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Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
cause_n death_n life_n live_v 3,762 5 5.7511 4 true
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A64114 Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor. Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667. 1656 (1656) Wing T374; ESTC R232803 258,819 464

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impatient at the death of a person cōcerning whom it was certain and known that he must die is to mourn because thy friend or childe was not born an Angel and when thou hast a while made thy self miserable by an importunate and uselesse grief it may be thou shalt die thy self and leave others to their choice whether they will mourn for thee or no but by that time it will appear how impertinent that greif was which served no end of life and ended in thy own funeral But what great matter is it if sparkes fly upward or a stone falls into a pit if that which was combustible be burned or that which was liquid be melted or that which is mortal doe die It is no more then a man does every day for every night death hath gotten possession of that day and we shall never live that day over again and when the last day is come there are no more daies left for us to die And what is sleeping and waking but living and dying what is Spring and Autumn youth and old age morning and evening but real images of life and death and really the same to many considerable effects and changes Untimely death But it is not meer dying that is pretended by some as the cause of their impatient mourning but that the childe died young before he knew good and evill his right hand from his le●t and so lost all his portion of this world and they know not of what excellency his portion in the next shall be * If he died young he left but little for he understood but little and had not capacities of great pleasures or great cares but yet be died innocent and before the sweetness of his soul was defloured and ravishd from him by the flames and follies of a froward age he went out from the dining-rooms before he had fallen into errour by the intemperance of his meat or the deluge of drink and he hath obtained this favour of God that his soul hath suffered a lesse imprisonment and her load was sooner taken off that he might with lesser delaies go and converse with immortal spirits and the babe is taken into Paradise before he knows good and evil For that knowledge threw our great Father out and this ignorance returnes the childe thither * But as concerning thy own particular remove thy thoughts back to those daies in which thy childe was not born and you are now but as then you was and there is no difference but that you had a son born and if you reckon that for evil you are unthankful for the blessing if it be good it is better that you had the blessing for a whil● then not at all and yet if he had never been born Itidē si pu●r parvulus oc●●dat aequ●ae nimo ferendum pu●ant si verò in cunis ne querendum quidem atqui h●c aoerbius exegis natura quòd dede it At id quidem in c●et●t●s rebus inclius putatur aliqu●m partem quàm nullum a●●ingere Senec. this sorrow had not been at all but be no more displeased at God for giving you a blessing for a while then you would have been if he had not given it at all and reckon that intervening blessing for a gain but account it not an evil and if it be a good turn not into sorrow and sadness * But if we have great reason to complain of the calamities and evils of our life then we have the lesse reason to grieve that those whom we loved have so small a portion of evil assigned to them And it is no small advantage that our children dying young receive For their condition of a blessed immortality is rendred to them secure by being snatcht from the dangers of an evil choice and carired to their little cells of felicity where they can weep no more And this the wisest of the Gentiles understood well when they forbade any offerings or libations to be made for dead Infants as was usual for their other dead as believing they were entred into a secure possession to wich they went with no other condition but that they passed into it through the way of mortality and for a few months wore an uneasie garment And let weeping parents say if they doe not think that the evils their little babes have suffered are sufficient If they be why are they troubled that they were taken from those many and greater which in succeeding years are great enough to trie all the reason and religion which art and nature and the grace of God hath produced in us to enable us for such sad contentions And possibly we may doubt concerning men and women but we cannot suspect that to Infants death can be such an evil but that it brings to them much more good then it takes from them in this life Death unseasonable But others can well bear the death of Infants but when they have spent some years of childehood or youth and are entred into arts and society when they are hopeful and provided for when the parents are to reap the comfort of all their fears and cares then it breakes the spirit to lose them This is true in many but this is not love to the dead but to themselves for they misse what they had flattered themselves into by hope and opinion and if it were kindness to the dead they may consider that since we hope he is gone to God and to rest it is an ill expression of our love to them that we weep for their good fortune For that life is not best which is longest and when they are descended into the grave it shall not be inquired how long they have lived but how well and yet this shortening of their daies is an evil wholly depending upon opinion Juvenis ●eu●v●ia ●inbui● quem Di● diligant Men●ud For if men did naturally live but twenty years then we should be satisfied if they died about sixteen or eighteen and yet eighteen years now are as long as eighteen years would be then and if a man were but of a daies life it is well if he lasts till Even song and then saies his Compline an hour before the time and we are pleased and call not that death immature if he lives till seventy and yet this age is as short of the old periods before and since the flood as this yout●s age for whom you mourn is of the present fulness Suppose therefore a decree passed upon this person as there have been many upon all mankinde and God hath set him a shorter period and then we may as well bear the immature death of the young man as the death of the oldest man for they also are immature unseasonable in respect of the old periods of many generations * And why are we troubled that he had arts and sciences before he died or are we troubled that he does not live to make use of them the first is cause of joy for