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	see_v	soul_n	14,522	5	5.2397	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37030	A contemplation of mans mortalitie. Preached at Reading, by John Dashfield, M.A.	Dashfield, John.	1649 (1649)	Wing D279A; ESTC R214401	10,075	24

to bind my self to iustifie or maintain the truth thereof albeit in my iudgement their authority that have written on the same argument may grant it for true or very likely Pliny and Marcus Varro discoursing on the time of a mans life do affirm that the learned Egyptians had found out by experience that man according to the course of nature could not live above a hundred yeares but if any one hapned to out-step that limitation it was iudged by particular influence and power of the starres a thing in natures work very strange and marvellous But passe we to the foundation of this their settled perswasion they gathered and conceived by the heart of a man which having made proof of many times by order of Anatomy they thereby attained to the knowledge of very wonderfull secrets For say they when a man-child is a full yeare old his heart poizeth the weight of two of their dram● foure when hee is two yeares old and so onward as many yeares as hee lives his heart increaseth in weight a couple of drammes yearely So that when hee commeth to the age of fifty yeares his heart weigheth then an hundred drammes but thence forward it is not more ponderous but proportionably diminisheth his weight ratably every yeare by two drammes even according as before it increased So that at the age of 100 yeares the heart by continuall decreasing becomes to be nothing in poize and then consequently the man of necessity dies if by some other accidentall occasion he dies not before because there are so many kinds of severall occasions which can and do customarily hasten death before men arrive at half the time of making this experiment in themselves We have then nothing more certain or assured then death and that onely in the will power and knowledge of God so that as the forgetfulnesse of death is the cause of a mans falling into sinne so the memory thereof turneth him quite from sinne Recordare novissima Remember thy end and thou shalt never do amisse And the Kingly Psalmist saith Cogitari dies antiquos annos aeternos in mente habui c. Ps 77.5 6. And Plato affirmes that the life of a wise man is meditation in death Therefore watch and pray for ye know not at what houre the Lord will come It is well weighed by Rapertus that after God had condemned Adam to death he bestow'd upon his wife the name of life Mater cunctarum gentium the Mother of all the living scarce had God condemned him to punishment but he by and by shewes he had forgot it and therefore did God permit the death of innocent Abel to the end that in Abel he might see the death of the body and in Cain the death of the soul for to quicken his memory From Adam we inherit this forgetfullnesse not remembring what we saw but yesterday and the generall desire of man strives all it can to perpetuate our life which if it were in our hands we would never see death But because the love of life should not rob us of our memory and that fearing as we are mortall we might covet those things that are eternall seeing that walls towers marble and brasse moulder away to dust we may ever have in our memory this rule Recordare novissima Remember thy end Many holy Saints have stiled the memory the stomack of the soul as Gregory Bernard Theodoret and God commanding Ezechiel he should notifie unto his people certain things he had revealed unto him and charging him that he should well remember himself of them he said Comede quaecunque ego do tibi Eat whatsoever I give thee And in another place he commanded him that hee should eat a booke wherein were written Lamentations and Woe c. being all Metaphors of the Prophets having things in his remembrance and this is more clearly delivered by Job nunquid sapiens replebit arbore stomachum sanum will a wise man fill his stomack with that heate that shall burne and consume him Job 15. which is to say will he charge his memory with matters of paine and torments The proportion then holds thus as the stomack is the store-house or magazine of our corporall food and keeping therein our present meat the body takes from thence its sustenance whereby it maintaines its being and its life So the memory is the magazine of the soule and setteth before our eyes the obligation wherein we stand the good which we loose and the hurt which we gaine Secondly as from the disorder and disagreement of the stomack painfull diseases doe arise and divers infirmities to the body so from the forgetfulnesse of the memory rise those of the soule for without oblivion saith Saint Basill our salvation cannot be lost nor our soules-health endangered Thirdly as when the fuell and fire shall faile mans stomack which is the oven which boyles and seasons our life we may give that of the bodies for losse so when our memory shall faile us we may give our soule for lost Therefore this advice of the sonne of Syrach is most requisite Recordare novissima Remember thy end As the first attribute of man is oblivion so the second is his basenesse and miserie In Ezechiel the King of Tyre said Deus ego sum I am a God but hee was answered hee was but a man that is base vile and miserable Eze. 28. So David ut sciant gentes quoniam homines sunt Let the Nations know that they are men that is base and vile Psal 9. And S. Paul Nonne homines estis Are ye not men 1 Cor 3.2 When we see a man sometimes swallowed up in the miseries of the body sometimes of the soule we say in the conclusion he is but a man Now if instead of the gold of the Angells there was found rust and that so fine cloth as that was not without it's moths and that incorrupted wood without it's worm what then will become of those that are but dust Qui babitant domos luteas who dwell in houses of Clay Ecclesiasticus doth advise thee to rise up betimes and not to be the last but to get thee home without delay for there thou shalt find enough to doe Preacurre in domum tuam et age conceptiones tuas Jeremie councells thee to the same sending thee to this house of clay and mud It 's worth observation God did not speake unto Moses til he had drawn his sheep aside into the desart putting his hand twice into his bosome the one hee tooke out cleare and the other leprous We have two bosomes to take care of in this life the one of our owne things the other of other mens but the meditation of our owne miserie being the more necessary wee must ever have in our mind this Reordare Remember thy end A man not knowing himselfe cannot know God Now to know himselfe the next way is to go out of himselfe and to consider the trace and track of those Alexanders and

Caesars c. Vbi sunt principes gentium Where are the Princes of the Nations It is the quiere of Gregory Nazianzen why God having created the soule for Heaven did knit it with so straight a knot to a Body of earth so fraile and so lumpish his answer is That the Angells being overthrowne by their pride he was willing to repaire and to helpe his presumption in man a creature in his superiour partie as it were Angelicall but having a heavy and miserable body which might serve as a stay unto him that if the nimblenesse of his understanding should puffe him up yet that earth which clogged his body should humble him and keepe him downe There is no man so desperate nor of that boldnesse of spirit but doth shew a kind of feare when death lookes him in the face and therefore death is termed pale because it makes the most valiant to change colour Job painting forth such a kind of soule-lesse man saith Quis arguet coram eo Who shall be able to controule this man that neither feares the Law nor his King nor his God Job 21.31 The best remedie is to carry him to the Sepulchers of the dead et in congerie mortuorum evigilabit He shal be brought to the graves and made to wake and if the looking upon that sad spectacle will not worke him there is little hope of good to be done upon him Those that entered triumphantly into Rome had a thousand occasions given them to incite them to pride arrogancie and vanitie as their great numbers of Captaines their Troopes of horse their Chariots drawn with Elephants or Lyons and beautifull Ladies looking upon them from their windowes and the like but the Senate considering the great danger of the Tryumpher ordered one to sit by his side to tell him of his Mortalitie and what now are the best of us all but Terrigenae et silii somnium The off-spring of the earth and the children of men This word Recordare doth imply a deep-meditation that it might stirre up fire in us according to that of David In meditatione mea exardescet ignis A fire waxed hot in my heart whilst I was musing Meditation is like Gun-Powder which in a mans hand is dust and earth but put fire thereunto it will overthrow Towers Walls and Cities so a quick lively memory and inflamed considerations of our owne wretched estates will blow up the Towers of our pride and cast downe the Walles of our rebelious hearts and ruine those Cities of clay wherein wee dwell As the Phoenix fanowing the fire with her wings is renewed againe by her owne ashes so shalt thou become a new creature by remembring what thou art Desire not life then but with the remembrance of death there is a Naball in the 1 of Sam. 25. that desires to live to sheare his sheepe and to make a feast like a King though the next day his heart die within him and he become like a stone There is a foole Luke 12 that desires long life to build Barnes to gather goods to lay up fruits to take ●ase to eat to drink to be merry Vt ebrii ru●tantes intre●t in paradisum That reeling and belching saith Jeremie they may fall into an epicures paradise There is a Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. the 4. that desires to mount up his piles of wonderment and his Turrets of Babell but in the midst of his pride not thinking of his last end is urned into an Oxe that eateth hay There is an Absolon that not remembring his end desired to weare a Crown upon his head though hee be hanged by the haire of the head and hee be strucken with three darts through the liver 2 Sam. 18. There is an Achab that desires to live and not regarding his owne end takes possession of Naboths Vineyard though in the place where the Dogs licked the blood of Naboth Dogs shall licke the blood of Achab. Kings 1.21 There is an Haman that desires to live till he may be revenged on Mordecaie his enemy although a gallowes of fifty foot high an eminent place for execution be the end of a mischievous courtiers promotion All which unlawfull desires although they have Volaticum gaudium as a Father calls them yet they shall have Talentum plumbi as the Prophet speaketh a Talent of lead an intolerable pressure of their conscience in their death Zach. 5.7 Thus you may see fire and water not more contrarie then flesh and spirit Here I would faine know what are the strings what the buckles what the cords of Love what slime of Euphrates What gumme of Arabia what cement or glue doe ioyne an immortall incorporall insensible soule in a house of clay in a body of earth the most grosse the most base most sollid element surely wee are wonderfully made none but God did compose us none but God can preserve us none but God by his permission or direction ordinarie or extarordinary administration of second causes can disolve us he with a breath gave us breath he with a word takes away our breath and so all our thoughts perish Let not Asa trust in his Physitian nor Naaman trust to the Rivers of Damascus nor Absolon to the lustre of beautie nor Maximus to rhe strength of an Elephant nor Herod to the flattering clamour of idolising people that we are not men but Gods Thoses who in the regard of their constitutions communicate in the s●nguine of the Rose and in the snowie beautie of the Little their bodies are saith S. Chrysostome but Nidus hirundinum a Swallowes Nest composed of durt and straw they are no fairer then Jonas ground a worm strook it at the roote and the ground withered so that the greatest King or Peere may make King Philips fable his Motto and Morall Recordare novissima Remember thy end Samuell being to annoynt Saul God gave him for a signe that he would have him Prince over his people that he should find two men as soone as he was gone from him nea●e unto Rachells Sepulcher God might have given him some other signe but he chose rather to give him this to quell the pride and haughtinesse of this his new honour as if he should admonish and put thee in mind That so faire a Creature as Rachell should read a Lecture unto thee what thou must be But when the time of this disolution shall come to passe that no man knoweth neither the manner how nor the place where therefore Recordare novissima Remember thy end First no man knoweth the place and it is no great matter since Rachell died in the high-way as well as Jezabell in the streets since Josias and Achab both dyed in the field since Saul and Jonathan died both in one battle and their Carcases were hung up as Trophies of a bloody victory in a barbarous Citie Will you heare a Philosophicall comfort Earth you know is the center and Heaven is the worlds circumference If a man shall draw a circle with