he sent her as preparatives of her last conflict and as earnests of Heaven whither he intended the day following to translate her How she behav'd her self in her sickness I cannot better express than by saying that she pray'd continually and when the Prayers of the Church were read by her or when the hour of her own private Prayer came though she was not able to stand or to help her self she would yet be plac'd on her Knees and when her Knees were no longer able to support her she would be put into the humblest posture she could possibly endure not being satisfied unless she gave God his entire Oblation and glorify'd him in her body as well as in her spirit which were both Gods own by purchase here and were both to be united in bliss hereafter On Whit-sunday she received her viaticum the most holy Body and Blood of her Saviour and had received it again had not her death surpriz'd us yet in the strength of that immortal food she was enabled to go out her journy and seem'd to have a new transfusion of Grace from it insomuch that though her Limbs were all convulst her Pains great and without intermission her strength quite exhausted and her Head disturbed with a perpetual drousiness yet above and beyond all seeming possibility she would use force to her self to keep her self waking to offer to God her customary Sacrifice to the full to recollect her thoughts and to lodge them in Heaven where her Heart and her Treasure was as if she had already taken possession of her mansion there or as if she was teaching her Soul to act independently from the Body and practising beforehand the state of Separation into which having receiv'd Absolution she in a short time happily lancht for all the bands of Union being untied her Soul was set at liberty and on the Wings of Angels took a direct and vigorous flight to its Native Country Heaven from whence it first flew down There then we must leave her in the Bosom of her heavenly Bridegroom where how radiant her Crown is how ecstatick her Joy how high exalted she is in degrees of Glory is impossible to be described for neither eye hath seen nor ear heard nor has it enter'd into the heart of Man to be conceiv'd the good things which God hath prepared for those that love him of all which she is now partaker We have nothing then to do but to congratulate this Gracious Woman her eternal and unchangeable honour and as she always and in all things gave God the Glory here so that his praise was continually in her mouth for all the multitude of his Mercies and of his loving Kindnesses towards her and is now praising him in Heaven Let us also offer up a Sacrifice of Praise for her great example her light has long shin'd before us and we have seen her good Works Let us therefore glorifie the Father of Lights at whose beams her Soul was first lighted Blessed then for ever be the infinite goodness of God who was so liberal of his Graces to this humble Saint who made her so lively a Picture of his own perfections so Gracious and so Honourable blessed be his mercy for indulging her to us so long for taking her in his good time to himself and for that happiness she has now in Heaven to God be the Glory of all that honour her Graciousness did here acquire for to him only it is due let therefore his most holy name have all the praise To our Thanksgiving let us add our Prayers also that God would vouchsafe us all his Holy Spirit so to assist and sanctifie and guide us that every one of our Souls may be grà cious like hers that our life may be like hers our latter end like hers and our portion in Heaven like hers which God of his infinite mercy grant for the sake of his most belov'd Son To whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit be all honour and glory adoration and obedience now and for ever Amen THE END Mat. 12. 24. Isa. 53. 3. Luke 7. 16 4 22. Mark 7. 16. John 6. 15 18 38. Luke 23. 47. 1 Pet. 2. 17 18. 1 Tim. 6. 2. Rom. 13. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 4. Prov. 3. 35. Luke 1. 52. 1 Thess. 4. 4. 1 Sam. 2. 30. Heb. 1. 14. 1 Cor. 3. 16. Lev. 19. 30. Gal. 5. 22. Prov. 10. 7. Psal. 116. 15. Psal. 112. 6. Prov. 31. 28 31. Luke 8. 3. Matt. 27. 55. Luke 23. 27. Matt. 28. 5. Matt. 26. 13. Psal. 45. 13. 1 Pet. 3. 3. Job 31. 1. Matt. 5. 28. Cant. 4. 16. Prov. 31. 30. Prov. 11. 22. Prov. 12. 4. 1 Cor. 11. 5. Prov. 31. 10. Prov. 31. 29. Jer. 16. 4. John 11. 35. 1 Thess. 4. 13. 1 James 27. 1 Pet. 3. 15. Prov. 4. 18. Prov. 31. 36. 1 Cor. 7. 32. Prov. 19. 14. Luke 10. 41 42. Eph. 6. 9. Exod. 34. 29. 1 Cor. 6. 20. Luke 16. 22. 1 Cor. 2. 9.
A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Lady Margaret Mainard AT Little EASTON in ESSEX On the 30th of June 1682. By the Right Reverend Father in God Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells The Third Edition LONDON Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun at the West-end of St. Paul's Church-yard and William Clarke Bookseller in Winchester MDCLXXXVIII TO The Right Honourable WILLIAM Lord Mainard BARON of EASTAINS My LORD THough I am unwilling to decline any Service which Your Lordship expects from me yet when you enjoyn'd me the Printing of this Sermon I could not obey Your Command without disputing it For I consider'd that in such an Age as this where an Exemplary Holiness is very rare I shall be thought guilty of most gross Flattery in the Character I have given of Your Incomparable Lady now in Heaven But knowing I have so many unexceptionable Witnesses to attest every line I have said especially Your Self who best understood her value and are most sensible of her loss and being Conscious to my self that I have spoken no other throughout than the words of Truth I soon broke through all the discouragements I had either from the just Censures the World would fix on the meanness of the Discourse or from the unjust ones it might pass on my Insincerity and resolv'd to do all that little Honour I could to her Memory and to give God the glory of her Example And I humbly beseech the Divine Goodness that what I now offer to the Publick may not be wholly unprofitable to those who read it However I am sure it will not be unacceptable to Your Lordship or to those who were so happy to know her which will be satisfaction enough to My Good LORD Your Lordships most Humble and Faithful Servant Thomas Bath and Wells A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL Of the Right Honourable The LADY MARGARET MAINARD On Prov. II. XVI A gracious Woman retaineth honour THE World was never yet so bad but the good Man though his life was a continued Satyr to the Age he lived in did always either find or extort a Veneration from it So true is it of both Sexes which Solomon here affirms of Woman only that gracious Persons they who are in the Grace and Favour of God and are strengthned by his gracious assistances they who by the covenant of Grace are enrolled in his service and in whose hearts there is a conspiration of all the Graces of his Holy Spirit all which particulars are included in the word Grace and do all concur to make up a gracious Soul Such persons I say as these shall from the generality of Men gain an inward esteem and a great Opinion and for the most part an outward and a suitable respect or as the Wise man words it shall retain honour I must confess that there are many instances even in our own perverse generation wherein Vertue has rather been contemn'd and ridicul'd than Honour'd but I will mention no other than the most signal of all God Incarnate whose example though it was as perfect and unblameable as the fulness of the Godhead could render it yet his most divine Person was so far from being honoured by many of the Jews that he lay under the utmost imputations of Slander and Blasphemy which words could express and as glorious as all his Miracles were they were ascribed to no other than Beelzebub the Prince of the very Devils But though it be true that our blessed Lord in regard to his state of Humiliation seemed to have no form no comeliness in him yet all his Conversation had so many irradiations of Divinity in it which did abundantly evince his heavenly Extraction and it is no wonder he should suffer such contradictions of sinners it being usual for an Heroick Virtue which is singly to encounter whole Legions to contend with inveterate Errours or reigning Vices to reprove and reform the World as our Saviour was to be loaded with most diabolical reproaches But Goodness has an inseparable splendour which can never suffer a total eclipse and when it is most revil'd and persecuted it then shines brightest out of Cloud So that all who are not wilfully blind who will but make use of their eyes to see must acknowledge the force of its Rays This did the very Jews themselves as many as had any relicks of common ingenuity left The Multitude own'd our Saviour for a great Prophet wonder'd at his gracious words confest he had done all things well insomuch that they would have exalted him to the throne and have made him their King Pilate could find no fault in him at all and the Centurion a Heathen even when he saw him hanging on the Cross as a Malefactour cried out Certainly this was a Righteous Man. So that a gracious Person under the most extreme degree of Infamy and Slander shall yet retain honour shall from all that are in their right minds have at least an inward Veneration If this be verifi'd of a publique Vertue there can be less doubt of it in a private one which not being on such a stage as may provoke and affront the angry World by openly contradicting or upbraiding or chastising it passes along with a less assaulted and less envied reputation and more undisturb'dly retains honour than the former There is I know an honour which is due to all men as they are God's workmanship and have some lines of his Image in them but especially to Kings and to Magistrates whom it is our duty to honour whether they be gracious Persons or no this we are to render to the Froward and Pagan as well as to gentle and believing Masters to Princes that are Infidels and Persecutors as well as to Christian and nursing Fathers But then this honour is not paid them out of respect to any real Goodness in them but only to their Authority as they are God's ordinance as we depend on their Protection and as our Obedience is enforc'd by Laws and Penalties But the honour we give to a gracious Person is purely in reference to his moral excellencies which are legible in the whole conduct of his life The former is merely civil the latter may in some sort be styl'd Religious Empire is honour'd as it resembles God's power abstracted from his Holiness and therefore it is compatible with an ungracious Person it is confin'd only to this World and reaches no farther But Graciousness is honour'd as a participation of the divine Nature appropriate to no other than Saints and which has its prospect only on Heaven The former is like Thunder and Lightning and works on our Fear the latter is like the appearance of a good Angel arraid in Beams awful but kind which do not afflict but chear the sight and raise in us a mixt passion of Love and Veneration together and in this sense it is that the gracious Person for the venerable
goodness that is visible in him shall retain honour To attempt any laborious Proof of so clear a Truth as this were needless do but consult the universal practice of Mankind and read it there What Rules do the Philosophers prescribe to render our lives most satisfactory to our selves and most commendable to others with what Colours do the Oratours paint those persons they intend to Celebrate what Images do the Poets form when they design an Heroe are they any other than the Rules and Colours and Images of moral Goodness Do not Hypocrites to court the esteem of the Vulgar personate the Saint and Politicians to make the People honour them pretend to Religion and why do they both put on this disguise but because they know that Wickedness bare-fac'd is in the eyes of all men most detestable and that the names of Saint and of Religion are creditable in the World Shew me that profligate Wretch who in his cool thoughts or on his Death-bed does not decline all his loose Companions and seeks out for men truly good and consciencious to whom he may intrust his Estate his Children and all that is dearest to him even his own Soul too for which he then begs their ghostly counsel What man is there so wicked who on his death-bed does not wish that he may die the death of the Righteous and that his latter end may be like his Look into the Histories and customs of Ages past see how greedily coveted how dearly purchast and how highly valued the Statues and all the little remains of Good Men have been The Heathens to express their great esteem of Goodness built Temples to Vertue and Honour and join'd these Temples together and made the former the only passage into the latter they thought Praise to Good men as just a Tribute as Sacrifice to their Gods and one of the Wisest of them wonderfully pleas'd himself in fancying how lovely and venerable how divine and transporting an Idea he should see could he but look into the breast of a Good-man We have then the practice and the judgment of the whole World to confirm this truth that Vertue has always had a great and a general esteem that the gracious Person retains honour On the contrary is there not a natural shame a sense of turpitude or a confusion of face in vicious and unclean actions why else are men afraid to commit them before the most inconsiderable Spectatour and chuse darkness for a thick Mantle to cover them why else do they blush to own them wish a thousand times they had never been done and reflect on them with dissatisfaction and horrour why else do their own Consciences lash and upbraid them whereas if we will but take the pains to make up an Induction of all Christian graces we shall easily see that there is none whose friendship is more ambitiously sought none with whom men would sooner change Persons none who are accounted of more substantial worth or more generally rever'd or more influential to the good of Mankind or sooner wanted in the World or who make a nobler figure in Story than the Devout the Humble the Just the Meek the Temperate the Charitable or to express all in one word the gracious Person who therefore shall always retain honour I need not reckon up the numerous places of Holy Scripture where Goodness and Honour are link'd together how the Wise are said to inherit glory the humble and meek to be exalted how we are commanded to keep our Vessels in sanctification and honour and how God has promis'd to honour those who honour him I need not mention the primitive Diptycks or how the Church Catholick has celebrated the Festivals and honour'd the memories of the Saints and of the Martyrs I need not suggest that obvious Conclusion That if gracious Persons can draw even wicked Men to a reverential love of their Vertue much more will they engage the friendship of all that are Holy and not only of holy Men but of holy Angels too who being all ministring Spirits deputed by God to attend them the more heavenly they see any committed to their charge does grow the more respectful attendance in all probability they give him And there is the highest reason in the World why there should be so honourable a loveliness in a gracious Person if we consider the likeness he bears to that great God whom we Adore For as there are on all men innate impressions of God's Existence so there are also of his Attributes and none ever yet in earnest believed there was a God but he also believed that God was a Being Infinite in all Perfections in Wisdom and Power Justice and Mercy Purity and Holiness Veracity and Beneficence and as these excite our Love and our Adoration to God so where ever we see any though but imperfect resemblances of his imitable perfections in the Saints here on earth where ever we see men in any measure Holy and Pure Just and Merciful Faithful and Beneficent we there see the image of God himself and cannot but pay them a suitable honour Thus as Goodness and Adorableness are co-eternal in God so are Sanctity and Venerableness co-eval in gracious Persons Nor are we only by Grace made like to God but he is also pleas'd actually to dwell in us and to consecrate our Souls to be his Temples and as God commanded the Jews to reverence his Sanctuary the place of his residence among them where he sat between the Cherubims and a glorious Light that shin'd on the Propitiatory was the Symbol of his Presence So when in gracious Souls we discover all the fruits of the Spirit a kind of glory brightning their Conversation and a sacred Amiableness breath'd on them from Heaven we are sure that God inhabits there and cannot but reverence his Temples Such Honour have all Gods Saints from even wicked men from all holy persons and from the good Angels and infinitely above all these from God himself who honours them with his Image after which they are renew'd and with his Presence of which they are possest Such Honour I say have all his Saints even in this life which if we did but seriously Contemplate would stir us up to a generous emulation would encourage us to implore the Divine Grace that we may bewail all our past sins cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of Flesh and of Spirit which produce nothing in the end but Shame and Horrour and daily grow more conformable to his Likeness which is the only way to assert the dignity of our Nature and to retain honour But when once our Souls shall be divorc'd from our bodies when the name of the wicked shall rot and stink sooner than his Carcase leaving no memorial behind unless it be of his Sin his Infamy his Madness or his Folly Precious then in the sight of the Lord shall be the death of his Saints blessed shall be
of all those vanities and divertisements which most of her sex do usually admire her chief and in a manner sole recreation was to do good and to oblige and if we will be advis'd by one so wise to Salvation We are to seek for comfort and joy from God's ordinances and the converse of pious Christians and not to take the usual course of the World to drive away Melancholy by exposing our selves to temptations and this was really her practice insomuch that next to the Service of the Temple which she daily frequented There was no entertainment in the whole World so pleasing to her as the discourse of Heavenly things and those she spake of with such a Spiritual relish that at first hearing you might perceive she was in earnest that she really tasted that the Lord was good and felt all she spake Amidst all her pains and her sicknesses which were sharp and many who ever saw her shew any one symptom of Impatience So far was she from it that she laments when she reflects how apt we are to abuse prosperity Demands where our conformity is to the great Captain of our Salvation if we have no sufferings Professes that God by suffering our Conditions to be Uneasie by that gentle way invites us to higher satisfactions than are to be met with here and with a prostrate spirit acknowledges that God was most righteous in all that had befallen her and that there had been so much mercy mixt with his chastising that she had been but too happy Thus humble thus content thus thankful was this gracious Woman amidst her very afflictions Her Soul always rested on God's Paternal mercy and on all his exceeding great and precious promises as on a sure and stedfast Anchor which she knew would secure her in the most tempestuous Calamities To his blessed will she hourly offer'd up her own and knew it was as much her duty to suffer his fatherly inflictions as to obey his commands Her Charity made her sympathize with all in Misery and besides her private Alms wherein her left hand was not conscious to her right she was a common Patroness to the Poor and Needy and a common Physician to her sick Neighbours and would often with her own hands dress their most loathsome Sores and sometimes keep them in her Family and would give them both Diet and Lodging till they were cur'd and then Cloth them and send them home to give God thanks for their recovery and if they died her Charity accompany'd them sometimes to the very Grave and she took care even of their Burial She would by no means endure that by the care of plentifully providing for her Children the wants and necessities of any poor Christian should be overlook'd and desir'd it might be remembred that Alms and the Poors prayers will bring a greater blessing to them than Thousands a year Look abroad now in the World and see how rarely you shall meet with a Charity like that of this gracious Woman who next to her own flesh and Blood was tender of the Poor and thought an Alms as much due to to them as Portions to her Children To corporal Alms as often as she saw occasion she joyn'd spiritual and she had a singular talent in dispensing that alms to Souls she had a masculine Reason to perswade a steady Wisdom to advise a perspicuity both of thought and language to instruct a mildness that endear'd a reproof and could comfort the afflicted from her own manifold experience of the Divine Goodness and with so condoling a tenderness that she seem'd to translate their anguish on her self And happy was it for others that her Charity was so comprehensive for she often met with objects so deplorable that were to be reliev'd in all these capacities so that she was fain to become their Benefactress their Physician and their Divine altogether or if need were she bid them shew themselves to the Priest or else took care to send the Priest to them Thus was it visibly her constant endeavour to be in all respects merciful as her Father in Heaven is merciful She could bear long and most easily forgive and no one ever injur'd her but she would heap coals of fire on his head to melt him into a charitable temper and would often repay the injury with a kindness so surprizing that if the injurous person were not wholly obdurate and brutish must needs affect him But if any one did her the least good office none could be more grateful she would if possible return it a hundred-fold if she could not in kind she would at least do it in her prayers to God that out of his inexhaustible goodness he would reward him Her Soul seem'd to possess a continued serenity at peace with her self at peace with God and at peace with all the World her study was to give all their due and she was exactly sincere and faithful to all her obligations she kept her heart always with all diligence was watchful against all temptations and naturally considerate in all her actions her disposition was peaceful and inoffensive she lookt always pleas'd rather than chearful her converse was even and serious but yet easie and affable her Interpretations of what others did or said were always candid and charitable you should never see her indecently angry or out of humour never hear her give an ill character or pass a hard censure or speak an idle word but she opened her mouth in Wisdom and in her tongue was the Law of Kindness If you look on her in her several Relations in her Childhood her Father the Right Honourable the Earl of Dyzart being banish'd for his Loyalty she was under the breeding of the Excellent Lady her Mother to whom she was in all respects so dutiful a Child that she protested her Daughter had never in any one instance offended her By that time the Young Lady was about Eleven or Twelve Years old God was pleas'd to take her good Mother to himself and from that time to her Marriage this gracious Woman liv'd with a discretion so much above her years with so conspicuous a Vertue and so constant a Wariness that she always retain'd honour such an honour as never had the least More in it And to her honour be it spoken that in an Age when the generality of the Nation were like Children tost to and fro with every wind of Doctrine she still continued stedfast in the Communion of the Church of England and when the Priests and Service of God were driven into Corners she daily resorted though with great difficulty to the publick Prayers and was remarkably Charitable to all the suffering Royalists whom she visited and reliev'd and sed cloth'd and condold with a zeal like that which the Ancient Christians shew'd to the Primitive Martyrs The silenc'd and plundred and persecuted Clergy she thought worthy of double honour and did vow a certain Sum yearly out of her Income which she