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	great_a	life_n	9,573	5	4.2493	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66059	A sermon preached before the King upon the twenty seventh of February, 1669/70 by John Lord Bishop of Chester.	Wilkins, John, 1614-1672.	1670 (1670)	Wing W2210; ESTC R10977	9,714	38

A SERMON Preached before the KING UPON THE Twenty seventh of February 1669 70. BY IOHN Lord Bishop of CHESTER Published By His Majesties special Command LONDON Printed by A. Maxwell for SA GELLIBRAND at the Ball in St. Paul's Church-yard 1670. A SERMON Preached before the KING UPON The Twenty seventh of February 1670 ECCLES 12. 13. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the Whole of man THis Book is one of Solomon's Philosophical Discourses containing such principal Observations about Human Affairs as are apt to offer themselves to the thoughts of every serious considerate man especially concerning those things which may more immediately either promote or hinder our Happiness This Text is the Conclusion which he inferrs upon the whole matter that which is the most natural result of all such Debates and Enquiries In the former part he had taken into consideration those several states of life to which men usually apply themselves for Happiness namely Learning and Wisdom Mirth and Pleasures Power and Greatness Riches and Possessions Each of which he doth by great variety of Arguments prove to be vanity and vexation and altogether insufficient to the End for which they are designed Then he takes notice of the several Accidents of life whether they concern our Endeavours or our Persons 1. For our Endeavours The most likely Means are not always effectual for the attaining of their End The utmost that Human Councils and Prudence can provide for is to take care when they are to contend in a Race that they be swifter than those who run against them or when they are to fight a Battel that they be stronger than those whom they are to encounter And yet the race is not always to the swift nor the Battel to the strong neither yet bread to the wise nor yet riches to men of understanding nor favour to men of skill but time and chance happens to them all i.e. There is a secret Providence which doth over-rule all those worldly events in such a manner as is not accountable to Human Reason Even amongst Secular Businesses which we are apt to think most within our reach and compass there is nothing so much under the power of the wisest Counsels and Endeavours but that the Providence of God may interpose for the disappointing of it and render it ineffectual And then for those Accidents to which our Persons are liable He observes these three things 1. Our obnoxiousness of Pain and Sickness which he stiles by the names of Wrath and Sorrow under which when a man lyes languishing none of his Worldly Enjoyments will signifie any thing to him nor will they be able to afford him any such ease or help but that he may be thereby cut off in the midst of his days and then all his thoughts perish or else waste away a great part of his life with much anguish and weariness and may sometimes perhaps be driven to that extremity by noisome and painful Diseases as to chuse strangling and death rather than life 2. If it be supposed that by the strength and cheerfulness of a mans natural temper he should escape these and live many years and rejoyce in them all yet he must remember the days of darkness which shall be many i.e. Those who devote themselves to continual Mirth and Pleasure cannot yet avoid the thought of their future estates what shall become of them hereafter when they are to depart out of this World but that the remembrance of this will be often thrusting into their Minds when ever they are retired and serious And this being to them a dark obscure condition concerning their well-being in which they can have no reasonable hopes must needs therefore be a great damp and allay to all their other Enjoyments 3. But in the third place Suppose a man should be able to avoid sickness and to put the trouble of these thoughts likewise far from him yet there is somewhat else which he cannot possibly decline Old Age will unavoidably steal upon him with all the infirmities of it when the grinders shall be few and appetite cease when those who look out of the windows shall be darkned and the keepers of the house shall tremble when a man shall become a burden to himself and to his Friends when those of his nearest relation whom he hath most obliged by kindness shall think it time for him to depart unto his long home to creep off the Stage and make room for succeeding Generations and then after a little Funeral-pomp of the Mourners going about the streets a man shall be buried out of the way and forgotten For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool seeing that which now is in the days to come shall be forgotten Every Generation producing somewhat which seems new and strange to take up men's talk and wonder and to drown the memory of former Persons and Actions And I appeal to any rational man Whether these are not some of the most material reflections that occurr about Human Affairs Now from all these premises put together he inferrs this Conclusion in the Text That to fear God and keep his Commandments is the Whole of man i.e. To be serious in the matter of Religion and careful about our future states is that which every considerate man after all his other disquisitions and experiments will find to be his greatest interest that which doth most of all deserve his care and study There are these Two parts in the words 1. A Description of Religion which in the former Clause is said to consist in fearing God and keeping his Commandments An awful apprehension of the Divine Nature and an obedient submission to His Will 2. A Commendation of Religion in the latter Clause This is the Whole of man It is the second of these only which I purpose to treat of at this time In the handling of which the first thing to be enquired into is What is the true import and meaning of this phrase in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the right understanding of which it will be proper to consider the several ways of expressing it in other Translations The Septuagint and the Vulgar do render it verbatim This is All or Every man The word Duty which is supplied by our English being not in the Original or in other Translations This ought to be the way and course of all mankind so the Targum This is the course to which every man is designed so the Syriack This will be most profitable and advantagious to men so the Arabick Hoc est totum hominis This is the whole of man so some of our later Interpreters most proper to the scope of the place it being an usual Enallage in the Hebrew Totius universalis pro toto integrante All for Whole So that according to these various Interpretations of the words they may