Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	work_n	work_v	world_n	540	4	4.3455	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82001	Historie & policie re-viewed, in the heroick transactions of His Most Serene Highnesse, Oliver, late Lord Protector; from his cradle, to his tomb: declaring his steps to princely perfection; as they are drawn in lively parallels to the ascents of the great patriarch Moses, in thirty degrees, to the height of honour. / By H.D. Esq.	H. D. (Henry Dawbeny)	1659 (1659)	Wing D448; Thomason E1799_2; ESTC R21310	152,505	340

and all the Elements under his feet than he could possibly be here with beholding them over his head In short who would think it much I am sure his Highnesse did not to give up the life of a Pismire for the greatest Prince's upon earth is no better in exchange for immortality he had alwayes we know like a good Christian death in his desire and life in patience This truly I should presume sufficient to satisfie and comfort any reasonable Christians for the losse as we call it of his late Highness But setting Christianity aside methinks it should be satisfactory enough for common men to consider that as the Poet tells us Lex est non paena perire and what the Philosopher assures us that mors naturae lex est mors tributum officiumque est mortalium death is a law of nature no punishment it is the very tribute and duty of mortals And what Plutarch not more elegantly than truly concludes Homines sicut poma aut matura cadunt aut acerba ruunt Men like Apples must either fall ripe or be pulled down green and sower Now I would fain know what have we to complain of Did not his Highnesse live to a very fair and good old age to a true Mosaick maturity For as was said before if by Chronological Computation our second Moses his forty years were parallel to the fourscore of the former when he came into publick employment then his threescore and upwards when he came to dye stands still parallel with the others hundred and twenty and as for their strength of body and mind none can affirm him to be lesse his parallel to the very last For his Highness eye was not dim nor any of his natural force abated Thus his gracious God and benigne nature plentifully provided for that great and most incomparable person that his most invincible spirit should never quaile under any sensible decay of flesh What more of favour I would fain know could his most Serene Highnesse receive from the bountiful hands of Heaven Yet some spirits there are so disposed to quarrel with the Almighty that they will not yet be satisfied in the divine dispensation but think and say I pray God not impiously that the heavenly and eternal Father should have permitted some more time of life to a person so deserving it but let them remember that mors aequopede pulsat and that intervallis distinguimar exitu aequamur greatnesse nor goodness neither can give any priviledge from death mors omnium par est per quae venit diversa sunt id in quod desinit unum est death though by several waies brings all to the same end These considerations sure though drawn from meer Heathens would be enough to satisfie any common understandings of men but these quarrelsome persons that we speak of sure are of opinion that all happinesse is determined to this poor life and are I fear very neer akin to those whom Plato calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose souls are so great lovers of their bodies that they would tye themselves to their flesh as closoe as they could and after death would as he prettily expresseth it still walk round about their bodies to see if they could find a passage into them again How much is this pittiful humor of Christians below the divine Philosophy of Pagans themselves Amongst whom we find that there were a certain people who by positive laws forbad any man of fifty years of age to make use of the Physitian saying that it discovered too much love of life and yet some Christians we find at the age of fourscore who will not endure to hear a word of death but of this sad sottish temper we know his Mosaical Highnesse was not he never valued the putting off his life more than the shifting of his shirt and when he received his citation from Heaven he as readily obeyed as his Master Moses did to ascend his fatal Mount I pray you then be quiet you cruel friends and do not disturb his honored dust now sweetly resting in his Tabernacle of Repose for if you consider rightly you are bound as the Orator tells you Non tam vitam illi ereptam quam mortem donatam censere not so much to think him bereft of life as to have been endowed with death in a ripe old age and after the enjoyment of the fruits of all his labours Hath not this most incomparable person resembled truely the great Ark in the deluge which after it had borne the whole World in the bowels of it amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of nature at length reposed it self in the Mountains of Armenia So this most admirable Prince after he had carried in his heart and entrals a spirit great as the universe it self amonst so many tears dolours and cruel acerbities of contradictions and had delivered himself of that painful burthen that is had brought forth our most happy and establisht peace he stopt upon Mount Nebo and from thence went to take his rest in the Mountains of Sion Thus the Lord like an indulgent Father of a Family sends his servants to bed so soon as they have done their work it being all the justice and reason in the World that they who rise betimes to serve him and work hard all the day for him should go in as good time to sleep with him Let us I beseech you therefore passe over this death in the manner of holy Scripture which speaks but one word onely of the death of so many great personages Let us never so much as talk of death in a subject so wholly replenisht with immortality O what a death is that to be esteemed to see vice and sin trodden down under his feet and Heaven all in Crowns over his head to see men in admiration all the Angels in joy and the arms of God ready to receive him and fully laden with recompenses for his great services Nay that the Lord did purposely and expressely intend to make his Highness his death appear to be a most signal reward and perfect victory to him and that he should carry off the spoiles of life it self with more triumph than ever mortal did is made manifest in that it pleased his divine Majesty to take him to himself upon that most memorable day the third of September the greatest day of all his humane glories that he was pleased to put an end to his life in this World that very day that he had got such an immortality in fame to set a period to his labours that very day that he had performed so many Herculian ones for the glory of his God and his Countries good and to crown his daies with so glorious a close nay to give him a heavenly Crown that very day that he had gotten so many earthly ones and loaden his Victorious Temples with so many flourishing Laurels of eternal renown Then for the glorious burial of our second

years old when he died his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the Plains of Moab thirty dayes so the daies of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended The Parallel Thus we see how our pious Patriarch has no sooner taken order for a sufficient successor for himself and a convenient Captain for his people but he does most readily dispose himself for his last great journey and Ascent and most cheerfully marcheth up the fatal Mount whilest every step that he took drew blood from the hearts of his poor disconsolate and most afflicted people who followed him with their eies where they could not with their persons nay made their tears to reach him when the sight of their eyes had lost him forcing those floods contrary to the course of other waters to run violently upwards and with an ascending stream bedew every footstep of their precious deer Prince and beloved Patriarch All the happy joys and thorough contentments that they did receive from their brave new Master and Captain General Joshua could never make them forget their old dear deliverer and conductor Moses So true it is what is observed by all Astrologers that every Planet which has its exaltation in one Sign finds ever its counterpoises in another nor can there be any good successe in humane affairs on one side but it is presently paid on the other with some discontent Just thus and no otherwise did our great Protector and gracious second Moses depart from us who receiving from the Almighty the summons of his approaching death whilest he was in the plains of Moab in his House or Palace of Country retirement as speedily and cheerfully as the former Moses did prepared himself to march up to this Metropolitical Mount even to the top of Pisgah his own Palace here where after he had appointed his happy Successor and taken careful order about the affairs of these Kingdoms as well as of his own Family and taken leave of all his Friends and Familiars and dearly beloved Army her rendred up his soul to his God and Saviour as sweetly as little children use to fall asleep upon the breasts of their Nurses leaving us in the mean time drowned in the deluges of our own tears and the sorrow was so general that one would have thought that every house was bearing of their first born to burial nothing was to be seen amongst us but tears nor heard but groans yellings horrors astonishments and representations of death And whereas the people of Israel mourned but thirty daies for their Moses we have lamented the losse of ours more than thrice thirty daies and yet are not wearied with weeping but dolori etiam fesso stimulos addidimus novos we have set spurs to our tired sorrows and upon any occasion of his mentioning those flood-gates are so continually open that they have almost made an inundation upon us and we may still see him sailing through all the good peoples eyes of the Nation and floating upon the salt waters that himself has made For my part I must profess that whilest my Pen is passing over this story I cannot choose but commix the sorrowful water of my eyes with my mourning ink so may be pardoned I hope if at present I write any thing disorderly as indeed I have done all but cannot doubt that the candour of those spirits which are touched with the like passion will out of pitty pardon mine Nay indeed what English man is there that would not be out of love with life since he has pleased to embrace death satis enim vixit qui vitan cum Principe tanto explevit for has he not lived long enough in this world that can be so happy as to march out of it in the company of such a Prince But I must confesse I am to blame nor can I but rebuke my self as it is fit I should before I can reprove others for this unruly unchristian and indeed unreasonable passion For first it is a most manifest repining both against the hand of God and him for the Lord has now placed him in his happy Tabernacle of Repose and absolv'd his immortal soul from all the toilsome fetters and ligaments of flesh as the divine Plato though a Pagan well expresseth it when he saies Pater misericors illis mortalia vincula faciebat God herein saith he hath most mercifully provided like an indulgent father for seeing that the soul of man was like to be shut up within the body as in a prison he hath in his great mercy made its chains to be mortal How much more then ought we Christians to apprehend the happinesse of death that know that very day which we account the last of our lives is to be the first of our felicities nay it is to be the birth of another eternal day which must draw aside the Curtain and discover to us the greatest secrets of nature it is the day that must produce us to those great and divine lights which we behold here onely with the eye of faith in this vale of tears and miseries It is the happy day which must put us between the arms of the Heavenly Father after a course of an unquiet life turmoiled still with storms and so many disturbances Who is so sottish as not to see that we are at this present in the world as in the very belly or womb of nature like little infants destitute both of air and light and can onely look towards and contemplate the happinesse of blessed souls separate from bodies What pleasure must it be then to go out of a dungeon so dark a prison so streight from such infinite ordures and miseries to enter into those spacious Temples of eternal splendors where our being never shall have end our knowledge shall admit no ignorance nor love or joy suffer a change The old Poets themselves did alwayes fancy that there was some happinesse extraordinary in death which the gods as they said did cunningly conceal from us that men should endure to live they are the very words of one of them Mortalesque dii caelant ut vivere durent felix esse mori Other Heathens there were that by meet force of Philosophy could tell us that the body was to the soul as the shadow of the earth in the eclipse of the Moon and do we not see how this bright Planet which illuminates our nights seems to be very unwillingly captivated in the dark but labours and sparkles with striving to get aloft and free it self from those dull earthly impressions So did his late Highnesse his most illustrious and faithful soul most readily untwine and disingage it self from his body well knowing it had a much better house in the inheritance of God which is not a manufacture of men but a monument of the hands of the great Artificer where he will be much more delighted to see the Sun Moon and stars