Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	good_a	let_v	4,185	5	4.2812	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31080	Practical discourses upon the consideration of our latter end, and the danger and mischief of delaying repentance by Isaac Barrow ...	Barrow, Isaac, 1630-1677.	1694 (1694)	Wing B951; ESTC R17257	64,090	182

those in Amos to pant after the dust of the earth to lade our selves with thick clay to thirst insatiably after flouds of gold to heap up mountains of treasure to extend unmeasurably our possessions joining house to house and laying field to field till there be no place that we may be placed alone in the midst of the earth as the Prophet Esay doth excellently describe the covetous Man's humour than I say thus incessantly to toil for the maintenance of this frail body this flitting breath of ours If Divine Bounty hath freely imparted a plentifull estate upon us we should indeed bless God for it making our selves friends thereby as our Saviour advises us employing it to God's Praise and Service to the relief and comfort of our Brethren that need but to seek it earnestly to set our heart upon it to relye thereon to be greatly pleased or elevated in mind thereby as it argues much infidelity and profaneness of heart so it signifies much inconsiderateness and folly the ignorance of its nature the forgetfulness of our own condition upon the grounds discoursed upon 3. Now in the next place for Pleasure that great Witch which so enchants the World and which by its mischievous Baits so allures Mankind into sin and misery although this consideration be not altogether necessary to disparage it its own nature sufficing to that for it is more transitory than the shortest life it dyes in the very enjoyment yet it may conduce to our wise and good practice in respect thereto by tempering the sweetness thereof yea souring its relish to us minding us of its insufficiency and unserviceableness to the felicity of a mortal creature yea it s extreamly dangerous consequences to a soul that must survive the short enjoyment thereof Some persons indeed ignorant or incredulous of a future estate presuming of no sense remaining after death nor regarding any accompt to be rendred of this life's actions have encouraged themselves and others in the free enjoyment of present sensualities upon the score of our life's shortness and uncertainty inculcating such Maxims as these Brevis est hic fructus homullis post mortem nulla voluptas Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye because our life is short let us make the most advantageous use thereof we can because death is uncertain let us prevent its surprisal and be beforehand with it enjoying somewhat before it snatches all from us The Authour of Wisedom observeth and thus represents these Mens discourse Our life is short and tedious and in the death of a man there is no remedy neither was there any man known to have returned from the grave Come on therefore let us enjoy the good things that are present let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth let us fill our selves with costly wine and ointments and let no flower of the spring pass by us let us crown our selves with rose-buds before they be withered let none of us go without his part of voluptuousness for this is our portion and our lot is this Thus and no wonder have some men conceiving themselves beasts resolved to live as such renouncing all sober care becoming men and drowning their reason in brutish sensualities yet no question the very same reflexion that this life would soon pass away and that death might speedily attack them did not a little quash their mirth and damp their pleasure To think that this perhaps might be the last Banquet they should taste of that they should themselves shortly become the feast of Worms and Serpents could not but somewhat spoil the gust of their highest delicacies and disturb the sport of their loudest jovialties but in Job's expression make the meat in their bowels to turn and be as the gall of Asps within them Those customary enjoyments did so enamour them of sensual delight that they could not without pungent regret imagine a necessity of soon for ever parting with them and so their very Pleasure was by this thought made distastfull and embittered to them So did the Wiseman observe O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions unto the man that hath nothing to vex him and that hath prosperity in all things Yea adds he unto him that is yet able to receive meat And how bitter then must the remembrance thereof be to him who walloweth in all kind of corporal satisfaction and delight that placeth all his happiness in sensual enjoyment However as to us who are better instructed and affected who know and believe a future state the consideration that the time of enjoying these delights will soon be over that this World's jollity is but like the crackling of thorns under a pot which yields a brisk sound and a chearfull blaze but heats little and instantly passes away that they leave no good fruits behind them but do onely corrupt and enervate our minds war against and hurt our souls tempt us to sin and involve us in guilt that therefore Solomon was surely in the right when he said of laughter that it is mad and of mirth what doth it that is that the highest of these delights are very irrational impertinences and of intemperance that at the last it biteth like a Serpent and stingeth like an Adder with us I say who reflect thus that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enjoyment of sinfull pleasure for a season cannot obtain much esteem and love but will rather I hope be despised and abhorred by us I will add onely 4. Concerning secular Wisedom and Knowledge the which Men do also commonly with great earnestness and ambition seek after as the most specious ornament and pure content of their mind this consideration doth also detect the just value thereof so as to allay intemperate ardour toward it pride and conceitedness upon the having or seeming to have it envy and emulation about it For imagine if you please a Man accomplished with all varieties of learning commendable able to recompt all the stories that have been ever written or the deeds acted since the World's beginning to understand or with the most delightfull fluency and elegancy to speak all the languages that have at any time been in use among the sons of men skilfull in twisting and untwisting all kinds of subtilties versed in all sorts of natural experiments and ready to assign plausible conjectures about the causes of them studied in all Books whatever and in all Monuments of Antiquity deeply knowing in all the mysteries of art or science or policy such as have ever been devised by humane wit or study or observation yet all this such is the pity he must be forced presently to abandon all the use he could make of all his notions the pleasure he might find in them the reputation accruing to him from them must at that fatal minute vanish his breath goeth forth he returneth to

Ghost now and ever Amen SERMON II. The Consideration of our latter End PSALM XC 12. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom IN discoursing formerly upon these words expounded according to the most common and passable interpretation that which I chiefly observed was this That the serious consideration of the shortness and frailty of our life is a fit mean or rational instrument subservient to the bringing our hearts to wisedom that is to the making us discern attend unto embrace and prosecute such things as according to the dictates of right reason are truly best for us I. The truth of which observation I largely declared from hence that the said consideration disposeth us to judge rightly about those goods which ordinarily court and tempt us viz. worldly glory and honour riches pleasure knowledge to which I might have added wit strength and beauty what their just worth and value is and consequently to moderate our affections our cares our endeavours about them for that if all those goods be uncertain and transitory there can be no great reason to prize them much or to affect them vehemently or to spend much care and pain about them II. I shall next in the same scales weigh our temporal evils and say that also The consideration of our lives brevity and frailty doth avail to the passing a true judgment of and consequently to the governing our passions and ordering our behaviour in respect to all those temporal evils which either according to the Law of our nature or the fortuitous course of things or the particular dispensation of providence do befall us Upon the declaration of which point I need not insist much since what was before discoursed concerning the opposite goods doth plainly enough infer it more immediately indeed in regard to the mala damni or privationis the evils which consist onely in the want or loss of temporal goods but sufficiently also by a manifest parity of reason in respect to the mala sensus the real pains crosses and inconveniences that assail us in this life For if worldly glory do hence appear to be no more than a transient blaze a fading shew a hollow sound a piece of theatrical pageantry the want thereof cannot be very considerable to us Obscurity of condition living in a valley beneath that dangerous height and deceitfull lustre cannot in reason be deemed a very sad or pitifull thing which should displease or discompose us if we may thence learn that abundant wealth is rather a needless clog or a perillous snare than any great convenience to us we cannot well esteem to be poor a great inselicity or to undergo losses a grievous calamity but rather a benefit to be free from the distractions that attend it to have little to keep for others little to care for our selves If these present pleasures be discerned hence to be onely wild fugitive dreams out of which being soon roused we shall onely find bitter regrets to abide why should not the wanting opportunities of enjoying them be rather accompted a happy advantage than any part of misery to us If it seem that the greatest persection of curious knowledge of what use or ornament soever after it is hardly purchased must soon be parted with to be simple or ignorant will be no great matter of lamentation as those will appear no solid goods so these consequently must be onely umbroe malorum phantasms or shadows of evil rather than truly or substantially so evils created by fancy and subsisting thereby which reason should and time will surely remove That in being impatient or disconsolate for them we are but like children that fret and wail for the want of petty toys And for the more real or positive evils such as violently assault nature whole impressions no reason can so withstand as to distinguish all distast or afflictive sense of them yet this consideration will aid to abate and asswage them affording a certain hope and prospect of approaching redress It is often seen at Sea that Men from unacquaintance with such agitations or from brackish steams arising from the salt Water are heartily sick and discover themselves to be so by apparently grievous symptoms yet no man hardly there doth mind or pity them because the malady is not supposed dangerous and within a while will probably of it self pass over or that however the remedy is not far off the sight of Land a tast of the fresh Air will relieve them 'T is near our Case We passing over this troublesome Sea of life from unexperience joined with the tenderness of our constitution we cannot well endure the changes and crosses of fortune to be tossed up and down to suck in the sharp vapours of penury disgrace sickness and the like doth beget a qualm in our stomachs make us nauseate all things and appear sorely distempered yet is not our condition so dismal as it seems we may grow hardier and wear out our sense of affliction however the Land is not far off and by disembarking hence we shall suddenly be discharged of all our molestations 'T is a common solace of grief approved by wise men si gravis brevis est si longus levis if it be very grievous and acute it cannot continue long without intermission or respit if it abide long it is supportable intolerable pain is like lightening it destroys us or is it self instantly destroyed However death at length which never is far off will free us be we never so much tossed with storms of misfortune that is a sure haven be we persecuted with never so many enemies that is a safe refuge let what pains or diseases soever infest us that is an assured Anodynon and infallible remedy for them all however we be wearied with the labours of the day the night will come and ease us the grave will become a bed of rest unto us Shall I dye I shall then cease to be sick I shall be exempted from disgrace I shall be enlarged from prison I shall be no more pinched with want no more tormented with pain Death is a Winter that as it withers the Rose and Lily so it kills the Nettle and Thistle as it stifles all worldly joy and pleasure so it suppresses all care and grief as it hushes the voice of mirth and melody so it stills the clamours and the sighs of misery as it defaces all the World's glory so it covers all disgrace wipes off all tears silences all complaint buries all disquiet and discontent King Philip of Macedon once threatned the Spartans to vex them sorely and bring them into great straits but answered they can he hinder us from dying that indeed is a way of evading which no enemy can obstruct no Tyrant can debar Men from they who can deprive of life and its conveniences cannot take away death from them There is a place Job tells us where the wicked cease