A DISCOURSE OF LIFE AND DEATH: WRITTEN IN French, by PHIL. MORNAY.  
Done in English by the Countess of Pembroke.  
AT LONDON, Printed by H. L. for Matthew Lownes, and are to be sold at his shop in Paul's Churchyard, 1608.   

A DISCOVERSE OF LIFE AND DEATH, WRITten in french by PHIL. MORNAY, Sieur du Plessis Marly.  
IT seems to me strange, and a thing much to be marveled, that the labourer to repose himself hasteneth as it were the course of the Sun: that the Mariner rows with all force t'attain the port & with a joyful cry salutes the descried land: that the traveler is never quiet nor content till he beat the end of his voyage: and that we in the mean while tied in this world to a perpetual task, tossed with continual tempest, tired with a rough and cumbersome way, cannot yet see the end of our labour but with grief, nor behold our port but with tears, nor approach our home and quiet abode but with horror and trembling. This life is but a Penelope's web, wherein we are always doing & undoing: a sea open to all winds, which sometime within, sometime without never cease to torment us: a weary journey through extreme heats, & colds, over high mountains, steep rocks, & thievish deserts. And so we term it, in weaving at this web, in rowing at this oar, in passing this miserable way: yet lo when death comes to end our work, when she stretcheth out her arms to pull us into the port, when after so many dangerous passages, and loathsome lodgings she would conduct us to our true home and resting place: in stead of rejoicing at the end of our labour, of taking comfort at the sight of our land, of singing at the approach of our happy mansion, we would fain (who would believe it?) retake our work in hand, we would again hoist sail to the wind, and willingly undertake our journey anew. No more, then, remember we our pains, our shipwrecks and dangers are forgotten: we fear no more the traveles nor the thieves. chose, we apprehend death as an extreme pain, we doubt it as a rock, we fly it as a thief. We do as little children, who all the day complain, and when the medicine is brought them, are no longer sick: as they, who (all the week long) run up & down the streets with pain of the teeth, and seeing the Barber coming to pull them out, feel no more pain: as those tender and delicate bodies, who in a pricking pleurisy complain, cry out, and cannot stay for a Surgeon, and when they see him whetting his lancet to cut the throat of the disease, pull in their arms & hide them in the bed, as if he were come to kill them. We fear more the cure then the disease, the Surgeon than the pain, the stroke them the impostume. We have more sense of the medicines bitterness soon gone, then of a bitter languishing long continued: more feeling of death the end of our miseries, than the endless misery of our life. And whence proceedeth this folly and simplicity? we neither know life, nor death. We fear that we ought to hope for, and wish for that we ought to fear. We call life a continual death: and death the issue of a living death, and the entrance of a never dying life. Now what good, I pray you, is there in life, that we should so much pursue it? or what evil is there in death, that we should so much eschew it? Nay what evil is there not in life? and what good is there not in death? Consider all the periods of this life. We enter it in tears, we pass it in sweat, we end it in sorrow. Great and little, rich and poor, not one in the whole world that can plead immunity from this condition. Man, in this point worse than all other creatures, is borne unable to support himself; neither receiving in his first years any pleasure, nor giving to others but annoy and displeasure, and before the age of discretion passing infinite dangers: only herein le●●● unhappy then in other ages, that he hath no sense nor apprehension of his unhappiness. Now, is there any so weak minded, that if it were granted him to live always a child, would make account of such a life? So than it is evident, that not simply to live is a good; but well and happily to live. But proceed. Grows he? with him grow his travails. Scarcely is he come out of his nurse's hands, scarcely knows what it is to play, but he falleth into the subjection of some schoolmaster. I speak but of those which are best & most precisely brought up: Studies he? it is ever with repining. Plays he? never but with fear. This whole age, while he is under the charge of another, is unto him but as a prison: he only thinks, and only aspires to that time when freed from the mastership of another, he may become master of himself; pushing onward (as much as in him lies) his age with his shoulder, that soon he may enjoy his hoped liberty Inshort, he desires nothing more than the end of this base age, and the beginning of his youth. And what else I pray you is the beginning of youth, but the death of infancy? the beginning of manhood, but the death of youth? the beginning of to morrow, but the death of to day? In this sort than desires he his death, & judgeth his life miserable: and so cannot be reputed in any happiness or contentment. Behold him now, according to his wish, at liberty: in that age, wherein Hercules had the choice, to take the way of virtue or of vice, reason or passion for his guide, and of these two must take one. His passion entertains him with'a thousand delights, prepares for him a thousand baits, presents him with a thousand worldly pleasures to surprise him: and few there are that are not beguiled. But at the reckonings end, what pleasures are they? pleasures full of vice, which hold him still in a restless fever: pleasures subject to repentance, like sweet meats of hard digestion: pleasures bought with pain and peril, spent and passed in a moment, and followed with a long & loathsome remorse of conscience. And this is the very nature (if they be well examined) 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 leaves an unsavoury after-taste and loathsome disdain: none (which is worse) so moderated but hath his corrosive, & carries his punishment in itself. I will not here speak of the displeasures confessed by all, as quarrels, debates, wounds, murders, banishments, sickness, peril, wherinto sometimes the incontinency, sometimes the insolency of this ill guided age conducts him. But if those that seem pleasures, be nothing else but displeasurs: if the sweetness thereof be as an infusion of wormwood; it is plain enough what the displeasure is they feel, and how great the bitterness that they taste. Behold in sum the life of a young man, who rid of the government of his parents, abandons himself to all liberty or rather bondage of his passion: which, right like an unclean spirit possessing him, casts him now into the water, now into the fire: sometimes carries him clean over a rock, and sometime flings him headlong to the bottom. Now, if he take and follow reason for his guide, behold on the other part wonderful difficulties: he must resolve to fight in every part of the field, at every step to be in conflict, and at handstrokes; as having his enemy in front, in flank, and on the rearward, never leaving to assail him. And what enemy? all that can delight him, all that he sees near, or far off; briefly the greatest enemy of the world, the world itself: But which is worse, a thousand treacherous and dangerous intelligences among his own forces, & his passion within himself desperate: which, in that age grown to the highest, awaits but time, hour, & occasion to surprise him & cast him into all viciousness. God only and none other can make him choose this way: God only can hold him in it to the end: God only can make him victorious in all his combats. And well we see how few they are that enter into it, and of those few how many that retire again. Follow the one way or follow the other, he must either subject himself to a tyrannical passion, or undertake a weary & continual combat, willingly cast himself to destruction, or fetter himself as it were in stocks, easily sink with the course of the water, or painfully swim against the stream. Lo here the young m, who in his youth hath drunk his full draft of the world's vain & deceivable pleasures, overtaken by them with such a dull heaviness, and astonishment, as drunkeards the morrow after a feast: either so out of taste, that he will no more; or so glutted, that he can no more: not able without grief to speak, or think of them. Lo him that stoutly hath made resistance: he feels himself so weary, and with this continual conflict so bruised and broken, that either he is upon the point to yield himself, or content to die, and so acquit himself. And this is all the good, all the contentment of this flourishing age, by children so earnestly desired, and by old folks so heartily lamented. Now cometh that which is called perfect age; in the which men have no other thoughts but to purchase themselves wisdom and rest. Perfect indeed▪ but herein only perfect, that all imperfections of human nature, hidden before under the simplicity of childhood or the lightness of youth, appear at this age in their perfection, We speak of none in this place but such as are esteemed the wisest, & most happy in the conceit of the world. We played as you have seen in fear: our short pleasures were attended on with long repentance. behold, now present themselves to us avarice, and ambition; promising, if we will adore them, perfect contentment of the goods and honours of this world. And surely there are none but the true Children of the Lord, who by the fair illusions of the one or the other cast not themselves headlong from the top of the pinnacle. But in the end, what is all this contentment? The covetous man makes a thousand voyages by sea and by land: runs a thousand fortunes: escapes a thousand shipwrecks, in perpetual fear and travel: and many times he either loseth his time, or gaineth nothing but sicknesses, gouts, & oppilations for the time to come In the purchase of this goodly repose, he bestoweth his true rest; and, to gain wealth, loseth his life. Suppose he hath gained in good quantity: that he hath spoiled the whole East of pearls, and drawn dry all the mines of the West: will he therefore be settled in quiet? can he say that he is content? All charges and journeys past, by his passed pains he heapeth up but future disquietness both of mind and body; from one travel falling into neither, never ending, but changing his miseries. He desired to have them, and now fears to lose them: he got them with burning ardour, & possesseth in trembling cold: he adventured among thieves to seek them; & having found them, thieves & robbers on all sides, run mainly on him: he laboured to dig them out of the earth, and now is enforced to religge, and rehide them▪ Finally, coming from all his voyages, he comes into a prison: and for an end of his bodily travels is taken with endless travels of the mind. And what, at length, hath this poor soul attained, after so many miseries? This Devil of coverise, by his illusions, & enchantments, bears him in hand that he hath some rare and singular thing▪ and so it fareth with him, as with those silly creatures whom, the Devil seduceth under colour of relieving their poverty, who find their hands full of leaves, supposing to find them full of crowns. He possesseth or rather is possessed by a thing, wherein is neither force nor virtue; more unprofitable, and more base, than the least herb of the earth: Yet hath he heaped together this vile excrement, and so brurish is grown, as therewith to crown his head, which naturally he should tread under his feet. But howsoever it be, is he therewith content? Nay (conirariwise) less now, then ever. We commend most, those drinks that breed an alteration, and soon extinguish thirst: and those meats, which in least quantity do longest resist hunger. Now hereof the more a man drinks, the more he is a thirst; the more he eats, the more an hungered: It is a dropsy (and as they term it) the dog's hunger: sooner may he burst then be satisfied. And (which is worse) so strange in some is this thirst, that it maketh them dig the pits, and painfully draw the water, and after will not suffer them to drink. In the midst of a river they are dry with thirst: and on a heap of corn cry out of famine: they have goods and dare not use them: they have joys it seems, and do not enjoy them: they neither have for themselves nor for another: but of all they have, they have nothing: and yet have want of all they have not. Let us then return to that that the attaining of all these deceivable goods is nothing else but weariness of body; & the possession for the most part, but weariness of the mind: which certainly is so much the greater, as is more sensible, more subtle, and more tender the soul than the body▪ But the heap of all misery is, when they come to lose them; when either shipwreck, or sacking or invasion, or fire, or such like calamities, to which these frail things are subject, doth take and carry them from them. Then fall they to cry, to weep, & to torment themselves, as little children that have lost their plai-game; which notwithstanding is nothing worth. One cannot persuade them, that mortal men have any other good in this world, but that which is mortal. They are in their own conceits not only spoiled, but altogether slayed. And, forasmuch as in these vain things they have fixed all their hopes; having lost them, they fall into despair, out of the which commonly they cannot be withdrawn. And (which is more) all, that they have not gained according to the accounts they made, they esteem lost: all that, which turns them not to great and extraordinary profit, they account as damage: whereby we see some fall into such despair, as they cast away themselves. In short, the recompense that covetise yields those that have served it all their life, is oftentimes like that of the Devil: whereof the end is, that after a small time having gratified his Disciples, either gee gives them over to a hangman, or himself breaks their necks. I will not here discourse of the wickedness and mischiefs whereunto the covetous men subject themselves, to attain to these goods, whereby their conscience is filled with a perpetual remorse, which never leaves them in quiet: sufficeth that in this over-vehement exercise, which busieth and abuseth the greatest part of the world, the body is slain, the mind is weakened, the soul is lost without any pleasure or contentment.  
Come we to ambition, which (by a greediness of honour) fond holdeth occupied the greatest persons: Think we there to find more? nay rather, less. As the one deceiveth us, giving us for all our travel, but a vile excrement of the earth: so the other repays us, but with smoke and wind; the rewards of this being as vain, as those of that were gross. Both in the one and the other, we fall into a bottomless pit: but into this the fall by so much the more dangerous, as at the first show, the water is more pleasant and clear. Of those that give themselves to court ambition, some are great about Princes, others commanders of Armies: both sorts, according to their degree you see saluted, reverenced, and adored of those that are under them. You see them appareled in purple, in scarlet, and in cloth of gold: it seems, at first sight, there is no contentment in the world but theirs. But men know not, how heavy an ounce of that vain honour weighs, what those reverences cost them, and how dearly they pay for an ell of those rich stufs: who knew them well, would never buy them at the price. The one hath attained to this degree, after a long and painful service, hazarding his life upon every occasion, with loss oft times of a leg or an arm, and that at the pleasure of a Prince, that more regards a hundred perches of ground on his neighbours frontiers, than the lives of a hundred thousand such as he: unfortunate, to serve who loves him not: and foolish, to think himself in honour with him, that makes so little reckoning to lose him for a thing of no worth. Others grow up by flattering a Prince, and long submitting their tongues & hands to say and do without difference whatsoever they will have them: whereunto a good mind can never command itself. They shall have endured a thousand injuries, received a thousand disgraces; and as near as they seem about the Prince, they are nevertheless always as the lions keeper, who by long patience, a thousand feedings, and a thousand clawing, hath made a fierce Lion familiar; yet gives him never meat, but with pulling back his hand, always in fear lest he should catch him: and if once in a year he bites him, he sets it so close, that he is paid for a long time after. Such is the end of all Prince's favourites. When a Prince after song breathing hath raised a man to great height, he makes it his pastime, at what time he seems to be at the top of his travel, to cast him down at an instant: when he hath filled him with all wealth, he wrings him after as a sponge; loving none but himself, and thinking every one made, but to serve, and please him. These blind Courtiers make themselves believe, that they have friends, and many that honour them: 〈◊〉 considering that 〈◊〉 make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and honour every bodi●●● so others do by them. Their superiors disdain them, & never but with scorn do so much as salute them▪ their inferiors salute them, because they have need of them (I mean of their fortune, of their food, of their apparel, not of their person): and for their equals, between whom commonly friendship consists, they envy each other, accuse each other, cross each other; continually grieved either at their own harm, or at others good. Now, what greater hell is there, what greater torment, than envy? which in truth is nought else but a fever Hectic of the mind: so they are utterly frustrate of all friendship, ever judged by the wisest the chief & sovereign good among men. Will you see it more clearly? Let but Fortune turn her back, every man turns from them: let her frown, every man looks aside on them: let them once be disrobed of their triumphal garment, no body will any more know them. Again, let there be appareled in it the most unworthy, and infamous whatsoever: even he without difficulty, by virtue of his rob, shall inherit all the honours the other had done him. In the mean time they are puffed up, and grow proud, as the Ass which carried the image of Isis was for the honours done to the Goddess, & regard not that it is the fortune they carry which is honoured, not themselves, on whom as on Asses, many times she willbe carried. But you will say: At least so long as that fortune endured, they were at ease, & had their contentment; & who hath 3. or 4. or more years of happy time, hath not been all his life unhappy. True, if this be to be at ease, continually to fear to be cast down from that degree, whereunto they are raised: and daily to desire with great travel to climb yet higher. Those (my friend) whom thou takest so well at their ease, because thou seest them but without, are within far otherwise. They are fair built prisons, full within of deep ditches, and dungeons: full of darkness, serpents and torments. Thou supposest them lodged at large, and they think their lodgings straight. Thou thinkest them very high, & they think themselves very low. Now, as sick is he, and many times more sick, who thinks himself so, than who indeed is. Suppose them to be Kings: if they think themselves slaves, they are no better: for what are we but by opinion? You see them well followed and attended: and even those whom they have chosen for their guard, they distrust. Alone or in company ever they are in fear. Alone they look behind them: in company they have an eye on every side of them. They drink in gold and silver; but in those, not in earth or glass, is poison prepared and drunk. They have their beds soft & well made: when they lay them to sleep you shall not hear a mouse stir in the chamber: not so much as a fly shall come near their faces. Yet nevertheless, where the country man sleeps at the fall of a great river, at the noise of a market, having no other bed but the earth, nor covering but the heavens, these in the midst of this silence and delicacy, do nothing but turn from side to side, it seems still that they hear some body, their rest itself is without rest Lastly, will you know what the diversity is between the most hardly entreated prisoners and them both are enchained, both loaden with letters, but that the one hath them of iron, the other of gold; and that the one is tied but by the body, the other by the mind. The prisoner draws his fetters after him, the courtier wears his upon him. The prisoners mind sometimes comforts the pain of his body, and sings in the midst of his miseries: the Courtier tormented in mind, wearieth incessantly his body, & can never give it rest. And as for the contentment you imagine they have, you are there in yet more deceived. You judge and esteem them great, because they are raised high: but as fond, as who should judge a dwarf great, for being set on a Tower, or on the top of a mountain. You measure (so good a Geometrician you are) the image with his base, which were convenient (to know his true height) to be measured by itself: whereas you regard not the height of the image, but the height of the place it stands upon. You deem them great (if in this earth there can be greatness, which in respect of the whole heavens is but a point): But could you enter into their minds, you would judge, that neither they are great; true greatness consisting in contempt of those vain greatnesses, whereunto they are slaves: nor seem unto themselves so, seeing daily they are aspiring higher, and never where they would be. Some one sets down a bound in his mind; Could I attain to such a degree, lo, I were content: I would then rest myself. Hath he attained it? he gives himself not so much as a breathing: he would yet ascend higher. That which is beneath, he counts a toy: it is in his opinion but one step. He reputes himself low, because there is some one higher, in stead of reputing himself high, because there be a million lower: & so high he climbs at last, that either his breath fails him by the way, or he slides from the top to the bottom. Or is he get up by all his travel it is but as to find himself on the top of the Alps, not above the clouds, winds and storms: but rather at the devotion of lightnings and tempests, and whatsoever else horrible, and dangerous is engendered, and conceived in the air: which most commonly taketh pleasure to thunderbolt and dash into powder that proud height of theirs. It may be herein you will agree with me, by reason of the examples wherewith both histories, & men's memories are full. But say you, such at least whom nature hath sent into the world with crowns on their heads, and sceptres in their hands: such as from their birth she hath set in that height, as they need take no pain to ascend: seem without controversy exempt from all these injuries, and by consequence may call themselves happy. It may be indeed they feel less such incommodities, having been borne, bred, and brought up among them: as one borne near the donwfalls of Nilus becomes deaf to the found: in prison, laments not the want of liberty: among the Cimmerians in perpetual night, wisheth not for have: on the top of the Alps, thinks not strange of the mists, the tempests, the snows, and the storms. Yet free doubtless they are not, when the lightning often blasteth a flower of their crowns, or breaks their sceptre in their hands: when a drift of snow overwhelmeth them: when a mist of heaviness, and grief, continually blindeth their wit and understanding. Crowned they are indeed; but with a crown of thorns. They bear a sceptre: but it is of a reed more than any thing in the world pliable and obedient to all winds: it being so far off that such a crown can cure the maigrims of the mind, & such a sceptre keep off and fray away the griefs and cares which hover about them; that it is chose the crown that brings them, and the sceptre which from all parts attracts them. O crown, said the Persian Monarch, who knew how heavy thou sittest on the head, would not vouchsafe to take thee up, though he found thee in his way. This prince it seemed gave for tune to the whole world, distributed unto men haps and mishaps at his pleasure could in show make every man content: himself in the mean while freely confessing, that in the whole world, which he held in his hand there was nothing but grief, & unhappiness And what will all the rest tell us, if they list to utter what they found? We will not ask them who have concluded a miserable life with a dishonourable death: who have beheld their kingdoms buried before them, & have in great misery long overlived their greatness. Not of Dionyse of Sicil, more content with a handful of twigs to whip little children of Corinth in a choole, then with the sceptre, wherewith he had beaten all Sicil: nor of Sylla, who having robbed the whole State of Rome, which had before robbed the whole world, never found means of rest in himself, but by robbing himself of his own estate, with incredible hazard both of his power & authority. But demand we the opinion of king Solomon, a man endued withsingular gifts of God, rich and wealthy of all things. who sought for treasure from the Isles: He will teach us by a book of purpose, that having tried all the felicities of the earth, he found nothing but vanity, travel, & vexation of spirit. Ask we the Emperor Augustus, who peaceably possessed the whole world: He will bewail his life past, and among infinite toils wish for the rest of the meanest man of the earth: accounting that day most happy, when he might unload himself of this insupportable greatness, to live quietly among he least. Of Tiberius his successor, he will confess unto us that he holds y● Empire as a wolf by the ears, and that (if without danger of biting he might) he would gladly let it go, complaining on Fortune for lifting him so high, & then taking away the ladder, that he could not come down again. Of Dioclesian, a Prince of so great wisdom and virtue in the opinion of the world: he will prefer his voluntary banishment at Salona, before all the Roman Empire. Finally, the Emperor Charles the fifth, esteemed by our Age most happy that hath lived these many ages: he will curse his conquests, his victories, his triumphs: and not be ashamed to confess that far more good in comparison he hath felt in one day of his Monkish solitariness, then in all his triumphant life. Now, shall we think those happy in this imaginate greatness, who themselves think themselves unhappy? seeking their happiness in lessening themselves, & not finding in the world one place to rest this greatness, or one bed quietly to sleep in? Happy is he only who in mind lives contented: and he most of all unhappy, whom nothing he can have can content. Then miserable Pyrrhus king of Albany, who would win all the world, to win (as he said) rest and went so far to seek that which was so near him. But more miserable, Alexander, that being borne King of a great Realm, and Conqueror almost of the earth, sought for more worlds to satisfy his foolish ambition, with in three days content with six foot of ground. To conclude, are they borne on the highest Alps? they seek to scale heaven. Have they subdued all the Kings of the earth? they have quarrels to plead with God, and endeavour to tread under foot his kingdom. They have no end nor limit, till God laughing at their vain purposes, when they think themselves at the last step, thunderstriketh all this presumption, breaking in shivers their sceptres in their hands, and oftentimes entrapping them in their own crowns. At a word, whatsoever happiness can be in that ambition promiseth, is but suffering much ill, to get ill. Men think by daily climbing higher to pluck themselves out of this ill: and the height whereunto they so pamfully aspire, is the height of misery itself. I speak not here of the wretchedness of them, who all their life have held out their cap to receive the alms of Court fortune, and can get nothing, often with incredible heart grief, seeing some by less pains taken have riches fall into their hands: of them, who justling one another to have it, lose it, and cast it into the hands of a third: Of those, who holding it in their hands to hold it faster, have lost it through their fingers. Such by all men are esteemed unhappy, & are indeed so, because they judge themselves so. It sufficeth that all these liberalities, which the Devil casteth us as out at a window, are but baits: all these pleasures but ambushes: and that he doth but make his sport of us, who strive one with another for such things, as most unhappy is he, that hath best hap to find them. Well now, you will say, the Covetous in all his goods, hath no good: the Ambitious, at the best he can be, is but ill. But may there not be some, who supplying the place of justice, or being near about a Prince, may without following such unbridled passions, pleasantly enjoy their goods, joining honour with rest and contentment of mind? Surely, in former ages (there yet remaining among men some sparks of sincerity) in some sort it might be so: but being of that composition they now are, I see not how it may be in any sort. For, deal you in affairs of estate in these times, either you shall do well, or you shall do ill. I fill, you have God for your enemy, & your own conscience for a perpetually tormenting executioner. If well, you have men for your enemies, and of men the greatest: whose envy & malice will spy you out, & whose cruelty & tyranny will evermore threaten you. Please the people, you please a beast: & pleasing such, aught to be displeasing to yourself. Please yourself, you displease god: please him, you incur a thousand dangers in the world, with purchase of a thousand displeasures. Whereof it grows, that if you could hear the talk of the wisest and least discontent of this kind of men, whether they speak advisedly, or their words pass them by force of truth, one would gladly change garment with his tenant: another preacheth how goodly an estate it is to have nothing: a third, complaining that his brains are broken with the noise of Court or Palace, hath no other thought, but as soon as he may to retire himself thence. So that you shall not see any but is displeased with his own calling, & envieth that of another: ready nevertheless to repent him, if a man should take him at his word. None but is weary of the businesses whereunto his age is subject, & wisheth not to be elder, to free himself of them: albeit otherwise he keepeth off old age, as much as in him lieth.  
What must we then do in so great a contrariety & confusion of minds? Must we, to find true humanity, fly the society of men, & hide us in forests among wild beasts? to avoid these unruly passions, eschew the assembly of creatures supposed reasonable? to pluck us out of the evils of the world, sequester ourselves from the world? Could we in so doing live at rest, it were something.  
But alas! men cannot take herein what part they would: and even they which do, find not there all the rest they sought for. Some would gladly do: but shame of the world recalls them. Fools, to be ashamed of what in their hearts they condemn: & more fools, to be advised by the greatest enemy they can or aught to have. Others are borne in hand that they ought to serve the public; not marking, that who counsel them, serve only themselves: and that the more part would not much seek the public, but that they found their own particular. Some are told, that by their good example they may amend others: and consider not that a hundred sound men, even Physicians themselves, may sooner catch the plague in an infected Town, than one be healed: that it is but to to tempt God, to enter therein: that against so contagious an air there is no preservative, but in getting far from it. Finally, that as little as the fresh waters, falling into the sea, can take from it his saltness: so little can one Lot or two, or three, reform a Court of Sodom. And as concerning the wisest, who (no less careful for their souls, than bodies) seek to bring them into a sound and wholesome air, far from the infection of wickedness: and who led by the hand of some Angel of God, retire themselves in season, as Lot into some little village of Segor, out of the corruption of the world, into some Country place from the infected towns, there quietly employing the time in some knowledge and serious contemplation: I willingly yield they are in a place of less danger, yet because they carry the danger in themselves, not absolutely exempt from danger. They fly the court; & a court follows them on all sides: they endeavour to escape the world; and the world pursues them to death. Hardly in this World can they find a place where the World finds them not: so greedily it seeks to murder them. And if by some special grace of God they seem for a while free from these dangers, they have some poverty that troubles them, some domestical debate that torment's them, or some familiar spirit that tempts them: briefly, the world daily in some sort or other makes itself felt of them. But the worst is, when we are out of these external wars and troubles, we find great civil war within ourselves; the flesh against the spirit, passion against reason, earth against heaven, the world within us fight for the world, evermore so lodged in the bottom of our own hearts, that on no side we can fly from it. I will say more: he makes profession to fly the world, who seeks thereby the praise of the world: he feigneth to run away, who according to the proverb; by drawing back sets himself forward. he refuseth honours, that would thereby be prayed to take them: and hides him from men, to the end they should come to seek him. So the world often harbours in disguised attire among them that fly the world. This is an abuse. But follow we the company of men, the world hath his Court among them: seek we the Deserts, it hath there his dens & places of resort, and in the Desert itself tempteth Christ lesus. Retire we ourselves into ourselves, we find it there as unclean as any where. We cannot make the world die in us, but by dying ourselves. We are in the world, and the world in us, and to separate us from the world, we must separate us from ourselves. Now this separation is called Death. We are, we think, come out of the contagious City▪ but we are not advised that we have sucked the bad air, that we carry the plague with us, that we so participate with it, that through rocks, through deserts, through mountains, it ever accompanieth us. Having avoided the contagion of others, yet we have it in ourselves. We have withdrawn us out of men, but not withdrawn man out of us. The tempestuous sea torment's us: we are grieved at the heart, & desirous to vomit: and to be discharged thereof, we remove out of one ship into another, from a greater to a less: we promise ourselves rest in vain: they being always the same winds that blow, the same waves that swell, the same humours that are stirred. To all, no other port, no other mean of tranquillity but only death. We were sick in a chamber near the street, or near the market: we caused ourselves to be carried into some backer closet, where the noise was not so great. But though there the noise was less: yet was the fever there never the less: and thereby lost nothing of his heat. Change bed, chamber, house, country, again and again: we shall every where find the same unrest, because every where we find ourselves: and seek not so much to be others, as to be otherwheres. We follow solitariness, to fly carefulness. We retire us (so say we) from the wicked: but carry with us our avarice, our ambition, our riotousness, all our corrupt affections: which breed in us 1000 remorses▪ & 1000 times each day bring to our remembrance the garlic & onions of Egypt. Daily they pass the Ferry with us: so that both on this side, and beyond the water, we are in coninuall combat. Now could we cassere this company which eats and gnaws our mind, doubtless we should be at rest, not in solitariness only, but even in the thicket of men. For the life of man upon earth is but a continual warfare. Are we delivered from external practices? we are to take heed of internal espials. Are the greeks gone away? we have a Sinon within, that will be trey them the place. We must ever be waking, having an eye to the watch, and weapons in our hands, if we will not every hour be surprised, and given up to the will of our enemies. And how at last can we escape? Not by the woods, by the rivers, nor mountains: not by throwing ourselves into a press, nor by thrusting ourselves into a hole. One only mean there is, which is death: which in the end separating our spirit from our flesh, the pure and clean part of our soul from the unclean, which within us evermore bandeth itself for the world, appeaseth by this separation that, which conjoined in one & the same person could not, without utter choking of the spirit, but be in perpetual contention.  
And as touching the contentment that may be in the exercises of the wisest men in their solitariness, as reading divine or prosane books, with all other knowledges and learn: I hold well that it is indeed a far other thing, then are those mad hunt, which make savage a multitude of men possessed with these or the like diseases of the mind. Yet must they all abide the judgement pronounced by the wisest among the wise, Solomon, that all this nevertheless applied to man's natural disposition, is to him but vanity and vexation of mind. Some are ever learning to correct their speech, and never think of correcting their life. Others dispute in their Logic of reason, and the Art of reason: and lose thereby many times their natural reason. One learns by Arithmetic to divide, to the smallest fractions, and hath not skill to part one shilling with his brother. Another by Geometry can measure fields, and towns, and Countries: but cannot measure himself. The Musician can accord his voices, and sounds, and times together: having nothing in his heart but discords, nor one passion in his soul in good tune. The ginger looks up on high, and falls in the next ditch: foreknows the future, and sorgoes the present: hath often his eye on the heavens; his heart long before buried in the earth. The Philosopher discourseth of the nature of all other things: & knows not himself. The Historian can tell of the wars of Thebes and of Troy: but what is done in his own house can tell nothing. The Lawyer will make laws for all the world, and not one from himself. The Physician will cure others, and be blind in his own disease: find the least alteration in his pulse, and not mark the burning fevers of his mind. Lastly, the Divine will spend the greatest part of his time in disputing of faith, and cares not to hear of charity, will talk of God, & not regard to succour men. These knowledges bring on the mind an endless labour, but no contentment: for the more one knows, the more he would know.  
They pacify not the debates a man feels in himself, they cure not the diseases of his mind. They make him learned but they make not him good: cunning but not wise. I say more: The more a man knows, the more knows he that he knows not: the fuller the mind is, the emptier it finds itself: forasmuch as whatsoever a man can know of any science in this world, is but the least part of what he is ignorant: all his knowledge consisting in knowing his ignorance, all his perfection in noting his imperfections; which who best knows and notes, is in truth among men the most wise and perfect. In short, we must conclude with Solomon, that the beginning and end of wisdom is the fear of God: that this wisdom nevertheless is taken of the world for mere folly, and persecuted by the world as a deadly enemy: and that as who feareth God, aught to fear no evil, for that all his evils are converted to his good: so neither ought he to hope for good in the world, having there the devil his professed enemy, whom the Scripture termeth Prince of the world.  
But with what exercise soever we pass the time, behold old age unwares to us comes upon us: which whether we thrust ourselves into the press of men, or hide us some where out of the way, never fails to find us out. Every man makes account in that age to rest himself of all his travails without further care, but to keep himself at ease & in health. And see contrariwise in this age, there is nothing but an after taste of all the foregoing evils: and most commonly a plentiful harvest of all such vices, as in the whole course of their life hath held & possessed them. There you have the unability and weakness of infancy, and (which is worse) many times accompanied with authority: there you are paid for the excess & riotousness of youth, with gouts, palsies, and such like diseases, which take from you limb after limb, with extreme pain and torment. There also you are recompensed for the travels of mind, the watchings & cares of manhood, with loss of sight, loss of hearing, and all the senses one after another, except only the sense of pain. Not one part in us but death takes engage to be assured of us, as of bad pay masters, which infinitely fear their days of payment. Nothing in us that will not by and by be dead: & nevertheless our vices yet live in us; & not only live, but in despite of Nature daily grow young again. The covetous man hath one foot in his grave, and is yet burying his money: meaning belike to find it again another day. The ambitious in his Will ordaineth unprofitable pomps for his funerals, making his vice to live and triumph after his death. The riotous, no longer able to dance on his feet, danceth with his shoulders: all vi●es having left him, and he not yet able to leave them. The child wisheth for youth and this man laments it. The young man liveth in hope of the future: and this feels the evil present, laments the false pleasures past, and sees for the time to come nothing to hope for; More foolish than the child, in bewailing the time he cannot recall, & not remembering the evil he had therein: and more wretched than the young man, in that after a wretched life not able but wretchedly to d●● he sees on all sides b●● matter of despair. As for him, who from his youth hath undertaken to combat against the flesh, and against the World: who hath taken so great pains to mortify himself and leave the World before his time: who besides those ordinary evils finds himself vexed with this great and incurable disease of old age, and feels notwithstanding his flesh, how weak soever, stronger oftentimes than his spirit: what good I pray can he have but only herein; that he sees his death at hand, that he sees his combat finished that he sees himself ready to depart by death out of this loathsome prison, wherein all his life time he hath been racked and tormented? I will not here speak of the infinite evils wherewith men in all ages are annoyed, as loss of friends and parents, banishments, exiles, disgraces, and such others, common and ordinary in the world: one complaining of losing his children, another of having them▪ one making sorrow for his wives death, another for his life: one finding fault, that he is too high in court another that he is not high enough. The world is so full of evils, that to write of all, would require another world as great as itself. Sufficeth, that if the most happy in men's opinions do counterpoise his haps with his mishaps, he shall judge himself unhappy: and he judge him happy, who had he been set three days in his place, would give it over to him that came next: yea, sooner than he, who shall consider, in all the goods that ever he hath had, the evils he hath endured to get them, and having them to retain and keep them (I speak of the pleasures that may be kept, and not of those that whither in a moment) will judge of himself, and by himself, that the keeping itself of the greatest felicity in this world, is full of unhappiness and infelicity. Conclude then, that Childhood is but a foolish simplicity; youth a vain heat; manhood, a painful carefulness; and old age, a noisome languishing: that our plays are but tears, our pleasures fevers of the mind, our goods, racks, and torments, our honours heavy vanities, our rest, unrest: that passing from age to age, is but passing from evil to evil, and from the less unto the greater: & that always it is but one wave driving on another, until we be arrived at the haven of death. Conclude I say, that life is but a wishing for the future, and a bewailing of the past: a loathing of what we have tasted, and a longing for that we have not tasted: a vain memory of the state past, and a doubtful expectation of the state to come: Finally, that in all our life there is nothing certain, nothing assured, but the certainty & uncertainty of death. Behold, now comes death unto us: Behold her, whose approach we so much ●eare. We are now to consider whether she be such as we are made believe: and whether we ought so greatly to fly her, as commonly we do. We are afraid of her: but like little children, of a vizor, or of the Images of Hecate. We have her in horror; but because we conceive her not such as she is, but ugly, terrible, and hideous: such as it pleaseth the Painters to represent unto us on a wall. We fly before her: but it is, because (foretaken with such vain imaginations) we give not ourselves leisure to mark her. But stay we, stand we steadfast, look we her in the face▪ we shall find her quite other than she is painted us, and altogether of other countenance then our miserable life. Death makes an end of this life. This life is a perpetual misery and tempest: Death then is the issue of our miseries and entrance of the port where we shall ride in safety from all winds. And should we fear that which withdraweth us from misery, or which draws us into our haven? Yea but you will say, it is a pain to die. Admit it be: so is there in curing of a wound: Such is the World, that one evil cannot be cured but by another; to heal a contusion, must be made an incision. You will say, there is difficulty in the passage: So is there no haven, no port, whereinto the entrance is not strait and cumbersome. No good thing is to be bought in this World with other than the coin of labour & pain. The entrance indeed is hard, if ourselves make it hard, coming thither with a tormented spirit, a troubled mind, a wavering and irresolute thought. But bring we quietness of mind, constancy, and full resolution, we shall not find any danger or difficulty at all. Yet what is the pain that death brings us? Nay, what can she do with those pains we feel? We accuse her of all the evils we abide in ending our life, and consider not how many more wounds or grievous sicknesses we have endured without death: or how many more vehement pains we have suffered in this life, in the which we called even her to our succour. All the pains our life yields us, at the last hour we impute to death: not marking, that life begun and continued in all sorts of pain, must also necessarily end in pain. Not marking (I say) that it is the remainder of our life, not death that tormenteth us: the end of our navigation that pains us, not the haven we are to enter: which is nothing else but a safeguard against all winds. We complain of death, where we should complain of life: as if one having been long sick, and beginning to be well, should accuse his health of his last pains, and not the relics of his disease. Tell me, what is it else to be dead, but to be no more living in the world? Absolutely and simply not to be in the World, is it any pain? Did we then feel any pain, when as yet we were not? Have we ever more resemblance of Death, then when we sleep? Or ever more rest, then at that time? Now if this be no pain, why accuse we death of the pains our life gives us at our departure? unless also we will fond accuse the time when as yet we were not, of the pains we felt at our birth. If the coming in be with tears, is it wonder that such be the going out? If the beginning of our being, be the beginning of our pain, is it marvel that such be the ending? But if our not being in times past hath been without pain, & all this being chose full of pain: whom should we by reason accuse of the last pains? the not being to come, or the remnant of this present being? We think we die not, but when we yield up our last gasp. But if we mark well, we die every day, every hour, every moment. We apprehend death as a thing unusual to us: and yet have nothing so common in us. Our living is but continual dying: look how much we live, we die how much we increase, our life decreases. We enter not a step into life, but we enter a step into death. Who hath lived a third part of his years, hath a third part of himself dead: Who half his years, is already half dead. Of our life, all the time past is dead, the present lives and dies at once, and the future likewise shall die. The past is no more, the future is not yet, the present is, and no more is. Briefly, this whole life is but a death: it is as a candle lighted in our bodies: in one the wind makes it melt away, in another blows it clean out, many times ere it be half burned: in others it endureth to the end. howsoever it be, look how much it shineth, so much it burneth: her shining is her burning: her light is a vanishing smoke: her last fire, her last wike, and her last drop of moisture. So is it in the life of man, life and death in man is all one. If we call the last breath death, so must we all the rest: all proceeding from one place, and all in one manner. One only difference there is between this life, and that we call death: that during the one, we have always whereof to die: and after the other, there remaineth only whereof to live. In sum, even he that thinketh death simply to be the end of man, ought not to fear it: in as much as who desireth to live long, desireth to die longer: and who feareth soon to die, feareth (to speak properly) lest he may not longer die.  
But unto us, brought up in a more holy school, death is a far other thing: neither need we, as the Pagans, of consolations against death: but that death serve us as a consolation against all sorts of affliction: so that we must not only strengthen ourselves, as they, not to fear it, but accustom ourselves to hope for it. For unto us it is not a departing from pain and evil, but an access unto all good: not the end of life, but the end of death, and the beginning of life. Better, saith Solomon, is the day of death, than the day of birth: and why? because it is not to us a last day, but the dawning of an everlasting day. No more shall we have, in that glorious light, either sorrow for the past, or expectation of the future: for all shall be there present unto us, & that present shall never more pass. No more shall we power out ourselves in vain and painful pleasures: for we shall be filled with true, and substantial pleasures. No more shall we pain ourselves in heaping together these exhalations of the earth; for the heavens shall be ours: and this mass of earth, which ever draws us towards the earth, shall be buried in the earth. No more shall we overwearie ourselves with mounting from degree to degree, and from honour to honour: for we shall highly be raised above all heights of the world; and, from on high, laugh at the folly of all those we once admired, who fight together for a point, & as little children for less than an apple. No more (to be brief) shall we have combats in ourselves: for our flesh shall be dead, and our spirit in full life: our passion buried, and our reason in perfect liberty. Our soul, delivered out of this foul and filthy prison, (where, by long continuing, it is grown into an habit of crookedness) shall again draw her own breath, recognise her ancient dwelling, and again remember her former glory and dignity. This flesh (my friend) which thou feelest, this body which thou touchest, is not man. Man is from heaven: heaven is his country and his air. That he is in his body, is but by way of exile and confinement. Man indeed is soul & spirit: Man is rather of celestial and divine quality, wherein is nothing gross nor material. This body, such as now it is, is but the bark and shell of the soul: which must necessarily be broken, if we will be hatched: if we will indeed live and see the light. We have, it seems, some life, & some sense in us: but are so crooked and contracted, that we cannot so much as stretch out our wings, much less take our flight towards heaven, until we be disburdened of this earthly burden. We look, but through false spectacles: we have eyes, but over grown with pearls: we think we see, but it is in a dream, wherein we see nothing but deceit. All that we have, and all that we know, is but abuse and vanity. Death only can restore us both life and light: and we think (so blockish we are) that she comes to rob us of them.  
We say we are Christians: that we believe, after this mortal, a life immortal: that death is but a separation of the body and soul: and that the soul returns to her happy abode, there to joy in God, who only is all good: that at the last day it shall again take the body, which shall no more be subject to corruption. With these goodly discourses we fill all our books: and in the mean while, when it comes to the point, the very name of death as the horriblest thing in the World makes us quake and tremble. If we believe as we speak, what is that we fear? to be happy? to be at our ease? to be more content in a moment, than we might be in the longest mortal life that might be? or must not we of force confess, that we believe it but in part? that all we have is but words? that all our discourses, as of these hardy trencher-knights, are but vaunting and vanity? Some you shall see, that will say: I know well that I pass out of this life into a better; I make no doubt of it: only I fear the midway step, that I am to step over. Weak hearted creatures! they will kill themselves, to get their miserable living: suffer infinite pains, and infinite wounds at another man's pleasure: pass infinite deaths without dying, for things of nought, for things that perish, and perchance make them perish with them. But when they have but one pace to pass to be at rest, not for a day, but for ever; not an indifferent rest, but such as man's mind cannot comprehend: they tremble, their hearts fail them, they are afraid: and yet the ground of their harm is nothing but fear. Let them never tell me, they apprehend the pain: it is but an abuse; a purpose to conceal the little faith they have.  
No, no, they would rather languish of the gout, the sciatica, any disease whatsoever: then die one sweet death with the least pain possible: rather pyningly die limb after limb, out-living as it were, all their senses, motions, and actions, then speedily die, immediately to live for ever. Let them tell me no more that they would in this world learn to live: for every one is thereunto sufficiently instructed in himself, and not one but is cunning in the trade.  
Nay rather they should learn in this World to die; and once to die well, die daily in themselves: so prepared, as if the end of every days work, were the end of our life. Now chose there is nothing to their ears more offensive then to hear of death. Senseless people! we abandon our life to the ordinary hazards of war, for seven franks pay: are foremost in an assault, for a little booty: go into places whence there is no hope of returning, with danger many times both of bodies and souls. But to free us from all hazards, to win things inestimable, to enter an eternal life, we faint in the passage of one pace, wherein is no difficulty, but in opinion: yea, we so faint, that were it not of force we must pass, and that God in despite of us will do us a good turn, hardly should we find in all the World one, how unhappy or wretched soever, that would ever pass.  
Another will say, had I lived till fifty or sixty years, I should have been contented, I should not have cared to live longer: but to die so young is no reason. I should have known the world before I had left it. Simple soul! in this world there is neither young nor old.  
The longest age in comparison of all▪ that is past, or all that is to come, is nothing: and when thou hast lived to the age thou now desirest, all the past will be nothing: thou wilt still gape for that is to come. The past will yield thee but sorrow, the future but expectation, the present no contentment. As ready thou wilt then be to redemaund longer respite, as before. Thou fliest thy creditor from month to month, and time to time, as ready to pay the last day, as the first: thou seekest but to be acquitted.  
Thou hast tasted all which the world esteemeth pleasures: not one of them is new unto thee. By drinking oftener, thou shalt be never a white the more satisfied: for the body thou carriest, like the bored pail of Danaus' daughters, will never be full. Thou mayst sooner wear it out, then weary thyself with using or rather abusing it.  
Thou cravest long life to cast it away, to spend it on worthless delights, to misspend it on vanities. Thou art covetous in desiring, and prodigal in spending▪ Say not thou findest fault with the Court, or the Palace: but that thou desirest longer to serve the Common wealth, to serve thy Country, to serve God. He that set thee on work knows until what day, and what hour, thou shouldest be at it: he well knows how to direct his work. Should he leave thee there longer, perchance thou wouldst mar all. But if he will pay thee liberally for thy labour, as much for half a days work, as for a whole: as much for having wrought till noon, as for having borne all the heat of the day: art thou not so much the more to thank and praise him? but if thou examine thine own conscience, thou lamentest not the cause of the widow, and the orphan, which thou hast left depending in judgement: not the duty of a son, of a father, or of a friend, which thou pretendest thou wouldst perform: not the embassage for the Common wealth, which thou wert even ready to undertake: not the service thou desirest to do unto God, who knows much better how to serve himself of thee, than thou of thyself.  
It is thy houses and gardens thou lamentest, thy imperfect plots and purposes, thy life (as thou thinkest) imperfect: which by no days, nor years, nor ages, might be perfected: and yet thyself mightest perfect in a moment, couldst thou but think in good earnest that where it end it skills not, so that it end well.  
Now to end well this life, is only to end it willingly: following with full consent the will and direction of God, and not suffering us to be drawn by the necessity of destiny.  
To end it willingly, we must hope, and not fear death. To hope for it, we must certainly look, after this life, for a better life. To look for that, we must fear God: whom whoso well feareth, feareth indeed nothing in this world, and hopes for all things in the other. To one well resolved in these points, death can be but sweet and agreeable: knowing, that through it he is to enter into a place of all joys,  
The grief that may be therein shall be allayed with sweetness: the sufferance of ill, swallowed in the confidence of good: the sting of Death itself shall be dead, which is nothing else but Fear. Nay, I will say more, not only all the evils conceived in death shall be to him nothing: but he shall even scorn all the mishaps men redoubt in this life, and laugh at all these terrors.  
For I pray what can he fear, whose death is his hope? Think we to banish him his country? He knows he hath a Country otherwhere, whence we cannot banish him: and that all these countries are but Inns, out of which he must part at the will of his host.  
To put him in prison? a more strait prison he cannot have, than his own body, more filthy, more dark, more full of racks and torments.  
To kill him and take him out of the world? that's it he hopes for: that is it with all his heart he aspires unto. By fire, by sword, by famine, by sickness? within three years, within three days, within three hours, all is one to him: all is one at what gate, or at what time he pass out of this miserable life. For his businesses are ever ended, his affairs all dispatched; and by what way he shall go out, by the same he shall enter into a most happy and everlasting life.  
Men can threaten him but death, and death is all he promiseth himself: the worst they can do, is, to make him die, and that is the best he hopes for. The threatenings of tyrants are to him promises, the sword of his greatest enemies drawn in his favour: for as much as he knows that threatening him death, they threaten him life: and the most mortal wounds can make him but immortal: Who fears God, fears not death: and who fears it not, fears not the worst of this life.  
By this reckoning, you will tell me, death is a thing to be wished for: and to pass from so much evil, to so much good, a man should (it seemeth) cast away his life. Surely, I fear not, that for any good we expect, we will hasten one step the faster: though the spirit aspire, the body (it draws with it) withdraws it ever sufficiently towards the earth. Yet is it not that I conclude. We must seek to mortify our flesh in us, and to cast the World out of us: but to cast ourselves out of the world is in no sort permitted us. The Christian ought willingly to depart out of this life, but not cowardly to run away. The Christian is ordained by GOD to fight therein: and cannot leave his place without incurring reproach and infamy. But if it please the grand Captain to recall him, let him take the retreat in good part, and with good will obey it. For he is not borne for himself, but for God: of whom he holds his life at farm, as his tenant at will, to yield him the profits. It is in the Landlord to take it from him, not in him to surrender it, when a conceit takes him. Diest thou young? praise God, as the Mariner▪ that hath had a good wind, soon to bring him to the Port. Diest thou Old? praise him likewise: for if thou hast had less wind, it may be thou hast also had less waves. But think not at thy pleasure to go faster or softer: for the wind is not in thy power; and in stead of taking the shortest way to the Haven, thou mayest happily suffer shipwreck. God calleth home from his work, one in the morning, another at noon, and another at night. One he exerciseth till the first sweat, another he sunne-burneth, another he roasteth & drieth thoroughly. But of all his he leaves all to rest, and gives them all their hire, every one in his time. Who leaves his work before God call him, loseth it: and who importunes him before the time, loseth his reward. We must rest us in his will, who in the midst of our troubles sets us at rest.  
To end, we ought neither to hate this life for the toils therein; for it is sloth and cowardice: nor love it for the delights; which is folly and vanity: but serve us of it, to serve God in it, who after it shall place us in true quietness, and replenish us with pleasures which shall never more perish. Neither ought we to fly death; for it is childish to fear it: and in flying from it, we meet it. Much less to seek it, for that is temerity: nor every one that would die, can die. As much despair in the one, as cowardice in the other: in neither any kind of magnanimity. It is enough that we constantly and continually wait for her coming, that she may neiver find us unprovided. For as there is nothing more certain than death, so is there nothing more uncertain than the hour of death, known only, o God, the only Author of life & death, to whom we all aught endeavour both to live & die.  
Dye to live: Live to Die.  
The 13. of May, 1590. AT WILTON.