Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	womb_n	world_n	youth_n	17	3	7.4085	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37242	A work for none but angels & men. That is to be able to look into, and to know our selves. Or a book shewing what the soule is, subsisting and having its operations without the body; its more th[e]n a perfection or reflection of the sense, or teperature of humours: how she exercises her powers of vegetative or quickening power of the senses. Of the imaginations or common sense, the phantasie, sensative memory, passions motion of life, local motion, and intellectual powers of the soul. Of the wit, understanding, reason, opinion, judgement, power of will, and the relations betwixt wit & wil. Of the intellectual memory, that the soule is immortall, and cannot dye, cannot be destroyed, her cause ceaseth not, violence nor time cannot destroy her; and all objections answered to the contrary.; Nosce teipsum. Selections	Davies, John, Sir, 1569-1626.	1653 (1653)	Wing D409; ESTC R207134	24,057	52

weaknesse of the mind But of the Sense for if the mind did wast In all old men we should this wasting find When they some certaine terme of years had past But most of them even to their dying hour Retaine a mind more lively quick and strong And better use their understanding power Then when their brains were warm and limbs were young Yet say these men if all her Organs dye Then hath the Soule no power her powers to use So in a sort her powers extinct do lye When unto act she cannot them reduce And if her powers be dead then what is she For since from every thing some powers do spring And from those powers some acts proceeding be Then kill both power and act and kill the thing Doubtles the bodies death when once it dies The instruments of sense and life doth kill So that she cannot use those faculties Although their root restin her substance still But as the body living wit and will Can judge and chuse without the bodies aid Though on such objects they are working still As through the bodies Organs are conveyd So when the body serves her turne no more And all her Senses are extinct and gone She can discourse of what she learn'd before In heavenly contemplations all alone And though the Instruments by which we live And view the world the bodies death to kill Yet with the body they shall all revive And all their wonted offices fulfill But how till then shall she her selfe imploy Her spies are dead which brought home news before What she hath got and keeps she may enjoy But she hath means to understand no more Then what do those poor Soules which nothing get Or what do those which get and cannot keep Like Buckets bottomlesse which all out let Those Soules for want of exercise must sleep See how mans Soule against it selfe doth strive Why should we not have other means to know As children while within the womb they live Feed by the navil here they feed not so These children if they had some use of sense And should by chance their mothers talking heare That in short time they shall come forth from thence Would fear their birth more then our death we feare They would cry out if we this place shall leave Then shall we break our tender navil strings How shall we then our nourishment receive Since our sweet food no other conduit brings And if a man should to these babes reply That into this faire world they shal be brought Where they shal see the earth the sea the sky The glorious Sun and all that God hath wrought That there ten thousand dainties they shal meet Which by their mouths they shal with pleasure take Which shal be cordial too aswel as sweet And of their little limbs tall bodies make This would they think a fable even as we Do think the story of the golden age Or as some sensual spirits amongst us be Which hold the world to come a faigned stage Yet shall these infants after find all true Though then thereof they nothing could conceive Assoon as they are borne the world they view And with their mouths the Nurses milk receive So when the Soule is borne for death is nought But the Soules birth and so we should it call Ten thousand things she sees beyond her thought And in an unknown manner knowes them all Then doth she see by Spectacles no more She hears not by report of double spies Her selfe in instants doth all things explore For each thing present and before her lyes But still this Crew with Questions me pursues If Soules deceasd say they still living be Why do they not return to bring us newes Of that strange world where they such wonders see The Soule hath here on earth no more to do Then we have businesse in our mothers womb What child doth covet to returne thereto Although all children first from thence do come And doubtlesse such a Soule as up doth mount And doth appear before her Makers face Holds this vile world in such a base account As she looks down and scorns this wretched place But such as are detruded downe to Hell Either for shame they still themselves retire Or tyed in chaines they in close Prison dwell And cannot come although they much desire Well well say these vaine spirits though vain it is To think our Soules to heaven or hel do go Politick men have thought it not amisse To spread this lye to make men vertuous so Do you then think this moral vertue good I think you do even for your private gain For Common-wealths by vertue ever stood And common good the private doth contain Oh how can that be false which every tongue Of every mortal man affirmes for true Which truth hath in all ages been so strong As load-stone like all hearts it ever drew For not the Christian or the Jew alone The Persian or the Turk acknowledge this This mystery to the wild Indian knowne And to the Cannibal and Tartar is None that acknowledge God or providence Their Soules eternity did ever doubt For all Religion takes her root from hence Which no poor naked Nation lives without If death do quench us quite we have great Wrong Since for our service all things else were wrought That Dawes Trees and Rocks should last so long When we must in an instant passe to nought But blest be that great power that hath us blest With longer life then heaven or earth can have Which hath enfusd into one mortal brest Immortal powers not subject to the grave For though the Soule do seem her grave to bear And in this world is almost buried quick We have no cause the bodies death to fear For when the shel is broke ou● comes a Chick For as the Soules Essential powers are three The quickning power the power of Sense and Reason Three kinds of life to her designed be Which perfect these three powers in their due season The fi●st life in the mothers womb is spent Where she her nursing power doth onely use Where when she finds defects of nourishment Sh'expels her body and this world she viewes This we call Birth but if the Child could speake He Death would call it and of nature plaine Tha she would thrust him out naked and weak And in h●s passage pinch him with such paine Yet out he comes and in this world is plac't Where all his Senses in perfection be Where he finds flowers to smel and truits to tast And sounds to hear and sundry formes to see When he hath past some time upon this stage His Reason then a little seems to wake Which though she spring when sense doth fade with age Yet can she here no perfect practise make Then doth th' aspiring Soule the body leave Which we call death but were it known to all What life our Soules do by this death receive Men would

desire proceeds Which all men have surviving fame to gaine By Tombes by Books by memorable Deeds For she that this desires doth still remaine Hence lastly springs Care of Posterities For things their kind would everlasting make Hence is it that old men do plant young Trees The fruit whereof another age shall take If we these Rules unto our selves apply And view them by reflection of the mind All these true notes of immortality In our Hearts Tables we shall written find And though some impious wits do questions move And doubt if Soules immortall be or no That doubt their immortality doth prove Because they seem immortal things to know For he which Reasons on both parts doth bring Doth some things mortall some immortall call Now if himselfe were but a mortall thing He could not judge immortall things at all For when we judge our minds we mirrours make And as those glasses which material be Formes of materiall things do onely take For thoughts or minds in them we cannot see So when we God and Angles do conceive And think of truth which is eternal to Then do our minds immortal forms receive Which if they mortall were they could not do And as if Beasts conceiv'd what Reason were And that conception should distinctly show They should the name of reasonable bear For without Reason none could Reason know So when the Soule mounts with so high a wing As of eternal things she doubts can move She proofs of her eternity doth bring Even when she strives the contrary to prove For even the thought of Immortality Being an act done without the Bodies aid Shewes that her selfe alone could move and be Although the body in the grave were laid And if her selfe she can so lively move And never need a forraigne help to take Then must her motion everlasting prove Because her selfe she never can forsake But though corruption cannot touch the mind By any cause that from it selfe may spring Some outward cause fate hath perhaps design'd Which to the Soule may utter quenching bring Perhaps her cause may cease and she may die God is her cause his word her maker was Which shall stand fixt for all eternity When heaven and earth shall like a shadow passe Perhaps some thing repugnant to her kind By strong Antipathy the Soule may kill But what can be contrary to the mind Which holds all contraries in concord still She lodgeth heat and cold and moist and dry And life and death and peace and war together Ten thousand fighting things in her do lye Yet neither troubleth or disturbeth either Perhaps for want of food the Soule may pine But that were strange since all things bad and good Since all Gods creatures mortall and divine Since God himselfe is her eternall food Bodies are fed with things of mortal kind And so are subject to mortality But truth which is eternal feeds the mind The tree of life which will not let her dye Yet violence perhaps the Soul destroyes As lightning or the Sun-beams dim the sight Or as a thunder-clap or Cannons noyse The power of hearing doth astonish quite But high perfection to the Soule it brings T' encounter things most excellent and high For when she viewes the best and greatest things They do not hurt but rather clear her eye But lastly Time perhaps at last hath power To spend her lively powers and quench her light But old God Saturne which doth all devour Doth cherish her and still augment her might Heaven waxeth old and all the Spheares above Shall one day faint and their swift motion stay And Time it selfe in time shall cease to move Onely the Soule survives and lives for aye Our Bodies every footstep that they make March towards death untill at last they dye Whether we work or play or sleep or wake Our life doth passe and with times wings doth flye But to the Soule Time doth perfection give And adds fresh lustre to her beauty still And makes her in eternal youth to live Like her which Nectar to the God doth full The more she lives the more she feeds on truth The more she feeds her strength doth more increase And what is strength but an effect of youth Which if time nurse how can it ever cease But now these Epicures begin to smile And say my doctrine is more safe then true And that I fondly do my selfe beguile While these receiv'd opinions I ensue For what say they doth not the Soule wax old How comes it then that aged men do dote And that their braines grow sottish dull and cold Which were in youth the onely spirits of note What are not Soules within themselves corrupted How can there Idiots then by Nature be How is it that some wits are interrupted That now they dazled are now clearly see These Questions make a subtile Argument To such as think both Sense and Reason one To whom nor agent from the instrument Nor power of working from the work is knowne For if that region of the tender braine Wherein th' inward sense of phantasie should sit And th' outward senses gatherings should retaine By nature or by chance become unfit Either at first uncapable it is And so few things or none at all receives Or mar'd by accident which haps amisse And so amisse it every thing perceives Then as a cunning Prince that useth Spies If they returne no newes doth nothing know But if they make advertizement of Lyes The Princes Counsel all awry do go Even so the Soule to such a Body knit Whose inward senses undisposed be And to receive the formes of things unfit Where nothing is brought in can nothing see But if a Phrensie do possesse the braine It so disturbs and blots the formes of things As phantasie proves altogether vaine And to the wit no true relation brings Then doth the wit admitting all for true Build fond conclusions on those idle grounds Then doth it flie the good and ill pursue Beleeving all that this false Spie propounds But purge the humours and the rage appease Which this distemper in the fancy wrought Then will the wit which never had disease Discourse and judge discreetly as it ought Then these defects in Senses Organs be Not in the Soule or in her working might She cannot loose her perfect power to see Though mists clouds do choke her window light The Soule in all hath one Intelligence Though too much moisture in an Infants braine And too much drinesse in an old mans sense Cannot the prints of outward things retaine Then doth the Soule want work and idle sit And this we childishnesse and dotage call Yet hath she then a quick and active wit If she had stuffe and tools to work withall As a good Harper stricken far in years Into whose cunning hands the Gout doth fall All his old Crotchets in his braine he bears But on his Harp playes ill or not at all Then dotage is no