feel the benefit and receive the comfort of them And questionlesse that peremptory promise Ioh. 20. 23. Quorumcunque peccata remiseritis whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted doe signifie much more then the bare complement of an indifferent usage and Ceremony The same day she departed which was Ianuary 26. about three a clock in the afternoon she sent for me four severall times to go to prayers with her thrice in the morning and once in the afternoon at which last time all her children one onely excepted which was not in Town were present and joyned in prayers together with us Soon after that I was called to her again to perform my last Ministeriall Office the recommendation of her soul into the hands of Almighty God and then indeed and not before her senses began to fail her and within few minutes after in much peace and sweetnesse she concluded her last breath I doe here willingly passe over many other most remarkable carriages of hers during the time of her sickness as her most Christian Charity her constant Devotion her stupendious Silence Patience even to a miracle the amazement of beholders Her perfect Weanednesse from the world her continuall thoughts and discourses of the joyes and happinesse of heaven and indeed in this latter God Almighty was exceeding gracious to her for she would often wish that if it might stand with the good will and pleasure of God as he dealt with his servant Moses and gave him a little before his death a sight and view of the land of promise so he would also some time before her departure hence vouchsafe her some sensible tastes and feelings of the joyes and happinesse of heaven And truly in this she had her request granted and God was in most signal manner as good to her as her desires for her soul was full of the glory of God and of the joyes and happinesse of heaven and she was in a manner caught up into Paradise and saw in her spirit strange sights and heard words of joy and peace not to be uttered and did sensibly feel new comforts every day breaking in fresh and more upon her soul and lived to see all her former fears vanished and doubts satisfied and objections answered and scruples resolved and hopes evidenced and in a word her whole mind most sweetly composed and settled into a heavenly posture of pious confidence and assurance so that now she had nothing left to do but to resolve with holy David Psal 4. 8. To lay her down in peace for the Lord had graciously made her to dwell in safety Accordingly a few dayes before her death she was pleased to utter her self to me in these or I am sure such like words Oh Sir what a gracious God have I how rich in his mercees towards me how favourable in his corrections of me The thing which I so greatly feared a painfull torturing death he has turned into ease and comfort And my wordly cares and thoughtfulnesse for the provision of my children he has also in great measure taken off of my hand And now what doe I lingring and tarrying here any longer all my work is done and the world has no further need of me why may I not forthwith goe to my God Is it not much better for me to be dissolved and to be with Christ These and such like heavenly sayings were her frequent and usuall discourses with me so that it was an exceeding joy and comfort to me when at any time she did send for me neither doe I know that I ever went to her and did not learn somewhat remarkable from her And indeed every speech and posture of hers was a most fruitfull Sermon to all those who had the happiness to attend about her to minister unto her did either hear the one or observe the other the one a visible Sermon of patience the other an audible Sermon of devotion But I see I am now entred into a large Field and may say with Elihu in Iob chap. 32. 18. I am full of matter and the spirit within me constraineth me And indeed I can very hardly wind my self out but I must have regard to my promise of brevity Take all therefore which I shall adde further in these few words and believe it they are not the words of vanity or flattery but of truth and soberness uttered in the fear presence of God I have in my time been with severall dying persons have seen their piety observed their patience taken speciall notice of their whole carriage and behaviour yet never in all my life did I see such an uniform Samplar of piety nor a whiter Soul return to its maker One thing was very notable and I beseech God to make us truly thankfull to him for it as being a most signall instance and evidence of his goodnesse to her and which indeed considering the condition of her disease may justly deserve the name of a miraculous mercy It was this Though her sicknesse as I said before was very painfull and grievous yet it pleased God for some dayes before her death to deliver her from any sense of pain at all so that she had her thoughts very free and at liberty and made a most Christian use and advantage of that freedome Yea when we and her self too by reason of the little rest which she took greatly feared that her sicknesse might at last grow into some kind of distemper It pleased Almighty God to secure her from that also so that she enjoyed her understanding and memory and all her senses very quick and perfect to the last even so long as she had any occasion or need to make use of them And thus have I at length given you the whole world in a Map a brief account and history of the holy Life and Death of our most excellent Lady See for all the world as she lived so she died she lived in peace and she died in peace her whole life here was as a man would say one continued act of piety and good works and as for her death that in like manner was a conclusion of most heavenly sweetnesse and comfort The Lord in mercy give us grace who survive so to frame our lives according to the example of her piety that when it shall come to our turns to die we also may share in like feelings of comfort All the farther application which I shall now make hereof is to you that are here present and particularly to those who were her dearest relations Her right Noble and Honourable Children most earnestly beseeching them to consider and call often to mind these pious Parents of theirs to endeavour to tread in their steps and to follow the example of their piety and not give themselves the liberty of committing those sins which they were so carefull to prevent or lightly neglect any of those wholsome customes practises whither in their private Closets or Families which they made
A SERMON PREACHED At the Funerall of the Right Honourable and most Excellent Lady THE LADY ELIZABETH CAPELL DOWAGER TOGETHER With some brief Memorialls of her most holy Life and Death By EDM. BARKER late Chaplain to her Honour and now Rector of Buriton in Hampshire Prov. 31. 29. Many Daughters have done virtuously but thou excellest them all Non moeremus quòd talem amisimus sed gratias agimus quòd habuimus imò habemus quidquid enim revertitur ad dominum in familiae numero computatur Hieron Epitaph Paulae LONDON Printed by I. R. for Iohn Williams at the Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1661. To the Right Honourable and truly Noble ARTHUR LORD CAPELL Baron of Hadham My Lord THis short discourse being at first conceived and formed by your L ps special command and afterwards enlivened and quickened by your noble and gracious acceptance is since grown bold to beg a further Boon of your Honour which is that under the Sanctuary of your Name and Patronage it may walk a little abroad and visit the Neighbour-hood Indeed I can discover nothing in it which I can warrantably and with confidence conceive worthy your Noble eyes save onely the necessary justice and gratitude of my design therein viz. to pay all dutifull respects and Honours to the precious Memory of the Best of Ladies to burn a little Incense before her Shrine And though I am very sensible what great difficulties I am to encounter with for the fame of her great worth has long since spread it self far near and the world does every where ring of her piety and her example is solemnly propounded and quoted by those who are desirous of the Best things and would fain improve into Excellent and peoples expectations do begin to swell and grow big hereupon and will not easily be put off with a sparing and slender report where so much in truth may and in justice ought to be spoken Yet am I notwithstanding no whit discouraged at all this but am resolved to go on howsoever to make up such an Offering as I am able my two small mites and a little Goats hair having an Heart large and willing enough to offer with the freest had I but wherewithall And besides I must not deny it that I my self also am a man subject to like incidencies of grief and sorrow of passion and sadness in common with other people neither indeed as yet have I throughly recovered the free command and use of my Parts nor perfectly wrought my spirit out of those huge discomposures and indispositions which the apprehension and remembrance of so signal a loss did at first cause in me yea and to this very day the wound continues bleeding a fresh upon every uncovering of it so that if either my expressions be disturbed or language indigested or stile not so even methodical as is fit it should rather move resentments of Pitie and Pardon in the Reader then expressions of Censure and Anger and especially there where the mind which should prevent and rectifie all these transgressions is it self so much out of Order Howbeit my Lord if you shall but please to smile Graciously upon this poor and little Oblation which I here humbly cast at your Lordship's feet I shall the less value the report and censure of the World as having in some measure fulfilled and observed your Lp' s commands which were to preach a Sermon and that you know is confined to Minutes and Houre-glasses and not to write a full and complete history of all the virtuous Acts and Merits of this most excellent Lady And yet neither have I been wholly wanting in this latter for though I have not indeed spoken of Her what either in justice I ought or of my own knowledge and Observation I might in Truth have said yet have I said so much as will I fear me put the greatest part of the World to the blush and I hope too provoke an holy Zeal and Emulation in all And now my Lord give me leave to beseech you to reflect a little upon the great advantages of your Relation You are Heir to a Blessed Martyr and the Eldest Son of a most Excellent Mother so that Honour and Nobility and Worth and Piety are in a manner intailed upon you and you do derive them and claim them as it were by inheritance and this must needs doubtless provoke very great Emulations and continue most earnest desires and endeavours in you to resemble and be as like these two Excellent Parents of yours as may be And blessed be GOD for it you have in great measure attained to their perfections already and those people who knowing you do not take notice of your singular Temperance and Sobriety your rare Humility and Condescention your exceeding Courtesie and Affability are either wilfully blind or worse And though I know your great Modestie doth not love to be told of your Virtues but had rather do things Noble and Excellent then hear talk of them Yet herein do I humbly beg your pardon if I tell the World of one it was so eminent and remarkable in you and gave such perfect content and satisfaction to your dear Mother and That was your signal dutifulness and complyance with every request and command of Hers in the time of Her sickness and since that too your most exact and punctual observation of Her last Will and Testament hitherto even to the smallest tittles and minutes And doubtless you have taken the right course to secure a blessing to your self and family for GOD Almighty who is so particularly mindfull of our lesser Charities and payes us still present money for every cup of cold water given in his name will not questionless be forgetfull of such signal returns demonstrations of filial Duty and Obedience but will in his time and manner abundantly reward them and recompence them And besides you have the first Commandement with promise as the Apostle calls it for your security and you may confidently build upon it and conclude and argue from it And therefore my Lord go on still in these pious and noble resolutions and recover every day more and more of the likeness and resemblance of your Parents and May the Blessings of Heaven continually descend on you and attend you both in your Person Relations and May there never want one of your Name and if it be the will of GOD out of your own Loins too to keep up perpetuate to the World's end The Renowned Memory of your famous Progenitours which is and shall alwayes be the prayer of My Lord Your Honour 's most humble and devoted Servant BARKER Psalm 90. vers 12. So teach us to number our dayes that we may apply our hearts unto wisdome EVery Christian hath two great works to doe in the world to live well and to die well yea to live well to the end he may be sure to die well for as a holy life has evermore a
what a sad condition is this to die in and what think you shall become of us when the rich man in the Gospel was busie in building his Castles in the air and dreaming of nothing but ease and comfort and projecting years of rest and happinesse to his life he little thought I 'le warrant you of a summons the same night and that before morning his life should have an end put to it and his soul required of him And yet so you see it happened to him and who of us all know that possibly it may not be his own case Oh! how should this quicken us to continual warinesse and watchfulnesse to diligent circumspection and observation to lose as little of our time here carelesly and frivolously as may be but to be sure to throw away none of it sinfully at any rate which makes out the second application of our hearts unto wisdome consisting in Cautius vivendo in living more cautiously and warily for the time to come A third and last instance lies in sapientius providendo in providing more wisely against the day of our change when the unjust Steward in the Gospel Luke 16. understood that his Lord had a purpose to displace him and turn him out of his Stewardship see how wisely he consults and projects and casts about with himself vers 3. What shall Idoe for my Lord taketh from me the Stewardship well I am resolved what to doe yea and if you mark it too our Saviour commends this wisdome of his and chides his Disciples for their lack of like timely wisdome and prudence and why yet a little while and our reckonings also will be called for and our selves required to give in our accounts of our Stewardships and Then we must be no longer Stewards and would it not be wisdome in us timely to project and cast about with our selves and not throw all our provision upon our last minutes and have our evidences then to clear and our assurances of another life to make good when we are every moment upon leaving of this The Apostle's counsell is very safe 1 Tim. 6. 19. Laying up for your selves a good foundation against the time to come See here a good foundation that is a foundation of good works the foundation of an holy life of a pious and godly conversation So then good works they are you see in a good sense a foundation though not of faith or presumption though not a foundation either to boast off or to build upon yet a foundation to take hope and comfort in now a foundation you know is that which in great measure supports and bears up the whole building in like manner a conscience of good works it bears up Faith it bears up Hope it bears up Patience it makes joyfull and willing and comfortable in the hour of death This is our rejoycing saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 1. 12. the testimony of our conscience well but mark further laying up in store but when I trow or where why even in this life now presently out of hand it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present tense and we must not make altogether a future duty of it well but once more Laying up in store for your selves that is to your proper use and service for your own interest and advantage See what ever good works are piously laid out by us are also providently laid up for us we are the chief gainers by them and we receive the benefit and we do reap the comfort of them in a word we lay them up for our selves Well but against when do we lay them up why 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Apostle against the time to come But what time to come is this there is a two-fold time to come the one futurum mortis the time to come of our death and so good works are fundamentum solatii a foundation of joy and comfort to support and stay us to rejoyce and cheer us in that sad and melancholy hour The other is futurum judicii the time to come of the last Tribunall and Iudgement and so good works are fundamentem fiduciae a foundation of courage and confidence according to that of the Apostle 1 Iohn 2. 28. And now little children abide in him that is in your Faith in his Name in your obedience to his commands in a word in your practice of a holy life that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming But I see I must be forced to break off abruptly and conclude my discourse on this Text here And indeed I have another Text still behind to preach upon and that too given me by God Almighty The former was given by the direction of his Spirit in his holy Scriptures This latter by the wise order and disposition of his providence here exposed and presented before your eyes the former a legible this a visible Text of that I have hitherto discoursed and am coming now to speak somewhat of this also A Text affording much plenty and variety of seasonable matter both for the more vigorous quickning of your affections for the present and also for the future example of your piety Like a well kept Garden here is choice of sweet flowers but no weeds no beggery stuffe at all howbeit I shall be very sparing in comparison of the plentifulnesse of the subject and not take upon me to gather together all the goodly flowers which sometime grew in this pleasant Garden but present you with a small handfull onely not intending to satisfie the curiosity of craving expectations but to beget a good appetite in all and to set you alonging after more And indeed how can it otherwise be imagined that such a whole life of exemplary virtue and piety as this excellent Ladies was can be without sensible losse and injury contracted within that scant and little allowance of time which is now remaining He that covets to take up a number of scattered pieces of Gold in the hollow of his hand will go nigh to loose many some will slip through his fingers let him be never so wary however it be I shall run the adventure and chuse rather to be silently injurious to her exemplary piety which her living modesty I am sure would have pardoned then be openly too imposing upon your patience So that my work you see at present is not so properly the part of an Oratour as the office of a Notary or Remembrancer not intending to discourse over the whole story of her life at large a work for volumes and ages but as it were in characters and short hand to present you some few memorialls of her signall and incomparable piety This most excellent Lady the Lady Elisabeth Capell the solemnization of whose Funerals is the sad occasion of this dayes meeting was as to her naturall pedigree and extraction descended of the right worthy and renowned Family of the Morisins at Cashiobury in Hertfordshire One
sweet and comfortable death so on the contrary it is very rare and seldome that a wicked life makes a good and happy end And therefore Tully an heathen Oratour could call this the highest pitch and emprovement of the best wisdome To do those things living which we would desire to have done when we are to die holy Bernard seconds it with advice much to the same purpose In every action and enterprise of thy life sayes he be still saying over to thy self Si modo moriturus esses istud faceres if thou wert to die out of hand wouldst thou doe so and so And who of us all can tell that he is not modo moriturus to die soon for life we know is uncertain and death very ordinarily comes suddenly upon people and not alwayes in the preface and solemnity either af a lingring Consumption or a swelling Dropsie or a tedious Ague or a growing Fever or the like but many times in the sudden surprisalls of some secret and unexpected accident which we could not possibly foresee untill it came to light fatally and mortally upon us And does it not concern us then to be continually numbring our dayes and putting our selves in as great a readinesse and preparednesse for death as may be that so we may rather our selves be said to meet it then That to come suddenly and unexpectedly upon us And to this purpose was this Psalm here penned which contains in it if you mark it well a relation and narrative both of the necessity of our mortality and also the brevity and uncertainty of our lives To the end that having these things alwayes in our thoughts before our eyes both the necessity of our mortality that it is necessary for us at some time to die and also the brevity and uncertainty of our lives that it is possible for us to die every hour we might the sooner be awakened out of our present course of sin and incogitancy into studious endeavours and practises of piety and devotion of abstinence and mortification of heavenly mindednesse and spirituall affections in a word of a wise and timely provision of such gracious habits and dispositions which may in some good measure dresse our souls for a fit salute and entertainment of death These words which I have now read unto you do contain in them the form and substance of a devout and pious prayer and whether David was the Authour of it or Moses that should not need to trouble us for to be sure the prayer it self is most Divine and heavenly and the very piety of the prayer does sufficiently declare the Authour whoever he was to be highly pious and religious In it we have particularly considerable these four things First Quis petit who it is that prayes or the party praying and that indeed is not expressed in terms but conceived by some to be holy David whose are most of the other Psalms but presumed by others to be Moses grounding their opinion and that not without good cause upon the Title and Inscription of the Psalm Psalmus Moses viri Dei a Psalm of Moses the man of God Secondly Proquibus petit who they are whom he prayes for not if you mark it for himself alone but for others as well or for himself conjunctly and together with others Doce nos Teach us Thirdly Quid petit what it is which he prayes for and that is negatively no worldly advantage at all no temporal concerment but positively to be taught and instructed in the mysterious art of spiritual Arirhmetick to be put into a right way and method of numbring and counting up our dayes Doce nos numerare dies nostros Teach us to number our dayes Fourthly Propter quid petit the design and end of his prayer or the particular reason principally moving him to make this request and that is adductio cordis ad sapientiam the application of our hearts unto wisdome or our spiritual instruction and edification Sic doce ut adducamus So teach us that we may apply our hearts unto wisdome I shall begin with the first of these The party making the request and he as is generally concluded was holy Moses A man of God So the inscription of the Psalm styles him One that was faithful in all his house so the Authour to the Hebrews reports him chap. 3. 5. See what what an high character what a large commendation here is some are faithfull in this or that in one or two particular instances of piety Thus one man is very temperate another very humble another very patient another very mortified another very charitable but Moses you see he was a through proficient an universal Saint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faithfull in all Whence be pleased to take away with you this observation that the best and most excellent Saints of all have great need and reason to pray to be better taught and instructed in duty And why in many things we do all fall short and offend the brightest Moon hath its spots the richest wine hath its lees and there are dreggs and much corrupt matter lodging in the best and most improved Saint of us all Well but mark what it is which Moses here prayes for onely to be taught to number his dayes But did he not do this already was it not his dayly work this his constant and continual employment Yes doubtlesse it was yea and he did it carefully and conscientiously too But yet he thought he did it not well enough and therefore prayes here in the Text to be taught to do better See a good man how little he pleaseth himself in any action of his life in any performance of duty that he does He can never think that he does well enough whatever he does but still desires to do otherwise and would fain do better There is an affection of modesty and humility which still accompanies real piety and every pious man is an humble modest man never reckons himself a perfect proficient or to be advanced above a teaching but is content and covetous to be a continual learner to know more then he knows and to do better then he does yea and thinks it no disparagement to his graces at all to take advice and to seek instruction where it is to be had A proud man is evermore high lofty in his own conceit and none is so wise as he none fit and worthy enough to teach him What doest thou teach us said the Pharisees you know to the blind man in the Gospel Iohn 9. 35. oh but an humble man is ever meek and lowly in his own eyes and takes it well yea and is glad and desirous to be taught Accordingly O teach me sayes holy David to do the thing that pleaseth thee Psal 143. 10 and here in the Text So teach us to number our dayes S. Paul 2 Tim. 4. 3. reports it of some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who will not endure sound doctrine But such