Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	help_v	young_a	youth_n	24	3	7.5203	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36367	Family devotions for Sunday evenings, throughout the year being practical discourses, with suitable prayers / by Theophilus Dorrington.	Dorrington, Theophilus, d. 1715.	1693 (1693)	Wing D1938; ESTC R19123	173,150	313

The old person is oftentimes attended with the yearly returns of very painfull Distempers which give him perhaps some intermissions for a little while but 't is only to let him gain so much strength as to be able to endure and rub through the more returning fits of them He shall feel the smart of former Wounds and the Aches and Pains of old Bruises and the stiffness and weariness of former Labours Sickness confines him to his House or his Chamber and makes him a Prisoner at home Pain wearies out his days and makes him wish for the Night And when the Night has continued a while he wishes again for the Day He has no comfort in his Days nor rest in the Nights The remainder of comfort and pleasure which weakness and decay had left Sickness and Pain utterly lavish away Therefore 3. It must be mentioned as another Inconvenience of old Age that it is with many a time very destitute of Pleasure The old man has but a very weak and languid Sence at the most of all the pleasant things of this World The desire now fails as Solomon says verse 5. The Sences and Appetites grow dull and have less relish of these things The dim Eye is no more ravisht with beautifull Objects nor is the deaf Ear to be charmed with harmonious Sounds The Nose and Pallate are hardly sensible any longer of pleasing Tasts or Smells Can I discern between good and evil says old Barsillai to David Can thy servant tast what I eat or what I drink can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women 2 Sam. 19. 35. The Novelty of things which helped to transport him in younger years is now no more attending them he can meet with nothing new but is cloyed and sick with the dull repetitions of the same things 4 It is a great addition to the Evil of these days that if any affliction or inconvenience befalls us then it is usually more incurable than in our younger years it might have been Man is born to trouble as the Sparks fly upwards Affliction will haunt and molest us as long as we live in this mutable weak and exposed State and that condition of Life which renders our afflictions most incurable renders them also the most grievous and troublesome When our condition is hopeless as well as inconvenient this more than doubles the grief of that inconvenience and this is commonly the unhappy case of old Age If a man be then sickly he cannot expect ever to recover or enjoy a good State of Health again if one distemper be cured it turns into another He that is deprived of his Children then cannot hope to have more as poor Naomi complained If then he falls into poverty he must lie under it and bear all the sorrowfull attendants of that for he is now weak and uncapable of that Industry which should help him He wants more than he did in younger years and is less able to take pains to get it 5. Lastly that which further helps to make old Age an evil time is the certain approach and nearness of Death It is known then that this cannot be far off His miserable days will shortly end in dissolution from his sick Bed he must go ere long to his cold Grave and be a long Prisoner there His best days are irrecoverably gone and he shall never return to the health and vigour the mirth and jollity of Youth again The certainty of Death is the great and uncomfortable disparagement of the present Life In all our mirth it damps us to think of it It troubles our best days it chills our warmest blood it sours our sweetest delights to have a serious thought that we must die It affrights us to think I must ere long be cold and senceless I must be a gastly Object to those that have most delighted to see me Those I most love will hasten to bury me out of their sight they will commit me to worms and rottenness I must lie down in darkness and oblivion worms must feed on me and the winds ere long scatter my contemptible dust I must leave all the pleasant things I have here and go into a new an unknown World from whence none come back to tell what is there These are sad and very painfull thoughts to him that puts this Evil farthest from him But with how much the more force must these things strike and wound when they are certainly near And to the aged Person these things must be near They may indeed be as near to the youngest here present as to the oldest but it may also be said they may not be near such but it cannot be said they may not be near them that are aged Death with his fatal Dart is almost ready to strike them Their day is come to the Evening and therefore they cannot be far from Night their Glass is almost run and shall never be turn'd up again and therefore must soon be out This also then may make old Age an evil time And this is the time to which many men incline to put off their living well but whether they do wisely in this or no will be best determin'd after we have well considered what is to be said on the third Head of Discourse wherein I doubt not to make appear as was proposed that the best defence and preparation we can possibly make against these Evil days is to begin a religious and vertuous Course betimes and to continue in it all our days before this time This the Light of Nature taught a wise and thinking Heathen Cicero de Senect who speaks thus Aptissima omnino arma senectutis c. The best weapons and defences of old Age against the Inconveniences it is liable to are the Arts and the Exercises of Vertues Which being cultivated through every Age of Life before if we happen to live long will then bring forth wonderful Fruits Not only says he because they will never desert us no not to the extream point of Life though that be very considerable but also because the consciousness of a well spent Life and the remembrance of many good and vertuous Actions are highly pleasant to us Thanks be to God we can say this upon much better grounds than the Heathens could and then the Argument ought to have the more force upon us To make it appear that a religious and vertuous Life before is the best preparation and defence that we can possibly make against the Evils that attend old Age I shall insist upon these two particulars 1. This will in a great measure prevent some of the Evils to which that part of Life is liable 2. It will greatly alleviate those which it does not prevent and soften them with very effectual Consolations In the first place this will in a great measure prevent some of the Evils that old Age is liable to A vertuous and temperate Course of Life in our younger years gets a good

without this precipitant hast They drive away that which they would keep and which is going away of it self They make hast to put an end to that which above all things they dote upon that is sensual pleasure to disable themselves from enjoying it by diseases or an untimely death Intemperance and excess brings the infirmities and aches and defects of old Age upon Youth and kill men in the prime of their days almost as soon as they come to enjoy the world and know what it is to live Is this the wit of the world or rather a madness A wise man would use with care a frail and brittle thing especially if he does highly esteem and value it Is it reasonable to wish for a long enjoyment of the pleasures of this Life and to take a course at the same time to make it short to dote on pleasures and spoil them to place all our happiness in this life and make hast to end it to be prodigal of a small Stock and use ruggedly and carelesly a weak thing If this be Wit there is nothing can deserve the name of Folly 3. These disparaging properties of this present life should teach men to be humble in their greatest worldly prosperity It may and ought to serve to this purpose to consider Whatever I have now it is but a little while agoe that I receiv'd it Naked I came not long since into this world I have but a very little while been honour'd or rich or learned and ere long I must cease to be what I am I must goe out of this world quickly and go as naked at least of all outward advantages as I was when I came into it All that I have then here is but a transitory portion my best estate is Vanity which is built upon so slight a foundation as this feeble Life Alas I cannot have here a stable abiding felicity while my life is moving and passing away And if I can enjoy what I have till I die that is the longest I shall do so and that cannot be long Then the poor Begger will be as rich as the most wealthy And there will be as much beauty as much strength in his dust who was deform'd and weak as in that of those who are proud of beauty or strength no marks of Wisdom or Learning will remain about the Dead and corrupted Carkass All sorts are huddled together equall'd and canfounded in the Grave The man that is proud of his present advantages may assure himself that within a few days he may be as despicable on earth as any that he despises Yea in a little time he shall be more despicable and made inferiour to him if the other outlives him If the rich and honour'd dies first the poor man remains richer and more honourable than he As a living Dog is better than a dead Lion The one enjoys still his little the other is totally stript of his abundance Should I despise any man let me say when a little time may make so great a difference to his advantage When he whom I disdain perhaps to speak to may shortly tread upon me and have me under the dust of his feet Surely this frail and transitory life with all its advantages is too mean a thing to cause or allow a man to be proud of it 4. These conditions of our present Life may justly render us patient under all present Adversity May we not with great reason bear that Patiently which we cannot endure long especially when the more patient we are under grievous things the more easie and tolerable they be Let us consider then when any Affliction befalls us I cannot undergo a long affliction in a short life If poverty be my Lot I shall not long be expos'd to the inconveniences of that If I am condemned to a life of hard labour and toil I may comfort my self with this thought that I am hasting to a place where the weary are at rest If I am vex'd and afflicted by the Lusts and Passions of unreasonable and wicked men I may consider their Life is frail and transitory as well as mine and I am going to be where the wicked cease from troubling In all adversity this may comfort us my afflictions are fading and transitory as I am the evils as well as the good things of this Life can last no longer than my self and that will not be long Such as these are the Thoughts Dispositions and Resolutions relating to this World that these conditions of our present Life should excite in us The Apostle Paul urges such a use of these things 1 Cor. 7. 29 30 31. Brethren the time is short It remains that they which have Wives he as though they had none and they that weep as though they wept not and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not and they that use this world us not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away I proceed now to the last part of the Discourse with which I shall soon conclude that is to represent the due Behaviour relating to the other World which these disparagements of our present Life should teach and provoke us to And I cannot imagine but that every one will readily acknowledge these things should make us turn our thoughts towards the World to come and look into the reality and nature of a future State and earnestly endeavour to secure to our selves a happy condition there Since there is most certainly another World and a Life to come is it not our Wisdom to think of it and look before us especially when we are continually hasting to it When I am going apace from this World shall I not think at all whither I am going Is not this worth a thought Let us consider what the Scripture teaches us of the Future State That it assures our Souls to be immortal though our Bodies perish they shall never die and our perishing Bodies shall lie but a while in their dissolved State They shall certainly rise again from the dust to live hereafter in immortal Life That we shall be raised to receive the rewards of our doings here whether they have been good or evil That the Eternal world to come is divided into two different States the one perfectly happy for the reward of good men the other perfectly miserable for the punishment of the bad Since these things will certainly be let us certainly expect them and frequently think of them Let every one often tell himself this short Life is hasting to end in an endless Life I am going where I shall be happy or miserable for ever from transitory to abiding things from temporal to eternal Whatever puts an end to this frail Life which is so easily destroyed sends me into an unalterable State whatever sort it be of If a happy one it will ever be happy and perfectly so if miserable it will always be a perfectly miserable State And my condition there will be ordered according to