Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	flesh_n	soul_n	9,302	5	5.4130	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10319	Labour forbidden, and commanded A sermon preached at St. Pauls Church, September 28. 1634. By Edvvard Rainbovve, fellow of Magdalen Colledge in Cambridge.	Rainbowe, Edward, 1608-1684.	1635 (1635)	STC 20603; ESTC S115541	25,768	48

in their owne unalterable Kallenders nor is it mans power to make the soules feasts moveable to be serving ourselves when we should be serving of God is to turne day into night to make the armour of God a worke of darknesse The Sunne and Starres the worlds great Clocks and and witnesses of time have taught our Dials to measure out God's by inches and mans by ells hee that would pilfer from that is too ingratefull to live a spanne of life Shall we doubt to give him his fulnesse of time who hath both invested us with time and made us capable of Eternity When hee 's lessoning our soules shall we be crambing our bodies or rather leave the best Junkets of the body to gaine one morsell for the soule Whilst that is feeding on the bread of Life Labour not for the meat that perisheth And this is both the Specification of the Object Perishing Meat and the reason inforcing this negative precept why we must not labour for it because it perisheth But before we enter into this were it no tworth the labor to enquire why our meat should be called Perishing Certainly as it is mans meat his food and sustenance 't is that commune vinculum which knits and marries the soule to the body shall it be then the cause of their divorce When man perisheth surfetting indeed may be a cause but meat seemes to be a Catholique Antidote against all malignant poysons and enemies of natures continuance Is it not Meat which armes our perishing flesh against the powers of death and dispatches new supplies to nature when the former spirits beginne to faile Does not the tender suckling seeme apprehensive of this truth which knowes the dugge that feeds it before the mother that brought it forth Being cannot continue without sustenance and shall the Author of our continuance be likewise the cause of our perishing Shall that which inlarges the epitomy of infancy and sets it forth into those early editions of growth and stature that which spins the thread of life to such a length be likewise the knife to cut it off If honey be meat dip but the tip of Ionathans rod and besides the continuance of life it may adde a victorious courage to his limbs Drinke taken but from the brooke in the way may make the languishing soule lift up his head Even poyson having taken acquaintance with the pallat of Mithridate as meat could now sooner nourish than destroy The flying spirits with the tast of meat recoyle to their tabernacle and famisht bodies even dropping into their earthly principles receive this doome from food Returne ye sonnes of Adam then how can meat be perishing To make meat perishing were to metamorphise bread into stones fishes into Scorpious honey into gall even food into poyson how then can meat be perishing Are not two Sparrowes sold for a farthing and shall we buy our owne destruction and set a price on those petulant creatures that come within us to undoe us Arise Peter kill and eat were the words of the vision but if this were true these words might well have follow'd such creatures as will rise in thy stomacke kill and devoure thy selfe 'T is true indeed our fathers eat Mannah in the wildernesse and are dead and perisht but was the Mannah the cause of their perishing And have wee not read how David when he was an hungred went in and eat the Shew-bread and regaind more vigour and was further from perishing by the eating of it Man lives not by bread alone saith our Saviour whence we may gather that bread is a partiall cause of his life shall we then thinke that little leaven unleavens mans whole lumpe that those treacherous graines prove Amalekites and Iebusites thornes in our eyes and prickes in our sides or seed us into putrifaction How then must we doe to joyne this epithite of perishing with meat Neverthelesse if we attend the doubt will not be very intricate why our Saviour should make use both of the metaphor of meat and the specification perishing the former both befitting the present occasion meat being that which they now sought for likewise most able to beare the whole latitude of the signification for all outward necessities and for the latter although as 't is food it cannot be said to be causally perishing yet in regard of its substance it is both perishing in it selfe and likewise by accident proves as commonly the cause of mans perishing as of his sustenance Ever since the eating of that forbidden fruit a curse having cloven to our meats and as Gods grace makes them nourishable so that primitive malediction makes them perishable as they proved sowre grapes to our first parents so they have continued to set our teeth on edge and sinne necessarily accompanying their enjoyment corruption and death the sting of sinne must needs ensue and therefore we may well prosecute the specification as a reason to flye the object and so to inforce the negative Precept Labour not for the meat which perisheth or as now I am to handle it in genere causae because it perisheth For why should wee struggle and strive to attaine that which being attain'd will not abide the use So childishly to spend our breath for bubbles and hunger for meat which cannot stay to satisfie Shall we like foolish Merchants compasse sea and land for a purchase which will not last the bringing home Shall our paines reape the soonest decaying fruit or shall our desires long for that which is shortest of continuance Doe we not desire to invest our bodies with rayment of the longest weare and marke the highest prized stustes with such lying names as may boast of their durable continuance Is it not a perpetuity which Nature aymes at and has she not cloth'd the weeds and mildest of her creatures with most perishing garments The vanishing smoake and vapours the languishing clouds which roule themselves into their owne hasty consumptions the short-lived meteors and all the children of the melting ayre fill the same day in their Kalender with their birth and death whereas the purer heavens involve themselves in their endlesse orbs the lively Sunne and Stars those Iewels of Natures garment shine in an everlasting constancy of glory nor can all the Arithmeticke of time subtract from their native vigour but each new day sends them forth as Gyants ready to runne their course Why then is it the more perishing part of nature which wee ayme at and build our senses on the slippery sands when there are rockes so neare Amidst an whole Paradise of fruit onely the tree of Life is never tasted Wee sowe within our selves the seed of our owne corruption and choose such meats for the belly as will make God destroy both it and them our meat is receiv'd into us as fiery hulks into a Navy which ruine themselves and those that admit them Accepimus peritura perituri mortals feed on mortals nor can Natures salt turne season into Eternity preserve