A SERMON, Preached at the Funeral of that most Honourable and worthy Knight S. Richard Leveson, Vice-admiral of England: Who died at London the 2. of August, and was interred at Wooluer Hampton in the County of Stafford, the 2. day of September following Anno Domi. 1605. By SAMVEL PAGE, Bachelor in Divinity, and Vicar of Deptforde in Kent. LONDON, Printed by William White, dwelling in Cow-lane near Holborn Conduit. 1605. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HIS especial good Lord, the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord high Admiral of England. etc. SAMVEL PAGE wisheth all increase of Honour. MY especial good Lord, the Love which that Honourable Knight Sir Richard Leveson did deserve from me; hath made my ear so impatient of any imputation by which he may be traduced to the world, that passing amongst the throng of variable censures, and observing how Emulation and Envy of his Worth, striveth to bury his Honour in the same dust with his lifeless body: I could not but wonder, that so many fair parts of virtue and goodness in him, could be so slightly skipped over, and that so cursory eyes as beheld them, could so dwell upon the errors and mis-heedings of his youth. It concerneth me (whom he chose out of all his acquaintance, to breathe his last words in my ears, and to make me the eye, and the tongue witness of his end,) to do him this right, to satisfy with my testimony such, who being better acquainted with his course of life than myself was, might find in it more to dislike, and might therefore suspect his death: to those, and for discharge of my duty to my honourable friend, though departed, I have caused these Papers to speak more publicly that, which in a full hearing I delivered to those which were present at his Funerals▪ and I protest herein my sincerity; for as all my service done to him, had beginning in my love of his virtue; So neither my labour was mercenary with him▪ nor my pen hired: for it is sufficiently known, that I never received from him more than the rich reward of his thanks▪ & acknowledgement of that comfort which he received from me; which I hold so dear a recompense, that I could sow daily, to reap but such an Harvest. What I have herein delivered, I present unto your Honour, beseeching you, who have vouchsafed to be the Patron of my Studies, to receive this; and herewithal my most humble duty. Debtford this 8. December. 1605. Your Honour's Chaplain in all duty and service, Samuel Page▪ 2. Sam 3. vers. 38. And the King said to his Servants, Know ye not that a Prince and a great Man is fallen this day in Israel? ABNER is dead, DAVID the King is become a mourner; he followed the Bear of Abner to the Grave: When he came to the Sepulchre, he lift up his voice and wept: He bemoaned his death to the people▪ he refused his meat till the Sun was down. And in this Verse he pleadeth the cause of his grief to his Servants, and makes them sensible of his loss: Know ye not that there is etc. See how artificial sorrow is, in telling of her own tale: here is not a word in this speech of the Kings, but it hath the taste and the relish of the grieved heart where it grew. 1 It is not a fear, or danger, or some infirmity of his friend, that moveth him, but a fall; a fall as low as the Earth, and as deep as the Grave. 2 It is not the fall of any artificial structare or composition, but of a man; a Man is fallen. here is the dissolution of a little World, a pile of the curiousest Architecture, and the master piece of the most skilful builder. Consult not herein the practice of human inhumanity, which holdeth the life of man cheap, and underualueth so rare a creature with low-prized estimation, but consult Nature: Hoc natura prescribit, ut homo homini quicunque fit ob eam ipsam Causam tantum quod homo sit consultam velit: This (saith Cicero) is the document of Nature, that a man should seek the good of a man, even for this alone, because he is a man. 3 This man for whom David makes this moan, is none of them that are weary of the light because God doth humble them; and being vile, and sitting with the Dogs of the flock, hunt after death: But, a great man is fallen: great in the proof of his virtue in the adventure of his person, in his advancement to be the favourite of a King; in his employment to be one of the supporters of a mighty Kingdom, a Prince and a great man, that is, a principal great man in Israel. 4 He is fallen in Israel, and it is so much blood let out of Israel's veins, some of that lock cut off wherein Sampsons' strength lay: and Israel being the envy of all the Kingdoms of the world, the Archers shooting at it, and grieving it, as old jaacob said of joseph: If it had been sown with the seed of valiant men, it could have set them all on work to keep violent intruders from invasion and assault. Therefore Israel had a great loss in the death of Abner. 5 All this not a grief of ancient times, as Hecuba said of Troy, Troia i am vetus est malum: Troy is an old grief, but it is a fresh woe instantly pressing, and oppressing the sense: for he is fallen To day. 6 Do you not kn〈…〉 this? saith David: had you an hope of his person, and have you no grief for his death? Could your glad ears receive the tidings of his joining with our forces, and do you with dry eyes see him, by death, disjoined from us again? Thus doth David keep a score of his own losses. Behold, here is Abner a Prince; yet he is fallen: a Great man, yet a man, fallen in Israel: for Death hath left no place privileged, no person free. I will confine my present Discourse to these three particular points. 1 I observe a difference between man and man, in this title ginen to Abner: a great man. 2 I find the greatest, subject to mortality: is fallen. 3 I note in David a desire, that notice be taken of this loss: Do you not know? 1. Of the difference between man and man. This is not in respect of the maker: for God hath not made some men himself, and devolved the rest to inferior iournimen under him: but we are all alike beholding to him for our creation: not in respect of the matter; for we were all, digged out of the same Pit. But the difference is in the use, & service of men, and that is directed in all well managed States, by their manners and merits. Tully's rule of a man's Fortune; that is, of his condition of life, is this: Suis ea cuique fingitur moribus: It is such as his behaviour and carriage makes it. The best men seek Honour; and they seek it best, even in the merit of their own worth; not in the groundless opinion of an undiscerning multitude, and therefore they make their lives precedents of living to others, and their whole comportsment exemplary, deserving well: Some for advice, others for execution: Some for Arts, some for the Tongues, some for the Sword, some for the Compass, some in the Chambers of Princes, some in the Field making merit still, the true lustre of their greatness. Paulum sepaltae distat inertiae celata virtus: Virtue that cometh not abroad, is little better than unseen unskilfulness: which the Poet sp●ke not to encourage men to put all their Virtue upon the Stage, and to set it always in the common eye, with base prostitution; for this is an ambitious begging of popular air: But he admonisheth to keep Virtue in breath with exercise, to give it life in action, and not suffer it to keep house too much, or to rust with rest and idleness. Thus shall not a man trust to hereditary Dignity, and spend upon that stock of Honour which his noble ancestors have left him: neither shall he basely purchase precedence and priority with the Penny, nor dive by cunning insinuation into the favour of Princes by flattering their amisses: All these are the Balls of Fortune, racketed upon high; but not abiding there, but falling down again: These spring tides have their neapes▪ these are very Meteors, making a portentose show of light awhile, but soon put out: For when this Curtain of Greatness drawn between them and the deceived eyes of men, shall be withdrawn; when this over-guilding with false Honour shall begin to wear off, and their unworthiness look like itself, stripped and naked: When they shall unlearn the art of Seeming, shall it not then be said unto them. What fruit have you now of these things where of you are ashamed? Ler Honour than follow Virtue: and let Virtue be content with itself. S. Augustine's rule is, Gloria nostra est testimonium Conscientiae nosirae: Our glory is in the testimony of our own Conscience. The first Adam sought Honour, and it fled from him: The second Adam fled from Honour, and it overtook him. The use of this instruction is this, to provoke every of you (according to the measure of God's endowment of Grace) to stir up in yourselves those fair parts of Virtue and goodness, by which your God may be most glorified in his creature, your Country may have the benefit of your service, your King the use of your Virtue, and all men the example of it. Seneca saith, Recie facii fecisse merces est: To have done well, is the reward of well doing: therefore if Riches buy away, or Favour give away from you your well-deserved honours; yet God hath promised to be your portion, and exceeding great reward. It will be a great evidence against you, that you never loved Virtue and goodness truly, if you do neglect them when you see yourselves neglected: for Honourable actions are not to be undertaken in regard of the honour which we gain by them, but that God may be honoured by us in them. Our Saviour hath informed us, that they which seek the praise of men, have their reward here. I will conclude this first point with the saying of S. Chrisostome, Hon●● verus est in virtute animi: True honour is in the virtue of the mind: and for all other that go for honours here, let us say with the same learned father Honours non sunt im● ministeria: They are not Honours, but mere services. 2 Though I have found as much difference between man and man, as between high and low, rich and poor, great and small; yet I have set mine eye in the second place, upon the mortalive of Great Men, because my Text saith, A great man is fallen. It hath cost the lives of the greatest to exemplify this to us from Adam, the Father of us all; by whose disobedience Sin came into the world, and by Sin, Death, even to this moment of time wherein thousands are breathing their last in sundry places, and by sundry sorts of death. Where be those great ones, even the greatest of the Sons of men, which have overrun Kingdoms & people▪ with an inundation of power, and taught the Earth to groan, and tremble under the burden of their Arms? Did not God blow upon them, and they withered? And did not the whire wind take them away as stubble. Esa. 40. 24. When job was out of taste with his life, he wished that he had gone immediately from the womb to the Grave: for saith he, I should have slept then, and been at rest, with the Kings and Counsay lours of the Earth, which have builded themselves desolate places: or with the Princes that had gold, and have filled their houses with silver. job 3. 13. Dignity, friends, followers, wealth, plenty, the best supporters that ever the world could find (of temporal happiness) give way when Death cometh. The Centution saith to his servant Go, and he goeth: Death saith to the Centurion Come, and he cometh. Death's Nets are not Cobwebs to take none but small Flies, nor Snares for none but small Birds: If great Men should not die, small men should not live. Vnrestrayned geatnes grows savage: but the thought of Death, makes it come to hand, and become tame. All the life of some, is a rize from one advancement to another, till they have lost themselves in their own greatness: but they shall fall even from the greatest. It was so decreed in Paradise, when we were all yet in the loins of our first Parents, before there was any such difference between us in dignity: For out of it wert thou taken, because thou art Dust, and to Dust shalt thou return. Gen. 3. 19 Dust is our first and last. The most neat, & the most cautious amongst us, shall not brush off this dust, till we rise again, even till our mortal do put on immortality. Reu. 6. 8. S. john looked, and behold, a pale Horse, & his name that sat upon him is Death. Death is an Horseman (you see) to show his speed: and his Horse is pale, which is the complexion of departing and dying men. This rider hath overtaken Abner, a Great man in Israel. This fills the eyes of David full of tears, till they run over. 1 The use of this observation is to understand, that Princes have their sorrows. Luctus (saith Tully) est agritudo ex eius qui charus est acerbo interitu: Mourning is a sorrow conceived at the death of a dear Friend. In this, grief is impartial, the friends of Kings are as mortal, as the friends of Subjects. It is not in the Cottages of the poor, or under the roof of the Widow only, in the Hospitals of the diseased only▪ or in the dark Dungeons of the imprisoned: but in the Palaces of Princes, in the Bedchambers of Kings; nay in their bosoms, and the inmost conclaves of their breasts: Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae: Sorrow and sad unrest have taken up their lodging. Abner dieth in the nonage of King Dauides sovereignty; a limb of strength untimely lopped from the body of his greatness. And I am this day weak (saith he) and newly anointed King. David is exercised in these sorrows: for in the next Chapter, he mourneth for Ishbosheth the Son of Saul, whom some, presuming to please the King, did murder in his bed: but he calleth the executioners wicked men: he chargeth them with murder, murder of a righteous Person, and that done upon him in his own House, which should have been to him a Sanctuary of peace: and upon his own Bed, where he promiseth himself rest. The B●●● should indeed represent the Grave, and sleep Death: but to make a Slaughter house of his Chamber, and a Bear of his Bed, was the work of men of blood: and David could do no less out of his grief for Ishbosbeth, and his justice upon them, but require his blood at their hands, and take them from the earth. David's Child be gotten of Bathsheba, and Absalon hi● Son dying, were to much cut out of his own flesh: and (if Mors take name a Morsu, Death from biting) they were two morsels bitten cut of David's own loins. This David a King may do: he may love his Friends whilst they live, and advance them to honour: he may hug them in the bosom of his best favours, and engirde them in the cincture of his royal embracements: He may beweep them when they are dead, & shed his sorrows in tears upon the earth for them: But to adjourn Death, or prolong Life▪ to fill the empty Veins of his friends with lively blood, or their dried Bones with marrow: to open the ears which Death hath shut, or to light again the Candles which Death hath put out, or to redeem their life from the power of the Grave; In all these things, David is no King. 2. Reg. 5. 7. When the King of Israel received Letters containing a request that he would heal the Leprosy of Naaman, he answered them with the rending of his clothes, saying: Am I God, to kill and to give I fo, that he doth send to me, that I should heal a man from 〈…〉 Leprosy? In a less matter in the next Chapter, when a Woman in the Famine of Samaria, cried, Help my Lord, O king. The King of Israel said: Seeing the Lord doth not succour thee, how should I help thee with the Barn or the Winepress? King's then have their wings clipped: God will have them known to be but men: the Wind blows on them, the Sun heats them, the rain doth wet them: grief and care is as ordinary a guest with them, as with their meanest Subjects: their great Friends fall also like other men: Mors aequo pulsat pede, it goes with an even foot, and carrieth an indifferent hand, and leaves Kings that only remedy, to sit downe and weep over their dead, as David here doth over Abner. It is not long since our eyes saw the fall of Majesty, the death of the great Lady of these Realms, the Sovereign of all the honest hearts under these her dotninions, the wonder of her sex, deserving better of her people, than we have words to express; as much above my praise, as I was beneath her greatness, the holy Anointed seru 〈…〉 of God, hath not she read us a lecture of Mortality, and showed us our of what pit Princes are digged? I would my words could go so near the hearts of the greatest in this assembly, as to persuade them to lay thus much to heart, and to make it their Philosophy and best learning, to learn to die. This meditation were enough to kill the Moth in their Garments, and to scour off the Rust from their Gold, and to set their imprisoned Money at liberty: it were enough to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to comfort the oppressed, to make Rich men live to God, & not to themselves, or to regard themselves chiefly for a common good. It were enough to distaste to men that auxious and solicitous impropriation of all their respects unto themselves, and to enlarge their hoartes to the pursuit of the good of their brethren. This meditation were enough to rear up Temples to God, Colleges for Arts and Learning. Hospitals for the poor and diseased: for there is nothing that kills Charity and Good▪ works sooner, then hope of long life. I beseech you, if your ear be open, to entertain this needful instruction, let it be tenible in your remembrance also, that whilst you live, you may do good to all: and that when you die, your works may follow you: not the merit of your works; for, your well doing extendeth not to God. This were condignity on your part: but the reward of your works: for God rewardeth abundantly those that do well: this is gratuity on God's part. It is said of them that die, thus, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Their own works follow them, that they might not depend hopefully on the works of other men, much less upon their multiplied reiterations of prayers for them. It is also said, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth immediately following, and therefore no stay by the way, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even with themselves. It is the reproach of Protestants, and the shame of our Professors at this day: It is spoken of in Gath, and it is proclaimed in the streets of Ask●lon; the Church of Room doth justly charge us with it: Good works live in exile from us: encroachments upon our Church-revenewes, and bequeathments of Dying men to holy uses, even for the maintenance of good Arts and learning: The reentries of the Say upon the rents of God, are frequent: the Church hath not the overflowings now of the fullest Cup: it is honour enough to them, that invade not these consecrate and hallowed Benevolences, that make a conscience of this gripple seizure, and unrighteous intrusion, though they give nothing themselves. But let me speak it to the ear of Greatness; and let the heart that keepeth house there, tremble at it. Hinc colligendum est qua paena mulctandus sit qui aliena diripit si inferni damnatione percu●itur qui propria non largitur▪ Hence we may conceive, how they shall smart for their direptions, who invade the goods of other men, when he shall be punished with infernal damnation, who gave not that which was his own: It is the speech of S Gregory writing upon the Parable of the Rich man. I beseech you, as you tender the happiness of your beloved souls, let the remembrance of the end, kindle in you an holy ambition, which may mount your eyes & hoapes to a more lofty apprehension of that wealth which wasteth not, of that honour which cometh not into dust, of that happiness which never can be unhappied again: and for these things, facite de damno lucrum of that which idly oftentimes lewdly is misspent, make friends: Ventres pauperum horrea divitum, Lay up, if not your Harvest, yet at least the Glean, in these Barns: And if you give charge for them, as Boaz did for Ruth, that they may glean among the Sheaves, the bowels of the poor will bless you, and they that are ready to perish, will pray for your increase. 2 David teacheth us a second use of this Doctrine of Prince's mortality. Psal. 146. Trust no in Princes etc. A King is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let Let them go to him for judgement, and in his rest & peace let them seek rest▪ but to fasten dependence upon Great men, is to forget the Lord of Hosts: they that sow their hope upon this ground, reap no better Harvest then that upon the house top. I will conclude this point, with that Isay. 31. 1. Woe be to them that go down into Egypt for help. etc. The Egyptians are men, not God: their Horse's flesh, and not spirit; and when the Lord shall stretch out his hand, their helpers shall fail, etc. 3 I note in this fall of so Great a man the loss which the State where he liveth, hath of him: the King he loofeth Abners' service. I am newly anointed King, and the sons of Zeruiah. etc. The people generally shall want his direction and oversight. It is one of the Rods; rather it is one of the Scorpions wherewith God did use to scourge the disobedient; He calleth it The breaking of the pride of their power. Leuit. 26. 19 Ier●mie in his Lament. brings in jerusalem thus, complaining. 1. Lament. 15. The Lord hath trodden under foot all my valiant men in the midst of me●: For those things I weep: mine eye, even mine eye, easteth out water. Lamen 4. 2. The noble men of Zion comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen Pi●chers, even the work of the hands of the Potter? What are the Walls about our strongest Towns, but heaps of Stone and congestions of Earth? Theopompus in Plutarch to one that showed him the Walls of his City, ask him if they were not goodly and strong? answered well, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no, if your City hold none but Women. Our Ships are but walls of Wood; our Ordinance but the messengers of Death: and there must be some to send these messengers abroad. Indeed all our defence, our strongest Bulwarks and Propugnacles of our land, what are they without the ministery and service of Men, but as Shafts and Arrows hung up against the wall? And what are Men, without order and Discipline, but as droves of wild Beasts? So did disordered Confusion fashion the unschoold minority of the world, even then when the Roman Empire like a young bud of greatness, was first Inoculate in the ranckstocke of undisciplined times: So saith a learned Roman. Disciplina militaris acriter retenta, etc. Military Discipline seveerely retained, made Rome spread over Town and Country, Land and Sea, and bred the Empire of all the Earth, in the poor Cottage of Romulus. And was not all this performed by the virtue of men of action, and undertaking, such as are called Great men? Philip of Macedon had wont to call the Athenians an happy people, because they had such store of Great Men of worth, as yearly to choose ten fit to be Leaders; whereas he had in all his time, found none but Parmenio, worthy to take charge under him. But now I begin to see how I do idle the time, to show you how great a miss a State may have of Worthy men, and to endear to you men of action. For we have put off our Armour, and our sword and Shields hang up rather as Monuments of old, than Instruments of new Warre●tour Ships are double moored, our Men of War have wasted over welcome peace into our borders; Abner hath leave to die, and men of action could never have been better spared: Smooth and even is the face and outside of all things amongst us. Let not our eyes, o Lord, nor the eyes of our unborn Children and Nephews, ever see it wrinkled any more: Let us all join in prayer always for the peace of our jerusalem, and let them prosper that love it. Yet by the fair leave of a gentle Peace, let us consider that the Sons of Zeruiah may be too hard for us, and therefore let not Abner die without sense of a public loss, even without an universal condolement of the State wherein he lives, and of which he hath deserved well. But this is my third, and last Observation: For David desireth that notice be taken of Abners' death: Kow ye not. Surely the righteous perisheth, and no man considereth it in his heart. Isay. 57 1. It is not possible but the common eye doth see it, and the understanding doth apprehend such sad accidents: but men keep such things as much as they may, from the heart, loath to entertain so unwelcome a guest as Grief is. David doth not put them in mind of it as of some sad betiding to Abner: for the advantage of the death of the Righteous is manifold. 1 Rest from labours: For it is most true which S. Bern. saith: Qui in labour hominum non sunt, in labour profecto Doemonum erunt: They that labour not here amongst men, shall labour hereafter amongst Devils. 2 They are taken away from the evil to come, as choice stuff removed when Fire is feared; So doth God defend his chosen, from the conflagration of the unrighteous. 3 They are translated from death to life. S. Gregory saith, Curramus et sequamur Christum, non sunt hic vera solatia, sed ibi ponuntur ubi vera vita: Let us run and follow Christ: here are no true comforts, they are laid up there where it true life. But David's end in this bemoaning of Abner is, to teach them to depend upon God, not on man; and to encourage every bold heart, and able hand amongst them, to avenge the workers of that death to Abner, that grief to the King, that weakness to the Church, and that common lost to all Israel. It is our great fault that when God giveth any such blow to our State, the smart of it in too soon past, and their memory buried in the same Grave with them. This is a great disheartening of Worthy men, from great undertakings: For this Land hath buried, in our memory, of Worthres that are all dead, their acts, their name and all; such an honourable breed, as huing eyes cannot find paragons too, and our present hopes (which yet are our franckest promises) cannot apprehend: Let them all go with this honour done them in heaven, In memoria aeteina erit justus. And let Learning, which bath the best eye to sec Virtue, & the Honourablest affection to love it and the longest lived means to immortalize it, keep her own course upon the earth: Vignum laud virum Musa ustat mori: And let their own good deeds praise them in the gates. They that trust a curious pile of Stone Pyramids, Colossuses high-reared Monuments over, their low laid bodies in the losome of the Earth, with their memories, do bue deceive themselves. A good Name is a precious Ointment powered forth, the perfume of it filleth all the house. Thus much of the words of my Text. COncerning this occasion of meeting, let me also borrow your patience and attention. Though I know you have saved me a labour in the application: and your understandings in their clear light, have seen that this honourable Knight, of whom there is now but thus much left, even a morsel fit for the Worms, and atenant for the house, and a guest for the bed in the dark, of which job speaketh, He hath been my Teat, the Abner, the Great and Worthy man whom I have personated all this while: and our Scene lieth in our Israel, and that this fight is the Catastiophe of our Tragedy. Yet I beseech you, let me pay the debt which I owe to his love of me, and the duty which I acknowledge tributary to his memory, at least to say to you of him as David did of his Abner: Know ye not that a great. etc. A man great in his birth and descent, as you all know, linked by marriage in a most Honourable Family, of a goodly & a lovely parsonage, of an easy and affable nature where his discretion found it fit to be so: of a daring and hardy spirit. of a stern and sour aspect against the enemies of his Sovereign, magnanimously valiant in his undertakinges, wise in his counsels, speedy and resolute in his executions; valuing his worthy life less, than the common good of his Country: Witness that adventueous expedition of his, Irish service; where he wrote his valour in the blood of the opposites, and filled the care of this Kingdom with the welcome tidings of his victories. He was judicious in the finding out of Virtue, magnificent and bounteous in the reward of it 〈…〉 spare in speech; but when occasion prompted him, rather performing, then promising his favour and love, where he saw desert. Great in the favour of the late Majesty of this Land, and succeeding in his love, who succeeded in her greatness: great in his employment and office of trust and charge: and (for which he forgot not his duty to God in all humble thanks giving amongst his dying meditations) very fortunate and successful: great in the love of the common man that went under his charge; for the eye that saw him, blessed him; and every tongue of theirs, bear witness of his righteous dealing. Great in his estate and means of maintenance; for like a Tree planted by the Rivers of waters, so he grew, and so did God give him a plentiful increase: But that which maketh all this greatness a great deal greater, he had an understanding to know God, and an affection to love him. I must not flatter the remembrance of flesh and blood so far, as to exempt him from offending (with other men) I know that humanity and infirmity are individual: But I am his witness, that he looked upon his life past, with a censorious eye: he charged himself with his defaultinges without excuse or mitigation of his sins, even with detestation of his unthriftiness of good hours, and sorrow for the loss of so precious minutes, that should have been better spent, and with most serious deprecation of God's wrath. It pleased him in my attendance upon his honourable Father in Law into Spain, wherein this worthy Knight had a great place of Command and Charge: it pleased him in this expedition, to take knowledge of me, and often to vouchsafe me his conference: and being desirous to sing the song of the Lord in a strange Land, he received at my hands the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, accompanied with many worthy Knights, & Gentlemen of quality, in one of the Harboroughs of that Land; where there was peace for our persons, but not for our religion: Yea, many ways he testified to me, his love of God, and of our Religion: He looked judicially into the difference between us and the Church of Rome, touched with commiseration of the darkness wherein they lived, and wishing increase of zeal amongst us, and knowledge with them. After his return, it pleased Almighty God by his last Sickness, to put him in mind that he must set his House in order: For he must die. This he maturely regarded; and after the settling of his Estate, he reserved the remain of his time, as a vacation from all temporal thoughts, and consecrated it to his preparation for his remove of the body, that he might dwell with the Lord. It pleased him then, to remember his acquaintance, with me; and when he had dispatched a Messenger with his Letters to me, to entreat my resort to him, I prevented expectation: for the unwelcome news of his dangerous Sickness, was to me messenger enough to call upon me to do so Honourable a Friend my last service. He received my free and voluntary visitation, with more than thanks: and desirous to be private with me, to this purpose he bespoke me. First, he told me of his present weakness, and appeared to me sensible of his danger of death, and therefore protested an earnest desire to spend that short time of life limited then to him, in a religious preparation for that end. He began at the acousing of his former lewd life (so he was pleased to call it, with a sorrowful detestation of it) and complaining to me of his present infirmity, which had so weakened his memory & understanding, that he could not lay himself so open before God as he desired, nor comprehend in fit words his suit to God for pardon of his sins, and the assistance of his holy Grace to the last gasp, as he wished: He earnestly desired me to conceive a form of confession of his sins to God, and a Prayer for those mercies which I might leave with him when I should depart from him. This I soon satisfied him in, for I had more use herein of my memory of that which he had delivered to me, then of my invention for that which I was to deliver to him: His sorrows had the true face of woe; and his feeling of his own grief for fin, was so sensible, his zeal so fervent, his humiliation made him so dejected, that I saw in him a true mirror and precedent of repenting in good earnest. O let me hear the tongue speak which is prompted by a soul truly humbled before God. He used this form of Prayer, with an affection sanctified, and a Spirit waned from this world: And this done, he desired me now to supply the weakness of his memory, by calling into his remembrance those things which are most fit to be the last thoughts of a dying man. I spared not my best endeavour herein, and entertained him with all the comforts which I could. He heard me attentively, understandingly, consentfully, and believingly: And confessed this doctrine of Peace, which passeth all understanding, to be the best Physic; and that only which now he desired. Thus commending him to my earnest Prayers to God, he dismissed me, pro testing that he had much cheered and refreshed his overcharged spirit with these holy exercises; he desired me to repair to him the morning following betimes: this I did gladly, and full of hope that the Lord would have mercy on us, that he might live. When I came, he gave me a loving and cheerful welcome, and then desired me not to depart from him, till I had seen the last of him. He told me of the sorrows which he had sustained the night past, and that he saw no possibility of life beyond the morning following, he found such decay in himself: then I understood how in the night past, he had called upon God, and what good watch he kept, that if at midnight, or at the dawning, God had sent for him hence, he might not be unprovided. He then in the hearing of us all present, made his confession of sins, and prayers to God so earnestly and effectually, that when he requested us all to pray to God for him, he taught us to be importunate, and that it passed not good manners to take no nay of our God. I never sowed my comfort in a better ground; for I began to reap, ere I had done sowing. He heard our prayers for him, with grea● content & comfort. This whole day was spent in prayers, and reading of those things to him which might best endear to him the joys of Heaven: and when he felt his decay more sensible, he desired our prayers to God for him again, as loath to lose the advantage of any minute of that short time of his life: and after us, he said the Lords Prayer, to our great rejoicing in his zeal, who grieved so much for his weakness; and he testified to us witnesses, the Religion and Faith wherein he died. I desired him to be plain and true to me in one demand: I showed him how those that are in misery (as job speaketh) seek after death, and rejoice when they can find the Grave; but their misery and weariness of suffering, bringeth forth in them these desires: But for him who had plenty of all that his heart could wish for his means of maintenance, greatness in his place, honour 〈…〉 s employments 〈…〉 ce with his Sovereign, love with the multitude, and the common language of all men to applaud his noble deserts of the state in which he lived: I inquired therefore if he who bade so many provocations to desire to live, could be content to forsake this life, and all these things? He smiled cheerfully, and protested that he died as willingly, as that poor man mentioned in job, that had nothing but misery to forsake; for Heaven was his hope, and GOD his exceeding great reward. Shortly after, he began to decay more and more, and slumbering out a little time, after some pang and strong Convulsions, he fell into this last sleep, leaving tears in every beholder's eye, and dividing amongst us his friends and followers, a well witnessed sorrow: and leaving this body of clay to these our last obsequies. Thus leaving him with God; and to God commending ourselves, I conclude. I have but planted and watered, the Lord give the increase. FINIS.