Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	body_n	call_v	flesh_n	7,962	5	7.0500	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51278	A sermon preach'd at the Hague, at the funeral of the late Prince of Orange (father to his present Majesty King William III.) who died in the year 1650. wherein the life and actions of his present Majesty are prophetically foretold. By the learned Mr. Morus. Translated out of French by Daniel la Fite, M.A. rector of Woolavington in Sussex.	More, Alexander, 1616-1670.; Lafite, Daniel.	1694 (1694)	Wing M2627; ESTC R216378	16,178	31

A SERMON Preach'd at the HAGVE At the FUNERAL of the Late Prince of Orange Father to his present MAJESTY King WILLIAM III. Who died in the Year 1650. Wherein the Life and Actions of his present Majesty are Prophetically foretold By the Learned Mr. MORUS Translated out of French by Daniel la Fite M. A. Rector of Woolavington in Sussex LONDON Printed by J. D. for Roger Clavel at the Peacock in Fleetstreet MDCXCIV Imprimatur Junii 28. 1694. RA. BARKER ISAIAH XL. 6 7 8. The Voice said Cry And he said What shall I cry All Flesh is Grass and all the Glory thereof is as the Flower of the Field The Grass withereth the Flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it Surely the People is Grass The Grass withereth the Flower fadeth but the Word of our God shall stand for ever THE Heavens declare the Glory of God saith the Prophet and though they have neither Speech nor Language yet for all that is their Voice heard They speak not to him that listens but to him that views them and entertain him much to this purpose Consider well our Beauty and Lustre the Vastness of our Bodies the unerring Stedfastness of our Motions and the Universality of our Influences We have not fram'd our selves we are the Effects of the First Cause the Productions of a Wise and Omnipotent God What the Prophet asserts of the Heavens the same we may say of the Dead and that in a more emphatical and significant manner They declare the Glory of God and the Emptiness and Vanity of Man there is no Speech nor Language with them no nor Motion neither as there is in the Heavenly Bodies yet is their Speech heard and if we hear them not 't is not because they don't speak but because we do not hearken They speak they preach they cry with a Voice intelligible enough even with the dumb Language of their loud and instructive Silence Behold and see to what we are come and whither you are going God who by his Almighty Word spoke us out of the Dust by withdrawing his Breath hath return'd us thither again But above all the Great Dead speak loudest and with a most distinguishing Tone with a Voice like to that of many Waters with a Voice that breaks the Cedars of Lebanon Solomon in his Life-time was both a King and a Preacher he made a Pulpit of his Throne and gave himself the Name of Ecclesiastes that is to say a Preacher But if Solomon was a Preacher when alive all Kings and Princes become such when they die they preach to all the World and the very same thing that he the wisest of Men and happiest of Kings had preached before them Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity which is no other than what is here proclaimed by the Prophet Isaiah I might as well have said Prince Isaiah for he was indeed a Prince of the Blood Royal and yet died as well as the Prophet Amos who as St. Jerome observes was a Cow-herd so that dying as well as living he cried All Flesh is Grass and all the Glory thereof is as the Flower of the Field But alas why is this Text so plain why so convincingly evident and so easy to be understood O that it were a Riddle yet and hard to be apprehended but we have all of us too sensible a Demonstration of this Truth and we can say nothing for the clearing of it which is not much inferiour to the Evidence which our common Disaster gives us thereof Had I a golden Tongue as that famous Bishop of old or were I inspired with the Eloquence of Angels yet should not I be able to say any thing that would come near to the Clearness and Force of the sad Commentary which the Breath of our Nostrils He of whom we said Many Nations shall rest under his Shadow hath given us upon it I shall not need therefore to take so much care to explain the Words as otherwise I should be obliged to do The thing it self speaks his Highness though dead speaks yea cries All Flesh is Grass All Flesh that is without any Exception Men have many Advantages and more especially these two Reason and Speech which distinguish them from all other living Creatures but as for the Flesh there is nothing very extraordinary in it one of the most obscene and impure Beasts the Swine is very like Man as to his inward Parts and as to the outward the most ill-favour'd and ridiculous of all Creatures expresseth him best Our Flesh is of the same Substance and Form with the Creatures we feed upon Wherefore what is Man but as an ancient Philisopher said a little Flegm and Gall put together that is to say a Mixture of Water and Fire or if you will of Flesh and Blood Indeed Man as to his Body is nothing else but mere Flesh and Blood altogether inclin'd to Corruption and nothing but Frailty according to the Hebrew Phrase for when the Jews would speak with Contempt of a thing that is of no Constancy or Solidity they call it Basharvedam Flesh and Blood You must not imagine that our Prophet speaking here of Flesh intends thereby Sin only or the corrupt Nature of Man as our Saviour does when he saith That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh for had this been his meaning he would not have said All Flesh but restrained his Expression to the Flesh of Sinners Therefore when he says All Flesh his meaning is that all Men the most godly and righteous not excepted are subject to Death All the Children of Adam inasmuch as they are made up of Flesh and Blood must return to their Original Dust as well as he But perhaps you will say Of what avail is it then to us that we are the Children of God if we must inevitably submit to Death as well as other Men I answer the New Birth was not design'd to preserve us in the State wherein Adam was created nor to restore us to it because that was but a carnal and perishable Estate but to exalt us to the glorious Condition of the Second Adam who is the Man from Heaven altogether spiritual and immortal Indeed Adam in his State of Innocence was but Flesh and Blood for though he knew no Sin yet was he liable to Sin and consequently to Death which is the Wages of it Flesh and Blood says St. Paul cannot inherit the Kingdom of God What think you doth the Apostle mean here by Flesh and Blood He doth not mean Sin though what he saith be true of Sin too but in this place as appears from the Context is understood Humane Nature consider'd in its Infirmities though otherwise innocent and just as subject to a continual Changeableness to a troublesome Vicissitude of Eating and Drinking of Labour and Rest and to many other Drudgeries and Necessities of Life because in this State it cannot subsist before God no more than Wax before the burning Sun

during the Treaty of Peace You would not have had so good Conditions from them who have yielded you so much yet had yielded nothing but for fear of his rising Glory In this case they would have been so far from owning you a Free People that they would have still treated you as Rebels they would have redemanded your Conquests and you would have been fain calmly to yield them up and whatsoever they have offer'd the same they would have exacted of you Yea here I dare assert something which though it will not seem probable at first sight yet will be found very true in the Sense I mean it This Prince has been the Prince of your Peace not that he wish'd for it as a weak and pusillanimous Prince might have done his martial Humour could never suffer him to be weary of the War if he had not preferr'd the Publick Peace to his own Inclinations which were all upon the wing for Glory but because the Apprehensions which the Blood of Nassau working and beating in his Veins gave his Enemies was the charming Caduceum that made them so compliant The Father carryed on the War and the Son made the Peace the Father made you Victorious in the former and the Son made you Arbitrator of the latter The Father had carryed the Terror of his Arms into the heart of Spain but he being no more 't is to his Son in whom they saw him reviv'd and from whom they feared all that they had so lately suffer'd to which you owe if not the Peace at least the Advantages of it For who could have thought they would ever have stooped to such Disadvantageous Conditions And as he had procur'd it so he likewise preserv'd and maintain'd it nor was there any fear your Enemies would ever break it as long as this young Lyon was the Keeper of your fair Provinces so deep an impression had his Roaring already made upon their Spirits How exceeding would have been your Joy how great your Security to have seen at the Head of your Armies the Son and Grand-Son of your Illustrious Defenders like a young Caesar covering your Fields with the dead Bodies of your Tyrants and his Hereditary Enemies dying your Channels with their Blood thundering crushing and breaking to pieces and shivers whatsoever made the least Pause in accepting his Yoak or the least Shew of opposing it self to his Shock You could not expect any thing less from that Great Heart wherewith God had endow'd him which was always in Action and in a perpetual and rapid Motion as that of the Sun and the Heavens We do not say this to flatter him or to please him were he still in the World we should not say it but what is there left for us to praise if it be not lawful for us to praise a Prince after his Death In the Blessed State to which he is arrived amongst the Saints and Angels and his Triumphant Ancestors cover'd with a thousand Lawrels crown'd with a Diadem incorruptible as he dispenceth no Favours so he wants none of our Praises We speak it only to satisfie Truth and to awaken the drowsie senses of some who without any bad intention but by a too great Concern for their Business and Petty Interests will shake their heads and say Well God will raise us up another all this will still be for the best and be a means of Vniting us more together And God grant you may be more United for sure it is that He can make you so without any Means and without that Prince who was the Cement of your Union the Captain of your Armies the Terror of your Enemies and the Tutelar Angel of your Dominions But still we must own that this is ill spoken for if we do not feel the stroaks God discharged on our heads what is it we shall feel then And if Crowns fell'd to the ground do not make us afraid we have reason to believe He will not stop there But to proceed We have just Cause to bemoan the Princess because she is a Mother who has lost her only Son her Joy and her Crown the Fruit of her Education and the Living Pourtraicture of her Vertues But his other Mother I mean the Church of God must be the Principal Object of our Mourning for She indeed hath lost more than we do imagine but shall know it one day henceforward we shall see the Numbers of those Idolaters encreased which swarm in our days and shall find a Sluce opened to the Licentiousness of Sects and Fanatical Opinions We don't make a Saint or Demi-God of him tho it be notorious that Old Rome hath Deified and New Rome Canoniz'd such as did not reach him for Worth The Sun it self hath its Spots neither was he without the Faults of Great Princes but he had acknowledg'd condemn'd and amended them and should we go about to compare him with the Princes of our Time it would be an easie thing to prove That our good Prince at the Age of Twenty Four had not his Fellow in our days And this being so we must say our Rare nay our Admirable Prince We will not enter upon Comparisons but only say That we mostly extol Princes for their easiness of Access Bounty sweetness of Temper and Affability which indeed in themselves are very commendable Virtues but not the Virtues of Princes they are good but for what For any thing but Government That Princely Spirit those Heroical Elevations and those Great and Generous Thoughts have not many Examples in our Age Thus much we can Averr That ours had so much of them as engaged him to love the Church of God and to hate those with a perfect Hatred that troubled its Repose or corrupted its Purity We have this of certain knowledge That he would never have been a Favourer of Errour or Faction And is not this a Good of inestimable Value Sion hath lost the fairest of her Ornaments and the most precious of her Pillars the Breath of our Nostrils he of whom we said we shall rest under his shadow The Whole Body of our Churches will feel this Blow and put on Mourning for this our Prince Our Churches in France were not so confin'd but that they look'd upon our Prince with Joy as being one of theirs and doubt not but they are more sensible of this Stroak than we are But all Words fail us when we come to cast our eyes upon the desolate young Princess young a Widow and with Child and sooner a Widow than a Mother how many Swords have pierc'd her Soul How many Calamities have beaten upon her like so many crowding Waves one upon the back of another What Deeps hath she seen rowling over her and ready to swallow her Which way would you have her turn her self To the Continent They are not concern'd at it To the Isles She there sees her Shipwrack round about her she there perceives nothing but a black Image of Death and Despair She has nothing to direct her eyes to but to Heaven for she can never so little cast her eyes down to the Earth but she finds her self obliged to groan for horror and sorrow of heart a Mother in Banishment a Brother in Trouble a Father upon the Scaffold and to fill the Measure brimfull a Husband in a Coffin Let us draw a Curtain before as Timantes of Old did for this Sorrow admits no Colours But do we think the Prince left One Onely Widow He had indeed Marryed but one Wife and yet hath left Eight Widows behind him The Seven Provinces will accompany his Royal and Desolate Spouse all in Tears and cover'd with the same Mourning Ashes Let us all therefore smite upon our breasts and say with Jehoshaphat O Lord our God we know not what to do but our eyes are towards thee 'T is thou who loosest the Bells of Kings and who bringest down from the Throne into the Dust 'T is thou who hast their hearts in thy hand and putst thy breath into their Nostrils 'T is thou who saidst to Princes I have said ye are Gods but ye shall dye like men We acknowledge before thee that our sins have drawn down thy Judgments upon us and that thou hast justly suffered the Crown to fall from our heads because we have trod thy Commandments under our feet 'T is true O Lord that we have too much trusted in that Arm which we now experience was but an Arm of flesh instead of having our eye to that great Arm of Heaven which hath supported us and can still support us as well as it upholds the Earth without any other prop or stay True it is we have too much sacrificed to our nets and sitting down under the shadow of our own Power have not sought as we ought our safety under the covert of thy wings Wherefore also thou hast snatch'd him away from us woe unto us that we have sinned But in the midst of thy wrath O Lord remember mercy Look down with pity and spare a House which of so long a time hath been the Ornament and Stay of thine the goodliest part of thine Inheritance the refuge of thy Ark and the Tabernacle of thy Glory Raise to thy Servant a just seed that may rebuild thy Temple Thou who art the Prince of Life who holdest in thy hands the issues of Life and Death open to him the Gates of Life preserve this Royal Slip as of old thou didst Moses in an Ark of Bulrushes beaten with the winds and at the mercy of the Waves comfort the Widow big with Child strengthen her heart in this hard Tryal to which thou hast been pleased to reduce her open the eyes and bless the endeavours of our Magistrates and grant that in this great Eclipse we may by the compass of their prudent and steady Conduct meet with the Remedy of our Evils Vouchsafe to us all the Grace to despise the hollow empty Figure of this World and all its illusions the Flesh with all its Glory that from henceforth we may place our Hopes in thee alone who art the great Prince of our Salvation O Holy and Wise Ruler of the World govern us by the Sceptre of thy Word and of thy Holy Truth till Princes and Provinces Magistrates and People Pastors and Flocks being gathered together in thy Heavenly Jerusalem there to enjoy the glorious Liberty of thy Son may Eternally Ascribe to thee Honour Power and Blessing c. FINIS