Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	wont_a	work_v	world_n	18	3	3.8651	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45310	The remedy of discontentment, or, A treatise of contentation in whatsoever condition fitted for sad and troubled times / by Jos. Hall ...	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1684 (1684)	Wing H405; ESTC R42064	37,772	178

security that Tempest wherein he sees prouder Vessels miserably tost and at last fatally wrecked This man is free from the peril of spightful machinations No man whets his Axe to cut down a shrub it is the large Timber of the world that hath cause to fear hewing Neither is he less free inwardly from the galling stroaks of a self-accusing Conscience here is no remurmuring of the heart for guilty subornations no checks for the secret contrivances of publique villanies no heart-breaking for the failings of bloudy designes or late remorse for their success but quiet harmless thoughts of seasonable frugality of honest recreation with an un interrupted freedom of recourse to Heaven And if at any time by either hostile or casual means he be bereft of his little he smiles in the face of a theef and is no whit astonished to see his thatch on a flame as knowing how easie a supply will repair his loss And when he shall come to his last close his heart is not so glewed to the world that he should be loth to part his soul is not tyed up in bags but flies out freely to her everlasting Rest Oh the secret vertue and happiness of Poverty which none but the right disposed mind knows how to value It was not for nothing that so many great Saints have embraced it rather then the rich profers of the world That so many great Princes have exchanged their Thrones for quiet Cells VVho so cannot be thankful for a little upon these conditions I wish he may be punished with abundance SECT XIII Considering how little will suffice Nature NEither will it a little avail to th' furtherance of our Contentation to consider how little will suffice Nature and that all the rest is but matter of Opinion It is the Apostles charge Having food and raiment let us be therewith content Indeed what use is there of more then what may nourish us within and cover us without If that be wholsome and agreeable to our bodily disposition whether it be fine or course Nature passes not it is meerly VVill that is guilty of this wanton and fastidious choice It is fit that Civility should make difference of clothings and that weaknesse of body or eminence of Estate should make difference of diets Else why not Russet as vvell as Scarlet Beef as Phesant the Grashopper feeds on dew the Chameleon on air what care they for other Viands Our Books tell us that those Anachorets of old that went aside into Wildernesses and sustained themselves with the most spare diet such as those deserts could afford out lived the date of other mens lives in whom Nature is commonly stifled with a gluttonous variety How strong and vigorous above their neighbour Grecians were the Lacedemonians held of old who by the Ordinance of their Law-giver held themselves to their black broth which when Dionysius would needs taste of his Cook truly told him that if he would relish that fare he must exercise strongly as they did and wash in Eurotus Who knows not that our Island doth not afford more able Bodies then they that eat and drink Oates And whom have we seen more healthful and active then the Children of poor men trayned up hardly in their Cottages with fare as little as course Do I see a poor Indian husbanding one tree to all his houshold uses finding in that one Plant Timber Thatch Meat Medicine Wine Honey Oyl Sauce Drink Utensils Ships Cables Sayls and do I rove over all the latitude of Nature for contentment Our appetite is truely unreasonable neither will know any bounds We begin with necessaries as Pliny justly observes and from thence we rise to excess punishing our selves with our own wild desires whereas if we were wise we might find mediocrity an ease Either extream is a like deadly he that over afflicts his body kills a Subject he that pampers it nourishes an Enemy Too much abstinence turns vice and too much ingurgitation is one of the seven and at once destroyes both Nature and Grace The best measure of having or desiring is not what we would but what we ought Neither is he rich that hath much but he that desires not much A discreet frugality is fittest to moderate both our wishes and expences which if we want we prove dangerously prodigal in both if we have we do happily improve our stock to the advantage of our selves and others SECT XIV Considering the inconveniences and miseries of discontentment THe next inducement to Contentation shall be the serious consideration of the miserable inconveniences of the contrary disposition Discontentment is a mixture of anger and of grief both which are wont to raise up fearful tempests in the Soul He teareth himself in his anger saith Bildad concerning that mirrour of patience And the sorrow of the World worketh death saith the chosen vessel so as the Male-content whether he be angry or sad mischieves himself both wayes There cannot be a truer word then that of wise Solomon Anger resteth in the bosom of fooles What can be more foolish then for a man because he thinks God hath made him miserable by crosses to make himself more miserable by his own distempers If the clay had sense what a mad thing were it for it to struggle with the Potter and if a man will spurn against strong Iron-pikes what can he hope to carry away but wounds How witless a thing it is for a man to torment himself with the thoughts of those evils that are past all remedy What wise beholder would not have smiled with pitty and scorn to have seen great Augustus after the defeat of some choyce troopes to knock his head against the Wall and to hear him passionately cry out O Varus restore me my lost Legions Who would not have been angry with that cholerick Prophet to hear him so furiously contest with his maker for a withered Gourd What an affliction was it to good Jacob more then the sterility of a beloved wife to hear Rachel say Give me Children or else I dye yea how ill did it sound in the mouth of the Father of the Faithful Lord God what wilt thou give me seeing I go Childless Yet thus froward and techy is nature in the best if we may not have all we would have all that we have is nothing if we be not perfectly humored we are willfully unthankful All Israel is nothing worth to Ahab if he may not have one poor Vineyard How must this needs irritate a munificent God to see his bounty contemned out of a childish pettishness How can he forbear to take away from us his sleighted Mercies How can he hold his hand from plaguing so ingrateful disrespects of his Favours As for that other passion of grief what woful work doth it make in ungoverned minds How many have we known that out of thought for unrecoverable losses have lost themselves how many have run from their wits how

us what is the world to us without it He whose we are knows sickness to be for the health of the Soul whether should we in true judgment desire we wish to live who can blame us life is sweet but if our Maker have ordained that nothing but Death can render us glorious what madness is it to stick at the condition Oh our gross infidelity if we do not believe that great Arbiter of the World infinitely wise to know what is best for us infinitely merciful to will what he knows best infinitely powerful to do what he will And if we be thus perswaded how can we but in matter of good say with blessed Mary Behold thy Servant best unto me according to thy Word And in matter of evil with good Eli It is the Lord let him do vvhat he vvill SECT IX Consideration of the worse Condition of others IN the third place it will be requisite for us to cast our eyes upon the vvorse condition of others perhaps better deserving then our selves for if vve shall whine complain of that weight which others do run avvay chearfully withal the fault will appear to be not in the heavinesse of the load but in the vveakness of the bearer If I be discontented with a mean dwelling another man lives merrily in a thatched Cottage If I dislike my plain fare the four captive children feed fair and fat with pulse and water If I be plundred of my rich suits I see a more chearful heart under a russet Coat then great Princes have under purple Robes If I do gently languish upon my sick bed I see others patient under the torments of the Cholick or Stone or Strangury If I be clapt up within four walls I hear Petronous profess he had rather be in Prison with Cato then at liberty with Caesar I hear Paul and Silas sing like Nightingales in their cages Am I sad because I am childless I hear many a parent wish himself so Am I banished from my home I meet with many of whom the world was not worthy wandring about in Sheep-skins in Goat-skins in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of earth What am I that I should speed better then the miserablest of thee patients What had they done that they should fare worse then I If I have little others have less If I feel pain some others torture If their sufferings be just my forbearances are merciful my provisions to theirs liberal It is no ill counsel therefore and not a little conducing to a contented want that great persons should sometimes step aside into the homely Cottages of the poor and see their mean stuffe course fare hard lodgings worthlesse utensils miserable shifts and to compare it with their own delicate and nauseating superfluities Our great and learned King Alfred was the better all his life after for his hidden retiredness in a poor Neat-heards Cabbin where he was sheltred and sometimes also chidden by that homely Dame Neither was it an ill wish of that wise Man that all great Princes might first have had some little taste what it is to want that so their own experience might render them more sensible of the complaints of others Man though he be absolute in himself and stand upon his own botom yet is he not a little wrought upon by examples and comparisons with others for in them he sees what he is or may be since no events are so confined to some special subjects as that they may not be incident to other men Merit is a poor plea for any mans exemption whilst our sinful infirmities lay us all open to the rod of divine Justice and if these dispensations be meerly out of favour why do I rather grudge at a lesser misery then bless God for my freedom from a greater judgement Those therefore that suffer more then I have cause of more humbling and I that suffer lesse then they have cause of more thankfulness even mitigations of punishment are new mercies so as others torments doe no other then heighten my obligations let me not therefore repine to be favourably miserable SECT X. Consideration of the inconveniences of great estates and first of their cares that they expose us to envy and then macerate us with cares THe fourth Consideration shall be of the inconniences which do oftentimes attend a fulnesse of estate such and so many as may well make us sit down content with a little wherof let the first be envy a mischief not to be avoided of the great This shadow follows that body inseparably All the curs in the street are ready to fall upon that dogg that goes away with the bone and every man hath a Cudgel to fling at a wel-loaded Tree wheras a mean condition is no eye-sore to any beholder Low shrubs are not wont to be stricken with Lightning but tall Oaks Cedars feel their flames Whiles David kept his fathers sheep at home hee might sing sweetly to his Harp in the fields without any disturbance But when he once comes to the Court and finds applause and greatness creep upon him now emulation despight and malice dog him close at the heels wheresoever he goes Let him leave the Court and flee into the Wilderness there these bloodhounds follow him in hot suit Let him run into the Land of the Philistins there they find him out and chase him to Ziklag and if at the last he hath climbed up to his just Throne and there hopes to breathe him after his tedious pursuit even there he meets with more unquietness then in his desert and notwithstanding all his Royalty at last cries out Lord remember David and all his troubles How many have we known whom their wealth hath betray'd and made innocent malefactors who might have slept securely upon a hard bolster and in a poor estate out-lived both their Judges and Accusers Besides on even ground a fall may be harmless but he that falls from on high cannot escape bruising He therefore that can think the benefits of Eminence can countervail the dangers which haunt greatness let him affect to overtop others for me let me rather be safely low then high with perill After others envy the next attendant upon greatness is our own cares how do these disquiet the Beds and sawce the Tables of the wealthy breaking their sleeps galling their sides embittering their pleasure shortning their days How bitterly do we find the holiest men complaining of those distractions which have attended their earthly promotions Nazianzen cries out of them as no other then the bane of the Soul and that other Gregory whom we are wont to call the last of the best Bishops of Rome and the first of the bad passionately bewails this clogge of his high preferment I confess saith he that whiles I am outwardly advanced I am inwardly fallen lower this burdensome honour depresses me and innumerable cares disquiet me on all sides my mind grown almost stupid