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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A37030 A contemplation of mans mortalitie. Preached at Reading, by John Dashfield, M.A. Dashfield, John. 1649 (1649) Wing D279A; ESTC R214401 10,075 24

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A CONTEMPLATION Of MANS MORTALITIE Preached at Reading BY John Dashfield M.A. Printed at London 1649 To the True-Lover of Vertue and Learning John Penrice Esquire John Dashfield wisheth all Happinesse SIR IN the view of these bleeding times I am bold to present unto you A Contemplation of Mans Mortaitie a subject indeed really intended upon the death of your most valiant and undaunted Kinsman Major William P●●chard the worlds valour who of all men chose me for his Minister at his execution and I in lew of his approbation presume to present this unto you and the rest of his friends and kindred And as Hannah when she had presented her young Son Samuel unto the Lord did make him a little coat So have I put this my little childe into a new coat and am bold to present it to your Noble Favour for protection Vouchsafe therefore to take it by the hand and I doubt not but the Ephramite shall be heard here to speake as plain at the smooth-tongued Canaanite and so I pray God to blesse your person and affaires here that you may be kept blamelesse unto the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ. And this shall ever be the prayer of him that is Yours in all Christian service John Dashfield Ovid Nec Leges metuunt Maestaque victrici Iura sub ense ●acent The Contemplation of Mans MORTALITIE Eccle. the 7 chap. part of the 36 ver Recordare novissima Remember thy end IT is the generall opinion of the best Writers perfectissimam vitam esse continuam mortis meditationem that the most perfect life is a continuall meditation of death Chrysostome expounding that place of Saint Luke Qui vult venire post me He that will follow me saith That Christ commandeth us not to beare upon our backs that heavie burthen of the Woodden Crosse but that we should alwayes set our death before our eyes making that of Saint Paul to be mans Motto Quotidie morior I die daily In the second of the Kings it is recounted that the holy King Josias did clense the people from their Altars their Groves and High Places where innumerable Idolatries did daily increase to smend which ill he placed there in their stead Bones Sculls and the ashes of dead men Whose judgement herein was very discreet for from mans forgetting of his beginning and his end arise his Idolatries and so reviving by those Bones the remembrance of what they were heretofore and what they shall be hereafter hee did make them amend that fault and reduced them from their errours God created man of the basest matter of very dust but this dust being molded by Gods own hand and inspiring it with so much wisdome counsell and prudence Tertullian calls it cura Divini ingenii but man growing proud hereupon and hoping to be a god himself God doomed him to death and wrapped him again in durty swadling clouts with this inscription Pulvis es Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Adam did not without some mystery cloath himself with green leaves for as Saint Ambrose hath noted it he gave as it were therein a signe and token of his vain and foolish hopes When God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar how little a while his Empire was to last he shewed him a statue of divers metalls the head gold the brest silver the bellie brasse the legges iron the feeet clay and it seems a little stone descended from the mountain lightning on the feet dashed the statue in pieces But instead of taking this as a fore-warning of his end and to have it still before his eyes he made another statue of gold from top to toe which is held to be a durable and lasting metall so that the more God sought to disdeceive him the more was he deceived with his vain hopes And this is a resemblance of that which daily hapneth unto us for God advising us that our first building is but dust our idle thoughts and vain hopes imagine it to be of gold and mans life being so short that as Nazianzene said it is no more then to go out of one grave to enter into another out of the womb of our particular mother into that of the common Mother of us all which is the earth because therefore we flatter our selves with the enjoying of a long life therefore the sonne of Syrach being desirous to cut off this errour saith In omnibus operibus tuis Recordare novissima tua in aeternum non peccabis Whatsoever thou takest in hand Remember thy end Death saith Saint Augustine in his book against the Pelagians is nothing else but a privation of life having a name and no essence As hunger is said to be the defect of food thirst lack of drink darknesse the absence of light even so death is but a name for want of life Death then having a name without essence God was not the Creator thereof neither cause nor Authour for all things that God made had Essence which terme of Essence comprehendeth that which is or that is to be born Most true it is that for the punishment of sinne God pronounceth the sentence of death against man but there is great difference between pronouncing the sentence of death and to be the cause of death They are the words of Salomon not mine Deus mortem non fecit nec laetatur in perditione vivorum God hath not made death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living Creavit enim ut essent omnia c. For he created all things that they might have their being and the generations of the world are preserved But in another place he saith Invidia autem Diaboli mors intravit in orbem terrarum Through envy of the Devil came death into the world Wisdome 2.24 The Devil then being the authour of sinne is also the authour of death by sinne The Devil could incite man to sinne but he could not constrain him to yield consent Adam could keep himself well enough from tasting the Tree of life but Gods will was that he should not sinne and so consequently would not have him to die But leaving life and taking death and following then the free liberty of his will he made himself mortall so that his fault and disobedience was the cause of death to him and all men else beside From whence therefore the Apostle inferres Propterea sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit per peccatum mors c. As by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so death went over all men forasmuch as all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 Nothing then more certain then death and nothing more uncertain then the time when the place where and the manner how Yet one thing to this purpose whereof I am now to speak and I know it may very well seem a novelty to many and fabulous to divers others because it is a matter very difficult to be proved nor do I purpose