Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A51992
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Letters to a sick friend containing such observations as may render the use of remedies effectual towards the removal of sickness, and preservation of health. By J. M.
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Marlow, John, 1648-1695.
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1682
(1682)
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Wing M691A; ESTC R217455
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44,444
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169
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may naturally be said to Die daily mouldering away by piece-meal The forbidden Fruit hath produced a Worm that eats our Lives away The malicious Serpent hath bruised our heel as is observed in the Jerusalem Targum supposed to be said to the Serpent by Almighty God viz. When the Children of the Woman shall forsake the Commandments of the Law thou shalt be strong and shalt strike them on the Heel and inflict Diseases on them We are like men going from Jerusalem to Jericho half dead the Sick and the Aged being but half alive as some Criticks observe senex quasi seminex With the same Motion of our Lungs we draw in Air we throw away Breath Some parcels of our selves steam away continually and we live a dying Life or a living Death Men have shortned their dayes by increasing their Vices Some men do that by Intemperance which the very Devils desire to shun viz. Torment themselves before their time No impious Person was ever said in Scripture to be full of Dayes none being full of time but they that are prepared for Eternity And we never Read in the Holy Book of any impenitent person that was ever raised from the dead to trye a second time for a Crown Lazarus Tabitha and the Saints at Jerusalem came into the World only to make a Visit and declare a Glory and to them it happened literally to have their part in the first Resurrection upon whom the Second death shall have no power Julian's Motto may fit every Man An Eagle shot through with a Dart feather'd with a Quill from its own Wing The Life of Man is swifter than a Weavers Shuttle especially if wickedness be interwoven then divine Justice cuts the thread excellently shadowed by the Poets Fiction of the three fatal Sisters The one holding the Distaff the other drawing the Thread the third cutting it off Mens Impieties like Hazaels wet Cloath prove fatal unto their Lives and Healths in spite of the most proper Remedies When Sin and Sickness is mingled together no marvel to see Mens Bodies moulder being like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Image made of Clay It 's no wonder to see a strange punishment to happen unto the workers of Iniquity The Jews are very often threatned with fore Sicknesses and wonderful Plagues if they did not hearken unto the divine Law That a wicked Life procures a short one we find plainly exemplified in most of the Bad Kings of Judah and Israel as Aâ—ijam Athaliah Ahaziah Nadab Elah Omri and many others who reigned but two three or four years apiece and the reasons are sometimes recorded that it was for their sins which they sinned they shortned their Lives with their Kingdoms in them sin and a sudden death reigned together When mens Lusts have conceived they bring forth Sin and Sin when it is finished brings forth Death Pharaoh's bloody Persecution drowned him in the Red Sea Ahab's cruelty proved fatal to his own Life The Samaritan Lords infidelity pressed his Soul out of his Body Hananiah's false Prophesie did but predict his own death Ahaziah's evil Consultation with the God of Ekron to know whether he should recover of his Sickness made his Disease prove incurable The calumniating rage of the Children against the good old Prophet excited the rage of Bears to devour their Bodies Herod's vain-glorious Ostentation brought such a Disease upon his Body whereof he had no reason to boast Saphira's Perjury summoned the feet of those who had carried her Husband to his Grave to carry her unto the same place Benhadad's Curiosity proved the fatal Messenger of his death the Prophet returning Answer that he might recover but should surely dye Jeroboam's Idolatry in praying unto false gods provoked the true God to stop his breath Saul's disobedience unto the King of Kings brought the King of terrors Belshazzer for his riotous Revelling by a Hand-writing on the Wall had the end of his Life and Kingdom denounced against him Nadab and Abihu offering strange Fire had a stranger fire sent to devour them The Pride of the Daughters of Sion changed their sweet Smells into a Stink and their well-set Hair into Baldness The Candle of the Wicked is often put out and the Number of his Months cut off in the Middle But Sir that no Cloud may have power to discompose the Serenity of your dayes but that you may enjoy a Spring of Happiness in the Winter of Age and may want nothing but Want it self shall never be left out of the Prayers and Wishes of Your true Friend J. M. LETTER VI. SIR I Received your dated the sixth instant wherein you seem to wonder that the Cause of your disease is not long since removed and you restored unto a state of health I beseech you give me leave to deal plainly and to tell you that there are Moral as well as Natural Causes of diseases and unless both be removed Remedies very often prove ineffectual And the sincere belief of this conduceh very much towards the success of Medicines Many of the Church of Corinth were sick and weak and lost their Lives for their unworthy reception of the Holy Supper If men contemn the Sacred Body of the Son of God how can they expect the Almighty goodness should take care of their bodies and if they neglect to commemorate his Death they have little reason to expect he should regard their Lives although precious in his sight is the Death of his Saints Miriam's Sedition raised a tumultous disturbance in the harmony of her health The dissimulation of Gehaza's Tongue procured the Leprosie upon his Skin Uzziah's invadeing the Priests office and Burning Incense caused the divine displeasure to smoke against him Abimelech was restored to his health when he restored Abrahams Wife but not before When our blessed Saviour cured the man sick of a Palsie he forgave him his sins to shew him they were the cause of his sickness We may observe in our Saviours dayes that Infidelity did as it were tye up the hands of Omnipotence and set bounds to the operation of his mighty Works on mens bodies St. Anselm observes that the reason why diseases did so much abound in his time was because the holy Eucharist was irreverently received at Easter Jezabel for her Impenitence is threatned to be cast into a bed and her Children to be killed with Death Good men may dye but they cannot be killed with Death The Prophets are frequently Menaced with Death and Sickness that shall presume to speak without a Mission from Heaven In vain are external Remedies applyed when the Cause is internal The Fable of the Kite when sick imploring help and recovery but being denyed by reason of her rapine and violence it affords an excellent Moral The sickness of the Body is sometimes designed to promote the Health of the Soul and the Leprosie on Naamans Flesh may conduce towards the whitening of his Mind They are sent as tryals of Grace and are Declarative of Divine mercy When
waves in the Sea by the winds and sometimes the blood grows as 't were mouldy for want of that Fan of Nature Many mens bodies and particularly yours being like a Weather-glass subject to the least alterations in the Air and easily blown into their Graves by a sharp northern wind Many by long looking out at a Window have espied the grim face of Death The Air of an open Casement being sometimes like the blow of a Cross-bow Sir I pray take this advice from one that hopes you may walk up many May hills in this World and at last arrive at the holy Hill of Sion Yours J. M. LETTER XXVI SIR I Am very well pleased to hear that you are pleased with my last Advice but I am also concerned that you should continue an ill custom so apparently injurious to your Health as your taking so much Tabacco is like to prove Indeed I am of opinion there is no Plant that ever God made for the use of Man that hath done more good and more harm than that hath done It must be confest prudently used it 's a soveraign Medicine in many Distempers but it proves no better than a Poyson to many men as it is so familiarly used and abused being in our dayes more taken as Food than Physick And there is no one practice wherein wise men more frequently play the Foll than in the immoderate use of this Indian Weed which may not improperly be called Man-bane Men spend their dayes in Smoak and shorten their dayes also by its too frequent use smothering themselves into their graves as we do Bees when we take and destroy the Hive It was a tart Reflection of a Comical Wit who being in a great Fogg said The Prince of the Air was taking a Pipe of Tabacco It 's very strange to me that such an unpleasant practice should prevail so much to the apparent prejudice of so many thousands who spit away their Lives and drein away that sweet Moysture which would keep the Blood cool and promote its regular motion That practice which was scandalous amongst our Forefathers is now become a piece of good Entertainment and he that threatned to burn his Pipes and to cut his Tabacco to pieces was thought a great Reformer about Thirty years ago but that which greatly excites our care lest we use it too freely is its palpable enmity to the Brain and Nerves disposing men to Apoplexies Palsies Convulsions and Vertigo's Many great Physicians taking notice in their Observations of many of their Patients falling into apoplectick Fits with Pipes in their Mouths it being a great Opiate It is also greatly prejudicial to the Memory and also â—â—â—…tâ— the Body of its due Nourishment by its laxative Quality thrusting the Aâ—â—â—… too soon out of the Stomach before there is a perfect Concoction especially if taken too soon after a Meal if ever it be proper it 's towards Bed-time He that can give a good reason for taking above three Pipes a Day may very safely take more I have known the Oyl of Tabacco poyson a Dog And I dare affirm the Smoak of it hath poysoned many men A Noble man in our time lost his Head by taking a Pipe of Tabacco that is to lay the being observed to burn Letters to light his Pipe was the Cause of his Apprehension and raised the suspition of his being the Person sought for whereupon he was taken and condemned and executed I wish it hath not separated many other mens Souls from their Bodies Some make it a question whether Guns or Pipes have Killed most I am sure there 's no Smoak but there 's some Fire Doubtless if men would take it at the other End it would do less hurt and it may be more good I remember one of the wisest Princes of Europe said upon an occasion It was good for nothing but to perfume a Hog-stye But in that I think he was a little too severe for there are excellent uses may be made of it And amongst many others it may serve for Contemplation to put men in mind that their Life is but a vapor and that all things under the Moon vanish into Smoak Except it be the Friendship of your faithful Servant which can never evaporate whilest he is J. M. LETTER XXVII SIR I Received yours the 12th instant wherein you complain exceedingly of the ill Effects of the Waters at Epsam this Summer I beseech you inquire whether the Cause be not from your own irregular Use of them and also take notice whether you do not drink more Wine than Water For those Symptoms you complain of give a greater suspicion of the former than the latter being used sure I am the Doctor that recommended them to you understood their fitness for your Constitution and Disease therefore if you follow his Direction in the use of them I question not but they will have their desired Effect I know there are more go thither to gratifie Curiosity than to serve the end of Health and Pleasure is more frequently propounded than Ease But let me tell you those physical Waters by the preposterous use often prove like the Waters of Jealousie they make Peoples Bodies to swell and their Thighs to rot and lay the foundations for many distempers as Dropsies Agues Gouts and the like Many long as much to drink them as King David did to drink of the Water of the Well of Bethlehem but men venture their Lives in so doing as they did in that case especially by the unreasonable quantities many men take I have larely known one come home swelled with a Dropsie another tinctured with a Jaundice and a third shaking with an Ague All immoderate Evacuations are very destructive to Nature There are hundreds that Drowned themselves in Wells that are never mentioned in the weekly Bills Nature is destroyed by all Extreams too much Food or too long Fasting too much Rest or too much Motion too much Sleep or too much Watching too much Joy or too much Sorrow too much Heat or too much Cold too much Wine or too much Water Quantities shorten Life more than Qualities Many who were only wantonly Sick become really so and that which was intended for a Cure many times becomes a Surfeit At those Waters men are served like the Impostor who fained himself Blind that the Arrian Bishop might work a Miracle in his Cure and when he would have opened his Eyes could not but was ever after really Blind People depending upon the cleansing Vertue of those Waters and neglecting the use of proper Remedies to render them Effectual do but like an improvident Laundress who thinks to wash her Linnen white and clean with Water without Soap They should be chiefly used as Posset-drink to a Purge Indiscrect Persons think to take off the Mischief of too great Quantities of Wine by drinking plentiful Draughts of Water but this is to run Nature out of one Extream into another and to render mens Bodies more subject to Diseases and Putrefaction like Timber that lyes sometimes in the wet and sometimes in the Sun more subject to Rot. There are thousands that purge their Souls out of their Bodies by immoderate Evacuations one way or other Sir I shall conclude this Discourse of Mineral Waters with a hearty wish That you may ever find them successeful untill you come to Drink of that Well of Life which makes glad the City of God Where I hope you will be accompanyed by Your true Friend J. M. LETTER XXVIII SIR I Think there are few things requisite in order to the desirable success of a Course of Physick but I judge you have had a friendly Intimation of except it be this That you would not too much indulge your self in Sleep Many shorten their dayes by sleeping in the Day and as it were turning themselves into Dormice To lye in Bed untill the Sun-beams lash men for their Drowziness is an injurious Custom The first Man lost his Rib in his Sleep and many of his Posterity lose their Health in it Sir I take this for an undoubted Truth That if Rules of Religion Moderation and Prudence were observed in the whole course of Mens Lives Gray hairs would be more in Fashion Physicians would gain more credit by their Prescriptions sick Patients would find Remedies more Effectual and a Divine Influence would more infallibly attend them all Sir I must now conclude and so may you that I am a Respecter of you and your Health J. M. FINIS