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	very_a	5,362	5	5.6127	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96039	Wisdome and innocence, or prudence and simplicity in the examples of the serpent and the dove, propounded to our imitation. By Tho. Vane doctor in divinity and physick.	Vane, Thomas, fl. 1652.	1652 (1652)	Wing V89; Thomason E1406_1; ESTC R209492	46,642	189

the long tract of mens lives can wear out Thus did the private hatred betwixt Caesar and Pompey pull down ruine on the Roman Empire Thus Arius disdaining at his repulse in aspyring to a Bishoprick broacht such an heresie as overspread the whole Christian world yea death it self on the one party in some cannot destroy the hatred of the survivor witnesse the Story of Pope Stephen the sixt who caused the body of his Predecessor Formosus to be taken up and beheaded in the market place and afterwards cast into Tyber Yea death in both parties which hath killed the men yet hath not kild their malice if the story of Eteocles and Polynices be true which saith that when they had by mutuall wounds made windows for each others soul to fly out at their bodies being burnt together their very flames divided themselves as hating to be united in their dead bodies who were so divided in their living affections Thus homo homini Lupus one man is a Wolf unto another in whose hearts and hands and mouths are the instruments of mischief as the Prophet David saith Psal 13.3 Their throat is an open Sepulcher they delt deceitfully with their tongues the poyson of Aspes is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood Sorrow and unhappiness is in their wayes and the way of peace they have not known the fear of God is not before their eyes I have read that a string made of Wolfs guts laid amongst a knot of strings made of the guts of Sheep corrupts and spoyls them all it is a strange secret in nature and serves to insinuate the malice of these Lycant hropi these Wolf-turn'd men against the Sheep of Christs flock for which cause our Saviour gave us this commandement saying Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of Wolves be ye therefore prudent as Serpents and simple as Doves Simple as Doves 1 Pet. 3.9 not returning evill for evill nor curse for curse but on the contrary bless because you are called to this to be heirs of blessing as saith S. Peter S. Paul also saith Rom. 12.17.18.19 Render evill for evill to no man If it be possible as much as in you is have peace with all men Avenge not your selves but give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay saith our Lord. And as it is reported of the wals of Bizantium that they were so smoothly and closely wrought that they seemed to be but one stone and of the building of Salomons temple that there was not so much as the noyse of a hammer to bee heard therein So should wee have all our thoughts our words our deeds so even so smooth so polisht that they should not send forth the least noyse of injury to our neighbour or sound of disaffection CHAP. IIII. YEt this is not enough to doe no evill but we must also doe good Christ cursed the fig-tree not for any hurt it did but because it did no good it brought forth no fruit And this exercise of good must not be centred in those only which either prevent or return us with an equall measure like the Scribes and Pharisees the Publicans and sinners but it must expatiate and diffuse it self like the impartiall Sun to all even to our enemies And so we shall be simple as Doves who besides that they doe no hurt to any living creature doe also indifferently nourish both their own and others young ones Now this practice of good must receive its form from the former prohibitions of evill to wit in thought word and deed First then in thought wee must have our hearts suppled and entendred with charity meekness gentleness humility and patience It was the greatest commendation of Moyses that he was stiled Num. 12.3 the meekest man upon earth for which cause God conversed with him more familiarly than ever he did with any as the Scripture saith Exod. 33.11 God talked with him face to face as a man talketh to his friend and our Saviour saith Math. 11.29 Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls The valleys are more fruitfull than the mountains and the weightiest ears of corn bow down their heads the lowest towards the ground such are the riches of humility disposing men like figures in arithmetique where the last in place is greatest in accompt Our charity likewise expecteth of us that we should breath forth nothing but desires of bliss unto our brethren not suspecting evill without great ground not beleeving evill without strong proof 1 Cor. 13.5 for charity thinketh no evill as saith the Apostle And God hath propounded himself for an example unto us to prevent our too easy taking up upon trust a prejudiciall report against our brethren in the eighteenth of Genesis where he saith speaking of Sodom and Gomorrha those wicked Cities Gen. 18.21 I will goe down and see whether they have done according to the cry that is come up unto me and if not so that I may know not as if God were ignorant of the truth of any thing but for our instruction it is thus written to teach us as Solomon saith that wee should not apply our hearts to all words that are spoken Eccles 7.22 nor by too hasty beleef doe that which must be undone again Our patience likewise in which our Saviour commandeth us to possess our souls Luke 21.19 claimeth of us an unresisting sufferance of evill though there be whole vollies of injuries discharged against us yet must our hearts be in ury-proof and our patience preserve us un-hurt unprovoked to anger hatred desire of revenge and their dangerous effects for as Salomon saith Eccles 7.10 anger resteth in the bosome of a fool And although the Apostle bids us be angry and sin not Ephes 4.26 yet it is but a permission not a command and I suppose it is easier not to be angry at all than to be angry and not sin at all For anger in mans brest is like fire in an Oven which if it be quite damd up is extinguished but having but a little vent is apt to rage too fiercely Wherefore the Apostle saith Ephes 4.32 Be ye courteous one to another and mercifull forgivi●g one another even as God for Christs sake forgave you Yea so far must our patience in injuries and our charitable return to those that have injured us proceed that we must not only cancell the debt of all their injuries so that not so much as in a thought may we wish them any evill as it is evill but also if any adverse accident doe befall them wee must be inwardly moved with a compassionate sorrow for the same As Job declaring his own innocence testifieth of himself Job 31.29 If I have rejoyced in the ruin of him that hated me or have exulted that evill found

that fear standing at the dore of our hearts would resist the entrance of sin into our souls and teach us to apply such a mean and moderation to all worldly endeavours that as the Apostle saith wee should use this world as though we us'd it not 1 Cor. 7.31 The latter means wherby we must make deaf our ears to the powerfull charms of the devils temptations is the meditation of our own end like the Serpent which stops her other ear with her tayl Which meditation may justly claim the exercise of our most serious thoughts since the devils suggestions are chiefly plotted for the undermining of this consideration Who is therefore likened to a Serpent which biteth the horses heels that he maketh him cast his rider mans body is this horse his soul the rider his heel his end the meditation whereof if the devill doe bereave us we are overthrown both horse and man There is no stronger bit to curb the temptations of our unbridled flesh than to consider what a dear price we shall pay for our pleasures in our death and at our judgement In all thy works remember the last things saith the wise-man and thou shalt never sin Eccles 7.40 The birds direct their passage through the ayr with their tayls so doe the Fishes in the Sea the rudders motion guideth the Ship and the beasts with their tayls beat away the flyes temptations are flyes whence the Devill is called Beelzebub which signifies the God or Father of flyes all which are repelled by the mediation of our end signified by the Serpents tayl and the course of our actions for which we embarque our selves thereby as by a rudder rightly steered to the Port of happiness When the devill tempteth us to pride our flesh to lust the world to vain delights if we did but allow this meditation of our end a full place in our thoughts that we must die one day we may dye this day and that after death commeth judgment wherein we must satisfie to the uttermost farthing the great debt of our sins and that in such a manner and measure as neither eloquence nor silence can express surely I think we should not as many doe run on in evil faster than the devill can drive them and dare him to present them with a temptation which they dare not execute but rather like the Peacock who when he looks upon the blackness of his feet le ts fall his Plumes and forgets the beauty of his train So wee casting our thoughts down upon our end should neglect all the delights that temptations promise in their sinfull satisfaction Every man when he is upon his bed of sickness when hee is counting his last sand when death is so neer him that hee cannot turn his eyes from it every one seeing it in his eyes then how many vows and promises doth he offer up of ●esisting all temp●ation unto sin unto which he hath formerly too easily consented if he may but by the return of his health renew again the almost expired league betwixt his body and his soul Yea even the devill himself as the old d●●●ich hath it when he wa● sick would be a Monk and a holy man Aegrotat Daemon Monachus tunc esse vol●bat Convaluit Daemon Daemon ut ante fuit The Devill was sick the Devill a Monk would be The Devill was well the Devill a Monk was he But if we did in our healths entertain this consideration of death and the day of judgement and make it as familiar and present to our minds as the approaches thereof are neer unto the sick no doubt but it would work in us the same never fayling effects If wee did make remembrance our Philips boy to ring the knell of mortality each morning in our ears and if with S. Jerome there were no action of our life in whose performance we did not think wee heard the sound of the Archangels trumpet proclaming this convocation in our ears Arise ye dead and come to judgement if we did remember these tormenting flames which God hath prepared for the devill and wicked men Isay 30.33 whose fuell is fire and much wo●d the breath of our Lord like a torrent of brimstone enflaming it which though it torment them yet it shall not consume them as though they should have a period of their pains but like the Salamander they shall live still in the flame and be denyed with Dives a drop of water more than their tears which will be so far from asswaging their heat that the saltness thereof shall encrease their ames and yet in the high boyling of this their heat such conflicts of punishment shall meet in them that through extream cold they shall gnash their teeth for as our Saviour saith there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth If I say these meditations were in us and did abound surely they would strengthen us to strangle temptations in their conception and to resist the untimely birth of sin If the rich man mentioned in the Gospell had thought that his soul should have been hurried that night to hell he would never have dream'd of building his barns bigger Few men will steel at the gallows or speak treason on the rack but it is our putting the evill day far from us that makes every day evill to us We forget the evill of punishment which make us commit the evil of sin Wher wee may prevent our sins by remembring of the punishment then we think not on it and when we think on it which is not til we feel it then it is to late to prevent it O how humbly think you would the fallen Angels behave themselves if they were enthroniz'd in their antient glory O how abstemiously would our first Parents have walked by the forbidden fruit if they might have been repossessed of their earthly Paradice And how temperatly would Dives have used the pleasures of this life if hee might have been redeemed from hels tormenting flames Let us then be as carefull not to fall into their evils as they would bee if they were risen out of them which care the meditation thereof will mainly strengthen as the oyl of Scorpions doth heal their sting that while death and hell are in us by remembrance we may never be in them by sufferance For as 't is said if the Basilisk see a man first it kils him but if a man see that first he kils it So if death see and apprehend us first being unprepared it destroys us but if we see it first by meditation and preparation we kill it and become the death of death and may justly take up that joyfull acclamation of S. Paul 1 Cor. 15.55 O death where is thy victory O death where is thy sting Yet all must dye For deaths meditation though it take away the sting of death yet it takes not away the body of death But here 's the difference that death which is the wicked mans shipwrack is the good