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	life_n	speak_v	4,234	5	4.7152	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30441	A sermon preached at the funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle at St. Martins in the Fields, January 7, 1691/2 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1692 (1692)	Wing B5899; ESTC R21619	22,132	38

A SERMON Preached at the FUNERAL OF THE HONOURABLE Robert Boyle AT St. MARTINS in the Fields JANUARY 7. 1691 2 By the Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of SARUM LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown and Iohn Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCXCII ECCLES II. 26. For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom knowledge and joy WHEN the Author of this Book the Wisest of Men applied his heart to know and to search to seek out wisdom and the reason or nature of things and summed up the Account of all Article by Article one by one to find out the thread of Nature and the Plann of its great Author tho his Soul sought after it yet the Riddle was too dark he even he could not discover it But one man among a thousand he did find and happy was he in that discovery if among all the Thousands that he knew he found One counting Figure for so many Cyphers which tho they encreased the Number yet did not swell up the Account but were so many Nothings or less and worse than Nothings according to his estimate of Men and Things We have reason rather to think that by a Thousand is to be meant a vast and indefinite number otherwise it must be confessed that Solomon's Age was indeed a Golden one if it produced one Man to a Thousand that carry only the name and figure but that do not answer the end and excellency of their being The different Degrees and Ranks of Men with relation to their inward powers and excellencies is a surprizing but melancholy Observation Many seem to have only a Mechanical Life as if there were a moving and speaking Spring within them equally void both of Reason and Goodness The whole race of men is for so many years of Life little better than encreasing Puppits many are Children to their Lives end The Soul does for a large portion of Life sink wholly into the Body in that shadow of death Sleep that consumes so much of our time the several disorders of the Body the Blood and the Spirits do so far subdue and master the Mind as to make it think act and speak according to the different ferments that are in the humours of the Body and when these cease to play the Soul is able to hold its tenure no longer all these are strange and amazing speculations and force one to cry out Why did such a perfect Being make such feeble and imperfect Creatures Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain The Secret is yet more astonishing when the frowardness the pride and ill-nature the ignorance folly and fury that hang upon this poor flattered Creature are likewise brought into the Account He that by all his observation and encrease of knowledge only encreaseth sorrow while he sees that what is wanting cannot be numbred and that which is crooked cannot be made straight is tempted to go about and with Solomon to make his heart to despair of all the labour wherein he has travelled But as there is a dark side of Humane Nature so there is likewise a bright one The flights and compass of awakened Souls is no less amazing The vast croud of Figures that lie in a very narrow corner of the Brain which a good memory and a lively imagination can fetch out in great order and with much beauty The strange reaches of the Mind in abstracted Speculations and the amazing progress that is made from some simple Truths into Theories that are the admiration as well as the entertainment of the thinking part of mankind The sagacity of apprehending and judging even at the greatest distance The elevation that is given to Sense and the Sensible powers by the invention of Instruments and which is above all the strength that a few thoughts do spread into the mind by which it is made capable of doing or suffering the hardest things the Life which they give and the Calm which they bring are all so unaccountable that take all together a Man is a strange huddle of Light and Darkness of Good and Evil and of Wisdom and Folly The same Man not to mention the difference that the several Ages of Life make upon him feels himself in some minutes so different from what he is in the other parts of his Life that as the one fly away with him into the transports of joy so the other do no less sink him into the depressions of sorrow He scarce knows himself in the one by what he was in the other Upon all which when one considers a Man both within and without he concludes that he is both wonderfully and also fearfully made That in one side of him he is but a little lower than Angels and in another a little a very little higher than Beasts But how astonishing soever this Speculation of the medly and contrariety in our composition may be it contributes to raise our esteem the higher of such persons as seem to have arisen above if not all yet all the eminent frailties of humane nature that have used their Bodies only as Engines and Instruments to their Minds without any other care about them but to keep them in good case fit for the uses they put them to that have brought their souls to a purity which can scarce appear credible to those who do not imagine that to be possible to another which is so far out of their own reach and whose Lives have shined in a course of many years with no more allay nor mixture than what just served to shew that they were of the same humane nature with others who have lived in a constant contempt of Wealth Pleasure or the Greatness of this World whose minds have been in as constant a pursuit of Knowledge in all the several ways in which they could trace it who have added new Regions of their own discoveries and that in a vast variety to all that they had found made before them who have directed all their enquiries into Nature to the Honour of its great Maker And have joyned two things that how much soever they may seem related yet have been sound so seldom together that the World has been tempted to think them inconsistent A constant looking into Nature and a yet more constant study of Religion and a Directing and improving of the one by the other and who to a depth of Knowledg which often makes men morose and to a heighth of Piety which too often makes them severe have added all the softness of Humanity and all the tenderness of Charity an obliging Civility as well as a melting kindness when all these do meet in the same person and that in eminent degrees we may justly pretend that we have also made Solomon's observation of one man but alas the Age is not so fruitful of such that we can add one among a thousand To such a man the Characters given in the words of my

Productions of all Countries of the Virtues and Improvements of Plants of Oars and Minerals and all the Varieties that are in them in different Climates He was by much by very much the readiest and the perfectest I ever knew in the greatest Compass and with the truest Exactness This put him in the way of making all that vast variety of Experiments beyond any Man as far as we know that ever lived And in these as he made a great progress in new Discoveries so he used so nice a strictness and delivered them with so scrupulous a Truth that all who have examined them have found how safely the World may depend upon them But his peculiar and favourite Study was Chymistry in which he engaged with none of those ravenous and amitious Designs that draw many into them His Design was only to find out Nature to see into what Principles things might be resolved and of what they were compounded and to prepare good Medicaments for the Bodies of Men. He spent neither his Time nor Fortune upon the vain pursuits of high Promises and Pretensions He always kept himself within the Compass that his Estate might well bear And as he made Chymistry much the better for his dealing in it so he never made himself either the worse or the poorer for it It was a Charity to others as well as an Entertainment to himself for the Produce of it was distributed by his Sister and others into whose Hands he put it I will not here amuse you with a List of his astonishing Knowledg or of his great Performances this way They are highly valued all the World over and his Name is every where mentioned with most particular Characters of Respect I will conclude this Article with this in which I appeal to all competent Judges that few Men if any have been known to have made so great a Compass and to have been so exact in all the Parts of it as he was As for Joy he had indeed nothing of Frolick and Levity in him he had no Relish for the idle and extravagant Madness of the Men of Pleasure he did not waste his Time nor dissipate his Spirits into foolish Mirth but he possessed his own Soul in Patience full of that solid Joy which his Goodness as well as his Knowledg afforded him He who had neither Designs nor Passions was capable of little Trouble from any Concerns of his own He had about him all the Tenderness of good Nature as well as all the Softness of Friendship these gave him a large share of other Mens Concerns for he had a quick sense of the Miseries of Mankind He had also a feeble Body which needed to be look'd to the more because his Mind went faster than that his Body could keep pace with it yet his great Thoughts of God and his Contemplation of his Works were to him Sources of Joy which could never be exhausted The Sense of his own Integrity and of the Good he found it did afforded him the truest of all Pleasures since they gave him the certain Prospect of that Fulness of Joy in the Sight of which he lived so long and in the Possession of which he now lives and shall live for ever and this spent and exhausted Body shall then put on a new Form and be made a fit Dwelling for that pure and exalted Mind in the final Restitution I pass over his Death I looked at it some time ago but I cannot bring down my Mind from the elevating Thoughts that do now arise into that depressing one of his Death I must look beyond it into the Regions of Light and Glory where he now dwells The only Thought that is now before me is to triumph on the Behalf of Religion to make our due Boast of it and to be lifted up I had almost said proud upon this occasion how divine and how pure a thing must that Religion be in it self which produced so long a Series of great Effects thorow the whole Course of this shining Life What a thing would Mankind become if we had many such And how little need would there be of many Books writ for the Truth and Excellency of our Religion if we had more such Arguments as this one Life has produced Such single Instances have great Force in them but when they are so very Single they lose much of their Strength by this that they are ascribed to Singularity and something particular in a Man's Humour and Inclinations that makes him rise above common Measures It were a Monopoly for any Family or Sort of Men to ingross to themselves the Honour which arises from the Memory of so great a Man It is a Common not to be inclosed It is large enough to make a whole Nation as well as the Age he lived in look big and be happy But above all it gives a new Strength as well as it sets a new Pattern to all that are sincerely zealous for their Religion It shews them in the simplest and most convincing of all Arguments what the Humane Nature is capable of and what the Christian Religion can add to it how far it can both exalt and reward it I do not say that every one is capable of all he grew to I am very sensible that few are nor is every one under equal Obligations for the Service of the Universe there must be a vast Diversity in Mens Tempers there being so great a Variety of Necessities to be answered by them but every Man in every Imployment and of every size of Soul is capable of being in some Degrees good in the sight of God and all such shall receive proportioned Degrees of Wisdom Knowledg and Joy even though neither their Goodness nor these Accessions to it rise up to the Measure of him who was a while among us indeed one of a thousand and is now but one of those ten thousand times ten thousand that are about the Throne where he is singing that Song which was his great Entertainment here as it is his how endless Joy there Great and marvellous are thy Works O Lord God Almighty and just and true are thy Ways O King of Saints To follow him in the like Exercises here is the sure Way to be admitted to join with him in those above to which God of his infinite Mercy bring us all in due time through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Amen FINIS Chap. 7.25 27. Eccles. 8.17