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	world_n	13,005	5	4.9109	4	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

extravagant a fondness for them But Thirdly Another lesson of instruction which we may be taught by a due reflection upon the certainty of Death is this that since that is the end of all men living we should therefore look back upon the occasion of it and seriously consider by what means it prevails so universally upon all mankind Man was created in a state of Immortality as well as Innocency and after a long and happy life in this world would have been translated into another without any uneasie passage through the gates of Death but when sin entred into the world Death also entred with it and by it and took its original commission for destroying from God's primitive Curse upon our disobedience and indeed they are now linked together so inseparably that they always advance hand in hand and as the world has daily grown more sinfull so Death also has grown more powerful has daily made its more near approaches and our life which passes away as a shadow like that upon the Dial of Ahaz has gone backwards For tho' Death is the most dreadful enemy of humane nature yet our darling sins however they may seem to flatter and cajoll us keep up a most strict League and Correspondence with it every embrace they seem to give us does but forward the inslaving us to this potent Adversary and every kiss like that of Judas does but betray us into Ruine and Destruction all those enjoyments with which they seem to treat us are but so many inlets to the Grave and so many entrances into the chambers of Death Those are they however gay and lightsome they may appear which labour to deprive us of the light of the Sun to lay us down in darkness and in silence to throw us amongst mouldring Bones and putrifying Carkases and to make us the companions of Rottenness and Corruption all our beloved bosome transgressions are but so many bewitching Dalilahs which lull our heads in their laps and rock us into a Lethargy that so they may give us up bound and settered into the hands of our most mortal enemy And can we then be employed in considerations of this nature can we believe that Death is the wages of sin not only a Salary that will certainly be paid but such a one as ought in justice to be so as if we had bargained and covenanted for it without loathing and abominating those fatal incendiaries which have set us at enmity with our God and have brought Death and destruction into the world If there be any thing in Death that is frightful or dismal it ought to work in us a strong aversion against sin which alone has laid upon us the invincible necessity of entring into a conflict with that formidable Adversary This then is another piece of prudence which is taught us by a due reflection upon the certainty of Death it engages us to look back upon the cause of it sin and to entertain a horror and detestation for it But Fourthly Another Lesson of true Wisdom which may be learnt from a due reflection upon the certainty of Death is this that since nothing can exempt us from the Grave that common receptacle of all humane kind we should therefore be patient and contented under Sickness and bear the Infirmities of this life with a chearful resignation Sickness is the usual forerunner of our end the commom road which most Men tread to the dark Palace of imperious Death and therefore to murmor or repine under such dispensations is as if we should be angry at being put into the way which leads directly to our journe's end Diseases are the general Harbingers of Mortality which come before to marck out those places where the great King of Terrours designs to lodge and tho' some go off without any warning and drop out of the World suddenly and insensibly yet whether that may be in Mercy or in Judgment God only knows sure I am that which can but once be done and the consequences of which are so considerable ought to be done very well and sickness is the surest and most effectual remembrancer to put us in mind of dying as we should It is recorded of King Philip the Macedonian that least his prosperous estate should too far puff him up he ordered one of his Attendants each morning to remind him of his Mortality with this expression O King thou must die and how many of us should be apt to forget our selves did not sickness perform for us this charitable office and give us a kind Item of our perishing condition How unjust then and ungrateful a proceeding will it be to quarrel at the Visits of an obliging Monitor who only comes to refresh our memory that we may not be forgetful of our most valuable concernments how heavy or intolerable soever our pressures may appear yet Death we are sure whose messengers they are will not fail quickly to put an end to them and can we not then bear with a quiet resignation those things that bring with them so considerable an advantage and whose remedy is so certain and so near How unfit is that man to look Death in the face who cannot bear its most distant approaches or to struggle with mortal Agonies and Convulsions ' that shrinks under the first assault of an Ague or a Feaver whereas that constant and resolved mind which chearfully submits to the hand of God and breaks the force of his distemper by a Christian patience is by these lighter tryals exercised and prepared to stand the shock of the grand encounter he becomes familiar and acquainted with Death by conversing calmly with its friends and companions and can never be startled at its Personal appearance when he has thus been used to correspond with it by the interposition of its Embassadours This therefore is a 4th lesson which we may learn from a due reflection upon the certainty of Death patiently to undergo all sicknesses and infirmities which are the necessary preliminaries and forerunners of it But Fifthly and lastly Another lesson of instruction which may be taught us by a due reflection upon the certainty of Death is this that since that is the end of all men and nothing can qualify us for an exemption from it we ought therefore to bear the loss of our Friends or our Relations without any immoderate or excessive sorrow for them For why should that violently afflict or discompose us which we have all the reason in the world to expect can we suppose that our Friends should be peculiarly excepted out of the common lot of all mankind or because they are Ours must they therefore be Immortal It was the comfort which a father applied to himself to lighten the loss of an only Son Scio me mortalem genuisse I know that I begot him a mortal man by having considered that he must once die he was able to support his Death whensoever it happened and this will not fail to have the same