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	soul_n	time_n	14,269	5	4.0958	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29158	A sermon preached at Helmingham in Suffolk, June 30th, 1694, at the funeral of L. Gen. Tolmach by Nicholas Brady ...	Brady, Nicholas, 1659-1726.	1694 (1694)	Wing B4177; ESTC R19560	11,768	36

spent life all outward Consolations shall then drop a way our Riches can purchase nothing for us but a Coffin and a Windingsheet our Friends can only weep by our Bed-side attend us to our Grave and ly down there and lament over us our Honours will but serve to adorn our Hearse and to lay us in the dust with greater Pomp and Pageantry but a Life that has been led Innocently and Devoutly this will support us under our last conflict will strengthen and sustain us in our mortal Agonies and enable us to confront Death in its most ugly shape not only with courage but with comfort also Every good action which we have at any time performed will then administer to us joy and satisfaction and if we have constantly persevered in well doing we shall have nothing to ruffle or discompose us our passage out of this World will be easie and agreeable we shall ly down in Death as to a sweet repose from whence we shall awake into everlasting happiness and shall close our eyes with that triumphant exclamation O Death where is thy Sting O Grave where is thy Victory Thus is it the Office of true wisdom to make that easie and familiar to us which we know is not possibly to be avoided since tho we hang back never so much and are never so unwilling to be acquainted with it yet still Death follows us close at the heels and will at last infallibly overtake us But nothing will more effectually prepare us for our end than to have it continually in our thoughts that whenever it comes to seize on us it may not be new to us and add to its other terrours the fright of a surprise Things the most terrible and frightful in their nature become easie and supportable by our being used to them and so we shall find it in Death its self He who lives every day as if that were his last will never be unprovided when his last day comes he who contemplates upon his end frequently will receive Death when ever it calls upon him as an acquaintance whom he has long conversed with and whose nearer appreoaches he has expected hourly whereas that man who makes it his business to put off that evil hour as he stiles it far from him never to fix his thoughts upon the consideration of it will be strangely startled and discomposed at its appearance he will not know how to give reception to a an intruding rugged Guest whose visit is as unwelcome as it was unexpected and yet whose distastful company he cannot possibly avoid And indeed when the good man has accustomed himself some time to a due consideration of his latter end he will not meet with any thing else in it but matter of delight and satisfaction it will only appear as an ill-looked Jaylor that comes to release him out of a hard captivity as a surly messenger that is sent upon a welcome errand or as a rough gust of Wind that blows him into the Harbour He has so fully reflected upon the certainty of Death that he has made it his business to be ready for it whensoever it shall come and can lay down his life chearfully and contentedly because he has the assurance of taking it up again as knowing it is but hid with Christ in God Thus a due reflection upon the certainty of Death will instruct us in this lesson of true Wisdom that we should at all times be qualified to look Death in the Face without being terrified at it or unprovided for it But Secondly Another lesson of true Wisdom which may be learnt from a due reflection upon the certainty of Death is this that since our continuance in this world cannot last for ever we should therefore wean our selves from too great a fondness for such things as we must certainly part with at the last Being rationally convinced that all the enjoyments of this world must at one time or other drop away from us the common rules of Prudence will then instruct us to disintangle our affections from them betimes not to wed and tye our selves too closely to them but only to value them so far as they are necessary to us in our present circumstances without foolishly placing our chiefest happiness in the possession of those things which we must certainly be divorced from Riches and Honours and Pleasures and all the enjoyments of this life are seldom so constant as to attend us to the end of it they generally forsake us before we reach the Grave but it is most certain that they cannot accompany us beyond it and there will be no more remembrance of them within the Land where all things are forgotten and how unreasonably then does that man act who places all his satisfaction in such transitory trifles as must shortly either leave him or be left by him Indeed if it were probable or but barely possible for us to be always conversant in this Land of the living we had then some reason to be careful and solicitous for the delights and conveniencies of this present life But when we are assured that our years must come to an end as a tale that is told and that our age is even as nothing that we are but Travellers and Pilgrims in this world have no sure abiding place no settled dwelling or habitation in it this should teach us to deal with it as wayfaring men with the Inns which they bait at just to make use of it for our present occasions without ever contracting any great intimacy with it or being much concerned what becomes of it when we are gone For how dreadful must Death be to that unwary person who so little reflects upon the certainty of his leaving this world that he never attempts to disengage himself from it How will that clog and encumber him in his flight and how hardly will his soul be able to get loose with such a weight of earth about it To such a man as this Death comes arrayed in all his pomp of Terror to take him from the world is to tear him from himself he is grown as it were one piece with it being rivetted to it by all the ties of interest and inclination and to separate him from that his beloved companion is like another divorce of Soul and Body whereas that serious and considering man who has duly represented to himself that Death will call upon him some time or other and that then he must leave behind him all the gaieties of this World will never be so besotted with the love of them as to doat upon those things which he must one day renounce and the loss of which will be so much the more grievous by how much the more deeply he is enamoured of them Thus will a due reflection upon the certainty of Death give to us that are living this most useful instruction that we should wean our selves from the vanities of this present life and disengage our selves from too

A SERMON Preached at Helmingham in Suffolk June 30th 1694. At the FUNERAL OF L. Gen. Tolmach By Nicholas Brady M. A. Minister of St. Catherine Cre●●-Church and Chaplain in Ordinary to Their Majesties Published at the Request of the Friends of the deceased LONDON Printed for Rich. Parker at the Vnicorn under the Piazza of the Royal Exchange 1694. TO HER GRACE THE Dutchess of Lauderdale May it please Your Grace AS nothing could excuse my Confidence in presenting this following Discourse to your Grace but the great share you have in the much lamented occasion of it so nothing could attone for the meanness of my Present but the eager transports of a hasty Zeal which rather urged me to pay this imperfect Tribute to the Memory of so great a Man than to consult my own Ease or Reputation by making the shortness of the warning my just excuse for waving an Employment as difficult as honourable To do tolerable Justice to so deserving a Theme required a larger portion both of Time and Ability than I had either the good fortune to enjoy or the confidence to pretend to and if I have but testified my veneration for his Memory which every True Englishman will joyn with me in doing it is the only Reputation that I aim at from a performance as hearty as it is inartificial I question not but your Grace will add to all your other Virtues that of a chearful resignation to the will of God and give a fresh evidence of the firmness of that Courage which has formerly supported you under the greatest Trials Especially since to sweeten and temper the bitterness of your loss your Grace has the advantage of some signal consolations to see your Son consecrated to immortal Fame universally regretted by all that knew him and embalmed with the Tears of that most Excellent Princess in whose Service it was his last wish to spend another Life If any passage in the following Discourse as part of it is directed particularly to that end may be serviceable to the lessening your Grace's Affliction it will be matter of the greatest Joy and Satisfaction to May it please Your Grace Your Graces most obedient Most faithful And most humble Servant N. Brady ECCLES VII Ch. Latter end of the 2 Verse For that is the end of all Men and the living will lay it to his heart IF the conspiring wishes of the greatest part of Christendom could reverse the immutable Decrees of Heaven if the most eminent and distinguishing personal Accomplishments could bribe the grim Messenger to delay his Summons or the most elevated Courage and Bravery of Soul could awe the King of Terrours into a favourable compliance we had not now been met together to perform our last duties to the small remains of This Great Man not so dearly paid for a remarkable Instance of the unavoidable necessity of Death to all men by seeing one of the noblest of our English Worthies within the short compass of a few days shrunk into a Coffin full of dust and ashes But since we are convinced by too sad an experience that nothing can exempt from that impartial Sentence which has passed upon all the Sons of Adam since the Wise and the Foolish the Noble and the Base the Valiant and the Coward must equally ly down in the bed of Corruption and descend together unto the silent Chambers of the Earth since Death is thus the necessary consequence of Life and the living know that they must die it will be a useful labour to enquire what advantage may be made by us of such a knowledge and after what manner we ought to lay it to our hearts that Death is the end of all men And indeed it is matter of the justest astonishment that Death which is the entertainment of every day which endeavours to refresh our memory of it by such repeated instances of its unavoidable certainty that speaks to us out of the mouth of every dead man and reads us a Lecture out of every Coffin should yet almost utterly be lost to our remembrance should fall so very seldom under our serious consideration and therefore the wise Man had sufficient reason to inform us as he does at the beginning of this Verse that it is better to go to the house of morning than to go to the house of feasting religious meditations and reflections upon Death being at all times a proper and useful entertainment but when we have before us such objects of Mortality as This which has assembled us together at the present contemplations of this nature are necessary and indispensable the solemnity of the occasion calls for them loudly and forcebly exacts them at our hands and as our deceased brother seems to preach to us this Doctrine That that is the end of all men so every well instructed Christian will be ready to make this sober Application That the living will lay it to his heart That Death is the period of every Life that we must all die and return unto our Dust is a truth acknowledged so universally and so undeniably verified by constant experience that it is needless to produce arguments for the proof of that assertion which none have the confidence or the folly to deny I shall not therefore lose my time and abuse your patience in the unnecessary confirmation of this established Maxime that Death is the end of all men but shall wholly confine my following discourse to the inference which the wise Man draws from thence that the living will lay it to his heart by shewing what useful deductions may be made from a due reflecton upon the certainty of Death in order to influence our lives and conversations First Then from a due reflecton upon the certainty of Death we may learn this lesson of instruction that since Death is the common lot of all mankind and some time or other we must submit to it we ought therefore to be always so prepared to meet it as that we may at any time undergo it willingly and chearfully Indeed if all our care and apprehension if all our carefulness and concern could enable us to avoid the stroke of Destiny there were then some reason for us to be anxious and solicitous upon that occasion but since this is an irreversible Decree which has past upon all the race of mankind a wise man will make a vertue of necessity by endeavouring to manage himself after such a rate as may make this dreadful Enemy of humane nature appear least formidable and affrighting He will at least attempt to disarm him of his Sting and that can be done no other way but by leading a life unblameable and inoffensive we are assured that the sting of Death is sin it is that only which makes his approaches to very terrible let us but secure our selves upon that side and we may then meet him with assurance and satisfaction Nothing will rejoice us upon a Death-bed so much as the Conscience of a well