Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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B04461
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Phármaka ouranóthen, the shadow of the tree of life: Or A discourse of the divine institution and most effectual application of medicinal remedies. In order to the preservation, and restauration of health. / By J.M.
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Marlow, John, 1648-1695.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing M45; ESTC R214747
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33,243
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133
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Many times providence may make use of those distempered humours which the child derived from its Parent to be the instruments of death a holy person may dye in battail and be surpriz'd by every accident all these things falling alike to all Yet these examples doe not contradict a general rule viz. that Piety and Faith in Christ is a good preservative of natural life Enoch and Elias never dyed and became examples that a spotless life might possibly have been immortall CHAP. XLIV SO that the best way to secure our health is to indeavour to procure the providence of God to be our life guard but when he withdraws his protection we are exposed to the aspect of a Star the contingencies of a battel and the accidents of a humor every day and every minute we escape a thousand deaths surrounding us it is as natural for a young person to dye as an old because that is most natural which is most common and hath most natural causes but to dye with age is a very rare thing but the sins of youth are the immediate instruments of death and although a man in a consumption be under the preparations for death yet one in health may be as near it upon more fatall and less discern'd accompts by a sudden Feaver or Apoplexy c. There are some vices that carry a knife in their hand and cut of man before his time every sinfull pleasure tops off a branch from our short life Although we fly from death yet it followeth us and we doe like the poor creatures in Noahs flood when one flour drowned go to the next and so higher and higher and more and more diffracted with the horror of death and when at the uppermost story yet drown'd at last so we run from one disease and another overtakes us and we are pursued untill destroyed at last by the king of Terrors CHAP. XLV DAvid indeavours to use all the means possible to secure his life notwithstanding he had been told by Samuel he should live to wear the Crown so that the Divine determinations concerning our lives should not lessen our care to preserve our lives In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death was Adams sentence the wicked and blood thirsty man shall not live out half his days as the Patridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his dayes The covetous rich man shall have his soul or life taken away and then whose are all his goods Sauls disobedience Ahaziahs evil consultations Jeroboams Idolatry Benhadads curiosity Ahabs cruelty Hananiahs false Prophesie Herods vainglory Saphyras perjury the Samaritan lords infidelity the forty two childrens calumny these impieties had a particular influence upon the contracting of their days as sacred writ demonstrates CHAP. XLVI MOreover the infirmities of virtuous good men may so far provoke the Almighty as to take away their natural lives although he reward them with Eternal life as in the example of Moses and Aaron and the good Israelites that murmured the good Prophet slain by the Lion Ely and Vzziah Somtimes God cuts off children for the sinfull miscarriage of Parents as in the case of Abijah the widows child Davids child Elies children Somtimes Subjects for the Ruâ—ers Impieties as Davids Subâ—ects CHAP. XLVII ANother thing that is necessary towards the procuring the fluence of a Divine blessing with the means is to endeavour to find out the cause of the distemper I mean the supernatural cause and to learn those lessons which providence intends to teach by sickness the Prophet's quaere wherefore doth the living man complain doth plainly intimate that there is a reason there is an Achan oâ— Babylonish garment or something that causeth the thorn in the flesh and this must be removed for the Almighty doth not afflict willingly the rod hath a voice there are many ends thaâ— God aims at in all afflictions Aâ— to correct for sinfull miscarriages our minds have diseases as weâ—… as our bodies the tympany oâ— pride the feaver of passion thâ— dropsie of covetousness anâ— therefore we are fed with thâ— bread of affliction and the water of adversity the plaguâ— of the heart is many times cureâ— with the plague of the body there is a root of bitterness from whence all our troubles spring As there is a vanity lyeth hid in the best worldly good so there is a blessing lyeth hid in the worst worldly evil we should imitate the Bee gather sweet fruit out of bitter flowers CHAP. XLVIII WE should not like Baalam strike the Ass look only upon the second cause of our sickness but behold the Angel that is the immediat instrument We are very prone to attribute too much to second causes but holy Job was of another minde when his children were killed by the fall of a house he saith The Lord took them away Sometimes the Almighty takes away a person by death in mercy to the person as Abijah and Josiah and others Sometimes he removes the child to exercise the parents faith as Jobs children and in the case of Isaac One reason why our distempers are no sooner removed is because the design of it is not answered CHAP. XLIX THere are many happy intentions that Divine providence aymes at in laying sicknesses and diseases upon the bodies of men One end that Divine Goodness aimes at is to demonstrate his own glory in healing and restoring so saith our blessed Lord concerning Lazarus this sickness shall not be unto death but for the glory of God and indeed deliverance from sickness is a singular mercy both to a mans self and others Epaphroditus was sick nye unto death but God had mercy on him and on me also saith holy Paul and therfore we should bless the Lord with our souls and all that is within us should praise his holy name and that upon this account because he healeth all our diseases CHAP. L. THis consideration ellivated the holy soul of Hezekias and transported him into a divine Doxology viz. the living the living they shall praise thee as I doe this day When men are miraculously delivered from death after they have received the sentence thereof in themselves it is given to this end that thanks may be many on their behalf When our souls are delivered from going down to the grave and our eyes are enlightned that we sleep not the sleep of death then â—hould we praise the Lord in the great congregation and our songs should be unto the God of our lives CHAP. LI. ANother design of providence in sickness is to prepare men for greater sufferings it prepares us for death St. Paul whose bodily presence was weak was ready to dye for the name of Christ why should he be afraid of them that kill the body they can do no more then an Ague or a Consumption the sick-bed is the attiring room of the grave in which we should be preparing
diseases with their symptomes and nicknamed distempers and giving them some common denomination and apprehending that it being nothing else but what they have known some recover of they neglect the properest remedies until it be too late or until the distemper be complicated and hath taken deep root It costs many a man his life whilest he eyeth only the external causes of distempers It is usual to discourse thus I have left off a coate or put on a damp shift or eaten somthing that did not agree with my stomach or drank cold beer when hot or over walked my self or have been frighted or grieved or the like when at the same time the stomach is disordered by a loade of corrupt humors and a meer Quagmire the Blood inflamed the Liver and Spleen obstructed and the Lungs perished and this is not taken notice of as if a man when his house is on fire should not mind it so as to quench it but satisfie himself with this consideration that it came only by a boy throwing a squib c. And many times they will depend upon the advice of some friend or apish Doctor until cold sweats affright and then the learned Physitian is sent for when the time for purgation and bleeding is let ship and so the Physitian shares with the Patient in the infamy of miscarriage and he is sent for not to cure that he cannot because nature is spent but to try whether he can antidate resurrections Nothing destroyes more Persons then imprudent hearkning to the advise of persons of other professions and neglecting learned Physitians until it be too late CHAP. XXXII A Nother effectual ingredient in the cure of distempers and that which is most necessary is the concurring influence of a divine blessing unto God the Lord belong the issues from death and therefore it concerns us so to behave our selves that we may procure a divine Benediction The best way to procure a divine influence to cooperate with the means is by a Holy and a pious life so saith God Almighty to the Jews If you obey my statutes and hearken to my Judgments I will bless your bread and your water remove sickness from the midst of you Solomon urgeth the consideration of our health as a very strong argument to promote divine fear It shall be health our Navel and marrow to our bones Wisdom is a Tree of life to them that lay hold upon it what man is he that loveth life and many dayes let him depart from evil and do good Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come Solomons asking of wisdom was attended with the addition of long life If the obedience of our naturall Parents hath the promise of long life annext to it much more the service of our spiritual parent especially so far as life is good life is yours saith the Apostle because you are Christs CHAP. XXXIII PIety it secures men from the power of evil Angels who have a great influence in the procuring of distempers by a Divine permission as in the case of the excommunicated Corinthian and the incestuous persons about Lots House struck blind Herod destroyed by an Angel and the evil angels sent amonst the Israelites and several other examples of the like nature and the Demoniacks in the Gospel Again Piety it usually secures men from the stroke of Humane Justice as it guards them from those flagitious impieties which expose them to the penalties of humane lawes as murders thefts and rapine And it also preserves men from the terrors of an evil conscience which makes men many times wash their hands in their own blood as Judas did Again Piety preserves life as it teacheth men temperance and moderation in the use of those means that preserve life We find in Sacred Oracles that immature death is threatned as the penalty of disobedience and that the Penmen of Holy writ doe often inculcate the benefit of the fear of God as it is attended with the promise of longaevity So that to imagine the life of man to be fixed beyond the possibility of the Almighties abbreviation or prolongation is vain and inconsistent with scripture and reason CHAP. XXXIV THe Turks dream that the manner and moment of every mans death is prefixt by the Immutable laws of fate and that his lot is written in invisible Characters in his forehead that they accompt it vanity and cowardise to arm themselves against the blows of war by defensive weapons but it is to be hop'd that Christians have learned better It being a confest verity that every natural motion hath its beginning duration and period dependent on the will of the first motive now the life of man being a natural motion our nativity and death are both order'd by divine providence for in him we live and move and have our being The natural life of man consisting in a requisite harmony of the first qualities and in a proportionate comixture of the natural heat and radical moysture which harmony is more or less according to the more or less exquisite temperament of body assigned to each single person by the free dispensation of the divine will It followeth that the continuance of every individual in this natural life dependeth upon the pleasure of the first cause as Holy Job intimates when he saith our dayes are determined and the number of our Months are with him who hath set bounds to humane nature so that no man can live beyond the durability of his specificall temperament the principles of his vitality and permissions of providence CHAP. XXXV THe only wise God hath composed our bodies like a lamp of heat and moysture hath given appetites of hunger and thirst to feed this lamp and so supply the expences of the moysture by the heat he hath given us reason and understanding to govern our appetites and the revelation of his will to guide our reason now if we through the depravation of our natures and the predominancy of temptation do suffer our appetite to dethrone our reason and give way to Ebriety Gluttoners salacity other immoralities which have a natural tendency to extinguish the lamp of life we may justly exspect to be cut off in the midst of our dayes and to dye before our time by being wicked over much as Solomon expresseth it Whereas piety and obedience like the Tree of life in paradise not only sacramentally but really conduceth to health and long life so far as it is a blessing and this it doth by impregnating our elements with the tincture of a divine benediction by meliorating our temperaments and constitutions by infusing salutiferous dispositions in the air propitious influences in the host of heaven which many times impress the seminalities of diseases upon the blood and spirits so that the period of our days and all the second causes conducing thereunto are circumscribed within the circle of a divine prenotion and limitation CHAP. XXXVI A