ratification of my first election; and to us all, Ponam inimicos vestros, I will make all your enemies your footstool; for God shall establish us there, ubi non intrat inimicus, nec amicus exit 66, where no man shall come in that troubles the company, nor any whom any of the company loves go out; but we shall all not only have, but be a part of that righteousness which dwells in these new heavens and new earth, which we, according to his promise, look for.

And be this the end of our first text, as it is a text for instruction. Pass we now to our second, our text for commemoration. Close we here this book of life, from which we have had our first text, and Surge quæ dormis in pulvere, Arise thou book of death, thou that sleepest in this consecrated dust, and hast been going into dust now almost a month of days, almost a lunary year, and dost deserve such anniversaries, such quick returns of periods, and a commemoration in every such year, in every month; arise thou and be another commentary to us, and tell us what this new heaven and new earth is, in which now thou dwellest with that righteousness. But we do not invoke thee, as thou art a saint in heaven; appear to us as thou didst appear to us a month ago; at least appear in thy history, appear in our memory, that when every one of us have looked upon thee by his own glass, and seen thee in his own interest, such as thou wast to him, that when one shall have seen thee the best wife, and a larger number the best mother, and more than they, a whole town, the best neighbour, and more than a town, a large body of noble friends, the best friend, and more than all they, all the world, the best example, when thou hast received this testimony from the militant church, as thou hast the recompense of all this in thy blessed soul, in the tri66 Augustine.

umphant, yet, because thy body is still within these walls, be still content to be one of this congregation, and to hear some parts of this text reapplied unto thee.

Our first word, Nevertheless, puts us first upon this consideration, that she lived in a time wherein this prophecy of St. Peter in this chapter was over-abundantly performed; that there should be scoffers, jesters in divine things, and matters appertaining to God and his religion: for now, in these our days, excellency of wit lies in profaneness; he is the good spirit that dares abuse God, and he good company that makes his company the worse, or keeps them from goodness. This being the air and the complexion of the wit of her times, and her inclination and conversation naturally cheerful and merry, and loving facetiousness and sharpness of wit, nevertheless who ever saw her, who ever heard her, countenance a profane speech, how sharp soever, or take part with wit to the prejudice of godliness? From this I testify her holy cheerfulness and religious alacrity (one of the best evidences of a good conscience), that as she came to this place, God's house of prayer, duly, not only every Sabbath, when it is the house of other exercises as well as of prayer, but even in those week days when it was only a house of prayer, as often as these doors were opened for a holy convocation; and as she ever hastened her family and her company hither with that cheerful provocation," For God's sake let's go, for God's sake let's be there at the Confession;" so herself, with her whole family (as a church in that elect lady's house, to whom John writ his second epistle), did, every Sabbath, shut up the day at night with a general, with a cheerful singing of psalms. This act of cheerfulness was still the last act of that family, united in itself and with God. God loves a cheerful giver,

much more a cheerful giver of himself. Truly he that can close his eyes in a holy cheerfulness every night, shall meet no distempered, no inordinate, no irregular sadness then, when God, by the hand of death, shall close his eyes at last.

But, return we again to our Nevertheless. You may remember, that this word in our former part put us first upon the consideration of scoffers at the day of judgment, and then upon the consideration of terrors and sad apprehensions at that day. And for her, some sicknesses, in the declination of her years, had opened her to an overflowing of melancholy; not that she ever lay under that water, but yet had sometimes some high tides of it; and though this distemper would sometimes cast a cloud, and some half damps upon her natural cheerfulness and sociableness, and sometimes induce dark and sad apprehensions, nevertheless who ever heard or saw in her any such effect of melancholy as to murmur or repine, or dispute upon any of God's proceedings, or to lodge a jealousy or suspicion of his mercy and goodness towards her and all hers? The wit of our time is profaneness; nevertheless, she that loved that hated this. Occasional melancholy had taken some hold in her, nevertheless that never eclipsed, never interrupted, her cheerful confidence and assurance in God.

Our second word denotes the person; we, nevertheless we; and here in this consideration, nevertheless she. This may seem to promise some picture, some character, of her person; but she was no stranger to them that hear me now, nor scarce to any that may hear of this hereafter which you hear now, and therefore much needs not to that purpose. Yet, to that purpose, of her person, and personal circumstances, thus much I may remember some and inform others, that from that worthy family whence she had her

original extraction and birth 67, she sucked that love of hospitality (hospitality which hath celebrated that family in many generations successively) which dwelt in her to her end. But in that ground, her father's family, she grew not many years: transplanted young from thence by marriage into another family of honour 68, as a flower that doubles and multiplies by transplantation, she multiplied into ten children, Job's number, and Job's distribution (as she herself would very often remember), seven sons and three daughters: and in this ground she grew not many years more than were necessary for the producing of so many plants. And being then left to choose her own ground in her widowhood, having at home established and increased the estate, with a fair and noble addition, proposing to herself, as her principal care, the education of her children. To advance that she came with them, and dwelt with them in the university, and recompensed to them the loss of a father, in giving them two mothers, her own personal care, and the advantage of that place; where she contracted a friendship with divers reverend persons of eminency and estimation there, which continued to their ends. And as this was her greatest business, so she made this state a large period, for in this state of widowhood she continued twelve years: and then, returning to a second marriage, that second marriage turns us to the consideration of another personal circumstance, that is, the natural endowments of her person, which were

67 Daughter of Sir Richard, sister of Sir Francis, aunt of Sir Richard Neuport, of Arcol.

68 Richard Herbert, of Blachehall in Montgomery, Esq., lineally descended from that great Sir Richard Herbert in Edward IV.'s time, and father of Edward Lord Herbert, Baron of Castle Island, late ambassador in France, and now (1627) of his majesty's council of war.

such, as that though her virtues were his principal object, yet even these, her personal and natural endowments, had their part in drawing and fixing the affections of such a person, as by his birth, and youth, and interest in great favours in court, and legal proximity to great possessions in the world, might justly have promised him acceptance in what family soever, or upon what person soever, he had directed and placed his affections. He placed them here, neither diverted then nor repented since; for as the well tuning of an instrument makes higher and lower strings of one sound, so the inequality of their years was thus reduced to an evenness, that she had a cheerfulness agreeable to his youth, and he a sober staidness conformable to her more years. So that I would not consider her at so much more than forty, nor him at so much less than thirty, at that time; but as their persons were made one, and their fortunes made one, by marriage, so I would put their years into one number, and, finding a sixty between them, think them thirty apiece, for as twins of one hour they lived. God, who joined them then, having also separated them now, may make their years even this other way too, by giving him as many years after her going out of this world, as he had given her before his coming into it; and then as many more as God may receive glory, and the world benefit, by that addition; that so, as at their first meeting she was, at their last meeting he may be, the elder person.

To this consideration of her person then belongs this, that God gave her such a comeliness as, though she were not proud of it, yet she was so content with it, as not to go about to mend it by any art. And for her attire (which is another personal circumstance), it was never sumptuous, never sordid, but always 69 Sir John Danvers, only brother to the Earl of Danby.