THE Forerunner of ETERNITY, OR Messenger of DEATH; sent to Healthy Sick and Dying Men by H. DREXELIUS 1643 ●NA 〈◊〉 HIS ●SA: ●NIS MORE ●UND●● AEGRIS W. Martial Sculpsit. engraved title page THE FORERUNNER OF ETERNITY, OR MESSENGER OF DEATH: Sent to Healthy, Sick, and Dying Men, By H. DREXELIUS. LONDON: Printed by J. N. and are to be sold by John Sweeting at the Angel in Popes-Head-alley. Ann. Dom. 1642. ¶ To the worthy and most virtuous Gentlewoman, Mistress MARGARET DRAPER, Widow of Mr. ROBERT DRAPER Esquire. MADAM, WOnder not that I presume to thrust this Tractate into your hands, as not having that Relation to yourself, usual in all such Dedications; yet finding so great an affinity betwixt your Goodness and the Tractate itself, so great unity betwixt your Meditations daily expressed in your Practice, and these here imprinted; I thought it not only fit, but necessary to prefix your name unto it: For it is most just, That in whom these Meditations have been continually imprinted, she at last should be imprinted in these Meditations. Take therefore this Book, read it yourself, and explain it to others, lest that Gulf in the Title, ETERNITY, catch and involve those at unawares that might forerun it. Let the Reader know that it is always to be thought on, though never to be understood. Let him believe that every moment we travel unto it, and shall quickly come to our journey's end, that vast place of entertainment, the Inn of Eternity: Let him look he bespeaks good Lodging, and good Company; for the next morning, as soon as the Sun of Righteousness appears, he shall begin a journey that shall never have end; in which he shall still move on, yet never proceed; for going forward is but as standing still, in that motion to which no period is allotted. But this you know: in a word therefore; Take this book, now your own: for though your less skill in the Latin tongue may deny you to have made the Original, yet the zeal and piety of your Life is the best Translation. Show it therefore to the world, that its Meditations whilst you live may be a Pattern for others, and when you are dead the History of yours. So I have brought this Book and you together, I know you will quickly be acquainted, and talk out the rest; therefore now ceasing to trouble you, I steal away in silence, remaining, Yours in all humble service, W. CROYDEN. ¶ The several Sections of the three ensuing Books. The first Book. 1 AN Introduction to the work pag. 1 2 That the remembrance of Death should be daily pag. 3 3 The remembrance of death, a medicine against all sins pag. 5 4 Of the conclusion of a good life pag. 8 5 That every man is nothing pag. 9 6 Of the short continuance of men pag. 11 7 The same larglier insisted on pag. 13 8 The vanity of the desire of long lise pag. 15 9 That man is dust pag. 1● 10 That every man is truly miserable pag. 21 11 What man is pag. 24 12 Instruction to the haters of funerals pag. 27 13 That our life is nothing but weeping pag. 29 14 That God comforteth those that weep pag. 30 15 That our death may be as advantageous as our birth pag. 33 16 That death is every where pag. 36 17 Every man's house is death's home pag. 38 18 The inexorableness of death pag. 40 19 The certainty & uncertainty of death pag. 42 20 The suddenness of death pag. 44 21 An antidote against sudden death pag. 54 22 Our days are few and e●ill pag. 57 23 How dying young we may be said to be old pag. 59 24 That any one that will may live long pag. 62 25 That we must all die pag. 63 26 The remembrance of death ought to be renewed pag. 66 27 A discourse of Assan Bashaw pag. 73 28 That each day is to be regarded pag. 78 29 The throne of all our pride is our bier pag. 80 30 What our life is pag. 86 31 Our life is a Play pag. 89 32 A type of man's life pag. 91 33 The Prologue, Narration, & Epilogue of man's life pag. 93 34 That the longest life is but short pag. 96 35 Of procrastination pag. 98 36 Deaths haunt pag. 103 37 Of our negligence in meditating of death pag. 105 38 That the present is only ours pag. 108 39 That we should not rely on to morrow pag. 110 40 The suddenness & comeliness of death pag. 113 41 That we must watch and pray pag. 116 42 Eight verses out of the Psalms, used by S. Bernard for the time of death pag. 119 The second Book. 1 THe remembrance of Death recommended to the sick pag. 127 2 The sick man's discourse w●th his friends pag. 131 3 Pleasant things not always best pag. 138 4 Christian valour seen in the contempt of death pag. 139 5 Examples of death contemned pag. 141 6 Of a mind ready for death pag. 144 8 Three things grievous in sickness pag. 147 9 Sickness is the school of virtue pag. 150 10 Sickness the monitor to eternity pag. 151 11 Of prayer in sickness pag. 152 12 What ought to be our thoughts and actions in sickness pag. 155 13 The difference of our thoughts in sickness and health pag. 158 14 In all our sickness we must send holy sighs to God pag. 160 15 Faults of sick men pag. 161 16 Rules to be observed by the sick pag. 166 17 How the sick man should quench his thirst pag. 168 18 The sick man's napk n pag. 170 19 The sick man's bed pag. 172 20 The hope of a better life assuageth our misery pag. 175 21 True hope of a most blessed life pag. 176 22 Tranquillity flows from true hope pag. 180 23 Patience the whole armour of a Christian pag. 182 24 That we are but guests on earth pag. 186 25 The term of our life is uncertain pag. 187 26 A first objection of the sick man pag. 191 27 A second objection pag. 193 28 The sick man's complaints pag. 195 29 The sick man's discourse with himself pag. 199 30 His discourse with God pag. 201 31 His sure confidence in God pag. 207 32 Of constancy in sickness pag. 211 33 Several prayers to be used by the sick pag. 215 The third Book. 1 THe Art of dying pag. 233 2 How to redeem the time pag. 237 3 How to make a short life long pag. 238 4 An end of all things but eternity pag. 239 5 Considerations of a dying man pag. 245 6 We ought to prepare for death pag. 246 7 Examples of such as buried themselves pag. 248 8 A consideration of our grave pag. 252 9 Nine forms of Wills pag. 255 10 Nine Epitaphs pag. 261 11 Nine reasons to persuade us to die with a resolved mind pag. 273 12 Death not to be feared pag. 282 13 How the Saints of God may desire, ye● fear death pag. 285 14 An ill death follows an ill life pag. 289 15 A good death follows a good life pag. 291 16 Like life, like death pag. 296 17 The desire of a good death pag. 298 18 Sleep the brother of death pag. 300 19 The forerunners of death pag. 302 20 How we must answer the messenger of death pag. 305 21 A sweet death the worst death pag. 307 22 Deaths blessedness pag. 312 23 A dying man's farewell to the living pag. 315 24 What should be the words and meditations of a dying man pag. 319 25 Things specially to be observed by a dying man pag. 321 26 What a dying man should do pag. 323 27 Consolation for a sick man pag. 325 28 Holy ejaculations for a dying man pag. 329 29 The dying man's confidence in God pag. 333 30 The last words of a dying man pag. 336 31 Of the conforming our will to Gods will pag. 338 32 The dying man's emulation of the good thief pag. 339 33 Of the Heliotropium pag. 342 34 Prayers for a dying man pag. 345 A YE think DEATH sleeps. Take heed, he'll wake; ye'll moan. B Health makes you skip and dance, while sick men groan. C Quails shower down to please the glutton's tongue. D Sweet Zephyr strews his Flowers. Alas! how long? E Yet Phoebus smiles, and walks with goodly grace: But clouds ere long will mask his radiant face. F When Virtue moves, Health gives you stubborn backs Like Rams; when Vice, pliant as Virgin-wax. G Feast, frolic gallants, feast, drink-swagger, roar and kiss: But think how on this Point hangs endless we or bliss. THE FORERUNNER of ETERNITY: Or Messenger of DEATH, sent to healthy, sick, and dying men. The Remembrance of Death propounded to the Healthy. §. 1. Instructions to the Reader, and an Introduction to the Work. MAny have written comfortable Antidotes against Diseases, and Death; I determine the same; and they are so far from discouraging me, that they rather incite my Penne. Some of them (with leave be it spoken) are too long, so that they burden a sick man with their too too many precepts. Others not so much forgetting brevity, as a Methodical Order, do make it too accurate. They had not so much offended, had they kept their Pens from paper; (as Apelles desired in Protogenes. Plin. l. 35 c. 10. post initium. ) Many have discoursed excellently, but (as I may say) not satisfactory for Practise. Theory is to be commended; but here we must do, and in stead of words, set forth action. There are others that propose nothing to sick, and dying parties; but mere terrors and fears; and so astonish them yet living. I know (my Reader) that thy desire is to be prepared for Death with small expenses: I will endeavour to answer thy expectation: and Briefly, Orderly, and Cheerfully I will lead thee to Death's door, so as thou shalt scarce perceive it: 1. Briefly Briefly, for I writ not a volume, but a short Treatise, which may be thy daily companion. 2. Orderly. I will not observe a strict Order, but rather a mixed; the way that is pleasant seems straight, though there be many wind. Cheerfully, for I will not only treat of Religion, 3. Cheerfully. but will mix with it verses, and fit old Epigrams; so that my style shall not only be plain, but relishing of sanctified mirth. Thus I thought fitting to admonish thee, at the entrance into this subject. §. 2. That the Remembrance of Death should be daily. HAppy is that man that spends every day as if it were his last. Epictetus doth wisely teach, Epictet. Enchir. cap. 28. Death (saith he) and Banishment, and all other evils should be daily before our eyes, especially Death. So shall our thoughts never be too base, nor too ambitious. Wretched men, why possess you such large hopes? why undergo you such a great weight of disturbances, who to morrow perchance may be dust and ashes? Stand sure O man, for the sable Goddess Death daily stands over thy head; and when the little remnant of sand in thy hourglass shall be runned out with a vigilant and undrousie eye, expects thy arrival, and canst thou but expect Her? as he sung, Ortum quicquid habet, finem timet. (i. e.) All that a beginning have, Do expect and fear a grave. — Ibimus omnes. (i. e.) We all must go, To the earth below. Nor can any age bribe Death. As soon as we are borne, we pay tribute, and are Death's hirelings. Nay, as soon as greedy eyes the first light see, Then do we even begin to die. Death kills the Empress as well as the Handmaid. As the Poet well. Horat. lib. 1. ep. 4. — Because we die so fast, Think every day thy last. Say every Evening, This day I stand at the door of Eternity. §. 3. The remembrance of Death is a Medicine against all sins. THE serious remembrance of Death shakes off all sense of Pleasure, and turns the sweetest honey to Wormwood. S. chrysostom saith, Chrysost. in his 5. Sermon of wickedness repulsed. pag. 678. The expectation of Death to come, will scarcely suffer or give admittance to any carnal delights. And truly what doth not the sense of Death work, if but entered into the fingers or the pores of the Head, much more when it seizes upon the whole body? it spareth no age, no dignity; one young man dies, another Infant, another old man. One dies by the sword, another by poison, a third by a fall; one departs lingeringly, another suddenly, as overtaken with some violent storm, or thunder clap. Now amongst so many doubtful, changeable, and sudden events, what security can be expected? What courage can there be to sin amongst such uncertainties? And why? because we die daily. Think of thy hourglass: though slowly to sense, yet certainly by degrees, the sands do run from the uppermost to the nethermost Cell. Apply this to thy fleeting life. Every moment some parcel of our life slides away. Here's nothing safe, one hour deceives another, one moment steals somewhat from another. Happy is he which makes every day his last; more happy he which reckons every hour; but most happy that man who accounts every moment. He will abstain from sin that counts this present moment to be his determined time. Oh deceitful Hopes! how many have you deluded? While you promise to many the end of their journey, old age; and yet cut them off in the midst of it in their youth. You make men believe that may happen to them which many have enjoyed, the flourishing of the Almond tree; what a number have fallen with innocent hands, yet peccant hearts? How many have been overtaken by Death whilst they have been in meditating of wickedness? How many sinners and sins hath Death cut off in the midst of their acts? How many have smarted for their endeavours to sin, being examples of rashness & presumption? Have not many put a period to their lives and sins together? What if thou shouldst be one of this number? Or why shouldst thou be privileged beyond others? Oh! Scriban. in Polit. Christ. lib. 1. c. 27. who would think to find sin in that mind, which expects Death with the sin, and punishment by that Death? No wise man will play in a storm at sea; who in such dangerous precipices will or dare meditate transgressions? No man unarmed can be merry in the midst of an Enemy's Army. But much more foolish is he, who knowing every hour, every moment to be uncertain, and living in a perpetuated fear of Death, yet dares do those things, which for ever will make Death to be most miserable. Oh unwise men that we are! why do we plunge ourselves into everlasting punishment? and why obey we not good counsels! Eccles. 7.40. In all thy works (saith Solomon) remember thy end, and so thou shalt no sin. § 4. The conclusion of a good life is of great esteem. TEll me (o Seneca) whom doth that great Pliny in his Testimonial worthy to be envied, Plin. l. 14. c. 4. medio. call a Prince? Say, what thinkest thou of Death, especially of untimely Death? Hear o young men, give ear o old men so full of complaints▪ Seneca. epist. 77. in the end. our life is as a tale that is told; it matters not how long it is; but how well it is performed. It is not of any consequence in what place thou dost end, end where thou wilt, only let thy conclusion be well. Epictetus' in the same manner saith, Euch. c. 23. Remember that thou art but an Actor of a play as thy Master appointeth thee; if he sets thee a long part, thou must perform it, if a short one, thy duty is the same to do it well. Varro speaks not in dissonant terms from these two. They live not best who live longest, but they who do live the uprightest. Our lives are not valued by the duration of time, but by the qualification of our actions. Goodness in man's life is a quality, not a quantity. It matters not therefore either where, or when, or by what means we die, for as God our Master pleaseth, so we must departed: Only let us pray that we die well. § 5. That every man is nothing. Heu, heu! nos miseros, quam totus Homuncio nil est! (i. e.) What wretches, ah! alas! are we! All men are nothing verily. IN truth it is so. But much more wretched are we in that we know it not. Man is nothing said an ancient Satirist, but I dare say, we begin then to be something, when we acknowledge ourselves to be nothing. O man know thyself, know and be wise: for Death crops off Lilies as soon as thorns or thistles. Oh how vain and wretched are we! what are we? our learning, and Honour is but smoke; ourselves but dust: the one is but a fancy, the other but a blast. And we which now speak in the present tense, we do live, we are strong, and do flourish, in a trice all will be changed in the preterperfect tense, viximus, we have lived. Here all have the same way. Our very life in the increase, decreaseth; and we may divide the present day with Death. There is a daily diminution in some part of our lives. Our glass may be turned, but it's always running. The first sand as well as the last may be said to empty our glass; and the last hour in which we die doth not only make Death, but doth really consummate it. §. 6. All men are but of a short time and continuance. THe Lily is a flower, whose life and beauty lasts but a day. On the Banks of Hiparis, Pliny l. 11. c. 36. a River in Scythia, there is a bird called Hemerobios, which lives not beyond the compass of one day; but ends her life with the same light she first received it, at sunne-setting. In the same she hath experience of youth and old age: she springs up in the morning, flourishes at noon; grows old and dies at night: but that which is most to be admired in that bird, is; she doth in that space provide as much sustenance, as if she should live as long as the Raven. Man's life is not unlike to this creature. It always is by the flood of flying time; and more swift than any bird or arrow. And oftentimes hath all his honour and worldly pomp terminated to a day, sometimes to an hour, and often to a moment. Why do we then so fond dream of years and ages, when we are but as the flowers, or their shadows? or what can be reckoned to be more vain or short then either? He that was thirty years in making curiously the form of a man in Glass, had in a twinkling of an eye his vain labour dashed to pieces; with this wise answer, As I have done to this brittle glass, so may Death do either to you, or myself in as short a space; how vain therefore are you in your thoughts? But it is most wonderful, that though this life hath by so many learned Divines in all ages been proved to be so swift and short, and though all Writers in all times have confirmed the same, yet wretches that we are, we hear not all these loud voices King Hezekiah cries in the Prophecy of Esay, From morning until night thou will make an end of me. Esay 38. 1●. The Kingly Psalmist cries out; Psal. 102 17. My days are passed away as a shadow. And that great man in the land of Huz; job 14.2 Man cometh forth as a flower, is wasted and flieth away as a shadow. Behold! Oh man, thou art but a bubble; all thy life is but as the passing of a shadow; and expectest thou here an abiding place, or a quiet habitation? Why dost thou heap up thick day, oh thou covetous wretch? When as this night they shall fetch thy soul. Why thinkest thou on carking and caring as though thou shouldest live Nestor's age? When as Death is at thy elbow: thou shalt be gone from hence, before thou thinkest of thy departure: hasten the thought of it early, Eternity is before thee. §. 7. The same point more largely insisted on, and confirmed. No man's life but is short, theirs is shortest who forget things past, neglect things present, fear not things to come. job saith excellently, And they which have seen him shall say, where is he? like a dream that passeth away and flieth hence, job 2.7.8. so shall he not be found. A dream is vain, a flight is swift: Yet man shall pass away as a vision by night. He speaks of himself thus. job 9, 25.26. My days are swifter than a post, they are gone and have seen no good; (This uttered that rich man of the East) They are passed by as ships of burden, and as an Eagle to the prey. For we be but of yesterday, job 8.9. and know nothing; are not our days as a shadow upon earth? truly they are so, and tarry not. We feast, banquet, & dance, yet they tarry not. We are most secure, and sleep till high-noon; and yet our days tarry not. We sport away our time prodigally in trifles, and invent one idle thing after another; yet our time stays not. Our years do flit, fleet, and fly apace, no man could ever yet give a ransom to enjoy the next day safely. In our very sleep we go on either to the Eternity of joy in Heaven, or of pain in Hell. Excellent was that saying of Suidas. O Mortals of one day's continuance, Verbo Ephemerii botri pa. 358. cunning for the present, not looking to the future. Consider of Eternity, to which you hasten. §. 8. That the hopes and wishes for long life are vain. IT was the speech of that foolish rich man to his soul. What shall I do? for where shall I lay my fruits? This will I do, Luk. 12.18. I will pull down my barns and build bigger. Alas wretched man, twice wretched: wilt thou enlarge thy barns? thou shalt this night have a grave, if not a Hell; this night shall they require thy soul, than whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? Thy Virtues, hadst thou any, thy Vices of which thou hadst too many, shall go with thee. No other train or attendants shalt thou have with thee hence; Much like to this rich man's fall was that of Senecio reported of in Seneca. Senec. epist. 101. ●●it. Who recounting the swiftness of our life, which is granted to men by moments and minutes, said thus. Each day & hour doth show that we are nothing, & doth always by some new Argument admonish us that are forgetful of our frailty, and drives us to look on Eternity through Death. This Senecio Cornelius a Roman Knight, a frugal man, not only careful of his patrimony, but also of his body, having sat all day by a friend of his who was very ill, and almost past hope of recovery, having supped very merrily, was suddenly taken with the Squinancy in his throat, so that he could scarce draw his breath: and within a few hours, He, which had gone through all offices, and charges, fit to be executed by an healthy able man; He, which both by sea and land had gathered wealth; He, which had left no ways untried that seemed gainful; in the highest pitch of good success, and in the midst of his wealth, died suddenly. So often comes it to pass that in the confluence of our hopefullest actions we are gone, as the wind, which when at highest, soon is calm: and therefore doth job ask of God, and in a sort complain; job 10.8 And dost thou so suddenly destroy me? And learnedly Tertullian, Tertull. lib de anima. There is (saith he) that force and strength in vessels as they sail by the Capharean rocks, though they be not assaulted by any great or raging winds, nor violent waves, yet with a gentle gale, a smooth course; all thinking themselves safe are with deadly privy overthrow suddenly sunk and lost. An Emblem of the sudden events and unlooked for shipwrecks of men's lives. How foolish therefore is it to dispose of our life, when we know not what shall be to morrow? Oh what madness is it to lay such large hopes upon such brittle uncertain beginnings! I will b●y, build, fell, get gains, purchase honour, and in old age take my ease. When (believe it) even to the most happy all things are doubtful. jam. 3. Our life is but a vapour (saith S. james.) We cannot promise any certainty of future things, and what we enjoy for the present, may be easily taken from us, or we from it. Yet in the midst of these hazards we propound and resolve upon long voyages, and large journeys, by sea, and land. We lay out for wars, for pleasures at Court, for quietness, and ease, long businesses, an orderly succession of labours, heaping offices to offices, hoping for Nestor's years, and Metellus good luck; when in the mean time Death stands by us, and in these thoughts doth suddenly prevent us, and suddenly casts us from the molehill of our hopes, into the depth of Eternity. §. 9 That man is Dust. Gen. 3.19 REmember this (o man) that dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. This is a mourning verse which God himself declared to Adam, and doth wisely admonish us of our Mortality. Plin. lib. 10. cap. 4. The Eagle when she intends to set upon and overthrow the Stagg, before she gins her fight, gathers a great deal of dust into her wings, and sitting betwixt the horns of the Stagg, with beating her wings upon his face strikes dust into his eyes, and so drives him upon the Rocks. So the Church by the wise use of Humiliation and Mortification, stops many a violent and hasty sinner in his furious course to destruction, and drives his soul upon the Rock of Salvation JESUS CHRIST; so likewise doth the Priest at burials when the corpse is laid in the Grave, he utters these words when the earth is thrice cast on the dead party, Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. These words he speaks not to the dead in the grave, but to those Coffins which have living souls abiding in them, not for those out of which the soul is departed. King Philip of Macedon was wise in this point, that every morning had this sung to him to make him the more mindful of Mortality, O Philip remember thou art a man. The very Cranes will in this point serve to be our Tutors, who, when they set their night Sentinels, do hold a stone in one of their feet, that if they should chance to sleep, by the fall and sound of that stone they might be wakened: the same Birds when they fly over the sea betwixt Maeotis and Tenedos, do carry sand in their bills. Well, let the stone in their foot remember us of our grave-stone, and the sand in their bill, of the earth with which we shall be covered. The Calf which the Hebrews worshipped was in deed of gold, but it was reduced to dust. Nebuchadnezars Image seemed terrible, but it was mouldered to dust by the stroke of a stone. The Apples of Gomorrah indeed outwardly were specious and beautiful, but within dust and rottenness. Proud men may show their glory and riches, and these may procure some carnal Israelites to worship them, but they shall end in dust and corruption: so that it is excellent which job speaks, I will say to the worm, thou art my sister; and to corruption, thou art my mother. It is not wisdom to admire present glory, but seriously to consider the end. Dust man was, and dust he shall be, and his pomp shall follow him; do therefore what is best to be done; Eternity is nigh at hand. §. 10. That every man is truly miserable. WE cannot think enough whether nature hath been a true loving mother, Plin. preoemio in lib. 7. hist. nat. or rather a cruel stepmother to mankind. For among all other living creatures she man with the wealth of others. She hath afforded to the rest divers cover, as shells, harks, skins, prickles, hair, wool, bristles, feathers, wings, scales, and fleeces. She defends stocks and trees sometimes with a double bark from the cold or heat: but she only casts out man naked into the world in the day of his nativity to cry, and wail; but deals not so with any other creature in the world. After this manner produced is this creature called MAN; with crying, and his hands and feet swathed, and yet this weakling comes to have the sovereignty of all. Oh great Commander! who beginneth his life with punishment wretched even in this, that he is borne! Oh the the madness of those who esteem themselves gotten to pride by such weak beginnings! The first hope of his strength, and the first gift of time makes him like to the beasts. How long is it before he can go, or speak, or eat any solid food? How long is it before his head leaves panting, the only and infallible sign of weakness? Suddenly how many diseases assail him? What various medicines are then fought out for his remedy, and those also subject to alterations upon new advices? We see other creatures presently to perform actions arguing strength according to their natures. Some swim, some go, some fly, and others creep; but man, unless he be taught, can neither speak, nor go, nor eat, nor do any thing of himself, but cry. Some creatures are addicted to heaviness, some to luxury, others to ambition, some to covetousness, another to superstition, another to desire of long life: but to none hath nature afforded a more frail life, a greater or greedier lust, a more confused fear, or sharper cruelty. To conclude, all other creatures live in quiet with those of their own kind. We see them go in companies, and Herds lovingly together, and to withstand their enemies. The fierceness of Lions is not exercised upon their own kind: Serpents by't not serpents: nay, the fishes do not devour but their adversaries. Only from man are all evils to man. §. 11. What Man is. IF we will believe the Ancients, Man is Fortune's Tennis-ball, Aristot. Trism● Plant. Sophoc. Pindar. the image of inconstancy, corruptions lookingglass, the spoil of Time, the prisoner of Death, a moving Sepulchre, a frail shadow, a vain image, the dream of a shadow, a breathing carcase, or a living death. If you ask Seneca what man is? he answereth, Man is a weak frail body, borne naked, unable to help himself, standing in need of others help, cast forth to the reproach of Fortune, fodder for wild beasts, any enemy's sacrifice. If we consult with the sacred Writers, we shall hear them, calling man the bait of worms, an heap of dung, the laughing stock of calamity, the copy of Infirmity, an hasty messenger, a ship passing away, a bird taking her flight, vanishing smoke, a thin froth, the balance of envy, a drop of a bucket, the nothing in a balance, a drop of the morning dew, a guest for one day, a flower, grass, hay; altogether vanity, dust and ashes, an empty Cask, in a word, He is nothing In the mean time see what names and surnames men wear to set forth their glorious & specious titles, if we weigh but with what Hyperbolical Epithets they interlace them, we shall perceive what vain proud wretches they are: they wound our ears, with these and the like; Most magnificent, most illustrious, happy, pious, most potent, Imperial, most victorious, the best of men, the greatest of Princes, etc. Let us hear the titles of Sapo●es King of Persia, which in his letter sent to Constantine the Emperor gins thus. Sapor King of Kings, Confederate with the Stars, Brother of the Sun and Moon, to Constantine our brother, much health, etc. or if you will see a Catalogue of lofty titles, take them from the King of Bisnag; who is saluted thus. Husband of good fortune, God of the great Provinces, King of mightiest Kings, Lord of all that ride in Chariots, or on Horses, the Master and Doctor of the Dumb, the Grand Emperor over three Emperors, the Getter of all he sees, the Conserver of all he gets, whom eight parts of the World stand in awe off, A Knight without an equal, the Conqueror of all Valiants, the Hunter of Elephants, the Emperor of the East, South, North, and West Seas. These vaunting Titles are recorded by Petrus Jarricus. Are not here terms large enough? Let us add to these the Titles that the Sultan sent in his letters. Almighty Salmander set down before Carthage, the Lord of jordan, Lord of the East of Bethlehem, and of Paradise, the Ruler of Hell, the mighty Emperor of Constantinople, Lord of the dry fig, Emperor of all the Sun and Moon passeth through, Protector of Presbyter john, an absolute Emperor, King of Kings, Lord of Christians, jews, and Turks, the Cousin of the Gods, etc. And like to this, was that Letter which Solyman sent to the Emperor, To Charles the fifth Emperor of Germany, the great Solyman sprung out of the most unconquered and victorious house of Ottoman, Emperor of the Turks, King of Kings, and Lo●d of Lords, the Emperor of Trapezund and Constantinople, the Conqueror of the World, and the Tamer of the earth, etc. What can you hear more? Oh victorious map of misery! Oh vanity of vanities! It's the most grossest ignorance for a man to forget that he is man. §. 12. To the Haters of Funerals, and Burials. Departed from hence therefore not men, but ravenous Kites, who though ye be greedy and hungerstarved, yet never snatch any food from the Graves. You as you are in other things curious, so you like not to touch or taste any thing that savours of embalming, or of Hears-cloaths, you desire not to be Guests to Churchyards, you do as much as you can to put off all thought and care of the Grave. You do not frequent the places of Ew-trees or Cypresse-trees, you seldom feast under these, these are not places for your delightful bowers; but see here, how far you are mistaken, and how vainly ye dote: the holy Scripture admonisheth ye otherwise, It is better to go to the house of mourning, Eccles. c. 7. v. 2. than to go to the house of feasting, but you had rather do any thing, than mourn and repent, and remember death, Lectures of this nature please not, but take heed, Ye Wantoness, lest while ye eat mourning here, ye be cast into eternal mourning hereafter. §. 13. That our life is nothing but tears and weeping. EVery one (as Saint Cyprian testifies) as soon as he is borne, Cypr. Serm. of Patience. and entertained for a guest into this world, gins his journey in tears; every man may thus say of himself, In tears I did begin, in tears I end, I did in nothing else my short days spend. Our Cradle's full of tears, and soc's our Hearse, Our life begins, ends as a mournful verse. Happic●s that man who here doth mourn and weep Because he shall not when he wakes from sleep. Serar in rebus Mogun. p. 947 Daniel 97 Epis. 57 Archiepisc. 41. Elector. Mogun. Will you see the sum and epitome of all our life? Daniel Archbishop of Mentz, Elector of the Sacred Roman Empire, with his own hands writ these following admonitions, 1 Life is short; 2 Beauty deceitful. 3 Wealth uncertain. 4 Dominion hated. 5 War is pernicious. 6 Victory is doubtful. 7 Leagues are fraudulent. 8 Old age is miserable. 9 Death is felicity. 10 The fame of true Wisdom is everlasting. To wit of that wisdom which descends from above, which establisheth Kingdoms, shall never cease but is eternal. §. 14. That God doth comfort those that weep. Hear the voice of the Comforter and Promiser together, Ps. 50.15. Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, Ps. 33.19 and thou shalt glorify me? And the Lord is nigh to all them that are of a troubled spirit, and he will save the humble in heart. Aug. in Tom. 8. in Psal. 50. Most excellently Saint Augustine, Fear not (saith he) when thou art troubled, as though the Lord was not with thee, The Lord is near to those that are of a troubled spirit. Man may prepare a Crown for the Conqueror; but he knows not how to give him strength to conquer: But GOD when he beholds the battle, he strengthens his Champions, for that is the voice of the Psalmist, that valiant warrior, If I said, my foot was moved, thy mercy (O Lord) hel●t me up. Assoon therefore as thou art troubled, stir up thy faith, and thou shalt know, He will not leave thee comfortless. But thou mayst perhaps think thyself forsaken, because thou art not delivered when thou wouldst; He took the three children out of the fire, but he which took those three, left he the Maccabees? Far be it to think so, He delivered the one, as well as the other; the one corporally, that his and their enemies might be confounded; these spiritually, that the faithful might in all ages imitate their valour. God is high, Every good soul is lowly, if ye would that the high God should come near unto you, be humble; these are great Mysteries (my Brethren) God is above all; Dost thou lift up thyself? thou comest not near him: Dost thou debase thyself? he will come down to thee. Call therefore this faithful Helper to thy succour by prayer. He will be propitious even at the first sigh, if it be from the soul. God will wipe away all tears from their eyes, Apoc. 21.4. neither shall there be any more weeping or mourning, or grief, or sorrow, because all these are passed away Most truly said the same Father. Aug. in Psal. 127 circamed. How pleasant are the sighs of the soul to God? they are more acceptable than the laughter of Fools or Theatres. §. 15. That our death may be as advantageous as our Birth. EPaminondas the Theban being at point of death, said, Val Max. l. 3. c. 2. & l. 2. c. 6 I● was not so much to be accounted the period of his life as the beginning. For now (fellow soldiers) may your Epaminondas be said to be born, because he so dies. For whether is better to be pampered under grief in this life, or by death to enter into immortality. There are a people near Thrace, Herodo●, lib. 5. Hist. Valer. l. 2. c. 1. Quintil. l. 5. institut. called the Trausi, which agree with the Thracians, in all customs save in this particular; That the neighbours when an Infant is born, do with great lamentations rehearse the great calamity the Infant must suffer on the stage of his life: And they celebrate the Funerals of their Neighbours with great rejoicing; in regard they are by death freed from all the miseries incident to this life. This Nation of some in this very respect hath been reputed wise and discreet, because they celebrate Birthday's with tears, and Obits with joy. The Geteses and Causians are said to do the same, Stobaus in Encomio Mortis. and to speak truth, let but the seeming pleasures which this life promiseth, be but exempt, which force and inveigle men to many hazards and inconveniences, by their allurements, and then our end is to be judged more happy than our beginning. Death is not to be accounted an evil; Plin. in praf. l. 7. Hist. but the conclusion of all evils. Plinius Secundus saith, There have been some who have judged it best, not to have been born: and next to that, an carly Death. So Silenus when he was taken by Midas, being asked what was best for man, was a good space silent; but at last answered thus, It is the best not be at all, and next to that, to be but for a moment. I cannot omit that fare and seldom heard of passage pleasant to be related, of one Ludovicus Cortusius, a Counsellor living in Milan, who in his Will at his death forbade all mourning for him at his Burial; and willed that all the Musicians and Minstrels should be present, some to go before, and fifty to follow the Clergymen and the Corpse, and allowed by Will to each of them for their attendance half a Ducat, and willed further that his coffin should be carried by twelve beautiful Virgins clothed in a fresh green habit, and that they should sing melodiously as they passed along; and gave to all of them such large Legacies, that they served for their Dowry: and was attended by an hundred torches, and in this manner was sumptuously interred in the Church of Saint Sophia, in Milan; with all the Clergy accompanying his burial, (the Black Friars only excepted) whom he debarred by his Testament, lest they by their fable weeds might move in some persons mourning or heaviness, so that his Funeral was celebrated with as much mirth as a marriage. This merry conceited man died in the year of our Saviour, 1418, july the seventeenth. De modo bene viv. Serm 70. Idem de transit. mal. Saint Bernard spoke worthily saying, Let those mourn for their dead, which believe not the Resurrection: those are to be lamented, who after their death are punished in Hell by Devils, not those who are placed in Heaven with the blessed spirits. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. Precious (indeed) as the period of their labours, as the consummation of victory, as the gate to life, and the entrance into perfect rest and security. Well spoke that wise Hebrew, Eccles. 7.4. Better is the day of our death, than the day of our birth. §. 16. That Death is every where. THose Wretches, who seek by what means they shall die, to whom death is more welcome than life, may vex and distract themselves with grief and anxious sollicitudes, and disturbing encumbrances; they may sharpen their swords, prepare poisons, catch at Gibbets, look out for steep Rocks to fall down from, as though the loving yoke and society betwixt the soul and body could not be parted without such exquisite preparation. Death is always laying his snares in all places to catch us, wheresoever man passeth, Death is always ready, where is he not working? whom doth not he meet and strike with his fatal dart? How many sorts of deaths are there, and all to ruin one poor wretched man? so that it may be said truly, why are so many sorts of death's assailing? Lib. d● honest. vitae. Idem in medit. cap. 3. de dignitat. animae. When all our lives are bubbles quickly failing? Hear but Saint Bernard, let the daily meditation of death be thy chief wisdom: for there are divers kinds of death always pinching thee, What ever happens to other men (saith he) may also happen to thee, because thou art a man, thou art made and composed of earth, and art but dust of dust; thou takest thy descent and pedigree from earth, thou livest of earth, and shalt at one time or other be reduced to earth, when that last and terrible day shall come, which shall come suddenly; and perhaps to morrow, or this day. It is ●ertain that thou shalt die, but when, or how, or where, is altogether uncertain. Seneca saith, It is uncertain in what place Death looks for thee, therefore do thou expect it in every place. §. 17. Every man's House is Death's home. WE sport, and put Death fare, too far away; And yet it secretly in us doth lurk, Yet from our first breath do our lives decay, And Death gins even then 'gainst us to work. Each hour doth strive to cut our threads in twain, Each moment Death doth something from us gain. We always die, and in one moment pass Unto Death's darkest Cells, as lights put out. Death cuts off time, in which our hopes we place, Frustrates our hopes with time, which wheels about. So short oft times are both our hopes and time That oft Death takes them both even in their prime. In the Northern Ocean, towards Moscovy, there is a certain fish whose name is Death, this great devourer of fishes is mightily armed with teeth, Hie. Cardan. l. 10. de subtilitate, pag. 336. (and as Cardanus reports it) sword-hilts are made usually of his teeth. Oh mortals! our own bodies are ponds in which this great Devourer, Death is nourished, we need not therefore go fare to find it, when it is bred in our own bowels. — In each 〈◊〉 Home — Death keeps a Room. §. 18. That Death is inexorable, not to be entreated. THough Rocks be deaf and Tigers fell, And boisterous Seas do rage and swell, Sometimes these are calm, quiet, pleased; And all their furies are appeased: But death nor threats or friendship doth regard But is than Seas, Tigers, or Rocks more hard. Antiquity feigns the three Ladies of destinies to be all inexorable, to whom all the power of life and death is only entrusted; to whose distaff, spinning, thread, & shears the Gods have transferred humane actions: as it is said, — When Fates in order come, — Then every one must run — Without delay to his home. Those Fates are said not to defer the determined time, but keep it exactly, Death by Painters is delineated with a Dart in his hand, impartially striking Kings Sceptres, as they that grind at mill; without ears, because he is not moved with mortals cries; he wants eyes, so that he looks not upon men's miseries; he wants a forehead and cheeks, so that he cannot blush; he wants a tongue & lips, lest he might afford to men some little comfortable syllable, He wants flesh all over, to show that he cannot be touched with any sense of humanity, only you shall see him with nerves, limbs, muscles & bones, with his arrows and darts ready to strike down wretched men suddenly; and if at any time above all the rest, Death showed his cruelty, and inexorableness, it was then, when without all pity or compassion, he struck the Prince and Author of life, jesus Christ, with his deadly dart, though at this attempt of his, the stones rend, the earth shaken, the stars hide their beauties, the Sun was darkened, nay, the very Angels seemed to mourn as not willing to behold Life itself brought to death. Whosoever thou art, thou shalt find death inexorable, therefore live always mindful of it: the time flies as a Post, and what I say, may instantly come to pass. Pers. Sat. 5. Settle every day as it may be thy last; or first leading to Eternity. § 19 As nothing is more certain, so nothing more uncertain than Death. De Conviv. ad Clericos, c. 14. SAint Bernard learnedly cries out, What is more certain in all humane affairs than death? and yet what can be found more uncertain than the time of it? It shows itself in old men, it lays ambushments in youngmen; therefore wisely said King Solomon, Prov. 27.1. Boast not thyself of to morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth; so sings that Horace, — Who knows if Fates will spare us, our next breath or air? Hor. l. 4. Od. 7. Saint james the Apostle speaks most truly, jam. 4.13.14. Behold you which say to day or to morrow we will go into such a city for a year, and there we will buy, and sell, and get gains; when as you know not what may be on the morrow, fo● what is your life but a v●●our? which now is, and suddenly passeth away: whereas you should rather say, if the Lord will, or if we live, we will do this or that We all, all of us must pass to the grave; for it is said, We all die, 2 Kings 14.14. and are like water spilt on the earth, which cannot be gathered up again. Neither can any man plead ignorance, of the Law which faith, Thou must return the spirit to him wh●ch gave it; and as no man can die, which never did live, so no man that ever lived, but did die; only the time and date is uncertain. Therefore Christ hath st●rr'd us up by a wise admonition: Watch and pray (saith he) for you know not the day and hour, and so repeating the words again. Mark. 13 33, 35, 36 37. Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the Lord of the house will come, whether at the dawning, or at midnight, or at the third watch, or in the morning, lest when he com●s, he find you sleeping, therefore what be saith, He saith unto all men, Watch. § 20. Death comes suddenly to many, unlooked for almost to all. WHo will not watch against the assaults of death, who is ready at all hours for execution? who never acquaints us with the time he intends to invade us: who sometimes comes creeping, sometimes flying, sometimes furiously in the twinkling of an eye, hastily arrests us unprovided; without the least giving us notice, without cause, without caution, in sickness, in health, in danger, in security, so that there is nothing free or privileged from his talons, or destroying assaults. Was not Tarqvinius healthy and merry, P●● l. 7. N●● Hist. c. 7. and suddenly choked with the bone of a little fish? Fabius likewise wa● well and lusty, when presently a small hair (which he drunk with his milk) dispatched him. Was not the biting of a Weasel the end of Aristides life? Did not the Father of Caesar arise well from his bed, and died putting on his shoes? Did not another Caesar breath out his soul going over the threshold into his Palace? That Ambassador who intended to have spoken with great admiration the Rhodians affairs in a great Assembly, died he not in the entrance into the Court? If we will believe Lucian, Anacreon the Poet, and Sophocles were both killed with the stone of a Grape. One little prick of a Needle killed Lucia the daughter of Marcus Aurelius. Cneus Bebius Pamphilus the Praetor having desired that Dignity from a youth, died the first hour he enjoyed it. A sudden and violent laughter hath killed some, so we read of Chilo the Lacedaemonian, and Rhodias Diagoras, who, when they heard their sons were Conquerors in the Olympic Games, in one and the same time both suddenly departed. Death hath many passages, and entrances, by which he comes into us, and ruins us; sometimes he comes in at the windows, sometimes enters into the Sellars, not seldom by the supporters and pillars, and often by the tiles and covering of the house, if he fails by these betrayers to overthrow the house, such I call all the ill Humours, Diseases, Cathars, Pleurisies, and other Causes, which death useth to effect his designs upon us, than he will burst open the doors with powder, with fire, water, pestilence, poisons, beasts, and men, with all violence and fury that can be invented. Mephihosheth the son of King Saul, as he was upon his bed at noon, was slain by hired murderers. Pul●o King of jerusalem, as he hunted a Hare, falling from his horse, and being trodden upon presently w●s slain. josias of all the Kings of juda (David only excepted) the most renowned for piety, sanctity, and other Princely endowments, when he met the Army of Pharaoh Necho King of Egypt, being suddenly wounded with an arrow, died in the battle. Egillus King of the Goths, an excellent Prince, was gored and killed by a mad Bull, which was let lose, by naughty lawless people. Malcolme the first King of the Scots, after many examples of justice, on a night as he narrowly viewed his Kingdom, was strangled; many as they have gone to sleep, have slept their last; it is necessary at all occasions to be in battle array against this politic enemy. Vzzah a great man in David's Court, who laid hands upon the Ark when it shaked as it was bringing to jerusalem, to stay it from falling, was smitten and died. The Prophet that eat meat contrary to the Lords command was torn in pieces by a Lion. Ananias and Saphyra in the Apostles time, at the very word of Saint Peter, both died suddenly; whose act may serve as a fair warning to all men not to transgress in the like manner; but I omit these ancient times, and come to our days. jacob. Gord. in Chron. in hunc annum. In the year 1559. Henry the second King of France, was killed in the midst of his Sports and Triumphs, in a great confluence of Spectators; for as he celebrated in great state with justs and tournaments the Marriage of his Daughter in Paris, was run into his eye, and so through the head with a shiver of a Lance, that he died forthwith. In the year 1491, Alphonsus the son of John the second King of Portugal, being 16 years old, and a Prince of an excellent wit, and great hopes, married Isabel the daughter of Ferdinand King of Spain, whose dowry was the Inheritance of the large Territories of her Father's Kingdoms: The marriage was celebrated with the preparation and furniture of six hundred several sorts of Triumphs, every where were Plays, and Tilt, and Justs, and Banquets, there was such excess and superfluity, that even Pages, and Kitchen-boyes, shone in their cloth of Gold, and silks and velvets were accounted of no value; but oh the grief! what a strange Catastrophe presently followed? scarce were seven months passed, when as this young Prince sporting himself with his horse by the banks of the River Tagus, was struck off from the banks to the earth, with his head all bruised fatally, and so was carried into a poor fisher's Cottage, which could scarce hold him, and two of his servants, and in that poor plight, in that dejected state, upon a Mattress of straw, he ended his life. The King and the Queen his Mother came thither, and saw that deplorable spectacle, and all their pomp and magnificence was suddenly turned into mourning, and the wedding ended in a funeral, and all their large hopes of the prosperous successful government of their son's state were extinguished, and cut off as green flowers by the cold blasts of a Northern wind; & so all this Prince's glory was laid in a little quantity of earth. Oh the strange and sudden whirlwinds of humane glory! Oh the unexpected precipices and downfals of the strongest of mortals! Shall I speak of more? Basilius the Emperor, as he was hunting a Stag, was wounded with his horn, Hippol. Guar. l. 6. de abominandis gentis hum. 1.20 and in short time after of that wound died. An ancient Monument in Ambrose, near Oenipont, records that a young unexpert gentleman, more rash than wise, put his horse with his spurs to take a ditch of twenty feet over, Vide justa Hen. 4. regis Gall. a Ludovico Rich●omo. scripta. he forced the horse to it, but both he and his horse perished alike: the Knight's clothes, and the horses skin kept in that place, speak this true to posterity. But this sudden death happens alike to good and bad: unless (as in some examples) the divine stroke of Justice hath wiped out some out of the Land of the living for some notorious offence in the very act and perpetration, so Dathan and Abiram for their rebellion were swallowed up of the earth quick with their consorts. Such was the death of Absalon for his rebellion against his Father. Such was the death of those fifty, that were sent to Elijah, whom fire from heaven suddenly devoured. Such was the death likewise of Zimri and Cozhi, for their transgression, being both run through by Phinees: Whose action in lust brought them to dust. So many Pores as are in the body, so many little doors are there for death to enter; though death doth not seem always to be near, yet he is certainly at hand always ready. Why should that seem strange to be done at this time, which may be done at any time? The term of our life is fixed, Senet. Epist. 101. Med. and altars not; but none of us all knows, how near it we are. Let us so order ourselves therefore always, as if we were come to the mark. Let us not defer. There was a certain man dreamt he was killed by the mouth of a Lion, He rose, and neglecting his dream, went to the Church with other company, and by the door as they entered he spied a Lion cut in stone, with his mouth open, which partly upheld one of the Pillars, Hereupon, he with jesting and laughter told his dream to his fellows, Behold (saith he) this is the Lion that killed me in my dream; with that saying, He put his hand into the hollow place of the stone-lions mouth, and said, Oh fierce Lion here is thy enemy, shut thy mouth if thou be'st able, and by't off my hand; he had scarce made an end of speaking, but he received his fatal blow: for in the bottom of that hollow place lay hid a Scorpion, which feeling his hand, put forth her sting, touched him, and he forthwith fell down dead. Is it so that stones can sting, and poison lurk in a Lion of stone? Where may we then not justly fear death's stroke? in the like manner did Hylas perish whom a lurking Viper in the chaps of a Bear of stone did kill; which is expressed by Marshal in his third Book, and nineteenth Epigram. What need I to mention the young man who was killed, as he was going into an house, by an Icesicle, which fell upon his head, from the House-eaves; Whom Marshal laments in his Epigrams. Lib. 4. Ep. 18. So that you see, many are the passages that Death hath to set upon us, and usually he is then nearest when we least think of him. §. 21. An Antidote against sudden Death. GOod Reader, here is annexed a short Prayer that I propose unto thee as a pattern for thee to use daily to entreat the Lord JESUS CHRIST to preserve thee from sudden death. It is at thine own liberty whether thou wilt use that or some other every day. I made it, that thou mightst on thy knees beg this great blessing of thy Saviour; and know thus much, such is the danger and so common, that no man can be too wary or careful over himself. A Prayer. O Most loving and bountiful Lord jesus, my Lord, and my GOD, I most ardently desire thee by thy most precious blood shedding; by thy last words upon the Cross, when thou cried'st, My God, my God●, why hast thou forsaken me; by those blessed words of thine, when thou saidst, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; that thou wouldst not take me away by violent death. Thy hands (oh blessed Redeemer) made me, and fashioned me, oh give me understanding and I shall live, oh make not so soon a●end of me, give me, I beseech thee, time of Repentance, grant that I may end in thy favour, that I may love thee with all my heart, and praise, and bless thy Name for ever, AMEN. Nevertheless, all things (good Lord) are in thy disposing, neither is there any that can resist thy will: my life depends upon thy good pleasure, neither do I will as I please, but resign my will, to thy most godly governance, in what place, time, or by what sickness thou wilt strike me, Thy will be done. I do commend all these to thy fatherly goodness and providence. I except no place, no time, no disease, though bitter and grievous, because Thou of very faithfulness hast caused me to be troubled; only this one thing do I crave of Thee, not to take me away in my sins, by some hasty Messenger, but how ever not my will but thine (O Lord) be done, if it seems good to thy heavenly wisdom quickly to make an end of me, I submit; thy will, Oh God, be done in all things: For even then I hope through thy tender mercies to departed in peace, and in thy favour, in which though I do die by the hand of sudden death, yet nothing shall separate thy love from my soul. The just though taken away by death, goes but to his rest. Sap. 4.7. Death is not sudden to him that is always provided. Which if there be not a longer space and time left to me, in which I may commend my soul to thee, which is only known to thee, behold then now I do it, and do ardently and hearty call unto thee (O Lord) Lord, hear my voice, and let my cry come unto thee. Have mercy upon me (O Lord) according to thy infinite mercies: Let thy will be done in earth as it is heaven; Into thy hands, O Lord, do I commend my spirit; for thou hast redeemed it, O Lord God of truth. All things living praise and bless thee, O God. In thee (O Lord) have I put my trust, let me not be put to confusion. §. 22. That our days are few and evil. HOw old art thou; Sixty; how many years aged art thou? seventy; tell me also, oh man, how old art thou? fourscore. Alas! good men where are these years? where are thy sixty? where hast thou left thy threescore and ten, and where (oh man) wilt thou find thy fourscore? why number ye those that are lost and spent? Elegantly said Laelius that wise man to a man that said. I have sixty years in hold, thou dost (said he) reckon that which thou hast not; neither those that are past, nor what is to come is thine, we depend upon a moment of fleeting time, and even a little time is of great consequence. Gen. 47.8. & 9 Pharaoh the Egyptian King, ask the Patriarch jacob how old he was, old jacob answered, The days of the years of thy servants pilgrimage are few and evil. Harken you earthly Tantaluss●s which so eagerly thirst after the extended years of a perishing life; Know that you are strangers here, not inhabitants, passengers, not dwellers, travellers, not natives, nor are you travellers in a long continuing journey, your way as it is evil, so it is short; short it is, perhaps to be ended before the conclusion of the next hour which you divide with death; evil any knows it to be, that are in it. It offers more bra●bles than Roses to go upon. Miserable and vain that we are! what advantage is it for a stranger to load himself with pebbles, and fading flowers, and for them to lose his heavenly inheritance? what hindrance or loss is it to leave these, if we get immortality and glory? to labour in the way, to provoke to good works, to sweat in them, to endure any troubles or molestation is to be counted gain. The more harsh our banishment is, the more welcome will our Country be. §. 23. That a young man may die old. AS old men at length become as children, so there may be many young may be said to be old men. Old Balaam a man of threescore years and ten, answered Josaphat the King (ask him how old he was) that he was forty and five, and told the King windering at his wo●ds; that he had been quiet at his study twenty five years, as for the rest which he had spent upon worldly vanities he did verily believe all those to be utterly lost; so one Similius, which was (as it were) buried in Court affairs, & had rather lived for his Emperor, than for himself, caused this to be engraved upon his Sepulchre, Here lies buried Similius an old man of seven years of age. 1 Reg. 13.1. In the sacred Writ it is recorded of King Saul, that he began to reign when he was one year old, and he reigned two years over Israel. Saul when he began to reign was as pure from sin as an Infant of a year old: and he kept this his uprightness and integrity but one complete year, although in all he ruled twenty years. Many get to old age before they be so. Many never see the flourishing of that work, but in their old and decrepit age they too often retain the sins of youth, holy job doth speak it, His bones are filled with the sins of his youth. Sen. Epist. 49. ad finem. et. l. de tranquil. c. 3. A life is not counted good for the duration of it, but the use; it may be so, and hath come to pass, that he who hath lived a long time, may be said to have lived but a short moment; there is nothing more gross, than an old man that hath no other argument to prove himself old by, than his age and multitude of years. Saint Ambrose spoke elegantly of Agnes a Virgin, Serm. 90. qui est de S. Agnes. In years she was a child, but in gravity and sobriety of mind she was an ancient Matron: the sacred Scriptures proclaim that old age is reverend, and the hoary head, when they are furnished with wisdom. Wisd. 4, 8, 9 It is therefore that old men are reverenced, not for their antiquity and multiplicity of days, but for their holiness of life, and abundance of wisdom. Whosoever therefore is ancient in wisdom, though young in years, is as a Daniel, and deserves respect: an upright life is the best seniority. He hath lived long enough, who hath lived well. He hath fought enough, who hath got the victory. §. 24. A Paradox. That any man that will, may live long. TVlly saith, that a short time is long enough to live well. Lib. 1. Tus● q●. He never dies too early that (if he had lived longer) would not have lived better. That youngling hath lived years enough, who hath lived to get Virtue, to get Eternity. Hath not he spoke well that persuades his Auditors by one short sentence, or beckoning? Hath not he run well, who hath gained the prize? Hath not he sailed far enough that is come happily to his desired Haven? Only have a care that death prevents not our meditations, and then the swifter our course, the happier it is. Curt. lib. 9 c. 12. Mod. Truly, I say (as the King of Macedon said in Cu●tius) He which numbers not my years but my victorious Conquests, & computes my husband●y of Fortune's gifts exactly, will find I lived long time; but much more trulier, Hc, who hath consecrated his whole life to God, and hath only studied to please and serve him, may say with confidence and comfort; if my years be not numbered, but my manifold desires of pleasing God, and Gods great and infinite mercies bestowed up●n me in that time, I have lived long. §. 25. That we must all die. Avgustus' the Emperor having taken the City of peruse in Hetruria, observed many, Sn●●on. in Aug. c. 15 how they beg d their pardons, or desired to excuse themselves, he answered them all in this short sentence, Dio saith 400. We must all die; Thereupon he forthwith commanded three hund●ed of them to be sacrificed upon the Altar built to julius Caesar. Iust. Ma●. in Trip. ●ren. l. 5. count Har●se●. justinus Martyr and Ireneus famous writers amongst the Primitive times, have wittily observed, that after the sentence pronounced of death against our first parents, there was never any mortal man, according to God's sacred account, that did ever live out one whole day complete; For the Prophets and Apostles bear record, Ps. 90.4. & 2 Pet. 3.8. That a thousand years in God's fight are but as one day, and one day as a thousand years: But yet never was that man found whose life attained to such a large extent as to a thousand years, therefore according to Gods reckoning never did any live a day outright. Thou must die, though thy life goes beyond the compass of 900. years. All those registered in the word of God, of whom some lived so many hundred, and others so many hundred years, yet the final clause of all of them is this, and He died. This will appear to be most certain by the sacred oracles, by reason and experience. God's word hath in the old and new Testament mentioned this 600. times, Moriendum, We must die. Reason convinceth the same by most evident demonstrations; because man is composed of contraries, and obnoxious to ruin, and so of consequence at one time or other, Moriendum est, He must die. Experience the Schoolemistris of wise & unwise, points as it were with her finger at the immense heaps of dead corpses, and shows by daily examples that yet there was never man that deluded or shifted off death's wound, it is as manifest as the sun at noon day, Moriendum est, that man must go to his long home. This word, Death, sounds in the ears of all as loud as thunder; no man can in this thing be either blind, or deaf; will we, nile we, this voice will pierce our ears; Death's thunder will be Moriendum est, we must all die. Even divine Justice, and divine mercy herein agree in one, all men must die. Aeschilus said of old, Nat. 99 l. 6. in fine. Death only refuseth to be bribed by the very deities. The Goddesses with their gifts could not assuage Death, It admits not the sweetest and fairest hopes, and therefore Seneca said wisely, let us have that always fixed in our minds, let us always apply this to our souls, Moriendum est, we must die; when? thou shalt never know better than presently; Death is the Law of Nature, and thou must pay this tribute when death by law requires it; wherefore laying aside all other things, meditate seriously this one, lest when death comes thou shouldest fear his approach. Make death by a frequent meditation thy familiar, that when it shall so fall out that death shall call thou mayest willingly and readily salute it with cheerfulness. § 26. The remembrance of Death is divers ways to he renewed. 1. IT is reported that a dead man's skull dried in an oven, and beaten to powder in a mortar, and so mixed with oil, doth speedily heal the Gangrene, and Canker. To bruise the brain pan, and other the bones of dead men, by an holy Meditation and Contemplation doth perfectly cure the Gangrene of the Soul. 2 Plato is said to outstrip the sages in this respect, S. Hiero. hu ut meminit in C. 10. Ma● in that with vivacity and courage he did contemplate upon death and read lectures to his Scholars of it. Therefore he gave this as a law to his Scholars; that being entered on their journey they should never stand still or stop their cou●s he wisely intimated by this, that there departure out of this life should be daily considered, and some progress to he made every day more than other. 3 Nicolaus Christopherus Radzivilius a Prince of Poland affirms, that in Egypt those which did excel others in age and wisdom, did daily carry about them dead men's bones set in ebony or some other thing, and did use to show them to men, and by these they did daily exhort men to remember their ends, the Egyptians also use at their banquets to bring in a death's head, and end their merry meetings with this sad Emblem, to have presented before them the shoulderblade of a dead man, with this heavy motto, Remember you must die. 4 The Great Cham of Tartary, in the City of Bagdad, upon a Festival day which they call Ramadam, showing himself to the people riding upon a Mule, being richly apparelled investments of gold and silver cloth, his Turban being all set with precious jewels, yet all his head and ornaments are hid under a black veil, by which custom and ceremony he shows, that the greatest glory, and highest magnificence, will be shaded and obscured with death. Baron. Tom. 7. An. 567. 5 There was laid over justinian the Emperor being dead a large Carpet, in which in Phrygian work there were woven the lively Effigies of all the Cities that he had conquered, and all the barbarous Kings he had subdued: and in the midst of all those great Battles, Trophies, and Conquests, there was the Image of Death. For, for certain, Death doth sport itself in Kingdoms; as he said, Pallida mors aeque pulsat pede etc. Death only strikes not poor men dead and clowns, But lofty Turrets, and Imperial Crowns Martin the fifth Pope of Rome, Aulea Otho Column a dictus. had this in a Badge or Symbol, In a great fire ready kindled, in which were thrown a Bishop's Mitre, a Cardinal's Hat, an Emperor's Diadem, the Crowns of Kings, a Duke's Cap of Maintenance and Sword; with this adnexed Motto, So passeth all worldly glory. 6 A man asked a Mariner upon a time where his Father died? De remed. utriusque fortunae, l. 1. dial. 121. Fran. Petrarch. Cujus opera hic saepius utendum, the Mariner replied in the Sea; the other asked him, where his grandfather and his great grandfather died? the Sailer answered again at Sea; and (quoth the other) art not thou then afraid to go to Sea? The Sailor wittily replied, and Sir, I pray you tell me where your Father died? He answered in his bed; but where died your grandfather, and all other your Ancestors? in their beds replied the other: then are not you afraid to go into your bed seeing all your forefathers died there; no, said the other; why, said the Sailor, by your own relation the bed is the more dangerous in this respect, for there many more dies in their beds, than there do at sea; and you may die there, as soon as I may at sea. A witty answer and well applied. Let our daily Meditations be as Lipsius said when he went sick to bed, ad Lectum, ad Lethum; to the Bed and so to the Grave: for many have died in their sleep, Death being but the elder sister of sleep. 7 john Patriarch of Alexandria, Le●●●. ●yp●or. Episc. c. 18. in vita Ioan●●s. which took his name from hi● Almesdeeds, in his health he commanded his sepulchre to be built but it was not fully finished; in so much that upon a great solemny feast day in the presence of all the Clergy, when he had ended his sacred Charge, One said to him (My Lord) your sepulchre is not yet built up, nor perfected; command, I pray you, that it may be made speedily up; For your honour knows not how soon the Thief may overtake you. 8 It was not lawful for any one to speak to the Eastern Emperor, being newly created, Idem ibid. before that a Mason had showed him some sorts of Marble, of several colours, and had asked which of those he liked best to have his Sepulchre made of. What was this else but to say, Be not high minded, o Emperor, Thou art a man and shalt die as the meanest beggar. Xiphili. in Domit. who in this banquet did not seek to remember death, but sport and vanity. Look therefore so to the government of thy Kingdom which thou shalt lose, as that thou losest not the Kingdom which is everlasting. 9 Domitianus the Roman Emperor made a banquet to the chief of his Senators, and great Knights after this manner: He had all the rooms covered with black , also the roofs of the Chambers, the walls, and the pavement, the seats all black, promising mourning; In the chief place was a funeral bed, the guests were brought in by night, without any attendants, by every one there was placed a Coffin with every man's name upon it, & there were lamps added & set up, as use to be at funerals; the waiters at the table they carried the colours of the night in their habits and countenances, and compassed the guests with notes and gestures of Death; all this while supper was celebrated in great silence, and Domitian's discourse was only of burials and Death at the table, to the astonishment and affrightment of his guests, who feared what would be the issue of this his action. What followed think you after all this mournful carriage and deportment, only Domitianus had provided a wholesome document for himself and his Senators, but never made use of it, so that it was rather judged folly than wisdom: The Egyptians do better, who always temper their feasts with some seasonable lessons of Mortality. § 27. A discourse of New shifts made by Assan Bashaw in Grand Cayro for erecting of a Temple. IN Grand-Cayro in Egypt there is a Turkish Temple, (which they call a Mosque) which was builded by this means. Rad●. Epist. 3. Itineris in palastin. pag. 176. Assan the Bashaw for the Grand-Seigneur of Turkey, a man of a cunning head, and a covetous Heart, being desirous his fame should be spread abroad through the world by some eminent structure, but willing to save his own purse, went this way to work. He commanded it to be proclaimed in all places, what a mighty Temple he was intended to build to God; And that this Temple might proceed with all happy success, he published what large wages all they that would come and work should have paid them: withal what an huge offering should there be offered; thereupon the time and place was appointed. This called an innumerable company of people out of all Egypt, and not only from thence, but a world of people came from all other parts to Grand-Cayro. Against this great confluence of people's coming, Assan the Bashaw had prepared a mighty number of new shirts and coats: now those which came to the offering, as also they which came to receive wages, were all commanded to pass through several little doors out of one great spacious court into another, and at each door as they passed single, he had set officers to strip off their old garments and shirts, and n●w ones were put upon them, by force and command. By this his subtle craft, whatsoever any man had brought with him for his journey (as the manner in those parts is, to sow, or bind it up in his shirt or Turban) he got it all in this manner to himself; Now, it is wonderful to think what a mass of money he gained out of so many thousan●s of people. And although all the people had rather have kept their own habit (though it was not so gay and new as the Pashas were) yet there were no complaints to be received, but so it was commanded, and so it was to be performed. Well, all the people lamented and grieved, and desired their old again; but he as a great politician laughed at them, and commanded all their presently to be burned in one general fire; And out of the fire was taken such a mass of Treasure and money, as sufficed enough and enough to erect that great famous Temple. Now observe just so do●h Death deal with us, he takes away from us all our rich garments, and wraps us all in an empty winding-sheet. Now, 2 Cor. 5. v. 4. (as the blessed Apostle St. Paul saith) we sigh being burdened, and are loath to be found naked, yet not willing to be stripped of our clothing; but we strive in vain, stern Death (as that greedy Bashaw) is nothing moved with our complaints, will we, nill we, we must lay aside our old clothing, put off; and be gone The same condition binds all of us, all that have a birth, must partake of death, there is a little distance, but no distinction. But now hear how this covetous man's act was revenged. The Turkish Seigneur having Intelligence what was done by Assanus the Bashaw, he presently dispatced one Imbraim a Bashaw to him with Letters, and charged him sorthwith upon the receipt of his Letters, to send his head to him in Constantinople: These fatal Le●ters the grea● Turk useth to write with his own hand, and to seal them himself, and so to role them up in black-silke; The sum always of these Letters is; Mitte mihi tuum caput. (i. e.) send to me your Head; which was effected speedily. Mark now seriously: whosoever thou art, King or Kaesar, when as the Grand Ruler of heaven and earth sends to thee his black letters by Death his messenger, thou canst not resist nor plead excuse, thou mayest not: to entreat will not avail thee, fly or escape thou canst not: it is determined above. Do thus then, and make a virtue of necessity: what thou must do by force, do willingly, send thy head and thy heart too, not to a Tyrant, but to a Father, not to a man, but to God. Be not thou only commanded to set thy house in order and die, but willingly surrender thyself, for why should it not agree with thy will, when against thy will it must be, it is of necessity to yield, it is of virtue and grace to resign willingly. §. 28. That each day is to be regarded, and warily observed. MVsonius speaks it, that we cannot spend the day as we ought, unless we determine to use it, as if it were our last: It is wholesome counsel which Saint Austin affords us: Tom. 10 Lib. 50. Homil. 13 initio. Our last day we know not, because we should look well to every day. God hath wisely appointed the day of our death to be uncertain, that we should no● be at any time secure, and that every one should reckon this present time, his last; but if you say, it is a melancholy thought to be poring and considering upon death, and that it is the only way to bring on death, you are mistaken much; A wise man will think with contentedness of death, no otherwise than an understanding Mariner will think of winds and waves as his ship sails, as means to bring him into his Harbour; and yet the very thought doth not bring him thither. This is all our folly and error, we will be tossed amongst waves, and floods, and yet we fear to go, whither by nature and reason we are led. Nature dictates this to us: One steersman guides us all, At our rising, or our fall. And for Reason, who, that is endued with it will deny? What toss, turmoilings, cares, distractions, miseries, dolours of body and mind, are not here? Behold an end of them, why fearest thou? behold the haven, why interest thou not in? but indeed as men in prison would feign come forth, and might but for the Keeper, who locks them fast in; So mightest thou, but for thy sailor; the love of this vain life. He is to be dismissed, and as thou art able, so must thou often consider of that, which thou must once undergo. And because thy last day is uncertain and unknown, suspect every one for it: rely upon none securely, by this course thy spirit will be more full of courage, thy life will be more conformable, and thy departure more comfortable, for what can terrify, or disturb him? to whom The Prince of fears, With joy appears. A secret sudden wound is most terrible, a meditated death lays us down gently and joyfully. §. 29. The Seat Royal of all our pride, is our Beer. Gen c. 13. toti. ABraham that great Patriarch, when by God's command, He went travelling up and down, he desired nothing more, then to find a place to rest in, Heb. 11. and for the purchasing so much ground as would serve him for a place of burial. This he desired to have his own, that he might possess it, and wholly enjoy it. Hence he without any delay paid to the seller all the money which he asked for it, without any deduction, of good and currant money, nor would it suffice him to have it publicly passed over to him, but withal he would that all the Inhabitants should be witnesses for his buying it. By which matter the pious man showed, that a man's grave or Sepulchre is truly his own, which he might rather than any thing else call his properly. By the example of Abraham, Every good man will chief care for to have a Sepulchre at the time of his dissolution; other houses and lands, and possessions, want no chapmen, few men purchase after this manner, however, the grave is a sure and a quiet possession. Maximilianus the first Emperor of the Austrian Family, three years before his death, commanded his Coffin to be made of Oak, and to be put into a great Chest, which was carried with him, in his Marches and travels, and provided by his Will, that his dead body wrapped in a linen cloth should be laid therein, without any embalming, only his nostrils, mouth, and ears, to be stopped with lime or chalk; what meant this great Monarch? only that having such a Monument of Mortality before him, he should say; Remember thou must die; And that he might daily say; Why dost thou, oh my soul, so enlarge thy thoughts? why dost thou possess so much? why gapest thou still after more? whom so many Provinces and Kingdoms could not hold, this little Cabinet must include? and why think you he desired to have lime and chalk for his nostrils, mouth and ears? behold the costly Odours and Unguents in which he would be laid down! Oh Maximilian, great once thou wert! and thy actions, and these very things at thy death speak the same. Baron. Tom. 3. An. 326. ●. 96. What shall I speak of the Coffin of Ablavius, which was a Praefect, and a great Prince amongst other of Constantine the Great his Courtiers, an insatiable devourer of gold, who meditated more of gold, than his grave, or heaven. Constantine on a time taking him by the hand spoke thus unto him, How long, how long, said he, shall we heap together wealth of this kind; And as he had spoke the words, with a Spear which he held in his hand, he drew the description of a Coffin on the ground; Hadst thou (said he) a world full of such treasure, yet after thy death thou shalt not have a greater place than this, perhaps less than this form which I have drawn out; Constantine in this proved a Prophet, for this Ablavius was cut in small pieces, so that there was nothing left of him to put into a Sepulchre. Charles the fift, Emperor of Germany, did imitate Maximilian whom I named erewhile, long before his death he sequestered himself from administering the affairs of the Empire; and having transferred the government and management of it to his Son, who was able for his years, and of judgement sufficient, he himself went into Spain with 12. followers only, into the Monastery of St. Justus, to give himself wholly to God's service, and forbade any to call him by any other name or title, than Charles only, putting fare off the title of Caesar Augustus with the Employment, and contemned all honours whatsoever. And moreover it is registered of him, that before he relinquished the Empire, he commanded his Tomb to be made, with all furniture belonging to his burial, and had it carried with him whithersoever he went, but privately. He had this funebrious accoutrements five years with him, wheresoever he was; I, even when he went to Milan against the French, and had it diligently every night placed in his bedchamber. Some that were about his Person, thought that therein he kept his treasure, others judged that in it he kept some rare books, containing some ancient Histories; Others thought there was some great matter in it: but he himself knowing for what purpose he carried it, would smiling say; He carried it about for the use of something which was dear unto him. So did this Charles daily meditate of death, that at every night, he should say, Vixi, I have lived; and so every morning rise with profit and comfort. Many others have piously imitated this Emperor, Zach. Lippol. tom. 3. in vit. S. Re. 1. Octob. that for long time together have carried their Coffins, the monuments of their death, with them for contemplation. Genebaldus, for seven whole years together, had his bed made like a Coffin, in which for that space he lived austerely, and exercised himself in Mortification. There was one Ida, Idem. tom. 3. in vita. S. Idae. 4 Sept. Hier. Epist. 103. a woman famous for holiness, which had likewise her Coffin made long before her death, which she filled twice a day with food and nourishment, and so often distributed it to the poor liberally: The study of piety, is the preparatory for death; No death pollutes a virtuous soul, he will easily despise all earthly things, who hath his thoughts fixed upon his dissolution. § 30. What our life is? IT is as a flower, as smoke, as a shadow, and as the shadow of a shadow; It is a Bubble, Dust, froth: It is as dew, as a drop, as brittle ice; As the Rainbow, a blazing Taper, a bag full of holes; A ruinous house, deceitful ashes, a spring-day, a constant April; as a dash in music, a broken vessel; As a bucket for a Well, a Spider's web; As a drop to the Ocean, weak stubble; A Summer's herb, a short Fable, a flying sparkle: A dark cloud, a bladder full of wind; as a little Dove a taking her slight, a brittle Glass, a fading Leaf, a fine weak thread, a Sodemes Apple, etc. And if a shadow be nothing, tell me what is the dream of a shadow? we may make six hundred thousand of such similitudes of frailty and inconstancy, and all like to man's life; Me thinks of all others he spoke wittily that calls it, a very short dream of a shadow, in brief, let us see what life is? it is as one hath described it in this distich. Somnus, umbra, vitrum, glacies, flos, fabula, foenum. Vmbra, cinis, punctum, vox, sonus, aura, nihil. (i. e.) Life's like a dream, a bubble, ice, or glass, Like fading flowers, vain fables, withering grass. It is a shadow, dust, a point, a voice, a sound, It's empty air; well looked too, Nothing found. Ah wretches! how seem we to heap up wealth, to get honours, to follow and hunt after pleasures? when all these are as soon vanished as ourselves. Any of these, all of them are but as a dream, and how short and vain is that! Psal. 76.5. true is that saying of the Psalmist, the proud are rob, they have slept their sleep, and all the men whose hands are mighty have found nothing, they dreamt that they were mighty and rich; but what have they retained or kept of all they gaped after, or hoped for? these are but mere dreams and fancies indeed: and wakening they shall find their loss, and grieve in their punishment. What therefore is life? I will declare it compendiously: the time, and length of our life, is a point, our nature is inconstancy, our senses are obscurity; Our whole body is but a rotting Concretion, our mind vagrant; Honours are but smoke; Riches are thorns; Pleasures are poyson●. And that I may sum up all in word; All things belonging to the body, are but a passing stream; all the minds endowments are emptiness; our life is a war; the lo●ging of a traveller in a strange City, the shop of all miseries, and our fame after death, is but oblivion: Ausonius delivevers this well unto us; Mieremur periisse homines? Epigr. 3. momenta fatiscunt; Mors etiam saxis, nominibusque venit. (i. e.) Men being as moments (no wonder) though they're gone; Death makes our names to fail, and Marble-stone. It's a virtue to consummate our life before death knocks at our doors. §. 31. That our life is a play. OUr life is a Comedy, we the stage-players, one acts a King, another a Beggar, a third a Prince, another a Physician, another a Clown; What part is imposed upon us we must perform, we get no Plaudite unless we act well: Well said Epictetus, Euch. c. 23 Thou art called upon the Stage, it makes not what part thou performest, so thou dost it well. Sueton. in Aug. 99 Suetonius reports of Augustus Caesar, that at the end of his life, he asked his friends that were about him, if he had played his part well or not? They answered him, yes; why do ye not then (said the Emperor) afford me a Plaudite? Seneca well spoke, of the life of man compared to a Play; Epist. 80. in Med. I will often practise my part, lest for want of use, I grow unskilful, and so get discredit and shame. Laertius in Zeno saith, that a wise man is l●ke a Player: that whether he acts Thersi●es or Agamemnon, he should strive to perform both with diligence. We are therefore to attend not so much what we are, but what we shall be, when we shall have laid down our persons, and put of our Vizards, nor matters it when we performed our parts, only if we did them with discretion. § 32. The Type of Humane life. BArlaam, an old man, johannes Damasceu, Hist, de his, c. 13. ad finem. declaring to King josaphat the deceitful joys of Humane life, described them to him after this manner; A certain man fled from a Unicern, which is a fierce cruel beast; in his flight he rushed suddenly into a deep pit, but in his fall, his hands being stretched forth, he caught hold of a tree, and by that means stopped his fall, while he was in the tree, he contemned the danger he was escaped from; but he saw two mice, the one was black, the other white, these two lay gnawing the root of the tree, and had almost bit it in pieces; then, he casting his eyes about espied beneath him a wondrous deep ditch, and in it was a terrible Dragon threatening death to him, if he fell; and while he was looking about to save himself from dangers, he spied the heads of four great venomous Serpents, lying forth out of the sides of the ditch, yet he neglecting all these dangers, he lift up his eyes, and beheld some Honey dropping from a tree, wherefore he supposing himself secure, forgetting the Unicorn that followed him, the Dragon that threatened him, the Mice that gnawed the roots of the tree, the Serpents that waited him, and the sudden fall of that tree, he greedily licked in the Honey, and these things (said Barlaam) do set forth the folly of our lives: and thus he explained it; The Unicorn resembles Death, which doth pursue all mankind eagerly; The Ditch is this world, which is stored with all sorts of miseries; The Tree which he caught hold on, is this life terminated within certain bounds; The two Mice are the night and the day, which eat up the root of the tree by little and little: The four Serpents are the four Elements, who if they be out of order, or molested, Death ensues; That great and terrible Dragon, designs the fiery Serpent the devil, who goes about, seeking whom he may devour; The drops of Honey, which the man so eagerly desired to taste of, are the enticing pleasures, and the rotten baits of sins, being once overcome with the alluring pleasures and deceitful lusts, man neither fears the sudden fall into Hell, nor ever minds the joys of Heaven, but desires to perish in the gulf of these sensual delights: this was Barlaams' explication to Josaphat. Oh how true! most true is all this! if we be wise, let us remember our ends, for from every moment of time depends eternity. §. 33. The Prologue, Narration, and Epilogue of man's life. THe Prologue of humane life, is to be borne; the Narration, is to grieve; the Epilogue is to die. The Appendices of th●se three are groans, and tears, or joy, which is worse than weeping. Seneca saith excellently: Consel. ad Polyb. c. 23. go too (saith he) look circumspectly upon all men, and you shall have cause and matter enough to weep; Poverty and exigency, and extreme necessity, calls one forth to his toilsome labour, another is vainly swelled, and puffed up with Ambition, another fears in the midst of his wealth, a fourth is vexed with care, some are weakened with sickness and diseases, others are turmoiling in great businesses, and are troubled with the confluence of Clients; this man grieves that he hath children, a second that he hath lost them, a third because he never had them. We shall weep ourselves empty of tears, before we shall want objects for them. Seest thou not what a life Nature promises us? whose entrance, progress, and egress, is but a vicissitude of sorrows, and an intercourse of miseries and tears; in these we begin our life, with these we go on, and with abundance of tears, and wail we go out. A great part of our life is spent in doing evil, a great deal spent and consumed in doing nothing, and a great part of it wasted in doing other things, not the main. Who is he that so prizeth a day, as though he should never have any more? Hence is it that we carelessly forget things past, neglect things present, do not foresee things to come. Well, when it is come to the upshot, then, then shall we with grief and sorrow know and understand, that what time was spent in sin and idleness, to be utterly lost; Let us therefore walk circumspectly, and lay hold on all times and opportunities for our betterment. Let us judge each hour our dying hour. By this means we shall so order our lives, that we shall not be afraid to die, for while our life seems to be prolonged, it fleets and passes away. §. 34. That the longest life is but short at the best. Epist. 77. in fine. MOst truly said Seneca, no man's life but is short. For if we respect the nature of things even Nestor's and Statilia's were but short, who commanded this t● be inscribed on her tomb, tha● she lived 99 years; behold the vain boasting of an old woman what would she have been, ha● she lived an hundred! As (it is in the Fables) th● golden Flour-amour, or the Amaranthus, was planted next to th● Rose, and said to the Rose thus; O● what a comely flower the Rose is▪ O how beautiful! how amiable I do take thee for a blessed flower, for thy sweetness, colour, an● comeliness: Oh thou Queen o● Flowers! To whom the Rose replied; I do indeed, oh Amaranthus, excel in splendour and sweetness, but my time of flourishing is but short, and though no hand should offer violence to me, yet I do soon whither of myself: but thou art happy, for thou always dost flourish, never diest: I had rather have less beauty, and longer life. Man's life is emblematized in this Rose, short and fading; and though no violence be offered to him, yet he falls of his own accord into the grave. The Prince of Physicians said well, Arts are long and durable, Hippoc. initio Aphor. but life is short. We have but a little, and we spend a great deal of that little in luxury and idleness. O improvident Mortals, the body we carry about us is not our dwelling, but our June, it must be left, when once the Master is weary of our company. Therefore, o my good Christian! hasten to live holily, and think every day an entrance into a new life. Who so fits himself this way, shall meet death with comfort. That man never died ill, who lived well. § 35. That Procrastination is the greatest damage and blemish to our lives. WE put off any thing but wickedness, that not only takes up the present day, but is likewise promised the morrow. In sin we are prompt actors, in other things usual promisers and fair-speakers: then we use to say, to morrow it shall be done or next week, or next year without delay; so do days, months, and years slide away; while we only delay, and promise, but perform not. Seneca speaks admirably in this point. Lib. de Brev. vit. c. 4. Many shall yo● hear (saith he) who say at fifty 〈◊〉 will take mine ease, the sixtieth yeer● shall discharge me from all encumbran●ces. and what surety else desirest tho● of a longer life? but who will suffe● things to go at thy disposing? Blushest not thou to reserve the refuse, and the dregs of thy rotten years to God? and to destinate only that time for his service, which thou art not able to manage in any other manner? It is too late then to begin to live, when it is time to leave off work. What senselessness is it to refuse to follow good counsel, till a man comes to fifty or sixty years of age? and to resolve there to begin to live, where most leave off? Sigismond the second, King of Poland for his delay and slothfulness in matters of weighty consequence, was called Rex Crastinus: the delaying King, such sure are we, though we know not that we shall be to morrow, yet we hazard the mainer work upon such uncertain probabilities. We put off all; most willingly would wee●, if we could, put off death too. But death's business admits of no delay, nor putting off; when Death knocks, the bars must speedily open. Therefore as the Proverb saith, The only way to be long an old man, is to be such an one betimes. The King of Macedon obtained such glorious Conquests by being speedy upon his actions. We lose the best, nay, all by deferring and delaying. Chrysologus said well. Most men put off to do well, Ser. 125. Med. until death debar them of time. We come to death by degrees, as men who sleep walking. The first day we put off good duties, the second day we do them slightly, the third day we forget them, on the fourth we are not able to perform them. O Mortals! to morrows life is too late, learn to live to day; give earnest to day: grieve to day for your sins. For who (except your own conceits) hath promised you the morrow? that which may be, aught to be done to day, why should it be procrastinated to tha● which yet is not? may perhaps not be time? or if it be perhaps not thine? to defer good actions hath always proved dangerous. Deferring are obnoxious to our lives, jumb. vet. You seldom see the slothful man that thrives. Let us make haste therefore, and let us but seriously think how speedily we would foot it, if we were sure there was a destroying Enemy behind us. We would strive to be foremost that we might be furthermost from our pursuers. It is so, we are followed close; to hasten is to escape, so shall we enter into eternal rest: It is the greatest comfort against death's approach to have done all our work before he comes to call for us. To the Sick. A Winter's at hand: leaves fall: Death begins to snatch His Axe and spies thy Glass spent: Sick man watch. B What th' Press to Grapes, that Sickness is to thee, If thou be ripe, as Grapes in Autumn be. C The stooping Hern oft gores her towering Foe: So outward grief oft frees from inward woe. D Sickness lays men along, as hail doth corn, Better fall well then stand with shame an● scorn. E Just now 'twas cloudy; now Sol show his face, Now clouds again. This is the Sick man case. F To scape the Scorpion's sting, and th' Archers dart, Sickness and Death) I know no means, 〈◊〉 art. G A Sick man's like an Horse plunging i● sturdy waves, Who knows if th'one shall scape the flood● the other the grave? § 36. Death's haunt. WIlliam the third, Duke of Bavaria, a Patron of the poor, and Protector of all religious and godly men, being dead; though all men should have held their peace, yet the cries and tears of the poor lamenting his loss, would have been sufficient Trumpets to have blazoned his Princely worth: this praiseworthy Prince (I say) when he He returned from the Council of Basil, where he, in the place of the Emperor sat chief; returning to Munchen, dreamt such a dream, as this following. He seemed to see a lusty great Stag, which carried upon one horn little bells, and upon the other divers wax Tapers and Torches lighted, there was a nimble Huntsman, and a pack of hounds, who withal swiftness and eagerness had this Stag in chase, at the last the Stag, having no other way leapt into the Churchyard, in which there was a Grave made for a Man's burial which was open, into which the Stag fell, and there was taken and killed: at the sight of this the Prince wakened, and was wondrous desirous to know what this Dream should mean, on the next day, he told it to his Lords, and this Dream was variously interpreted, which, when Duke William had heard; presently replied, I am (said he) this great Stag, which Death so eagerly hunts, and will shortly and speedily take me, and end my days, and I will be buried in that Church. All things were ordered accordingly, and these presages had their events answerable. For in short space after, this worthy Prince did yield to Death, and commended his soul to God piously, and was there interred, where he desired. A good Death is the introduction to a blessed Eternity. § 37. Why, though we daily are Spectators of Burials, yet we do not meditate on Death? THe Devil being skilful in the perspective art, useth this cunning policy, that those things which are furthest off, he makes them seem near unto us, and those which are near unto us, he makes seem a great way distant from us. Thus he represents Death to us, that though it be so near us, that it is ready to lay hold on us, yet it appears a great way off, hence in a vain security we promise to ourselves many years, and put the evil day far from us to our great disadvantage. Hence is it that we look upon other men's Burials, as though ours were not to be this long time, and though we are decaying daily, yet for all that; we fancy an eternity to our own souls. Sir Thomas Moor, our Countryman, lest any age should promise him a long life, and so work security in him, exercised the thoughts of Death in himself by this fit similitude: As man (saith he) who is led from prison to the place of execution, though he be led about, and seems to go slowly, yet he fears Death, and is as sure of it, as he that goes a nearer way; and though his legs be strong, his eyes quicksighted, his heart lusty, though his stomach be able for digestion; yet this one thought turns all into bitterness, that he is in the way to a certain execution. And what man is not a prisoner in this kind? we are all going on towards our long home: we are all in the way, and parted but by small distances, those which are dead have not so much left us, only they are gone before us, but perhaps thou mayst say, I am healthy and lusty, and find not, nor feel any the least sense of sickness, nor apprehension of Death; well! flatter thyself if thou wilt, for certain thou art in the way: and we all are in the way with thee. But thou mayst say, thou art not yet thirty years old, what then? thou wast in the way at twenty, at ten, at five, at three, nay, even at the first year, and in the first hour: go on perhaps thou mayst a little further, but thou wilt shortly come to thy end, but yet thou wilt say, thy sleep is sound, thy meat and drink do excellently well relish and digest. Oh fond man! Death regards not such things. We are in the way, look to thyself, presently thou wilt perceive the place of execution, thou art led on; there's but a little time for thee to breath in; shortly shall all thy pomp, luxury, and strength expire as well as thyself, all our life is but the pathway to death. That Death may happy be, to live learn I: That life may h●ppy be, I'll learn to die. § 38. To day for me, to morrow for thee. Delrii. adag. Tom. 2. p. 576. FRancis the first, King of Franc●: being taken by Charles the fifth, coming to Madrid upon a wall he read the Motto of Charles, which was Plus ultra, Still further: and writ under it, Hodie mihi cras tibi. Mine to day, yours to morrow. The Conqueror was not offended, nor angry, but gave notice that he understood the meaning, for he writ this in answer to it, I am but a Man, and know myself subject to mortality. Elegantly spoke Greg Nazianzen My head (saith he) gins to be an Almond tree flourishing, and therefore my Summer of Age is near: the Sickle is made sharp for work, all my fear is, lest that terrible Mower should crop me off, and cut me down while I sleep securely, and am not ready for his stroke. But thou mayst say, Old men indeed may fear, but I am young and green: be not thou deceived, Death is not limited to any certain age. The same Bier to day may carry an old carcase, to morrow a young one, to day a strong a●●e ●n an, to morrow a young Virgin, or 〈◊〉 Child. Seneca speaks to the purpose: Death (saith he) stands at the door of a young man, as well as at the threshold of an aged man; for all men are registered and enrolled in Death's Records: all must pay their tributes when Death calls forth, all must go out, no exemption from his Edict. This is the last warning and admonishment that dying men groan forth, To day for me, too morrow for thee, and this is the Graves sentence. I fell yesterday, thou mayst this day. Remember Death! Oh remember Eternity; which thou mayst either to day or to morrow begin but never End. §. 28. If to morrow, why not to day? THere is a Chain, and that a weighty one, that holds us bound fast, to wit, the Love of this Life, which as it is not to be utterly cast off, yet it is daily to be weakened, and the vigour of it abated: that when it shall be required at our hands to surrender nothing may withhold us, but that we be ready presently to do that, which at one time or other must be performed. Saint Augustine the Bishop of Hippo, went on a time to visit another great Prelate and Father of the Church, lying very sick, and at the point of Death, who had been formerly his familiar friend, at Saint Augustine's coming, the sick man lift up his hand and said, that he was departing this world and going into Heaven; Possidonius in vita Aug. c. 27 Saint Augustine replied that the Church would stand in great want of him and prayed that God would lend him a longer life. The sick m●n answered again, if he never could be well spared, but if at any time he should departed, why not now? The Death of all men is even and alike, but the ways by which it comes, are divers, one dies at supper, another in his sleep, a third in the commission of some sin. One dies by the sword, another is drowned, a third is burned; some are poisoned and stung to death by Serpents, others are killed by some fall, and some Consumptions rid away: some are cut off in the flower and beauty of their age, some are destroyed in their swaddling clothes; and some in their decrepit years: Others only salute the World, and are gone. One man's end is commendable, another's dishonourable; but let Death come never so gently or favourably, yet it never com●s without some horror and affrightment. But that which most of all estrangeth us from liking Death, is that we know the things present and delights in them, but whither we are passing by Death and what things we shall behold in the bowels of the grave we know not, and we usually tremble at the report of strange sights; therefore are our minds to be hardened with the daily exercise and meditation of eternity. Eternity (I say) is to be thought upon night and day, as he that will learn to endure hunger, must attain to it by fasting by degrees; so the mind must be transferred from transitory things, that ever will be expert in the study of Eternity. Let him every moment salute and embrace the threshold of Eternity, let this one be the only square of all his actions. I read, I writ, I meditate, I watch, I speak, I work always to Eternity. He that ever intends to triumph eternally, let his meditation be always fixed, and settled upon it. § 40. Death is sudden, yet comely. AS Palladius the Bishop of Helenople testifies, Cheremon died sitting as he was at work, Hist. c. 92. and well: He was found sitting with his work in his hand, only he was dead. Any kind of Death is credited by a virtuous life. Philemon, an ancient Writer of Comedies, as he rehearsed his Comedies with Menander on the Stage, Mad. Philos. in Florid. p 579 and strove with him for the Bays, he was not in any thing reputed inferior to him, He acted a part of a play, which he lately had made, and being come to the second Scene of the second Act, thinking in it to stir up more delight and liking in the people, On a sudden there fell such a violent storm that the people could not stand to hear him at that time. but he promised the people, that on the next day they should hear it all finished. So on the next day there was a mighty company of people assembled, every one strove to place himself in the fitted seat either for sight or hearing: they that came something late beckoned to their friends to make room for them, they that came last were mainly straightened for room. The whole Theatre was crammed with Auditors, and there was a wonderful throng: their discourse was divers, some talked of what had been acted the day before, others that knew not the former action came to behold the sequel. Nothing now was expected, but Philemon; well the time passed on, ye● no Philemon appeared, some blamed his stay, others excused it but when as most did think they had stayed longer than was fit, and yet so no appearance of the actor, they sent some speedy Messengers to call him, but they that went found all their expectations frustrated, for Philemon was dead in his bed, and stiff: and lay in his bed as if he had been meditating his part, with his hand on his Book; but his soul was fled out, and so his Auditory failed. The Messengers that entered were struck at first with astonishment of this sudden alteration, yet wondered much to see how comely he was laid In his bed. Well, they returned to the people, and told them that Philemon who should have acted a feigned part, had acted at home a true Play: for he had to all worldly things given his farewell and Plaudite. Whereupon divers did grieve and lament; the shower the day before was now seconded with a shower of tears, and the Comedian was now turned Tragedian. If we look only on our present life, a than Death will be wished for, and that man dies well, who dies without the fear of Death; but yet happier by far is he, that is found of Death so doing, and who dies in his work. So that Death itself shall find him busy. St. Cyprian the Martyr wished, Hippo. 4. Septemb. p. 920. that he might be offered to God by Death, as he was in preaching: he is worthy of praise whom never the Devil or Death cuts off in their idleness. § 41. We must watch and pray. BEcuse ye know not the time in which the Son of man will come. The Romans watched in their Arms, though sometimes without their shieid, because they would have nothing to lean upon, because they would prevent sleep. Thou must watch oh man! and it is profitable to watch with the armour of God upon thy soul: the ardent prayers of Christians are their Armour of proof. Hope of long life is the leaning stock that too many sleep upon. The usual words of the Romans, when they watched were these. Vigila, vigila; Mars vigila, Marc. 13.33, 35, & 37. (i. e.) Watch, oh soldier watch. By the usual terms they stirred up one another to watch. By the same words, (oh my soul) doth God incite thee to watchfulness. The very heaven itself by his incessant motion, and constant course night and day adviseth thee to rouse up thyself. Wilt thou grow deaf to such a Lecturer, and give thyself to sleep? hear Christ himself saying, Watch, and pray, as (Saint Mark testifies.) Christ at the end of one Sermon did thrice repeat this clause in these words, 1 Go to, watch and pray. 2 Therefore watch and pray, for you know not when the Lord will come: in the Evening, or at Midnight, or at Cock-crowing, or in the Morning: Lest if when he should come suddenly, be should find you sleeping. 3 What therefore, I say to you, I say unto all, watch. S. Matthew often speaks the same, Mat. 24.42, 25.13 c. 26.41. Watch therefore for ye know not what hour the Lord will come. And repeats it again, Watch therefore, for ye neither know the day, nor the hour. And our Saviour inculcates the same at the Mount of Olives. Watch, and pray that ye enter not into tentation. He publisheth the same by Saint Luke, Watch, therefore and continue in prayers, Luke 21.36. that same very word, Watch, how often is it doubled by Saint Paul? all these is thunderclaps may serve to rouse up our drowsy souls. We are deaf, nay dead, if we startle not at all these quickening voices. Who ever thou art, if thou hast been lulled asleep in thy sins awaken, Awake thou that sleepest, arise and stand up, and Christ shall give thee light. Knowest thou that fatal blow of Egypt? in the middle of the night the destroying Angel smote all Egypt. Remember the Lot of the ten Virgins, There was at midnight a great cry made, and those Virgins which were ready, were admitted into the Bride-chamber; but those that slept were excluded: Canst thou but remember that gluttonous abusive servant? Did not his Lord come in a time, that he looked not for, and in an hour that he dreamt not off? Canst thou but consider that good Master of the Family? He watched at all hours, lest at any hour the Thief should enter and spoil his goods? Canst thou, oh canst thou but think on thy Saviour? Was not he borne in the middle of the night? The same, as many think, will about the same time come at the time of the general judgement. Watch therefore, oh watch! and think every day to be thy Exit from hence. § 42. Eight Verses out of the Psalms of David, selected by Saint Bernard, which he himself used for the time of Death. COnsider and hear me, (o Lord) my God lighten mine eyes: lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest mine Enemies say, I have prevailed against him. Psal. 13.3, 4. Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, o Lord God of truth. Psal. 31.5. Then spoke I with my tongue, Lord make me to know mine End and the measure of my days, What it is: that I may know what time I have here. Psal 39 3, 4. Show me a token for good, that they which hate me my see it, and be ashamed because thou Lord, hast helped me, and comforted me. Psal. 86.17. Thou hast loosed my bonds, I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the Name of the lord Psal. 116.17. Refuge failed me: no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, o Lord: I said, Thou art my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living. Psal. 142.4, 5. A Prayer for an happy departure out of this life. O Almighty and Everlasting God, who didst give unto thy servant King Ezechiah length of days, when as he in tears besought thy goodness. Grant I beseech thee to me thy unworthy servant: before my death such a space and time, in which I may hearty deplore and lament all my sins, and that for them all I may, by thy infinite mercies, find free pardon ●nd forgiveness, that when I shall die, I may live with thee in life everlasting. Amen. Almighty, merciful, and kind Father, I do humbly entreat thee by the death of thy Son my Saviour Jesus Christ, to grant me a quiet and blessed departure out of this miserable life; whensoever thou shalt please to call me hence. Another for the same purpose. M●st merciful Lord Jesus, knowing how great and grievous the pains of dying men are, and with what great discomforts the souls of such are in the Agony of de●th, Whither should I flee, but to thee, o Lord my God? Deliver thou my soul that it neither fail, nor faint at that dreadful hour. Deal with me (I entreat thee o Lord) according to the multitude of thy never failing mercies: and according to that boundless love which made thee lay down thy life for me, who art life ●t self, g●ant that I may always have the hour of my dissolution before me, that I may do that while I am in health, which may give me comfort in the pangs of death: Let my whole care and study be to learn Mortification, and to subdue all my passions, and rebellious affections, so that I may live wit● thee in glory in thy heavenly Kingdom. Amen. A Prayer that the Communion of the Body and blood of J●sus Christ may be effectual to his soul at the hour of Death, taken out of Hugo de S. Victore. O Most sweet and loving Jesus, grant unto me miserable sinner that my soul may be refreshed by thy most precious body and blood: that I may always speak of thy most glorious name. Amen. G●ant that I may always think off and apply thy sufferings to my sick soul, that so I may be refreshed in the evil day. Amen. Grant ●hat I may always have a care to imitate thy holiness, and obedience, by patience and meekness, that so all my words, thoughts, and works may be sanctified. Amen. Grant me likewise, O sweet Jesus, a steadfast hope in thee, that though the outward man decay, yet the inward man which is created in holiness m y be strongthened, so that when I shall die thou mayst be my hope and my portion for ever. Amen. The conclusion of the first Book to the Reader. THus do, thus ●hink, (o Man) and while thou are in health prepare for sickness, and le●●●●e to die, either of them is of excellent skill, and art; ignorance of both these may cast thy soul into utter destruction: if thou failest in the performance of these, thou deprivest thyself of that Eternity, which the Faithful shall enjoy, never canst thou amend an error past this way: this shall be punished whh Eternity. Wherefore always manage thy affairs, so as, if thou wert at all times departing. Dwell most familiarly with thyself, and search daily all the secret passages of thy conscience, those things which thou hast about thee, esteem of them as a Traveller's Cloak-bag, but let them not be thy clog. Thou must carry no more out than thou broughtest in. Therefore be satisfied with little, and approve thyself too God. Thou must pass hence. Each moment think thou standest at the door of Eternity. Thou must be gone. Eternity is always at hand. Pleasures are short, punishments are without end. The labour is but little, the reward everlasting. These are the instructions we have prescribed to healthy and able men. We admonish them not to fear death, yet never to lay down the thought of it. So now we proceed to instruct the sick, and weak. To the Sick. A Winter's at hand: leaves fall: Death begins to snatch, His Axe and spies thy Glass spent: Sick man watch. B What th' Press: to Grapes, that Sickness is to thee, If thou be ripe, as Grapes in Autumn be. C The stooping Hern oft gores her towering Foe: So outward grief oft frees from inward woe. D Sickness lays men along, as hail doth corn, Better fall well then stand with shame and scorn. E Just now 'twas cloudy; now Sol shows his face, Now clouds again. This is the Sick man's case. F To scape the Scorpion's sting, and th' Archers dart, Sickness and Death) I know no means, no art. G A Sick man's like an Horse plunging in sturdy waves, Who knows if th'one shall scape the floods the other the grave? The second Book. § 1. The remembrance of Death is commended to the Sick. Wherein is contained, an Introduction to the following Discourse, and whither sickn sse be● evil or not? CAunus is a Town in Caria, situated in a pestilent air, and insec●ious to the inhabitants. Wh●ch place when a merry conceited fellow called Stratonicus a Musician beheld, he presently rehearsed that Verse in Homer. Iliad. 6. Men like to falling leaves are found, But green ere-whiles, now fallen to ground. He taunted their pale and won countenances, but when they of that place had afforded him but course entertainment because he had disparaged their City; He wittily again told them, Indeed I cannot fitly term your town sickly or diseased, where I behold so many dead men walking: this was more pleasant and smart then the former. But why deny we it, or why are we lift up with pride? when indeed we are but leaves, job speaks it plainly; job 13.25. Will't thou (saith he) break a leaf driven to and fro? as if he had said: I being but a leaf subject to all inconveniences, which fear all storms and winds, which tremble and am blown with one blast fare away. Do not, o do not (o God speedily make an end of me in thy fury; Thou knowest that I shall at once fall of myself. Are not men truly to be compared to leaves, when as their instability exceeds and out strips them? May they not have this title added deservingly, seeing that diseases & sicknesses of several sorts do interchangeably drive them to ruin? Thus did Clemens Alexandrinus ju●ge. Go to (saith he) o men of an obscure and frail life, like to the generation of leaves. Weak, a workmanship as wax, like to shadow. Vain, fleeting, having a life of a day's continuance. Certainly we are leaves, and no better when as one little fit of a Fever distempers, altars, weakens, endangers us. What said I a fit of a Fever? nay, a little Cough, a Crum of bread, a Drop of water are able to effect our ruins. But what is not health good, and sickness evil? no, o man, if you will credit Epictetus! What then? it is good to use health well: it is ill if used ill. It is possible by sickness to gather fruits meet for thy God: nay, is it not to be done like wise by death itself wh●t thinkest thou of sicknesses? I will show thee his nature, I will grow better by it, I will be quiet under it, I will think myself well dealt with all, I will not flatter with my Physician, nor will I wish for death. What wouldst thou more? What is given to me, I will account it happy, prosperous, honourable, desirerable. But some may deny this, and say, take heed of sickness, it is ill to be under it: to whom Epictetus answers judiciously. It is all one, as if one should say and feign to make three to be four. It is no ill, if I rightly esteem of it, it cannot then hurt me, but rather profit me. So the like use may be made of poverty, sickness, war. May not a man gather benefit by any, by all of these? the same I may say of Death, is it not my appointed Steeresman into rest? is it not the Mess●nger that opens the ga●e to Eternity? is not Death that which takes off all our burdens, and easeth us from labour, from misery? Let Truth honour thee Epictetus, how true are all these, and squaring with the Law of Christianity? This foundation being laid, we shall learn to remember Death's Agony, and not to be affrighted at his coming. But (oh my Reader) I would have thee know that these Documents were not only written for thy use in the time of thy sickness, but I would have thee read these in the time of thy health, that they may stand thee in some stead when thou shalt be visited with sickness. § 42. The sick-man speaks to his friends, to the Diseas●, to the entrance into Death itself, to Christ our Lord. Departed (I pray you) as unseasonable with your vain and fruitless mourning. Here is no place either for Complaints or Petitions. You may think I go from you to soon. Too soon? look, that you be not deceived. I was fit for Death's sickle, as soon as I was born: nay, before I was born. Why should I complain? I know what I was born. Was I not a weak frail body? Cast forth to contumelies, the food of Diseases, Death's object? whosoever thou art take h●pes to thee, or undergo thy burden, perhaps thou mayest be dejected to morrow, or if no, removed from hence. To the disease. ANd is Death's Harbinger approached? must I now lie under sickness? the time is now come, I must put myself to the trial: Valour is not only seen in a storm, or in a battle; Courage may be tried upon a pillow in a bed of affliction. I must be sick therefore; It cannot be avoided. Well; I shall either end my Fever, or it me. We cannot be always together. Hitherto I have only trafficked with health, Homil. 13 in Evang. now I must exchange some time with my disease. Saint Gregory tells it to me, piously and truly. The Lord (saith he) knocks, when he signifies to us that death is near us by troublous sicknesses, to whom we readily open, if we receive with comfort his chastizements. Some relations may cause me to give admittance to this serious Ambassador. It is reported of a certain old man; who lay grievous sick, and when as Death made an approach to take him away, the sick old man entreated Death to forbear his blow a little while, until he could make his Will, and set things in readiness for so long a journey. To whom Death replied, o crooked old man! couldst thou not prepare thyself in so many years? being so often warned by me? to whom the old man said again, I beseech thee lend me thy faith, for I do not remember that ever thou didst admonish me; but Death answered briefly, than I perceive that old men will lie; An hundred, six hundred, a thousand warnings hast thou had from me, when I daily in thy sight, to thy grief, not only taken away thy equals (of which for years there are few left) but also before thy eyes young men, and little infants. Nay, I will appeal to thy own soul (forgetful old man) didst thou want admonishments, when thy eyes grew dim, thy hairs waxed white, were fallen off, thy nose lost its smell, thy ears grew deaf, and all thy other senses and members grew defective in their performances? and thy whole body languished & wasted? these, all these were Messengers from me, and shoul● have been as so many warning pieces to prepare thee to march on. These all have knocked at thy doors, though thou wouldst not acknowledge thyself to be within. Often enough, and long enough haste thou been admonished, I stay not: Come away and enter the Dance of Death now presently. He seldom prepares himself well, which prepares so extraordinary late. To his Death-bringing sickness. WHen I meditate on my life, & consider the multitude of my sins and the smallness of my good duties. Alas, alas! oh my God how am I straitened? and how am I beset and encompassed with sorrow? but it is better to fall into the Hands of the Lord, (for great are his mercies and his compassions fail not) then that I should add more days to my years, and more sin to my days. What an one I would have proved thou only (o Lord) knowest. Perhaps I might have Apostated, and fall'n from life. Since (o death) thou art present, do thy message unto me, rid me from misery and the malice of men. I am ready and willing to part with life. only let me retain thy Grace (o Lord) or rather let it preserve me, which I do earnestly with all my heart beg of thee (o sweet jesus Christ, and through thee. Amen. To Death itself. DEath, why in so long wastings dost thou like? What needs there such great charge? I do yield, strike What needest thou empty all thy quivers? when One blast will drive, one puff will stroy most men. For indeed what is man? but a tossed and leaking ship, which one lusty wave sends to the bottom. There needs no furious charge of tempests, wheresoever thou (o Death) placest thy murdering Ram, it will force passage. Man's body is wove up of weak, and fluid materials; glistering in outward lineaments, impatient of heat, cold; or travail: of its own inclination apt to languishments, gathering corruption even from his sustentation; sometimes hurt by want, sometimes by excess, his nutriment wants not discommodity, a brittle piece of mortality preserved and upheld with grief and anxiety: holding his very spirit and breath at another's disposing, which easily departs, full of innumerable diseases, and though he should want diseases to ruin him, yet of his own accord he would fall, perish, and descend to Death. Can we wonder to see that die, in which Death is fed and nourished, and hath a thousand places to enter & possess? and if man doth fall, is it any such remarkable loss? his very smell and taste, his weariness and watching, his humours, and food without which he cannot live, are all mortiferous and deadly. To jesus Christ. I Would not Death but life, he seeks it right (O Christ) who in thy love departs to light. I am not afraid with them, whom thou speakest o in wrath Go, etc. I will follow thee (o loving Saviour) with will, with delight: and what should I do else, when as thou thyself callest me to come and approach nearer? to be dissolved and to be with Christ is much the better This is the height of my desires, 1 Phillip 1.23. for Chr●st is to me both in life and death advantage. § 3. Not always sweet things. IN times past (as Pliny reports) on the Latins solemn days when as they strove for victory in their Chariot's in the Capitol, Who conquered drunk Wormwood: be thou willing to take down a cup of this bitter drink that thou mayst conquer. He scarce deserves to taste the sweet. Who with the sour did never meet. § 4. To contemn Death is Christian valour. NO man rightly governs his ●ife, but he that knows how to leave it, We cannot be so stupid, but th●t we must needs know some time or other we must die. Yet when Death comes, we are frighted, tremble, grieve. But would not he seem to be a very Idiot, that would weep, because he lived not until a thousand years? and is not he his equal who would li●e beyond a thousand? Thou wast not, thou shalt not be. Past and future ti●e are both at another's Regimen. Wast not thou born to di●? Di● no this happen to thy Father? to thy Ancestors? to all that were before thee? Shall it not be laid upon all that come after thee? why should thy shoulders be exempted from the common burden? Thou wouldst not fear to drink, to eat, to play, to sleep with others, why then fearest thou to die with others? Look but upon the long troop of those before thee, of those that follow thee, and those that go along with thee, in the same hour with thyself. This is a fair prospective, View the known, and unknown World; and it is certain, that thousands each moment are born, and die, and by the same kind of Death. Death perpetually hath been a safe passage to rest. And there is nothing ill in Death but the fear of Death. If therefore we would be in quiet hereafter, it is best to have our souls ready. Shall I fear my end, when I know I am not without end? But you will say it is an hard thing to bring a man's mind to such an high pass to slight his own soul. It is easy to him: who knows to live, as he sung well. A just man's first or last, Comes not too slow, or fast. We deny not, but death hath some terror in it, but therefore we are to learn how not to fear it. This is an infallible sign of a truly courageous soul, not to fear his going out. He truly knows whither he goes with comfort, that knows from whence he came in tears. Theodosius, of whom Saint Ambrose makes mention was such an Emperor, who used to say. I love that man who when he is to die, is grieved more for the Church's hazard, then for his own dissolution. That therefore thou mayst never fear Death, always think on it. §. 5. Examples of Death contemned. NInachetus a great Ruler in Malaca in the Indieses, being commanded to leave off his office, he took it for so great a disgrace being ignorant of true honour & virtue, that forthwith, he, of Aloes and other sweet precious wood builded a great funerall-fire hard by his seat of judgement all covered with rich Arras, from whence he shining in his Robes of gold, and decked with Jewels discoursed to the multitude abou● him, of all the actions and passages of his life, and having laid open, and declared the benefits which he had done for, and conferred on the Portugals in their extremity: he complained that without any demeri● on his ●art, he was deprived of his dignity, than detesting the portugals plots (such Firebrands doth ambition inject into the souls of men) he, as a contemner of their injuries, and of his own death) cast himself into the fire. Aelian. l. 5. Var. Hist. c. 6. Aelianus records another example not unlike to this former, (saith he) the end of Calanu● is not only strange, but to be counted a wonder, which was on this manner. Calanus an Indian Philosopher, who had bidden adieu to Alexander, to the Macedonians, and to this life, built him in the large Suburbs of Babylon, a funeral Pile of costly sweet wood, as Cedar, Cypress, Myrrh, an● Laurel, and having finished his daily constant exercise went into the Pile, and stood there encompassed with the wood; and the Sun shining bright upon him. Which d●ne he entreated the Macedonians to kindl● the fire, which burning Calanus stood still, and fell not until he was dead. It is reported that Alexand●r should say of him, That Calanus had overcome stronger enemies than himself. For Alexander had only waged war and conquered Porus, Taxita, and Darius, but Calanus had overcome, travel and Death. And shall there be such courage in vain men against Death? and shall Christians assisted by God droop their spirit's? Let us but examine the matter narrowly, if we will believe Seneca, Death is Nature's best devise, & the sure remedy of all evils. And therefore let us make that a virtue that otherwise will be necessity. Certainly every wise Christian will do nothing unwillingly, he doth avoid all necessities pressures, who is willing to do what he must. Let us therefore with a good heart expect our end, or rather our beginning. He is always of an upright heart, who knows how to despise Death. § 6. A mind ready for Death ZEno the Stoic (as Suidas records it) dashed his foot and wounded one of his toes, as he went out of School, but he supposing that he had been called by others, struck his hand upon the earth with this word. I am coming; why o earth dost thou call me? and so without any sickness at ninety six years of age the old man died. Zeno had so accustomed himself to hunger, that he would say, he would eat but little, that he might ●ie the easier, and sooner. This did Zeno, that his old age might be the freer from diseases and griefs, He obtained both, according to his desired wish. We need not wonder that our lives are so short, and our health so uncertain, when as we wast both health and life at feasting and drinking Large Suppers may please the appetite, but they make work for the Physician, a full gluttonous belly is the Emblem of a swelling, moving grave. O fools: by that way we should prolong, we cut off and shorten our days. And it proceeds from hence, that we will not be persuaded of the virtue of a Christian abstinence. Vid. Leon. Lesle. Hyg. But experience pronounceth that saying to be true, the less thou eatest the longer is ●hy life: but to the purpose, this by the way. Vrsinus (as Saint Gregory relates it) being comforted with heavenly Meditations, would often in his sickness cry out, I come, o I come! I give thanks to thee (o God) and as he related to those that were about him, the joys of Heaven, and the beauty of those Celestial souls, he reiterated the same words. Behold I come and so surrendered up his soul, and died. A mind willing to surrender to Death speaks in the present tense. I do come without any demurring or delays. It is too late to trifle time here. Nature is not a stepdame, but a mother. Canst thou accuse her (o my Theophrastus) to be more unkind to men, then to beasts? Certainly men are her choicest pieces, and if she could preserve any from death & corruption, men should partake of the privilege and benefit. For which is better, quickly to suffer, and to cut off all fear, or slowly to suffer, and still to be subjected to fear & horror? Nature then quits a man from a lingering torment when she yields him but a short life. We all do stay For th' appointed day. Why therefore art thou affrighted? is thy life taken away? so is then the fear of death, and many evils, that betid the life of man? there is little difference (saith Plinius Secundus) betwixt suffering misery, and expecting it daily to come. only this, that there is some means in grieving, none in fearing For thou mayest grieve only for so much as is happened: but thou mayest fear for whatsoever may happen. § 8. Three things grievous in sickness. IN every disease almost there are th●se three things incident. The fear of Death, the pain of the body, and the loss and privation of pleasures. But as in the rules of Physic, hot diseases are cured by cold medicines, and cold by ho●, so are these to b●e cured by Antidotes. Let the si●k● beware here, that he mistakes not, or goes not a contrary way: There was a young man who stood in need of old things to allay his heat, but he, when the Physicians were departed, by the persuasion of the servants of the house took hot ingredients, and anointed his breast with Balm, and applied many other hot medicines to his sickness, which added fire to fire, and almost brought him to Death. To cure therefore the fear of Death and to remove it, is to love Heaven and the joys thereof: a litle of divine love dispels all the smoke of vain fears. Who loves Christ, will be willing to lay down his life, and shall be beloved of his Saviour. 2 To assuage and mitigate the pain of body is to have peace of conscience. An upright soul, and an entire conscience doth afford marvellous consolation to the sick bed. A pure conscience purged from dead works is a powerful remedy against all torment. The sick man w●ll bear his sickness the easier and more comfortably, if he fixeth deeply in his mind this one thing. The most righteous Lord God hath imposed this affliction upon me, and therefore I will bear. It is his good pleasure, let him do as he thinks good. 3 The loss of pleasures will nothing trouble nor grieve him, who thinks upon heavenly, eternal pleasures. Those which we leave, are light, vain, sh●rt, and filthy, and commonly before they are left off, they leave their Lovers full of pain, oftentimes of diseases. But those, which our heavenly Country promiseth to us, and will perform, are infinite, firm, eternal, not fading. He easily disesteems earth, whose aim is heaven. § 9 Sickness is the School of Virtue and Monitor to Eternity. THou sufferest well (saith Bernard) if it works compunction. Sickness is aswell the School of graces: as the scourge of vices. While we are lusty, and strong we rush into sins (as the horse into the battle) furiously; when we are sick, we better regulate our passions, curb our affections: being healthy we are pestered with many hundred several employments, and put God in our last thoughts. How many are chaste and sober in sickness? Who in time of health have furiously followed all filthy lusts and pleasures. These men were happier and safer under the rod, than they can be at liberty. God lays therefore many down, that they may look up, and confines them with a Fever or Consumption, or such like that their souls may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Long sickness makes sober minds. In brief, Sickness seems to macerate the body, but it meliorizeth the soul, & though as (Saint Paul saith) our outward man decay, 2 Cor. 4.26. yet our inward man is renewed daily. Hence is it that though sickness do seem tedious, and burdensome, yet it is then Good, when it works holiness in the Patient. § 10. Sickness is the Monitor to Eternity. WHat a good thing is it? that the evils of this present life should afford unto us a taste of everlasting punishments? By these light ones here, let us learn to keep ourselves from those eternal ones. From which no Apothecary, no Physician, no Medicine, no Critical day, nor Death itself (the Medicine for all evils and punishments here) can release from. The ways to death are divers, but once arrived to Eternity, there is no redemption, Anaxagoras being very sick, his friends asked him whither he would be carried into his Country, or not? no such need (said he) and added a reason; for every Country affords us a way to our grave. This answer of his may be as well applied to Heaven, for we may go to Heaven from any part of the World. O the fortunate and happy scar-fire of Fevers! because short: o the fearful fire of Hell! because everlasting. § 13. In sickness we must always pray. PRayer ought to be the sick-man's constant exercise. Neither is it of too much difficulty for the sick party. It is an exercise that's performed without toil. For he may do it by his tongue to God: but if his tongue be dulled, or if grief stops his voice, than his soul in all humble devotion is to be lift up to God with a quiet composure of body. Sometimes also ardent sighs do demonstrate secret conference with God. Sometimes the disease is so violent that it not only depresseth the body, but also the soul and the whole man is fo●c'd as it were wholly to attend on it. In his case God accepts a patiented and a quiet bearing of these dolours for Prayers. Sickness mixed with patience and mortification, are acceptable Sacrifices in the presence of God. He prays well, that suffers patiently. And he doth not only pray unto God, but doth prevail with God, who sends two such wise Ambassadors as Compunction, and Patience. But further though the Sick man be brought to that pass, that he neither by voice, nor yet by hearty Ejaculations, yea, though his patience be overcome, yet there is a way to pray left him. Can he look about h●m, and he shall see those that stand by him, and those that are about him, ready & prompt to pray for him: let but him in his sickness speak a word to them, o my good friend, o my dear brother, you see how I am conquered wi●h pains, I pr●y you lend me your tongue and your heart; and read such and such a Psalm for me to entreat God to be merciful unto me. Which of his friends will not be ready and willing to perform these things for the sick? So though he cannot by himself in words express himself to God, yet he may, by the prayers of the faithful. Therefore I repeat it again, In sickness always pray. We can never be too importunate with God. § 12. What we must think and do in dolours and sickness. A Man that enjoys God, though ●e be pressed with griefs, and full of sorrows, will not for all this curse God and die. He says not amiss, if he use these or the like expressions I will hope well while I breath, and I will hope bet oer things drawing nearer towards God and my dissolution. Seneca spoke excellently well of G i●fe: saying, Sen. ep. 78 ante med. that of the Poet is known Its light if long: It's short if strong. No man's grief can be great and long. So benign our nature hath been for us, that she proportions the grief, either makes it tolerable, or sho●t. For th● intention of the highest grief ha●h found an End. This is one comfort in the deepest misery that when you have felt it too long, it is customary, and so you lose the sense of it, by the continuation of it. But what vexeth most those, that are unexpert in bearing grief, is, that they have not accustomed themselves to be contented in mind, they are too much addicted to carnality. Wherefore, o my sick friend, learn by degrees to deduct thy soul from thy body: and be conversant wi●h ●hy nobler and diviner part: and because there is no grief so violent, but admits of intermissions, therefore, when thou art sick, and feelest pains, do not hastily leave off the exercise of prayer, or patience. Above all things look, that thy morning Sacrifice, and some examination of Conscience at the Evening, keep their course. If thy voice fail, perform it in spirit. Canst thou not frequent divine Duties, or receive the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ? then set apart some time precisely, in which thou mayst see God present with thee. Never let the night, or sleep pass upon thee, before thou hast discussed and debated with thy Conscience, and quieted it. In those hours, that either thy grief is lessened, or is not at all, take some godly book into thy hands, & read some select sentences fi test for thy present benefit, and meditate them seriously. Every day select one hour to thyself for prayer, and begin it, and end that little time in holy sighs, Ejaculations and Prayers devoutly, humbly, reverently, and this hour will seem to be spent in Heaven: but if thou canst not perform this, which scarce any pain can hinder thee from, yet at uttermost let some time be allotted, in which thou mayst erect thy spirit to thy Creator, and by s●aces lift up thy thoughts to Heaven. For these courses will mitigate and diminish the greatest anguish and grief. At the Entrance and End of all thy pray●rs consecrate thy whole self to Gods divine good w●ll and pleasure. Nor all, nor any of these are so hard, but that a dying man may perform, much more he whose sickness is not so urgent. Which yet, if you cannot, or rather will not, do any of these yet however, while the extremity of the pain is upon, you be quietly, and thankfully patiented. Do not, (I pray you) make your burden weightier than it is of itself: why should you add to your own affliction? It is but light and e●sie, unless it be made heavy by your prejudicated opinion. Contrariwise, if you exhort and encourage yourself, and say, It is nothing, or it is but little, we will bear it, it will be at an end, th●n will you make it but little, by esteeming i● so. All things are censured by opinion, we grieve according to opinion. Every man is so miserable as he judgeth himself to be. § 13. Our thoughts are divers in the time of sickness, and health. LAcides the Philosopher, having omitted many household offices, said, We dispute one thing in the Schools, and live otherwise at home. So men in health can administer and suggest comfort to the sick, but what sick man is he, that in his disease can sufficiently comfort himself? I do much doubt myself in divers States. Ah! how glasse-like is our strength! how instantly doth one dash batter it? While we are in health we imagine to ourselves bodies of brass, all our discourse is lofty, and we care even provoke sickness; but when they approach, how do we fly? or how suddenly at the first grappling fall wounded and weak? We are but men then, by our own confessions, and our dying bodies have little or no vig●ur in them. I will not, cannot deny, but that our bodies are fragile, but not so mu●h, but that with a resolved patience, they might endure the greatest of calamities were not their spirits as dejected, and poor, as their bodies are weak. This is our too much faintheartednes that makes so many desert virtuous actions, while we make every difficult thing, to be intolerable, impossible to be undergone. Virtue perisheth if Difficulty, which is the matter of it, be removed. § 14. In all Sickness we must send holy sighs to God. O Lord, Thou art my Fortress and strength, and my sure refuge in the time of my trouble, Jerem. 16.19. It is the LORD, Let him do what seemeth him good. 1 Sam. 3.18. O Father, prove thy servant to the end, and leave not off from the man of iniquity. Job 34.36 It is good for me that I have been afflicted: for thereby I have learned thy Statutes. Psal. 119.71. I take pleasure in infirmities: in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong 2 Cor. 12.10. O JESUS, who art my Love and my souls delight, cause me for my love to thy name to be joyful in suffering and dying. For I am no more mine, but altogether at thy rule and disposing. § 15. Certain faults of Sick men. F●rst, to be eager and willing to hear curiosities, novelties, & trifles. 2 Not to be willing to hear admonitories and preparations towards Death. 3 To blame and complain of those that take the care of him. 4 To reject those things which are prepared for their good and recovery. 5 To dislike their bed and lodging. 6 To believe that they are not well looked to, and thereupon to murmur, and repine. 7 Seldom to think of or speak of God or divine things. 8 Not to be given up, and to be resigned and subject to Gods will in all things. 9 To think some things too grievous and beyond his faults, and not to be born with any Christian patience. And what concerns it thee, (o my sick man) what is done in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain; rather shouldest thou seek what is d●ne in heaven, or how thou should escape hell & the torments thereof. Let others whisper what they will among themselves; think thou on this. Suffer the dead to bury the dead; Let this be thy only care, to secure thy soul; th●s is that one thing that is necessary: what hast thou to do with new or curious trifles, for the most part false and fictitious? these are offensive to others, unprofitable to thyself. And why turnest thou away from those who tell thee of thy approaching danger? (I beseech thee) imitate not those old men whom thou knewest before abroad, to whom it was death, to hear Death to be spoken off. I Pray thee, hast thou learned no further yet, but still to fear death? Hast thou got so much knowledge in so many years, to die freely, peaceably, and without vexation? Why tremblest thou? Commit thyself wholly to the will of God, and so thou hast done the hardest piece of thy work Even our whole life is but a punishment. That wise Roman Seneca will counsel thee. We being (saith he) cast into the deep and troublesome sea of this World, which is always tossing her waves and billows, now lifting us up with sudden advancements, now again leaving us in the lurch to our greater loss: Continually tossing us, never are we safely settled: We are always in suspense, and inconstantly floating; now and then dashed one against another, sometimes making shipwreck, always fearing; thus we sail along this boisterous Ocean, exposed to all tempests, and there is no Port or Haven till we arrive at Death. Many men's credulity deceives them especially in those things whi●h they love, being willing to forget the remembrance of death. Daily before our eyes we see spectacles and objects of Mortality, as well of our friends, as strangers: but we still are otherways employed, and think that sudden, which might have have happened every moment of our life. This is not the iniquity of Nature, but the pravity of our minds: being insatiable in that which it cannot enjoy; and altogether disdaining to go out from thence, whither he was admitted to enter by request. He is unjust, that leaves not the Donor the disposing of his own gift: He is greedy, who doth not account that a benefit which he hath received, but says it is loss to restore it. He is ingrate who calls the end of pleasure, an injury. He is foolish, which thinks nothing but things present have profit in them. He too much pens up and straitens his j●y●, who thinks he enjoys no more than what he hath and seethe Suddenly doth all pleasure leave us, it flows and passes, and is in a manner ●aken away, before it come to us. Let us ●ll therefore contentedly enjoy what is bestowed, and surrender it when it shall be demanded. Death snatcheth away all, some one time, some another; none escapeth him: Let our souls then continually watch, never dreading it, because necessary; lways expecting it, because ●ncertain. It is hard to say whether it be more folly to be ignorant of, or impudent to stand out against the Laws of Mortality. All men, yea all creatures whatsoever, look towards death. Whosoever is born to the World is ordained to die, and to pass to Eterni●y. § 17. Three special Rules to be observed by the sick. I Concerning God. IT is grand impiety to murmur any thing against God our heavenly Father, as though the disease he l yeth upon us were extreme and unreasonable. We ought rather to say with holy job, Even as it pleaseth the Lord, so come things to pass: Blessed be the name of the Lord: and to cry out with that devout multitude, He hath done all things well. For whether God wound or heal us, certain it is he ever beareth towards us the tender care and affection of a most loving Father. TWO Concerning himself. In the extremity of sickness there is not so much need of long and continual prayers, as of constant and unwearied patience: For thereby that which is heavy and intolerable becometh light and easy. Our chief cordials and sweetest comforts in our sickness are frequent sighs breathed up to Heaven, the Remembrance of the patiented sufferings of the Saints, holy Prayers and Ejaculations sent up to Go●, for constant patience, and an happy departure out of this life. III Concerning others. The sick man must be tractable to his Physicians, whether corporal or spiritual. If any come to visit him, he must show all patience and calmness of spirit: and though his disease gripe h●m, many things trouble him, some displease him, others relish ill wi●h him, all things be not done a● his beck, yet he must never murmur, but allaying the bitterness of his afflictions with the sweet expectation of a reward, express Christi●n submission and patience in all his words and actions. § 17. Wherewith the sick-man should quench his thirst. MOst sick folk complain much of th' rst, those especially who are sick of Fevers. Here therefore we w●ll show them a Fountain, whence they may drink as much as they please. An. 1590. In lower Austria, there was a Thief, who had killed ma●y men, being taken, and brought to the Wheel, only had his legs broken, which was done the more to torment him with a lingering death and to make him the more terrible spectacle to all such Malefactors: but this tormented person proved himself a valiant man, and a stout Christian in the height of his torments For all his words argued patience, & penitence He began seriously to supplicate God, to entreat pardon for his sins, to be a Preacher of Mortification, and to dehort all other men from the like heinous sins. And the day being almost spent, when as there was a World of people assembled, there were likewise present some that knew him and comforted him, being glad to see him so patiently to suffer, for he being laid flat for his punishment, that he might get another life, he assuaged his present suffering with the hope of future happiness: and not only so, but gave thanks to God, who in his anger had remembered mercy, and had chastened him, that he might save him. In that space of his punishment, which lasted for above three days, he requested two things, that he might die maturely and Christianly, and that it would please God, to send a shower of rain seasonably to mitigate his heat and thirst. It is recorded that he obtained both these requests for about Evening, there fell a plentiful shower of rain, and afterwards he ended his pains and his life. Behold here (o my Christian) thou thyself here hast also thy wheel, but a fare softer one, thou rollest in thy bed, as on a wheel, and without doubt though perhaps thy torment may be less, yet thy thirst is as great; that there may come down into thy soul a comfortable shower, look up to Golgotha, and behold with the eye of faith thy Saviour upon the Cross, from whose body flows Rivers of saving waters: here drink, here refresh, here satisfy thyself. The more freely thou drinkest of this, the more healthy will thy soul be. § .18 The sick-man's Napkin or Handkerchief. CHrotildis Queen of the Franks, (as Gregorius Turonicus relate it) being cruelly used by Amalaricus her husband, sent to King Childebert her brother a white linen cloth, all besmeared with her blood in stead of a Letter, and as though she spoke thus to her Brother: Canst Thou (o Childebert) see this, and suffer it? Seest thou what thy sister endures, and wilt thou connive at it? wilt not thou defend her? wilt not thou vindicate her wrong? Behold here (o sick man) Thy Saviour sends to thee two Handkerchiefs, all be-dyed with blood, one he garnished in the Mount of Olives most liberally with his blood, in the other from Golgotha, thou mayst behold how his face with sweat, with spit, with blood, tears and blows was abused by sinful men, both these Jesus sends to thee, all be-purpled with his precious blood, and may speak these words to thy soul Your sins (o mortals) have caused this sweat; these stripes this blood. Can ye behold these, and can you but leave of your wicked lives? o would we were true Childeberts'! and that we would take an holy & speedy revenge upon ourselves. Certainly, there is no man doth more truly grieve at the sufferings of Christ, than he which gins to hate those things for which Jesus suffered. §. 19 The sick-man's Bed. THe sick-man's Bed torments him, though it be as soft as that of Sardanapalus, though it be as that of Smindyrides upon Roses the base and effeminatish Sybarite? a young man given up to all wantonness and luxury. Who when he had tried how easily he could lie upon the softest feathers, complained that they made his sides sore: and so made him a Bed of Rosy leaves, but this perfumed Gallant also complained of them, as too hard for his tender flesh. Although the sick person have a bed all of Hare's Wool or down of Partridges, yet he will judge it uneasy. Well he must be excused; it is his anguish that forceth these complaints, yet we can show you harder lodgings than these. Saint Laurence had a Grid-iron red fire hot to lie on, so Vincentius the Martyr and many others have been laid in smart lodgings, and yet the love they bore to their Lord, and the care they had of salvation made them to repute them easy and honourable. The Persians in times past exercised a cruel kind of torment upon Christians, which was called Scaphismus; because the poor Christians which were to be thus tortured, were laid between two boats, as in an hollow and long straight chest with their faces upwards, their head, their hands, and feet were left out, only; for their food it was mingled with honey, which was poured into their mouth against their wills, only to prolong their life, and augment their torments. For at certain times they were exposed to the heat of the Sun, and had their eyes shut down, their head, hands, and feet were all anointed with milk and honey, so by this means, whole swarms of Flies and Gnats did cover these parts, so that they seemed as a black cloth, and the drink & liquor poured into their mouths preserved life, and because it did easily run from their entrails, it caused a noisome putrefaction in the lower boat, and Worms were engendered: so that the men that were thus laid, were stung without with Hornets, Wasps, and Flies; and eaten within, with infinite companies of Worms: Hence when their bodies came to be opened, they were found most miserably gnawn with these Worms, and this unheard off and most cruel torment would let the parties live to fifteen or seventeen days and some more. Consider (my sick friend) this bed, this miserable lodging so full of torture invented for the Christians. Oh how favourable are thy sufferings to these! how soft is thy Bed to this: thy disease is not to be reckoned any thing compared with these tortures? Be silent therefore, and be patiented without murmuring, who partakes of the Cross shall inherit the Kingdom: and Salvian spoke well, it seems to me a kind of health, Epist. 5. not to be always in health. § 20. The hope of a better life assuageth our misery. I Demand of thee, (o my sick friend) with Seneca, why Wonder'st thou at thy miseries? Thou art born to this, to losses, to crosses, to perishings, to hopes, to fears, to disquietings: to fear, yet to desire death; and what is worse, not to know thy own condition, & never to be in a durable state. Ingenuous spirits strike off delays; they desire earnestly to be gone, and break prison. They accustom their thoughts to sublime objects, and so easily despise these base subjects. Therefore Plato cries out, A wise man always sets death before him, this he wils, this he meditates on; this takes up his thoughts, how well is that saying of Plato, concerning a better life, I (saith he) esteem him a wise man, whose study is to die in hope and confidence: being filled with certainty of hope, that he shall be enriched with great rewards when he is dead. This the Ancients saw in the dark, and canst thou choose but see them in the Sunshine? Why therefore (o my sick friend) do these terrene things molest thee? When as shortly Heaven shall be thy Mansion, let thy thoughts be there fixed, and what ever thy misery is: thou wilt less feel it. § 21. The true hope of a most blessed Life. I Trouble thee not here with Poets or Philosophers, the business is serious, I will draw most pure waters out of the fountain of holy Writ, let therefore sorrow be gone, and confidently say it with the Doctor of the Gentiles, I know whom I have believed, 2 Tim, 12 and I am sure that he will keep, and is able to keep that for me until that day. What fearest thou o man of short hope? Hear what Syrach's son saith also, He which feareth the Lord, shall not need to be daunted, Ecclus 34 16. usque ad 21. because the Lord is his hope. The soul of him that feareth the Lord is blessed. For the Lord is his hope, and his strength; The eyes of the Lord are upon them that fear him, he is their mighty protection and strong stay, a defence from heat, and a cover from the Sun at noon, a preservation from stumbling, and a help from falling, he raiseth up the soul, lighteneth the eyes, he giveth health, life and blessing. The Kingly Prophet even then when he saw his own death, how valiantly and resolutely did he express himself? Psal 4, 9 I will lie down (saith he) and take my rest, for it is Thou Lord only, that makest me dwell in safety: now what that was he speaks elsewhere: saying, for thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower against the enemy, Psal. 61.3, 4. I will dwell in thy Tabernacle for ever, and my trust shall be under the shadow of thy wings: but thou wilt reply, my impatience makes me distrust, take then with King David another remedy. Psal. 71.5. For Thou art mine, o Lord God, even my trust from my youth up. Neither did King David use this as a medicine for himself, but exhorts others to apply it to themselves. Psal. 62.8. Trust in him always all ye people, pour out your hearts before him, for God is our hope. Why canst not thou follow, Him who hath so often said it; Remember thy promise made to thy servant, wherein thou hast caused me to put my trust, It is my comfort in my trouble. and say thou with jeremiah, the Prophet. But I have not thrust in myself for a Pastor after thee. jer. 17.16, 17. Be not thou terrible unto me, Thou art my hope in the ●ay of adversity. And also hear him elsewhere. jer. 31.16, 17. Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and there is hope in thine end. job 13. ●5, 17, 12 job was most confident in this, Though he kill me yet will I trust in him. And when he was at the threshold of death, he saith, I have changed the night for the day. And in Ecclesiasticus it is said, Ecclus 2.11, 12, 13. Know ye that none that trust in the Lord hath been confounded, for who hath abode in his Commandments, and was forsaken? And who hath called upon him, and hath been rejected? Because the Lord is holy and merciful, and will forgive in the day of affliction: He is the protector of all such as seek him in verity. Osee 12.6 And the Prophet Hosea cries out, Trust in thy God for ever, for they that trust in him shall not be confounded, seeing the Lord is good to all that fear him, even to the soul that trusts in him. Lam. 3.26, 27. It is good both to trust in and to wait for the salvation of the Lord, for truly the Lord is good, and as a strong hold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth all that trust in him. Nahum 1.7. And we also know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, 1 john 3.2, 3. And every one that hath this hope in him purgeth himself even as he is pure. Have thou therefore thy hope fixed upon God's goodness, for he will not forsake him, Psal. 116.9 that hopes in him, But as David speaks, We shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. § 22. Tranquillity flows from true hope. Ps. 116.7. REturn unto thy rest (o my soul) for the Lord hath been gracious unto thee. Why faintest thou in such variety of laborious travels? behold the Lord is present to put an end to all thy pains; leave off therefore (o my soul) to be any longer willingly miserable, and to waste thyself with such fruitless toils; sickness and death are the beginnings of rest to thee, thou mayest say perhaps, they are hard beginnings it is true, they are so; but thou knowest after stormy weather usually come the greatest calms: so here, thy ●est thus purchased, is rest eternal. Now perhaps Good-Friday wearies thee, but thou dost know that Easter is nigh, for aye to last. Go on, and partake willingly some share of labour and sorrow, thou expects an Haven to arrive in, not only out of this troublesome World, but into that which is eternal in Heaven. Though thy labours be but (in thy apprehension) now begun, yet they are sufficiently done; when, he to whom thou hast laboured, accounts them so. Thou therefore (o my soul) leave off vanity, and turn thee to thy God, who hath done great things for thee. Count if thou canst all his benefits, thou mayest sooner reckon the sands on the shore, by which his favours he hath laid open away to thy eternal felicity. Saint Bernard commended that chief to his before his death; That they would firmly fix the Anchor of their hopes, in the safe bosom of God's mercy. Let us have therefore that Verse of that sweet Singer daily in our mouths. In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust, let me never be confounded, deliver me in thy righteousness. § 23. Patience is the whole armour of a Christian. Demosthenes' being asked what was the chief ornament and grace of Eloquence answered, Action, being asked what was next to that, answered, Action, being asked the third time replied, Action: so that as he gave the prime grace and credit to Action, so he made it the only grace of Rhetoric. If I should be asked, what is the chiefest thing requisite for a sick man, I would say, and rightly too, Patience, if it should be asked what is the most profitable for him, I would answer again Patience, If again the third time, what is the most decent thing for a sick man, I would repeat the same, and say, Patience. This deserves all the credit, she should not only wear the first, but also the second and third Bays. Let us see what repute the divine Oracles bestow upon Patience, our Saviour saith, Luke 2● 19 By patience possess your souls, nor doth S. Paul say little less, Ye have need of Patience that when ye have done the work, Heb. 10.36. you might receive the promise. And Saint James, Let Patience have her perfect work. Would you any more o impatient man! Acts 14.27. By many tribulations we must enter i● t● the Kingdom of God. Where the thorn pricks thee will grow a Rose to crown thee. Truth itself proclaims it, Whosoever sh●ll not take up his cross and come after, Lu. 14.25 he cannot be my Disciple. Admi● therefore the Council of Saint Augustine, Suffer, what thou wouldst not, Aug. in Psal. 6. ●hat thou mayest enjoy that which thou wouldst. Solomon beats upon the same, Prov. 3.11, 12. Despise not the correction of the Lord, and faint not, when thou art chastened of him. For whom the Lord loves he corrects, and takes pleasure in him as in a son. God delighteth not in destruction, but after a storm bringeth a calm, and for tears rejoicing; the Name of the God of Israel be praised for ever. Therefore blessed are ye that weep, Lu. 6.21. for ye shall be comforted The furnace tries the vessels of the potter, and so doth the tentation of tribulation right eous men. Wherefore (o my sick man) compose thyself to all patience. Patience is chief necessary for thee before any other thing. Thy meat (perhaps) relisheth ntowith thee, Patience will digest all. It is common, and one of the first things that befall sick-men to lose their palates, their sleep may be short and interrupted, Patience will give ease and rest. Do sick men sl●epe so well as healthy? do pains torment? patience doth mitigate. ●re thy attendants negligent in their duties? useful than is Patience. To satisfy a sick-man in all things is very difficult. Perhaps there may want apt Comforters. Oh then embrace patience. Thy Lord Christ is the only Comforter: though many things be wanting which may seem necessary, possess but thyself with this one rich cordial, and all will be well; all will be quiet. joachim Elector of Brandenburg, coming to visit Charles the fifth Emperor, being troubled with the Gout, did admonish the Emperor to use the help of Physicians, to whom Charles the Emperor replied; The best remedy for this sore is Patience: and so truly the only remedy, and the whole Armour of the sick, is Patience: being guarded with this, he will not much fear pains, diseases, nor death itself. He may encounter with all these Enemies, and come off a Victor. For Patience overcommeth all evils. § 24. We are but guests, at length we must be gone. OUr life is but a way-faring, and pilgrimage. We are in a strange place, and at another's disposing. We are often dismissed, before we be well entertained, and our remembrance departs with us. We are but of yesterday, as a Post that passeth away and is gone, most richly Saint Augustine in this kind. All of us are Pilgrims and strangers. He is a Christian which at home doth acknowledge himself a Pilgrim, our Country is above, there we shall not be strangers. For here every one at home is but a guest. Will he, nill he, he is but a stranger. Bu● he leaves his house to his children. What then? as one guest his lodging to the next comer. Thy Father left room for thee, thou must leave it to the next generation. Neither while thou wouldst stay, dost thou, nor while thou wouldst stay, shalt thou If we must all be gone, let's do something here that may abide hereafter. That when we shall pass away, and shall come thither from whence we shall not departed, we may find some good treasured up. Seeing therefore that we are but guests, let it not trouble us to set onward to our travel. A traveller goes no way so merrily, as when he goes homeward. § 25. The term of life is certain. THe number of his months is with thee, job 14.5. Thou hast appointed him his bounds, which he cannot pass. Whatsoever thou dost (o man) whatsoever thou endevourest, the days of thy life are numbered unto thee. Summon and convocate all the Physicians to thee, about thee, Podalyrians, Machaonists, Aesculapians, Hippocratists, and command all the Galens to revive, not all these can put one part of a short minute to thy years, beyond God's appointed time. Empty all the Apothecary's shops, swallow up Gold, and Pearls, to extend thy life. Yet thou shalt not promote the terms, which thou canst not exceed, be thou never so wary: decline from all dangers thou canst suppose, hinder the growth of diseases, yet thou shalt not increase the number of thy months. Thou mayest wish, vow, desire, it's nothing: the limits are appointed, and (what stir soever thou makest) thou canst not enlarge them. Thou thinkest perhaps the sand of the sea to be innumerable; but he hath that numbered, which hath thy years, months, days, hours, minutes reckoned from Eternity. Whatsoever thy skill, or industry may promise thee, they cannot enlarge thy space of time not a moment. Let there be provided for thee, the choice and most excellent diet, and let it be never so rarely dressed, drink the Cream of wine; never labour but for health; sleep just so long as thy Doctor prescribes thee, and as thy health invites thee. Be cold and hot to a just proportion, notwithstanding all these things thou shalt prove mortal, and when thou art come to the mark, (which God hath set up, and foreseen from all Eternity) Then thou mayest bid Adieu to all humane things, and all worldly affairs: and prepare thyself to give in account, for the Tribunal calls thee to Appearance. Seek no delay here, no truce, no putting off, thou must go, slink not backwards. The account must be given, do not excuse thyself, all delay is cut off, request not lingering. (o God) the number of all men's months is with thee, his bounds are set which cannot, cannot (I say) be passed. Seneca was not ignorant of this (who said) No man died too soon, Consol. ad Marciam. c. 20. who was never intended to live longer than he did. He hath arrived at his set mark, And now must lie alas i'th' dark. Every man hath his prefixed stint: he shall remain for ever in his Stanza. Let an hundred Physicians, six hundred friends, a thousand Kinsmen attend or hedge in thy bed; yet not one of them can help thee; One only God can do the deed. It is concluded (o man) it is fully concluded concerning thee, (o if God be thine Enemy) it is concluded upon thee for ever. Thou per●shest for ever, if in this moment of death, thou be'st not received into grace and favour, the last moment of thy life pronounceth sentence of thee: as thy death, as thy fall is, so shall thy resurrection, so shall thy life be to all Eternity. ah! begin to be wise, and live to God, and whatever thou dost, remember Eternity. § 26. The first Objection of the sick man. I Can easily have comforted myself when I was healthy and lusty, I then provoked these evils when they were absent, behold now the sorrow, that so often I have pronounced tolerable: behold the death! against which I have spoken many great words! I thought otherwise while I stood healthy and strong, I think not so now being cast down upon my bed of sickness. It is no hang to provoke an absent Enemy, but it is a matter of difficulty to retain stoutnesse of spirit to his face. We usually contemn death, but it is when we think and believe ourselves free from his reaching darts: It is one thing to fight in thought, another thing to fight really. The Coward may perform the first, ●ut none but Christian Champions the latter. What sayest thou (o my sick man) why dost thou complain against thyself? why changest thou thy yesterday mind, though it was good? what? as though it were the part of a Champion to be wise and valorous in the dark only? but when he enters the lists to be sottish and cowardly? A good Fencer will not reject counsel when he is entered the Theatre, though before he wanted it Stand (o man) and be bold, thou hast overcome, if thou wilt; only despair not. Behold jesus Christ thy rewarder, looking on thee, he is not only a Spectator, but an Helper. And he reaches to thy hands all the weapons which thou needest use, but perhaps they are to thee as saul's were to David, not fit, thou refusest the scourge, the thorns, and the Cross: yet take the shield of Patience, under this thou mayst fight safe, secure. Commit the rest to thy good GOD. Thou knowest that of Abraham to his son. God will provide. § 27. Another Objection. BEhold I die, which might have lived longer. Truly thou couldst not. For if thou couldst, why dost thou not? but ●his thou mayst say, I hoped, or desired to live longer. And in this I b lief ●hee; What if thou hadst lived longer, thou hadst but then lived awhile? the spaces of this life are unequal and uncertain, yet they are all short. Some men have lived 80 years, what have they now more than he ●hat lived eight? Unless you put cares, and labours, and griefs, and toy●ings, as advantages into he bargain? and what more had he, had he● lived eight hundred, unless we can reckon his virtues as we l as his years. Unless in this kind reckoned what were Methusalems' 969 years, jam. 4.15. but a mere vapour which appears for a while, No man ever lived either so long or so much, but he seemed to himself to have lived but a while: and in plain truth, woe live but a modicum at the longest here. He that delights to live long, let him seek after that life, where he lives for ever: which is only to be sought here, is not to be had here, but thou wilt say, I am taken away and die, while I was thinking to do good. Why didst thou only think it, and not act it, not perform it? perhaps this would always have been thy thought, never thy performance. Many are there which refer all to thought, but set no● foot to begin, nor would do should life be longer granted: believe thyself to be one of these. For if thou hadst begun to do well, thou canst not doubt, though death may prevent thy further progress, yet the estimate of thy labour shall not be substracted in the Registry of that Infallible Computist. Thy reward is entire, not only of thy acts, but of thy wishes. Be of good comfort. The direct and shortest cut to eternal reward: is to die, well. § 28. Against other complaints of the sick party. MAnifold are the complaints of sick folk, they fierce speak without complainings, without grudings. How often are these usual phrases heard in the mouths of ●he diseased? alas! wretch that I am, so afflicted, so oppressed wi●h Dolours! how often doth he sigh out, ah! and alas! but bring the business to the balance, and let it be well and strictly examined, and he will then change his terms of Grief, into these speeches. It is well; I am well, it pleaseth God, it seems good in my Creators' eyes. Oh how happy! how blessed am I, though under the Rod! yet not of a Tyrant, but of a loving Father. God be praised, God be glorified. Heaven is the reward of all that do the will of God. Oh! it is well, oh sick man! this is as it should be. Seneca admonisheth well in this case, Noli (ait) etc. Do not (saith he) make thy evils heavier than they are, for why wilt thou desire to burden thyself? it is better to withdraw these groan, and repining words It was never worse with any man. What torments, what evils have I suffered, no man ever thought I should ever have recovered again. How often have I been given for lost by Physicians? Though all these were true, yet they are passed. What helps it thee to take up thy past ●riefs, and to be miserable, because th●u hast been? I am wretched thou sayest, ●ea, ra●her blessed, Blessed is the m●n whom the Lord chasteneth; Pro. 3.12 for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and delights in him, as in a son. He sco●rgeth every son whom he receives. Despise not therefore the chastening of the Lord, because he wounds and heals: he strike down, and raiseth up again. Knowest thou not that the Surgeons Lances are but for Medicaments, and Initiations of recovery? Look not thou so much upon thy wound, as to the hand that gave it. And then thou wilt confess that this wound makes thee whole: bu● you will say, My grief is great an● heavy, It is as thou feelest it in thy apprehension, heavy if undergone with a feminine spirit. The enemy doth us most mischief wh●n we fly from him: Every evil is most urgent to them that yield to it: flee from it. Think of those, as I may say) so many hundred thousand stout Martyrs, and not only those, but also others whi●h have vanquished dangerous evils. Ibid. Seneca doth report of one, who while his legs were cutting off, did constantly and undauntedly read on a book. Dost thou but behold the Martyrs Lamed, cut, torn, , stabbed, fried, roasted, broiled, dying lingeringly, with all manner of torments. Rub up thy memory on them, and then wonder that thyself so like them in other things, yet so unlike them in thy impatience. But you will say the disease will not give you leave to do any thing. Is it so indeed? Look I pray: thy sickness holds thy body, not thy mind: so thou art a runner in a R●ce, yet thy feet are bound, if thou canst use thy mind, and exercise thy spirit: thou wilt persuade, teach, hear, lear●, seek, remember even in thy sickness. Furthermore, dost thou think thou dost nothing, if in thy sickness thou be'st, temperate, and quiet? If thou canst demonstrate that thy disease is vanquished, or undergone, thou hast then (believe me) done a great exercise in thy sick bed, and thy work is well-nigh finished. § 29. The sick man to himself, against himself. WHat shall I do? do I die before I am gray-headed? is it not granted to me which others enjoy, Old age? Behold we are all too expert in this Error; to think that none but old men are for the Grave: a Bier is as well acquainted with young and strong men, as decrepit folks? Sap. 4.9. The crown of old men is an upright life, the beautifullest old age is honesty. It is better to have the man then his hairs to plead reverence. He is wondrous rich in the endowments of old age, who hath worshipped God, who hath exercised wisdom, and lived well. It is more glorious to be a signior in Virtue, than years. Whosoever comes to his appointed period, hath lived long, and died old: We have our Landmarks, and to touch them is to go fare enough: but such is our covetousness after long life, ●hat when we are to die we would seem but young folks, and unripe to the harvest, though we can number even then 80 years. But why do we stand still thinking upon the paucity of our years? when as in vain? God hath registered thy time in the Book of Eternity, which nor thou, nor any other can alter, or cancel. This is the sentence of God upon all flesh, and they that shall live after thee, are in the pleasure of the Almighty, whither thy time extends to 10, to an 100, or more years, there is no complaining of life in Hell, and in the other World, none shall accuse God, because he gave them not a longer life: they shall condemn themselves in that they managed their life no better. Do thou thus, and think in thy mind of those eternal, that's a profitable loss, to lose a point of time, and to gain Eternity. Most generously said the King of Macedon, I meet not myself by time, Curt●b. 9.12. but by Eternity. Do thou also consider thyself not as a bubble of time, but as created for Eternity, which hath no limits. § 30. The sick man to God. OH my God the desire of my heart. I a most wretched man, a most vile contemptible worm, lie here fastened in my sick bed, without either the use or strength of hands or feet, an idle, empty, slothful, unprofitable servant, a lump and mass of unfruitful earth, which ha●e done no work for thee. Yet I desire (o God) I desire to work in thy Vineyard; to endure cold, heat, weariness, vexation, the Cross, I desire to suffer hunger o● thirst, or any molestation, any heaviness, or misery for thy sake. I have learned this by the Example of an holy man, who when he was visited with more sorrow and sickness than was usual, he was admonished by another friend of his to ent●eat God to deal more favourably, with him, to whom he answered (as it were in anger) but that I perceive your simplicity, I should have put you from my company, for saying such words. And presently he cast himself upon the Earth, I give thee thanks (o God) for these things which thou hast sent me to suffer, Enlarge my sorrows, multiply my pains, send me an hundred diseases? I know for certain, thou wilt with all these g●ve me patience. What can I say but this thing only, It is too little that I suffer. (o God) add (if it be thy good pleasure) more and more to them. I have deserved fare more bitter stripes, than thou (o merciful God) hast yet inflicted. Here (o Lord) spare me not, burn me, cut me, tear me in pieces, only save me hereafter. If I had an hundred bodies, I would adorn so many crosses wi●h them for thy sake; that I may please thee, (o kind Father) that I may be but numbered with thy Saints in Glory Everlasting, I weigh not what pains and miseries, I here undergo and suffer, a thousand without any exception, so I may gain thee. Let thy will (o God) be fully done. For I know that thy service is perfect freedom, to whom both the will and the deed are acceptable, and how often dost accept the will for the deed, and rewardest it equally. I am now by thy appointment, o Lord, called to rest, my night comes in which I cannot work. Yet although this my disease takes away from me the power of working, yet it deprives me not of the will, I will (o Lord) I will and while breath or life continue, for thy love I am ready and willing to do or suffer as the holy Martyrs and pious Christians, have done and suffered before me. Say only (o Lord) what will't thou me have do? What must I suffer? for I offer a whole World full of good desires to thee, I will go to the utmost parts of the Earth, nay, with read●nesse and willingness to the Indies, the tops of Mountains shall not let me, the great Valleys shall not deter me. I will climb these, travel through those; the vast heaps of snow shall not stop me, nor the lofty waves, I will pass through both. Nor rocks, nor fire, scorn, reproaches, disgraces, shame, accusations all these, none of these shall be able to deter my course for suffering in thy cause, nor will I for thy love (o Eternal Wisdom) think much to be counted a fool, I will glory in the title, it is not blows nor death which I will decline for thy sake. Nothing shall be too hard, nothing too bitter, nothing unpleasant, nothing impossible where the cords of thy love do draw my soul. I shall go through with all encumbrances, with all oppositions, by thy aid and assistance: and what I cannot do by strength, I will perform in desires, wherein my hands or feet shall fail, thither will I go in desire, in affection. But all these wishes and willings if ●hey be brought to action, will they unlock and open Heaven gates? If I shall bring forth all these specious fruits, shall I then be worthy to be in the presence of God? Ah! o my Lord God though I suffer and do whatsoever thy holy Saints have done and suffered, or what they would have done or suffered, yet shall I not be worthy to abide in thy sight one moment: how much less then, when as I do but offer up to thee these small and empty desires. By what means, then shall I make my way ready for heaven? (ôh! infinite Goodness, if thou shalt not have mercy upon me I am undone for ever. I shall never be admitted into Heaven, if thy mercy excludes me. There is therefore this one sanctuary, and this one refuge remaining to me to save me from thy anger and just indignation. Thy mercy (o Lord) is that vast Ocean, and immense Sea, into this I will throw myself, whensoever death shall cast me from the little Hillock of this world, and also while I do possess this little Tabernacle I will freely and wholly cast myself into that bottomless Sea of thy infinite mercies: being fully assured, that herein I shall be safe from all the flames and flashes of Hell fire. I cry out therefore with King David. Have mercy upon me (O God) after thy great goodness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out all mine offence. Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. So also in my greatest extremity, in my last and uttermost hour of my life, when my soul must go forth from her old decayed house, with all my ardentest and earnestenst desires I will and wish that one thing: yea, while I live and am well in health, deliberately and affectionately, I thirst after those pleasant Rivers of waters, yea, at my gasp I desire tha● my sigh may signify so much to men an● Angels that I only cry and sigh for this one favour all ●hy hands. Have mercy upon me (o GOD) after thine own goodness, according to the multitude of thy tender compassions, etc. § 31. The sick man's sure and true confidence in God. IT is a serious business, and no childish art, to die, and well may the sick man be asked, wilt thou wholly commit thyself to the hazard of Eternity? thou interest into an unknown way, and whither wilt thou come? to wh●ch the sick may answer, 〈◊〉 not to mutter as those wretches who say, I am compelled, I must, but rather in an upright course, let him say, I do willingly and wholly give my soul, so I commit myself to Eternity, so I depart hence joyfully. So, even so, let healthy men say and think, but especially such as are ready to die: both these may truly say hitherto I have begun to die only, now I do so. Now I begin my journey to Eternity: and because God's mercy knows no end, and exceeds all measure, I go on without dread. In thee (o Lord) have I put my trust, let me never be put to confusion. I hope, never, never (o Lord) and though there be a thousand witnesses out of the sacred Writ to confirm my hope in this point, yet let me not despise the excellent Council which that Roman wise man affords, That we should think of Death, and the return from Death. Thus the Ancients have delivered their minds. When that day shall come which shall separate my soul from my body, I shall leave this body, where I found it: but I myself shall be restored to God. Neither am I now without him, only I am detained by this heavy earthy body of flesh: by these delays we make a preparation for that Eternal and better life. For as the womb of our mother holds us nine months, and prepares us not for herself, but for that place into which we are sent, being now fit to take breath, and to live abroad: so from the space of our infancy, to our old age, we are fitting for another birth, another spring expects us, we expect another state. We are not here fit for Heaven but by distance, yet here we are fitted for it. Wherefore undauntedly look for that decretory hour: though last to the body, yet not to the soul. Whatsoever things thou dost here behold, look upon them as bundles of trumperies not worth transportation. We must pass. The day which thou so mightily fearest as thy last, is but the birthday of Eternity. The day will come that shall reveal thee: and will bring thee out of thy rotten, and flitting tent. Meditate now on diviner matters. Nature's secrets shall once be disclosed to thee: this darkness shall vanish, and light shall shine bright for ever. No cloud shall dim or obscure the serenity of that day, Heaven shall then perfectly be seen: day and night are the courses of this lower Region, thou wilt then say, thou hast but lived in darkness, when thou shalt clearly behold that light, which now thou hast but a glimpse off: and yet admirest at, though afar off. What will that divine Light seem to thee, when thou shalt behold it in its own place? the thought of this will permit no base or sordid, no abjected or inhuman thing to reside in thy mind. What can be more holy (o Christians) let us always think on, and medi●ate these things, no good man dies ill, no ill man, well. Death is the nearest way to Eternity. § 32. Constantly. COnstantly (I beseech you) constantly, there is no patience, where there is no constancy: but some may say, this is the second, third, fourth, or fifth, or ninth week, in which I have lain sick. Another may say, this is the second third, fourth, ●ifth, or ninth month since I fell sick. There will not want others to object, that this is the second, third, four h, fifth, or ninth year, or more, that he hath b●en visited. Oh good men! it is not the sign of a patiented man, to call, to mind, and calculate so exactly his days, months, and years of visitation. Endure I pray you. Endure and lose not the recompense of reward for a little suffering, res rve yourselves for better ●hing. That's but a point of time in which I suffer. If I look upon Eternity. All our travail is short, our rest is everlasting. There have been those who have been sick all their life long. Saint Gregory commends one Servulus, who from his childhood to his dying day was troubled grievously with a Palsy, so that he could not lift up his hands to his mouth, or turn in his bed, and yet he got all the Bible by heart, by hearing it read to him, what was his life but a lingering death? and as he was daily dying, so he usually had this speech ready, God be thanked. All his years though so full of misery and pains, yet he held them as nothing to Eternity. There was a Virgin at Scheedam, called Lydwina, who for 38 years together, was afflicted with divers diseases, even as that Beggar was at the fish-poole: thou mightest truelier have said, this Maid to have been dead then alive, who spent so many years in and amongst so many sorts of troubles and diseases. Diversity of torments seemed to have jointly set upon her: scarce for those 30 years did she eat so much bread as one able man would have done in three days, and she was not only troubled with extreme sickness, but also with great poverty and exigency: Yet in her sickness this Lydwine cried out constantly, Oh! good Jesus have mercy upon me. She was wont to say that these 38 years of sickness we nothing reckoned to Eternity. But I will record another that past Servulus, or Lydwina, in the number of torments and sicknesses. One Coleta a Virgin of Corbe●a, who endured an incredible measure of pains for the space of 50 years, without intermission patiently, and scarce slept one hour in eight d●ys together: she was tormented in her mind as well as in her body: and that, which she reckoned amongst the kindnesses and favours of the Lord was, that her torments were answerable to those of the blessed Martyrs. One being still sent upon another, she would usually say, o could I at once, patiently suffer the fury of all Fevers together! This fearful continuation of diseases for above 50 years did this female creature patiently go under, and bore comfortably, and to her they seemed nothing to Eternity. This blessed Maid said, as once, Saint Bernard, ●y work is but for one hour, or if a little longer I count it ●s nothing for the love I bear to my Saviour. That as well the sound as the sick may determine holiness in their minds, and bring it forth in thoir works and actions, and from good words proceed to good deeds we have added ●hese prayers following, for the confirming and establishing them in those holy duties. A Prayer to be said continually of the sound, sick, and dying men. MOst sweet Lord Jesus Christ in the union of that love, by which thou offeredst thyself up to thy Father, do I offer up my heart and soul to thee, that thy good will and pleasure may be done of me and by me. Sweet Jesus I desire and choose thy will to be done: let my sufferings be never so great, let sickness and death approach, yet I commit myself wholly to thy faithful providence, and divine will. For I hope, and entreat, that thou wouldst direct me, and all that belong unto me to thy glory and everlasting salvation. Amen. 2 A Prayer to conform ourselves to Gods will. O Lord Jesus Christ, which for thy own glory and our salvation minglest j●y with heaviness, and for our progress in grace dost suffer us to partake of adversity and prosperity, I give thanks unto thee, that thou of thy goodness hast caused me to be troubled, and to bear this affliction. I desire thy favour (o Saviour) to let such fruit and benefit grow from it, as thou approvest and desirest, and th●t it may not be hindered by my impatience or unthankfulness. Stretch forth thy hand (o Lord) and come and help me ●hy sick servant; as once thou didst stretch it forth and saved Peter thy Apostle from drowning in the waves. So let (I beseech thee) thy arm of power save me from sinking under this present cross & sickness: according to thy power, so let thy will be (o Lord) I entreat thee to let this present bitter Cup, so troublesome to flesh and blood to pass away from me: as thou didst hear and deliver Ezekias, when he cried unto thee: Notwithstanding not my will, but thine (which is always righteous and holy) be done. Thou only hast the power of judging and discerning, and thou knowest best the medicines to cure our diseases. Oh my most loving Saviour! reprove, correct, and chastise me, burn me, cut me in pieces, only save me everlastingly Let not the flames of hell lay hold upon me. I know thy rod comforts as well as thy staff, thou dost I know chastise thy beloved sons, and by chastizements dost purge, exercise and provest them, before thou puttest upon them the crown of glory. My heart, my heart (o Lord) is ready, how, and when thou wilt be pleased to prove my patience, and subject me under the rod. My trust is in thee, let me not be confounded for ever. I submit myself, and wholly resign myself to thy heavenly will and pleasure, though thou kill, yet will I trust in thee. My lot is in thy hands, to dispose, let it fall to me in a good ground. Amen. 3 A Prayer to obtain patience. O Almighty GOD, Thou kn●w●st what a weak, frail, and vile piece of earth I am, yet the work of thy hands, who was framed of ●he dust, who am blown and withered by every blast of wind, and shall at last again return to dust, there is nothing that I have wherein I can trust, for I have within me the spirit striving against the flesh, and about me the flesh against the spirit. I find motions of Anger, Impatience, Fearfulness, Dissidence, and divers other perturbati●ns to rise within me, if thou only dost but touch me with thy hand. I desire therefore thy help (o heavenly Physician) and that heavenly medicine of thine (called Patience) to be communicated to me: o! Patience it is the easement of all diseases. Give me (o Lord) in all estates to carry myself orderly, submissively, and to bear prosperity without pride, adversity without repining, whither thou sendest health, or sickness, I may entertain them as proceeding from thy fatherly hands, and so being assured they are good, because they come from thee, & thou makest all things work for the best to them that fear thee. Amen. Let thy holy Spirit teach and instruct me. And so much the rather, O Lord help, because there is none fighteth for me but only thou (o God) and tha● thy strength may be perfected in my weakness. So that I may truly say, Thy rod and thy staff have comforted me, and thy good grace assisting me, I may look upon thy Son and my Saviour Jesus with comfort, which shown himself a pattern of all patience, to all patiented men grant this I beseech for t●y mercy sake in Jesus Christ. Amen. 4 A Prayer for the increase of Patience. OUr life (o Lord) is a pilgrimage from Exile and Ba●ishment to our Country, and lest the pleasantness of the way should detain or keep us back, from coming speedily and comfortably to thee (o God) thou stirrest us up by Goads, and haste ns us by pricks in our sides, that so we may the more eagerly desire rest, and to be at our journey's end: therefore diseases, griefs, tears, mournings, sorrows are as so many spurs to hasten our dull natures, and to encourage them to make speed to their quiet repose. Cau●e us (o Lord) to forget the tediousness of the way, and to remember our Country, and if thou pleasest to lay on load upon our shoulders, lay on strength likewise and patience to carry it quietly and cheerfully, having all our intentions and hopes fixed upon thee, but seeing all things are at thy disposing. Make all things (o Lord) work together in thy unsearchable wisdom, that I may never prove an enemy to thee. Amen. 5 A Prayer containing a full resignment of the sick-man into God's hand and will. O Most comfortable and sweet Lord God, be mindful I pr●y thee, and mercifully consider me thy poor creature: but thou, Lord, art my creator, behold (o Lord) I do wholly give and resign myself unto thy disposing, and ordering, I am ready and prepared (o Lord) to endure what thy fatherly hand shall lay upon me. Deal with me as thou pleasest in time, and for Eternity: Whatsoever thou (o heavenly Father) hast determined upon me, and of me with all Humility I am resolved to bear. I will take all things well at thy hands, whither Good or Evil, sweet or sour joy, or heaviness: and will for all give thanks unto thee. Keep me (o Lord) from all sin, and so I will neither fear death nor hell. Because thou wilt not destroy the work of thine own hands, nor blot me out of the book of life: no tribulation shall be grievous unto me: be present (o sweet Jesus) with me at all times, in all places, and let me comfort myself in this, that thou only art my comfort and consolation, and if at any time thou shalt be pleased to withdraw thy comfortable presence from me, yet than I will be comforted in thy trial of me, because it is for my good. Thy holy Name be now and ever, above all things (o Saviour) magnified and blessed. Amen. 6 Another sh●rt Prayer to the same purpose. O Love ineffable, o sweet Jesus, my God, if thou wouldst give me my desire, and wouldst promise to give what I should request, I would not desire any thing, but what I suffer. This, this I would desire and request a thousand time that thy most gracious will according to thy good pleasure may be always done in me, of me, by me for evermore. Amen. A Prayer for conformity of our wills to the divine will. O Sweet Jesus! I neither desire Life nor Death, but only thy will be done. I wait upon thee. If it be thy good pleasure (sweet Jesus) that I shall die, I do humbly entreat thee to receive my spirit, and though I come in at Evening, one of the last amongst the Workmen, grant yet that I may be with thee, and receive everlasting rest in and through thee, but, if thou so pleasest (o sweet Jesus) that my life shall be prolonged, I purpose then, and resolve, and for this I do entreat thy suffrage and the assistance of thy grace, that the residue of my life may be amended, & be offered up to thee wholly as a pleasing sacrifice, to thy glory, and according to thy good will. Amen. Another Prayer to obtain the same thing as only necessary. O Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech thee by thy love, whi●h invited thee so willingly to take all our burdens upon thee, that thou wouldst make me to take my visitation patiently, and thankfully, as coming by thy Fatherly providence, and according to thy good will, and proceeding out of thy love and affection towards me; give me assistance to take it quietly, to bear it patiently, to resign myself to thy goodness, and well liking, and give me that strength and growth in grace, that I may not offend thee in the least: nor ever departed from, or dislike thy godly will: and (o Saviour) unite my will with thy most holy B●neplacite, that what I wish may please thee. Amen. A Prayer to obtain Patience. O Lord my God, I confess I have not lived as I ought to have done, & as by grace I might have done. I am sorry at my hea●t, and it grieves me that I cannot grieve more. I humbly beseech thee (o Lord) that thou wouldst not deal with me after my sins, but according to thy great mercies: thou o God, which hast laid stripes on the outward man, give the inward man indeficient Patience. So that thy praise may never departed from my mouth, Have mercy upon me, (o Lord) have mercy upon me, and help me: for thou knowest what is good for my soul, and body: thou knowest all things thou canst do all things, to thee be praise for evermore. Amen. A Prayer after receiving of the holy communion to Jesus Christ. GLory and praise be given to thee (o Christ) who in thy gracious goodness wouldst vouchsafe to visit and cherish up my poor soul. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace according to thy word. Now I hold thee (o sweet Love) I will not let thee go. I willingly bid Adieu to the whole World, and with joy I come to thee, o my God. Nothing at all, nothing shall separate me from thee (o good jesus) for I am joined to thee, in thee I will live, in thee I will die, and in thee, if thou wilt, I will remain for ever. I live, but not I, but Christ liveth in me. My soul now is weary of my life. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. For he is to me in life and death advantage. Now though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear none evil, because thou art with me (o Lord). And as the Hart desires the Fountains of waters, even so longeth my soul aft●r thee (o God.) My soul hath thirsted after God the fountain of living waters. When shall I come and appear before the presence of God? Bless me, most loving jesus, and now dismiss me in peace, because I am truly thine, and I will never for all time part with thee O could this happy union be now made! Oh! might I be wholly in thee. Oh! that my soul might f●r aye rest in thy embrace, and partake always of thy presence. What have I any longer to do or to be pestered with the World, (o most loving jesus?) Behold, whom have I in heaven but thee, an● whom have I desired on earth in comparison of thee. Into thy hands (o LORD) do I comm●nd my soul, receive me (oh sweet Love) that I may ever be with thee, and that in thee I may lie down and take my rest; for thou only makest me dwell in safety. Amen. The conclusion of the second Book, To the Reader. We have said thus much hitherto to the sound, and sick, partly to recreate them, that they may live, to excite them, that they may watch, to strengthen them to overcome, that they might always be ready for Death's assaults. It is better to try any course then to die ill: An ill death is not only the worst of all errors, but it is irrecoverable, inexpiable. Now we come to dying men, and prescribe documents for them, not only that they should read them when they are dying, but specially in health to profit them against Death. To dying Men. A Death strikes, and with his Axe fells burly Okes There's not a Tree that stands his single strokes. B Fly hence: Your House gins to crack it falls Get under ground: there you'll find safer walls. C Beast, Fish, and Fowl, we catch with wiles and snares: But Death hurls darts at us, and no Man spares. D Be not dismayed, though Skulls from Heaven drop: From mortal seed springs an immortal crop. E As Waters from Aquarius pitcher drill; So runs Man's life; Lib. a tries, Well or Ill? F The Sun goes down, but 'tis to bring now day: So man doth die, that he may live for ay. G The game's our own: The Deer's penned up: No way to fly. Dogs, Huntsmen, Darts, Nets, Toils, all tell him, He must die. THE Remembrance of DEATH is presented to dying Men. The third Book. § 1. The Art of dying compendiously handled. NOt to know how to die is the most wretched folly: that therefore we may learn that, whi●h through all our lives we ought to learn, five things are specially considerable, which may make Death good. First, a free and undaunted mind: this is a thing of great value, on which do depend the rest. An offering of a free heart will I give thee. Ps. 54.6. Nothing doth more please God, nothing more benefits man, than an undaunted, willing, ready soul, and a generous confidence in God. Tergiversation, and giving back, argues a will nothing conformable to Gods. Therefore if at some time to be done, why not now? to get such a prompt mind for death is, to love and meditate on seriously the passion of our Lord, which every day is to be considered on with Prayers. The second, a speedy and expedite dispatch and disposing of our debts, and goods by will. It is an error not to think of making our wills until Death be entered over the threshold. Discharge thy debts, dispose thy goods, before Pale grimfaced death doth come to knock at door. Saint Ambrose hath given us an excellent rule and method for the disposing of our own goods. Let there be (saith he) sincerity of faith, quick sighted providence: or let charity be joined with prudence, and prudence linked to charity: and let him that giveth an Alms, or taketh care that it be given, let him do, that God may accept of the gift and the person giving. The third is a special care of our salvation, let that be reckoned of in the first place One thing is necessary. Luk. 10.42. Bl ssed Saint Augustine (the pattern of well dying men) ten days before his Death, admitted no Visitants, only at a set hour his Physician, and a servant which brought in his diet: and he himself was poured out in prayers, tears, and sighs, he conversed with GOD, concerning his life, and l●ft admonishments to us in these words, Nullus Christianorum, etc. Let no Christian departed hence until he have fully and worthily repent him of his sins. The fourth is the receiving of the Communion; and to this the sick party should be ready and prepared, this great work should not be too long put off, nor deferred till Death have possessed him, it is dangerous to neglect this: many die ill, because they seem to desire, not to die so soon; he that will earnestly repent him of his sins, let him do it early, and contrition of spirit is excellent to a sick man's salvation The fifth is a pious and entire oblation of himself to God's good will. Every man perhaps cannot exhibit a mind undaunted in sickness, but every man aught to show a mind conformable to the will of God. Let therefore the sick party often in the time of his visitation repeat these words of our Saviour. Mat. 11.26. Even so Father, because it seemed good in their eyes. So (o Father) even so, etc. There is no fear of that man's perishing, who so effectually can reconcile himself with the Judge. § 2. How to recover time ill spent and lost. WHosoever desires earnestly to redeem lost time, let him turn away himself from all vanities, and seriously meditate upon Eternity, in which he shall see God: and in Him all things are to be f●und, and recovered that are lost: here let him fix his thoughts and express himself to God in these or the like terms. O my eternal God I do hearty wish, that from the day of my birth to the day of my day h; I had lived before thee in pureness, obedience, and holiness: o would to God I had lived as all those men did, who by following the practice of grace and virtue, did please God in all their trials and troubles. o! that I could for thy love weep myself into tears, and be always helpful to the poor and needy; o! that I could afford comfort to the comfortless! and love thee with that ardency that all thy blessed Saints and Angels do! for it is fit and due that all praises should be given to thee. And now o my God have mercy upon me according to thy infinite wisdom and good pleasure. Of such the Psalmist hath pronounced, that they shall die full of days, now (as Gregory saith) They die in a full age, who do that work in this passing and fleeting time, which will never fade or pass away, He hath recovered and repaired time that was lost, who hath truly sorrowed, that he hath lost it. § 3. How a short life is to be made long. A Well minded man must look, not how long he can live, but how long he ought to live: the Wise man says, Wisd. 4.13. He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time. Well may he say, he hath lived long, which comprehends all perfection: for he hath finished his course, which passeth to Eternity? he lives long who hath lived religiously; we are not to reckon long life by the number of years, but by the number of virtues: he may worthily be said to have finished his time, which at no time would lose or leave his piety, his goodness: therefore an unwearied care and study of profiting and going on in goodn sse; and a daily endeavour to perfection, is reputed and esteemed perfection itself. § 4. There is an end of all things, bu● Eterni●y is endless. WHy may we not be cheerful and sing some Elegies to, or before a sick man, especially if it be the custom of the place? jacoponus an holy man of life, wri● certain merry Verses, in which very pleasantly he hath described the vanities of the world, and the precipices of Death, and I have here Englished them. 1 Cur Mundus militat sub vana glori● Cujus prosperitas est transi●oria? Tam citò labitur ejus potentia, Quam v●sa figuli, quae sunt fragilia. Englished. Why wars and strives the World for such vain glory Whose great prosperity is transitory? So soon and sooner doth her power decay Then Potter's vessels or frail things of clay. 2 Dic ubi Salomon olìm tàm nobilis Vel ubi Sampson dux invincibilis, Vel pulcher Absalon, vultu mirabilis Vel dulcis, Jonathan multùm amabilis. Englished. Tell me where's Solomon that King so wise, Or where now that stout Champion Samson lies, Or where is Absalon so fair to th' sight, Or where is jonathan so lovely bright? 3 Quo Caesar ab●it Celsus Imperio, Vel Dives Epulo totus in prandio, Dic ubi Tullius claus el●quio, Vel Aristoteles summus ingenio? Englished. Where is that lofty royal Caesar gone, Or where that purpled, rich, high fed Glutton, Where's Tully who in Eloquence did abound, Or Aristotle for his wit renowned. 4 Tota clari Proceres, tot rerum spatia, Tota ora Praesulum, tot Regna fortia, Tota mundi Principes, tanta potentia, In ictu oculi clauduntur omnia. Englished. So many high born Nobles, so grea● things, So many Clergiemen, so many Kings, So many Princes, so great Powers so high, Are all shut up in th'twinkling of an eye? 5 Quàm breve festum est haec mundi gloria, umbra hominis sunt ejus gaudia, Quae semper subtrahunt aeterna praemia, In ictu oculi clauduntur omnia. Englished. How short's the Feast of worldly glory found; Our joys are but as shadows on the ground, They do subtract from our reward on high. And are shut up in th' twinkling of an eye. All these are true, and most true is that, that they are all so soon concluded, and shut up. It is the saying of Saint Gregory, All the length of the time of this present life is but a point, being it is terminated with an end. And he confirms it again, saying, Whatsoever hath a period is but little and short. For that cannot seem to us to be long, that goes on with the course of time, till it be not: which, while it goes on by minutes, is driven on by them to its end: and may be discerned from whence it may be h●ld, but is driven thither, where it cannot be held. Saint Augustine most clearly, All the time (I speak not of this present unto the end of the World), but even of that from Adam to the end of the World, is but as a little drop compared to Eternity. All things have an Ex t, but Eternity hath none, none a● all. In the World there is no h●ng whose end is not near? Banquets and Dances end, all sports and laughters end, but never Eternity. In a moment Vessels and Ships where they were but even now becalmed and safe at Anchor, presently after are sunk and perish. The swarming Theatres for pastimes do suddenly fall. In a trice all pleasures have their vanishing. In a minute all things shall have a grave. Why do we therefore follow, and pursue such short vanities? That cannot delight a noble spirit, which is not durable: all things are concluded in the twinkling of an eye. Whatsoever had beginning shall have end. Only Ete●ni●y is void of a period. § 5. The consideration of a dying Man. JOb that M●ster of patience saith, The waters wear the stones, job ●4. 19, ●0. and as the earth is washed away by the floods, so shalt thou destroy man, Thou strengthenest him by little and little, and so he passeth away for ever, Thou changest his beauty, and sendest him away. What a few Ceremonies doth God use, when he sends men out of this World into another? He doth but change his beauty, and so he is commanded to be gone elsewhere. Then, certainly when Death calls, the beauty is wholly changed; and as Hypocrates in his book of Prenotations observes, Man is altered, as it were clean contrary to what he was, his Nose is sharp, his Eyes are hollow, and sunk into his Head, his Temples are fall'n, his Ears are drawn together, the ends of them turned backwards, the skin of his forehead hard and rough with wrinkles, his countenance is won and pale, with some yellows, sometimes like lead, black, blue, h●s lips are loosed, hanging with weakness whitish, his teeth are black, his neck is consumed and grown lean, all things are changed; so that he seems (as it were) to be another person; so when God hath changed a man's countenance, he sends him to his long home. Pass on (o man) pass on to thy house of eternity from such a little-little point of time, so many Volumes of Ages depend, which are not to be reckoned up by any date of time. § 6. We ought to prepare for Death before it comes. IT was a wise man saying, Moriendum esse, antequam mori cogaris, (i. e) that thou shouldst die before thou be compelled to die. S. Paul did ●ot only do so once, or often, but daily: affirming that of himself, I die daily. 1 Cor. 15 3. Gregory the Great, the higher he gained preferment in the Church, the more glorious beams of Sanctity did he send forth; this most vigilant Pastor did seem to be dead before death, for not long before his Obits, he himself described his own condition. Such bitterness of spirit, such an assiduous grievance, such molestation of the Gout do afflict me, that my body is as even dried up already in the grave, so that I cannot rise up from my bed. Cosmus Med●ces being at the p●int of death, when as he was asked of his wife, why he shut his eyes before he was dead, Answered, I do accustom them to that, that when they shall be shut up by death they may bear it well. This is an excellent kind of death, then to shut our eyes especially, when any deadly pleasure doth entice them: be sure thou dost die, lest thou shouldst die, o shut them betimes. Wisely did Seneca advise Lucilius, Do that before the day of thy death, let thy sins be dead before thyself. § 7. Those that buried themselves. PAcuvius being Governor in Syria for Tiberius Caesar, did daily so give himself to wine and feast, that as he was carried to his bed from Supper, his servants wi●h great applause sung these words to him, Vixit, vixit, (i. e.) He hath lived, he hath lived. What was this, but every day to be carried about to his burial? Seneca said well of him, That (saith he) which he did daily out of an ill conscience, let us do by a good one, that when we are gone to bed, and about to sleep, with comfort and rejoicing we may say: We have lived: if God shall lend us the next morning, let us entertain it with cheerfulnessee. His a blessed and secure Possessor of himself, who expects the next morning without distrust or distraction. Labienus the Historian for his inveighing writings termed Rabienus, was so hated that all his Books were burnt, Labienus not enduring this, and not willing to outlive his wit, did desire to be carried out, and buried in the Sepulchre of his Ancestors where he did end and bury himself, and what is wonderful, lived when he was buried, and was buried while he lived Storax a Ne●politan not long since, a very rich man, delicate, and a prou●, Governor or Overseer for the yearly provision of Corn, having got this office by base and indirect means, the common people hated him exceedingly, so that being overcome with hunger, they fell violently upon the man: he seeking to escape their fury and rage, did hid himself in a Sepulchre in a Church, but at last being found, and beaten with stones, was cut into small Gobbets, and his very blood was licked up of many, so that his bones wanted a Grave. He had this Epitaph made upon him. Storax qui vivus subjit sepulchrum, Mirum, defunctus caruit sepulchro. (i.e.) Storax who living went into his grave Strange, that being dead, no sepulchre could have Albertus the Great leaving Rati●bon●, came to Collen, where though strictly being devoted to Mortification and Contempt of this World, so that he forgot all worldly delights, yet would he continually visit the place of his intended burial. Severus Precedent of Ravenna, while he was healthy went into his Tomb, and placing himself in the middle betwixt his wife which he had, had and his daughter, there died. Philo●omus of Galata is said to dwell six years amongst the graves of the dead, Palladius c. 13. that by this means he might overcome the fear of death. Polemon of Laodicea, Suidas V Pole. (as Suidas witnesseth) the Scholar of Timocrates the Philosopher, the Master of Aristides the Orator, being 56 years of age cast himself into a deep Sepulchre being urged thereunto by the bitter pains of the Gout, and there died of hunger: and before his death his friends, and neighbours lamenting his case, desired him to come forth by their help, it is reported of him that he answered them thus, Provide me a more healthy body, and I will come up. We may wonder at these but not imitate them, unless in this manner, Colos 3. as (Saint Paul speaks) ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. That Philosopher's counsel is good. Vive latens, (i.e.) live hid. For as another said, He lives well, that lives retiredly. This man may be said to be profitably dead and buried, the private life is freest from encumbrances and inconveniences. Whose life is to public, often dies unknown to himself. The private life is fullest of quietness. § 8. A consideration of our Sepulchre. Phthia pro sepulchro, TErtia me Phthiae tempestas laeta locabit: Englished. The third great sickness shall Give me a glad funeral. Thus said Socrates presaging of his own death, this word Phthia, is meant for nothing else but the Coffin or the grave, to which all must come. No house may so truly be said to be ours, as our graves. This jacoponus a religious man and pleasant taught by a witty Act of his, A Citizen of Todi in Vmbria, had bought two young Chickens being about to send them home, by chance he espied jacoponus in the Market, to whom he turning said, I pray you do me that favour and kindness as to car y ●hese two Chickens home to my house, and be sure you leave them there and do not deceive me, Trust me (saith he) I will do as you have bidden me, and I w●ll carry them indeed unto the house, and so forthwith taking them, went directly to his Parish Church, and came to his Sepulchre which was reserved for him, and in that (as well as he could) he hide the two Chickens. Well the Citizen coming home to his house, presently asked for his two Chickens, his servants all deni d flatly, that they saw no such thing brought thither; so the Citizen going again into the Market, met Jacoponus again, And said to him, I thought indeed that thou wouldst not do as thou shouldst, and that thou wouldst deceive me, but tell me in earnest where are my Chickens? to whom jacoponus replied, I carried them to your house as you commanded me, but said the other all my servants and household know n● s ch matter: Come along with me (good man) replied jacoponus, and I will make it appear to be true before your own eyes. So he forthwith brought him into the Church, and to his own Sepulchre, and having removed a little stone (he said) and friend is not this your house? so the Citizen was struck with the Action and received his Chickens, with this witty admonition. job spoke most truly, I know thou wilt deliver me to death, where every man living finds his house. § 9 Nine forms of wills, or Testaments PLinius junior said true, that what was commonly reported for truth was false, that every man's will was the looking glass of his life and manners. 1 Ziska a Bohemian Leader, a great Soldier, and a resolute Commander, by his Will bequeathed his body to Birds or Beasts, and he wished his Soldiers to make a Drum head of his skin, and wished them not to spare the Covents or Monasteries, which they did accordingly. He died in the year 1424. 2 A certain foolish woman gave by Will to her Cat five hundred Crowns, that her Cat might have means to feed upon. Oh the madness! oh the folly of divers folks! It was Caesar Augustus that said of Herod, It was better to be Herod. Hog then his Son: and who may not as well say of this foolish woman, It is better to be her Cat, than her Servant. 3 A great Usurer being about to die, having called the Scrivener, and witnesses, was desirous to make his last Will, which he did in form following. Let my ●o●y be laid into the earth from whence it was taken, and let my soul be given to the Devils, at the hearing of which words his friends and all that were about him bebegan to wonder, and began to admonish and to chide him, but he repeated i● again and again. Let my soul (said he) be given to Devils, because I have gotten my Goods by unjust means as by oppression, extortion and the like: and let the Devils likewise take the souls of my wife and children, because they forced me to take so much usury to maintain their pride and clothing, and banqueting, and luxury, and he said it and died. o wretched man, thou madest these thy heirs, fearful to think of thy estate. 4 Saint Hierome doth stop the greedy covetousness of heirs with this Apology. A little Hog seemed to grunt and repine at his Sires death, but when he had heard the Will read, and perceived that he had a great heap of Acorns, and certain measures of Corn bequeathed to him, he was still; being asked why he did so suddenly refrain his tears and grief? Answered, the Acorns and the Corn had stopped his Cry. Truly here is the Weeping of many Heirs even to this day, but when they hear what portions, what household stuff, what moneys and other legacies are bequeathed to them, they are presently glad, and care not much for the life of the Testator. 5 Hieron a Martyr the fourth day before he was brought out to suffer, bequeathed all his goods to his mother and sister; and his hand which was to be cut off, to Rusticius of Ancyra. 6 Hilarion at the age of 80 years appointed by Will to be his Heir, Hesychius (who was absent) in this manner following. All my wealth, to wi●, my Bible, my Coat, and my Hood, I bequeath to my loving friend Hesychius, this was the catalogue of all his householdstuff. 7 Anthony the Great made his will in this manner, No man knows the place of my Tomb, but your hearty love, but for my vestments let them be thus divided; my Hood and my worn Coat I give to Athanasius, which he gave to me new, S. Athan. in vit. A●●. ●. 58 let Serapion have my other Hood, and you my Goat's hair garment: and so farewell o ye my bowels, for Anthony is going from hence: He had scarce ended these words, and his Scholars embraced him, stretching out his feet a little he embraced death with a cheerful countenance. 8 john Patriarch of Alexandria, called the Elemosynary, writ his last Will in Tables in these words I thank thee (o my God,) that thou wouldst not let me have of all my treasure but only one piece left, when I was named Patriarch of Alexandria, I found 80 hundred of Gold, and to them my friends added almost an innumerable sum of money, which all, because they were Gods, I did give them to God, for I bestowed them on the poor, and so shall even that one piece that's left be likewise given to them. Here that is most true. That the most expedite and quickest way to make a Will, is to give all the rest to the poor. 9 Here shall be added the form of a Will for any Christian, only let the name, year and day be only altered, all things else will suit and fit to all sorts of men. I Achatius Victor do make spe●d to Eternity, from the year 1581., from the 15 day of the month of August, I have had my mind fixed on Eternity. Now I commend my spirit to God, and because I cannot but commit my substance to the World, I do commit my body to worms and corruption; of all worldly goods none are mine, only ●y good will, which I carry with me to the Tribunal of Go●, my other things I thus dispose. 1 I forgive all mine Enemies with all my heart. 2 I am hearty sorry for all my sins and offences. 3 I believe in Jesus Christ my most loving Redeemer, and I desire to die in the faith of h●s Church. 4 I do hope to have everlasting life by the infinite goodness of God. 5 I do love God with all my heart, and above all things, and I do wholly resign myself into the most holy will of God. 6 I am fully prepared to be well or sick, to live or die, whensoever it shall seem good to God, Let Gods will be done. Unless every Christian do so dispose of his life and death, he may be censured to die worse, than he hath lived, The last hour perfects and consummates, but it makes not, death § 10. Nine Epitaphs. AVlus Gellius propounds to be read, the proud Epitaph of Naevius, the most vain one of Plautus, A. Gellius l. 1. c. 24. the modest one of Pacuvius, but we pass to others. 1 In one of the prime Cities of Germany, there are two Tombs near to one another, one of an old man, another of a young man, many would think at the first reading their Epitaphs to be the same. The old man's Tomb bears this Inscription, Et mortuus est. (i.e.) And he is dead. which is the Epitaph of Adam, and divers others: and the same words are upon the Tomb of the young man, Et mortuus est? And is he dead? Now the Reader in the Latin must observe that the old man's is with a period, but the young man's with an Interrogation. So that a wise man will expound the old man's thus. This old man saw many Summers and Winters, and ●eath seemed because it deferred so long as though it would have spared him, for he had experienced many things, he had gone through ma●y miseries and changes of this life: but yet at length through all these years he is brought to his Coffin and dust, Et mortuus est. And is dead. Now he that will wisely understand the young man's Epitaph, must read it Interrogatorily, thus. This young man was eminent for wealth, for beauty, for strength of body, beloved of the Muses and Apollo, the White Chicken both of the graces and fortune, not yet 20 years old, secure from the Grimface of pale Death, he looked as if he would have proved immortal, and as though he would have deceived all the Fates, and is he dead? That that old decrepit man should be dead few grieve, none do wonder, but that this flourishing young man should be taken away all men wonder, most men sorrow: and could such a beautiful, gracious, active young man dies and is he dead? all men seek and blame the destinies for being so impartial. To his I do add another, not to be numbered amongst the rest, but only place it to exercise the wi●s of some, as well as it hath tired the wits of others, it is to be seen in Bononia, the words of the Epitaph are these. A M. PP. D. Alia, Laelia, Crispis, nor man, nor woman, nor Hermaphrodite, not a maid, not a young man, not an old woman, not shamefast, nor shameless, but all things not ●aken away by famine, not by sword, nor by poison, but by all things, nor is buried in the air, nor in the water nor earth, but every where. Lucius Agatho Priscius, nor an husband, nor a lover; nor a servant, nor sorrowing, nor rejoicing, nor weeping, who knows and knows not, nor this heap, nor this Pyramid, nor this Sepulchre, but all things, that are placed. This is a Sepulchre having nobody within it, this is a carcase not having any Sepulchre without it, but the carcase and the Sepulchre are the same to themselves. Some have taken this Enigmatical Epitaph, to mean the soul of man, some the water of the clouds, others Niobe turned into a Stone, others have imagined otherwise. Some have written Commentaries on it, as joannes Turius of Brudges, and Richard White of Basingstoke in England, a Lawyer, whose book was printed at Dordrecht, by john Leo Berewout, Anno 1618. But to let these shadows and clouds pass, we will put our wit to exercise in more plainer paths, and the reason why we interlace our discourse with these, is 〈◊〉 because we would not too deeply affright or terrify our studious Reader, and that we may keep him from disdain or disliking when he is weary; that we may therefore behold the customs, and the wholesome admonitions of the dead look upon another Epitaph, which is to be seen at Naples, in these words. 2 This Marble memory is here placed for me, yea, Reader for thee also, whosoever thou art, watch whilst thou wakest, and make seasonable haste to thy work, no man knows the set time. Farewell. 3 The stone of Cajeta, exhibits this short Inscription. Fui, non sum ●estis non eritis; Silvius Palladius moriens viveret, Vixit at moriturus. I was, am no●: You are; shall not be. Silvius Palladius Who that He might live dead, Did live as always dying. I will not omit that most short yet pleasant one of M. Posthumius a Knight. M. Posthumius a Knight Wither I go, I know not, I die of necessity, Farewell all, that are behind. 5 To learn us in the first place wisdom, and to make us despise vanity, this Epitaph following bestowed on a religious and nobly descended Gentleman will serve fitly. Ah Traveller! stay and read, I desire a word with thee. In my life I placed this stone here against the time of my death, who lie here in a narrow space, and here in the dust and darkness do expect thee (o my Guest) and the last Trumpet of the Angel at the day of judgement: but perhaps thou mayst ask my offspring; I am one of the latter sons of Red Earth. So thou mayst inquire my Country; It was the World. My learning, it was a shadow; my reputation; It was smoke my Age, Alas! a point, or if a little more produced, a minute. Wouldst thou know my wealth? 'Twas poverty, My Honours? 'twas contempt. My liberty? it was flattery. My desire? 'twas death, and true life after death, which I hope I, and thou shall enjoy. Be gone, and remember death. 6 I will annex that sad and truly lamentable one, an Epitaph of a Brother who was killed by his brother. Alas! alas! Here I am laid a young man, before my time Death's scorn, a Brother's Funeral, a Father's grief, a Mother's tears, the Muse's lamentation, an example to young men, a sigh for old men, rottenness, ashes, nothing to myself, but what to God? Ah! Traveller why enquirest thou? alas, now shall I hear what I fear, what I hope for, to morrow thou mayest know, travel on oh curious Citizen. Richardus de Marisco, Bishop of Durham, writ his own Epitaph, an holy one, and in those times witty and pleasant: It bears this inscription. Culmina qui cupitis, laudes pompasque sititis, Est sedata sitis, si me pensare velitis; Qui populos regitis, memores super omnia si is: Quod mor● immitis non parcit honore potitis. Vobis praepositis similis fueram; bene scitis. Quod sum vos eritis, ad me currendo ven●tis. Englished. You who preferments do desire Who for high praise are set on fire, Your Thirst would quickly quenched be If that you would consider me. You, by whom people stout are checked Be mindful always, ne'er neglect: That cruel death no whit regards Your Honours or your rich reward. For I have been like you in grace, (Grave Prelates) and as chief in place; For you shall be even as I am You run and haste unto the same. This in those times was of singular wit and learning, and savours still of mortification; now I add the Monument of a learned man. justus Lipsius known by his writings, speaks thus from his sepulchre to the living. Seekest thou, who lies here buried? I myself will rehearse it to thee. I was one who of late spoke with style and tongue, now it shall be lawful for another. I am Lipsius whom learning and thy favour may cause to live. But I dying am gone, so shall this also; and this world possesseth nothing that is everlasting. Wilt thou that I speak in a higher voice to thee? All humane things are but smoke, shadows, vanity, the Image of a Play, and to speak in a word, nothing: this is my last conference with thee, I would have thee hope, I am in glory. justus Lipsius lived 59 years, he died in the year of Christ 1606, on the passion day of our Saviour. So then both learned, and unlearned, rich and poor at length have all one Epitaph, which Moses hath writ for them. Gen. 5. sapius. Et mortuus est, (i. e.) he is dead. Emperors at their first Inauguration were asked, what kind of stone they would have their sepulchre made off? The same thing almost do I (o Reader) inquire of thee. Choose, what form of Epitaph pleaseth thee best? Wilt thou, nilt thou, some or other will do this for thee, though against thy will, and will speak of thee when thou art dead, though living thou hadst rather be silent, then writ Funeral Elegies or Epitaphs. I will here exhibit a form of a sepulchral Inscription which I do think profitable for me, for thee o Reader, and for most Christians, at least for meditation, only change but a few things, and this it is. Whosoever thou art (o Reader) I have something to seek out of thee. 9 Knowest thou who may dwell in this narrow prison under ground? I am the son of corruption, and the brother of worms: This is my stock, ask not after my name, that's vanished with my life, which I spent after many tears and weak endeavours in books, which almost I shut up with my life (o Guest) would I had now given myself more to virtue, less to vices, o would I had before my death died more in my affections, now thou mayest, I cannot perform it. Whosoever thou art, for I cannot see in this darkness; whilst thou canst, be ripe for death, before thy death, by this means thy life will be more comfortable, by how oftener thou art in this exercise. Farewell (Reader) till the Trumpet shall sound from Heaven, at which time I do expect a joyful resurrection. But lest we should be ignorant, that it is not purple adornments, funeral pomp, nor the silken covering, nor the long train of mourning friends, nor the brave Coats of Arms, nor the greatness of Kindred, nor the praises of the vulgar, not the wife's lamentations, nor the funeral Sermon, nor the title of the dead, though seeming to live in Marble (for they have their Obit● too) nor all these make an happy death, but grace and virtue, and a mind, not broken nor terrified withal the threaten of death, to have lived well and uprightly, is the fairest Epitaph of all others. § 11. Nine Reasons to prswade us to die with a resolved mind. ABove all things meditate and seriously think on the death of thy Saviour, 1 Reas. and thou wilt then bear thine comfortably. Compare, I beseech, thy Bed to his Cross, thy Couches with his Crown of thorns, thy meat with his gall, thy drink to his Vinegar, thy griefs with his torments, Thou art amongst thy Friends & Kindred, he in the midst of his enemies, thou art among all the hands for help, but he was left of all, land so died: for the recovery of thy health, what medicines, and helps are not used? but he had nothing to quench his thirst. Yet he was Lord and chief, thou but a servant, the lowest, the vilest: all things that were laid upon him, he was guiltless off, and deserved them not; All things that thou sufferest, thou standest guilty off, and more. Wherefore thou hast no just cause to complain. 2 Cause. 2 The chiefest favour of the greatest King, is a good death, but to die well is to avoid the danger of living ill. Now he dies well, who dies willingly. Who would not willingly rise from a rough hard bed? only they refuse it who are laid warm in a soft Featherbed: if thy life here had been full of grievances, evils and miseries, how willing wouldst thou be to pass to a better? if thy life hath been prosperous and rich, it is high time that thou shouldst end, for fear prosperity, which hath destroyed so many, should also ruin thee: Death is the most unwelcome to ri●h men. Croesus had not come to the fire, but for his wealthy old age. Many slaves (had they died) in their youth, had died freeborn. Ah! how many and how great men who are condemned in eternal flames! whom, if death had taken from hence in their infancy or youth, had enjoyed glory and immortality. 3 It is the joy of all the Angels and Saints to have us with them: but say you, then must we leave all our friends and associates here. O improvidently! Thou art going to them. Thy parents where are they? Hopest thou not that they are in Heaven? And that thou shalt also come thither. Dost thou not also believe t●at many of thy Kindred and acquaintance are in joy Celestial? And dost not thou live here in ho●e to pass from hence to them? but these things are not certain, they are only in hope; 'tis true, neither doth any man hope for what he fetch or possesseth; & therefore God hath afforded thee matter to exercise this Virtue. He hath commanded thee to hope for Heaven, never did he will thee or promise thee security, but thou mayest certainly know thyself to be carried thither in hope, whereinto yet thou canst not see. The Creditor hath no reason to distrust a faithful debtor. I say it affirmatively, that God hath made himself the debtor to thee. Consider seriously whose Creditor thou art, did not he speak it with joy, who said, I know whom I have trusted. 2 Tim. 12 4 Think also, o man whose spirit droops or fails! that admirable alacrity, and ardent study and prompt willingness of the holy Martyrs for death, who lightly despised all the great preparations to death, who underwent the most cruelest torments even with smiling, and rejoicing countenances. Surely nor death nor the pain of it is terrible, only the fear of both makes both dreadful. Wherefore we praise him who said, Death is not an evil, but it is evil to die naughtily. Children are afraid of Vizards and Spirits, because of their unskilfulness●; is Death a Vizard? turn the inside outwards, and thou shalt know it to be so. Yet neither Infants, nor Children, nor distracted folks fear Death. It is most absurd that reason cannot perform that resolvedness in us, which folly and childishness leads us too. Death is a Tribute and Custom that all men must pay. Why therefore art thou sad and disconsolate, when as thou payest no more than thou owest? and dost no more than every man else performs? No man here can plead exemption, or privilege. No man hitherto hath gone , none ever shall: this is that hard Battle where none, none (I say) escape. The World (saith Saint Basil) is mortal, In Ps. 115 and the Region of dying creatures. 5. What is the continuation of the fear of Death, but the prolongation and extent of torment? Dost thou live long? Thou art long under pain, but (say you) I cannot but fear the danger that is imminent, although it comes on but with a slow pace. Then therefore cease to fear, when as there is in it, that good, that may remove, and will for certain take away all fear. Tertullian spoke admirably, That is not to be feared, that frees us from every thing that is fearful, But thou wilt say, it is a most fearful thing in a disease to see death creeping upon us by degrees. Oh thou worm! what wouldst thou? Did not thy Saviour for thirty three years and more foresee his death? And art thou better than he? but because thou dost not fear death, but the forerunning incommodities of it. Hear Epictetus, who saith; Thou goest not out with a good courage, but trembling, because of thy riches, silver vessels, and great friends: Oh unhappy man! Hast thou so hitherto lost all thy time? What if thou be sick? thou shalt learn to be virtuous by thy sickness. But who shall care for thee, wilt thou say? God and thy friends: but I shall lie hard, thou shalt but lie as a man; but I shall not have a commodious house; then knowest thou not how to be sick in inconveniences: but who shall prepare my diet for me? They who provide it for others, but what will be the issue of my sickness? What should be, but death? thou therefore canst not but know, that it is the sign of a degenerate spirit, and of a fearful heart to fear not death, but the fear of death. Exercise thyself therefore against this: to this mark let all thy disputatious tend, and all which thou hearest, or readest: than thou shalt know, that death is the only way to plant men into liberty. 6. How many evils doth death free thee from? to die is but to shut up the shop of all miseries. So that Pliny spoke well, Such is the condition of humane life, that death to the best men is the best Harbour: and the chiefest good for nature. Caesar speaks in Sallust, In all miseries, death is the Rest; not the augmentation of them, and that it concludes all the mischiefs that Mortals suffer. Therefore a wiseman esteems his life by the quality, not by the extent of it. For nature hath afforded us an Inn to lodge in, not to dwell in, and the usury of life is like that of money, to be always paid at the set time. Why, how canst thou complain, if money be taken in when the Creditor pleaseth, if he limited not the time? It was but the condition upon which thou receivedst it, to repay it at the pleasure of the lender. 7 In the passage to death the prison is set open, why fearest thou to go out? rather be glad, and be gone. Hitherto thou hast been a Captive, now thou shalt be free; the prison is now open, hast out. Why hast thou so long studied Philosophy? if yet thou fearest this Philosophy, to die? therefore receivedst thou this body, that thou shouldst restore it. And therefore shalt thou restore it, that thou mayest again receive it with great advantage. Oh how foolish is that man's hope, not to endeavour for that happiness! to departed with joy from hence, to that which always remains. The prison is open, fly aloft to better felicity. 8 Death is the road way, yea, it is the gate by which we are admitted into our Country▪ to eternal life, to immortal joy. Death is not so much the end of life, as it is the passage to life. Saint Bernard spoke true and elegantly, 'Tis true indeed the righteous man dies, but securely: because his death as it is the Exit of the present, so it is the Introite to a better life. 9 But the cause of causes is the divine will of God, whom it hath pleased from all Eterni●y, that thou shouldst die at such a time, such a place, such a disease. What wouldst thou more? so it pleased God, so it seemed good in his sight. This is that will which cannot, will not will, that which is ill. Therefore as the son of Syrach said, Ecclus 18 21. Humble thyself before thou be sick, and in the time of sins show repentance. Therefore I briefly reckon up all the Reasons thus, 1 Christ's death 2 The favour of God. 3 the joy of Angels and Sain●s. 4 The examples of those that have gone before us. 5 It is the end of all things to be feared. 6 It is the end of all evils. 7 It is going out of prison. 8 It is an ingress into paradise 9 It is the will of God. § 12. Death is not to be feared. Perform therefore (o Christian) that with willingness which must be done though against thy will. Those actions (though difficult) if done willingly seem easy and feasible, and where the will concurs, there it leaves to be necessity. A wise man instructs thee ●hus. Agree: to what thou canst not withstand, go on securely without fear. Nature is a bountiful parent, and makes not any thing dreadful, nor delights in it. It is the error of men, not provident Nature that makes Death seem terrible. We fear death not for that it is evil, but because we are not acquainted with it: but if thou hast any generous thoughts, or any noble or high resolutions, slight those vulgar and base conceits, and look upon high, and imitate those religious spirits, whose footsteps have been settled in the rode-way to Glory. We have innumerable examples and patterns of men whose deaths have been cheerful and happy. Be not daunted with the words of them which affirm death to be near at hand: Rather follow him amongst the Ancients who gave this reply to Death's Monitor, without any the least show of anger. Morieris, Thou shalt die. It is the nature not the punishment of man, Thou shalt die. I entered upon this condition that I should go out. Thou shalt die. It is the Law of Nations, that what thou hast lent thee, that thou must restore. Thou shalt die Thy whole life is but a pilgrimage, It is but comfortable when thou hast walked long abroad, that then thou shouldest return home. Thou shalt die. I thought thou wouldst have told me some new or strange thing, but as for this, I came for the same purpose hither, every day's travel invites me hither. Nature laid me out this stint at my birth. Why should I be angry? I am sworn to this. Thou shalt die. It's folly to fear what thou canst not avoid. Thou shalt die. Nor the first nor the last Many are gone before me, some go with me, all shall follow. Thou shalt die. This is the conclusion of all our work. Wither the Universe shall pass, thither must I. All things are begotten to this state. What hath had a bad beginning, must come to an end. Thou shalt die. That is not so grievous, which is but once suffered. It is Eternal that vex us. Certainly death is to be less feared now, then heretofore. For then the way to Heaven was blocked up; and all men grieved and sorrowed at this, that Noctes atque dies patet atri janua ditis. Hell gates are never shut nor night nor day. But we may sing this with joy, that, Noctes atque, dies patet alti janua Coeli. At all times unto Heaven's a ready way. Death therefore is to be entertained with an undaunted spirit, Wither it sets upon us violently, or easily; A virtuous life never thought ill of death, and that man loses nothing who gets all things. § 13. How the Saints of God may desire, yet fear Death. LEt us behold Saint Paul, (says Saint Gregory) how he loves that, which he avoids, and how he avoids that which he loves. Behold, he desires to die and fears to put off the tabernacle of flesh. Why so? Because although the victory makes his heart to rejoice, yet the pain doth trouble him for the present. As a valiant man who is to fight a Combat, though he be armed, yet he pants and trembles, and by his paleness discovers fear, yet he is mainly pricked forward by valour and courage: So a godly and holy man being near to his death and passion, is struck with the infirmity of his nature, yet is he strengthened with the firmness of his hope, and doth rejoice that by dying he shall live for ever. For he cannot enter into that Kingdom, but by the interposition of death: & yet he doubts and hopes and rejoicing fears, and fearing is glad, because he knows he cannot attain to the prize, unless he passeth this midway obstacle. Hence it is that even the holiest men have in some measure feared death's encounter. King Hezekiah in the increase of his sickness doth yet in tears lament, Esay 38.10 That in the midst of his days he shall go to the gates of Hell. What? did not the fear of death cause David to utter that speech, Psal. 102 25. Take me not away in the midst of mine age? What shall we say of Abraham jacob, Elias? Who as we are instructed by holy Writ, did something fear death. Elias flying from death, 3. Reg. 19 yet did entreat for it under the Juniper tree. Arsenius a man of an hundred & twenty years old, never assaulted with any disease, having served God fifty five years in a most austere life, being now at his departing, began to fear and we●p. Those that were present wondering at it, said; And do you (o Father) likewise fear death, to whom he answered, ever since I entered into the state of Religion, I have always f●ared. Seneca spoke excellently, often is it seen, that even the stoutest man though armed, yet at the first entrance into the Combat fears: so the resolutest Soldier at the signal of Battle, his knees and joints tremble: so it is with the greatest Commander, as also wi●h the famousest Orator at the composing himself to speak. This was observed in Charles the fifth Emperor, who, though he was courageous in all warlike Expeditions, though he was not overcome with the greatest dangers, nor frighted with the furiousness of warlike Chariots, nor ever shrunk his head out of the mainest hazards, yet for all that, at the putting on of his Armour he would something quake and shiver, and show signs of some fear, but when once his head piece was on, his sword girded to his thigh, his Coat of Mail upon him, he was as a Lion, and like a mighty man of valour would set upon the Enemy. Even so the best of men do desire and fear death, they would be gone out, but they tremble at it. But it is better to die with Cato, then to live with Anthony. He is Death's conqueror, who quietly gives up his Spirit when he is c●ld from hence. §. 14. An ill death follows an ill life. EVen as a tree falls that way, when it is cut down as it leaned, when it stood: so for the most part as we have liv●d and bend our courses, so do we departed. As we begun to go, so we continue a commendable death seldom shuts up a dishonest life. What things were pleasurable to us in the course of our lives, ee seldom dislike at the time of our deaths. A great Courtier of King Cenreds, who studied more to please his Sovereign then his Saviour, being at point to die, he did not only seem to neglect the care of his soul, but also to put off the time of his death, but he saw before him a great many wicked Spirits, expressing the Catalogue of all his heinous sins before him, at which sight in horror for them in despair he died While wicked Chrysaorius called out for a space, even for time but till the next morning, he departed. Herod Agrippa as his life was full of all impieties, so his death was miserable. So Herodias, a● History reports, who by dancing g t off john Baptists head, had her own head cut off by the ice. So jezabel and Athaliah Queens, so ●ing Benhadad, Balihazar, and Antiochus, with 600 more, as their lives were naught and wicked, so were their ends w etched and odious. The death of wise men is to be lamented, but much more the lives of the foolish, Psal 34.22. the death of sinners is the worst It being an irrevocable ingress of a most woeful eternity of torments. Foolishly doth he fear death, who neglects life. He who lives to luxury and rio, is dead while alive. § 15. A good death follows a good life. MOst truly said Saint Augustine, That cannot be reputed for a bad death, when as a good life hath always preceded. For nothing but the sequel of death proves it ill. A good crop of Corn doth seldom or never fail a plentiful sowing. A good life is the King's high way to a good Death. That is the beginning, middle, and end. I may compare life and death to a Syllogism. The conclusion is the end of the Syllogism, so death of life: but the conclusion is either true, or false; according to the nature of the Antecedents. So is Death always either good or bad, according to the quality of our precedent lives. So Saint Paul doth most severely pronounce it. Whose end (saith he) shall be according to their works. 2 Cor. 1. ● 15. It is reported of a certain man of a most devout life who was found dead in his study, with his body so seated, that his finger was upon the holy Bible, and upon that place, where it is said, if the just man shall be taken away by Death, he shall be in his refreshing: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints, whither it be slow or sudden. The mellifluous Saint Bernard, being now near to his dissolution, Thus spoke to his Scholars, because (quoth he) I leave you no great examples of Religion, yet three things I do seriously commend to you, which I have specially at all times observed, 1 To trust my own senses less than others. 2 That being hurt or injured by any, I never fought after revenge. 3 I never did willingly offend any man, whatsoever fell out cross and thwart, I pacified, as I could. Now being near Death, He w●it a Let●er to Arnaldus of Good-dale, to this effect, The spirit is ready, but the fl●sh is we k. P●ay you to our Lord Jesus, not to defer my exit, but keep me when I shall go; have a care to preserve with prayers your very footsteps, that when the betrayer shall come, he may find every part so well guarded, that he may have no place to fasten in you to wound you. Gerardus, both by nature & Religion, the brother of S. Bernard did publicly demonstrate the same which we here affirm, that a good death is always joined to a pious life, but let us hear Bernard himself in this point, whom sickness made wise. Would to God I had not lost thee, but only had sent thee before Would to God at last though slowly I might follow thee wheresoever thou art gone; for no doubt but thou art gone after them, whom about the midst of thy last night thou didst invite to praises, as well in words as countenance of gladness, and didst presently break out into that of the Prophet David, to the wonder of those that stood about thee. Praise the Lord from Heaven, praise him in the highest, o my brother, thy day sprung forth in the midst of thy night, that night was a time of illumination, and indeed thy night was turned to day I was called to behold that wonder, to see a man rejoicing in death, and triumphing over death; O Death where is thy victory? Death where is thy sting? Now thy sting is turned into a Jubilee of mirth. Now there was a man, who died singing, and sung dying, Thou art now o daughter of sorrow turned into gladness. Thou enemy of Glory art used for glory, and the gate to Hell and the pit to destruction are made the inlet into the Kingdom of Glory, and to the finding out of salvation, and that of a sinner and justly too; for that thou rashly didst use thy power against an innocent and just man; o Death thou art dead, and caught with the same hook thou so greedily swallowedst down, which voice is to be found in the Prophet. (O death I will be thy death, and will be thy destruction) struck through (I say) with that hook, the faithful p●ssing through thy loins, there is opened through thy sides an happy and joyful way to life. Gerard my bro her fears thee not, thou meager Effigies; Gerard my brother passeth through thee to hi● heavenly Country: not only securely but joyfully and cheerfully with praises. When as I was come, and he had come to the end of that Psalm with a loud voice, lifting up his eyes unto Heaven said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and often repeating the same word, Father, Father, and so turning himself with a cheerful countenance to me: what a dignation is it of God to vouchsafe to be our Father? What a glory is it to man to be the sons and heirs of God? He so sung that he turned my weeping into mirth, and beholding his comfortable joy, it made me almost forget my own misery. He cannot die ill who hath lived well. § 17. Like life, like death. WHen as the weary Huntsman's laid to sleep, Yet doth he dream how's chase and game to keep. To wit, what things we have been busied about all day, those usually we dream on at night: in like manner to what we have accustomed ourselves to through our lives, those like us best in death. Hence is it that for the most part as we have acted our parts here, so we go off from this stage of mortality. There is an History of a Goldsmith, who was so excessively covetous, that lying upon his deathbed he dreamt still of gold, insomuch that he neglected the advice of Divines and other his Friends concerning his salvation, and hourly had his heart fixed upon his money. O wretched man, hadst thou but one point of an hour to work out thy salvation, and yet couldst thou not think upon it? as our days have been employed, so will even our last of time: therefore those who have made Gold their God, or pleasures or other vanities, their last end are seldom pious or comfortable. How much better did Socrates who even at last gasp could not forget himself nor virtue. Antiochus' King of Syria did most miserably vex the jews, and Maximinus the Emperor with cruel Edicts, and most bitter tormen s resolved to put out the name of Christianity; but both of them by the divine Justice fell into a most lamentable and grievous disease, and when as neither of them had any hopes of life left them, the one besought the jews, the other, the Christians; that they would pray for them unto their God. Both of them like to Asops' Crow, which when she was very ill, spoke to her Mother not o lament for her, but by her prayers to the Gods, she entreated her to pray for her health, to whom the other answered, which of the Gods is it, from whom thou hopest to be recovered, when as there is none from whose Altars thou hast not stole some part of a Sacrifice. Hence even as we live so we die: and so we shall be judged at last, either to punishment in hell, or to everlasting happiness in Heaven. § 17. The wish for a good death. Num. 23.10. LEt me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end, be like to his, Calls out the Prophet Balaam. How much righter had he spoken, had he said, Let me live the life of the righteous, that my death may then be like his. It is ridiculous to desire to have a good death, and yet to shun a pious life; to live well is laborious, to die well happiness; but the latter depends on the former. He which refus●th to pass through the Red Sea, shall never eat Manna, He which loves Egypt's slavery, shall never enter into the Land of the living Piously and elegantly in this respect doth S. Bernard speak, utinam (inquit) hac morte frequenter cadam, God grant I may often fall by that death, that so I may escape the s●ares of death, that I may not be entangled in the mortiferous flatteries of a luxurious life, that I may avoid the sense and deceitful pleasures of lust; that I be not overcome with covetousness: that I be not stirred and moved to anger, to impatience; that I be not overwhelmed with the vexings and distraction of worldly cares and sollicitudes That death is good, which takes not life away, but changes it only into a better. This for certain is that death, that he expects and waits for with all his desires who eagerly pursues that life which shall never know death. To be dead to sins before death comes, is the best death of all. § 18. Sleep is the brother of death. Pausanias' relates that in the City Olympia, he saw a Statue, called Night, in the form and habit of a woman, This held in her right hand a white youth a sleep, and in her l●ft hand a black youth as if he were sleeping, the one of these she called sleep, the other death, both of them were counted the sons of Night: hence Virgil makes sleep to be Death's Kinsman. Gorgias Leontinus, being very old, and expecting that he was come to the mark of his life, was suddenly snatched away by a contrary sickness: before his death one of his friends gave him a Visit, and found the good old man fall'n into a sleep. When he wakened he asked him how he did find himself? to whom Gorg●as replied, this sleep gins to deliver me up to his brother, (meaning death.) Whosoever is a good Christian will never permit sleep to pass upon him, before he hath convented his own conscience, and ha●h washed away his offences by a godly sorrow: many have begun to sleep and to die at once, and have ended their lives with their sleep, and therefore we are to look well to sleep which is death's brother, and as strictly as we can, not to go to it warily only, but also chastely. He which sleeps not in chastity, shall not rise in chastity. § 19 The Forerunners of Death. DEath is the forerunner of Eternity, dolours and diseases are the most known Harbingers of death If we will credit Pliny, one manifest sign of death is in the height of sickness to laugh; in some diseases, an unequal and prickling; striking of the veins, and the eyes and the nose afford to us certain signs of death, according to Pliny's experience, these are Indices of approaching death, when the sick party discourseth of journeys, when he will not abide in his bed, when he folds the coverlid, or when he pulls hairs out of it. There are beside these many other signs of death not counted vain, or false. Augustus' the Emperor a little before he died, complained that he was taken away by forty young men, That was rather a presage as Suetonius reports of death then of a distracted mind, for when he was dead, he was brought forth by forty Praetorian Soldiers. When Alexander the Great was about to sail to Babylon, there was a great wind which took away the ornament of his head, and the Dia 'em bound to it; the tire fell into the water, and the Diadem hung unto a Fen-cane, one of the Sailors went to fetch this, and because he would not have it wet, put it upon his head, and so brought it to Alexander; the Sailor had a Talon given him for a reward: but presently after, by the advice of the Chaldees, his head was struck off, nor did Alexander long escape death, which the Diadem taken from his head portended. In the year of Christ 1185, when that great and last overthrow was near to Andronicus Cominaeus the Emperor, the Image of S. Paul placed by the Emperor in a Temple in Constantinople, wept abundantly; nor were those tears false presages for presently after the Emperor's blood was shed. Moreover, Princes and great men have had strange presages of their deaths, as the howl of Dogs unusual, the roaring of Lions, the strangeness of the striking of Clocks, Nightly noises in Towers, and many other infallible signs of ensuing deat●. How innumerable are the signs of death (says Pliny) and certain, but not one of security, or health? What do all they teach us, but this one thing, let us remember that we are but men. Think on Eternity why her thou art posting, thou must be gone shortly, thou art but a guest. Inquire the way. Look thou be'st ready: thy self for to appear before the Lord's Tribunal. How thou hast lived, so even so shalt thou be judged. § 20. What we must answer to Death's Messenger. BLessed Sain● Ambrose, having received the Ambassador of death, when as his friends wept and sorrowed, and desired him to pray to God to spare him a longer life, he answered them. I have not so lived as that it shames me to live longer, nor do I fear to die because we have such a Good Lord. Saint Augustine did much regard this wise saying, and commended them to his Scholars as pure and savoury words, And S. Augustine himself was nothing troubled at the hearing of death, but said what great man can conceit any proud or great thing? when as men do die well as trees do fall, and other creatures. That golden-mouthed Father Saint chrysostom a little before his death, when he was in banishment, writ thus to Innocentius, this now is the third year that we have endured banishment, being exposed to pestilence, famine, war, to continual incursions, to unspeakable solitariness: to daily death to the Heathens swords, and being about to die, he fairly pronounced these words, Glory be to thee (o Lord) for all things. Saint Cyprian being condemned to death for Christian Religion with a noble spirit said thus, Thanks be given to God, who vouchsafeth to take me out of the bonds of this bo●y. Let the dying man imitate these holy Fathers, & let him often say this, God be thanked, Glory be to God for all things, I have watched long enough amongst thorns, I have fought enough with beasts, I have toiled enough in tempests. Now because I see an end of my watching, of my fightings, and of my labour, God be thanked, Glory be to God for all things. For certain Death is an advantage to the wise, and a gain to them whose lives are irksome. § 21. A sweet death but the worst death of all. GEorge Duke of Clarence, was by his brother Edward the fourth King of England, for suspicion of a●e●ting the Crown commanded to die: yet he had liberty given to choose his own death: and he chose a most sweet death, for he caused a Butt of Malmsey, to be filled, and so placed himself in it, and others softly and leisurely let him blood, and he all the while ●ucking in leisurely the sweet liquor: So he left this life being at last drowned in this swe●t but fatal ba h. If we look but upon the manners of men, alas! how many by ingurgitating themselves with pleasures intemperately, by drinking and gluttony do even drown themselves, but while they so do suck in with eagerness, while they give their whole souls to draw in these vain, short, filthy, irksome delights: alas! wretches as they are, they do by little and little drink down their own destruction, making themselves slaves to their bellies and filthy lusts; and by how much the more greedily they do swallow down these sugared baits, the sooner go they to the land of darkness, a● job hath it, They spend their days in mirth, and in a moment go down to Hell. Most elegantly S. Augustine, all things (saith he) are utterly uncertain, but death; a child is conceived, perhaps it is born, perhaps not, but perisheth an abortive: if it be borne, perchance it groweth perchance not, it may be old, perhaps not, it may be rich, it may be poor, it may be honoured, it may be an abject It may marry, perhaps not, it may have children, perchance none, it may be sick, it may be devoured by beasts, it may escape. But amongst all these perhaps and perchances, ●in we truly say, perhaps or perchance it shall die? It is recorded in the Maccabees of Alexander, 1 Mac. 1 6. and his fate is thus there described: and after all these things he fell down on his bed, and knew that he should die. Oh what force and energy is there in the words, post haec. After all these things, and in this, decidt. he fell, & specially in those & morre●tur, that he should die. Alexander had in hopes conquered a World already, nay, worlds. He thought he had done things worthy of everlasting Annals: and yet after all these so many so great Trophies, he fell down not only into his bed, but to his grave, he must be content with a small Coffin. Petius Alphonsus relates i●, that Alexander being dead, Many Philosophers met to speak some thing to be engraven on his Monument. One he uttered this. En modo quatuor ulnarum spacium ei satis est, cui spatiosissimus terrarum orbis non suffecerat (i.e.) behold now four cubits is room enough for him who● while ere the whole World would not suffice: ano her added, yesterday Alexander could have freed any from death, now no● himself. One beholding his golden Ch●st spoke thus, Yesterday (sai● he) Alexander of Gold made treasure, now change turns and gold makes treasure of Alexander. Se● the wise men expressed themselves, but they all concluded with that of the Maccabees. Afterward, he fell down into his bed, and died. Juvenal sings thus of him. Vnus pellaeo juveni non sufficit orbis. ... (i.e.) The whole World though't be was Will not content Philip's great son. But mark the largeness of our thoughts, while we prove forgetful of our own condition: oh! did we meditate on heavenly immortal things, while we vainly dispose these transitory ones to our Nephews, and Kindred. Alas all this, this while we are extending our thoughts, death oppresseth us, and this thing which is called old age, is but a short circuit of a few years. Why should we therefore trust death? Consider but for what small matters we lose our lives. It is not our meat, nor drink nor watching, nor sleep used intemperately, but prove deadly: our foot hurt a little, the grief of the ears, a rotten tooth, meat offending the stomach, a drop of an ill Humour, any of these may open the gate to death Is it a matter of any great consequence or profit, whither we live or die? Ill scents, savours, tastings, weariness, nay, nourishment itself without which we cannot live, may bring in and usher in death. The body of man is weak, fluid, rotten, diseased, wheresoever it moves, it is conscious of its own infirmity. It endures not every Climate, the Sea altars it, the change of air infects it, the least cause hurts it. Let us believe him therefore who said: Therefore, o men, death is better than a bitter life, and eternal rest, than continued travel. Therefore I say, It is better to dwell in heaven, then to travel on earth. § 22. Death's Blessedness. Writ, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, even so saith the Spirit, that they rest from their labours, and their works follow them: to die in the Lord, is to die the servant of the Lord, as the holy Scriptures speak of Moses, Moses my servant is dead, as if the Lord should say, although he sinned sometime, and by sin made himself not my servant: yet he died my servant. He died in my service. Whatsoever he was, whatsoever he did it was mine: for all the servants work is the Lords: and such a joyful Verse in that Song, wa● that of old simeon, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace, according to thy Word, In peace altogether: at whose entrance all the wars of the righteous men are ended: never for all eternity to be begun again. Such servants of God do all die in the Lord, which dying do as it were rest in his bosom: and so resting sweetly are said to sleep in death. So blessed Stephen in the midst of that storm and shower of stones in such a great tumult and fury of those that stoned him, slept in the Lord. Acts 7.60. joh 11.11. So our Lord spoke of Lazarus, that he did but sleep. So Moses the servant of the Lord died when God bade him, or as some expound it, at the Lords speech, as if the Lord had kissed him, in this sense, as a Mother takes her Infant in her Arms, and kisseth him being a sleep, and so lays him into bed smilingly; no otherwise did God with Moses, but by sweet embraces, and smiles did lay him being fall'n asleep into Abraham's bosom. Where h●e shall give his children peace, saith the Psalmist. Blessed, yea for ever blessed are all they that so die, because they shall never be miserable (as Saint Bernard saith) The death of the righteous is good for the rest. Secondly, for the newness of it. Thirdly, for the security of it. Blessed, yea thrice blessed are all such, for their works follow them: they shall follow them, as servants their Lord, as sons their father: as Scholars their Master, as Soldiers their General; as Nobles do their Sovereign. They shall follow us to God's Tribunal. They shall be brought into the highest Courts of the Great King, and there shall be admitted for noble Courtiers. And as every one which is able for wealth and Nobility, is known by the number and adornment of his followers: so who desires to appear before the King of Glory, let him be well and richly furnished with such servants: And let him set them before him, and look that they be many and richly apparelled, and though our good works go before us in some kind, yet they follow us in reward. The labour which we spend on them, and in them goes before: The reward which we have from them follows: He never can want comfort, that is well stored with such followers. § 23. A Dying man's farewell to the living, who must follow him the same way. MAny are the things, for which I am sorry; Especially the neglect of grace, and the time that I have ill spent. Oh how should I, how ought I to have been more patiented, more submiss, more mindful of my death! o how few and small sparkles of divine love have had irradiations in my soul! Have mercy upon me, o God, have mercy upon me, according to the multitude of thy great mercies, o infinite goodness, by the precious blood of thy dear Son, be merciful to me a sinner: and o you, whomsoever I have offended in words or deeds, Forgive and pardon me. You have me now hearty confessing myself guilty, and sorrowful, and deny not to me before I go hence this viaticum, even the free forgiveness of all my offences towards you. Do not (I pray you) let your courage fall in the time of sickness, by my example, because I am weak. Set your eyes upon the actions of holier men, and conform yourselves to them, Emulate with ardency their patience, humility, obedience. And I cannot but give you hearty thanks for all the good offices you have performed towards ●ee, either by your hand, and work, care or council, love and prayers. God, I beseech who art the fountain of all goodness, and the deep Sea of love, requite your love into your bosoms. God hath always used to be kind and good to them who do comm●t themselves wholly to his fatherly providence. Obedience is a singular virtue, and indeed such an one as all others have resplendency from it. Patience is that one thing that is necessary for sick men. Humility is an excellent jewel, and contempt of a man's own self. Poverty is acceptable to Christ: but the Queen of graces is Charity. Yet amongst all these (me thinks) a sure confidence in God is of singular efficacy, and a plenary resignation of a man's self unto the Divine Providence: which Gods Word so highly commends, which the Kingly Prophet so often speaks of, which last of all, Christ himself by so many arguments taken from the Flowers and the Fowls doth endeavour to persuade to. None can ever know the strength of this confidence, nor that tranquillity which follows, no, nor can believe it, but he, who at all times in everything little, or great, fully hath believed in and trusted himself into God's hand. And I am persuaded that never was there man who did so refer himself wholly to God, who hath not found singular and secret comfort within himself by it. Let us trust to and rely on God. And give ourselves wholly to be disposed of by his infinite wisdom, He will provide for us, he will take care for us. You see now, how I am cited to appear at God's Tribunal: and must now give an account for 60 year's carriage: All mine, deeds, words, thoughts are manifest and open to that Judge. Nothing ah! nothing can be hid from him, all the Acts of my passed life shall now be sentenced. O how I tremble! For it is a fearful thing to stand before his Tribunal. Yet in this great straight I have something to comfort me, although I be an unjust and naughty servant, yet I have a good Lord, nay, infinitely good, which though I have been sinful, yet I am his servant: so commending myself in●o his hands, and my soul to his mercy, I bid adieu to you all, wishing you all to have a care to your lives here, that we may once again meet in the Kingdom of Glory. Farewell. § 24. What a dying man should always speak and meditate in his heart. IN thy sickness, o good Christian being asked how thou dost, how thou feelest thyself, etc. take heed to thy answers, that thou utterest, let them be such as these. As God pleaseth, as it seemeth good to the Lord so is come to pass, according to God's good will and pleasure, I am well, that is best, so God sees it good, Let his will be done in earth as it is in heaven, and that o sick man and dying man that thou mayest have this familiarly in thy mouth and heart, use these three short Prayers. 1 The Lord be blessed for ever and ever. 2 Have mercy upon me, o Lord after thy great goodness, according to the multitude of thy mercies, though I be less than the least of all thy mercies. 3 O my Lord, and my God, I offer myself to thy good will and pleasure. Thy will, 〈◊〉 Lord, be done. Amen. Some in the time of their sickness have had these prayers set before their faces in great Characters lying in their beds, that night and day they might the more readily remember and use them. Our Prayers are our Forerunners to God, let us ourselves learn of our Harbingers the right way, that so we may follow readily whensoever the Lord Eternal shall call us hence. § 25. Things to be specially observed by a dying man. 1 LEt h●m not rely upon, but renounce his own merits, let him cast himself and all his sins into the boundless Ocean of God's infinite mercy and compassion. 2 Let him be sure to stand fast in the bosom of the holy Catholic Church, and let him receive the blessed Sacrament seasonably, it being his viaticum, and the food of his soul. 3 Let him withdraw all his affections and love from fading and transitory things, and let his heart be united to God his heavenly Father. Let him long for the promised Canaan, that there he may for ever offer praise to God his Creator. 4 Let him offer up himself a lively sacrifice to the glory of God, for his most blessed will; to bear out of true love all the bitterness and anguishment, and all the pangs of death, though for a long time, and though he might live longer, yet for the love of God, he refers himself to his wise disposing, either for life or death. 5 Let him never forget the bitter passion and death of Jesus Christ. Let him not rest till he be united to Christ in his death, and let him in the depth of all his sufferings imitate our Saviour, to commend his soul into his father's hands, that so as he is made conformable to Christ in his death, he may be likewise in his Resurrection. But above all it is most safe for the dying man, that what he would have to be his last words and actions, that he begin to do them in the state of his health. § 26. What a dying man must do. LVdovicus Blosius, a man of a most holy life, who refused an Archbishopric when it was offered him by Charles the fi●th Emperor, whose life may be seen by his works, amongst many other worthy pieces, he gives a dying man these Instructions following. Being asked what a dying man should do, if he had lived long in grievous sins, answered: though I should have lived forty years in my sins, and now my death approaching, if I shall truly acknowledge them, and be hearty sorry for them from the bottom of my heart, and resolve against them all for time to come, if I have but so much time, to put myself into God's hands, and truly turn to him without all hypocrisy and dissembling, I shall departed hence holy and innocent, and shall find God a merciful Father unto me, and adds a short sweet Prayer for a sick man. O Lord, I am that miserable wretch, whom Thou of thy Fatherly goodness hast created, and by the most shameful death of thy only begotten Son hast redeemed from the power of the Enemy. Thou Lord, Thou only shalt rule in me, save me therefore, o Lord, for thy infinite mercy throu●h Jesus Christ, in whom I do believe to have immortality and glory. Amen. These are Abridgements to die well, he who knows how to be ready for death compriseth all. § 27. Refreshments for a sick man. GO my people enter in●o your chambers, shut the doors to you, hid yourselves for a while, for a moment, until my indignation be passed over, Isa. 26.20. In my anger have I hid my face from you for a moment, but in everlasting mercies will I have compassion on you saith the Lord your Redeemer, Isay 54.8. Why art thou so heavy o my soul, and why art thou so disquieted within me? still trust in God, for I will yet give him thanks, who is the light of my countenance and my God, Psal. 42.6, 7. We are the children of his Saints, and we do expect that life which God will give to those that keep the faith. It is not the will of your heavenly Father, that one of these little ones should perish, Matth. 18.14. So God loved the World, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life, John 3.16 Now if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2 1. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever heareth my Word, and believeth on him that sent me hath life eternal, and shall not come into judgement, but shall pass from death, to life. John 5.24. All that my Father hath given to me shall come unto me, and he that cometh to me I cast not out of doors. Verily, verily, I say unto you, who so believeth in me hath eternal life, John 6 37. & 47. I am the resurrection and the life, Whosoever believeth in me, yea though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall not die eternally, John 11.15. & 26. In my Father's house are many Mansions, John 14 2. If God be for us, who can be against us, who also spared not his own Son, but gave him for us, how then shall he not give us all things with him? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect? It is God who justifies. Who shall condemn? It is jesus Christ which is dead, yea rather which is risen again, and sitteth at the right hand of his Father, making intercession for us, Rom 8 31. usque ad 35. None of us live unto ourselves, nor none die unto ourselves, whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the Lord, wh●ther therefore we live or die, we are the Lords, Rom. 14 7 & 8. We know that if this earthly house of our dwelling be dissolved, we have a building from God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens: and for this we sigh, desiring to be put on with our house which is from heaven, that if we be clothed we shall not be found naked, 2 Co 5.1, 2, 3 Now shall Christ be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death, for Christ is to me both in life and death, advantage. But to be with Christ is much better, Phil. 1.20, 21, & 23 Our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for a Saviour, even our Lord jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, Phil. 3.20, 21. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that jesus Christ came into the World to save sinners, of whom I am chief 1 Tim. 1.15. Whosoever endureth to the end, shall be saved, Matth 24 13. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life, Apoc. 2.10. These are pure and cool streams and fountains to assuage the heat of sin and fear of death. He swims safely, who baths himself in these waters of comfort § 28. Holy Ejaculations and Prayers of a dying man. HOly Eligius, a little before his death, embracing his friends with tears, spoke thus unto them, Farewell all ye, and suffer me from henceforth to rest. Earth must return to earth, the Spirit will find the way to God that gave it. So holding up his hands and eyes to heaven, prayed so a good while, and at last burst forth into these words. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace according to thy word. Remember Lord, that thou hast made me as earth. Enter not into judgement with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified. O remember me thou Redeemer of the World who only art without sin, and bringing me from the body of this death, place me in thy Kingdom. I know I do not deserve to see thy face, and taste thy favour, but thou knowest that all my hopes have been in thy all-saving mercies: and now (o Christ) dying in the confession of thy holy Name, I do render my last breath, my soul into thy safe keeping. Receive me (o Lord) according to thy great mercies, and let me not be confounded in my hope, open to me the gate of life, and let not the powers of darkness hold me, Let thy right hand bring me into thy resting place, and let me enjoy one of those Mansions, which thou hast prepared for those tha love and fear thee. And having thus prayed, he departed, Oh could we follow the example of this holy man, let us therefore call upon Christ in these or the like words. Enlighten mine eyes (o jesus) that I sleep not in death, lest that mine enemy say unto me, I have prevailed against him. Psal. 13 4. O Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, put I pray thee thy Passion, Cross, and meritorious death, betwixt thy judgement and my poor soul. O Remember not (Lord) our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and that soon, for we are come to great misery. Psal. 77.8. Oh most sweet Jesus Christ our Lord, for the honour and virtue of thy most blessed Passion, make me to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting. Enter not into judgement (o sweet jesus) with thy servant, for in thy sigh● shall no flesh living be justified, and then let him utter these words. I worship thee (o Lord jesus Christ) and bless thy name, for thou by thy holy Cross and Passion hast redeemed the World O thou Saviour of the World save me, which by thy bitter Cross and precious blood hast redeemed me. Draw me unto thee, o jesus who didst say, When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men unto me. O most merciful jesus, I pray thee by thy precious blood which thou shedst for sinners, to blot out all my offences. O let thy blood purify me, let thy body (o Christ save me) wash me in thy blood, and let thy passion confirm my soul, o good jesus hear me, hid me in thy wounds, suffer me not to be separated from thee, in the hour of death call me, bid me to come unto thee, that I with all the rest of the glorious Saints may praise thee. O my gracious Redeemer, I do wholly give up myself unto thee, Cast me not out from thy presence. I come unto thee, reject me not. Cast me not out of thy sight, and take not thy holy Spirit from me. Oh let not my iniquity cast me away, whom thy goodness did create. As death approacheth nearer, so let the dying man pray thus. O God according to thy will, so let thy mercy come unto me, bid o God, that my spirit may ever dwell with thee. Oh let that voice sound in my ears, To day shalt thou be with me in Paradise, Lord, Now lettest thou thy servant departed in peace according to thy word, For mine eye● have seen thy salvation. Oh loving jesus what is thine own, I beseech thee to take. O Lord jesus! Make me to be numbered with thine Elect. O jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me. Lord, be thou my helper. Make haste, o Lord jesus, to come and help me. O Lord jesus receive my spirit. Amen. § 29. The dying man's confidence in GOD. HEre I do confidently with S. Bernard, confess and say, let others pretend their Merits, and others that they can, and have borne the heat of the day, yet I hold it good to keep close to the mercy of God, and to put my confidence in the Lord. And though I am conscious to myself, that my former life hath been full of sin, so that I deserve to be cast off by God's justice, yet will I never leave off to trust in his infinite goodness, and ●hat as hitherto his al-sufficient Grace hath administered strength ●o my weakness, so the same will ●et give me strength and power to ●eare all things patiently and willingly: And this my patience ●hough small and little, helped by ●he assistance of his Grace (whi●h doth infinitely exceed my thoughts) will mitigate my pains, and will bestow that eternal reward upon me in Heaven. This one thing (o God) will I desire of thee, that thou wouldst never suffer me to fall from relying upon thy goodness: although I know myself to be weak, and undeserving. Yea, though I should come to that casting down, and terrors, that I did seem even to be utterly lost and left, yet I would call to mind that Apostle of thine Saint Peter, that was ready to sink at the first blast of wind, and to fall from his faith, and I would then even do, as he did, call upon thee and say, Lord save me, and even then would I hope that thou wouldst stretch forth thy hand; and help me, but yet if thou shouldst permit me to be harder beset than Peter, (which I pray thee not to suffer, o Lord) yet I, nevertheless do hope, that thou wouldst look upon me with the eyes of thy mercy, and that thou wouldst turn and behold me as thou didst Peter, when he had denied thee, and that thou wouldst not suffer thy whole displeasure to arise, but that thou wouldst help me and deliver my soul. This I know assuredly, that God will not forsake me without my fault. I know that of Saint Augustine to be most true. God can free and hath done for many great things without any desert of theirs, because he is Good: but yet he never condemned one without great demerits, because he is just. Therefore in great trust and confidence, I do wholly rely upon him; if for my sins he suffers me to perish, yet his justice shall be glorified, but I hope, and certainly do hope that his merciful goodness will keep my soul, that so rather his mercy may be praised then his justice, nothing can fall upon me but what God will. Now whatsoever he wils, though it may seem harsh and evil, yet is truly good. Whatever (o God thou wilt, I will the same altogether, I will, o God, I will, § 30. The last words of a Dying man. Avgustus' the Emperor when he died dedicated his last words to his Empress Livia. Livia, said he, be all thy life long, mindful of our Marriage, farewell. How much trulier may Christians dedicate their last speeches to their Lord and Master jesus Christ, saying, O Lord, Remember the time since my soul was espoused to thee in holy wedlock. Dionysius the Areopagite an holy man of life, being condemned to lose his head, ●earing the sentence of death with a generous resolution, contemning the scoffs of the multitude repeated the last words of our Saviour. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Saint Basil the Great, at the close of his life, when as he had furnished all them about him with excellent admonitions, spoke the same words unto Christ, as the former Martyr had done Saint Bernard as if he should show to the sick man Christ jesus, Oh thou Christian, saith he, despair not of thy sickness. Christ hath told thee what thou art to say in all the hazards of death, to whom to fly to, to whom to call on: In whom to hope, even in God the Father, which cannot despise the prayers of them that trust in him, do thou therefore such works in the time of thy sickness, that thou mayest truly say, In thee (o Lord) have I put my trust, let me not be confounded. Therefore let the last words of the dying man be directed to God, to him our prayers, to him let go all our desires Let all our hopes terminate in him, let him receive our last sighs, let the dying man say thus from his heart. To thee (o Lord) do I look up, to thee I lift up my eyes, to thee I direct my prayers. § 32. The conforming of our wills to Gods will, is of great value, especially at the end of our lives. LVdovicus Blosius gives this advice for the conforming our wills to the will of God. There is no exercise at our death can be more profitable th●n that every one should fully resign himself into ●he hands of his C eatou●, humbly, lovingly, wholly trusting and relying in his infinite mercy and goodness. For it cannot but he, that whosoever doth thus place his confidence in God before his departure hence, but that he shall partake of joy in the Celestial Kingdom. For those that shall be for ever with the Lord shall be freed from punishment. In this mind died that good ●●ief on the Cross, which did no desire our Saviour to save his body, but wholly desired Christ to forgive his sins, and to give him the Kingdom of Heaven so fully did he resign himself into God's hands, so wholly did he offer himself to Christ, that he should do with him as he pleased. And if it so fall out that when death is at hand, thy sickness is grievous and painful, cast that also upon God, For the death of Christ will yield us consolation in death, He is gone before, innumerable others are gone before, why should it irk thee to follow? § 33. The dying man emulates the good Thief in Golgotha. LOrd, Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Oh happy Thief! which didst profit more in the school of Christ in 3 hours' space, than the Iscariot did in three years, thou goest before me in words, and for a form of prayer, who wast to Christ in his greatest extremity, a Patron, and an Advocate. Good God how deep are thy judgements! his friends and kindred are silent, his Disciples forsake him, The Angels appear not, neither is his mother suffered to defend his innocence's, and where are those eleven thousand and more fed by this crucified Lord? What one out of so great a multitude does open his mouth in his cause? The maintenance of Christ's Cause is therefore devolved to the defence of this Thief. One Thief pleads against another for Christ's innocence, he mayntains it, takes of the others scandals, reproves the infinite multitude of pa●ricide. Did not the Son of God blush to have his Cause defended by a Thief? No! he was so fare from being ashamed at his Oratory, that he praised him in public, nor was his Rhetoric defective in God's Cause; And we ind●e justly; therefore we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss. Lu. 23.4 O how justly may I say the same of myself? And I do justly die for my offences, for I do but receive the wages of my works, but my Saviour, What had he done? nothing at all worthy of death, nor of such torments. Let me therefore, o God, be heard when I use this form of prayer. Lord, remember me, for now thou art come into thy Kingdom, and because thou art in thy Kingdom look upon m●e now languishing and decaying, and admit me to thyself when I departed. I beg this of thee (o Jesus) by thy scourging, Thorns and Cross, by all thy ●orments, and by thy precious ●eath. What therefore remains, but ●hat I should for ever cast my soul ●nto his bosom, whose dolour and ●ains he only weighs and consi●ers? He knows what conduceth ●o the health of our souls: and ●ee from all eternity hath determined by what way we shall return to him. (O Lord) I have waited for thy salvation. § 34. The Heliotropium, or Turn sole against all diseases and death the only Medicine. THis Herb (as experience shows it) turns with the Sun both at his rising and setting nay, even in cloudy weather he shows his love to the Sun, by night, as it were for grief, he shuts up himself: for want of her beautiful Lover. Oh could man's will always so follow and attend upon God's will, that at all times it should be conformable to it, and and follow it through all afflictions and adversities, and not to turn aside in that great cloudy day of death. Upon this set day let the dying man imitate this flower, and let him f●x the eyes of his faith upon that glorious Sun of righteousness especially then. This do our Saviour's own words teach us. Even so Father, Math. 11.26. for so it seemed good in thy sight: so even so my ●ying friend speak you, In all things that ever you do, in all evils to be endured or suffered by the example of our Lord, say always. So Father, even so good Father, so be i● o my Father, with often ingeminations, and specially when the pangs of death do rage most violently, then even then subject thy will in all things to his, pronounce these watching, in health, in sickness, but at the pinch of death never forget them. Lord, thou knowest my heart, command it Lord: I have hoped in thee, I have said thou art my God, thou shalt maintain my lot, my health, my disease, prosperity, and adversity, my life and my death are in thy hands, as thou wilt, so let all things be. It shall be pleasant to me ei●her to live or die according to thy good will because thou art my Father. Therefore, o Father, as thou wilt, order, dispose, permit all things to be done in me, and of me, as may be pleasing to thee, let not any thing in me cross or thwart thy heavenly disposing. So, even so, good Father, let thy will be done from henceforth and for ever. This herb is of wonderful virtue to all sickness, evils and death. He is far●e from fear of destruction, that is in will so united to his God. FINIS. Prayers to be said of, or to be read to a man dying. OH holy Jesus! my strength, my refreshing, my defender, and my deliverer, in whom I have hoped, on whom I have believed, whom always I have loved, who art my chief pleasure: the fortress of my strength, & my hope even from my youth up. Led me forth, o ●hou that art the leader of my life, and I will follow thee; stretch forth thy right hand of mercy to the work of thine own hands, which thou the Creator of all things didst make of the dust of the earth, and strengthenedst with bones and sinews, to whom thou by death gavest life; The time is at hand, that dust must return to dust, and my spirit to thee my Saviour and blessed Redeemer who gavest it me. Open (good Lord) to me the gate of life, for for me wretch didst thou the Lord of life hang on the tree, and waste reckoned amongst transgressors: receive me, o merciful God according to the multitude of hy tender mercies, thou didst kindly and speedily entertain the penitent thief upon the Cross begging of thee. I am sick and sore smitten, to whom should I run for cure, but t● thee o gracious Physician, heal thou m●e, o Lord, and I shall be whole, and those that put their trust in thee, shall not be confounded: in thee, o Saviour have I trusted, let me no: therefore be put to confusion; But who, or what am I (most glorious God) that I should with such boldness speak to thee? I am a sinner borne, nay, and conceived in transgression, a rotten carcase, an unclean vessel, food for worms. Spare me, forgive me (good God) what conquest wouldst thou have to contend, or s●t thyself against me who ●m weaker and lighter than the stubble before the wind, than the dust or the chaff driven too and fro with every blast? Pass by (o Lord) all my transgressions, and raise up thy poor dejected servant from the Dunghill Stand up (o Lord) and for my defence raise up thyself, and reject not the supplication of thy poor weak servant. Let my prayers enter into thy presence, and stretch forth thy hand, and com● and help. I am the man that travelling from Jerusalem, am taken and wounded of thiefs, and left half dead, be thou, thou o my Saviour the good Samaritan, and c mfort me I have grievously sinned in the whole course of my life, and my sins are ever before thee. From the crown of my head to the sole of my foot there is not one sound or clean member. O if thou by thy precious death on the Cross hadst not helped my soul, I should have for my sins deserved eternal perdition; I, even I am partaker, o sweet jesus, of that inestimable Redemption; thou didst shed that most precious blood for my sake, o thou preserver of men, and therefore put me not away from thee. I am that sheep which wandered and lost itself, seek me (o thou great Shepherd) and take me and conduct me into thy fold, that thou mayest be true in all thy say. Thou that hast promised that whensoever a sinner shall repent and return, thou wilt have mercy upon him. Truly Lord I am not worthy to be called thy son, because I have sinned against heaven and before thee: but good Father, restore the voice of joy and gladness to me again, Comfort me now after the time that thou hast afflicted me, and for the years wherein I have suffered adversity. Turn thy face away from my sins, and blot cut all mine offences, according to thy great mercies. Cast me not away from thy presence, nor deal with me after my iniquities: but help me, o thou that art the helper of all that cry to thee for relief, deliver me for the glory of thy name: Grant in mercy, that I may dwell in thy house all the days of my life, to sing praises to thee in Heaven with all thy glorious Saints and Servants for evermore. Amen. The second Prayer to Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. O Sweet comfortable jesus, the fountain an● wellspring of mercy and tender compassion, show and extend to me thy poor servant and weak creature, the riches of thy infinite mercies, help and secure me in this my great need and necessity, my great Creator and loving Redeemer jesus Christ: put thy Passion, Cross, and precious death betwixt thy judgement and my sick soul. I wholly give up myself to thy favour, Cast me not away good Saviour in thy fury, I willingly come to thee for h●lp, o reject not, o despise not, o refuse not to admit thy humble Petitioner into thy grace and favourable protection. Now! now o Lord, according to thy good pleasu e and will, deal with me in mercy, and receive my soul into thy hands in peace and love, thou hast redeemed me, o Lord, thou God of truth. O let the sound of those comfortable words enter into ●y soul (sweet Saviour) This day thou shalt be with me in Parad se. O jesus, who was crucified for me receive me into thy arms of love and mercy, into those arms which were stretched so wide to embrace poor grieved sinners, unto those arms which I with the eye of faith see opened wide for transgressors. Draw my soul after thee, comfort it (o thou Lamb of God) with thy all saving favour receive me in thy savour, and let my soul ever live in thy glorious courts in the highest Heavens. Amen. The third Prayer of thanksgiving in any sickness. GLory be to thee o Lord jesus Christ, the Author and giver of life, who hast vouchsafed to call me to the knowledge of true faith in thee, Glory be to thee who h●st always been so full of plenteous redemption and mercy towards me so grievously laden with all sorts of sins: which through all my life hast heaped blessings and kindnesses upon me. I give thanks to thee (my most loving God) that according to thy good will and wisdom I am called out of this miserable and wretched life to appear before thee How, o how willing am I to tread thy Courts, and to behold the light of thy countenance, I do wholly commit myself to thy divine shelterage, and bless thy glorious name for giving me such a ready mind to departed. I do (o most loving Lord) in all humility beg and desire thee to bind up my soul in the bundle of peace, and embrace my soul in thy everlasting favour and mercy, t●ke my soul into thy protection henceforth and for ever, to thee, to thee only do I commend my spirit, which art the God of spirits, I entreat thee (the everliving God) to give me an inheritance among those that be sanctified, Count me in the number of thy Saints, and let my name o heavenly Father be registered in the book of life. Free me and deliver me f●om all the power of my enemies. Deliver me from all my trouble and adve sity, because thou only art the God which canst help those that are in misery and grief, thou hast said it (o b●essed Lord God) that we should call upon thee in the time of trouble, and thou hast graciously promised to hear and deliver us, and taught us in thy wisdom to give glory to thy name. To thee therefore be duly given all praise and glory world without end. The fourth prayer, to be s●id of those about the sick party. O jesus Christ, who didst die upon the Cross for our Redemption, in the depth of thy infinite love, even of that gracious love, which made thee lay down thy life, who wast the life of all; that they might be restored to life. We do hearty desire and humbly crave of thee that thou wouldst pass by, and blot out all the sins and transgressions which this thy sick servant our Brother N. hath committed, and that by thy most holy life, and merits of thy most bitter Cross and Passion, thou wouldst be pleased to help all his infirmities, and to make his bed in the time of his sickness, and make him to feel and relish thy infinite love and boundless mercies and let him apply them to h●s s●ule, and disspose graciously of us all, and especially of this thy weak creature, whom thou art calling out of this miserable life, that thou wouldst prepare his soul quietly and peaceably to seek thee, and that he may give up his soul into thy hands with all patience, and contentedness, in a full assurance of the pardon of all his sins, being grounded in hope, rooted in charity, in a perfect state of mind, so that for ever thou mayst hold him in the arms of thy never fading love and favour. O Lord jesus Christ, we beseech thee, take not thy helping hand and saving assistance from this our sick brother, who is now in the depth of sickness, and even at the point of death, who by weakness and defect of spirit is not able to lift up his voice unto thee. Think upon him (o Lord) in thy love and mercy, and give him, o give the spirit of com●ort and consolation, Deliver him from all evil, and grant hough he doth at this time departed, yet let it be in peace, and sure confidence of thy love: defend him from the danger of the Enemy, at the time of his yielding up his spirit into thy hand, give him sure confidence in thee, and keep him i● perpetual peace and safety, and lead h●m into the land of everlasting rest and quietness. Amen. The fifth Prayer containing the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Chari●y daily to be used. O Lord jesus Christ, I believe that thou art my God and my Redeemer, I do believe that for my salvation thou wast born of the Virgin Mary, and was crucified, I do believe what the holy Catholic Church doth enjoin me, and I protest that I will l●ve and am willing to die in that faith. (Lord jesus) I do hearty grieve that I have so grievously offended thy goodness, and I am sor●y, that I can be no more sorry so those great and many offences which I have committed against thee my Creator and Redeemer. I do humbly ●ray thee, that thou wouldst by thy precious bloodshedding pardon and forgive all my sins: and I do purpose if thou shalt enlarge my life to abstain from them ●ll, and to settle myself in a new course of holiness of life, and if I have forgotten any of my sins, or if I do not know them all severally, I implore thy goodness to disclose them to me, that I may speedily and sincerely repent me of them all, and above all forgive, o Lord, forgive and forget them all. I do freely and willingly forgive all men that have offended me (o my God) all their offences for thy sake, and I entreat whomsoever I have injured to do the like by me. If I have by wrong detained any man's goods, so far as I am bound and according to my ability, I desire that they should be fully satisfied: I do trust in thy eternal mercy, and in thy precious blood abundantly shed for me, that although I be altogether unworthy of myself, and no ways deserving thy gracious favour, that yet thou wouldst ransom me out of all mine enemies hands, and that thou wouldst lift up thy countenance upon me, and fill my soul with everlasting comforts. I do heart lie desire this of thee by thy bitt●r death and passion. Strengthen me (o Lo d jesus) against all the snares of Satan, and defend me with the shield of thy mercy, because all my hope & confidence is in thy great goodness only. I can plead no merits or deserts that can bind thee, but I find in myself too too much sin and vileness: but thy mercy (o God) is over all thy works, and so in hope to partake of it, I do rest myself in hope: because thou art a God of hope to thee be all praise and honour ascribed from this time forth and for evermore. Amen. The Epilogue, or conclusion of all being a Monition to the Reader. THese prayers (my good Reader) made for the souls of men, I counsel thee if thou be wise in the time of thy health, with a litle alteration to muse on for thine own good. There is not any thing of more efficacy in my judgement, to set us forward in a godly life, then to meditate of the frailty & miserableness of our lives. That Prophetic speech of our Lord spoken to jerusalem, may fitly be applied to all dying men. The days will come that thine enemies shall cast a trench about th●e, and keep thee in on every si●e, and lay thee level with the ground, & shall not leave one stone upon another, All ●hese things may be seen easily in a man dying For do not great anxieties environ him? Do not solicitous cares weaken him? Do not griefs lay him low? Do not wicked spirits encompass him? Do not the terrors of sins past unrepented of cast him down? Do not future punishments astonish him? Do not all worldly things suddenly forsake him? And though the must expert Physicians compass his bed, Can any afford help, bu● o●●ly that one Master Physician from Heaven? It is the decree laid upon all that are born to die, to spring up and soon decay, and that Great Disposer of all humane things knows nothing firm but himself, all things pass away in a Circle of rising, and falling. Some thing may be long-lived in this frame, but there is nothing e ern●ll, or everlasting. I desire thee therefore (o my Reader) for Christ's sake, and thy own happiness to think of eternity: our life is but a moment, alas! it is no ●o●e, and yet upon this moment depends ●ither everlasting good, or everlasting evil. Our travel is short, all pleasures do quickly fade, only Eternity knows no period; therefore remember Eternity. FINIS.