Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bear_v	die_v	live_v	5,060	5	5.3319	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A97190	An essay on grief: with the causes and remedies of it	R. W.	1695 (1695)	Wing W91A; ESTC R232331	41,961	234

I confine my Hopes to the next Life I should be but little concern'd at what may happen to me in this Should I lose my Friends and Relations One of the greatest Supports and Comforts of this Life yet I should be fortified against it I know I must lose Them or they Me. What matters it who goes First We shall at length meet again and participate together of those boundless Pleasures which shall not end till Eternity if self shall cease to be But besides we can't say that they are hastily snatcht from us who by the Improvements of their Minds in all the Excellencies of Knowledge which they had also copied out in their Practice had answer'd all the Ends and Designs of Living and who if we consider them in relation to themselves had liv'd here long enough though for our own sakes and the Good of others we could have wisht them a much longer stay more to serve our own than which would be more generous to consult their Interest For since we must Die at last what does it signify if we leave this World something sooner than perhaps in the Course of Nature we might have done nay rather is it not much more preferable to be deliver'd out of this troublesome Passage to obtain an immortal Life How Happy then will that State be wherein we can only be said properly to live For what we call Life here says Tully is only Death nor does the Mind truly Live till releas'd from the Clogs and Fetters of the Body it enjoys Eternity We ought not therefore to think Death and Evil but rather the greatest of Benefits Because as it eases us of all those Miseries which Life brought upon us so it gives us a perfect and serene Prospect of Joy and Peace hereafter If therefore we are born and live Miserable and die Blessed who would not rather chuse to be made Happy by being disunited from this Body than to live under a constant Oppression of Miseries We are all of us weary of Life why should we be afraid to Die If Sufferings and Afflictions are uneasy and burthensome to us why should we be un willing to welcome that which is the best Remedy for them And that it is design'd as a Token of God's Favour and Kindness to us seems plain by His frequent calling away the Best soonest from this to a better State thereby to free them from all the Evils and Calamities which this Life is liable to And also to teach us that stay behind to be neither too fond of this Life nor afraid of Death which Heaven has bestowed as a Blessing upon those who were best prepared for it And this shews us that God is not only Just in appointing Death to all Men but that his Wisdome and Goodness eminently appear in it since it is so much for the Advantage of Mankind to exchange this Imperfect and Troublesome Condition for that most Durable and Perfect prepared for us in the Heavens Hence we may learn the vast Disproportion between this Life and the other For was not the next Life infinitely better than this God would not so soon remove those to that other State who have used their best Endeavours to live in Conformity to all the Divine Precepts in this From hence it appears if we have any love for Happiness how desireable Death ought to be to us and if we think it our Interest to desire it as best for our selves we ought to esteem it as such for our Friends too For can we wish better to our selves than to those we have the most tender affection for Or would we have our selves only Happy and them Miserable Or are we displeas'd that they are blessed by Death while we are incumbred and troubled with Life If we are not what is it that makes us Impatient at their being deliver'd from all those Dangers and Adversities those Sorrows and Vexations which they had here every moment experience of If the Story which is told us of some of the Heathens weeping at the Birth of their Children and rejoyceing at their Death as looking upon one the Beginning and the other the End of their Miseries may find any Credit with us methinks it should give us a far different Idea of Humane Nature than we seem to have been yet acquainted with or make us a sham'd of our Practice in a Religion which lays before us the greatest Motives and Advantages to invite us to our Duty and not only gives us the best Rules to direct us but also encourages us with the most certain Promises of far greater and more durable Rewards than any other Religion can pretend to It is a great disgrace and scandal to our Profession that notwithstanding we have greater Expectations and larger Assistances in all our Necessities yet to be out-done by Heathens in a principal Part of our Duty They saw the defects of our Nature and the certainty of our Miseries and though they could not search into the hidden Causes of them and know from whence to derive a Remedy for them yet they were sensible to be expected in Death than in the mean and imperfect Satisfaction of Life Of the one they had already sufficient Experience and since they found in themselves a natural Desire after Happiness they concluded that either that Desire was implanted in them in vain or else it must be expected in the other Life This at least they were certain of that this Life was a Burthen to them and therefore those were to be accounted most happy who were soonest releast from the Miseries of it If Reason could go so far by its own Strength what may not we expect from it when 't is improved by the Advantages of Revelation which not only leads us to the Causes and Original of our Miseries and shews us from whence they sprung but also teaches us how to subdue our inordinate Passions which still foment them in us by laying before us the great Helps and Assistances we shall find if we use our best Endeavours to overcome them and that if we patiently submit our selves to the Hand of Providence it will order all things for our Good and make even Death it self the beginning of an immortal Life to us and translate us to those happy Mansions which we shall inhabit for ever with these whom we so Dearly Esteem'd and who made even this troublesome Life while here almost pleasant and desireable to us What Joy will it be to meet embrace and converse with our Friends and Realtions who will be then Ours for Ever What great Motives have we then patiently to bear our Troubles and Sufferings considering the Recompence of the Reward hereafter But some perhaps may say they could bear with the Loss of their Friends were they satisfied of their Happiness in the Other World To this we may answer that it does not belong to us to search into the Hidden Counsels of God We are taught to have Charity for all Men

Readiness that GOD Commands the Duty But although the Joys of the Mind are confessedly greater than those of the Body yet while they are thus united they must always partake together in the Enjoyment of an Object that 's Dear to them because their Joy can never be compleat or satisfying unless they both agree in the same Inclinations as is apparent in a great many sensual Delights which are attended with stings and gripes of Conscience because the Inward Dictates of Reason and Religion contradict them and whisper to us their unlawfulness so neither can they separate their common Sorrow for the loss of that which was an equal Satisfaction to Both. And hereupon it is that Joy and Sorrow are sometimes so very Affecting that there are several who have fainted and sunk away under Both. They are no better able to bear a sudden Surprize of Joy than they can moderate their Passions under an unlookt for Calamity Both over-power their Spirits and they prove too weak to bear up against them All which seem to concur in the Convincing us that the Soul is capable of Greater Joy and Sorrow than the Body is able to bear since this often faints away with an Excess of either and may also be of use to demonstrate to us that our Souls were designed for another State besides this since the Body in that Frame especially which it now is cannot come up to that Perfection which the Soul is endued with Thus have I shown what Grief is and wherein it consists I shall now search into the different Causes that produce it in the Minds of Men. And then I shall endeavour to offer some Preservatives and Helps against it whereby we may be able to regulate it prevent the Excesses of it and confine it within the limits of Reason and Religion If we take these for our Guides in all our Actions we shall be patient and content in all Conditions we shall neither ground our Hopes or Fears Joys or Sorrows on Uncertainties but shall at last find to our unspeakable Satisfactions that they will both conspire together in Leading us to the same End the Perfection of our Nature and the full and entire Possession of all Happiness But here it may be Objected that there are so many Miseries of Life such frequent and unthought of Dangers and Calamities which are continually thronging in upon us and which make this State uneasy and uncomfortable to us that it would be a Vain Attempt to think of Obtaining an absolute Conquest over them and preventing their being an Impediment to us in our Way to Happiness To this it may be answer'd That'tis our Weakness and Cowardice in resisting that makes these Enemies so formidable to us A vigorous Opposition would soon make them appear less Terrible The greatest Danger and Difficulty is in the first Encounter If we can withstand that Couragiously the Event must necessarily prove successful to us For all the Forces that these Enemies have are purely owing to our own Opinion and as that changes so will those disappear The Victory depends upon our own Will and Pleasure and if we have Resolution enough to Conquer we shall never want Force and Strength to do it And certainly that Happiness which this Victory will make us Masters of ought to engage us in the pursuit after it notwithstanding all the Dangers that may threaten us in the way to it Methinks a Comfortable and Contented Life such as every Reflection upon may create new Pleasure and Delight in us and at last a peaceable serene and chearful Death with a joyful Prospect of another Life is a Happiness that ought to be purchas'd at any Rate though at the first there may appear some Difficulties to encounter Miseries to undergo and Evils to suffer before we can arrive at the Possession of it But besides it may be Objected that there are some that never feel Miseries and have no Disappointmeents to grieve at and therefore Grief is not so General as we Imagine or at least the only Preservative against it is to follow the Examples of these Men who are never sensible of it To this I can only say That this Treatise was not designed for such For it would be a vain Endeavour to go about to perswade the Senceless Stupid and Unthinking that there is such a thing as Sorrow These know no Happiness beyond themselves their Thoughts are few and confin'd to a very narrow Compass They have no Joy or Sorrow but what some sudden and undesign'd change of Countenance draws from them and this perhaps without their own Knowledge or Observation To such as these it would be in vain to talk of Reason unless we could first make them understand what it is to-be Men. But if any One shall still urge that these are Happy I can only answer that Happiness would be a very mean Enjoyment if we should not be sensible of it For I think a rational Being can partake of no real Happiness but what by just and unprejudic'd Reason it finds to be so I suppose I may therefore pass on to shew the Causes of Grief and seek out wiser Methods for securing our selves against it than these Men take up with OF The CAUSES of GRIEF THe shortness of Man's Life in General as well as the Deaths of those who are most Dear to us is become the subject of our daily Complaint And yet was Man to live here for ever and be liable to the same Calamities Troubles and Vexations which even the Best of Men now labour under we should esteem it the Greatest of Miseries Every day brings some disquiet along with it and if we are so happy as to get rid of that we yet find still more Troubles that oppress us and a new succession of Grievances to complain of Every little Disappointment disturbs us and we can scarce get one minute of Ease before innumerable unthought of Calamities come thronging in upon us We can promise our selves Security in nothing that we Enjoy nor Certainty in any thing that we hope for When we imagine we are surrounded with nothing but the Comforts and Pleasures of Life a little Enlargment of Thought discovers to us that our Joys are not without a great mixture of Uneasiness We find our selves encompassed with Dangers and Disturbances which we must always be afraid of obnoxious to Infirmities which we can neither prevent nor redress subject to Wants which we cannot supply and liable to Fears which we are unable to provide against Jealousies Cares and Anxieties are the necessary Companions of all that we can here call our own Whilst we promise our selves an Age of Happiness in the fruition of something that is Dear to us the Fears that we find in our selves left we should be deprived of it will be often interrupting our Delights and so far prevail upon our Thoughts as to sink our Spirits and pall even our sweetest Pleasures in the very Enjoyment Had we nothing but