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-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
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-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
still and the incertainty as well as the certainty of it This divine devise of death so pleased God and was so necessary for the good of man that though by the merits of his dying Son he changed all the former things blotting out ordinances abolishing Ceremonies opening the gates of Heaven to all believers yet would not he Exterminate death It was out of his mercy that he refused to abrogate it that while corruption reigned death also might reign over it lest this poyson should want its Antidote We have therefore no just cause to complain of death which is an Invention conducing to our great good and the incertainty of the time though it most vexeth us is notwithstanding the most beneficial Circumstance that attends it The time of life is certainly known there is but one entrance to the light of this World The Ceremony of dying is not formal It keeps not to one time nor one manner but admits of all times and many manners Life comes into the World but one way but hath many waies to go out It was the benevolence of God to open so many doors to those that flye for refuge One way is more then enough to find out dangers but to escape them many are but necessary Death is not a burthen of seaven or nine monthes but life must have time before it sets forth And what are the first encounters of it Tears â—nd Bonds It cannot avoyd Evills and it is afeared to bear them therefore it delaies time and when it cannot lurk any longer it comes forth Crying Death leads us forth to joy and liberty Therefore it stayes not it seeks no corners nor protractions Nor doth death free us onely from suffering Evills but keeps us also from doing any To be good every day thou mâ—st dye dayly The incertainty also of the time of death and the manner of it like a busie Monitour warnes thee to do good and to be good at all times and in every place private or publick And the inevitablenâ—sse of it takes away all Excuse or pretensions for thy impreparation The Glory of death is also much augmented by its facility in redressing the difficulties of life It is not without the Divine counsel and a speciall priviledge that the Soule of man is so easily parted from the body the life of beasts is more tenacious and will suffer much indignitie and fury before it leaves them There is nâ— living creature more fraile none more weak then man the lightest strâ—ake fells him the Soul is very nice and will quickly cast off the body if it persists but in the least Indisposition A single hair killed Fabius and a Grape Anacreon these contemptible instruments destroy'd them as effectually as the thunderbolt did Esculapius Coma dyed as easily as he could wish and Baptist a Mirandulus as he could think His Soule quitted his body without any grudging without a disease without poyson without violence or any fatall mischance No door can keep death out it defeats life with its own weapons and kills us with the very Cordials and comforts of it Perhapâ— no kind of death is more violent then thâ—â— which sets upon us with the forces oâ— lâ—â—e because it kills when life is most vigorous and pleasant Their owne wishes have destroyed many And life hath oftentimes perished by her own contrivements Clidemus was killed with honour Diagoras with joy Plato with rest and Philemon with laughter This last is both a merry and a frequent destroyer and freed Sicily from one Tyrant Death also makes use sometimes of our very virtues to exanimate us Shame killed Diodorus and the Mother of Secundus the Philosopher dyed with blushing and an excessive modestie Life is a fraile possession it is a flower that requires not rude and high winds but will fall in the very whispers and blandishments of fair weather It is folly to labour to retain that which wil away to fly from that which will meet us every where yea in the way we fly is a vain and foolish industry Whither we seek death or avoyd it it will find us out Our way to fly and our very flight end both in death by hasting from it we make hast to it Life is a journey whose end cannot be mist it is a steady ayming at dissolution Though we fetch wide Compasses and traverse our way never so often we can neither lengthen it nor be out of it What path soever we take it is the Port-roade to death Though youth and age are two distant Tropicks of life yet death is as near to the one as to the other And though some live more and some lesse yet death is their equal neighbour and will visit the young as soon as the old Death is a Crosse to which many waies leade some direct and others winding but all meet in one Center It matters not which thou takest nor whither thou art young or aged But if thou beest young thou maist come sooner thither then the old who is both doting and weary It was necessary that a Sanctuary being provided for the distressed the way to it should be easie pervious and at an indifferent distance from all parts Good should be diffusive and the gate that leads to it must be without doors and bolts The entrance into this life is narrow and difficult it is difficultly attained difficultly retained and lyes alwaies in the power of another Every man may take life from us none can take death Life is subject to the Tyranny of men but death is not life makes Tyrants and death unmakes them Death is the slaves prerogative â—oyall and the Sabbath of the afflicted Leo Iconomachus the Emperor made the birth of both sexes tributary but death never paid taxation It was not lawfull in his reigne to get Children without paying for them every Infant so soon as borne was to give him contribution they paid then the Excise of life Death onely frees us from these Impositions of Tyrants And wilt thou then condemn liberty and that maturity of death by which it ripens every age wilt thou the divine liberality blame because thy life is short or may be so thou hast no reason to find fault with the years already given thee because thou shalt not have more thou mayst as well quarrel with Nature because she made not thy dimensions larger and thy body heavier by eighty or a hundred pounds he that measured thy proportion measured thy time too and too much of this last would have been as troublesome and unweildy as too much of the first for Long life opprest with many woes Meets more the further still it goes Death in every age is seasonable beneficial and desirable It frees the old man from misery the youthfull from sin and the infant from both It takes the aged in the fullnesse of their time It turnes the flowers of youth into fruit and by a compendious secret improvement matures infancy leading it into the Gate of Heaven
stage if we stay any long time in it and pay not the debt we owe death requires interest she takes his hearing from one his sight from another and from some she takes both The extent and end of all things touch their beginning neither doth the last minute of life do any thing else but finish what the first began We may know also what death is by the apparition or Image of it We see it and make tryal of it assiduously we cannot act life one day but wee must act death at night Life is a Terrace-walke with an Arbour at one end where we repose and dream over our past perambulations This lesser rest shewes us the greater the Soule watcheth when wee sleepe and Conscience in the Just as well as the unjust will be ruminating on the works of life when the body is turned into dust Sleepe is nothing else but death painted in a night-peece it is a prelibation of that deepe slumber out of which we shall not be awaked untill the Heavens be no more We go to bed under a Scene of Stars and darknesse but when we awake we find Heaven changed and one great luminary giving light to all We dye in the state of corruption errours and mistinesse But wee shall be raised in glory and perfection when these clouds of blacknesse that are carried about with diverse winds and every Enemy of truth shall vanish for ever and God alone shall be all in all We affect sleepe naturally it is the reparation of man a laying by of cares The Coppy cannot match the pattern if we love sleep then why should wee hate the Idaea of it why should we feare death whose shadow refresheth us which nature never made nor meant to fright us with It was her intention to strengthen our hope of dying by giving us the fruition of this resemblance of death lest we should grow impatient with delay she favour'd us with this shadow and Image of it as Ladies comfort themselves with the pictures of their absent lovers There is no part of life without some portion of death as dreames cannot happen without sleepe so life cannot be without death As sleepe is said to be the shadow of death So I think dreams to be the shadowes of life for nothing deceives us more frequent then it When we shal be raised from death we shal not grieve so much because the joys of life were not real as because there were none at all It was said by one that he had rather dream of being tormented in Hell then glorified in Paradise for being awaked he should rejoyce to find himselfe in a soft featherbed and not in a lake of unquenchable fire But having dreamt of Heaven it would grieve him that it was not reall Paracelsus writes that the watching of the body is the sleep of the Soul and that the day was made for Corporeall Actions but the night is the working-time of Spirits Contrary natures run contrary courses Bodies having no inherent light of their own make use of this outward light but Spirits need it not Sun-beams cannot stumble nor go out of their way Death frees them from this dark Lantern of flesh Heraclitus used to say that men were both dead and alive both when they dyed and when they lived when they lived their Soules were dead and when they dyed their Soules revived Life then is the death of the Soule and the life of the body But death is the life of the Soule and the death of the body I shall return now to prosecute the Commendations of death because it comes but once Death like the Phoenix is onely one lest any should be ill That which comes but once is with most longing looked for and with most welcome entertained That poor man the owner of one Ewe nourished her in his bosome she did eate of his meat and drank out of his Cup as Nathan exemplified The Father that hath but one Son hath more cares then he that hath many so should we be more carefull to provide for death which comes but once then for the numerous and daily calamities of life By providing for that one wee turne the rest all into so many joyes Whatsoever is rare whatsoever is pretious it is single and but one There is nothing so rare nothing that is comparable to a good death But it is not the universality or diffusivenesse of it that makes it so but the contempt and the subduing of it hâ—s death is most pretious by whom death is contemned Dissolution is not a meere merit but a debt we owe to nature which the most unwilling must pay That wisedome which can make destiny to be her servant which can turne necessity into virtue Mortality into Immortality and the debt we owe to nature into a just right and Title to eternall glory is very great What greater advantage can there be then to make Heaven due to us by being indebted to nature and to oblige Divinity by paying a temporal debt Clemens called them Golden men who dyed thus that is to say when it was necessary to dye They made necessity their free will when either the publick liberty the prerogative of reason or the word of God called for their sufferings For though death be a debt due to Nature yet in these causes Nature doth willingly resigne her right and God becomes the Creditor If we pay it unto him before the time of pure resolution Nature is better pleased with that anticipation then if we kept our set day He is the best debtour that paies before the time of payment The day of payment by the Covenant of Nature is old age but the good man paies before the day If the noblenesse of thy mind will not incite thee to such a forward satisfaction let the desire of gaine move thee for the sooner thou payest the more thou dost oblige Hee that suffers an immature death for the good of his Country for the sacred lawes or the vindication of the truth of God and not for his owne vain glory doth free himselfe from the Natural debt and doth at the same time make God his debtour and all mankind To a man that dyes thus all men are indebted God owes him for the Cause and men for the effect The last doth at least set us an example and the first improves the faith and gives life to Charity Adde to this that this great good of a passive death is a voluntary imitation of the Son of God who laid down his life for the life of the World And it is also done without our industry this great virtue this glorious perfection requires not our care and activity to bring it about This death is most pretious and the best because it is executed by others and not by ourselves To suffer death not to dye is glorious If prisoners break their chaines it is neither their glory nor their security but augments their Guilt and hastens their condemnation So
heaviest upon the heart And by this I am induced to believe that it is naturall for man to Suffer because he onely naturally weepes Every extraneous felicity of this life is violent or forced and these constrained though splendid Adiuncts of Fortune are therefore short because noe violent thing can be perpetuall To suffer is the naturall condition and manner of man this is believed to be his misery without patience I confesse it is Nature never failes us in those things which are needful much lesse divine providence and grace Wee shall therefore never faile of Sufferings because they are the great Necessaries Medicines of Humane Nature Wee read of many men that never laught but never heard of any that never wept Democritus himself came weeping into the World none ever came without labour none without griefe Thou wilt ask why man the only creature addicted to beatitude should bee borne to trouble why through the vale of teares travells he to the house of joy why is he alone being capeable of felicity made subject unto misery Because he is borne for virtue the next and readiest instrument to attaine beatitude Now troubles or miserie are the masse or first matter of virtue and without this hard rudiment without this coyne of sorrow he cannot purchase it Nor are the good offices which these calamities doe for us either meane or few for wherefore flowes yea overflowes the divine mercy upon man but because he is miserable wherefore is Gods sure power and saving arme stretched out but because he is fraile wherefore are his comforts and refreshments so plentifully showred down but because he is sorrowfull and helplesse wherefore is his liberality and most faithful providence seen every minute but because he is poore and constantly needy yea wherefore is Immortality everlasting pleasures and a glorious resurrection secured unto us but because our bodies are mortal and subject to death and putrefaction By this time perhaps you see the appositnesse of that comparison which Eliphaz made betwixt man and a bird The bird by nature lifts himself above the earth upon his wings he passeth from hence into the cleare confines and neighbourhood of heaven where he dwells for a time and looks with contempt upon this inferiour darksome portion of the world when hee descends towards the earth he keepeth still above us he lodgeth in the height and freshnesse of the trees or pitcheth upon the spires or ridges of our houses or upon some steepe rock whose height inaccessibleness promise him securitie something that is eminent and high he alwaies affects to rest upon Man likewise ordained for heaven and the contempt of this spot of earth is by his very calamities borne up and carried above the world yea into heaven as an Eagle by the strength of his wings ascends above the clouds O the depth of the riches of the wisedome of God! O the mercifull designe and devicâ— of his providence who knowing our corrupt nature hath laid upon us a necessity of seeking those blessings whose inestimable value ought to stirre us up to a most voluntary and diligent searching after them To this necessity by the same chain of his providence hath hee tyed utility These are sufficient motives to perswade us to patience It was wisely said by some Arabian that the hedge about patience was profit for he that thinks gaine to be necessary must think labour so too Allthough Fortune should be so prodigal as to poure all her Treasures into the bosome of one man and not repent when she had done yet would this very man sometimes feele strong exigencies in indigencie Pompey and Darius were both hardly distrest with thirst they that were Lords of so many Rivers did then wish for one drop of Water Alexander the Great in some of his expeditions was like to perish with cold though his Dominion did in a manner extend to the very Sun for in the East which I may call the Suns House he was such an absolute Lord that bating the Power to forbid the Sun to rise there was nothing more could be added to his conquests Seeing then that labour or troubles are a necessity imposed upon man it followes that there are other labours belonging unto him which are also as necessary and those I shall terme Voluntarie Labours Oâ— these the Elegant Philosopher Eusebiuâ— hath excellently spoken Voluntary Labours saith he are necessary because of future Labours which hang over our heads he will beare those with more ease when they fall upon him who of his own accord and beforehand hath exercised himself in them But you see that in this course also the maine remedy is patience He that suffers willingly suffers not even that which is necessary to be suffered One wedge drives out another Venemous bitings are allayd by Venemous Medecines therefore in necessary troubles there is a necessity of voluntary Labours that Violent Evills meet not with Obstinate Wills but the unavoydablenesse of suffering would not be grievous nor the necessity or Law of Nature any way rigorous did not we by our owne exaggerations adde to their weight and our owne pain Wee helpe to encrease our owne Calamities by reasom of our Inerudition as Diphilus tells us who adviseth even the happy man to learn miseries What can wee doe more becomming our fraile condition then to teach our Mortality the troubles of life which are certain prolusions or arguments of death What is more beneficiall then to learn great tryalls and dangers that wee may leave that servile custome of fearing Fortune whose burthens we ought to bear as willingly as if wee desired to undergoe them It is a great rudiment of patience to suffer willingly when we least expect sufferings It is strange that although wee see nothing in the course of this life more frequent then miseries yet will wee not be perswaded that they may fall into our share Our griefes come most commonly before we believe they may come Nothing can make us believe that we may be miserable untill misery it selfe assures it to us The mind therefore should be tryed and prepared for it with some lusorie or mock-misfortunes Nor must we give eare to Democritus whose saying is That if there be any things for us to suffer it is good to learn them but not to suffer them It is good indeed to learn them but if they must be unavoydably suffered what will our learning of them avail us A most ridiculous advise in my Judgement And if the Author of it had been wise he had laught at nothing more then at this his owne Conclusion It is good to learn to suffer Evills but not to be evill It will benefit us much to learn to suffer them if not as they are Evills yet lest wee our selves become Evill for such we shall be by impatience Besides the overcomming of reall evills there remaine other slight hurts as the discourtesies of nature chance and furie of our enemies and our selves also which we cannot
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
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
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
oppresse us at once Against violent misfortunes we may not use violence Expectation will sometimes serve us best if it be accompanied with a strong and irremisse beliefe that the Crosse is at hand and will not delay For what happens in this life more frequent than unthought of events Wee meete oftentimes even in one day with matter of grief and matter of Patience It is strange that for those two meales we eat in the day wee are all the day and all our life long providing But for trouble for griefes and sadnesse which take not up two houres in the day but all the houres and daies of our lives wee never think to make any preparation Cast up if thou canst how many things must be had to humor the pride of mans appetite more than for a Sacrifice It is no small state nor ceremonie that the belly is serv'd with How many men doth this worms-meat Imploy Cookes Bakers Fishers Fowlers Hunters Sheepfeeders Herdsmen Millers Colliers and Butchers How many Instruments Spits Pots Trivets Cauldrons Chasing-dishes Chargers Platters and a thousand other utensils of gluttonie And to what end is all this preparation But to please one palate once in the day or twice at most O foolish men Wee are ever providing for pleasures but never for troubles which not twice but for a great portion of our time if not continually wee must needs endure Who against the certain approach of an Enemy will be secure and quiet and upon the comming of a friend watchfull and sollicitous Why do we provide so much for pleasures and vanitie and provide nothing against the day of trouble and miserie We are guarded about with Cloaths of state Canopies Couches Silk-Curtains Feather-Beds and Pillowes wee arme our selves for delights and softnesse for sleeping and eating because they are every daies works but hear not every day telling us that the Evill day is behind We labour to provide for the backe and the belly why not for the better part why not for our fraile condition The Sense of the secure liver is too too delicate The affliction of the Inconsiderate or unprepared too bitter Chance throwes downe the carelesse violently and Fortune tires the idle even to vexation The rude and unexperienced in troubles afflicts and macerates himselfe with an impatient mind in the very midst of his most affected blaâ—dishments and in the bosome and calme of all his pleasures I hold Impatience to be a kind of Night-Mare which comes upon us waking or the Day-hag of life This troublesome disease for our time of rest is his time of misâ—ule and when wee are sleeping then is he stirring sets upon us when wee are most at ease and with a certain strange heavinesse seemes to oppresse and smother us when in the meane time that weight which so much oppresseth us is laid on by our owne Imagination and this sometimes makes us crye out as if wee were killed others according to Lucretius Struggle grone as if by Panthers torne Or Lyons teeth which makes them lowdly mourn Some others seem unto themselves to dy Some clime steep solitudes Mountains high From whence they seeme to fall inanely down Panting with fear till wak'd and scarce their owne They feel about them if in bed they lye Deceiv'd with dreams and nights Imagerie But the greatest trouble of all is that without any hope of remedy they vainly strive and endeavour to shake off this shadow of heavinesse In vain with earnest struglings they contend To ease themselves for when they stir bend Their greatest force to do it even thenmost Of all they faint and in their hopes are crost Nor tongue nor hand nor foot will serve their turne But without speech and strength within they mourne What more expresse Image can there be of Impatience lying heavily especially upon those who drouse away their time in a vitious rest and Idlenesse They are opprest cry out rage and vainly resist without any burthens but what their own fancy layes upon them They feele the weight the heavier the more they stirre it without they shake it quite off To refuse or not willingly to undergoe burthens is the onely burthen of Impatients But if they would awake to themselves which of necessâ—ty they must for when can the will be more Rational than when necessity is unreasonable all these factitious weights and seeming heavinesse would quickly vanish Force must not be used against Fortune but Patience This excells so much in strength that it bears all For it bears what ever it will and for this very reason because it Wills Samson carryed away the doâ—es the two posts and the barre of the Gate of the City of Gaza but this strength lay in his haire like the locks of Nisus and Pterelaus A miraculous strength but weakly secured The strength of Patience is more safely seated It lyes not in a lock which may be cut off by some Dalilah or Comethe or Scylla or any womanish and fearfull hand To Will is the Sanctuary of its strength by being willing it is not onely enabled to bear but also beareth The backe and shoulder of Patience is the Will This voluntary fortitude of the mind will do all its businesse without the help of outward Engines It needs not the assistance of the Armes nor the weak use of wishes The strength of Virtue is not external but in it self There remain also other necessary Indurances though not to those that suffer them allready yet to others that may or are about to undergoe them For the preservation of our Country liberties we ought patiently to suffer even unto death It is not too deare a rate to pay that debt wee owe to Nature for the defense of Nature in our publick Persons To this we want not the Incouragement of examples What ever hath been suffered heretofore may be suffered now by us But if those presidents rather cool then provoke our Courage why dare not wee suffer a little seeing they suffered so much To teach us this Virtue of Patience and strengthen our ruinous brittle condition the motherly love and fatherly care of the eternal Divine mind did provide and disperse through certaine spaces and Intervalls of time like knots for the strengthning of a weak reed persons of such eminent Patience and Piety as might by their examples sustaine and beare up mankind untill the Antient of daies and Father of Immortality himself should descend into this mortall life and be born for Patience and for death In the meane time that the populous World might not want a Glasse to dresse themselves by he sent these to be the substitutes and forerunners of his mighty and inimitable Patience The first he consecrated to this dignity was Abel in whom Patience saith holy Aldhelmus was Original as Sinne was in Adam God joyned Patience to his Innocence by a certain Original Justice or claim in him but to the rest of the Just it descends together with sufferings by
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
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
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
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
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