Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A85367
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Good thoughts for every day of the month. Translated out of French By Mrs. D.S.
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1656
(1656)
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Wing G1082; Thomason E1716_2; ESTC R209652
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20,927
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179
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fifty years of life which is now past away as nothing lost Eternity 2. If I stay so long can I be assured to bee delivered from the insinite evils that overwhelm a soul which appears before God without repentance 3. What then would I wish I had done O God the great folly of neglecting so long and providing so late for a businesse of the greatest importance in the world we dye as late as wee can but wee should rather think how to die well then how to shun Death 4. How shall I value then those things which now I love and esteem the mostin the world Let us at present advise with death he is faithful he will not deceive us What will become of this flesh this money this pleasure this honour How do we judg what do wee think at our death the living Man boasts the dying Man cries In life one esteems the world in death one despises it who saith truest which shall we believe life or death Whom shal we trust this living man or that dying O the Tapers at our death enlighten all unmask al but the misfortune is that it comes too late we have not time to undeceive our selvs Think what it is that you should fear most if you were to dye presently and take order about it from that moment without deferring it but above al things frequent the Sacrament and in it practise how to dye Tertul. l. de exhort cast c. 12. A Christian bath no morrow The IV. Day Of the last Judgment 1. OMy soveraign Judge I must then one day shew my self before thy Tribunal to receive according to the good or evil done in this life I beleeve this truth more firmly then if the Trumpet had already sounded for the general raising of the dead 2. What shal we say at the view of so many ill thoughts of so many evil words of so many years lost of so many graces neglected there where every thing shall be accounted for every moment of time even to the least sight and nothing abated 3. If wee did not know the judgement that shall bee in the other life upon al men wee might bee excusable who doth not know it Let us therefore govern our selves after the judgement of God and not after that of Man For if our present judgement agree not with that our judg what a trial must wee expect what a dreadful sentence Go ye cursed depart from me c. Alas whither Lord shall they go who depart from thee to what refuge to what Port shall they retire In what part of the world may we dwell far from God where can be that strange aboad Far from God cursed of God Alass Imagine that you were presented to God at the latter judgemnt of what would you have most fear touching your conscience Bethink your self S. Aug. Confess 9.13 Wo be to Men who lead a commendable and exemplary life if thou look upon it without mercy The V. Day Of Hell 1. IF we could hear by some vent lend an ear but a quarter of an hour to the groans and pitiful cries of the damned In that bottomless pit they confess their most secret sins they sigh they beat their breasts their fast is perpetual they do penance in flames but too late Penance in this World is hard but much more grievous in Hell 2. The wicked rich man curseth and complaineth that so many thousand years his fervent thirst cannot obtain one drop of water so small a matter so long a while and in so extream misery and in vain 3. They are tormen ted one with another and after judgement their bodies shall bee tumbled one upon another and thrown like coals into a furnace They shall transmit the heat one to another in such manner that by the common oppression every one shall burn in the flames of all 4. Tel me have you a breast-plate before your heart able to withstand Gods fury Tell me the secret that gives you this assurance we are most of us as it were returned from Hell which wee have merited at present where are we Make often this visit to the Damned see them speak to them and learn by their misery to fear God and the danger wherein you are Luke 12.5 Fear him who after he had killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you Fear him The VI. Day Of the Eternity of Hell 1. TO have no company but that of Devils darkness rage dispair and in a word never to see God never to have one drop of pleasure or release what is this Do I beleeve it rightly How do they who suffer it apprehend it alass I cannot endure the flame of a Candle one minute at my singer what then will this be 2. O Eternity The time will come that a damned person after the succession of many ages shall have shed more tears though he should shed but one a day more tears I say then would make all the Rivers and Seas in the world and when he hath done so hee shall begin again a Hundred Thousand times and shed as many more not once onely but as many times as there are sands in the Sea and at the end of all this it shall bee accounted nothing the pricking of a thorn though never so little if it should last to eternity would be intolerable Alas then c. 3. Eternity alwayes before their eyes chargeth every one of their evils with al its weight they count all the coals which shall burn them all the fiery stripes which shall tear them al the remorses of conscience which shall gnaw them c. Of all our tears say they might be made an Ocean in comparison of which all the Oceans in the world would be but a drop Of all our flames a Furnace c. Of all our poysons enough to destroy an infinity of lives An Eternity to burn an Eternity to weep an Eternity to howl an Eternity to rage and rage and rage and never never to behold the face of God See if you are in the condition of those who damn themselves and leap smiling into the midst of the flames if you have no fear you are very insensible if you have any yet provide not effectually against the future you are a great Fool. To perish once is to perish ever The VII Day Of Paradise 1. I Hope by the grace of GOD that a I shal see one day for ever him whom whom my heart loves My Lord that hath so tenderly loved me Ah we have but few dayes more of Exile and Pilgrimage and then we shall be eternally with Jesus 2. Paradise that great word the best of words the assembly of all good things to be wished for and that to Eternity O what is that What is the earth and all its weak allurements in comparison of such vast and solid delights 3. What matter is it that wee are here below so that we bee eternally with God Have I reason to
GOOD THOUGHTS FOR EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH Translated out of French By M rs D. S. LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street neer Cliffords Inn 1656. DIRECTION for the READER THis short Collection includes the chief Heads of Christian life distributed into Weeks In the first the Motives that we have to go to God in the second and third the Vertues that lead us to him in the fourth the Exercise of those Vertues As for Method in using them I know that the two best and most certain Directours in prayer are the Holy Ghost and Practise That we cannot learn better how to pray then by praying That prayer is a good Method for it self Yet not to engage you without some direction let me advise you 1. To choose a convenient precise time the Morning before you enter into the trouble of businesse or at Night when your minde is at ease 2. In some retired place your spirit being setled and recollected First lift up your self by an act of faith to God who is present and attentive to the voice of your Heart My God I believe firmly that thou art here within my soul and that my soul is in thee c. Secondly adore him submisly humble your self to the utmost Lord I am but dust and ashes c. Thirdly ask pardon of him for any offence known or unknown that may render you unworthy to appear in his sight Lastly invoke the assistance and light of the Holy Spirit 3. Read the first thought of the day but stowly Though you should do nothing more then rest upon conceiving the truths therein yet will they work in you as it were without your help There is nothing in God that is not holy and sanctifying and his words are Spirit and Life Thoughts have the same operation upoÌ„ our Mind as a Seal upon Wax The Soul receives the impression even of simple notions if she stop there and concur with them But you shall do better if as soon as you have read the first thought you discourse a little to your self upon it and examine Is this true Is it reasonable Is it necessary Why How Did Jesus and the Saints practise it Doth God inspire me with it If I do it not What then c. This done proceed to the next thought and if your time be spent only reade the rest leasurely but above all pause upon the Conclusion and resolve on the performance of something conformable to your subject begging of God 〈◊〉 severance and Efficâ—â—â— 4. The little sentence at the end taken out of the Scripture or some Father is like a drop of Essence to be worn all that day it contains all the vertue of the good thoughts it concludes it is easie to cal to minde and to retain if you reflect often upon it it wil quicken and fortifie your light and instil it self into all occasions Thus we may with application and constancy raise our good thoughts to such a point of vigour that they may extirpate our ill or at least make them weak and ineffectual and exalt and magnifie them till they bring us to a pious immobility and some extraordinarie purity This S. August means Hom. 16. de 50. He cannot have ill deeds who hath good thoughts Good Thoughts FOR EVERY DAY of the MONETH The First Week The Frst Day of the Moneth Of the End of our Creation 1. WE are created for God God himself could create us for no other but himself and we should betray our selves if wee did not confesse this truth our heart tels it us and we cannot contradict it 2. It is fit that every one should have his own then let us be for God since we are his if not we bely our selves for if we are not his Children under the love of his Bounty we shall be his Slaves under the rigour of his Justice 3. As then Bread which is made to nourish the Sun to give light the fire to warm if they should refuse the office for which they were made would bee as if they were not or as Monsters in Nature because every thing must tend to that end for which it was made and cannot decline it without going to its own destruction So the Heart of Man which is only and essentially made for God if it stray from him or refuse to go to him belies its essence and becomes monstrous a scorn to the World and to all reason 4. Well then do I carry my self like a Creature that is for none but God Is my Heart and all my affections for him Ah how few things do I that I can say are truly and only doue for God! Ah how much time is lost how much reproach gotten in one day What do you do upon the Earth if you do not that for which you are there You must here renew your designe of seeking God onely and your resolution to rob him of nothing that appertaineth to him S. Aug. lib. 6. Confess cap. 6. Oh intricate wayes of the World Wo be to that audacious Soul which presumes to hope that by leaving Thee it may find any thing else which is better The II. Day Of Sin 1. O God what is it it to lose Thee To lose God an infinite good is it nothing Men that lose their goods by some accident as by Fire or by Law seeing themselves reduced to beggery are so troubled and afflicted therewith that they lose their sense and grow desperate Ah what then will a soul do that hath lost her God! 2. O Sin too familiar but unknown to Men in play and divertisement to make our selves the object of the infinite wrath of God! God so good an Ocean of goodness becometh to a sinner an infinite ill and cannot but hate him infinitely to hate â— little is to wish a little ill to a Man to hate to death is to wish death and there it ends but to hate to infinity O God what do we fear if wee do not fear the dreadful hate of God! 3. See the horror of Sin in the sufferings of JESUS What a spectacle is there Yet the state of a Soul in sin is much more horrible then that of a God dying on a Crosse since that JESUS died to destroy sin that he might no longer behold that which afflicts him more then Death But alas can I believe that God will spare mee who delivered his Son over to such horrid pains After this you must make an act of Contrition as well as you can upon al the sins of yhour life past We ought not to grieve for any thing else for nothing else can Grief remedy Jerem. 2.19 Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in Thee saith the Lord of Hosts The III. Day Of Death 1. HOw much must that soul apprehend Death which all its life time hath been an enemy to God! What regret for having for