Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A52564
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Essays divine and moral by Bridgis Nanfan, Esquire.
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Nanfan, Bridgis.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing N145; ESTC R22027
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58,916
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216
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best how to deal with his Patient Emollient Medicines will not remove a Chronical Disease 'T is well if we can save the Body by cutting off one gangreen'd Joynt by letting out a little discolored Blood preserve the rest sanguine sound Sure those Laws of the Romans like Draco's should have been writ in bloody Characters where they invested the Parents with the power of life and death of their Wives and Children Fulvius had not the denomination of cruel in doing execution upon his Son for confederating with Catiline And Titus Manlius was thought rather favourable than a severe Justicer when he went no higher than to make his Son Syllanus a perpetual exile 3. This rigorous piece of Justic and unbiassed affection built Trophies to their name but no way improved the condition of the Patient for it was Physick of a strange nature a sublimate never ripened in Loves Limbeck Our Heavenly Father that fashioned us may impose what Laws his divine wisdom thinketh best but if he wounds his Servants 't is to heal them if he takes away a temporary life 't is to hasten them to an eternal one Magni beneficii est indicium When God seems to disfavour us then are we in highest favour and we make the nearest approaches to him when in the eyes of the world we seem to be at the greatest distance Holy David acknowledged a Cure done upon him by an Heavenly Chastisement It was good for me that I was afflicted The Prison was the best School for Manasses for in that solitude he could have no Divertisement but leisure wholly to contemplate his great Deliverer and figure to himself Ideas of a more Glorious Kingdom Vexatio dabit intellectumi Punishment is Sins Looking-glass there it beholds its ugliness and deformity the Stains and Morphews which make the Soul look squalid 4. When Absolom was under a Cloud and putting his Designment of a Rebellion into the Forge to amass a greater strength he sent an invitation to Joab to embark in the same design but Joab whether in detestation of such unnaturalness or unwilling to hoise Sail till he saw to which point of the Compass the Wind would settle rejected the Summons Absolom sends again and again and still Joab refuses but when he gave command to burn his Corn-Fields and ravage all that Neighbourhood to him he made no dispute but came apace So in our prosperity we draw a partition betwixt God and us will not cloud our thoughts with the contemplation of Judgment and another World let his invitations be never so luscious presented by Prophets Saints and Angels but when he lays waste our Possessions dismantles our Dwellings throws us upon the Dunghil then we look with averseness on out sins the evil Spirits that raised this Tempestâ— then do our visive Beams pierce through Heaven it self and in this foul Weather seek to cast Anchorage in the Arms of our Saviour 5. The Philosopher observes that if we will see the Stars and highest part of the Sphere at Mid-day we must descend to some Cavern or low place in the Earth where we are freest from the light and coruscations of the Horizon we live in So we must be removed from the glaring lustre of the World before we can truly discern Heaven and the radiancy of its Glory The Figure and Global part of the Sun is clearer discerned in a Dish of Water than in his Fiery Chariot The Astronomers best posture is to lie prostrate on the Ground When we are thrown on our Back humbled and brought low then we best behold God's Immensity and our own impotency The Earth that hath endured the Summers Heat and Winters cold cut with the Plow and crumbled with the Harrow is best cultivated to receive her Seed and make a grateful return to her Benefactor Some Fruits are best fermented with nipping Cold and biting Frosts Our stony Hearts are soonest ripened and mellowed by affliction After we have been thrust into the Forge of Persecution we are then malleable easiest to be hammered out God sets his stamp coins us for Glory when melted in the Crusible of Adversity Prosperity like the Sun doth too much harden us Thunder scatters and disparkles ill boding exhalations cleers the Air of all pestilent and malevolent humours God thunders by affliction breaks the racks of sin and scatters those foul Meteors that are engendring in the regions of our Souls Spikenard precious Ointment and sweet Waters savours more that the hand scatters and throws about than when sealed up in their Inclosures of Crystal Spices for pounding and bruising send forth exhalations more redolent How Sun-burnt what Aethiops appear we when blacked with sin But as soon as God hath burnished and like the Diamond cut and pointed us we appear like the King's Daughter all glorious Affliction is the Mercury Water that clears our sallow complexion the best Beauty Spot we can put on 7. Elkanah said to the Mother of Samuel Am not I better to thee than ten sons So it may be said is not affliction better than a thousand pleasures Here every vanity doth way-lay us as Jael did Sisera Turn thou in my Lord till it smite us through the Temples If we saw but this foul Body dissected it would appear like a Mandrake Apple comly to the eye but poisonous in taste or like the glorious Tombs of our Ancestors that enshrine nothing but dirt and putrefaction 'T is not all Comical we act the Scene will presently change like Jonas's Gourd it springs up to day and canopies us from the Sun's intrusions but anon an envious worm withers it Pleasure was never so absolutely enjoyed but that it had some Gall some Worm wood thrown into the Cup. The smoothest face cannot laugh without contracting Wrinkles and the extremity of it bedews our Cheeks with Tears Like a Rainbow it hath half Sun and half Cloud Like a Meteor it gives a glaring light but portends mischief fits us for Plagues and Pestilencies If they were really good and profitable they would improve those that enjoy them but the contrary effect is most apparent 8. When Nebuchadnezzar stalked on the Roof of his stately Palace and there beheld the Majesty of Babylon did he not then begin to wax proud and vaunt the Workmanship of his own Hands Is not this great Babel which I have built But when God had humbled him with Chastisement plumed his Eagle Wings then could he pierce through those Clouds and Vizards that inveloped his understanding see more of his Maker from that lowness of Fortune than when he towered on the Pinnacle of all his Glories When David had his Beams displayed in a Royal Horizon sitting on the House top soon pryed into the Retirements of Uriah's Garden and there fed his eyes with the unlawful love of Bathsheba but when Nathan the Prophet had trumpeted God's Judgments and with a black Pencil drawn a Scheme of his succeeding miseries it soon fetched him down from that height and made him
most subtle their spirits more agile 4. The eye can best discern without a Perspective the Effigies of God in his own person and all other his mighty works for the service of man The ear quickest hear the sweet sounding musick of his word The hands have a greater dexterity to perfume God's Altars with the Odours of Alms-deeds and charitable actions The feet strongest and best able to support us to the hallowed Temple Thus imploying our vigorous and active abilities is a seeking the Lord while he is near to us The nature of Quick-silver is to tremble and be restless till it find something with which it may commix So these Mercurial parts if not set on work in God's service will be sure though to their own cost take imployment elsewhere Youth knows no Medium its lively Embers will be either blown into a flame of Devotion or Concupiscence Let us therefore tread that path figur'd out to us take that Clue in hand to lead us through the intricate Labyrinths of a perplexed life And for our better direction there are erected in holy Scripture Pyramids and Columns such store of lights as so many Pharo's that we may sail on with a prosperous gale to our haven of felicity 5. If the glorious Mansions of the Heaven with all its splendid Equipage be worth the purchasing Let us Remember our Creatour If at any time we Remember our Creatour let it be Juvenili aetate In our rosie-morn In the days of our Youth If we will bate our selves so much of our present enjoyments as to pay him Primitias the service of our Youth Let it not then be a lame or disjoynted one lest we be put by as those maimed persons in the Old Law from serving at the Sanctuary but such vivid such Heroick services as will not shame the giver nor cause God to withdraw his hands from deigning them a favourable acceptance 6. This will forward our Journey to the New Jerusalem a City that hath all peace all joy Where there is no leading into Captivity nor crying in her streets A City of pure Gold and the Walls of Jasper A City that hath no need of the Sun neither of the Moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth light it Where we shall not forget him for we shall sing Allelujahs to him Where we shall not forget him for we shall have such glorified bodies as to see him face to face without a flaming bush to interpose without meaner Objects than Saints Angels Cherubims and Seraphims ESSAY II. 7. De Humana fragilitate JOB 14.1 Man that is born of a Woman is of few Days and full of Trouble QUod natum est poterit mori Every birth will have a burial And a greater Rhetorician than Seneca tells us There is a time to be born and a time to dye The hand of fate signs no Indulgences reprieves not any seeing all are doom'd and destin'd to the shades of death Nullâ prece mobilis Ordo No intreaties can reverse the Decretals of Heaven The world it self with its resplendent Luminaries Sun Moon and Stars plead no exemption 8. Those weaker fires must be burnt with a more powerful one from Heaven and every thing reduc'd to its primitive condition to a figur'd nothing God only that was without beginning knows no end All things else will have their calcination will to rubbidge That Microcosm man also though but an Epitome of the World yet of greater dignity than the whole Universe for Adam's disparadising himself must have this Dilapidation Though the hands of the Almighty have kneaded us Thy hands have made me and fashion'd me round about and baked these bodies when inorganical in the Oven of the Womb to a purity of ripeness to an animation yet our first sinning hath crackt these Vessels that we moulder to dust again 9. Though thou hast formed us so like unto thy glorious self as made David out of an extasie of admiration cry out I am fearfully and wonderfully made yet since we have blotted out the Inscription of Heaven which was so gloriously figur'd on us defac'd that noble Impress thou was pleas'd to stamp upon common clay 't is no injustice if we return to dirt again for this Lord Paramount to change our free tenure into Lease hold nay into Villenage Since we refus'd to live in the Sun-shine of his favour 't is of our own meriting that we are doom'd to a Land of darkness Though these earthly Tabernacles have the enoblement of being Ancient Demain Crown-lands yet have they no priviledge of immunity shall not be freed from the common Gabels nature imposes upon them but have their devastation too Though our bodies by divine Institution are the Temples of the Holy Ghost yet if we make them receptacles for sin we cannot expect loss than a dissolution of them For The wages of sin is death Every man as Tertullian hath it being Homicida sui a murderer of himself Man forges the weapon and sin is the sword that doth execution on us 10. Dari bonum quod potuit auferri potest The same power that cast these divided Elements into one entire Building can with the breath of his nostrils destruct them again and since we prove not Vessels of Honour will speedily take the matrials asunder and lay them in the dust And yet may we not with Holy Job say unto him What dost thou For 't is the Lord's doing and therefore marvellous in our eyes Seeing then we have pull'd this house upon our own heads which if sin had not undermin'd though but houses of Clay had outbraved times dilapidation Let us therefore be content our own consciences having already proved our Indictment to hear that irreversible sentence pass'd on us which hath long since sent many to the place of execution though reprieved for a few days yet wilt thou bring us also to death and to the house appointed for all living We must all back to the place whence we came the Earth there lie fetter'd in the prison of the Grave to be torn and mangled by her little Furies fierce executioner till our bones are pickt clean till they have their incineration too 11. In the sacred rolls of Heaven we find the same judgment denounced against the heritage of the Lord Thou Worm Jacob. No higher title doth the Lord bestow on the greatest of the Sons of men For they shall all lie down alike in the grave and the worms shall cover them Stoop here and see the polished Tomb-stone that 's laid over us the worm shall cover us And read what Epitaph Job hath writ on it Man that is born of a Woman is of few days and full of trouble It had been enough to have said We are born of women without reading to us the destiny of a short continuance for by that we might have spell'd our fleeting condition and as in a mirrour viewed the forms and Idaea's of our present suffrings 'T is necessary to