Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	path_n	young_a	youth_n	18	3	7.7230	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64744	Flores solitudinis certaine rare and elegant pieces, viz. ... / collected in his sicknesse and retirement by Henry Vaughan.	Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio, 1595-1658. Two excellent discourses.; Eucherius, Saint, fl. 410-449. De contemptu mundi. English.; Vaughan, Henry, 1622-1695.	1654 (1654)	Wing V121; ESTC R35226	150,915	376

still and the incertainty as well as the certainty of it This divine devise of death so pleased God and was so necessary for the good of man that though by the merits of his dying Son he changed all the former things blotting out ordinances abolishing Ceremonies opening the gates of Heaven to all believers yet would not he Exterminate death It was out of his mercy that he refused to abrogate it that while corruption reigned death also might reign over it lest this poyson should want its Antidote We have therefore no just cause to complain of death which is an Invention conducing to our great good and the incertainty of the time though it most vexeth us is notwithstanding the most beneficial Circumstance that attends it The time of life is certainly known there is but one entrance to the light of this World The Ceremony of dying is not formal It keeps not to one time nor one manner but admits of all times and many manners Life comes into the World but one way but hath many waies to go out It was the benevolence of God to open so many doors to those that flye for refuge One way is more then enough to find out dangers but to escape them many are but necessary Death is not a burthen of seaven or nine monthes but life must have time before it sets forth And what are the first encounters of it Tears ●nd Bonds It cannot avoyd Evills and it is afeared to bear them therefore it delaies time and when it cannot lurk any longer it comes forth Crying Death leads us forth to joy and liberty Therefore it stayes not it seeks no corners nor protractions Nor doth death free us onely from suffering Evills but keeps us also from doing any To be good every day thou m●st dye dayly The incertainty also of the time of death and the manner of it like a busie Monitour warnes thee to do good and to be good at all times and in every place private or publick And the inevitablen●sse of it takes away all Excuse or pretensions for thy impreparation The Glory of death is also much augmented by its facility in redressing the difficulties of life It is not without the Divine counsel and a speciall priviledge that the Soule of man is so easily parted from the body the life of beasts is more tenacious and will suffer much indignitie and fury before it leaves them There is n● living creature more fraile none more weak then man the lightest str●ake fells him the Soul is very nice and will quickly cast off the body if it persists but in the least Indisposition A single hair killed Fabius and a Grape Anacreon these contemptible instruments destroy'd them as effectually as the thunderbolt did Esculapius Coma dyed as easily as he could wish and Baptist a Mirandulus as he could think His Soule quitted his body without any grudging without a disease without poyson without violence or any fatall mischance No door can keep death out it defeats life with its own weapons and kills us with the very Cordials and comforts of it Perhap● no kind of death is more violent then th●● which sets upon us with the forces o● l●●e because it kills when life is most vigorous and pleasant Their owne wishes have destroyed many And life hath oftentimes perished by her own contrivements Clidemus was killed with honour Diagoras with joy Plato with rest and Philemon with laughter This last is both a merry and a frequent destroyer and freed Sicily from one Tyrant Death also makes use sometimes of our very virtues to exanimate us Shame killed Diodorus and the Mother of Secundus the Philosopher dyed with blushing and an excessive modestie Life is a fraile possession it is a flower that requires not rude and high winds but will fall in the very whispers and blandishments of fair weather It is folly to labour to retain that which wil away to fly from that which will meet us every where yea in the way we fly is a vain and foolish industry Whither we seek death or avoyd it it will find us out Our way to fly and our very flight end both in death by hasting from it we make hast to it Life is a journey whose end cannot be mist it is a steady ayming at dissolution Though we fetch wide Compasses and traverse our way never so often we can neither lengthen it nor be out of it What path soever we take it is the Port-roade to death Though youth and age are two distant Tropicks of life yet death is as near to the one as to the other And though some live more and some lesse yet death is their equal neighbour and will visit the young as soon as the old Death is a Crosse to which many waies leade some direct and others winding but all meet in one Center It matters not which thou takest nor whither thou art young or aged But if thou beest young thou maist come sooner thither then the old who is both doting and weary It was necessary that a Sanctuary being provided for the distressed the way to it should be easie pervious and at an indifferent distance from all parts Good should be diffusive and the gate that leads to it must be without doors and bolts The entrance into this life is narrow and difficult it is difficultly attained difficultly retained and lyes alwaies in the power of another Every man may take life from us none can take death Life is subject to the Tyranny of men but death is not life makes Tyrants and death unmakes them Death is the slaves prerogative ●oyall and the Sabbath of the afflicted Leo Iconomachus the Emperor made the birth of both sexes tributary but death never paid taxation It was not lawfull in his reigne to get Children without paying for them every Infant so soon as borne was to give him contribution they paid then the Excise of life Death onely frees us from these Impositions of Tyrants And wilt thou then condemn liberty and that maturity of death by which it ripens every age wilt thou the divine liberality blame because thy life is short or may be so thou hast no reason to find fault with the years already given thee because thou shalt not have more thou mayst as well quarrel with Nature because she made not thy dimensions larger and thy body heavier by eighty or a hundred pounds he that measured thy proportion measured thy time too and too much of this last would have been as troublesome and unweildy as too much of the first for Long life opprest with many woes Meets more the further still it goes Death in every age is seasonable beneficial and desirable It frees the old man from misery the youthfull from sin and the infant from both It takes the aged in the fullnesse of their time It turnes the flowers of youth into fruit and by a compendious secret improvement matures infancy leading it into the Gate of Heaven

throughly so is if not Evill a neighbourhood to Evill True praise consists not in a bare abstinence from Evill but in the pursuance the performance of good It sufficeth not therefore that we doe nothing which may afflict us but we must withall doe something that may exhilarate us This we must remember that to do good is one thing and to become good is another Although we cannot become good unlesse wee doe good But we become good not because we have done good works but because we did them well Discretion which considers the manner of doing good orders the Action so excellently that oftentimes there is more goodnesse in the manner then in the Action What will it availe us to do good if it be not well done It is to write faire and then to poure the Inke upon it Actions cease to be good unlesse well acted they are like excellent colours ill-layed on The more glorious thy intention is the more carefully thou must manage it Indiscretion is most evident in matters of importance One drop of Oyle upon Purple is sooner seen then a whole quart that is spilt upon Sack-cloath The Ermyn keepes his whitenesse unstained with the hazard of his life Hee values himselfe at a most sordid rate that esteems lesse of Virtue then this beast doth of his skin that prefers a foule life to a fair death that loves his blood more then his honour and his body more then his Soule Ennius saith that the way to live is not to love life Life is given us for another cause then meerly to live he is unworthy of it that would live onely for the love of life the greatest cause of life is Virtue what more absolute madnesse can there be then to make life the cause of sin yea the cause of death And for lifes sake to lose the crow● of life What greater unhappinesse then to dye eternally by refusing death The Virtuous youth Pelagius rather then he woul●d lose his Innocence suffered the most exquisite and studyed torments of that impure Tyrant Habdarrhagmanus He suffered many deaths before he was permitted to dye Hee saw his limbs his hands and his sinewes cut in sunder and lying dead by him while he yet lived This preservation of their honour some chast beauties have paid dearly for It cost Nicetas his tongue Amianus his Eye Saint Briget her face Apollonia her teeth and Agatha her breasts The lovely Cyprian Virgin paid her life for it Nature even for herself doth lay a snare And handsome faces their own traitours are The beauty of Chastity is best preserved by deformity and the purity of life by a contemptible shape The Shoomaker is carefull of the neatnesse of a shooe which is made to be worn in durt and mire And shall man be negligent to adorn his Soul which is made for Heaven and the service of the deity Every artificer strives to do his worke so as none may find fault with it And shall we do the works of life perfunctorily and deceitfully All that makes man to be respected is his worke as the fruite doth make the Tree and a good work can never be too much respected Keepe thy selfe alwaies in respect by doing good Thy own dignity is in thy own power If thy works be good thou shalt be accounted good too If better then any thou shalt be acknowledged for the best Man is the effect of his own Act he is made by those things which he himself makes Hee is the work of his own hands A rare priviledge that permits men and impowers them to make themselves Thou hast leave to be whatsoever thou wouldst be God would not limit thy happinesse He left thee power to encrease it to polish and beautifie thy selfe according to thy own mind Thy friend or thy neighbour cannot do it Thy owne good must be thy owne industry Virtue because she would be crosse to Fortune is not adventitious It is our great happinesse that this great good must not be borrowed Blessed be that Divine mercy which hath given us means to be saved without the assistance of our neighbours who have endeavoured to damn us That almighty hand which first Created man in the Image of his Creatour finished him not but left some things for him to doe that he might in all things resemble his maker It is one thing to be an Idol or Counterfeit and another to be a lively Figure and likenesse There are many Coppies which are not assimilant to their Originals like Pictures that have not so much as an ayre of those faces they were drawn by To the Politure and sweetning of the Divine Image there are some lines expected from thine owne hand If some expert Statuary suppose Phidias himselfe should leave unfinished some excellent peece like that Statue of Minerva at Athens and out of an incurious wearinesse give himself to some obscure and Artlesse imployment or to meere Idlenesse wouldst not thou much blame and rebuke him for it And canst thou deserve any lesse if by a loose and vitious life thou wilt either totally deface the Image of God in thy selfe or else leave it unfinished Doest thou think that God is maimed seeing thou doest leave his Image without hands I mean without good works Dost thou think that he is blind seeing thou dost extinguish or put quite out that discerning light and informing wisdome which hee hath given thee Hee that doth not integrally compose himself and will not carefully strive for perfection would represent God to be imperfect and a Monster Virtuous manners saith holy Maximus are types of the Divine goodnesse by which God descends to be represented by man assuming for a body those holy habits and for a soule the Innocent dictates of wisdome in the spirit by which he makes those that are worthy to become Gods and seals them with the true character of Virtue bestowing upon them the solid riches of his infallible and immortal Knowledge Work then while it is day while it is life-time work and cease not Finish this expectation this great spectacle not of men onely but of God and Angels Remember that the rewards and applause of this World are but a Paint of eternity The solid and permanent glory is given in Heaven When every man shall have praise of God The Limbner is carefull to beautifie and shew his utmost skill in that peece which hee knowes to be intended for judicious eyes Thou art not to paint but really to make a living Image of the Divine mind which also must be examined and judged by that searching eye from which nothing can be hidden have a care that no ill mixture nothing disproportionable nothing uneven or adulterate may be found in it The presents we offer to the true God must be true and solid works not the fictitious oblations of Jupiter Milichus Why wilt thou delight in a maimed Soule or which is worse in a Soul whose best part is dead Thou hadst rather have a

when it cannot go one step upon Earth and giving it the wings of a Dove to flye and be at rest before it can use its feet To these past arguments of the goodnesse of death I shall adde another Death in the old world before the manifestation of God in the flesh was the publick index or open signe of hidden divinity It is the gift of God who gives nothing but what is good The Divell playing the Ape and labouring to imitate the Inimitable Jehovah did by asserting death to be the greatest good mainly fortifie those abominable rites and honours conferred upon him by his blind worshipers When they petitioned him for the greatest blessing that the Gods could give to man he by the permission of the true God whom they had deserted would within three daies strangle them in their beds or use some other invisible meanes to set an end to their daies Thus he served Triphonius Agamedes and Argia for her three Sons This miserable mother requested of him that hee would give the best thing to her children that could be given to men her petition was granted and within a very short time they received that which she thought to be the worst namely death So great is the ods betwixt seeming to be and being really betwixt opinion and truth yea that death which we judge to be the worst I meane the immature is oftentimes the best What greater good had deckt great Pompey's Crown Then death if in his honours fully blown And mature glories he had dyed those piles Of huge successe lowd fame lofty stiles Built in his active youth long lazie life Saw quite demolished by ambitious strife He lived to weare the weake and melting snow Of lucklesse Age where garlands seldom grow But by repining fate torne from the head Which were them once are on another shed Neither could I ever grant that the death of Infants and Children though commonly bewail'd as unseasonable were the parents misfortunes but the courtesies rather and mercies of the almighty To omit Amphiaraus and other Ethnick instances I shall make use of a true and Christian History which in these later years was the great admiration of King Philips Court. Didacus Vergara a most noble hopefull ●outh adorned with all those vertues which ●eautifie a blooming life was famous in the mouths of all good men and as deare in their hearts But what was the reward thinkest thou of his virtuous life An immature and almost a sudden death So that it is not to be doubted but it was a divine favour Being to go into bed he spoke to his sister O what manner of night will this be unto me I beseech you deare sister furnish me with some candles and leave one to burn by me Abought midnight he suddenly called so that all the familie was awaked and got up to whom he told that he should dye that night and desired them to send presently for his Confessour They all imagined that he had been troubled with some dream especially his Father a most renowned Physitian when he felt his pulse to beate well and orderly But notwithstanding all this they omitted not to send for his Confessour who was Gasper Pedroza He as if touched with some Divine presension was at that dead time of the night awake and being come to the sorrowfull Father he told him that Didacus was expected in another World before day that the Virgin-Q●eene of Heaven had revealed so much to him and that hee would be gone as soon as the Sacraments could be administred unto him It fell out just so For those sacred sol●mnities were no sooner ended but he was dissolved as if he had stayed onely for that spirituall refection to strengthen him in his Journey He left this dark and low World towards the first breakin gs of the day and ascending to eternity upon the wings of the morning He might have past from thence with lesser noise and in a shorter time but he expired more solemnly then so and yet without weary accessions and the Tyranny of sicknesse He stayed for the saving institutions of his redeemer the businesse that detain'd him so long was Heaven and not the tumults of a tyring and obstinate dissolution all this proves it to have been the hand of God and not an unfortunate sudden death the precise Actions of the deity must be attended with unusuall circumstances Whome God doth take care for and love He dies young here to live above There is room enough for life within the compasse of few years if they be not cast away Think not that to last long and to live long is the same thing every one that hath stayd long upon earth hath not lived long Some men find fault with death because no experiment can be made of it without an absolute dissolution they would dye twice to trye what kind of state it is that they may be fitly furnished against the second time when they must dye in earnest But this is madness and were it granted them the good they pretend would not be performed For he that will cast away one life without preparing for death wil not fear to hazard another desperate malefactors will take no warning by r●prieves Besides what benefit would there be by dying twice seeing that of necessity they must live twice too and so be twice miserable if not twice impious It is strange that these men who fear death and adjudge it to be evill should desire to have it doubled and that which by their good will they would not tast once they will beg to chew and swallow downe twice whereas if death were an Evill it would be so much the lesser by comming but once The miseries of life are nothing so civill they are instant importunate and outragious they will reinforce themselves and set upon us twice or thrice yea a thousand times Death is more modest she wearies us not as long as wee are well When our disorders have turned the harmony of life into discord and noise then shee comes to cast those murmurers asleep and to give the Soul peace He is no troublesome guest that comes but once But it were a great happinesse thou wilt say if men did experimentally know what it is to dye Truely this Felicity is not wanting Death is a most admirable ingenious Excogitation Though we dye but once yet do not we dye at once We may make yea we do make many assaies or tryals of dying Death insinuates it selfe and seizeth upon us by peecemeals it gives us a tast of it self It is the Cronie or Consort of life So soon as we begin to be w●e begin to wast and vanish we cannot ascend to life without descending towards death Nay we begin to dye before we appeare to live the perfect shape of the Infant is the death of the Embryo childhood is the death of Infancie youth of Childhood Manhood of youth and old age of Manhood When we are arrived at this last