though shut up in the body yet shee can have a tast of her glorious posthume liberty Death looseth the Soule from the body it breaks in sunder the secret bonds of the blood that she may have the full use of her wings and be united to Divinity Patience though it doth not quite loosen the chaine yet it lengthens it that she may take the aire and walk some part of the way towards Home Though it frees not the Soul from the body yet it gives her liberty and dominion over it He that is tyed up by a long Cord is within the compasse allowed him untyed and a free man The Spirit of man incensed by adversities and collected into it selfe is by a certain Antiperistasis made more ardent and aspiring Fire is never stronger nor more intense then amongst Water In the bosome of a cloud it breakes forth into thunder So this Divine Spark which God hath shut up in Vessels of Clay when all the passages of pleasures are stopt his raies which before were diffused and extravagant returne into it selfe and missing their usuall vent break forth with such violence as carries with it sometimes the very body and steales the whole man from passion and mortality The Levitie of fire is of greater force then the Gravity and Massinesse of Earth His Spirit is unresistable and the unknown force of it will blow up the greatest Mountains and the strongest Castles this earth affords Hitherto have I discoursed of outward Evills I shall now consider the Inward and how Patience is their Antidote You have seen her Prerogative over Fortune and reputed Evills which are called Evills because they seem to be so not because they are so as disgrace grief and poverty All these are but fictitious Evils which Custom and Humane error have branded with that injurious denomination for in these contingencies there is no reall Evill but the Evill of opinion neither is any man miserable but in his own conceit and by comparison The glory of Patience would be but poor and trivial if it could doe no more then take away or beare with such frivolous and fictitious troubles as these If it prevailed onely against Evills which we do not suffer but invent It s true glory is that it subdues true Evills Not that it bears them but that it removes them far from us Not that it endures them but than it abstaines from them For truly to suffer Evil is to do Evil whose Agent alwaies the Patient is by reason of a most ill impatience But Patience is onely excellent because it suffers not This worst kind of Evil is therefore the greater because because when 't is in acting it is not seen and were it not afterwards felt there would be no place left for Virtue This is the usuall method of Vice a flattering Comical entrance and a Tragical exit The force and malice of Evil Actions may be gathered by their Nature They are so powerfully hurtful that when they cease to be they cease not to torment us and so malignant that while we act them they flatter us that being Acted they may afflict us While we are doing them they conceal and deny themselves but being done they appear to our sorrow Wherefore he that will lead a blessed a joyfull and a peaceful life must make it his whole work to do no work but what Religion and Virtue shall approve of What peace and security can he enjoy that will revenge himselfe what more would cruelty have according to his own lust What life can he be said to live that kills himselfe to please his inordinate affections What joy can he have whose troubled conscience is his continual Executioner racking and tormenting him in the very embraces of smiling Fortune No outward Fomentations will serve turne against that Indisposition to which fevers and fire are but coolers Wee can provide against the violence of winter and Summer-weather when and how we please But the inward heats and colds the raging accessions of the Spirit admit no cure Patience though Fortune should assist her will never heal the wounds of conscience He that suffers by the guilt of Conscience endures worse torments then the wheel and the saw As that heat which ascending from the liver and the region of the heart doth diffuse it selfe through the body is greater then the united flames of the dog-star and the Sun What torturing invention of Amestris Pherâ—tima or Perillus did ever so afflict distress'd wretches as the fury of his owne Conscience did torment Orestes though freed from all men but himself no Tyrant is so cruel as a guilty spirit Not Scylla with his prison Siuis with his Isthmian pine Phalaris with his bull Sciron with his Rock nor Faunus in his Inne The Pelusians when they punished Parricides conceived no torture so answerable to the heynousnesse of the crime as this inward Divine revenge neither the Sack nor the Lime-kil pleased them so much as this gnawing worm the terrible and luctual excogitation of the wise Father of Nature They ordered therefore and enacted it for a Law that the murtherer for three daies and three nights should be pent up in some narrow roome together with the naked body of the slaine and be forced to look upon it whither he would or not which was effected by putting him in such a posture as permitted him not to look any way but just upon the dead The Sicilian Tyrant himselfe knew that conscience was a more cruell torment then the bull of brasse This made him spare the most unnaturall and bloody offenders that they might be tormented not with scalding metalls and glowing Iron but by a damning conscience The first penaltie for murther was conscience The first Actor of a violent death was punished with life He that first saw and introduced death was thought worthy of no other punishmenâ— but the security of life which he first shewed to be not secure for it is a more mercilesse punishment then death to have long life secured with a killing conscience So he that brought murther first into the World was first punished with the terrourr of conscience Which are then most torturing when health and strength are the capital punishments The Protoplasts themselves the parents of death and of mankind too who gave us death before they gave us life thought it a greater plague then death to be still alive and yet to be guilty of death They would have fled to death to flye from themselves Apposite to this is that of Marius Victor They faine would if they might Descend to hide themselves in Hell So light Of foot is vengeance and so near to sin That soon as done the Actors do begin To fear and suffer by themselves Death moves Before their Eyes Sad dens and duskie groves They haunt and hope vain hope which fear doth guide That those dark shades their inward guilt can hide You see now that conscience even amongst the Pelusians was held a
fed for nine months with excrementitious obscenities to bear all the ignominies of Nature all the abuses of Fortune to resume the ignorance of Infancie the feares of Childhood the dangers of youth the cares of manhood and the miseries of old age I am of â—eliefe that no man did ever live so happily as to be pleased with a repetition of past life These Evills which with our owne consent wee would not have reiterated wee are driven into without our consent They are necessarily inferred that they may be willingly borne to shew the necessity of Patience Wee are born on condition that wee must dye Death is the price or reward of life It is the Statute-law of mankind and that ought to be born as a publick good which were it not already enacted would be the spontaneous petition of all men Certainly if life were without the Jubile of death it were just to refuse it as a servitude which hath no year of release Let us now clearly prove that death is not Evill out of her assimilation and conformity to those things which are most excellently good None leade a better life then those that live so as if they were dead Rom. Câ—ap 6. ver 7. For he that is dead is freed from Sinne. Therefore that which is the exemplar of goodnesse cannot be Evill The onely true praise of the living is to assimilate death He is the most commendable liver whose life is dead to the World and he is the most honest that lives the least to it whose Soul listens not to the body but is at a constant distance from it as if they were dissolved or though it sojournes in it yet is not defiled by it but is separated from sensuality and united to Divinity What is the reason thinkest thou that the Divine Secrets are revealed to men most commonly in their sleep because that similitude of death is most pleasing to God Life is a wild and various madnesse disturbed with passions and distracted with objects Sleepe like death settles them all it is the minds Sabbath in which the Spirit freed from the Senses is well disposed and fitted for Divine intimations The Soul is then alive to it selfe while the body reigns not and the affections are ecclipsed in that short Interlunium of the temporall life Philosophie or humane Knowledge is nothing else but a Contemplation of death not to astonish or discourage men but first to informe and then to reform them for the fruit of Philosophy is Virtue and Virtue is nothing else but an imitation of death or the Art of dying well by beginning to dye while we are alive Virtue is a certain Primrose a prolusion or Assay of dying Therefore that by which man becomes immortall and eternall is the preface and the Inchâ—ation of death This is the main drift of Philosophy to make life comfortable by conforming it unto death and to make death immortality by regulating life Death is intollerable to him only that hath not mortified his desires while he yet lives but expects to swallow up death and all the powers of it at once that is to say in the hour of death We cut our meate and feed on it by bits lest we should be choaked by swallowing it whole so death if it be assayed and practised by degrees will be both pleasant in the tast and wholsome in the digestion if we mortifie one affection to day and another to morrow Hee that cannot carry a great burthen at once may carry it all by portions Philosophy acts the part of death upon the Stage of life it kills sensuality and makes death most easie to be born by teaching us to dye dayly What can be more grievous then death unto him who together with his own feeles the paine of a thousand other dying cupidities We faile not to bewaile the losse of one thing whither honour pleasure or a friend How much more when we loose all at a blow and loose eternal life in one short minute The Soule of the wise man frees her selfe from the body in an acceptable time she casts off the delectations of the flesh and the cares of this World while it is day-light that shee may enjoy her self and be acquainted with God before the night comes She finds by experience that her forces are more vigorous and her light more discerning when she is not sullied with Earthly negotiations and the grossâ— affections of the body she finds that covetousnesse love and feare permit her not to see the truth and that the affaires of the body are the Remora's of the Spirit and therefore she concludes that he must neglect the cryes of the flesh and be attentive onely to the voyce of God and upon these considerations shee shakes off that Bondage she deserts the familiarity and consultations of blood that she may advise with and discerne the most clear light of truth she casts off pleasures by which even Spirits are made subject to sense and pollution The truth is most pure and will not be manifested but to the pure and the undefiled Therefore all the scope and the end of Virtue is to separate the Soul from the body and to come as near death as possibly may be while wee are yet alive This is the cause that wise men do so much love and long for death at least they fear it not How can he feare death who by dying passeth into the life of the blessed Who hath already delivered himselfe from more feares and inconveniences then death can free him from Yea from those dangers which make death fearfull Who before his dying day hath disarmed and overcome death Shall he that all his life-time desired to be separated from the body repine at the performance and fullfilling of it It were most ridiculous if hasting towards home thou wouldst refuse the helpe of another to convey thee thither with more speed and be angry at thy arrival in that Port whither thou didst bend thy course since the first day thou didst set forth There is no man that seeking for a friend will not rejoyce when he hath found him No man will be angry if another perfects what he did begin but was not able to finish Nature by death perfects that which Virtue had begun in life and the endeavour dies not but is continued and thrives by a necessary transplantation While he yet lived he denyed himselfe the use of the body because it hindrâ—d the course of the Soul and the body dying he doth but persist in the same just denyall It is a greater pleasure to want then not to use what wee doe not want This Correlation of Death and Virtue I shall exhibite or lay out to your view by a discussion of those honours which each of them procures As Virtue by the Consideration of death ordereth and preserves her Majesty so by imitating death she obtaines the reverence and admiration of all What more reverend thing can wee labour for then that which
turning life out of doors before her lease was out and had not Ptolomie by a special Edict silenced his Doctrine he had robbed him of more subjects then ever War or the Plague could have taken from him Before the blessed Jesus had made his entrance through the veile and opened the way to heaven the reward of righteousnesse and sanctity was long life the peculiar blessing of the Paâ—riarchs It was a favour then not to appear before perfect purity a Judge of infinite and all-seeing brightnesse without an Advocate or friend to speak for us in the strength and heat of irregular youthfulnesse when not so much as time had subdued or reformed the affections but now bâ—cause Christ is gone thither before and hath provided a place for us the greatest blessing and highest reward of holynesse is short life and an unseasonable or a violent death For those harsh Epithets which are but the inventions of fearfull and sinful livers are swallowed up of immortâ—lity an unspeakable heavenly happinesse which crowns and overflowes all those that dye in Christ Wee consider not those blessings which death leads us to and therefore it is that we so frequently approve of our most frivolous wordly wishes and sit weeping under the burthens of life because we have not more laid upon us A certain groundlesse suspition that death is evill will not suffer us to believe it to be good though the troubles of life make us complement and wish for it every day This foolish fear and inconstancy of man Locmannus one of the most antient Sages of Persia and admitted also into the Society of the Arabian Magi hath pleasantly demonstrated in the person of an Old man loaded â—ith a grâ—at burthen of Wood which having quite tyred him he threw down and called for death to come and ease him Hee had no sooner called but death which seldome comes so quickly to those that call for it in earnest presently appeared and demands the reason why he called I did call thee said he to help me to lift this burthen oft wood upon my back which just now fell off So much are we in love with miseries that we fear to exchange them with true happiness we do so doate upon them that we long to resume them again after wee have once shaked them off being either faithlesse and wavering or else forgetfull of those future joyes which cannot be had without the funerall and the death of our present sorrowes What man distrest with hunger if hee sate upon some Barren and Rockie bank bounded with a deep River where nothing could be expected but Famine or the Fury of wild beasts and saw beyond that stream a most secure and pleasant Paradise stored with all kinds of bearing Trees whose yielding boughes were adorned and plenteously furnished with most fair and delicate fruites If it were told him that a little below there was a boate or a bridge to passe over would refuse that secure conveyance or be affeard to commit himself to the calm and perspicuous streames choosing rather to starve upon the brink then to passe over and be relieved O foolish men For Gold which is digged out of the Suburbs of Hell we trust our selves to the raging and unstable Seas guarded with a few planks and a little pitch where onely a Tree as Aratus faith is the partition betwixt death and us And after many rough disputes with violent perills and the fight â—f so many more wee perish in the unhappy acquisition of false happinesse the Sea either resisting or else punishing our covetousnesse But to passe into our Heavenly Country into the bosome and embraces of Divinity into a Realm where Fortune reigns not wee dare not so much as think of it Who after long banishment and a tedious pilgrimage being now come near to his native Country and the house of his Father where his Parents his brethren and friends expect him with longing would then turn back and choose to wander again when he might have joy when he might have rest God the Father expects us the blessed Jesus expects us the mild and mourning Dove doth long and grone for us The holy Virgin-mother the Angells our friends and the Saints our kindred are all ready to receive us It is through death that wee must passe unto them Why grieve we then yea why rejoyce wee not to have this passage opened But let us grant that death were not inevitable yea that it were in the power of man and that every one had a particular prerogative given him over destinie So that this greatest Necessity were the greatest freedome yea that man could not dye though he desired death Yet in this very state would hee be troubled with Fortune and Hope He would be a fool that would not venture to dye to enjoy true felicity That would choose rather to live alwaies in the changeable state of most unchangeable and lasting miseries then to put an end to them all by dying once It is madnesse to feare death which if it reigned not upon the Earth wee would both desire and pray for It was wisely adjudged by Zaleucus that death ought to be publickly proclaimed though men had been immortall Had death been arbitrary and at every mans pleasure I believe we had esteemed it as desireable as any other joy now because it is Imperial and above us let it not seem too much if wee grant it to be tollerable It was absurdly said by onâ— that death was a necessary Evill and ought therefore to be patiently born His Inference was good though from a bad Principle Death is rather a necessary good And if necessity makes Evils to be tolerable there is more reason it should make good so Death because it is good should be made much of and wee should rejoyce that it is necessary because that makes it certain How great a good is that by which it is necessary that we be not miserable Which frees the captive without ransome dismisseth the oppressed without the consent of the oppressour brings home the banished in spite of the banisher and healâ—s the sicke without the pain of Physick Which mends all that Fortune marred which is most just which repaires and makes even all the disorders and inequalities made by time and chance which is the blessed necessity that takes away necessary Evills He had erred lessâ— if he had mentioned a necessity of bearing life patiently whose more proper definition that sorry proverbe is for it casts us into necessary Evills against our will and is the cause that wee willfully meddle with Evills that are unnecessary It is a discreet method of nature that infuseth the Soules into the body in such a state that is not sensible of their captivity lest they should murmur at the decrees of the great Archiplast What wise man that were neare the terme of his appointed time if he were offered to have life renew'd would consent to be born again to be shut up in flesh
stage if we stay any long time in it and pay not the debt we owe death requires interest she takes his hearing from one his sight from another and from some she takes both The extent and end of all things touch their beginning neither doth the last minute of life do any thing else but finish what the first began We may know also what death is by the apparition or Image of it We see it and make tryal of it assiduously we cannot act life one day but wee must act death at night Life is a Terrace-walke with an Arbour at one end where we repose and dream over our past perambulations This lesser rest shewes us the greater the Soule watcheth when wee sleepe and Conscience in the Just as well as the unjust will be ruminating on the works of life when the body is turned into dust Sleepe is nothing else but death painted in a night-peece it is a prelibation of that deepe slumber out of which we shall not be awaked untill the Heavens be no more We go to bed under a Scene of Stars and darknesse but when we awake we find Heaven changed and one great luminary giving light to all We dye in the state of corruption errours and mistinesse But wee shall be raised in glory and perfection when these clouds of blacknesse that are carried about with diverse winds and every Enemy of truth shall vanish for ever and God alone shall be all in all We affect sleepe naturally it is the reparation of man a laying by of cares The Coppy cannot match the pattern if we love sleep then why should wee hate the Idaea of it why should we feare death whose shadow refresheth us which nature never made nor meant to fright us with It was her intention to strengthen our hope of dying by giving us the fruition of this resemblance of death lest we should grow impatient with delay she favour'd us with this shadow and Image of it as Ladies comfort themselves with the pictures of their absent lovers There is no part of life without some portion of death as dreames cannot happen without sleepe so life cannot be without death As sleepe is said to be the shadow of death So I think dreams to be the shadowes of life for nothing deceives us more frequent then it When we shal be raised from death we shal not grieve so much because the joys of life were not real as because there were none at all It was said by one that he had rather dream of being tormented in Hell then glorified in Paradise for being awaked he should rejoyce to find himselfe in a soft featherbed and not in a lake of unquenchable fire But having dreamt of Heaven it would grieve him that it was not reall Paracelsus writes that the watching of the body is the sleep of the Soul and that the day was made for Corporeall Actions but the night is the working-time of Spirits Contrary natures run contrary courses Bodies having no inherent light of their own make use of this outward light but Spirits need it not Sun-beams cannot stumble nor go out of their way Death frees them from this dark Lantern of flesh Heraclitus used to say that men were both dead and alive both when they dyed and when they lived when they lived their Soules were dead and when they dyed their Soules revived Life then is the death of the Soule and the life of the body But death is the life of the Soule and the death of the body I shall return now to prosecute the Commendations of death because it comes but once Death like the Phoenix is onely one lest any should be ill That which comes but once is with most longing looked for and with most welcome entertained That poor man the owner of one Ewe nourished her in his bosome she did eate of his meat and drank out of his Cup as Nathan exemplified The Father that hath but one Son hath more cares then he that hath many so should we be more carefull to provide for death which comes but once then for the numerous and daily calamities of life By providing for that one wee turne the rest all into so many joyes Whatsoever is rare whatsoever is pretious it is single and but one There is nothing so rare nothing that is comparable to a good death But it is not the universality or diffusivenesse of it that makes it so but the contempt and the subduing of it hâ—s death is most pretious by whom death is contemned Dissolution is not a meere merit but a debt we owe to nature which the most unwilling must pay That wisedome which can make destiny to be her servant which can turne necessity into virtue Mortality into Immortality and the debt we owe to nature into a just right and Title to eternall glory is very great What greater advantage can there be then to make Heaven due to us by being indebted to nature and to oblige Divinity by paying a temporal debt Clemens called them Golden men who dyed thus that is to say when it was necessary to dye They made necessity their free will when either the publick liberty the prerogative of reason or the word of God called for their sufferings For though death be a debt due to Nature yet in these causes Nature doth willingly resigne her right and God becomes the Creditor If we pay it unto him before the time of pure resolution Nature is better pleased with that anticipation then if we kept our set day He is the best debtour that paies before the time of payment The day of payment by the Covenant of Nature is old age but the good man paies before the day If the noblenesse of thy mind will not incite thee to such a forward satisfaction let the desire of gaine move thee for the sooner thou payest the more thou dost oblige Hee that suffers an immature death for the good of his Country for the sacred lawes or the vindication of the truth of God and not for his owne vain glory doth free himselfe from the Natural debt and doth at the same time make God his debtour and all mankind To a man that dyes thus all men are indebted God owes him for the Cause and men for the effect The last doth at least set us an example and the first improves the faith and gives life to Charity Adde to this that this great good of a passive death is a voluntary imitation of the Son of God who laid down his life for the life of the World And it is also done without our industry this great virtue this glorious perfection requires not our care and activity to bring it about This death is most pretious and the best because it is executed by others and not by ourselves To suffer death not to dye is glorious If prisoners break their chaines it is neither their glory nor their security but augments their Guilt and hastens their condemnation So
time have beene well spared Here was the foundation of the Churches of Japan and Amangucia This very Indian and none before him becomming the first fruits of that region unto CHRIST So glorious a document of Patience made him envy our Divine Philosophy that envy made him Ambitious and his holy Ambition made him a Christian So gainfull an Industry is Patience and such a compendious Art of overcomming Most wholsome is the advice of Pimenius Malice saith he never overcomes malice you must overcome malice with goodnesse But if we could overcome one Evill with another why will wee not reserve that Glory for Virtue By such a bloodlesse Victory did Motois overthrow his Adversary from whom he fled most valiantly lest he should offend him I do not say with his hands but with his sight for Patience hath no hands but shoulders His Adversary pursues Motois had lockt himself up became his own prisoner esteeming it guilt enough that another could be angry with him But hearing that his Enemy was come in being only Impatient till he had shewed more Patience hee breakes open the door bids him welcome and like one that had offended desires to be forgiven and afterwards feasts him This story I have touch'd upon that thou maist see how powerfull an Instrument of tranquillity and a quiet happy life Patience is that makes peace to beare fruit in another mans soyl and civilizeth forraigners How fruitfull then is she at home How prosperous a dresser of Virtues in himselfe is the patient man that will not suffer the propagation of Vices in another But Leander said that Patience doth either overcome or else win her Enemies I say she doth both win and overcome She wins men and overcomes Fortune nay she makes her though unwilling a most officious servant of Goodnesse The name of Patience is not an empty titular Honour it hath also very large and princely revenues for the maintenance of Virtue That Fable of the Divine in holy Maximus is truth He saith that wise men dwell in the shadow of a tree which the more the people cut it growes the more It strives and vies with the Iron or to borrow the Poets expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It lives when kill'd and brancheth when 't is lopt His own Mythology is most elegant By this tree saith he is signified wisedom which turâ— es misfortunes into Ornaments trouble into Virtue losse into gain and scars into beauty For the Patient and wise liver like the Serpent of Lerna when he is most mangled is most entire he drinkes in fresh spirits through his very wounds his courage is heightned by them and his spilt blood like dew doth cherish and revive him Like some faire Oke that when her boughes Are cut by rude hands thicker growes And from those wounds the Iron made Resumes a rich and fresher shade The benefit then wee receive from Patience is twofold It diminisheth the sorrowes of the body and increaseth the treasure of the mind Or to speak more properly there is one great benefit it doth us It turnes all that is Evill into Good Most apposite to this is that of Nazianzen Patience digesteth misery Concoction and Digestion of meats are the daily miracles of the stomack they make dead things contribute unto life and by a strange Metamorphosis turne Herbes and almost all living Creatures into the Substance of Man to preserve his particular Species No otherwise doth Virtue by Patience which is her stomack transform and turne all damages into benefits and blessings and those blessings into it self Lupines or bitter Pulse if steep'd in water will grow sweet and nourishing Patience doth macerate miseries to fatten it selfe with them Certaine Divine Raies breake out of the Soul in adversity like sparks of fire out of the afflicted flint The lesser the Soule minds the body the lesser she adheres to sensibility shee is by so much the more capable of Divinity and her own Nature When her Den of flesh is secure and whole then is she in darkness sleepes under it When it is distressed and broken then is she awake and watcheth by some Heavenly Candle which shines upon her through those breaches The wounds of the Body are the windowes of the Soul through which she looks towards Heaven light is her provision shee feedes then upon Divinity Sublime is that rapture of the most wise Gregory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one food the best for all Is to feed on the great Gods mind draw An Immense light from the bright Trinity Death it self which the lust of eating brought into the World inedible or as Zeno saith indigestible is eaten digested and transubstantiated into life by Patience begun in Abel and perfected in JESUS CHRIST So that now that saying of Pirrho who affirm'd that there was no difference betwixt death and life is no longer a Paradox nor need we make use of that shrewd exaggeration of Euripides who knowes said he but this which we call life is death and death life we see that men when they are as we speak alive are then only sick but the dead neither sicken nor suffer any sorrowes Certainly the death of a good liver is eternal life Every Action of a wise man is a certain emulation of Death wee may see it exprest in his patience The Soul by this Virtue disintangles and frees her selfe from the troubles of Mortality For the frivolous flesh burning with fevers or drown'd in dropsies or any other diseases the attendants of corruption which possesse and fill up the narrow Fabrick of Man the Soul as in great inundations when the lower roomes are overflown ascends to the battlements where she enjoyes a secure healthfull ayre leaving the ground-roomes to the tumult and rage of the distemper'd humours She ascends thither where griefe cannot ascend Carneades comming to visit Agesilaus grievously tormented with the Gout and turning his back to be gone as if impatient of the violence and insolencie of the disease whose custome it is to shew litle reverence towards the best men the prerogative of Virâ—â—e can give no protection to Nature Agesilaus pointing from his feet to his brest calls him back with this Check stay Carneades the pain is not come from thence hither Hee shew'd by this that his mind was in health though his feet were diseased and that the pain had not ascended thither where the Soule sate inthroned At this height she hath two priviledges more then ordinary she is lesse affected with the body because at some distance from it and hovers above griefe because above sensibility shee is nearer to God and dresseth her selfe by his beames which she enjoyes more freely as from a kind of Balconie or refreshing place having onely a Knowledge but no Sense of the bodies affliction From this place she overlookes the labours and conflicts of the flesh as Angels from the windowes of Heaven behold Warre and the Slaughter of distracteâ—â—â—en One benefit more shee hath by Patience that
rich oppressours of this World to have their Carkasses buried in the abundance of their treasures unlesse they mean by it to restore that unto the Earth which was digged out of her bowells Gold and Silver are no ransome for unrighteousnesse Virtue alone which survives death is the refreshment of the dead He cannot be affeard to dy who is assured of a better subsistance after death Their dissolution is onely fearful to those who lose all by it and their life to boot The Posthume Inheritance of man is his righteousnesse and integrity which death takes not from him but puts him in possession of them Thou maist gather that good or Virtuous works are proper and necessary to the Soul out of mans natural desire of fame and that innate appetite of immortality which is planted in his Spirit Nature desires nothing which is not rational and her perswasions even when they degenerate strain and point at some primitive delights and innocent priviledges which she was free to before her corruption All secular glories dye with the body goodnesse only is above the power of death That faire part of life is kin to the Supreme good and death cannot hurt it yea it is secured by death which kills envy and frees the virtuous both from the malice of their Enemies and the possibility of failing in themselves Therefore the best imployment for man if he will consider either his own benefit or the approbation and liking of nature which aimes also at immortality is the work of virtue yea far better then the work of reason Many while they study the reason of virtuous works passe by virtue it self By a fruitless study how to do good they lose their time and doe none at all Theorie is nothing so beneficial as Practice It is a true saying that Jamblichus cites out of Pythagoras Every good thing consists of substance and use and not of meer knowledge To be good is to doe good The knowledge of a skilfull Physitian profits not the sick unlesse he falls to practise and gives him something towards his cure Learned Aphorisms heal not the diseased but bitter Medicines That Soul which can reason subtilly and discourse elegantly is not saved but the Soul which doth good works Knowledge and Faith without actual Charity are both dead Neverthelesse there is amongst men a certain covetousnesse of Wisdome and Knowledge as well as of Money The acquisition pleaseth them but they will not set it out to use As Usurers hoard up their mony laying it out neither in pious works nor for their own necessities but suffer it to lye under rust and darknesse So some Learned men neither practise those excellent rules of Living which they have learnt nor will they impart them unto others They study stil more curiosities being in the mean time incurious of their salvation I will say of them as Anacharsis said of the Athenians They know no use of money but to count it There is no man poorer then the rich miser and none more unlearned then the unpractised Nature is contented with mediocrity The World hath many things in it which humane affairs have no need of Virtue also is perfected in few precepts Though we fill the world with our Writings it is not our Volumes that can make us good but a Will to be so Book-men write out of no other design but to reform and civilize Mankind They make several Assayes numerous attempts and then renew them The Dice run not well alwaies the last cast may carry more then all the former Therefore to stir up and incline the Will to goodnesse many things are necessarie but to be good there is nothing needfull but willingnesse We suffer our selves to be cheated by hope we trust that when we have gathered so much knowledge as we covet then we shall do all that we can dâ—sire O foolish and vain prâ—crastination Alchuvius terms it a Palsie I am sure it is a madnesse We stay like that foolish Beggar for a Mess from the Kings table and in the mean time starve We care not to use this present life which is our own but study the secrets of another which as yet is not ours We would learn Mysteries and some things that are either out of our way or else beyond it Christians should neither wander nor sit down but goe on What is that to thee follow thou me Content is a private sphere but wants nothing and is ever calme They that study the world are of the two the worst Speculators Popular politick persons live alwayes by events Their ambition and firienesse makes their lives uneven and uncertaine innocent and undisturbed habits are the companions of Humility Giant-spirits though they may flash sometimes with faire thoughts have alwaies dark and stormy affections Men or the most part of men are like Swans whose feet though ever in a living Bath are alwaies black but their wings and doune which keep above those streames are pure white That part of our lives which is ever padling with the current of Time is foul and defiled but that which soares above it is fair and holy Worldly businesse is the Soules Idlenesse Man ordained to be King of the Worlds Republick had been a meer Cypher if without Soul-imployment He had been created to no end without this Aime If he for whom all things were made will not endeavour to secure himself being made he was made in vain An ornament to the World he cannot be He was not made with any great gaity his decaies are both numerous and hastie If to be seen only were the duty of created things the Stars should have been onely fixt and not moving Stop if thou canst the course of the Sun his restlesse and vast circâ—mvolution As motion makes him bright and lively for hee rejoyceth to run his race so standing still and slothtfulnesse would make him sad and sullied the beauty of the Firmament would be darken'd the freshnesse of the earth would fade and the whole family of Nature missing those cherishing beames would pine and decay Rivers would fall asleep Minerals would prove abortive and the mourning world would wast away under darknesse and sterility But the Sunne though he should not move would not be uselesse his very sight is beneficial Hee is the created light of the visible world a marvellous vessel and an ornament in the high places of the Lord. But man for whom all these things were made without he bâ— active and serviceable to his own Soule is good for nothing There is nothing more pleasant nothing more peacefull nothing more needfull then an industrious Wise man and nothing more impertinent and uselesse then the sluggard The rest of the mind is the motion of Virtue and the idlenesse of the idle is the disturbance of his Spirit He that doth nothing is of lesse use and by much worse then nothing it selfe Wouldst thou be reduced into that unnaturall Vacuity of not being which is without form and void
by our reverence of it makes the worst livers to be reputed not bad As those who are Evill are loath to believe themselves to be such because of an innate reverence due from every man to Virtue which makes them love the repute of Excellencie though not inherent and rejoyce to be accounted good of themselves or in their own esteem though they be evill taking pleasure in that self-deception So those who have beene vitious in their lives out of the reverence wee owe to death wee dare not speak evill of when they are once dead Nay it is not civil nor pious to mention the dead without commendation either by praise or else by prayer our Christian well wishes as if they had been most deserving in their lives So powerfull is the Majesty of death that it makes the most contemptible venerable Those we most envie while they live we speak well of when they are dead Excellent is that observation of Mimnermus Against the Virtuous man we all make head And hate him while he lives but praise him dead Envy pursues us not beyond the grave and our honour is not free and secure til we are layd in it That humble and quiet dust stops the lying and malicious mouth Socrates foresaw that his draught of hemlock would after his death make his very enemies his worshippers He saw his Statues erected by the same decree that did cast him downe And what was the motive thinkst thou that made his enemies worship him dead whom they persecuted living There is amongst the people a secret tradition that whispers to them that those who are freed from the miseries of this life live happily in another world Now happinesse even in their opinion is worthy of honour therefore the honour or veneration which death exacts is a certain tribute or a debt rather that is due to happinesse and if for this thou wilt advise with thy Aristotle he will not deny it The Lacedemonians bestowed the Olympick palms and honours which whosoever won in his life time he was accounted most happy upon all that dyed without exception or extenuation adorning the statutes of some and the tombes of all with the green and flourishing Laurel esteeming every one of the dead as happy as the most fortunate Victor that lived The antient Romans held the greatest honour of the living to consist in the renown of their dead Ancestors They judged him to be highly honoured that was enjoyned by any dying persons to perform some extraordinary service for them as an Embassie or some other weighty negotiation And Callistratus in his first book of Questions affirmes That Embassadors so employed are the most honourable because that the suffrages and election of dying men is most venerable as being then upon the borders of immortality and discerning more then those who are yet in the midst of life and more in the clouds of thick-sighted humanity That honour is the greatest which is done us by the honourable Nor is this glory of death a Relative of the Soul only Looke well upon the body that provision of the worms a frail and perishing objects but ful of Majesty We are nothing so moved nor doe we so gravely compose our selves at the presence of a King as at the sight of a dead body With how much awfulnesse doth it lye along with what a secret mysterious command doth it check all about it It is a silent abstruse Philosopher and makes others so too Nor is it onely venerable but sacred and the Depositum and Index of an almighty Restauratour The honour of Sepulture is a part of Religion Now if it be argued that goodnesse consists onely in utility or benefits it follows that nothing is good but that which profiteth Death then is the best and the greatest subordinate good of all for the death of others benefits those that see it and their own death is most profitable to those that mind it The Lamae who are the Priests of the Tehitenses are in this point the most excellent Philosophers in the world When they prepare to celebrate prayers they summon the people together with the hollow whispering sounds of certain Pipes made of the bones of dead men they have also Rosaries or Beads made of them which they carry alwayes about them and they drink constantly out of a Skull Being asked the reason of this Ceremony by Antonie Andrada who first found them out one that was the chiefest amongst them told him that they did it Ad Fatorum memoriam They did therefore pipe with the bones of dead men that those sad whispers might warn the people of the swift and invisible approach of death whose Musick they termed it and affirmed it to be the most effectuall of any That the Beads they wore did put them in minde of the fraile estate of their bodies and did in prayer-time regulate and humble their thoughts That a constant commemoration of death was as beneficial to the Soul as devotion therefore they carryed them alwaies about them as the powefull Momento's of their approaching departure out of the Land of the living To this he added that their drinking in a skull did mortifie their affections represse pleasures and imbitter their tast lest they should relish too much the delights of life Lastly he added that this constant representation of death was an Antidote against all the sinfull Excesses and deviations of man With the same Medicine they secured themselves from other iniquities When they were to swear concerning any thing they laid their hands upon certain Images set with the bones of dead men by which ceremony they were put in mind of the last Judgement and the Account which the dead and the Quick must give in that great that impartiall and censorious day Certainly this was no barbarous but a very humane and elegant Philosophy which taught men to season and redeeme all the daies of their lives with the memory of the one day of their death Admirable was the memory of Mithridatés who was master of two and twenty Languages and could readily discourse in every one of them and no lesse happy was that of Cyrus Themistâ—cles and Seneca but a constant memory of mans miseries and his death exceeds them all As the rootes of the tree in the I le of Malega upon that side which lookes towards the East are an Antidote or preservative but those which spread Westward are poysonous and deadly So the Cogitations of a Christian which are the Roots by which hee stickes to Heaven for every Christian is a Trâ—e reversed when they look towards the West or setting point of life are healing and salutiferous but those which reflect still upon temporall things and his abode in this World are destructive and deadly Nature doth every minute commend unto us this memoriall of death Hermes in his sacred book contends that respiration was given to man as a sign of that last efflation in which the Soul parts from the
still and the incertainty as well as the certainty of it This divine devise of death so pleased God and was so necessary for the good of man that though by the merits of his dying Son he changed all the former things blotting out ordinances abolishing Ceremonies opening the gates of Heaven to all believers yet would not he Exterminate death It was out of his mercy that he refused to abrogate it that while corruption reigned death also might reign over it lest this poyson should want its Antidote We have therefore no just cause to complain of death which is an Invention conducing to our great good and the incertainty of the time though it most vexeth us is notwithstanding the most beneficial Circumstance that attends it The time of life is certainly known there is but one entrance to the light of this World The Ceremony of dying is not formal It keeps not to one time nor one manner but admits of all times and many manners Life comes into the World but one way but hath many waies to go out It was the benevolence of God to open so many doors to those that flye for refuge One way is more then enough to find out dangers but to escape them many are but necessary Death is not a burthen of seaven or nine monthes but life must have time before it sets forth And what are the first encounters of it Tears â—nd Bonds It cannot avoyd Evills and it is afeared to bear them therefore it delaies time and when it cannot lurk any longer it comes forth Crying Death leads us forth to joy and liberty Therefore it stayes not it seeks no corners nor protractions Nor doth death free us onely from suffering Evills but keeps us also from doing any To be good every day thou mâ—st dye dayly The incertainty also of the time of death and the manner of it like a busie Monitour warnes thee to do good and to be good at all times and in every place private or publick And the inevitablenâ—sse of it takes away all Excuse or pretensions for thy impreparation The Glory of death is also much augmented by its facility in redressing the difficulties of life It is not without the Divine counsel and a speciall priviledge that the Soule of man is so easily parted from the body the life of beasts is more tenacious and will suffer much indignitie and fury before it leaves them There is nâ— living creature more fraile none more weak then man the lightest strâ—ake fells him the Soul is very nice and will quickly cast off the body if it persists but in the least Indisposition A single hair killed Fabius and a Grape Anacreon these contemptible instruments destroy'd them as effectually as the thunderbolt did Esculapius Coma dyed as easily as he could wish and Baptist a Mirandulus as he could think His Soule quitted his body without any grudging without a disease without poyson without violence or any fatall mischance No door can keep death out it defeats life with its own weapons and kills us with the very Cordials and comforts of it Perhapâ— no kind of death is more violent then thâ—â— which sets upon us with the forces oâ— lâ—â—e because it kills when life is most vigorous and pleasant Their owne wishes have destroyed many And life hath oftentimes perished by her own contrivements Clidemus was killed with honour Diagoras with joy Plato with rest and Philemon with laughter This last is both a merry and a frequent destroyer and freed Sicily from one Tyrant Death also makes use sometimes of our very virtues to exanimate us Shame killed Diodorus and the Mother of Secundus the Philosopher dyed with blushing and an excessive modestie Life is a fraile possession it is a flower that requires not rude and high winds but will fall in the very whispers and blandishments of fair weather It is folly to labour to retain that which wil away to fly from that which will meet us every where yea in the way we fly is a vain and foolish industry Whither we seek death or avoyd it it will find us out Our way to fly and our very flight end both in death by hasting from it we make hast to it Life is a journey whose end cannot be mist it is a steady ayming at dissolution Though we fetch wide Compasses and traverse our way never so often we can neither lengthen it nor be out of it What path soever we take it is the Port-roade to death Though youth and age are two distant Tropicks of life yet death is as near to the one as to the other And though some live more and some lesse yet death is their equal neighbour and will visit the young as soon as the old Death is a Crosse to which many waies leade some direct and others winding but all meet in one Center It matters not which thou takest nor whither thou art young or aged But if thou beest young thou maist come sooner thither then the old who is both doting and weary It was necessary that a Sanctuary being provided for the distressed the way to it should be easie pervious and at an indifferent distance from all parts Good should be diffusive and the gate that leads to it must be without doors and bolts The entrance into this life is narrow and difficult it is difficultly attained difficultly retained and lyes alwaies in the power of another Every man may take life from us none can take death Life is subject to the Tyranny of men but death is not life makes Tyrants and death unmakes them Death is the slaves prerogative â—oyall and the Sabbath of the afflicted Leo Iconomachus the Emperor made the birth of both sexes tributary but death never paid taxation It was not lawfull in his reigne to get Children without paying for them every Infant so soon as borne was to give him contribution they paid then the Excise of life Death onely frees us from these Impositions of Tyrants And wilt thou then condemn liberty and that maturity of death by which it ripens every age wilt thou the divine liberality blame because thy life is short or may be so thou hast no reason to find fault with the years already given thee because thou shalt not have more thou mayst as well quarrel with Nature because she made not thy dimensions larger and thy body heavier by eighty or a hundred pounds he that measured thy proportion measured thy time too and too much of this last would have been as troublesome and unweildy as too much of the first for Long life opprest with many woes Meets more the further still it goes Death in every age is seasonable beneficial and desirable It frees the old man from misery the youthfull from sin and the infant from both It takes the aged in the fullnesse of their time It turnes the flowers of youth into fruit and by a compendious secret improvement matures infancy leading it into the Gate of Heaven
some of this innocent furniture Misimus testimonialem divitiarum scutellam buxeam c. I have sent you saith he a platter made of a box-tree for a testimoniall of my riches receive it as a pledge or earnest of Evangelicall poverty and let it be an example to you if as yet you will make use of any Silver platters To this he addes that he was very desirous to be supplyed with some more earthen dishes which saith he I do very much love and then subscribâ—s reason quòd secundum Adam cognata nobis sint domini thâ—saurum in talibus vasis commissum habeamus because they are near kin to us by Adam and because the treasure of the Lord is committed to our care in such vessells Certainly poverty as man is now to be considered is his best and his true estate Riches though they make themselves wings yet do they not fly to Heaven The hâ—mâ— or house of gold is the heart of the Earth and mineralls are a fuel of hell-fire Poverty was the Inauguration of the first man who was made naked and all his posterity are born so This onely have I found saith Solomon that God made man upright but he hath sought out many invention By Covetousneâ—se we loose our uprightnesse Wee come here light and easiâ— bâ—t we load our selves afâ—â—rwards with â—nnecessary burthens Perditiâ— tua ex te these weights that we take up sink us down Our temporall misery as well at the Eternal is from our selves The merriest creature that I can see is the Sparrow This makes me think that hee is not troubled with forethoughts which are the hands of covetousnesse What man and beasts scatter and leave behind them is his provision his table is laid every where and the first bush he meets with is his bed Our Saviour who knew the nature and thoughts of all created things was pleased to send us to school to the birds They are alwaies full of Musical livelinesse and a certain bright freedome which descends not so low as men and beasts Spirits when they have businesse upon Earth must assume bodies Clarity and purification is a kind of poverty it is a state that have cast off dregs burthens Divine is that saying of Gr. Piâ—ides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Poor habits are naturally heaven-seekers But Paulinus though he was poor yet was he charitable and withall liberall The widowes mite is more then the rich mens abundance In the four hundred and tenth year after Christ when the Gothes raged in Italy and had sackt Nola Paulinus amongst many others was taken prisoner by them And thus saith Saint Augustine as I afterwards learnt from him did he then pray in his heart Domine ne excrucier propter aurum argentum ubi enim omnia mea sunt tu scis O Lord suffer me not to be troubled with the losse of Gold Silver for thou knowest where all my riches are laid up His treasure was laid up in Heaven where he commanded us to lay it who foretold that these calamities should come upon the World And God without doubt had reguard unto his prayer for the barbarous enemie leading all the rest into captivity he onely was left behind But amongst all these plunderings and outward afflictions hee never failed in his daily almes to the poor nor was the hand of his faithfull Therasia any way shortned At last his store failing and no more provision being left then onely one loafe of bread A poor man comming to the door for reliefe Paulinus commands it should be given him But Therasia arguing with herselfe that no begger could be poorer then Paulinus now was and that it was as much charity to keepe it for him as to give it to another conceal'd the loafe and suffered the poor man to go without it A day or two after some men that were sent with relief to Paulinus from his friends arrive at Nola and tell him that they had been there much sooner had not one of the ships which was loaden with corn been cast away almost in the Harbour the rest that were fraught with Wine and other Victualls being come safe to shore Whereupon Paulinus turning towards Therasia put her in mind of her overmuch carefullnesse with these words Understand now Therasia that this great ship full laden with Coâ—ne was cast away for that one loafe of bread which thou didst steale from the poore man But passe we now to his Episcopall dignity In his own Workes we have not one line that mentions this Ecclesiasticall honour nor any other passage of his life that might but seem to conduce to his own glory They breath nothing but humility nothing but self-deniall and dedignation Wee must be guided then through this part of his life by other Authors and such faithfull records as are come unto us from the hands of learned and publick persons who either upon the generall interest and concernments of the Church or their own private merits and not by reflection were acquainted with him The first that offers himself to us is Uranius his own Presbyter who in that short narration which he wrote of his life sets him forth to posterity in this following Character Cum autem ad summum sacerdotij gradum c. When he was honoured saith he with the highest degree in the Priesthood he did not shew himself such a Bishop that desired to be feared but one that endeavoured to be beloved He was never so farre angry as not in his anger to shew mercy Nor could that man indeed be angry for he regarded not calumnies and he avoyded hatred He never sate in Judgement but mercy sate close by him He was truly such a Bishop as laboured to get the love of all For hee lived a Consolation to all and their great example to make sure their Salvation Nor is this my voyce onely even the barbarous Nations who knew my Lord Paulinus by report onely will testifie as much And worthily was hee beloved of all who was a friend to all For who was there cast down and he did not lift him up who ever called to him for help and was not piously and comfortably answered For he was pious tender hearted humble and courteous hating none despising none He gave to all he cherished all he encouraged the fearfull pacified the violent those with his words these with his example Some he comforted with his letters and those that wanted with his mony He loved not any riches nor any treasures but those which Christ promised to his followers Gold and Silver and the other accommodations of life he approved of if they were liberally given to the poor not covetously hoorded up Briefly he had in him all goodnesse for he loved Christ Hee had Faith Meeknesse love towards his neighbours a constant care of the poor compassion upon the weak and laboured for nothing in his life but peace and charity All his endeavours were to make men good and to
body Wee should therefore as often as wee breath remember death when we shall breath our last when the Spirit shall returne unto him that gave it Our whole life is nothing else but a repeated resemblance of our last expiration by the emission of our breath we doe retaine it and as I may say spin it out God gave it not continual and even like fluent streames or the calme and unwearied Emanations of light but refracted and shifting to shew us that we are not permanent but transitory and that the Spirit of life is but a Celestial Gale lent us for a time that by using it well we may secure it Eternally Another Hermetist adviseth us Adorare relliquias ventorum to make much of and to honour our Soules which are the breathings and last dispensations of the still fruitful and liberal creator This we can never do but by a frequent study of our dissolution and the frailty of the body Of such an effectuall goodness is death that it makes men good before it comes and makes sure of Eternity by a virtuous disposing of time Thinke not that evill which sends from so far the beams of its goodnesse There is no good liver but is a debtor to death by whose lendings and premunitions we are furnished and fitted for another world The certainty of it and the incertainty of the time and manner which is the onely circumstance that seemes to offend us if it were seriously considered deserves to be the most pleasing acceptable for amongst all the wondrous Ordinances of Divine providence there is none more Excellent for the Government of man then death being so wisely disposed of that in the height of incertainty it comprehends and manifests an infallible certainty God would have us to be alwaies good to keepe in his likenesse and Image Therfore it is his will that we should be alwaies uncertaine of our most certain death Such is his care of us lest the knowledge of a long life and a late death should encourage us to multiply our transgressions as the notice of a swift dissolution might dishearten and astonish us But being left now in a possibility of either we are taught to live soberly and to expect the time of our change in all holynesse and watchfullnesse The possibility of dying shortly doth lessen the cares of life and makes the difficulties of Virtue easie Bondage and Slavery if it be but short is to those that suffer it the lighter by so much And a large allowance of time makes us slow to Virtue but a short portion quickens us and the incertainty of that very shortnesse makes us certaine to be good For who would weep and vexe himself for worldly provisions if he certainly knew that he should live but one month and how dares he laugh or be negligent of his Salvation that knowes not whither hee shall live to see one day more yea one hour The incertainty of death makes us suspect life and that suspition keepes us from sinning The world was never fouler nor more filled with abominations then when life was longest when abused Nature required an Expiation by waters and the generall submersion of her detestable defilers Theophrastus did unjustly to raile at Nature and condemne her of partiality when he envyed the long life of some plants and inferiour creatures as the Oake the Hart the Ravens some of which live to feed and flye up and down in the World above five hundred years He quarrelled with the wise dispensations of Divinity because a slight suite of feathers and a renew'd dresse of greene leaves could weare out a building that lodged a rationall Soul and the breath of the Almighty Both his wish and his reason were erroneous He erred in desiring long life and in judging happinesse to consist in the multitude of yeares and not the number of good workes The shortnesse of life is lengthned by living well When life was reckond by centuries the innumerable sins of the living so offended God that it repented him to have made impenitent man Those that sinned out of confidence of life he punished with sudden destruction That long liv'd generation had made the world unclean and being polluted by their lives it was purged by their deaths He shorten'd afterwards the lease of life reducing it to an hundred and twenty years that by the diligence of frequent death he might reform the past disorders of long life and prevent them for the future teaching both sexes to amend their lives by giving them death for their next neighbours So beneficiall is death so much profits the certainty of it and as much the incertainty The ignorance of the day of death is in effect the same with the knowledge of it the first makes us watch lest it come upon us unawares and the last though it might name the day to us yet could it not arme us better against it perhaps not so well This incertainty of dying certainly secures us from many errors it makes us prudent provident and not evill Death therefore is a device of the Almighty and a wise instrument of divine policy Zaleucus so highly approved of it that he was about to enact and proclaime a Law for dying had he not found it already published by the edict of Nature And in his Preface to those Laws made for the Locrenses he warns them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To have alwayes before their eyes that time which is to every one the end of life because a hearty repentance for all former injuries seiseth upon all men that thinke of death and an earnest desire or wishing that all their actions in life had been just Wherefore it is expedient that in all our dealings and thoughts death should act a part and be our familiar counsellor ever present with us so shall we be carefull to doe all things virtuously and justly Death then is most necessary to govern mankinde because the memory of it keeps us in awe and conformable to virtue All Commonwealths that follow the method of Nature must approve of this Law of Zaleucus and death in all their consultations should guide their lives Certainly in the Government of the rebellious Generation of Man Death hath been the most awfull Engine of the Deity without this stern he guided them not When man was immortall God saw it necessary to preserve his immortality by death he injoyned the Law of Abstinence to Adam under the penalty of dying which is continued still by the same artifice of death lest iniquities should be immortall wickedness should escape punishment by the patience and submission of his only Son to death he restored dead men to life he conferred upon him all his lost honours renewd and confirmed his old prerogative and together with the salvation of his Soule gave him a sure promise that his body allso should be made Immortal but in all these favours and after full reconciliation he would not remove death but continued it