THE Triumphs over Death: OR, A consolatory Epistle, for afflicted minds, in the affects of dying friends. First written for the consolation of one: but now published for the general good of all, by R. S. the Author of S. Peter's Complaint, and Maonia his other Hymns. LONDON Printed by V S. for john Busbie, and are to be sold at Nicholas ling shop at the West end of Paul's Church 1595. To the Worshipful M. Richard Sackuile, Edward Sackuile Cicilie Sackuile and Anne Sackuile, the hopeful issue of the honourable Gentleman master Robert Sackuile Esquire. MOst lines do not the best conceit contain, Few words well couched may comprehend much matter: Then, as to use the first is counted vain, So is't praiseworthy to conceit the latter, The gravest wits that most grave works expect, The quality, not quantity respect. The smallest spark will cast a burning heat: Base cottages may harbour things of worth, Then though this Volume be, nor gay, nor great, Under your protection I set forth, Do not with coy disdainful oversight Deny to read this well meant orphans mite. And since his father in his infancy Provided patrons to protect his heir, But now by death none sparing cruelty Is turned an orphan to the open air: I his unworthy foster-sire have dared, To make you patronizers of this ward. You glorying issues of that glorious dame, Whose life is made the subject of deaths will, To you succeeding hopes of mother's fame, I dedicate this fruit of Southwels' quill: He for your uncles comfort first it writ, I for your consolation print and send you it. Then deign in kindness to accept the work, Which he in kindness writ, I send to you, The which till now clouded, obscure did lurk: But now opposed to each Readers view, May yield commodious fruit to every wight That feels his conscience pricked by Parca's spite. But if in aught I have presumptuous been, My pardon-craving pen implores your favour: If any fault in print be past; unseen To let it pass, the Printer is the craver, So shall he thank you, and I by duty bound, Pray, that in you may all good gifts abound. Your Worships humbly devoted, john Trussell. R Read with regard, what here with due regard, O Our second Ciceronian Southwell sent, B By whose persuasive pithy argument, E Each well disposed eye may be prepared, R Respectively their grief for friends decease T To moderate without all vain excess. S Sith than the work is worthy of your view, O Obtract not him which for your good it penned: V Unkind you are if you it reprehend, T That for your profit is presented you, H He penned, I publish this to pleasure all, E Esteem of both then as we merit shall: W Wey his works worth, accept of my goodwill, E Else is his labour lost, mine crossed, both to no end: L Lest than you ill deserve what both intent, L Let my goodwill all small defects fulfil: He here his talon trebled doth present, I, my poor mite, yet both with good intent, Then take them kindly both, as we them meant. john Trussell. To the Reader. CHancing to find with Aesop's Cock a stone, Whose worth was more than I knew how to prize: And knowing, if it should be kept unknown, T ' would many scathe, and pleasure few or none, I thought it best the same in public wise In Print to publish, that impartial eyes Might, reading judge, and judging, praise the wight The which this Triumph over Death did write. And though the same he did at first compose For ones peculiar consolation, Yet will it be commodions unto those, Which for some friend's loss, prove their own selfe-foes: And by extremity of exclamation, And their continuate lamentation Seem to forget, that they at length must tread, The self same path which they did that are dead. But those as yet whom no friend's death doth cross, May by example guide their actions so, That when a tempest comes their Bark to toss, Their passions shall not superate their loss: And eke this Treatise doth each Reader show, That we our breath, to Death by duty own, And thereby proves, much tears are spent in vain, When tears can not recall the dead again. Yet if perhaps our late sprung sectaries, Or for a fashion Bible-bearing hypocrites, Whose hollow hearts do seem most holy wise, Do for the Author's sake the work despise, I wish them weigh the words, and not who writes: But they that leave what most the soul delights, Because the Preachers, no Precisian sure, To read what Southwell writ will not endure. But leaving them, since no persuades suffice To cause them read, except the spirit move, I wish all other read, but none despise This little Treatise: but if Momus eyes Espy Death's triumph, it doth him behove, The writer, work, or me for to reprove: But let his pitched speecht mouth defile but one, Let that be me, let other two alone: For if offence in either merit blame, The fault is mine, and let me reap the shame. john Trussell. ❧ The Author to the Reader. IF the Athenians erected an altar to an unknown god, supposing he would be pleased with their devotion, though they were ignorant of his name: better may I presume that my labour may be grateful, being devoted to such men, whose names I know, and whose fames I have heard, though unacquainted with their persons. I intended this comfort to him whom a lamenting sort hath left most comfortless, by him to his friends, who have equal portions in this sorrow. But I think the Philosopher's rule will be here verified, that it shall be last in execution, which was first designed, and he last enjoy the effect, which was first owner of the cause, this let Chance be our rule since Choice may not, and into which of your hands it shall fortune, much honour and happiness may it carry with it, and leave in their hearts as much joy as it found sorrow: where I borrow the person of a Historian as well touching the dead as the yet surviving, I build upon report of such authors, whose hoary heads challenge credit, and whose eyes and ears were witnesses of their words. To crave pardon for my pain were to slander a friendly office, and to wrong their courtesies, whom nobility never taught to answer affection with anger, or to wage duty with dislike: and therefore I humbly present unto them with as many good wishes as good will can measure from a best meaning mind, that hath a willingness rather to afford, then to offer due services, were not the mean as worthless as the mind is willing. The Triumphs over Death: OR, A consolatory Epistle for troubled minds in the affects of dying friends. IF it be a blessing of the virtuous to mourn, it is the reward of this, to be comforted; and he that pronounced the one, promised the other: I doubt not but that Spirit, whose nature is Love, and whose name Comforter, as he knoweth the cause of your grief, so hath he salved it with supplies of grace, pouring into your wound no less oil of mercy then wine of justice; yet sith courtesy oweth compassion as a duty to the afflicted, and nature hath engrafted a desire to find it, I thought it good to show you by proof, that you carry not your cares alone, though the load that lieth on others can little lighten your burden, her decease can not but sit nearer your heart, whom you had taken so deep into a most tender affection. That which dieth to our love, being always alive to our sorrow, you would have been loving to a less loving sister: yet finding in her so many worths to be loved, your love wrought more earnestly upon so sweet a subject, which now being taken from you, I presume your grief is no less than your love was, the one of these being ever the measure of the other, the Scripture moveth us to bring forth our tears upon the dead, a thing not offending grace, & aright to reason. For to be without remorse in the death of friends, is neither incident nor convenient to the nature of man, having too much affinity to a savage temper, and overthrowing the ground of all piety, which is a mutual sympathy in each of others miseries: but as not to feel sorrow in sorrowful chances, is to want sense, so not to bear it with moderation, is to want understanding, the one brutish, the other effeminate, and he hath cast his account best that hath brought his sum to the mean. It is no less fault to exceed in sorrow, then to pass the limits of competent mirth, sith excess in either is a disorder in passion, though that sorrow of courtesy be less blamed of men, because, if it be a fault, it is also a punishment, at once causing & tasting torments. It is no good sign in the sick to be senseless in his pains, as bad it is to be unusually sensitive, being both either harbingers or attendants of death. Let sadness, sith it is a due to the dead testify a feeling of pity, not any pang of passion, and bewray rather a tender then a dejected mind. Mourue as that your friends may find you a living brother, all men a discreet mourner, making sorrow a signell, not a superior of reason: some are so obstinate in their own will, that even time the natural remedy of the most violent agonies can not by any delays assuage their grief, they entertain their sorrow with solitary muses, and feed with sighs and tears, they pine their bodies, and draw all pensive consideration to their minds, nursing their heaviness with a melancholy humour, as though they had vowed themselves to sadness, unwilling it should end till it had ended them, wherein their folly sometimes findeth a ready effect, 〈◊〉 that being true which Solomon observed, that as a moth the garment and a worm the wood, so doth sadness persuade the heart. But this impotent softness fitteth not sober minds. We must not make a lives profession of a seven night's duty, nor under colour of kindness be unnatural to ourselves, if some in their passion joined their thoughts into such labyrinths, that neither wit knoweth, nor will careth how long or how far they wnder in them, it discovereth their weakness, but discerneth our meditation. It is for the most the fault, not of all, but of the seeliest women, who next to the funeral of their friends, deem it a second widowhood to force their tears, and make it their happiness to seem most unhappy, as though they had only been left alive to be a perpetual map of dead folks misfortunes: but this is to arm an enemy against ourselves, and to yield Reason prisoner to Passion, putting the sword in the rebels hand when we are least able to withstand his treason. Sorrow once settled is not lightly removed, easily winning, but not so easily surrendering possession, and where it is not excluded in time, it challengeth a place by prescription. The Scripture warneth us not to give our hearts to sadness, yea rather to reject it as a thing not beneficial to the dead, yet prejudicial to ourselves, Ecclesiasticus Eccles. 38. 2. alloweth but seven days to mourning, judging moderation in plaint to be a sufficient testimony in good will, and a needful office of wisdom. Much sorrow for the dead is either the child of self-love, or of rash judgement: if we should shed our tears for others death, as a mean to our contentment, we show but our own wound perfect lovers of ourselves, if we lament their decease as their hard destiny, we attach them of evil deserving, with to peremmatory a censure as though their life had been a arise, and their death a leap into final perdition, for otherwise a good departure craveth small condolling, being but a harbour from storms, and an entrance unto felicity. But you know your sister too well to incur any blame in these respects. And experience of her life hath stored your thoughts with notice of so rare virtues, as might sooner make her memory an enforcement to joy then any inducement to sorrow, and move you to esteem her last duties rather the triumph of her victory then the farewelles of her decease. She was by birth second to none but unto the first in the realm, yet she measured only greatness by goodness, making nobility but the mirror of virtue, as able to show things worthy to be seen, as apt to draw many eyes to behold it, she suited her behaviour to her birth, and ennobled her birth with her piety, leaving her house more beholding to her for having honoured it with the glory of her virtues, than she was to it for the titles of her degree, she was high minded in nothing but in aspiring to perfection, and in the disdain of vice, in other things covering her greatness with humility among her inferiors, & showing it with courtesy amongst her peers: of the carriage of herself, and her sober government may be a sufficient testimony, that envy herself was dumb in her dispraise, finding in her much to repine at, but nought to reprove: the clearness of her Honour I need not to mention, she having always armed it with such modesty as taught the most untemperate tongues to be silent in her presence, and answered their eyes with scorn and contempt that did but seem to make her an aim to passion, yea, and in this behalf, as almost in all other, she hath the most honourable and known Ladies of the land, so common and known witnesses, that those that lest liked her religion were in love with her demeanour, delivering their opinions in open praises. How mildly she accepted the check of fortune fallen upon her without desert, experience hath been a most manifest proof, the temper of her mind being so easy that she found little difficulty in taking down her thoughts to a mean degree, which true honour, not pride had raised to the former height, her faithfulness and love where she found true friendship, is written with tears in many eyes, and will be longer registered in grateful memories divers that have tried her in that kind, avowing her for secrecy, wisdom, and constancy, to be a miracle in that sex, yea when she found least kindness in others, she never lost it in herself, more willingly suffering then offering wrong, and often weeping for their mishaps, whom though less loving her, she could not but effect. Of the innocency of her life this general all can aver, that as she was grateful many ways, and memorable for virtues, so was she free from the blemish of any vice, using, to her power, the best means to keep continually an undefiled conscience: her attire was ever such as might both satisfy a curious eye, and yet bear witness of a sober mind, neither singular nor vain, but such as her peers of least report used: her tongue was very little acquainted with oaths, unless either duty or distrust did enforce them: and surely they were needless to those that knew her, to whom the truth of her words could not justly be suspected, much less was she noted of any unfitting talk, which as it was ever hateful to her ears, so did it never defile her breath: of feeding she was very measurable, rather of too sparing then too liberal a diet: so religious for observing all fasts, that never in her sickness she could hardly be won to break them, and if our souls be possessed in our patience, surely her soul was truly her own, whose rock thought often stricken with the rod of adversity never yielded any more than to give issue of eye streams, and though these through the tenderness of her nature & aptness of her sex, were the customary tributes that her love paid, more to her friends than her own misfortunes, yet were they not accompanied with distempered words or ill seeming actions, reason never forgetting distancie, though remembering pity, her devotions she daily observed, offering the daily sacrifice of an innocent heart, and stinting herself to her times of prayer, which she performed with so religious a care, as well showed that she knew how high a Majesty she served. I need not write how dutifully she discharged all the behoofs of a most loving wife, since that was the commonest theme of her praises, yet this may be said without improofe to any, that whosoever in this behalf may be counted her equal, none can justly be thought her superior, where she owed she paid duty, where she found she turned courtesy, wheresoever she was known, she deserved amity, desirous of the best, yet disdaining none but evil company, she was readier to requite benefits than revenge wrongs, more grieved then angered with unkindness of friends, when either mistaking or misreport occasioned any breaches: for if their words carry credit, it entered deepest into her thoughts, they have acquitted her from all spice of malice, not only against her friends, whose dislikes were but a retire to step further into friendship, but even her greatest enemies, to whom if she had been a judge as she was a suppliant, I assuredly think she would have redressed, but not revenged her injuries. In sum, she was an honour to her predecessors, a light to her age, and a pattern to her posterity, neither was her conclusion different from her premises, or her death from her life, she showed no dismay, being warned of her danger, carrying in her conscience the safeconduct of innocency. But having sent her desires before to heaven with a mild countenance, and a most calm mind, in more hope than fear, she expected her own passage, she commended both her duty and goodwill to all her friends, and cleared her heart from all grudge towards her enemies, wishing true happiness to them both, as best became so soft and gentle a mind, in which anger never stayed, but as an unwelcome stranger: She made open profession that she did die true to her religion, true to her husband, true to God and the world, she enjoyed her judgement as long as she breathed, her body earnestly offering her last devotions, supplying in thought what faintness suffered not her tongue to utter: in the end, when her glass was tun out, and death began to challenge his interest, some labouring with too late remedies to hinder the delivery of her sweet soul, she desired them eftsoons to let her go to God, and her hopes calling her to eternal kingdoms, as one rather falling asleep then dying, she most happily took her leave of all mortal miseries. Such was the life, such was the death of your dearest sister, both so full of true comfort, that this survey of her virtues may be a sufficient lenative to your bitterest griefs. For you are not (I hope) in the number of those that reckon it a part of their pain to hear of their best remedies, thinking the rehearsal of your dead friends praises an upbraiding of their loss, but sith the oblivion of her virtues were injurious to her, let not the mention of her person be offensive unto you, and be not you grieved with her death, with which she is best pleased. So blessed a death is rather to be wished of us, than pitied in her, whose soul triumpheth with God, whose virtues still breatheth in the mouths of infinite praises, and liveth in the memories of all, to whom either experience made her known, or fame was not envious in concealing her deserts: she was a jewel that both God and you desired to enjoy, he to her assured benefit without self interest, you for allowable respects, yet employing her restraint among certain hazards and most uncertain hopes. Be then umpire in your own cause, whether your wishes or Gods will importeth more love, the one, the adornment of her exile, the other, her return into a most blessed country, and sith it pleased God in this love to be your rival, let your discretion decide the doubt, whom in due should carry the suit, the prerogative being but a right to the one, for nature & grace being the motives of both your loves, she had the best title in them that was author of them, and she, if worthy to be beloved of either, as she was of both, could not but prefer him to the dearest portion of her deepest affection: let him with good leave gather the grape of his own vine, & pluck the fruit of his own planting, and think so curious works ever safest in the artificers hand, who is likeliest to love them, and best able to preserve them, she did therefore her duty in dying willingly: and if you will do yours, you must be willing with her death, sith to repine at her liking is discourtesy, at Gods an impiety, both unfitting for your approved virtue, she being in place where no grief can annoy her, she hath little need or less joy of your sorrow, neither can she allow in her friends that she would loath in herself, love never affecting likeness: if she had been evil, she had not deserved our tears: being good, she cannot desire them, nothing being less to the likeness of goodness, than to see itself any cause of unjust disquiet or trouble to the innocent. 1. King. 9. Would Saul have thought it friendship to have wept for his fortunes, in having found a kingdom by seeking of cattle: or David account it a courtesy, to have sorrowed at his success, that from following sheep came to foil a giant, and to receive in fine a royal crown for his victory, 1. King. 17. why then should her lot be lamented, Psal. 112. whom higher favour hath raised from the dust to sit with princes of God's people, if security had been given, that a longer life should still have been guided by virtue, and followed with good fortune, you might pretend some cause to complain of her decease. But if different effects should have crossed your hopes (process of time being the parent of strange alterations) then had death been friendlier than yourself, and sith it hung in suspense which of the two would have happened, let us allow God so much discretion, as to think him the fittest arbitrator in decision of the doubt: Psal. 86. her foundations of happiness were in the holy hills, and God saw it fittest for her building to be but low in this vale of tears, and better it was it should be soon taken down, than by rising too high to have oppressed her soul with the ruins. Think it no injury that she is now taken from you, but a favour that she was lent you so long, and show no unwillingness to restore God his own, sith hitherto you have paid no usury for it: consider not how much longer you might have enjoyed her, but how much sooner you might have lost her: and sith she was held upon courtesy, not by any covenant, take our sovereigns' right for a sufficient reason of her death, our life is but lent, a good to make thereof, during the loan our best commodity: It is due debt to a more certain owner than ourselves, and therefore so long as we have it, we receive a benefit, when we are deprived of it, we have no wrong, we are tenants at will of this clayee farm, not for term of years, when we are warned out, we must be ready to remove, having no other title but the owner's pleasure: Eccles. 10. it is but an Inn, not a home: we came but to bait, not to dwell, and the condition of our enrance was, in fine to departed. If this departure be grievous, it is also common, this to day to me, to morrow to thee, and the case equally afflicting all, leaveth none any cause to complain of injurious usage. Nature's debt is sooner exacted of some then of other, yet is there no fault in the creditor that exacteth but his own, but in the greediness of our eager hopes, either repining that their wishes fail, or willingly forgetting their mortality, whom they are unwilling by experience to see mortal, yet the general tide washeth all passengers to the same shore, some sooner, some later, but all at the last: and we must settle our minds to take our course as it cometh, never fearing a thing so necessary, yet ever expecting a thing so uncertain. It seemeth that God purposely concealed the time of our death, leaving us resolved between fear and hope of longer continuance. Cut off unripe cares, lest with the notice and pensiveness of our divorce from the world, we should lose the comfort of needful contentments, & before our dying day languish away with expectation of death. Some are taken in their first step into this life, receiving in one, their welcome and farewell, as though they had been borne only to be buried, and to take their passport in this hourly middle of their course, the good to prevent change, the bad to shorten their impiety: some live till they be weary of life, to give proof of their good hap, that had a kindlier passage, yet though the date be diverse, the debt is all one, equally to be answered of all as their time expireth: Psal. 88 for who is the man shall live and not see death? sith we all die, and like water slide upon the earth. ● King's 14. Genes. 5. In Paradise we received the sentence of death, and here as prisoners we are kept in ward, tarrying but our times till the Gaoler call us to our execution. Whom hath any virtue eternised, or desert commended to posterity, that hath not mourned in life, and been mourned after death, no assurance of joy being sealed without some tears? Even our blessed Lady the mother of God was thrown down as deep in temporal miseries as she was advanced high in spiritual honours, none amongst all mortal creatures finding in life more proof than she of her mortality: for having the noblest son that ever woman was mother of, not only above the condition of men, but above the glory of Angels, being her son only, without temporal father, and thereby the love of both parents doubled in her breast, being her only Son without other issue, and so her love of all children finished in him. Yea, he being God, and she the nearest creature to God's perfections, yet no prerogative either quitted her from mourning, or him from dying: and though they surmounted the highest Angels in all other pre-eminences, yet were they equal with the meanest men in the sentence of death And howbeit our Lady being the pattern of christian mourners, so tempered her anguish, that there was neither any thing undone that might be exacted of a mother, or any thing done that might be disliked in so perfect a matron, yet by this we may guess with what courtesies death is likely to friend us, that durst cause so bloody sunerals in so heavenly a stock, not exempting him from the law of dying that was the author of life, and soon after to honour his triumphs with ruins and spoil of death, Seeing therefore that death spareth none, let us spare our tears for better uses, being but an idle sacrifice to this dease and emplacable executioner, and for this not long to be continued, where they can never profit, nature did promise us a weeping life, exacting tears for custom as our first entrance, and for suiting our whole course in this doleful beginning: and therefore they must be used with measure that must be used so often, and so many causes of weeping, lying yet in the debt, sith we cannot end our tears, let us at the least reserve them, if sorrow cannot be shunned, let it be taken in time of need, sith otherwise being both troublesome and fruitless it is a double misery or an open folly. We moisten not the ground with precious waters, they were stilled for nobler ends, either by their fruits to delight our senses, or by their operations to preserve our healths. Our tears are water of too high a price to be prodigally powered in the dust of any graves. If they be tears of love, they presume our prayers, making them odour of sweetness, fit to be offered on the aultare before the throne of God: if tears of contrition, Apoc, 8. they are water of life to the dying and corrupting souls, they may purchase favour and repeal the sentence till it be executed as the example of Ezechias doth testify, but when the punishment is past, 3. King. 1●. and the verdict performed in effect, their pleading is in vain, as David taught us when his child was dead, 2. King's 1●. saying, that he was likelier to go to it, than it by his weeping to return to him. Learn therefore to give sorrow no long dominion over you. Wherefore the wise should rather mark than expect an end, meet it not when it cometh, do not invite it when it is absent, when you feel it do not force it, sith the bruit creatures which (nature seldom erring in her course guideth in the mean) have but a short though vehement sense of their losses you should bury the sharpness of your grief with the course, and rest contented with a kind, yet a mild compassion, neither less than decent for you, nor more than agreeable to your nature and judgement, your much heaviness would renew a multitude of griefs, and your eyes would be springs to many streams, adding to the memory of the dead a new occasion of plaint by your own discomfort, the motion of your heart measureth the beating of many pulses, which in any distemper of your quiet with the like stroke will soon bewray themselves sick of your disease: your fortune, though hard, yet is notorious, and though moved in mishap and set in an unworthy lantern, yet your own light shineth far, and maketh you markable: all will bend attentive eye upon you, observing how you ward this blow of temptation, and whether your patience be a shield of proof, or easily entered with these violent strokes. It is commonly expected, that so high thoughts which have already climbed over the hardest dangers should not now stowp to any vulgar or female complaints: great personages whole estate draweth upon them many eyes, as they cannot but be themselves, so may not they use the liberty of meaner estates, the laws of Nobility not allowing them to direct their deeds by their desires, but to limit their desires to that which is decent. Nobility is an aim for lower degrees to level at marks of higher perfection, and like stately windows in the North-east rooms of politic and civil buildings, to let in such light, and lie open to such prospects, as may afford their inferiors both to find means and motives to heroical virtues: if you should determine to dwell ever in sorrow, it were a wrong to your wisdom, and countermanded by your quality, if ever you mind to surcease it, no time sitter then the present, sith the same reasons that hereafter might move you, are now as much in force. Yield to Wisdom that you must yield to Time, be beholding to yourself, not to time for the victory, make it a voluntary work of discretion that will otherwise be a necessary work of delay. We think it not enough to have our own measure brim full with evil, unless we make it run over with others miseries, taking their misfortunes as our punishments, and executing foreign penalties upon ourselves: yea disquiet minds being ever bellows to their own flames mistake oft times others good for ill, their folly making it a true scourge to them that howsoever it seemed was to others a benefit. jacob out of joseph's absence sucked such surmises, as he made his heart a prey to his agonies, whereas that that buried him in his own melancholies raised joseph to his highest happiness: if Mary Magdalen said and supposed she could have sunk no deeper in grief than she had already plunged herself, and yet that which she imagined the uttermost of evils proved in conclusion the very bliss of her wishes. The like may be your error if you cumber your mind with musing upon her death, which would never be discharged from cares, till death set his hand to her acquittance, nor receive the charter of an eternal being, till her soul were presented at the feeling: I loath to rub the scar of a deeper wound, for fear of renewing a dead discomfort; yet if you will favour your own remedies, the mastery over that grief that springs from the root, may learn you to qualify this that buddeth from the branch, let not her losses move you that are acquainted with greater of your own, and taught by experience to know how uncertain this chance is, for whom unconstant fortune throweth the dice, if she want the wonted titles, her part is now in deed, and they were due but upon the stage, her loss therein is but a wrack of wounds, in which she is but even with the height of princes, surpassing both herself in them, and the new honours of heavenly style. If she have left her children, it was her wish they should repay her absence with usury; yet had she sent her first fruits before her as pledges of her own coming. And now may we say that the Sparrow hath found a home, and the Turtle Dove a nest, where she may lay her youngling, enjoying some, and expecting the rest. If she be taken from her friends, she is also delivered from her enemies, in hope hereafter to enjoy the first out of fear of ever being troubled with the latter. If she be cut off in her youth, no age is unripe for a good death; and having ended her task, though never so short, yet she hath lived out her full time: Old age is venerable not long, to be measured by increase of virtues, not by number of years, Sap. 4. for heaviness consisteth in wisdom, and an unspotred life is the ripeness of the perfectest age. If she were in possibility of preferment, she could hardly have wanted higher than from whence she was thrown: having been bruised with the first, she had little will to climb for a second fall: we might hitherto truly have said, Ruth 1. this is that Noemi, she being to her end enriched with many outward, and more inward graces. But whether hereafter she would have bid us not to call her Noemi, that is, fair, but Mara, that signifieth bitter, it is uncertain, sith she might have fallen into the widow's felicity, that so changed her name to the likeness of her lot. Insomuch that she is freed from more miseries than she suffered losses, and more fortunate by not desiring, than she would be by enjoying fortunes favour, which if it be not counted a folly to love, yet it is a true happiness not to need, we may rather think that death was provident against her imminent harms, then envious of any future prosperities, the times being great with so many broils, that when they once fall in labour, we shall think their condition securest whom absence hath exempted, both from feeling the bitter throws, and beholding the monstrous issue that they are likely to bring forth: the more you tender her, the more temperate should be your grief, sith seeing you upon going, she did but step before you into the next world, to which she thought you to belong more then to this, which hath already given you the most ungrateful congee. They that are upon removing, send their furniture before them; and you still standing upon your departure, what ornament could you rather wish in your future abode than this that did ever please you? God thither sendeth your adamants, whither he would draw your heart, and casteth your anchors where your thoughts should lie at road, that seeing your love taken out of the world, and your hopes disanchored from this stormy shore, you might settle your desires where God seemeth to require them. If you would have wished her life for an example to your house, assure yourself she hath left her friends so inherited with her virtues, and so perfect patterns of her best parts, that who knoweth the survivors, may see the deceased, and shall find little difference, but in the number, which before was greater, but not better, unless it were in one repetition of the same goodness: wherefore set yourself at rest in the ordinance of God, whose works are perfect, and whose wisdom is infinite. The terms of our life are like the seasons of the year, some for sowing, some for growing, and some for reaping, in this only different, that as the heavens keep their prescribed periods, so the succession of times have their appointed changes. But in the seasons of our life, which are not to the law of necessary causes, some are reaped in the seed, some in the blade, some in the unripe ear, all in the end, this harvest depending upon the reapers wil Death is too ordinary a thing to seem any novelty, being a familiar guest in every house; and sith his coming is expected, and his arrant unknown, neither his presence should be feared, nor his effects lamented. What wonder is it to see fuel burned, spice pownded, or snow melted? and as little fear it is to see those dead that were borne upon condition once to die, she was such a compound as was once to be resolved unto her simples, which is now performed: her soul being given to God, and her body sorted into her first elements, it could not dislike you to see your friend removed out of a ruinous house, and the house itself destroyed and pulled down, if you knew it were to build it in a statelier form, & to turn the inhabitant with more joy into a fairer lodging. Let then your sister's soul departed without grief, let her body also be altered into dust, withdraw your eyes from the ruin of this cottage, & cast them upon the majesty of the second building, which S. Paul saith shall be incorruptible, glorious, strange, spiritual, and immortal: night and sleep are perpetual, mirours, figuring in their darkness silence, shutting up of senses, the final end of our mortal bodies, & for this some have entitled sleep the eldest brother of death; but with no less convenience it might be called one of death's tenants near unto him in affinity of condition, yea far inferior in right, being but tenant for a time of that which death is the inheritance; for by virtue of the conveyance made unto him in Paradise, that dust we were & to dust we should return. He hath hitherto showed his signiory over all, exacting of us, not only the yearly, but hourly revenues of time, which ever by minutes we defray unto him: So that our very life is not only a memory, but a part of our death, sith the longer we have lived, the less we have to live. What is the daily lessening of our life, but a continual dying: and therefore none is more grieved with the running out of the last sand in an hour glass then with all the rest: so should not the end of the last hour trouble us any more, of so many that went before, sith that did but finish course that all the rest were still ending, not the quantity but the quality commendeth our life. The ordinary gain of long livers being only a great burden of sin: for as in tears, so in life the value is not esteemed by the length, but by the fruit and goodness, which often is more in the least than in the longest. What your sister wanted in continuance, she supplied in speed, and as with her needle she wrought more in a day than many Ladies in a year, having both excellent skill, and no less delight in working, so with her diligence doubling her endeavours, she won more virtue in half than others in a whole life Her death to time was her birth to eternity, the loss of this world an exchange of a better, one endowment that she had being impaired, but many far greater added to her store. Mardocheus house was too obscure a dwelling for so gracious an Hester, shrouding royal parts in the mantle of a mean estate, and shadowing immortal benefits under earthly veils. It was fit that she being a sum of so rare perfections, and so well worthy, a spouse of our heavenly Ahashuerus should be carried to his court from her former abode, there to be invested in glory, and to enjoy both place and pre-eminence answerable to her worthiness, her love would have been less able to have borne her death, than your constancy to brook her, and therefore God mercifully closed her eyes before they were punished with so grievous a sight, taking out to you but a new lesson of patience out of your old book, in which long study hath made you perfect. Though your hearts were equally balanced with a mutual and most entire affection, and the doubt insoluble which of you loved most, yet death finding her the weaker, though not the weaker vessel, laid his weight in her balance to bring her soonest to her rest: let your mind therefore consent to that which your tongue daily craveth, that Gods will may be done as well here in earth of her mortal body, and in that little heaven of her purest soul, sith his will is the best measure of all events. There is in this world continual interchange of pleasing and greeting accidence, still keeping their succession of times, & overtaking each other in their several courses: no picture can be all drawn of the brightest colours, nor a harmony only comforted only of trebles: shadows are needful in expressing of proportions, and the base is a principal part in perfect music, the condition of our exile here alloweth no unmeddled joy, our whole life is tempered between sweet and sour, and we must all look for a mixture of both: the wise so wish: better that they still think of worse, accepting the one if it come with liking, and bearing the other without impatience, being so much masters of each others fortunes, that neither shall work them to excess. The dwarse groweth not on the highest hill, nor the tall man looseth not his height in the lowest valley, and as a base mind, though most at ease, will be dejected, so a resolute virtue in the deepest distress is most impregnable. They evermore most perfectly enjoy their comforts that least fear their contraries: for a desire to enjoy, carrieth with it a fear to lose; and both desire & fear are enemies to quiet possession making men rather owners of God's benefits than tenants at his will: the cause of our troubles are that our misfortunes happen either to unwitting or unwilling minds; foresight preventeth the one, necessity the other: for he taketh away the smart of present evils that attendeth their coming, and is not amated with any cross, that is, armed against all, where necessity worketh without our consent, the effect should never greatly afflict us, grief being bootless, where it can not help, needless where there was no fault: God casteth the dice, and giveth us our chance, the most we can do, is, to take the point that the cast will afford us, not grudging so much that it is no better, as comforting ourselves it is no worse. If men should lay all their evils together, to be afterwards by equal portion divided amongst them, most men would rather take that they brought, than stand to the division; yet such is the partial judgement of self-love, that every one judgeth his selfe-miserie too great, fearing if he can find some circumstance to increase it & making it intolerable by thought to induce it. When Moses threw his rod from him, it became a serpent ready to sting, and affrighted him, insomuch as it made him to flee, but being quietly taken up, it was a rod again serviceable for his uses, no way hurtful. The cross of Christ, & rod of every tribulation seeming to threaten stinging and terror to those that shun and eschew it, but they that mildly take it up and embrace it with patience, Psalm 12. may say with David, thy rod and thy staff have been my comfort. In this, affliction resembleth the Crokadile, fly, it pursueth and frights, followed, it flieth and feareth, a shame to the constant, a tyrant to the timorous. Soft minds that think only upon delights, admit no other consideration, but in soothing things become so effeminate, as that they are apt to bleed with every sharp impression. But he that useth his thoughts with expectation of troubles, making their travel through all hazards, and apposing his resolution against the sharpest encounters, findeth in the proof facility of patience, and easeth the load of most heavy cumbers: we must have temporal things in use, but eternal in wish, that in the one neither delight exceed in that we have no desire in that we want: and in the other our most delight is here in desire, and our whole desire is hereafter to enjoy. They straighten too much their joys, that draw them into the reach and compass of their senses, as if it were no facility where no sense is witness, whereas if we exclude our passed and future contentments, pleasant pleasures have so fickle assurance, that either as forestalled before their arrival, or interrupted before their end, or ended before they are well begun: the repetition of former comforts, and the expectation of after hopes is ever a relief unto a virtuous mind, whereas others not suffering their life to continue in the conveniences of that which was and shall be divided, this day from yesterday, & to morrow, & by forgetting all, and forecasting nothing, abridge their whole life into the moment of present time: enjoy your sister in your former virtues, enjoy her also in her future meeting, being both titles of more certain delights, than her casual life could ever have warranted. If we will think of her death, let it be as a warning to provide us, sith that that happeneth to one may happen to an other: yea none can escape that is common to all. It may be the blow that hit her was meant to some of us, and this missing was but a proof to take better aim in the next stroke: if we were diligent in thinking of our own, we should have little leisure to bewail others deaths: when the soldier in skirmish seethe his next fellow slain, he thinketh more time to look to himself, than to stand mourning a hapless mischance, knowing the head which sped so near a neighbour, cannot be far from his own head. But we in this behalf are much like the silly birds, that seeing one stick in the lime bush, striving to get away, with a kind of native pity are drawn to go to it, and so rush themselves into the same misfortune; even so many for their friends decease by musing on their lot, wittingly surfeit of too much sorrow, that sometimes they make mourning their last decease: but step not you into this roil, that hath taken none but weak affections: hold not your eyes always upon your hardest haps, neither be you still occupied in counting your losses. There are fairer parts in your body than scars, better eye-markes in your fortune then a sister's loss; you might happily find more comforts left than you would willingly lose. But that you have already resigned the solaces of life, and shunned all comforts into the hopes of heaven, yet sith there is some difference between a purpose and proof, intending and performing; a subdued enemy being ever ready to rebel when he findeth mighty helps to make a party. It is good to strengthen reason against the violence of nature, that in this and like cases will renew her assaults, it was a forcible remedy that he used to withstand the conceit of a most lamentable occurrent, who having in one ship lost his children and substance, and hardly escaped himself from drowning, went presently into an hospital of lazars, where finding in a little room many examples of greater miseries, he made the smart of others sores a lenative to his own wound: for besides that, as lowness & poverty was common to them, they had also many cumbers private to themselves, some wanting their senses, some their wits, other their limbs, but all their health, in which consideration he eased his mind, that fortune had not given him the greatest fall. If God had put you to Abraham's trial, commanding you to sacrifice the hope of your posterities, and to be to your only son an author of death, as you were to him of life. If you had been tied in the straits of Jeptha's bitter devotion in brewing his sword in his own daughter's blood, and ending the triumphs over his enemies with the voluntary funerals of his only offspring: yet sith both their lives and their labours had been gods undeemable debt, your virtues ought to have obeyed maugre all encounters of carnal affection. And how much more in this case should you incline your love to God's liking, in which he hath received a less part of his own, and that by the usual easiest course of nature's laws. Let God strip you to the skin, yea to the soul, so he stay with you himself: let his reproach be your honour, his poverty your riches, and he in lieu of all other friends. Think him enough for this world, that must be all your possession for a whole eternity: let others ease their carefulness with borrowed pleasures, not bred out of the true root, but begged of external helps. They shall still carry unquiet minds, easily altered with every accident, sith they labour not any change in their inward distempers. But by forgetting them for a time by outward pastimes, innocency is the only mother of true mirth, and a soul that is owner of God, will quietly bare with all other wants, nothing being able to impoverish it but voluntary losses. Bear not therefore with her losses, for she is won for ever, but with the momentary absence of your most happy sister, yea it can not justly be called an absence, many thoughts being daily in parley with her, only men's eyes and ears unworthy to enjoy so sweet an object, have resigned their interest, and interested this treasure in their hearts, being the fittest shrines for so pure a Saint, whom as none did know but did love, so none can now remember with devotion. Men may behold her with shame of their former life, seeing one of the frailer sex honour her weakness with such a train of perfections. Lady's may admire her as a glory to their degree, in whom honour was portrayed in her full likeness, grace having perfected nature's first draft with all the due colours of an absolute virtue: all women accept her as a pattern to imitate her gifts, and her good parts, having been so manifested, that even they that can teach the finest stitches may themselves take new works out of this sampler. Who then could drink any sorrow out of so clear a fountain, or bewail the estate of so happy a creature, to whom as to be herself, was her praise, so to be as she is, was her highest bliss. You still float in a troublesome sea, and you find it by experience a sea of dangers, how then can it pity you to see your sister on shore, and so safely landed in so blissful an harbour? jud. 15. Sith your judeth hath wrought the glorious exploit against her ghostly enemies, for the accomplishing whereof she came into the dangerous camp and warfare of this life, you may well give her leave to look home to her Bethulia to solemnize her triumph with the spoils of her victory: yea you should rather have wished to have been Porter to let her in, than mourn to see her safe returned. For so apparent hazards she carried a heavenly treasure in a earthly vessel, 2. Cor. ● which was too weak a treasury for so high riches, sin creeping in at the window of our senses, and often picking the locks of the strongest hearts. And for this it was laid up in a surer, to the which the heavens are walls, and the Angels keepers. She was a pure fish, but yet swimming in muddy streams, it was now time to draw her to shore, and to employ the inwards of her virtues to medicionable uses, that laid on the coals of due consideration, they may draw from our thoughts the devils suggestions, Tob. 6. and applied to their eyes, Tob. ●. which are blinded with the dung of flying vanities, the slime of their former vanities may fall off, and leave them able to behold the true light, the base shell of a mortal body was unfit for so precious a Margarite, Matth. 13. and the jeweller that came into this world to seek good pearls, and gave not only all he had, but himself also to buic them, thought now high time to bring her unto his bargain, finding her grown to a Margarites full perfection. She stood upon too low a ground to take view of her saviour's most desired countenance, Luke 19 and forsaking the earth with Zacheus she climbed up into the tree of life, there to give her soul a full repast of her beauties. She departed with jeptha's daughter from her father's house, but to pass some months in wandering about the mountains of this troublesome world, which being now expired, she was after her pilgrimage by covenant to return to be offered unto God in a grateful sacrifice, and to ascend out of this desert like a stem of perfume out of burned spices. Let not therefore the crown of her virtue be the foil of your constancy, nor the end of her cumbers a renewing of yours. But sith God was well pleased to call her, she not displeased to go, and you the third twist to make a triple cord, saying, Iob 2. Our Lord gave, and our Lord took away, as it hath pleased our Lord, so hath it fallen out: the name of our Lord be blessed. FINIS. Clara Ducum soboles, superis nova sedibus hospes, Clausit in offenso tramite pura diem Dotibus ornavit, super avit moribus ortum, Omnibus una prior. Par fuit una sibi: Lux genus ingenio generi lux inclita virtus, Virtutisque fuit mens generosa decus. Mors mutat properata dies orbamque relinquit, Prolem matre verum coniuge flore genus, Occidit a se alium tulit hic occasus in ortum Vivat, ad occiduas non reditura vices. OF howard's stem a glorious branch is dead, Sweet lights eclipsed were in her decease: In Buckehurst line she gracious issue spread, She heaven with two, with four did earth increase Fame, honour, grace, gave air unto her breath, Rest, glory, joys were sequels of her death. Death aimed too high, he hit too choice a wight, Renowned for birth, for life, for lively parts, He killed her cares, he brought her worths to light, He robbed our eyes, but hath enriched our hearts: Lot let out of her Ark a Noyes dove, But many hearts were arks unto her love. Grace, Nature, Fortune did in her conspire To show a proof of their united skill: Sly Fortune ever false did soon retire, But double Grace supplied false Fortunes ill: And though she reached not to her fortune's pitch, In grace and virtue few were found so rich. Heaven of this heavenly Pearl is now possessed, Whose lustre was the blaze of honours light: Whose substance pure of every good the best, Whose price the crown of virtues highest right, Whose praise to be herself, whose greatest bliss To live, to love to be where now she is. FINIS.