A CONTEMPLATION Of MAN'S MORTALITY.  
Preached at Reading, BY John Dashfield, M.A.   printer's or publisher's device 
Printed at London, 1649   

To the True-Lover of Virtue and Learning, John Penrice Esquire.  
John Dashfield wisheth all Happiness.  
SIR,  
IN the view of these bleeding times I am bold to present unto you A Contemplation of Man's Mortaitie. a subject indeed really intended upon the death of your most valiant and undaunted Kinsman Major William P●●chard (the world's valour) who (of all men) chose me for his Minister at his execution, and I in lieu of his approbation, presume to present this unto you, and the rest of his friends and kindred.  
And as Hannah when she had presented her young Son Samuel unto the Lord, did make him a little coat. So have I put this my little child into a new coat, and am bold to present it to your Noble Favour for protection. Vouchsafe therefore to take it by the hand, and I doubt not but the Ephramite shall be heard here to speak as plain at the smooth-tongued Canaanite: and so I pray God to bless your person and affairs here that you may be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord jesus Christ. And this shall ever be the prayer of him, that is  
Yours in all Christian service, John Dashfield.  Ovid Nec Leges metuunt— Maestaque victrici Iura sub ense ●acent.  

The Contemplation of Man's MORTALITY.  Eccle. the 7 chap. part of the 36 ver. Recordare novissima, Remember thy end. 
IT is the general opinion of the best Writers, perfectissimam vitam esse continuam mortis meditationem, that the most perfect life is a continual meditation of death. chrysostom expounding that place of Saint Luke, Qui vult venire post me, He that will follow me, saith, That Christ commandeth us not to bear upon our backs that heavy burden of the Wooden Cross, but that we should always set our death before our eyes, making that of Saint Paul to be man's Motto, Quotidie morior, I die daily.  
In the second of the Kings it is recounted, that the holy King Josias did cleanse the people from their Altars, their Groves, and High Places, where innumerable Idolatries did daily increase: to smend which ill, he placed there, in their stead, Bones, Sculls, and the ashes of dead men: Whose judgement herein was very discreet; for from man's forgetting of his beginning and his end, arise his Idolatries: and so reviving by those Bones the remembrance of what they were heretofore, and what they shall be hereafter, he did make them amend that fault, and reduced them from their errors.  
God created man of the basest matter, of very dust: but this dust being moulded by Gods own hand, and inspiring it with so much wisdom, counsel, and prudence, Tertullian calls it cura Divini ingenii: but man growing proud hereupon, and hoping to be a god himself, God doomed him to death, and wrapped him again in dirty swaddling clouts, with this inscription, Pulvis es, Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.  
Adam did not without some mystery  himself with green leaves; for (as Saint Ambrose hath noted it) he gave as it were therein a sign and token of his vain and foolish hopes.  
When God revealed to Nabuchadnezzar how little a while his Empire was to last, he shown him a statue of divers metals, the head gold, the breast silver, the belly brass, the legs iron, the foots clay; and it seems a little stone descended from the mountain, lightning on the feet, dashed the statue in pieces. But instead of taking this as a forewarning of his end, and to have it still before his eyes, he made another statue of gold from top to toe, which is held to be a durable and lasting metal: so that the more God sought to disdeceive him, the more was he deceived with his vain hopes. And this is a resemblance of that which daily happeneth unto us: for God advising us that our first building is but dust, our idle thoughts and vain hopes imagine it to be of gold; and man's life being so short, that (as Nazianzene said) it is no more than to go out of one grave to enter into another, out of the womb of our particular mother, into that of the common Mother of us all, which is the earth: because therefore we flatter our selves with the enjoying of a long life, therefore the son of Syrach being desirous to cut off this error, saith, In omnibus operibus tuis, Recordare novissima tua, & in aeternum non peccabis: Whatsoever thou takest in hand, Remember thy end.  
Death (saith Saint Augustine) in his book against the Pelagians, is nothing else but a privation of life, having a name and no essence: As hunger is said to be the defect of food; thirst, lack of drink; darkness, the absence of light; even so death is but a name for want of life.  
Death then having a name without essence, God was not the Creator thereof, neither cause nor Author, for all things that God made had Essence; which term of Essence comprehendeth that which is, or that is to be born. Most true it is, that for the punishment of sin, God pronounceth the sentence of death against man; but there is great difference, between pronouncing the sentence of death, and to be the cause of death. They are the words of Solomon, not mine, Deus mortem non fecit, nec laetatur in perditione vivorum: God hath not made death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. Creavit enim, ut essent omnia, etc. For he created all things, that they might have their being, and the generations of the world are preserved. But in another place he saith, Invidia autem Diaboli mors intravit in orbem terrarum; Through envy of the Devil came death into the world, Wisdom 2.24.  
The Devil then being the author of sin, is also the author of death, by sin. The Devil could incite man to sin, but he could not constrain him to yield consent. Adam could keep himself well enough from tasting the Tree of life, but God's will was that he should not sin, and so consequently would not have him to die. But leaving life, and taking death, and following then the free liberty of his will, he made himself mortal; so that his fault and disobedience was the cause of death to him, and all men else beside. From whence therefore the Apostle infers: Propterea sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit, & per peccatum mors, etc. As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death went over all men, forasmuch as all men have sinned, Rom. 5.12.  
Nothing then more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time when, the place where, and the manner how; Yet one thing, to this purpose whereof I am now to speak: and I know it may very well seem a novelty to many, and fabulous to divers others, because it is a matter very difficult to be proved, nor do I purpose to bind myself, to justify or maintain the truth thereof; albeit (in my judgement) their authority that have written on the same argument may grant it for true, or very likely.  
Pliny, and Marcus Varro, discoursing on the time of a man's life, do affirm, that the learned Egyptians had found out by experience, that man (according to the course of nature) could not live above a hundred years; but if any one happened to out-step that limitation, it was judged by particular influence, and power of the stars, a thing (in nature's work) very strange and marvellous.  
But pass we to the foundation of this their settled persuasion, they gathered and conceived by the heart of a man, which (having made proof of many times by order of Anatomy) they thereby attained to the knowledge of very wonderful secrets. For, say they, when a manchild is a full year old, his heart poizeth the weight of two of their dram●; four, when he is two years old, and so onward (as many years as he lives) his heart increaseth in weight a couple of dams yearly. So that when he cometh to the age of fifty years, his heart weigheth then an hundred dams; but thence forward it is not more ponderous, but proportionably diminisheth his weight (ratably every year) by two dams, even according as before it increased. So that at the age of 100 years, the heart (by continual decreasing) becomes to be nothing in poise; and then consequently, the man of necessity dies if (by some other accidental occasion) he dies not before: because there are so many kinds of several occasions, which can and do customarily hasten death, before men arrive at half the time of making this experiment in themselves.  
We have then nothing more certain or assured then death, and that only in the will, power, and knowledge of God: so that as the forgetfulness of death is the cause of a man's falling into sin, so the memory thereof turneth him quite from sin. Recordare novissima, Remember thy end, and thou shalt never do amiss. And the Kingly Psalmist saith, Cogitari dies antiquos & annos aeternos in ment habui, etc. Ps 77.5, 6. And Plato affirms, that the life of a wise man is meditation in death. Therefore watch and pray, for ye know not at what hour the Lord will come. It is well weighed by Rapertus, that after God had condemned Adam to death, he bestowed upon his wife the name of life, Mater cunctarum gentium, the Mother of all the living; scarce had God condemned him to punishment, but he by and by shows he had forgot it: and therefore did God permit the death of innocent Abel, to the end that in Abel he might see the death of the body, and in Cain the death of the soul, for to quicken his memory.  
From Adam we inherit this forgetfulness, not remembering what we saw but yesterday; and the general desire of man strives all it can to perpetuate our life: which if it were in our hands, we would never see death. But because the love of life should not rob us of our memory, and that fearing as we are mortal, we might covet those things that are eternal, seeing that walls, towers, marble, and brass moulder away to dust, we may ever have in our memory this rule, Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.  
Many holy Saints have styled the memory the stomach of the soul; as Gregory, Bernard, Theodoret: and God commanding Ezechiel he should notify unto his people certain things he had revealed unto him; and charging him that he should well remember himself of them, he said, Comede quaecunque ego do tibi; Eat whatsoever I give thee. And in another place he commanded him that he should eat a book wherein were written Lamentations and Woe, etc. being all Metaphors of the Prophets, having things in his remembrance: and this is more clearly delivered by Job, nunquid sapiens replebit arbore stomachum sanum? will a wise man fill his stomach with that heat that shall burn and consume him? Job 15. which is to say, will he charge his memory with matters of pain and torments?  
The proportion than holds thus: as the stomach is the store-house or magazine of our corporal food, and keeping therein our present meat, the body takes from thence its sustenance, whereby it maintains its being and its life: So the memory is the magazine of the soul, and setteth before our eyes the obligation wherein we stand; the good which we lose, and the hurt which we gain.  
Secondly, as from the disorder and disagreement of the stomach painful diseases do arise, and divers infirmities to the body: so from the forgetfulness of the memory rise those of the soul; for without oblivion (saith Saint Basill) our salvation cannot be lost, nor our souls-health endangered.  
Thirdly, as when the fuel and fire shall fail man's stomach, which is the oven which boyles and seasons our life, we may give that of the bodies for loss; so when our memory shall fail us, we may give our soul for lost. Therefore this advice of the son of Syrach is most requisite, Recordare novissima, Remember thy end. As the first attribute of man is oblivion, so the second is his baseness and misery.  
In Ezechiel the King of Tyre said, Deus ego sum, I am a God: but he was answered, he was but a man, that is base, vile, and miserable, Eze. 28. So David, ut sciant gentes quoniam homines sunt, Let the Nations know that they are men, that is, base and vile. Psal. 9 And S. Paul, Nun homines estis? Are ye not men? 1 Cor 3.2 When we see a man sometimes swallowed up in the miseries of the body, sometimes of the soul, we say in the conclusion, he is but a man: Now if instead of the gold of the Angels there was found rust, and that so fine cloth as that, was not without its moths, and that incorrupted wood without its worm, what then will become of those that are but dust, Qui babitant domos luteas, who dwell in houses of Clay?  
Ecclesiasticus doth advise thee to rise up betimes, and not to be the last, but to get thee home without delay, for there thou shalt find enough to do, Preacurre in domum tuam, et age conceptiones tuas. Jeremy counsels thee to the same, sending thee to this house of clay and mud.  
It's worth observation, God did not speak unto Moses till he had drawn his sheep aside into the desert, putting his hand twice into his bosom, the one he took out clear, and the other leprous.  
We have two bosoms to take care of in this life, the one of our own things, the other, of other men's, but the meditation of our own misery, being the more necessary, we must ever have in our mind this Reordare, Remember thy end.  
A man not knowing himself, cannot know God: Now to know himself, the next way is to go out of himself, and to consider the trace and tract of those Alexanders and Caesars etc. Vbi sunt principes gentium, Where are the Princes of the Nations?  
It is the choir of Gregory Nazianzen, why God having created the soul for Heaven, did knit it with so strait a knot, to a Body of earth, so frail and so lumpish? his answer is, That the Angels being overthrown by their pride, he was willing to repair and to help his presumption in man, a creature in his superior party as it were, Angelical, but having a heavy and miserable body, which might serve as a stay unto him, that if the nimbleness of his understanding should puff him up, yet that earth which clogged his body should humble him and keep him down.  
There is no man so desperate, nor of that boldness of spirit, but doth show a kind of fear when death looks him in the face, and therefore death is termed pale, because it makes the most valiant to change colour.  
Job painting forth such a kind of soulless man, saith Quis arguet coram eo, Who shall be able to control this man, that neither fears the Law, nor his King, nor his God? Job 21.31. The best remedy is to carry him to the Sepulchers of the dead, et in congery mortuorum evigilabit; He shallbe brought to the graves and made to wake; and if the looking upon that sad spectacle will not work him, there is little hope of good to be done upon him.  
Those that entered triumphantly into Rome had a thousand occasions given them to incite them to pride, arrogancy, and vanity, as their great numbers of Captains, their Troops of horse, their Chariots drawn with Elephants or Lions, and beautiful Ladies looking upon them from their windows, and the like: but the Senate considering the great danger of the Tryumpher, ordered one to sit by his side, to tell him of his Mortality: and what now are the best of us all, but Terrigenae et silii somnium, The offspring of the earth, and the children of men?  
This word Recordare, doth imply a deep-meditation, that it might stir up fire in us, according to that of David, In meditatione mea exardescet ignis, A fire waxed hot in my heart whilst I was musing. Meditation is like Gunpowder, which in a man's hand is dust and earth: but put fire thereunto, it will overthrow Towers, Walls, and Cities: so a quick lively memory, and inflamed considerations of our own wretched estates, will blow up the Towers of our pride, and cast down the Walls of our rebellious hearts, and ruin those Cities of clay wherein we dwell: As the Phoenix fanowing the fire with her wings, is renewed again by her own ashes, so shalt thou become a new creature, by remembering what thou art.  
Desire not life then, but with the remembrance of death: there is a Naball in the 1 of Sam. 25. that desires to live to shear his sheep, and to make a feast like a King, though the next day his heart die within him, and he become like a stone.  
There is a fool, Luke 12: that desires long life, to build Barns, to gather goods, to lay up fruits, to take ●ase, to eat, to drink, to be merry,  ebrii & ru●tantes entreat in paradisum: That reeling and belching (saith Jeremy) they may fall into an epicures paradise.  
There is a Nabuchadnezzar in Dan. the 4. that desires to mount up his piles of wonderment, and his Turrets of Babel, but in the midst of his pride, (not thinking of his last end) is urned into an Ox that eateth hay.  
There is an Absalon, that not remembering his end, desired to wear a Crown upon his head, though he be hanged by the hair of the head, and he be strucken with three darts through the liver, 2 Sam. 18.  
There is an Achab, that desires to live, and not regarding his own end, taketh possession of Naboths Vineyard, though in the place where the Dogs licked the blood of Naboth, Dogs shall lick the blood of Achab. Kings 1.21.  
There is an Haman, that desires to live, till he may be revenged on Mordecaie his enemy, although a gallows of fifty foot high (an eminent place for execution) be the end of a mischievous courtier's promotion. All which unlawful desires, although they have Volaticum gaudium (as a Father calls them) yet they shall have Talentum plumbi, as the Prophet speaketh, a Talon of lead, an intolerable pressure of their conscience in their death. Zach. 5.7.  
Thus you may see, fire and water not more contrary, than flesh and spirit: Here I would feign know, what are the strings? what the buckles? what the cords of Love? what slime of Euphrates?  
What gum of Arabia? what cement or glue do join an immortal, incorporal, insensible soul, in a house of clay, in a body of earth, the most gross, the most base, most solid element? surely, we are wonderfully made: none but God did compose us, none but God can preserve us, none but God, by his permission, or direction, ordinary, or extarordinary administration of second causes, can dissolve us; he with a breath gave us breath, he with a word takes away our breath, and so all our thoughts perish.  
Let not Asa trust in his Physician, nor Naaman trust to the Rivers of Damascus, nor Absalon to the lustre of beauty, nor Maximus to the strength of an Elephant, nor Herod to the flattering clamour of idolising people, that we are not men, but Gods. Thoses, who in the regard of their constitutions, communicate in the sanguine of the Rose, and in the snowy beauty of the Little, their bodies are (saith S. chrysostom) but Nidus hirundinum, a Swallows Nest, composed of dirt, and straw: they are no fairer than Ionas ground, a worm struck it at the root, and the ground withered; so that the greatest King or Peer, may make King Philip's fable, his Motto, and Moral.  
Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.  
Samuel being to anoint Saul, God gave him for a sign, that he would have him Prince over his people, that he should find two men as soon as he was gone from him, nea●e unto rachel's Sepulchre, God might have given him some other sign, but he chose rather to give him this, to quell the pride and haughtiness of this his new honour, as if he should admonish and put thee in mind, That so fair a Creature as Rachel should read a Lecture unto thee, what thou must be.  
But when the time of this dissolution shall come to pass, that no man knoweth, neither the manner how, nor the place where: therefore, Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.  
First, no man knoweth the place, and it is no great matter, since Rachel died in the highway, as well as Jezabell in the streets, since Josias and Achab both died in the field, since Saul and Jonathan died both in one battle, and their Carcases were hung up as Trophies of a bloody victory in a barbarous City.  
Will you hear a Philosophical comfort? Earth you know is the centre, and Heaven is the world's circumference. If a man shall draw a circle with his pen, with a point in the midst of the circle, the circle is equally distant from all points of the circle, unto the point of the centre; there is therefore from all parts of the point and centre of the earth, an equal distance to the circle and circumference of Heaven: what matter therefore though the bodies of the Martyrs were entombed in the entrails of wild beasts, though their ashes were scattered upon Rhodanus, though their carcases were made a prey to the Fowls of the Heaven? What glory was it to Marshal's fly, though it were buried in concreted Crystal, what shame to Naboth though his blood was licked up with Dogs? what hurt to the Virgins in the Sack of Rome, whose bodies were unburied upon earth, whose souls were received into Heaven? Nec vivorum culpa, qui non putuerunt Aust. Lib. 1. de Civitate Dei. It was neither (saith S. Austin) the fault of the living, who had no power to bury the dead, nor the punishment of the dead, who had no sense of the afflictions of the living.  
Secondly, we know not the manner of our death, and it is a very trifle.  
Job compares man to a Flower, Esay to Grass, and David to a Tree; Is it any great matter whether the Flower be cropped, or the Grass mowed, or the Axe laid to the root of the Tree?  
At the death of Christ there were three Crosses: upon those crosses were three persons; The Thief blaspheming, the Thief repenting, the Son of GOD praying. Quid similius istis crucibus? quid dissimilius ist is pendentibus? What more like (saith Saint Austin) than those crosses? what more unlike than those persons?  
Lastly, we do not know the time of our death, and it is good for us we do not: in nature (saith Seneca) pejor est Letho, timor ipse Lethi, The fear of death is more terrible than death. Caesar had the death he desired: and surely that he deserved, to die suddenly by the hands of the Senators of Rome.  
It was the song of Zacharias, that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, all the days of our life.  
Men would serve God, as they do their servants, with reversions; In ultimis diebus mortis; In the last days of their death: but God will be served, In omnibus diebus vitae, In all the days of our life. Nature hath only a Trumpet of lead, but the Ark of God hath a Trumpet of silver.  
Hear then the difference between Nature and Grace: Nature saith, O cives, cives, quaerenda pecunia primum; virtus post nummes; first seek gold▪ then serve God: first betray Christ, then buy a field of blood to bury strangers; first make ma●y beggars by usury and oppression, and then build an Hospital of a bloody Devotion.  
But Grace saith, Quaerite primum Regnum Dei, Math. 6. First seek the Kingdom of God, and all things shall be given unto you; all the rubbish of the world's treasure, are but castings, adjectanea, as chip, and shave, compared to the pearl of Heaven. Latet ultimus dies ut obseruetur omnis dies; Because therefore we know not our last day, we ought to observe every day. Epicures and Balaams that have lived ill, Quando anima in extremis labris, when the Soul sits on their Lips to take her flight, than they send for their Minister, to teach them to die well.  
We may then give you a little opiate divinity to benumb you, we cannot give a cordial to secure you. We may tell you that one Thief went from the gallows to glory, but then we must not conceal, that as▪ the Lord is rich in mercy, so not poor in judgement. Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.  
This word Recordare is the father of two good effects; first, it moveth man to Repentance, by putting him in mind of his frailty: for being dust and ashes how dares he contest with his Creator? vae qui contradicit factori suo, as it is Esay 45.9.  
Secondly, it inclines God to mercy, Memento (quaeso) quod sicut lutum feceris me. Consider (O Lord) that thou madest me of earth, and didst mould me up in a mass of bones, sinews, and flesh, and now Lord, if thou shouldst lay thy heavy hand upon me, what strength is mine, that it should be able to endure it? If thou shalt not take pity of this poor piece of earth, this crazy vessel of clay, what will become of thy mercy of old, and of all thy wont kindness? if that steel and stronger metal of the Angels was broken by thee, it is no great matter if earth break and split in sunder.  
Nothing more properly appertaineth unto man then dust, his last end; and therefore the Scripture termeth death a man's returning again unto the earth, from whence he came. The Flower, the Leaf, they have some good in them (though of short continuance) as colour, odour, beauty, virtue, and shade; but dust and earth speaks no other good. Amongst the elements, the earth is the least noble, and the most weak; the fire, the water, and the air have spirit and actitude, but the earth is as it were a prisoner laden with weightiness, as with gyves:  
If then man's end be such, but earth, Quid utilitatem saginando Corpore? why such a deal of care in pampering the body, which the worms may devour tomorrow? Look upon that flesh which thy father made so much of, that (now) rotten and stinking Carcase; surely this consideration should moderate thy desire of being over-dainty and so curious in cherishing thy flesh. Jsaac on the night of his nuptials, placed his wife's bed in the chamber where his dear and loving Mother died. Tobias spent all the night with his spouse in prayer, being mindful of the harm which the devil had done to her former husbands; as being advised from Heaven, that he should temper with the remembrance of death, the delights and pleasures of this his short and transitory life.  
Again, if man's end be but earth, why such a deal of coveting of honours and riches and rising one against another? why such great and stately houses, and so richly furnished? Our forefathers lived eight hundred years and upwards, and past over their lives in poor Cabins & Cottages. Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, but he excused his so doing, for that he saw his death so near at hand; En, Morior, quid proderunt mihi primogenita; Behold, I am ready to die, what will birthright profit me? there is a doubt put, why did the Egyptians so freely bestow their jewels, and their gold, and their silver on the Hebrews?  
The Resolution is, that seeing their first begotten were all dead, they made light reckoning of those things which before they so much esteemed. Abulensis moves another doubt, why the Giants of the promised Land did not devour the Jsraelites, being but a; Grassehoppers in comparison of their greatness? Unto this, there is a twofold answer; the first, that they came in as strangers, from whom they presumed they could receive no hurt: the second, that God set a consuming plague amongst them, Terra devorat habitatores suos, The earth devoureth her Inhabitants; and there is no man of what strength or metal soever, that can shun death's dart, or fence his blow.  
Not to shake this Tree for any more fruit, I will but therefore strike this flint for a spark and away; Death is near at hand: as for the times I need not tell you of them, for that we all know them by woeful experience. Let us then use this world as if we used it not, for the sum of our lives (saith Seneca) concludes all in two words, Nasci & Mori; to be borne, and to die. Gregory Nissen treating of that place of Solomon, Omnia tempus habent, There is a time for all things; notes, that this wise man joins our Nasci with a Mori, as being near neighbours: and indeed many times, the time of death prevents the time of birth. Consider what hath been said, and the Lord of Heaven give you understanding in all things.  
FINIS.