Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	call_v	day_n	lord_n	5,264	5	4.0504	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41030	The character of the last daies a sermon preached before the King / by John Fell.	Fell, John, 1625-1686.	1675 (1675)	Wing F607; ESTC R6424	13,719	28

is most happily acquir'd by an approch to drunkenness or frenzy and t will be no very advantagious barter to loose our understandings to advance our wit The Masters of Greek and Roman Rhetoric in their Institutions discourse indeed of causing laughter as a piece of the Art which they pretend to teach but they tell us t is only to be allowed in those causes which admit no other defence The Buffoon in a desperate exigence is to relieve the Orator impudence to supply the place of argument and wit fill up the room of sense as we see men who have no better weapon think it no shame to rake the canal and secure themselves by throwing dirt But what shall we say of those who have introduc'd this way of fight into the Christian Warfare those Schole divinity Drolls of this our Age who defend the Faith by destroying Charity attaque their fellow-men by those opprobrions methods of disputing by scoffs and railing accusations with which t were not allowable to oppose the Devil himself Jud. 9. T is certainly great pity a good cause should be asserted by such arguments as libel and reproch it such as cannot be urg'd but by the worst of Men and which even they will not produce till that all others fail them And were those flowers of Rhetoric weeded out of our late controversial books we should find large Volumes shrink into Manuals and be as little in their bulk as they are in their conviction Where ere this procedure takes place t is not at all material on what side the truth lies a Jest will as effectually provide an answer to a demonstration as to the most manifest inconsequence The brightest evidence and vertue disguis'd and render'd monstrous by burlesque like the Primitive Christians in the skins of wild beasts will easily be worried and destroied Nay so it fares that the most venerable persons things and actions are most liable to be thus expos'd and made ridiculous for whatever this beloved acquisition proves be it the gift of Nature meant certainly for better purposes or the product of drunkenness or frenzy or what is yet a shorter method of spight or malice it has a peculiar faculty to pervert the best and most useful things traducing sobriety for dulness gravity for foppishness order for formality learning for pedantry and is most immediatly prepar'd to cut the nerves of Government by despising Dominion and speaking evil of Dignities Jude 8. These are the men who as the roial Psalmist tells us make Songs of him who pretend therein not only to impunity but authoritative right and say they are those who ought to speake When these are once on the Tribunal nothing can scape their sentence the modesty of Virgins learning of Scholars wisdom of Counsellors integrity of Magistrates honor of Nobles the dearest interests of all conditions and estates are laught away as things not worth the keeping Nay Majesty its self is here obnoxious treated as our Savior was in order to his Crucifixion arai'd in a ridiculous robe arm'd with a reed instead of a roial Scepter then mockt and bowed to in reproch and then t is thought high time to hang it on a tree This leud familiarity ends in the worst contemt and nothing can be so unhappy as Autority when baffled The Coffee-house Rebell is more mischievous then he that takes the field and a Prince is sooner murder'd with a libell then a sword And therefore it will concern those who are in Autority to consider of what effect it may be that there are so many mockers of this form and level in these last times of ours My present enquiry is after those of a higher dispensation who set their mouth against Heaven and defy God and Providence which yet is but a natural emprovement of the other and no less powerfully if not much more destructive of Government and Lawes And therefore it will also be the Magistrates great interest as t is their highest duty to be concern'd herein To these ungodly mockers walking after their own lusts proud as they are and confident that the day of Judgment will either never be or is far off I shall not add more words upon that Head to their disturbance but mind them of another day which they cannot deny to be approching I mean the day of Death that sentence of the Lord over all flesh as the Wise man calls it which is the day of Judgment to each particular person as that of Doom is to the World And will these mockers ask in scorn where is this promise of his coming tho the Fathers are faln asleep do they hope by a peculiar privilege to continue still and reverse the general law of the Creation If the long day of the Fathers had a night who after 7 8 or 900 years went down to sleep in dust and when they did so there was no inquisition in the grave whether the date had bin so many hours but all their labors vanisht as they did in dull forgetfulness and silence shall our winter Solstice day whose Sun scarcely looks over the Horizon but instantly starts back again to dwell upon the other World so lye upon our hands as if the Sun were to stand still as it did in Joshuas time or to go back as it did in Hezechias that we might frolic it without disturbance in everlasting riot and excess The sensual Epicure describ'd at the 12 of St. Luke who said unto his soul Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry tho he only overlookt and not deni'd a Providence was stopt in his carriere by hasty vengeance which pronounc'd this irreversible decree Thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided And let our jolly men of dissolute ungodly life who notwithstanding the concerns of their immortal soul are at leisure to make sport with every thing however Sacred who with scorn and greediness pursue unlawful plesures and bid defiance to Almighty Justice lay their hands upon their breast and ask themselves at what ensurance office they have secur'd a longer date of life how they come to know their soul shall not be requir'd or if it be how well they are prepar'd to give an answer to the question but now askt This very sentence at this moment is really pronounc'd against many thousands in the world who ere to morrows night will breath their last of which number not one single person that now hears me is sure that he is not Have they debated calmly with themselves what death is how many unwelcome circumstances are hudled up in that short word Can they willingly forego their houses and estates their tables and their beds and bid a long farwell to their dear company their paramours and flatterers lying gastly and cold and senseless imprison'd in a Coffin and immur'd in Earth To speak in the language of