Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	die_v	end_n	life_n	13,615	5	4.8465	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70941	The dutiful advice of a loving sonne, to his aged father	Southwell, Robert, Saint, 1561?-1595.	1650 (1650)	Wing R160; ESTC R9131	5,339	18

The dutiful ADVICE of a loving SONNE to his aged FATHER LONDON Printed by W. B. and are to be sold by W. Sheares at the sign of the Bible over against the North-door of Pauls 1650. The dutifull ADVICE OF A LOVING SON To his AGED FATHER SIR I Humbly beseech you both in respect of the honour of God your duty to his Church and the comfort of your own soul that you seriously consider in what tearms you stand and weigh your self in a Christian ballance taking for your counterpoise the judgements of God Take heed in time that the word TEKEL written of old against Balthazar and interpreted by Daniel be not verified in you whose exposition was You have been poized in the scale and found of too light weight Remember that you are now in the weining and the date of your pilgrimage well nigh expired and now that it behoveth you to look towards your Countrey your forces languisheth your senses impair your bodie droops and on every side the ruinous Cottage of your faint and feeble flesh threateneth the fall And having so many harbingers of death to premonish you of your end how can you but prepare for so dreadfull a stranger The young man may die quickly but the old man cannot live long the young mans life by casualty may be abridged but the old mans by no physick can be long adjourned and therefore if green years should sometimes think of the grave the thoughts of old age should continually dwell in the same The prerogative of Infancy is innocency of Child-hood reverence of Man-hood maturity and of old age wisdom And seeing then that the chiefest properties of wisdom are to be mindfull of things past carefull for things present and provident for things to come Use now the priviledge of natures tallent to the benefit of your own soul and procure hereafter to be wise in well doing and watchfull in the fore-sight of future harms To serve the world you are now unable and though you were able yet you have little cause to be willing seeing that it never gave you but an unhappy welcome a hurtfull entertainment and now doth abandon you with an unfortunate fare-wel You have long sowed in a field of flint which could bring nothing forth but a crop of cares and afflictions of spirit rewarding your labours with remorse and affording for your gain eternal danger It is now more than a seasonable time to alter the course of so unthriving a husbandry and to enter into the field of Gods Church in which sowing the seed of repentant sorrow and watering them with the tears of humble contrition you may hereafter reap a more beneficial harvest and gather the fruits of everlasting comfort Remember I pray you that your spring is spent your summer over-past you are now arrived at the fall of the leaf yea and winter colours have long since stained your hoary head Be not careless saith Saint Augustine though our loving Lord bear long with offenders for the longer he stayes not finding amendment the sorer he will scourge when he comes to Judgement And his patience in so long forbearing is onely to lend us respite to repent and not any wise to enlarge us leisure to sin He that is tossed with variety of storms and cannot come to his desired Port maketh not much way but is much turmoyled So he that hath passed many years and purchased little profit hath a long being but a short life For life is more to be measured by well doing than by number of years Seeing that most men by many days do but procure many deaths and others in short space attain to the life of infinite ages what is the body without the soul but a corrupt carkass And what is the soul without God but a sepulchre of sin If God be the Way the Life and the Truth he that goeth without him strayeth and he that liveth without him dieth and he that is not taught by him erreth Well saith Saint Augustine God is our true and chiefest Life from whom to revolt is to fall to whom to return is to rise and in whom to stay is to stand sure God is he from whom to depart is to die to whom to repair is to revive and in whom to dwell is life for ever Be not then of the number of those that begin not to live till they be ready to die and then after a foes desert come to crave of God a friends entertainment Some there be that think to snatch Heaven in a moment which the best can scarce attain unto in the maintainance of many years and when they have glutted themselves with worldly delights would jump from Dives Diet to Lazarus Crown from the service of Satan to the solace of a Saint But be you well assured that God is not so penurious of friends as to hold himself and his Kingdom salealbe for the refuse and reversions of their lives who have sacrificed the principal thereof to his enemies and their own bruitish lust then onely ceasing to offend when the ability of offending is taken from them True it is that a thief may be saved upon the cross and mercy sound at the last gasp But well saith S. Augustine though it be possible yet it is scarce credible that the d●ath should find favour whose whole life deserved death and that the repentance should be more excepted that more for fear of hell and love of himself than for the love of God and loathsomness of sin crieth for mercy Wherefore good SIR make no longer delays but being so near the breaking up of your mortal house take time before extremity to pacifie Gods anger Though you suffer the bud to be blasted though you permitted the fruits to be perished and the leaves to drie up yea though you let the boughs to wither and the body of your tree to grow to decay yet alas keep life in the root for fear lest the whole tree become fewel for hell fire For surely where the tree falleth there it shall lie whether towards the South or to the North to Heaven or to hell and such sap as it bringeth forth such fruit shall it ever bear Death hath already filed from you the better part of your natural forces and left you now to the Lees and remissals of your wearyish and dying days The remainder whereof as it cannot be long so doth it warn you speedily to ransom your former losses for what is age but the Calends of death what importeth your present weakness but an earnest of your approching dissolution you are now imbarked in your final voyage and not far from the stint and period of your course Be not therefore unprovided of such appurtenances as are behovefull in so perplexed and perilous a Journey death it self is very fearfull but much more terrible in respect of the judgement it summoneth us unto If you were now laid upon your departing-bed burthened with the heavie load of your former trespasses