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	life_n	put_v	4,782	5	4.7946	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08456	A confutation of atheism from the structure and origin of human bodies. Part I a sermon preached at Saint Martin's in the Fields, May 2. 1692. Being the third of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by Richard Bentley.	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1693 (1693)	Wing B1921A; ESTC R175533	14,708	34

leg of a Gnat it would be a curse and not a blessing to us it would make all things appear rugged and deformed the most finely polish'd Chrystal would be uneven and rough The sight of our own selves would affright us The smoothest Skin would be beset all over with ragged Scales and bristly Hairs And beside we could not see at one view above what is now the space of an Inch and it would take a considerable time to survey the then mountainous bulk of our own Bodies Such a Faculty of sight so disproportion'd to our other Senses and to the Objects about us would be very little better than Blindness it self And again God hath furnished us with Invention and Industry so that by optical Gasses we can more than supply that imaginary defect of our own Eyes and discover more remote and minute Bodies with that assistance than perhaps the most whimsical Atheist would desire to do without it So likewise if our Sence of Hearing were exalted proportionably to the former what a miserable condition would Mankind be in What whisper could be low enough but many would over-hear it What Affairs that most require it could be transacted with secrecy and whither could we retire from perpetual humming and buzzing every breath of Wind would incommode and disturb us we should have no quiet or sleep in the silentest nights and most solitary places and we must inevitably be stricken Deaf or Dead with the noise of a clap of Thunder And the like inconveniences would follow if the Sense of Feeling was advanced to such a degree as the Atheist requires How could we sustain the pressure of our very Cloaths in such a condition much less carry burthens and provide for conveniences of Life We could not bear the assault of an Insect or a Feather or a puff of Air without pain There are examples now of wounded persons that have roared for anguish and torment at the discharge of Ordnance though at a very great distance what insupportable torture then should we be under upon a like concussion in the Air when all the whole Body would have the tenderness of a Wound In a word all the Changes and Emendations that the Atheists would make in our Senses are so far from being Improvements that they would prove the utter Ruin and Extirpation of Mankind But perhaps they may have better success in their complaints about the Distempers of the Body and the Shortness of Life We do not wonder indeed that the Atheist should lay a mighty stress upon this Objection For to a man that places all his Happiness in the Indolency and Pleasure of the Body what can be more terrible than Pain or a Fit of Sickness nothing but Death alone the most dreadfull thing in the world When an Atheist reflects upon Death his very Hope is Despair and 't is the crown and top of his Wishes that it may prove his utter Dissolution and Destruction No question if an Atheist had had the making of himself he would have framed a Constitution that could have kept pace with his insatiable Lust been invincible by Gluttony and Intemperance and have held out vigorous a thousand years in a perpetual Debauch But we answer First in the words of St. Paul Nay but O Man who art thou Rom. 9.20 that repliest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus We adore and magnifie his most holy Name for his undeserved Mercy towards us that he made us the Chief of the visible Creation and freely acquit his Goodness from any imputation of Unkindness that he has placed us no Higher Secondly Religion gives us a very good account of the present Infirmity of our Bodies Man at his first Origin was a Vessel of Honour when he came first out of the Hands of the Potter endued with all imaginable Perfections of the Animal Nature till by Disobedience and Sin Diseases and Death came first into the World Thirdly The Distempers of the Body are not so formidable to a Religious Man as they are to an Atheist He hath a quite different judgment and apprehension about them he is willing to believe that our present condition is better for us in the Issue than that uninterrupted Health and Security that the Atheist desires which would strongly tempt us to forget God and the concerns of a better Life Whereas now he receives a Fit of Sickness as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the kind Chastisement and Discipline of his Heavenly Father to wean his Affections from the World where he is but as on a Journey and to fix his thoughts and desires on things above where his Country and his Dwelling is that where he hath placed his Treasure and Concerns there his heart may be also Fourthly Most of the Distempers that are incident to us are of our own making the effects of abused Plenty and Luxury and must not be charged upon our Maker who notwithstanding out of the Riches of his Compassion hath provided for us store of excellent Medicines to alleviate in a great measure those very Evils which we bring upon our selves And now we are come to the last objection of the Atheist That Life is too short Alas for him what pity 't is that he cannot wallow immortally in his sensual Pleasures If his Life were many whole Ages longer than it is he would still make the same Complaint Brevis est hic fructus homullis Lucret. l. 3. For Eternity and that 's the thing he trembles at is every whit as long after a thousand years as after fifty But Religion gives us a better prospect and makes us look beyond the gloomy Regions of Death with Comfort and Delight When this corruptible shall put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality We are so far from repining at God that he hath not extended the period of our Lives to the Longaevity of the Antediluvians that we give him thanks for contracting the Days of our Trial and receiving us more maturely into those Everlasting Habitations above that he hath prepared for us And now that I have answer'd all the Atheist's Exceptions against Our account of the Production of Mankind I come in the next place to examine all the Reasons and Explications they can give of their own The Atheists upon this occasion are divided into Sects and which is the mark and character of Error are at variance and repugnancy with each other and with themselves Some of them will have Mankind to have been thus from all Eternity But the rest do no● approve of any infinite Successions but are positive for a beginning and they also are subdivided into three Parties the first ascribe the Origin of Men to the Influence of the Stars upon some extraordinary Conjunction or Aspect Others again reject all Astrology and some of these mechanically produce Mankind at the very first Experiment by the action of the Sun upon duly prepared Matter