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your mind with thinking 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 sealing. I loathe 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 change is, for whom unconstant fortune throweth the dice, if she want the wonted titles.

Her part is now indeed, 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 younglings, 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 of her full time.

Old age is venerable, not long, to be measured by increase of virtues, not by number of years; for heaviness consisteth in wisdom', and an unspotted 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, this is that Naomi', she being 1 1 Sap. 4.

2 Ruth 1.

to her end enriched with many outward, and more inward graces. But whether hereafter she would have bid us not to call her Naomi, 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 Fortune's 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 provided against her imminent harms, than 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 throes, 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 than 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 the stormy shore, you might settle your desire 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 part, 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 the law of necessary causes, some are reaped in the seed, some in the blade, some in the unripe ears; all in the end; this harvest depending upon the reaper's will.

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 errand unknown, neither his presence should be feared, nor his effects lamented. What wonder is it to see fuel burned, spice pounded, or snow melted? and as little fear it is to see those dead that were born 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 resorted 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, and to turn the inhabitant with more joy into a fairer lodging. Let then your sister's soul depart without grief, let her body also be altered into dust.

Withdraw your eyes from the ruin of this cottage, and cast them upon the majesty of the second building, which St. Paul saith shall be incorruptible, glorious, strange, spiritual, and immortal. Night and sleep are perpetual mirrors, figuring in their darkness, silence, shutting up of senses, the final end of our mortal bodies; and for this some have intitled 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 death is the inheritance; for, by virtue of the conveyance made unto him in paradise, that dust we were, and to dust we must return, he hath hitherto shewed his seigniory over all,

exacting of us, not only the yearly, but hourly reverence 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, than 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's house was too obscure a dwelling for so gracious an Hester, shrowding royal parts in the mantle of a mean estate, and shadowing immortal benefits under earthly veils. It was fitter 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 hers, 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 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 God's 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, and overtaking each other in their several courses; no picture can be all drawn of the brightest colours, nor a harmony consorted only of trebles; shadows are needful in expressing of proportions, and the bass is a principal part in perfect music; the condition of our exile here alloweth no unmeddled joy, our whole life is temperate 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 other's fortunes, that neither shall work them to excess. The dwarf groweth not on the highest hill, nor the tall man loseth 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 and 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 hap 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 cannot

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