,UC-NRLF 
 
 *B 700 30S 
 
iHINK 'WELL ON^T 
 
 REFLECTIONS ^ 
 
 ON ^^^ 
 
 THE GREAT TRUTHS 
 
 n 
 
 CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 
 
 FOR EVERY DAY IN THE MONTH. 
 By bishop CIIALLONER, 
 
 THE irjIJR T Y DA YS'^ PRA YER, 
 
 CLIFTON, BRISTOL. 
 
 printed and published 
 
 By G. BOWEN. 
 
 Sold also by S. Gilbert, 26, Paternoster Row; F. A. 
 Little, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden ; Rockliff 
 Si Ellis, Liverpool; Spencer, Bath; Clark, South- 
 ampton; Lelli, Newport, Isle of Wight; and all Book- 
 ell ers. 
 
 MDCCCXLI. 
 

 4 
 
 lUAV 
 
 ,..,.-^ 
 
THINK WELL ON T. -; ^-^ 3 
 
 happy are they who know all things else, and are 
 strangers to themselves ! Let us then daily pray 
 with St. Augustine : noverim te, noverim me ; Lord, 
 give me grace to knoiv thee ; Lord, give me grace 
 to know myself: and let us labour to acquire 
 these two most necessary sciences by frequent 
 consideration. 
 
 4. Consider, that in order to nourish in our 
 souls the wholesome fear of God, which is the 
 beginning of true wisdom, and spur ourselves on 
 in the way of virtue, we must also seriously reflect 
 on the enormity of sin, and the hatred God bears 
 unto it; on the dreadful effect of sin in the soul, 
 and on the multitude of our own sins in particular ; 
 on the vanity, misery and deceitfulness of the 
 world ; on the comfort and happiness that attend 
 a virtuous life ; on the shortness of time, and the 
 dreadful length of a miserable eternity ; on the 
 certainty and uncertainty of death, and the senti- 
 ments we shall have when we come to die ; on the 
 small number of the elect, &c. Ah ! Christians, 
 let us not neglect this great means of salvation I 
 It was the consideration of these truths that made 
 so many saints ; that has so often reclaimed even 
 the most abandoned sinners. Oh ! what a profound 
 lethargy must that soul be in, which is not roused 
 at the thunder of those dreadful truths, death, 
 judgment, hell, eternity! 
 
 5. Consider the bitter but fruitless repentance 
 of the damned, condemning their past folly, in 
 having thought so little on those things on which 
 they shall now think for all eternity. Senseless 
 wretches as we were ! we had once our time, when, 
 by thinking upon this miserable eternity, we might 
 
4 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 have escaped it. Those endless joys of heaven 
 were offered us at a cheap rate, when a httle re- 
 flection on them might have put us in the way of 
 securing to ourselves the everlasting possession of 
 them. But alas ! we would not think then ; and 
 now it is too late. O my soul, learn thou to be 
 wise by their misfortune ; reflect in this thy day 
 on the things that appertain to thy eternal peace ; 
 think well on thy last end ; meditate on the great 
 truths of the gospel. Thou must either think of 
 them now, or hereafter, when the thought of them 
 will only serve to aggravate thy misery for all 
 eternity. 
 
 THE SECOND DAY. 
 
 On the end of our creation. 
 
 r^ONSIDER, Christian soul, that so many years 
 ago thou wast not yet come into the world, 
 and that thy being was a mere nothing. The 
 world had lasted near upon six thousand years, 
 with innumerable transactions and revolutions in 
 every nation ; and where wast thou all that while ? 
 Alas ! thou wast ingulphed in the deep abyss of 
 nothing, infinitely beneath the condition of the 
 meanest creature upon the earth ; and what couldst 
 thou do remaining there ? Learn then to humble 
 thyself, whatever advantages thou mayst enjoy of 
 nature or grace, since of thyself thou art nothing ; 
 and all that thou hast above nothing has been 
 given or lent thee by thy maker. Ah ! poor wretch, 
 what hast thou to be proud of ? Or what canst 
 thou call thy own, but nothing and sin, which is 
 worse than nothing ? 
 
 2. Consider, that the almighty hand of God, 
 
TPUNK WELL ON T. 
 
 descending into that deep abyss of nothing, has 
 drawn thee forth from thence, and given thee this 
 being which thou now enjoy est, the most accom- 
 pHshed and perfect of any in this visible world, 
 capable of knowing and loving God in this life, 
 and designed for everlasting happiness with him 
 in the next. Admire and adore the bounty of 
 thy God, who from all eternity has designed this 
 being for thee, preferably to so many millions of 
 others which he has left behind, that had as fair a 
 title to a being as thou liadst. Look forward into 
 that immense eternity for which thou hast been 
 created, and thankfully acknowledge, that the love 
 thy God bears thee has neither beginning nor end, 
 but reaches from eternity to eternity. 
 
 3. Consider, that being created by Almighty 
 God, and having received thy whole being from 
 him, by the justest of all titles thou belongest to 
 him ; and art obliged to consecrate to his service 
 all thy powers, faculties and senses ; and art 
 guilty of a most crying injustice, as often as thou 
 abusest any part of thy being, by employing it in 
 the pursuit of vanity and sin. Ah ! my poor soul, 
 how little have we hitherto thought of this ? How 
 small a part of our thoughts, words and deeds, 
 has been referred to him who is our first begin- 
 ning, and therefore ought to be the last end of all 
 our actions ? Be confounded at so great an abuse ; 
 repent and amend. 
 
 4. Consider, that God, who gave thee thy being, 
 and who created all things else in this visible world 
 for thy service, has created thee for himself alone. 
 Not that he stood in need of thee, or can receive 
 from thee any increase or addition to his happi- 
 
 b3 
 
G THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 ness ; but that he might give thee his grace in this 
 Hfe, and the endless joys of his kingdom in the 
 next. Stand astonished, Christian soul, at the 
 bounty of thy Creator, in making thee for so 
 noble an end ; and since thou wast made for God, 
 be ashamed to content thyself with any thing less 
 than God : learn then to contemn all that is earthly 
 and temporal, as things beneath thee, and un- 
 worthy of thy affection. Lament thy past folly, 
 and that of the far greater part of mankind, who 
 spend their days in vain amusements, in restless 
 cares about painted toys and mere trifles; and 
 seldom or never think of that great end, for which 
 alone they came into this world. 
 
 5. Consider that all the powers and faculties of 
 thy soul, thy will, thy memory, thy understanding, 
 and all the senses and parts of thy body, were all 
 given by thy Creator, as so many means to attain 
 to this end of thy creation, to be employed during 
 thy short abode in this transitory life, in the service 
 of thy God, and so to bring thee to the eternal 
 enjoyment of him in the sweet repose of his blessed 
 kingdom. Alas ! my soul, have we not perverted 
 all these gifts of our maker, in turning them all 
 against the giver? Have mercy on us, O Lord ; 
 have mercy on us ; pardon our past treasons, and 
 give us grace now to begin to be wise for eternity. 
 
 THE THIRD DAY. 
 
 On the benefits of God. 
 
 (CONSIDER, my soul, how many and how 
 
 great are thy obligations to the bounty of thy 
 
 God. He has thought of thee from all eternity : 
 
 he has loved thee from all eternity : all the bless- 
 
? 
 
 THIKK WELL ON T. 
 
 ings and favours which he has bestowed upon thee 
 in time, he designed for thee from all eternity ; they 
 are all the consequences of his eternal love for thee. 
 Is it possible that so great a God, the most high 
 and the most holy, who dwells in eternity, should 
 set his affections upon such a poor sinful worm of 
 the earth? Is it possible, my soul, that thou 
 shouldst have had a place from all eternity in the 
 heart of thy God ; and that his eternal mind should 
 never have been one moment without thinking on 
 thee ! Ah ! poor wretch, what return hast thou 
 made for this ancient love ? How late hast thou 
 loved him, who has loved thee from all eternity ? 
 How little hast thou thought of him, who always 
 thinks of thee ? 
 
 2. Consider that thy God has not only given 
 thee by creation thy soul and body, with all their 
 powers and faculties, and, in a word, whatever 
 thou hast, and whatever thou art ; but also pre- 
 serves them each moment by the benefit of con- 
 servation, which may be called a continual crea- 
 tion . For as nothing but his Almighty hand could 
 give thee this being, so none but he could preserve 
 thee from falling back into thy former nothing : 
 which must infallibly have happened to thee, if 
 thy God had but for one moment withdrawn his 
 supporting hand. Poor sinner ! why didst thou 
 not think of this when, by thy repeated crimes, 
 thou wast waging war with thy God ; and he with 
 incomparable love was night and day watching 
 over thee ? How didst thou dare presume so often 
 and for so long a time to provoke him, who held 
 the thread of thy life in his hand, and who every 
 moment could have crushed thee into nothing, or 
 

 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 ^^^"thee headlong into hell ! Oh ! blessed by all 
 creatures be his mercy for ever, for having borne 
 with thee so long. 
 
 3. Consider the inestimable benefit of our re- 
 demption, by which our loving God has rescued 
 us from sin, and from hell, the just reward of sin. 
 Alas ! my poor soul, we must have been lost for 
 ever, had not this sovereign Maker and Lord of 
 heaven and earth loved us to that degree, as to 
 deliver himself up to the most cruel and ignomi- 
 nious death of the cross for our redemption. 
 Greater love than this no man hath, that one lay 
 down his life for his frieyid : St. John xv. 13. 
 But, O dear Lord, thou hast carried thy love 
 much farther than this, in dying for those who by 
 sin were thy declared enemies : in dying for such 
 ungrateful wretches, as would scarce ever thank 
 thee for thy love, and seldom or never so much 
 as pity thy sufferings, or take any notice of them. 
 Ah ! Christians, what shall we most admire, to see 
 this great monarch of heaven and earth, (in com- 
 parison with whom the whole creation is just 
 nothing, or rather less than nothing,) expiring on 
 a cross for such despicable worms as we are ? Or 
 to see those, who believe this amazing truth, take 
 so little notice of this immense love, which will 
 be a just subject of astonishment to men and angels 
 for all eternity. 
 
 4. Consider how much we owe to God for 
 having called us to the true faith, preferably to so 
 many millions whom he has left behind in dark- 
 ness and the shades of death. Alas! poor souls, 
 how deplorable is their condition, void as they are 
 of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, or of his only 
 
THIi^'K WELL ON't. 
 
 spouse, the true Catholic Church ! How Httle do 
 they think of God, or of the hfe to come ! With 
 how Httle apprehension or remorse do they run 
 on from sin to sin, and die impenitent ! Ah ! the 
 goodness of God, that has not suffered us to fall 
 into such misery, though born and bred up amidst 
 a people seduced by error ! Or, if we have also 
 had the misfortune, hke our neighbours, to have 
 gone astray from the womb, has by a more dis- 
 tinguishing mercy drawn us out of the dragon's 
 jaws, and brought us to his fold, the Catholic 
 Church ! Blessed be our God for ever for all his 
 mercies. Oh ! what an inestimable happiness it is, 
 to have, by the means of this grace of vocation, 
 God himself for our father, and his holy Church 
 for our mother ! To pass this transitory life in 
 the happy society of the only spouse of God's 
 only son ! To be daily partakers of the sacra- 
 ments, those heavenly conduits of divine grace ! 
 To live and die in the communion of the saints, 
 &:c. Ah ! blessed is the people who have the 
 Lord for their God: Ps. cxliii. 15. 
 
 5. Consider, Christian soul, whoever thou art, 
 the particular providence of God towards thee ! 
 With how many graces he has presented thee 
 from thy tender years : from how many misfor- 
 tunes he has preserved thee ! Has he not borne 
 with thee for a long time, whilst others have been 
 cut off in their sins ? Are there not .millions now 
 burning in hell for less sins than thou hast com- 
 mitted? Reflect on the advantages thou hast 
 received above thousands : what conveniencies of 
 life, what friends, what health &c; whilst so 
 many, more worthy than thyself, have been aban- 
 
10 THINK WELL ON*T. 
 
 doned to poverty and misery. Ah ! admire the 
 unspeakable goodness of thy God to thee : be as- 
 tonished and confounded at thy past ingratitude : 
 resolve from henceforth never to cease giving him 
 thanks and blessing his name. 
 
 THE FOURTH DAY. 
 
 On the dignity and obligations of a Christian, 
 QONSIDER that every Christian by nature, 
 and inasmuch as he is a man, is the most 
 perfect of all visible creatures, endowed with un- 
 derstanding and reason; composed of a body 
 whose structure* is admirable, and of a spiritual 
 and immortal soul, created to the image and like- 
 ness of God, and capable of the eternal enjoy- 
 ment of him ; enriched with a free will, and ad- 
 vanced by his Creator to the dignity of lord and 
 master of all other creatures ; though not designed 
 to meet with his happiness in any of them, but 
 in the Creator alone. Ah ! my soul, hast thou 
 hitherto been sensible of the dignity of thy nature ? 
 Hast thou not, too often, like brute beasts, looked 
 no farther than this earth, that is, these present 
 material and sensible things? Hast thou not too 
 often made thyself a slave to creatures, which 
 were only made to serve thee ? 
 
 2. Consider that every Christian by grace, and 
 inasmuch as he is a Christian, has been by the 
 sacrament o^ baptism advanced to the participa- 
 tion of the divine nature, and made the adopted 
 child of God, heir of God, and co-heir with Christ. 
 He has been made the temple of the Most High, 
 consecrated by the sprinkling of the blood of 
 Christ, and the unction of his grace ; and has 
 
THINK WELL ON*T. 11 
 
 received at the same time an unquestionable right 
 and title to an everlasting kingdom. O Chris- 
 tian soul, didst thou ever yet entertain a serious 
 thought of the greatness of this dignity to which 
 thou hast been raised at thy baptism ? How has 
 thy life corresponded with this dignity ? O child of 
 heaven, how long wilt thou be a slave to the earth ? 
 
 3. Consider, that as the dignity of a Christian 
 is very great, so also the obligations that attend 
 this dignity are greater than the generality of 
 Christians imagine. These obhgationsare, in short, 
 comprised in our baptismal engagement. The first 
 condition upon which we were by baptism adopted 
 into God's family, was that of faith. The minis- 
 ter of Christ examined us at the font upon every 
 article of our belief; and to each interrogation we 
 answered, by the mouths of our godfathers and 
 godmothers, credo, I do believe. What has thy 
 faith been, O my soul? Has it been conformable 
 to this thy profession ? Has it been firm without 
 wavering ? Has it been generous, so as not to be 
 ashamed of the doctrine of thy heavenly Master, 
 or the maxims of his gospel? Has it shewed 
 itself in thy actions ? Or hast thou not been of 
 the number of those whose life gives the lie to 
 their faith ? Of whom the apostle complains : 
 Tit. i. 16. Who make profession of knowing God, 
 hut deny him by their works. 
 
 4. Consider, that at our baptism we made a 
 solemn renunciation of the devil, and all his works, 
 and all his pomps. Have we ever seriously re- 
 flected upon this renunciation ? Or do we rightly 
 understand the obligations of it ? And yet our 
 title to the inheritance of our heavenly Father is 
 
12 TIIIKK WELL ON T. 
 
 forfeited in the moment that we are false to this 
 sacred engagement. Ah ! my soul, if thou hast 
 renounced satan, take care that in the practice of 
 thy life, thou keep far from him : take care thou 
 be no longer his slave by sin. Fly from all his 
 works, the works of darkness : let him henceforth 
 find nothing in thee that he may claim for his own, 
 and by means of which he may also lay claim to 
 thee. Despise his vain pomps, the false appear- 
 ance of worldly grandeur, the prodigality, vanity, 
 and sinful divertisements by which he allures poor 
 worldlings into his nets : and if at any time thou 
 art invited to take part in these fooleries, repeat 
 to thyself those words of St. Augustine: ^^"VVhat 
 hast thou to do with the pomps of the devil, which 
 thou hast renounced V 
 
 5. Consider, that at baptism each one of us, 
 according to the ancient ceremony of the Catholic 
 Church, was clothed with a white garment, which 
 the minister of Christ gave us with these words : 
 receive this white garment, w^hich thou shalt carry 
 without spot or stain before the judgment-seat of 
 Christ. Happy souls, that comply with this ob- 
 ligation ! What a comfort will it be to them in life, 
 what a joy and satisfaction in death, to have kept 
 this robe of innocence undefiled ! But, O bap- 
 tismal innocence, where shall we find thee in this 
 unhappy age ? O blindness and stupidity of the 
 children of Adam, that part so easily with such 
 an inestimable treasure ! Alas ! my poor soul, has 
 it not been thy misfortune ? Oh ! make haste to 
 wash away, with penitential tears, those dreadful 
 stains of sin, which otherwise must be the eternal 
 fuel of hell's merciless flames. 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 
 THE FIFTH DAY. 
 
 On the vanity of the world. 
 QONSIDER these words of the wisest of men : 
 Eccles. i. 2. Vanity of vatiities, and all is 
 vanity : and reflect how truly vain are all those 
 things which deluded worldlings seek with so 
 much eagerness; honours, riches and worldly 
 pleasures are all but painted bubbles, which look 
 at a distance as if they were something, but have 
 nothing of real substance in them ; and, instead of 
 a solid content and joy, bring nothing with them 
 but a trifling satisfaction for a moment, followed 
 with cares, uneasiness, apprehensions and re- 
 morse. Ah! bubbles indeed, which their ad- 
 mirers no sooner offer to lay hold of, but they 
 dissolve into air, and leave their hands empty t 
 Oh ! how justly were all worldly enjoyments by 
 the royal prophet likened to a dream ! They have 
 slept out their short sleep, and when they awake 
 they find nothing in their hands of all those things 
 which, in their dream, they seemed to possess. 
 O ye sons of men, how long will ye be in love 
 with vanity, and run after lies ? Psalm iv. 3. 
 
 2. Consider that saying of St. Augustine, L. i. 
 Confes. C. 1. Thou hast made us, Lord, for 
 thyself; and our hearts cannot rest till they rest 
 in thee : and reflect, that our great Creator has 
 given us a noble soul, made to his own image, and 
 like him spiritual and immortal ; which therefore 
 can never find its happiness in earthly and fading 
 things. No, my soul, thou hast an understanding 
 and a will capable of contemplating the sovereign 
 beauty and sovereign truth, and of enjoying the 
 one supreme infinite good ; and whatever is less 
 
14 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 than He, is not worthy of thee. Ah ! resolve then 
 no longer to tire thyself, and waste away thy spirits 
 in running like a child after these butterflies; but 
 since thou canst not be without seeking for happi- 
 ness, seek it in God's name, where it is to be found, 
 that is, in the way of virtue and devotion ; and not 
 in the by-paths which lead to endless misery. 
 
 3. Consider the shortness of all worldly enjoy- 
 ments. Man's days are very short : the longest 
 life is less than one moment, if compared with 
 eternity. A thousand years, in the sight of God, 
 that is, in very truth, are but as yesterday that is 
 past and gone : Psalm Ixxxix. 4. Alas ! does not 
 daily experience shew us, that we are here to-day, 
 and gone to-morrow, and no sooner out of sight, 
 but out of mind too ? For as soon as we are in 
 the grave, those that we leave behind think no 
 more of us. All flesh is grass, says the Prophet 
 Isaiah, chap. xl. 6. and all the glory of it but like 
 that of the flower of the field. And what is that, 
 but flourishing in the morning, and fading in the 
 evening ? Oh ! how truly is our life hkened by St. 
 James, chap. iv. to avapouror a thin smoke, which 
 is dispersed by the first pufFof wind, and we see 
 no more of it ? How justly is it compared by So- 
 lomon, Wisdom, chap. v. to a shadow, or to the 
 passing of a bird upon the wing, or an arrow from 
 the bow, which leaves no mark behind it ? Ah ! 
 how vain it is to set our hearts upon what we 
 must leave so soon ! 
 
 4. Consider, what is now become of all those 
 great ones of this world, those mighty monarchs, 
 those gallant generals, those wise statesmen, those 
 celebrated beauties &c ; who made such a figure 
 
THINK WELL ON T* 1 c, 
 
 a hundred years ago ? Alas ! they are all long since 
 dead and gone ; and now few or none ever think of 
 them, or scarce know there ever were any such per- 
 sons; just so will it be with us a few years hence. 
 Ah ! worldlings, give ear for one moment to those 
 who are gone before you, who, from their silent 
 monuments, where the remainder of their dust lies 
 mingled with the common earth, call upon you in 
 the words of the wise man : Eccles. xxxviii. 23. 
 Remember what we are come to ; it will soon be 
 the same with you ; it was our turn yesterday ; it 
 will be yours to-day. We once had our parts to 
 act upon the stage of the world ; we once were 
 young, strong, and healthy, as you are now, and 
 thought as little as you of what we are now come 
 to : like you, we set our hearts upon those trifles 
 and toys, that we could but enjoy for a moment; 
 and for these we neglected eternity. Senseless 
 wretches as we were ! we chose rather to be slaves 
 to a cheating world, to inconstant, perishable crea- 
 tures, which abandoned us so soon, than to serve 
 that Lord and Master to whom nothing dies ; and 
 who neither in life nor death ever forsakes those 
 who forsake not him. Christians, let us take this 
 warning ; let the miscarriages of so many others 
 teach us to be wise ; let us not set our hearts orf 
 this miserable world ; nor look upon any thing as 
 truly great, but that which is eternal. 
 
 THE SIXTH DAY. 
 
 On the happiness of serving God. 
 QONSIDER these words of the Prophet Isaiah : 
 say to the just man, it is well: Isai. iii. 10. 
 and reflect on the manifold advantages which this 
 
lb THINK WELL ON*T. 
 
 short world well comprises and ensures to tlie just, 
 both for time and eternity. Honour, riches and 
 pleasure, are the things on which the world sets the 
 greatest value. But they are not to be found where 
 the world seeks them, but only in the service of 
 God. Can any honour upon earth be compared 
 to that of being a servant, a friend, an adopted son 
 of the great king of heaven ? Such a soul is far 
 more dignified, in the eyes of God and his angelsj 
 than the greatest emperor in the universe. She is 
 a child of the eternal Father, a spouse of the eter- 
 nal son, a temple of the eternal spirit ; heiress of 
 the kingdom of heaven, and sister and companion 
 to the angels. Oh ! my soul, let such honours as 
 these be the only object of thy ambition. 
 
 2. Consider that the truest riches are to be 
 found in the service of God ; not, indeed, always 
 those worldly possessions, which are attended with 
 so many cares and fears ; which are daily exposed 
 to so many accidents, and which are not capable 
 of satisfying the heart : but the inestimable trea- 
 sure of the grace of God, which is the seed of 
 everlasting glory ; the gifts of the Holy Ghost ; 
 the love of God ; in a word, God himself; whom 
 the whole world cannot take from the soul, unless 
 she be so miserably blind as to drive him away by 
 mortal sin. Add to this the fatherly providence of 
 God over the just ; that his eyes are always upon 
 them to take care of their welfare ; that his angels 
 always encamp about them to guard them by night 
 and by day : Ps. xxxiii. v. 8. that, as he formerly 
 said to Abraham, Gen. xv. he himself is their pro- 
 tector, and their reward exceeding great. He is 
 their friend, and the best of friends; the shepherd 
 
THINK WELL ON*T. 17 
 
 of their souls, who leads them out to his admirable 
 pastures, to the fountains of living water. His ten- 
 derness towards them is beyond that of a father, 
 nay, beyond that of the tenderest mother: Isaiah 
 xlix. 15, 16. In short, God is all things to those 
 that fear him. Oh ! my soul, seek no other treasure 
 than him. Fear nothing but the losing of him 
 If thou hast him, nothing can make thee mise- 
 rable; but without him, nothing can make thee 
 happy. 
 
 3. Consider the pleasure that attends a virtuous 
 life; the satisfaction, peace and joy of a good con- 
 science, which, by the wise man, is hkened to a 
 continual banquet ; the consolations of the Holy 
 Ghost ; the comfortable expectation of a happy 
 eternity after our exit out of this vale of tears ; a 
 holy confidence in the protection and providence of 
 God, and a perfect conformity in all things to his 
 blessed will. From these fountains flov/ such de- 
 lights, as cannot be conceived by worldlings who 
 have no experience of them : pleasures pure and 
 spiritual, which sweeten all the crosses of this life, 
 are an unspeakable comfort in death, and carry 
 with them a certain foretaste of the immortal joys 
 of heaven. Whereas all worldly pleasures, like the 
 world itself, are false and deceitful ; always be- 
 sprinkled with something of bitterness, and at- 
 tended with uneasiness, followed by remorse, and 
 end at last in eternal sorrow. 
 
 4. Consider that saying of our Saviour, one thing 
 is necessary : Luke x. 42. And what is that one 
 thing, O my soul, which alone can make thee 
 happy, both here and hereafter ? It is to serve 
 thy God, and to provide in earnest for eternity. 
 
is THINK WELL ON*t. 
 
 All time compared to eternity is less than nothing. 
 So are all temporal concerns, if compared with 
 the concerns of eternity. This, in reality, is thy 
 only business ; if thou take care of this, all is 
 well ; if thou neglect this, all is lost, and lost for 
 ^ ever. As for all other things of which thou 
 ^^ aayest stand in need in this life, give ear again 
 ^M:o the same Saviour : Mat. vi. 33. Seek first the 
 kingdom of God and his justice, and all these 
 things shall be given you over and above. Con- 
 clude then, my soul, since both thy temporal 
 and eternal welfare depends on serving God, to 
 make this for the future thy only care. Thus only 
 shalt thou meet true comfort here : thus only shalt 
 thou come to never-ending happiness hereafter. 
 
 THE SEVENTH DAY. 
 
 On death. 
 PJONSIDER, that there is nothing more cer- 
 tain than death. It is appointed for all men 
 once to die; and, after that, judgment. The 
 sentence is general ; it is pronounced upon all the 
 children of Adam: neither wealth, nor strength, 
 nor wisdom, nor all the power of this world can 
 exempt any one from this common doom. From 
 the first moment of our birth, we are hastening 
 to our death : every moment brings it nigher to 
 us. The day will come, it will certainly come, 
 and only God knows how soon, when we shall 
 never see the night : or the night will come, 
 when we shall never see the ensuing morning. 
 The day will most certainly come, when thou, 
 my soul, must bid a long farewell to this cheat- 
 ing world, and all thou hast admired therein; 
 
THINK WELL ON T* 19 
 
 and even to thy own body, the individual com- 
 panion of thy life ; and take thy journey to an- 
 other country, where all that thou settest a value 
 upon here, will appear as smoke : learn then to 
 despise this miserable world, and all its enjoy- 
 ments, with which thou must part so soon, whether 
 thou wilt or not. 
 
 2. Consider, that as nothing is more certain 
 and inevitable than death, so nothing is more 
 uncertain than the time, the place, the manner, 
 and all other circumstances of our death. *' O 
 my soul," says St. Francis Sales, '' thou must 
 one day part with this body : but when shall 
 that day be ? Shall it be in winter or in 
 summer ? In the city or in the country ? By 
 day or by night? Shall it be suddenly, or 
 on notice given thee ? Shalt thou have leisure 
 to make thy confession ? Shalt thou have the 
 assistance of thy ghostly father ? Alas ! of all 
 this thou knowest nothing at all : only certain 
 it is, that thou must die; and that, as it al- 
 most always happens, much sooner than thou 
 imaginest." 
 
 3. Consider, that death being so certain, and 
 the time and manner of it so uncertain, it would 
 be no small comfort, if a man could die more 
 than once, that so, if he should have the mis- 
 fortune once to die ill, he might repair the 
 fault by taking more care a second time. But, 
 alas ! we can die but once ; and when once 
 we have set our foot within the gates of eter- 
 nity, there is no coming back. If we die once 
 well, it will be always well: but if once ill, 
 it will be ill for all eternity. Oh ! dreadful mo- 
 
•20 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 merit, upon which depends an endless eternity ! 
 O blessed Lord, prepare us for that fatal hour I 
 
 4. Consider the folly and stupidrty of the 
 greater part of men, who, though they daily 
 see some or other of their friends, acquaintance, 
 or neighbours carried off by death, and that 
 very often in the vigour of their youth, very 
 often by sudden death, yet always imagine 
 death to be at a distance from them : as if those 
 arrows of death, v/hich are falling on all sides 
 of them, would not reach them too in their 
 turn ; or as if they had a greater security than 
 so many others who are daily swept away. Sense- 
 less worldlings ! Why will you not open your 
 eyes ? Why wull you fondly imagine yourselves 
 secure from the stroke of death, when you can- 
 not so much as promise yourselves one single 
 day of life ? How many will die before the 
 end of this month, that are as young, as strong, 
 and as healthy as you are ? Who knows but 
 you may be of that number ? Ah ! Christians, 
 take care lest you be surprised. Set your house 
 in order : and for the future fly from sin, the only 
 evil which makes death terrible. Live always in 
 those dispositions in which you would gladly be 
 found at the hour of your death. To act other- 
 wise, is to renounce both religion and reason. 
 
 5. Consider the state and condition of this 
 corruptible body of ours, as soon as we are 
 dead. Alas ! it immediately becomes pale, stiff, 
 loathsome, and hideous; insomuch, that our 
 dearest friends can scarce endure to watch one 
 night in the same room with it, much less bear 
 to lie in the same bed. And so fast does it tend 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 21 
 
 to stench and corruption, that its nearest re- 
 lations are .the first to desire to get it out of the 
 house, and to lay it deep under ground, that it 
 may not infect the air. But what companions, 
 what attendants, must it meet with there ? Worms 
 and maggots. For these, O man, thou art pam- 
 pering thy body : these are to be thy inherit- 
 ance, or rather, they are to inherit thee : what- 
 ever thou art to-day, to-morrow thou art to be 
 the food of worms. Ah ! worldlings, that are 
 enamoured with your own and others' beauty, 
 and thereby too often drawn from your allegi- 
 ance to God, vouchsafe for once to reflect upon 
 the condition to which both you and they must 
 so soon be reduced, and you will see what little 
 reason you have to set your affections upon these 
 painted dunghills, which will so quickly betray 
 what they are, and end in noisomeness and cor- 
 ruption. We read that St. Francis Borgia was 
 so touched with the bare sight of the ghastly 
 countenance of the empress Isabella after death, 
 whom he had seen a little before in all her 
 majesty, and all her charms, as to conceive an 
 eternal disgust of this world, and a happy resolu- 
 tion of consecrating himself wholly to the service 
 of that king who never dies. Let the like consi- 
 deration move us to the like resolution. 
 
 THE EIGHTH DAY. 
 
 On the sentiments we shall have at the hour 
 
 of our death. 
 (JONSIDER, Christian soul, what will be thy 
 sentiments at the hour of death with regard to 
 this world, and all its perishable goods, vain ho- 
 
22 THINK WELL ON*T. 
 
 nours, false riches and cheating pleasures. Alas ! 
 the world must then end in thy regard ; it will 
 turn upside down before thy eyes ; and thou wilt 
 begin to see clearly the nothingness of all those 
 things on which thou hast here set thy heart. How 
 wilt thou then despise all worldly honours and pre- 
 ferments, when thou seest thyself at the brink of 
 the grave, where the worms will make no distinc- 
 tion between the king and the beggar ! How little 
 account wilt thou then make of the esteem of 
 men, who now will think no more of thee ? How 
 wilt thou undervalue thy riches, which must now 
 be left behind thee, when six foot of land, a coffin 
 and a shroud, will be all thy possession? How 
 despicable will all worldly pleasures then seem 
 to thee, which, at the best, could never give thee 
 any true satisfaction, and now fly from thee, and 
 dissolve into smoke in thy sight ! Ah ! my poor 
 soul, enter now into the same sentiments which 
 thou shalt certainly have at the hour of thy death : 
 thus, and only thus, thou shalt be out of danger 
 of being deceived by this deceitful world. 
 
 2. Consider, what will then be thy thoughts with 
 regard to thy sins ; when the curtain will begin to 
 be withdrawn, with which thy busy self-love has 
 industriously hidden or disguised the deformity and 
 malice of thy crimes : and they shall be set before 
 thy eyes in their true light : when so many things 
 which thou wast willing to persuade thyself were 
 but small faults, or none at all, will present them- 
 selves before thee in other kind of colours, as great 
 and hideous offences : when that false conscience, 
 which thou hast framed to thyself, and under the 
 cover of which tnou hast passed over many things 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 23 
 
 in tliy confessions, as light and inconsiderable, 
 which thou wast ashamed to declare, or unwilling 
 to forsake, shall no longer be able to maintain 
 itself at the approach of death. Ah ! what anguish, 
 what confusion, what dreadful temptations of des- 
 pair must such a sight as this give to the dying sin- 
 ner ? Learn thou, my soul, to take better measures 
 now in time, and thus to prevent so great a misery. 
 3. Consider, and take a nigher view of the la- 
 mentable state of a sinner at the hour of his death : 
 when all things seem to conspire against him, and 
 whichever way he looks for any ease or comfort, 
 he can find none. Before his eyes he sees a whole 
 army of sins mustered up ; a viper's brood of his 
 own offspring, which stick close to him, and, assail- 
 ing him with their united forces, make him already 
 begin to feel the gripes of that never-dying worm 
 of conscience, which shall be the eternal torment 
 of the damned. Oh ! how gladly would he shake 
 off this troublesome company : but all in vain ; they 
 are resolved not to leave him. If he looks back 
 into his past life, to seek for some good works, to 
 oppose to this army of sins ; alas ! he finds the 
 good that he has done has been so inconsider- 
 able, so insignificant, as to give him no hopes of 
 its weighing down the scales, when balanced with 
 his multiplied crimes. His very prayers, the confes- 
 sions and communions which he has made, fly now 
 in his face, and upbraid him with his wretched neg- 
 ligence, and his sacrilegious abuse of these great 
 means of salvation. The sight of all things about 
 him, his wife, his children, his friends, his worldly 
 goods, which he has loved more than his God, 
 serve for nothing now but to increase his anguish. 
 
24 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 And what is his greatest misery is, that the ago- 
 nies of his sickness give him little or no leisure or 
 ability to apply himself seriously to the greatest 
 and most difficult of all concerns, which is, a per- 
 fect conversion to God after a long habit of sin. 
 Oh ! how truly may the sinner now repeat those 
 words of the Psalmist : the sorrows of death have 
 eyicompassed me, and the perils of hell have 
 found me: Psalmcxiv. 3. Oh! what unspeakable 
 anguish must it be to see himself just embarking 
 upon eternity, an infinite and endless duration, an 
 immense ocean, to whose further shore the poor 
 sailor can never reach ; and to have so much rea- 
 son to fear, it will be to him an eternity of woe. 
 
 4. Consider, my soid, what thy sentiments will 
 be at the hour of thy death, with relation to the 
 service of God, to virtue and devotion : how lovely 
 then will the way of virtue appear to thee! How 
 wilt thou then wish to have followed that charming 
 path ! Oh ! what a satisfaction is it to a dying man 
 to have lived well ! What a comfort to see himself 
 now at the end of all his labours and dangers; to 
 find himself at the gates of eternal rest, of ever- 
 lasting peace, after a long and doubtful war ! He 
 may now securely come down from his watch- 
 tower, and repose himself for ever in the kingdom 
 of his father. Oh ! what a pleasure, what a joy to 
 look forward into that blessed eternity ! Oh ! how 
 precious in the sight of God is the death of his 
 saints: Psalm cxv. 15. Ah! Let my soul die the 
 death of the just, and let my last end be like to 
 theirs: Numb.xxiii. Christians, ifwe would die the 
 death of the just, we must live the life of the just ! 
 The only security for a good death, is a good life. 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 25 
 
 5. Consider, or rather conclude, from the fore- 
 going considerations on death, to make it the 
 whole business of your Hfe to prepare for death. 
 Upon dying well depends nothing less than eter- 
 nity. If we die ill, we are lost, and lost for ever. 
 As then we came into the world for nothing else but 
 to provide for eternity, so we may truly say, we 
 came into the world for nothing else but to learn 
 to die well. This is the great lesson we must all 
 study. Alas ! if we miss it, when we are called to 
 the trial, an endless woe must of necessity be the 
 consequence. Ah! how hard it is to learn to 
 perform that well which can be done but once. 
 
 THE NINTH DAY. 
 
 On the particular judgment after death. 
 (JONSIDER, that the soul is no sooner parted 
 from the body, but she is immediately pre- 
 sented before the Judge, in order to give an ac- 
 count of her whole hfe, of all that she has thought, 
 said or done, during her abode in the body; and 
 to receive sentence accordingly. For that the 
 eternal doom of every soul is decided by a particu- 
 lar judgment immediately after death, is what we 
 learn from the gospel in the example of Dives and 
 Lazarus : and the sentence that passes here will 
 be ratified in the general judgment at the last day. 
 Christians, how stand your accounts with God ? 
 What could you be able to say for yourselves if this 
 night you should be cited to the bar ? It may 
 perhaps be your case. Remember that your 
 Lord will come when you least expect him ; take 
 care then to be always ready. 
 
 2. Consider how exact, how rigorous his judg- 
 c 
 
2G THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 ment will be, where even the least idle word cannot 
 escape the scrutiny of the Judge. Oh ! what trea- 
 sures of iniquity will here come to light, when the 
 veil shall be removed, which hides at present the 
 greatest part of our sins from the eyes of the world, 
 and even from our own ; and the whole history 
 of our lives shall at once be exposed to our view. 
 Good God ! who can be able to bear this dreadful 
 sight? Here shall the poor soul be brought to a 
 most exact examination of all that she has done, or 
 left iindone, in the whole time of her pilgrimage in 
 this mortal body : how she has corresponded with 
 the divine inspirations ; what use she has made of 
 God's graces ; what profit she has reaped from the 
 sacraments which she has received ; from the word 
 of God which she has heard or read ; what ad- 
 vantage she has made of those favourable circum- 
 stances in which God Almighty has placed her ; how 
 she has employed the talents with which he has en- 
 trusted her : even her best works shall be nicely sift- 
 ed ; her prayers, her fasts, her almsdeeds ; the in- 
 tention with which she has undertaken them ; the 
 manner in which she has performed them : all shall 
 be weighed, not in the deceitful balance of the 
 j udgment of men , but in the scales of the sanctuary. 
 Ah ! how many of our actions will here be found to 
 want weight, according to that of Dan. v: Thou 
 hast been weighed in the balance, and art found 
 of too little weight. Oh I enter not into judgment 
 ivith thy servant, O Lord; for no man living 
 shall be justi^ed in thy sight. Ps. cxlii. 
 
 3. Consider the quahties of the Judge before 
 whom we must appear. He is infinitely wise, and 
 therefore cannot be deceived; he is infinitely 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 27 
 
 powerful, and therefore cannot be withstood ; lie 
 is infinitely just, and therefore will render to every 
 one according to his works. No favour is to be 
 expected at this day : the time of merit and of 
 acceptable repentance is now at an end. Ah ! 
 Christians, think well on it now whilst it is your 
 day : you may now wash away your sins by pe- 
 nitential tears, and thus hide them from the eyes 
 ' of your future Judge : you may at present tie up 
 his hands by humble prayer ; you may appeal from 
 his justice to the court of his mercy, and cause 
 him to cancel the sentence that stands against 
 you : but at that day you will find him inexorable : 
 your prayers and tears will then come too late. 
 
 4. Consider the inestimable comfort that the 
 souls of the just shall receive at this day from the 
 company of their good works, which, like an in- 
 vincible rampart, shall surround them on all sides, 
 and keep their hellish foes at a distance. Oh ! my 
 soul, let us take care to provide ourselves with such 
 attendants as these against that hour, which is to 
 decide our eternal doom. These are friends in- 
 deed, that will not forsake us even in death ; and 
 will effectually plead our cause at that bar where 
 no other eloquence will be regarded. 
 
 5. Consider in what a wretched plight the sin- 
 ner, who has taken no care to lay up any such pro- 
 vision of good works, shall now stand before his 
 Judge. Oh ! how all things now speak to him the 
 melancholy sentence, that is just now going to 
 fall upon his guilty head. Whatever way he looks, 
 he sees nothing that can give him any comfort ; but, 
 on the contrary, all things contribute to his greater 
 ans-uish and terror. Beneath his feet he sees hell 
 
28 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 open ready to swallow him up : above his head, an 
 angry Judge prepared to thunder out against him 
 the irrevocable sentence of eternal damnation : on 
 his right hand, he sees his guardian angel now 
 abandoning him ; on his left, the devils, his mer- 
 ciless enemies, just ready to seize upon him, and 
 only waiting for the beck of the Judge : if he looks 
 behind him, he discovers a cheating world which 
 now retires from him ; if he looks before him, he 
 meets with nothing but a dismal eternity. Within 
 him he feels the intolerable stings of a guilty con- 
 science : and on all sides of him he perceives an 
 army of hideous monsters, his own sins, more 
 terrible to him now than the furies of hell. Good 
 God ! deliver me from ever having any share in 
 such a scene of misery. 
 
 6. Consider, that in order to prevent the judg- 
 ment of God from falling heavy upon us after our 
 death, we must take care, now during our life, to 
 judge and chastise ourselves, by doing serious pe- 
 nance for our sins. Thus, and only thus, shall we 
 disarm the justice of God enkindled by our sins. 
 Let us follow the advice of him who is to be our 
 Judge, who calls upon us to watch and pray at all 
 times, that so we may be found worthy to escape 
 these dreadful dangers, and stand with confidence 
 before the Son of man : Luke xxi. 36. Ah ! let this 
 j udgment be always before our ey es : let us daily me- 
 ditate on this account that we are one day to give. 
 Let us never forget that there is an eye above that 
 sees all things ; that there is an ear that hears all 
 things ; that there is a hand that writes down all 
 our thoughts, words and deeds, in the great ac- 
 counting book ; and that all our actions pass from 
 
THINK WELL ON*T. 29 
 
 our hands to the hands of God ; and what is done 
 in time, passeth not away with time, but shall 
 subsist after all time is past. Oh ! that men ivould 
 be wise, and would understand these truths, and 
 provide in earnest for their last end! Deuter. 
 xxxii. 
 
 THE TENTH DAY. 
 
 On the great accounting day. 
 
 (JONSIDER, that nothing can be conceived 
 more terrible than the prospect which scrip- 
 ture gives us of the last accounting day, with all the 
 prodigies that shall go before it. The sun shall be 
 darkened ; the moon red as blood ; the stars without 
 light, and seeming to fall from the firmament; the 
 earth shaken with violent earthquakes ; the sea 
 swelling and roaring with imusual tempests ; the 
 elements all in confusion, and whole nature in dis- 
 order. The day of the Lord, says the prophet 
 Joel, ii. a day of darkness and obscurity, a day 
 of clouds and whirlwinds. Before its face de- 
 vouring fre, and behind it burning fames. The 
 earth shall tremble at the appearance of it, and 
 the heavens be moved at its sight. The sun and 
 moon are darkened, and the stars have withdravm 
 all their light. And the prophet Sophonias, i. 
 cries out : That day, a day of wrath, a day of 
 tribulation and anguish, a day of calamity and 
 misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day 
 of mists and whirlwinds. Can any thing be more 
 frightful than these descriptions ? Ah ! what will 
 then be the thoughts of sinful man, who sees 
 himself threatened by all these signs ? Alas ! he 
 shall perfectly wither away with fear, in expecta- 
 C3 
 
30 THINK WELL ON*T. 
 
 tion of that tragedy which must follow these 
 dreadful preludes. 
 
 2. Consider, that the last day being come, a 
 fire raging like an impetuous torrent shall, by the 
 command of God, consume the whole surface of 
 the earth, and all that is thereon ; nothing shall 
 escape it. Where, O worldhngs, will be then all 
 your stately palaces, your pleasant seats, your 
 gardens, fountains and grottos? Where your gold, 
 silver and precious stones &c.? Alas! all that you 
 have set your hearts on in this world, shall in a 
 moment be reduced into ashes ; to shew you the 
 vanity of the things you loved, and your own folly 
 in placing your affection upon such glittering 
 shadows, upon such painted bubbles. Learn then, 
 my soul, to despise this world and all its goods, 
 since all must end in ashes and smoke ; and lay 
 up for thyself a treasure in heaven, which alone 
 will be out of the reach of this last fire. 
 
 3. Consider, that the final end of this world 
 being now come, the archangel shall sound the 
 last trumpet, and raise his voice with a Surgite 
 mortui : Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment : a 
 voice, that shall be heard at once all over the uni- 
 verse, that shall pierce the highest heavens, and 
 penetrate down to the lowest abyss of hell : at this 
 voice, in an instant, by God's almighty power, all 
 the children of Adam, from the first to the last, 
 shall arise from the dust, and every soul shall be 
 again united to its respective body, never more to 
 part for eternity. Oh ! my soul, let this last trum- 
 pet always echo in thy ears! Oh! take care to 
 prevent the terror of this summons, by hearkening 
 now to another summons of the great trumpet of 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 31 
 
 the Holy Ghost, who calls upon thee by the 
 mouth of the apostle: Arise thou that sleepest, 
 and rise from the dead, that is from the death of 
 sm, and Christ shall enlighten thee, Eph. v. It 
 is thus by having part in the first resurrection, 
 thou shalt provide in time against that dreadful 
 hour, when time shall be no more, Apoc. x. It 
 is thus thou shalt escape the second death. 
 
 4. Consider the wonderful difference there will 
 be at the time of this general resurrection be- 
 tween the bodies of the just and those of the 
 wicked. The just shall arise in bodies most beau- 
 tiful, more pure than the stars, more resplendent 
 than the sun, immortal and impassible : but the 
 wicked shall arise in bodies suitable to their deserts ; 
 foul, black, hideous, and every way loathsome and 
 insupportable ; immortal, it is true, but to no other 
 end than to endure immortal torments. What an 
 inexpressible rack will it be to these wretched 
 souls, to be forced into such carcases, to be con- 
 demned to an eternal confinement in so horrid, so 
 filthy an abode ! Ah ! take thou care, my soul, 
 to keep thy body now pure from the corruption 
 of carnal sins, lest otherwise it be one day an 
 aggravation of thy eternal misery. 
 
 5. Consider, with how much satisfaction and 
 joy the souls of the just shall be united again to 
 tlieir bodies, which they have so long desired ; 
 with what affection they shall embrace those fel- 
 low-partners of all their labours, of all their suf- 
 ferings and mortifications ; and now designed, by 
 sharing in the glory of the heavenly Sion, to give 
 an addition to their eternal happiness. But, Oh ! 
 what dreadful curses shall pass at the melancholy 
 
32 THINK WELL OX't. 
 
 meeting of the souls and bodies of the reprobate ! 
 Accursed carcase ! will the soul say, was it to 
 please thee, to indulge thy brutish inclinations, 
 that I have forfeited the immortal joys of heaven ? 
 Ah! wretch, to give thee a filthy pleasure for a 
 moment, I have damned both myself and thee to 
 all eternity. O thrice accursed carrion ! it is just, 
 it is just, that thou who hast been the cause of my 
 damnation, shouldst be my partner in eternal woe. 
 But oughtest not thou rather, unhappy soul, to be 
 a thousand times accursed by the body, since it 
 was thy business, and was in thy power, to have 
 subjected its passions and lusts to the rule of 
 reason and religion ; and thou didst rather choose, 
 for the sake of a momentary satisfaction, to en- 
 slave thyself to its sensual inclinations, and so to 
 purchase hell both for thyself and thy body ? Ah ! 
 Christians, let us learn to be wise by the considera- 
 tion of others' misfortunes. 
 
 THE ELEVEXTH DAY. 
 
 On the general judgment, 
 (CONSIDER, that the dead being all risen shall 
 immediately be assembled together in the place 
 designed for the last judgment, commonly believed 
 to be the valley of Josaphat, near Jerusalem, in 
 the sight of mount Olivet and mount Calvary, 
 where our Lord heretofore shed his blood for our 
 redemption. What a sight will it be to behold 
 here all the children of Adam, that innumerable 
 multitude of all nations, ages and degrees, stand- 
 ing together without any distinction now of rich 
 or poor, great or little, master or servant, monarch 
 or subject ; excepting only the distinction of good 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 83 
 
 and bad, which shall be wonderful and eternal. 
 Alas ! how mean a figure will an Alexander or a 
 Csesar make at this appearance, or any of those 
 great heroes of antiquity, whose very name has 
 made whole nations tremble? Those mighty 
 monarchs, who had once the world at their beck, 
 are now levelled with the meanest of their slaves, 
 and would wish a thousand times never to have 
 borne the sceptre, nor worn the diadem. 
 
 2 . Consider, that the dead being now assembled 
 altogether, the great Judge shall descend from 
 heaven, with great glory and majesty, environed 
 with all his heavenly courtiers and all the legions 
 of angels. Oh ! how different from his first coming 
 will this second appearance be ! His first coming 
 was in great meekness and humility, because that 
 was our day, in which he came to redeem us by 
 his mercy : but at his second coming, it will be 
 his day, when he shall arm himself with all the 
 terrors of his justice, to revenge upon sinful man 
 the cause of his injured mercy, with a final ven- 
 geance once for all. Miserable sinners ! how will 
 you be able to stand before his face, or endure his 
 wrathful countenance ? Ah ! then it is you will 
 begin to cry out to the mountains and rocks to 
 fall upon you, and hide you from the face of him 
 that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of 
 the Lamb. Nay, such a dread and terror will the 
 very sight of the incensed Judge carry with it, that 
 you will even wish a thousand times to hide your 
 guilty heads in the lowest hell, rather than endure 
 this dreadful appearance : but all in vain ; you 
 must stand it out 
 
 3. Consider, that, befope the Judge, shall be 
 c 5 
 
34 . THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 borne the royal standard of the cross^ shining 
 more briglit than the sun, to the great comfort of 
 the good, and the unspeakable anguish and con- 
 fusion of the wicked, for having made so little 
 use of the inestimable benefit of their redemption. 
 Here they shall plainly see how much their God 
 has suffered for their salvation : how great has 
 been his love for them, that boundless and unpa- 
 ralleled love, which brought him down from the 
 throne of glory, and nailed him to the cross. Oh ! 
 how will they now condemn their own obstinacy 
 in sin, their blindness and ingratitude ! Oh ! how 
 will this glorious ensign justify, in the face of the 
 whole universe, the conduct of God and the 
 eternity of hell's torments : for what less than a 
 miserable eternity can be punishment enough for 
 so much obstinacy in evil, after so much love ? 
 
 4. Consider, how at the command of the Sove- 
 reign Judge, which shall be instantly obeyed, the 
 servants of God shall be picked out from the midst 
 of that vast multitude, and placed with honour on 
 his right hand ; whilst the wicked, with all those 
 evil spirits whose part they have taken, shall with 
 ignominy be driven to the left. Oh ! dreadful and 
 eternal separation, after which these two com- 
 panies shall never more meet. And thou, my 
 soul, where dost thou expect to stand at that day ? 
 In which of these two companies shalt thou be 
 ranked? Thou hast it now in thy choice : choose 
 then now that better part, which will never be 
 taken from thee. Fly now from the midst of 
 Babylon ; renounce now the false maxims, the 
 corrupt customs, and sinful divertisements of 
 worldlings; separate thyself from the wicked in 
 
THINK AVELL ON*T. 35 
 
 time, that thou mayest not be involved in their 
 eternal damnation. 
 
 5. Consider, what then will be the thoughts of 
 the great ones of this world ; what fury, what envy, 
 what bitter anguish and confusion will oppress 
 their souls ; when they shall see the poor in spirit, 
 the meek and humble, who were so contemptible 
 in their eyes, whilst they were here in this mortal 
 life, now honoured and exalted in the sight of the 
 whole universe ; and themselves treated with so 
 much contempt ? Hearken to their complaints, as 
 they are set down by the wise man : Wisd. v. These 
 are they, whom heretofore we laughed at, and 
 whom we made the subjects of our scoffs. Senseless 
 wretches as we were ! We esteemed their life 
 madness, and their end without honour. See how 
 they are now reckoned amongst the children of God, 
 and with the saints is their eternal lot. There- 
 fore we have erred from the way of truth. Alas! 
 after all, we are the persons that have been mis- 
 taken; we, that have unfortunately run on in the 
 wrong way ! And they were truly wise in making 
 a better choice, which afforded them comfort in 
 life, and has now entitled them to endless joys. 
 
 6. Consider, how much the anguish and con- 
 fusion of the wicked will be increased, at the 
 opening of the books of conscience, when all the 
 guilt of their whole lives shall be laid open to the 
 public view of the universe. Poor sinner ! what 
 will thy thoughts be, \/i.sn those crimes which thou 
 
 hast committed in ^ ' -'lest secrecy, and which 
 
 thou wouldst not 1 . Known for the world; 
 
 those abomination - ou imaginest covered 
 
 with the obscurit ♦ '.. nd darkness, and 
 
36 THINK AVELL On't 
 
 which thou didst flatter thyself thy friends and ac- 
 quaintance would never know; those works of ini- 
 quity which perhaps thou couldst not find in thy 
 heart to discover to one person, tied by all laws to a 
 perpetual secresy, shall all now be exposed in their 
 true colours, to the eyes of the whole world, angels 
 and men, good and bad, to thy eternal shame. 
 Ah ! Christians, it is now in your power to prevent, 
 by a sincere repentance and confession, this con- 
 fusion which you must otherwise one day suffer. 
 
 THE TWELFTH DAY. 
 
 On the last sentence of the good and had. 
 (^ONSIDER, how this great trial shall be con- 
 cluded by a final definitive sentence in favour of 
 the just, and for the condemnation of the wicked. 
 And first, the Sovereign Judge, turning himself 
 towards his elect, with a most sweet and amiable 
 countenance, shall invite them into the happy 
 mansions of everlasting bliss : Come ye blessed 
 of my Father y take possession of the kingdom 
 j)reparedfor you from the beginning of the world: 
 Mat. XXV. O happy invitation ! Happy, thrice 
 happy they, that shall be found worthy to hear 
 that comfortable sentence ! What unspeakable 
 satisfaction, what torrents of joy and pleasure will 
 the hearing of it give to those blessed creatures ! 
 / am filled with joy, says the royal prophet, at 
 the happy tidings ivhich I have heard ; we are to 
 enter i7ito the house of the Lord: Ps. cxxi. But, 
 Oh ! what envy, what rage and malice will the re- 
 probate feel at the hearing of this invitation, when 
 they shall see several of their acquaintance called 
 to take possession of that eternal kingdom, which 
 
THINK WELL On't. 37 
 
 tliey might also have so easily purchased ; but by 
 their own folly and stupidity, have blindly ex- 
 changed it for the flaniOi of hell. 
 
 2. Consider, and ponder at leisure upon this 
 happy sentence : Come, says the Judge, ye blessed 
 of my Father, Sfc. Come from the vale of tears 
 where, for a little while, you have been tried and 
 afflicted by the appointment of my providence, 
 to the kingdom of never-ending joys; where grief 
 and sorrow will be no more. Come from the place 
 of banishment, where for a time you have sighed 
 and groaned at a distance from your heavenly 
 country, to your everlasting home, where you shall 
 meet with all that your heart can desire to com- 
 plete your happiness ; where you shall be for ever 
 inebriated by the plenty of my house, and drink 
 for ever at the fountain of life : arise, my beloved, 
 the winter is now past, the floods and storms are 
 over, arise and come. O universal and eternal 
 blessings! How my poor sotfl contemns all 
 other happiness, in hopes of having a share one 
 day in this blessed sentence ! 
 
 3. Consider, how the great Judge, after having 
 invited the just to his glorious kingdom, turning 
 himself towards the wicked on his left hand, with 
 fire in his eyes and terror in his countenance, shall 
 thunder out against them the dreadful sentence of 
 their eternal doom in these words : go from me ye 
 cursed into everlasting fre, which was prepared 
 for the devil and his angels. Christian souls, 
 weigh well every word of this dismal sentence. 
 Go for ever from me, and from the joys of my 
 kingdom. O terrible excommunication ! O cruel 
 divorce ! O eternal banishment ! Who can ex- 
 
38 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 press, who can conceive what it is to be for ever 
 separated from our God, our first beginning and 
 last end, our great an^povereign good ! Ah ! 
 wretches, who make so httle now of losing your 
 God by mortal sin, what will you then think when 
 you shall be sentenced to this eternal banishment 
 from him, doomed to seek him for all eternity, 
 and yet, never to meet with him in any of his at- 
 tributes, only in his avenging justice, the weight 
 of which you shall feel for ever. But take notice 
 whither you are to go, when you go from your 
 God. Alas ! into everlasting fire, there to lead an 
 ever- dying life, there to endure a never-ending 
 death, in the company of the devil and his angels ; 
 to whom you made yourselves slaves, and who 
 shall now, without controul, exercise forever their 
 tyranny over you. 
 
 4. Consider that dreadful and universal curse 
 which this just but dismal sentence involves. Go 
 from me, ye cursed, says the Sovereign Judge : as 
 if he was to say : go, depart from me, but let my 
 curse go with you. I would have given you my 
 blessing, but you would not have it ; a curse you 
 chose, and a curse shall be your everlasting inhe- 
 ritance. It shall stick close to you like a garment 
 for all eternity ; it shall enter into your very bowels, 
 and search into the very marrow of your bones. 
 A curse upon your eyes, never to see the least 
 glimpse oficomfortable light : a curse upon your 
 ears, to be entertained for all eternity with frightful 
 shrieks and groans : a curse on your taste, to be for 
 ever imbittered with the gall of dragons : a curse 
 on your smell, to be always tormented with the 
 noisome stench of the pit of hell : a curse on your 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 39 
 
 feeling and on all the members of your body, to 
 burn and never consume in that fire wliich shall 
 never be quenched : a curse upon your under- 
 standing, never to be illustrated with any ray of 
 truth : a curse on your memory, to be always re- 
 volving in the bitterness of a late and fruitless 
 repentance, the shortness and vanity of past plea- 
 sures : a curse upon the imagination, ever repre- 
 senting present and future miseries : a curse upon 
 the will, obstinate in evil, to be torn in pieces with 
 a thousand violent, and, withal, opposite desires, 
 and unable to accomplish any of them : a curse, 
 in fine, upon the whole soul, to be a hell to itself 
 for all eternity ! Good God ! let it never be our 
 misfortune to incur this dreadful curse ! 
 
 5. Consider, how, after sentence is given, the 
 elect shall enter without delay upon the possession 
 of that everlasting kingdom which God has pre- 
 pared for those that serve him, where sorrow can 
 have no place, and joy no end. But as for the 
 wicked, the earth shall immediately open and 
 swallow them all down at once, with the devils 
 who seduced them, into the bottomless pit, and 
 the gate shall be shut, never, never more to be 
 opened. This is the end of all worldly pride : 
 this is the end of all carnal pleasure. Oh ! how 
 horrid a thing it is to fall into the hands of the 
 living God 1 Heb. x. 31. 
 
 THE THIRTEENTH DAY. 
 
 On hell. 
 QONSIDER, that as it is said in holy writ, that 
 neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it 
 entered into the heart of man what God has pre- 
 
40 THINK WELL On't. 
 
 pared for those that serve him, 1 Cor. ii. 9. so 
 we may truly say with regard to hell's torments, 
 that no mortal tongue can express them, nor 
 heart conceive them. Beatitude, according to 
 divines, is a perfect and never-ending state, com- 
 prising at once all that is good, without any mix- 
 ture of evil. If, then, damnation be opposite to 
 beatitude, it must needs be an everlasting deluge 
 of all that is evil, without the least mixture of 
 good, without the least alloy of ease, without the 
 least glimpse of comfort ; a total privation of all 
 happiness and a chaos of all misery. 
 
 2. Consider, more in particular, what damna- 
 tion is, and how many and how great the miseries 
 it involves. A dying life, or rather a living death ; a 
 darksome prison ; a loathsome dungeon; a bind- 
 ing hand and foot in eternal chains, and a land 
 of horror and misery ; a lake of fire and brim- 
 stone ; a bottomless pit ; devouring flames ; a 
 serpent ever gnawing ; a worm that never dies ; 
 a body always burning and never consumed ; a 
 feeling always fresh for suffering ; a thirst never 
 extinguished ; perpetual weeping, wailing and 
 gnashing of teeth. No other company but devils 
 and damned wretches, all hating and cursing one 
 another; all hating and cursing God ; spirits al- 
 ways in an agony, and sick to death, yet never 
 meeting with this death, which they so much de- 
 sire ; cast forth from the face of God into the 
 land of oblivion ; none to comfort, none to pity 
 them ; wounded to the heart with the sense of lost 
 happiness ; and oppressed with the feeling of pre- 
 sent misery. And all these sufferings everlasting, 
 without the least hope of end, of intermission, or 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 41 
 
 abatement. This is a short description, drawn, 
 for the most part, from God's unerring word, of 
 the miseries which eternal damnation imports ; 
 this is the bitter cup, of which all the sinners of 
 the earth must drink, Ps. Ixxiv. 
 
 3. Consider, that God in all his attributes is 
 infinite: as in his power, wisdom, goodness &c : 
 so in his avenging justice too. He is a God in 
 hell as much as in heaven. So that by the great- 
 ness of his love, mercy and patience here, we may 
 measure the greatness of his future wrath and 
 vengeance against impenitent sinners. By his in- 
 finite goodness he has drawn them out of nothing; 
 he has preserved and sustained them for a long 
 time ; he has even come down from his throne of 
 glory, and suffered himself to be nailed to a dis- 
 graceful cross for their eternal salvation ; he has 
 frequently delivered them from the dangers to 
 which they were daily exposed ; patiently borne 
 with their insolence and repeated treasons, still 
 graciously inviting them to repentance. Ah ! 
 how justly does patience, so long abused, turn 
 at length into fury ! Mercy at last gives place 
 to justice ; and a thousand woes to those wretches 
 that must for ever feel the dreadful weight of the 
 avenging hand of the living God ! 
 
 4. Consider, and in order to understand some- 
 thing better what hell is, set before your eyes a 
 poor sick man lying on his bed, burning with a 
 pestilential fever, attended with a universal pain 
 oyer all his body, his head perfectly rent asunder, 
 his eyes ready to fly out, his teeth raging, his 
 sides pierced with dreadful stitches, his belly 
 racked with violent cholic; his reins with the 
 
42 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 Stone and gravel ; all his limbs tormented with 
 rheumatic pains; and all his joints with the gout ; 
 liis heart even bursting with anguish, and he cry- 
 ing out for a drop of water to cool his tongue. 
 Could any thing be conceived more miserable ! 
 and yet, let me tell you, this is but an imperfect 
 picture of what the damned must endure for eter- 
 nity ; where these victims immolated to the justice 
 of God, shall be salted all over with fire ; and 
 endure in all the senses and members of their 
 body, and in all the faculties of their souls most 
 exquisite torments ! 
 
 5. Consider, that the state of the poor sick 
 man, of whom we have just now been speaking, 
 how deplorable soever it may seem, might still 
 be capable of some alloy or ease, or some degree 
 of comfort : a good bed to lie on ; a good friend 
 to encourage or condole with him ; a good con- 
 science to support him ; a will resigned to the will 
 of God, and, in fine, a certain knowledge that his 
 pains must shortly abate, or put an end to his 
 life. But the damned have nothing of all this. 
 Their bed in hell is a lake or pit burning with fire 
 and brimstone, to which they are fastened down 
 with eternal chains. Their companions are mer- 
 ciless devils, or what will be to them worse than 
 devils, the unhappy partners of their sins. Their 
 conscience is ever gnawed with the worm that 
 never dies. Their will is averse from God, and 
 continually struggling in vain with his divine will. 
 And what comes in to complete their damnation, 
 is a despair of ever meeting with an end or abate- 
 ment of their torments. Good God ! what 
 would not a prudent man do to prevent the lying 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 43 
 
 but for one night in torments in this life ? And 
 where then are our faith and reason, when we will 
 do so little for escaping the dreadful night of 
 hell's merciless flames ! 
 
 THE FOURTEENTH DAY. 
 
 On the exterior pains of hell, 
 
 /CONSIDER the description which Holy Job 
 gives us of hell: Job x. — a darksome land 
 and covered with the obscurity of death ; — 
 a country of misery and darkness, where no order 
 but everlasting horror dwells. In this gloomy re- 
 gion, no sun, no moon, no stars appear; no 
 comfortable rays^ of light, not even the least 
 glimpse, are ever to be seen. The very fire that 
 burneth there, contrary to the natural property 
 of that element, is black and darksome, and 
 affords no hght to the wretches it torments, ex- 
 cept it be to discover to them such objects as may 
 increase their misery. Christians, what would 
 you think were you to be sentenced to pass the 
 remainder of your days in some horrid dungeon, 
 or hole, deep under ground, where you could never 
 see the light? Would not death itself be prefer- 
 able to such a punishment ? And what is this to 
 that eternal night to which the damned are sen- 
 tenced? The Egyptians were in a sad condition, 
 when for three days the whole kingdom was co- 
 vered with dreadful darkness, caused by such gross 
 exhalations, that they might even be felt by the 
 hand. But this misery was soon over, and they 
 were comforted by the return of light. Not so 
 the damned in hell ; whose night shall neVer have 
 
44 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 a morning, nor ever expect the dawning of the 
 day ! 
 
 2. Consider, that the horrors of this eternal 
 night shall be beyond measure aggravated by the 
 dismal music, with which those poor wretches 
 shall be for ever entertained in this melancholy 
 abode, — the dreadful curses and blasphemies, 
 — the insulting voices of the tormentors, 
 and the bowlings, the groans and shrieks of 
 the tormented, &c. And that the other senses 
 may also come in for their share in misery, the 
 smell shall be for ever regaled with the loathsome 
 exhalations of those infernal dungeons, and the 
 intolerable stench of those half putrified carcases 
 which are broiling there : the taste shall be op- 
 pressed with a most ravenous hunger and thirst, 
 and the feeling, with an insupportable fire. 
 
 3. Consider, that of all bodily torments, which 
 we can suffer in this world, there is none more 
 terrible than to burn alive : but, alas ! there is no 
 comparison between burning here, and burning 
 in hell. All our fires upon earth are but painted 
 flames, if compared to the fire of hell. The fire 
 of this world w^as made to serve us, and to be our 
 comfort : that of hell was created to be an instru- 
 ment of God's vengeance upon sinners. The fire 
 of this world cannot subsist without being nou- 
 rished by some combustible matter, which it 
 quickly despatches and consumes : the fire of hell, 
 kindled by the breath of an angry God, requires 
 no other fuel than sin ; and feeds on this without 
 ever decaying or consuming. Oh ! dreadful stain 
 of sin, which suffices to maintain an everlasting 
 fire ! The fire of this world can only reach the 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 45 
 
 body : the fire of hell reaches the soul itself, and 
 fills it with the most exquisite torments. Ah ! 
 sinners, which of you all can dwell with this de- 
 vouring fire ? Which of you all can endure this 
 eternal burning ? 
 
 4. Consider, and in order to frame some better 
 notion of hell's torments, give ear to a most au- 
 thentic vision, related by St. Teresa, chap, xxxii. 
 of her life. *' As I was one day,'' says the saint, 
 *' in prayer, on a sudden I found myself in hell ; 
 I know not how I was carried thither ; only I un- 
 derstood that our Lord was pleased that I should 
 see the place, which the devils had prepared for 
 me there, and which I had deserved by my sins. 
 What passed here w^ith me lasted but a very little 
 while ; yet if I should live many years, I do not 
 believe I should ever be able to forget it. The 
 entrance appeared to me to resemble that of an 
 oven very low, very narrow, and very dark. The 
 ground seemed like mire, exceeding filthy, stink- 
 ing, insupportable, and full of a multitude of loath- 
 some vermin. At the end of it there was a certain 
 hollow place, as if it had been a kind of a little 
 press in a wall, into which I found myself thrust, 
 and close pent up. Now, though all this which I 
 have said was far more terrible in itself, than I 
 have described it, yet it might pass for a pleasure 
 in comparison with that which I felt in this press. 
 This torment was so dreadful that no words can 
 express the least part of it. I felt my soul burning 
 in so dismal a fire, that I am not able to describe 
 it. I have experienced the most insupportable 
 pains, in the judgment of physicians, which can 
 be corporally endured in this world, as well by 
 
46 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 the shrinking up of all my sinews, as by many 
 other torments in several kinds : but all these 
 were nothing: in comparison with what I suffered 
 there : joined to the horrid thought, that this 
 was to be without end or intermission : and 
 even this itself is still little, if compared to the 
 agony the soul is in ; it seems to her that she is 
 choked, that she is stifled, and her anguish and 
 torture go to a degree of excess that cannot be 
 expressed. It is too little to say, that it seems to 
 her that she is butchered and rent to pieces : be- 
 cause this would express some violence from w^ith- 
 out, which tended to her destruction ; whereas, 
 here it is she herself that is her own executioner, 
 and tears herself in pieces. Now, as to that in- 
 terior fire and unspeakable despair, which comes 
 in to "complete so many horrid torments ; I own 
 I am not able to describe them. I saw not who 
 it was that tormented me; but I perceived my- 
 self to burn, and at the same time, to 'be cut as 
 it were, and slashed in pieces : in so frightful a 
 place, there was no room for the least hopes of 
 comfort ; there was no such thing as even sitting 
 or lying down : I was thrust into a hole in a wall ; 
 and those horrible walls close in upon the poor 
 prisoners and press and stifle them. There is no- 
 thing but thick darkness without any mixture of 
 light, and yet I know not how it is, though there 
 be no light there, yet one sees there all that may 
 be most mortifying to the sight. Although it is 
 about six years since this happened which I here 
 relate, I am even now in the writing of it so ter- 
 rified that my blood chills in my veins. So that 
 whatsoever evils or pains I now suffer, if I do but 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 47 
 
 call to my remembrance what I then endured, all 
 that can be suffered here appears to me just no- 
 thing/' So far the saint, whose relation deserves 
 to be pondered at leisure : for if such and so ter- 
 rible torments had been prepared for her, whose 
 life, from her cradle, setting aside a few worldly 
 vanities which for a short time she had followed, 
 had been so innocent, what must sinners one day 
 
 i expect? 
 
 5. Consider, that there is no man on earth, that 
 has not quite lost his senses, who would be willing, 
 even for the empire of the world, to be broiled 
 like.a Lawrence on a gridiron, or roasted for half 
 an hour by a slow fire, though he was sure to come 
 off with his life ; nay, where is the man that 
 would even venture to hold his finger in the flame 
 of a candle for half a quarter of an hour, for any 
 rew^ard that this world can give ? Where is then 
 the judgment of the far greater part of Christians, 
 who pretend to believe a hell, yet live on with so 
 little apprehension and concern, for years together, 
 in the guilt of mortal sin ; in danger every mo- 
 ment of falling into this dreadful and everlasting 
 fire, having no more than a hair's breadth, that 
 is, the thin thread of an uncertain life, between 
 
 • their souls and a miserable eternity ! Good God ! 
 
 ?. deliver us from this unfortunate blindness ; from 
 
 ^, this desperate folly and madness. 
 
 THE FIFTEENTH DAY. 
 
 On the interior pains of hell. 
 (JONSIDER, that the fire of hell and all the 
 rest of the exterior torments which are en- 
 dured there, are terrible indeed ; but no wavs 
 
48 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 comparable to the interior pains of the soul : that 
 pcena damni, or eternal loss of God, and of all 
 that is good : that extremity of anguish which 
 follows from this loss ; that rueful remorse of a 
 bitter but fruitless repentance attended with ever- 
 lasting despair and rage : that complication of all 
 those racking tortures in the inward powers and 
 faculties of the soul, are torments incomparably 
 greater than any thing that can be suffered in 
 the body. 
 
 2. Consider, in particular, that pain of loss, 
 which, in the judgment of divines, is the greatest 
 of all the torments of hell; though worldlings 
 here have difficulties of conceiving how this can 
 be. Alas ! poor sinners, so weak is their notion of 
 eternal goods, and so deeply are they immersed in 
 the things of this world, amusing themselves with 
 a variety of created objects, which divert their 
 thoughts from God's sovereign goodness, that 
 they cannot imagine, that the loss of God can be 
 so great and dismal a torment, as the saints and 
 servants of God, who are guided by better lights, 
 all agree it is. But the case will be quite altered 
 when they shall find themselves in hell. There 
 they shall be convinced, by their own woful 
 experience, what misery it is to have lost their 
 God ; to have lost him totally ; to have lost him 
 irrevocably ; to have lost him eternally ; to have 
 lost him in himself; to have lost him in all his 
 creatures ; to be eternally banished from him, who 
 was their only happiness, their last end and sove- 
 reign good, the overflowing fountain of all good : 
 and in losing him to have lost all that is good, and 
 that for ever. As long as sinners are in this mor- 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 49 
 
 tal life, they many ways partake of the goodness 
 of God, who makes the sun to rise upon the good 
 and bad, and rains upon the just and unjust. All 
 that is agreeable in this world, all that is delight- 
 ful in creatures, and all that is comfortable in life, 
 is all in some measure a participation of the divine 
 goodness. No wonder then, that the sinner, 
 whilst he so many ways partakes of the goodness 
 of God, should not in this life be sensible of what 
 it is to be totally and eternally deprived of him. 
 But in hell, alas ! those unhappy wretches shall 
 find, that in losing their God, they have also lost 
 all kind of good or comfort, which any of his crea- 
 tures heretofore afforded; instead of which, they 
 find all things now conspiring against them, nor 
 any way left of diverting the dreadful thought of 
 this loss, which is always present to their minds, 
 and gripes them with inexpressible torment. 
 
 3. Consider, that every damned soul shall be a 
 hell to herself, and all and every one of her powers 
 and faculties shall have their respective hells. Her 
 memory shall be for ever tormented, by revolving 
 without ceasing her past folly, stupidity and mad- 
 ness, in forfeiting the eternal joys of heaven, that 
 ocean of bliss, which she might have obtained at 
 so cheap a rate, and which so many of her ac- 
 quaintance are now in possession of, for an empty, 
 trifling pleasure that lasted but for a moment, and 
 left nothing behind it but the stain of sin, and the 
 remorse of a guilty conscience ; or for some petty 
 interest, or punctilio of honour, by which she was 
 then robbed of all her treasures, and all her ho- 
 nours ; and, upon account of which, she is now so 
 miserably poor and despicable, eternally trodden 
 
50 THINK WELL ON^T. 
 
 under foot by insulting devils. Oh ! what will 
 her judgment then be of this transitory world, 
 and all its cheating vanities, when, after having 
 been millions of ages in hell, looking back from 
 that immense eternity, and being scarcely able to 
 find out in that infinite duration, this little point 
 of her mortal life, she shall compare time and 
 eternity, past pleasures and present pains, virtue 
 and vice, heaven and hell ! 
 
 4. Consider, that the understanding of the 
 damned shall also have its hell, in being for ever 
 deprived of the light of truth, always employed 
 in false and blasphemous judgments and notions 
 concerning God and his justice, to the great in- 
 crease of its own misery ; and ever dwelling upon 
 the thoughts of present and future torments, with- 
 out being able for a moment to think of any thing 
 else : so that all and every one of the torments 
 which the damned endure, and are to endure for 
 eternity, are every moment before the eyes of 
 their understanding ; and thus in every moment, 
 they bear the insupportable load of a miserable 
 eternity. 
 
 5. Consider, that as the obstinate will of the 
 sinner has been the most guilty, so this power of 
 the soul shall suffer in proportion the greatest^ 
 torments ; always seeking what she shall never] 
 find, and ever flying from what she must for ever ' 
 endure. Ah ! what fruitless longings, what vain 
 wishes shall be her constant entertainment, whilst 
 she is doomed for eternity, never to attain to any 
 one the least thing which she desires ! Oh ! who 
 can express that violent impetuosity, with which 
 the will of these wretches is now carried towards 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 51 
 
 God ; sensible as they are of the immense hap- 
 piness, which is found in the enjoyment of him ? 
 But, alas ! they always find an invisible hand that 
 drives them back, or rather they always find them- 
 selves bound fast down in eternal chains, strug- 
 gling in vain with that hand which they cannot 
 resist, and unable to make the least approach to- 
 wards the object of their restless desires. Hence 
 they break forth into a thousand blasphemies ; 
 hence the whole soul is torn in pieces with a 
 whole army of violent, and withal opposite pas- 
 sions of fury, envy, hatred, despair, Szc. These 
 torments of the interior powers of the soul are at- 
 tended with that never-dying worm of conscience, 
 which shall for ever prey upon those miscreants. 
 By this is meant an eternal remorse, a bitter but 
 fruitless repentance, which is ever racking their 
 despairing souls. Sweet Jesus, deliver us from 
 such k dreadful complication of evils ! 
 
 THE SIXTEENTH DAY. 
 
 On a miserable eternity. 
 QONSIDER, that what above all things makes 
 hell intolerable is the eternity of its torments. 
 It is this eternity, which is an infinite aggravation 
 of all and every one of them : it is this bitter in- 
 gredient which makes every drop of that bitter 
 cup of the divine vengeance, of which the sinners 
 of the earth must drink, so insupportable. Were 
 there any hopes that the miseries of the damned 
 would one day have an end, though it were after 
 millions of ages, hell would be no longer hell, be- 
 cause it would admit of some comfort. But for 
 all those inexpressible torments to continue for 
 
52 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 ever, as long as God shall be God, without the 
 least hope of ever seeing an end of them : oh ! 
 this it is, that is the greatest rack of the damned. 
 Oh ! Eternity ! Eternity ! How little do worldlings 
 apprehend thee now ! How terrible wilt thou be 
 to them one day, when they shall find themselves 
 ingulfed in thy bottomless abyss, there to be for 
 ever the butt and mark of all the arrows of God's 
 avenging justice ! 
 
 2. Consider, if one short night seems so long 
 and tedious to a poor sick man in a burning 
 fever ; if he tosses and turns, and no where finds 
 rest ; if he counts every hour, and with so much 
 impatience longs for the morning, which yet will 
 bring him but little relief or comfort : what must 
 this dreadful night of eternity be, accompanied 
 with all the interior and exterior torments of hell ! 
 No man in his senses would purchase a kingdom, 
 at the rate of lying for ten years on a soft bed 
 without coming off. Ah! what misery then must 
 it be to be chained down to a bed of fire and brim- 
 stone, not for ten years only, nor yet for ten thou- 
 sand times ten, but for as many hundred thousand 
 millions of ages, as there are drops of water in 
 the ocean, or atoms in the air : in a word, for an 
 immense eternity. 
 
 3. Consider, and in order to conceive still 
 better what this eternity is, imagine with thyself, 
 that if any one of the damned were to shed but 
 one single tear at the end of every thousand years, 
 till he had shed tears enough to fill the sea ; what 
 an immense space of time would this require ! The 
 world has not yet lasted six thousand years ; so 
 that the first of all the damned would not have 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 53 
 
 shed six tears. And yet, O dreadful eternity ! 
 the time will certainly come, when any one of 
 those wretches that are now in hell, may be able 
 with truth to say, that at the rate of one tear for 
 a thousand years, he might have shed tears 
 enough to drown the whole world, and fill up the 
 immense space between heaven and earth : and 
 well would it be, if his torments were then to 
 have an end. But alas ! after these millions of 
 millions of ages, he shall be as far from the end 
 of his misery, as he was the first day he fell into 
 hell. Compute after this, if thou pleasest, as 
 many hundred thousand millions of years as thy 
 thoughts can reach to ; nay, suppose the whole 
 surface of the earth to be covered with numeral 
 figures ; cast up, if thou canst, this immense sum 
 of years, and then multiply it by itself, and mul- 
 tiply again a second time the product by itself; and 
 then, at the foot of this immense account, write 
 down : here begins eternity. O terrible eternity! 
 Is it possible, that they who believe thee should 
 not fear thee ? Is it possible, that they who fear 
 thee, should dare to sin ? 
 
 4. Consider, that in this eternity it would be 
 some small comfort to the damned, if their pains, 
 like those of this life, had any intermission or 
 abatement. But, alas ! their torments are always 
 the same ; their eternal fever never abates. For 
 as their sins are always the same, and the gate 
 of mercy and pardon is eternally shut upon them ; 
 so the punishment of their sins shall always con- 
 tinue in one and the same degree of rigour, with- 
 out the least remission or diminution. The rich 
 glutton in hell, Luke xvi. has not yet been able 
 D 3 
 
54 THINK AVELL ON't. 
 
 to obtain so much as that single drop of water, 
 for which he so earnestly begged ; nor will he 
 ever obtain it for all eternity. Nor shall length 
 of time inure these wretches to those evils which 
 they suffer, so as to make them the more sup- 
 portable ; nor shall use and custom harden them 
 against them ; but after millions of ages their tor- 
 ments shall be as fresh and their feeling of them 
 the same as on the first day. O great God ! who 
 can bear thy indignation, or support the weight 
 of thy avenging hand ? O ! dreadful evil of 
 mortal sin, which can enkindle this eternal flame. 
 
 THE SEVENTEENTH DAY. 
 
 On heaven, 
 fjONSIDER, that if God's justice is so terrible 
 in regard to his enemies, how much more will 
 his mercy, his goodness, his bounty declare itself 
 in favour of his friends ! Mercy and goodness are 
 his favourite attributes, in which he most delights : 
 his tender mercies^ says the royal prophet, Ps. 
 cxliv. are over all his works. What then must 
 his blessed kingdom be, which in his goodness he 
 has prepared for his beloved children, for the ma- 
 nifestation of his riches, his glory and magni- 
 ficence for all eternity; — a kingdom, which the 
 Son of God himself has purchased for us, at no 
 less price than that of his own most precious blood ! 
 No wonder then that the apostle cries out: 1 Cor. 
 ii. 9. That neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard^ 
 nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what 
 God has prepared for those that love him. No 
 wonder that this beatitude is defined by divines, 
 a perfect and everlasting state, replenished with 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 55 
 
 all that is good, without the least mixture of evil ; 
 a general and universal good, fiUing brimful the 
 vast capacity of our affections and desires, and 
 eternally securing us from all fear or danger of 
 want or change. O ! here it is that the servants 
 of God, as the psalmist declares, Ps. xxxv. shall 
 be inebriated with the plenty of God^s house, and 
 be made to drink of the torrent of his pleasure ; 
 even of that fountain of life, which is with him, 
 and flows from him, into their happy souls for 
 ever and ever. 
 
 2. Consider, that although this blessed king- 
 dom abounds with all that can be imagined 
 good and delightful, yet there is one sovereign 
 good, in the sight, love and enjoyment of which 
 consists the essential beatitude of the soul; and 
 that is God himself, whom the blessed ever see 
 face to face ; and by the contemplation of his 
 infinite beauty, are set on fire with seraphic flames 
 of love, and, by a most pure and amiable union, 
 are transformed in a manner into God himself; 
 as when brass or iron in the furnace is perfectly 
 penetrated by the fire, it loseth its own nature, 
 and becometh all flame and fire. Happy souls ! 
 What can be wanting to complete your joys, who 
 are in perfect possession of your God, the over- 
 flowing source of all good ; who have, within and 
 without you, the vast ocean of endless felicity? 
 O the excessive bounty of our God, who giveth 
 his servants, in reward of their loyalty, so great 
 a good, which is nothing less than himself, the 
 immense joy of angels ! O ! shall that not suffice, 
 my soul, to make thee happy, which makes God 
 himself happy ? 
 
56 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 3. Consider the glory and beauty of the hea- 
 venly Jerusalem, which the holy scripture, to ac- 
 commodate itself to our weakness, represents to 
 us under the notion of such things as we most 
 admire here below. St. John, Apoc. c. 21. de- 
 scribing this blessed city, tells us, that its walls 
 are of precious stones, and its streets of pure and 
 transparent gold ; that these streets are watered 
 with the river of water of life, resplendent as 
 chrystal, which flows from the throne of God : 
 and that on the banks of this river on both sides 
 grows the tree of hfe; that there shall be no 
 night, nor any sun nor moon, but that the Lord 
 God shall be its light for ever. O blessed Jeru- 
 salem ! O how glorious are the things that are 
 said of thee, O city of God ! But what wonder? 
 For if our God has given us such, and so noble 
 a palace here below, in this place of banishment, 
 beautified with this sun, moon and stars, furnished 
 and adorned with this infinite variety of plants, 
 flowers, trees, and living creatures of so many 
 sorts, all subservient to man ; if, I say, he has so 
 richly provided for us in this vale of tears and 
 region of the shade of death, what must our eter- 
 nal habitation be in the land of the living ! If 
 here he is so bountiful, even to his enemies in 
 giving them so commodious, so noble a dwelling, 
 what may not his friends and servants expect in 
 his eternal kingdom ; in which, and by which he 
 designs to manifest to them his greatness and 
 glory, for endless ages in an everlasting banquet, 
 which he has there prepared for his elect ! 
 Blessed by all creatures be his goodness for ever. 
 4. Consider the blessed inhabitants of this 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 57 
 
 heavenly kingdom, those millions of millions of 
 angels, of whom the prophet Daniel, having seen 
 God Almighty in a vision, tells us : Dan. vii. That 
 thousands of thousands ministered to him, and 
 ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood 
 before him : that infinite multitude of saints and 
 martyrs, and other servants of God of both sexes, 
 gathered out of all nations, tribes and tongues ; 
 and above them all, the blessed Virgin Mother of 
 , God, queen of saints and angels : their number 
 is innumerable. But O ! who can express the 
 happiness of enjoying this pleasant company? 
 They are all most noble, most glorious, most wise, 
 most holy. They are all of blood royal, all kings 
 and queens, all children and heirs of the most high 
 God : ever beautiful and ever young ; crowned 
 with wreaths of immortal glory, and shining much 
 more brightly than the sun. Their love and 
 charity for one another is more than can be con- 
 ceived : they have all but one heart, one will and 
 one soul : so that the joy and satisfaction of every 
 one is multiplied to as many fold, as there are 
 blessed souls and angels in heaven, by the inex- 
 pressible delight that each one takes, in the hap- 
 piness of all and every one of the rest. Christians, 
 let us imitate their virtues here, that we may come 
 to their happy society hereafter, and with them 
 eternally sing to our God the immortal song of 
 Sion. 
 
 5. Consider, that what renders all the joys of 
 heaven, and the felicity of the blessed completely 
 great, is the eternity of this bhss, and that infal- 
 lible certainty and security which they enjoy, 
 that their happiness is ever linked with God's 
 D 5 
 
58 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 eternity; that as long as God shall be God, they 
 shall be with him in his blessed kingdom. O ! 
 my soul, how pleasant, how delightful it is to 
 look forward into this vast eternity, and there to 
 lose thyself in this happy prospect of endless ages ! 
 O ! bless thy God, who has prepared these im- 
 mortal joys for the reward of such small services, 
 and designed them for all eternity for thee ! Nor 
 shall this immense eternity render these enjoy- 
 ments anywise disagreeable or tedious by the 
 length of the possession ; but as God is an end- 
 less ocean of all good, and his divine essence an 
 inexhaustible infinite treasure of delights, so the 
 happiness of those that eternally enjoy him shall 
 be always fresh, always new. Conclude then, 
 Christian soul, to contemn and forsake all that 
 is earthly and temporal, and from this hour, to 
 begin thy journey towards this glorious, hea- 
 venly and eternal kingdom. There thou shalt 
 find all that thy heart can desire, immortal ho- 
 nours, immense riches, pure and eternal pleasures, 
 life, health, beauty never fading, &c. O ! this 
 alone is thy true home, the land of the living. 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH DAY. 
 
 On the small number of the elect, 
 r^ONSIDER these words of Christ : many are 
 called but few are chosen : which contain a 
 great and dreadful truth, frequently inculcated by 
 the mouth of truth itself, to rouse unthinking 
 mortals from their profound lethargy, into which 
 the enemy has lulled them. This is one of those 
 lessons, which he has laid down for a foundation 
 of Christian morahty, in his divine sermon on the 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 59 
 
 mountain, where he bids us : St. Mat. vii. 13, 14. 
 Enter in at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, 
 and broadis the way, that leads to destruction, and 
 many there are that go in thereat. How narrow 
 is the gate and strait the way that leads to life, 
 and few there are that find it. Hence in the 
 same sermon, he declares to us : not every one 
 that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven : hut he that doth the will of 
 my Father, who is in heaven : viz. by a faithful 
 comphance with the law of God and his gospel. 
 Without this, he assures us, that it will avail us 
 nothing, even to have done miracles in his name. 
 Many shall say to me in that day : (of judgment) 
 Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and 
 cast out devils in thy name, and done many 
 wonders in thy name ? And then I tvill declare 
 to them : I never knew you, depart from me, 
 ye workers of iniquity. Good God ! w^hat will 
 become of us, if those, that have even done mi- 
 racles in thy name, shall nevertheless be excluded 
 thy eternal kingdom ? 
 
 2. Consider how many ways this frightful truth 
 has been declared or prefigured to us in the Old 
 Testament. Of all the inhabitants of the earth, 
 only eight souls: viz. Noah and his family, were 
 preserved in the ark, from the waters of the de- 
 luge : of six hundred thousand of the children of 
 Israel, who came out of the land of Egypt under 
 the conduct of Moses, only two pe^-sons, Joshua 
 and Caleb, entered Canaan, the knd of promise ; 
 which figure the apostle St. Paul expressly ap- 
 phes to us Christians. 1 Cor. x. To the same 
 effect the prophet Isaiah, chap. xxiv. 13, 14. 
 
60 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 likens those that shall escape the divine vengeance 
 to that small number of olives that remains on 
 the tree after the fruit is gathered; or to the 
 fewness of the grapes that are found on the 
 vines after a well gleaned vintage. Ah ! Chris- 
 tians, hear then and obey the voice of your 
 Saviour, when he says to you : St. Luke xiii. 24. 
 Contend, that is, strive with all your force, to 
 enter in at the narrow gate, for many, I say to 
 you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able : 
 because the generality of Christians, though they 
 use some endeavours to enter, yet do not strive 
 with all their force ; they are not thoroughly in 
 earnest in their seeking, and therefore shall never 
 find. Hear again with fear and trembling the 
 great apostle St. Peter, when he tells you, that 
 if the just will hardly be saved, where will the 
 sinner appear? 1 Pet. 4. 18. O my soul, let 
 us then take care, as the same apostle admo- 
 nishes, 2 Pet. i. by good works to make our 
 election sure : and if others will go in crow^ds 
 to hell, let us resolve not to go with them for 
 company's sake. 
 
 3. Consider, that though the scripture had said 
 nothing of the small number of the elect, yet 
 this truth must appear evident to us, if we com- 
 pare the lives of the generality of Christians with 
 the gospel of Christ, and his holy commandments. 
 If thou ivilt enter into life, says our Lord, Mat. 
 xix. keep the commandments. There is no other 
 way to life everlasting. And the first and great- 
 est of all the commandments is this: Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with 
 all thy soul, zvith all thy mind, and luith all thy 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 61 
 
 strength. Mat. xxii. Now how few are there 
 that keep this commandment ? It is easy to say, 
 with the generahty of Christians, that we love God 
 with our whole heart ; but what is the practice 
 of our lives ? Does not self-love, vainglory, sen- 
 suality &:c. on every occasion take place of God ? 
 If so, it is in vain to say we love him above all 
 things. And yet there is no salvation without 
 this love. Think well on this. Besides, the apos- 
 tle St. James declares : chap. iv. 4. whoso- 
 ever will be a friend of this world, becomes an 
 enemy of God. And St. John : Epist. 1, chap, 
 ii. 15. If any one love the world, the love of 
 the Father is not in him. And Christ himself de- 
 clares, that we cannot serve tivo masters. Matt, 
 vi. 24. How then can we think to reconcile the 
 conduct of the greater part of those that call 
 themselves Christians, (whose whole study is to 
 please the world, and to conform themselves to 
 its false maxims, corrupt customs, and deluded 
 vanities) with their expectation of the kingdom 
 of heaven, which is not to be obtained but by 
 using violence to ourselves, by renouncing this 
 sinful world, and by a life of self-denial and 
 mortification ? 
 
 4. Consider how great a corruption is gene- 
 rally found even amongst the greater part of true 
 believing Christians ; and from thence make a 
 judgment of their future lot. How few are proof 
 against human respects, and the pernicious fear 
 of what the world will say ! Alas ! what numbers 
 sacrifice their eternal salvation to this cursed fear, 
 by rather choosing to forfeit the grace of God, 
 than the false honour and esteem of this world ! 
 
62 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 How many of those, whose birth and fortune 
 have advanced them above the level of their 
 fellow mortals, live continually in the state of 
 damnation, by a cursed disposition of never put- 
 ting up with an affront, and of preferring their 
 worldly honour before their conscience ! Unhappy 
 men ! who by conforming themselves nt)w to 
 those false maxims of deluded worldlings, will 
 be trampled under foot by insulting devils for all 
 eternity. How few masters of families are sin- 
 cerely solicitous for those under their charge, to 
 see that instructions be not wanting, devotions be 
 not neglected, &c. and that nothing scandalous 
 or sinful lurk under the favour of their negligence 
 or connivance ! And yet the apostle assures us, 
 that if any man neglect the care of his family, he 
 is worse than an infidel. 1 Tim. v. 8. How few 
 parents effectually take care to bring up their 
 children from their infancy in the fear of God, 
 and early to inspire into them the horror of sin 
 above all evils ! Ah ! what a double damnation 
 will the greater part bring upon themselves, by 
 sacrificing these tender souls to the devil and the 
 world, which they might with so much ease have 
 consecrated to heaven ! In fine, not to run over 
 all states of life in particular, is it not visible that 
 injustice, impurity, pride, detraction, &c. every- 
 where reign amongst Christians ; and that the 
 number of those who live up to the gospel is in- 
 deed very small ? Good God ! have mercy on us, 
 and give us grace to be of the number of the 
 few, that so we may be of the number of the 
 saved. 
 
THINK AVELL ON'T; 63 
 
 THE NINETEENTH DAY. 
 
 On mortal sin, 
 QONSIDER, that there is not upon earth, nor 
 even in hell itself, a monster more hideous, 
 more filthy and abominable than mortal sin : a 
 monster J that is the first-born of the devil ; or to 
 speak more properly, is the parent both of the 
 devil and hell. There was not in the whole uni- 
 verse a creature more beautiful, more perfect, 
 more accomphshed with all kinds of gifts, both 
 of nature and grace, than was the bright angel 
 Lucifer and his companions : yet one mortal sin, 
 and that only consented to in thought, changed 
 them in an instant to ugly devils, just objects of 
 horror and abomination to God and man. What 
 effect, think ye, will sin have upon man, who is 
 but dust and ashes, if it blast so foully the stars 
 of heaven ? It was this monster, sin, that cast 
 our first parents out of paradise, and condemned 
 both them and their posterity, to innumerable 
 miseries, and to both a temporal and eternal 
 death. It was sin drowned the world with the 
 waters of the flood ; and daily crowds hell with 
 millions of poor souls, to be the fuel of endless 
 flames. Good God ! deliver us from this cursed 
 evil. 
 
 2. Consider, that sin is the death of the soul; 
 for as it is the soul of a man, which gives life to 
 his body, and consequently, that body is dead, 
 from which the soul is gone ; so it is the grace 
 of God which is the life of the soul ; and that 
 soul is dead, which by mortal sin has lost her 
 God and his grace ; if, then, a dead carcase from 
 which the soul is gone, be so loathsome and 
 
64 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 frightful, that few could endure to pass one night 
 in the same bed with such a bed-fellow, how is it 
 possible, unhappy sinner, that thou canst endure 
 to carry continually about with thee a carcase of 
 a soul dead in mortal sin, which is far more loath- 
 some and hideous ? Ah ! beg of God that he 
 would open thy eyes, to see thy own deplorable 
 state, to detest the hellish monster sin, which 
 thou hast so long nourished in thy breast, and 
 which is the true cause of all thy misery. 
 
 3. Consider what the soul loses by sin; and 
 what she gains to recompense this loss. She 
 loses the grace of God, the greatest of all trea- 
 sures ; and in losing this, she loses God himself. 
 She loses the fatherly protection and favour of 
 God ; she loses the dignity of a child of God, 
 and spouse of Christ; she loses her right and 
 title to an eternal kingdom ; she is stript of all 
 the gifts of the holy Ghost, robbed of all the me- 
 rits of her whole life ; becomes a child of hell, 
 and a slave of the devil ; spiritually possessed by 
 him, and with him liable to an eternal damnation : 
 and this is all she gains by sin ; because the wages 
 of sin is death; Rom. vi. the death of the soul 
 here, and a second and eternal death hereafter. 
 Ah ! wretched sinners, open your eyes to see and 
 bewail your lamentable blindness, in thus ex- 
 changing God for the devil, heaven for hell. 
 
 4. Consider, that sin is infinitely odious and 
 detestable in the sight of God, as being infinitely 
 opposite to his sovereign goodness. He hates it 
 with an eternal and necessary hatred ; and can 
 no more cease to hate it, than he can cease to be 
 God. Hence if the most just man upon earth were 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 63 
 
 to be so unhappy as to fall into any one, the least 
 mortal sin, he would in that same moment become 
 the enemy of God ; and if he were to die in that 
 guilt, he would certainly feel the weight of God's 
 avenging justice for all eternity. Ah! Christians, 
 never let us be so mad as to venture to be at war 
 with God. Alas ! how many and how dreadful 
 judgments does he daily exercise upon sin and 
 sinners ! How many, in punishment of sin, are 
 snatched away in the flower of their age by sud- 
 den and unprovided death ! How many die in 
 despair ! How many, after having long abused 
 God's graces, are given up to a reprobate sense, 
 to a hardness of heart, the worst and most ter- 
 rible of all his judgments ! O ! let us tremble at 
 the thoughts of so great a misfortune ; let us be 
 convinced that there can be no misery so great 
 as that which we incur by mortal sin ; and that 
 we are more our own enemies, and do ourselves 
 more mischief, by consenting to any one mortal 
 sin, than all the men upon earth, and all the de- 
 vils in hell could do us, though they were all to 
 conspire together to do their worst : because all 
 that they can do, so long as we do not consent 
 to sin, cannot hurt the soul : whereas we ourselves 
 by consenting to any one mortal sin, bring upon 
 our own souls a dreadful and eternal death. Good 
 God ! never suffer us to be so blind as to become 
 thus the murderers of our ow^n souls. 
 
 5. Consider, O my soul, and tremble at the 
 sight of that multitude of treasons against thy 
 God, by which thou hast so often provoked his 
 indignation in the whole course of thy life. Alas ! 
 is it not too true, that thou no sooner didst come 
 
66 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 to the use of reason than thou didst abandon thy 
 king and thy God, under the wings of whose fa- 
 therly protection thou hadst happily past the days 
 of thy innocence ? Ah ! how early didst thou run 
 away from the best of fathers; and, like the pro- 
 digal child, squandering away thy substance in a 
 strange land, hast sought in vain to satisfy thy 
 appetite with the husks of swine. Pass over in 
 thy remembrance, in the bitterness of thy soul, all 
 the years of thy life ; and see what treasures of 
 iniquity in thought, word and deed, will discover 
 themselves to thy eyes : see how long thou hast 
 unconcernedly sported thyself on the brink of a 
 dreadful precipice, having no more than a hair's 
 breadth betwixt thy soul and hell. Be confounded 
 at thy past folly ; admire and adore the goodness 
 of thy God ; and now at least resolve to embrace 
 his mercy. 
 
 THE TWENTIETH DAY. 
 
 On the relapsing sinner. 
 QONSIDER, that if any one mortal sin is so 
 heinous a treason against the sovereign ma- 
 jesty of God, as we have seen in the foregoing 
 chapter ; if every such sin is an abomination to 
 our Lord, and the death of the soul of that un- 
 happy sinner who is guilty of it ; what must we 
 think of the miserable condition of relapsing sin- 
 ners, that is, of such Christians as are continually 
 falling again and again into the same mortal sins, 
 after repeated confessions and solemn promises of 
 amendment ? Alas ! what can we think, but that 
 by this method of hfe they are treasuring up to 
 themselves wrath against the day of wrath; and 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 67 
 
 tliey will in all appearance, sooner or later, draw 
 down a dreadful vengeance on their heads ? Be- 
 cause by every relapse their crime is aggravated, 
 and their latter .condition becomes worse than the 
 former. 
 
 2. Consider the ingratitude, the perfidiousness, 
 the contempt of God, which the relapsing sinner 
 is guilty of, as often as, after his reconciliation, 
 he returns like a dog to the vomit. He is guilty 
 of the highest ingratitude, in treading under foot 
 the grace of reconcihation, by which he had been 
 a little before raised from the dunghill of sin, and 
 even drawn out of the jaws of hell ; and by a dis- 
 tinguishing mercy restored to the friendship of 
 God, to the dignity of a child of God and heir of 
 heaven. He is guilty of a base perfidiousness, in 
 breaking his solemn word given to God in his con- 
 fession. He is guilty of a notorious contempt of 
 the divine majesty, in banishing God from his 
 soul, after having invited him in, and introducing 
 satan in his place ; and this, after a full knowledge 
 and experience of both sides. Good God ! to put 
 the whole universe in balance with thee, would 
 be a most heinous affront ; since heaven, and all 
 the powers thereof, the earth and seas, and all 
 things therein, are less than a grain of sand, if 
 compared to thee : what then must we think of 
 the unparalleled injury done thee by the relapsing 
 sinner, when putting thee and satan in the scales, 
 he gives the preference to the devil ! 
 
 3 . Consider the dreadful danger to which the re- 
 lapsing sinner is daily exposed, from the sword of 
 the divine justice which hangs over his guilty head, 
 and is daily provoked by his ingratitude and inso 
 
68 THINK WELL On't. 
 
 lence. Alas ! we are all mortal : we neither know 
 the day nor the hour that will be our last ; if we 
 be surprised by death in the state of mortal sin, 
 as millions have been, we are irrecoverably lost. 
 If then it is madness at any time to risk eter- 
 nity, by consenting to a mortal sin, how much 
 more, to provoke the Almighty by frequent re- 
 lapses, and by a practice of abusing his graces 
 and mercy at every turn? Ah! what multitudes 
 of souls have been thus betrayed into that dismal 
 pit of never-ending woe, where the worm never 
 dies, and the fire never is quenched ! Unhappy 
 wretches ! they designed as little to damn them- 
 selves as any of us do ; but God will not be 
 laughed at. 
 
 4. Consider another evil which the sinner, who 
 frequently falls back into the same sins, has too 
 just reason to apprehend, is the insincerity of his 
 past repentance. For in reality, what appearance 
 is there, that his sorrow and resolution of amend- 
 ment have been such as God requires, when after 
 so many confessions he is still the same man ? 
 True contrition is a sovereign grief, by which the 
 penitent detests his sin above all other evils, 
 with a full determination and firm resolution of 
 never returning to it any more. Now how is 
 it likely, that the relapsing sinner detests sincerely 
 his sin above all evils, with a firm purpose of 
 amendment, when he is soon so easily pre- 
 vailed upon by the first temptation to return to 
 it again ? 
 
 5. Consider the remedies and means, by which 
 we are to be preserved from this pernicious evil of 
 relapsing into mortal sin. The first is to avoid the 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 69 
 
 dangerous occasions, which have drawn or proba- 
 bly may draw us into the same sins : without this 
 care to fly the occasions of sin, the strongest re- 
 solution of amendment will prove ineffectual, as 
 we daily see by woful experience : for he that 
 loves the danger shall perish in it. Eccl. iii. 27. 
 No pretext of worldly concerns must here be put 
 in balance with eternity : we must part with hand 
 or eye sooner than lose our souls. Another main 
 preservative against relapse, is to labour by fer- 
 vent prayer, and diligent frequenting of the sa- 
 craments, to suppress the unhappy dispositions 
 that insensibly lead thereunto ; vigorously to re- 
 sist the first motions to evil ; and to strive with 
 all possible diligence to root out that wretched 
 propensity to sin, which former sins have left in 
 the soul. Ah! how hard it is to maintain a cas- 
 tle, where the enemy has already surprised the 
 avenues, and has a strong party within, ready to 
 open the gates to him ! The third and chief re- 
 medy against relapse is, for the penitent carefully 
 to nourish in his heart a truly penitential spirit, 
 daily to renew his sorrow for his sins, and to re- 
 count in the sight of God, in the bitterness of his 
 soul, all his past iniquities ; daily to admire and 
 adore that mercy, which has borne with him so 
 long, and to value above all treasures that grace 
 of reconciliation, by which he has been drawn out 
 of so much misery ; daily to beg of God with all 
 the fervour of his soul, sooner to take him out of 
 this world, than to suffer him any more to die to 
 him by mortal sin. Good God ! grant that this 
 may be always the disposition of our souls. 
 Amen. Amen. 
 
70 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY. 
 
 On doing penance for our sins, 
 (^ONSIDER these words of Christ : Luke xiii. 
 3. 5. Except y.ou do penance, you shall all 
 perish. Behold here a general rule ; nor does our 
 Lord make any exception. Penance then is ne- 
 cessary, first, for all those whose conscience ac- 
 cuses them of mortal sin : alas ! such as these 
 must either do penance for their sins, or burn for 
 them for all eternity. Poor sinners ! their state 
 is most deplorable ! they are playing upon the 
 brink of hell, and every moment one or another of 
 them is tumbling down into that bottomless pit ; 
 and is it possible they should be so unconcerned 
 under so great and evident a danger? Why then 
 do they not lay hold of the grace of penance, the 
 only plank that can save them after shipwreck ; 
 the only means left for the salvation of their souls. 
 Secondly, penance is necessary for all those, who 
 though their conscience accuses them not at pre- 
 sent, yet have in their past life been guilty of such 
 mortal offences. Ah ! Christians, any one mortal 
 sin is enough for us to do penance for, all our 
 life. And how can we do less, if w^e consider 
 what mortal sin is ; what it is to have been the 
 enemies of God ; what it is to have been under 
 the sentence of eternal damnation ; and never 
 certainly to know whether this sentence has been 
 cancelled ? Is not this sufficient to oblige us to a 
 penitential life ? Can we otherwise pretend to be 
 secure? Even those, (and God knows best how 
 few they are) who are not conscious to themselves 
 of having committed any such sin in their whole 
 life, must not therefore think themselves exempt 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 71 
 
 from the obligation of doing penance, as well be- 
 cause of their hidden sins, as those which they 
 may have occasioned in others; for no man knows 
 whether he he worthy of love or hatred; Eccl. ix. 
 1 . as also because a penitential life is the best se- 
 curity against sin, which will insensibly prevail 
 over us, if not curbed by self-denial, mortification 
 and penance. 
 
 2. Consider, that as to the method of penance, 
 different rules must be prescribed to different 
 persons. Those who have the misfortune to be 
 actually in the state of mortal sin, or, what is 
 still more deplorable, are plunged into the depth 
 of a habit of one or more kinds of mortal sin, as 
 soon as their eyes are opened to discover the 
 hellish monster, which they carry about with 
 them, must, like the prodigal child, arise without 
 delay to return to their Father. A sacrifice of 
 a contrite and humbled heart is what God 
 above all things calls for at their hands ; this 
 ought to be the foundation of all their penance : 
 without this, corporal austerities will be of small 
 account. Such sinners ought to give themselves 
 no rest, till they have made their peace with their 
 God : their sins ought to be always before their 
 eyes. Their first thoughts in the morning ought 
 to be upon their misfortune, in being at so great 
 a distance from their God, enslaved to the devil^ 
 and liable to be his companions in eternal misery : 
 the like ought to be their last thoughts at night; 
 when, like the penitent David, they ought to 
 wash their beds with their tears. As often as 
 they appear before their God in prayer, it ought 
 to be in the spirit of the humble pubhcan, look- 
 
72 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 ing upon themselves as unworthy to Hft up their 
 eyes to heaven, or towards the altar of God ; 
 and with him, striking their breasts, with a : Lord 
 he merciful to me a sinner. Thus will they cer- 
 tainly obtain mercy from him, who is the father 
 of mercy. 
 
 3. Consider, that after the sinner has done 
 his endeavours to seek a reconciliation with his 
 offended God, by a sincere repentance and con- 
 fession of his sins, he must not think himself 
 exempt from any further penance, as if he had 
 now no just debt to discharge to the justice of 
 God, no obligation of making satisfaction for 
 his sins by penitential works, and of bringing 
 forth fruits worthy of penance. This would be 
 a great and dangerous error. Nor must he con- 
 tent himself with barely acquitting himself of the 
 penance enjoined by his confessor, which, it is 
 to be feared, seldom is sufficient to satisfy fully 
 the justice of God. Alas ! if sinners were truly 
 sensible of the enormous injury done to God 
 by mortal sin, as true penitents must be, they 
 would certainly do penance in another manner 
 than too many do ; they would be more in earnest 
 in chastising their own sinful flesh by penitential 
 works, thus making a more proportionable satis- 
 faction for their past treasons. 
 
 4. Consider, that the true manner of doing 
 penance for our sins, is better learnt from the 
 holy fathers and doctors of the church, than 
 from the loose maxims of worldlings, or the 
 practice of too many penitents in this degenerate 
 age. Let us give ear then to those lights of the 
 church, and follow their ^ directions on this im- 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 73 
 
 portant subject. '' God himself has taught us," 
 says St. Cyprian, (Z. de Lapsis) " m what 
 manner we are to crave mercy of him ; he himself 
 says : return to me with your whole heart, in 
 fasting, and weeping, and mourning. Joel ii. 
 Let us then return to the Lord with our whole 
 heart ; let us appease his wrath by fasting, weep- 
 ing and mourning, as he admonishes us. Let 
 the greatness of our grief equal the heinousness 
 of our sins. We must pray earnestly ; we must 
 pass the day in mourning, and the night in 
 watching and weeping, spending all our time in 
 penitential tears. Our lodging should be on the 
 floor strewed with ashes; our covering hair- 
 cloth &c. After having cast off the garment of 
 Christ, we should not now seek any worldly 
 clothing. We must employ ourselves now in 
 good works, by which our sins may be purged 
 away. We must give frequent alms, by which 
 our souls may be delivered from death." So far 
 St. Cyprian. With whom agrees St. Pacian, in 
 his Exhortation to Penance. '' If any one call 
 you to the bath, you must renounce all such 
 delights. If any one invite you to a banquet, 
 you must say : such invitations are for those that 
 have not had the misfortune to lose their God. 
 I have sinned against the Lord, and am in danger 
 of perishing eternally. What have I to do with 
 feasts, who have offended my God ? You must 
 make your court to the poor ; you must beg the 
 prayers of widows ; you must cast yourself at 
 the feet of the priests; you must implore the 
 intercession of the church : you must try all 
 means which may prevent your perishing ever- 
 
74 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 lastingly.'' And St. Ambrose: 2. B. of Pe- 
 nance, c. X. *' Can any one imagine that he 
 is doing penance, whilst he is indulging his 
 ambition in the pursuit of honours, whilst he 
 is following wine &c. The true penitent must 
 renounce the world, must abridge even the ne- 
 cessary time of sleep, must interrupt it with his 
 sighs, and cut it short with his prayers." And 
 St. Ceesarius of Aries. Hom. viii. ** As often as 
 we visit the sick, or those that are in prison, or 
 reconcile together those that are at variance one 
 with another ; as often as we fast on days com- 
 manded by the church ; give alms to the poor 
 that pass by our door, &c. — by these, and such 
 like works, our small sins are daily redeemed. 
 But this alone is not enough for capital crimes ; 
 we must add tears and lamentations, and long 
 fasts ; and give large alms to the utmost of our 
 power.'' Thus, as the same saint tells us : Hom. 
 i.. '^ By present mortification will be prevented 
 the future sentence of eternal death ; thus by 
 humbling the guilty will the guilt be consumed : 
 and by this voluntary severity, the wrath of a 
 dreadful judge will be appeased. These short 
 penitential labours will pay off those vast debts, 
 which otherwise everlasting burning will never 
 be able to discharge." Christians, let us follow 
 in practice these excellent guides. 
 
 THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY. 
 
 Against delay of repentance. 
 (^ONSIDER, that of all the deceits of satan, by 
 which he deludes poor sinners to their eternal 
 ruin, there is none greater or more dangerous than 
 
THINK WELL ON't. . 75 
 
 the one by which he persuades them to put off 
 their repentance and conveilion from time to time, 
 till there is no more time for them. Alas ! thousands 
 and millions of poor souls have been thus be- 
 trayed into everlasting flames, w^ho never designed 
 to damn themselves by dying in sin, any more 
 than any one of us at present does. But by 
 putting off their conversion, they have, by a just 
 judgment of God, been surprised by death, when 
 they least expected it ; and, dying as they lived, 
 have been justly sentenced to the second and 
 everlasting death. Unhappy wretches! who 
 would not believe their just Judge, who so often 
 warns them in the gospel to watch ; and declares 
 to them that otherwise he shall come at a time 
 when they least expect him. Ah ! how dreadful 
 and how common are these unprovided deaths ! 
 
 2. Consider the great presumption of sinners, 
 who put off their reconciliation with an offended 
 God till another time, shutting their ears to his 
 voice, by which he calls them at present ; and 
 refusing him entrance into their heart, where he 
 stands and knocks. Alas! if he withdraws him- 
 self they are undone for ever : how dare they then 
 treat him with so much contempt ? Is it not in- 
 finite goodness, and inexpressible condescension 
 in his Sovereign Majesty to call after them, when 
 they are running from him ; and so earnestly to 
 press them, without any interest on his side, to 
 return to him who is their only good and only hap- 
 piness ? What then ought they not to apprehend 
 from his justice, if they obstinately and insolently 
 refuse to embrace his mercy ? How dare they 
 pretend to dispose of the time to come, or promise 
 
76 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 themselves greater graces hereafter, than those 
 which they now abufe ? Do they not know that 
 God alone is master of time and grace, and that 
 by his just judgment those who presume to tempt 
 him in this manner, generally speaking, die in 
 their sins ? Ah ! it is too true, that he who has 
 promised pardon to the sinner that is sincerely 
 converted, has promised neither time nor effica- 
 cious grace to those who defer their conversion. 
 
 3. Consider the great folly of sinners, who put 
 off their conversion to God till another time, upon 
 pretence of doing it more easily hereafter : whereas, 
 both reason and experience make it evident, that 
 the longer they defer this work, the harder it is 
 to bring it about. And how can it be otherwise, 
 since by this delay, and by adding daily sin to 
 sin, their sinful habits grow daily stronger; the 
 devil's power over them increases; and God 
 Almighty, who is daily more and more provoked, 
 by degrees, is less liberal of his graces, so that 
 they become less frequent and less pressing : till 
 at length, by accustoming themselves to resist 
 God's grace, they fall into the wretched state of 
 blindness and hardness of heart, .the very broad 
 road to final impenitence ! 
 
 4. Consider the unparalleled madness of those 
 who defer their conversion upon the confidence 
 of a death-bed repentance ; designing to put a 
 cheat upon God's justice, by indulging them- 
 selves in sin all their lifetime ; and then making 
 their peace with God, when they can sin no 
 longer. Unhappy wretches ! that will not con- 
 sider that God is not to be mocked : that what a 
 man soweth, the same shall he reap. Gal. vi. 7. 8. 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 77 
 
 The general rule is, that as a man lives, so he 
 dies : a rule so general, that in the whole scrip- 
 ture we have but one example of a person who 
 died well after a wicked life, viz. of the good 
 thief: an example so singular in all its circum- 
 stances, as to give no kind of encouragement to 
 such sinners, as entertain a premeditated design 
 . of giving the slip to God's justice by a death-bed 
 conversion. Ah ! how dreadfully difficult must 
 it be for a dying sinner, in whom the habit of sin 
 by long custom is turned into a second nature, 
 to attain to that thorough change of heart, that 
 sincere sorrow and detestation of sin above all 
 things, which he never thought of in his hfetime, 
 and which now at least is certainly necessary. 
 Ah ! how deceitful too often are those tears, which 
 are shed by dying sinners, (as we see in the case 
 of king Antiochus) which, being wholly influenced 
 by the fear of death, prevail not with the just 
 Judge. And if there is so much danger, even 
 when tears are plentifully shed, what must there 
 be, when, as it commonly happens, either the 
 dulness and stupidity caused by the sickness, or 
 the pains and ^agonies of the body and mind are 
 so great, as to hinder any serious application of 
 the thoughts to the greatest of all our concerns ; 
 for if a little headache is enough to hinder us 
 from being able to pray with any devotion, what 
 must the agonies of death be ? No wonder then 
 that the saints and servants of God make so 
 little account of these death-bed performances : 
 especially as we see by daily experience, that 
 those who have made the greatest show of repent- 
 ance, when they were in danger of death, have no 
 E 3 
 
78 THINK WELL On't. 
 
 sooner escaped that danger, than they are the 
 same men they were before. O Christians, let 
 us not then be imposed upon by tlie false and 
 flattering discourses of men, who are so free in 
 pronouncing favourably of all those, who, after a 
 life spent in sin, make some 'show of repentance 
 at their death. Let us rather tremble at the de- 
 plorable case of such souls ; and remember that 
 God's judgments are very different from those 
 of men. 
 
 THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY. 
 
 On time and eternity. 
 /^ONSIDER how precious athing time is, which 
 we are apt to squander away, as if it were of 
 no value. Time is the measure of our lives, and 
 as much as we lose of our time so much of 
 our life is absolutely lost. All our time is given us 
 in order to gain eternity ; and there is not one 
 moment of our time in which we may not work 
 for eternity ; and in which we may not store up 
 immense treasures for a happy eternity : as many 
 therefore as we lose of these precious moments, 
 so many are there lost eternities. This present 
 time is the only time of working : it is the only 
 time we can call our own ; and God only knows 
 how long it will be so. It is short, it flies away 
 in an instant, and when once it is gone, it cannot 
 be recalled : the very moment in which we are 
 reading this line is just passing, never, never 
 more to return. Every hour is posting away, 
 without stopping one moment, till it be swallowed 
 up in the immense gulph of eternity : and as many 
 of these hours or moments as are lost, are lost for 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 79 
 
 ever; the loss is irreparable. Learn hence, O 
 my soul, to set a just value upon thy present 
 time ; learn to husband it well, by employing it 
 in good works. 
 
 2. Consider, Christian soul, what thy thoughts 
 will be, at the approach of death, of the value of 
 this time, which thou makest so little of at pre- 
 sent. What wouldst thou not then give for some 
 of those hours, which thou losest now in vanity 
 and sin ? Ah ! the dreadful anguish that will 
 rack the soul of the dying sinner, when, seeing 
 himself at the brink of a miserable eternity, he 
 shall wish a thousand times, but all in vain, that 
 he could but call back one day, or even one hour 
 of this time past, and had but the same health 
 and strength as he formerly had, to employ it in 
 the love of God and sincere repentance for his 
 sins. Ah! worldlings, why will you then be so 
 blind as not to see, that any one of these hours 
 which you daily squander away, is indeed morfe 
 valuable than ten thousand worlds ! 
 
 3. Consider what will be the sentiments of the 
 damned in hell of the value of time, when time 
 shall be no more : how bitterly will they regret 
 for all eternity all those hours, days, months and 
 years, which were allowed them by the bounty of 
 their Creator, during the space of their mortal life ; 
 by the due employment of which, they might have 
 prevented that misery, to which they are now 
 irrevocably condemned; and might have made 
 themselves eternally and infinitely happy ; but, 
 alas 1 they would not work whilst the time was, 
 whilst they had the daylight before them : the 
 night, the dismal and eternal night is now come, 
 
80 THINK WELL On't. 
 
 in which it is too late to work ; and during which 
 they shall eternally condemn their past folly and 
 madness, in neglecting and abusing their precious 
 time. Ah! Christians, let us be wise at their 
 expense. But what do you think will be the senr 
 timents of the blessed in heaven of this precious 
 time ? Truly, if it were possible, and if their happy 
 state could admit of such a thing as grief, there is 
 nothing those blessed souls would regret more 
 than the loss of any of those moments, which in 
 their lifetime had not been well husbanded : when 
 they shall clearly see, in the light of God, what 
 an immense increase of glory and happiness they 
 might have acquired, by the due employment of 
 those precious moments. 
 
 4. Consider, that as all time is short, and passes 
 quickly away, so all temporal enjoyments, ho- 
 nours, riches and pleasures of this world, are all 
 transitory, uncertain and inconstant. Only eter- 
 nity, and the goods or evils which it comprises, 
 are truly great, as being without end, without 
 change, without comparison ; admitting of no 
 mixture of evil in its goods, nor any alloy of com- 
 fort in its evils. Oh ! the vanity of all temporal 
 grandeur, which must so soon be buried in the 
 coffin. Oh ! how quickly does the glory of this 
 world pass away ! A few short years are more 
 than any one can promise himself: and after that, 
 poor sinner, what will become of thee ? Alas ! 
 the worms will prey upon thy body, and merciless 
 devils on thy unrepenting soul. Thy worldly 
 friends will forget thee. The very stones, on 
 which thou hast got thy name engraved, will not 
 long: outlive thee. Oh ! how true is that sen- 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 81 
 
 tence : Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, 
 but to love God and serve him alone ! A. Kempis. 
 It is thus only we shall be wise for eternity : all 
 other w^isdom is but folly. 
 
 THE TWENTY-FOURTH DAY. 
 
 On the presence of God. 
 QONSIDER, that God is everywhere. If I 
 ascend into heaven, says the Psalmist, Psal. 
 cxxxviii. 8. thou art there: if I descend iiito hell, 
 thou art there. He fills both heaven and earth ; 
 and there is no created thing whatsoever, in which 
 he is not truly and perfectly present. In him we 
 live, in him we move ; our very being is in him. 
 As the birds, wherever they fly, meet with the 
 air, which encompasses them on all sides ; and 
 the fishes swimming in the ocean everywhere 
 meet with the waters; so we, wherever we are, or 
 wherever we go, meet with God ; we have him 
 always with us ; he is more intimately present 
 to our souls, than our souls are to our bodies. 
 Alas ! poor soul of mine, how little have we 
 thought of this ? And yet it is an article of our 
 laith, in which we have been instructed from the 
 very cradle. Let us seriously reflect on this truth 
 for the future : let us strive to be always with 
 him, who is always with us. 
 
 2. Consider, that God being everywhere sees 
 us wherever we are ; all our actions are done in 
 his sight ; our very thoughts, even the most secret 
 motions and dispositions of our hearts, cannot 
 be concealed from his all-seeing eye. In vain 
 does the sinner flatter himself in his crimes, like 
 the libertine mentioned by the wise man : Eccl. 
 E 5 
 
82 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 xxiii. 26. Dai'kness compasses me, and the 
 walls cover me, and no one sees me : whom 
 do I fear ? Alas ! the eyes of the Lord are in- 
 finitely brighter than the rays of the sun ; and no 
 darkness, no clouds, no walls nor curtains can 
 keep out his piercing sight, which clearly sees the 
 very centre of the soul : and no wonder that he 
 should clearly see what passes there, where he is 
 always present. 
 
 3. Consider, that God, who is in all places and 
 in all things, is everywhere whole and entire, be- 
 cause he is indivisible; he is everywhere in all his 
 majesty, with all his attributes, all his perfections. 
 We have then within us, my soul, the eternal, 
 immense, omnipotent, self-existent, infinite Lord 
 and Maker of all things; and we are within this 
 infinite Being ; wherever we go we have him with 
 us. He is everywhere with his omnipotence, to 
 which all things are subject ; what then have his 
 friends to fear ? He is everywhere with his infi- 
 nite justice; how then can his enemies be secure ? 
 He is everywhere infinitely good to his children ; 
 his love, his kindness to them surpasses that 
 of the most tender mother : he watches over them 
 with his providence; his wisdom wonderfully dis- 
 poses of all things for their greater good : what 
 comfort then must this thought of the presence 
 of God afibrd his servants and those that truly 
 fear and love him ? 
 
 4. Consider, that God, being everywhere re- 
 quires of us that we should everywhere take notice 
 of his presence. Can there be an object more 
 worthy of our attention? And shall we then be so 
 unfortunately blind, as to amuse ourselves about 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 83 
 
 every trifle that comes in our way, and let our 
 God, the sovereign beauty and sovereign good, 
 pass unregarded ? Ah ! let us never regret our 
 being alone, since we have always in our company 
 that infinite Being, the sight and enjoyment of 
 whom is the eternal felicity of angels. What if 
 we see him not with the eyes of the body, is he 
 the less present ? And have we not within us 
 other more noble eyes, viz. the eyes of the under- 
 standing, which, assisted by divine faith, may 
 and ought to contemplate their God, always pre- 
 sent in the very midst of us ? Ah ! the sweetest 
 repose is to be found in him ; all other recreations 
 are vain, if compared to this. 
 
 5. Consider, that God being everywhere pre- 
 sent requires of us, that we should comport our- 
 selves, both as to the interior and exterior, in such 
 manner as becomes those who are standing in his 
 sight. The presence of a person, for whom we 
 have a respect, is enough to put a restraint upon 
 us from doing any thing that is light and indecent : 
 and shall not the infinite majesty of God, in com- 
 parison with whom the greatest monarchs of the 
 earth are less than nothing, by his presence keep 
 us in that exterior modesty and interior reverence, 
 which may please his eyes ? Ought we not even 
 to annihilate ourselves in the sight of this im- 
 mense divinity ? But, O good God, how far are 
 we from these dispositions, as often as we dare to 
 sin in thy almighty presence, and fly in the face 
 of thy sovereign majesty ! Alas ! my poor soul, 
 how should we be ashamed to have our sins known 
 to such and such persons, whose esteem we covet ! 
 We should be ready even to die with confusion to 
 
84 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 have them pubhshed to the whole world. We 
 should be very unwilling to have even our vain 
 and ridiculous amusements, though otherwise in- 
 nocent, laid open to the eyes of our neighbours. 
 And why will we not consider the all-seeing eye 
 of our great God, which is always upon us, which 
 clearly discerns all that passes in the most secret 
 closet of our heart? Why will we not reflect, that 
 our evil thoughts being known to God, is indeed 
 a greater shame, a greater loss of our true ho- 
 nour, than if they were published by sound of 
 trumpet over the universe. 
 
 6. Consider, that God being everywhere pre- 
 sent everywhere requires our love : he is every- 
 where infinitely amiable, infinitely beautiful, in- 
 finitely good, infinitely perfect : and wherever we 
 are, he is infinitely good to us. Why then do we 
 not love him ? He is all love : Deus charitas est, 
 says St. John, 1 Ep. iv. God is love. We have this 
 loving and most lovely God always with us ; and 
 always in us ; why do we not run to his embraces ? 
 He is a fire that ever burns : this fire is in the very 
 centre of our souls ; how then come we to feel so 
 little of its flames ? It is because we will not stand 
 by it. It is because we will not keep our souls at 
 home, attentive to that great guest who resides 
 within us, but let them continually wander abroad 
 upon vain created amusements. Turn, O my 
 soul, into thy rest. Psalm cxiv. 7. Turn away, 
 my soul, from all these worldly toys which 
 keep thee from thy God ; and return to him, 
 thy true and only happiness, and in him repose 
 for ever. 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 85 
 
 THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY. 
 
 On the passion of Christ : and, first ^ on our 
 
 Saviour in the garden of Gethsemani. 
 (CONSIDER how the Son of God, who came 
 down from heaven, and clothed himself with 
 our humanity, in order to be our priest and our 
 victim, and to offer himself a bleeding sacrifice for 
 our sins to his eternal Father, was pleased to 
 begin his passion by a bloody sweat and agony, 
 in the garden of Gethsemani, the night before his 
 death. Here having left the rest of his disciples 
 at some distance, and taken with him Peter, 
 James and John, who before had been witnesses 
 of his glorious transfiguration on mount Thabor, 
 he begins to disclose to them that mortal anguish, 
 fear and sadness, which oppressed his heart. My 
 soul, saith he, is sad even unto death. Matt. xxvi. 
 that is, with a sadness, which even now would 
 strike me dead, if I did not preserve myself, in 
 order to suffer still more for you. Sweet Jesus, 
 what can be the meaning of this? Didst thou not 
 lately cry out, speaking of thy passion, and the 
 desire thou hadst of suffering for us : / have a 
 baptism whereivith I am to be baptized, and how 
 am I straitened till it be accomplished ? Luke, 
 xii. Whence then this present sadness ? Was 
 it not thou, who hast given that strength and 
 courage to thy martyrs, not even to shrink 
 under the worst of torments ? And wert thou 
 thyself afraid ? But, O dear Lord, I plainly un- 
 derstand that it was by thy own choice, that thou 
 didst condescend so far as to let thyself be seized 
 by this mortal anguish. It was for my instruction ; 
 and that thou mightest suffer so much the more 
 
86 THINK WELL On't. 
 
 for me. I adore thee under this weakness, (if I 
 may be allowed to call it so) no less than on thy 
 throne of glory : because it is here, that I better 
 discover thy infinite love for me. 
 
 2. Consider how our dear Saviour under this sad- 
 ness and anguish betakes himself to prayer, the only 
 sure refuge under all afflictions, the only shield 
 in the day of battle. But take notice, my soul, 
 with what reverence he prays to his eternal Father, 
 prostrate on the very ground : with what fervour, 
 ivith a loud cry and tears, says the apostle : Heb. 
 V. 7. and learn to imitate him. In this prayer he 
 condescended so far as to allow the inferior part 
 to petition, that the cup of his bitter passion might 
 be removed from him ; but then he immediately 
 added : yet not my will, hut thine be done : to 
 teach us, under all trials and crosses, a perfect 
 submission and resignation to the divine will. 
 
 3. Consider how our Saviour made two inter- 
 ruptions in his prayei:, to come and visit his disci- 
 ples, but found them both times asleep. Ah ! my 
 soul, is it not thy case, like these apostles, to 
 sleep, that is, to indulge thyself in a slothful, 
 sensual way of living ; whereas the whole life of 
 thy Saviour was spent in labouring for thy salva- 
 tion ; and all that he now suffers, he suffers for 
 thee ? Ah ! pity now at least his comfortless con- 
 dition, whilst on the one hand his Father seems 
 deaf to his prayers, and on the other hand his 
 disciples are too drowsy to give any attention to 
 him. In this desolate state, an angel from heaven 
 appears to comfort him who is the joy of angels. 
 Oh ! what humility ! But what kind of comfort, 
 think you, did this angel bring? No other, to be 
 
THINK WELL ON't, 87 
 
 sure, but the representing to him the will of his 
 eternal Father, and humbly entreating him, in the 
 name of heaven and earth, not to decline the im- 
 parting to poor sinners, by his infinite love, that 
 plentiful redemption, for w^hich he came into the 
 world, and to undergo the ignominies and tor- 
 ments of one short day's continuance, with the 
 prospect of the salvation of mankind, and of that 
 eternal glory and honour which the Godhead 
 would receive from all his sufferings. Let the 
 like consideration of God's will, his greater ho- 
 nour and glory, and the good of thy own soul, 
 comfort thee also under all thy anguish and 
 crosses. There can be no more solid comfort. 
 
 4. Consider the mortal agony which our Saviour 
 suffered in his soul, during the prayer of this night. 
 We may judge of the pains and anguish of his 
 soul, by the wonderful effect they produced in his 
 body, by casting him into that prodigious sweat 
 of blood to such a degree, as to embrue the very 
 ground on which he lay prostrate. Sweet Jesus, 
 who ever heard of such an agony as this ? But 
 what thinkest thou, my soul, was the true cause 
 of all this anguish, and of this bitter agony of thy 
 Saviour ? Chiefly these three : first, a clear view 
 and lively representation of all that he was to 
 suffer during the whole course of his passion : so 
 that all the ignominies and torments, that he was 
 afterwards successively to go through, were now 
 all at once presented before the eyes of his soul 
 with all their respective aggravations ; by which 
 means he suffered his whole bitter passion twice 
 over ; once by the hands of his enemies, and an- 
 other time by his own most clear and lively ima- 
 
88 THINK WELL ON*T. 
 
 gination of all that he had to suffer. But why, 
 dear Jesus, these additional agonies ? Only thy 
 love can answer me. Another cause that con- 
 tributed to our Saviour's anguish was, a distinct 
 view of all the sins of the world from the first to 
 the last ; of all the horrid crimes and abomina- 
 tions of mankind, all now laid to his charge, to 
 be cancelled by the last drop of his blood. Ah ! 
 how hideous, how detestable were all these hellish 
 monsters in the eyes of our Saviour ; who alone 
 had a just notion of their enormity, by having 
 always before him a clear sight of the infinite ma- 
 jesty oflPended by them ! O Lord, how great a 
 share had my sins in this tragical scene ! How 
 much, alas ! did they contribute to thy pains and 
 grief ! A third cause of our "Saviour's agony was 
 the knowledge that he had of the little use that the 
 very Christians would make of all his sufferings ; 
 to see their blindness and hardness of heart, by 
 which they would pervert this antidote into a 
 mortal poison, and tread under their feet his 
 precious blood ; and the eternal loss of so many 
 millions of souls, for which he was to die. All 
 these sad and melancholy thoughts, attacking at 
 once the soul of our Redeemer, cast him into that 
 mortal agony, and forced from him those streams 
 of blood. Christians, pity now your Saviour's 
 anguish, and resolve never more to have any 
 hand in afflicting his tender soul by sin. 
 
 THE TWENTY-SIXTH DAY. 
 
 On our Saviour in the court of Caiphas. 
 (CONSIDER how our Saviour arising from his 
 prayer, having conquered all his fears, comes 
 
THINK WELL OnV. 89 
 
 to his disciples, bidding them now sleep on and 
 take their rest; for that his hour was come, and 
 the traitor was just at hand. But thou, dear - 
 Lord, when wilt thou rest or sleep ? Not till the 
 last sleep of death, on the hard bed of the cross. 
 Contemplate, Christians, with the eyes of your 
 souls, the courage and readiness to suffer for you, 
 which your Saviour shews on this occasion, by 
 going forth to meet the traitor and his band ; see 
 with what meekness he receives the treacherous 
 kiss of peace. And yet to make it evident that 
 no power upon earth could take him but with 
 his own free will, with two words : Ego sum, I 
 am he, he struck down the whole multitude that 
 was come to apprehend him, making them all 
 reel back and fall to the ground. After this 
 he delivered himself into their hands : and they 
 having bound him, dragged him along into the 
 city, whilst his disciples all abandoning him, ran 
 their way, leaving him in the hands of his enemies, 
 who presented him first before Annas, the father- 
 in-law of the high priest, where he was insulted 
 by a vile servant, that gave him a blow on the 
 face. From thence they led him to the court of 
 Caiphas, where the chief priests and elders were 
 assembled, longing to see this new prisoner before 
 them, and determined to make away with him, 
 right or wrong. Follow thou thy Saviour, my 
 soul, every step of the way, abandoned now by 
 all his friends : contemplate this meek lamb in 
 the midst of all these ravenous wolves, loaded 
 with their scoffs and insolence : but carry the 
 eyes of thy understanding still further, view the 
 interior of his soul, and see the joy and satisfaction 
 
90 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 that he takes in complying with his eternal Fa- 
 ther's will, and suffering for thee : and learn from 
 hence the hke disposition in all thy sufferings. 
 
 2. Consider how our Lord was no sooner 
 brought to the court of Caiphas, the high priest, 
 where the great council of the Sanhedrim was 
 assembled, but immediately after a scornful wel- 
 come they proceed to his trial, and call in the 
 false witnesses, who were to depose against him. 
 But see the providence of God : see the force of 
 truth, and the wonderful innocence of this Lamb 
 of God : notwithstanding all the malice of this 
 impious court and their witnesses, men of neither 
 honour nor conscience, yet all that they could 
 allege against him was either insignificant, or 
 they could not agree in their story, which 
 made their testimonies of no weight. But whilst 
 thou adorest this providence, see and admire 
 the meekness and patience of thy Saviour, who 
 was silent under all the provocations given by 
 these false witnesses ; giving thereby a most con- 
 vincing proof of his being something more than 
 man, who could thus calmly hold his peace, whilst 
 his reputation and life were both attacked by 
 palpable calumnies. The malice of our Saviour's 
 enemies being thus confounded, the high-priest 
 arises and adjures him by the living God, to tell 
 him if he was the Christ, the Son of God ! In 
 reverence to this adorable name, our Lord made 
 a solemn confession and profession of the truth, 
 teaching, by his example, all his followers, when 
 called to the like trial, never to be ashamed of 
 him or of his faith. Upon this, Caiphas rends his 
 garment, crying out: Blasphemy I And they all 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 91 
 
 pronounce him worthy of death. But thou, my 
 soul, on the contrary, cry out with the angels 
 and all the elect of God : Rev. v. 12. The Lamb 
 that was slain is worthy to receive power, and 
 divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, 
 and glory, and benediction, from all creatures for 
 ever. 
 
 3. Consider how that unjust sentence against 
 our Redeemer was no sooner pronounced by the 
 great council, but immediately they all, with un- 
 heard-of barbarity, fell upon him like furies of 
 hell rather than men, and discharged upon him 
 all kinds of injuries, blows, affronts and blas- 
 phemy. See, my soul, how these hell-hounds spit 
 in thy Saviour's face, and disgorge their filthy 
 phlegm on that sacred forehead, where beauty 
 and majesty sit : see, how they buffet, kick and 
 strike him with merciless rage, whilst he with his 
 hands tied behind him, is not able to ward off 
 one blow, nor has any friend there to wipe his 
 face, or afford him any other help. See, how 
 they cover and muffle up his face with some filthy 
 rag, and then in scorn (as if he were a mock pro- 
 phet, and an impostor) at every blow they bid 
 him prophesy who it was that struck him ; besides 
 many other affronts, which he endured with an 
 invincible patience and fortitude. 
 
 4. Consider, that of all which our Saviour suf- 
 fered in the court of Caiphas, nothing touched 
 him so much to the quick, as the dangerous fall 
 of Peter, the chief of all his apostles, who had 
 received the most signal favours from him. Who, 
 afler having boasted that very night, that although 
 all the rest of the disciples should abandon their 
 
92 THINK WELL ON T. 
 
 Master, lie would never forsake him ; and that he 
 would sooner die with him than deny him : yet 
 see the weakness and inconstancy of human na- 
 ture ; at the voice of a silly maid, he forthwith 
 denies his Master, repeats his denial a second and 
 a third time : he began to curse and to swear that 
 he knew not the man. Matt. xxvi. 74. Sweet Je- 
 sus ! what is man ? O Lord , look to me and support 
 me by thy grace, or I shall deny thee. The causes 
 of Peter's fall were, first, a secret pride and pre- 
 sumption upon his own strength ; secondly, his 
 neglect of the admonition of our Saviour, in 
 sleeping when he ought to have watched and 
 prayed ; thirdly, his exposing himself to danger 
 by running into ill company. See that the like 
 causes have not the like effect in thee, by drawing 
 thee also to deny, and even crucify thy Lord by 
 sin. Learn to imitate the speedy repentance of 
 this apostle, who immediately after his fall, going 
 out, wept bitterly; a practice which, it is said, he 
 ever after retained, as often as he heard the cock 
 crow. 
 
 5. Consider how the high-priest and scribes, 
 after having given sentence of death against our 
 Saviour, retired to take their rest, leaving him in 
 hands that were not likely to suffer him to take 
 any rest. O ! what a night did our Lord pass in 
 the midst of that rabble, who, to satisfy their own 
 cruelty and the malice of their masters, acted 
 over and over again all that scene of inhumanity, 
 which they had begun whilst their masters were 
 there, and loaded him with all kinds of outrages 
 and blasphemies. So that we may boldly affirm, 
 that one half of what our Saviour suffered that 
 
TIIIXK WELL ON T. 98 
 
 night will not be known till the day of judgment. 
 All these insolences he bears in silence, and even 
 then whilst they are abusing him, is praying for 
 them, and excusing them to his Father, and of- 
 fering up all his sufferings in atonement for their 
 sins. Sweet Jesus, give us grace to imitate thee. 
 
 THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY. 
 
 Our Saviour is brought before Pilate and Herod, 
 /^ONSIDER how early in the morning, not- 
 withstanding their late sitting up, the high- 
 priest, and his fellows in iniquity, convene a more 
 numerous assembly of the Sanhedrim, and there 
 again put the question to our Saviour, whether he 
 was the Son of God ; and receiving the same 
 answer, confirm their former sentence. Yet as they 
 did not think it safe for themselves, being subject 
 to the Roman empire, to put this sentence into ex- 
 ecution without the consent of Pontius Pilate, 
 the Roman governor, they determined to carry 
 him to Pilate, and by his authority to have him 
 crucified ; a kind of execution which their malice 
 made choice of, because it was at the same time 
 most ignominious, as being only for vile slaves and 
 notorious criminals ; and most cruel, as being a 
 long and lingering death, under the sharpest and 
 most sensible torments. Come now, christian 
 soul, and contemplate thy Saviour, as he is hur- 
 ried along the streets with his hands bound, from 
 the house of the high-priest to the court of Pilate, 
 attended by the whole council, and their wicked 
 ministers publishing aloud as they go, that now 
 all his impostures were laid open, his hypocrisy 
 discovered, and himself. convicted of blasphemy. 
 
94 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 See how the giddy mob, who a httle while before 
 reverenced him as a prophet, now all on a sudden 
 join with his enemies, following him with oppro- 
 brious shouts, insulting him all the way that he 
 goes, and discharging a thousand kind of injuries 
 and affronts upon him. 
 
 2. Consider and view the Judge of the living 
 and the dead, standing with his hands bound as a 
 criminal before a petty governor ; and behold the 
 process. The chief priests and princes of the people 
 having delivered him up, and Pilate demanding 
 what particulars they had to allege against him, 
 they made no scruple of inventing new calumnies ; 
 that he w^as a factious and seditious man, a traitor- 
 and a rebel to the government, who forbad tribute 
 to be paid to Csesar, and set himself up for king 
 of the Jews. Once more take notice of the in- 
 vincible patience of thy Saviour, in hearing with 
 silence such notorious falsities as they laid to his 
 charge ; so that the governor was astonished that 
 a man could hold his peace under such accusa- 
 tions, which aimed at nothing less than procuring 
 his condemnation to the worst of deaths. How- 
 ever, as he plainly saw through all the disguise 
 of the high-priest and scribes, he interpreted his 
 silence in favour of our Saviour, only boggling a 
 little at the word king, and having received full 
 satisfaction upon that head, by being made to 
 understand that the kingdom of our Saviour was 
 not of this world, and therefore not dangerous 
 to Caesar's government, he determined to set him 
 at liberty. Admire the force of innocence, which 
 could even move a heathen, and one of the worst 
 of men, such as Pilate was, and assure thyself, 
 
THINK WELL ON T. 95 
 
 that generally speaking, patience and silence are 
 a thousand times better proofs of thy innocence, 
 than returning injury for injury, and making an 
 opprobrious and clamorous defence. 
 
 3. Consider how Pilate being convinced of our 
 Saviour's innocence, and desirous of setting him 
 at liberty, met with an obstinate resistance from the 
 malicious princes and deluded people ; and there- 
 fore understanding that our Saviour, as being an 
 inhabitant of Galilee, belonged to the jurisdiction 
 of Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee, he took occasion 
 from thence to rid himself of their importunity by 
 sending him to Herod. Accompany thy Lord, 
 O my soul, in this new stage, and take notice of 
 of his incomparable meekness, whilst he passes 
 through the streets, lined on all sides with an 
 insulting multitude, and echoing with their rcr 
 proaches and clamours. Herod was most glad 
 of his coming, in hopes to see some miracle, and 
 therefore put a thousand questions to him ; whilst 
 the princes of the Jews, with untired malice were 
 repeating all their false accusations against him : 
 but our Lord was silent still, nor would he satisfy 
 the curiosity of Herod, nor do any thing by which 
 he might incline this prince to free him from that 
 death, which he so ardently desired, as being by 
 the decrees of heaven, the only means of our re- 
 demption. Blessed by all his creatures be his 
 goodness for ever ! 
 
 4. Consider how Herod, provoked by our Sa- 
 viour's not consenting to gratify his inclinations 
 of seeing a miracle, sought to revenge himself by 
 treating him with mockery and scorn, exposing 
 him to the scoffs of all his guards, and ordering 
 
96 THINK WELL Ol^t. 
 
 him to be clothed in contempt with a white gar- 
 ment as with a fool's coat, or perhaps as a mock 
 king ; and in this dress sent him back again to 
 Pilate, attended in the same manner as he came, 
 with an insulting mob, headed by the scribes and 
 pharisees. Stand amazed, my soul, to see the 
 wisdom of the eternal Father treated thus as a 
 fool ; and learn from hence not to repine, nor be' 
 solicitous about the judgment of the world. 
 
 5. Consider how Pilate, seeing our Saviour 
 brought back again to his tribunal, contrived 
 another way to bring him off, so as to give at the 
 same time as little offence as might be to the 
 highpriest and the chief of the Jews. It was the 
 custom of that nation on the day of their paschal 
 solemnity, (which was celebrated that very day) 
 in memory of their delivery from the Egyptian 
 bondage, to have one criminal set at liberty, whom 
 the people should petition for : wherefore Pilate, 
 taking advantage of this opportunity, proposed 
 to their choice our Saviour, on the one hand, and 
 Barabbas, a notorious malefactor, robber and 
 murderer, on the other ; making sure that they 
 would rather choose to have the innocent Lamb 
 of God released, than Barabbas, the Worst of 
 criminals, to escape due punishment. Ah ! Pi- 
 late, what an outrageous affront dost thou here 
 put upon the Son of God, whilst thou pretendest 
 to favour him ! What ! must the Lord of life 
 and immortality, the King of heaven, stand in 
 competition with the vilest of men, with the most 
 notorious criminal that could be pitched upon ? 
 Must it be put to the votes of the mob, which of 
 the two is the better man, and which the more 
 
THIXK WELL ON*T. 99 
 
 hand to bind up his gaping wounds, or stanch the 
 blood that comes flowing from them ! O ! present 
 yourself now, and offer him what service you 
 are able : offer at least to assist him in putting on 
 his clothes, to cover his green wounds from the 
 cold air. But, O ! how rough are these woollen 
 clothes to his wounded back ! Alas ! instead of 
 affbrding him any ease or comfort, they do but 
 increase his sores, by their rubbing upon them. 
 
 3. Consider how the bloody soldiers had scarce 
 given our Saviour a short respite after his scourg- 
 ing, when they were pushed on by the devil to 
 act another scene of cruelty, such as never was 
 heard of before or since : and that was to make 
 themselves a barbarous sport, in crowning him for 
 a king. Therefore they drag him into the court 
 of the Proetorium, and assemble together the whole 
 regiment : then violently strip him again of all his 
 clothes, which now begin to cleave to his wounded 
 body ; set him on a bench or stool, throw about 
 him some old ragged purple garment, twist a 
 wreath of long hard and sharp thorns, and press 
 it down on his sacred head, put in his hand for a 
 sceptre a reed or cane: then in derision, coming 
 one by one, they bend their knees before him, 
 with a scornful salutation, Hail, King of the Jews ; 
 they spit in his face, buffet him, and taking the 
 reed or cane out of his hand, strike him with it 
 on the head, so driving the thorns deeper in, 
 whilst the blood trickles down apace from the 
 many wounds which he receives from their points. 
 Sweet Jesus, what shall we here say, or which 
 shall we most admire, the malice of these minis- 
 ters of Scitan, or thy unparalleled charity, which 
 
100 THINK WELL On't. 
 
 made thee undergo such unheard of reproaches 
 and torments for ungrateful sinners ? Blessed be 
 thy goodness for ever. 
 
 4. Consider how Pilate, hoping now that the 
 rage and malice of the Jews would be satisfied, so 
 as to insist no longer upon our Saviour's death, 
 after they should see with how much cruelty and 
 contempt he had been treated in compliance 
 with their fury, leads him forth as he was with his 
 crown of thorns on his head, and his ragged pur- 
 ple on his shoulders ; and from an eminence shews 
 him to the people, with an Ecce homo, Behold 
 the man. Behold in what manner he has now 
 been handled ; cease then to seek his death any 
 longer. Let his body, mangled from head to foot, 
 bespeak your pity. But thou, Christian soul, he- 
 hold the man, with other kind of eyes than these 
 hard-hearted wretches : and see to what a con- 
 dition thy sins and his own infinite charity have 
 reduced him. Behold his head crowned with a 
 wreath of sharp thorns, piercing on all sides his 
 sacred flesh, and entering into his temples with 
 excessive pain. Behold his face quite disfigured 
 with blows and bruises, and all besmeared with 
 spittle and blood. Behold his whole body inhu- 
 manly rent and torn with whips and scourges ; and 
 now covered with a hard ragged garment, rubbing 
 and at each moment increasing his wounds : and 
 then look up and contemplate him upon his 
 throne of glory, and see what return thou canst 
 make him for having thus annihilated himself for 
 the love of thee. He desires no more of thee than an 
 imitation of his patience and humility : see, then, 
 in what manner thou art to practise these lessons. 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 101 
 
 THE TWEXTY-NINTH DAY. 
 
 Our Saviour carries his Cross, and is nailed to if* 
 QONSIDER how the mahce of the Jews, no 
 
 ways relenting at the sight of the Lamb of 
 God bleeding for the sins of the world, but con- 
 tinuing still in a tumultuous manner to demand 
 that he might be crucified, Pilate at last yields to 
 their importunity, and against his own conscience, 
 sentences our Saviour to the death of the cross. 
 Ah I Christians, has it never been your misfortune, 
 by the hke cowardice, to condemn your Saviour 
 and his doctrine, and basely to renounce in the 
 practice of your lives the maxims of his gospel, 
 for fear of what the world would say ? Has not too 
 often a much weaker temptation than the fear of 
 losing Csesar's friendship, induced you to crucify 
 again the Son of God ? Be confounded and repent. 
 
 2. Consider how this sentence of death, how 
 unjust soever from Pilate, yet as being most just 
 from his eternal Father, and necessary for our sal- 
 vation, was received with perfect submission, 
 charity and silence by our Redeemer ; who there- 
 upon was immediately stripped again of his pur- 
 ple garment, and clad with his own clothes ; and 
 a heavy cross, of length and bigness proportion- 
 able to the bearing of a man, was laid on his 
 wounded shoulders ; and two thieves or highway 
 robbers were appointed to bear him company, 
 and to be executed with him ; to verify that pro- 
 phecy : With the wicked he was reputed. Isai. liii. 
 Come now, devout souls, and take a view of our 
 Lord in this his last progress or procession. A 
 crier leads the way, publishing aloud the pretend- 
 ed crimes and blasphemies of this never heard of 
 
102 THINK WELL o'nT. 
 
 malefactor : then follow the soldiers and execu- 
 tioners with ropes, hammers, nails, &c. After 
 these goeth, or rather creepeth along", our high- 
 priest and victim, all bruised and bloody, with a 
 thief on each hand, and the cross on his shoul- 
 ders, dragging it forward step by step, followed 
 and surrounded on all sides by the priests, the 
 scribes, and the whole mob of the people, curs- 
 ing, reviling and scoffing at him : whilst the cruel 
 hangmen are hastening him forward with their 
 kicks and blows. Ah ! Christians, now at least 
 take pity on your Saviour's sufferings, and add 
 not to his load by sin. 
 
 3. Consider how our blessed Lord, having for 
 some time, with unspeakable labour and torment, 
 carried his cross through the streets, at last falleth 
 down under the weight, unable to carry it any 
 further. Wonder not, my soul, at this; since, be- 
 sides the load of the cross oppressing his w^earied 
 body, w^ounded on every part, and exhausted by 
 the loss of so much blood, his heavenly Father 
 has laid upon his shoulders another more insup- 
 portable weight, viz. that of the sins of the whole 
 world. Ah! Christians, it is under this intolerable 
 burthen that your Saviour faints and falls down. 
 Nor is he any way eased of this merciless load by 
 Symon of Cyrene, who was compelled to take 
 up the cross, but bore no part of the weight of our 
 iniquities ; all which the heavenly Father laid upon 
 his beloved Son, to be cancelled with his blood 
 and death. O infinite goodness of the Father ! 
 O infinite charity of the ^on ! to do and suffer 
 so much for wretched man. O my soul, see thou 
 never more be ungrateful to so loving a God. 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 103 
 
 4. Consider how our Saviour being now arrived 
 at Mount Calvary, quite wearied and spent, the 
 ministers of hell still persecute him with unwearied 
 cruelty ; and whereas it was the custom to give to 
 the criminals that were to die a strengthening 
 draught of wine seasoned with myrrh, they con- 
 trived to mingle gall with the potion designed for 
 him. After this they violently stripped him of his 
 clothes, now cleaving fast to his sores, and thus 
 opened again his wounds, and exposed him 
 naked to shame and cold in the sight of an im- 
 mense multitude. Draw nigh now, my soul, and 
 see him bleeding afresh for the love of thee. Oh ! 
 see how, while the cross is preparing, he falls 
 upon his knees, and offers himself to his eternal 
 Father a bleeding victim to appease his wrath 
 enkindled by thy sins. 
 
 5. Consider how the cross lying flat on the 
 ground, they lay our dear Redeemer stretched out 
 upon it, who like a meek lamb makes no resist- 
 ance. And first drawing his right hand to the 
 place designed to fix it on, they drive with their 
 hammers a sharp gross nail through the palm of 
 his hand, forcing its way with incredible torment 
 through the sinews, veins, muscles and bones, of 
 which the hand is composed, into the hard wood 
 of the cross : in the meantime the whole body, 
 to favour that wound and the pierced sinews, 
 was naturally drawn towards the i^ght side, but 
 not long permitted to remain so ; for immediately 
 these cruel butchers laying hold of his other arm 
 and hand, violently drag him towards the left 
 side, in order to nail that hand also to the place 
 designed for it. Then pulling down his legs, they 
 
104 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 fastened bis sacred feet in like manner with nails 
 to the wood : and all this w^ith such violent cru- 
 elty, that, it is thought, with stretching and pull- 
 ing they very much strained his whole body, and 
 disjointed it in many parts, according to that of 
 the royal prophet : They have dug my ha7ids and 
 feet^ they have numbered all my bones. Ps. xxi. 
 Ah ! Christians, if the contracting or piercing 
 of any one nerve or sinew, if the disjointing or 
 displacing of any one bone, ever so small, is so 
 cruel a torture, what must we think of the tor^ 
 ments which our Saviour endured in his disjointed 
 body? What must we think of what he suffered, 
 when his hands and feet, where so many sinews, 
 muscles, veins and bones all meet, were violently 
 bored through with gross nails ! Oh ! let us never 
 cease to admire, adore, and love his mercy. 
 
 THE THIRTIETH DAY. 
 
 Our Saviour on the cross. 
 
 QONSIDER how the bloody executioners, 
 having now nailed our Saviour fast to the 
 cross, begin with ropes to raise him up in the air. 
 O ! what shouts did his enemies now make, when 
 he appeared above the people's heads. With 
 what blasphemies did they salute him, whilst 
 his most afflicted mother, and other devout friends 
 are pierced to the heart at the sight ! At length 
 they let the foot of the cross fall into the hole 
 prepared for it, with a jolt, by which our Saviour's 
 mangled body was not a little injured, and the 
 wounds of his hands and feet widened, and thus 
 he now hangs, poised in the air, in most dreadful 
 pangs and torments, the whole weight of his body 
 
THINK WELL ON't* 105 
 
 sustained by his pierced hands and feet, by which 
 his wounds are continually increased; no place to 
 rest his head on. but upon thorns ; no other bed 
 for his wearied and wounded body, but the hard 
 wood of the cross. 
 
 2. Consider the infinite charity of our Saviour, 
 and the unparalleled malice of his enemies. He, 
 amidst his torments, cries out : Father, forgive 
 them, for they know not what they are doing. 
 They grin and shake their heads at him, saying: 
 Vah I thou that destroy est the temple of God and 
 in three days dost rebuild it, save now thy own 
 self : if thou art the Son of God, come down 
 from the cross : with a thousand other reproaches 
 and blasphemies, with which he is loaded, not 
 only by the common people and soldiers, but 
 also by the chief priests, scribes and elders, which 
 he hears and bears in patience and silence. But, 
 O ! who can tell us the interior employment of 
 his blessed soul all this while that he hangs upon 
 the cross, — his thoughts of peace towards us, his 
 prayers for us, the anguish and dreadful agonies 
 of the interior part of his soul, and the inexpres- 
 sible joy in the supreme part thereof, in the glory 
 of his Father, which was to arise from that plen- 
 tiful redemption, which he was then imparting to 
 poor sinners ! 
 
 3. Consider the part that the blessed Virgin 
 Mother bore in the sufferings of her son : and 
 how truly here was verified that prophecy of old 
 Simeon : Thy own soul a sword shall pierce, 
 O ! how killing a grief must have oppressed 
 this most tender and most loving of all mothers, 
 when, during the whole course of the passion of 
 
106 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 her dearest Son, whom she loved with an incom- 
 parable love, she was an eye-witness to all the 
 injuries, outrages and torments that he endured. 
 Ah ! blessed Lady, may we not truly say that the 
 whips, tiiorns and nails, that pierced thy Son's 
 flesh, made as deep a wound in thy virgin heart : 
 and that nothing but a miracle could have sup- 
 ported thy life under such excess of pain ? But, 
 O ! wdiat a deep wound didst thou feel in thy 
 soul, when thy dying Son recommended thee to 
 his beloved disciple, St. John, giving to thee 
 the son of Zebedee in exchange for the son of 
 God ! Blessed Virgin, we gladly acknowledge 
 thee for our mother, bequeathed to us all in the 
 person of St John. Oh ! by all thy sufferings, 
 remember us poor banished children of Eve, be- 
 fore the throne of grace. Christians, learn the 
 admirable lessons which our Lady teaches you 
 at the foot of the cross ; learn her unshaken 
 faith and undoubted hope ; learn her perfect re- 
 signation, patience and fortitude. Oh ! learn from 
 her to love Jesus, and detest sin, the true cause 
 of his sufferings. 
 
 4. Consider how all things seem now to have 
 conspired against our dearest Lord. His father 
 has forsaken him; his mother's presence and grief 
 pierce him to the heart. As for his own apostles, 
 one of them has betrayed him ; another has denied 
 Iiim ; all have abandoned him ; his friends, and 
 those whom he had most favoured and miracu- 
 lously cured, now either join with his persecutors, 
 or at least are ashamed of him : his enemies tri- 
 umph and insult over him ; his own body by its 
 weight is a torment to him. But what most of all 
 
THINK WELL ON't. 107 
 
 afflicts him, is to see the ingratitude of Christians, 
 the httle benefit they will make of his death and 
 passion, and the eternal loss of so many souls re- 
 deemed by his precious blood. Ah ! sweet Jesus, 
 suffer me not to be one of that unappy number : 
 suffer me not to be so miserable, as to join with 
 thy enemies in crucifying thee by sin ! 
 
 5. Consider the lessons that our Saviour gives 
 us by his last words upon the cross: 1st, of per- 
 fect love and charity to his enemies, by praying 
 for them, and excusing them to his eternal Father : 
 Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
 do. Oh ! let us learn from our dying Redeemer 
 this necessary lesson, to love and pray for those 
 that hate and persecute us : and instead of ag- 
 gravating their crime, to excuse it and impute it 
 to their ignorance. Oh ! how true is it of every 
 sinner, he knows not what he is doing, otherwise 
 he would never dare to fly in the face of infinite 
 majesty : he would never be so mad as to renounce 
 heaven for a trifle, and cast himself down the 
 precipice that leads to hell. 2dly, learn the 
 efficacy of a sincere conversion, and an humble 
 confession of sins, in the plenary indulgence given 
 by our dying Saviour to the good thief: Amen, I 
 say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with me in 
 paradise. 3dly, learn a filial devotion to the 
 Virgin Mother, recommended to us all by her 
 Son, in the person of St. John : Behold thy 
 mother. 4thly, learn the greatness of the interior 
 anguish of thy Saviour's soul, from these words : 
 My God! my God! ivhy hast thou forsaken me? 
 Alas ! it was for no other reason,' but that poor 
 sinful man might not be forsaken. 5thly, from 
 
108 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 that word of thy crucified Jesus, / thirst : take 
 notice of two violent thirsts which thy Saviour 
 endured upon the cross ; the one corporal, pro- 
 ceeding from his having fasted so long, passed 
 through so many torments, and shed so much 
 blood : the other spiritual, in his soul, by the 
 vehement desire of our good and salvation. But, 
 Oh! cruel wretches, who would give him nothing 
 but vinegar to quench his corporal thirst ! More 
 cruel sinners, who instead of satisfying his spiri- 
 tual thirst by gratitude and devotion, give him 
 nothing but the gall and vinegar of sin and wicked- 
 ness ! 6thly, from these words of our dying Sa- 
 viour : It is consummated : learn to rejoice that 
 the whole work of man's redemption is now per- 
 fected; that the figures and prophecies of the law 
 are fulfilled; and the handwriting that stood 
 against us is now completely cancelled by the 
 blood of our Redeemer. 7thly, from these 
 last words of our expiring Lord : Father, into 
 thy hands I commend my spirit, learn both in 
 life and death to commit thyself wholly to thy 
 God. Happy they that study well these lessons 
 ^vhich their great Master teaches them from the 
 chair of his cross. 
 
 THE THIRTY-FIRST DAY. 
 
 On the Death of our Saviour. 
 
 QONSIDER how our Lord having spoken these 
 last words : Father, into thy hands I com- 
 end my spirit: with a loud and strong voice, 
 ming dovvii his head in perfect submission to his 
 Father's will, and perfect charity to us poor sin- 
 ners, to whom in this posture, he offered as it 
 
THINK WELL On't. 109 
 
 were the kiss of peace, breathed forth his pure 
 soul, and thus ended his mortal life ; which from 
 the moment of his birth till now, had been no- 
 thing else but a series of sufferings endured for 
 us. Hasten now, my soul, and approach boldly 
 to kiss the sacred feet of thy Redeemer, view his 
 pale limbs, count at leisure all his wounds, and 
 lament all thy sins, for which he suffered such 
 exquisite torments. 
 
 2. Consider in the passion of our Saviour the 
 truth of these words, which were delivered by him 
 on another occasion : he that humhleth himself 
 shall be exalted: and see how our Lord, having 
 humbled himself to the death of the cross, was 
 even at the very time honoured and exalted 
 by his heavenly Father, and that many ways ; 
 for during the time he hung upon the cross, 
 the sun for three whole hours withdrew his light ; 
 and at his death, the earth trembled, the rocks 
 were rent asunder, and the monuments opened; 
 the veil of the temple, which hung before the 
 sanctuary, was rent from top to bottom ; the peo- 
 ple, touched by these wonders, went home strik- 
 ing their breasts ; and the centurion, or captain 
 of the guards, publicly professed, that this man 
 whom they had crucified, was truly the Son of 
 God. Rejoice, O Christian soul, to see thy Sa- 
 viour's death thus honoured ; and learn under all 
 events to confide in God, who will at last convert 
 the malice of thy enemies to thy honour and ad- 
 vantage. Sit now down at the foot of the cross, 
 and there at leisure meditate. 
 
 3. Consider, and repeat in thy mind, the multi- 
 tude and variety of the sufferings, which thy Sa- 
 
110 THINK WELL ON*T. 
 
 viour has endured for thee, from his entrance into 
 the garden of Gethsemani, till his expiring on the 
 cross. View them one by one, and thou shalt 
 see that not one part of his sacred body (which 
 being the most perfect, was at the same time the 
 most sensible of pain of any that have ever been), 
 was free from its peculiar torment: his head 
 crowned with thorns ; his face defiled with spittle, 
 bruised, and swollen black and blue with blows; 
 his hair and beard plucked and torn ; his mouth 
 drenched with gall and vinegar ; his shoulders 
 oppressed with the weight of the cross ; his hands 
 and feet pierced with nails ; his whole body ex- 
 hausted with a bloody sweat ; mangled and laid 
 open with whips and scourges ; his limbs wearied 
 out, and all disjointed upon the cross. What he 
 suffered in his soul was not one jot less, but rather 
 infinitely more than what he suffered in his body. 
 Witness that mortal anguish which cast him into 
 his agony in the garden ; witness that grievous 
 complaint on the cross : My God! my God! ivhy 
 hast thou forsaken me? He suffered moreover in 
 his reputation (which is often dearer to a man 
 than life). by false witnesses, and outrageous ca- 
 lumnies and depositions. He suffered in his ho- 
 nour by all kinds of reproaches and aftronts; he 
 suffered in his goods, being despoiled of his very 
 clothes, and hanging naked upon the cross ; he 
 suffered in his friends, being forsaken by them all : 
 not to speak of other sufferings, which are usu- 
 ally most sensible to flesh and blood : viz. the in- 
 gratitude of those whom he had favoured with his 
 miracles, the triumphs of his enemies, their in- 
 sults over all his disciples, &c. : — and in all these 
 
THINK WELL On't. Ill 
 
 sufferings, he denied himself those comforts which 
 he usually affords his servants under their crosses, 
 and which have made the greatest torments of 
 the martyrs not only tolerable, but oftentimes 
 sweet and comfortable. But he would allow 
 himself no other comfort, than that of doing the 
 will of his Father, and purchasing our redemption. 
 4. Consider who it is that suffers all this; and 
 thou slialt find, that he is the eternal Son of God, 
 equal and consubstantial to the Father : the great 
 Lord and Maker of heaven and earth, infinite in 
 power, infinite in wisdom, infinite in all perfec- 
 tions. But for whom does he suffer all this ? For 
 poor man, a wretched worm of the earth ; for 
 ungrateful sinners, traitors to his eternal Father, 
 and to himself; for those very Jews that cruci- 
 fied him ; for us mortals, who for the most part 
 were likely never to thank him, or even so much 
 as to think of his sufferings. O, how admirable, 
 art thou, O Lord, in all thy ways, but in none 
 more than in the contrivances of thy mercy ! O, 
 how does this passion of our Redeemer set out 
 and illustrate all the attributes of God ! It is 
 here we discover his infinite goodness and charity, 
 in thus wonderfully communicating himself to us. 
 It is here we discover his unparalleled mercy, in 
 taking upon himself our miseries, and enduring 
 the stripes due to our sins. Here we see the ad- 
 mirable wisdom of his providence, in opening to 
 us by his own death the fo mi tain of life. Here 
 we learn to fear his justice, which fell so heavily 
 upon his own Son, who had but clothed himself 
 in the resemblance of a sinner, in order to make 
 atonement for our sins. Oh! what must the 
 
112 THINK WELL ON't. 
 
 guilty themselves one day expect at his hands, 
 if they do not prevent the terrors of his justice, 
 by laying hold of his present mercy ! 
 
 5. Consider, in the sufferings of thy Saviour, 
 the infinite malice, the unparalleled heinousness 
 of mortal sin, which was not to be cancelled, but 
 by the last drop of blood of the Son of God. 
 This is one of the chief lessons which thy Saviour 
 desires to teach thee from the cross ; thou canst 
 not please him better than by studying well this 
 lesson. Oh ! never be so ungrateful as to 
 crucify him again by mortal sin. Oh ! let not 
 that monster live in thee, for the destroying of 
 which Christ himself would die. 
 
RULES for a CHRISTIAN LIFE, 
 
 for all who desire to secure to themselves a happy eternity. 
 
 1. Settle in thyself a firm resolution, on no 
 account whatever, to consent to mortal sin. 
 This resolution is the very foundation of a vir- 
 tuous life : whosoever is not arrived thus far, has 
 not yet begun to serve God. Without this reso- 
 lution, it is in vain for any one to flatter himself 
 with the hopes of living holily or dying happily. 
 
 2. In order to enable thyself to keep this reso- 
 lution, be diligent in flying all dangerous occa- 
 sions, such as bad company, lewd or profane 
 books, immodest plays, &c. '^ For he that loves 
 the danger, shall perish in it.'* Eccl. 3. v. 27. 
 
 3. Watch all the motions of thy heart, and 
 resist the first impressions of evil; keep a guard 
 on thy senses and thy imagination, that the 
 enemy may not surprise thy soul through these 
 avenues. Contemn not small faults, lest by de- 
 grees, you fall into greater. 
 
 4. Fly an idle life, as the source of all mis- 
 chief; and take it for a certain truth, that an idle 
 life will never bring a Christian to heaven. 
 
 5. Never omit, upon any account, thy morning 
 and evening prayers. In the morning, remember 
 always to present to God the first fruits of the 
 day, by giving him thy first thoughts. Make 
 him an ofiering of all the actions of the day, and 
 renew this oblation at the beginning of every 
 thing thou dost. ** Whether you eat or drink,'* 
 says St. Paul, (1 Cor. x. v. 3.) " or whatsoever 
 else you do, do all for the glory of God. 
 
114 RULES FOR A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 6. At thy evening prayers, make a daily exa- 
 mination of thy conscience, calling thyself to an 
 account how thou hast past the day ; and what- 
 ever sins thou discoverest, labour to wash away 
 by penitential tears, before lying down to sleep. 
 Who knows but that night will be thy last ? 
 In going to bed, think on the grave ; compose 
 thyself to sleep in peace with thy God : and if 
 thou awakest in the night, raise thy thoughts to 
 him who is always watching over thee. 
 
 7. Besides morning and evening devotions, set 
 aside some time in the day for prayer, more par- 
 ticularly mental, by an interior conversation of thy 
 soul with God, her only true and sovereign good. 
 In the midst of all thy employments, keep thyself 
 as much as possible in the presence of God, and 
 frequently aspire to him by short ejaculations. 
 Read spiritual books often, as letters or messages 
 sent to thee from heaven ; and if thy circum- 
 stances permit, assist daily at the sacrifice of the 
 Mass. 
 
 8. Frequent the Sacraments, at least once a 
 month, and take especial care to prepare thyself 
 to receive them worthily. 
 
 9. Have a great devotion to the Passion of 
 Christ, and often meditate on his sufferings. 
 
 10. Be particularly devout to his blessed mo- 
 ther; take her for thy mother, and seek upon 
 all occasions, her protection and prayers; but 
 learn withal to imitate her virtues. 
 
 1 1 . Let not a day pass without offering to God 
 some acts of contrition for thy past sins ; and 
 strive to maintain in thy soul a penitential spirit. 
 
 12. Study to find out thy predominant pas- 
 
RULES FOR A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 115 
 
 sion, and labour with all thy power to root it 
 up. 
 
 13. Beware of self-love as thy greatest enemy ; 
 and often use violence to thyself by self-denials 
 and mortification ; remember the kingdom of 
 heaven is not to be taken but by violence. St. 
 Matt. xi. 12. 
 
 14. Give alms according to thy ability : For 
 judgment without mercy to him that has not 
 done mercy. James ii. 1 3. Set a great value upon 
 spiritual almsdeeds, by striving all thou canst 
 to reclaim unhappy sinners ; and for that end daily 
 bewail their misery in the sight of God. 
 
 15. Be exact in all the duties of thy caUing, 
 as being to give an account one day to that great 
 Master, who has allotted to each one of us our 
 respective station in his family. 
 
 16. Remember always thy last end, and thou 
 shalt never sin. Eccl. vii. 40. 
 
 THE THIRTY DAYS' PRAYER. 
 
 By the devout recital of the following prayer to the B. V. 
 Mary, in honour of the sacred Passion of our Lord Jesus 
 Christy we may hope tlmt our lawfid request will be mer- 
 ci fully granted. It is particularly recommended as a 
 proper devotirnif&r every day in Lent, and all the Fridays 
 throughout the year. 
 
 Jj^VER glorious and Blessed Mary, Queen of 
 Virgins, Mother of Mercy, hope and comfort 
 of dejected and desolate souls ; through that sword 
 of sorrow which pierced thy tender heart, whilst 
 thine only Son, Christ Jesiis our Lord, suffered 
 
116 THE THIRTY DAYS* PRAYER. 
 
 death and ignominy on the cross ; through that 
 fiKal tenderness and pure love he had for thee, 
 grieving in thy grief, whilst from his cross he re- 
 commended thee to the care and protection of his 
 beloved disciple St. John ; take pity, I beseech 
 thee, on my poverty and necessities; have com- 
 passion on my anxieties and cares ; assist and 
 comfort me in all my infirmities and miseries, of 
 what kind soever. Thou art the mother of mer- 
 cies, the sweet comforter and refuge of the needy 
 and the orphan, of the desolate and the afltlicted. 
 Cast, therefore, an eye of pity on a miserable 
 forlorn child of Eve, and hear my prayer ; for 
 since, in just punishment of my sins, I find 
 myself encompassed by a multitude of evils, 
 and oppressed with much anguish of spirit, 
 whither can I fly for more secure shelter, O 
 amiable Mother of my Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, than to thy maternal protection ? Attend 
 therefore, I beseech thee, with pity and com- 
 passion, to my humble and earnest request. I 
 ask it through the bowels of mercy of th^ dear 
 Son ; through that love and condescension where- 
 with he embraced our nature, when, in compli- 
 ance with the divine will, thou gavest thy consent ; 
 and whom after the expiration of nine months, 
 thou didst bring forth from the chaste enclosure 
 of thy womb, to visit this world, and bless it with 
 his presence : — I ask it, through that anguish of 
 mind wherewith thy beloved Son, our dear Sa- 
 viour, was overwhelmed on Mount Olivet, when 
 he besought his eternal Father to remove from 
 him, if possible, the hitter chalice of his future 
 passion : — I ask it, through the threefold repe- 
 
THE THIRTY DAYS* PRAYER. Il7 
 
 tition of his prayer in the garden, whence 
 with dolorous steps and mournful tears, thou 
 didst afterwards accompany him to the doleful 
 theatre of his sufferings and death : — I ask it, 
 through the wales and sores of his virginal flesh, 
 occasioned by the cords and whips wherewith he 
 was bound and scourged, when stripped of his 
 seamless garment, for which his executioners 
 afterwards cast lots : — I ask it, through the scoffs 
 and ignominies by which he was insulted, the 
 false accusation and unjust sentence by which he 
 was condemned to death, and which he bore with 
 heavenly patience : — I ask it, through his bitter 
 tears and bloody sweat, his silence and resignation, 
 his sadness and grief of heart : — I ask it, through 
 the blood which trickled from his royal and sacred 
 head, when struck with his sceptre of a reed, and 
 pierced with his crown of thorns : — I ask it, 
 through the excruciating torments he suffered 
 when his hands and feet were fastened with gross 
 nails to the tree of the cross : — I ask it, through 
 his vehement thirst, and bitter potion of vinegar 
 and gall : — I ask^it, through his dereliction on the 
 cross, when he exclaimed : My God ! my God ! 
 why hast thou forsaken me ? — I ask it, through 
 his mercy extended to the good thief, and through 
 his recommending his precious soul and spirit into 
 the hands of his eternal Father before he-expired, 
 saying: All is finished : — I ask it, through the 
 blood mixed with water, which issued from his 
 sacred side, when pierced with a lance, and whence 
 a flood of grace and mercy has flowed to us : — I 
 ask it, through his immaculate life, bitter passion, 
 and ignominious death on the cross, at which na- 
 
118 THE THIRTY DAYS' PRAYER. 
 
 ture itself was thrown into convulsions, by the 
 bursting of rocks, rending of the veil of the temple, 
 the earthquake, and darkness of the sun and 
 moon : — I ask it, through his descent into hell, 
 where he comforted the saints of the old law with 
 his presence, and led captivity captive : — I ask it, 
 through his glorious victory over death, when he 
 arose again to life on the third day ; and through 
 the joy which his appearance for forty days after, 
 gave thee, his blessed mother, his apostles and 
 the rest of the disciples, when in thine and their 
 presence, he miraculously ascended into heaven : 
 — I ask it, through the grace of the Holy Ghost, 
 infused into the hearts of the disciples, when he 
 descended upon them in the form of fiery tongues, 
 and by which they were inspired with zeal in the 
 conversion of the world, when they went to preach 
 the gospel : — I ask it, through the awful appear- 
 ance of thy Son at the last dreadful day, when he 
 shall come to judge the living and the dead, and 
 the world, by fire : — I ask it, through the compas- 
 sion he bore thee in this life, and the ineffable 
 joy thou didst feel at thine assumption into 
 heaven, where thou art eternally absorbed in the 
 sweet contemplation of his divine perfections. 
 O glorious and ever blessed Virgin ! comfort the 
 heart of thy suppliant by obtaining it for me. 
 (Here mention or reflect on your lawful request^ 07i con- 
 (f'dion of its being agreeable to the tvill of Ggd., who sees 
 1 1 'h ether it ivill contribute to your spiritual good or not.) 
 
 And as I am persuaded my divine Saviour doth 
 honour tliee as his beloved Mother, to whom he 
 refuses nothing ; so let me speedily experience 
 the efficacy of thy powerful intercession, accord- 
 
THE THIRTY DAYS* TRAYER. 119 
 
 ^ ing' to the tenderness of thy maternal affection, 
 ; andhisfihal, loving heart, who mercifully granteth 
 I the requests, and compheth with the desires of 
 those that love and fear him. Wherefore, O most 
 blessed Virgin, besides the object of my present 
 petition, and whatever else I may stand in ifbed 
 of, obtain for me also of thy dear Son, our Lord 
 and our God, lively faith, firm hope, perfect 
 charity, true contrition of heart, unfeigned tears 
 of compunction, sincere confession, condign sa- 
 tisfaction, abstinence from sin, love of God and 
 my neighbour, contempt of the world, patience 
 |to suffer affronts and ignominies, nay, even if 
 feiecessary, an opprobrious death itself, for the 
 "love of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Ob- 
 tain likewise for me, O sacred Mother of God ! 
 perseverance in good works, performance of good 
 resolutions, mortification of self-well, a pious con- 
 versation through life, and at my last moments, 
 strong and sincere repentance, accompanied by 
 such a lively and attentive presence of mind, as 
 may enable me to receive the last sacraments of 
 the Church worthily, and die in thy friendship 
 and favour. Lastly, obtain, I beseech thee, for 
 the souls of my parents, brethren, relations and 
 benefactors, both living and dead, life everlasting. 
 I Amen. 
 
 G. BowEN, Printer, Clifton, Bristol. 
 
BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 charges may be made 4 days prior to the due date, 
 mewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 UE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 
 
 
 r- 
 
 w 
 
 
 H^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I' 
 
 1 
 
 
 - ,- 
 
 
 
 SL 
 
 <P9Y- 
 
 
 ?r 
 
 ' • • f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 BERKELEY, CA 94720