portrait of Robert Earl of Essex Robert Earl of Essex, his Excellence, General of the Army. Employed for the defence of the Protestant Religion, the safety of his Ma.tie Person, and of the Parliament: the preservation of the Lives & Liberties of the Subjects. Aetatis suae. 56. THE HEARSE OF THE Renowned, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROBERT EARL OF ESSEX and Ewe, Viscount Hereford, Lord Ferrer of Chartley, Bourchier. and Louvain, sometime Captain Lord General of the Armies raised for the defence of King and Parliament. As it was represented in a Sermon, preached in the Abbey Church at Westminster, at the Magnificent Solemnity of his Funeral, Octob. 22. 1646. By RICHARD VINES. Eccles. 12. 5. Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Published by Order of the House of Peers. LONDON, Printed by T. R. and E. M. for Abel Roper at the Sign of the Sun against Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1646. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE The House of PEERS Assembled in PARLIAMENT. Right Honourable, I Have performed what service I am able to the memory of the renowned Lord, deceased, And to the Commands of that Right Honourable and Noble Triumvirate which gave being to this Sermon. And to your Lordships by whose Order I have adventured upon this Publication: All men (except such whose either morosity or malignity doth account, vetera in laude, praesentià in fastidio) must acknowledge the worth, the valour, the faithfulness which lie under the Robes you wear, and that it is not a mere borrowed Opinion which makes you Honourable, but the reflection or rebounding back of that upon you, which went first out from you: But this Sermon will teach you, that Titles of Honour are written in dust, and that Princes and great men must fall, their very Monuments are mortal, and will in time be found as Archemedes his Tomb (by Cicero) in vepretis, overgrown with Thorns and Briers; and that light of memory which shines after your Sunset, is but like the Moon which wanes also by degrees: No glory that's woven in the finest Tapestry of this world but will lose colour, decay, and perish, but saving grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a possession for eternity, your zealous agency for the Church and State will carry you as far towards Immortality as any other Chariot in this world. It's as much as nothing when one can say no more of a man than is said of some great ones, that they reigned and died. The Gen. 36. 33. Lord give you hearts actuated with zeal for God, together with a right temperament of counsels, knowing that you are over a people who (as Tacitus saith) nec totam servitutem pati possunt nec totam libertatem, and if your fall do come before you see, or reap the fruit of your labours: The Lord make you such as may take comfort with you, and leave Honour behind you, so prayeth Your Lordship's most humble and unworthy servant, in and for Jesus Christ, RICHARD VINES. Die Veneris 23. Octob. 1646. ORdered by the Lords in Parliament assembled, That this House gives thanks to Master Vines for the great pains by him taken yesterday in the Sermon he preached at the solemnisation of the Funeral of the Earl of Essex, deceased: And he is hereby desired to Print and Publish the same, which is not to be Printed by any but by Authority under his own hand. Jo. Brown Cleric. Parliamentorum. I appoint Abel Roper to print this Sermon. Richard Vines. A SERMON PREACHED At the Solemnisation of the Funeral of the Right Honourable ROBERT Earl of ESSEX, etc. Right Honourable, etc. AS that Lot sent forth to attach a particular man, Josh. 7. 16. did move gradatim, and by steps, taking first the Tribe, than the Family, than the House, and at last the Man; after which manner of progression, though at fewer steps, Jonathan was also taken, 1 Sam 14. 42. So do the tracks or vestigia appearing to your eye, lead you at two or three removes to the most sad occasion of this extraordinary and magnificent solemnity. The Escocheons which are the Index of the Family do speak first, and tell the name of that honourable Family which this Lot hath taken. And this sable field of men, charged with a stately Hearse, honoured with so great a confluence of names and titles of honour granted either by the Sword or Gown, whether Honourable, Worshipful, or Reverend; and that in this place, where the Dij majorum gentium have their Shrines, where the Lions of England have usually put off their exuvias, and where Majesty and highness have laid up what of Mortality they had, doth proclaim him to be some Prince, or great name of that Family, whom the Lot hath taken. But then the Military Equipage, the mourning Drum, the broken Lance, the insignia & Instruments of War reversed, and in a mournful posture; The Truncheon in a dead hand, do speak the very man. It is Jonathan that is taken. And shall Jonathan die that hath wrought so great salvation in Israel? It is (alas) too late to say, shall Jonathan die, This Jonathan cannot be rescued by the love of Israel; therefore I must sadly lay the Scene in one that is already 1 Sam. 14. 45. fallen: for do not ye know that there is a Prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel? 2 SAM. 3. 38. Know ye not that there is a Prince, and a great man fallen this day in Israel? THIS Text presents you with the Hearse of Abner; a Prince and a great man fallen in Israel: This day presents you with a parallel Hearse of a Prince, and a great man fallen in England; both of them magnificently attended with the drooping stateliness of public and universal lamentation. That I may set up some lights about the Hearse of Abner, you may please to call to mind: 1. His Office. 2. His Project. 3. His Fall. 4. His Funeral. 1. His Office was Captain of the Host, or stylo novo, Lord General of the Forces of Israel; it was not so much because he touched King Saul in blood, being Cousin-Germane, as in respect of this high command, that he is called, A Prince, and a great man. 2. His Project which he had upon the Anvil now at his death, was the reducement of all Israel unto the Sceptre of David; herein his Project concurred with Gods; but took rise in him, from an ill or suspicious ground. Ishbosheth doth but question him for familiar usage of a Concubine of saul's (which if true, was in those times accounted a kind of Crimen Majestatis) and this heats his blood, for great Instruments will not bear a check) and thereupon his Stomach brings him off to David. God useth the sins and great Spirits, or animosities, of great men (though they be not carried by Conscience) to bring to birth his own purposes and promises made to his Davids. 3. His Fall; which was by the hand of pretended revenge, but real emulation; the spirit of Caesar and Pompey was in Joab, before it was in them: He could not abide a corrival or equal. Let great Commanders look to this; Ambition is a Planet that must have a whole Orb to itself, and is impatient of Consort. 4. His Funeral; and that was solemn and honourable in Hebron; now the royal City, and formerly the sepulchral of Abraham, Isaac, etc. At which, David was chief mourner, for he followed the Bed or Hearse, verse 31. and he was the Orator that made the speech of Lamentation; as he had before done for Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam. 1. 19 Now for the Hersebefore you, let us see how fare it parallels with this in the Text. 1. The Prince or great man fallen this day in England was Captain Lord General of the Host of England. There is agreement in the Office and Title; the Text could not be proper to any fallen under our Meridian unto this day: but unto this new star created by the Parliament, and arising in this Horizon, about July 1642. and now eclipsed or fallen. 2. His project is written in a copy fairer than the original, and goes fare beyond that of Abner. The reducement of divided Israel into one hive is somewhat alike in both. But here is no effeminate spark that raiseth the spirit of this great man into a flame; no such cause of his engagement, but the defence of those pupil twins, the two bleeding sisters ready to die in each the others bosom, the liberty and property of the Subjects of England. 3. His fall is clear of the disaster in Abners' story; he falls not by the hand of some unworthy and villainous desert or of him, made bold by his vanquishment or flight, as Pompey did; nor by the just fury of an oppressed Senate as Caesar did; nor by the arts and stratagems of a treacherous death as Abner did; The hand of Joab is not in all this; but by an Euthanasy (which Augustus wished for) a fair death. He died in peace. 4. His Funeral for the state of it certainly over-matches the pattern. Here are the two Houses of Parliament, the map of all England in two globes, pouring out their sorrows, and paying their kisses of Honourable farewell to his tutelar sword. The Princes of the Land that quarter with him in in honour and in blood, do quarter with his hearse this day in black and mourning. The flower of the renowned City of London (far surpassing the meanness of Abners Hebron) do trail their tears after his Hearse, and are come to put upon him their civicam coronam, their civicall crown of Honour, propter servatos cives for their saved Citizens. The reverend Judges and the Worthies of that gown, do present the mourning tears of the laws that pay this tribute for their freedom from all Antinomian prerogative. The honourable soldiery, those great names which while they wore his Orange in the field, could have daunted death itself, do now in change of colour weep over him (and what marble weeps not in such change of weather?) David that could take a lion by the beard, yet weeps at the Hearse of Abner. The gown also hath its rank with the sword in this great Army of mourners. The Assembly of Divines whose prayers he sometimes valued and requested, need not be distreined for their contributions of tears & grief, they must wrap up in a cloth, and lay up behind the Ephod this Goliah'-conquering sword in memory of a very cordial and noble Patron. Lastly, what should I say of those stars that come not into any constellation. I mean persons of quality not within the ranks, yet within the line of this Lamentation, together with that infinite multitude of all sorts, from Cedars to the hyssop, that do not only come to fill their eyes, but to empty them? I must conclude, to say as the crier of the Ludi saeculares at Rome, (which were but once in a hundred years.) Come and see that which ye never saw before, Plin. l. 7. c. 28. nor shall ever see again. If yet it be replied that Abners' Funeral hath one point or two of State above us, David a mourner, David an orator. I say but this; The tears of David were at this time in great part Compurgators of that suspicion which he might lie under; of having a finger in that wherein Joab had his hand, which kind of tears we have not, nor could wish to have, though David's; only in the orator, David, that made the speech we are exceeded; and I am glad that such a State as this is inferior and deficient in nothing, but that wherein my poor service lies. By this unparallelling parallel, you may easily see that my discourse will be divided between two noble Generals: and first let us come to the Text, wherein David speaks something of the dead, and something to the living. Of the dead. That a Prince and great man is fallen this day in Israel. To the living. Know ye not. It concerns you to Vatablus in Annot. know, or I would have you take notice both of it, & that I am weak this day, though anointed King, and that the sons of Zeruiah are too hard for me, so that I cannot execute justice at present upon the bloody hand that hath given us this stroke. Concerning that which is spoken of the dead, therein you shall find the reason or spring of the tears of this lamentation. A Prince and a great man fallen, and fallen, this day in Israel. This day in-Israel hath the Emphasis in it. In this nick of time wherein Israel was upon the point of reducement by the agency and useful contributions of this great man, who seemed to be the only Pilot that could have put the ship into quiet harbour, or at least a very great steersman in the work. This day is he fallen, and so Israel, if not more alienated by his fall, yet remaineth in distraction and unsettlement: and this day wherein I cannot give them just reparation, if they should demand it of me; if any shall deny that there is any accent or emphasis in the word this day in Israel, do but borrow the reflection of light from the story, and that will clear it. I shall not crumble that I have to say into literal and syllabicall minutes, lest I be of their number: qui Gallius. Doct. verborum minutijs rerum frangunt pondera, but will draw up the matter into this theme or head; The fall of a Prince and a great man in the time of his agency and usefulness for the settlement of the distractions of Israel, is just reason of a sad and solemn lamentation. This point I will open by parts, and those words. Know ye not, shall bring up the uses of it, in the rear. 1. The subject of this lamentation is a Prince and a great man. Prince to our English ears, sounds the first masculine branch or surcle shooting from the stem of Majesty. But the Scripture which speaks no Treason, gives this title to Captains in War, and generally to men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in headship or power, whether Military Judg. 4. 2. 2 King. 9 5. or Senatorian; yea, though a man be but the foreman of his rank. Great man is a note of some singular eminency above the ordinary trees of the wood, and is a title given even to a Nabal that hath 3000. sheep and 1000 1 Sam. 25. 2. goats, which is the meanest rank of greatness. But where a great man is added to a Prince, it may well import as much as magnificent, a man of powerful interest, great valour, honourable achievements, noble activity in his place. Magnus is an addition or hatchment by which Alexander, Pompey, Carolus, etc. have been surnamed, for their great services or exploits. So that a man by his orb or place he is set in, is Princeps: but by his influence and beams of worth, raying from him upon the sublunary Commons, he is Magnus. It is an excellent conjunction, a Prince and great man. According to style of honour with us, a man may be noble by birth, descent, or blood. And though I be none of the new Swissers, that could wish Princes Cantoned into the common level; yet I may put you in mind that Antiquity of Race is but a Moss of time growing upon the back of worth or virtue: And if a man carry not the primigenial virtue with him, which first made his race noble, he is but a flower by change of soil degenerated into a weed, as having nothing in him but the wax or matter, without the form and stamp of Nobleness. And you know also that Nobility is often times the creature of a Prince his fancy; which when there is no intrinsical worth to be the supporter of it, is (as Charren saith) but Nobility by parchment. It's a Cap. d● Nobilitate. brave consociation, when the goodness and activity that makes you great, is as high as the place which makes you Princes: for if that crazy fancy take a man which possessed some great ones; they would be called Gods, and personate an ostentation of greatness above men; it may bewray pride & madness; but can never so far deceive the sense of underlings, but that they will say as the Cobbler did to Caligula, in that state and humour, that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great Dotard. It is the acting of your power and place, which makes you great. I cannot teach you to be princes, Fortuitum est; but I can tell you how to be great men: not great in the glass which Parasitical flattery holds before you, but indeed; and that is thus: Fill the sphere of your activity, the Church and State, the Town or Country, with the powerful and benign influences that flow from intrinsecall worth: make the times the better for you: Constrain by your example your inferiors to know God, and reform their Families. Let not Profaneness hid itself under the wing of your patronage, nor lessen itself by the greatness of your examples. Impartial & speedy Justice, with sweet refreshing Mercy, will make you great men in the Commonwealth; Zeal and Sincerity for God and his House, will make you great men in the Church. He that will be a great man, must draw his lines to the centre of public good: private ends never make a great man. 2. The subject of this Lamentation is, one Prince, one great man. Ye are called (as some interpret the word,) the Corners of the people; the Shields, the Gods, the Saviour's, the Shepherds of the people, the Ministers of God for Good, Benefactors, etc. Now the fall of one great Tree makes a great gap in the hedge; the Eclipse of one of the greater ruling Luminaries benights the world. Our Lives, Liberties, etc. are all bound up in you: we poor men steal into our Graves, with no greater noise than can be made by a branch of Rosemary, or a black Ribbon: No body takes notice of the Gloeworme, that goes out in the hedge bottom: No Comet or Prodigy, or Earthquake tolls us the knell of our departure; but one of you is carried forth by the tears of all ISRAEL, provided that you be what your Names import, public men, common Sanctuaries of the oppressed, Cities of Refuge, Altars of protection; for otherwise you may be such as that your death would be more worth than your lives, and then, though you may be able to put men into black, you cannot put them into mourning: your death cannot be worth a tear, when your lives are not worth a prayer. 3. The subject of this Lamentation is, a Prince & A great man fallen. Death is a fall from every thing but grace: some do fall from a higher Scaffold; great men fall divers stories, from Honour, Riches, Offices; others from the surface of a level ground, having nothing to fall from but naked life. Saints die, the gods do fall: I need not stand to prove it, there is not one of you great men, but shall be the proof of this point shortly. The Law of Death runs thus: All Honours, Titles, etc. to the contrary, in any wise notwithstanding: & there is no Prerogative to check this Law. I will not garnish this Deaths-head with fine fragments of Poetry, and such stuff: nor would I at all set it before you as a standing dish, were I not surrounded with so great a Corone of Princes and great men: and haply some of you may be of Lewis the Eleventh his mind, that charged all about him that they should not name the terrible word Death; which yet you must hear of; for it is the way of all the earth; the house of all the living; your long home, or house of perpetuity: of which its said, Job 3. 14. 1 King. 2. 2. Job 30. 2● Luciannecy. Kings, Counselors, Princes, small and great, are there; and there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: their bones and skeletons have no Inscription or Titles of Honour remaining on them. The way to this house of all the living, is (as one saith) sanguinea, or lactea; the bloody or the milky; that is, the common, natural, or usual way. The former is trodden by great men: the Prince in my Text was sent home this way; and so was the first man in the world that died. The Sword hangs in a hair over the heads of great ones, who are often cut Adrian the fourth Acts and Monum. off by the hand of emulation and animosity. That slaughter-house of Rome (where it hath been practised by the Popes themselves, who (as one of them said) do rather succeed Romulus, making his way by blood, then Peter) hath sent out cruel Emissaries to cut off famous men by a meritorious knife. How happily may you the Worthies of our Israel call to mind the goodness of that great God, who hath bound the hands of such assassinating bloodsuckers from executing their fury upon you, all this while, that you by renowned industry and zeal, have given provocations to Rome and Hell. The Common way is trodden by you great ones too: for ye Gods do die, and ye Princes shall fall like other men. If you run your Genealogies high enough, you will find yourselves but as other men, in the fretum or narrow sea of Mankind that divided the two Ocean worlds, the Ark of Noah: and thence if ye hold your way upward, you will be found the sons of Adamah, common dust: And you that are the highest dust, raised up a puff of wind of Honour above other men, are laid, like the small dust, with one drop of rain. There is a great Arbiter of all things, that can thunder the proud Emperor under his bed, and write the great King at three or four words into trembling: That can send Adrian the fourth Acts and Monum. a Fly to fetch the Triple Crown before his Tribunal, and make a hair, or the kernel of a Raisin, as mortal as Goliath his spear: That can unspeake the whole world into nothing, and blow down a great bubble with an easy breath: That by drawing one nail, can throw down the stateliest building, and undress your souls by unpinning one pin. If he take the Bridle off the head of that fire that's in you, it presently burns you up, by a Fever. If he lose the water, it drowns you, by a Dropsy. If he lay his hand upon your mouth, he takes away the airy difference between sleep and death. He saith to Moses, Go up and die: and it follows after, Moses my servant is dead. Every man hath a day which is called His day: and death never makes return, 1 Sam. 28. 10. Non est inventus in baliva nostra. 4. The subject of this Lamentation is a Prince and a great man fallen in the time of his agency & usefulness for the settlement of the distractions of Israel. The key of the story unlocks the sense of these words This day in Israel. It was a time that the promise of God to David was at the birth, and the Midwivery of Abner was offered. Let Abner otherwise be what he will for a man; God may use an Egyptian midwife to bring forth the child of an Israelite. But this great man falls in the very nick of time, before the good issue of his designs. Let me point out this Observation to you: It's not unusual, that great bvilders catch a fall when they are upon the scaffold about their work. Oh how it amazeth the faith of God's people, when the star that led them out of their own Country, goes out of sight before it have brought them to their journey's end. That youngling world of Reformation in Luther's time, had a sore temptation, when it must see the fall (as I may say) of the elector of Saxony and others that were pillars of hope. Moses must live no longer then to bring Israel into the plains of Moab: himself is allowed but a prospect of that he hoped to have enjoyed, and to have brought Israel into We are not without precedents: our eyes have seen some of our greater lights eclipsed, pleno orbe, when they have been at their Full. The great God that hides his Counsels, knows his Works from the beginning to the end, and he takes off such Instruments that he may show that he doth not need, is not tied to any tool: for he made the great world without any. When he saith Faciamus, he speaks to himself alone; not to himself and man. Thus he makes way for some other Providence to come upon the Stage, and brings about his Work by a more crooked Instrument, which we imagined should be done by a straight one. So Israel is speedily reduced to David, though Abner fall. Or he humbles his people just before his promises take effect; and first strikes them dumb before he open their mouths in a Benedicite; that the lowliness of his handmaidens may break forth into a Magnificat: or the time is not yet come that Israel is to be brought out of Egypt: and therefore though Moses begin to rescue the Israelite, and slay the Egyptian, yet he must flee for it, and be hidden for Forty years. Or else he pulls the stool of our confidence from under us, because we sit down upon it: or else pulls up the sluice of some judgements which have been hindered by some Lot or great man, or whatsoever it be. We see that God writes the Names of our best and greatest men in the shell, and takes them away by a kind of Ostracism. All the help, hope, and comfort is, that God hath all instruments eminently in himself, and can raise up a joshua in steed of Moses. Wherefore if his Disciples cannot cast out the evil Spirit, let us come to himself, and make ourselves as sure of his Word by faith, as he is sure of his word by promise; for though joseph die in Egypt, yet he lays his bones at stake, that God will surely visit his Israel, Gen. vlt. ver. 25. 5. All this that hath been said, a Prince, a great man fallen at such a time, is just reason of sad and solemn lamentation; and therefore David and Israel is in this mourning posture: such a man whose influence had a large circumference or sphere while he lived, is followed by an honour and sorrow of the same compass when he dies: You Princes and great men, death will tell what the world thought of you; while you live (it may be) Sycophants & flatterers lay their eggs in your ears, and hatch monstrous opinions in you of your greatness. Such Rooks usually build in the highest Trees; and on the other side, envy & detraction may breathe upon the glass of your reputation, that it shall not (while you live) report so clear an Image of you, but death will make thorow-lights in you; that you shall be seen on both sides; sorrows will not, cannot be tongue-tied; you will then begin to reap your due. Then the world breaks out into these expressions; He was a brave man, He was a great Courtier, that could not be kerbed with a white staff, to be of counsel to subvert the freedoms of his Country; He was a Captain that could draw a line, but not to the ignoble centre of his private ends; He was a Justice that would scatter the drunkards from their Alebench, and did not understand the language of a bottle or a basket; He was a Nehemiah, whose kindnesses were great which he shown to the house of God, and the Offices thereof; He was a Minister that could not only thunder in his Doctrine, but lighten in his Life; He was a Papinian (a great Lawyer) but he would not defend Imperial and arbitrary exorbitances, though he died for it; He was a man that appeared & stood for the truth, and for God in the worst times, when the Summer birds were hidden in their hollow Trees; He was a man firm and fixed, and studied not the neutral art of putting off the cap to one, and making a leg to another. And is not this a brave Echo, are not such men worthy of the Honourable tears of Israel? or else Israel hath reason to mourn for the senselessness and stupidity of their own hearts. And for the State and honour of mourning, it is an ancient solemnity credited by time, and great examples, yea, and almost the common sense of mankind. For both Egyptians and Israelites concur in weeping for Jacob, whose Exequys were performed in great Equipage when he was cared out of Egypt; and not to instance in more examples, it's said of Hezekiah, that all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, did him honour 2 Chron. 32, 33. at his death, and laid him up in the highest Cell of the Sepulchers of David's sons, such is the convictive Majesty of goodness, that this idolatrous-hearted people follow their great Reformer to his grave with honour. De purgat. lib. 1. c. 3. In vain doth Bellarmine go about to prove out of these solemnities, that they are done ad juvandas animas. We find no Law of sacrifices for the dead, these expressions are but civil indices of honourable sorrows, a debt owing to Worthies while they lived, and the remainder paid at their death: Like the after-beames of the Sun, which follow him to his bed; and we were unworthy heirs of their famous acts, if out of their own goods we could not allow them answerable interment; and if any Cynic in his morosity shall say, that it matters not, humine an in sublimi putrescat, Let him enjoy a Philosophical rotting in what ditch he please; we know, there is the burial of an Ass; the graves of the common people, which is something above that 2 Chron. 21. 20. and higher yet, there is a burial in the City of David, but not in the Sepulchers of the Kings, and amongst the Sepulchers of the Kings, There are lower and higher Cells. Honour will follow after worth and merit even into its grave. We do not lay up the carcase of every Coal-ship with that respect as that of Drakes was; though confessedly the one must rot, as well as the other. So much for the opening of the point; Now I come to the words, Do you not know, by their hand to serve in the uses of this point. 1. Know ye not, You Princes and great men that ye must fall. 2. Know ye not, You lower Shrubs, that these Cedars must fall. For you that are Princes and great men, I may say of you as X●rxes weeping, said of his vast Army, within these few lustres of years, there shall not be one of you standing, but all fallen, and let me set this deaths-head before you: For I have no other dish, nor am I likely ever to entertain such a Tablefull of so great guests while I live again; let it therefore, First, Humble you, and give me leave to follow the chariot of your greatness, with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, remember that you must fall. Greatness hath need of some correctives. You are such Pictures, that if one stand of the one side of you, You are Gods; but if he look upon you on the other side, You are men, and must die like men: this takes you one step lower; nay, we may go lower yet; For man being in honour without understanding, is like the beasts that perish. We are all proud; pride is the shirt of the soul, which it puts off last when it shifts: And every rising ground of authority or power, makes us rise in thoughts. The very bramble, if it get a snatch of authority, will be talking of his shadow. Oh that you had the meekness of that Moses, whose face did shine, but he knew not that (I speak this by allusion) the skin of his face did shine. I would that but every tenth thought of your rising, was accompanied with one thought of your falling: And yet you have more reason to have death in your eyes then other men, because the Venice Glasses, and China mettle of your fine and tender bodies, will not abide so great a stroke as other earthen pots of courser mettle; I will not offer to you those compliments with death, whereof we read good store, in use among great men; as the boy that cried, Memento te mortalem; or that, of presenting several sorts of Marble to the Emperor upon his Coronation day, that he might then choose which he would have for his Tomb, etc. But let me press the sense of your falling condition to humble you. I do not mean by humility a moral familiarity or courtesy toward those of lower rank, which yet is agracefull condescency of Greatness: But I mean, a stooping to the reproofs of the Word of God, brought unto you by the Ministers thereof, who are but earthen vessels like yourselves: Submit your cheek to reproofs, for your own fins, and of your Families. Let not your iniquities take sanctuary in your greatness; Frown not your Chaplains into a meal-mouthed baseness, so that they dare no more make a dark or obliqne reflection upon your darling sins, then take a Bear by the tooth. If you will bleed out your ill blood, you must pull off your Velvet sleeve, and let the ●●me be bare to the point of the knife: Keep no State against God, though he speak thunder and lightning by the mouth of dust like yourselves. A man never makes worse use of his greatness, then by it to cast a muzzle over the mouth of sound and searching reproofs. And it is a just judgement of God upon such men, that they should have Prophets, that will say to Ahab, Go up and prosper. Secondly, Quicken you to activity in your places while you live, that you may serve your generation according to the will of God before you die, and see corruption; otherwise, you are but blind lights in golden Candlesticks: You are in great debt, both to the Church and Commonwealth, they have trusted you with all they have, and your bond is good; but yet be not offended, if they call hard upon you to pay your debts, for you are mortal men, and we know not what Heirs or Executors you may leave behind you. The Creditor is oftentimes broken in the Debtors death; Get death into your minds, and it will put life into your actions; what you found made of poor Brick, leave in stately Marble, and be not like many, who while they are rising, appear very active and stirring men; but when they are up, do freeze into a benumbed slowness, like Bells that strike thick when they are rising, and afterwards when they are at full pitch, are set; put yourselves on with this spur, I must shortly die: How should I live fruitfully? The night will come, how should I labour while it is day? I wish well to things that are good: but (Bene ●ogitare est bene somniare) a good thinker is but a good dreamer; nothing more sads and dulls the heart when one comes to die, than his neglect of such opportunities which Gods providence, or his own place have p●t into his hand of receiving & doing good. Not is there a sharper corrosive, than the reflection upon those days and times that have passed over him, Male, aliud, nihil, agentem. The highest hills are the barrenest ground, and I would that saying did not so truly square to great Ones (that is) that the goodliest Trees, as Cedars, etc. do either bear none, or the worst Fruit. Great parts and abilities without exercise and putting forth are but secret and unknown Mines of Silver and Gold, which lie hid in an unfruitful and unprofitable soil. And therefore, you the great and Noble Worthies, in whose hands are the Public Faith, the Public Mercy, the Public Justice, and the Public Peace; be good, and (let your goodness make you) quick dispensers of what you have in Stewardship, because the time is short, and the word red rationem may be given suddenly, look upon us as mortal men, who shall not live long to receive, and upon yourselves, who shall not live long to give the fruits of your hands. And because the Occasion invites me, let me propound an object to your charitable justice, that is, the relief of those great sufferers who have been great doers, I mean the first adventurers with this great Commander, when he first cut through the Alps. As for the great and doubtful matters that are under your hand, I would not be thought so rash, as to wish you to precipitate: A Pilot among shelves and rocks may be too quick; A Cunctator sometime saved the Commonwealth; only thus I may pray, that when the Haven lies fair before you, and is without bar, you may fortiter occupare, set in stiffly, lest new waves, raised by cross winds, carry you bacl into the Main again. 3. Arm you against your fall that the day thereof may be to you (as the Passion-day of the Martyrs was called) the birthday of Eternity. Nequaquam morte mortemini, was the inlet of our sin and misery, & keeps the door open to sin still; The Epicure hath his Armour against death: a senseless consideration of it, as of a nothing, or a not being. The great Spirit hath his Armour too; A contempt of death out of principles of Valour and Honour; but neither of these Armours can keep the arrow from the quick; There is a terrible clause in the Statute of dying, And after that the judgement. Nor yet will I go about to arm you with this meditation, that we shall have a shorter journey from death to life again, than we had from not being, unto life, or that which is cited by Gerard out of Luther, that all the time that hath run, or shall run out from the beginning, to the end, shall seem to Adam when he riseth again, but tanquam somnus unius horae, as the sleep of the body for one hour; But if you will break the fall, which else will break you, than you Gods must become Saints (for all Gods are not Saints) the death of Saints is more precious than the death of Gods; Grace is special bail against death, there is no gall and vinegar in it to be drunk by them, for whom Christ hath already drunk it: Death (saith the Apostle) is yours, because contributory and subservient to your happiness; That life which is hid with Christ in God, is out of the reach of death, our Saviour proves Abraham to be living, because God had long after his death, said, I am the God of Abraham. Those that are confederate with God in Covenant, must always live, that the Covenant may not be dissolved by the death of the one party. There is a way then to break the teeth of death, and to be immortal: Have God for your God; labour to have something in you that is immortal besides your very souls; lay up for yourselves a treasure beyond the sea of death, that when this membrana dignitatis (as Seneca calls it) a thin skin of honour breaks, you may not be quite bankrupts; every your souls with the power of godliness, which is profitable to all things. The place of Princes, the magnificence and great works of great men; The faith and godliness of poor men do make a rare composition. Do not in stead of disarming death, arm it rather against you, by putting a sword into the hand of it. The more service that you may do by the advantage of ground you stand upon, the heavyer will your accounts be, if your greatness be made a Stage and Theatre for to act the parts of luxury, lasciviousness, oppression upon. What difference is there between such gods, and those in Homer, of whose drunkenness and adulteries there is frequent mention; let me speak one word to you, young noblemans, and Gentlemen, Learn you the way of godliness, that may free you from the looseness and vanity incident to greatness; for when you have given florem Diabolo, the flower of your time to lusts of youth; your fall may come before you can so much as give faecem Deo, the dregs thereof to God. I conclude this point with that which one observes upon Gods seeing all the works that he had made, that they were very good, for then immediately (saith he) followed the Sabbath, or rest of God, which (though our salvation be not of works) may signify thus much to you, that when you shall come to a retrospect upon your ways and works, and find them so empty of, and contrary unto God, there can be no expectation of a Sabbath or rest unto your souls; and therefore, wash ye, make ye clean, etc. Isa. 1. 16, 17. The second, Know ye not, is spoken to you, the lower shrubs. You are to know that your great men may fall in the very time of their usefulness and service for your good. In their loss, bewail your sins: for though you feel not the stroke while the wound is fresh and green, yet afterwards you will find the want of such as are worthy instruments, when we expect they should do great things; God by taking them away, interrupts the cast. Put not therefore your trust in Princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation; for his breath goeth forth, and in that very day his thoughts perish, Ps. 146. 3, 4. even his projects and intentions for your good, die in the womb, and are abortive. If we lean hard upon the reed, it breaks the sooner, and we are laid flat on the ground. God will not let his people enjoy that long, which they prise too much, some worm shall smite that gourd, and it shall whither; and though many great men are not likely to be blasted by the confidence of the people, yet our sad experience teacheth us, that we smell too much to our sweetest flowers, and so whither them. I Shall now come to the parallel Hearse of that Prince and great man fallen this day in England, of whom, though modesty itself may without blushing speak in a magnificent stile, yet have my thoughts waved me too and fro, it not being easy to be moderator of the Arguments that are for speech, or silence: Not because the matter will surpass the work-manship, and the copiousness of the subject shame, the penury of my expression; but because on the one hand it is argued, that Funeral Encomiastickes of the dead, are very often confections of poison to the living; for many, whose lives speak nothing for them, will draw the example into consequence, and be thereby led into hope, that they may press a hackney Funeral Sermon to carry them to Heaven when they die; especially, if such for whom no file could be rough enough while they lived, be smooth-filed when they are dead: on the other hand it may be said, That though common graves have no inscription, yet Marble Tombs are not without some Epitaph. Heroical examples should not go with a common pass, but with a Trumpet. David afforded this Honorary to Saul and Abner, and (which is to be observed) he drew not any line in their pictures with a black coal, which yet he might have done, for both of them had too much shadow if he would have used it; but he dealt with them as the Painter did with Antigonus, who had but one eye, he drew his Picture, imagine lusca halfe-faced, and so buried the deformity out of the beholder's sight. Neither is this all, which makes me stand in a slippery place, but the various senses and censures too, which are very likely to be found in this great multitude: Some that hated the sound of his Drums and Trumpets, will not patiently endure the Ecchore-sounding to their dis-affected ears. And some again are indifferently content to hear some good words of his Epitaph, because it gins with Hîc jacet, here he lies; as Caracalla said to them that desired, that some honours might be spent upon his Brother Geta, now dead out of his way: Sat divus (saith he) modo non sit vivus, honour him as you will, so as he doth not live. The most voices will doubtless vote, that it is needless to set up a Candle to the Sun, for his story is yet alive in all men's memories, and the stage whereon he acted it, is yet warm. The truth is, I had rather leave him to the history, which I hope the honourable Houses have bespoken, and to that Homer that shall be the praco of this Achilles. But because his name would sometime have passed me clear through all Guards, and probably hath not as yet lost that virtue; and that this State and presence speaks him with more eloquence, than I, so that I can but run the hazard of being an imperfect interpreter by word, of that honour, which yourselves do speak by signs. And since death hath put him beyond pride, all beyond envy, and myself beyond flattery, what if we make a short Index of his Story, and audit his d●bentur in the mean time, not drawing him in full proportion, but as Ezekiel portrayed the City of jerusalem upon a Tile, which will indeed be more suitable to the posture we are in; for deep sorrows make no long orations, Leves loquuntur curae, ingentes stupent. Since than it must be so, jacta est alea; I shall impose upon myself this law, not to build his Monument of common stones, nor trouble myself and you, to gather such flowers to cast upon his grave, as grow in common fields, nor descend or stoop to any thing which is beneath Heroical. His Nobility and his Nobleness, though they might each of them adorn his Monument, yet the third, which is his Excellency, is the transcendent. For his Nobility; He was sprung of an exceeding fair, an ancient Stem, which doth branch forth into the great and Noble Families of the Princes and great men of England, and he was the third of this Title which was inoculate into that Stem, by Q. Elizabeth of famous memory, But Titles of Honour must die as well as men; and because this renowned stream carries its name no further, I shall omit all matter of Heraldry, as not becoming me at this time and place. His Nobleness was of a high and honourable elevation; He was a man of fixed principles, and of a masculine resolution, of an inviting familiarity in a stately presence; too generous to be cruel, too great a Patriot to be Courted; his compass without trepidation or variation, had constantly stood right to that Pole; the good of his Country, which he kept in his eye, both when he wore the Gown, and Sword: He was fidè Romana & Anti-Romana, of Roman faithfulness, and of Anti-Roman faith: A Senator that honoured his Robes. The tears of England, of his servants, of his tenants, do speak him in a better language than the most eloquent Marble is able: Though tenants tears be no commendation to a living landlord, yet are they credit to the dead. The Character of his Excellency, may be that which David sometime gave to Abner, the great man in my Text; Art not thou a valiant man, and who is like thee in all Israel? When the time was come that janus' Temple must be opened here in England, by the Porter that only hath the key of it, Necessity, and those orphan sisters (before spoken of) Liberty and Property were to choose their Guardian, Champion and Vindex; you the Honourable trusties, looked out for a Dictator, in whose hands you might deposit, the very being, safety, freedom, lives, Senatus populique Romani, of the Parliament and people of England, and happily pitched your eye and choice upon this man, who was stirpe & ingenio bellicosus, One that had honour to give credit to the Cause he undertook, reputation to vindicate his undertaking from contempt of enemies; Interest, whose Drum could press an Army; dexterity to manage the Sword, Counsel to direct it, Valour to use it, & faithfulness to discharge it. And he was the man you then resolved to live and die with. It was the greatest honour in the world, to be credited with the infinite depositum of the life and being of the Parliament of England. And at this time, when you had assigned this Theatre to act his part upon, it was the highest honour to him, that he would undertake to Pilot a Ship so laden with so great a fraught, through the tempestuous and angry Seas which then began to swell and be intractable, when this poor Kingdom, knew not for the most part, how to wear Buff and Steel, until taught by him; in whom that ancient Chivalry and Valour of England (which had left its Monuments in France and other parts of the world, but of later times almost emasculate and grown obsolet) was concentered, and by transmigration had laid itself up in him: He was the man that was to break the ice, and set his first footing in the Red Sea; a Hercules, but not in bivio; a man resolved, when others hung in suspense; fixed, when some stars of greatest magnitude were moved with trepidation, or erratic. That filled the breach, when many lay post principa, & behind the hedge. No Proclamation of Treason could cry him down, nor threatening Standard daunt him: That in that misty morning, when men knew not each the other, whether friend or foe, by his arising dispelled the fog, and by his very name, commanded thousands into your service. Such as were for Reformation, and groaned under pressures in Religion, he took by the hand, and they him: Such as were Patriots, and would stand up for common Liberties, he took by the hand, and they him, and so became the bond or knot of both, as the Axletree of the world upon which both the Poles do move: And this must be his honour alone for ever; for though joshua also do admirably when he comes to it, yet it is Moses that first leads forth Israel by their Armies. Thus he entered, and for his deportment upon the Stage, and the experience he gave of himself, who knows not it? Such was his personal valour, as if nothing but steel had gone to his composition. The instances are famous; In that great battle at Edge-hill, where this Kingdom had her first Crisis upon a Sabbath day, (our wars have now fulfilled above half a week of years) when he had lost a wing yet he flew about, Et nullo discrimine, notum, dux an miles erat; He shown his Army there what a man they had adventured with, in their first Voyage; No, I prae sequar, Captain, but one whose Valour gave the word sequimini me, with whose steel (it's no disparagement to say, that) his for ever famous Chieftains sharpened their edge, and so that hill was made a standing Trophy, your enemies (Right Honourable) from that day begun to take you for a Parliament. I must leave to the large Map of his Story, those many memorables & victories, which bear his name; for even great places do not always find any room in a little Map, and shall instance him but in one other particular, that famous expedition to Gloucester, when we were at a very low water, and this Eagle had then also moulted his feathers, and having imped them with renowned Londoners, did fight the greatest part of that long march thither, where the then Governor whom I may (borrowing Cicero his word) call hujus Regni Stator, the Stator of the Kingdom of England, (because he took the enemy his horse by the bridle in his full career, and stopped him, and being resolved to sell that City to them by the candle) was rescued before the candle dropped, by this noble Champion, who retreating from that Tropic, fought his way bacl again through hunger and hardship: and because this Retreat should not be like an empty field without some charge, He scattered that great Army near Newberry, and to you this renowned City, reddidit Legiones, restored your valiant Legions, and restored England to itself; An unparalleled Expedition. His Faithfulness was like Touch or Marble without any streaming flaw, no Honours, Offices, or whatsoever bears the name of greatness could bribe it. The two Indieses would have been as dirt: He knew the Pole he must sail by, and steered not by a mercenary Compass. He had espoused the Senate and Liberties of England, and was resolved, aut liberare fidem, aut solvere animam. His ends, so far as one may learn the mark by the Archers eye, were not private interests, respects, or parties, to be served upon the ashes of public ruins. Talk of gold to soldiers of fortune, He was Themistocles. A right line drawn from the Centre you set him, would have cut the centre of his aims and ends. Had you fall'n upon such a Merchant as would have been eccentricke to you, and have cauponated the war to raise his private interest, or have put in the great fraught he was trusted with, and consigned the Cargazone, to some Royal Port, oh, what a feral Table of Proscriptions, (like that of Syllae's) might have been set up amongst us; and your lives have been bargained for, and sold as that Triumvirate did the lives of the Senators of Rome. His Counsel and wisdom was such as argued him to be a man that knew conduct; He had a fine finger to find out, and skilful to untie or cut the knot, In foresight of danger his eyes were open; but when he came to execute his Counsels, his eyes were shut against all impressions of fear and terror. His love and respect to the Soldiery, such as became a brave Christian. He would not Turkishly fill ditches, or stop Canon with them. His hand of relief was not shut or short to rescued prisoners. He afforded honourable respect to naked and wounded valour. His countenance paid and armed his soldiers, when sometimes they wanted both: and no wonder if his School bred such a gallant Infantry which had such a Master, and such an Usher. In sum. This Camillus was a second Romulus. His Monument needs no inscription, for his Epitaph is written in the hearts of men. Nothing but ESSEX, the Great, the Valiant, the Faithful, the Parliaments Essex; the Essex of England, and the Tutelar thereof: who added to his Noble Coronet all the Military Crowns, saving that which is called Naval, or the Sea-Crowne, which is due to another most Noble Worthy, more faithful than the Element he was then the Master of. For his death, the Forlorn hope it sent out before it, was but slightly, the Physicians thought him bailable, but death lay in ambuscado in a full body, & suddenly surprised him with a dying sleep, and now we are erecting of his Monument, one of the seven wonders of the World was a Tomb. And if the Noble and Famous men who fought under his Banner, shall please to be set in for his supporters, it will be such a Squadron-Monument as will have no Brother in England, until the time do come (and I wish it may be long first) that the most renowned and excellent Champion that now governs the sword of England, must now lay his bones by him, and then there will be the Alpha and Omega of such a Story as shall render God fearful in praises, doing wonders by the first hand of him that led us through the untrodden paths of the wilderness, and by the second hand of him that hath made Victory (which Homer calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Jack on both sides) to change its name; who if he shall have but one stone out of each City or strong Hold taken by his Arms, to make his Tomb, it will be such a Monument that every stone of it will speak a History, and some a Miracle: Or if that cannot be, it will be enough that he lay his head upon an immortal Turf taken out of Naseby field: God thought Moses, or rather made him the fittest man to begin, & lead Israel forth, and he honoured joshua with the completing of the work, neither doth joshua eclipse the worth of Moses, nor he the worth of joshua; and so craving pardon of my boldness with your patience, I have endeavoured to speak without reflections upon any, nor did I mean to tread on the foot or toe of any man, thereby to raise my speech the higher, as knowing that this Prince and great man needed not to pull down the stones of any other man's Monument to build his, who had enough in his own Quarry, as being (nexible Honourable Parliament) that first man from whom we pass to our posterity the conveyancies of our liberty and safety. Et nati natorum, & qui nascentur ab illis. I have no more but this; He lived a good General, He died a General good; and therefore a lamentation to all Israel, and so I leave him in his Bed of Honour, and draw the Curtains, and put out the lights. Only a word at parting, and first my Lords to you, we may know how great the Tree that's fallen, was, by the vacuity or void place it leaves behind it. We look upon you as them that will endeavour to prevent the vacuum by acting from that noble principle which moves to the universal and common good; the loss we have sustained is great, though he never had wore Buff but only Parliament Robes, and they say that when a limb or part of a man is cut off, anima retrahitur, the soul is retracted. I wish the Philosophy may be verified in the retraction of his reality and faithfulness unto you; that so he may remain among you in quintessence and virtue, being as it were divided among you, as they say of Romulus, that he was discerpt by the Senate, when he died, and every Senator got a piece of him. Let nothing that was exemplary in him be put in his grave, that neither we nor our posterity may have cause to write upon his Statue, as they did upon that of Brutus, utinam viveres. As for his Military worth; If any shall apply themselves to copy it out, or some young Noble Spark shall please to go to School to his Monument, their lesson is, Disce Miles militare, Galba est. Here they shall be taught how to excel, fide & armis, How to have mettle in their Coat, as well as Colour; How to carry themselves so, as they may legere exercitum, non emere, win an Army and not press, silence mutinies, or persuade the soldiery with one ●ord Quirites, and in a word how to be an Essex, not a Caesar, who converted his Arms against the Senate, and therefore hath a blot in his Copy to this day. I must conclude with you the most Honourable Senate of England; It would be too much presumption in me to thank you for this Honour of your presence and sorrows; It's a great thing to be made immortal by an immortal Parliament: All the Honour which belongs to your servants and instruments, redounds to you; what they get or receive is but handed by them to you the owners; should we write down but fifty to them, when there is a hundred due, the loss would be yours. It was a stately deportment to entertain the newe● of this great Champion and Senator his death, as the old Romans used to entertain sad tidings, mutatis vestibus, and to honour your sorrow with an adjournment: This is the way to breed more Essex's: It's Honour that breeds a soldier; Take honour out of his eye, and you cut off the spurs from his heels. My wishes are, first, that you may never have occasion to create any more than you have done by the name of Excellency: secondly, that if you must, there may be such men, with whom in safety you may lay up your lives, and thirdly, that you may have the happiness to pitch upon them. Amen. FINIS. Errata. P. 15. l. ult. for cared, r. carried p. 26. l. 24 r. assigned him p. 29. l. 23 for Christian, r. Chrestaine p. 30. l. 19 put out now. p 32, l. 8. for accord, r. word.