Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	flesh_n	life_n	spirit_n	9,701	5	5.4408	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46056	A just narrative, or account of the man whose hands and legs rotted off, in the parish of Kings-Swinford, in Stafford-shire, where he died, June 21, 1677 carefully collected by Ja. Illingworth ...	Illingworth, James, d. 1693.; Newey, Jonathan.	1678 (1678)	Wing I50; ESTC R4924	10,346	24

and amongst the rest some of the Romanists one of which he and his Keeper supposed to be a Priest of that profession who was earnest with him to renounce his Religion and become a Catholick as he called it and they would remove him take care to heal his Sores and said the man whom they supposed to be the Priest I will pawn my soul for thine that thou shalt be saved ☜ which I am informed is an ordinary form of speech amongst the Papists of this Countrey when they would persuade men to their party When I enquired of this poor man to try him why he did not accept of their offers he answered to this purpose To what end How can he pawn his soul for mine none can save me but Christ Others who had occasion to travel this way from London and other parts far off West and North visited him we hope not to satisfie their curiosity so much as to behold a monument of Divine severity and that they might bear witness that although sentence against an evil work is not always executed speedily yet God leaves not himself without witness in this as well as former ages against Atheism and grand impiety Upon the eighth of May following both his legs were fallen off at the knees which the poor man perceived not until his Keeper told him and shewed them to him holding them up in his hands and his right hand hanging only by some ligament by a little touch of a knife was taken off also The other hand at the same time being black as a shooe and not much unlike in the fancy of some for roughness and hardness to the outside of a dried Neats-tongue This hand hanged on a long time afterwards by some such thing as the former and might 't is possible have continued in that manner until his death if he had not desired his Keeper to take that away also as the former because it was troublesome to him Now although putrid matter frequently issued out at those places yet he had not so much pain as he had formerly for a month or six weeks as he freely confessed and acknowledged that his stomach was good and did digest such meats as he took and that he had evacuations by siege and urine as heretofore in his health So that continuing in this condition some weeks many began to think the Issues might be stopped and his life preserved many years if regularly ordered Some of the Parishioners were moved in it that Physicians and Surgeons might be consulted and good advice taken in the case but I cannot learn that any thing was done about it being judged by some incurable It is said that he expressed himself to some that visited him in this manner That now the curse wherewith he had cursed himself being fully come to pass in that his hands were rotted off he was persuaded it would go no further But he forgot that God punished him not for that sin only but for all his great transgressions though for that chiefly as he formerly confessed to me he believed At last his flesh began to wast and his spirits to fail so that visiting him again and observing some change in his flesh and countenance more than formerly I laboured to convince him more fully of his condition and to persuade him to look up to the great Physician in whose hands are the issues of life and death c. He seemed to give diligent attention and earnestly desired me to pray with him after prayers when I was about to leave him for that time he desired I would not forget him in my prayers making it also his earnest request that I would come again when ever he should send for me which I promised I would at any hour day or night This was June 16. and on the 19. as his Keeper acknowledgeth he was in great anguish and trouble of mind crying out What shall I do to save my poor soul with many other expressions to the same purpose being very sick and fearing his approaching death But upon what account his Keeper would not send for me in whose hearing he so earnestly desired me to come to him he knows best and must answer it if it was his fault for private respects as is conjectured On June 21. in the morning I went again to visit him unsent for but found him unsensible and past any further advice I staid by him until almost noon He lay still with his eyes fixed as a dying man moved not at any thing we said to him but upon pouring into him a little drink with a spoon at several times he coughed a little and groaned and then lay as before When I saw there was no probability he would understand any thing I said I left him after prayer made for him with the company there present in the house and had notice brought me that he died about two hours after my departure from him Before I sum up the whole of this Narrative and account of his condition I judge it may be acceptable to the Reader to insert some short Observations communicated to me by an ingenious Gentleman our Neighbour who several times visited him in his affliction Take them therefore in his own words When I first saw this young man which was quickly after he was brought into Kings-Swinford he appeared to me to be of a vigorous state of body and of an healthy constitution saving the strange defect under which he laboured his hands and legs being then deprived of sense and motion I observed them and handled him They were from both wrists and knees blackish and dying and I took notice that about each wrist and knee there was as it were a Circle at the joynt that divided the sound from the dying parts and seemed like a ligature prohibiting any nourishment to pass those bounds so that the blood and spirits being wonderfully stopped in their circulation it must necessarily follow that the parts thus deprived of their wonted supply must wither and die as a leaf in Autumn which sad progress they made till both hands and legs from the wrists and knees became dead and dried black and hard like Mummy before they fell off at the joynts which they afterward did I also observed that at the first above each of the forementioned circles there brake out a sore at which the nourishing juyce designed by nature to have fed those parts emptied it self now in those sores corrupted in a quitture or sanies so horribly stinking that few of his Visitants could well endure the room without some strong smelling defensative But visiting him after those dead limbs were fallen from the body all but one hand which was almost severed I saw the joynts with the flesh look well and healthy They seemed to me free and untouch'd by the former mortification being quick and sensible that now the fellow complained upon the least touch thereof yet seeming to promise an easie cure for that ichorous stinking