Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A29010
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Occasional reflections upon several subiects, whereto is premis'd a discourse about such kind of thoughts
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Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.
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1665
(1665)
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Wing B4005; ESTC R17345
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188,000
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462
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much concern'd for will keep him from Enjoying any of those very things for which By-standers Envy him So just it is that in Estimating a Man's condition we should not only consider what Possessions he has but what Desires REFLECTION VIII Upon his Paring of a rare Summer Apple HOw prettily has curious Nature painted this gawdy Fruit Here is a green that Emeralds cannot and Flora's self might boast And Pomona seems to have affected in the fresh and lively Vermilion that adorns this smooth Rind an Emulation at Rubies themselves and to have aim'd at manifesting That she can give her Vegetable productions as Lovely and Orient though not as lasting Colours as those that make Jewels pretious Stones and if upon the hearing the Praises this Scarlet deserves her Blushes ennoble her own Cheeks with so Vivid a Colour perhaps such a Livery of her Modesty might justifie her Pride In a word such pure and tempting Green and Red dye this same polish'd Skin that our Vulgar boldness must be no longer question'd for rendring that Fruit an Apple that inveagled our first Parents But though these winning Dyes delight me strangely they are Food for my Eye alone and not my Stomach I have no Palate for Colours and to rellish this Fruit well and know whether it performs to the Taste what it promises to the Sight and justifie that Platonick definition which styles Beauty the Lustre and Flower of Goodness all this Gay out-side is cut and thrown away and passes but for Parings Thus in Opinions though I look with Pleasure on that neat fashionable Dress that smoother Pens so finely Cloath them with and though I be delighted with the pretty and spruce Expressions that Wit and Eloquence are wont to trick them up with yet when I mean to examine their true Rellish that upon liking I may make them mine I still strip and devest them of all those flattering Ornaments or cheating Disguises rather which so often conceal or mis-represent their true and genuine Nature and before e'r I swallow them after they have been admitted by the more delusible faculty we call Fancy I make them pass the severer scrutiny of Reason REFLECTION IX Upon his Coaches being stopt in a narrow Lane HEre for ought I can guess my stay is like to be long enough to afford me the leisure of a Reflection on it For I have found already in this narrow Lane a very large Scene to exercise my Patience in and this Churlish Dray-man seems resolv'd to be as tedious to me as Ludgate-hill is to his Horse when his Cart is overloaden They that are going on Foot to the same place this Coach should carry me to find not their Passage hindred or their Way obstructed by that which keeps me here and were I dispos'd to leave my Coach behind and Foot it after them I might in their Company sooner reach the place my Designs and Affairs call me to than I shall probably be supply'd with hopes of getting quickly out from hence Alas How frequently falls it out thus in our Journeys towards Heaven Those whom their adverse Fortune or a Noble Scorn hath stript of or releas'd from these troublesome and intangling Externals may tread the Paths of Life nimbly and cheerfully being unstopt by many Obstacles that intercept the Progresses of others But those stately Persons whose Pride or Effeminacy will not permit them to move an Inch towards Heaven unless they may be carry'd thither in Pleasure's easie Coaches and who will not bate a Superfluity or lay by the least Circumstance or Punctilio of Grandezza to lessen themselves into a capacity of entring in at the strait Gate may soon find these treacherous and over-lov'd Conveniences turn'd into cumbersome Cloggs and real Impediments that will if not Block up at least Obstruct the passage to the Seat of so much Joy that ev'n to be cast Ashore there by Shipwrack were a Blessing and that he is thought unworthy to be admitted there that cannot think it his Happiness to reach that place himself though he leave all behind him to get thither REFLECTION X. Looking through a Perspective Glass upon a Vessel we suspected to give us Chase and to be a Pyrat THis Glass does indeed approach the distrusted Vessel but it approaches her only to our Eyes not to our Ship if she be not making up to us this harmless Instrument will prove no Loadstone to draw her towards us and if she be it will put us into a better readiness to receive her Such another Instrument in relation to Death is the Meditation of it by Mortals so much and so causelesly abhorr'd for though most Men as studiously shun all Thoughts of Death as if like nice Acquaintances he would forbear to Visit where he knows he is never thought of or as if we could exempt our selves from being Mortal by forgetting that we are so yet does this Meditation bring Death nearer to us without at all lessening the real distance betwixt Us and Him If that last Enemy be not yet approaching us this innocent Glass will no more quicken his pace than direct his steps and if he be without hastning his Arrival it will prepare us for his Reception For my part my Beardless Chin allows me to presume that by the course of Nature I have yet a pretty stock of Sand in the upper part of my Hour-glass Wherefore though I am too Young to say with Isaac behold now I am Old And I know not the Day of my Death Gen. 27. 2. yet since the Youngest and Lustiest of us all has cause to say with the Mirrour of Patience When a few Years are come then shall I go the way whence I shall not return Job 16. 22. and since 't is the wise Man's Counsel Not to boast our selves of to Morrow because we know not what a Day may bring forth I will endeavour to use our Saviour's tearms To take heed to my self least at any time that Day come upon me unawares Luke 21. 34. And as the only safe Expedient in order thereunto I will in imitation of holy Job All the Days of my appointed time wait till my Change come Job 14. 24. The II. SECTION Containing OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS Upon the Accidents of an Ague MEDITATION I. Upon the first Invasion of the Disease THis Visit Dear Sophronia which you intended but for an act of Kindness proves also one of Charity for though it be not many hours since we parted and though you left me free from any other discomposure than that which your leaving me is wont to give me yet this little time has made so great a change in my Condition as to be I doubt not already visible in my Looks For whilst I was sitting quietly in my Chamber and was as far from the Thoughts of Sickness as from any such disorders as are wont to be the occasions of it and whilst I was delightfully entertain'd by an Out-landish Virtuoso that came to Visit me
or later infallibly come and never finally deceive our Expectations and therefore the fore-thoughts of it are an imployment which may prove we know not how soon of use and will however prove of excellent Advantage The frequent Meditation of the end of our Lives conducing so much to make us lead them well that the expectation of Death brings not less Advantages to those that scape the Grave than to those that descend into it Such like considerations Sophronia having put me upon the thoughts of Death I presume you may have some Curiosity to know what these Thoughts were and therefore though I have neither Fitness nor Inclination to mention to you those that almost every Sober person would have upon a Death-Bed as a Man and as a Christian I will only take notice to you of those few that were suggested to me by the less general Circumstances of my condition And I am the more willing to satisfie you Curiosity now because I have my self been very inquisitive on the like occasion For the approach of Death will if any thing can make Men serious and considerate being for good and all to go off the Stage they make a truer and sincerer Judgment of the World they are ready to leave and then have not the wonted Partiality for the pleasures and profits of a Life they are now abandoning And as the Mind looks with other Eyes upon the World when Death is ready to shut those of the Body so Men are then wont as well to speak their Thoughts more franckly as to have them better grounded Death stripping most Men of their Dissimulation as well as of other things it makes them part with and indeed it is then high time for the Soul to put off her Disguises when she is ready to put off the very Body it self One thing then that I was considering Sophronia was in how wretched a condition I should now be if I had been of the same Mind with the generality of those who are of the same Age with me For these presume That Youth is as well made for Pleasures as capable of them and is not more a Temptation to Vanity than an Excuse for it They imagine themselves to do a great Matter if whilst Youth lasts they do so much as resolve to grow better when it is gone and they think That for a Man to be otherwise than Intentionally Religious before his Hair begin to change Colour were not only to lose the priviledges of Youth but to incroach upon those of old Age. But alas How few are Destroy'd by that incurable Disease in comparison to those that Dye before they attain it And how little comfort is it upon a Death Bed to think that by the course of Nature a Man might have Lived longer when that very Thought might justly prove Dismal to an unprepar'd Man by suggesting to him that this early Death may argue the Measure of his Iniquities exceeding great and that this untimely End is not so much a Debt due to Nature as a Punishment of Sin All the fruition of these deluding Pleasures of Sin cannot countervail the Horrour that a Dying Man's Review of them will create who not only sees himself upon the point of leaving them for ever but of suffering for them as long And on the contrary the Review of Youthfull pleasures declin'd for Virtue 's or Religion's sake will afford a Dying Man far higher Joys than their Fruition would ever have afforded him MEDITATION XII Upon the same Subject ANd one thing more there is Sophronia that I dare not conceal from you how much cause soever I have to blush at the disclosing it And it is That I judge quite otherwise of a competent preparation for Death now I am near it than I did when I was in health And therefore if one that since his Conscience was first thorowly awakened still resolv'd to be a Christian and though he too often broke those good Resolutions never renounc'd them but tripp'd and stumbled in the way to Heaven without quitting his purpose of continuing in it finds a formidableness in the approach of Death How uncomfortable must that approach be to those that have still run on in the ways of Sin without once so much as seriously intending to forsake them A Youth free from Scandal and sometimes productive of Practices that were somewhat more than Negative piety is not so frequent among those that want not opportunities to enjoy the Vanities and Pleasures of the World but that the Charity of other being seconded by that great inward flatterer Self-love made me imagine that I was in a Condition fitter to wish for Death than to fear it But now I come to look on Death near at hand and see beyond the Grave that is just under me that bottomless Gulf of Eternity me-thinks it is a very hard thing to be sufficiently prepar'd for a Change that will transmit us to the Barr of an Omniscient Judge to be there Doom'd to an endless state of infinite Happiness or Misery There is no Art of Memory like a Death-Bed's Review of ones Life Sickness and a nearer Prospect of Death often makes a Man remember those Actions wherein Youth and Jollity made him forget his Duty and those frivolous Arguments which when he was in Health and free from Danger were able to excuse him to his own indulgent Thoughts he himself will scarce now think Valid enough to excuse him unto God before whom if the sinless Angels cover their Faces sinfull Mortals may justly tremble to be brought to appear VVhen the approach of Death makes the Bodily eyes grow Dim those of the Conscience are enabled to discern That as to many of the Pleas we formerly acquiesc'd in it was the prevalence of our Senses that made us think them Reason And none of that Jolly company whose examples prevail'd with us to joyn with them in a course of Vanity will stand by us at the Barr to excuse the Actions they tempted us to And if they were there they would be so far from being able to justifie us that they would be condemn'd themselves 'T is true Sophronia if we consider Death only as the conclusion of Life and a Debt all Men sooner or later pay to Nature not only a Christian but a Man may entertain it without Horrour But if one consider it as a change That after having left his Body to rot in the Grave will bring his Soul to the Tribunal of God to answer the miscarriages of his whole past Life and receive there an unalterable Sentence that will Doom him to endless and unconceivable Joys or everlasting and inexpressible Torments I think 't is not inconsistent either with Piety or Courage to look upon so great a change with something of Commotion And many that would not fear to be put out of the VVorld will apprehend to be let into Eternity MEDITATION XIII A further Continuation ANother thing Sophronia which my present state suggested to