Selected quad for the lemma: enemy_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
enemy_n	flank_n	front_n	rear_n	1,327	5	12.0997	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41152	Contemplations upon life and death with serious reflections on the miseries that attend humane life in every station, degree and change thereof / written by a person of quality in his confinement a little before his death ... a true copy of the paper delivered to the sheriffs upon the scaffold at Tower-hill on Thursday, January 28, 1696/7 by Sir John Fenwick, Baronet.	Fenwick, John, Sir, 1645?-1697.	1697 (1697)	Wing F720; ESTC R37797	24,831	34

Master of himself pushing Time forward as it were with his shoulder that he may the sooner enjoy his hoped-for Liberty In short he desires nothing more than to see the end of this Age which he looks upon as Bondage and Slavery and enter upon the beginning of his Youth And what is the beginning of Youth but the death of Infancy And the beginning of Manhood but the death of Youth Or what is the beginning of to Morrow but the death of the present Day And thus he implicitly desires his Death and judges his Life miserable and therefore cannot be reputed in a state of Happiness or Contentment Behold him now according to his wish at Liberty in that Age wherein he has his Choice to take the way of Vertue or of Vice and either to choose Reason or Passion for his Guide His Passion entertains him with a thousand Delights prepares for him a thousand Baits and presents him with a thousand Worldly Pleasures to surprize him And these are so agreeable to headstrong and unbridled Youth that there are very few that are not taken and beguiled by them of which my own Example is too evident an Instance But when the Reckoning comes to be made up what Pleasures are they They are but vicious and polluted Pleasures which ever hold him in a restless Fever Pleasures that at the best end in Repentance and like sweet Meats are of a hard digestion Pleasures that are bought with pain and in a moment perish but leave behind a lasting Guilt and long remorse of Conscience All which I wish my own too dear Experience could not witness And yet this is the very Nature if they be well examin'd of all the Pleasures of this World There is in none so much Sweetness but there is more Bitterness none so pleasant to the Mouth but it leaves an unsavoury Gusto after it I will not speak here of the Mischiefs Quarrels Debates Wounds Murthers Banishments Sickness and other Dangers whereinto sometimes the Incontinency and sometimes the Insolency of this ill-guided Age does plunge Men for the remembrance of my own Follies upon this occasion stops my mouth and fills me with remorse and shame But if those that seem Pleasures be nothing else but Displeasures if the Sweetness thereof be as an Infusion of Wormwood what then must the Displeasure be which they feel And how great the Bitterness that they taste Behold then in short the Life of a young Man who rid of the Government of his Parents and Masters abandons himself to all the Exorbitancies of his unruly Passion which like an unclean Spirit possessing him throws him sometimes into the Water and then into the Fire sometimes carries him clear over a Rock and at other times flings him headlong to the bottom But if he follows Reason for his Guide which is much the better choice yet on this hand there are wonderful Difficulties For he must resolve to fight in every part of the Field and at every step to be in conflict as having his Enemy in front in flank and on the rear never leaving to assail him and this Enemy is all that can delight him all that he sees near or far off In short the greatest Enemy in the World is the World it self which he must therefore overcome But beside the World he has a thousand Treacherous Enemies within him among whom his Passion is none of the least which waits for an occasion to surprize him and betray him to his Lusts It is God only that can make him choose the Path of Vertue and it is God only that can keep him in it to the End and make him victorious in all his combats But alas how few they are that enter into it And of those few how many that retire again So that let a Man follow the one way or the other he must either subject himself to a Tyrannical Passion or undertake a weary and continual Combat wilfully throw himself into the Arms of Destruction or fetter himself as it were in the Stocks easily carried away with the current of the Water or painfully stemming the impetuous Tide See here the happiness of the young Man Who in his Youth having drunk his full draught of the Worlds vain and deceivable Pleasures is over-taken by them with such a dull heaviness and astonishment as Drunkards the morrow after a Debauch or Gluttons after a plentiful Feast who are so over-prest with the Excesses of the former day that the very remembrance of it creates their loathing And even he that has made the stoutest resistance feels himself so weary and with this continual Conflict so bruised and broken that he is either upon the point to yield or dye And this is all the Good all the Contentment of this flourishing Age by Children so earnestly desired and by those who have experienc'd it so heartily lamented Next cometh that which is called Perfect Age in which Men have no other thoughts but to purchase themselves Wisdom and Rest It is called perfect indeed but is herein only perfect that all Imperfections of Humane Nature hidden before under the simplicity of Childhood or the lightness of Youth appear at this Age in their Perfection I speak of none in this place but those that are esteemed the wisest and most happy in the opinion of the World I have already shewed that we play'd in fear and that our short Pleasures were attended on with long Repentance But now Avarice and Ambition present themselves to us promising if we will adore them to give us perfect Contentment with the Goods and Honours of this World And surely none but those who are restrained by a Divine Hand can escape the Illusions of the one or the other and not cast themselves headlong from the top of the Pinacle But let us see what this Contentment is The Covetous Man Makes a thousand Voyages by Sea and Journeys by Land runs a thousand hazzards escapes a thousand shipwracks and is in perpetual fear and travel and yet oftentimes either loseth his time or gains nothing but Sicknesses Gouts and Oppilations In the purchase of this goodly Repose he bestoweth his true Rest and to gain Wealth loseth his Life But suppose he hath gain'd much and that he hath spoil'd the whole East of its Pearls and drawn dry all the Mines of the West will he then be at quiet and say he is content Nothing less For by all his Acquisitions he gains but more Disquiet both of Mind and Body from one travel falling into another never ending but only changing his Miseries He desir'd to have them and now fears to lose them he got 'em with burning ardour and possesses 'em in trembling cold he adventur'd among Thieves to get them and now fears by Thieves and Robbers to be depriv'd of 'em again he labour'd to dig them out of the Earth and now to secure them he hides them therein In short coming from all his Voyages he comes into a Prison and the