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	time_n	year_n	9,015	5	4.8371	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67007	An essay toward a natural history of the earth and terrestrial bodies, especially minerals : as also of the sea, rivers, and springs : with an account of the universal deluge : and of the effects that it had upon the earth / by John Woodward ...	Woodward, John, 1665-1728.	1695 (1695)	Wing W3510; ESTC R1666	113,913	296

random or by chance but were managed and directed by a more steady and discerning Principle for proof whereof this is indeed the proper place but in regard that there are some things advanced in the succeeding or third Part of this Discourse which give some farther light to this matter I shall beg leave to break off here and to deferr it a while untill I have first proposed them Thus have I drawn up a brief Scheme of what befell the Earth at the Deluge and of the Change that it then underwent I have by comparing its Antediluvian with its present state found where chiefly the Difference lay viz. in degree of Fertility I have endeavour'd also to discover the Reason why this Change was made in it For since that the Process of it was so solemn and extraordinary that there were so many and those so strange things done that the first Earth was perfectly unmade again taken all to pieces and framed a-new and indeed the very same Method that was used in the original Formation of it used likewise in this Renovation our Earth standing the first step after its Dissolution in the same posture that the Primitive Earth did the first step after its Rise out of Nothing which the Reader will easily find by conferring the fifth Proposition of this Part with Gen. i. v. 2. and 9 since likewise there was so mighty an Hand concerned and which does not act without great and weighty Reasons there could be no doubt but that there was some real and very necessary Cause for the making that Alteration Nor was such a Cause very hard to be found out The first Earth was suited to the first state of Mankind who were the Inhabitants of it and for whose use 't was made But when Humane Nature had by the Fall suffer'd so great a Change 't was but necessary that the Earth should undergo a Change too the better to accommodate it to the Condition that Mankind was then in and such a Change the Deluge brought to pass But least that the Br●vity which I have above used and which indeed I am tied up to in my Representation of this matter should render it liable to Misconstruction or that any one should suspect that what I have delivered concerning the Fertility of that Earth does not well square with the Mosaick Description of it I must beg leave to make a Digression here that I may explain my self a little more upon that Head And that the Reader may himself be Judge in the Case I shall fairly lay down Moses's sense of it in his own words Ver. 17. And unto Adam he said because thou hast hearkned unto the Voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the Tree of which I commanded thee saying thou shalt not eat of it Cursed is the ground for thy sake in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life Ver. 18. Thorns also and Thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shalt eat the herb of the field Ver. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return Ver. 23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken Ver. 2. Cain was a tiller of the ground All which may be well reduced to two plain and short Propositions 1. That Adam's Revolt drew down a Curse upon the Earth 2. That there was some sort of Agriculture used before the Deluge As to the former the Curse upon the Earth I shall not in the least go about to extenuate the Latitude of it or to stint it only to the Production of Weeds of Thorns Thistles and other the less useful kinds of Plants but shall give it its full scope and grant that no less than an universal Restraint and Diminution of the primitive Fruitfulness of the Earth was intended by it this indeed seeming to be the plain and genuine meaning of the words But the Question is whether this Curse was presently inflicted or not whether it was succeeded with an universal Sterility and the Earth's native and original Exuberance all straitways check'd and turn'd to as general a Desolation and Barrenness And here I entreat it may be taken notice that this was but one and that much the lesser part of the Sentence past upon Adam The other was Death which 't is most certain was not immediately inflicted And yet this was pronounc'd at the same time and with the same breath that the other was Unto dust shalt thou return Nay and much more emphatically a little before In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye This was exceedingly peremptory and the very day fix'd likewise Notwithstanding through the Clemency and Goodness of God Execution was delayed for a long time Adam being reprieved for eight or nine hundred years The Dominion of Death over him commenc'd indeed not only the same day that Sentence was past but the very minute that he tasted the forbidden Fruit and Mortality went hand in hand with the Transgression but 't was a long time before it had raised any Trophies or made a final and absolute Conquest Why therefore may we not as well suppose the other part of the Sentence the Sterilizing the Earth was also suspended for some time and deferr'd till the Deluge happened and became the Executioner of it 'T is certainly very hard to imagine that God should destroy the Work of his hands almost as soon as he had finish'd it that all things should be unhinged again by such time as they were well ranged and put in order and that the Fragrancy and lovely Verdure which then appeared every where and which had but just shewed it self should be nip'd in the bud and blasted all of a sudden To be short 't is I think most apparent that as on the other part Mortality did presently enter and take place but got not full possession of many Ages after so here Thorns Thistles and other the like Consequences of this Curse immediately sprung out of the Ground and manifested themselves on every side but it had not its full effect nor was the Earth impoverish'd or its Fertility sensibly curb'd till the Deluge And for proof of this I appeal to the Remains of that Earth the Animal and Vegetable Productions of it still preserved the vast and incredible Numbers whereof notoriously testifie the extreme Luxuriance and Foecundity of it and I need but produce these as Evidences that at the time that the Deluge came the Earth was so loaded with Herbage and throng'd with Animals that such an Expedient was even wanting to ease it of the burden and to make room for a succession of its Productions For this also I appeal to Moses himself who openly acknowledgeth that this Curse did not take place effectually till the Deluge For

and Periods of it to an End and that a most noble and excellent one no less than the Happiness of the whole race of Mankind the Benefit and universal Good of all the many Generations of Men which were to come after which were to inhabit this Earth thus moduled anew thus suited to their present Condition and Necessities But the Presidence of that mighty Power in this Revolution its particular Agency and Concern therein and its Purpose and Design in the several Accidents of it will more evidently appear when I shall have proved That altho' one Intention of the Deluge was to inflict a deserved Punishment upon that Race of Men yet it was not solely levelled against Mankind but principally against the Earth that then was with design to destroy and alter that Constitution of it which was apparently calculated and contrived for a state of Innocence to fashion it afresh and give it a Constitution more nearly accommodated to the present Frailties of its Inhabitants That the said Earth though not indifferently and alike fertil in all parts of it was yet generally much more fertil than ours is That the exteriour Stratum or Surface of it consisted entirely of a kind of terrestrial Matter proper for the Nourishment and Formation of Plants and this in great Plenty and Purity being little or not at all entangled with an Intermixture of meer Mineral Matter that was unfit for Vegetation That its Soil was more luxuriant and teemed forth its Productions in far greater plenty and abundance than the present Earth does That the Plough was then of no use and not invented till after the Deluge that Earth requiring little or no Care or Culture but yeilding its encrease freely and without any considerable Labour and Toil or assistance of Humane Industry by this means allowing Mankind that time which must otherwise have been spent in Agriculture Plowing Sowing and the like to far more divine and noble Uses to Purposes more agreeable to the Design of their Creation there being no hazard whilst they continued in that state of Perfection of their abusing this Plenty or perverting it to any other end than the sustenance of Nature and the necessary support of Life That when Man was fallen and had abandoned his primitive Innocence the Cafe was much altered and a far different Scene of Things presented that generous Vertue masculine Bravery and prudent Circumspection which he was before Master of now deserted him together with that Innocence which was the Basis and Support of all and a strange imbecility immediately seized and laid hold of him he became pusillanimous and was easily ruffled with every little Passion within supine and as openly exposed to any Temptation or Assault from without And now these exuberant Productions of the Earth became a continual Decoy and Snare unto him they only excited and fomented his Lusts and ministred plentiful Fewel to his Vices and Luxury and the Earth requiring little or no Tillage there was little occasion for Labour so that almost his whole time lay upon his hands and gave him leisure to contrive and full swing to pursue his Follies by which means he was laid open to all manner of Pravity Corruption and Enormity and we need not be much surprized to hear That the wickedness of Man was great in the Earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually no● more that that Generation of Men was more particularly addicted to Intemperance Sensuality and Unchastity that they spent their time in Gluttony in Eating and Drinking in Lust and Wantonness or as the sacred Writer cleanly and modestly expresses it in marrying and giving in marriage and this without Discretion or Decency without regard to Age or Affinity but promiscuously and with no better a Guide than the Impulses of a brutal Appetite They took them Wives of all which they chose Plenty and Abundance Idleness and Ease so naturally cherishing and promoting those particular Vices nor lastly that the Apostacy was so great the Infection so universal that the Earth was filled with violence and that all flesh had corrupted his way the Cause of this Corruption the Fertility of that Earth being so universal so diffusive and epidemical And indeed 't would be very hard to assign any other single Cause besides this that could ever possibly have had so spreading and general an Effect as this had The Pravity of humane Nature is not I fear less than it was then The Passions of Men are yet as exorbitant and their Inclinations as vicious Men have been wicked since the Deluge they are so still and will be so but not universally there are now bounds set to the Contagion and 't is restrained by removing the main cause of it but there the Venom manifested it self on all hands spread far and near and scarcely stop'd till 't was insinuated into the whole mass of Mankind and the World was little better than a common fold of Phrenticks and Bedlams That to reclaim and retrieve the World out of this wretched and forlorn state the common Father and Benefactor of Mankind seasonably interposed his hand and rescued miserable Man out of the gross Stupidity and Sensuality whereinto he was thus unfortunately plunged And this he did partly by tying up his hands and shortning the power of sinning checking him in the Career of his Follies by Diseases and Pains and setting Death the King of Terrors which before stood aloof off and at the long distance of eight or nine hundred Years now much nearer to his view ordaining that his days shall be but an hundred and twenty years and partly by removing the Temptation and cause of the Sin by destroying that Earth which had furnish'd forth Maintenance in such store unto it by changing that Constitution of it and rendring it more agreeable to the laps'd and frail state of Mankind That this Change was not wrought by altering either the form of the Earth or its Position in respect of the Sun as was not long ago surmised by a very Learned Man but by dissolving it by reducing all the Matter of it to its first constituent Principles by mingling and confounding them the Vegetative with mineral Matter and the different kinds of mineral Matter with each other and by retrenching a considerable quantity of the vegetable Matter which lay in such plenty and purity at the Surface of the Antediluvian Earth and rendred it so exuberantly fruitful and precipitating it at the time of the subsidence of the general Mass of Earth and other Bodies which were before raised up into the Water to such a depth as to bury it leaving only so much of it near the Surface as might just sufficiently satisfie the Wants of humane Nature but little or no more and even that not pure not free from the inter-mixture of meer steril mineral Matter and such as is in no wise fit for the