgida quid fugiunt cordis ligamina ruptum Quid rutilas ocule extinguatur luminis ictus Vel si gratus eris Domino sis fletibus aptas Vivere quid valeat pereunt cum gaudia vitae Vita corona decus summi quoque gloria vote Interit Ah! possis non atque marite perire Et juvat possum poteris nec morte revelli Te sequar ô conjux tumulo tumulabimur uno Et quae vita negat tumulo solatia carpam Dixit innexis haerens cervice lacertis Jam moriturus erat dilapsum luctibus istis Sustentat sponsae Genius Charissime dicit Salve qualis amor dolor aut quoe gratia rara Impulit ut scociam me sub discrimine tanto Queras ah conjux tua sum tua dicar oportet Exanimata licet Te per lata oequora actum Quaesivi cupiens junctissima junctior esse Oraque nostra tuum frustra clamantia nomen Implerun gemitus Quorum suspiria corpus Orbarunt animâ Christi quae brachia versus Tendit cui solo sis conjux chare secundus Cujus ob amplexus sperno tot gaudia terrae Ipse mihi Sponsus propero Mi Chare valeto Terrea terrenis liceant magnalia capto Surge age da plausus lugubres exue vestes Die Caelis Christum Terris me habuisse Renoldum Hoc juvat Angelici resonent connubia caetus Jo Christe veni decoratum suscipe sponsm Laeta dies Jani terrâ caelisque benigna Postera me terris junxitque novissimae caelis Postera erat faelix bao sed faelicior istâ Talia fata fugit Sed non revocanda vocatur Sponsa mane Sponsumque tuum laeto ore saluta Quae servare potes num Tu cruciabis amantem Plura dolor prohibet Sed junctis corpore pennis Illa fugit Christi tenerisque amplectitur ulnis Quae discessa tegit maesto velamine vultus Cordaque tantorum quorum sit digna parentum Quae libet haud potuit miseros mens discere luctus Et patris matrisque suae fratrumque sororis Conjugis at fixum remanet sub pectore vulnus Formam quod violat maciemque in corpore fecit Nec studiosus amor fuit hic de more parentum Si quis enim reliquus tanti sit digna doloris Sic quoties ponto properat Sol lucidous alto Discessu fuscum Nox induit atra colorem Sed valeant planctus valeant suspiri◠nosmet Dilecta propere Satagamus jungere Christo Sub umbrâ conjugis pientissimi Sic flevit J. M Epitaphium Vivere non volui Potui nec fata subire Me trahit hinc sponsus me trahit inde Deus Est Mihi sponsus amans mihi sunt charique parentes Omnibus at melior Tu mihi Christe veni A Funeral Elogie on the death of his Dear Sister Mrs. Susanna Reynolds WHat meant your dim ey'd Moralists to praise The home-spun virtues of their former days Or what vain Poets when they Deifie Their gay clothed Nature with Eternity Had they but seen thy life and fall They 'd burn their Books and turn Atheistical Away Bablers here you all may see Your Goddesse stained with Mortality Here 's Constance Prudence every Deity Enthrald by death as much as Piety Here 's Greatness Goodness or what ere you term Your Summum B 〈◊〉 num found to be infirm Your active virtues in its operation Hath found an exile by Imposthumation Nay more here 's Heaven joy and Earths delight Robb'd of her being stole away by night O Covetons Jales thus to impropriate The worlds treasure to your own estate Stand off prophaner Orgies wee l lament Our saddest loss in love call'd penitent Since that our joy center'd in one Our loss admits no consolation Yet glorious is that Loadstone sweet that love That thus extracts her soul for joys above Unhallowed conversations disagree With her whose Element is Piety If that an Inquest on her lives accompt Had but been made you might have found her moun Each day degrees first in affectation And then in a spiritual conversation Long since she was above and now shee 's gon To take compleat possession Not that she wanted here blind fortune nere Was more propicious to the worlds Heir To say shee 's blest is vain t is but to croud Her vast enjoyments in a breathed Cloud Thus weak ey'd Mortals cannot well descry In bodies chain'd her state and gallantry Yet if the curious fancy dives to know Her further Bliss then let him go For only vision can describe the story Of her Immence Eternal weight and glory Yet whilest we see what she contem'd we guess Her portions great that counted this the less She to Christ Coll's gon where Saints commerse Where Christ such blest souls take sweet convers. Whose thred of life Nature so finely spun It burst asunder whilst the Glass did run Sic flevit Hen. Milden A sad Memorial on the much lamented death of the Right Virtuous Lady SVSANNA REYNOLDS Wife to the Honourable minded Commander Com. Gen. REYNOLDS who exchanged her frailty for a Crown of Immortality Anno 1654. JAM CHRISTI SPONSA PHOENIX MORIENDO REVIVISCIT HEnce true Adorements let Us see no more Of Mortal favours set upon your Score Droop droop Spectators Canopy each face While Tears like Floods run their Curranto race If that you did but rightly understand This losse of losses you would straight command If that it lay within your reach that all That Virtue does bestow might have a fall Had we not better see that Precious Gold No sooner kept but quickly turn'd to Mold Alasse we Mortals like the Flower are tost No sooner blown upon but we are lost It is no wonder nor admir't as strange That Sublunary things must have a change Observ't that fatal death strikes at the best And Goodnesse here can never be at rest Whilest Rarenesse strives for to preserve it self Leaves Us at losse and gains it self by stealth And which is most belov'd doth glide away And turn our joys into a mournfull day Now speak your Minds freely can you not weep This losse wil make a Heart of Stone to break Could greater Virtue have sustain'd suspence By gashly Deaths overture and