ΤΟ

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

AND

TRULY NOBLE

RICHARD LORD VAUGHAN,

EARL OF CARBERY, BARON OF EMLIN AND MOLINGER, KNIGHT OF THE HONOURABLE ORDER OF THE BATH.

MY LORD,

I AM not ashamed to profess, that I

pay

this part of

service to your Lordship most unwillingly; for it is a sad office to be the chief minister in a house of mourning, and to present an interested person with a branch of cypress and a bottle of tears. And indeed, my Lord, it were more proportionable to your needs to bring something that might alleviate or divert your sorrow, than to dress the hearse of your dear lady, and to furnish it with such circumstances, that it may dwell with you, and lie in your closet, and make your prayers and your retirements more sad and full of weepings. But, because the Divine Providence hath taken from you a person so excellent, a woman fit to converse with angels and apostles, with saints and martyrs, give me leave to present you with her picture, drawn in little and in water colours, sullied, indeed, with tears and the

abrupt accents of a real and consonant sorrow, but drawn with a faithful hand, and taken from the life; and indeed, it were too great a loss to be deprived of her example and of her rule, of the original and of the copy too. The age is very evil and deserved her not; but because it is so evil, it hath the more need to have such lives preserved in memory, to instruct our piety, or upbraid our wickedness. For now that God hath cut this tree of Paradise down from its seat of earth, yet so the dead trunk may support a part of the declining temple, or, at least, serve to kindle the fire on the altar. My Lord, I pray God this heap of sorrow may swell your piety, till it breaks into the greatest joys of God and of religion; and remember, when you pay a tear upon the grave, or to the memory of your lady, that dear and most excellent soul, that you pay two more; one of repentance for those things that may have caused this breach, and another of joy for the mercies of God to your dear departed saint, that he hath taken her into a place where she can weep no more. My Lord, I think I shall, so long as I live, that is, so long as I am

Your Lordship's

Most humble servant,

JER. TAYLOR.

Pietati et. Memoria Sacrum.

MONUMENTUM doloris singularis, paris fati et conditionis, posuit Ricardus Comes Carberiensis sibi vivo, et mortem nec exoptanti nec metuenti: et dilectissimæ suæ conjugi Francisca Comitissæ in flore ætatis casibus puerperii raptæ ex amplexibus sanctissimi amoris. Fuit illa (descendat lacrimula, amice lector) fuit inter castissimas prima, inter conjuges amantissima, mater optima: placidi oris, severæ virtutis, conversationis suavissimæ: vultum hilarem fecit bona conscientia; amabilem, forma plusquam uxoria. Claris orta natalibus, fortunam non mediocrem habuit; erat enim cum unicâ germanâ hæres ex asse. Annos XIII. Menses IV. supra biduum vixit in sanctissimo matrimonio cum suo, quem effusissimè dilexit, et sanctè observavit; quem novit prudentissimum, sensit amantissimum, virum optimum vidit et lætata est. Enixa prolem numerosam, pulcram, ingenuam, formæ et spei optimæ; quatuor masculos, Franciscum Dominum Vaughan, Johannem, Althamum, quartum immaturum; fœminas sex, Dominam Franciscam, Elizabethas duas, Mariam, Margaritam, et Althamiam:-post cujus partum paucis diebus obdormiit. Totam prolem masculam (si demas abortivum illum) et fœminas omnes, præter Elizabetham alteram, et Mariam, superstites reliquit. Pietatis adeòque spei plena obiit ix. Octobr. MDCL. Lacrymis suorum omnium tota irrigua conditur in hoc cœmeterio, ubi cùm Deo Opt. Max. visum fuerit, sperat se reponendum conjux mœstissimus: intereà temporis luctui, sed pietati magis vacat, ut in suo tempore simul lætentur par tam pium, tam nobile, tam christianum in gremio Jesu, usque dum coronæ adornentur accipiendæ in adventu Domini. Amen. Cum ille vitâ defunctus fuerit, marmor loquetur, quod adhuc tacere jubet virtus modesta: interim vitam ejus observa, et leges quod posteâ hîc inscriptum amabunt et colent posteri. Ora et abi.

A

FUNERAL SERMON, &c.

SERMON VIII.

For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. 2 Sam. xiv. 14.

WHEN our blessed Saviour and his disciples viewed the temple, some one amongst them cried out, " Magister, aspice, quales lapides!" "Master, behold what fair, what great stones are here!" Christ made no other reply, but foretold their dissolution, and a world of sadness and sorrow which should bury that whole nation, when the teeming cloud of God's displeasure should produce a storm, which was the daughter of the biggest anger, and the mother of the greatest calamity, which ever crushed any of the sons of Adam; "The time shall come, that there shall not be left one stone upon another." The whole temple and the religion, the ceremonies ordained by God, and the nation beloved by God, and the fabric erected for the service of God, shall run to their own period, and lie down in their several graves. Whatsoever had a beginning, can also have an ending; and it shall die, unless it be daily watered with the purls flowing from the fountain of life, and refreshed with the dew of heaven, and the wells of God: and, therefore, God had provided a tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificial immortality: immortality was not in his nature, but in the hands and arts, in the favour and superadditions of God. Man was always the same mixture of heat and cold, of dryness and moisture; ever the same weak thing, apt to feel rebellion in the humours, and to suffer the evils of a civil war in his body natural: and, therefore, health and