of God this good Lady had it To her now disconsolate Lord she was such a wife as Solomon describes Pro. 31.12 she will do him good all the daies of her life to her Children a tender and indulgent Mother to her Servants a loving and kind Mistress But there were among many other three eminent vertues in this excellent Person which should I not mention besides a great injustice to the dead in suffering her name to dye I should wrong the living of a worthy example her Piety her Charity her Patience and Christian Magnanimity I. I begin at the House of God where she so delightted to be her Piety And in this she was not new-fangled as the Age but old-fashioned Her Religion was not a bare shew or an empty noise only that of the tongue or an outside paint but her Piety was solid and substantial even and uniform that which exerted it self in the fruits of a good life As to the external acts of Divine Service and Worship she was most frequent in them she seldom took up with so little as David's morning evening and noon but very often came up to the Psalmist's highest Pitch of devotion of praying to and praising of God seven times in the day besides her publique and closet-devotions she constantly attended on the morning and evening sacrifice of her family in which she gave a most eminent example the sticking of a pin or the laying of a hair kept her not till the service was half over but her zeal for the service of God made her careless of what habit or dress she came in rather then stay away or come tardy her exceeding devotion carried her to Davids pious option to enjoy the Door-keepers place to be first in and last out of the House of God And truly she was of Joshua's sociable temper she was for I and my house will serve the Lord. Her servants never met with greater displeasure or more severe chiding from her than for the neglect of their duty to God II. As her Piety was great so her Charity was large As God had given her the riches of this world so the knew full well that she had more in her Custody than was her own the poor's portion she look't upon her self as the Almighty's Almoner and understood it his pleasure she should dispense bountifully An empty belly a naked back or the sores of an helpless Lazar were such oratory as ever prevail'd for her relief I am confident there be many here weeping as the Widows over Dorcas Acts. 9. that can shew the coats and garments she provided for them and who were cloathed and fed by her bounty She might justly have made the protestation of Job If I have seen any perish for want of cloathing or any poor for want of covering if his loynes have not blessed me and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep Job 31.19.20 She was wise in her Charity and understood her own interest well and knew that such sowing brought in a plentiful crop a great encrease that she should make a great return for all she thus laid out and should be reimbursed with an interest infinitely above the principal when her Lord at the last day shall publiquely read her layings out Hungry and ye fed me thirsty and ye gave me drink naked and ye cloathed me 3. Her Patience and Christian Magnanimity And here I may well truly break forth in admiration as thâ— Father upon the story of the Woman of Canaan Mira reâ— evangelista mulier non mulier c. O wonderful a woman and more then a woman Troubles afflictions she had what Saint ever had not indeed how could her vertue have been so bright and eminent without them But her deportment under them was admirable her trust and confidence in God so stayed her up that she could be fervent and compos'd in he devotions and chearful in her family when the greatest pressures lay upon her nay to the former they did ever add vigour and activity If at any time the waves came so thick upon her that she found her self with Peter ready to sink she quickly catch't hold of a sure stay and recovered her self with David's reasoning in the like extremity Ps 43. ver ult Why art thou cast down O my soul still put thy trust in God The meditations of an holy man upon which place of Scripture she very often had recourse unto Dr. Sibbs upon that text To hasten There were two circumstances about the death of this eminent Saint I must not omit About a fortnight before she dy'd she desired the holy Sacrament at my hands which I gave her the Sunday following all the week before notwithstanding her great bodily weakness with great devotion she was present at the prayers of her family and after that continued her attendance to the very last This Coelestial Banquet so refresh'd her soul that the joyes and satisfaction she then possest were a happy anticipation a delicious fore-taste of that Heaven from which she was not to be long absent and here her good nature and Christian Charity took an occasion to express it self in being kindly angry with some of her Servants for their neglect of that opportunity of coming to the Lords Supper and so not sharing with her in so great a comfort and happiness She that had been a careful observer of the Lords day in her life hasted early on that day to the celebration of an eternal Sabbath in the Heavens In a word Departed about two a-clock on sunday morning as if in the language of David concerning God's house she had said of her little Sanctuary Here will I dwel for I have a delight therein But a few hours before she departed this life she was at prayers with the family at the Chappel and I doubt not but after that in her greatest Agonies and extremity which lasted not very long she had pious Ejaculations and holy Soliloquies her Lord found her so doing and she is now in possession of the blessedness of the Text. Where let us leave her and give me leave to address my self in two words I. To her near and dear Relations I dare not forbid you the shedding of some tears to the memory of so precious a Saint and good a Mother but I beg you to moderate them with your Christian hopes Your loss is great and truly so is mine though I must not equal it and so is her death to all that had the honour and happiness of her acquaintance But if you have one eye upon your loss let your other be upon her gain her advantage her happiness methinks she bespeaks you Daughters weep not for me but for yourselves and Children and look upon her death not so much a loss neither as a short privation of her company consider her non amissam sed praemissam not lost only gone a little before to that Rest we all labour after II. And to all that are here present that knew her let me beg you to let her memory be precious with you let her vertues never dye but be perswaded to an imitation of them fix this great example continually before your eye I conclude all with the exhortation of the Apostle Phil. 4.8 Finally Brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise think on these things and do them that when our Lord shall come he may find us so doing and pronounce us blessed FINIS
Do but lift up your eyes to the Heavens and as the Prince of the Philosophers affirms them to be in perpetual motion so he that was a Prince as well as a Philosopher observes that they move in that Sphere which their all-wise Framer fixt them in Psal 19.1 The Heavens declare the Glory of God And if we behold the Sun it confutes Copernicus Rejoyceth as a strong man to run his race v. 5. Should I take you up into the third Heaven the Heaven of Heavens the Angels there are ministring Spirits Heh 1. ult Angels and Arch-Angels and all the company of Heaven all the Orders of that Celestial Hierarchy they do God's Commandments and execute his pleasure Psal 103.20 21. If we look upon the creatures here below they bear a part in this service the Sea hath the boundary of God's decree for its ebbing and flowing hitherto shalt thou extend thy proud waves and no further the most inconsiderable inferiour particles of the universe the Snow and Vapour and Stormy-Wind are said to fulfil his Word Psal 148.8 So that this relation of Servants the Angels those heavenly Courtiers disdain not and the lower parts of the World are not too mean for an Interest in then certainly Man the Lord of this sublimary World can upon no account plead exemption he is a servant But as the Apostle uses the comparison touching the Resurrection 1 Cor. 15.42 One Star differeth from another Star in glory or as the same Apostle expresses it In a great house thee are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and earth 2. Tim. 2.20 so t' is here in the large House-hold of the supernal and lower world each servant hath his province employment set him suitable to those capacities by which he is inabled to make a discharge of his duty which what Man 's is is a seasonable enquiry and II. The second part of the text As a Servant what is mans employment exprest in these words so doing Man hath a work to do but what it is you cannot imagine in that little scantling of time allotted for this exercise I should fully discourse to you the doing the particulars of which will take up our whole lives did they never so far exceed Davids summe of them It is to doe the work which God hath set us and sent us into the world to do briefly 't is doing the works of our general and particular calling 1. The works of our general calling as Christians And here the Christian is obliged to the observance of that divine precept Rom. 13.7 To render to all their dues And the duties of our general calling are reducible to these three heads which the Apostle gives us in charge Tit. 2.12 To live soberly righteously and godly in this present world 1. To begin with our duty to him who is the beginning of all things and Lord of the family And this we are early call'd upon by the wiseman to make a discharge of Eccles 12.1 Remember now thy Creator in the dayes of thy youth He that gave us our being provides for our well-being and hath contriv'd our being happy unless we our selves frustrate the design may upon all accounts challenge a gratefull service and homage there being nothing in the world more rational then Religion and the Worship of a Deity And here the Christian hath a large task of duty the performance of all internal and external acts of Piety and Devotion the maintaining alwaies a reverential dread and fear of the Divine Majesty to adore that incomprehensible Being to demean our selves so towards God as may best comport with those Divine attributes of his purity and power wisdome and goodness sincerely and conscientiously to perform all external acts of Religion all duties of divine worship and service to hear and pray meditate and receive and what else in the whole duty of man God requires of us as his immediate worship This is to live godly 2. Righteously towards our fellow-Servants To love my Neighbour as my self to observe that golden rule so much admired by the Heathen so little practised by the Christian so fully taught in the old and new Testament so frequently prest by Prophets and Apostles and inculcated by our Blessed Lord Whatsoever we would that men should do unto us we should do the same to them To do justice and to love mercy to make our selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness to distribute to the necessities of the poor to do good to all men by good counsel and a suitable conversation to perswade as many as we can to be holy and religious and to save their souls to reprove our offending Brother to bear with the infirmities of those that are weak to comfort those that mourn to exhort one another to day while it is called to day to do as our Blessed Lord did when he was upon the earth whose business it was to go about and seek all opportunities of doing good Acts. 10.38 3. Soberly To have so much regard to our selves as to do nothing unworthy of that place in Gods family he hath set us in To observe all rules and precepts of sobriety temperance and chastity Some of the heathen Philosophers have disswaded from some debaucheries as indecencies affronts offer'd to humane Nature but the Christian hath higher motives for all sobriety of conversation to reverence our humane nature as united to the Divine in the person of Christ and so to preserve it from all spot and defilement as he did when he was vested with our flesh here below to look upon our bodies as Temples of the Holy Ghost and so not to allow them to be sinks of sin and nests of all uncleanness and lastly to think what they shall be in their glorified estate after the resurrection that so when Christ shall come to work that mighty change upon them he may not find them in the worst sense vile that is sinful bodies To do all this and so to do it as to be saluted with an Euge for our well-doing may well be thought no easy task but that which will require all Christian diligence and circumspection so to redeem the time as to fill up every part of it with the proper duties of it and yet after all this one thing is still wanting which is 2. To be diligent in our particular Callings that state and condition of life to which God hath call'd each of us as some to be Magistrates some Ministers some Merchants some Artificers c. The Command of God to earn our bread in the sweat of our brows the prevention of idleness the obligation of providing for our families God's distribution of several gifts the benefit of humane society and the Weal-publick bespeak the necessity of some Calling or other for every man to employ and busie himself in Here perhaps there may be some will censure my discourse to be ungentile and that I maintain a paradox to affirm as I
all eternity These two estates depend upon our acquitting our selves here in our Master's service if upon our Lord's seeming delay of his coming we shall smite our fellow-servants eat and drink with the drunken be riotous and disorderly in the family what can we expect but to have our portion assign'd us with Hypocrites where there shal be weeping and gnashing of teeth On the other hand if we are emulous of happiness and studious of our Lord's approbation we must be faithful and diligent work if we expect wages abound in every good work of humility sobriety and charity for with him it shall fare well whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing he shall recieve a blessing from the Lord. And this brings me to 4. The last part of the Text the reward of that Servant that shall be found faithful and diligent Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord shall find so doing And here two things offer themselves to our consideration 1. The constancy and perseverance of a Christian in well-doing whom his Lord shall find so doing 2. His crown of reward for so doing Blessed is that servant But a word of each of these and I have done I. The constancy and perseverance of a Christian in well-doing Whom his Lord c. 'T is constancy crowns all our actions He whose virtue like Ephraim's goodness Hosea 13. evaporates and dwindles away as the morning Cloud and early dew that will be baffled in his Christian Course by a thwarting temptation and grows weary of well doing puts an affront upon Religion is justly deprived the hopes of its reward But he that amidst the foul shocks of Satan and an evil world abides like a rock in the Sea stands immoveable as Mount Sion he shall receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved The devotion of a Christian like the vestal fire must burn continually never go out he must be like the Sun in the firmament fixt in his orb and rejoyce as a Gyant to run his course give shine in the world to the latest minute of his setting The prize is at the end of a Christian's race We read indeed Mat. 20. of some that came late into the vineyard but of none that received the penny but those that wrought in it till their Lord call'd them out When St. Paul had finisht his course then and not till then he could put forth his hand to receive the Crown of Righteousness 2 Tim. 4.7 8. If our Lord find us so doing he will pronounce us blessed II. The last particular the crown of reward for so doing Blessed is that Servant Here 't is not to be expected in the running of those few sands that are yet behind I should fully or 〈◊〉 describe the Blessedness of the Text. He that with the young man can truly say Oâ—nia haec observavi he that doth these things with faithfulness and diligence shall better understand this blessedness by a fruition of it then by the largest account can be given of it however allow me but in two words to give a short and distant prospect of this Holy Land as it were to shew you a glimpse of this happiness 'T is to be able to meet the King of terrours without fear to bid Death welcome as the messenger of happy tydings to have the Soul enlarged from a prison of sin and sorrow trouble and temptation to have a company of the Militia of Heaven the Courtiers of the great King conduct and introduce us into the Royal Presence to have the whole Quire of Saints and Angels shout at our entrance and welcome us into the joys of our Lord to enjoy the pleasures of the spirits of just men made perfect to look back w th amazing transport on that world of sin and misery we are rescued from and have left behind us those vast rocks and dangers we escaped shipwracking on to admire God's goodness and praise him for it continually and after all this when the Harvest is ripe and the end of the world is come and the consummation of all things to have our bodies at the resurrection fashioned like the glorious body of Christ and be made a fit receptacle for the soul to enter and for ever dwell in to be caught up in the clouds and meet the Lord in the air to have our persons pronounc'd righteous and innocent in the hearing of men and Angels to sit on the bench with Christ to encompass his royal seat of Judicature and with him judge the world of wicked men and after this grand Assize is over to have a more solemn inaugration into blisse each of us to take his place in the upper house to be seated about the Throne of God and there to be for ever with the Lord. Thus have I carried you thorough the several parts of my Text and at last brought you to the haven where you would be the haven of rest the highest Heavens Let me now intreat you to take one turn in the valley of the shadow of death whilst I apply my discourse and you your meditation to this sad Text before us Of this Honorable Person our deceased Sister and my ever honoured Lady I hope it is not expected it may seem needless for me to say much to you her Relations Neighbours and Acquaintance to whom she was so well known and especially in this place where her works so loudly praise her in the gates I shall not therefore powr forth the whole Box only shed a few drops of this precious Oyntment Not to tell you that she was descended of an antient and honourable Family though that be a thing not contemptible this her just funeral Exequies declare better than I can but vix ea nostra voco my task is to blazon a more noble Escutcheon her Honours she bears in the Herauldry of Heaven her Vertues which were properly her own and a more enobling nobility then that derived from her Anbestours In her minority she had as I am well informed and have good reason to believe the advanâ—â—â—â— and blessing of a vertuous and severe education which early tincture left that relish which verified wise Solomons maxime Pro. 22.6 Train up a Child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it At an unusual age though mature in regard of her gravity and discretion she entred into a married estate in which above fourty years she was a most loving and loyal Consort to her dear Lord in which time she had so fully studied Solomons Oeconomicks that her life was a most exact transcript of them and without the least flattery I may say her carriage in her domestick Relations was the best Commentarie I ever met with upon the 31 ch of Proverbs Solomons description of a vertuous woman and a good housewife If ever any woman had that ornament of a meek and quiet spirit in her family which St. Peter makes to be of so great price in the sight