Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	great_a	king_n	2,913	5	3.6168	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49606	The mirrour which flatters not concerning the contempt of the world, or the meditation of death, of Philip King of Macedon, Saladine, Adrian, and Alexander the Great / by Le Sieur de la Serre ... ; transcribed English from the French, by T. Cary.; Miroir qui ne flatte point. English	La Serre, M. de (Jean-Puget), ca. 1600-1665.; Cary, T. (Thomas), b. 1605 or 6.	1658 (1658)	Wing L458; ESTC R15761	110,353	296

in this world consists in the necessity of death but Mans reason is impaired in the course of Times Oh welcome impairement since Time ruines it but onely in an Anger knowing that it goes about to establish its Empire beyond both time and Ages In fine the Heavens may seem to wax old in their wandring course How happy is man in decaying evermore since he thus at last renders himselfe exempt from all the miseries which pursue him they yet appear the same still every day as they were a thousand yeares agon man from moment to moment differs from himselfe and every instant disrobes him somewhat of his Being Oh delightfull Inconstancy since all his changes make but so many lines which abut at the Center of his stability How mysterious is the Fable of Narcissus the Poets would perswade us that He became self-enamoured A long life is a heavy burthen to the soul since it muct ronder an account of all its moments viewing Himself in a Fountain But I am astonish't how one should become amorous of a dunghill though covered with Snow or Flowers A face cannot be formed without Eyes Nose and Mouth and yet every of these parts make but a body of Misery and Corruption as being all full of it This Fable intimates us the representment of a fairer truth since it invites a man to gaze himself in the Fountain of his tears thus to become amorous of himself If a man could contemplate the beauties of his soul in innocence he would alwais be surprized with its love If a man would often view himself in the tears of his repentance he would soon become a true self-lover not for the lineaments of dust and ashes whereof his countenance is shap's but rather of those beauties and graces wherewith his soul is ornamented and all these together make but a rivelet which leads him to the admiration of that source from whence they took their originall Oh how David was a wise Narcissus then when he made of his Tears a Mirrour so to become enamour'd of himself for he was so self-loving in his repentance that in this He spent both daies and nights with unparalled delights All the vain objects of the world are so many fountains of Narcissus wherin prying may shipwrack themselves But if Narcissus ship-wrack't himself in the fountain of his self-fondnesse This great King was upon point to Abysse himself in the Sea of his tears for their liquid Crystalline shewd him to himself so beautifull that he burned with desire thus to drown himself Ladies view your selves in this Mirrour since you are ordinatily slaves to your own self love You will be fair at what price soever see here is the means The Crystall Mirrour of your tears flatter not contemplate therein the beauty of this grace which God hath given you to bewail your vanities This is the onely ornament which can render you admirable Tears are the faithfullest Mirrours of penitents All those deceitfull Chrystals which you wear hang'd at your Girdles shew you but fained beauties whereof Art is the workmistrisse and cause rather then your visages Would ye be Idolaters of the Earth which vou tread on your bodies are but of Dirt but if you will have them endeared where shall I find tearms to expresse their Noysomnesse If Ladies would ake as much care of their souls as of their bodys they would not hazard the losse both of one and to'ther Leave to Death his Conquest and to the Worms their heritage and search your selves in that originall of Immortality from whence your souls proceed that your actions may correspond to the Noblenesse of that cause This is the most profitable counsell which I can give You It is time to end this Chapter Great Kings I serve you this Morning instead of a page to awake You and remembrance You that you are Men I mean Subjects to Death and consequently destinated to serve as a Prey to the Worms The meditation of our nothingness is a soveraign remedy against vanity a Shittle-cock to the sinds and matter for to form an object of horror and astonishment to you altogether Muze a little that your life passeth away as a Dream think a little that your thoughts are vain consider at the same time Men are so near of blood together hat all bear the same name that all that is yours passes and flies away You are great but this necessity of Dying equals you to the least of your subjects Your powers are dreadfull but a very hand-worm mocks at them your riches are without number but the most wretched of men carry as much into the grave as you In fine may all the pleasures of Life make a party in Yours yet they are but so many Roses whose prickles onely remain to you at the instant of Death The horror which environs You chaseth away your greatnesse Man hath nothing so proper to him as the misery to which he is born the weaknesse which possesseth you renders unprofitable your absolute powers and onely then in that shirt which rests upon your back are comprised all the treasures of your Coffers Are not these verities of importance enough to break your sleep I awake you then for to remembrance you this last time If the earth be our mother heaven is our father that you are Men but destined to possesse the place of those evill Angels whose Pride concaved the Abysses of Hell that you are Men but much more considerable for the government of your reason then your Kingdom That you are Men but capable to acquire all the felicities of Heaven if those of the Earth are by you disdained That you are Men but called to the inheritance of an eternall Glory if you have no pretence to any of this world Lastly Though the body and soul together make up the man there is yet as much difference between the one and the others as between the scabberd and the sword that you are Men but the living images of an infinite and omnipotent one Clear streames of immortality remount then to your eternall source fair rayes of a Sun without Eclipse rejoyn your selves then to the body of his celestiall light Perfect patterns of the divinity unite your selves then to it as to the independant cause of your Being Well may the Earth quake under your feet your wils are Keys to the gates of its abysses should the Water or'e-whelm again all Although the puissances of the soul work not but by the senses the effects in this point are more noble then the cause your hopes cannot be shipwrack'● That the Aire fils all things may be but your expectations admit of some vacuum Though the Fire devour all things the object of your hopes is above its flames let the heavens pour down in a throng their malignant influences here below your souls are under covert from their affaults Let the Sun exhaling vapours make thereof thunders for your

Ex. 38.8 to the end that those that should present themselves before his Altar might view themselves in thi● posture of Prayer O this excellent Mysterie Mortals it behooves you to view your selves in the Mirrour of your Ashes if you would have your vowes heard God hath taught us an excellent way of Prayer There is nothing assured in Life but its continuall Death Give us this day our daily bread But why O Lord teachest thou us not to ask thee our bread for to morrow as well as for to day O how good a reason is there hereof This is because that life hath no assurance of to morrow besides that it is an excesse of grace that we may be bold to crave of him the bread of our nourishment for all a whole day since every moment may be that of our Death Reader let this verity serve thee yet as a mirrour It is not sufficient to muse of the necessity of dying but to consider also that every hure may be our ast if thou would'st have thy praiers to pierce the heavens This is not all to know thy body is a Colosse of filth which is trail'd along from one place to another as it were by the last struggle of a Life alwaies languishing It behooves thee also to call to mind that every instant may terminate the course of thy troublesome carriere and that this sudden retreat constraines thee to bid Adieu for ever to all the things of the world which thou cherishedst most Thoughts only worthy of a noble spirit I have eaten Ashes as bread Psal 102.9 Cinerem tanquam panem manducabam saies the Royall Prophet but how is it possible I conceive his thought He entertained his soul with the remembrance of the Ashes of his body and this truth alone serv'd as object to his imagination for to satisfie the appetite of his Soul Lord give me both the same relish and desire to repast my selfe still thus A man to abase himselfe below that which he is being so poor a thing of nothing of dust and ashes in remembrancing my self alwaies that I am nothing else O sweet remembrance of my rottennesse since it steads me for eternall nourishment of my Soule O precious memorie of my Nothingnesse since able to satisfie the appetite of my heart Let this be the daily bread O Lord which thou hast taught me to ask thee to the end that all my desires together might be satiated with this dear nourishment I recollect my self in this digression Having diverse times mused of the imbecillity and weaknesse of man Si vitrei essemus minus casus timeremus S. Aug. I am constrain'd to cry out with St. Augustine What is there that can be more fraile in Nature If we were of Glasse pursues he our condition might therein be better for 2 Glasse carefully preserv'd There is nothing more brittle than glasse yet man is more may last long time and yet what pain soever man takes to preserve himself and under what shelter soever he shrowds himself for covert to the storm he breakes and is shattered of himself What reply you to these verities Great Princes Well may you now be atrogant The fragillity of glasse cannot admit of comparison with this of your nature what seat will you give to your greatnesse Man is fully miserable since his life is the source of his miseries and what foundation to your vanity when the wind alone of your sighs may shipwrack you upon the Sea of your own proper teares what surnames will you take upon you for to make you be mistaken That of Immortall would become you ill since every part of your body serves but as a But to the shafts of Death Invincible would also be no way proper A man may doe every thing with vertue without it nothing since upon the least touch of mishap you are more worthy of pity than capable of defence Would you be called Gods your Idolaters would immolate you to their own laughter Tread under foot your Crownes if rightly you will be crowned with them you only thus render your selves worthy of those honours Heaven cannot be acquired but by the misprize of earth which you misprize for Glory consists not in the possessing it but in the meriting and the onely means to obtain it is to pretend nothing at all to it How remarkeable is the custome of the Locrians at the Coronation of their Kings they burnt before them a handfull of Tow to represent unto them the instability of their grandeurs and the greedinesse of Time to destroy them In effect all the greatnesses of the Earth All the grandeur of Kings is but as the blaze of flaming tow are but as a bundlet of Tow and then when Darius would make of them his treasure Mis-hap set fire on them and reduced them into Cinders and when he had yet in his heart a desire to immortalize them a new fire seaz'd his intrals by the heat of thirst which burn'd him to the end to consume at once both the cause and the effect So true it is that the Glory of the world vanisheth away like Smoake Great Kings if you build a Throne of Majestie to the proof both against Time and Fortune He which esteems himselfe the least of all is the greatest lay its foundation upon that of your miseries Humility takes her rise in lowlinesse from the lowest footing when she makes her flight into the heavens O how admirable is the Humility of Saint Iohn Baptist They would give him titles of Soveraignty in taking him for the Messias but call to your Memory how with an ejaculation of Love and reverence he precipitates himself both with heart and thought into the Abysse of his own Nothingnesse Vox clamantis in deserto John 1.23 there to admire in all humility both Greatnesse Majesty in his Throne I am but a Voyce saies he which beat at the cares to enter into your hearts A Voyce which rustles in a moment and passes away at the same instant What Humility Is there any thing which is lesse any thing than a Voyce 'T is a puffe of wind which a fresh one carries I know not where since both lose themselves in the air after its never so little agitation Christus verbum Johannes vox with their gentle violence 'T is nothing in effect yet notwithstanding the proper name of this great Prophet They would elevate him John 1.27 and he abaseth himself so low that he would render himself invisible as a Voyce so much he feares to be taken for him whose shoe-latchet A Man is to be estimated in proportion to the under value he makes of himself he judgeth himself unworthy to unloose Lord what are we also but a little Wind enclosed in a handfull of Earth to what can one compare us without attributing us too much vanity True it is that we are the works of thy hands but all

wherein he is of possessing all things he looseth the possession of himself and having too much dreamed on his pleasures his Life is past as a Dream without return I must tell you one of my meditations I shall never be able to comprehend the meaning of those who moan themselves against Fortune A man may well complain against Fortune these vain regréetes exempt him not from the pain the World all the pleasures of this life One forsooth will upbraid to this foolish Deity her deceipts without considering that he deceived himself in giving Trust to a Goddesse that near had any He yet will accuse her to have conducted him still through craggy ways and over-spread with thorns as if in following one that is blinde a man should not hazard to run this danger Another will make ye fresh complaints against the World detesting it's Sweets The world may well be the instrument of our destruction not the cause cursing it's charms and calling it a Thousand times deceiptfull but why one would say to hear these plaints that the world began but now to receive its birth I mean were but now newly created that no man knows it yet and that its first couzenages began but now to be discovered What follyl is not this to cheat ones self to have commerce with a cheater the world never yet bore any other name or title The number of those whom the world hath deceived is so great that they that still trust it are now no more excusable why then aym we to nourish our selves with its delights whose after-bitternes impoysons sensibly our souls But if its charms be powerful enough to tempt reason they are yet too feeble to vanquish it provided that the wil consent not so that a man remain convict of all the crimes whereof he may be accused What seeming ground then have we to be enraged against those pleasures which we have received The will is so free that it cannot suffer violence but from it self if our selves ' only give them both being and form the Fancies conceive these delights the will gives them birth they are the works whereof our imaginations form the Spices Pleasures are the greatest enemies of life for in casting flowers upon our heads they fill our hearts with thorns and our desires make the Metamorphosis changing them into objects palpable and sensible which are marks of the seal of our depravednesse Let a man then abhor pleasures instead of accusing them detest their vanity in lieu of complaining of deceitfulnesse But if they be criminall they onely bear the stain of their Fathers and if they be complices of our destruction t is we give them Birth to give us death Let men cease to lament of Fortune since the Mirror of its flying scarfe Fortune is still her self he which trusts her takes delight to be cheated and wings expresse to the life its lightnesse and our folly Let none Argue any more that the world is cause of our ruine since we cannot chuse but tread every hour over the dust and ashes of those who have too late repented to have followed it As for voluptuousnesse t is a vain Idaea to which our passions give a body to make it serve as a sensible object of their brutality insomuch that it can do nothing but by our first motions taking its vigour from our force Pleasure still takes its force from our volunt ary weakness 'T is more then folly when the folly of others serves us not for example and its power from our Soverainty and this renders us doubly culpable palleating our faults instead of acknowledging them since laments rather than excuses might absolve us them Is it not that St. John Chrysostome toucht with compassion of our miseries cries out in astonishment of our weaknes Oh World how many hast thou deceved but this is its trade and profession Oh Fortune how many hast thou made to fall but even yet still while I am speaking she gives employment to her treason and exercise to her Tyranny O Pleasures comfitted in Sweets and yet steeped in bittersnesse how many have ye poysoned but yet their venome is so common that the whole earth is infected with it What remedy then to all these ils No other then this to pry into ones self in the MIRROVR of his own Ashes We can no better contemplate any thing then in the Mirrour of our Nothing AMIRROUR always hanging at the Girdle and which flatters not AMIRROUR whose glasse though more brittle then one of Chrystall makes us yet to see that all the objects of the World are false All the Mirrours of the World flatter except this of our miseries but that of our Corruption a Mirrrour which represents us more lively in our pourtraict then in our selves A Mirrour whose kind of shadow and Chimera makes us see in effect that which we are in appearance A Mirrour all miraculous which preserves certain Species's of nothing to render them sensible to our knowledge A Mirrour all divine which metamorphosing our bodies into shadows yet expresses us so naturally that the most arrogant cannot mistake themselves A Mirrour lastly which Nature hath charmed with it's own proper spels to the end that viewing himself herein a Man may be able to resist the charms of the World's allurements I am greatly astonisht at those that preach us the Knowledge of our selves to be so troublesom difficult since at all times and in all places of all sides of all sorts of fashions we are nothing at all or if by an excesse of flattery and vanity I borrow some names to expresse truly what we are If a wan would still study himself he would become the wisest of the World it can be no other then those of dure and mire whose noysomnesse takes away all doubt on it from the most incredulous In what then consists this trouble of studying to know one's-self since the most ignorant may in this go out Doctors in the schoole of our miseries Self-knowledge onely difficile to the proud where lies the difficulty to arrive to this knowledge when the very wind of our sighs carries away every moment some of that polluted dust whereof we be made Where is this pain say I yet since our senses and spirits can have no other object then this of Inconstancy as unseparable to their nature as it is proper to our condition And what can be this difficulty when we are capable of no action more then to destroy our selves We must break this rinde farther Humility is a skilfull Schoole-master to ieach us to know our selvs I will beleeve that every one knows from whence he comes and whither he goes that his body is but a work of rottennesse and that the worms attend thereof the prey as a nourishment which to them is destinated A man knows no more then he remembers but it is important to consider that these

often at least in Meditation into Tombes visit to such effect the Church-yards and you shall find therein more riches then you wish for considering the horrour of that rorten earth wherein your semblables are enterred you will reason without doubt thus To what purpose at last will stead me all the treasures which I amass up in my coffers if the very richest of the world be but earth and ashes before my eyes What shall I do at the hour of my death with all the goods which I now possesse if even my body be a prey destinated to worms and rottennesse LORD I aime at nothing of this world but that glory alone which a man may acquire by the contempt of it but as it is a glory whereof the acquisition depends of thy grace All our hopes depend from grace nothing from our selves more then my force give me the Courage if it pease thee to surmount all the temptations which shall oppose themselves against my design of Victory to the end that my vows may be heard and my pains recompensed I return to my self When I consider that all the world together is but as it were a Caemitary or Church-yard wherein every hour of the day some wretchednesse or other brings to the grave those whom such their miserable condition hath destroyed I have no more passionate desire of life since evils and troubles are proprietaries of it rather then we He which meditates of anothers mans death puts himself in mind of his own since we are all slaves to to the same fate Who can keep account of the number of persons that expire at this very moment that I am now speaking to you or the different deaths which terminate the course of their carreere All is universally dreadfull and yet we quake not either in horrour or astonishment A Walke into Church-yards Charnels though it be sad and melancholly by reason of the dolefull objects there obvious hath yet neverthelesse something in it agreeable to content good souls In many of the Church-yards of France are thousands of dead mens skuls and bones piled up as at S. Innocents at Paris S. Croix at Orleans c. Meditation upon the vanities of life is a piece of serious felicitie before death in the contemplation of those very objects which they there finde How often have I taken pleasure to consider a great number of Deadmens sculls arranged one in pile upon another with this conceit of the vanity and arrogance wherewith otherwhile they have been filled Some have had no other care but of their Hair employing the greatest part of their time either to frizle or to empouder them and represent unto your selves by the way what recompence now betides them for all their pains Others all full of ambition had no other aims but at Coronall wreaths consider a little in this their misery the injustice of their pretentions I ha' remark't in sequell how a little worm did gnaw the arm of some late Samson reducing thus all his force to an object of compassion and wretchednesse since that arm heretofore so strong and dreadfull had not now force enough to resist a little worm Reader muze often of these truths and thou shalt finde therein more joy then sadnesse Typotius reports of Iohn Duke of Cleveland that to testifie the frailty of our nature and the miseries of our condition he had taken the Emblem of a Lilly with this device Hodie hoc cras nihil Hodie Lilium Cras Nihilum It flourishes to day to morrow 't is nothing Great Kings Even those things which seem most durable have in effest but a morning prime like flowers your life is like this Lily it appears like this flower at Sunrise with glittering and pomp but at noon its vivacity and lustre begin to fade and at the end of the day it vanisheth away with it and scarce its being is remembred We read in Apianus of Pompy that after he had triumphed over three parts of the world he carried nothing away with him to the grave but these words Hic situs est magnus Pompeius Pompey is here buried with all his pomp O World how poor art thou since thou hast but such a thing of nought to give O Fortune how miserable art thou when thy favorites are exposed to publick view as objects of compassion Let him trust in them who will a man shall never be able to escape their tromperies but by despiting their favours Here lyes Hannibal Behold all the honour which posterity rendred to the memory of so great a Captain Time is as inexionable as Death and neither of them spare any And Time even jealous of the glory of his name though not able to bury it in the Abysses of Oblivion hath yet devoured the very marble of his Sepulcher Are not these things truths worthy to raise astonishment 'T is remark't in Suetonius of one of the Roman Emperours that being now at last gaspe and as it were at a bay with Death he cryed out in excesse of astonishment Fui omnia sed nihil expedit I have been all in all but now it nothing helpeth me I have tasted all the pleasures of all the greatnesse of the world but the sweetes are changed into sowres and onely their bitter disgust stayes with me Experiment all the delights of the Earth Great Kings the distast will ever at last onely remain to your mouths and sorrowes to your hearts and if these do no good on you a thousand eternall punishments will possesse your souls Represent to your selves that all the felicities of Life are of the same nature as that is That decaies every moment and they flit away without cease Contentments cause in their privation as extreme discontents The contentments which men receive here below are like the pleasures of the Chace which are onely rellish't running I draw to an end Belon in his Monuments of the Kings of Egypt sayes that they were enterred with such a splendour of pomp and magnificence that even those who had diverse times before been admirers of it were for all that often in doubt whether the people went to place the corps in the Throne again rather then in their Sepulcher O how ill to the eyes is the lustre of this sad kind of honour For if vanity be insupportable barely of it self these excesses of it put the spirits upon the rack Diodorus Siculus speaking of the Tomb which Alexander caused to be erected for his favorite Ephestion assures that the magnificences which were there to be admired were beyond as well all value as example Marble Brasse Gold and Pearl were profusely offered to most cunning Artisans to frame thereof such works wherein sadnesse and compassion might be so naturally represented that they might affect the whole world with the like Diamonds Rubies and all other precious stones were there employed under the Image of a Sun A Man should never be angry with his hard