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	life_n	live_v	4,791	5	5.2156	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37425	The Compleat mendicant, or, Unhappy beggar being the life of an unfortunate gentleman ... a comprehensive account of several of the most remarkable adventures that befel him in three and twenty years pilgrimage : also a narrative of his entrance at Oxford ... likewise divers familiar letters, both Latin and English sermons, poems, essays ...	Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.; Price, Thomas.	1699 (1699)	Wing D830; ESTC R7553	60,443	192

it were some small reprieves from Grief and trouble a sort of Intermissions from pain and Miserie of which if we had never Liv'd we had never been sensible And besides all this too our Insensibility of Misery is but partial and Imperfect there allways clings some unlucky Circumstance to our chiefest pleasure that gives our sweetest Gust a bitter farewell But Death cures us at once when we go down to make our Beds in the Dust there we sleep on and rest our selves not only out of the reach of a vain turbulent Noisy World but even out of the distance of the frailty and depravation of our own Humane Nature Seeing therefore that Death renders us intirely Insensible of pain and Misery and that Life in its best and most Improv'd state is constantly expos'd to so many Dangerous Ills it naturaly follows that Death considered in it self without any respect to the consequence is really preferable to Life What it is that engages Men to be so much in Love with a little Paultry Flesh and Blood I cannot guess I am loath to think 't is Cowardice or Inconsideration and yet when I come to take the matter into peices and put it together again I must own I can hardly believe to the Contrary they must either want a right state of their Condition have a wrong notion of Life in General or else be afraid to quit the World and die for besides those I cannot Imagine what it is that Inclines 'em to doat so passionately upon their own Infelicity And Pray after all what mighty advantages are there that they can morally propose to themselves in Living Is it that they may have a little time longer to Pamper their lusts entertain their Voluptuousness and appease the raging Importunities of an unbounded appetite if that be all there 's nothing but a Mouthfull of Earth will do their business that Indeed will quench the flame of their Impatience and mitigage the pain of their desires together and then I appeal to any Man of sence if it be not far better to be depriv'd of their pain of a furious Expectation then to be gratify'd with a troublesome Enjoyment that commonly grows flat and loathsome as soon as 't is in our possession Or perhaps they 'd Live longer that they may get greater Estates and so remove themselves further out of the reach of wretched Indigence and be more secure from uneasyness and fatigue But alas Poor man if that 's thy meaning thou must e'en seek repose in the Grave or no where This World 's so full of Noise and Nonscence the Vanity is so Incorporated with the Vexation of Spirit and thy own Nature is so Giddy and loose so frail and so Imperfect beside That 't is the Vainest thing a kind of folly exalted into madness to expect any tolerable Satisfaction in this Life When you go to the Grave indeed you 'll want your Friends to advise and comfort you and your Companions and Acquaintance to laugh and rejoyce with you and you must be lay'd up in an Eternal state of separation But what then as you have no Friends to assist you nor no Companions to divert you so you 'll want none and then what mighty Injury will it be to be depriv'd of that you have no use for beside you 'll be deliver'd from the Danger of false Friends from sly Acquaintance and Injurious Companions which I must tell you by the way is no Inconsiderable Advantage you 'll be out of the reach of Treachery Peevishness and Insolence be deliver'd from Impertinence vexation and discord and all the rest of the Inconveniencies that perpetually await Human Society What if you do cease to laugh and to be merry you 'll cease to weep and to be sad too and truely I am apt to think that upon a fair Survey that the sorrows of our Lives do so much out Number our Joys that by exchanging the one for the other we should be very great Gainers by the Bargain But then when you come to die you must undergo many a fierce Pang many a bitter Agony you must go out of the World thro extremity of Torture Raving Foaming Groaning and Gnashing your Teeth this is often true indeed and the Consideration is dismal enough but what is there no Torments in Life as well as in Death is there no Wracks of mind no Tortures nor Stings of conscience no ungrateful Jealousies or dreadful apprehensions Is there no Pains nor Aches no Gout nor Stone nor Strangury appendant to our Mortality Yes yes they 're all the sad Appendages of our Humanity and from Woful Experience might convince us if we had not lost our Sense of Feeling that Life drest up with all the Advantages that Humane Nature is capable of is at the very best a most painful and dolorous thing What if we did enjoy a competent share of the Trifles of this World or rather suppose that all the Elements of Outward Happiness were amas'd together and thrown upon us at once what good would they do us if we could not form from 'em a satisfaction of Mind and that 's almost impossible too considering how many embittering Circumstances are entwisted and grafted into our very Being and Constitution Dic homo vas Cinerum quid confert flos facierum Copiae quid rerum Mors ultima meta dierum I must own it has been often the Subject both of my Wonder and Sorrow that the Fear of Death for I can imagine it to be nothing else should so weaken and defeat the Courage nay the Understanding of Men that they should be afraid to suffer the Grand Remedy of all their Calamities the Cause of it must be this or nothing they have liv'd Immoral Vicious Lives and so are frighted at the consequence There is indeed one thing in Humane Life and but one that renders it a little comfortable I mean Vertue without which 't is all a perfect Wilderness a meer Weild of Misery only a flat Parenthesis of Time encompass'd on both sides with Dangers Sorrow Vanity and Vexation The Vertuous Man alone can be said to live the Vicious does but suck in and breathe out a little Air as the rest of the Insensible Animals do but he that lives vertuously lives a Life worth being born for and yet even a vertuous Life too is made more eligible and advantageous by Death upon the account it makes our Happiness more compleat our Enjoyments more extensive and our possessions of 'em more fixt and permanent In the highest Enjoyments of Humane Life there is still more of Phantastry than of Real Good our Expectations commonly over-run our Reason and swell our Notions of things beyoud what they will Naturally bear such wretched Cheats and Delusions are most of our Temporary Goods that they will hardly endure the Test of a Fruition so that from the repeated Tryals of the Truth of this methinks we should at least grow a weary of this tiresome Scene of Vanity