Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	age_n	die_v	year_n	6,258	5	4.9578	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36736	A treatise against irreligion. By H.C. de Luzancy, priest of the Church of England, and M. of Arts of Christs Church in Oxford	De Luzancy, H. C. (Hippolyte du Chastelet), d. 1713.	1678 (1678)	Wing D2423B; ESTC R201393	39,690	201

need are destitute of means of coming to they that abound and are sick of strength and desire to enjoy them But Riches and Health things so essential to his carnal felicity are extreamly uncertain No man can be secure of their possession That vast number of languishing people met withal every-where Wounds falls Bankrupts Sterilities Shipwracks Fires Thefts and a thousand like misfortunes betray their inconstancy and teach us that nothing is so ruinous and uncertain as happiness built uppon them 4ly Supposing that a vigorous health and a perfect plenty of all things should conspire to make you happy how can you be secure of your happiness if your life it self is not secure What is in the World more subject to alteration then our life It depends upon the violence of men or all the accidents of Fortune We may dye in all ages at every time in every place we cannot promise our selves one single year or one day nay which is worse one single hour So many sudden deaths set before our eyes are proofs against all exception and what happens to some threatens and is an argument of fear for all Our life is lent us by moments and there is but that which is present we are really Masters of We cannot be sure of any goods but of those only which this single moment affords all the others are only grounded upon a probable hope And to this is reduc'd that certainty so much boasted of of the pleasures of the present life to which this Maxim is strangely misapply'd that we must leave the uncertain for the certain and so the question is this Whether any man of sense can resolve to give over the hopes of eternal happiness for a transitory one which is so often ruin'd by poverty and diseases and is secure of nothing but the moment of its enjoyment CHAP. V. Limitation to be put to the uncertainty of the promises of Christian Religion IT is to be weigh'd on the other side that the uncertainty of everlasting happiness a Christian proposes to himself is not of so large an extent as one may imagine For tho we condescend so far as to suppose that it cannot be made certain by any internal principles yet it has all the external certainty a rational man can desire 1st The universal consent of Mankind in all times and places The most Barbarous agree with the politest Nation the Turk and the Scythian with the Roman and the Greek and there is no irreligious person but this proposition must stagger that it is impossible to produce since the origination of mankind any Nations or Society of men that ever made profession of Irreligion Irreligious having been lookt upon in all ages as monsters not only for the enormity of their Doctrine but also for the smallness and strangeness of their number 2ly For what relates particularly to Christianity who can deny that it compasses the Irreligious with a cloud of witnesses The blood of so many thousand Martyrs of all Ages Sexes Conditions from the lowest to the highest rank is an astonishing argument And though some other Societies may challenge their Sufferers yet the pains of our Martyrs are dignified by such circumstances as are to be found nowhere else but under the Gospel And thus the Uncertainty of an eternal happiness and misery must not be lookt on as those things we usually call uncertain and admit of equal probability for their not-being as for their being but as a thing which though not evident in it self yet has a strong eternal certainty Then the question proposed is resolved to this Whether any rational man must prefer a single moment of pleasure he enjoyes to the hopes of an everlasting happiness which though not evident in it self yet is expected by all mankind and so strongly believed by Christians that they have lost for it their quiet their Estates their Thrones their Lives Nor must the Irreligious say That Christian Religion is false or impossible For then he argues against himself and is out of power of Claiming for himself that the certain is to be preferred to the uncertain If it be false or impossible it is no more uncertain CHAP VI. Resolution of the question Whether the certainty of the goods of this Life can overpower the uncertainty of those of the next No Condition of men will assent to the choice of the Irreligious ALL those necessary limitations being put on both sides it is easie to state the question in its natural terms It runs thus Whether a wise man ought to prefer advantages very short in their greatest extent interrupted by Diseases Disturb'd by thousand unavoidable accidents uncertain in their Duration certain only for an instant whether he ought to prefer them to the hope of an Eternal happiness which so many millions of men have dyed for and expose himself to an eternal misery which has the same probability Whereas without losing that blessed hope and risking so Dreadful a danger he may enjoy in an innocent life a part of those Delights he haunts after in a sinful course The single proposal of this question is enough to have it resolved Is there upon earth any man so bewitcht and so out of his wits as to doubt one single moment what must be his choice Is it not a stupidity equal to that of Beasts themselves to prefer pleasures attended with so many defects to the rational hopes of eternal happiness because these are present and that is yet to come But alas Who shall make that impertinent choice Men being different amongst themselves in age condition birth the older they are the proner they will be to catch at future happiness being so near their end that there remains for them but very little of the present The ordinary sort of people whose estate lies in their arms will think as old men To them may be added all that live a laborious life that is almost all mankind I ask then an Irreligious person what man is mad enough to side with him in his choice If he is a Child who knows yet nothing of another life and very little of this he must not be proud of it A Child knows but what he has tried and he has tried but few things He cannot therefore compare those objects which affect his senses with those his understanding apprehends not And his judgement though never so pertinent will be still that of a Child If he is an old man in whom nature begins to decay what would induce him to so strange a choice Does he think he ventures too much when he parts with those pleasures he is not capable of for a state eternally happy which though uncertain yet is very probable And would it not look as an incredible madness in him that is dead to all the pleasures of this life should he not renounce them and choose those of the next If he is needy and fickly how can he determine himself to it I leave it to any mans

those resemblances exaggerated with the greatest care extend not to the rational which is his grand difference And so all that can be inferred hence is that he dies in all that is beastly in him in his body in his sensitive life in all the faculties and operations that depend from corporeal Organs But what is all this to the destruction of his soul which depends upon those Organs neither in his being nor his operations Who can hear without indignation this manner of arguing Man is like beast in that which is common to both Therefore in all that is peculiar to him Beasts die in their bodies in that sensitive life which constitute the beast so does man therefore he dies in that rational intellectual life which is proper to him Man dies in his body therefore in his soul The Sun shines not when it is Ecclipsed therefore he shines not at all CHAP. VI. Conformity between Man and Beast THe conformity between man and beast is threefold the first natural and necessary the second shameful the third laborious The first is the consequence of an animal life Man and beast agree in eating drinking sleeping c. And although this state be imperfect as supposing many wants yet there is neither shame nor pain for man He does in that nothing against his reason which is one part of his nature and it is agreeable to the body which is the other This conformity is inseparable from man in this world Nor is the state of innocence it self free from it The second is the consequence and punishment of sin It consists in the reign of our passions over us the disorders of body and senses which rebell against the law of the mind and in all the share lust claims in the propagation of nature This state is natural to beasts and shameful to man because he is a stranger to it 'T is a shame for him that passions should command when reason must give laws that he should not master his own senses that he should covet what is not his own and love what he is convinced he should not nay sometimes that which he would not love Man is naturally no less stranger to the third than to the second So many labours incident to his life so many sufferings and distempers that end but with him cannot naturally fall upon an innocent creature He must have been guilty to be afflicted Nor can the Irreligious instance the sufferings of beasts who are innocent after their manner Why must man the most excellent creature upon earth who was to command beasts be twice more miserable than they First in the multitude and diversity of his pains which come from the infimite number of his wants Secondly The quicker and more galling sentiments of his pains Beasts are afflicted with no evil but the present Man fears besides and foresees the future He who is condemned to die dies a thousand times before his execution He feels infamy which outvies any grief And by the help of memory is galled at the privation of a state the happiness whereof he knowes most exactly and desires most earnestly Beasts are incapable of any of those pains and nothing but a cause stranger to mans nature such as is sin could have subjected him to them Sin alone could let into the world wars distempers and death And God could not punish the pride of man with greater justice than to make him so like beasts in sensible things as they seem even to obscure the immortality of his nature CHAP. VII The difference between Man and Beast THe chief difference between Man and Beast is reason which comprehends memory of things that are past and foresight of those that are to come Hence arises speech which is not only proper to man but a general means to communicate thoughts covering them with such sounds that men applied their notions to Speech is divided into all sorts of Languages nor is there any Nation but makes use of it to keep up civil society Hence arise also Sciences Arts Commerce Societies and Kingdoms The second is liberty an indifference of doing and not doing what he pleases Whereas beasts are determined in all their actions by a predominant instinct they cannot resist Hence arise Laws to secure private men and promote publick interest which are grounded only upon liberty there being no room for them in a nature determined to the same thing Hence also arise vertues which result from the good use of liberty and obedience to the Laws Nay man is discernable by his vices The love of Glory and the desire of Commanding distinguishes us from beasts though our condition be not a jot the better for it since all desires not overswayed by reason render us more miserable and misery is never an argument to raise our selves above any other Now the question is whether besides so many palpable differences there is not yet some other invisible that distinguishes man in his duration August 1st To consider the thing it self it is already very possible that amongst so many external differences there is some internal unknown to us There is great probability that souls so contrary in all things are so too in their duration and in their essence How could man do things so far beyond the reach and capacity of beasts were not his nature nobler and perfecter than theirs This supposition is very probable 2ly If we survey attentively all the advantages of man above beasts they do all imply a natural tendency to immortality The nature of the soul is spiritual This appears from her thoughts which represent to her spiritual objects and from general ideas from private images of things But if the being of the soul be spiritual it is also immortal Since a being totally independent from matter is subject to no alteration 3ly If we examine reason which is the character of the soul it is bound within no compass of time By the help of memory and foresight nothing is future or past to man Memory recalls precedent ages foresight sets before our eyes events that are to come Reason enacts laws to order matters of men if 't were possible for ever Books shall teach posterity as long as men live Dying people intend by their last will to dispose to all future ages of the goods that are in their power There is no man but desires eternal life and happiness None but fears infamy after his death Nay those very men wish for immortality who desire their souls to be immortal Are not these prejudices strong enough to move any man We have a clear notion of immortality Our mind foresees our heart wishes for every body aspires to it It is therefore at least to be concluded in the number of possible things And the contrary opinion cannot be received unless it brings along with it an evidence equal to that of having seen a soul annihilated which never happened and never shall Our eyes saies the Irreligious are not witnesses of the