Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	day_n	heaven_n	let_v	5,470	5	4.6350	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A17129	A buckler against the fear of death; or, Pious and profitable observations, meditations, and consolations: by E.B.	Buckler, Edward, 1610-1706.; Benlowes, Edward, 1603?-1676, attributed name.	1640 (1640)	STC 4008.5; ESTC S101669	42,782	142

A The mind of the Frontispice THat Buckler which you see at top No Cyclops fram'd for if you look Underneath't you see the shop Where 't was made that open Book The use of 't is those ghastly fears And pale terrours to withstand That assault when Death appear● Pictur'd here at your left hand Time on the other side doth pray you To imbrace 't and use it well So Death shall not though it slay you Hurt each sand's your Passing-bell When the last is out you know That 's your picture quite below A BUCKLER against the fear of DEATH Or Pious and Profitable Observations Meditations and Consolations By E. B. Printed by Roger Daniel Printer to the University of Cambridge And are to be sold by M. Spark junior in the little Old-Daily in London 1640. To the Right Worshipfull Mris Helena Phelips and Mris Agneta Gorges grandchildren to the Right Honourable Lady Helena late Lady Marchionesse of Northampton now with God E. B. wisheth the happinesse of grace here and of glory hereafter Gentlewomen THough there be nothing more certain more impartiall more sudden then the stroke of Death yet is there nothing so seldome thought upon especially of those whose youth and health seem to suppose their graves a great way off But I may not harbour such a thought of you The piety of that Family whereof you are very suitable members is a sufficient prohibition Piou● hearts are never barren of profitable thoughts and amongst all those wherewith even a gratious heart doth most abound none are certainly more advantageous then thoughts of Death which have ever more thoughts of Repentance Iudgement Heaven and Hell for their companions Yet the best may be bettered and what I present you with may make your meditations more and peradventure more usefull then they were before Some consolations you shall light upon which is you suffer to work effectually they will go nea● to 〈◊〉 a chearfull expectation of that King of terrours which otherwise you might be sinfully afraid of The poeme if it may be called so is a plain one because I meant to profit not to puzzle you and yet it is a poeme that your profit might come in the pleasingest way To assure you that the rhythme is no disparagement to the divinity of the matter were to question your ingenuity a great part of that wherein you exercise your selves both day and night being written in verse * which notwithstanding is the mighty power of God unto salvation If you accept and gain by this poore present and withall give it leave to wear your names into the world my ends are accomplished and your selves with all that honoured and religious familie shall be remembred as often as I kneel before the throne of grace And I will importunately beg of him that sitteth thereon to increase the good gifts and graces of his spirit within you What if your proficiencie in the wayes of piety be already famous yet if my prayers find good speed with God you may sit in glorie a degree the higher Thus prayeth Your humble servant to be commanded E. B. Profitable and pious thoughts of Death Part I. Of Deaths certainty IN heav'ns high Parliament an act is pass'd Subscrib'd by that eternall Three in One That each created wight must one day tast Of Deaths grim terrours They exempted none That sprang from Adam All that red-earth-strain Must to their earth again An ancient Register of burialls lies In Gentsis to let us understand That whosoever is begotten dies And every sort is under Deaths command His Empire 's large Rich poore old young and all Must go when he doth call Mans life 's a book and some of them are bound Handsome and richly some but meanly clad And for their matter some of them are found Learned and pious others are too bad For vilest fires Both have their end There 's a conclusion penn'd As well as title-page that 's infancy The matter that 's the whole course of our lives One 's Satans servant walking wickedly Another's pious and in goodnesse thrives One 's beggerly another's rich and brave Both drop into the grave One man a book in solio lives till age Hath made him crooked and put out his eyes His beard doth penance And death in a rage Mows down another whilst the infant cries In 's midwives lap that 's an Epitome Both wear deaths liverie God made not death Whence are we mortall then Sure Sinne 's the parent of this pale-fac'd foe Nought else did hatch it and the first of men He was Deaths grandfather And all the wo That in this or the next life we are in Is caused by our sinne Meditation 1. IF I must dye I 'll catch at every thing That may but mind me of my latest breath Deaths-heads graves knells blacks tombs all these shall bring Into my soul such usefull thoughts of death That this sable King of fears Though in chiefest of my health He behind me come by stealth Shall not catch me unawares When-e're I visit any dying friend Each sigh and 〈◊〉 and every death-bed-grone Shall reade me such a lecture of mine end That I 'll suppose his case will be mine own As this poore man here doth lie Rack'd all o're with deadly pain Never like to rise again Time will come when so must I. Thus ghastly shall I look thus every part Of me shall suffer thus my lips shall ●hrivel My teeth shall grin and thus my drooping heart Shall smoke out sighs and grones and all the evil Which I see this man lye under What sinne earns and death doth pay I shall feel another day Sinne from torment who can sunder Thus will my mournfull friends about me come My livelesse carca●e shall be stretched out I must be packing to my longest home Thus will the mourners walk the streets about Thus for me the bells will toll Thus must I bid all adieu World and wife and children too Thus must I breathe out my soul At others fun'ralls when I see a grave That grave shall mind me of mortalitie I 'll think that such a lodging I must have Thus in the pit my bones must scattered he Here one bone and there another Here my ribs and there my scull And my mouth of earth be full I must call the worms my mother When I do look abroad methinks I see A fun'rall Sermon penn'd in every thing Each creature s●●aks me mortall Yonder tree Which not a quarter since the glorious spring Had most proudly cloth'd in green And was tall and young and strong Now the ax hath laid along Nothing but his stump is seen And yonder fruitfull valleys yesternight Did laugh and sing they stood so thick with corn In was the sickle and 't was cut down quite And not a sheaf will stand tomorrow morn Yonder beauteous imp● of May Pretty eye-delighting flowers Whose face heav'n doth wash with showers To put on their best aray I saw the fair'st the Lily and

Lord will have us die He numbers all our dayes we cannot shorten Nor lengthen them a minute Destiny Neither spinnes nor cuts the thread God a certain period sets No man shorter falls or gets Further then the bounds decreed If God vouchsafe to number out the hairs That do adorn and cloth our sinfull heads Who doubteth that his providence forbears To count our dayes If not a sparrow treads On the earth's face thus or thus But his providence awaketh For to note it sure he taketh Greater care by farre of us If any godlesse wits so curious be To talk of Hezekiah's fifteen years His sentence God did change not his decree The answer is yet Esay's tongue appears To speak not a jote the lesse Truth 't was with a supposition God doth th●eaten with condition Either 〈◊〉 expresse When Pestilence that lothsome dreadfull hag Bepatch'd with botches wanders up and down And into ev'ry houshold drops the plague Scarce any Turk in an infected town But will wise and friend afford Daily visits and imbraces They flie no contagious places Nor fear either bed or bord Their reason is Gods providence doth write Their fortunes on their foreheads neither can Their day of life be longer nor their night Of Death come sooner then God wills it Man Must yield 's ghost when God will have it For health and life if God will Save it 't is not plague can kill If not 't is not they can save it Such block-heads have not brains enough to think That as the time so God withall decrees The means of life as physick meat and drink Clothes recreations and what else he sees Needfull They themselves destroy And are to their safety strangers That runne into mortall dangers And not shun them when they may Howe'r imploy'd Lord grant I may have leisure Religiously to meditate that thou My dayes dost number and my life dost measure And make me think Lord that this very now That this twinkling of an eye Is the period thou hast set Lord grant I may ne'r forget That this moment I may die PART III. Of Deaths suddennesse THough sometimes Death doth stay till it be late At night untill our most decrepit years And when he comes doth like a King in state Send harbingers before yet Death appears Sometimes unlook'd for early in the morning And takes us up before he gives us warning When at full tide our youthfull bloud doth flow In every vein and when our pulses dance A healthfull measure when our stomachs know No qualms at all as we would say by chance Snatch'd are our bodies to their longest homes And Death is past before a sicknesse comes How many sleepie mortals go to bed With healthful bodies and do rise no more How many hungry mortals have been sed Contentedly at dinner yet before Against a second meal they wh●t their knives Death steals away their stomachs and their lives How many in the morning walk abroad For to be breath'd on by the keener air Perhaps to clarifie their grosser bloud Or else to make their rougher checks look falt But e'r they tread a furlong in the frost Death nips them so their former labour 's lost Nature is parsimonious Man may live With little but alas with how much lesse A man may die There 's nothing but may give A mortall blow small matters may undresse Our souls of clay A thousand wayes we have To send our crazie bodies to the grave The elements con●eder how they may Procure our Death the Air we suck to live It self hath poi'sned thousands in a day And made such havock that the slain did strive For elbow-room in Church-yards houses were Good cheap and onely shrowds and coffins dear If we could come to speak with Pharaoh's ghost 'T would tell how many met with sudden graves Beneath the water that a mighty host Was slain and buried by the surly waves Except a few which surfeted with store The crop-sick sea did vomit on the shore Sometimes our mother Earth as if she were So hunger-bitten that she needs must eat Her children gapes as for some toothsome cheer And multitudes one swallow down doth let Which either in her womb she doth bestow Or else doth send them to the world below That usefull creature Fire whose light and heat Doth comfort and when Earth doth penance warm us Whose cookerie provides us wholesome meat Yet mortally this element doth harm us One morning sent from heav'n such dreadfull flashes As did intomb five cities in their ashes We may remember some that have been kill'd By falls of buildings some by drunken swords By beasts both wild and tame our bloud is spill'd There 's not a creature but a death affords 'Bove fourti● childrens limbs God's anger tears In pieces with the teeth of savage bears But there 's some likelyhood that sudden Death By mean like these may easily befall us But many times we mortalls lose our breath By wayes lesse probable The Lord doth call us Upon a sudden hence by petty things Sometimes the meanest means Death's ●rrand brings Our staff of life may kill a little crumb Of bread may choke us going down aw●y A small hair in their drink hath caused some To breath their last By any thing we die Sometimes a sudden grief ●r sudden joy Have might enough to take our souls away Meditation 1. HOw weak's the thread of life that any thing How weak so e'r can break it by and by How short 's the thread of life that Death can bring Both ends of it together suddenly Well may the scriptures write the life of man As weak as water and as short 's a span How soon is water spilt upon the ground Once spilt what hand can gather 't up again Fome that doth rise to day is seldome found Floting tomorrow When the wanton rain Gets bubbles to make sport with on the water A minute breaks them into their first matter Such is our life How soon doth Death uncase Our souls and when they once are fled away Who can return them As upon the face Of thirstie ground when water 's shed to day The morrow sees it not so when we die None can revive us as we fall we lie Our life 's a vapour Vapours do arise Sometimes indeed with such a seeming power As if they would eclipse the glorious skies And muffle up the world but in an houre Or two at most these vapours are blown o'r And leave the air as clear as 't was before We look big here a little while and bristle And shoulder in the smiling world as though There were no dancing but as we would whistle So strangely domineer we here below But as a vapour in a sun-shine day We vanish on a sudden quite away Our life is like the smoke of new-made fires As we in age and stature upward tend Our dissolution is so much the nigher Smoke builds but castles in the air ascend Indeed it doth aloft but yet it must At high'st