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
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
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
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
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
but feathers but chaffe and motes Those universall Monarchies founded upon the principall Cities of the World whose Colony was the whole Earth Those Cities whose bulwarks did threaten the Clouds whose Armies and Fleets made the Earth to tremble and the Seas to grone whose Lawes like Oracles were held sacred and unalterable found no security against the Arm of God which tears the Crowne from the Head and the Scepter from the right hand of the Lawgiver He considers in his dwelling plâ—câ— like a clâ—â—r 〈◊〉 upon hâ—â—bs â—e 〈…〉 the things that are to câ—â—e He â—â—â—â—th the Nations with the Sâ—ve of 〈◊〉 He bâ—owes upon them and they wâ—th 〈◊〉 and â—hall not be planted And why tâ—inâ—â—ou theâ— that these dry and fading 〈…〉 fâ—ourish for ever All temporall triâ—mphs have their date they passe away in a sure and uninterrupted course and when they begin to decay and unloade themsâ—lves then they are swiftest All the pomp of this World is but gilded emptinessâ— a nine daies blossome whose beauty drops into the same Mould from whence it sprung It is the Consciousnesse of their delusion that makes these worldly honours fly from us so fast lest if they should stay long wee should discover their Cosenage the discoverer then would be ashamed of his dot age and the discovered would blush at his deceit Therfore Saint Paul in these versible and transitory fashions of the World would have us to personate Stage-players who when they weep grieve not when they bâ—y they possâ—sse not when they command they are without authority Seeing the World is but a play and a fable hee would not have us to act in earnest Players Act the lives of others not their owne I wish that we could do so too Excellent is that advice of the divine To live a stranger unto life Why should I be troubled with the affaires of others more then with their Agues or Feavers he that lives without the Affections of this life is master of himself and looks upon all things as Spectators do upon Stage-playes who are without passion because without Interest The Actors care not how the Scenes varie they know that when the Play is ended the Conquerour must put off his Crown in the same Ward-robe where the Fool puts off his Cap. Take this wholsome Counsel of resting quiet in the degree appointed thee not from the mouth of Musonius Teletes or Epictetus who adviseth thee to be a Pantomime or shifting Masquer in these worldly Enterludes but from the mouth of Saint Paul that great Doctour of the Universe Let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God That Supreme Eternall mind is the master and deviser of this worldly Drama Hee brings on the persons and assignes them their parts Art thou called to be a servant be not troubled at it Hath he ordained thy life to be short desire not to have it lengthned If poor desire not to be made rich What part soever he hath appointed for thee be contented therewith and Act it faithfully It is thy duty to represent the person thou wert chosen for and not to choose that is the prerogative of thy great master If it be his will that thou shouldst Act a begger a sick man or an afflicted let it be thy care to act it well and to meddle with no other action The stageplayer is not commended because he acts the part of a Prince but because hee acts it well and like a Prince It is more commendable to act a foole a begger or a mourner to the life then to act a King or a Philosopher foolishly In the beginning the midle and the end of thy Course keep thou to thy part The best way of acting is to make thy heart consentaneous to thy tongue thy deeds to thy words and thy conversation to thy doctrine In all the tumults and combustions of this World keepe constant to thy station comfort the afflicted and envy not the wicked despise not the one and flatter not the other remember thy Creator and forget not thy end Gloria tibi mitissime Jesu OF LIFE and DEATH THE People think Life to be the greatest good and Death the greatest evill They are mightily deceived And as in the least blessings so in this which is the greatest they greatly erre For Life if thou livest not well is the greatest evill and Death if thou dyest not ill is the greatest good and dye ill thou canst not unlesse thou livest ill A life that is not good encreaseth evils and wickednesse and the death of the good sets an end to afflictions and miseries Those that are sick of the Jaundis judge the sweetest honey to be the most bitter So evil men esteem Death to be evill because of their evill conscience but Death is not so to any but to those onely whose evill lives end in the evill of endlesse death This controversie I shall decide with such reasons as must not be numbred buâ— weighed If wee look upon Philosophy it takes part with Death and is the first that marcheth into the field against this popular error It teacheth us that this hideous nothing this imaginary fear of the multitude should be alwayes contemned and sometimes desired How many wise men hath this contempt of Death made Immortall For those who by a continual remembrance of death did compose and regulate their lives are now by the memory of their virtuous lives vindicated from death Socrates perfected his wisdom by his willingnesse to dye Pythagoras by his gentlenesse Anaxagoras dyed merrily Calanus resolutely hee would not stay to be tamely besieged by her but sally edout and took her he surprized death and aâ—l of them despised her No definitions we can give will suffice to make Death odious every one will make it desirable Whither you consider what Death is or what are the effects or consequents of it whether the evil or the good attending it or whether Death it self be a meer evill or meer good all make for it For though it should be an evill yet the good that comes by it exceeds that evill and being evill it cannot be so great an evill as all those evils it puts an end to What one thing hath Life that is desirarable Contentions and obstinate busie miseries whose frequency and number hath made them lesse feared then Death which comes but once Whose assiduity or daily malice to afflict us hath by a long custome made us not valiant but senslesse and blockish Orpheus defined Life to be the penalty of Soules and Aristotle added That it was a punishment like to that which tied the living to the dead mouth to mouth and breast to breast The pure and eternal Soul is tyed to the putrid and wasting carkasse If God should now suddenly create a man giving him withall in that very instant the perfect and free use of his mind and should then bring before him all Mankind as he did all living creatures before the first man and shew
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
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
for chaines esteem Suites with the meeke and harmelesse heart so right That 't is all ease all comfort and delight To love our God with all our strength and will To covet nothing to devise no ill Against our neighbours to procure or doe Nothing to others which we would not to Our very selves not to revenge our wrong To be content with little not to long For wealth and greatnesse to despise or jeare No man and if we be despised to bear To feede the hungry to hold fast our Crown To take from others naught to give our owne These are his precepts and alas in these What is so hard but faith can doe with ease He that the holy Prophets doth beleeve And on Gods words relies words that still live And cannot dye that in his heart hath writ His Saviour's death and tryumph and doth yet With constant care admitting no neglect His second dreadfull comming still expect To such a liver earthy things are dead With Heav'n alone and hopes of hâ—av'n hee 's sed He is no Vassall unto worldly trash Nor that black knowledge by which pretends to wash But doth defile A knowledge by which Men With studied care loose Paradise agen Commands and titles the vaine worlds device With gold the forward seed of sin and vice He never minds his Ayme is farre more high And stoopes to nothing lower than the skie Nor griefe nor pleasures breede him any pain He nothing feares to loose would nothing gaine What ever hath not God he doth detest He lives to Christ is dead to all the rest This Holy one sent hither from above A Virgin brought forth shadow'd by the Dove His skin with stripes with wicked hands his face And with foule spittle soyl'd and beaten was A Crown of thornes his blessed head did wound Nayles pierc'd his hands and feet and he fast bound Stuck to the painefull Crosse where hang'd till dead With a cold speare his hearts dear blood was shed All this for man for bad ungratefull Man The true God suffer'd not that sufferings can Adde to his glory ought who can receive Accesse from nothing whom none can bereave Of his all-fullnesse but the blest designe Of his sad death was to save me from mine He dying bore my sins and the third day His early rising rais'd me from the clay To such great mercies what shall I preferre Or who from loving God shall me deterre Burne me alive with curious skilfull paine Cut up and search each warme and breathing vaine When all is done death brings a quick release And the poore mangled body sleepes in peace Hale me to prisons shut me up in brasse My still free Soule from thence to God shall passe Banish or bind me I can be no where A stranger nor alone My God is there I feare not famine how can he be sed To sterve who feedes upon the living bread And yet this courage springs not from my store Christ gave it me who can give much much more I of my selfe can nothing dare or doe He bids me fight and makes me conquer too If like great Abr'ham I should have command To leave my fathers house and native Land I would with joy to unknown regions run Bearing the Banner of his blessed Son On worldly goods I will have no designe But use my owne as if mine were not mine Wealth I 'le not wonder at nor greatnesse seeke But chuse though laugh'd at to be poore meeke In woe and wealth I 'le keepe the same stay'd mind Griefe shall not breake me nor joyes make me blind My dearest Jesus I 'le still praise and he Shall with Songs of Deliverance compasse me Then come my faithfull Consort joyne with me In this good fight and my true helper be Cheare me when sad advise me when I stray Let us be each the others guide and stay Be your Lords Guardian give joynt ayde and due Helpe him when falne rise when he helpeth you That so we may not onely one flesh be But in one Spirit and one Will agree FINIS * A towne in the higher Calabria in Italy 20. miles distant from Rome the Inhabitants were mightily given to pleasure and taught their horses to dance to the pipes which the Crotoniatae their deadly enemies observing brought into the field a company of minstrels the Sybarits horses bearing the pipes began to dance and disordered their Army by which meanes they were overthrowne to the number of 300000. a One of the Courtiers of the Emperor Traian and afterwards a most glorious Martyr Being in Chase of a Stagge he observed betwixt his hornes the signe of the Cross and heard a voice out of his mouth speaking to him in the Latin tongue Cur me persequeris Whereupon leaving his game he retyred presently into his own house and having called together his wife and children were all baptized and received the Christian Faith But in the persecution under Hadrian he and his wife Theophila for their faithfullnesse to JESVS CHRIST were burnt together in a brasen bull And so having overcome and endured unto the end they received the morning star and crownes of life which shall never be taken from them See Volater lib. 15. a Pliny mentions this punishment the parricide after his apprehension to augment the horror of his conscience was first whipâ— with rods dipt in the blood of his murthered parents and afterwards together with a dog an ape and a cock Creatures which shew litle reverence towards their sires he was thrust alive into a strong sack and so thrown into the Sea cell The inhabitants of Pelusium a town in the borders of Egypt now called Damiata It was built by Peleus the fratricide from whom the Citizens desceâ—ded * the word in the He brew signifies the house of powring out which in a secret Allegorie may very well concerne man a Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi sed omnes Illach ymabiles urgentur ignotique longâ nocte carent quia vate sacro * One of the Indian Gymnosophists who feeling himself a little sick made a great Bonefire and in the presence of Alexander burnt himselfe therein Alexander a little before asked him What he would have hee answered I shall see thee shortly Which fel out for he dyed at Babylon few days after * One of the Counsellors of Alexand the great The pipes of death used by the Lamae * An excellent Dilemma * Divitiae Vitia a Every rich man is either a tyrant himself or the son of a tyrant Gregorius Thaurâ—aturgus Thou hast his life annexed to this Epistle as a precedent after these precepts a Hilarius about this time which was 435. years after Christ did lead a monastical life but upon the death of Honoratus he was eleâ—ted his successor in the Bishoprick of Orleans in which dignity he continued not long for being addicted to solitarinesse he resigned it and turned into the Wildernesse a St. Augustine This letter was written in the year of our Lord 435. Philip. Chap. 2. ver 9 10. * He subscribed to the damnable heresie of Arius as both Hierome and Athanasius testifie against him * Cedimus ingenio quantum praecedimus aeyo Assurgit Musae nostra Camaena tuae Sic fastorum titulo prior tua Romae Praecessit nostrum sella curulis ebur St. Hierome Ep. 26. * For Nola. a Paulininus calls him a Martyr quia multa pro Christo passus ersi non occiâ—us a Paulinus will have the word which is commonly used in the Latin to be Nicticora from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the apple or candle of the eye and not from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this he saith was told him by a holy man that had lived a long time in the deserts of Egypt where he observed the nature of this bird of night and the Pelican August Epistol 22. ad Paulin. a He proved afterwards a most detestable Heretick Te multa dilectio ad mendacii peccatum traxit * Paulinus calls Christ mstically a sparrow Hâ—c est ille passâ—r qui requirentibus se n viis hilaritèr ostend it nunc in portis fit obvius nunc in platis occurrit nunc in muris vel turribus sublimis convocat ad se amatores suos invitat cos in altitudines habitationum suarum ut impleat veâ—bum suum exaltatus omnia ad se trahat Quis dabit nobis pâ—nnas columbae deargentatas ut pennati pervolemus ad bravîum supernae vocationis sequentes istum passerem solitarium qui est unicus dei filius supervolitantem cui in altis habitat humilia respicit Lib. 1. d Civitate deâ— a This was about the year of our L. 428. about which time the Vandals after their excursions through Polonia Italy Franconia and Andalusia had setled in Africk where they continued quietly until the reigne of Justinian buâ— rebelling against him they were together with their King Gillimer totally overthrown by the great Captaine Beliâ—arius An. Christi 533. Luk. 18. Januarius was Bishop of Naples and a Martyr and Martinus was the Bishop â—f Tours in France
Flores Solitudinis Certaine Rare and Elegant PIECES Viz. Two Excellent Discourses Of 1. Temperance and Patience Of 2. Life and Death BY I.E. NIEREMBERGIUS THE WORLD CONTEMNED BY EUCHERIUS BP of LYONS And the Life of PAULINUS BP of NOLA Collected in his Sicknesse and Retirement BY HENRY VAUGHAN Silurist Tantus Amor Florum generandi gloria Mellis London Printed for Humphrey Moseley at the Princes Armes in St Pauls Church-yard 1654. TO THE TRUELY NOBLE And Religious Sir CHARLES EGERTON Knight SIR IF when you please to locke upon these Collections you will find them to lead you from the Sun into the shade from the open Terrace into a private grove from the noyse and pompe of this world into a silent and solitary Hermitage doe not you thinke then that you have descended like the dead in Occidentem tenebras for in this withdrawing-roome though secret and seldome frequented shines that happy starre which will directly lead you to the King of light You have long since quitted the Publick to present you now with some thing of solitude and the contempt of the world would looke like a designe to Flatter you were not my Name argument enough for the contrary Those few that know me will I am sure be my Compurgators and I my selfe dare assert this you have no cause to suspect it But what ever the thoughts of men will be I am already sure of this advantage that we live in an age which hath made this very Proposition though suspected of Melancholie mighty pleasing and even meane witts begin to like it the wiser sort alwaies did for what I beseech you hath this world that should make a wise man in love with it I will take the boldnesse to describe it in the same character which Bisselius did the hansome concubine of Mahomet the great Puella tota quanta nil erat aliud Quà m Illecebra picta delicatus harpago c. The whole wench how compleat soe'r was but A specious baite a soft sly tempting slut A pleasing witch a living death a faire Thriving disease a fresh infectious aire A pretious plague a furie sweetly drawne Wild fire laid up and finely drest in Lawne This delicate admir'd Inâ—hantresse even to those who enjoy her after their owne lusts and at their owne rate will prove but a very sad bargaine she is all deception and sorrow This world and the prince of it are the Canker-Rose in the mouth of the fox Decipit arefit pungit But those future supreme fruitions which God hath in store for those that love him are neither Phantasmes nor fallacies they are all substantiall and certaine and in the Apostles phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a far more exceeding and eternall weight of glory Nothing can give that which it hath not this transiâ—ory changeable and corrupt world cannot afford permanent treasures All it gives and all it shewes us is but trash illusion The true incorruptible riches dwell above the reach of rust and theeves Man himselfe in his outward part which was taken out of the world feeles the like passions with the world he is worn wasâ—ed dissolved and changed he comes hither he knowes not how and goes from hence he knowes not whither Nescio quò vado valete posteri was the Roman's Epitaph One generation commeth and another passeth away Properant decurrunt in absconditum they hasten and drive on to their appointed place untill the great day of accompt All the severall shapes and gestures we see in this wild Masque of time are but so many disguises which the Spirits that first assumed them cast off againe when they have acted their parts Most elegantly did Augurellius sing to Peter Lipomanus upon the death of his sister Clara Amaena Petre cum vides c. Peter when thou this pleasant world dost see Beleeve thou seest meere Dreames and vanitie Not reall things but false and through the Aire Each where an empty slipp'rie Scene through faire The chirping birds the fresh woods shadie boughes The leaves shrill whispers when the west-wind blowes The swift fierce Greyhounds coursing on the plaines The flying hare distrest 'twixt feare and paines The bloomy Mayd decking with flowers her head The gladsome easie youth by light love lead And whatsoe'r heere with admiring eyes Thou seem'st to see 't is but a fraile disguise VVorne by eternall things a passive dresse Put on by beings that are passiveles All the gay appearances in this life seeme to me but a swift succession of rising Clouds which neither abide in any certaine forme nor continue for any long time And this is that which makes the fore travell of the sonnes of men to be nothing else but a meere chasing of shadowes All is vanity said the Royall Philosopher and there is no new thing under the Sun I present you therefore with a discourse perswading to a contempt a desertion of these old things which our Saviour tells us shall passe away And with an historicall faithfull relation of the life and happinesse of a devout primitive father who gave all that he had upon earth to the poore that he might have treasure in heaven Some other Additions you will finde which meeting now in this volume under your name will in their descent to posterity carry with them this fairest Testimonie I loved you This Sir is my maine and my sole designe in this Addresse without reservation and without flattery for which respect and for no other I beleeve you will accept of what I have done and looke upon my suddaine and small Presents as upon some forward flowers whose kinde hast hath brought them above ground in cold weather The incertainty of life and a peevish inconstant state of health would not suffer me to stay for greater performances or a better season least loosing this I should never againe have the opportunity to manifest how much and how sincerely I am Sir Your Servant and well-wisher Henry Vaughan byVske neare Sketh-Rock 1653. To the onely true and glorious God the Sole disposer of Life and Death O Doe not goe thou know'st I 'le dye My Spring and Fall are in thy Booke Or if thou goest doe not deny To lend me though from far one looke My sinnes long since have made thee strange A very stranger unto me No morning-meetings since this change Nor Evening-walkes have I with thee Why is my God thus hard and cold When I am most most sick and sad Well-fare those blessed dayes of old Lad When thou did'st heare the weeping O doe not thou doe as I did Doe not despise a love-sick heart What though some Clouds defiance bid Thy Sun must shine in every part Though I have spoyl'd O spoyle not thou Hate not thine owne deere gift and token Poore Birds sing best and prettiest show When their neast is fallen and broken Deare Lord restore thy Ancient peace Thy quickning friendship mans bright wealth And if thou wilt not give me Ease From
avoyd but these last are no evills but the sheaths or quivers of evills out of these either our opinion or our impatience draw evills upon our selves Bion used to say that it was a great evill not to be able to beare evills Without this ability life cannot be pleasant to any and in this consists the skill and knowledge of life Let the mind then learne to buckle with these rude toyles of life and by a frequent velitation or light skirmishing with troubles so improve it selfe that when we câ—me to deale with the serious hand and close encounters of fortune we may receive her at sharpe and like active vigilant Duellists put by her most Artfull and violent thrusts One Salustius that lived in the time of Simplicius did put upon his bare thigh a burning cole and to keepe in the fire did gently blow it that he might try how long hee could endure it I beleeve that fire did put out and quite extinguish all the burnings and raging flames of incensed fortune If crosses foreseen are alwaies held light those we tast and make experiment of before they come must needs be lighter because after tryall we feare them not feares are the foreteâ—â—h of miseries which bite us sorâ—st and mâ—st intollerably It was a most ridiculous judgement which that Sybarite mentioned by Serinus past upon the valour of the Spartans This tender Citizen travelling by chance into Lacedemon was so amazed at the severe discipline of that manly nation who brought up their children in all rigorous and laborious exercises that being returned home hee told the Fidlers of Sybaris that the forwardnesse of the Spartan Youths to dye in battell was because they would not be compelled any longer to such a toylsome life This soft fellow knew not how much Industry could prevaile against misfortune and patience against passion That valour of the Spartans was not despayre but the virtue of suffering perfected Their voluntary labours at home had so excellently improved them that they could not onely slight the necessary and common afflictions of life but overcome also by a noble volunteering the very prerogative of fate violating even the violence of death while they dyed unconstrayned and undisturbed Mithridates his feare of being poysoned made him use himselfe to a venomous diet by which he came at last to disgest all sorts of poysons without any prejudice to his health so that afterwards when he would have poysoned himselfe in good earnest he could not possibly doe it By this destroyer of mankind did he secure himselfe even from himselfe and by long acquaintance made this deadly enemie a faithfull friend he fed life with the provision of death By a like sagacity should we forearme our selves against the conspiracies if I may so say of nature Let us labour against labours It will much availe us our very feares will prove comforts by using our selves to sufferance the Antidote of life which is Patience becomes effectuall Of such great importance is this assiduous exercise in troubles that it lets in the nature of Constancie and is a sure manuduction to that sincerest vertue The Roman Fencers players for prizes barbarous and dissolute livers if but indifferently skild received their wounds without grones or any alteration of gesture or countenance because they would not be judged pusillanimous nor cowardly decliners of danger If at any time they fell by the violence of wounds they sent presently to know their masters pleasures because they would satisfie them for they themselves were contented to dye If their masters finding them incurable bad them prepare for death they would presently hold forth their throats and receive the sword most willingly O the serious faith of Playes O the faith of Players in serious dangers It is all one then whether thou thinkest fortune a meere pageant and pastime or not Thou shouldest obey with an Immortall faith even to the death Let a wise man execute the commands of his creator let him like a faithfull souldier of JESUS CHRIST certifie his great master that he is ready and willing to doe him service that he will lose his life choose rather to dye then not to submit to his pleasure The conflicts of a good man with calamities are sacred he is made a spectacle to the world to Angels and men and a hâ—llowed Present to the Almighty Let him in this state overcome his Enemies A more glorious garland then the Olympick Olive-branches shall crown an enduring Patience which by an humble but overcomming Sufferance wearies the hands of those that beat us It is the part of a wise man to tire and weare out the malice of his Enemies I say not by Suffering but by Patience which makes him neither their Patient nor trampled upon but a trampling overcomer This was the glory of Melancoma who lived not one day without an Enemy In the most vehement season of the yeare hee judged his single-selfe hard enough for his two Adversaries He could beare with the Sun his most obstinate Antagonist though fighting against him in the heate of the Summer with so many hands as he had Rayes When he might have gotten the Victory by Opposition he would not but by Submission Hee considered that the best might be overcome by the worst if force should take place That Victory was in his Judgement the Noblest when the Enemy yet whole and without any hurt was compell'd to submit There is he overthrown when not by wounds but by himselfe Therefore what vice and a spurious Patience did in the Roman Fencers let Virtue and true Patience performe in thee and what custome and exercise wrought in Melancoma let reason and Judgement worke in thee What reason effected in Possidonius let grace effect in thy heart and let not grace which workt mightily in Eustathius and sufficiently in many others languish and faile in thee alone The power of God is perfected in weaknesse giving us some prelibations as it were of it self whither by bearing with our Infirmities or by our bearing his Operations I believe this last for the glory of an almighty power against a weake thing would be very small how litle then against Infirmity it selfe That power is truly glorious and hath matter for glory which prevailes against the mind a free unconfined thing and holds it firme though surrounded with Infirmities The power of God Glories more in prevailing against us then against our infirmities Bâ—t if wee seek for more delicate or easie remedies and dare not arme our selves against misfortunes with this harnesse of proofe bâ—cause we think it too heavy It remaines that we must make use of either Hope or Expectation Evills that are foreseen lose much of their edge But because we promise our selves the favours of Fortune of whom we have alwaies a good opinion though wee seldome speak well of her and she deservs as ill our calamities while this credulous remissnesse keepes us from looking to thâ—m find way to surprize and
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
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
member cut off then hanging dead by thee Thou wouldst then onely wish for its company when it would be no hindrance to thee And canst thou endure the immortal Soul to be sick of death to be sick in his best part in the head wilt thou suffer thy mind to drowse to be paralytical and senselesse never thinking of God nor of doing good In such a liver the beauty of his immortal part is crusted over with an incurable leprosie and reason which is the Soules Countenance is most ingloriously ecclipsed The Task of life is to labour and the Sacrament of the Soule is to work rationally Idlenesse is a Parenthesis in the line of life When we do nothing wee do not live Slothfullnesse is a dead Existence a kind of sleep when we are awake That life is empty that is not filled with the care of living well It was truly said by Possidonius that one day of a learned mans life was more pleasant then all the years of the unlearned One houre one minute well spent is to be preferred before a sinfull voluptuous for-ever Time is a sacred thing it flowes from Heaven it is a thred spun from thence by the motion and circumvolution of the spheres It is an emanation from that place where eternity springs The right use of it is to reduce it to its Original If we follow time close it will bring us to its Fountain It is a clue cast down from Heaven to guide us thither It is the younger brother of eternity the one must be sought in the other It hath some assimilation to Divinity it is partly knowable and partly not Wee move in it and wee see it not It is then most invisible when most present If we be carefull of it the benefit is ours If wee neglect it we cast away our selves Hee lives not at all that lives not well And hee that lives ill shall dye worse Hee suffers a living and sensible death It is death because it wants the fruit of life and it is sensible because it is with losse and punishment Many ill livers comfort themselves with a vain conceir that the state of death is senselesse But Vice and Idlenesse are more malitious deaths they carry with them the penalty of sense They are fertill in evills and barren of good like a cursed ground that bringes forth nothing but thornes and thistles You expect grapes from your vines corn from your Fields but no Fruit at all from your selves Were you made to be good for nothing for shame be your own dressers Manure your selves and prune your vain and noxious affections Man himself is his own pretious Soile his own fruitfull field and thriving Plant let him that expects fruits from extraneous things tast first of his own Good workes are the apples of this Heavenly Plant. The Vine and the Field though they bear not for themselves pay their annual proventions If they had beene left to their first fruitfullnesse before the Curse they had exceeded in a most uberous spontaneous fertility if they should yeild nothing now they would be good for nothing Man bears fruit for himselfe and may bear as much as he pleaseth Wilt thou then keepe backe thy own provision Wilt thou pine thy selfe or by burying thy talent in the dust be an enemy to thy own soule and envious towards others Virtue in my opinion is like to Musick it pleaseth most of all the Virtuous man himself and it pleaseth also the vitious whose Conscience doth force him to admire that in others which he neglects in himselfe Musick delighteth both the Musician and the unskillfull Musick built the Walls of Thebes and Virtue must build the new Hierusalem Musick and Virtue are the performances of the hand and the Cordials of the mind Every lover of Virtue is Musical that is so say he is pleased with the suffrages of his own Conscience and solaced with the Celestiall flights of his pure Spirit Hee loves the works of Virtue not to gain the peoples applause but for Virtues sake whose beauty and power are best seene in her workes Honesty is one of the liberal Arts it is a trade of Conscience not of gaine Craftsmen shew their skill in their works The Sculptor in his Cuts the Painter in his limnings and the Goldsmith in his Plate To do something not the manner of doing it is their care Their worke may be well done though negligently and without much Art The Limner may give a stroke in hast or anger which neither Judgement nor curiosity can ever match Giotto's circle though drawn perfunctorily surpassed the most elaborate peeces of other Arâ—â—sts Virtue alone makes no use either of errour or chance and this she doth meerly to oppose Fortune In virtuous actions if wee erre in doing though we do good yet the worke of Virtue is not well done In other Arts one Exemplar or Act may serve to shew the Artificers skill though he should never work more But it is not so in Virtue As we cannot know a skillfull Musician unlesse he plaies upon some Instrument so Virtuous men are not manifested untill they Act He that will give any proofe of himselfe must needs be active but to be so once is not activity Virtue is a most usefull thing and the use of it dyeth not after it is used For allthough all the actions of man are transitory yet when they proceed from Virtue they are permanent I advise thee therefore to be permanent yea to be immortal Care not for those things which the World esteems to be enduring as Gold and the Wealth of Fortune those will make them wings and fly away when thou doest least look for it Care thou for those things which the people and their Hypocritital rulers value not because they believe them to proceed from a sheepish and rewardlesse tamenesse and not from grace and the secret dispensations of the God of peace Care I say for Righteousnesse and Innocence Care that thy Actions be upright These are the treasures which the World believing to be transient shall find one day to be truly solid and permanent Thou hast read somtimes that advice of the Apostle Redeem the times That is to say what thou doest well at one time thou shalt have it at all times Thy good Actions withâ—rsoever thou goest will bear thee company They are Companions of a most rare fidelity and will leave thee neither in the hour of death nor after death When our friends cannot follow us then do our good works travell with us they are then our best friends and overcome our foes Envy it selfe is appeased with death it falls off with the body Malice knowes no posthume persecution and the glory of Virtue in that state is above the reach of her Enemies though they may disturb our temporal rights they are too short to oppose our claime to immortality The onely peaceful possession of the dead is his good life and righteous dealings what wil it avail the
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
Limbs the loose skin in dry folds Doth hang about their joynts are numm'd and through Their veines not blood but rheumes and waters flow Their trembling bodies with a staffe they stay Nor doe they breath but sadly sigh all day Thoughts tire their hearts to them their very mind Is a disease their Eyes no sleep can find Adde to these usuall infirmities the confluence of adventious maladies For all the former distempers and corruptions of life gather themselves together and make head in old age when the inward strength and expulsive power of Nature is decayed when wee are almost dead then do they revive and rage most of all Rivers are no where more full nor more foule then towards the Channell-end But this generall decay I acknowledge to be a great benefit because it drives away all voluptuous and unseemly delights from the aged that their Soules may be lively and in health when the hour of dissolution comes And indeed it is necessary that griefes and unpleasantnesse should lay hold upon age because men who are alwaies unwilling to think of dying may be thereby weaned from the delights of life and learn to dye before the day of death Seeing then that the temporal life is in all its portions so full of misery it is not irrational to conclude that Soules if they were praeexistent would be very unwilling to submit to this sad Bondage of flesh and blood Nor do I wonder that Isis in his sacred Book writes that the Soules when they were commanded to enter into the bodies were astonished and suffered a kind of Deliquium or traunce and that they did hisse and murmure like to the suspirations of wind Camephes sets down their complaints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Miserable wretches in what have we so foulely trespassed what offense so heinous and worthy of so horrible a punishment have we committed as to be shut up and imprisoned for it in these moist and cold carkasses Our Eyes from henceforth shall not behold the Divine spirits for wee shall onely peepe through two small Spheres made of grosse and corrupt humours When we look towards Heaven we shall have onely the liberty to grone for the presence of our Creatour but see him we may not for we shall see then by a Secondary light which is the light of the lower World and not be permitted to use our own discerning light c. We shall hear our Kinred rejoycing in the air and mourn that we are not partakers of their liberty c. But thou great Father and maker of Spirits who doest dispose of all thy works as it pleaseth thee appoint we beseech thee some terme to our sad bondage and let this punishment passe quickly over us that we may be restored again to our celestiall liberty to behold without obstruction the perfect beauty of all thy works c. They comforted themselves with the thought of the bodies dissolution and petitioned before thâ—ir captivity that their inlargement might be hastned when they were excluded from the heavenly life there was no greater blessing then the death of the body which sets an end to the earthly Hee that loves death hates a transitory corrupt condition and he that hates his own life here shall keep it unto life erernall I do verily believe that to him that throughly considers it no part of life can be desireable It is altogether so full of sorrowes It is a peece weaved of calamities and troubles yea life it selfe is its owne vexation As those that travell in rough uneven and mountainous roades are alwaies gasping and weary which makes them sit down often to recover their spent breath and refresh themselves that having reach'd the brow and crown of the hill they may walk onwards with more delight and be at leasure to feed their Eyes with the beauteous prospect and freshnesse of those green flowry plaines which lye extended before them So this troublesome and tumultuous life hath need of death for its ease and repast as a state in which it doth repaire and strengthen it selfe against the fair Journey and progresse of eternity Frail and weary life cannot last and hold out untill the Indiction of immortality So long a journey cannot be performed without subsiding A resting place must be had Death is the Inne where we take up that we may with more chearfullnesse set forwards and be enabled to overtake and to keep company with eternity Nay so fraile is life that it cannot expect or stay for the day of death without some prevening recreations It travells by Stages and Periodical Courses where it breathes and gathers strength against the next motion As tyred travellours make frequent Pauses in the very Roade and cannot stay for the refreshment of lodging So life by reason of the importunity and the multitude of humane troubles cannot endure or hold out till it reacheth the Inne which is death but is driven to rest in the shade upon the way-side for sleep the shadow of death is nothing else but a reparation of weary and fainting life So much more excellent then life is death that life is driven to be sustained by so many deaths that is to say the mortal life is necessarily preserved by sleep which is the usher Masquerade of death Reedes because they are very weak and brittle are strengthned with distinct knots or joynts which makes their length firme and keepes them from cleaving So life if it were not refreshed and mantained still by successive set allevations of certain prolusions of death would fall asunder and vanish upon its first appearance Hitherto we have discoursed of life let us now consider death and compare it with life If death in its shadow and projection be the recreation of life how delightfull will it be at home or in it self Wearinesse is a preparative which makes rest pleasant That Recipe which succeedes bitternesse must needs be sweet Charidemus used to say That through all temporal things there was a chaine drawne whereof one link was pain and the other pleasure That these succeeded one another and so said he after great sorrowes there come greater joyes What greater sorrowes can there be then the sorrowes of life There is therefore no greater pleasure then the pleasure of death which succeed those great sorrows Phalaris said That men held life to be pleasant because they suspected death to be grievous and irksome He speaks after the sense of the people and abuseth life not esteeming it to be good but because he thinks death to be Evill I shall crosse his saying and inferre that death should be esteemed pleasant because wee are sure that life is painfull But there is an appearance of something like errour because we see many here that passe through their whole lives without any troubles or discontents That felicity is rare and adulterate and happens most commonly to those that desire it not look not upon those few which escape in this storme but upon
those which are drowned these last are innumerable thought it is thought otherwise because they are sunk into the bottom and cannot be seen Admit not I beseech thee for a testimony againstâ— Death those ejulations and tears which darken Funerals and make foul weather in the fairest faces Opinion makes the people compassionate and they bewail not the party that is dead but their owne frailty Call not for evidence to the teares of strangers because thou knowest not whence they flow but call for it to thine own for none of us is happy or miserable but in his own sense which makes us any thing What reason hast thou to think life better then death because others mourne when thou dyest who when thou wert born didst weep thy selfe It is madnesse to judge our selves miserable because others think so The solemnities of death are contrary to the ceremonies of life At the birth of man others laugh but he himself weeps At his death others weep but surely hee rejoyceth unlesse his ill life hath made his death deadly Nor must thou think that his joy is either little or none at al because it is not manifested unto thee Thou mayst lye watching by the side of one that dreams of Heaven is conversing with Angels but unlesse hee tells it thee when he is awaked thou canst discover no such thing while he sleepes The Infant that is born weeping learns to laugh in his sleep as Odo and Augustine have both observed So he that bewailed his birth with tears welcomes the shadow of his death with smiles He presaged miseries to follow his nativity and beatitude his dissolution Weeping is natural tears know their way without a gâ—ide Mirth is rude and comes on slowly and very late nor comes it then without a supporter and a leader It must be taught and acquired Weeping comes with the Infant into the world Laughing is afterwards taught him the Nurse must both teach and invite him to it When he sleeps then he sips and tasteth joy when he dies then he sucks and drinkes it Mourning and grief are natural they are born with us Mirth is slow-paced and negligent of us The sense of rejoycing if we beleeve Avicenna comes not to the most forward child till after the fortieth day Men therefore weep at thy death because it is an experiment they have not tryed and they laugh at thy birth because the miseries of thy life must not be born by them Thou onely art the infallible diviner of thy own frail condition who refusest it with teares which are the most proper expressions of unwilling constrained nature But as the ceremonies of Life and Death are contrary so he that is born and he that dyes have different events Death to some seems to destroy all but she restores all By discomposing things she puts them in their order For he that inverts things that were beâ—ore inverted doth but reduce them to their right Positure The Funeral rite of the Tâ—bitenses who are certain East-Indians is to turn the inside of their garments outward they manifest that part which before was hidden and conceale that part which before was manifest by which they seeme in my opinion to point at the liberty of the soul in the state of death and the captivity of the body whose redemption must bee expected in the end of the world This inversion by death is reparation and a preparative for that order wherein all things shall be made new Most true is that saying of the Royal Preacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A good name is above precious ointment and the day of death is better then the day of ones birth But thou wilt ask To whom is the day of death better than the day of his nativity It is in the first place to him that dies True thou wilt say if he be a just and holy man Yea say I though he be wicked Who doubts that there can happen in all their lives a better day to the just and honest then the day of death which frees them both from seeing and from feeling the miseries which are in this world As for the unjust it is most certain that no day can be more beneficiall to them then that which sets an end to their impieties tyranny perjury and sacriledge To deny a sword to one that would murther himself is benevolence to deny money to a Gamester that would presently cast it away is courtesie and to deny life to those that would use it to their owne damnation is Mercy and not Judgement But to whom besides these is the day of death better then the day of life Certainly to God Almighty because in that day when the wicked dye his Justice on them and his Mercy towards his own are conspicuous to all and acknowledged by all And to whom else Not to speak of the rich and ambâ—tious It is good to all men to the whole Creation and to Nature it self For in that day the fair order and prerogative of Nature is vindicated from the rage and rape of lustfull intemperate persons It becomes constant consonant and inviolable by putting off those gross vestiments which make her productions subject to the assaults and violence of man who is the most perverse and shamelesse defacer of Gods Image in himself and the most audacious and abhominable contemner of his Ordinances in his works by using them to a contrary end and quite different from that which their wise Creator made them for But let us not consider the goodnesse of death by those evils onely which it freeth us from but by the blessings also which it brings along with it Their soules are by some men less valued then Fortune and temporal power Some cast away their lives to winne a Crowne yea the Crowne and the Kingdome of another They plot to forfeit a Crown of Eternall glory by usurping a transitory one They murther their owne soules by shedding the blood of some innocent persons permitted to be overcome by men that they might have power with God and prevail Shall the short soveâ—aignty and sway of some small corners and spots of earth be compared to the everlasting triumphs in the Kingdom of Heaven The death of the sufferer is in this case the most gainfull the more he loseth by it upon earth his gain is by so much the greater in heaven The shorter our stay is here our time above if reckon'd from the day of our death is the longer but hath no end at all and the more our sufferings are the greater shall our glory be Hegesias the Cyrenian when he praised death promised not these blessings of Immortality but onely an end of temporall miseries and yet he did so far prevail with his Auditors that they preferred death to life they contemned the one and so lusted after the other that they would not patiently expect it but did impatiently long for it they fel upon their own swords and forced death to come on by
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
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
when it cannot go one step upon Earth and giving it the wings of a Dove to flye and be at rest before it can use its feet To these past arguments of the goodnesse of death I shall adde another Death in the old world before the manifestation of God in the flesh was the publick index or open signe of hidden divinity It is the gift of God who gives nothing but what is good The Divell playing the Ape and labouring to imitate the Inimitable Jehovah did by asserting death to be the greatest good mainly fortifie those abominable rites and honours conferred upon him by his blind worshipers When they petitioned him for the greatest blessing that the Gods could give to man he by the permission of the true God whom they had deserted would within three daies strangle them in their beds or use some other invisible meanes to set an end to their daies Thus he served Triphonius Agamedes and Argia for her three Sons This miserable mother requested of him that hee would give the best thing to her children that could be given to men her petition was granted and within a very short time they received that which she thought to be the worst namely death So great is the ods betwixt seeming to be and being really betwixt opinion and truth yea that death which we judge to be the worst I meane the immature is oftentimes the best What greater good had deckt great Pompey's Crown Then death if in his honours fully blown And mature glories he had dyed those piles Of huge successe lowd fame lofty stiles Built in his active youth long lazie life Saw quite demolished by ambitious strife He lived to weare the weake and melting snow Of lucklesse Age where garlands seldom grow But by repining fate torne from the head Which were them once are on another shed Neither could I ever grant that the death of Infants and Children though commonly bewail'd as unseasonable were the parents misfortunes but the courtesies rather and mercies of the almighty To omit Amphiaraus and other Ethnick instances I shall make use of a true and Christian History which in these later years was the great admiration of King Philips Court. Didacus Vergara a most noble hopefull â—outh adorned with all those vertues which â—eautifie a blooming life was famous in the mouths of all good men and as deare in their hearts But what was the reward thinkest thou of his virtuous life An immature and almost a sudden death So that it is not to be doubted but it was a divine favour Being to go into bed he spoke to his sister O what manner of night will this be unto me I beseech you deare sister furnish me with some candles and leave one to burn by me Abought midnight he suddenly called so that all the familie was awaked and got up to whom he told that he should dye that night and desired them to send presently for his Confessour They all imagined that he had been troubled with some dream especially his Father a most renowned Physitian when he felt his pulse to beate well and orderly But notwithstanding all this they omitted not to send for his Confessour who was Gasper Pedroza He as if touched with some Divine presension was at that dead time of the night awake and being come to the sorrowfull Father he told him that Didacus was expected in another World before day that the Virgin-Qâ—eene of Heaven had revealed so much to him and that hee would be gone as soon as the Sacraments could be administred unto him It fell out just so For those sacred solâ—mnities were no sooner ended but he was dissolved as if he had stayed onely for that spirituall refection to strengthen him in his Journey He left this dark and low World towards the first breakin gs of the day and ascending to eternity upon the wings of the morning He might have past from thence with lesser noise and in a shorter time but he expired more solemnly then so and yet without weary accessions and the Tyranny of sicknesse He stayed for the saving institutions of his redeemer the businesse that detain'd him so long was Heaven and not the tumults of a tyring and obstinate dissolution all this proves it to have been the hand of God and not an unfortunate sudden death the precise Actions of the deity must be attended with unusuall circumstances Whome God doth take care for and love He dies young here to live above There is room enough for life within the compasse of few years if they be not cast away Think not that to last long and to live long is the same thing every one that hath stayd long upon earth hath not lived long Some men find fault with death because no experiment can be made of it without an absolute dissolution they would dye twice to trye what kind of state it is that they may be fitly furnished against the second time when they must dye in earnest But this is madness and were it granted them the good they pretend would not be performed For he that will cast away one life without preparing for death wil not fear to hazard another desperate malefactors will take no warning by râ—prieves Besides what benefit would there be by dying twice seeing that of necessity they must live twice too and so be twice miserable if not twice impious It is strange that these men who fear death and adjudge it to be evill should desire to have it doubled and that which by their good will they would not tast once they will beg to chew and swallow downe twice whereas if death were an Evill it would be so much the lesser by comming but once The miseries of life are nothing so civill they are instant importunate and outragious they will reinforce themselves and set upon us twice or thrice yea a thousand times Death is more modest she wearies us not as long as wee are well When our disorders have turned the harmony of life into discord and noise then shee comes to cast those murmurers asleep and to give the Soul peace He is no troublesome guest that comes but once But it were a great happinesse thou wilt say if men did experimentally know what it is to dye Truely this Felicity is not wanting Death is a most admirable ingenious Excogitation Though we dye but once yet do not we dye at once We may make yea we do make many assaies or tryals of dying Death insinuates it selfe and seizeth upon us by peecemeals it gives us a tast of it self It is the Cronie or Consort of life So soon as we begin to be wâ—e begin to wast and vanish we cannot ascend to life without descending towards death Nay we begin to dye before we appeare to live the perfect shape of the Infant is the death of the Embryo childhood is the death of Infancie youth of Childhood Manhood of youth and old age of Manhood When we are arrived at this last
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
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
labours and substance in this life What pleasure then can there be in such riches whose collection is sin and sorrow and our transmision or bequeathing of them anxious and uncertaine Whither then at last will this wild and deviuos affection of men carry them You know how to love accidental and external goods but cannot love your own self That which you so much long for is abroad and without you you place your affection upon a forraigner upon an enemy Returne or retire rather into your selfe and be you dearer and nearer to your own heart then those things which you call yours Certainly if some wiseman and skilfull in the affaires of this world should converse and come to be intimate with you it would better please you that he should affect your person then affect your goods and you would choose that he should rather love you for your self then for your riches you would have him to be faithful unto man not to his money What you would have another to performe towards you that doe you for your self who ought to be the most faithfull to your self Ourselves ourselves wee should love not those things which wee phantastically call ours And let this suffice to have been spoken against Riches As for the Honours of this world to speak generally and without exception for I shall not descend to particulars what dinity can you justlt attribute to those things which the base man and the bad as well as the noble and good promiscuously obtain and all of them by corruption and ambition The same honour is not conferred upon men of the same merits and dignity makes not a difference betwixt the worthy and the unworthy but confounds them So that which should be a character of deserts by advancing the good above the bad doth most unjustly make them equal and after a most strange manner there is in no state of life lesse difference made betwixt the worst men and the best then in that state which you term honourable Is it not then a greater honour to be without that honour and to be esteemed of according to our genuine worth and sincere carriage then according to the false gloss of promiscuous deceiving honours And these very things how big soever they look what fleeting and frail appearances are they We have seen of late men eminently honourable seated upon the very spires and top of dignity whose incredible treasures purchased them a great part of the world their successe exceeded their own desires and their prodigious fortunes amazed their very wishes But these I speak of were private prosperities Kings themselves with all their height and imperiousnesse with all their triumphs and glory shined but for a time Their cloathings were of wrought of gold their diadems sparkled with the various flames and differing relucencies of precious stones their Palaces were thronged with Princely attendants their roofs adorned with gilded beams their Will was a Law and their words were the rules and coercive bounds of Mankind But who is he that by a temporal felicity can lift his head above the stage of humane chances Behold now how the vast sway and circumference of these mighty is no where to be found their riches and precious things too are all gone and they themselves the possessors and masters of those royal treasures most late and most famous Kingdoms even amongst us are now become a certaine fable All those things which sometimes were reputed here to be very great are now become none at all Nothing I think nay I am sure of all these riches honours powers went along with them from hence All they took with them was the pretious substance of their faith and piety These onely when they were deprived of all other attendants waited on them and like faithfull inseparable companions travelled with them out of this wrold With this provision are they now fed with these riches and with these honours are they adorned In these they rest and this goodnesse is now their greatnesse Wherefore if we be taken at all with honours and riches let us be taken with the true and durable ones Every good man exchangeth these earthly dignities for those which are celestiall and earthen treasures for the heavenly He layes up treasure there where a most exact and inconfused difference is made betwixt the good and the bad where that which is once gotten shall be for ever enjoyed where all things may be obtained and where nothing can be lost But seeing we are fallen into a discourse of the frailty of temporal things let us not forget the frail condition of this short life What is it I beseech you what is it Men see nothing more frequently then death and minde nothing more seldome Mankinde is by a swift mortality quickly driven into the West or setting point of life and all posterity by the unalterable Law of succeeding ages and generations follow after Our fathers went from hence before us we shall goe next and our children must come after As streames of water falling from high the one still following the other doe in successive circles break and terminate at the banks so the appointed times and successions of men are cut off at the boundary of death This consideration should take up our thoughts night and day this memoriall of our fraile condition should keep us still awake Let us alwayes thinke the time of our departure to be at hand for the day of death the farther we put it off comes on the faster and is by so much the nearer to us Let us suspect it to be near because we know not how far Let us as the Scripture saith make plain our wayes before us If we make this the businesse of our thoughts and meditate still upon it wee shall not be frighted with the fear of death Blessed and happy are all you who have already reconciled your selves unto Christ no great fear of death can disturb them who defsire to be dissolved that they may be with Christ who in the silence of their own bosomes quietly and long since prepared for it expect the last day of their pilgrimage here They care not much how soon they end this temporal life that passe from it into life eternal Let not the populacy and throng of loose livers or hypocriticall time-pleasers perswade us to a neglect of life neither be you induced by the errours of the many to cast away your particular salvation What wil the multitude in that day of Gods judgement avail us when every private person shall be sentenced where the examinations of works and every mans particular actions not the example of the common people shall absolve him Stop your ears and shut your eyes against such damnable Precedents that invite you to destruction It is better to sow in tears and to plant eternal life with the few then to lose it with the multitude Let not therefore the number of sinfull men weaken your diligence of not sinning for the madnesse
and my friends stand looking upon me afar off and they passe by me like hasty floods or the streames of a brook that will not be stay'd They convey themselves away and are ashamed of me who displeased them by pleasing God And in his first Epistle I beseech you saith he If I shall have need for now my servants and those I made free-men are become my despisers that you would take care to send the old Wine which I beleive I have still at Narbon hither unto me and to pay for the carriage Do not fear dear brother to make the poor your debtor c. The Noble Spirit is the bravest bearer of indignities and certainly extraction and a virtuous descent let popular flatterers preach what they will to the contrary is attended with more Divinity and a sweeter temper then the indiscrete Issue of the multitude There is an eminent difference betwixt flowers and weedes though they spring from the same mould The Ape contending with the Lyonesse told her that she was a very fair creature but very barren For you said the Ape bring forth but one at a birth and I bring six or more 'T is true replyed the Lionesse but thy fix are six Apes and my one is a Lyon The greatest part of men which we commonly terme the populacy are a stiffe uncivill generation without any seed of honour or goodnesse and sensible of nothing but private interest the base waies of acquiring it What Virtue or what humanity can be expected from a Raymond Cabanes a Massinello or some Son of a Butcher They have one barbarous shift which Tigers and Beares would blush to commit They will cut the throats of their most generous and Virtuous Benefactours to comply with times and advantage themselves Yea they will rejoyce to see them ruined and like inhumane Salvages insult over their innocent and helplesse posterity I could compare those fawning Hypocrits that waite not upon men but upon their Fortunes to that smiths bitch in the Apologues of Locmannus the Persian which sleeping in the forge could not be awaked with all the noise of the hammers the Anvile and the Bellowes but if the smith would offer to stirre his teeth to eat shee would start up presently and attend upon him with all officiousnesse She would share with him in the fruits of his labours but would not watch and look to the shop one minute while he laboured Paulinus had now first lost these false friends but was loaded for it with the love and commendations of true ones And I know not which offended him most to be despised by the first or commended by the last He had like Saint Paul great heavinesse and continuall sorrow of heart to see that his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh hated him because he loved Christ And on the other side his humility would not suffer him to beare the labour of love I meane the generall applause and sincere commendations conferred upon him by his Christian friends Severus in one of his Epistles written to him after hee had spent some lines in the commendation of his zeale and constancie contrary to the custome of that plaine age subscribed himself his Servant To the first he replyed that his excessive love had drawn him to the sin of untruth And the last he desired him to desist from for this reason Cave ergo ne posthac c. Have a care hereafter saith he that you who are a Servant of Christ called unto liberty terme nor your self the servant of a sinner and of one that is not worthy to be called your fellow-servant The virtue of humility will not excuse the vice of flattery Thus Gregorie the great when Pope Anastasius had exceeded towards him in his laudatory elocutions blasted them all with this humble reply Quod verò me â—s domini quod lucernam c. Your calling me the mouth of the Lord a shining light and a strong helper is nothing else but an augmentation of my iniquity for when I deserve to be punished for my sins then do I instead of punishment receive praise Severus in another of his Epistles to Paulinus earnestly intreated him to suffer his picture to be taken by a limner which he had sent to him for that purpose that he might have it to set up together with the picture of Saint Martin before the sacred font in a fair Church which Severus was then in building This friendly motion Paulinus was very much offended with and would by no means consent unto teling Severus that too much love had made him mad And in his eighth Epistle reasoning with him about this request What kind of picture saith he would you have from me the picture of the earthly or the Heavenly man I know you love onely that incorruptible image which the King of Heaven doth love in you I am ashamed to picture what I am and I dare not picture what I am not But Severus resolving to force it from him would not be satisfied with any other returne whereupon he sent it to him with these following verses the elegant expresse of his unfeined humility The first coppy relates to the pictures and the latter to the Font. Abluitis quicunque animas membra lavacris Cernite propositas ad bona facta vias c. You that to wash your flesh and Soules dâ—w near Ponder these two examples set you here Great Martin shewes the holy life and white Paulinus to repentance doth invite Martins pure harmlesse life tooke Heaven by force Paulinus tooke it by teares and remorse Martin leads through victorious palms and flowers Paulinus leades you through the pooles and showres You that are sinners on Paulinus look You that are Saints great Martin is your book The first example bright and holy is The last though sad and weeping leads to blisse The verses relating to the Font were these Hic reparandarum generator fons animaruÌ„ Vivum viventi lumine flumen agit c. Here the great well-spring of wash'd Soules with beams Of living light quickens the lively streams The Dove descends and stirs them with her wings So weds these waters to the upper springs They strait conceive A new birth doth proceede From the bright streams by an immortall seed O the rare love of God! sinners wash'd here Come forth pure Saints all justfied and clear So blest in death and life man dyes to sins And lives to God Sin dies and life begins To be reviv'd Old Adam falls away And the new lives born for eternal sway Nor did the manners of holy Paulinus differ from his mind all his Garments all the Utensils of his poor Cot were so many emblems and memento's of humility Grace is an Elixir of a contrary Nature to the Philosophers stone it turn'd all the gold and Silvervessells of this great Senatour into earthen dishes and wooden spoons Righteousnesse and honesty are alwaies poor In his first Epist to Severus he presents him with