his retirement at Bethlehem, they were oracles to them that needed it; so was he in Holland and France, where he was abroad; and beside the particular endearments which his friends received from him, for he did do relief to his brethren that wanted, and supplied the soldiers out of his store in Yorkshire, when himself could but ill spare it; but he received public thanks from the convocation of which he was president, and public justification from the parliament where he was speaker; so that although, as one said, miraculi instar vita iter, si longum, sine offensione percurrere, yet no man had greater enemies, and no man had greater justifications. But God hath taken our Elijah from our heads this day: I pray God that at least his mantle may be left behind, and that his spirit may be doubled upon his successor; and that we may all meet together with him at the right hand of the Lamb, where every man shall receive according to his deeds, whether they be good or whether they be evil. I conclude with the words of Caius Plinius", Equidem beatos puto quibus deorum munere datum est aut facere scribenda, aut scribere legenda: he wrote many things fit to be read, and did very many things worthy to be written; which if we wisely imitate, we may hope to meet him in the resurrection of the just, and feast with him in the eternal supper of the Lamb, there to sing perpetual anthems to the honour of God the Father, Son and holy Ghost: to whom be all honour, &c. [Epist. vi. 16. p. 192.] A FUNERAL SERMON, PREACHED AT THE OBSEQUIES OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND MOST VIRTUOUS LADY THE LADY FRANCES, COUNTESS OF CARBERY. WHO DECEASED OCTOBER THE 9TH, 1650, AT HER HOUSE, GOLDEN-GROVE IN CAERMARTHENSHIRE. BY JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND TRULY NOBLE RICHARD LORD VAUGHAN, EARL OF CARBERY, BAROn of EmLIM AND MOLINGER, KNIGHT OF THE My lord, I am not ashamed to profess that I pay this part of service to your lordship most unwillingly: for it is a sad office to be the chief minister in a house of mourning, and to present an interested person with a branch of cypress and a bottle of tears. And indeed, my lord, it were more proportionable to your needs to bring something that might alleviate or divert your sorrow, than to dress the hearse of your dear lady, and to furnish it with such circumstances, that it may dwell with you, and lie in your closet, and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings. But because the divine providence hath taken from you a person so excellent, a woman fit to converse with angels and apostles, with saints and martyrs, give me leave to present you with her picture, drawn in little and in water-colours, sullied indeed with tears and the abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow; but drawn with a faithful hand, and taken from the life: and indeed it were too great a loss to be deprived of her example and of her rule, of the original and of the copy too. The age is very evil and deserved her not; but because it is so evil, it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory to instruct our piety, or upbraid our wickedness. For now that God hath cut this tree of paradise down from its seat of earth, yet so the dead trunk may support a part of the declining temple, or at least serve to kindle the fire on the altar. My lord, I pray God this heap of sorrow may swell your piety till it breaks into the greatest joys of God and of religion: and remember when you pay a tear upon the grave, or to the memory of your lady (that dear and most excellent soul) that you pay two more: one of repentance for those things that may have caused this breach; and another of joy for the mercies of God to your dear departed saint, that He hath taken her into a place where she can weep no more. My lord, I think I shall, so long as I live, that is, so long as I am your lordship's most humble servant, JER. TAYLOR. |