be understood by us when we feel them, and when our new and strange needs shall be refreshed by such unusual visitations. But I must be forced to use summaries and arts of abbreviature in the enumerating those things, in which this rare personage was dear to God and to all her relatives. If we consider her person, she was in the flower of her age, "jucundum cum ætas florida ver ageret°;" of a temperate, plain, and natural diet, without curiosity or an intemperate palate; she spent less time in dressing than many servants; her recreations were little and seldom, her prayers often, her reading much: she was of a most noble and charitable soul, a great lover of honourable actions, and as great a despiser of base things: hugely loving to oblige others, and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon the stock of courtesies and liberality: so free in all acts of favour, that she would not stay to hear herself thanked, as being unwilling that what good went from her to a needful or an obliged person, should ever return to her again. She was an excellent friend, and hugely dear to very many, especially to the best and most discerning persons; to all that conversed with her, and could understand her great worth and sweetness. She was of an honourable, a nice and tender reputation; and of the pleasures of this world, which were laid before her in heaps, she took a very small and inconsiderable share, as not loving to glut herself with vanity, or take her portion of good things here below. If we look on her as a wife, she was chaste and loving, fruitful and discreet, humble and pleasant, witty and compliant, rich and fair: and wanted nothing to the making her a principal and precedent to the best wives of the world, but a long life and a full age. If we remember her as a mother, she was kind and severe, careful and prudent, very tender, and not at all fond; a greater lover of her children's souls than of their bodies, and one that would value them more by the strict rules of honour and proper worth, than by their relation to herself. Her servants found her prudent and fit to govern, and yet open-handed and apt to reward; a just exactor of their duty, and a great rewarder of their diligence. • Catul. Ixviii. 16. She was in her house a comfort to her dearest Lord, a guide to her children, a rule to her servants, an example to all. But as she related to God in the offices of religion, she was even and constant, silent and devout, prudent and material; she loved what she now enjoys, and she feared what she never felt, and God did for her what she never did expect: her fears went beyond all her evil; and yet the good which she hath received, was, and is, and ever shall be, beyond all her hopes. She lived as we all should live, and she died as I fain would die : Cum mihi supremos Lachesis perneverit annos, I pray God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt, and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance, which she feels of the many degrees of her innocence. Such was her death, that she did not die too soon; and her life was so useful and excellent, that she could not have lived too long : " Nemo parum diu vixit, qui virtutis perfectæ perfecto functus est munere." And as now in the grave it shall not be inquired concerning her, how long she lived, but how well; so to us who live after her, to suffer a longer calamity, it may be some ease to our sorrows, and some guide to our lives, and some security to our conditions, to consider that God hath brought the piety of a young lady to the early rewards of a never-ceasing and never-dying eternity of glory. And we also, if we live as she did, shall partake of the same glories; not only having the honour of a good name and a dear and honoured memory, but the glories of these glories, the end of all excellent labours, and all prudent counsels, and all holy religion, even the salvation of our souls, in that day when all the saints, and among them this excellent woman, shall be shewn to all the world to have done more, and more excellent things than we know of, or can describe. "Mors illos consecrat, quorum exitum, et qui timent, laudant:" ' death consecrates and makes sacred that person, whose excellency was such, that they that are not displeased at the death, cannot dispraise the life; but they that mourn sadly, think they can never commend sufficiently.' P Mart. i. 89, 9. THE MINISTER'S DUTY IN LIFE AND DOCTRINE: IN TWO SERMONS. SERMON IX. In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doc trine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity; Sound speech that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part, may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Tit. ii. 7, 8. As God, in the creation of the world, first produced a mass of matter, having nothing in it but an obediential capacity and passivity; which God separating into classes of division, gave to every part a congruity to their respective forms, which, in their distinct orbs and stations, they did receive in order, and then were made beauteous by separations and a new economy; and out of these he appointed some for servants, and some for government; and some to eat, and some to be eaten; some above, and some below; some to be useful to all the rest, and all to minister to the good of man, whom he made the prince of the creation, and a minister of the Divine glory. So God hath also done, in the new creation; all the world was concluded under sin; it was a corrupt mass; all mankind 'had corrupted themselves;' but yet were capable of Divine influences, and of a nobler form, producible in the new birth: here then God's Spirit moves upon the waters of a Divine birth, and makes a separation of part from part, of corruption from corruption; and first chose some families to |