Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A29868
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Religio Medici
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Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
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1642
(1642)
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Wing B5166; ESTC R4739
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58,859
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162
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devotion nor be any way prejudiâ—all to each single edification Now to â—etermine the day and yeare of this invitable time is not onely convincible â—nd statute madnesse but also manifest â—npiety How shall we interpret Eliasâ—000 yeares or imagine the secret â—ommunicated to the Rabbi which God hath denyed to his Angels It had beene an excellent quaere to â—ave posed the devill of Delphos and â—ust needes have forced him to some â—range amphibology it hath not onely â—â—ocked the predictions of sundry Aâ—â—rologers in ages past but the Philosoâ—hy of many melancholy heads in the â—resent who neither understanding reasonable things past nor present pretend a knowledge of things to comâ— heads ordained onely to manifest the incredible effects of melancholy anâ— to fulfill old prophesies rather then bâ—â—uthour of new In those daies there shall come waâ— and rumours of wars to me seemes nâ— prophesie but a constant truth in aâ— times verifyed since it was first proâ—nounced There shall be signes in the Moone and Starres how comes he theâ— like a theefe in the night when he give an item of his comming That commoâ— signe drawn from the revelation of Anâ— tichrist the Philosophers stone in Diviâ—ity for the discovery and inventioâ— whereof though there be prescribeâ— rules and probable inductions yeâ— hath no man attained the perfect discovery thereof That generall opinion thaâ— the world growes neare at an end hatâ— possessed al ages past as nearely as oursâ— I am afraid that the soules that now deâ—part cannot escape the lingring expoâ— stulation of the Saints under the Altar 〈◊〉 Domine How long O Lord â—nd groane in the expectation of the â—reat Jubilee This is the day that must â—ake good the great attribute of Gods â—ustice that must reconcile those unanâ—â—erable doubts that torment the wisest â—nderstandings and reduce those seemâ—g inequalities and respective distribuâ—â—ons in this world to an equality and â—â—compensive Justice in the next This is that one day that shall include â—nd comprehend all that went before it â—herein as in the last scene all the 〈◊〉 must enter to compleat and make â—p the Catastrophe of this great piece â—his is the day whoâ—e onely memory â—ath power to make us honest in the â—arke and to be vertuous without a â—itnesse Ipsa sui pretium virtus sihi that â—ertue is her owne reward is but a cold â—rinciple and not able to maintaine our â—ariable resolutions in a constant and â—etled way of goodnesse I have practiâ—ed that honest artifice of Seneca and â—my retired and solitary imaginations â—o detaine me from the foulenesse of vice have fancyed to my selfe the presence of my deare and worthyest friend before whom I should lose my head rather then be vicious yet herein I founâ— that there was nought but morall honesty and this was not to be vertuous foâ— his sake who must reward us at the laâ—â— day I have tryed if I could have reached that great resolution of his to be honest without a thought of Heaven oâ— hell and indeed I found upon a natural inclination and inbred loyalty unto vertue that I could serve her without a liâ— very yet not in the resolved venerablâ— way but that the frailty of my nature upon an easie temptation might be induced to forget her The life thereforâ— and spirit of all our actions is the resuâ—â—rection and stable apprehension thaâ— our ashes shall enjoy the fruit of our pâ—ous endeavours without this all Religion is a fallacy and those impieties oâ—Lucian and Euripedes are no blaspheâ— mies but subtile verities and Atheist have beene the only Philosophers Hoâ— shall the dead arise is no question oâ— my faith to beleeve onely possibilities â—s not faith but meere Philosophy many things are true in Divinity which â—are neither inducible by reason nor confirmable by sense and many things in Philosophy confirmable by sense yet not inducible by reason Thus it is impossible by any solid or demonstrative reasons to perceive a man to beleeve the conversion of the Needle to the North though this be possible and true and easily credible upon a single experiment of the sense I beleeve that our estranged and divided ashes shall unite againe that our separated dust after so many pilgrimages and transformations into the parts of Minerals Plants Animals Elements shall at the voyce of God returne into their primitive shapes and joyn againe to make up their primary and predestinate formes As at the Creation there was a separation of the confused masse into its species so at the destruction thereof shall be a separation into its distinct individuals As at the Creation of the world all that distinct species that we behold lay involved in one masse till the fruitfull voyce of God separated this united multitude into its severall species so at the last day when those corrupted Reliques shall be scattered in the wildernesse of formes and seeme to have forgot their proper habits God by a powerful voyce shall command them bâ—cke into their proper shapes and cal them out by their single and individuals Then shall appeare the fertility of Adam and the magicke of that sperme that hath dilated into so many millions what is made to be immortall Nature cannot nor will the voyce of God destroy Those bodies that we behold to perish were in their created natures immortall and liable unto death but accidentally and upon forfeit and therefore they owe not that naturall homage unto death as other bodies doe but may be restored to immortality with a lesser miracle as by a bare and easie revocation of course returne immortall I have often beheld as a miracle that artificiall resurrection and vivification of Mercury how being mortified in a thousand shapes it assumes againe its owne and returnes into its numericall selfe Let us speake naturally and as Philosophers the formes of alterable bodies in those sensible corruptions perish not nor as we imagine wholly quit their mansions but retire and contract themselves into those secret and unaccessable parts where they may best protect themselves against the action of their Antagonists A plant or vegetable consumed to ashes to a contemplative and schoole Philosopher seemes utterly destroyed and the forme to have taken his leave for ever But to a subtile Artist the formes are not perished but withdrawn into their combustible part where they liâ— secure from the action of that devouring element This I make good by experience and can from the ashes of a plant revive the plant and from its cinders râ—cal it to its stalk and leaves again What the Art of man can doe in these inferiour pieces what blasphemy is it to imagine the finger of God cannot doe in those more perfect and sensible structures This is that mysticall Philosophy from whence no true Scholler becomes an Atheist but from the visible effects of nature grows up a real Divine and beholds not as in a dreame as Ezekiel but in an ocular and visible object the types of his resurrection
Heterogeneous parts which in a manner multiply the natures cannot subsist without the concourse of God and the society of that hand which doth uphold â—heir natures In briefe there can be nothing truely alone and by its self which is not truely one and such is onely God All others doe transcend an unity and so by consequence are many Now for my life it is a miracle of thirty yeares which to relate were not a History but a piece of Poetry and would sound to common eares like a fable for the world I count it not an Inn but an Hospital and a place not to live but to dye in The world that I regard is my selfe it is the Microcosme of mine owne frame that I cast mine eye on for the other I use it but like my Globe and turne it round sometimes for my recreation Men that looke upon my outside perusing onely my condition and fortunes doe erre in my altitude for I am above Atlas his shoulders Let me not injure the felicity of others if I say I am the happiest man alive I have that in me that can convert poverty into riches adversity into prosperity I am more invulnerable than Achilles fortune hath not one place to hit me Coelum ruat come what will Fiat voluntas tua salves all so that whatsoever happens it is but what our daily prayers desire In briefe I am content and what should providence adde more Surely this is it we call happinesse and this do I enjoy with this I am happy in a dream and as content to enjoy a happinesse in a fancy as others in a more apparent truth and reality There is surely a neerer apprehension of any thing that delights each of us in our dreames then in our waked â—enses with this I can be a King without a Crowne rich without Royalty in heaven tho on earth enjoy my friend and embrace him at a distance without which I cannot behold him without this I were unhappy for my awaked judgement discontents me ever whispering unto me that I am from my friend but my friendly dreames in the night requite me and make me think I am within his armes I thanke God for my happy dreames as I doe for my good rest for there is a reflection in them to reasonable desires and such as can be content with a fit of happinesse and surely it is not a melancholy conceit to thinke we are all asleepe in this world and that the conceits of this world are as meare dreames to those of the next as the Phantasmes of the night to the conceit of the day It is an equall delusion in both the one doth but seem to be the embleme or picture of the other we are somewhat more then our selves in our sleepes and the slumber of the body seemes to be but the waking of our soules It is the ligation of our â—ense but the liberty of reason our awaking conceptions doe not march the fancies of our sleeps At my Nativity my Ascendant was the earthly signe of Scorpio I was borne in the Planetary houre of Saturne and I thinke I have a piece of that Leaden Planet in me I am no way facetious nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company yet in one dreame I can compose a whole Comedy behold the action in one dreame apprehend the jests and laugh my selfe awake at the conceits thereof were my memory as faithfull as my reason is there fruitfull I would never study but in my dreames and this time also would I chuse for my devotions but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings that they forget the story and can onely relate to our awaked soules a confused and broken tale of that that hath beene past Aristotle who hath written a singular tract of sleepe hath not throughly defined it noâ— yet Galen though he seeme to have corrected it for those Nocteaâ—nbulones though in their sleepe doe yet enjoy the action of their senses we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus and that those abstracted ecstarick soules doe walke about in their owne corps as spirits with the bodies they assume wherein they seeme to heare see and feele though indeed the organs are destitute of senses and their natures of those faculties that should inform them Thus I observe that men oftentimes upon the houre of their departure doe speake and reason above themselves For then the soule beginnes to be freed from the ligaments of the body begins to reason like her selfe and to discourse in a straine above mortality We tearme death a sleepe and yet it is waking that kils us and destroyes those spirits that are the house of life It is that death by which we may be literally said to dye daily a death which Adam dyed before his mortality a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point betweene life and death in fine so like death I dare not trust it without my prayers and an halfe adiew unto the world it is a fit time for devotion I cannot therefore lay me downe on my bed without an oration and without taking my farewell in a Colloquie with God The night is come like to the day Depart not thou great God away Let not my sinnes blacke as the night Eclipse the lustre of thy light Keepe still in my Horizon for to me The Sun makes not the day but thee Thou whose nature cannot sleepe On my temples centry keepe Guard meâ— 'gainst those watchfull foes Whose eyes are open while mine close Let not dreames my head infest But such as Jacobs temples blest While I doe rest my soule advance Make me sleepe a holy trance That I may take my rest being wrought Awake into some holy thought And with as active vigor run My course as doth the nimble Sun Sleepe is a death O make me try By sleeping what it is to dye And downe as gently lay my head On my Grave as now my Bed Howere refresh'd great God let me Awake againe at last with thee And thus assur'd behold I lie Securely or to wake or die These are my drowsie dayes in vaine I doe now wake to sleepe againe O come that houre when I shall never Sleepe thus againe but wake for ever This is the dormitory I take to bedward use no other Laudanum to sleepe after which I close mine eyes in security content to take my leave of the Sun and to sleepe unto the Resurrection The method I would use in distributive justice I also observe in commutative and keepe a Geometricall proportion in both whereby becomming equable to others I become unjust to my self and supererogate that common principle Doe as thou wouldst be done unto thy selfe I was not borne unto riches neither is it my Starre to be wealthy or if it were the freedome of my mind and franknesse of my disposition were able to contradict and crosse