Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A84694
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The times anatomiz'd, in severall characters. By T.F.
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Ford, Thomas, 1598-1674.
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1647
(1647)
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Wing F1518; Thomason E1203_3; ESTC R208774
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18,397
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119
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A Scandalous Preacher HE is one who by his Doctrine sheweth the way to heaven but by his life the road to hell Like that ridiculous Actor iu Smyrna who pronouncing ô coelum pointed down to the ground of whom Polemio in a chafe sayd This fellow hath spoken false Latine with his hand so does he that preacheth well and lives ill he speakes false Divinity with his conversation His tongue speakes the language of Canaan but his life the language of Ashdod We may say of him as it was of Erasmus his Encheridion that there was more devotion in the booke then the man so that there is more Learning and Religion in the Sermon then in the Preacher and what an incongruous thing is it to see an holy Preacher and a wicked man in one and the same person whose life is a Traytor to that Doctrine his tongue both professeth and perswades alleagance to as if hee thought to goe to heaven some other way then what he teaches the people soyling the glorious robe of Religion by putting it upon a beastly conversation He is a meere Comoedian in Religion acting goodnesse in voice and gesture onely His life and Doctrine is like the cloud that led the Israelites in the wildernes light on one side but dark on the other for no man teaches better then he and no man lives worse teaching others what he does not himselfe like way-posts directing travailers in their way but themselves not stirring XXVI A grave Divine IS a faithfull watchman going before his flock holding forth the shining lampe of his Doctrine in the lanthorne of a good conversation Hee is a good steward that hath studyed before hand to lay in sufficient provision for that great charge he hath undertaken He leapt not from the Grammar Schoole to the Pulpit but was long in the Tyring-house of the University before he appear'd on the publike Theater where he courted not the mistrisse Divinity first but made his way to her the easier by first winning the Arts her hand-maids Neither was he hasty to launch forth of that Port till hee was sufficiently ballasted with learning Being lawfully called to the Ministry he first throughly learned the weight thereof that hee may the better fit his shoulders to beare it and surely he that is most carefull to know will be most carefull to performe his duty His endeavour is to fit his matter to the capacity of his hearers as desiring rather their profit then his applause In any controversie he more delights to shew the strength of truth then his adversaries weaknesse using soft words as one well but hard Arguments He is very circumspect in ordering his own conversation as knowing that ignorant people learn as much if not more by their eyes then their eares so that his whole life is but one continued Lecture wherein his parishioners may legibly read their duty And indeed the actions of the Minister are the Pole-stars the people steere their course by therefore it is our Ministers care that they may read as it were all his precepts and exhortations to them in the line of his own life XXVII A self-conceited Man IS one that looking through the spectacles of self-love on his own worth which makes every small thing seeme great in his own conceit Like the Ape he hugs the brats of his own brain and with the Crow thinks his own bird whitest He looks only upon the flowers of his good actions but not on the weeds of his imperfections which though never so bad are the best part of his actions Hee looks so on his own beauty till Narcissus-like he is inamoured with himself being drunken with self-conceit he sees all things double Whatsoever he sayes he counts like Pithagoras his ipse dixit to his scholars that must stand for an infalible rule His opinions are alwayes singular and had rather erre by himself then hold a common truth You can tell him nothing that is good in him but hee knew it too well before Whatsoever opinion he is pleased to grace with approbation must be the only truth not because it is if it be truth but because he holds it XXVIII An inconstant Man HE is a wandring Star never fixed in any resolution Whatsoever he meant or said is presently altered for he meant it not long enough to take impression his strongest resolutions being rather tack'd then fastned He is always building and pulling down striving to out-vey time it selfe in mutability in the best things continuance is quarrell sufficient and novelty the highest style of commendation in the meanest His understanding writes upon his wit as men write on water no sooner written but forgotten He is a stranger to himselfe and all his actions so different from another that one would think it impossible they should all come out of one the sameshop A piece of clay tempered with running water which keeps his wit in a perpetuall motion He often resolves seldome Acts being rul'd by passion not reason He is the best enemy that can be but the worst friend for 't is a wonder if his love or hatred last so long as a wonder All his purposes are built upon the floting Islands of his severall humours but I le here cast anchor and leave him to the winde of his own will XXIX Religion REligion in it self is naturally written in the hearts of all men which will rather be of a false then of no Religion It is the bond betweene God and us and therefore in our old English called Eanfastnes as the only assurance and fast anchor-hold of our souls health and therefore irreligious men cut or dissolve this band and then no wonder if cutting this cable they make shipwrack of their souls Though there be many false religions as many false gods in the World yet is there but one true Religion as one true and only God who is the sole object of Religion and all those severall ones though so far distant froÌ„ one another yet they all meet in this that they all worship a Diety Religion like Sampson's haire is the strength of a Kingdom where that is lost the Kingdom is a true Icabod the glory is departed and no such way to lose the true Religion as in a crowd of false ones Hee that opens his hand or his heart rather to contein all will retein none true Religion is of too pure a nature to admit of any mixture but alas we may too truly say of religion in our times as Erasmus did of the Friers Cowle in his that it there was like Charity for it cover'd a multitude of sins as if there was no such way for men to fight for their own ends as under the banner of Religion XXX Death DEath is that universall winde to which all mortals become wind-fals from the tree of life Sickenesses sleep are as pauses and parentheses in the line of life but Death the full point the period and Ne plus ultra of the longest The grisly Atropos that cuts in sunder the strongest cord of life it is that unavoidable debt levied upon all mankind by force of that Statute enacted by God in Paradise and recorded by Saint Paul That all must dye As when one told Anaxagoras the Athenians have condemn'd thee to dye He answered and Nature then It is that black night which over-takes and over-spreads the brightest day of life The grim Serjeant sent from the Almighty with an Habeas Corpus to arrest every one for that unavoidable debt due to Nature ever since our first Parent broke and turn'd Bankerupt The grave is his Prison wherein he keeps them till the Resurrection the time of their Gaol-delivery from it But to the godly it is a friendly-fo which by robbing them of a mortall life makes them capable of immortality and by splitting the vessell of their bodies upon the rock of death engulphs their souls into Eternity setting her free from the prison of the body and endenizing her into Heaven It is their Exodus out of the Egypt of the World preparing them to enter into their promised Land of the heavenly Canaan or new Hierusalem At this Port must weall arrive whatsoever our Voyage be This is the totall summe of all mankinde It is the bitter cup our father Adam begun and wee must all pledge it the Inheritance which he purchased as his wages of sin and is entayl'd to all his posterity A Deluge which broke in by Adams breach of Gods Commandement that sooner or later will over-flow all mankind By his rebelling against God al are become subject to deaths command what the Epigram sayth wittily on the Gramarian is true of every man that being able to decline all other Nownes in every Case could decline Death in no Case All must fall down at deaths feet as well the Prince as the Pesant He cannot be resisted nor will he be flatterd No Orator so eloquent that could perswade Death to spare him nor Monarch so mighty thaâ— could resist him Hezekiah indeed was repriev'd by God himselfe for fiften yeares but he came to it at last When this wind blowes and when this rain descends it irresistably blowes down and washeth away the clay tenements of our bodies He is an Archer that shooteth somtimes beyond us hitting our supriours somtimes short of us striking our inferiors somtimes at our right hand depriving us of our freinds somtimes at our left hand taking away our foes and then at last hits the marke it selfe and we must tread the same path that all have who are gon before us and all must that shall come after Mors omnium FINIS Burton of Melanc in Ep. 1 Sam. 21. Fraus dolus in obscura eoque in â—nitabilia Plin. Paneger in Trajan Owen Ep. Plin. Nat. Hist. Aug. Lactan. Dum pacem peto audite inermes Iocasta to her two sons Etopâ—les Polinites Sen. Trag. Thebais Polybius cited by Melancth. Chron. fol. p. 126. Sir Fr. Bacon Apotheg Suet. TraÌ„ in vit. Domit. Ex utraque parte sunt qui pugnare cupiunt Tully Suet. Tran. ut Ante