Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	die_v	sin_n	sin_v	2,346	5	9.2147	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37030	A contemplation of mans mortalitie. Preached at Reading, by John Dashfield, M.A.	Dashfield, John.	1649 (1649)	Wing D279A; ESTC R214401	10,075	24

A CONTEMPLATION Of MANS MORTALITIE Preached at Reading BY John Dashfield M.A. Printed at London 1649 To the True-Lover of Vertue and Learning John Penrice Esquire John Dashfield wisheth all Happinesse SIR IN the view of these bleeding times I am bold to present unto you A Contemplation of Mans Mortaitie a subject indeed really intended upon the death of your most valiant and undaunted Kinsman Major William P●●chard the worlds valour who of all men chose me for his Minister at his execution and I in lew of his approbation presume to present this unto you and the rest of his friends and kindred And as Hannah when she had presented her young Son Samuel unto the Lord did make him a little coat So have I put this my little childe into a new coat and am bold to present it to your Noble Favour for protection Vouchsafe therefore to take it by the hand and I doubt not but the Ephramite shall be heard here to speake as plain at the smooth-tongued Canaanite and so I pray God to blesse your person and affaires here that you may be kept blamelesse unto the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ. And this shall ever be the prayer of him that is Yours in all Christian service John Dashfield Ovid Nec Leges metuunt Maestaque victrici Iura sub ense ●acent The Contemplation of Mans MORTALITIE Eccle. the 7 chap. part of the 36 ver Recordare novissima Remember thy end IT is the generall opinion of the best Writers perfectissimam vitam esse continuam mortis meditationem that the most perfect life is a continuall meditation of death Chrysostome expounding that place of Saint Luke Qui vult venire post me He that will follow me saith That Christ commandeth us not to beare upon our backs that heavie burthen of the Woodden Crosse but that we should alwayes set our death before our eyes making that of Saint Paul to be mans Motto Quotidie morior I die daily In the second of the Kings it is recounted that the holy King Josias did clense the people from their Altars their Groves and High Places where innumerable Idolatries did daily increase to smend which ill he placed there in their stead Bones Sculls and the ashes of dead men Whose judgement herein was very discreet for from mans forgetting of his beginning and his end arise his Idolatries and so reviving by those Bones the remembrance of what they were heretofore and what they shall be hereafter hee did make them amend that fault and reduced them from their errours God created man of the basest matter of very dust but this dust being molded by Gods own hand and inspiring it with so much wisdome counsell and prudence Tertullian calls it cura Divini ingenii but man growing proud hereupon and hoping to be a god himself God doomed him to death and wrapped him again in durty swadling clouts with this inscription Pulvis es Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return Adam did not without some mystery cloath himself with green leaves for as Saint Ambrose hath noted it he gave as it were therein a signe and token of his vain and foolish hopes When God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar how little a while his Empire was to last he shewed him a statue of divers metalls the head gold the brest silver the bellie brasse the legges iron the feeet clay and it seems a little stone descended from the mountain lightning on the feet dashed the statue in pieces But instead of taking this as a fore-warning of his end and to have it still before his eyes he made another statue of gold from top to toe which is held to be a durable and lasting metall so that the more God sought to disdeceive him the more was he deceived with his vain hopes And this is a resemblance of that which daily hapneth unto us for God advising us that our first building is but dust our idle thoughts and vain hopes imagine it to be of gold and mans life being so short that as Nazianzene said it is no more then to go out of one grave to enter into another out of the womb of our particular mother into that of the common Mother of us all which is the earth because therefore we flatter our selves with the enjoying of a long life therefore the sonne of Syrach being desirous to cut off this errour saith In omnibus operibus tuis Recordare novissima tua in aeternum non peccabis Whatsoever thou takest in hand Remember thy end Death saith Saint Augustine in his book against the Pelagians is nothing else but a privation of life having a name and no essence As hunger is said to be the defect of food thirst lack of drink darknesse the absence of light even so death is but a name for want of life Death then having a name without essence God was not the Creator thereof neither cause nor Authour for all things that God made had Essence which terme of Essence comprehendeth that which is or that is to be born Most true it is that for the punishment of sinne God pronounceth the sentence of death against man but there is great difference between pronouncing the sentence of death and to be the cause of death They are the words of Salomon not mine Deus mortem non fecit nec laetatur in perditione vivorum God hath not made death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living Creavit enim ut essent omnia c. For he created all things that they might have their being and the generations of the world are preserved But in another place he saith Invidia autem Diaboli mors intravit in orbem terrarum Through envy of the Devil came death into the world Wisdome 2.24 The Devil then being the authour of sinne is also the authour of death by sinne The Devil could incite man to sinne but he could not constrain him to yield consent Adam could keep himself well enough from tasting the Tree of life but Gods will was that he should not sinne and so consequently would not have him to die But leaving life and taking death and following then the free liberty of his will he made himself mortall so that his fault and disobedience was the cause of death to him and all men else beside From whence therefore the Apostle inferres Propterea sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit per peccatum mors c. As by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne so death went over all men forasmuch as all men have sinned Rom. 5.12 Nothing then more certain then death and nothing more uncertain then the time when the place where and the manner how Yet one thing to this purpose whereof I am now to speak and I know it may very well seem a novelty to many and fabulous to divers others because it is a matter very difficult to be proved nor do I purpose

Caesars c. Vbi sunt principes gentium Where are the Princes of the Nations It is the quiere of Gregory Nazianzen why God having created the soule for Heaven did knit it with so straight a knot to a Body of earth so fraile and so lumpish his answer is That the Angells being overthrowne by their pride he was willing to repaire and to helpe his presumption in man a creature in his superiour partie as it were Angelicall but having a heavy and miserable body which might serve as a stay unto him that if the nimblenesse of his understanding should puffe him up yet that earth which clogged his body should humble him and keepe him downe There is no man so desperate nor of that boldnesse of spirit but doth shew a kind of feare when death lookes him in the face and therefore death is termed pale because it makes the most valiant to change colour Job painting forth such a kind of soule-lesse man saith Quis arguet coram eo Who shall be able to controule this man that neither feares the Law nor his King nor his God Job 21.31 The best remedie is to carry him to the Sepulchers of the dead et in congerie mortuorum evigilabit He shal be brought to the graves and made to wake and if the looking upon that sad spectacle will not worke him there is little hope of good to be done upon him Those that entered triumphantly into Rome had a thousand occasions given them to incite them to pride arrogancie and vanitie as their great numbers of Captaines their Troopes of horse their Chariots drawn with Elephants or Lyons and beautifull Ladies looking upon them from their windowes and the like but the Senate considering the great danger of the Tryumpher ordered one to sit by his side to tell him of his Mortalitie and what now are the best of us all but Terrigenae et silii somnium The off-spring of the earth and the children of men This word Recordare doth imply a deep-meditation that it might stirre up fire in us according to that of David In meditatione mea exardescet ignis A fire waxed hot in my heart whilst I was musing Meditation is like Gun-Powder which in a mans hand is dust and earth but put fire thereunto it will overthrow Towers Walls and Cities so a quick lively memory and inflamed considerations of our owne wretched estates will blow up the Towers of our pride and cast downe the Walles of our rebelious hearts and ruine those Cities of clay wherein wee dwell As the Phoenix fanowing the fire with her wings is renewed againe by her owne ashes so shalt thou become a new creature by remembring what thou art Desire not life then but with the remembrance of death there is a Naball in the 1 of Sam. 25. that desires to live to sheare his sheepe and to make a feast like a King though the next day his heart die within him and he become like a stone There is a foole Luke 12 that desires long life to build Barnes to gather goods to lay up fruits to take ●ase to eat to drink to be merry Vt ebrii ru●tantes intre●t in paradisum That reeling and belching saith Jeremie they may fall into an epicures paradise There is a Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. the 4. that desires to mount up his piles of wonderment and his Turrets of Babell but in the midst of his pride not thinking of his last end is urned into an Oxe that eateth hay There is an Absolon that not remembring his end desired to weare a Crown upon his head though hee be hanged by the haire of the head and hee be strucken with three darts through the liver 2 Sam. 18. There is an Achab that desires to live and not regarding his owne end takes possession of Naboths Vineyard though in the place where the Dogs licked the blood of Naboth Dogs shall licke the blood of Achab. Kings 1.21 There is an Haman that desires to live till he may be revenged on Mordecaie his enemy although a gallowes of fifty foot high an eminent place for execution be the end of a mischievous courtiers promotion All which unlawfull desires although they have Volaticum gaudium as a Father calls them yet they shall have Talentum plumbi as the Prophet speaketh a Talent of lead an intolerable pressure of their conscience in their death Zach. 5.7 Thus you may see fire and water not more contrarie then flesh and spirit Here I would faine know what are the strings what the buckles what the cords of Love what slime of Euphrates What gumme of Arabia what cement or glue doe ioyne an immortall incorporall insensible soule in a house of clay in a body of earth the most grosse the most base most sollid element surely wee are wonderfully made none but God did compose us none but God can preserve us none but God by his permission or direction ordinarie or extarordinary administration of second causes can disolve us he with a breath gave us breath he with a word takes away our breath and so all our thoughts perish Let not Asa trust in his Physitian nor Naaman trust to the Rivers of Damascus nor Absolon to the lustre of beautie nor Maximus to rhe strength of an Elephant nor Herod to the flattering clamour of idolising people that we are not men but Gods Thoses who in the regard of their constitutions communicate in the s●nguine of the Rose and in the snowie beautie of the Little their bodies are saith S. Chrysostome but Nidus hirundinum a Swallowes Nest composed of durt and straw they are no fairer then Jonas ground a worm strook it at the roote and the ground withered so that the greatest King or Peere may make King Philips fable his Motto and Morall Recordare novissima Remember thy end Samuell being to annoynt Saul God gave him for a signe that he would have him Prince over his people that he should find two men as soone as he was gone from him nea●e unto Rachells Sepulcher God might have given him some other signe but he chose rather to give him this to quell the pride and haughtinesse of this his new honour as if he should admonish and put thee in mind That so faire a Creature as Rachell should read a Lecture unto thee what thou must be But when the time of this disolution shall come to passe that no man knoweth neither the manner how nor the place where therefore Recordare novissima Remember thy end First no man knoweth the place and it is no great matter since Rachell died in the high-way as well as Jezabell in the streets since Josias and Achab both dyed in the field since Saul and Jonathan died both in one battle and their Carcases were hung up as Trophies of a bloody victory in a barbarous Citie Will you heare a Philosophicall comfort Earth you know is the center and Heaven is the worlds circumference If a man shall draw a circle with