Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A25357
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A loyal tear dropt on the vault of the High and Mighty Prince, Charles II, of glorious and happy memory by Henry Anderson ...
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Anderson, Henry, b. 1651 or 2.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing A3091; ESTC R66
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18,158
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32
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A LOYAL TEAR Dropt on the VAULT OF THE High and Mighty PRINCE CHARLES II. Of Glorious and Happy Memory 2 Chron. 35. 24. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah By HENRY ANDERSON M. A. Vicar of Kingsumborne in Hampshire LONDON Printed for Luke Meredith at the Kings Head in St Paul's Church-Yard 1685. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND FATHER in GOD PETER Lord BISHOP of WINTON AND PRELATE of the GARTER MY LORD THE actings of Providence are no less various than unsearchable and it is both a pleasant and pious Employment to observe and meditate on Gods miraculous proceedings with Mankind For Providential Dispensations are discoveries of the Wisdom and Goodness of God in disposing of the conditions of his People whereby they may best glorifie him in whatever befalls them in this Temporal Life because a true Christian does as seriously study the Celestial Sphere and occurrences of Divine Providence as others do the Terrestrial Globe of this Corruptible Earth And since it has pleased Almighty God to speak to this Nation and Kingdom by the Messenger of Death in taking to his infinite Mercy our late Gracious Soveraign King Charles it must be acknowledg'd the bounty of a Divine Hand and we are bound to adore the Wisdom and Benignity of Heaven as S. Hierom suggested to Paula concerning the Death of Blaesilla whatsoever a good God doth cannot be bad therefore we must submit to the Divine Providence in translating that blessed Prince to a more glorious station to a Kingdom that cannot be shaken which is above all possibility of decay being incorruptible and fades not away Eternal in the Heavens Though the gain be his yet the loss is ours for when a good Prince dies a general damp and consternation seises the hearts of all Loyal Subjects because publick Calamity charges every Man with a rate of sorrow proportionable to the tenure of his understanding and the Memory of his late Majesty may justly oblige all his People to an excess of Tears as a signal of grief and Your Lordship comes in as a Chief Mourner who has had the Emanations of his Royal Favour which incourages my confidence to implore Your Lordships Patronage whereunto if you will vouchsafe to give the least approbation I shall not despair of the more favourable Censures of others and therefore it intreats Your Candid Interpretation and Acceptance of these Dedicatory Lines as a sincere Testimony of my Duty And that Your Lordship would be pleased to place me in the number of those that honour Your true Worth not only as to Episcopal Jurisdiction inspecting the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made You Overseer but also to Your Bounty and Liberality which sounds as far as your Name and displays the Ensign of Your Dignity worthy of double Honour for Your Generous and Brave Mind al must needs acknowledge and pay You Homage and Obeisance as Joseph's Brethren did to him with the greatest Veneration in which respect my most honoured Diocesan I am no less than Your Lordship's most Obedient Son and humble Servant HENRY ANDERSON A LOYAL TEAR Dropt on the VAULT OF THE High and Mighty PRINCE CHARLES II. THE frequent Objects of Mortality even of the greatest Monarchs daily presented before our Eyes should make us carefully to manage the moments of our Mortal Life Walking circumspectly not as Fools but as Wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 redeeming the time because it is enacted by the Statute Law of Heaven semel mori and written indelibly in the Dust That all must Dye If Adam had stood in his Primitive Glory and not fell from his Original Purity in the state of Innocency we had not known what Death or Misery had meant but continued a piece of Immortality to this very Day but Adam in an instant after he had sinned became Mortal no sooner Sin entred into his Soul but mortality and corruption immediately entered into his Body then the parcels of Dust that were bound together by the bond of innocency were shaken loose by the grosser spots of Sin our first Parents disobedience contracted and involv'd their Posterity in a Labyrinth of Miseries and our Misery is not of yesterday but as antient as the first Criminal and our perplexities almost coaeval with Humane Nature The Day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely Dye viz. thou shalt be guilty of Death and thy Body shall that very hour become Mortal subject to infinite number of Chances Diseases and Old Age continually decaying unto the last Destruction of this Bodily Mass languishing to its fatal period and hastening to the dark Cells of the Grave which are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dormitories and sleeping Places of the Dead till the joyful Morning of the Resurrection Death insults over the frailties of Mankind for all the Tombs and Charnels of the World are but so many Monuments of Deaths Conquests and the instability of Humane Greatness how all things on this side Heaven are fleeting and transitory If I should procure you a Painter to pencil Death he would shew you a grim Anatomy with a lean Body a pale Face and a wann Countenance c. That which hath devoured the World so many times over like Pharaoh's lean Kine is as lean as ever The Bell still toles for the voluptuous Epicure and the Earth that insatiable Grave longs for his corpulent Body to feast Worms The swift motion of the Heavens roles up the thread of our Lives and the fleet Horse on which Death runs is still posting after us Crowns nor Scepters can't secure from the Artillery of Death There is no confidence to be placed in Humane Prosperity for neither Kingdom Empire nor any Greatness whatsoever can secure their owners from ruine Behold Andronicus cloathed in Purple adored by Nations commanding the East his Temples enriched with a Royal Diadem the Imperial Scepter in his Hands and his very Shoes studded with Oriental Gemms yet pays his Life as Tribute to Death so that the Majesty of the greatest Monarchs are subject to perish Think upon this seriously that the Gates of Death are ever open and the Enemy lies continually in ambush to assault u◠nay there is not a Vein or Artery but is a Room in Natures Work-house wherein our humours as so many Cyclops's are forging those Instruments of Mortality and in an instant hurry us into our Graves Every Day Hour and Moment wears away a part of our Life and so much as is already spent so far we are already Dead So that the longest liver as the Antediluvian Patriarchs witness is no more but only longer a dying than others It is appointed saith the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto Men once to dye but after this to Judgment where they shall receive for the deeds of the Body whether it be good or evil They that have done good to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto eternal damnation This proclaims our happiness or
to attain so much as a shadow of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is always in Impatience Patience is too beautiful for his deformed Nature and crooked disposition being a composition of all those lovely Vertues and Graces of the Holy Spirit to which he is a perfect stranger To die by a Persecutor it s Martyrdom in open work but to suffer injuries and love our hater it is Martyrdom in heart Let Baptism be your Armour Faith your Helmet Love your Spear but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Patience Cap-a-pe your whole Armour of defence it is the sweetest Salve to mishap or desire of revenge the truest Remedy of Injuries and the Shield against Wrongs because through Patience in well-doing we seek for Glory and Honour Life and Immortality It is great Fortitude if being hurt to forgive It is great Glory if thou mightest punish and yet to Pardon This was one of the Gemms in the Crown of his late Majesty that he exercised a Soveraignty over all his Subjects with a rejoycing and delightful kind of Patience which does eternize his Memory and blazon his Honour to Posterity even his auspicious and most gentle Government and Chronicle will free me from the least tincture of flattery if any think I am beyond the bounds either of Sincerity or Truth Now if the Prophet Jeremiah composed the whole sorrowful structure of his Lamentations on the mournful Obsequies of the Good King Josiah shall not the English World weep out Elegies and condole the Death of the Royal Charles the light of our Eyes and breath of our Nostrils of whom we said under his shadow we shall live among the Heathen Thirdly His wonderful Beneficence or Christian Charity displays it self First In forgiving his Enemies when they had forsaken their Allegiance by acts of Rebellion and his late Majesty could have crush'd them with the Hand of Greatness yet he made an act of Indemnity or Oblivion the vehicle of his Kindness which speaks his Kingly Beneficence that he was a Patron of Goodness and Charity and gives us occasion to discern how transporting a delight it is to a Noble and Generous Mind to be an Instrument of good to others As the bountiful light in the Body of the Sun illuminates and beautifies all the Orbs and Heavenly Bodies about it by the projection of its beams it begets all the Beauty Glory Sweetness we have here below on the Earth and it is so communicative of doing good as it never restrains the free Communication of its Influence and Glory until it determine by natural and necessary expiration Even so proportionably his late Majesty as the Sun did cherish and enliven Terrestrial Bodies and folded not up his Rays but dispensed them freely so that his Princely Clemency and Charitable Disposition like a rich Fountain did run with large streams of Goodness which renders his Deceased Majesty deservedly honoured by all his Subjects for all things that have an affinity with the Heavens have a communicative Goodness and move upon the Center of another which they benefit and Man may be by so much Neighbour to the Gods by how much he doth good beyond requital for self is a poor Center of a Mans actions but to do good to others begets a strong reflection of Majesty and Honour O that all those who pretend to greatness of Mind would copy out this Munificence taing all Opportunities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to do good for 't is goodness which sits gloriously Triumphant at the Top of Heaven and uncharitableness lies miserably grovelling under the bottom of Hell Heaven descends from one as its principal Cause Hell is built on the other as its main Foundation as the one approximates the Blessed Angels to God and beatifies them so the other removeth the cursed Fiends to such a distance from God and Happiness saith a Reverend Divine not to wish not to do any good It is true Nobleness and carrys with it the signatures of Majesty and Greatness Honour and Piety to be of a large diffusive Spirit exercising Bounty and Mercy as holy Athanasius in his Works affirms that Mercifulness is the Queen of Vertues and his late Majesty whose Sacred Memory we celebrate did practise this high piece of Christian Perfection according to the Prescriptions of our Lord in forgiving his Enemies which shews that Goodness and Charity as Fruit did grow on this Royal Tree Secondly His Kingly Munificence and Liberality not only to the Tribe of Levi but to all that implored his Royal Favour dispensing of his Treasures to the supply of the needy and putting on Bowels of Mercy to those in want and necessity giving Bread to the Hungry and cloathing the naked with a garment And one Charitable Action performed in Obedience to the Divine Command will be more conducive to our Eternal Welfare than the value of innumerable Worlds Therefore this Pious Prince was inclined to acts of Beneficence and Compassion who now injoys the happy consequences thereof for Bread cast upon the Waters is trajectitia pecunia Money for which you take a Bill of Exchange from God and it meets you in a far Country no Robbers by Land no Piracies by Sea no unfaithfulness of Factors no violence of Tempests shall take it from you He hath dispersed he hath given to the poor saith the Psalmist and his righteousness endureth for ever And so Goodness and Charity did shine in this Mighty Monarch like the precious Stones in Aarons Breast-Plate There is no felicity now a wanting to this illustrious Monarch but that of Virginius Ruffus to have another Tacitus to write his Funeral Obsequies those just Encomiums and Praises due to his rare and singular Perfections for Vertues are Copies drawn for imitation and left as paths for succeeding Ages to tread in Regis ad Exemplum totus componitur Orbis And his late Majesty being Dead yet speaks by his Royal Example to all his loving Subjects in the Language of the Holy Apostle Be ye followers of me as I was of Christ in Faith and Hope Humility and Meekness Charity and Patience till you come ad interior a velaminis above the reach of dull Mortality filling up those seats of Blessedness and triumphing in the Glories of a Saviour Death however we figure it with the Pencil of Fancy yet it does but rend the vail of Mortality and lets the Soul into the Palace of inestimable Majesty where we shall not only behold Jesus in all his Glory but receive the utmost effects of his mighty Love and live with him for ever in Heavenly Places The quality of the Grave is alter'd since Christ slept there it was a Prison now a Chamber of repose The Prophet Isaiah speaking of the Death of the faithful saith They shall enter into peace they shall rest in their beds for Death of a formidable Enemy is made a Friend and a Blessing in Christ a passage from the Valley of Tears to the Kingdom of Glory Now who would be