Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	example_n	gentleman_n	great_a	64	3	2.1033	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39252	The gentile sinner, or, Englands brave gentleman characterized in a letter to a friend both as he is and as he should be.	Ellis, Clement, 1630-1700.	1660 (1660)	Wing E556; ESTC R26096	111,865	282

to give him the lie who dares tell him there are any hopes it may be saved He laughs at him that tells him there is any other Heaven then that of his own creating any other happinesse besides his pleasures or an Hell diverse from that which Christianity has objected to the Coward 's Phancy He has the Courage to be any thing but what he should be an Honest man or a Good Christian. §. 3. His Calling or Imploiment The Gallant 's Generall Calling and Emploiment is to scorne all businesse but the Study of the Modes and Vices of the times and herein he spares not to rack his brains and rob his soule as much of her Naturall as her Spirituall rest to supply the wanton world with variety of Inventions He takes an especiall care that nothing may ever appeare old about him but the Old Man of Sin and him he every day exposes to Publick view in a severall Dresse that if it be possible he may perswade the world to believe that all there is New too Indeed so miserably happy is he in Inventions of this sinfull Nature that any man who had not a Spirituall eye to discerne the same Proud and Luxurious Divell in all his Actions would almost think he had a new Nature as well as a New Suit for every day throughout the Yeare Thus he that thinks it so much below him to be reckon●d amongst the Labourers in God's House or Vineyard and disdaines to receive his Penny with those he should call his brethren either as a Reward or a Gratuity but seems rather to expect it as a Debt or Portion due by Inhaeritance Yet is he Content to sit all day long in Sathan's Shop one of his Slavish Prentices or Iourny-men who feeds him with course and Empty Husks here and will reward him with an Hellfull of torments for his labour hereafter He is all but a Proud and Glistering Masse of Swaggering Idlenesse and he makes it his chiefe Study to Demonstrate to the world how many severall wayes Idlenesse has found out to be busy He takes this for granted as well he may that he is not Idle but Dead that does just Nothing It is his task ever to be doing Nothing to a Good but much to a bad or no Purpose Though he may often seem to sit still and not to move so much as a little finger yet even then is his soule close at worke plotting and Contriving how he may for the time to come be most Pausibly Idle He acts so little for the Publick Good as if he were afraid he should be thought a Member of Mankind or as if the onely businesse God intended him were but to take care that he continue breathing He lives indeed as if he meant to prove that God Almighty had made him to no other End but this to show the world that he could make something whereof he had no need when made as if whilest he created other men for use and Service he intended him onely as Artists doe some of their neat●st but Slightest pieces of work to stand upon the stall or hang out for a signe at the Shop-windowes to show passengers with what the Shop is furnish'd within Or if you will you may looke upon him as upon the painted signe of a Man hung up in the Ayre onely to be toss'd to and fro with every wind of Temptation and Vanity Such a vain shadow or Picture is he that were there no more but himselfe I should take the boldnesse to Affirme there were no such Creature as a Man in the world To me he seems of no more worth then a Piece of Out-cast Iron lying uselesse upon the face of the Earth 'till his soule be even eaten away with Rust and Sleath God made him a Man but to prove himselfe his own God by a Second Creation he endeavours to make himselfe a Bruit nay a senselesse Carkasse that only Cumbers the Earth is fit for nothing but to dung the ground it lies upon and Stink in the Nostrils of the most High If ever he Sweat it is in pursuit of a feather at his play and sport in running away from his Worke and in the chase after his Ease And yet even in that he can never rest this indeed being the Naturall fruit of Idlenesse that it makes the Sluggard weary not onely of whatsoever he doth but even of Idlenesse it selfe §. 4. His Education and Breeding So soone as his age is capable of Instruction and Discipline he is sent to School or rather by reason of too great an Indulgence in his fond Parents the School is brought home to him where if the foolish Mother do not more awe the School-master then he his Schollar the Rod and an empty purse together do for a while preserve him himselfe But it shall not be long ere he find roome enough abroad in the world wherein he may lose himselfe again Yet truely it is a great rarity in this age to see the earliest Morning of Youth unclouded by the fumes and vapours of lust It being too usuall a thing with the debauch'd father to make his child as we use to say over early his Father 's own Sonne Most Gentlemen seem to make it a speciall piece of their fatherly care to stave off their Children as long as they can from Virtue and Religion lest therein resembling better men then their Fathers some might take occasion to think them Spurious To infuse so early into the Young Child the graver Notions of God and Goodnesse were to make him Old before his time and these would look no better then so many wrinkles and furrowes in the fresh cheeks of an infant alas what were this but an unspiriting of the Child and laying an unseasonable Damp upon the comely sprightfulnesse of youth 'T is fit he should be mann'd up by bold and daring exercises and as men use their Hounds be blooded now when he is young Divinity Morality are supposed to much to mollifie and emasculate the brave soule of a Young Gentleman and make it of too soft and facile a temper for Noble and Generous actions To instruct him how hereafter he should manfully resist his Enemies he shall first be taught to fight against God and Goodnesse It is indeed most lamentable to consider how very few of those we call Gentlemen endeavour to make their Children either Honest men or Good Christians as if it were their onely businesse to beget them and when they are come into the world to teach them by their own example how they may most unprofitably spend the short leavings of their own Luxury Thus at their death leave they them doubly Miserable in bequeathing them first little to live upon and secondly many waies to spend it Indeed the greatest Charity and providence in such Prodigall Parents were either not to beget Children at all or to beget them meer beggars that so they might not give them with their estates so many unhappy

opportunities of becomeing altogether as bad as themselves But the Hopefull Youth must be a Gentleman and in all hast he must be sent to see the Vniversity or Innes of Court and that before he well knowes what it is to goe to School Whither he comes not to get Learning or Religion but for breeding that is to enable himselfe hereafter to talke of the Customes and Fashions of the Place Here he gets him a Tutor and keeps him as he doth all things else for Fashion's sake Such an one who may serve at least as poore Boyes doe in some Princes Courts to sustain the blame of the Young Gentleman's Miscarriages and whom the father may chide and beat when the Son is found in a fault Indeed this care is taken for the good Tutor that if his Schollar chance to returne home as too seldome he does with either Schollarship or Piety he shall then have the Credit or Discredit call it which you will of making the Schollar or spoiling the Gentleman seeing his parents had taken order he should bring neither of the two along with him Here perhaps he is permitted to continue a yeare or two if he have no mother upon whom he must bestow at least three parts of that time in visits else his Father knows not well where he may with more Credit loose so much good time or is it may be afraid it will be a greater trouble to keep him at Home In this time he will in all probability have learn'd how to make choise of his boon Companions how to raile at the Statutes and break all good Orders How to weare a Gaudy Suite and a Torne Gowne To curse his Tutor by the name of Baal's Priest and to sell more books in halfe an Houre then he had bought him in a yeare To forget the second yeare what perhaps for want of acquaintance with the Vices of the place he was forced for a Passe-time to learne in the first and then he thinks he has learning enough for him and his heirs for ever And now that he may be able to maintain his title to so wretched an estate it is time he should be hasten'd away to some Inne of Court there to study the Law as he did the Liberall Arts and Sciences in the Colledg Here his pretence is to study and follow the Law but it 's his Resolution never to know or obey it If in any measure he do apply himselfe to it it is to this one end that he may know how to plead for himselfe when he breaks it or to attain at last to so much more Law then Honesty as to Cozen him that has more Honesty then Law Here indeed he learnes to be in his Notion of the Man somewhat more a Gentleman then before having now the Mock-happinesse of a Licentious life and a Manumission from the Tyranny as he termes it of a School-master and Tutor This he reckons the happy year of his Enfranchisement and in Commemoration whereof his whole life-time is to be one continued day of rejoycing From this time forward he resolves to be a Gentleman indeed and now begins to cleare himselfe from all Suspicion of Goodnesse which Constraint and Feare made some believe there was a Possibility of before §. 5. His Habit and Garbe As his Condition of life seems now to be New so does he endeavour that all should appeare New about him except his vices and his Religion He is too much in love with those to change them and the latter he cannot change because he never had any Pride and Wantonnesse have a very rare and ready invention here 's a New Garbe New Cloathes and a New body too O could he but once get him a New Soule or no Soule he might be thought happy When you look upon his Apparell you will be apt to say he wears his Heaven upon his back and truely 't is too much to be fear'd there you see as much of it as he ever shall He is so trick'd up in Gauderies as if he had resolved to make his Body a Lure for the Divell and with this Bravery would make a bate should tempt the Tempter to fall in love with him He looks as if he had prevented our first Mother in sinning and wanting patience to stay for the fruit had pluck'd the very blossomes and now wore them about him for Ornaments His Suite seems to be made of Lace or Ribbon trimm'd with Cloath By his variety of Fashions he goes nigh to cheat his Creditors who for this reason dare never sweare him to be the same man they formerly had to deale withall His Mercer may very well be afraid to loose him in a Labyrinth of his own cloath which yet sits or hangs shall I say for the most part so loosely about him as if it were ever ready to fly away for feare of the Serjeant Alas how often is he proud of a Feather in his hat which a silly Bird was but a while agoe weary of carrying in her tayle Doe but take him in that condition wherein you may commonly be sure to find him he will make a compleat walking Tavern His head and Feather will serve both for signe and Bush. If you observe but a little his strange Garbe and Behaviour either that wherein he walks the streets or that other more set and affected one reserved for his forme of Complement You would conclude he were going to show Tricks I am sure he wants nothing but a stage erected for the purpose He takes as much care and pains to new-mold his Body at the Dancing-School as if the onely shame he fear'd were the retaining of that Forme which God and Nature gave him Sometimes he walks as if he went in a Frame again as if both head and every member of him turned upon Hinges Every step he takes presents you with a perfect Puppit-play And Rome it selfe could not in an Age have shown you more Antiques then one of our Gentlemen is able to imitate in Halfe an houre whose whole life is indeed no other then one studied imitation of all the vanities Imaginable and by his daily practice a man would guesse there could be no such ready way invented of becoming a Gentleman as to degenerate first into that Beast which now if ever is most like a man an Ape Such an Honourable creature has he made himselfe who accounts it below him to be number'd among the ordinary sort of men §. 6. His Language and Discourse His Language and Discourse are altogether suitable to his Habit and Garbe All affected and Apish but indeed for the most part much more vile sinfull and Abominable When it is most Innocent then is it Idle and Light and then most quaint and Rhetoricall when Drolling or prophane Although he make it his whole businesse whensoever he dares be Bookish which indeed he dreads as much as any thing but to be Good to furnish himselfe with an Elegant and Courtlike expression yet will