Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A92748
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Funeral sermon at the interrment of the very great and noble Charles late Earl of Southeske who died at his castle of Leuchars in the shire of Fife, upon the 9th. of August. And was interr'd at his burial-place near his house of Kinnaird in the shire of Angus, upon the 4th. of October 1699. By R.S. D.D.
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Scott, Robert, D.D.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing S2081; ESTC R229815
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16,859
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28
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Funeral Sermon AT THE Interrment of the very Great and Noble CHARLES LATE Earl of Southeske Who Died at His Castle of Leuchars in the Shire of Fife upon the 9th of August And was Interr'd at His Burial-place near His House of Kinnaird in the Shire of Angus upon the 4th of October 1699. By R. S. D.D. CHRYSOST in x. MATTH Offeramus Deo pro munere quod pro debito tenemur reddere PHILIPP i. 23. Having a desire to depart to be with Christ which is far better AUGUSTIN de Civit Dei Mala Mors putanda non est quam bona vita praecessit EDINBURGH Printed by James Watson in Craig's-Closs M. DC.XC.IX TO The right Honourable truely Virtuous and truely Noble MARY Countess Dowager of Southeske MADAM I Know nothing can offer it self with more Advantage for Acceptance at your Hands than what bears the Name of Him who is gone that other part of your Self whom it hath pleased Almighty God to Call sometime before you to the Blessedness of another Life Whose Image in Writing or the just account of His signal Virtues must do Him and all Men of the like Endowments more Honour than the most beautiful Stroaks of a skilful Pincil Whatever Sweetness was in His Nature shining thorow every Line of His Countenance what Sageness what Honour what Authority yet to know Him better and have a fuller scheme of the Capacities of His Soul expanded and laid open the Philosopher * Plato would have found his Experiment to good purpose in Him who thus expressed the Trial he took of a Man Loquere ut te videam i. e. Speak that I may See thee Whose Words never missed to set forth a clear and wel-digested Mind I have said but what is just of His Virtues in the short following Narrative and I conceive all this may contribut to stir again your wonted Sorrows for the Loss of Him against which I have often laboured to fortify you but I hope the Grace of God with the measures of Natural Prudence you are endowed with shall secure agninst the Alarm of these few Lines And I shall further excuse them on this head because I know that a generouâ— and affectionat Regret hath its own Sweetness in it only make it Christian and all is safe And do His Memory so much Honour and the Christian Laws so much Justice as to imitat His Excellent Virtues and add your own to them which I will not flatter you to name And I am hopeful you will go very near to compleat the Chain which is the earnest Prayer alsewel as the humble Request of MADAM Your most affectionat Well-wisher and most obedient humble Servant R. S. Christian Reader I Set before thee what I hope thou art careful every Morning to take a view of that the August Roman may not out-do the serious Christian Severus Imp. who caused make his Coffin and set it by him to mind him of his End and Exit out of the World which the Business of our Life is but too ready to make us forget I only add this That none of the Advantages of this World can secure thee against it else neither That nor This Great Man had died Farewel JOB xxx 23. For I know that Thou wilt bring me to Death and to the House appointed for all Living THESE Words exhibit and set forth to us a Truth carefully to be Remembered and seriously Pondered as by all the Individuals of Mankind so by every particular Person in this Great and Noble Audience as containing a Mene Tekel and irreversible Sentence of our being necessarly and inevitably separated from all the Kingdoms of the World and the Glory thereof They are spoken to us by the Excellent Job as bottomed upon a two-fold Certainty 1. The Infallible Forsight of his own particular Fate For I know Thou wilt bring me to Death Words obliging us to a Serious Pause and a very Inquisitive Recollection What a Me is this and by whom are these Words uttered Not by one of the Common Rout of Mankind at a venture whose Pretensions commonly are but very small to the Indulgences and Dispensations of Heaven but by a great and singular Friend of the most High Characterised by Him in the first Chapter of this Book of Job and 8th Verse in these Words spoken to the most exact Check and inveterat Destroyer of Mankind the Devil Hast thou considered My Servant Job that there is none like him in the Earth a perfect and an upright Man one that feareth God and esheweth evil And in the view and prospect of Death what Favour think we might he justly have expected was Enoch translated and did not see Death had Elijah a fiery Chariot to carry him to the Regions of Blessedness and might not Job have looked for some extraordinary way of being brought into the same Courts Nay but I know Thou wilt bring me to Death And since he hath said so let us make ready for it the more wretched Sinners of Mankind But 2. These Words are uttered not only upon the Forsight of his own particular Fate but upon the Inevitable Destiny and Fate of all Mankind And therefore doth he here term Death which is a Metonymie of the Effect for the Cause the House appointed for all Living The blessed Apostle expresseth it thus 1 Cor. 15.22 In Adam all die speaking of the Great Argument of the Resurrection Perfected and truely Instructed by the Death and Resurrection of the Blessed Jesus And when Men that are Vain upon the Antiquity of their Pedegree and Extract begin to Enumerat their Ancestors It 's to tell the World that so many more Mortals lived once upon the Earth And though never so Great and never so Wise though never so Rich and never so Potent yet behoved they to yeild to the Common Fate of Mankind And with one of them very lively to express their Conviction in that Matter who upon the Death of a Dear Child and the surprising Advertisement given of it made no other Account of it than this Scio me genuisse mortalem I know I did beget a Mortal To which we shall only add the Statutum est Heb. 9.27 It is appointed for Men once to Die Or if we need to say further upon that Point let the Experience of all Ages and our own daily Experience end the Inquiry And now how deeply is it to be regreted that however Death be the most familiar Comerad of Humane Life yet of all Others it is least Acquainted with it Though he that bears the Passing Bell in any tolerable Populous Place as he opens the Morning so he shuts up the Evening with it Besides the Noise of his Fatal Monitor at the Common Funeral Hours and Appointments and more Plentifully in these Times wherein God hath shewed his Anger against Us by breaking the Staff of Bread and with it the Common Stock of Health and gives Death so frequently in all the Streets of our Cities
all the Deliberation and Digestedness a very little time before his Death as he used to do in the time of his Health with all Demonstration of Kindness taking by the Hand all that were about him committing them to God Pardoning and praying for all his Enemies and heartily Blessing his Hopeful Son One Passage did very much instruct the Christian Magnaminity al 's wel as Moral Fortitude of his Mind when the Surprize of a very excuseable Passion made his Dearest and truely Noble Consort break out in some kind deep Resentments at her Thoughts of his parting from the World He thus expressed himself as with a Challenge Why should not I resign my Soul unto God at His pleasure All the Greatness and Wealth and numerous Circumstances of Temporal Felicity were not so much as in his View The seriousness of his Devotions al 's well as the Fortitude of his Mind left no place for such low and mean Thoughts To this add a singular Instance of that orderly and digested Regard which he payed to God all that Night over before it pleased God to call him out of this Mortal Life As oft as Prayers were offered for him the returns of which were very frequent and that most Just and Righteous Conclusion of our Requests in the Words of our Blessed Lord and Saviours form of Prayer which rectifies all our undigested Thoughts sounded in his Ears he pulled off the thin Covering of his Head with which he was abundantly discovered when it was upon him and with the profundest Devotion joyned in the Petitions thereof Here is a Chain of Virtues made mention of before you hanging about this Great and Noble Personage Virtues have always their proper Lustre where ever they are to be found but set forth a greater deal of Beauty and Glory when made Conspicuous by so high a Station like Pallas or Minerva sitting upon a Triumphal Arch and commanding the profoundest Regard from all their Votaries passing by them upon the common Level of the Earth O! What Obligations ly upon Great Men to be Virtuous provocking to Imitation the Multitudes of such as stand upon a lower Ground considerably reforming the World putting common Debauchry Dissolutness of Life to the Blush And by so doing greatly advancing the Kingdom of God But to live this Digression I say here is a Chain of Virtues Meekness and Humility Twins of Paradise fit for the Fellowship of Jesus and meet to enter into the Societies of the Blessed without which they cannot abide in these Regions of true Felicity more than Lucifer in Heaven or Adam in the Garden of Eden Justice Charity the two profitable Hand-maids of Human Society Ministering to the present Exigences of his lower World without which neither could the Poor Subsist nor the Rich be Happy Again here are Prudence Fortitude and Temperance The Philosophers have left us little to say of these only they Treat them likeways with respect to this Life and the constituting and carrying on of a Temporal Happiness and summum bonum under the Sun But in the other World our Prudence shall be swallowed up of a perfected Wisdom whereof it is but a Spice or Syre Fortitude shall lose it self in a fearless and inconcussible State And Temperance shall surrender its Dominion to a total Exemption from the use of the Creature To all these add Pure and Holy Devotion and this is a lasting Tribut payable to our Great Lord and Maker as in this World so in that which is to come And now with this Climax or Chain of Virtues in their different Positions and Gradations in their proper Exercises and Operations did our Great and Noble Friend and Fellow Christian shew himself forth in the World Having them so closs hanging about him and knit unto him that so long as he was capable of Communion with Us and the common Union of Soul and Body was allowed to subsist they shined forth with a Meridian Brightness Only the last of these as most becoming his Business of appearing before God seemed in the last place totally to possess his Soul and to shew forth a great work of God upon his Heart making him to breath forth a total Abnegation and cheerful Dereliction of all the enjoyments of this Life And in this manner did he spend his Time in the approaches of Death as he had done for a considerable time before having also received the Holy Eucharist from the Hand of one who was Worthy and had right to Celebrat and Administer it Thus did he in the strength of a firm Mind and in the returns of continual Devotions wait for the coming of his Lord uttering these Words and never any after them Into thy Hands O Lord I ecommend my Spirit Thus this Noble and Excellent Personage with this upright Job whose Patience in a most lively manner he transcribed as in the course of his Life where he wanted not singular enough tryals so most Eminently in his last Fatal Sickness was brought unto Death and to the House Appointed for all Living What was Great and Noble about Him either in the Extract or Alliances of his Family where there wants no Ground enough to Celebrat his Greatness we cannot so much consider the Subject of a Funeral as the work of a Pencil And therefore recommends you to his Escutcheon where you will find the Ensigns Armorial of the Noblest and Greatest Families of this Nation Or if there were any Faults or Failings in his Life As what Man liveth and finneth not that is as little my Business What I have already said of Him seems to speak Him more than a Penitent even a Favorite of Heaven and yet boasting of no Attainments but in the wonted Humility of his Soul throwing himself intirely upon the Merits of the Blessed Jesus the only true and solid Plea of the best of Christians And here we shall leave Him where we hope to be found in the day of our Appearrance And what now remains but the last Duty of his Noble and Honourable Blood Friends To commit his Body to the Dust since his Spirit is returned to God who gave it And Blessed are the Dead which Die in the Lord from henceforth for they rest from their Labours and their Works do follow them FINIS