Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
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A57126
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A sermon preached at the funeral of the Right Honourable Denzell Lord Holles ... by Samuel Rayner ...
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Reyner, Samuel, b. 1622 or 3.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing R1233; ESTC R15340
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10,925
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32
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was but Nobility in Parchment And that a man of true honour must have something more to make him honourable than meerly his Princes Favour or Fancy He was careful therefore to store his mind with all soul-ennobling vertues that so he might reflect a greater honour upon his Family than that was which he received from it And that when it should come to his own turn his Prince might not set his Seal upon a Blank but the Honour that he should confer upon him it should be as well the Reward of his own Desert as the Token and Pledge of his Princes Kindness And that is true honour indeed that which being bestowed commends the judgment of the Prince more than his Fancy and makes the World to know that he understands how to value men not by their fine Cloaths or their handsom faces or by the Recommendation of other Grandees but by their own real worth and vertue So that indeed such a person advanced to honour by his Prince he doth at the same time advance his Princes honour and not only receives but gives it About 23 years old in King James's time he was Chosen a Member of Parliament for a Town in Cornwall and after his being Married unto the Daughter and Heiress Apparent of Sir Francis Ashly of this County he was in four several Parliaments Chosen Principal Burgess for this Town of Dorchester But indeed the honour that we did him by chusing of him was not comparable to that honour he did us in accepting of our Choice The Prudence and Wisdom that he always manifested in those Assemblies The constant zeal that he had for his Princes true Interest though not always rightly understood and for the Liberties of his Country his constant opposition against all Innovations in the Church and against any thing that looked like a publick Grievance in the Common-weal It did not only create him Honour and Renown among all good Protestants and good Patriots but it did derive some Honour also upon this Place as making the World to know that We also had some sentiments of those vertues in our selves for the sake of which we so constantly made choice of him He had once the unhappiness indeed to fall under his Princes Displeasure and yet none need much to wonder at it since Kings see with other mens Eyes and hear with other mens Ears and there never want those about the Courts of Princes who do envy and traduce that vertue in others that they cannot or will not imitate themselves It is likely that some such persons had misrepresented Mr. Holles to the King that then was which might be the occasion of that short displeasure that was conceived against him But that Excellent Prince was too wise to be long imposed upon and it seems did quickly find cause to surcease any farther prosecution of that displeasure This I am certain of that it was not long before Mr. Holles gave such Testimony of his Loyalty to his Prince that the Antimonarchical Party that then carried all before them in the House of Commons quickly found that he was not for their Purpose and therefore turned him out of Doors Yea if I be not mistaken they made the Land of his Nativity too hot to hold him as thinking that they could not sit secure in their Usurped Thrones till they had got the Seas between themselves and him What his particular Agency was in the happy Restauration of his Majesty that now is I am not able to declare But the King it seems was so well acquainted with it and had such a grateful Remembrance of it as that he thought that Orb that hitherto Mr. Holles had moved in was too low and too little for a star of his magnitude and influence and therefore advanced him into an Higher first making him a Peer of the Realm then taking him into his Honourable Privy-Council and two several times employing him as his immediate Representative to foreign States and Princes Where he discharged his Trust with that Prudence and discretion and yet with that State and Grandeur as created him Honour at home and Admiration from abroad One Instance of the Greatness of his mind I cannot chuse but remember It is reported of him that when he was on his Embassy in France at his departure from thence that King did offer him very rich and noble presents which yet he absolutely refused to receive as scorning to accept any personal Kindness from those hands from which his Master he thought could not obtain justice A piece of self-denying Grandeur this that I think cannot be often parallell'd Let me add to all this and above all this that he was one that was as faithful to his God as he was to his King and Country One that stuck close to the Reformed Religion understood its Principles well and thoroughly professed and propugned them publickly practised them Conscientiously lived and died in it and if he had been called to it no doubt would have died for it He was naturally of as high a spirit as the most daring Gallants of them all but yet he thought it not beneath him as some others do upon his bended Knees daily to worship that God that made him He would some times have thought scorn to run away from the proudest piece of mortality that treads on Earth but he could never understand it to be any piece of valour or Gallantry to run upon the Almighty Prayers and Tears and Supplications these he thought the most proper way of addressing himself by to the eternal God but could never understand either the Valour or the Courtship of those Fools and Madmen as he accounted them that could dare the Almighty himself to Damn them In a word look upon him which way you will either as a Counseller to his Prince or as a Patriot to his Country or as a Christian towards God he was one that in a most inauspicacious time as unto us was taken from us We of this Place if it had been the will of God it should be otherwise could ill have spared his Patronage whom we found always ready upon all occasions to do us what good he could The King I am afraid at this time especially could ill have spared his Counsel and the Church and State I am sure at this juncture of Affairs could very ill have spared that support that both very reasonably might have expected from him But what shall we say he had served his Generation according to the will of God And God saw it time for him now to receive the Reward of all his Services and therefore took him unto himself I shall conclude all in applying to him those words that are spoken of holy David 1 Chron. 29.28 He died in a good old age full of days and riches and honour And having thus brought him to his Bed we shall softly draw the Curtains about him and leave him to an Eternal Rest I have only one word more to add to you right Worshipful Gentlemen who have done him the honour to attend upon his Obsequies And it is only to beseech you according to the Capacities you are in at Present or that you may be called to be in at any time hereafter that you would endeavour to imitate that Example that he hath set you and to supply his place By the fall of this great and good man there is a great Breach made in the Fence of our Church and State if some or other do not fill up the Vacuum God knows how soon destruction may break in upon us I remember when I was a Boy at the University it went currant then among us for true Philosophy that when a Member or part of a man body was cut off then Anima retrahitur we said the soul was not divided or cut off with that member but it was retracted to the remaining parts I wish with all my heart for your own sakes and for the sake of the Church and State wherein we all live that no one of all those Vertues that were so conspicuous in this Noble Lord deceased may die with him but that they may be all Retracted into his only Son and Heir the noble Lord Holles that now is As he inherits his Fathers Lands and Honours so may he inherit all his Vertues too and if it be possble may a double Portion of his Fathers Spirit rest upon him and into You also Right Worshipful and beloved who were his Friends and Admirers that You also may serve Your Generation by the will of God as he hath done before you Which if you will be careful to do all good men will love and honour you while you live and will heartily lament you when you are dead Your Executors shall not need then to hire any Hackney Tears to besprinkle upon Your Herses nor to tole men on by Rings or Ribbands to attend your Funerals But good men will flock together out of Conscience not to perform a Ceremony but to pay a Duty And though perhaps the tenth part of the Company may not be in Blacks yet they will be all in Mourning But at the same time when there is never so much grief and sorrow upon your account here on Earth there will be full as great joy and rejoycing in Heaven And before your Friends shall have laid that which is mortal of you into your Graves the holy Angels will have carried your Souls up into Heaven with Joy and Triumph FINIS