A Funeral Sermon Preach'd on the Decease of the Right Honourable the Lady…

A rare glimpse into the spiritual world of late seventeenth-century England, this funeral sermon was delivered at Kensington Church on December 5, 1697, in memory of Lady Elizabeth Cutts, the wife of Colonel John Cutts, 1st Baron Cutts. William Wigan, a clergyman of the era, crafted this address not merely as religious instruction but as pastoral comfort for a grieving family and community. The sermon grapples with the brutal reality of a young woman's untimely death, wrestling theological doctrine against the raw ache of loss. Wigan's prose moves between meditation on mortality and the consolations of Christian faith, offering readers a window into how our ancestors processed grief through language steeped in scripture and providence. For historians of religion, this text illuminates the conventions of Protestant funerary oratory; for anyone drawn to the intimate documents of human mourning, it preserves a specific woman's passing and the words spoken over her grave more than three centuries ago.