A SERMON PREACHED AT WALDEN in ESSEX May 29th AT THE INTERRING of the Corps of the right HONORABLE SUSANNA Countesse of SUFFOLKE Being a modest and short Narration of some remarkable passages in the holy life and death of that memorable LADY Who dyed May 19th 1649. By EDW RAINBOWE D. D. Hier Ep ad Marcellam In optimis praedicandis bonorum ad virtutem Studia concitentur London Printed by W. Wilson for Gabriell Bedell M. M. and T. C. and are to be sold at their shop at the Middle Temple Gate 1649. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JAMES Earle of SVFFOLKE My Lord THat I have not paid a more speedy obedience to your Lodships Commands and the admonitions of some of my worthiest friends in making publick these following conceptions proceeded from no other reason than that in my more deliberate review I thought it some injury to her high deserts to have expressed so little where with truth and evidence so much might have been asserted It had been a taske not lesse pleasing to my self and more satisfactory to all that knew her to have pend an History rather than a Sermon and if a happier pen had undertaken this subject the story of her life might prove a most perswasive Orator for goodnesse and piety the highest effects of Sermons But considering the place where I was no make this discourse I could not otherwise contrive but that what could be spoken in the praise of so incomperable a Lady must hold small proportion with what must be supprest in silence and because I would be true to the Title I have made no addition nor considerable alteration That the Image of her Virtues may finde a place in your Lordships memory and may live in your daily imitation and of all who shall see some glimpses of it in this unartificiall but faithfull representation to the glory of him whose Image she bore is the fervent prayer of Your Lordships most humbly devoted servant EDW RAINDOWE Audley-End Sept. 11. 1649. ECCLES 7. 1. A good name is better than Precious Oyntment and the Day of Death than the Day of ones Birth THe Text needs no preface the sad occasion of our present meeting our last duty to a deceased Lady in whose grave Honour Vertue Goodnesse Grace a rare measure of humane perfections seeme to be interred this sets a black and mournfull Preface before the Text. But comfort ye beloved the occasion indeed is a sad Preface to the Text but the Text may afford a comfortable theme and argument unto the occasion I come not here to afflict you altogether from the memory of your sinnes which now bid you weep over her grave but also to afford some comfort from the sence of her happiness and to desire you to take some pleasure in her fame and memory The text and the occasion mingled together make a chequer-worke a mixture of black and white mourning and joy when we present to your imaginations how Precious a Vessell of Oyntment is this day broken and that the Day of Death hath seized on her who can blame our griefe But if we will consider that by breaking this boxe of Spiknard her Good name which is better than precious oyntment is powred forth and makes a sweet fragrancy in the world and that to those who dye in the Lord and with such a Good Name the Day of Death is better than the Day of their Birth surely then we will not grieve as without Hope That I may therfore gain some alacrity from your Attentions and Vigour to mine own Spirit let me intreat you to take your eyes a while from the occasion from her Herse and look upon the text and the consolation which is afforded in it A Good Name c. The words contain a twofold comparison of two kinds of Blessings and he that pronounced the sentence was the fittest man that ever lived to be an Arbitrator Solomon the wise and the happy a King whos 's both hands God had filled with blessings of every kind and having a heart as large as the Sea-shore and wisedom to discern having gained abundance to his hearts desire and his knowledge being master over all things small and great low and tall from the Hysop which groweth upon the wall to the Highest Cedar he stands here in this text as it were with the scales in his hand and having before in the foregoing chapters thrown out of the Balance all that Dross and froth of the world Vain Desires Riches Pleasures Labours I say having found these to be vanity it selfe or lighter than vanity and cast them out of the comparison having by many negatives excluded what is not what cannot make up Happinass whatsoever the blind unequall world may judge he now comes to be positive and to let us see that there is a Happinesse belongs to Man and further proceedes to shew wherein it consists and in what degrees and first begins with the means to it the first of which he counts to be a Good name And here not changing the way and method of his arguing by way of comparison proving the excellency of that which hee commends by shewing that it weighs downe in the Balance and is better than those things wherin men are wont to place most excellency he thus argues A good name is good for it is better than Precious Oyntment and the Day of Death for that is better than the Day of ones Birth So that in the words you finde a twofold comparison the first betwixt a Good Name and Pretious Oyntment that is Riches and Delights the second betwixt Life and Death the coming into this world and by a Syllepsis the living in it and betwixt the departing from this world and the going out of it Solomon gives not the verdict as perchance the world would give it A Good name in his Balance weigh's downe Delights and Pleasures to shake hands with this temporall life in his esteeme is better than to imbrace it Before I weigh these together let me first shew you those commodities distinctly and severally after that we shall more clearly make good the difference and the excellency by comparing them together First let me shew you what a Good Name is and how weighty a blessing Secondly Precious Oyntment or costly delights how light they are Thirdly present them together to be weighed For the second comparison of Life and Death which I take chifely to be an explication of the former an addition of more weight to that scale of the Balance wherein a Good Name is placed I shall first speake of it so that is relatively as it serves to inhance a Good Name Secondly Absolutely as it is a true assertion in it selfe that the Day of Death is better than the Day of ones Birth or living in the world And then in the last place I shall endeavour to apply it to our selves and the present occasion For the first take notice that a Good Name although it be grounded upon some
Pleasure will soon pass but the ill will stick as an indelible character the guilt and the stain will never off in this life no nor in the other bad deeds will haunt our Ghosts We are thy works and will follow thee But I will not spend time in comparing these together there is so visible a disparity and distance we need not weigh them every one who hath any Christian discretion can judge by the eye or the hand which is most weighty Bodily Outward Temporall Delights or a Good Name gained from Vertue Faith Godliness for so I take it for the Christians Good Name fundamentally grounded on true Desert not for the vain Applause of Men who as often call Evill Good as Goodness it self That shall suffice in brief to have touched upon the first comparison A Good Name namely the true and sound name of Faith and Holiness Now I come to the second betwixt being born or betwixt the state of this life and that which we are put into by Death The Day of Death is better than the Day of ones Birth And these words I take as depending upon and connected to the former that the sence may be this A good Name is better than Precious Oyntment and to him that hath obtained this Good Name deservedly for so we suppose it else it is not Radically Good the Day of his Death is better than the Day of his Birth The truth of the comparison appears therfore first in this relative sense although secondly it be absolutely true also That the Day of Death is better than the Day of Birth But first in relation to a Good Name and that first in regard of the time and season for the production of it Death is the proper season for a Good Name after life enters in nature after Birth the first thing we commonly think of is a Name to give a Name to him that is born so after Death the first thing men say or do is to give a Name to the Party deceased but that after birth was a Name of civill Distinction this a Name of Morall or Religious difference that was a Name and no more this a Name with an adjunct Good or Bad At Circumcision the Jewes at Baptisme the Christians give proper Names so after Death men obtain proper Names according to their deserts we call that their Christian Name but this indeed ought most properly so to be called if so deserved at Death we may know on whom most properly to fasten the Christian Name the Name of true Christian Israelite indeed Circumcision in the flesh followed Nativity and Christian Name as we call it by receiving into the outward bosome of the Church but after Death you many times discover there was Circumcision in the heart that he was a Christian by the inward Baptisme of the Spirit and not in the Letter whose praise is not of Men but of God Secondly as Death is the proper season for the essence of a Good Name so for the certainty of it Men may make a fair shew all their life and may deserve well but all is well that ends well Who can tell whether a bright day may not set in a Cloudy or Rainy Evening Mors sola fatetur Death only can tell the measure of a Good Name reach to the End of it all other things Opinions hopes Confidences may go a great way but they may come short nothing but Death puts out of doubt when that hath set the seal to a Good Name all is finished So that now you see the dependence of these two comparisons why King Solomon joyns these two together a Good Name Death Oyntment and Birth A Good Name is better than all outward Delights if Death gives the casting voyce set the seal to it and the Day of Death better than the Day of Birth because it gives the being and certainty to a Good Name a Name with an adjunct an Epithet or Title of Honour Life gives a bare name only and no more I could now by plentifull proofs shew you that the Day of Death in an absolute sence is better than the Day of ones Birth or the time of Life If I would set before you the infirmities which we bring into this world the frailties and dangers the diseases the miseries the sins that pursue us overtake us go along with us dwell with us in us whilst we have our dwelling in these houses of flesh these habitations of Clay Beloved though I be silent the tragicall times the fears even of worse the calamities of the Church of God in all places your own eyes and senses what you see at home what you hear abroad what this Coffin tels you what you feel within you what worse you may justly fear are sufficient witnesses that this life hath little of true worth and happiness to support it others may weep when we go out of the world ourselves have more reason and so they say Nature hath taught us to weep when we come in That then which relieves us that resques us from those enimies that surround us that takes away want finishes misery and ceases the raign of sin if we did not arrive at a positive happiness but if all were terminated in deliverance from these and then we had no more being at all but were to be wrapt up in our first nothing yet certainly this very deliverance from misery and torment might be a happiness and that accounted happy that brings it This at least the Day of Death brings forth it changeth us from a state of sin and wretohedness and in this very regard it 's to be preferr'd to a life which chains us up in both But that is not all it s not only privative but positive where it sees the seal of a Good Name set upon any it opens the Door it sets open the everlasting Gate of Happiness whosoever hath that Name engraven on his forehead that Good Name that New Name from his being a New Creature for being in Christ that hath such a Name as God vouchsafes to write in his Book the Book of Life the Day of Death to such an one is the morning of blessedness which never shall have an evening it is not possible to compare it it 's not proportionable to enter comparison here betwixt the Day of Naturall Birth and Death which is their Birth Day to Eternity Thus you have briefly seen what a Good Name is and whereon grounded and the weight of it Precious Oyntments also Pleasures and Delights the lightness of them in comparison You have seen that the Day of Death is a proper season when a Good Name buds forth flourishes and is ascertain'd and that therefore it is better for those who have that Name than the Day of their Naturall Birth likewise that the Day of Death is to be preferred to the Day of Birth because it puts an end to sin and misery which that begins and is the way to Happiness What now remains
miserable hath I dare say much increased the true tears which have this day fallen none understood relations none could possibly observe them better than she I appeal to Husband Parents Kindred Friends Servants Neighbours to witness this truth I would not inlarge on these which seem to be but Morall Virtues if they had been indeed no more but meer Morality but I am assured they flowed from a gracious disposition in her they were the streams from Jordane the Laver of Regeneration and we may well baptize them Christian Virtues in her For it is well known that all her actions which deliberation did give birth unto she did them out of a Conscience of duty and as in the Sight of God Hence was that Holy Fortitude and Boldness for Truth for which she durst be Valiant she would suffer any inconvenience rather than she would tell an Vntruth or make an Excuse or let any of her Servants do it or by any Equivocation deceive or elude a question For this have I known her much afflicted when she had business especially her Religious Tasks how to shun company and shun a Lye that she might not be found out but any Rock would she venture upon rather than an Vntruth and indeed it is to be doubted that the not fearing to split against this hath made many make Shipwracke of Faith and a good Conscience Her Charity I need not speak of the tongues of the Poor and Distressed whom her pitifull heart hath often relieved may save me that labour and now she is gon shall cry it at your doors and in your street if they be not starved in their houses from which I can averre she hath kept some Families although their relieved bowells made it divulged not the least ostentation in her Indeed she was made up of Christian kindness and Pity and though I told you she was a Perfect Governess of her Passions yet her Compassion alwayes governed her nor did I ever know her shut her hand when any in want opened their mouth for an Alms she could not excuse her self by sometimes having no money about her if any of her attendants had they were sure to be Almoners But her high-way Charity was not the tithe of what she gave they need not come to her to ask but Clothing and Food and Physick and other Comforts were sent to their habitations that had any nay and these provided also for some who must otherwise have lyen without doors and her self a frequent Visitour to be truly informed of their persons and condition But what do I speak of her Charity to the Bodies of the Poor she had a Way of relieving the Souls of all by her daily Alms of Prayers offered up by her Instructions where she found the Ignorant by her Counsells to the Doubting and Scrupulous How hath she been moved to see some Wretches by distraction deprived of their Reason how she would inquire after the known and secret causes of such Distempers and cast about to have some Cure if possible I am sure she hath spoke and wrote and travell'd for one well known in this place whom it pleased God to let fall into that to be lamented condition But still she had more kindes of Charity than I have named one was in forgiving Injuries which might be by mistakes perchance but if wilfullly or maliciously cast upon her it was the same thing indeed the same Nothing in her account or Memory I told you of her Memory how Tenacious it was but truly if it were to lay up an ill Turn it had no hold at all Benefits and Good Turns Good Deeds and good sayings were ingraven in her heart as if written in Adamant never to be blotted out Offences and Injuries never came near it her Memory was Water to them even the water of Lethe which makes forget all things all things of that nature I am sure were soon forgot by her An Vnkindness indeed for the time might make a deep impression a great wound in her heart where all things were so contrary to it so made up of Kindness Pity and Charity so that it could never beget another the like unkindness there A further kind of Charity was that which the Apostle speaks of indeed as a fruit of the same true Christian Charity that it thinketh none evill 1 Cor. 13. 5. She was in so perfect Charity with all conditions of men that in these boysterous times where difference in opinion either in civill affairs or points of Religion hath bred so much ill blood or indeed shed so much blood both Good and Ill if she chanced to converse with such from whom her judgment differd in every kind and did hear them make serious professions that they practised according to that light which was in their understanding although she could never be won in the least degree to approve of their erroneous opinions yet she hath been in perfect Charity and would not shun conversation with their persons if any relation required it believing they could not be so wicked as to dissemble in their Professions but pitied them for being delivered up and prayd to deliver them from the Spirit of Error Lastly for it is an hard matter for those who knew her Charity to be brief in relating that wherein she was so copious in dispensing yet if you would Know hers and the effects of it in their full Latitude I beseech you read it in that Chapter of Charity 1 Cor. 13. which she seemed by her practice to have learned by heart again and again Hoping all things believing all things enduring all things And yet she had one further effect of her Charity which I find not there and that was a burning Desire for the Salvation of every mans soul Ally or Stranger Friend or Foe how fervent and earnest she was a little before her death for the Salvation of some within her Family even of her servants her most zealous prayer testified Tell her of slaughter or the violent or sudden Death of any how her heart would shrink within her and commonly the first question was how was he Prepared for his Soul I could fill the world with instances of this kind but I forbear I could now speak of the lively Signes of her Faith and Hope by which her Soul mounted even into the Bosome of Christ above all fears and griefs which these Times brought thick upon her Fear indeed if it came suddenly would a little surprize her an incidency to that Sex and the tenderness of her nature but assoon would she recollect her self and by reason and religious arguments dispell all carnall fears So did her Grief yield to Faith and Patience and the Comforts which she could fetch readily out of Gods Storehouse and pertinently for her present malady and the cure of it When her first-born Son her then only Child had the pangs of death upon him she after prayers and tears sat very disconsolate and when at the report of
evening it was discovered that it was no living Child of which she labour'd but of that which in the Judgement of all about her must within a few hours or days at most make her a dead woman She soon apprehended their fears and earnestly beg'd now as she did at all times that she might be plainly dealt with concerning her condition for Life or Death which she would in no Case indure to be dissembled to her or concealed from her her friends did observe her desire and confessed their hopes of Life to be small or not any but desired her to submit to Gods will in her dissolution How would you now imagine she received the Sentence of Death with Frights or Fears or Sorrow and Grief to part with the world and her dear Relations in it Truly with a very contrary guise She sent for those who nearliest related to her and her Kindred and Friends and composing her coutenance and gesture to the most Majestick and undejected Gravity that I ever beheld She fell to taking leave bequeathing not her worldly affairs but spirituall Comforts her fervent Prayers Divine Blessings her Weighty Counsells and Admonitions fitted particularly and made proper to every one to whom she gave her heavenly Legacies especially to her Lord her Children her Allies and Servants and all were such as might tend to direct them in wayes of well-doing by which they might through Christs merits meet again in Glory But all this with such Affection such Zeal such Courage such Demonstration of Faith and Assurance of her going now from Pain and Misery to Joyes unspeakable that the image of that day and her aspect shall never depart out of the memory of some who beheld it If you had seen her on her then supposed death-bed you would have thought of Moses on Pisgah or Jacob on his death-bed dividing his blessings of dying Joshua or of David or the best composed Saints To see her dearest Pledges and Relations Friends and Servants standing by flowing with Tears and Lamentations and her self stedfast and unconcern'd Counselling Comforting Blessing them with her last breath as she and they believed it made an appearance as if all they had been the Parties which must dy and she only to give them Christian advice to susser death with Patience as if she had been in perfect health they in present danger of Death such was her Assurance and Joy from the Holy Ghost as if she had begun to tast Eternity and the happiness of that life in the very tidings of Death Her Legacy left to her two dear Children was her desire to her Lord that whatsoever provision he should make for their outward condition of which she was neither distrustfull nor yet solicitous but fervently she besought him that they might be brought up in the strictest way of Religion and Life even in that strictness of life which the world might count Puritanisme The strictest wayes were alwayes accounted best for her own self in her life and now at her Death she bore witness to them and commended them to the Dearest Pledges of her Love After she spent her time in declaring the Assiance she had on the Merits and the Assurance she had on the Love of Christ She did not conceal also how she had wrestled with Doubtings and did propound the greatest Scruple which lay upon her Conscience for the sincerity of her Repentance She spake of the Comfort she had at her last receiving the Sacrament she confest indeed that she might have soyld herself after but yet the last night she had also beg'd pardon and I was told by those that knew it that she had then been a whole houre in private upon her knees although at that time no danger of Death was feared and further professed that now nothing was a greater burthen than this that although she was Willing to Dye yet she found also a willingness in her heart to Live which she much blamed in her self Although that might proceed from the consideration of the good of those she was to Leave rather than that it was better for her to stay the same dispute which the Apostle had with himself Phil. 2. 23. To be with Christ was far better for her nevertheless to abide in the flesh was more needfull for us And so it seemed good to our heavenly Father She was born by accident six Weeks as they counted it before her time and had lived so many Moneths after her time might seem to have been expired Nature seem'd importunate to gain her into the world and as unwilling to let her depart out of it to lose one of her choycest Children It seemed good to Almighty God even to let the Sun of her Life go back some few Degrees after it seem'd to be in the very lowest point of Setting his marvellous providence pointing out such wayes and making all circumstances so concur even beyond hope whereof if any one had failed there could have been no possibility of recovery that she seem'd rather by a Divine Miracle raised from the Dead than by any humane help or hand restored from danger And indeed as the Apostle speaks Heb. 11. 35. Women received their dead raised to life again so did they then look upon this not as a Recovery but as a Resurrection And if you please reckon her Death from that very hour that she resign'd up her self to it so freely and if we look upon her walking since we may believe she was as one Dead to the world as one that was Risen with Christ and had her Conversation in Heaven intentionally her affection I am sure on things above not on things on Earth Account her now as Dead as one whose life was hid with Christ in God For shall I speak plainly she walked on Earth but she lived not after this as to her self to others indeed she did and to their especiall Comfort I have observed two or three things for which God in his providence might bestow this little time and lend her to her friends on Earth he might seem to spare her a little and give her space for these reasons The one was in mercy to her Father The other to her Dear Relations at home The third was to finish some work upon her own Soul for the good example of others her own work was done however in all these I may say she lived not to her self as in the world To her * The E. of Holland Father in his extreme affliction God made her an unexpressible Comfort I speak not in regard of any temporall things which God had determined as we now see to cut away wholy from him as to this life and all the Comforts of it which notwithstanding to procure What Pains Travail Watchings Fastings in that extreme cold season did she undergo even beyond what might be expected from her Sex but especially one of the tenderest breeding in it was very observable by all and satisfactory to him abundantly But to
precious vein in the Rich Mine of his Word This was the last continued act of Reason which she performed only when her strength was even spent she owned her Dear relations when they came unto her did let them understand she was now marryed to Christ joyn'd with most heedfull attentions in Prayer with one whom she then desired to doe that office gave signes of approbation and requested that he which poured it out on her behalf would not go out of the room after that within little more than an hour in a quiet kind of sleep the passages of life being stopped she yielded up her Spirit unto God that gave it leaving behind her the bitterest and loudest lamentations of her friends to whom she was the most desired Creature that God ever placed in their eyes and relations Thus dyed Susanna Countesse of Suffolke and thus she lived twenty two years a rare example of early and pregnant Graces And now if I have set her Image so fresh before your eyes that you make haste to meet her there with any of your tears let me as I began draw them to the Text that by the comfort of it they may be wiped away What think you now if we build her a good Name on this Foundation She hath left us all Materials What can be wanting Greatness Goodness Nature Grace Wit Memory a good Vnderstanding a gracious Heart unfeigned Faith look at the Apostles materials and see what is wanting Faith Vertue Knowledge Brotherly Kindness c. 2 Pet 1. 12. As David who had in his heart and purpose to build a Temple to God left all materials Silver and Gold and Precious Stones and the willing hearts of the People for Solomon to build a Temple out of Tryly she hath left us all the materials that may be to build a Temple of her good Name the bright Silver of her Naturall Parts and endowments the purer Gold of her Virtues and purchased habits and above all the shining Jewels of Gods Graces and Image her precious faith as the Apostle phrases it her burning Zeal fervent Charity pure Religion and undefiled She was all for Sanctuary-words Whilst she lived with those wise-hearted Women Exod. 38. that brought for the service of the Tabernacle their blue and purple and Skarlet and fine linnen and their looking-Glasses All her ornaments all her faculties and Phancies all her desires were to build up her self a Tabernacle a Temple for the service of the living God and besides blessed be God she hath left willing hearts behind her the greatest love and the greatest desire of her self that hath been heard of those that have been ready to weep out their eyes for her being dead would willingly have pluckt out their eyes as the Apostle saith to have kept her alive Seeing then Death hath broken this Alablaster Boxe of precious ointment to pour the liquor of it on her head to annoint her to her Burial and to leave a fragrancy which may fill the world with her sweet memoriall let us give her what is better than Precious ointment and what she hath deserved from us as being the gift of God to her A good Name which so often as it shall sound her memory in our ears let her virtues if their be any Virtue any Goodness any Praise come into our minds let the imitation of them be aspired after in one ardent desire that we may bless God who lent us so rich an example and may all laud and glorifie his name who hath give her such a glorious Name and us so clear an assurance that the Day of her Death was better to her than the Day of her Birth FINIS