Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	day_n	good_a	time_n	5,951	5	3.7938	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82001	Historie & policie re-viewed, in the heroick transactions of His Most Serene Highnesse, Oliver, late Lord Protector; from his cradle, to his tomb: declaring his steps to princely perfection; as they are drawn in lively parallels to the ascents of the great patriarch Moses, in thirty degrees, to the height of honour. / By H.D. Esq.	H. D. (Henry Dawbeny)	1659 (1659)	Wing D448; Thomason E1799_2; ESTC R21310	152,505	340

and all the Elements under his feet than he could possibly be here with beholding them over his head In short who would think it much I am sure his Highnesse did not to give up the life of a Pismire for the greatest Prince's upon earth is no better in exchange for immortality he had alwayes we know like a good Christian death in his desire and life in patience This truly I should presume sufficient to satisfie and comfort any reasonable Christians for the losse as we call it of his late Highness But setting Christianity aside methinks it should be satisfactory enough for common men to consider that as the Poet tells us Lex est non paena perire and what the Philosopher assures us that mors naturae lex est mors tributum officiumque est mortalium death is a law of nature no punishment it is the very tribute and duty of mortals And what Plutarch not more elegantly than truly concludes Homines sicut poma aut matura cadunt aut acerba ruunt Men like Apples must either fall ripe or be pulled down green and sower Now I would fain know what have we to complain of Did not his Highnesse live to a very fair and good old age to a true Mosaick maturity For as was said before if by Chronological Computation our second Moses his forty years were parallel to the fourscore of the former when he came into publick employment then his threescore and upwards when he came to dye stands still parallel with the others hundred and twenty and as for their strength of body and mind none can affirm him to be lesse his parallel to the very last For his Highness eye was not dim nor any of his natural force abated Thus his gracious God and benigne nature plentifully provided for that great and most incomparable person that his most invincible spirit should never quaile under any sensible decay of flesh What more of favour I would fain know could his most Serene Highnesse receive from the bountiful hands of Heaven Yet some spirits there are so disposed to quarrel with the Almighty that they will not yet be satisfied in the divine dispensation but think and say I pray God not impiously that the heavenly and eternal Father should have permitted some more time of life to a person so deserving it but let them remember that mors aequopede pulsat and that intervallis distinguimar exitu aequamur greatnesse nor goodness neither can give any priviledge from death mors omnium par est per quae venit diversa sunt id in quod desinit unum est death though by several waies brings all to the same end These considerations sure though drawn from meer Heathens would be enough to satisfie any common understandings of men but these quarrelsome persons that we speak of sure are of opinion that all happinesse is determined to this poor life and are I fear very neer akin to those whom Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose souls are so great lovers of their bodies that they would tye themselves to their flesh as closoe as they could and after death would as he prettily expresseth it still walk round about their bodies to see if they could find a passage into them again How much is this pittiful humor of Christians below the divine Philosophy of Pagans themselves Amongst whom we find that there were a certain people who by positive laws forbad any man of fifty years of age to make use of the Physitian saying that it discovered too much love of life and yet some Christians we find at the age of fourscore who will not endure to hear a word of death but of this sad sottish temper we know his Mosaical Highnesse was not he never valued the putting off his life more than the shifting of his shirt and when he received his citation from Heaven he as readily obeyed as his Master Moses did to ascend his fatal Mount I pray you then be quiet you cruel friends and do not disturb his honored dust now sweetly resting in his Tabernacle of Repose for if you consider rightly you are bound as the Orator tells you Non tam vitam illi ereptam quam mortem donatam censere not so much to think him bereft of life as to have been endowed with death in a ripe old age and after the enjoyment of the fruits of all his labours Hath not this most incomparable person resembled truely the great Ark in the deluge which after it had borne the whole World in the bowels of it amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of nature at length reposed it self in the Mountains of Armenia So this most admirable Prince after he had carried in his heart and entrals a spirit great as the universe it self amonst so many tears dolours and cruel acerbities of contradictions and had delivered himself of that painful burthen that is had brought forth our most happy and establisht peace he stopt upon Mount Nebo and from thence went to take his rest in the Mountains of Sion Thus the Lord like an indulgent Father of a Family sends his servants to bed so soon as they have done their work it being all the justice and reason in the World that they who rise betimes to serve him and work hard all the day for him should go in as good time to sleep with him Let us I beseech you therefore passe over this death in the manner of holy Scripture which speaks but one word onely of the death of so many great personages Let us never so much as talk of death in a subject so wholly replenisht with immortality O what a death is that to be esteemed to see vice and sin trodden down under his feet and Heaven all in Crowns over his head to see men in admiration all the Angels in joy and the arms of God ready to receive him and fully laden with recompenses for his great services Nay that the Lord did purposely and expressely intend to make his Highness his death appear to be a most signal reward and perfect victory to him and that he should carry off the spoiles of life it self with more triumph than ever mortal did is made manifest in that it pleased his divine Majesty to take him to himself upon that most memorable day the third of September the greatest day of all his humane glories that he was pleased to put an end to his life in this World that very day that he had got such an immortality in fame to set a period to his labours that very day that he had performed so many Herculian ones for the glory of his God and his Countries good and to crown his daies with so glorious a close nay to give him a heavenly Crown that very day that he had gotten so many earthly ones and loaden his Victorious Temples with so many flourishing Laurels of eternal renown Then for the glorious burial of our second

blessed and most worthy Piece of our Mosaical wisdom which our Great Prototype and his Typified Parallel have so closely pursued that is in the first place to seek the interests of God and then all other things will be added as we have seen proved upon both them a constant successe attending all their undertakings On the other side we finde whatsoever Machiavel may object to the contrary that God Almighty is pleased sometimes to stupifie the most practised Statists in the world that are the greatest professors too of Policy and Knowledge and make them so drink of the cup of errour that we coming afterwards to discourse upon their judgements find they have committed some grosser faults in the governments of Kingdoms and Common-wealths than the simplest and most illiterate Peasants would have done in the direction of their own houses all which we have seen most particularly made good upon the late King and his Counsellours and to be foretold likewise by the Spirit of God himself dictating to the person of the Prophet Isaiah who speaking of the wicked Counsellours of Pharaoh sayes The Princes of Tanais are become fooles the Princes of Memphis are withered away they have deceived Egypt with all the strength and beauty of her people God hath sent amongst them the spirit of giddinesse and made them reel up and down in all their actions like drunken men No lesse doth holy Job tell us in these terms God suffereth the wise Counsellours to fall into the hazards of senselesse men God makes the Judges stupid takes away the sword and belt from Kings to engird their reines with a cord God maketh the Priests to appear infamous supplanteth the principal of the people changeth the lips of truth speakers takes away the doctrine of old men and poureth out contempt upon Princes c. There is no man that has either been Actor or Spectator in our troubles but will take I presume those Scriptures to be directly pointed at our times and to be an exact prophesie of part of our late Wars so will neither require any more comment application or parallel It is a most certain truth and that his late Highnesse knew full well and as frequently declared that no wisdom or policy meerly humane can be perfect such as forsake God in the curiosities of their Counsells shall be forsaken by him and shall finde each where a long web of perplexities and a rowling wheel of immortal troubles When a man goes on in the right way he is probable to finde an end but if he wander acrosse the fields he makes steps without number runs into errours without measure and falls into miseries without remedy Let all the Politicians of the World take example by our second Moses and take into their serious consideration as his Highnesse did that the greatnesse of a Statesman consists not in treasuring up the Common-wealth of Plato and Xenophon in his imagination nor in amassing together a huge heape of politick Precepts nor in being acquainted with all the Cabales and Mysteries of the World nor in the profession of great subtilties and stratagems for we have seen by the experience of all Ages that in affairs there is a certain stroak of the Divine Providence which dazleth all the worldly wise disarmes the strong and blindeth all the most Politick with their own lights for swimming up and down as they do in the vast Ocean of businesse and the infinities of reasons of their proper inventions they resemble bodies over-charged with abundance of blood who through that great and extravagant excesse finde death in the very treasure of life Then seeking to withdraw themselves from the road of common understandings they figure to themselves strange subtilties and chymera's which are but as the Towers of the Lamiae that Tertullian speakes of which no wise man did ever really believe or will which is the true cause that their spirits floating still in such a great tyde of thoughts seldom meet with a happy dispatch of affairs Not unlike the Sun that sometimes draws up such a great quantity of vapours that he cannot dissipate so these undertaking Politicians do but lay up together a vast lump of businesse in their braines which their judgements can never dissolve into any successeful expedition He that will take the pains to read the lives of Otho Vitellius Galba Piso Balbinus Florianus Basilius Silvianus Tacitus Quintilius Maximus and Michael Colophates or behold the falls of Parmenio under Alexander Sejanus under Tiberius Cleander under Commodus Ablavius under Constantine Eutropius under Arcadius Vignius under Frederick Brocas under Philip Cabreca under Peter and others of the like kind must find or be wholly insensible that to raise a State and build Fortune as well as to conserve it we are to proceed as his late Highnesse did securely therein with a principal eye upon the Maxims of Faith Religion and Honesty unlesse that we will expect in the course of an uncertain life a most certain ruin It will manifestly I say appear out of all Histories as well sacred as prophane how contrary to Machiavillian doctrine all they who disunited from the Eternal Wisdom thought to play the Politicks and prosper in Governments Honours and worldly Affairs have proved but as so many Icarus's that counterfeit birds with waxen wings with which they may soare aloft indeed for some little time but the least ray proceeding from the Throne of the Lamb will sure dissolve them to nothing and make their heights which they so foolishly flye at serve them for no other use but to render their falls the more remarkable I shall now onely adde for the further confusion of all Machiavillians and satisfaction of good men one excellent observation out of Paulus Orosius who in his Book of History dedicated to the great Augustin remarkes that the very tracks of our proud and politick Pharaohs Chariots after his most detestable death and the destruction of his whole Army remained a long time on the sands of the Red Sea to be a preaching example to all Posterity to inform them how dangerous a thing it is to go about as he did by any State-tricks and devilish subtilties to fight against God Let then our Master Machiavillians march on still if they think fit amongst so many shelves and precipices not so much as once opening their eyes to behold the Abysse they have under their feet So many heads crusht in pieces under the Dvine vengeance which lie like broken masts and shivers of a shipwrack advanced upon the promontories of Rocks to give notice of their deplorable events whose steps they still pursue Let them look on still I say with arms acrosse and dally with those dangers like wanton Victims that leape and skip between the ax and the knife whilst we the happy people of England and all good Christians shall fully satisfie our selves in following the examples of our two Mosaical Masters who used no other line of Policy but such

liked it when this Government came first to be proposed to me That it put Us off that Hereditary way well looking that as God had declared what GOVERNMENT he had delivered over to the Jews and placed it upon such persons as had been instrumental for the Conduct and Deliverance of his People And considering that promise in Isaiah That God would give Rulers as at the first and Judges as at the beginning I did not know but that God might begin and though at present with a most unworthy Person yet as to the future it might be after this manner and I thought this might usher it in I am speaking as to my Judgement against making it Hereditary to have men chosen for their Love to God and to Truth and Justice and not to have it Hereditary for as it is in Ecclesiastes Who knoweth whether he may beget a Fool or Wise honest or not what ever they be must come in upon that account because the Government is made a Patrimony Thus we see how his most Serene Highness has put it clearly out of question that an ordinary fair Election of a Prince is much better like to prove than any casual hereditary succession much more then must an extraordinary and Divine Election as ours has been be more acceptable to God and man and prove to be more prosperous to the People But most especially when the whole World is satisfied in the Divine endowments of the Person Elected as we have been all in the behalf of this most gracious Prince our present Lord Protector whom his Mosaical Highnesse has been pleased to nominate and bequeath to us for his Successor and of whom we can conclude no otherwise than what the Spirit of God has done concerning Joshua That he is full of the Spirit of Wisdom for our second Moses has laid his happy hands upon him so the whole Nation shall hearken unto him and he shall do as the Lord commanded our second Moses as we shall see more amply made out in the following Ascents and Parallels The second Transcendental Ascent MOses was permitted and commanded by God to nominate one for his Successor that had a very near relation to him his own houshold Servant his Minister or Menial Attendant in his Family for so was Joshua as we find in several places of holy Scripture as first in the Book of Numbers And Joshua the son of Nun the servant of Moses one of his young men answered and said c. Then It came to passe that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun Moses Minister saying c. The Parallel We do not finde in any part of Holy Writ that the great Patriarch Moses had any son capable of this great Charge to succeed him in the Government of Gods people There is indeed mention of the Circumcision of one but never any thing more spoken of him So it is to be presumed that either he had none living or at least as we said before not capable of so great a Charge God Almighty in the mean time brings this high favour and prerogative as near to him as possibly might be next to the nomination of a son which as it seems by humane collection then could not be In the mean time it may be worth our while to sit and consider the Transcendency of Divine Favour and Priviledge that our great Protector and second Moses had in this particular above his Prototype the first whilst he has been as we have seen permitted and directed by God to nominate his own son nay his Eldest son to succeed him in the Soveraign Charge the other being commanded to choose but his Menial Servant and Minister and that was a Divine favour too Herein I say our second Moses has out stript his pattern and our Parallel here must over-ballance the Ascent it self For so much as a son and an Eldest son ought to be above a Servant in the respect and reputation of any Father of a Family so much more of favour and indulgency extraordinary found our glorious Protector and second Moses from the hands of God than that great Patriarch himself his first dear Favourite the former Moses did O stupendious transcendencies of Divine love O happy Priviledges of a Prince and Prerogatives unexpressible O Soveraigne Favours of Heaven undeniable What man living is there now upon the face of the Earth that can dispute whether it be not a most sublime instance of the Almighties affections to any Fathers it being granted which I hope will not be denied that he is the Soveraign Mover and Architect of our lives and fortunes when he is pleased to propagate their greatnesse and glories to their children it being doubtlesse the greatest temporal dispensation that men of honour can be capable of upon Earth to have a flourishing Posterity given them by God which may make them eternally to live in the memory of men by those most lively images of their vertues It has been we know observed by the vertuous in all Ages that those Princes and great Persons that have lived any way sordidly or viciously fatting themselves with the blood and sweat of the poor or have establisht any Tyrannies in the World have neither been fruitful nor fortunate in their Posterites and as Nature has ever shewed it self to be scanty in the propagation of beasts of prey as Wolves and other creatures designed onely for spoil and no other use which would otherwise soon bring the earth into desolation So Almighty God by a secret oeconomy of his Divine Providence permitteth not the Princes or Potentates who have made themselves disturbers of the Publick peace and infringers of Laws both Divine and Humane whereof they ought to be Protectors should make the brutishnesse of their savage souls to survive them in their Posterities Now not to go far from home for an example nor yet much distant from the present Age I shall produce for an instance of this great truth a late Prince of our own that was Henry the Eighth who whilst he lived made all Laws his slaves and his passions his Masters as unquestionable a Tyrant as ever breathed who left three children that all successively sate in the Throne after him yet none of them had the power to propagate any issue to perpetuate him nor yet so much as to erect a Tomb for him and he can to this day boast of no other Monument to record his memory to the World but the same which he left behind him who did make his ambitious brag of the burning of Diana's Temple and which is most to our present purpose though hinted before again to be noted after his death as if the Lord would explicate his own indignation and with his dreadful hand had written upon the walls of his Palace Mane Thekel Pharez as his Divine Judgement against him and all his posterity all his then hopeful and very glorious stem and branches were soon withered away or cut