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	life_n	old_a	5,148	5	5.6715	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42893	Miscellanea, or, Serious, useful considerations, moral, historical, theological together with The characters of a true believer, in paradoxes and seeming contradictions, an essay : also, a little box of safe, purgative, and restorative pils, to be constantly taken by Tho. Goddard, Gent.	Goddard, Thomas.	1661 (1661)	Wing G916; ESTC R7852	164,553	225

and some continue thereon untill they be full ripe by old age and then drop down into their graves Man hath as it were two Sepulchres One in the warm belly of his naturall Mother and the other in the cold Bowels of the common Mother of all both men and women the Earth By life he is put into a Gaole by Death into a Dungeon So soon as we are born we cry as if because we then want language to speak them our eyes did weep elegies and by those tears at once prognosticate expresse and lament our future troubles sorrowes sufferings Funerals The Mexicanes thus salute their Infants coming out of the Womb Infant thou art come into the World to suffer endure suffer and hold thy peace Our Mothers are living Tombs to us before our birth and so soon as ever we do but peep or step into the world every thing not only mindeth us of but also preacheth and readeth Sermons Lectures and Lessons to us of our departure out of it again For what are our swadling cloaths but winding sheets What are our cradles but Coffins What is the ringing of the Bell before our being Christened but an antedated passing peal What are those arms which carry us to Church to be baptized but a Biere What doth our being first undrest signifie but the putting off of our mortality What is our being layd down to sleep but an embleme of our Buriall And what is our first sleep but the Image and elder Brother of Death Life 't is a weak twig and a slender thread upon which fraile man hangeth over both his Grave and Hell 'T is a Tragae-Comedie whose scenes are health sicknesse strength weaknesse joy sorrow mirth and mourning The Prologue tears the Epilogue groans a Rainold Orat 185. Romani duas angorum voluptatum deas Angerioniam Volupiam ita colebant ut Angeroniae pontifices in sacello Volupiae et Angeroniae simulacrum in ara Volupiae collocarent quo significarent angores voluptatibus dolorem gaudiis humana vita semper temerari In this world there is no day without clouds The door of this naturall life is alwaies turning upon the hinges of mutability and variety of conditions Winter Summer Autumne Spring prosperity adversity sadnesse gladnesse black and white daies b Godwin Rom. Antiq. as the Romanes distinguished them make chequer-work in our lives Our complexions our outward estate and conditions are sometimes fair and ruddy with joy comforts mercies and sometimes they are black wrinkled pale and wan with sorrows crosses and miseries Man hath neither * Psalm 102. 11. Job 14. 2. Solstice nor rest here and therefore the Romanes built the Temple of Quies without the City to signifie that the lower Region of this Life is subject unto and disquieted with storms and showres * Lacrymae nobis decrunt antequam causae dolendi Sencca de brevitate vitae troubles and afflictions The Womb of Life is alwaies pregnant with both consolations and tribulations which struggle therein and the one as * Genes 25. 26. Jacob did Esau usually taketh the other by the heel c Plin. Secund Panegy ad Trajan Habet enim has vices conditie mortalium ut adversa ex secundis ex adversis secunda nascerentur Like ship-boys we stand sometimes upon the top of the mast of Prosperity and sometimes we are put down under● deck by Adversity Our life is a Sea wherein these tides are alwaies ebbing and flowing Dolor voluptas se invicem succedunt No man was ever yet so happy as to injoy all those mercies which the hand of God hath liberally scattered and divided amongst all men Nor was there ever yet any man so miserable but he had some comforts And though the line of calamity be often if not ordinarily to the godly longer then that of felicity in this Life yet it will be but very short even in his own judgment that is most miserable if it be measured or compared with the endlesse line of eternity And this consideration will make the waters of Marah sweet to a Child of God Our Life is an Irish a troubled dangerous tempestuous Ocean we take Shipping at our Birth with tears we ●ail over it with care fear sorrow and we land at the port of Death with sighs sadnesse unwillingnesse The thread of Life is so short and rotten that it is often yea alas too often spun out by the wheele and broken off by the hand of providence before it leads us out of the Labyrinths and maze of sin and misery many millions being carryed to their graves before they consider why or for what they came out of the Womb into the world For they do not consider that Man was not made and born to imbase his Soul with the allay of sin which alone renders it capable and maketh it fit to receive the impressions of temptations and all reall evills To fewell and feed his filthy Lusts or to gratifie and comply with his vile and vain desires To burn himself in the fire of uncleannesse anger or malice or to drown himself in the waters of drunkennesse and intemperance To choak himself in the dirty puddles and muddy Fennes of sensuality and Epicurisme To lye groveling upon or to spend his time in rooting in the earth by wilfully diseasing his Soul with the falling-sicknesse of Avarice or to entertain a dumb Devill into his heart not only to hinder but disable him from either praying to the Lord for grace and pardon of sin or praising him for his great and undeserved mercies And yet it 's too true that with the most of these devills some men and women are possessed and the most with some of them 'T is most certain that God did not give mans soal brave wings to pursue the poor quarrey of pleasure profit and honour or to fly unto hell but that by holy meditations and a religious conversation it should with them mount up to Heaven The Lord both gives us our beings and continueth us in them to trust love serve obey honour and delight in him He hath assured us we must dye and yet concealed from us how long we shall live that so we might every day and every where expect death and by a holy life and faith in Christ escape the torments of an everlasting death in hell We read of many that had alwaies some memento's of their Originall by them Agathocles who was but the Son of a Potter when he became a King had earthen pots brought up and set in his Presence chamber to immind him of his low extraction d Camerar lib. 1. p. 48. Willigis from a base condition for he was but the Son of a Carter being advanced to so high a dignity as to be made Arch-bishop of Ments caused these following words to be written in great Letters in his Lodging Chamber Willigis Willigis remember from whence thou camest And certainly if Men and Women even the most Royal

Noble Rich who have the most Talents to account for as well as the poorest and meanest would but either frequently view and seriously reflect upon their pedegree which they may find and see if they will * Job 17. 4. I have said to corruption Thou art my Father to the Worm Thou art my Mother and my Sister Job 17. 4. Or if they would but diligently hearken unto and meditate upon those Lectures and Catechisms of their own frailty and mortality which God not only reads to their ears but presenteth also to their eyes in the sicknesse and death of others certainly they would neither be proud nor profane And they would also learn rightly to know both the brevity and the uncertainty of this life which is indeed so uncertain that for ought thou canst tell how great or good soever thou art that art now looking upon this dark picture this unlively description of it death may have an Attachment against thee or an Habeas corpus to remove and carry thee out of the Land of the living before thou hast read one line nay one word more and serve it upon thee without warning respect and all possibility of being either rescued concealed bailed or protected from it We are all pilgrims and travaile towards our long home before we can go Every day is a step every week a walk every moneth a stage and every year a long Journey towards our Graves Life 't is a swift Race we are making ready for it in our conception our Birth is the starting poste the time of our so journing in this World is the Green or course over which we gallop with a winged speed and our death is the Gaole or end of it Orimur Morimur Child-hood is both the death and Tomb of infancy Child-houd lies buryed in youth Manhood interr's youth and old age is the Sepulchre of them all And when these five pages which are all the leaves that Nature or rather the God of Nature hath bound up together in the book of Life are turned over by the nimble hand of flying Time Death claspeth it up and then carryeth and layeth us all down in the University Library of the Grave where the greatest best and the most curiously with honour wealth power guilded and embellished Folio's as well as the worst least and plainest pamphlets and Decimo-sexto's high low rich poor learned ignorant good bad young old men and women are deposited and lockt up untill the Author the creator of them all God Almighty at the day of judgment shall open the door raise them all out of their graves take them up and peruse them to burn or preserve them according to the Contents of every one of them the actions of their lives good or evill How much then doth it concern us to live innocently uprightly purely piously unblameably since every letter word and line in the books of our lives and consciences all our thoughts words and actions how darkly secretly or cunningly soever they have been either conceived or committed will one day be read by all the world And since at that last great day of Judgment they e Mr. Bolton Quatuor Novis●t p. 92. will be as legible as if they were written with the brightest starrs or the most glistering Sun-beams upon a Wall of Crystall Besides an holy life is the hand that writes a Christians name in the volume of honour that hangs it on the File of Fame and that sets the best and the most glorious Crown upon his head Triasunt coronarum genera Goronalegis Corona sacerdotis Corona Regni * A good name is better then precious ointment Cant. 7. 1. sed corona bonae famae omnes superat And this Diadem all that truly fear God shall wear for ever † Psalm 112. 6. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance Their names will be fresh fragrant and flourishing to all posterity f Camerarius Some of the West-indians had this custome They used to deck with Jewels of Gold and with precious stones dead bodies And we know that in England ●nd other Countries the bodies of Noble persons are usually imbalmed Let us who professe our selves to be Christians do that for our souls which these do unto dead bodies Let us carefully and speedily labour both to inrich adorn and perfume our souls and memories by getting and gathering the Gold Gemms and sweet spices of grace godlinesse vertue and honesty because if our lives be vitious and impious our souls will not only burn in Hell and our bodies yeild an unsavory stench in the Grave but our names too will * Prov. 10. 7. rot in the World Weigh and judge then which of these ought to be preferred immortal Glory or eternall misery And whether it be not b●●ter to be coffind up in silence and buried in oblivion then to live though dead everlastingly infamous Life t is an Interlude the womb is the attiring room wherein we are drest the world is the Theater whereon we act our birth is the curtain drawn to let us out upon the stage our life is the part we act death is our exit and the plaudit if we perform our part well if we live religiously and persevere in piety wil be * Matth. 25. 23 Euge Wel done good and faithfull Servant enter thou into thy masters joy Lo this honour this happinesse have all the Saints This is the portion the Crown of a Ridley not a Roscius Life 't is an hedge of thornes upon which we must not only tread but walk to our Graves 'T is a boule of Gall with a few drops of Rose-water in it 'T is a Garden full of nettles and briers not flowers Tricae et spinae haec omnis vita et falleris si quaeris in ea gaudiorum Flores To conclude since every man may truly say and ought practically to speak to live like one that both knows and believes the truth thereof with him g Lips Epist 330. Quid natus sim scio imbecillum corpus fragile morbi pabulum mortis victima Since the strongest wisest greatest richest yea the holyest of meere men is but h Aristotle imbecillitatis exemplum temporis spolium inconstantiae imago invidiae et calamitatis trutina reliqua vero pituita et bilis And since it 's better to improve then pourtray it to spend our time holily then to speak our life elegantly I shall say but this A good gracious godly life is a near sure strait way to a comfortable peacefull blissefull death And a good death is the birth-pay of a blessed glorious life that shall never end Although then the morning of a pious Christians dayes may be tempestuous and lowring yet his evening will be calm and bright whereas the life of him that is impenitently wicked though i Nun quam tristiorem sententiam Domitianus sine praefatione clementiae pronunciavit ut non aliud jam certius atr●cis exitus

inauguration in Constantinople had severall sorts of stone presented to them by a Mason out of which they was to choose one to make them a Tomb to be buryed in o Joseph of Arimathea had his Tomb in a Garden and so had their great men also Mat. 27 60. 2 Kings 21. 18. The Jewes had their Sepulchers in their Gardens that so in the the midst of their delights they might remember their mortality And others have had a Deaths head served up to their Tables that they might in that perspicuous mortifying glasse behold their own frailty in the midst of their mirth pleasures jollity And certainly serious frequent and pious meditation of death will beget in us a vigilant continual expectation of death expectation of it will p Vivere in in tota vita discendum est Quod magis mirum est in tota vita dissendam est mori Seneca de brevitate vita ad Paulinam perswade and spurre us on to preparation for it so that we shall be able not only to look it in the face with comfort but triumphingly to say O Death where is thy sting c. It being nothing to such as have the Lamps of their Souls filled with saving Grace and their Garments washed white in the bloud of the Lamb but the Death and period of all their sins sorrows fears dangers troubles enemies yea and of death it self Mors vita duello conflixere mirando Rex mortuus regnat vivu● In hoc duello mors et vita in arenam descenderunt sed tandem vicit vita et gloriose exiit e sepulcro de morte triumphans Irrideamus ergo mortem cum Apostolo dicam●s Vbi mors victoria For q Quid ipsa mors quam timemus g Lips Epist p. 75. Requies gaudium et vera vita aut siquid in ea mali malis tantum What is that death which we so much fear and at the very name whereof we tremble 'T is rest joy and life or if there be any evill in it 't is only so to those that are evill And indeed 't is very sad yea wofull to all ungracious persons who have this punishment In dying they forget themselves because in their life time they forgat God But besides this grievous punishment and heavy judgment most justly inflicted by the Lord upon them because when he came to them in their health prosperity life and offered them mercy they refused with equall madnesse and cruelty to their own souls to hear and imbrace the tenders of love and salvation when their Life is lost and ended all hope comfort help all means of Grace and seasons of mercy all possibility of pardon together with the society of the Glorious Angels and glorified Saints the beatificall vision and blessed fruition of the thrice blessed Trinity and those ineffable pleasures which are prepared for all that love God will then be lost for ever Deus amissus est mors animae anima amissa est mors corporis The Death of the body is but the body of death therefore disce non metuendum existimare quae metuenda finit But the death of the Soul the losse of God and his favour is the Soul of Death Fear therefore by sin to provoke that God who can and for sin unrepented of and continued in will inflict eternal death both upon the body and soul and make all impenitent transgressors ever living objects of his never-dying wrath I shall conclude all with presenting and commending the Lord Gabriel Simeons Glasse to your view and perusall Beauty is deceitful money flyeth away Rule-bearing is odious victory doubtfull peace fraudulent old age miserable the fame of wisdome everlasting Life short death to the Godly * Mark the perfect man behold the upright for the end of that man is peace happy Psalm 37. 37 The Prayer O LORD Man hath but one Door to let him into the World by Life but there are a thousand Posterns Wickets and Passages to let him out of it by Death We are born both Mortall and Miserable O give us blessed God so to live that at the end of our daies we may be immortally happy we came into the World Sinners O grant that we may go out of it Saints We were unclean at our birth O let us be pure and holy at our dissolution The hand of every moment winds off some of the little clue of Life The string and plummet of our daies creep and descend every minute nearer and nearer to the ground our Graves The Sunne of this naturall Life never stands still but moves or rather flies from the East and morning of our birth and infancy to the South and noon of Youth and Manhood and then hastens to the West the evening of old Age. Grant therefore holy God that when this Sunne shall set in the night of Death our Soules may rise and shine with the Sunne of Righteousnesse in Glory That as we grow older we may grow holyer every day then other That we may passe the time of sojourning in these Tents of flesh in thy way and Fear that so the Conscience Evidence and Comfort of a wel-spent Life may both Antidote and Arme us against the Sting and Power of Death before it comes and free us from the Horreus and Misery of it when it doth come O let it be no Stranger to our thoughts and then it will be no terrour to our Hearts O let us get death into our mindes and that will put life into all our Actions O grant good God that our Lives may be pious and then our Death will be peaceable joyfull welcome unto us and precious in the sight of the Lord. And give us I beseech thee most mercifull Father some clusters of Grapes of the good Land of Canaan here even the Graces of thy holy Spirit and some fore-tasts of thy speciall Love in Christ while we continue in the Wildernesse of this World that when we die our Souls may enter into and for ever possesse the spirituall Canaan of Heaven Grant this O Lord for Jesus Christ his sake Amen Amen Diu vixit qui pie moritur Fructus est laboris finis operis placere melioribus FINIS Soli Deo Gloria THE CHARACTERS OF A True Beleever IN PARADOXES AND Seeming Contradictions AN ESSAY By THO. GODDARD Gent. Vetera legendo et metitando nova invenimus Quintil. Placere cupio prodesse precor laboro LONDON Printed by E. C. For Thomas Williams at the Bible in Litle-Brittain and William Thompson at Harborough in Leicestershire 1661. THE CHARACTERS OF A True Beleever In PARADOXES AND Seeming Contradictions 1. HE beleeveth that which he cannot comprehend because it is above reason That there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead yet but one God that God is the Father of Christ that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from them both and yet that they are all three Coeternall and but one in substance 2. He beleeveth that Christ who was

of such a wounded Spirit That poor wretch who was flayed alive and then laid upon a bed of Salt till he expired by the barbarous command of Solyman ●elt no pain and rested upon a soft couch-chair compared with him or her that hangeth upon the gibbet of an evill conscience Yea the greatest sharpest deadliest pangs and throws of that woman who hath the hardest labour in child-bearing are not only ease and refreshments but cordialls in respect of the horrible unavoidable insupportable tortures lashings bitings and gnawings of the whip and worm of a bad conscience An evill conscience is the outward court of Hell 'T is the earnest and foretast of those torments which are easelesse endlesse remedilesse 'T is like that * Ezck 2. 9 10. Book in Ezekiel wherein was written both within and without lamentation and mourning and wo. Weigh them seriously and hearken attentively to the God of Wisdome and truth who assureth us † Prov. 18. 14. The spirit of a man willsustain his in●irmities but a wounded spirit who can bear That a Spirit wounded with the sense of its guilt and misery is insupportable for by putting the question he puts it out of all question that it is so And also to that doleful eccho of the damned souls in Hell c See the life of Spira Francis Spira that compleat map of misery that so you may both judge impartially what it is fear it and carefully timely resolutely oppose hate decline and fly that which will bring you unto and hang your souls upon the same rack on which all his bones were broken viz. Sin against convictions covenants promises profession love light knowledg and conscience committed relapsed into and unrepented of I now feel saith he Gods heavy wrath that burns like the torments of hell-fire within me and afflicteth my soul with pangs unutterable And again the gnawing worms of an unquenchable horror confusion and which is worst of all Desperation continually torture me My pangs faith he are such that the damned wights in Hell endure not the like misery O let us then hear and fear yea let us be instructed warned and perswaded by his and * Cain Judas c. others sufferings to pray and labour to get good consciences and to keep them voyd of offence both towards God and towards men that so we may never feel and endure the exquisite the insufferable torments of a double Hell Desperation and Damnation And since unicuique liber est propria conscientia ad hunc librum discutiendum emendandum omnes alii inventi Since every mans conscience is his book and that all books are written for the reading correcting and expunging the errata's thereof It is therefore the great duty and concernment of every one vigilantly conscientiously constantly to take heed that it be neither interlined with sin nor blotted and blurred with crimes vices nor defaced with foul and filthy lusts Because if it be not kept pure fair and undefiled God will one day command it to be burned by the common hangman the Devill in the fire of Hell But if it be preserved unstained God will then love and delight in it For facies animi est c●nscientia sicut in conspectu hominum gratiosa est facies pulcra sic in conspectu Dei speciosa est conscientia munda The face of the mind is the conscience And an unspotted conscience is as beautiful in the sight of God as the most renowned and celebrated Beauty either is or ever was amiable in the eyes of men If then thou wouldest be free from the anguish agonies and miseries of an evill Conscience do thou in this case what one advised Domitian to do in another who being asked by Domitian how he might so rule as not to be hated like many of his predecessors answered him Tu fac contra do thou contrary to that they have done Do thou confesse repent hate and forsake every known sin and take heed of relapsing into wickednesse for sin is both the root and fewell of outward troubles inward terrors temporall punishments spirituall Judgments and eternall torments The Prayer O LORD thou hast not only forbidden us upon pain of High Treason Death and Damnation to commit the least sinne and acquainted yea assured us that all things are naked and opened to the eyes of that God with whom we have to do But thou hast also placed a comptrouler a Register a Notary conscience in every Child of Adam to observe record and remember all our thoughts words and actions whether good or evil And thy great design in all this is to make us afraid of acting any either open wickednesse or secret filthinesse since even all our closest iniquities impurities villanies and our midnight abominations are perpetrated upon a stage at noonday and in the sight of the Sun not only in respect of thine all-seeing eye to whom the darknesse and light are both alike but also in respect of that impartiall witnesse that all-observing Sentinel which thou hast placed within us that will most certainly reveal all those hidden hideous horrible and loathsome crimes we are guilty of which the eye or ear of Man never saw nor heard accuse us to God of them and both evidently and undenyably to the Lord and our own selves proves us conscious of them Give us therefore O Lord I beseech thee Grace care and resolutions to live walk and behave our selves to think speak and act as under thine eye and in thy presence at all times in all places in all company in all conditions in all our callings duties services recreations and imployments that so our consciences may acquit and not condemn us Let us prize seek and keep the happinesse peace and comfort of a good conscience more then pleasure plenty prosperity liberty yea then Life And let us fear the plague and torment of a bad Conscience more then Death And since O Lord thou wilt most certainly bring every work unto Judgment with every secret thing whether it be good or evill O give us Grace to fear thee and to keep thy Commandements that so we may both injoy the peace of God here and the God of peace hereafter This grant for his sake who is the Prince of peace and dyed to make our peace with thee thine only Son and our alone Saviour Amen Conscientia est index judex vindex Bona coeli est Porta primitiae Mala damnationis Prodromus Et Gehennae miseriarum principum XXIII Of Life IT is the seed-time both of Grace and Glory 'T is a short craggy thorny narrow way to a sad or joyfull to a blessed or cursed eternity 'T is a tree from which some blooms doe fall in their infancy on which some buds are blasted when but just set in their child-hood from which some green fruits are snatched off in their youth upon which some hang till Manhood and then are violently stricken down or pulled off by the hand of death