he that violates his own body and makes way for the Soul to flye out with his own hands is damned by the very Act but if another doth it to him it is both his Salvation and his Crown The heathens esteemed it no honour for Captives to have their bonds loosed It was their freedome but not their glory When the jugde himself did break off their Chaines that they accounted honorable By this Ceremony did Vespasian and Titus acknowledge the worth of Joseph the Jew This vindicated his integrity By cutting his bonds with their Imperial hand they freed him both from captivity and disgrace Titus said that if they would break off his fetters and not stay to take them off his honour would be so perfectly repaired by it as if he had been never bound nor overcome The same difference in point of honour is betwixt the naturall death and the violent betwixt dying when wee are full of daies and the death which Tyrants impose upon us when we are mangled and grinded by their fury This honour is then greatest when the body is not dissolved but distorted and broken into peeces Certainly the best men have ever perished by the violence of Tyrants nature to preserve her innocence being very backward and unwilling as it were to take away such great and needfull examples of goodnesse Treachery and violence were ordained for the just in the dâ—ath of Abel who dyed by the wicked This better sort of death was in him consecrated to the best men those persons whom Nature respects and is loath to medle with envy laies hands upon Whom the one labours to preferre the other plotteth to destroy Nor deals she thus with the good only but with the eminent and mighty too thus she served Hector Alexander and Caesar the goodliest object is alwaies her aim When Thrasybulus the Astrologer told Alexander the Roman that he should end his daies by a violent death he answered that he was very glad of it for then said he I shall dye like an Emperour like the best and the greatest of men and not sneak out of the World like a worthlesse obscure fellow But the death of these Glorioli was not truly glorious I have onely mentioned them because that a passive death though wanting religion hath made their honour permanent That death is the truly glorious which is seald with the joy of the sufferers spirit whose Conscience is ravished with the kisses of the Dove Who can look upon his tormentour with delight and grow up to Heaven without diminution though made shorter on Earth by the head This is the death which growes pretious by contempt and glorious by disgrace Whose sufferer runs the race set before him with patience and finisheth it with joy We are carefull that those things which are our own may be improved to the utmost and why care wee not for death what is more ours then mortality Death should not be feared because it is simply or of it self a great good and is evill to none but to those that by living ill make their death bad What ever evil is in death it is attracted from life If thou preservest a good Conscience while thou livest thou wilt have no feare when thou dyest thou wilt rejoyce and walke homeward singing It is life therefore that makes thee fear death If thou didst not fear life if life had not blasted the joyes of death thou wouldst never be afraid of the end of sorrowes Death therefore is of it self innocent sincere healthfull and desirable It frees us from the malignancie and malice of life from the sad necessities and dangerous errours we are subject to in the body That death whose leaders are Integrity and virtue whose cause is Religion is the Elixir which gives this life its true tincture and makes it immortal To dye is a common and trivial thing for the good and the bad dye and the bad most of all but to dye willingly to dye gloriously is the peculiar priviledge of good men It is better to leave life voluntarily then to be driven out of it forcibly let us willingly give place unto posterity Esteem not life for its own sake but for the use of it Love it not because thou wouldst live but because thou mayst do good works while thou livest Now the greatest work of life is a good death If life then ought to be lesse esteemed then good works who would not purchase a good death with the losse of life why should we be afeared of politick irreligious Tyrants and an arm of flesh though guarded with steele Nature it selfe threatens us with death and frailty attends us every hour Why will we refuse to dye in a good cause when 't is offered us who may dye ill the very next day after let us not promise our selves a short life when our death assures us of eternal glory But if it were granted that death were neither good nor honourable but evill and fearfull why will not we take care for that which we fear Why do we neglect that which we suspect Why if it be evill do not wee arme and defend our selves against it we provide against dangerous contingencies we labour against casuall losses and we neglect this great and enevitable perill To neglect death and to contemn death are two things none are more carefull of it then those that contemne it none feare it more then those that neglect it and which is strange they fear it not because they have neglected it but they neglect it when they fear it they dare not prepare for it for fear of thinking of it O the madnesse and Idlenesse of mankind to that which they adjudge to be most Evill they come not onely unprepared but unadvisedly and without so much as forethought What mean we what do we look for Death is still working and wee are still idle it is still travelling towards us and we are still slumbering and folding our hands Let us awake out of this darke and sleepy state of mind let us shake off these dreams and vain propositions of diverse lusts let us approve of truth and realities let us follow after those things which are good let us have true joy made sure unto us and a firm security in life in death Sickness and death you are but sluggish things And cannot reach a heart that hath got wings FINIS THE WORLD CONTEMNED IN A Parenetical Epistle written by the Reverend Father EVCHERIVS Bishop of Lyons to his Kinsman VALERIANVS Love not the VVorld neither the things that arâ— in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.15 They are of the world therefore speake they of the world and the world heareth them Chap. 4. vers 5. If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you Ioh. 15. verse 18. If ye were of the world the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world out I
but finding her obstinate and resolved in earnest to the contrary he feared her last blow and providing for himself by a most dastardly tendernesse did with his owne hands dresse and make a wound to his own liking To be patient or to suffer as wee please is not Patience He could bear the anger but not the hatred and feud of Fortune That is poore valour that bears onely the flourishes and pickearings of an Enemy but dares not receive his full charge A weak man will for some time stand under a great burthen but he that carries it through and home is the strongest Cato then was a most base pusillanimous combatant hee quitted his ground and left Fortune in the field not only unconquer'd but untir'd and flourishing with a whole Arme which hee had not yet drawn bloud from What Inconstancy can be greater then his who was more Inconstant than Vertiginous Fortune Or who more a Coward then he that fled and ran away swifter and sooner than her wheeles To call Cato then either constant wise or good is most unjust nay more it is an Injurie to mankind to call him a man who hath deserved so ill of Wisedome and men by thinking that any Cause or Chance in this World can be worthy of a wise mans death I would he had read the Conclusion of Theodorus not the dissertation of Socrates Theodorus Cythereus most truly affirmed that there never can be cause enough for a wise man to cast away his life And he proves it by invincible reason For him saith he that contemns humane Chances to cast away his life because of them how contrary is it to his own Judgment which esteems nothing good but what is Virtuous nothing vitious but what is evill I wish when he did read Socrates that he had also understood him for then he should have heard him condemning that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mad refuge of selfemurther and commanding him not to stirre out of his appointed station without full Orders from the great Generall of life Why then dost thou cry up Cato for a great leader who was a most cowardly common Souldier that forsook his Charge and betrayed the Fort intrusted to him by the Prince of Life But here thou wilt reply that his last nights contemplation just before he quitted it was Immortality The end he did study it for made it then unseasonable And I know not seeing he was but an Imperfect speculator in the Doctrine of Immortality why hee should be so hasty to try whither Eternity was perishable or not by casting away his own He should have expected it as he did expect the change of Fortune which till that night he alwaies esteemed Mortall He should have prepared for it by makeing triall of his Constancie before Eternity What praise then either of Patience or Fortitude hath he deserved he did no more then the most effeminate Hemon and Sardanapalus O the glorious Act of Cato then equall to his that handled the Spindles An Act of Women Evadne Jocasta and Auctolia An Act of Whores Sappho and Phaedra An Act of Wenches Thysbe Biblis Phillis and Anaxarete An Act of Boyes Iphis and Damocles An Act of Doting decrepit men Aegeus Sesostris and Timathes An Act of Crazie diseased Persons Aristarchus and Eratâ—sthenes An Act of Madmen Aristotle Empedocles Timagoras and Lucretius A rare commendation indeed for a wise man to have done that which Whores Wenches and Boyes sick men and Madmen did whome either the Impatience of their lust or Fortune made Impatient of life Whither thou wilt say that Cato kill'd himself to fly from Fortune or to find Immortality thou canst in neither deny his Impatience either of Joy or else of feare and in both of life I would he had been as patient now of life as he was sometimes of thirst That voice of Honour upon the Sands of Libya was his where the Râ—man Army like to perish with thirst a Common Souldier that had taken up a litle muddy Water in his Helmet presenting it to him had in stead of thanks this bitter rebuke Base man couldst thou think Cato alone Wants courage to be dry but him none Look'd I so soft breath'd I such base desires Not proofe against this Libye Sun 's weak fires That shame and plague on thee more justly lye To drinke alone when all our troops are dry Here was a glorious Voice and there followes it a more glorious hand For with brave rage he flung it on the Sand And the spilt draught suffic'd each thirsty band This manly Virtue he degenerated from in his last Act and all his friends wisely bending to the present necessity hee onley broke The people being all taken he only fled To see Cato a sufferer in the publicke miserie had been a Publick comfort they would have judged it happinesse to have been unhappy with him It is Honour to suffer with the Honourable and the Tyranny of Fortune is much allayed and almost welcome to us when shee equally rageth against the good and Noble as against our private selves If as he refused the remedy of thirst he had also rejected this ill remedy against misfortune his glory had been perfect Wee must then be the Patients of life and of this Patience which I thinke the greatest of any wee have two eminent examples in Job and Tobiah who not onely provoked by Fortune but by their wives also defended their Calamities in the defense of life For the other Patience in death which is the least the example of Abel sufficed designed by the wonderfull Counsell of God untill the manifestation of his Son that great Arch-type of Patience in life and death to suffer though Innocent a violent and unexperienced death that the first onset of fate which was most furious meeting in him with an unconquerable Patience might be soâ—â— what tamed and the weapons of death having their edge dulled in the first conflict might afterwards be of lesse terrour to mankind Just Abel was the first that shew'd us the way of dying when the name of death as yet untri'd was most formidable unto life that he might teach man Patience in his death and leave it to posterity as a Medicine found out by him But when men by a sad experience grown wise found out a greater Evill then death which to religious men was this sinfull life and to the miserable and Impatient their own lives then were Job and Tobiah set forth the convincing examples of Patience in life who endured a life more bitter than death lest by not enduring they should to their misery adde sinne They taught the World that Patience was a better Medicine for Evills than death and withstood the opinions of the Lunatick people Falsely did Euripides arrogating a laudable Title to death terme it The greatest medicine of Evills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As if he in another place had not term'd it the greatest of Evills If death then be not its own Medicine
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
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
throughly so is if not Evill a neighbourhood to Evill True praise consists not in a bare abstinence from Evill but in the pursuance the performance of good It sufficeth not therefore that we doe nothing which may afflict us but we must withall doe something that may exhilarate us This we must remember that to do good is one thing and to become good is another Although we cannot become good unlesse wee doe good But we become good not because we have done good works but because we did them well Discretion which considers the manner of doing good orders the Action so excellently that oftentimes there is more goodnesse in the manner then in the Action What will it availe us to do good if it be not well done It is to write faire and then to poure the Inke upon it Actions cease to be good unlesse well acted they are like excellent colours ill-layed on The more glorious thy intention is the more carefully thou must manage it Indiscretion is most evident in matters of importance One drop of Oyle upon Purple is sooner seen then a whole quart that is spilt upon Sack-cloath The Ermyn keepes his whitenesse unstained with the hazard of his life Hee values himselfe at a most sordid rate that esteems lesse of Virtue then this beast doth of his skin that prefers a foule life to a fair death that loves his blood more then his honour and his body more then his Soule Ennius saith that the way to live is not to love life Life is given us for another cause then meerly to live he is unworthy of it that would live onely for the love of life the greatest cause of life is Virtue what more absolute madnesse can there be then to make life the cause of sin yea the cause of death And for lifes sake to lose the crowâ— of life What greater unhappinesse then to dye eternally by refusing death The Virtuous youth Pelagius rather then he woulâ—d lose his Innocence suffered the most exquisite and studyed torments of that impure Tyrant Habdarrhagmanus He suffered many deaths before he was permitted to dye Hee saw his limbs his hands and his sinewes cut in sunder and lying dead by him while he yet lived This preservation of their honour some chast beauties have paid dearly for It cost Nicetas his tongue Amianus his Eye Saint Briget her face Apollonia her teeth and Agatha her breasts The lovely Cyprian Virgin paid her life for it Nature even for herself doth lay a snare And handsome faces their own traitours are The beauty of Chastity is best preserved by deformity and the purity of life by a contemptible shape The Shoomaker is carefull of the neatnesse of a shooe which is made to be worn in durt and mire And shall man be negligent to adorn his Soul which is made for Heaven and the service of the deity Every artificer strives to do his worke so as none may find fault with it And shall we do the works of life perfunctorily and deceitfully All that makes man to be respected is his worke as the fruite doth make the Tree and a good work can never be too much respected Keepe thy selfe alwaies in respect by doing good Thy own dignity is in thy own power If thy works be good thou shalt be accounted good too If better then any thou shalt be acknowledged for the best Man is the effect of his own Act he is made by those things which he himself makes Hee is the work of his own hands A rare priviledge that permits men and impowers them to make themselves Thou hast leave to be whatsoever thou wouldst be God would not limit thy happinesse He left thee power to encrease it to polish and beautifie thy selfe according to thy own mind Thy friend or thy neighbour cannot do it Thy owne good must be thy owne industry Virtue because she would be crosse to Fortune is not adventitious It is our great happinesse that this great good must not be borrowed Blessed be that Divine mercy which hath given us means to be saved without the assistance of our neighbours who have endeavoured to damn us That almighty hand which first Created man in the Image of his Creatour finished him not but left some things for him to doe that he might in all things resemble his maker It is one thing to be an Idol or Counterfeit and another to be a lively Figure and likenesse There are many Coppies which are not assimilant to their Originals like Pictures that have not so much as an ayre of those faces they were drawn by To the Politure and sweetning of the Divine Image there are some lines expected from thine owne hand If some expert Statuary suppose Phidias himselfe should leave unfinished some excellent peece like that Statue of Minerva at Athens and out of an incurious wearinesse give himself to some obscure and Artlesse imployment or to meere Idlenesse wouldst not thou much blame and rebuke him for it And canst thou deserve any lesse if by a loose and vitious life thou wilt either totally deface the Image of God in thy selfe or else leave it unfinished Doest thou think that God is maimed seeing thou doest leave his Image without hands I mean without good works Dost thou think that he is blind seeing thou dost extinguish or put quite out that discerning light and informing wisdome which hee hath given thee Hee that doth not integrally compose himself and will not carefully strive for perfection would represent God to be imperfect and a Monster Virtuous manners saith holy Maximus are types of the Divine goodnesse by which God descends to be represented by man assuming for a body those holy habits and for a soule the Innocent dictates of wisdome in the spirit by which he makes those that are worthy to become Gods and seals them with the true character of Virtue bestowing upon them the solid riches of his infallible and immortal Knowledge Work then while it is day while it is life-time work and cease not Finish this expectation this great spectacle not of men onely but of God and Angels Remember that the rewards and applause of this World are but a Paint of eternity The solid and permanent glory is given in Heaven When every man shall have praise of God The Limbner is carefull to beautifie and shew his utmost skill in that peece which hee knowes to be intended for judicious eyes Thou art not to paint but really to make a living Image of the Divine mind which also must be examined and judged by that searching eye from which nothing can be hidden have a care that no ill mixture nothing disproportionable nothing uneven or adulterate may be found in it The presents we offer to the true God must be true and solid works not the fictitious oblations of Jupiter Milichus Why wilt thou delight in a maimed Soule or which is worse in a Soul whose best part is dead Thou hadst rather have a
him in this mixt multitude some weeping and sighing some without eyes to weep some without hands others without legs some sick and languishing others eaten up with horrid impure ulcers some beging others quarrelling some plotting treason and washing their hands in innocent blood some old and decrepiâ— quivering trembling and leaning upon staves some distracted and bound up in chains others plundered tortured murthered and martyred their murtherers in the mean time pretending Religion Piety and the Glory of God And after all this outward Scene should so enlighten his eyes that he might discover another inward one I meane their secret thoughts and close devices their tyranny covetousnesse sacriledge varnished outwardly with godly pretences dissembled purity and the stale shift of liberty of Conscience Is there any doubt to be made think you but after such impious and astonishing spectacles he would quickly repent of his existence or being and earnestly desire to be dissolved again that he might rest in peace and not be cast into this hospital and valley of villanies which we call the World It is for this cause that wise Nature is so slow and niggardly in her dispensations of reason and maturity unto man lest a sudden perfection should make us loath her and lest the necessary evils of life understood in grosse and upon our first entrance into life should discourage us from undergoing those miseries which by degrees and successive conflicts we more willingly struggle with Abner the Eastern King so soon as his son was born gave order for his confinement to a stately and spatious Castle where he should be delicately brought up carefully kept from having any knowledg of humane calamities he gave speciall command that no distressed person should be admitted into his presence nothing sad nothing lamentable nothing unfortunate no poor man no old man none weeping nor disconsolate was to come near his Palace Youthfulnesse pleasures and joy were alwaies in his presence nothing else was to be seen nothing else was discoursed of in his company A most ridiculous attempt to keep out sorrow with bars and walls and to shut the gates against sadnesse when life is an open door by which it enters His very delights conveigh'd displeasure to him and grief by a distast of long pleasure found way to invade him So constant is pleasure in inconstancy that continual mirth turns it into sadnesse Certainly though Abner by this device might keep all sorrows from the presence of his son hee could not keep them from his sense Hee could keep out and restrain external evils but could not restraine his inherent affections His son longed this made him sad in the very midst of his joyes And what thinkst thou did he long for Truly not to be so cumberd with delights The grief of pleasures made him request his father to loose the bonds of his miserable felicity This suit of the Son crost the intentions of the Father who was forced to give over his device to keep him from sadnesse lest by continuing it he should make him sad He gave him his liberty but charged his attendants to remove out of his way all objects of sorrow The blind the maimed the deformed and the old must not come near him But what diligence is sufficient to conceal the miseries of Mortality they are so numerous that they may as soon be taken out of the world as hidden from those that are in the world Royal power â—â—â—vailed lesse here then humane infirmity for this last took place in spight of the first The Prince in his Recreations meets with an old man blind and leprous the sight astonisheth him he startles trembles and faints like those that swound at the apparition of a Spirit enquires of his followers what that thing might be And being inwardly perswaded that it was some fruit of humane life he became presently wise disliked pleasures condenmed mirth and despised life And that his life might have the least share here where Fortune hath the greatest he rejected the hopes and blandishments of life yea that which is to many the price of two lives his Kingdom and royal Dignity He laboured with all diligence to live so in the world as if he had been dead that by avoyding sin the cause of sorrow he might be though not safe at least secure If this single accident made him so much offended with life what think you would he have done had his liberty been universal and unbounded What if he had seen the inside of those stately Tombes wee build for the worms to eat us in where they feed upon such fat oppressors as have been fed here with the tears and pillage of the oppressed What if he had narrowly searched every corner of the world and seen those necessary uncleannesses in which the birth of man is celebrated in which this miserie is inaugurated by the paines of the Mother and the cries of the Infant What if he had entred into their bed-chambers and bosomes where some sit weeping others wishing some surfeited and sick with fruition where some mourn for their wives others for their children some pine and starve with want others are full and vomit some are troubled with lack of necessaries and others are as much vexed with abundance and superfluity What if after all this search and wide disquisition he could not have found one house without some misfortune and none without tears What if he had been admitted into the breasts of all those whom either domestick hidden griefs lingring diseases worldly cares or an insatiable covetousness is ever tormenting Perhaps thei sight of so many evils had driven him to a refusall of life in which we doe so dye with miseries and by which miseries doe so live in us at least he had earnestly wished and groaned for some means of redemption from so miserable a bondage If any had brought him the joyful news of liberty and affirmed that some were already made free he had certainly envyed them very much and would have been impatient to know the means But when it had been told him that the device and release was death I do not onely think but I verily beleeve that he had both approved of it and would have sought for it more then for hidden treasure He had judged it not onely desirable and convenient but necessary and the greatest felicity and favour that the living could expect If some solitary travellour shut up in a wilderness and surrounded with wild beasts should on the one side see a Tiger making towards him on the other a Lyon and from some third place a scalie winding Serpent or a Basilisk which kils with â—is very looks Whose hissings fright all Natures monstrous Ills His eye darts death more swift then poison kils All Monsters by instinct to him give place They fly for life for death lives in his face And hee alone by Natures hid commands Reigns Paramont and Prince of all the sands If these with a thousand
more as Bears Leopards Wolves Dragons Adders and Vipers were gathered together about him and ready to seize upon him what would not he give to be freed from the violence and rage of such destroyers What greater felicity could he desire then to be redeemed from such an horrid and fatall distressâ— And is it a lesser blessing to be delivered from greater evills We are surrounded with calamities torn by inordinate wishes hated by the world persecuted prest and trodden upon by our enemies disquieted with threatnings which also torture and dishearten some for in pusillanimous dispositions fear makes words to be actions and threats to be torments Death is a divine remedy which cures all these evil Death alone is the cause that temporal miseries are not eternal And I know not how that came to be feared which brings with it as many helps as the world brings damages Danger it self is a sufficient motive to make us in love w th security Death only secures us from troubles Death heals and glorifies all those wounds which are received in a good cause When Socrates had drank off his potion of hemlock he commanded that sacrifices should be offered to Aesculapius as the Genius of Medicine He knew that Death would cure him It was the Antidote against that poysonous Recipe of the Athenian Parliament Tyranny travels not beyond Death which is the Sanctuary of the good and the Lenitive of all their sorrows Most ridiculous were the tears of Xerxes and worthily checkt by his Captain Artabazus when seated on the top of an hill and viewing his great Army wherein were so many hands as would have served to overturn the world to levell mountains and drain the seas yea to violate Nature and disturb Heaven with their noyse and the smoak of their Camp he fell to a childish whining to consider in what a short portion of time all that haughty multitude which now trampled upon the face of the earth would be layd quietly under it He wept to think that all those men whose lives notwithstanding hee hastned to sacrifice to his mad ambition should dye within the compasse of an hundred yeares The secular death or common way of mortality seemed very swift unto him but the way of war slaughter he minded not It had been more rational in him to weep because death was so slow and lazie as to suffer so many impious inhumane souldiers to live an hundred years and disturb the peace and civill societies of Mankind If as hee saw his Army from that hill he had also seen the calamities and mischief they did with the tears and sorrows of those that suffered by them he had dried his eyes and would not have mourned though he had seen death seising upon all those salvages and easing the world of so vast an affliction He would not have feared that which takes away the cause of fear That is not evill which removes such violent and enormous evills If I might ask those that have made experiment of life and death whither they would chuse if it were granted them either to live again or to continue in their state of dissolution I am sure none would chuse life but the wicked those that are unworthy of it for no pious liver did ever repent of death and none ever will The Just desire not this life of the unjust which were it offered them they would fear it more now being at rest then ever they feared death when they lived The story runnes that Stanislaus the Polonian a man of marvellous holinesse and constancy had the opportunity to put this question and the respondent told him that he had rather suffer the paines of dissolution twice over again then live once He feared one life but did not fear to dy thrice Having this Solution from the experienced it is needless and fruitlesse to question on the living If Soules were Praeexistent as one Origen dreamt as Cebes Plato Hermes and other Philosophers the great Fathers of Hereticks have affirmed Wee might have reason to conclude that they would obstinately refuse to be imprisoned in the wombs of women and wallow in Seminal humours What if it were told them that they must dwell nine monthes in a thick darknesse and more then nine years perhaps all the years of their sojourning in hallucinations and the darknesse of ignorance what if the paines the exigencies the hunger and thirst they must endure before they can be acquainted with the miseries of life were laid before thâ—m The Infant while he is yet in the womb is taught necessity Quest for foode makes him violate that living Prison and force his way into the World And now comes he forth according to the Sentiment of Hippocrates to seek for Victualls the provision which proceeded from his Mother being grown too little for him But he comes from one prison into another and breaks through the first to enlarge his own which he carries with him But if the Soules â—hus incarcerated like Prisoners through a grate might behold the various plagues and diseases of those that are at liberty as Palsies Passions of the heart Convulsions Stranguries the Stone the Gout the Wolfe the Phagedaena and an hundred other horrid incurable Evils such as Pherecides Antiochus and Herod were tormented with or that fearful sicknesse of Leuthare which was so raging and furious that she did eat her own flesh and drink her blood in the extremity of the pain Or if they might see those Evills which man himselfe hath sought and found out for himself as emulations warres bloodshed confusion and mutual destruction Is there any doubt to be made think you but they would wish themselves freed from such a miserable estate or that their intellectuall light were were quite extinguished that they might not behold such horrid and manifold calamities Plato imputed the suspension of Reason in Infants and the hallucinations of Childhood to the terrour and astonishment of the Soules which he supposed them to be possessed with because of their sudden translation from the Empyreal light into the darke and grosse prisons of flesh and this inferiour World as if such a strange and unexpected change like a great and violent fall had quite doated them and cast asleep their intellectuall faculties Proclus assisted this conjecture of Plato with another argument drawne from the mutability and the multitude of Worldly Events which in the uncertaine state of this life the Soules were made subject unto Adde to this that the merriest portion of life wihch is youth is in both sexes bedewed with tears and the flowers of it are sullied and fade away with much weeping and frequent sadneâ—se Children also want not their sorrowes The Rod blasteth all their innocent joyes and the sight of the School-master turnes their mirth into mourning Nay that last Act of life which is the most desirable to the Soul I mean old Age is the most miserable The plenteous Evills of frail life fill the old Their wasted
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—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
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
all difficulties and the wearisome extent of Sea and Land that you might appear before him and have your adoption ratified God Almighty the Maker and the Lord of Heaven and Earth and all that is in them calls you to this adoption and offers unto you if you will receive it that dear stile of a Sonne by which he calls his onely begotten and your glorious Redeemer And will you not be inflamed and ravished with his Divine love will you not make hast and begin your Journey towards Heaven lest swift destruction come upon you and the honors offered you be frustrated by a sad and sudden death And to obtain this adoption you shall not need to passe through the unfrequented and dangerous Solitudes of the Earth or to commit your selfe to the wide and perillous Sea When you will this adoption is within your reach and lodgeth with you And shall this blessing because it is as easie in the getting as it is great in the consequence find you therefore backward or unwilling to attain it How hard a matter to the lukewarme and the dissembler will the making sure of this adoption prove for as to the faithfull and obedient it is most easie so to the hypocrite and the rebellious it is most difficult Certainly it is the love of life that hath inslaved us so much to a delectation and dotage upon temporal things Therefore do I now advise you who are a lover of life to love it more It is the right way of perswading when we do it for no other end but to obtain that from you which of your owne accord you desire to grant us Now for this life which you love am I an Embassadour and intreat that this life which you love in its transient and momentary state you would also love in the Eternal But how or in what manner you may be said to love this present life unlesse you desire to have it made most excellent perfect and etternally permanent I cannot see for that which hath the power to please you when it is but short and uncertain will please you much more when it is made eternal and immutable And that which you dearly love and value though you have it but for a time will be much more deare and pretious to you when you shall enjoy it without end It is therefore but fit that the temporall life should look still towards the Eternal that though the one you may passe into the other You must not rob your selfe of the benefits of the life to come by a crooked and perverse use of the present This life must not oppose it selfe to the damage and hurt of the future For it were very absurd and unnatural that the love of life should causse the destruction and the death of life Therefore whither you judg this temporall life worthy of your love or your Contempt my present argument will be every way very reasonable For if you contemne it your reason to do so is that you may obtain a better and if you love it you must so much the more love that life which is eternall But I rather desire that you would esteem of it as you have found it and judge it to be as it is indeed full of bitternesse and trouble a race of tedious and various vexations and that you would utterly forsake and renounce both it and its occupations Cut off at last that wearisome and endlesse chain of secular imployments that one and the same slavery though in several negotiations Break in sunder those cords of vain cares in whose successive knots you are alwayes intangled and bound up and in every one of which you travell is renewed and begun again Let this rope of sands this coherencie of vaine causes be taken away In which as long as men live the tumult of affairs being still lengthen'd by an intervening succession of fresh cares is never ended but runnes on with a fretting and consuming sollicitousness which makes this present life that is already of it selfe short and miserable enough far more short and more miserable Which also according to the successe or crosnesse of affairs lets in divers times vain and sinfully rejoycings bitter sorrows anxious wishes and suspitious fears Let us last of all cast off all those things which make this life in respect of their imployment but very short but in respect of cares and sorrows very long Let us reject and resolutely contemn this uncertain world and the more úncertain manners of it wherein the Peasant as well as the Prince is seldom safe where things that lye low are trodden upon and the high and lofty totter and decline Chuse for your self what worldly estate you please There is no rest either in the mean or the mighty Both conditions have their miseries and their misfortunes The private and obscure is subject to disdain the publick and splendid unto envy Two prime things I suppose there are which strongly enchain and keep men bound in secular negotiations and having bewitch'd their understanding retaine them still in that dotage the pleasure of riches the dignity of honours The former of which ought not to be called pleasure but poverty and the latter is not dignity but vanity These two being joyn'd in one subtile league set upon man and with alternate insnaring knots disturb and intangle his goings These besides the vain desires which are peculiar to themselves infuse into the mind of man other deadly and pestiferous lustings which are their consequents and with a certaine pleasing inticement sollicite and overcome the hearts of Mankind As for Riches that I may speake first of them what is there I pray or what can there be more pernicious They are seldom gotten without Injustice by such an Administrator are they gathered and by such a Steward they must be kept for Covetousnesse is the root of all evils And there is indeed a very great familiarity betwixt these two Riches and Vices in their names as well as in their nature And are they not also very frequently matter of disgrace and an evill report Upon which consideration it was said by one that Riches were tokens of Injuries In the possession of corrupt persons they publish to the world their bribery and unrighteousnesse and elswhere they allure the eyes and incite the spirits of seditious men to rebellion and in the custody of such they bear witnesse of the sufferings and the murther of innocent persons the plundering of their goods But grant that these disasters should not happen can we have any certainty whither these things that make themselves wings will fly away after our decease He layeth up treasure saith the Psalmist and knoweth not for whom he gathers it But suppose that you should have an heir after your own heart doth hee not oftentimes destroy and scatter what the Father hath gathered doth not an ill-bred son or our ill choice of a Son-in-law prove the frequent ruin of all our
who neither can enjoy ought that is pleasant at the present nor lay up for themselves any hope of true joyes hereafter They misse the fruition of this short life and can have no hope of the everlasting They abuse these temporal blessings and shall never be admitted to use the eternall Their substance here is very little but their hope there is none at all A most wretched and deplorable condition unless they make a virtue of this desperate necessity and lay hold on the onely soveraign remedy of bettering their estate by submitting in time to the wholsome rules of heavenly and saving reason Especially because the goodliest things of this present time are such rags and fragments that he that loseth the whole fraught and true treasure of that one precious life which is to come may be justly said to lose both It remaines then that we direct and fixe all the powers of our minds upon the hope of the life to come Which hope that you may morefully and clearly apprehend it I shall manifest unto you under a type or example taken from temporal things If some man should offer unto another five peeces of silver this day but promise him five hundred peeces of gold if he would stay till the next morning and put him to his choice whither he would have the silver at present or the gold upon the day following is there any doubt to be made but he would chuse the greater sum though with a little delay Goe you and doe the like Compare the Crummes and perishing pittance in this short life with the glorious and enduring rewards of the eternall And when you have done chuse not the least and the worst when you may have the greatest and the best The short fruition of a little is not so beneficial as the expectation of plenty But seeing that all the fraile goods of this world are not onely seen of us but also possessed by us It is most manifest that hope cannot belong unto this world in which we both see and enjoy those things we delight in For Hope that is seen is not hope for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for Rom. 8. ver 24. Therefore however hope may be abused and misapplyed to temporal things it is most certaine that it was given to man and ordained for the things that are eternal otherwise it cannot be called hope unlesse something bee hoped for which as yet or for the present life is not had Therefore the substance of our hope in the world to come is more evident and manifest then our hope of substance in the present Consider those objects which are the clearest and most visible when we would best discern them we put them not into our eyes because they are better seen and judged of at a distance It is just so in the case of present things and the future For the present as if put into our eyes are not rightly and undeceivably seen of us but the future because conveniently distant are most clearly discerned Nor is this trust and Confidence wee have of our future happinesse built upon weak or uncertain Authors but upon our Lord and Master JESUS CHRIST that allmighty and faithfull witnesse who hath promised unto the just a Kingdome without end and the ample rewards of a most blessed eternity Who also by the ineffable Sacrament of his humanity being both God and Man reconciled Man unto God and by the mighty and hidden mystery of his passion absolved the World from sinne For which cause he was manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed upon in the World and received into glory Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow of things in Heaven and things in Earth and things under the Earth And that every tongue should confesse that the Lord JESUS is in glory both God and King before all ages Casting off then the vaine and absurd precepts of Philosophy wherein you busie your selfe to no purpose embrace at last the true and saving Knowledge of Christ You shall find even in that imployment enough for your eloquence and wit and will quickly discern how far these precepts of piety and truth surpasse the conceits and delirations of Philosophers For in those rules which they give what is there but adulterate virtue and false wisedom and what in ours but perfect righteousnesse and sincere truth Whereupon I shall Justly conclude that they indeed usurpe the name of Philosophy but the substance and life of it is with us For what manneâ— of rules to live by could they give who were ignorant of the first Cause and the Fountain of life For not knowing God and deviating in their first principles from the Author and the Wel-spring of Justice they necessarily erred in the rest Hence it happened that the end of all their studies was vanity and dissention And if any amongst them chanced to hit upon some more sober and honest Tenets these presently ministred matter of pride and Superstitiousnesse so that their very Virtue was not free from vice It is evident then that these are they whose Knowledge is Earthy the disputers of this world the blind guides who never saw true justice nor true wisedome Can any one of that School of Aristippus be a teacher of the truth who in their Doctrine and Conversation differ not from swine and unclean beasts seeing they place true happinesse in fleshly lusts whose God is their belly and whose glory is in their shame Can he be a Master of Sobriety and Virtue in whose School the riotous the obscene and the adulterer are Philosophers But leaving these blind leaders I shall come againe to speak of those things which were the first motives of my writing to you I advise you then and I beseech you to cast off all their Axioms orgeneral Maxims collected out of their wild and irregular disputations wherein I have knowne you much delighted to imploy those excellent abilities bestowed upon you in the study of holy Scripture the wholsom instructions of Christian Philosophers There shall you be fed with various and delightfull learning with true and infallible wisedome There to incite you to the Faith you shall hear the Church speaking to you though not in these very words yet to this purpose He that believes not the word of God understands it not There you shall hear this frequent admonition Feare God because he is your Master honour him because he is your Father There it shall be told you that the most acceptable Sacrifice to God are justice and mercy There you shall be taught that If you love your self you must necessarily love your neighbour for you can never do your selfe a greater Courtesie then by doing good to another There you shall be taught that there can be no worldly cause so great as to make
the Chooser much For when he dyes his good or ill just such As here it was goes with him hence and staies Still by him his strict Judge in the last dayes These serious thoughts take up my soul and I While yet 't is day-light fix my busie eye Upon his sacred Rules lifes precious sum Who in the twilight of the world shall come To judge the lofty looks and shew mankind The diff'rence 'twixt the ill and well inclin'd This second coming of the worlds great King Makes my heart tremble and doth timely bring A saving care into my watchfull soul Lest in that day all vitiated and foul I should be found That day times utmost line When all shall perish but what is divine When the great Trumpets mighty blast shall shake The earths foundations till the hard Rocks quake And melt like piles of snow when lightnings move Like hail and the white thrones are set above That day when sent in glory by the Father The Prince of life his blest Elect shall gather Millions of Angels round about him flying While all the kindreds of the earth are crying And he enthron'd upon the clouds shall give His last just sentence who must die who live This is the fear this is the saving care That makes me leave false honours and that share Which fell to mee of this fraile world lest by A frequent use of present pleasures I Should quite forget the future and let in Foul Atheism or some presumptuous sin Now by their loss I have secur'd my life And bought my peace ev'n with the cause of strife I live to him who gave me life breath And without feare expect the houre of death If you like this bid joy to my rich state If not leave me to Christ at any rate Being now ordained a Minister of holy things and a feeder of tâ—e flock of Christ that he might be enabled to render a joyfull account at the appearance of the great Shepheard he resolved with all convenient expedition to sell and give away all his large and Princely Possessions in Italy and France which hithertâ— he had not disposed of for he looked upon his great Patrimonies as matters of distraction and backsliding the thoughts and solicitousnesse about such vast revenues disturbing his pious affections and necessarily intruding into his most holy exercitations Upon this rare resolution he returnes with his faithfull Consort into France leaving Barcinoe and holy Lampius in much sorrow for his departure For though hee had entred there into the Ministery yet was he no member of that Diocesse And here saith Uranius who was his Presbyter and wrote a brief narration of his life did he open his Treasuries to the poor and the stranger He did not only refresh his neighbours but sent messengers into other remote parts to summon the naked and the hungry to this great Feast where they were both fed and cloathed with his own hands He eased the oppressed freed the captives payd the debts of whole families and redeemed divers persons that were become bondslaves to their creditors Briefly he sold all that he had and distributed the money amongst the poor not reserving one penny either for himself or his dear Therasia Saint Ambrose in his thirtieth Epistle to Sabinus confirmeth this relation Paulinum splendore generis in partibus Aquitaniae nulli secunâ—um venditis facultatibus tam â—uis quametiam conjugalibus c. Paulinus saith he the most eminent for his Nobility in all the parts of Aquitane having sold away all his patrimonies together with the goods of his wife did out of pure love to Jesus Christ divide all that vast Summe of Money amongst the poor and he himself from a rich Sâ—nator is become a most poor man having cast off that heavy secular burthen and forsaken his own house his country and his kindred that he might with more earnestnesse follow Christ His Wife also as nobly descended and as zealous for the Faith as himself consâ—nted to all his desires and having given away all her own large possessions lives with her husband in a little thatch'd cottage rich in nothing but the hidden treasures of Religion and holinesse Saint Augustine also in his first book de Civitate Dei and the tenth Chapter celebrates him with the like testimony Our Paulinus saith hee from a man most splendidly rich became most poor most willingly and most richly holy He laboured not to adde field unto field nor to inclose himself in Câ—dar and Ivory and the drossie darke gold of this world but to enter through the gates into the precious light of that City which is of pure gold like unto cleare glasse He left some few things in this world to enjoy all in the world to come A great performance certainly and a most fair approach towards the Kingdom of heaven He that fights with dust comes off well if it blinds him not To slight words and the names of temptations is easie but to deale so with the matter and substance of them is a task Conscience hath Musick and light as well as discord and darknesse And the triumphs of it are as familiar after good works as the Checks of it after bad It is no heresie in devotion to be sensible of our smallest Victories over the World But how far he was from thinking this a Victory may be easily gathered out of his ownâ— words in his second Epistle to Severus Facile nobis bona c. The goods saith he I carried about me by the slipping of my skirt out of my hand fell easily from me And those things which I brought not into this World and could not carry out of it being only lent me for a time I restored again I pulled them not as the skin off my back but laid them by as a garment I had sometimes worne But now comes the difficulty upon me when those things which are truly mine as my heart my Soul and my works must be presented and given a living Sacrifice unto God The abdication of this World and the giving of our temporall goods amongst the poore is not the running of the race but a preparing to run it is not the end but the beginning and first step of our Journey Hee that striveth for masteries shall not be crowned except he first strive lawfully And he that is to swimme over a River cannot do it by putting off his cloathes onely he must put his body also into the stream and with the motion of his armes his hands and feete passe through the violence of the Brook and then rest upon the further side of it And in his 12th Epistle he cries out O miserable and vaine men Wee believe that wee bestow something upon the poor wee trade and lend and would be counted liberall when we are most covetous The most unconscionable userers upon Earth are not so greedy as we are nor their interest and exactions so unreasonable as ours We purchase Heaven with Earth happinesse
the mean time offences triumph and rejoyce at it and the old and wicked sinne of ambition which of a long time desires to contend even with your holynesse and upright life presumes now and is confident that having forcibly taken the wall from us it will carry you also against the wholsomnesse of Apostolicall institution O! a cause truly worthy not to be determined but by your holy life which is your Crown we therfore dâ—clare unto you that we have suspended our judgement for the present that we may have the truth of these Divine precepts pronounced by your reverend mouth who have both followed them and fullfilled them For none can be a fit arbiter of those rules but he that hath approved himself worthy and conformable to Apostolicall discipline Wherefore holy Sir worthily reverend Father the faithfull Servant of God and his Divine work we intreat you particularly that slighting the troubles of this Journey you would favour us with this gift and tribute if I may so speak of your presence and laying aside all other concernments so far as your health and ease will permit be in your owne person at this Synod and vouchsafe to lend your assistance to our desires and that blessing which wee earnestly long for Wee see by this letter in what account hee was with the Emperour and that his integrity and holyness were not dissimulations and popular Fables but experimentall truths so known and so believed hee was a true Christian and no Impostour It was not the Custome but the nature if I may so say of those Primitive times to love holy and peacefull men But some great ones in this later age did nothing else but countenance Schismaticks and sedicious raylers the despisers of dignities that covered their abominable villanies with a pretence of transcendent holinesse and a certain Sanctimonious excellencie above the Sons of men This Vaile which then cousend weak eyes is now fallen off their faces and most of their patrons have by an unthought of Method received their rewards The rest without doubt though they shift themselves into a thousand shapes shall not escape him whose anger is not yet turned away but his hand is stretched out still But returâ—e we to Paulinus Whose Charity and tendernesse towards the poor was both inimitable and incredible This iron age wants faith as well as mercy When he had given them all he had to the last that begged he gave himself Gregorie the great in the third Book of his Dialogues and the first Chapter hath recorded this memorable passage I shall cut it short and in as few words as conveniently may be give you all that is material When the Vandals had miserably wastâ—d Campania and carried many of the inhabitants into Africk blessed Paulinus gave all that he had both towards his own sustenance and the reliefe of the poor amongst the prisoners and Captives The Enemy being departed and his prey with him a poor Widow whose onely Son was amongst the rest of the Natives by a Son in law of the King of the Vandals carried into Bondage comes to petition Paulinus for so much Money as might serve to redeem him Paulinus told her that he had nothing then left either in money or other goods but promised if shee would accept of him to go with her into Africk and to be exchanged for her Son The poore Widow taking this for a meere scoffe turnes her back to be gone Paulinus followes after and with much adoe made her believe that he meant it as he did indeed in earnest Upon this they travell'd both into Africk and having opportunity to speake with the Kings Son in Law the poor widow begged of him first to have her son restor'd unto her Gratis but the youthfull and haughty Vandal averse to all such requests would hear her no farther whereupon she presents him with Paulinus and petitioned to have her Son set at liberty and the other to serve in his stead The Prince taken with the comely and reverend countenance of Paulinus asked him what his occupation or trade was Paulinus answered that he never followed any trade but that he had good skill in dressing of Herbes and Flowers Upon this the Prince delivered her Son to the Widow who took him home with her and sent Paulinus to work into his Gardens The Prince delighting much in Flowers and Sallets would very frequently visit Paulinus and took such delight in him that he forsook all his Court-associates to enjoy the company of his new Gardiner In one of these visits Paulinus taking occasion to confer seriously with him advised him to be very carefull of himselfe and to consider speedily of some means to secure and settle the Kingdome of the Vandals in Mauritania for said he the King your Father in law will shortly dye The Prince something troubled with the suddain newes without further delay acquaints the King with it and tells him withall that his Gardiner whose prediction this was excelled all other men both in wisedome and learning Whereupon the King requested that he might see him you shall replyed the Prince for to morrow when you are at dinner I will give order that hee shall come in person with the dishes of Sallate to the Table This being agreed upon and accordingly performed the old Tyrant upon the first sight of Paulinus exceedingly trembled and speaking to his Daughter who sate next to him to call to her husband he told him that the prediction of his Gardiner was very true for yesternight said he I saw in a dream a great tribunal with judges sitting thereon and amongst them this Gardiner by whose judgement a scourge which had been formerly put into my hands was taken from me But learn of him what his profession is and what dignity he had conferred upon him in his own Country for I cannot believe him to be as he pretends an inferiour or ordinary person As soon as dinner was ended the Prince stole from the presence into the Garden and earnestly intreated Paulinus to tell him who he was I am said he your Gardiner which you received in exchange for the Widowes Son I know that replyed the Prince but I desire to know your profession in your own Country and not the servitude you have put your self in with me for the present To this Paulinus answered that he was by profession a Bishop and a servant of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God At these words the Prince was mightily troubled and requested him to depart againe into his own Country assuring him that before he departed he would give him any thing that he should please demand Paulinus replyed that he would desire noâ—hing but to have those Captives which were carried out of Campania set at liberty and transported to their Native Country To this the Prince consented and for Paulinus his sake furnished them with shipping and all other necessaries for their voyage and sent them home joyfull in the Company of