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	life_n	world_n	2,645	5	4.7733	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51399	A pious and Christian consideration of life and death and of all humane actions. Written originally in French by the famous Philip Morney Lord of Plessis. Translated into Latin by Arnoldus Freitagius. And now done into English by M. A. for the benefit of his countrymen.; Excellent discours de la vie et de la mort. English	Mornay, Philippe de, seigneur du Plessis-Marly, 1549-1623.; Freitag, Arnold.; M., A.	1699 (1699)	Wing M2801; ESTC R216834	34,660	74

Divine Nature which hath nothing of rude matter in it but the Body is but as the bark or shell in which the Spirit being inclosed there lieth hid and if we desire to be delivered therefrom to live and behold the light that shell must be broken that bark must be stripp'd off and that case must be opened By what reasons can we perswade our selves that we live and think when in the mean time we are even spent and worn out with long sloath and idleness and can very difficultly stretch out our wings so long as we are loaden and burthened with this mass of Earth we cannot flie towards Heaven We see indeed but it is with such Spectacles as deceive us we have eyes indeed but they are covered with a white Film we think we see but we do but dream and are mocked by a lying sight and fallacious apparition Whatsoever we possess or know it is all but meer Vanity and meer Imposture It is only Death that can restore us both Life and the sense of Living And yet so brutish are we that we suspect this as if it were about to despoil us both of Life and Sense We call our selves Christians we believe there is and after this Life ended hope to enjoy a Blessed and Immortal Life nor do we think Death to be any thing else but only a separation of Soul and Body and that the Soul returns to her rest there to enjoy perpetual Joys with God in whom alone all good things and all the treasures of Happiness are laid up and that after the end of this World it will be restored to its own Body which shall never more be subject to corruption With these kind of Heroical and most Noble Expressions we stuff whole Volumes and yet when it comes to the push we shake for fear and tremble at the voice of Death as if it were of all things the most horrible And why so I pray if you believe those things I have even now mentioned Is it Happiness and true Pleasure that ye abhor which without this we cannot pretend truly nor scarce in part to believe we must look upon all that hath been said upon this subject to be only idle talk and no better than the vain Discourses of Men in their Jollity Some there are who constantly and with sufficient confidence affirm and will by no means be perswaded to doubt but that after this Life they shall pass to another far better and much more excellent than this is but when they consider the ruggedness of the way and the difficulty of the passage thereunto both their constancy and confidence do very much abate and they begin to fear and tremble at the thoughts of it How broken and disjoynted are the Minds of those Men who fear not oftentimes to expose themselves to Death for the preservation of their Lives who can be content to endure a thousand pains for that cause who to please others are not afraid to expose themselves to a thousand wounds who for the sake of some vile frail and perishing trifles and such as are not only subject to destruction themselves but also draw their owners into the same snare and ruine do a thousand times encounter Death without attaining the End they aim at and yet at the difficulty of one small passage by which they may procure unto themselves a sure and certain tranquility and that not for one day but for ever not a common rest but such an one as the Mind of Man is not able to comprehend do shake and tremble their courage fails them and they suffer themselves to be overcome by their own fears In vain do they accuse that grief which they suffer this is only a frivolous excuse for that little Faith or rather that great incredulity under which they labour For how they can possibly perswade either themselves or others to the contrary I see not when they chuse rather to wear out themselves with Aches in their Bones with the pains of Gout or Stone rather than by some more gentle kind of Death to change this Life without pain for one far more happy They had rather lose Limb after Limb and die by degrees that they may miserably out-live their own Senses Motions and Actions than by some sudden Death to be delivered from those so many and so great Evils that they may live and live happily for ever But they have an excuse ready for this they only desire their Lives may be prolonged that they may learn to live There are none who are ignorant of that it is an Art which all have learned It is not therefore the Art of Living but the Art of Dying that we ought now to study and learn which that we may happily do let us learn every day to die to our selves We cannot better fortifie our Minds against all assaults than by looking upon every day as the last day of our Lives But it happeneth out far otherwise more is the grief for there is no word more troublesome to the Ears of Men than the mention of Death How foolish and inconsiderate are Men who for the gain of a little money are hired to take up Arms and expose their Lives to the Fortune and Chance of War who in hope of Prey will first scale the Walls and attempt those Places from which they have little or no hope to return in safety so Prodigally do they hazard both their Bodies and Souls upon that account But to exempt themselves from the injuries and mockeries of Fortune that they may gain things rare and incomparable that they may enter into an Immortal Life that we look upon as a dangerous and difficult passage though all the danger and difficulty thereof is only in learning to know it right i. e. in imprinting upon our Minds a right notion of it considering that whether we will or no that passage at one time or other must be entred into and passed by us But alas Men are so much addicted to their own mischief that there are few or none to be found though oppressed with never so much misery who are willing to adventure upon this passage Some alledge their Age saying they could more readily and willingly submit to the Laws of Fate if they had attained to the Fiftieth or Sixtieth year of their Age but in their blooming years in their flourishing youth they think it hard to leave the world and a difficult thing to die that they would willingly know the world before they leave it But these Men do not consider how ignorant they are of all things they do not think that the greatest Age if it be compared either with time past present or to come is but like a point Do ye not see that when ye are arrived at that Age to which ye did aspire time past is as nothing and ye burn with a greater desire of that which is to come The remembrance of time past will be troublesome to you the

diseases yet it often happens that he finds himself stronger in Spirit Now what advantage I pray can this Man expect from all this save only this one that he is now got into the Neighbourhood of Death that an end of all his troubles and conflicts is now at hand that his freedom from this Prison in which he hath suffered so much all his life long now draweth nigh I omit in this place those infinite Evils which encompass and afflict Men in the several periods of their Age as the loss of Friends and Relations their banishment proscription and many other such like evils which frequently occur in this World one bewails the death of his Children another on the contrary complaints of the burthen of a numerous Offspring this bemoans the death of his Wife that complains of her living too long It is a trouble to some to be in an high place and no less grief to another to be in any place under the highest So many and so great are the cares and troubles which compass Men about in this World that should a just and full description be given of them the World it self would scarce be able to contain it In a word therefore he who in the esteem of others is the most happy of Men when he compareth his happiness with those cares and sorrows which attend it findeth himself very unhappy those who admire the splendid condition of others if but for three days they had the trial of it themselves would quickly be weary of it If Men would but consider those great inconveniencies which they do suffer in the acquisition of pleasures and what torturing cares and anxiety of Mind they are exposed unto for the preservation of them I speak of those delights which are of some moment and worth valuing not of those momentany ones which like Flowers fade and wither they would quickly be convinced that the possession of them is full of unhappiness and misery Whence we may draw this necessary consequence that Infancy is only a foolish simplicity Youth a vain heat Manhood a troublesom anxiety and Old Age an incurable Disease that our eyes are nothing else but tears the pleasures of the Mind only fevers riches only torments which continually torture and vex the Mind honours only burthensom vanities quiet meer inquietude To proceed from one Age to another is to change one Evil for another that which is lighter for that which is heavier so that as one wave beateth upon another so one trouble comes upon the neck of another 'till we arrive at the Haven of Death Let us conclude then that this Life is only a desire of that to come a grief for that which is past a loathing of that which we have sometimes thought to be sweet and pleasant a longing desire of that the tast whereof is yet unknown to us a vain remembrance of that condition in which any one died an uncertain hope of a future state in which there is nothing certain save only the certainty of Death and the uncertainty of the time thereof Behold Death hastning towards us The consideration Death n●● terrible see that approaching which we so much fear Let us consider it whether it be such a thing as it is commonly thought to be whether it be so much to be shunned as for the most part it is We act like fearful Children who are greatly affrighted with the sight or thought of personated Ghosts one cause whereof is because we do not conceive it in our Minds as it really is in it self but as a sad sorrowful and horrid thing such as Painters represent it upon Walls and for that reason we shun it With these and the like vain conceptions and imaginations we impose upon our selves and leave no room to view it in its true and proper light Let us stay a little let us fix our foot let us take up our standing where we may take a more accurate view of it on all sides and we shall find it quite another thing than that we have painted in our imaginations to have a more beautiful face than hitherto we have thought it to have Death gives a period to the labour and trouble of this Life but of what Life of that Life which is nothing else but meer calamity and a perpetual storm and tempest Death therefore is the end of all our misery and sorrow and an entrance into a quiet Harbour wherein we may be safe from the danger of any dreadful storm Shall we then fear this which freeth us from danger and brings us safely to our Port But you will say there is grief in Death no body denieth that so there is in the cure of a wound it is so ordered that in all Humane Affairs there is no curing of one Evil but by another Incision is necessary to restore a bruised and batter'd part of the Body to its former soundness But you will say ●●e Argu●●nt taken ●●●m the ●●●ficulty of ●onfuted the way to Life by Death is a difficult passage So is the entrance into any Harbour it is usually strait and narrow and not to be got into without great difficulty There is scarce any thing of value in this World that is to be attained unto without great pains and labour The entrance indeed is difficult but it is we that make it so by approaching it with vexation and grief of heart with a troubled and unquiet mind with fluctuating thoughts and without deliberation But if we bring with us a sedate quiet and well composed Mind to the consideration thereof we shall find no such danger nor any such trouble in Death What pain I pray is there in Death doth it any thing more or can it do any thing more than affect and afflict our senses We look upon it as the source of all those Evils with which we are then tormented but we do not consider how much greater Evils we have suffered with how much greater torments we have been tired out which yet have not consigned us over unto Death out of what pains and griefs we have escaped under the pressure of which we have wished for Death We give but little thanks to Death for delivering us from those pains which we do then endure nor do we well consider that whilst we are spinning this thread of Life whilst we lengthen it out we are on all sides encompassed with pain and grief nor that it is impossible that we should finish our Lives without them We do not well understand what it is that afflicts us it is not Death It is life that afflicts us which is the end of our so tedious and troublesom Journey but the end of our Lives that grieveth us it is not the Haven we enter into which is nothing else but a quiet retirement from storms and tempests and a passage to a blessed Life We complain of Death when we should rather with tears bewail our Lives much like those who being

recovered of some Chronical Disease blame their health not the remainder of their Distemper as the cause of their last pains and grief What is it to be dead but only to be no longer in this World And is that so calamitous a matter Did we never feel any pain nor undergo any trouble whilst we were in the World Are we ever more like to Dead Men than when we are fast asleep And yet we never enjoy more rest and quiet than when we are so If therefore we be free from trouble and sorrow whilst we sleep why then do we impute those pains we suffer when the Soul leaveth the Body to Death which ought rather to be imputed to Life from whence they proceed unless by the same reason we foolishly accuse that time in which we were not for those pains which we endure at our entrance into Life But if no Man can enter into Life without pain why should it seem strange that the end should be answerable to the beginning If from the beginning of our Generation we weave the Web of sorrow no wonder if in like manner we finish the same If in that time when we were not we were void of grief and trouble but now that we see the light we find our selves encompassed with them and assaulted by them on every side whether of these periods shall we accuse for them whether that time in which we were not or that in which we are and shall be we never think we shall die 'till we find our breath fails us but if we would rightly consider the matter we should find our selves dying every day every hour yea every moment We look upon Death as some unusual thing when as we carry nothing about with us which is or ought to be more familiar to us Our Life is scarce any thing else but a continual dying Every day that is added to Life is a day taken from it so that the lengthning of it is but the shortning thereof We are no sooner entred into one step of Life but we are so far onwards in our Journey towards Death He that hath passed the third part of his Age is a third part dead and he that hath passed half is half dead The by-past time of our Lives is dead the present liveth but is dying and that which is to come shall certainly fall under the power of Death Whatsoever is past is not that to come is not as yet and the present is but in a moment is no more In a word our whole Life is nothing else but a kind of Death Life is like a Candle lighted up in the Body which in most Men is melted away by the wind in many others it is so agitated that it seems to be only half lighted Some indeed there are in whom it is preserved whole and entire to the last But howsoever it be what quanity of light soever it giveth by the same it consumeth it self The brightness of it is a deflagration its flame suddenly becomes a vanishing smoak and its last blaze ends in a stinking snuff The same is the Life of Man for in him to live and die is the same thing But if we call our last breath by the name of Death we cannot deny the same name to the rest because they all flow from the same Fountain There is only one difference between this Life and that which we call Death that so long as that lasteth it daily supplieth us with new matter of dying but when that is ended there is an end of us too we are no longer in this World This at length is confessed by all that those who believe Death to be the end of all their labour and travel have no handle for fear to take hold on Whosoever is desirous of a longer Life is also desirous of a longer Death And he who feareth lest Death should come too suddenly upon him feareth also to be too soon rid of that which occasioneth Death But to those who walk by more holy Rules Death is quite another thing For they do not like the Heathens seek for consolation against Death but embrace it as a most certain remedy against all kind of afflictions Nor do they study how they may despise it or at least not fear it but rather how they may comfortably hope for it and chearfully embrace it Because they do not look upon Death as the end of all pain and grief only but as a store-house of all good not as the end of Life but of Death and the beginning of an Immortal Life Well therefore did the wise Solomon say An Heavenly Life only good That the day of ones Death is much better than the day of his Birth And why so Because that day is not the last that shall shine upon us but the beginning of a never failing day and of a most happy Eternity In that brightness we shall neither be concern'd for the trouble of time past nor greatly desire that to come for then all things shall be present and that present time shall never have an end None shall then any more enslave themselves to those vain and troublesom allurements of the World but every one shall then enjoy the true real and solid joys of the world to come Nor shall any one think it worth his while to heap up earthly things being possessed of the eternal Seats of the Blessed in Heaven having left behind them and rejected all Earthly treasure which by its weight did for some time keep them under and fixed down to the Earth Blind Ambition shall not then inflame the Mind they shall not then desire to ascend higher nor climb the steps of greater Honours and Dignities being fixed in a place far above Earth and all Earthly things they will laugh at the madness and folly of those whom once they admired who for little or no cause wage war who like Children contend for trifles They will then find no Civil-war within themselves the Flesh being then wholly subdued the Spirit at full liberty and enjoying a plenary and perfect Life and all the passions and affections which formerly were so troublesom and tumultuous submitting themselves to the guidance and governance of Reason The Soul being then freed from this nasty and filthy Prison in which by so long a space of time it had contracted some ill habits and was sate down wearied with labouring under its own weight shall now look up and breath in a purer air it shall acknowledge its old habitation and remember its ancient Honour and Dignity It is not so O Friend as you think neither that Flesh which thou feelest nor that Body which thou touchest is the Man Man is the Inhabitant of Heaven from whence he first came that is his Countrey that is the air he loveth to breath in If you look upon the Body you see the place of his banishment and proscription the Man doth properly consist of Soul and Spirit Man is of an Heavenly and