Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A56119
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A sermon on the occasion of the death of the Right Honourable Elizabeth Lady Cutts containing an account of her most pious life and lamented death.
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Provoste, John.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing P3878; ESTC R2910
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29,829
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45
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Angels of God in Heaven where she is who have no Off-spring Mat. 22.30 and are Immortal in themselves without the help of Children to make them so The Writer of the Book of Wisdom speaks of a Woman Righteous and Childless Wis 3.13 14 15. She shall have fruit in the Visitation of Souls and of such a Man To him shall be given the special Gift of Faith and an Inheritance in the Temple of the Lord more acceptable to his Mind for glorious is the Fruit of good labours and the Root of Wisdom shall never fall away Better it is to have no Children and to have Virtue Wis 4.1 2. for the memorial thereof is immortal because it is known with God and with Men when it is present men take example from it and when it is gone they desire it it weareth a Crown and triumpheth for ever having gotten the victory striving for undefiled rewards The private Peace which was at all times within her Breast was lately so much more because there was a Publick one that she at her Death as the Angels at Christ's Birth she at her going up to Heaven as they at their coming down from thence might praise God and say Luke 2.13 14. Glory to God in the Highest and in Earth Peace Good will towards men But was she to be offered upon the return from War as the Daughter of Jephthah was Jud. 11.31.38.40 the mighty Man of valour who had declared Whatsoever cometh forth of the Doors of my house to meet me when I return in Peace from the Children of Ammon shall surely be the Lords She offered her self to God when Living must she when Dying be made an Offering too like the Lambs and Turtles under the Law The Daughter of Jephthah had two Months allowed her to bewail her fate upon the Mountains there were not two Days here The Daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the Daughters of Jephthah four days in a Year the Daughters and the Sons of Israel lament in the case before us and not four days only not in an Yearly but a Daily course of Mourning And now perhaps my Hearers will say With all those Perfections wherein you have pronounced her Perfect and Upright there was one thing too Imperfect that was her Life that too short Young she was and Young she died alas as Young as Good Eighteen Years and Eighteen Days How narrow a Space for something of so Great a Compass to be contracted bound up and restrained to This should be no more a grieveous thing then it is that any one should run a Race in a little time and win the Prize when the very running in less time does win it So run that you may obtain and then you may be concerned no farther not for your selves not for others She was the more a Wonder that she thus soon should become thus Excellent and such Excellence was a particular Mark of God's Favour as it was the peculiar Gift thereof She must receive it from Him alone when there was not the usual course of Time and long method of Discipline for the attainment of it as Miracles are not wrought by slow by natural and common ways Therefore you read v. 7. to 18. Wisdom 4 Though the righteous be prevented with Death yet shall he be in rest for Honourable Age is not that which standeth in length of Time nor that is measured by number of Years but Wisdom is the Gray Hair unto Men and unspotted Life is Old Age And then how Old was she of whose short Life we so much complain Yea speedily was Enoch taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding and deceâ—t beguile his Soul He being made perfect in a short timâ— fulfilled a long time This the people saw and under stood it not neither laid they up this in their Minds That God's Grace and Mercy is with His Saints and that he hath respect to His chosen Thus the righteous who is dead shall condemn the ungodly who are living and youth which is soon perfected the many years and old age of the unrighteous for they shall see the end of the wise and shall not understand what God in his Counsel hath decreed for him and to what end the Lord hath set him in safety And Ecclus. 41. Fear not the sentence of death Ecclus. 41 3 4. remember them who hâ—ve been before thee and who come after for this is the Sentence of the Lord over all flesh And why art thoâ— agaâ—nst the pleasure of the most High for there is no inquisition in the grave whether thou hast lived tâ—n or an hundred or a thousand years Indeed the hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in the way of Righteousness v. 31. Prov. 16. But Righteousness at any time is a Crown of Glory it is to the head which is not hoary so much more to this when the Righteousness has not like that of Old Age the sins of Youth to deface it not the necessities of approaching Death to lessen it and has only the Graces and Charms of Virtue to recommend it not the Experiments and Evils of Vice to force it Here was a Bloom of Age but then here was a Ripeness of the two best Fruits which grew in the Garden of Eden and now in the Wilderness of the World Virtue and Wisdom as in some hotter Countries a Blossom is seen upon one part of the Tree and ripe Fruit upon the other And so in this Sence too Isaiah's Prophecy is fulfilled The Child shall dye an hundred years old Isa 65.20 and his Question is answered Who hath heard such a thing Who hath seen such things Isa 66.8 Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a Nation be born at once He who in few days made all the World might well in few years make her that which He would accept and He would love and here too as after the Creation He in a pleasing Review saw that which He hid wade Gen. 1.41 and behold it was very good Gen. 1.12 She had all the Grandeur and comely Gravity of the Roman Matrons when she had the Youth of their Daughters her Age we could much rather have desired to have been that of the Mothers How beautiful should we have thought Old Age in her if we could have seen it there How charming had wrinkles been in her Face and each deeper Line upon her Cheek had given us a fairer Prospect than the most fruitful Valleys We could indeed have wisht her Life and when once we had enter'd upon the wish we know not when and where we should have ceased nor how we could have disengaged our selves again from a Thought so entertaining As there is a Great Prince near the Empire of Moscovy for whom his Subjects have so high a Veneration that they are not willing to believe him Mortal but please themselves with an extravagant Notion that