Selected quad for the lemma: city_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
city_n	earth_n	great_a	king_n	5,865	4	4.0614	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34359	A consolatory letter upon the death of a daughter written after a philosophical manner by a gentleman of the university to his friend in the country.	Gentleman of the university.	1698 (1698)	Wing C5930; ESTC R27913	16,502	26

Veracity and Truth will secure our future State For he having so universally declared to all Men by the Voice of Nature but more fully by Christianity the Immortality and Personal Subsistence of the Soul after Death it would lie as an eternal Blot upon this most precious Attribute if there were really no such thing to be expected Nor is the Justice of God less concerned in this Affair a great part of which consists in a faithful Distribution of Rewards and Punishments all which were utterly lost unless the souls of Men subsist after Death and be capable of Pleasure and Pain And as for that extravagant Dream that the Soul sleeps with the Body in the Grave till the Day of the Resurrection I am bold to say That Sensuality is the Patroness of this heartless Opinion The Nature of the Soul of Man is such as makes it capable of Moral Good and Evil and for this Reason every Man fatally adjoyning himself either to Heaven or Hell in this Life it will inevitably fall to his share to be Happy or Miserable when departed out of it Which cannot be except the Memory and Sense of his past Actions return upon his Separation from the Body And that it does so is not only a probable but necessary Consequence from the Nature of the Soul Now the Pleasure and Pain resulting from Good and Evil Actions will not suffer the Soul to fall into such a Stupour and Lethargick Sleep God is not the God of the Dead but of the Living for all live unto him said our Lord. But if the Souls of Men fall into so permanent a Sleep they are dead or rather annihilated for not to Be and not to be conscious of ones Being are much one and their Recuperation to Life is to them as it were a new Creation neither know they why they are either Rewarded or Punished because Death and that Narcotick State which immediately follows it according to this sottish Fancy washes away the Memory of all past Actions whatever To this we may add the Apparition of Moses and Elias in their Celestial Robes to our Blessed Saviour at his Transfiguration upon Mount Tabor when his Face shone like the Sun and his Rayment became white as the Light and those two Divine Personages foretold the good Events of his Death and spake words of comfort to him under the Consideration of his Inglorious Passion Which is an evident proof that the Souls of Moses and Elias did not sleep when they left their Bodies but that they now live and act in the Felicities of Jesus to whom in the days of his Flesh they brought Relief and Comfort Nor can I see how the Soul of the Thief on the Cross could be with our Saviour in Paradise or if it were there what advantage it could reap if immediately upon its separation from the Body it fell into such a deep sleep as not to be awakened but by the sound of the last Trumpet And as little Reason can be given why the Apostles Affections should be carry'd out in such a longing desire to depart and to be with Christ if to be with Christ were to sleep till the Day of Judgment in the cold Sods of the Earth But to pass on to some other Considerations one or other of which may perchance be as a Word spoken in Season and prove subservient for the reviving a languishing and sorrowful Spirit Do we not see all Things in Nature hasten to a Decay The hoary Winter cuts off all the Summer's Pride and Glory and Trees and Herbs despoiled of their green and leavy Coverings lie as dead till the return of the Sun and the genital Heat of Nature raise them to a new and fresh Life again Are not Beasts and Fowls and Fishes and the whole Animal Kingdom in a perpetual Mutation and Succession Nay the Heavenly Bodies themselves are not exempted from Mortality and Corruption as is evidently seen in the appearing of new Stars unknown before and the sudden disappearing of old ones and in the Trajection of Comets those vast and ominous Bodies through the Skirts of the Sun 's Vortex above the Orb of Saturn The Sun himself the common Focus that imparts Life and Heat to so many Worlds which keep their constant Circulations about him yet seems to prognosticate his own Death and Extinction by those Maculae or Spots carried around his Face And can you think a tender Body of Flesh and Blood though fearfully and wonderfully made yet consisting of mortal Principles should not die and perish But though Death may prey upon and consume the Elements of our Terrestrial Composition yet the Soul remains safe and entire and when clothed upon with her Heavenly and Angelical Body will be perfectly out of the reach of Fate and secure in the Possession of that bright and glorious Life which is justly said to be eternal But you will say Placidia was taken away in the Flower of her Youth and you are bereaved of the Comfort of your Old Age. I acknowledge indeed that Children are one of the greatest Temporal Blessings Men are capable of in this Life and therefore the being deprived of them is one of the greatest Temporal Infelicities They are so many Images of our selves and by them we are in a sort kept from the devouring Jaws of Silence and Forgetfulness and have a kind of Immortality imparted to us in this World In them is contained the straitest and nearest Bond of Friendship and they are the greatest Comfort and Support of our Old Age. All living Creatures seem to acknowledge something of this Pleasure and Sweetness in bringing up their Young Ones But what then Is the loss of them an Evil never to be redrest Is it a Wound that is beyond all possibility of a Cure To send a Child in a Voyage to the remotest part of the Indies from whence perhaps he may never return is carried off more lightly than to follow him to his Grave when yet to my Apprehension there is no such great difference but what is made by a weak and impotent Imagination For though we see not our departed Friends with our bodily Eyes yet they and we and those Pure and Majestick Beings the Angels under God the Supreme Monarch make one Polity Society or Corporation that extends and reaches from Heaven to Earth and the distance is no more than that they according to their several Ranks and Qualities live above in the splendid and more Noble Buildings and we in the Suburbs the meanest and lowest Places of the City of the Great King In my Father's House are many Mansions says Christ And the Author to the Hebrews seems to intimate as much But ye Joh. 14. 2. are come unto Mount Sion and to the City of the Living God the Heb. 12. 22. Heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable Company of Angels to the General Assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in Heaven and to God the Judge of

the Foetus in the Womb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Death to be the Birth to Life truly so called to a Life of Peace and Quietness in the happy Receptacles and Mansions of Spirits where the bright Day is never intercepted by Clouds and Darkness but an eternal Serenity overspreads the whole Face of Heaven Nay the barbarous Thracians and Scythians were not altogether estranged from this piece of Ancient Wisdom Valerius Maximus reporting of them that L. 1. c. ● 12. they used Feastings and publick Rejoicings at the Funerals of their Friends because they believed that when they died their Souls were released from the troublesome Circumstances of a calamitous Life and passed into more happy and blessed Regions You see then my Friend what little Cause you have to bewail the Death and Abreption of your dear Placidia from you who is not lost but taken into a higher Place and Degree in the City of the Great King The Bird of Paradise is uncag'd that she may take her flight to her Native Land She is gone to all her Friends Relations and Acquaintance that went hence in the Fear of God and the Exercise of a good Conscience who no doubt but met her with Joy and Triumph and after the unspeakable way that separate Souls discourse congratulated her safe Arrival to the Society of blessed Spirits which is thus set forth by the Oracle when consulted touching the Soul of Plotinus and its passage to the Happy State Ad Caetum jam venis almum Heroum blandis spirantem leniter auris H●ic ubi amicitia est ubi molli fronte Cupido Laetitiâ replens liquidâ pariterque repletus Semper ab Ambrosiis foecundo è Numine rivis Vnde serena quies castorum dulcis amorum Illecebra ac placidi suavissima flamina Venti Which I find thus Englished And now you 're come to th' Happy Quire Of Heroes where their blessed Souls retire Where softest Winds do as soft Joys inspire Here dwells chast Friendship with so pure a Flame That Love knows no Satiety or Shame But gives and takes new Joys and yet is still the same Th' Ambrosian Fountains with fresh Pleasures spring And gentle Zephyrus does new Odours bring These Gifts for inoffensive Ease are lent And both conspire to make Love innocent If it were a mighty Pleasure to Socrates to think that when he left the Body he should go to Aeacus and Minos to Orpheus and Musaeus and all those Holy Souls that fill and make up the Chorus of Immortal Love What enravishing Joy What pleasing Emotions of Spirit should it beget in you to be assured that Placidia is gone to Abraham Isaac and Jacob to the Holy Prophets and Apostles and to all that have done good in their Generations but above all to Jesus who loved and redeemed her with his own Blood I know it is a common Argument and frequently made use of upon such Occasions as this to tell you that she is removed from all those Evils a Terrestrial Body is obnoxious to yet hath it great Truth and Weight in the Consideration of it For though the Days of Man upon Earth be few and his Life contracted into a narrower space than in the first Ages of the World when Nature was in her youthful Gaiety yet they are full of Misery and Calamity and every Act of Life is divided into many Scenes of Sorrow We begin our Days with weeping and the first Tribute we pay to the Light of the Sun is to present him with a Tear and watry Eyes as a sure Presage of our future Misery And if we out-live the Chances of Childhood and arrive to the Exercise of our discriminative Faculties and make our choice of that variety of Instances the World presents unto us we go from a less to a greater degree of Affliction For whereas before we could only grieve and sigh under a present Pain now our Grief is redoubled by reflecting on it and we are the more miserable by knowing that we are so Those very Diseases that carry a little Infant with quietness to its Grave force us into effeminate Ejulations and Impatience and all because our Apprehensions and Reflexive Acts are greater than a Childs Should we view Man in his declining State when his Sun is setting and leaving the Horizon of Time and we shall find old Age like a teeming Womb full of Miseries and Sorrows a rough and uneven Path wherein Death becomes a welcome Respite and breathing Place to recover our Spirits wearied with the Troubles of this Life and inables us to resume our progress to Immortality In a word corroding Cares disappointments of our Hopes and Expectations Crosses and doleful Circumstances Sicknesses and Diseases make up the summ of Humane Life Besides this when a good Person reflects upon the Depravity and Wickedness of the World the stench whereof is ready to choak him he is sensibly pained and cannot but testifie his inward Grief by his Tears But now Death removes him from all the Objects of his Dislike and Aversation and the Grave puts an end to all Humane Miseries There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the Prisoners rest together they Job 3. 17 18. hear not the Voice of the Oppressor And as for Moral Evils there is an end to them likewise For holy Souls are out of the reach of the sly Tempter nor can the crooked Serpent wind himself again into the Celestial Paradise But after all it is not my Meaning nor Design to persuade you to an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or putting off natural Affection nor by a Stoical Stubbornness of Mind to become insensible of your Affliction For the better any Man is the more passive is his Constitution either for Joy or Grief and the more subject to these harmless Passions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best and most Heroical Persons are the readiest upon a sad Accident to overflow with Tears Thus the Son of God show'd the tenderness of his Spirit at the Grave of Lazarus and could not withhold his Tears Jesus wept Nor would I have you to forget Placidia and cast her Image quite out of you Mind as the manner of too many is who when they have interr'd the Bodies of their Friends and the Solemnity is over think themselves no more concerned in them than if they had never been For both Nature and Religion allow us to remember them with all that Esteem and Honour that is due to superior Beings whom the Lord of the Universe has grac'd with signal Marks of his Favour in the Regions of Paradise Whenever therefore you admit her into your Thoughts let it not be as she was in her earthly Tabernacle with all those Disadvantages and Alterations that Death made in it when he was pulling it down but rather represent her to your self in those bright Robes in which she converses with blessed Spirits where the external Shape faithfully answers the inward Pulchritude