Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A43357
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Heraclitus Christianus, or, The man of sorrow being a reflection on all states and conditions of human life : in three books.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing H1487; ESTC R12496
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69,902
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193
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Philosopher which can be invented for to punish him is To let let him live For you shall see saith he That by little and little the vehement Fire of Love will gain so much on him as it hath already begun that the pain which he will endure will be so great that it cannot be conceiv'd and imagin'd for he shall find such Emotions within his Soul that he shall burn and consume in this Flame as doth the Fly in a Candle so that his life shall be no more life but a real Death and that more cruel than if passed through the hands of all the Tyrants and Hangmen in the World I have been somewhat tedious in treating on this Subject but indeed the thing requires it being the entire Corruption and ruin of the most part of the Youth of our Age for when they have never so little wetted their feet in the delights of this World it is the hardest thing in nature for them to retrieve themselves Youth Liberty and Riches being the greatest Pimps and Bawds in the World CHAP. XII Of the Misery of Old Age. AND then when we should sing a Requiem from all our Troubles cometh upon us Old Age with its infirmities and then our sorrows are renewed and grown young again and we must then pay a rigorous Interest for all the faults and excesses of our Youth the Heart that is miserable sad and heavy by the gloomy reflections of a mis-spent Life the Spirit that is languishing the Breath that is stinking and loathsom the Face so furrowed and wrinkled and generally the Body so curbed that it seemeth to be some lump of Lead or Iron rather than a Man the Nose hath lost its faculty of smelling the Eyes of seeing the Hair falls off the Teeth falls out of the Head by stink and rottenness in short he resembleth some dry Anatomy or the picture of death rather than the Man he was and this is only of the Body but alas the mind of aged people is as much out of order or rather more for they are then continually disposed to anger hard to be appeased light of belief and long a forgetting injuries praise the Ancients and former Ages and despise and contemn the Modern are sad languishing malancholy covetous hard and suspicious In brief 't is the retreat and rendezvouz of all the Vices and incommodiousness of our nature which being considered by the Emperour Augustus he was wont to say That when men had lived fifty years they ought to dye and desire to be killed for asmuch as to that time they felt none of the grievances of old Age which is unavoidably past over in sorrow and misery and in insupportable pains and sickness death of Children loss of Goods Law Suits paying Debts and an infinite of other troubles which it were better with eyes shut wait for at the Sepulchre than to experiment them with open eyes in this frail and sorrowful life Which the Prophet apprehending cried out unto the Lord saying Withdraw not thy self from me when I am in years nor for sake me when assailed with old age CHAP. XIII Of DEATH AFTER Man hath groaned and sighed under the insupportable burden and heavy weight of his miserable Life he is forced to live always in the fearful expectation of the division of the Soul and Body which is for the most part accompanied with inconceivable and inexpresible torments Which St. Austin considering and bewailing breaks out into this querulous Lamentation O Lord God saith he how miserable a creature is man who after having sustained so many vexatious evils yet must endure the terrible assaults of Death which oftentimes cometh so violently that it burns and tares all in pieces and hath more ways to destroy us than can be related or thought of Sometimes oppressing by Feavers sometimes by Hunger sometimes by Thirst sometimes by Fire another by Water one with the Sword another with Poyson some are torn in pieces with the teeth of Wild-Beasts some are made meat for Fishes some of Worms and yet nevertheless man knoweth not the end and when he thinketh himself permanent and lasting he falleth and perisheth What an affrightful Spectacle is it to behold a man on his bed of Sickness pressed with the agonies of Death what trembling what horror what alteration and change in all the bands of Nature the Feet become cold and benum'd the Face waxeth pale the Eyes hollow the Lips and Mouth draw themselves inward the Pulse diminisheth the Tongue grows black the Teeth shut and press one against another the Breath fails and a cold sweat appeareth over the whole Body which is a certain sign and demonstration that Nature is overcome and vanished And when it comes to the sorrowful departure of the Soul from its ancient Habitation all the vessels and ligaments of Nature are broken then the Hellish Host as so many Vultures surround the Sick-mans Bed for there is no invention or subtilty which they practise not to induce us to settle our thoughts and hopes on our good Living on false Opinions and destructive Presumptions or else setting before us such an infinite number of our sins and offences with such horrid aggravations that the consideration of them might drive us into rage and despair and blasphemous defiances of Heavenly Justice then 's the hour then 's the moment then 's the point in the which the Devil with all the powers of darkness attacks us and that so much the more fiercely because he well knows then we shall escape out of his claws or for ever remain in them And so now when our bodies lye inanimate and sensless and an eternal night of darkness sits brooding on our Forheads Where are all our officious friends and attendants who in our life-time did so honour and reverence us and were so passionately disirous of our company Do they not all forsake us and abhor and detest the sight of us do they not all leave us to the cold earth to be made a prey to Worms and Serpents and thus it is with all men thus fares it with his Holiness his Majesty his Grace his Excellency his Honour and his Worship too they all receive the same usage with the poorest mortal that grovels on the earth And what will it then signifie to them that they have been esteemed for their Birth for their Riches for their Beauty or for their Wit or for any thing else save Virtue and true Goodness For as for all other things they are passed away as a Shadow and as an Arrow drawn from a Bow and as the smoak scattered with the wind or as a Ship that passeth ever the waves of the water which when it is gone the trace thereof cannot be found or as a Bird which flyeth through the air there being no sign left of her way which she hath made but the light air being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them she flyeth through and
the Cities Towns and Hills thereabouts with their Inhabitants were consumed by the violence thereof which issued out with unconceivable vehemency I could likewise make mention of Thunders and Lightnings and how many Noble Personages have been destroy'd by this sudden and violent Death as Joroastus King of the Bactrians Captain in the Thehan Wars Ajax after the destruction of Troy Anastasius Emperour after the 27th Year of his Empire Carius also and many other Kings and Emperors who have come to an untimely end by this kind of Death CHAP. VIII Of Earth quakes THE Air is so requisite for the Conservation of Man that there is no Creature can live without it and yet nevertheless it 's so pernicious to mankind when it is corrupt and putrified that the most part of the forementioned Pestilences take their first original from it The Earth which is the most sweet and tractable of the Elements being the common Mother and receptacle of us all being born it nourisheth and sustains us and at last takes us into her entrails as in our Couch and keepeth us until our God shall call us to appear before his Tribunal and yet nevertheless she produceth all the venom and poison with which our poor life is continually assaulted and sometimes by her quakings and agitations many Towns have been demolished and many thousands of Men swallowed down into the depth of her Abyss In the Reign of Mithridates the Earth began to be moved with such an impetuosity that there was not only many Cities ruined but there was above a hundred thousand people swallowed up in it In the Reign of Constantine there was such a great number of Cities and their Citizens ruined in Asia that with great difficulty could the Historians number them In the time of Isocrates and Plato the Earth so opened in Europe that two great Cities with all their Inhabitants were in an instant overthrown and ruined There was never since the memory of man read of a more terrible Earthquake than that which was in the time of Tiberius Caesar by which in the space of a night twelve great Cities were swallowed with all their Inhabitants amongst which was Rollonia Ephesus Caesarea Philadelphia and many others Marc. Varro one of the most worthy Authors that have written in Latin saith That in Spain there was a great Town scituated in a Sandy-placc which was so hollowed and digged by the Connies that finally the Inhabitants for sook it for fear of being buried in its Ruins The same Author writes That there was a City in France which was rendred uninhabitable by reason of the great number of Frogs The same happened in Africa by means of the Grashoppers Theophrastus makes mention of a certain Province made desolate by innumerable companies of Worms Pliny makes mention of a Province that borders on the limits of Ethiopia where the Ants and Scorpions and other Vermin have drove into exile the Men that inhabited there The Flies drove away the Magarenses in Greece The Wasps chased the Ephesians Anthenor writeth That great swarms of Bees drove from a City its Inhabitants and made their Nests in their Houses What testimony have we here of Humane frailty what a School and Discipline to learn Man to know himself in what evidence of the Power of God over his Creatures whose Judgments are so terrible and affrightful that as soon as ever Man beginneth to glory and raise himself against his God he knoweth well how to depress him and therefore he sendeth him Heralds and forerunners of his Anger War Famine and Plagues But moreover there 's no Element nor living Creature though never so contemptible which seeketh and worketh not his ruin and who are not as Ministers and Executors of the Divine Justice as is manifest not only by the testimony of Ethnicks but also by the Sacred Writings when the Frogs and Grashoppers abandoned their proper Elements to ascend up even to the Chamber and Bed of obstinate Pharaoh We have hitherto deduced a strange Philosophy of the misery of Man for if he were of Iron or Steel or harder than a Diamond it would be notwithstanding miraculously wonderful how he could last the one half part of his life-time without being shattered and broken seeing the pain anguish travel and Martyrdom which he must every minute endure and yet notwithstanding the many misfortunes wherewith he is continually afflicted he humbleth not himself under the Almighty hand of his Creator which thing being not well understood by Plato and Pliny seeing this great Gulf of misery in which Man is plunged from his Birth even to his Sepulchre they have called Nature Step-dame and cruel Extortioner who causeth Man to pay so much for his Excellency and Dignity But both the one and the other have under the name of Nature unreasonably accused God of cruelty and injustice for all these evils and this Sea of Misery wherewith Man is overwhelmed cometh not from the hatred of God but from the malice and corruption of Man for he equalling himself with his Maker declined and fell from his pristine Nobility defacing in himself the Image of God and imprinting instead thereof the Image of the Devil Arrogancy and Audaciousness is the cause of all the wounds and maledictions which he receiveth for had it not been for Ambition and desire of being great we had been as the Angels we had remained and been now what we shall be in the Resurrection crowned with Glory and Honour Neither is this all but what is worse and far more vexatious are the distempers of our minds they being far more dangerous than those of our bodies for they of the Body shew themselves by signs either by the bad colour of the Visage or by the unequal beating of the Pulse or some other intemperature or signs of disorder and having known them the Remedy is presently sought after but he that is distempered in mind is render'd uncapable of judging of his own Condition so that the Patient knowing not his distemper seeketh not after Remedies and yet is there also a greater abuse of them which have their bodies afflicted for we call them by the names of the Diseases wherewith they are tormented as them who are troubled with Phrensie we call them Phrenetick them who are vexed with the Palsie we call them Paralytick them who labour under Joint-evil we call Gouty But we do quite otherwise in the maladies of the Mind for those who are angry and Cholerick burning in their Passion murthering one another we call them Valiant and Magnanimous and look on them as persons having their Honour in great Recommendation Those who seduce Women and Maidens immersing themselves in Lust and lasciviousness we term them Lovers and persons endued with Kindness Hmility and sweetness of Disposition Those who are Ambitious and do endeavour by all illicite means to make themselves Great and Honourable we call them Noble Gallant and Persons of Noble and active Spirits Them who are Covetous and make