yet is so heedlesse that death doth surprize him hee suddenly falleth into griefes frightes dispaires horrors for not hauing in his life kept reckoning of those things which hee ought maturely and betimes to consider of Wee adde that this is wholly necessary by somuch the more as we are to render our account before the in euitable throne of the eternall Father of that great family which must appeare before him Verily the meditation of death is not irksome anxious perplexing nor ought we to deferre it from one yeare or age to another according to the sottish opinion of the vulgar But cleane contrary to thinke that nothing doth safeguard or assure vs so much in the middest of aduersities and dangers as such meditation It is that which makes vs sober in prosperitie prest ready and prepared in all euents Also as Saint Cyprian sayd to the people of Thibara wee weare not enrolled by Baptisme among Christian Souldiers to thinke that we ought to doe nothing else in the world then there to seeke and hunt after our pleasures and ease turning our backes to conflictes woundes death Saint Augustine writeth in the fifth Chapter of his thirteenth Booke De Ciuitate Dei That faith would vtterly bee weakened if presently after our Baptisme we should become immortall and should be crowned before we had fought 2. Let vs see in the second place what death is how many kindes there are and how it ought to bee feared and contemned Life and death according to Aristotle are common accidents to all liuing creatures for that the reason of originall and corruptible matter doth so beare mainetaine and require it Touching the condition of the first man and how hee had euer liued continuing in his obedience to God wee haue formerly spoken of it in the discourse of the tree of life Furthermore as the condition of man created after Gods image who kindly receiued him into his alliance was excellent By so much the more miserable dreadfull and terrible is the death into which hee fell after his reuolt then the death of other liuing creatures whose soule dyeth with the body and who after this annihilation feare no torment whatsoeuer But wee speake heere of the death of man which God caused not for hee also taketh no pleasure in the death of any but rather in the conuersion good and saluation of vs all This doth not impugne but that God is a iust Iudge punishing sinnes and suffering no misdeedes and transgressions vnpunished but bringing all things to their endes by miraculous meanes wherein his wisedome doth manifestly appeare although very often the instruments which hee vseth to execute his iust iudgements may haue foule crimes and grosse faults In this sence it is sayd That God woundeth killeth whetteth his sword that he bringeth to ruine that hee casteth the body and soule into hell and that hee sendeth the wicked into euerlasting fire So then God hath not made death but death is crept and entred into the world thorough the diuells enuy and malice and mans disobedience Saint Augustine in a certaine place sayth That if God had made death hee would not with teares haue bewayled dead Lazarus whom therefore hee raysed and restored to life that the diuell might see that it is but lost labour with such rage and fury to pursue the children of God to take them out of the world forasmuch as those whom we deeme vtterly lost and destroyed doe liue vnto God Touching their errour who held that Adam should haue dyed though he had not sinned Saint Augustine answereth That all Christians are to hold this point for firme and vndoubted that Adam and Eue were created such that if they had reiected the counsell of the seducer who spake by the Serpent continuing in the free liberty wherein they were they had enioyed eternall life and not dyed But making no reckoning of obeying God their Lord and abusing their free will prone and ready to yeeld to the suggestions of Sathan and their owne lustes and concupiscences so as they very soone felt the effect of the threatning denounced to them both In that day that thou shalt cate of the forbidden fruit thou shalt die the death Before his fall the first man was mortall as touching the condition of his body immortall by the good pleasure of his Creator before sinne hee could not dye But by the redemption of Christ Iesus the elect of God shall obtaine in the life eternall euen the same priuiledge that the holy Angells not to be able to fall from the state of grace nor to dye And as touching this point that our father Adam dyed not so soone as he had obeyed the voyce of Eue it doth derogate nothing from the truth of the sentence pronounced against him nor from the haynousnesse of his sinne For the sence and meaning of the threatning Thou shalt dye the death is as if God sayd certainely thou shalt be subiect to the first death which is a separation of the soule from the body and to the second death a fearefull punishment forasmuch as it is an euerlasting separation from God from the light of heauen from ioy vnspeakeable from the life which is blessed for euer If then it be demaunded how can it bee that Adam liued after his reuolt and falling away Gregorie the great doth sufficiently to the purpose make answere in his 145. Epistle of his fifth Booke that death in two kindes steps in and seizeth vpon vs eyther by the priuation and defection of life or by the quality of life In regard of the first kinde of death Adam dyed not so soone but rather as touching the second For presently after his disobedience being depriued of happinesse of the state of innocency of contentment of minde of a strong sound constitution of body hee felt himselfe couered with shame horrors sorrow with sundry miseries knew himselfe to be aliue in paine vnder the curse of his Soueraigne who was created by Gods fauour to liue in an excellent estate and perpetuall quiet and tranquility of minde Some thinke that wee meddle and goe too farre to say that man transgressing in time was pronounced guilty of temporall and eternall death The Iewes bewitched with the like errour doe dreame that they haue no need of a Messias to abolish and take away sinne and to deliuer from eternall death This errour did grow from the ignorance of the definition of sinne as also of the soueraigne and infinite Maiestie of God whom man had offended by his transgression For sin being a reuolt and falling away from God to ioyne and cleaue to the diuell and a transgression of the holy law in dispite of God man sinning could not escape eternall perdition and punishment but by the grace of his Redeemer as by obedience hee had kept his Creators fauour for euer Euen so then as it is not iniustice as Saint Augustine sayth in the 11. Booke De Ciuitate Dei Chap 11. If Magistrates capitally punishing many haynous
The sequele of the points propounded in the former Section concerning the resolutions and consolations against death Page 160. Chapter 19. Of the resurrection of the bodies and of the immortalitie of mens soules Page 180. Chapter 20. The conclusion of the Worke with a serious exhortation to old and young Also two Prayers for wise old men Page 196. Ay mee I lacke but life to make my will If thou hadst life it would be vnmade still Il y a esperance on vn bien faict Le plustost est le meilleur Hee that to doe nor good nor harme hath no deuotion Differs not from a Picture but in motion Dum Scribo Morior THE WISE VIEILLARD OR OLD MAN CHAP. 1. Of long life and the desire men haue to liue long in the world WE labour and essay in this Discourse that the aged person may haue his thoughts and affections somewhat more stayed and setled then those of younger yeares to the end to make him truely wise by expecting and longing vntill hee may bee perfectly euerlastingly wise in heauen By the wisdome which we wish vnto him no other thing is meant then that he should meditate and exercise himselfe in pietie iustice or vpright dealing charity or brotherly loue duties beseeming and requirable in the ancienter sort of persons in euery thing they doe so long as they soiourne and make their abode here on earth It is a thing very vsuall and common vnto vs all our life long which is but short to cast imagine continually with our selues the many difficulties and dangers are in it and it is a wonder to see how ingenious and witty we are to vexe and afflict our selues for triffles and things of no value There is nothing somuch doth trouble vs and makes old age terrible vnto vs as the feare to depart hence and to leaue this withering and transitory life whereof old age is the Catastrophe and last concluding act making an end of vs speedily and may be called the sunne set of our dayes Consider the ancienter sort of persons and you shall obserue almost no one humour so much predominant and raigning in them as a feruent desire to auoide all surfeitings and excesse and to keepe a good diet to the end to maintaine a little strength and to hold our life be it but for an houre and to perswade themselues they may liue one yeare longer at the lest Would you gladly please or flatter them doe but make them younger in yeares then they are by telling them they are not so old as they reckon and take themselues to be and that there is no cause or likelihood but they may liue many a yeare longer then others and forget not in words to extoll their experience sufficiency prudence and wisedome to contriue and wade thorough great matters you are by and by their onely man who but you none more made on It is a point of vndoubted truth that God created Adam and Eue not onely to enioy a life for some hundred of yeares but to liue for euer whereupon there was fixed and imprinted in their heartt a feruent desire to liue and not to see death For although that masse and lumpe of dust whereof the first mans body was formed and made did inuest him with mortalitie yet in regard of the likenesse and similitude which hee had with God death had neuer seized on him but Adam all his posteritie had subsisted and continued long vpon earth in a large and pleasant plot of ground purposely ordained for them to dwell in the whole world before sin entred being wonderfully beautifull vntill such time as he and all his posteritie without feeling griefe of minde or paine of body had beene by God translated into heauen if they had remained in the first estate wherein they were created But Adam and Eue hauing wilfully suffered Sathan to efface and deface the image of God in them they both and all their naturall off-spring long of them were made subiect vnto death became strangers to the life of God and were called Flesh an appellation and name very fit for them Howsoeuer this bee so yet by the speciall blessing of the Father of heauen through the meanes and fauour of his beloued Sonne who was ordained to be the Sauiour of all mankinde this present life how miserable soeuer it be by reason of sinne is no small Donation or pettie Legacy but a most excellent gift of God vnto his children I speake of long life promised to them which shall beare and behaue themselues as they ought to doe toward God and toward their neighbours as is recorded in the second and fifth commandement of the morall law where the promises are set downe whereunto that which is further added in the end of the 91. Psalme is referred and hath relation That hee which vnfainedly loueth the Lord shall be satisfied with long life But this longitude and length of life must not cause vs to forget especiall in all our troubles and trialls that by death wee haue rest and case from our toylings and labours and that this life of ours is a paineful pilgrimage a Sea-voyage full of danger and perill a mercilesse war sparing none making hauocke of all deseruing by reason of the euills that wee suffer and indure in it to bee tearmed rather a death then a life Vpon the consideration whereof a certaine graue ancient Father cried out O death how welcome and pleasing is thy doome and sentence to him that is in want to the man whose strength faileth him to him that is waxen very old and is afflicted on all sides hauing no part of him free from paine to the man that is at defiance and out of loue with himselfe and to him that hath cast off patience and is growne desperate What thing is there that may bee more desired then speedily to shake off and rid vs of these chaines to get out of the prison and darke and fearefull dungeons and deserts wherein wee are confined fast tied and bound that so wee may recouer the precious libertie to goe to our home to dwell in the house of the Lord and in his Palace of glory to triumph and reioyce What doth long life bring with it but a Chaos and infinite number of euills It hath beene said many yeares agoe This grieuous penalty vpon old men is set All the day long at home to grieue and to fret With sorrowes and woes they are compast about Still one paine or other they are neuer without They consume and weare old as they goe mourning in blacke And so at last with griefes heauy load away hence doe packe But he that hath liued well although he die when he is but twentie yeares old ought to haue his tombe erected and placed with the oldest and wisest and with great ioy and applause to haue this for his Epitaph I haue liued long enough and am content here to lye Because nature is pleas'd I should so
and reckons of death the threatnings and rage of Tyrants As Solon who being demanded By what vertue hee did so braue the Tyrant Pisistratus answered His old age Touching the contempt of death and a resolution couragiously to apprehend and embrace it who will not maruell to heare the wordes which the great Cyrus King of Persia vttered to his sonnes a little before his death My dearely beloued sonnes said he when you shall see mee no more thinke not therefore I am quite annihilated and no where for when I was in your company you could not perceiue my soule but onely discusled it in your minde to be in my body by the deedes and actions you saw me to doe Beleeue then that the soule is still aliue and in being although you see my body no more Neuer could any man perswade mee that the soules of mortall men perish with their bodies nor that being departed out of our bodies past feeling and sense that they are without feeling and sense on the contrary seeing that the soul being at liberty and hauing nothing to doe with the body begins to become pure and wholy to see and behold it selfe I hold and maintaine that then it is in full perfection of knowledge and vnderstanding Furthermore the case standing thus that death is the dissolution of nature wee see whither all things tend to wit to their first matter whereof they were made the soule excepted which we see not how it comes into the body remaines there nor goes out You see that there is nothing so much resembles death as sleepe But the soules of those which sleepe shew their diuine nature in this point that being free from disturbance and at rest see and behold things a farre off and to come which plainely declares what they must bee after they are deliuered from the prison of the body This being so reuerence mee my sonnes as a thing diuine but if the soule be to perish with the body yet giue not you ouer to feare the gods which maintaine vphold gouerne this Principall master peece called Man And in this doing as good children you shall inuiolably preserue my name To this Oration which is bettered by Cicero in his Dialogue of old age reciting Socrates who in prison wisely and stoutly discourseth of the immortality of the soule Old Cato also addeth that seeing the soules of men are so prompt and apprehensiue to remember things past and of so wise foresight in things future and to come haue inuented so many trades arts sciences so many rare and notable things It is impossible that such natures capable of so great excellencies should bee mortall And seeing the soule is in continuall agitation and motion which shee originally hath not to wit from any extrinsecall cause and from other then her Creatour which Cicero forgetteth seeing shee mooues and stirres of her selfe it followes that shee shall euer haue such agitation and motion for shee will neuer leaue or abandon to bee her selfe Further that the soule in it owne nature being a substance simple pure vnmixt hauing no disagreeing qualities cannot be diuided and being indiuiduall it followes it is immortall which serues to prooue that men are capable and of vnderstanding before they bee borne seeing that children in learning the baser and more seruile and meaner trades arts and sciences doe on a suddaine comprehend and conceiue infinit things ere on would say they begin to apprehend and vnderstand what this or that is but onely their memories serue them to retaine and beare them away Cato afterward affirmeth further That if the soules of men were not immortall good men would not desire or aspire to a glory which is durable and ay-lasting What meanes this saying That euery wise man dieth most willingly and the wicked depart hence full fore against their will and with much griefe and vexation of minde Seemes it not vnto you that the soule which sees more cleerely and father off knowes she goes to a better place On the contrary hebere dull and sencelesse man is vncapable and ignorant heereof Verily I desire nothing more then to see your forefathers whom I haue made much on respected and honoured and besides I desire to be with those of whom I haue heard men to speake and discourse whose bookes I haue seene and perused and whose names I haue quoated and mentioned in mine owne writings Now that I am onward in my way and making hast to goe to them It would be a troublesome and hard matter to hale mee or make mee roule or goe backe as men would a ball or a bowle And if God had made me a grant to become a childe againe and to cry in a cradle I should stifly and with might and maine refuse such an offer for seeing I haue almost finished my course I will not bee recalled from my last end to my first state and condition Is there any commoditie in this life Is not this life painefull in all her reuolutions terminations periods and endes But put the case this life hath many commodities so it is that wee may be full gorged satiated and glutted with them and see and end of them too I will not for all that way wardly and testily fret fume storme and chaffe at this life as many learned men haue oftentimes done and I repent me not that I haue liued for I haue so spent my dayes that I account of my selfe as one that hath serued for some vse and for something in the world I goe out of this life as out of an Inne and not as one out of a house seeing that nature leaues vs here in this world a time to passe and walke vp and downe but not heere to settle abide and continue O happy the day when I shall goe to the holy company of blessed soules and shall leaue the base rabble and rascally route of the world See heere for certaine the worthy Treatises of men ignorant of the immortality of mans soule but as they did gropingly and blindely imagine Notwithstanding they were grounded vpon this imagination that nothing being so common nor of more price and account with man then the loue and preseruation of himselfe a care and regard ought especially to bee had of that part which properly may be called Man to wit the soule and that the way and meanes to liue well and happily consisteth in the knowledge and comtemplation of things diuine inciting and prouoking vs to good workes so as the tranquility of our mindes consisteth not properly in being freed from paine and griefe but rather in being deliuered from those raging and vnruly passions which hurry the wicked vp and downe For as Seneca sayth in his booke De Prouidentia those casuall miseries which our owne hands bring not vpon vs are sent for our good that our many vertues may the more gloriously shew and appeare and that as wee cut Vines to make them yeeld the more fruit so by the smart and wound of
crimes and offences doe banish for euer the malefactors from humane society Who shall dare to say that it is iniquity in God the Lord of the permanent and durable City if he eternally banish out of his kingdome of glory his sworne enemies the wicked who continually offend him And the polluted prophane vniust reprobates who plot and conspire against God and their neighbours remaine for euer vnder the wrath and curse of the Lord For iustification of all consider onely the corruption of humane nature and what the sonnes of Adam are in themselues For howsoeuer the beleefe touching the immortality of mans soule be orthodox and most true yet may it fitly bee sayd that the soule is subiect to a certaine kind of death Wee call it immortall because it ceaseth not to liue and in some sort to haue sence and feeling The body is mortall because it may bee depriued of life which consistes in the residence of the soule in it from whence floweth that which doth maintaine it not liuing of it selfe but by the soule which doth gouerne and mooue it But the death of the soule is when God doth abandon it and depriue it of his grace And wee say that man is vtterly dead when the soule is quite gone out of the body and that God doth abandon the soule finally adiudged to euerlasting torments S. Augustine will that the name of death bee deriued from the venomous morsure or sting of the infernall serpent the diuel then by him brought into the world when hee first bit and stung out first mother Eue leauing fast sticking in vs the sting of sinne which the Apostle calleth the sting of death This sting being blunted and taken away death ceaseth mortally to sting vs. When S. Ambrose writeth in his Treatise of the benefit of death Chap. 1. 2. that death hurteth not the soule consequently is not euill seeing that nothing but sinne hurteth the soule it is to bee vnderstood of the bodily death in respect of Gods children Therefore hee maketh a â—hree-fold distinction of death the one good the other euill the third good or euill The good is the mysticall death when a man dyeth to sinne and liueth to God whereof the Apostle speaketh That we are buried with Christ Iesus into his death by Baptisme The euill is the death of sinne whereof it is written Then soule that sinneth shall dye And the third is the end of our race and calling in this world that is the separation of the soule from the body of good men accounted good of wicked men euill Although death doth vnshackle and set all persons at liberty very few yet are to bee found which take pleasure therein But this proceedeth not from any offence that is in death that is in the separatiof the soule from the body but from the infirmity of mortall men who suffering themselues to goe on in their carnall pleasures and delights of this life doe tremble and feare to see themselues at the end of their race in the earth louing long life there to liue euilly that is there to dye hourely O how sweet is the good death to wise old men to men and women who are the seruants of God who watch who pray who cry to their Lord in repentance in faith and charity who manfully fight against all temptations And how bitter is the euill death to those euill soules vnbeleeuers stiffe necked ones hypocrites who wrap themselues in their sinnes who haue no pleasure hope nor comfort but in this world These things being so it is easie to shew how death is to be feared or not Certainely the death of sinners is euill who not content to be borne in sinne liue still in all manner of iniquities But the death of the Saints is precious being the end of their labours and toyles the conseruation and custos of their victory the doore of life and the entrance into an assured perfect glorious rest Those are to bee bewayled in their death who haue hell for their prison But it beseemes vs to reioyce and bee glad at their departure whom God doth bid welcome into his heauenly Palace where they magnifie him for euer If any one aske vs sayth Lactantius in the third Booke of his Christian Institutions whether death be good or euill wee will answere that the qualitie thereof doth consist in the consideration of life in it selfe Death in it selfe cannot bee sayd to bee good pleasing and to be desired on the contrary it is the destruction of nature and the reward of sinne But wee must esteeme it a thing worthy great prayse pleasing and full of grace and delight when wee dye ioyfully in the true knowledge of Christ Iesus to goe out of the prison of this mortall body out of this valley of miseries out of this desart where we are exiled persons to returne to our Father our countrey and heauenly city He dyeth well who with the Apostle sayth in sincerity of conscience all my desire is to depart hence and to bee with Christ Iesus Particularly as touching my selfe I haue fought the good fight I haue finished my course I haue kept the faith also the crowne of righteousnesse is layd vp and reserued for mee which the Lord the iust Iudge shall in that day giue vnto me not to me onely but to those who loue his appearing Againe death and the remembrance and apprehension of it is wonderfull irkesome and bitter to a man which trusteth in his riches liuing in all ease in full strength of body and prosperity Here we demand what we are to judge of the death of those who are cruelly quartered and dismembred by hangmen or by fierce and wilde beastes are swallowed vp in the belly of fishes are stifled with a suddaine apoplexie are bereaued of wit sense and reason by some hot burning feaver or who die franticke and madd As for those who are put to cruell death for the name of Christ Iesus the answere is that their death cannot bee tearmed and accompted but deare and precious in the sight of the Lord and of all his Church For if the heathen Philosophers haue had some reason to say that a vertuous man leaues not to be happie though he bee put to a violent death why should we not say the same of the true vertuous to wit the holy Martyrs seeing we haue so certaine testimonies and so many famous examples of their faith charitie patience and constancie in death The Epistle to the Hebrewes is herein expresse for it conteyneth the heroicall trophies of faith also the opprobries disgracefull reuilings and cruell torments of the invincicible Champions of Christ Iesus But I pray you what torments can dismay and terrifie him which glorieth in the crosse of Christ Iesus among all others a shamefull and terrible torment and death Turtullian obserueth in his Apologetico that in his tyme Christians were called Sarmentitij Semissij bavinistes and poore snakes because they were bound to a stake which
the Sea with Shipps This Monarch considering from the toppe of a hill many millions of men at his seruice in warres fell a weeping that at the end of a hundred yeares not one of them should be aliue And if we loue added he this advantage to be mounted vpon so high a watch Tower that from thence we may behold all the earth vnder our feete and so many kingdomes fallen to ruine also many liuing men some tortured others strangled and drowned on the one side festiualles on the other side funeralles some to be borne others to die To what straight and exigent should we be brought if wee were not assured that all these things are ordered by the just appoyntment of the All-mightie S. Ambrose in his exposition of the creation of the world sayth that all men are borne and die naked that there is no difference betweene the bodies of poore men and rich but that the bodies of rich-men being very pursie well fed and fat while they liue are more puant and stinking then the bodies of poore men Besides these helpes and supports against death which the Heathens haue collected from our condition to be borne and to die they haue from thence collected other causes which we are now to discusse and examine and whereof Ciceco speaketh in his Dialogue of old age as followeth We know how chearefully and manfully souldiers contemne death why then should wise old men feare it To haue our fill of all things causeth that we haue our fill and satietie of life Those who die well liue a life which alone deserueth the name but so long as we are locked vp in the prison of the bodie wee are as it were plunged deepe in the earth and exiled very farre from and beneath our heauenly Mansion Wherfore all wise men die willingly fooles on the contrarie leaue this world against their will mauger their teeth or in brutish ignorance Socrates the last day of his death discoursed of the immortalitie of the soule Cyrus a little before his death sayd to his sonnes Doe not thinke that after I shall be dead I am annihilated and brought to nothing If some god said Cato in the same Dialogue would permit me to returne from old age to childhood and to cry in a Cradle I should forbeare to accept such a condition nor would I for any thing returne to the beginning of my race hauing almost finished it For what commoditie is found in a life tossed to and fro with turmoyles and toyles as this present life is Notwithstanding I will not bewayle it nor doe I repent me to haue liued I which goe out of this world as out of an Inne not as out of a house seeing nature hath giuen vs a cabbin here of ingresse and egresse but not to stay and continue O how glorious will that day be wherein I shall be found in the holy assembly of soules and shall goe to heauen Certainely Old age is the end and Epilogue of our life even as of some Comedie or Interlude Loe here some sayings of Cicero in the fore-mentioned dialogue In the first Booke of his Tusculane questions wherein he expressely treateth of the contempt of death among other his sayinges and discourses we reade that among the old Latines whom the Poet Ennius calleth Cascj that it was a doctrine held from Father to Sonne that death did not abolish man so as it might be sayd he was vtterly perished The sages would not haue set out and adorned their funerals sepulchers and tombes with such ceremonies nor hallowed them with so many devotions if they had certainely held that death is an vtter destruction of the whole man on the contrarie they were in this poynt perswaded that it was a departure and change of life which brought worthie men and women to heauen Plato also bringeth in Socrates condemned to death saying to his judges I hope that good shall befall me to die For if all sense and feeling be abolished in death it bringeth a quiet and perpetuall rest but if that which is said of it be found true that it is a departure out of this world to goe into places where those that be dead are assembled together what contentment shall it be to me to talke and discourse with them It is further addeth Cicero a sound and solid Argument that nature it selfe proclaimes the soules of men to be immortall in this that all men haue a wondrous care what shall become of them and all thinges else after their death and die very willingly when life beginning to faile and to leaue them may stay and settle it selfe vpon a good conscience and a worthie euidence to it selfe In the second Booke of the Lawes these words following are read Our auncestors haue ordained that the dead should bee canonized and placed in the number of gods by certaine ceremonies which they did institute Ennius as of opinion that wee were not to weepe for the dead because their soules were immortall Plato sayd in the first Booke of his Common weale that a man which hath this good testimonie in himselfe to haue done no man wrong is alwayes vpheld with a greacious and stedfast hope the good nursse and supportresse of his old age And againe Cicero in his first Booke of Tusculane questions writeth these words You haue in sleepe the image of death wherein you are sheeted and wrapped vp euery night Are you in doubt then that there is no more sense in death seeing you know that in sleepe the soule of man is never at rest Moreouer banish farre from you those old wiues fables and comptes that it is a great miserie to die before the time And of what time Of Nature But nature hath lent vs life as siluer or coyne without setting vs a day of restitution but to restore it backe againe at her will and pleasure Why then doe you complaine if shee call for and demand her owne againe when it pleaseth her seeing you hold and haue it vpon this condition With what alacritie and chearefulnesse ought we to goe that way at which wayes end we shall be released and discharged of all carefull carkinges fascheries and anxieties of minde A woman of Sparta hauing sent her sonne to the warre and tydinges being brought her that hee was slaine in the battaile with great courage answered that shee did beare him to the end he should die for his Countrie Seneca an excellent Stoicke Philosopher hath verie worthie precepts in his morall Bookes touching death We could compile a great Booke of them but not to be too long too large it shall suffice vs to cull out some sentences of them which shall be able to giue the reader a taste and desire to see the rest I will beginne at the end of the thirteenth Epistle which speaketh to old men Among other euills folly hath yet this one that shee still begins to liue This poynt sheweth how bad and scurrilous the levitie and giddie humour of men
things in the world and not to be paralleld whereof the reason is hid from vs though we see the things themselues But there is a great difference betweene the destruction or annihilation and the change of nature As we beleeue the resurrection of this our flesh so is it certaine that the nature of the same flesh shall subsist and remaine in the life eternall But the condition shall be changed in as much as this flesh vile and miserable shall be made glorious and happy These are some proofes brought by Tertullian Lactantius Firmianus in his Booke of the Heauenly Reward Chap. 23. obserueth That the Pagan Philosophers who desired to discourse of the last resurrection haue confounded and soyled this Article of our faith as al the Poets haue done Pythagoras maintained that the soule did transmigrate and passe out of one mans body into anothers and that he himselfe in the Troian warre was Euphorbus Chrysippus the Stoicke hath made a better answere who in his Booke De Prouidentia discoursing of the restauration of the world addeth This being so wee see that it is not impossible that after our death at the end of the reuolutions of some ages wee may bee restored againe into the state and condition wherein we are now But as Lactantius addeth the faith of Christians is much otherwise and their hope much more certaine For they vndoubtedly beleeue the resurrection of the flesh confirmed by most sacred and inuincible proofes of the holy Scripture by the promises of God and by the motions of the Spirit which raysed vp Christ Iesus from the dead as the Apostle declares it in the eight Chapter to the Romanes saying If the Spirit of him that raysed vp Iesus from the dead dwell in you hee that raysed vp Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortall bodies because of the Spirit dwelling in you True it is that the wicked shall rise againe in their bodies but this shall not bee for any communion they haue with the body of Christ Iesus nor with his Spirit but simply by the absolute power of God who shall giue them againe their being life and motion to suffer the second death being for euer damned in their bodies and soules So then such a resurrection cannot be counted grace nor called regeneration nor a resurrection to life but a repairing to condemnation whereof S. Iohn writes these wordes in the twentith Chapter of the Apocalips Verse eleuenth c. I saw a great white throne and one that sate on it from whose face fled away the earth and the heauen and their place was no more found I saw the dead great and small standing before God and the Bookes were opened and another Booke was opened which is the Booke of Life and the dead were iudged by the things which were written in the bookes according to their workes and the Sea gaue vp her dead which were in her and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which were ion them and they were iudged euery man according to their workes And the wicked were cast into the lake of fire this is the second death And whosoeuer was not found written in the Booke of Life was cast into the lake of fire Blessed then bee God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ who by his great mercy hath regenerated vs into a liuely hope by the resurrection of Christ Iesus from the dead to obtain an incorruptible inheritance which cannot bee defiled nor fade away reserued in the heauens for vs who are kept by the power of God thorough faith to haue the saluation prepared to be reuealed at the last day wherein we reioyce being now made heauy by diuers temptations as it is meete to the end that the triall of our faith much more precious then gold which perisheth and yet is tried in the fire may turne to our prayse honour and glory when Iesus Christ shall be reuealed who speaketh thus vnto vs in the person of his Disciples in the beginning of the 14. Chapter of S. Iohn Let not your hearts bee troubled You beleeue in God beleeue also in me There are many dwelling places in my Fathers house I goe to prepare a place for you and when I shall be gone hence and shall haue prepared a place for you I will come againe and will receiue you to my selfe that where I am there may you be also Then shall be the true regeneration and restauration of Gods children when the soule emptied of all errour ignorance and malice shall be filled with new illumination perfect righteousnesse and holinesse when the body clothed with glory and immortalitie shall see death swallowed vp in victory In him there shall be no fainting decâ—ying drooping nor old age The bodies of the Saints sayth S. Augustine in the 19. chap. of his Manuel shal rise againe without blemish without deformity without corruption heauines or impediment This shall as easily be done as their felicity shall be consummated for which cause wee call them spirituall although their bodies ought still to remaine not to be changed into Ghosts and Spirits As for the corruption which now presseth downe the soule and the vices by whose meanes the flesh lusteth against the spirit such flesh shall cease to be because it could not be able to possesse the Kingdome of God In regard of the substance of the same flesh it shall not be abolished but still remaine but euerlastingly glorified For this cause S. Paul said That the body being sowen a fleshly body shall rise againe a spirituall body because there shall be so strong an vnion betweene the soule and the body that the soule making the body to liue without any supply of nourishment and hauing no more combate and striuing within vs betweene the spirit and the flesh all being then spirit we shall not feele any enemies assaults nor dangers whatsoeuer without nor within but shall be repleat compassed about saciated crowned with permanent glory Behold as touching this point of the resurrection of the flesh The beleefe of this Article encourageth all Christians but particularly wise old men patiently to beare their infirmities and maladies remembring the counsell of the Apostle S. Peter in the third Chapter of his second Epistle Seeing that so it is sayth he that the heauens and the earth must be dissolued what manner of persons ought wee to bee in holy couersation and holy workes looking for and hasting vnto the comming of the day of the Lord by whom the heauen being set on fire shall bee dissolued and the Elements shal melt with heate But according to his promise wee looke for new heauens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Wherefore beloued seeing ye looke for such things be diligent that ye may bee found of him in peace without spot and blamelesse Let vs strengthen this Article of the resurrection by the notable sayings of S. Paul to the Corinthians Chap. 5. of the 2. Epistle We must all appeare before the iudgement
the Beastes doe suour the earth and desire nothing but that which is earthie and of the earth Man on the contrary as the wisest of the Heathens especially Plato and Cicero in diuers passages of their writings doe obserue hath a diuine and heauenly soule which being enfranchised and deliuered out of the prison of the bodie returneth to the place of his originall And the more generous the mind of man is the more he lusteth after and desireth heauenly thinges meditating and looking for a better state and condition then he enioyeth in this present life From thence it commeth to passe that he despiseth losses and troubles calamities wounds and death it selfe holding it a great honour to yeeld vp his soule in some valiant and vertuous exployt and enterprise for the seruice and safetie of his Countrie to the end to goe to the other life where good men haue their reward Salust sayth that the vertuous effectes and suffringes of the minde are no lesse immortall then the soule it selfe which to vs is common with God but the body assimilateth and a greeth with the beastes Another reason hath strongly perswaded the auncient Philosophers to beleeue the immortality of mans soule That God should seeme otherwise vniust if he should suffer the vau-neantes treacherous dissolute to prosper in the world after to escape his vengeance and good men who are industrious and imploy themselues to preserue humane societie should vtterly perish in death without hope of rest at the end of their trauailes and of ioy after so many disquiets and griefes of minde and of a crowne at the end of so many thousand fought battailes and combatts Vndoubtedly prophane persons who are bold to thinke and affirme the soule of man to bee mortall doe abolish as much as in them lyes all pietie and religion they ouerthrow all vertuous and laudable actions and enterprises and as S. Ambrose very well sayth in his exposition of the worke of the six dayes they are madd-men Furthermore what is more avers preposterous and ill beseeming then to haue a straight body and a crooked soule alwayes groveling and stooping to the earth never lifting or rouzing vp it selfe toward heauen her true dwelling place But as God our creator hath plainly instructed vs in his word touching the originall end and soueraigne good of man It is also from the same word that wee must gather the infallible doctrines which we doe handle Mans soule was not composed of the elements nor fabricated or formed of the dust of the earth but the Lord God inspired it and endowed it with diuers gifts Little children doe obtaine even a soule of God their creator to wit a reasonable soule not of the seed of their fathers and mothers but by the singular fauour and benefit of him whom the Apostle Hebr. 12. calleth the Father of spirits and not without cause For although that he be the father of our bodies yet notwithstanding he created not our soules by corporall helpes but hath placed them in our bodies as excellent lampes and lights as Salomon speakes of them Prov. 20. 7. We call them immortall for two reasons first by reason of their essence which is spirituall and originarie or primarie from God the giuer of it Secondly in regard of the grace peculier to the children of God for so much as we haue communion with Iesus Christ the eternall Word of the Father the Prince and author of life This immortall and eternall life is the true happie life and so much to be desired so much recommended in the Scripture whereof Saint Paul sayth The just shall liue by faith Rom. 1. 17. Also who beleeueth in me hath eternall life Iohn 6. 47. And the Apostle sayth Iesus Christ hath abolished death and brought life and immortalie vnto light thorough the Gospell 2 Timoth. 1. 10. For although the soules of the wicked in regard of their essence sense and motion be immortall neuerthelesse they suffer death in as much as they are depriued of the iustice light beatitude and glorious life of God vpon which cause the wicked who triumph and braue it for a while in the world are called dead and after this present life it is sayd that they goe into condemnation and into eternall death because the state wherein they are then to be and remaine in perpetuall torments deserueth rather the name of death then life Prophane people talke they know not what in obiecting vnto vs that neuer any came from the other world as they babble and prattle to tell newes of them O the greatest fooles and idiots among people O silly sotts will they be still madde miserable and more brutish them beasts who beleeue nothing but what they see with their eyes and touch with their hands According to their babble they ought to giue ouer to beleeue that they doe participate of reason seeing they doe not see their soule Let them giue ouer to beleeue that our friends dwelling remote and farre from vs doe liue and are at their ease and content desiring to see vs againe and that because wee see them no more But to proceed it is not simply true that neuer any returned from the other life on the contrary the Histories of the Old and New Testament doe furnish vs with examples of men and women of young striplings and damsells raised againe from death The Prince of our faith the head of all Christians our Lord Iesus descending from heauen to assume our humaine nature in earth hath tould vs ample and gladsome newes of the state of heauen and of life eternall His ascension to heauen in bodie and soule is an assured pledge that we also shall ascend into heauen in our bodies and soules S. Paul caught vp into the third heauen where he was informed of the high and deepe mysteries and secrets of God from thence came to tell vs afterward many particularities of the Church Christ Iesus is in heauen and we shall liue there For although that death dissolue the bodie into dust from whence it was taken death cannot let the soule to returne to him that gaue it And when we die young and old let vs after the example of Christ Iesus and of Dauid recommend our soules to God rendring them into his hands as into the handes of a most faithfull keeper and gardian of them And let vs say with S. Stephen Lord Iesus receiue my soule being well assured that at the same houre when it shall be fit for vs to goe out of this present life we haue part in that gracious promise of the sonne of God made to the sinner conuerted Verely I say vnto thee that this day thou shalt be with me in Paradize This is the sweete voyce which still ought to be sounding in the heart of the wise Vieillard to the end that being at the poynt to leaue this world as his age plainely shewes him his conscience doe not smite and checke him to be a prophane person and a contemner
had of some comfort after many sorrowes and afflictions yet may it be said that the world was then in his prime and best dayes At which time these good Patriarches were not booke learned but all the knowledge they had in naturall Philosophy or in the course of the Starres they got it by long obseruation and experience which from the grandfathers and fathers were deliuered ouer and taught to their children and to their childrens children as Iosephus witnesseth in his first booke of Antiquities and third Chapter Many wondering heereat haue mooued this question whether it be likely or probable that the Patriarched liued so long as nine hundred yeares and vpwards as our first father Adam Methusula and Noah did Some curious wits whose maner is to measure euery thing by the meat-wand and rule of their owne ouerweening pride who because they could not perswade themselues that the years of the Patriarches were composed of twelue moneths or of three hundred threescore fiue dayes euery day hauing foure and twenty houres and euery houre his ordinary minutes haue imagined as Saint Augustine reports in his 15. Booke De ciuitate Dei chap 10. 12. that the yeares of the first world were not reckoned according to our present computation and style but that one of our yeares now is as much in the ballance of account as tenne yeare then and they held their opinion for currant and to bee approoued for that the people of the old world doe still to this day differ about the calculation of the yeare For the AEgyptians had their yeare of foure moneths the Acarnans of sixe and the Lauinians of thirteene moneths Plinie the second hauing written that the Histories make mention of two whereof one liued one hundred fiftie and two yeares and the other liued two hundred yeares and of many that liued till they were eight hundred yeeres old addeth that the ignorance of the times gaue credit to such tales and reports because there were of the antienter men of those times that did shut vp and inclose the yeare within the seaesons thereof some of them reckoning the yeare by the summer season others did put the summer and winter season together and made two yeares of them both and some of them did reckon the interuall and space from the change of the Moone to the last day of the wayne for a whole yeere But besides that the history of the Deluge being heedfully looked into and examined according to his moneths and dayes doth confute this errour Saint Augustine declareth that such coniectures can haue no force or authoritie in this dispute and driueth these curious disputers into a manifest absurditie For if seuenty yeare 's then were but seuen of our yeares now Kenan when he was seuen yeares old begot his sonne Mahalaleel and Mahalaleel being onely fiue yeares old and a halfe should haue had Iered as Henoch also at the same age should haue begot his sonne Methusula But not to stand and relye vpon the vaine disputes of prophane people who being ignorant in the Art of Astronomy and Celestiall motions haue inuented yeares after their owne fancy and haue intricated themselues in infinite errours which time by the helpe and skill of learned Astronomers hath reformed and corrected Most sure and certaine it is that after the Deluge the whole earth by that fearefull punishment of the inundation of waters failed to yeeld his foison and strength as before and men being more luxurious and dissolute of life liued not so long as they did before as appeareth by the Genealogy of the sonnes of Sem in the 11. Chapter of Genesis Presently the yeares of the holy Patriarches did ebb and abate of their number and in processe of time men in their manners grew worse and worse so that at last in the time of Iacob the age of man did shrinke away and decay very much and afterward much more in the time of Moyses whereof wee may haue an instance and proofe in the nintie Psalme although the yeares there mentioned seeme to be abriged and cut off for an extraordinary rod of correction to them in the Desert Caius the lawyer giueth his iudgement that the houre-glasse of mans life euen of those that are of the ablest bodies and mindes cannot runne much longer then a hundred yeares In the bookes of Heathen Authors there are found notable and rare examples and perhaps fabulous of men that haue liued very old The yeares of Nestor are become a proueeb by reason that Homer gaue it out that he liued thee hundred yeares The Tragedian Poets broach it for a truth that one Tiresias liued sixe hundred yeares and Plinie in his 7. Booke Chap. 48. hath set downe a Catalogue of old men that liued to a very great age Sabellicus in his AEneades reporteth that in Arabia men liue till they bee foure hundred yeares full out Our French Historiographers doe celebrate the memory of one Iohn des temps who had an Esquires place vnder Charlemagne about the year 800. and liued vntill the yeare 1124. vnder the Emperour Conrad the third In our dayes there haue beene found in the East and West Indies old men that haue out liued two hundred yeares and in diuers parts of Europe chiefly in the temperate Clymates but especially in the mountaine countries there be found men aboue a hundred yeares old that are very voluble and fluent in talke and discourse But whether this bee so or no all wise men agree in this that although God by his speciall blessing for certaine great reasons hath drawne out the dayes of some of his children to a very great length and that oftentimes it falleth out that the wicked suddainly perish and haue their life taken away for their rebellion against him as the whole race of Cain was swallowed vp of the flood and not a man of them left aliue Yet this earth that beares vs vp and whereupon we tread is not the Land of the liuing as Basil declareth in his exposition vpon the 44. Psal For here before the soule goes out of the body we are often and long a dying feele many assaults of death who giues vs many a sore blowe deadly wound before he kil vs out-right first our infancy dies in vs next our childhood afterwards our youth or age of twentie or one and twentie yeares growth consequently our manly and middle age which is followed with old age which changeth both vs and our affections making vs to liue after another manner We shall then be in the land of the liuing when wee shall be the same men we seeme to bee vnchangeable without griefe of minde or sicknesse of body not subiect to any corruptions or defilements nor frowardly liuing in strife and debate While we liue in this tabernacle of the body as Saint Paul saith 2. Cor. 5. 4. Wee sigh and mourne being heauily burthened not that wee desire to be stripped or vnclothed but to be clothed againe that that which
is mortall in vs may bee swallowed vp of life In heauen which indeed is the land of the liuing we shall be stripped of all that is vile contemptible mortall fraile and corruptible in vs and shall bee clothed with a robe of glory and blessed immortality In which countrey as Saint Augustine in some place saith we shall finde true and faithfull dealing and from whence all impostures errour and falshood is banished as there our ioy shal be a true ioy so there our life also shall bee a true life Now although the damned doerise againe yet to speake properly they shall not liue for their life shall bee in perpetuall torments and therefore are they stil kept aliue that their tortures should neuer haue end that their gnawing worme die not and that their fire of torment goe not out That life onely is to bee accounted a life which is both euerlasting and happy God hauing no purpose therefore that his elect children should mewe vp or confine their felicitie within the little narrow compasse of a brittle and perishing life but should seeke out and looke for another countrey where they may liue at more libertie and for euer hath beene contented to giue them a most assured testimony thereof before the law and before the flood in the person of the Patriarch Henoch then vnder the law in the middle age of the world in the person of his Prophet Eliah and in the last age of the world in the person of Iesus Christ Which three persons are now gone into heauen The first two as young schollers and disciples purposely trained vp and chosen to bee heires of eternall life that they might bee to all others worthy witnesses of euerlasting happinesse and that the men of their times might euidently see and bee assured by that which fell out in the liues of these two great persons whom Tertullian in his Booke of the resurrection of the flesh surnameth The white robed Saints of eternitie that there is another land of the liuing where wee shall one day meete together as well in body as in soule And as for Christ Iesus our Sauiour he as head of the Church and as a tryumphing conquerour of death and hell is ascended into heauen to prepare a place in his kingdome for those that be his to draw vnto him at the appointed time all the members of his mysticall body Then shall be fulfilled all the words of the Prophet mentioned in the end of the hundred and second Psalme Thou hast afore all times laid the foundation of the earth and the heauens are the worke of thy hands they shall perish but thou shalt endure they shall waxe old as a garment thou shalt alter and change them as a garment and they shall be altered and changed But thou art alwayes the same thy yeares shall bee at a stay and neuer faile the children of thy seruants shal dwell in thy presence and their seed shall remaine and be established in thy sight CHAP. III. Of the tree of Life and of the tree of Knowledge of good and euill MOst happy was the state and condition of our father Adam before his fall in that excellent Garden where his Creator had placed him Where so long as he would doe that which God commanded him hee liued at pleasure and hearts ease was in fauour with God who created him good he wanted neither meat nor drinke conuenient nor any good thing The tree of Life was a strong guard to his person to defend him against the assaults of old age that it durst not come neere to approch or seize on him he needed not to feare sicknesse or any outward thing to hurt or annoy him hee had there perfect health of body and tranquilitie of minde This Saint Augustine affirmes of him in his 14. Booke De Ciuitate Des chap. 16. Let vs adde that which Damascene writes of him in the eleuenth Chapter of Orthodoxall faith in these words That Gods will and purpose being to create man after his owne image and to make him the prime Monarch ouer all the world hee prepared and built him a most stately and sumptuous Palace where hee might lead his life in all happinesse And this was the Garden of Eden a store house of all sorts of spices and of all things else which might giue him content and delight a place very temperate radiant and shining with a most cleere wholesome pure and fresh ayre strewed all ouer with greene hearbes and with most fragrant and sweet smelling flowers In the middest was planted the tree of Life and the tree of knowledge of good and euill to no other end but to prooue and exercise his obedience and that hee might see that Gods will was not that hee should be distracted with diuers and wandring imaginations and that his chiefest businesse should bee to prayse and blesse his Creator and to make it his solace and delight to sixe his thoughts and affections on him These testimonies of Saint Augustine and Damascene doe explaine the wordes of Moyses who saide that the earthly Paradise for so is the Garden of Eden commonly called was not an allegoricall and imaginary Garden or some Orchard hanging in the ayre and not really in nature but it was the sight of a goodly countrey surueyed by measure had his bounds and abuttments vpon a certaine angle of the world towards the East where Eue was framed and carued out of the side of Adam and where trees and fruits did naturally growe and was the foode by which they did liue And this Garden of Eden was not the whole continent of the earth for Adam and Eue after their fall were banished and driuen out of it to goe to seeke there dwelling elsewhere All Diuines doe affirme that in the History of Adams creation as things are penned and set downe by Moyses in the three first Chapters of Genesis there were many mysteries contained But it followes not as Saint Augustine in his eight Booke vpon Genesis according to the litterall text learnedly cleares the point that in the said History of Adams first estate there was nothing conteined but Allegories Idenes and things mysticall As it must not bee inferred vnder the collour and pretext that the pillar which followed the people in the Desert was Christ that there was not a materiall and naturall rocke out of which gushed out waters which did naturally quench the peoples thirst in the Desert If then a mysticall and typicall sense bee the matter in question Saint Ambrose in his fourth Volume and Tractat Saint Augustine in his second Booke vpon Genesis vrging the words of the text litterally against the Manichees and Damascene in the place before alledged doe also say that the Garden of Eden was a figure of the Paradise and felicity of the Church in the middest whereof was planted Christ the true tree and bread of life out of which followeth riuers of heauenly and euerlasting life As also that it signified and
principle The iust shall liue by faith CHAP. IIII. What old age is and how many species and kindes of old age there be THE disloyaltie and fearefulnesse of Adam and Eue was the violent downefall of themselues and their posteritie vnto death and vnto all the forerunners of death as consumption diseases and wanne and pale old age which is the respectacle center and sinke of all mans miseries To speake properly God onely is incorruptible immortall immutable alwayes the same and whose yeares alter not And although it be said that the soule of man is immortall as Saint Augustine affirmeth in his first booke De Trinitate yet the true immortality is a perfect immutability and vnchangeablenes which no creature hath In God onely there is no variablenesse nor shadow of change as saith Saint Iames Chap. 1. 17. Verse Contrariwise our liues are variable and subiect to suddaine reuolutions changes and chances and our faire outside and feature of body turnes to bee as a moth eaten garment Our dayes as the Patriarch Iacob said to the king of AEgypt are few and euill or wearisome vpon earth Galen knowing well that old age a naturall infirmity which could not be auoyded did iustly reproue a certaine Philosopher who braggingly gaue it out that hee had a receipt would preserue a man from growing old Although saith hee old age be naturall and ineuitable and withall further addeth that this Philosopher being growen to the age of fourescore yeares dyed of a hectique feauer At that time when Saint Cyprian liued the whole world was iudged to be very much weather-beaten to be growen old and that all her former good dayes were gone and past Behold what this couragious Martyr of Iesus Christ saith of the world in his tractate of death If the old walles of your house should stand totteringly if the battlement and roofe should shake if the maine building should leane awry and the rafters postes groundsells and principall timbers should bee weake and rotten all of them giuing you warning of the perill yee are in if yee tarry in it would yee stand to delay and pawse on the matter and not get yee gone in all hast The whole frame of the world doth totter and reele and being old and neere her end shee cryes out that shee stands vpon her last legges and is quite downe and you deferre to serue God to seeke your owne safety and good by preuenting those euils which with her crimes are ready to fall vpon you and may bee escaped if you timely giue ouer the world Many learned Astronomers haue prooued by firme and sure demonstrations that the celestiall Planets haue altered their course and motions and that the Sun is come neerer to the earth that by his warme neighbour-hood such is the speciall prouidence and will of God the Elements which are become weake in their influences might be the better relieued Most certaine it is that the world is growen old that Kingdomes Common-weales and Cities haue their flourishing times and times of decaie kindreds also and whole families are rooted out and not a man of them to bee seene aboue ground and all the creatures which serue to our vse and are subiect to vanitie doe after their manner groaningly desire and looke for an end as the Apostle saith Rom. 8. 20. But to returne to our Vieillard or old man who is the subiect of this discourse what other thing is old age then the road way to death For seeing that death is a suffocating and quenching of the naturall heate of the body old age makes way to him to enter and seize vpon the body the sooner The older men are the more weake and feeble they are in euery thing they doe and take in hand and this weakenesse of old age can in no sort be holpen and redressed though wee striue to doe it by keeping the heare from faintings and failings and in continuall motion For life and action end both at once it being impossible that the liuing creature should die so long as the heart receiues motion by the bodies action Moreouer old men who are of a dry and cold constitution are lesse fit to vndertake many actions exploites or imploiments They are not quicke enough of apprehension their senses fayling them by little and little the synewes lineaments and all the members of their body doe shrinke languish and decay their sight and hearing failes them they are chap-fallen and their teeth deny to champ and grinde the bread they must eat And as God hath appointed euery mans race of life how long it shall be and the stages hee must passe before he come to the end of it whereof old age is the last stage of all it is not euery mans desteny to goe so farre some waxe old sooner then others some beare their age very well some looke old and are not So that old age must not be iudged by the wrinkles in the fore-head by the white haires by the vnweldinesse or witherednesse of the body there being on the contrary some very old that haue a ruddy face and well coloured a sleeked and smooth skin and their haire of a cole-blacke or nutt-browne colour But it is fit rather to referre our selues to the wordes of the Psalmist in the nineteenth Psalme where mention is made of the yeares of mans life and of those things which often happen therein and of the many and manifold troubles and discommodities wherewith old men are besieged and compassed about Moreouer the Naturalists and Philosophers haue vsed to diuide old age as it were into certaine spaces paces or progresses The first pace and progresse is from fifty to threescore yeares at which age a man is yet lusty strong and youthfull especially those men who haue beene wise to liue abstinently and continently flying gluttony drunkennesse whooredome effeminacies excessiue paines taking and labours more hurtfull then necessary for the welfare and strength of the body ouermuch carking and caring and ouer violent passions of the minde which ouerwhelme the soule not suffering it to rest in quiet or making it to goe gadding and madding heere and there to and fro as it happeneth to the licentious ambitious couetous reuengefull irefull froward fearefull and such like persons who being tempested with disordered thoughts and vnruly passions are carried with the rage and fury of them so farre out of the way of reason and besides themselues that they can hardly hit the right way againe to the house and citie of God And though that after fifty yeares the strength of nature doth wane and by little and little doth abate and grow weake yet wee see that men at that age and after vntilll they bee threescore and fiue yeeres old and vpwardes are fit persons to bee imployed in publike places of charge and command as well for their counsell and wisedome to direct as for their ability and valour to execute and performe wherof we haue infinit examples in our owne Chronicles and moderne Histories
Ierusalem no more a childe of yeares nor an old man which shall not accomplish and fill vp his yeares for hee that shall bee a hundred yeares old shall bee a young man By which manner of speech the Prophet would giue vs to vnderstand that all the children of God shall come to that age and stature where of Saint Paul maketh mention in the fourth Chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians in such sort that they shall be exempt from all infirmities wherewith children and old men are cumbred that is they shall not be children in vnderstanding nor poore silly dotardes and sots as those are that know not Iesus Christ but liue in perpetuall ignorance Idolatry and beastly impiety On the contrary life prolonged vnto the prophane shall bee but a presage and forerunner of their euerlasting accursed condition But to proceed the inherent and naturall causes of old age are not all of one sort and kinde For some of them are meerely naturall and sleepe in our bosomes and some of them be accidentall and forraine and further of from vs. Those we call meerely naturall and which sleep with vs which the Naturalists Physicians speake of to wit our coldnesse and drynesse of body because the more our radicall moysture dryes vp and our blood cooles the neerer is our sensitiue and naturall life to an end which hath beene the cause to moue some men to thinke that old men were called Senes which is as much to say as Semineces men halfe dead because old men especially those that are decrepit very much worne with age haue cold and dry bodies For although they abound with excrements and by this accident seeme to haue moist bodies for that their naturall heat being too much cooled and not able to cherish and warme them within the humour purgeth it selfe at the nose or mouth Yet this age is found indeed and in truth to be cold and dry And as death is a totall suffocation of the naturall heate so old age doth by little and little coole and abate it whereupon it also followes that all cold and dry bodies are quickly worne out and grow old On the contrary young men are of hoate and moyst constitutions But euen as it is to bee found in wines that some keepe collour long and drink briske and neate and some by and by loose collour and drinke eagre and flat So wee see some men waxe old and were out sooner then others And notwithstanding that man wheele about from this place to that shifting ayres and vsing all the wayes and means he can to cherish nature for a while yet his naturall heate and strength doth by little and little leaue him whereupon doth ensue to aged persons white haires loosenesse of teeth deafenesse of hearing weaknesse and decay of sight the shaking palsie in their hands and legges and the chilling and shrinking vp of all the whole body This naturall weaknenesse and drynesse which by succession of time doth inuade all bodies made of earth or other matter besides is seconded in many men with diuers diseases and with old age comming on which with greater paine doth hasten it forward and further it the more All these euils may be reduced to two heads which wee call the labours and toyles of the body distinctly or both together and intemperance Concerning labour it is expresly set downe in that sentence immediately after the sinne of Adam and Eue which Moyses doth propound in these words The earth shall bee accursed because of thee in sorrow shalt thou eate of the fruites thereof all the dayes of thy life in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eate bread c. Gen. 2. 17 19. And in the ninetith Psalme it is said That we flourish and wither away all at once Because as the Prophet saith there is no part of our life how strong and lusty soeuer it bee which is priuiledged and free from sorrow and labour These two are the parents of old age as euery man knowes and there hath beene in our time young men which being oppressed with extreame griefe haue become old in a night the toyles of the warres haue made some gray headed in the prime and flower of their yeares and it comes by kind to the men and women of some kindreds and families to be soone gray and old Plime in his seuenth booke and seuenth chapter writeth That in Albania some haue all the haire of their heads white from their infancy I my selfe haue seene in diuers places where I haue trauelled fiue or sixe yong men whereof the last I saw was in Dauphiné who had all the haire of their heads as white as a man of threescore and tenne yeares old Touching intemperance whereof there bee diuers kindes a vice to common in young men destitute of the feare of God and very vnseemely in old men being the harbinger of death and the Phisicians best friend It hath beene an old complaint seeing this present life is so short fraile and transitory that men doe so naturally desire to liue and to bee so carefull to recouer and preserue their health and to that end spare for no cost nor make any bones or difficulties to turne their tender stomackes into an Apothecaries shop of bitter and vnsauory druges how almost all men by their outragious riots and surfettings doe bring vpon themselues an irkesome old age doe before hand as much as in them lies with sharpe and violent diseases hasten their death are not wise till it bee too late and neuer condemne or finde fault with their shamefull luxuries and riots till the gout is in their knees or the dropsie doth painefully shingle them round or the stone doth torment them and till the excesses and disorders by them committed to the fearefull abuse of Gods patience haue deliuered vp their rotten and crazed bodies into the hands of a miserable old age They should before hand remember and bethinke themselues of the old excellent Prouerb If thou wilt bee a very old man bee old betime Which doth warne vs to bee carefull of our health in our youth flying all shamefull and vnruly passions and seeking by the wise gouernment of our selues to obtaine such an old age as may bee long strong and healthfull Verily it is a licentiousnesse not to be borne withall or tollerated that a man should giue his youth as a present to the vncleane spirit by abandoning it to impudent dissolutenesse pollutions and ribauld impurities promising to himselfe that all shall goe well with him at last and conceiting to himselfe rude and wilde peccauies which deceiue and misleade him It is a further euill and vtterly abominable in old men to see them so farre to haue abandoned God their honour their respect of others all remembrance of their wretched condition and of death which hangs ouer their heads that they would still weaue a webb of new yeares for Couerlets to hide the foule deedes they commit in horrible hypocrisie which at last
layes in the graue more children and men of fiue and twentie and thirtie yeares old then those that bee older and young men are commonly sooner infected then old Let vs then giue ouer vnwisely to obiect vnto old men and to vpbraide them with their calamities and miseries seeing that the youngest men feele more which doe put them to more paine and torment Whereas old men are reproched that they haue giuen ouer Tennys-play reuellings dancing dallying courting leaping vaulting and hoyting and gallopping vp and downe as the wise Barzillay saith when hee requested King Dauid to giue him leaue to leaue the court and to liue quietly at home by himselfe 2. Sam. 19. So it is that old men are distasted and weary of such sports and delights and on the contrary are glad and greatly reioyce that they are free from the desires and lusts of young men which doe tyrannize ouer them and it is a great ioy of heart vnto them that being altogether vnapt to exercise the vanities and sensuall delights and pleasures of the world they haue the more leasure and vacant time to imploy themselues to mortifie their carnall lusts and affections and to meditate vpon the life to come Good God what a wrong doe wee doe to our selues to insert and put into the catalogue and bedroll of our euills and afflictions things which doe bring health vnto vs and are very necessary documents and instructions vnto vs There are no people more miserable then those who foolishly boast They know not what sorrow and misery meanes nor neuer had any The euills of the world are euills because men thinke them so but indeed and in truth they are not euills As for example our bodily infirmitie men that are truely wise and religious make a good and profitable vse of it Wee will take for our second example the approch and comming of death which the neerer it comes to vs the neerer we shall be to our Port and the sooner wee shall be within the kennyng and discouery of our true countrey Thirdly death it selfe is the end of our life and the beginning of our happinesse which all good men wish for Let vs then abandon the company of those idiots who when old age is farre off from them wish and desire it and when it is come neere and almost at them reuile and condemne it CHAP. VIII Foure causes propounded by Cicero of the miseries of old age reduced to two to wit the miseries of the body and of the minde THere is no day houre minute or moment of our life which doth not put vs in minde that we are mortall and it is a brutish stupiditie and sencelessenes both in yong and old men to promise to themselues to morrow But why doe wee refuse to liue according to the conditions agreed vpon when wee came into the world to wit to leaue life in youth or in age when death cals vs and bids vs to take our leaue of it And whence is it that wee beare so impatiently that which cannot be shunned or avoyded What moues vs to look for knotts in Bull-rushes and to make doubts and difficulties in so plaine a case We doe but peruersly blame and accuse the iudge of the world when we speake of old age saying it is miserable in regard it makes vs vnseruiceable men and vnfit to mannage and meddle with worldly affaires enfeebles our bodies putts vs beside and barres vs almost of all pleasures being moreouer the next neighbour to death Cicero in his Dialogue of Old-age putteth such like cases and answering them denyes that wise old men are idle bodies and as for those which make it their recreation and take pleasure to be ignorant and to sit still and doe nothing they are vnworthie the worthie name of Old men and deserue rather to be called Idolles and Statues which artificially are moued by vises gynnes Great and important affaires are not effected by the strength nimblenesse and agilitie of the bodie but by counsell authoritie iudgement and example And as Salust sayth in Iugurth the minde is the guide chiefe Captaine and conductor of mens actions and liues But seeing that Old men haue alwayes beene esteemed to be endued with sound counsell wisedome grounded vpon long experience by reason whereof all those that haue eminent places of charge in the Church and Common-weale are wont to bee called Senators and Elders Why shall we thinke them lither idle persons who direct and prescribe vnto others what is to be done and how and in what order and manner things are to be done and though they sit still themselues yet the whole burthen of the businesse lyes vpon them Euen as wee see Pilots of Ships who without much troubling themselues or stirring from their places sit quietly at the sterne and holding the Rudder in despite of boystrous windes and waues doe cond and carry their Ships laden with men and merchandize safely to their vnlading port And this is the cause why in euery well gouerned Common weale old men are had in great reuerence and honour which they iustly deserue and young men frequent their company and are conuersant with them to benefit themselues by their counsels and instructions On the contrarie wise old men are no gybing and iesting Buffones who with their armes a crosse take pleasure to trifle out the time and to idle it at home in their houses but they meditate imagine and contriue and are alwayes doing one good deed or other teaching good lessons as they grow old and growing old as fast as they teach them not that they would seeme men of knowledge themselues but that others by reaping the fruits of their labours might feelingly perceiue that true pietie and vertue are the guides of their actions Concerning the weaknesse of their bodies as young men content themselues with a proportiall and competent strength and affect not to be so strong as Bulls Cammells or Elephants so old men for their part are content with that condition which it pleaseth God to lay vpon them and fancie not to be so strong as they were in their youth It is very decent and fit that a man obserue and giue way to his owne nature attempting nothing aboue his owne strength but to doe as much as he can and no more Therefore Milo of Cretona made himselfe a ridiculous spectacle who being growne old and beholding his withered armes wept dolefully complaining that they were starke dead Whereupon Cicero vseth these words Doth the vertue and honour of a man lie in his armes It is not rather a mature wisedome which makes him renowned to his dying day Old age doth not by and by so weaken a man but that by diuers exercises wherewith he may invre his bodie and minde and by ordering himselfe well in his drinking eating sleeping by giuing himselfe ease vacancie and rest and not tyring himselfe and spending his spirits with much labour and studie he may keepe himselfe from bending in the hammes
and stooping in the showlders and be still an able and practised man And that this is true Cicero giues vs some examples Neither the Kings counsell Table sayth he nor his Court of Common-pleas nor my Clients for whom I pleade at the barre nor my friends nor strangers can complaine that they lacke me or my helpe Zenophon reportes that Cyrus in a Discourse which he made a little before his death maintained that he neuer felt himselfe to haue a lesse able bodie in his age then he had when hee was young Cicero sayth further that when he was a childe he saw L. Metellus a very aged man so strong of body that he cared not to be young Masinissa king of Numidia could not be perswaded to goe couered with a Hatt on his head when he was fourescore and ten yeares old but in raine hayle frost and snow went bare headed Appius when he was very old blind gouerned a great familie had a spirit like a bow alwayes bent prepared and resolued to dare defye and wrastle with old age in such sort that he bore all the sway of Command in his house and kept all his family in so good awe and order that he was reuerenced of his children and beloued of his neighbors Some doe accuse old age in men that it makes them heauie headed and dull to haue no mirth nor musicke in them and to abandon and cast of all pleasures But if they account the follies fond iollities and gambolles of youth for true pleasures their accusation is false and they speake iniuriously of Old age which procures great good vnto vs blotting out quite whatsoeuer is most vicious and bad in young men to wit carnall pleasure a capitall enemies to vs all which headlong plungeth all those that are vassalls and slaues vnto her into gulfes of eternall perdition is the mother of gluttony drunkennesse whoredome adulterie of all dissolutenesse and debauched villanies and in fine is the cause of the ruines of Common weales and families Old men which are free from the coulp and guilt of these and the like vices and abominations haue lesse torture and torment of mind and haue the more reuerence and authoritie giuen them which is the Crowne of their age The approches of death seeme to strike a terror and astonishment into many old men But wretched is the man who all the time of his life hath not learned to make light account of death which he ought before hand to envre and frame himselfe to wish for and expect seeing death is his guide and conuoy to heauen and bringeth with him a dedimus potestatem to put him in possession of his euerlasting inheritance which the Sonne of God hath adiudged vnto him which iudgement is entred in despite of Sathan who continually in this world brings cauelling suites and actions against vs to molest and interrupt vs in our iust clayme thereunto More occasions and causes therebe of diseases in yong men by reason they are put to all hard labours and iourneyes whereby for the most part they do vntimely end their liues so that death doth as ordinarily seize vpon them as vpon old men Some doe reply that such yong men haue a hope to liue long but it is a foolish perswasion by reason that they take that which is doubtfull for sure and certaine and that which is false for true As the time of Autumne succeedes the spring time and Summer so there is nothing more naturall to old men then to die The death of young men resembles a great flaming fire which is not quenched but with much water but old men are like a dry chipp of wood or a small gloing fire which dyes and goes out of it selfe Why should wee mourne and lament for him who when he dies findes immortalitie and whose practise and studie hath beene from his tender youth to contemne death that his soule might be at rest in a place conuenient This is briefely the substance of that which Cicero in his Dialogue of old age doth handle more at large Christians haue more excellent remedies helpes and refuges against the miseries of old age and the assaults of death which hereafter in their order we will declare That old age hath his particular miseries in regard of the bodie and minde we are not now to dispute It is that which we are next to speake of CHAP. IX A more speciall Catalogue or numbring vp of some miseries in old men in regard of their bodies VErily that man which should take vpon him to maintaine that old age is exempt and priuiledged from all discommodities and miseries should reason against sence experience and nature it selfe which beares witnes against him For although the life of man from the beginning to the end hath no part of it free from diuers calamities which it is to resist and conflict and that man from his birth seemes to bee made to liue in paine and sorrow Yet wee must know and acknowledge that feeble and decrepit old age is incident to many particular miseries which are the causes that weake old men are commonly testie froward sad melancholy especially those who are cholerique fretfull and impatient by nature or are not armed and prepared before hand to vndergoe such assaults and to stoope to the miseries which the last age of their life shall lay vpon them It is a well worne saying That as lees and dregs doe sinke downe and lie at the bottome of vessels so the excrements noysome humours and all the miseries of our life doe settle in old age their last lodging place One compares very fitly the condition of old men to a little City halfe ruinous and decayed whose walles moulder away are almost all broken downe and is altogether vnprouided of munition and victualls to fortifie and succour it selfe if need require For wee see in all old men their eye sight by little and little to faile them that they are duller and deaffer of hearing their teeth to fall out their hands and feet to haue the palsie briefly this building of clay and spittle to haue many defects and decayes and daily to waste and impaire more and more expecting a totall ruine But the more these euills doe presse and molest vs the more we thinke vpon desire and expect to make an end of our painefull pilgrimage to hit the marke we ayme at to be quietly seated in our true dwelling place eternall habitation Those persons who from their youth haue learned to submit themselues to the diuine prouidence and to meditate and reuolue with themselues a better life doe with greater case sustaine and beare all the miseries of their long age And the weakenesse of body in old men doth not hinder them from doing that which is meete and behoouefull for them to doe But it is a great reproach and obliquie to old men if in the eye of good men without shame or feare of their great and soueraigne Iudge who is to bee feared
world without any pittie or ease vntill the first death deliuer them ouer to the second death to be for euer tormented in hell fire if in time they doe not reforme reclaime themselues and forsake their wicked wayes to dedicate their soules their bodies and goods to glorifie God according to his holy will The best and choycest antidote which we can prescribe to old men against the miseries which suddainly seize on them in their old age is that before hand they subdue themselues get the vpper-hand and master those passions which doe tyrannize and cruelly Lord it ouer Atheists and prophane persons that they chearfully vnder-goe and endure the miseries which doe assayle their bodies that they liue with an vpright and pure conscience before God and men that they alwayes haue their soule lifted vp and rauished at the saying of the Apostle that their habitation or right and priuiledge of Cittizens is not in this world for here we are strangers and way-faring men but it is in heauen that they may be strong in the Lord in whom wee are able to ouer come all things according as it pleaseth him to fortifie and strengthen vs euen to ouercome Sathan the world our owne concupiscence and sensualitie finally as the Prophet speaketh in an excellent Allegorie in the nintie-one Psalme On Lyons fell and Lyons whelpes and Vipers full of gall And on fierce Dragons they doe tread and haue no harme at all They alwayes remember that worthie saying of Salomon which he himselfe forgot in his distresse and when it behooued him more carefully to thinke on it to wit that he that is slow to anger is better then a mightie man and he which maistereth his owne affections is to be preferred before him that winneth a Cittie Pro. 16. 32. But it behooueth vs to treat a little more at large of the chiefest passions of the minde in old men to the end that the wiser sort may bend all their forces so much the more against them and may earnestly endeuour to consecrate the rest of their dayes to the glory of their soueraigne who is called the auncient of dayes ⸪ CHAP. X. The miseries of old men in regard of their mindes A Poet in times past called Old age the seasoning and as it were the sauce of wisedome And some haue thought that the word Seigneur is deriued from Senior which signifies an Elder or Auncient As if authoritie honour respect or reuerence did appertaine to none but those that were auncient being indeed vnfit attributes for young men whom if we reuerence or regard it is for their ripenesse of wit and capacities and in regard they doe wisely discharge and performe the seruice businesse and matters committed vnto them In the lawes of Pepin in the fift Booke of the Lawes made concerning free men and the ninth title there is read to this purpose of our Senior which signifies Seigneur this constitution vnder these termes Nullus comparet caballum bouem iumentum vel aliam rem nisi illum hominem cognoscat qui eum vendiderit aut de quo pago est vel vbi manet et quis est eius senior that is that no man buy a horse oxe nor labouring or sacrificing beast nor any other thing vnlesse he know the seller or of what village he is or in what place he dwells and who is his Lord and maister But this is spoken by the way To proceed It is very apparent that the heate of passions in youth beginning to coole and smoother out in old men many vices are extinguished and mortified in them by the helpe and assistance of long experience which makes them wise and aduised Notwithstanding which wee yet doe confesse that they haue great imperfections and that their owne folly doth often enough beate them and make them to smart the corrupt nature of Adam in his posteritie being not to be quite abolished but by death is abolished in some lesse and in others more during this pilgrimage according as it hath pleased God to permit some sooner then others to be better taught trayned vp and invred to bow and more willingly to stoope vnder the yoke of the Lord as Ieremy speaketh in his third Chapter and 27. Verse There are found very worthie old men who in their very old age by the direction of the holy spirit and a right trayning vp doe muster in troopes and shewe like victorious Captaines and Leaders of armies For hauing discomfitted and broken the rankes and squadrons of diuers corrupt affections which were their pernicious enemies they aduance and carry them as excellent Trophies of victorie and with hearts lifted vp behold the heauens and the reward of their calling aboue being able truly to say with the Apostle 2. Cor. 12. 10. when I am weake then am I strong To come againe to our poynt in hand old age hath his imperfections and there be old men who are cumbred and tortured with particular passions and diuerse diseases and pestes of the minde commonly called the euils of guilt of sinne and the euils of punishment of sin The punishments of sinne are torments and vexations of minde griefes passions feares and other miseries which at first being inflicted for the punishment of sin doe also sometimes afflict the children of God according as it hath pleased the Lord to exercise them and often according as the humour of choller or melancholy doth abound and is predominant in some more then in others Physitians long since confirmed by long experience grounded vpon the rules of science and a right knowledge of causes haue discouered these euils and diuers remedies for them in such sort that it cannot be denyed but that the studie of true Philosophie the continuall combat and conflict of a good minde against the defects and frailties of his owne inordinate and ouer-boyling passions a setled forme and order of life feruent prayers to God to represse these euils and to weed out this euill nature are of great vse vnto those men who doe make vse of such helpes and remedies We call the euils of guilt of sinne the vices of the minde which solicite vs to lust after and to doe things repugnant to the law and will of God and to the office and dutie of a good man It must be confessed that old men who haue not beene well instructed and trayned vp from their infancie or be of a harsh stubborne craftie slie-subtile nature and disposition are not without diuers grosse and enormous sinnes Yea so it is but to the vtter confusion and ouer-throw of themselues and their families that they growing still older and older such sinnes are not mortified in them but on the contrary the older they grow the more doe malice brasen-faced impudencie wickednes and villanie take deepe roote in them Whence doe proceede these nipping Prouerbes and by-words old fornicator old gyber old babler thankelesse old man old drunkard and more old drunkards then old Phisitians Formes and partes of speech by
nayles into our owne wounds nor to add as we say fewell to the fire but rather let vs daily pray to our heaunly Father who being our sole Creator is likewise soly he who can reforme and regenerate vs that by the vertue and efficacie of his spirit hee may represse all our corrupt and inordinate affections in such sort that as children of God nor of Sathan or of Cain we may be cloathed with the new man created according to God may be couteous one towardes another mercifull mutually forgiuing one another all offences as our Lord hath graciously pardoned all our sinnes in Iesus Christ But it is not requisite to proceede further in the discourse of anger or choller the turpitude and deformitie whereof is sufficiently knowne to wise old men who haue read the excellent Treatises which haue beene aunciently written of it especially in the Bookes of Seneca and Plutarch Afterward in our tyme by Iohn de L'Espine in his graue Discourses of the contentment of the minde Whosoeuer will adde to these that which Turtullian and Cyprian Doctors of the Church haue written of patience can require to know nothing further of this subiect vnlesse he may bee pleased to adde that which S. Basile and S. Chrysostome haue written in diuers Homilies against anger and the great desire of reuenge which is to be lamented in all men and beyond all measure to bee abhorred of a wise old man As for many late writers which in Latine Italian Almaigne or any other Language besides the French haue written of choller or anger and of the helpes and remedies against it which they haue called out of Bookes of Diuinitie naturall Philosophie and Phisicke We need not now to make a Catalogue of them they making nothing to our principall intention in this Discourse There remaineth to speake something of diffidence and distrust the mother of impatience and almost of all other vices Our Lord correcteth this euill in those that are his whom he calleth sometimes men of little faith shewing the remedies for it to bee contained in the consideration of the gracious power of our God If any men be bound to such contemplation wise old men are who seeing themselues at their iourneies end and feeling their strength to faile ought to profit in faith and in the meditation of the prouidence and mercie of God It is that whereunto S. Paul seemes to haue regard when he willeth old men to sober discreete aduised sound in the faith in charitie and patience Tit. 2. 2. What is the cause of the frowardnesse and impatience in old men Euen this that they forget so many great fauours and benefits which God hath bestowed vpon them hauing mercifully drawne them from their mothers belly tenderly brought them vp protected them from infinite dangers so that they haue great cause to prayse God at all times as Dauid exhorteth them by his example in diuers Psalmes especially in the 34. 71. and 118. Psalmes which all young and old men ought to know by rote and by heart As also we recommend vnto them the seuen and thirtith Psalme which may be called the shield against impatience because we may finde therein that which is able to settle and assure a conscience wauering and perplexed with the scandalls and offence to see the eminent prosperitie of Atheists and prophane persons Put the case that the skie fall that the earth melt into the deepes and that the elements of fire and water be mingled together shall we suffer therefore melancholie fretting and impatience to deuoure vs when on the contrarie our Sauiour exhorts vs at that very time to lift vp our heads to heauen because our deliuerance drawes neere and is at hand Luke 21. 28. Is there any heauinesse or anguish which the promised comforter who is more mightie then all the world may not abolish and take away Prouided we leaue the matter to him and banish and cast of all distrust and impatience Then to what vse should so many promises of the sonne of God serue and what should that charitable and ardent prayer availe which he made a little before his death described in the 17. Chapter of S. Iohn But if wee will conserue and keepe our soules in peace and in true ioy let vs carefully keepe faith and a good conscience and let vs endeuour with S. Paul and after his example to hope that the resurrection of the dead as well of the iust as of the vniust shall come and to haue our conscience vnblameable towardes men Act. 26. 15. 16. Thus doing wee shall alwayes haue ioy in God Phillip 4. 4. The heart which is glad and reioyceth in the Lord is a perpetuall banquet Pro. 15. 15. So the vncleane and froward spirit the horror of sinne the sense and feeling of the wrath of God shall vanish and depart from vs and wee shall sing in triumph with the Apostle these excellent sayings If God be on our side who shall be against vs He which hath not spared his sonne but gaue him for vs all to death shall not he bountifully giue vnto vs also all things with him I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angells nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature is able to seperate vs from the loue which he hath manifested vnto vs in Iesus Christ our Lord Rom. 8. 30 c If sometimes we feele our faith to languish and droope and our soules to be heauy and pensiue let vs spurre and rouze vp our selues with the goad that Dauid vseth in the two and fortith Psalme 12. v. My soule why art thou cast downe and why art thou disquieted within me waite on God for I will yet giue him thankes hee is my present helpe and my God Let vs then discard and cast from vs the execrable suggestions of the flesh of Sathan and hearken to the counsell of the Sonne of God who doth dehort and diswade vs from the perplexed vnprofitable vaine and prophane cares of the world in the sixt chapter of Saint Matthew and doth encourage vs to all confidence and affiance and to an inuincible hope in him when hee saith You shall haue affliction in the world and peace with me but bee of good courage I haue ouer come the world Iohn 16. CHAP. XI Of the causes that old age is burthensome and tedious to many old man A Well framed minde reioyceth in prosperitie and is sensible of afflictions But the euill and mischiefe is that many men casting their eye awry vpon euils giue good things a shrewed vnhappie and wrong name speake sinisterly and ill of them or doe not iudge of them as they ought Whereupon it followes that old age is tedious and vnpleasing vnto them because they haue not learned wherof to reioyce and to complaine nor know not the felicities of old age what they are nor haue not saluted or congratulated them a farre off nor neere hand
good of their neighbour for that wise old men by their good counsells doe maintaine and support publique estates and their owne priuate estates be they great or small For he that is a prudent gouernour of a small family deserues great commendation As on the contrary if the followers and seruants of the mightiest and most eminent persons that may be imagined doe liue dissolutely it is a woefull shame And heereof wee must appeale to the iudgement of Salomon in the fourth Chapter of his Ecclesiastes 13. v. where hee sayth Better is a poore and wise childe then an old and foolish King that will no more be admonished And what is a wise old man in a counsell of State It is an incomparable treasure And what is a King Prince Lord that is old and wise It is a true and liuely image of God among men There are other fruits which old men themselues enioy who liuing discreetly rest in peace health and welfare reducing their course of life within the lists of pietie temperance where they spend their dayes in holy meditations and with ioy of heart passe their time in seeing Their vertuous children in comely showe About their table all on a rowe Like Oliue plants to stand and growe Then they reape the sweet and precious fruite of their labours past But to proceed who would dare to tearme wise old men idle persons who doe imploy themselues to the true and proper exercises of a man to wit to the actions of the minde Magnanimitie true fortitude is not inclosed in the muscles nor in the synewes but in the bearing and sustaining of grieuances in leuying all our powers and forces to fight against impatience carnall lusts against Sathan and the world The famous deedes of old men are wise counsells instructions good examples zealous prayers seruices to the Common-weale and State succours and helpes to friendes protection and maintenance to orphanes and children Plato Sophocles Isocrates and a number of Heathens more who in their old age began and perfected workes which are yet extant and vsefull were they doting old persons Basil Nazienzen Saint Augustine so many ancient and moderne Diuines who during the profound darkenesse of Atheistes and prophane persons wallowing like swine in all confusions dyed very old men and their tongues and pennes neuer lay still but were busie and mouing to edifie and instruct the Christian Churches are these old men which haue spent their time badly So many white beardes which yet to this day serue their soueraigne Lord of whom they expect a glorious reward are they to bee cast behinde the doore as vnprofitable vessels Is it wisely done of young men to reuile them in wordes and shamefully to spurne and tread on them But as Zenophon said Those men liue wisely who are carefull more and more to reforme themselues and they liue cheerefully who euery day feele themselues to profit in vertue which may be truely said of wise old men whose hearts are lifted vp to the Lord and who already haue a foot in Paradise Wherefore then doe we accuse nature and her impediments as we call them I meane old age and the infirmities thereof Seeing that the milde and meeke conuersation of old men is of better esteem and more gracious in them a pregnancie and dexteritie to counsell well is more eminent in them their constancie to suffer death more assured and stedfast and the temperance to bridle and restraine fond foolish lusts and desires is more potent and forcible in them Though their body be weake their minde is strong A wise old man is no more daunted at the approach of death then a labouring man who hauing vndergone the raine heat and cold of the day is not grieued to see the sunne set because it is a signe of his surcease and rest from his labour and of receiuing his promised wages And old man fearing God doth already feele the pleasures of Paradise and being ascended to the top and pynacle of true knowledge dispiseth the base deceiuing perishing to wit the woefull and corrupt riches of the world According as old men haue beene better or worser trained vp and instructed according also to the diuersitie of gifts which they haue receiued of God we see they yeeld diuers fruits and effects It is the incredulitie impatience vitiousnesse and leudnesse of life not old age which is the cause that many in stead of referring themselues and their actions and affaires to the prouidence of God of learning that whatsoeuer distasters and discommodities doe happen vnto vs abroad and at home in our bodies in our goods from our seruants and those of our family from our friendes from our enemies is a gracious chastisement vnto vs of our heauenly Father and an exercise and triall of our faith we still perceiuering in the sincere knowledge of him in our calling ioyned with a good conscience Doe woefully torment themselues childishly bewaile their condition if their proiectes and plors deuices and wishes haue not that speedy successe which they desire As that great Orator Cicero who forgetting what hee had written in his booke of Offices That no man can be iust which feareth exile paine or death being forlorne and in a desperate taking a few dayes before hee was slaine cowardly exclaimes in a letter of his to Octauius Beast that I am In vaine haue I beene taken and held for the man I am not My old age is most vnfortunate and disastrous My white haires after a miserable life stand vp fearefully staring and out of order There remaineth for conclusion of this Chapter to adde vnto the felicities of old age certaine excellent priuiledges which those that are learned in the ciuill law doe attribute vnto it I will giue you the cullings and choyce of fiftie or threescore and more quoated by sundry collectors Men that were auncient themselues did beare no lesse honour to very aged persons then they did to Magistrates The older a man is the more is his iudgement esteemed In consultations and in matters ambiguous and doubtfull to be decided the aduise of old men is preferred before the aduise of yong men Old men enioyed the priuiledges of noble men Old men are not sued nor scited to appeare in any Courts of iustice without the Pretors expresse permission and licence and particular information of the cause The auncientest men haue their names alwayes enrolled and set downe first Old men ought to haue the first places and seates and to sit at the vpper end of the Table The auncientest Counsellors in the absence of the President may appoynt and call a counsell If there be question touching the obseruing and keeping of common contractes and rates the auncientest men of a fraternitie or company haue the first voyce It is graunted and permitted to old men to censure and reforme their neighbours Many willing to accuse and beare witnesse against any one the testimonie of the oldest man is of most credit Old men are Magnificoes and
no tormentes nor tortures canne quell or dismay their stoute minde nor no Bug-beare or terror is gastly or horrid enough to fray and affright them The Lord hauing made a couenant with his Church which here on earth is compounded of all sorts of people hath giuen vnto it two strong propps of hope to wit his spirit and his true word This spirit is called the spirit of wisedome vnderstanding counsell power knowledge of sanctification veritie consolation life faith grace The word is called the word of life of saluation of the grace of God of our reconciliation with the father of Heauen A word testifying that all thinges were giuen vs necessary to life and pietie by the knowledge of him who hath called vs by his owne power and glorie by which are giuen vnto vs great and pretious promises that by them wee which are regenerated by the holy Ghost and the word should be made partakers of the diuine nature being deliuered and freed from the concupiscences and corruptions of the world Whosoeuer hath not this spirit of Iesus Christ and trusteth not in the promises of God a midd all his babble and prattle of the contempt of death and the benefit of old age is still in doubt hath feeble hands trembling and staggering knees haltes feedes himselfe with the winde and not with any assured consolation But the iust doe liue by faith are strengthened and vpheld by it which makes them reioyce all wayes in the Lord who sanctifies them preserues whole and entire their mind soule and bodie vnblameable vntill the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ CHAP. XV. An aduise to wise old men conteining the summarie and substance of their dutie vntill their last gaspe IT should remaine now to treat of death and the certaine remedies against it But before we enter therein we will propound to our wise Vieillard an aduise drawne and taken out of the volumes of sacred Philosophie to leade him more easily on to that whereunto he aspires But it behooueth those who are almost at their wayes end more heedfully to consider both the way they haue gone and are to goe for their further encouragement to their dutie Behold then what I pretend to remember to whomsoeuer being in old age will vouchsafe to hearken to him who is drawing neere vnto it It is reason that the grace of God witnessed in so many sortes so many yeares and sealed in our Baptisme at our first entrance into the world and into the Church when we haue rightly apprehended in whom we are dead and in whom quickned doe cause vs to wish a continuall sense and feeling of our adoption by his spirit speaking to vs by his word and witnessing with our spirit that we are the sonnes of God This sense and feeling doth engender or beget an excellent desire an earnest devotion a firme resolution to yeeld him obedience all our life long but more at the dissolution and end of our life then at the beginning which is devoide of knowledge conscience experience wisedome plunged and drowned the greater part of tyme in ignorance selfe opinion insolencie and ribauld and lasciuious impudencie Now then it behooues so soone as we feele the motions of this grace that our hearts be replenished with a sincere and liuely affection to obey God not according to our worldly sense but following the rule which he himselfe doth propose and set downe vnto vs. Touching this affection it is commended vnto vs by generall and speciall reasons The generall reasons are that our God is holy and that we his people cannot cleaue vnto him except we bee holy likewise then as members belonging to Iesus Christ our head and redeemer we ought to be made conformable to him imitating his life which is called the obedience to God his Father euen to the death of the crosse The speciall reasons are First that God is our Father Secondly that Christ hath washed vs by his precious bloud and incorporated vs into him Thirdly that this our head is ascended vp into heauen Fourthly that we are the temples of the holy Ghost Fiftly that our bodies be predestinated to the last resurrection and our soules to immortalitie both of them to euerlasting glorie Whereupon it followes that it is horrible ingratitude not to be willing to obey the will of our heauenly Father that it is madnesse to returne to the filthinesse from which we haue beene so dearely and preciously cleansed and purged that it is detestable iniquitie to wish and to will the members of Iesus Christ to bee ioyned to Sathan and to the world that is but reason for euer to burie all earthly affection to aspire to a better life to be by a liuely faith set in the heauenly places and to feele and taste of life and euerlasting glory that we must not grieue him which dwelleth in vs our counsellor guide and comforter That it is good reason to preserue our selues immaculate and pure euen vntill the day of our Lord. Hauing treated of our affection let vs speake of the rule thereof declared in such wise and so expressely in the law of God to make vs yet to see as the soule and mayne of all that his good pleasure hath beene to forme and fashion our manners by a most exact manner and order and which serues as a commentarie of all that is contayned in the sayd Law That is that wee should renounce our selues to the end to be fit to apply and frame our selues sincerely and wholly to serue God because we are not our owne but Gods Whereupon it followes that a Christian be he young or old and the old is more bound to this dutie then the yong because God hath vpheld and supported him long hath bestowed many blessings and benefites on him and a blessed life whereinto hee is nowe entring ought to search and learne out what God willeth and approueth briefely whatsoeuer serueth to the advancement of his glorie Those which are of an other minde are styled and tearmed by the voyce of truth vngracious hypocrites vngratefull reprobates All these licentious and inordinate humours S. Paul in his Epistle to Titus comprehendeth vnder the word Impietie To which hee opposeth the duties of Christians marshalled and ranged vnder the three excellent giftes of the holy Ghost in the regenerate to wit sobrietie iustice and pietie And in this sacred triangle is included the renouncing of our selues And the Apostle not without cause hath begun with temperance which especially concernes vs which moderates our lustes and desires banishing and driuing away sensuall carnall worldly and vncleane and filthie affections much more their detestable effortes and effectes It is shee which doth fashion and frame vs to a true square rulle and order as well in the moderation of our wishes and dreames of worldly houour and greatnesse as of our inordinate beastly concupiscences suggested by the vncleane spirit In the violent pursuite seeking and hunting after proud vsurping sacrilegious detayning and miserable possessing
downe the head will cry within himselfe O wretch that I am God hath made me by the gift of knowledge capable of infinite wonderfull secrets and mysteries and I seeke contentment in vanitie He hath created me Lord and commander of all things and I am the slaue of the Creatures I ought to serue God alone and I am in subiection to mine owne inordinate passions He hath created me vpright the more easily to behold and looke vp to the place of my felicitie but I am more brutish then a beast which lookes still downe to the ground Christ hath made mee a King and a Priest to God his Father and sensualitie doth tyrannize and domineer over me and I sacrifice to mine owne insolencies and lewdnesse O what misery Ought I not to be fruitfull and abound in all good workes being a tree of righteousnesse and a heauenly plant What doe I I draw no breath of life but from the world I bring forth nothing but iniquitie nothing but poyson for my selfe and others Am I created after the Image of God to be changed into a Beast What resteth more for me but to be like the image of God! Should I I then be a lyar a villaine a slanderer an enemy of godlinesse righteousnesse holinesse I am a little world a world of wounders shall I then become a bottomlesse gulfe of wickednesse I am the end and measure of things but I am like the mad man which killeth himselfe with his owne knife like the wicked rich man that damneth himselfe and by the winding stayres of his riches goes downe to hell I ought to be the benefit and well-fare of my house and familie of my neighbour-hood of a whole country to procure true peace and quietnesse to rule there and I trouble mine owne peace and rest and other mens too I that am the measure and rule of all things am my selfe out of all measure and order as much as can bee spoken and more The vessell appoynted to honour which will fill it selfe with stinking myre and filth The temple of the holy Ghost a most holy place wherein Christ onely ought to enter and lodge but so prophaned that I am ashamed to thinke on it Thou sayest thou art a Christian and thou makest no conscience to wallow in impurities and hypocrisies ioyning thy selfe with Sathan Antichrist and the world so little thou regardest God Iesus Christ and his Church Thou that art light art nothing but darkenesse Thou that art a sheepherd art become a wolfe Thou that art the salt of the earth art vnsauory and tastelesse Thou that art the glory and peace of the world thou sowest disgrace reproch and trouble therein Thou that art the brother friend and Table-guest of Christ doest thou betray him with a kisse Thou that art a member of Christ where are the motions that thou hast of the spirit Thou that art Christes Lieutenant in earth or in thy house or familie or over many houses or families wilt thou daily warre against thy Lord Christ is thy garment and thou puttest it off to cloath thee with shame ryot dissolutenesse disorder Thou art within three stepps within three fingers breadth of death and thou thinkest not on the true life and thinkest onely on the transitorie and perishing life But thinke on the blessinges and honours which God hath bestowed on thee on the dangers which he hath guarded and protected thee from of the true pleasures which he offers vnto thee and thou wilt bee ashamed of the false pleasures which vndoe thee thou wilt blush be apalled to liue and die as thou doest by a poore sorry fire Thou wilt repent and fly to the throne of grace to the end that hauing obtained it thou render him thankes for the same who in speciall regard of his patience sheweth himselfe wonderfull towardes vs and submitting thy selfe to obey his truth thou wilt goe on in silence to glorifie him to the end Loe here a little coppie and patterne of some sighinges and groanings for euery wise old man remembring himselfe and calling to minde Iesus Christ CHAP. XVII Consolations against death and how it ought to be feared or not feared WE present now some consolations to the wise Vieillard to strengthen him against death and doe shew him how he ought to feare or contemne it For in this point it is that wise men at last shew what they are He that hath not learned to die betimes can hardly die well and for one that doth it thousands lagg behinde where they perish Many according to the saying of Cicero thinke old age is miserable because it is so neere approching to death which among the most terrible things being terrible to the children of this world for that it destroyes the structure frame of this mortall bodie and endeth the life which wee keepe and maintaine with so much carking and caring We are not able to relate how great and many the terrors be which the apprehension of death causeth in most persons which liue in the world yea euen in those men and women which vnder the weight and burthen of extreame anguishes and griefes desire nothing more then to be gone hence This terror floweth from the sense and feeling of the wrath of God and a bad conscience with which when wicked ones come to feele themselues tormented they haue no rest nor can conceiue nothing else but euill for them in death Therefore we cannot too much allaude and commend the saying of Sineca in the Epistle 62. where he sayth before I grew old I endeuoured and studied to liue well In my old age I frame and dispose my selfe to die well It is well spoken For according to the counsell of Saint Augustine in his second booke of Christian doctrine he cannot die ill who hath liued well and hardly shall any man whosoeuer make a good end which hath lead a wicked life But they are grossely deceiued who thinke that old men and none else are lodged in deaths quarter and that they onely are prest and obliged resolutely to awaite and looke for him Seeing that in all places and at all tymes he lyeth in waite for persons of all ages and sexes and sayth vnto them Stand I take thee prisoner by the great Kinges commandement packe hence away come before thy Iudge Death respectes neither babe young nor old man nor woman rich nor poore high nor low strong nor weake The poore mans cottage built very low Death doth demolish and quite ouerthrow The rich mans Pallace high towring and strong He shiuers in peeces and layes it along Who knoweth not that warre and the pestilence doth sweepe away out of the world many more little children or strong able men then aged persons verely all the life of man is nothing else but a road way to death Wee came into the world vpon this condition to goe out of it In this wee greatly erre and beguile our selues as many most learned Philosophers and Diuines haue long
agoe spoken that we looke vpon death afarre off and still thinke him to bee a poore feeble impotent which marcheth with a slow pace and is yet fiue or sixe thousand dayes iourney behinde the weakest of our troupe not considering that death is on the threshold of our dores yea is our chamber-fellow a guest at our tables and our bed-fellow too Death hath alreadie trussed vp the fairest and best part of our life like a Sergeant which taking vs by the throate carries away vnder his arme our money-bagges our precious iewels and vpon his yeomens shoulders our curious houshold moueables Not to wonder hereat consider sayd S. Basile the changes and revolutions of ages Doe wee not obserue how in three weeks of yeares three are dead Childhood is passed away and all his fond and vaine wishes haue left vs As much may be said of other parts of our life The case being so then that the meditation of death belongeth to all persons and that nothing is so miserable as not to know to die and that to feare death is an euill more dreadfull then death it selfe seeing also that the proper force of faith consisteth in this not to be afraid of death It is meete now somewhat the more at large to treate of this poynt and to shew what other holy and prophane Authors doe say therein to our purpose to wit to remoue out of the heart especially of euery wise old man the too violent and raging apprehension of death and to strengthen and fortifie so well the minde that it bee neuer dismounted or throwne out of the seate of assurance wherein it is setled by the knowledge of the truth First We will shew that euery one especially our Vieillard ought continually to meditate vpon death and betimes to prouide and furnish himselfe with remedies against the affrightments and terros thereof Secondly what death is how many sortes there are what death it is ought to be feared Thirdly for what reasons the Heathens haue so manfully contemned death Fourthly of the extreamities which must be avoyded and of the meane that it is meete to keepe in all Fiftly the defences and comfortes against death the commodities of it and the great benefits which they reape by it who in young and old age make their recourse to Iesus Christ the food and drinke of eternall life The two first poynts shall be handled in this seauenteenth Chapter the other three in the Chapter following First It is reason that we should betimes thinke vpon death and meditating thereon we should castour eye vpon the freedome life immortalitie and other benefites which ensue it For he giueth death a ioyfull wellcome who before hand is prepared for it and who seeing him to come as at the beginning is no more moued and troubled thereat then the passenger which with a fauourable winde should in shorter time make an end of his sayling A certaine Auncient compared our life to him which is set in a sayling Ship be he sitting or standing he forwardes his way So wee euery moment make towardes death in our waking sleeping standing still or going But it is meete to settle and invre our mindes not to be too much affected and to doate vpon this present life not therein to lazie and house them as if it were their Countrie but rather to thinke that we are way faring persons from the Mansion and royall Pallace of our heauenly Father Let our minds then sigh and groane in this Tabernacle let them meditate vpon and wish for that happie life wherein all corruption shall bee swallowed vp least it happen to them as to those inconsiderate persons who being a long tyme growne lazie and idle in some incommodious rude and base Inne cannot bee haled out thence whatsoeuer remonstrance and counsell is giuen them But on the contrary let vs call to minde our originall and that wee are the sonnes of the euerlasting King that heauen is our countrey that for a while wee trot vp and downe in the earth as little children which are carryed out of cities into countrey villages there to bee nurssed vp till there fathers and mothers send to fetch them home Let vs remember that wee are poore passengers and that after much running vp and downe wee must returne home to our dwelling and settle our selues in some certaine place least our hearts make a stay and demurre at the things wee behold with our eyes and which haue some appearance to deceiue and detaine them Let vs take great heed of being desirous to dwell and to rott and stincke in the close and darke denne of our body and this present life which is nothing else but a horrid pryson of infinite temptations cares carckings and dangers where pleasure is vnpleasing where our ioy is vnsure where wee are tortured with feare scroched with lust and concupiscence wasted with sorrow and griefe Let our soule be daily couersant in heauen let our heart be where our treasure is By this meanes wee shall easily contemne all things that bee earthly transitory and perishing Whosoeuer doth daily thinke that hee is mortall and the Vieillard ought to thinke on it more then any other dispiseth that which hee sees present and makes hast to those happinesses which are future and to come I know no better meanes for our serious conuersion to God and to inioy perfect comfort then the remembrance of the end of our race in the world and the meditation of death This is a powerfull doctrine to draw vs out of the swallowes and gulfes of intemperance impatience and all riots and excesse Let vs remember our Creator in the dayes of our youth before old age and death intrappe and seize on vs Let the end of our actions and affayres bee before our eyes to containe vs in our obedience to God When death is betweene our teeth it is too late to prouide remedies against the terrours thereof He is vnaduised who thinkes to cast out his lading when his ship is all leakie takes in water on all sides It is no time to make prouision for a voyage when men are put forth and forward at Sea Hee deceiues himselfe who seekes preseruatiues when the pestilence is spread all ouer the body and hath seized the heart The foolish Virgines bethought themselues vnseasonably to seeke oyle for their Lampes when the spouse was entred and the gate shut But our Lord hath willed that the day of our death should be vnknowne vnto vs so much the more to dispose vs to waite for it following the example of those faithfull seruants who not knowing the houre of their masters returne stand vpon their guard carefully watching Such seruants are wise But the slothfull dissolute riotous who make spoyle and hauocke of all in the house without care of their master are mischeeuous and vnluckie Plato writeth in his first booke of his Common-weale That when any one is come to this point to thinke that he ought to die out of hand and
cost but six Liards three halfe pence or thereabouts and there were burned with faggotts of reedes or brush wood which were set round about them Behold sayth he our equipage our munition and armour of victorie this is out triumphall Chariot Eusebius writeth in the fiftie booke of his Historie of a holy martyr burned aliue with certaine plates of iron made red hot and set to his naked bodie notwithstanding which tormentes hee made a constant profession of the Christian faith even to the last gaspe Eusebius addeth that this sheweth that nothing is terrible to him which feeles that God loueth him and that whosoeuer seekes the glory of Christ Iesus is guarded and saued harmelesse from euery painefull and terrible accident and casuall event As for the vncouth and strange diseases and kindes of hideous death whereunto to mans life is exposed as they are to be seene in the horrible convulsions of Epilepsies falling sicknesses in the violent fittes of Apoplexies in cruell and hot burning feavers these are pittifull cases to behold and incident to our fraile and sinnefull nature But they are also certaine monitors of a better life seeing that our health and happinesse consisteth not in a sound temperature of humours but in this that our names are written in heauen and that wee haue bin dedicated to Iesus Christ For the Lord God who knoweth our heartes who in his secret judgement exerciseth some more then others regardes and considers what he hath done for vs and what the holy Ghost who comforteth vs in such accidents and cases doth for vs by vnspeakeable groanings not the intemperature of our bodies nor the effectes of it For this is an assured thing that there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Iesus and that nothing is able to seperate vs from the loue which the father of heauen beares vs for his sonnes sake yea that all things doe helpe together for the good of those whom according to his determinate counsell he hath called to the participation of his grace Therefore all Christians ought to remaine vndoubted and resolued in this poynt that there is no kinde of maladie torment or death which doth hurt Gods elect that there is no death happie ioyful peaceable to the wicked vnbeleeuers and miscreants whom God often times for a while doth vphold in this world to the end more heauily to punish them after hee hath dragged and haled them out of the earth Hereupon it will be demanded wherefore then so many great personages members of the Church of God and Christ Iesus himselfe the head thereof did feare death and prayed to be guarded and secured from it I answere that there was something of singular note in our Lord and which must be differenced and distinguished from others In that he not onely bore and felt a common death or seperation of the soule from the bodie but also vnder-went and sustayned the wrath of God and all the torments and agonies that may be imagined without sinne notwithstanding because hee was an hostage and pledge for vs Neuerthelesse in such sort that he did not yeeld nor shrinke vnder the burthen nor murmured a whit against God but voluntarily offred himselfe in sacrifice stood not demurring and shifting of death with natures delayes wholly submitted himselfe to the will of God his Father as it was foretold and figured by Dauid in the fortieth Psalme Here am I O God that I may doe thy will Behold as touching the head of the Church who had had no subiect of combat and victorie if he had not felt the tormentes and terrors of death without sinne or any offence and fault on his part In respect then we are his members let vs keepe and obserue this rule That wee cannot commend euery refusal or euery desire of death nor discommend all contempt of death Some wish death not so much for any desire they haue of a better life as for the despite and dislike they conceiue against their abode and stay in the world where they see miseries which their weake mindes cannot brooke and endure and which giue terrible shockes and assaults to the most resolued and stoutest hearts The Israelites wanting bread in the wildernesse wished death as also when newes was brought them that the Cananites were men of a very tall stature Iob in the depth of his panges and griefes desired to die as also the Prophet Eliah did during his escape in the Desert On the contrary Dauid Ezechias and other great personages very much feared death and instantly besought the Lord to guard and saue them from it But this was for a speciall consideration to wit in as much as they being afraide of the threatninges and judgements of God the approach of death appeared more terrible vnto them or because they wished to continue longer to aduance Gods glory and to yeeld their helpe and seruice to the edification of the Church Againe the same personages banished all feare from them looking vpon death according as now it is made vnto vs by the grace of God the rest from our labours the passage to a better life In this sense the Patriarch Iob spake in the 19. Chapter I know that my redeemer liueth and that I shall rise againe at the last day that I shall be againe cloathed with my skin and shall see the Lord in my flesh So Dauid did sing in the 16. Psalme For this cause my heart is glad my tongue reioyceth Moreouer my flesh resteth in assurance for thou wilt not leaue my soule in the graue And in the 23. Psalme Though I should walke in the shadow of death I will feare no euill because thou art with me CHAP. XVIII The sequele of the poynts propounded in the former Section concerning the resolutions and consolations against Death IF there be any men bound to meditate ordinarily vpon death to be armed with remedies against the alarumes of it to procure that their children friends and families doe liue as prest and readie to die wise old men are especially they whose true Philosophie is called the Meditation of death To draw them so much the more easily vnto it we will remember to euery one of them some sayings of wise Pagans and Heathens which will cause vs to say to all persons who vaunt themselues of the name of Christians At least doe not afflict and torment your selues more with the death of the your selues and yours then the silly Heathens who had no hope who so manfully contemned the approches of death who with so great constancie haue embraced it and striuen against it I speake thus considering the cowardize of some Christians who haue nothing so much in their mouthes and take so little to heart as death S. Ierome in the Epistle to Heliodorus shewing how we ought to be more resolute against the assaults of death and all accidents and casualties of humaine life then Infidells were maketh mention of Xerxes that mightie Monarch who ouerthrew mountaines and paved
is who euery day lay new foundations of their life and beginne to build and raise hopes when it behooues them to goe out of the world You shall see old men who runne themselues out of breath after honors profittes and transitorie goods But can there bee a more vnsightly and vnseemely thing seene then an old man to become a childe againe In the two and twentith Epistle Is it not a great shame to bee afraid when wee are to enter into a Pallace of assurance and safetie The reason is that we are dispossessed and turned out of all the goods after which we doe sigh and painefully toyle at the end of our life whereof not any portion or part remaines vnto vs all being gone and lost There is no man which takes care to liue well but to liue long yet all men may be able to attaine to this good to liue vertuously but no man can or ought to promise himselfe long life We doe adde And the old man which now hath no more to do with the things of this life that are common to all is so ill aduised that he thinketh not of the amendment of his life nor of the boxe and blowe which death shall suddenly giue him on the eare At the very end of the three and twentith Epistle There are some who begin to liue when they must dye and there are some who are dead before they haue begun to liue In the thirtith Epistle As little wise is hee who feareth death as the young man who feareth to bee old For as old age doth kicke and spurre young age in like sort doth death old age Hee which will not dye hath no will to liue because life was giuen with this exception That we must die Wee are in the way of death and who feareth it is out of his wits seeing we expect that which is certaine and feare that which is vncertaine At the end of the two and thirtith Epistle He is free and his owne man who liueth as if hee had no longer to liue And at the end of the sixe and thirtith Epistle Neither little infants nor young boyes nor madde men feare death it is then a great shame if reason doe not as much confirme and assure vs as stupiditie and sottishnesse doth them At the end of the threescore and seuenteenth Epistle It is with our life as with a Comedie it skils not how long it be so it bee well acted Take no care where the end of your race shall be make a stop and a stay where necessity enforceth you prouided you make a good end In the nintith three Epistle Let vs take order that as gold and other things of excellent price and worth so our life be not of a great length neuerthelesse that it weigh much Let vs not measure it by our time but by our worke Will you know a very good respite of yeares it is to liue till we be wise He that is come so farre though hee haue not attayned to a great number of yeares hath seene the greater and better part of them The nintith nine Epistle containeth sundry consolations in death which I will briefly set downe It is a fond and childish part to giue the reynes to sorrow and to make account of an vncertaine thing as our life is He doth ill who weepes vpon custome and seeing that sorrow doth make vs forget the blessings and benefits receiued of God wee must betimes shake off and rid our selues of it to the end to call to minde the vertue of our departed friends and to make our vse of it and of them as if they were present Wee ought to follow the example of those who haue shewed themselues vnmoued at the death of their friendes to thinke we shall follow the dead whom we haue not lost but giuen vp vnto God who are gone but a little before vs It is the way of the world our life doth so manifest it wee haue assurance of nothing vnder heauen but of death and our life is short though it containe many ages It is crossed and wounded with infinite miseries which end in death freeing it of malice and of errour and ignorance Consequently he which is accustomed to grieue much depriueth himselfe of comfort to remedy which and in stead of imitating the fond customes of the ignorant and vulgar hee must shew himselfe a man of courage in the most violent shockes and assaults of aduersitie setting before our eyes the worthy deportments and behauiours of those which goe before vs keeping a measure betweene sorrow and forgetfulnesse of those whom wee haue made much on and beene kind and friendly vnto in the world and whom we see no more and when they are at peace and rest we are to giue ouer to grieue and sorrow for them I reascend to the nintith one Epistle from whence I will deduce that which followes Doe not measure vs by our Tombes and Monuments which seeme to note some way differing betweene some and others The graue wherein our bodies are dissolued to dust makes vs all equall Wee are borne vnequall but death makes vs all equall The Soueraigne Law-giuer hath not differenced vs by our nobilitie linage blood and greatnesse but in this life but when death commeth hee sayth to this worldly greatnesse Begon I will that there bee the same law to all liuing things vpon earth Wee are all subiect to all sorts of euills One is no more frayle nor more assured to liue till to morrow then another In the hundreth and one Epistle There is no day nor houre which doth not point out vnto vs our vanity and which by some new experiment and tryall doth not remember vs of our frailty which we tread vnder our feet and which doth not compell euery one of vs who build and deuise endlesse plots and designes to haue an eye vnto death From the hundred and seuenth Epistle I will make this deduction It is good to beare that which we cannot remedy to follow without murmuring or complaining that great God by whose prouidence all things come to passe A bad Souldier is hee who followes his Captaine vnwillingly Let death finde vs prest forward and cheerefull The heat which doth resolutely consigne and yeeld it selfe into the hands of God is euery way great On the contrary he is a luske coward and basely bred fellow who spurnes kickes and winses who complaines of the gouernment of the world and who had rather censure God then himselfe In the hundred and twentith Epistle A man is neuer more heauenly minded then when he thinketh vpon his owne frailty and knowes and acknowledgeth that he is borne to dye Also that his body is not a house but an Inne and for a while It is a folly for vs to feare the last dayes of our life seeing our first dayes are tributarries and owe as much vnto death as our last The last day of our race makes vs to touch death all the other doe
approach it Death doth not violently lay hands vpon vs but gently laies hold on vs. Wherefore a vertuous soule feeling it selfe called to the participation of a greater happinesse endeuoureth to carry and behaue it selfe honestly and wisely in this earthly Sentinell and Station accounting none of those things to be hers which doe hemme her in on euery side but serues her turne with them as with borrowed mooueables remembring her selfe that shee doth but goe a iourney and in post hast There are many other sentences of Seneca touching the benefit of death in his Consolations to Polybius and Marcia as also in his other Treatises But we will make this extract no longer least so wee trouble and offend with long reading impatient and froward old men 4. Fourthly wee speake now of the extreamities that must be auoyded when there is question of death to wit Too great confidence or rashnes or rather inhumane or barbarous stupidity and sencelesnesse then the too great apprehension feare and paine of death Of a truth our Creator and Soueraigne Lord hath honoured vs with this fauourable gift and graunt that our hearts are of flesh not of stone or iron to bee easily touched with the sence of our miseries and the miseries of others How should we apprehend the mercy of God if we had not an apprehension of our miseries And what feare of God and of his iudgements would there be in the world if we should not feare death and other punishments which he doth mitigate and vsually conuert into wholsome remedies to persons who mourne vnder the burthen of their sinnes and with a repentant heart craue and implore the grace of their heauenly Father Wee are not willing to approoue the practise of those too austere Thracian Elders who wept at the birth day of their children and made great cheere merrily banquetted at the funeral of them that died Much lesse doe we purpose to dispute of death as Hegesias of Cyrena whom the King of AEgypt prohibited to discourse any more of death because many who heard him killed themselues No more doe we approoue those mad men such as were in times past certaine surnamed Circamcellianes of the Sect of the Donatists who not rightly vnderstanding the sayings of the Scripture touching mortification of the flesh cast themselues downe headlong from the toppes of high mountaines and without looking or staying for any commandement to doe so resigned and gaue vp the place they held in this humane life It is not lawfull for any priuate person without expresse authority and order of the Magistrate to kill a guilty or condemned person And hee which killeth himselfe is not hee a murtherer Who hath giuen him power and authority to doe so We abhorre and iustly the facinourous fact of Iudas who by dispaire increased his detestable impiety Sathan is the author of such counsells as wee see in the fourth Chapter of S. Matthew where Christ Iesus being importuned by that malignant and mischieuous one to throw himselfe headlong from the top of the Temple answereth That we must not tempt the Lord. S. Augustine sayd in his first Booke De Ciuitate Dei Chap. 22. That those which kill themselues make a hazardous proofe of some kind of greatnesse of courage but indeed they are mad men Further they are not magnanimous seeing that being vnable to support and beare aduersity they discouer their impotency and pusillanimity not their fortitude and valour in casting themselues so into the gulfe and iawes of death But hee is truely magnanimous who chooseth rather to beare the burthen of a miserable life then rashly to rid himselfe and flye from it instead of standing and abiding in the place allotted and appointed vnto him It is said that Cleombrotus hauing read the Booke which Plato writ of the immortality of mans soule cast himselfe downe headlong from a high wall to passe to the other life which hee iudged to be better But it was an act of wretched folly for Plato taught no such thing although he discoursed of the immortality of the soule Therefore let vs turne our backes to the Stoickes so brutish and besotted in their pride that they thinke it lawfull to a man which cannot suffer an iniury to kill himselfe A man of courage and fearing God knowing indeed that life is not giuen him doth not violently rid himselfe of it but renders it into the hands of God not fearing the approaches of death but submitting himselfe to his Soueraigne Lord who hath imployed him in his seruice in the world to goe out of it when he shall commaund him It is alledged that a speedy death is better then a fastidious and tedious life and once to bee quiet for altogether then so long to languish and droope But to attempt to leaue this life before God giue vs leaue is to fall into another death which neuer hath end What then shall not a Souldier dare to goe out of the armie without his Captaines license and passe port but vpon hazard of his head and shall mortall man goe out of this present life without the auouchy and warrant of the immortall who hath placed him in it protected and blessed him What crowne can the impatient the furious the infidell expect who in dispite of his Lord cowardly resignes his charge his place his honour with the losse of his body soule goods and friends who forsakes those to whom hee is bound and beholden breakes all the bandes of diuine and humane society God giueth a happy issue to their temptations who feare him hee doth in fit time deliuer and helpe them It is they which are to hold out to the end in a full assurance of hope not to quaile and lose courage but to follow those who by a faithfull and humble patience haue obtained the promised inheritance Let vs then take heed and beware of the arrogancy of the Stoickes and of the vaine confidence of Epicures who neuer thinke on death but thinke they are in league and friendship with him perswade themselues that it shall be easie for them to put by his blowes and to pacifie him Moreouer let vs haue no part in their effeminacy and diffidence who tremble at the meere name of death not thinking that in death it selfe there is not so great euill as in the solicitudes carkings sorrowes and feares wherewith a thousand times a day they kill themslues without any ease to their vnbeleeuing heart Their apprehensions are ill ordered fond and vnprofitable seeing as witnesseth the Prophet in the Psalme 89. 90. there is no man liuing can boast himselfe not to see death and to be able to saue his life out of the hand of the graue Hereupon we will say to young and old that their duty requires that they beare and behaue themselues so toward God that their death may not be a mortall but a liuing death And that they so gently and wisely lay downe their load in the world that they may not be found vnder
this pardon by the gift and hand of a liuely faith doe wrastle against the image of death against a bruised Serpent a wourried torne Lyon against a stinglesse Waspe against a vanquished enemie Chrysostome censureth in good manner those wretches who feare death and feare not sinne wherein they are insnared and wrapped nor the vnquenchable fire of hell which gapes for them Thus sayth he as children are wayward and wrangle if their mothers come neere them with maskes on their faces but when a lighted Candle is brought neere vnto them they readily thrust their handes in it and are burned So those men feare death who know not what it is to liue Death snatcheth away a miserable and short life to make vs to enter into an eternall and perpetuall blessed life Death doth seperate vs from the heapes of Iewells the robes moueables coffers crammed with gold and siluer the sundrie immoueables which we must leaue But in heaven we haue vnseperable riches with the Angels death extrudes and thrustes vs out of the earth but to bring vs into paradize death kills the bodie but it shall rise againe to die no more but be conformable to the glorified bodie of Christ Iesus If any man fight with his owne shadow he hurtes no bodie so death doth but beate the ayre in bickering and jousting against the just It hath beene Gods will and pleasure so sayth Chrysostome that this present life should be painefull and miserable to the end that being buffetted on all sides with so many and manifold miseries we should eagerly aspire to the happinesses to come But seeing we are thus farre ill aduised to wallow and idle it so willingly in this present life where so many disasters and miseries doe surround and encompasse vs how would it be with vs if there were nothing but ioy peace and rest here Our most mercifull heauenly Father doth so mitigate and temper the afflictions of this life that as a Lute-player doth not winde vp too high his Lute strings for feare to breake them nor slacken them too much that so their sweete harmonie tunablenesse may be more distinctly perceiued So doth the wise maister of our life not leauing vs in continuall prosperitie nor too much oppressed He is faithfull who will not suffer vs to be tempted beyond and aboue our strength but will giue a good issue to our temptations and tryalls to the end we should be able to beare them We see men of warre desirous of honour and to attaine to some rancke and degree manfully to expose themselues to a thousand dangers The couetous Marchant to runne vpon all hazards and risques for a handfull of yellow earth The voluptuous person to disdaine and set light by infinite reprochfull and woefull dangers to satisfie his passions and humours And you wise old men will you slumber and sleepe in a corner will you still sit with your armes and legges a crosse not rouzing lifting vp your selues to the contemplation and diligent seeking after so many happinesses prepared for them which loue God Doe you feare death you which in the middest of the shadowe of death haue standing at your ell-bow the Prince and Author of life If you beare in your hearts that quickning spirit which raised vp Iesus Christ from the dead whence is it that you feare death Haue you blotted out of your remembrance him who hath the wordes of eternall life who is the way the truth the resurrection the life who dyed for our sinne and is risen againe for our iustification But soyle not this gracious remembrance with the myre and mudd of sordid and obscene pleasures Let not the perswasions of the vncleane and filthie flesh stoppe and hinder the motions of the spirit illuminated by sacred Philosophie Let the repetitions of his most sweete most certaine and most holy promises bee potent and powerfull in your hearts who was willing to participate of our flesh and bloud that in the same nature foyled by Sathan our Sauiour hath abolished it by his death as by a most sufficient ransome he which conquered death to wit the Deuill Giue me leaue to reforme and rectifie you by recitall of the excellent promises following of the Lord. Verely I say vnto you that whosoeuer heareth my word and beleeueth in him which sent mee hath eternall life and shall not come to condemnation but is passed from death to life Iohn 5. 24. This is the will of him which sent me that whosoeuer beholdeth the sonne and beleeueth in him hath eternall life and for this cause I will raise him vp againe at the last day Such perspection and contemplation of faith is not as prophane persons chatter and mutter a vaine imagination but is coupled and covnited with his effect and with the true apprehension and laying hold of Iesus Christ and his benefites This great Sauiour hath so often times and againe and againe recommended it and for confirmation of it hath prepared his holy Table to which we draw neere there to receiue the bread of life ordayned to the nourishment of our soules to eternall life not for our bellies to receiue which bread we hold vp the hands of faith to heauen and beleeuing in him doe eate it That bread I say which is giuen to the children of the house not to reprobates who sometimes eate the bread of the Lord but not the bread of life which is the Lord. He which is not reconciled to Christ Iesus eateth not his flesh and drinketh not his bloud although euery day hee receiue but to his condemnation the Sacrament or the holy signes of so excellent a thing But he which confirmes and establisheth vs in Christ and who hath annoynted vs is God who also hath sealed and giuen vnto vs the earnest of his spirit in our hearts It is this holy spirit of promise wherewith we haue beene sealed yea for the day of redemption without which spirit the visible signes in the Sacramentes are receiued to condemnation by which spirit faith taught by the word confirmed by the signes or seales of the righteousnesse of the same faith takes daily new growthes and growinges and is manifested by holy workes of which the summe and totall is that we liue and die to the Lord who is dead and risen againe to haue dominion as well over the liuing as the dead to gouerne and guide vs as the sheepe of his pasture and finally to draw vs out of the hideous deserts of this worldly life no life in deed to gather vs to himselfe his heauenly sheep folde If God be on our side who shall be against vs Who shall bee able to make vs afraide and dismay vs Iesus Christ who is dead is risen againe it is he who now being set at the right hand of God maketh request for vs. Let vs adde some worthie sayinges of S. Cyprian in his excellent Treatise of death Simeon the iust reioycing to hold in his armes the little babe Iesus whom he had so
kernells of so many seuerall seedes somewhat before or at the Spring doe grow shoot vp and become so great that they are Plants and young Trees in the Summer or in the Autumne following Shall wee say that the same God who hath giuen this vertue to seedes is not able to doe as much in the most noble of his creatures and made expresly for his glory Christ Iesus propoundeth this argument when hee sayth in the 12. Chapter of S. Iohn Verily verily I say vnto you if the wheat corne falling into the earth doe not dye it abideth alone but if it dye it bringeth forth much fruit And S. Paul in the fifteenth Chapter of the first to the Corinthians Vers 35. c. But some man will say How are the dead raised vp and with what bodies come they forth O foole that which thou sowest is not quickened except it dye and as for that which thou sowest thou sowest not that which shall come vp againe but bare corne as it falleth of wheat or of other graine But God giueth it a body as hee will and to euery seede his owne body The Patriarch Iob in his fourteenth Chapter describing the frailty of our life in earth prayeth God in these tearmes Turne from the man that is afflicted let him be at rest till hee come to the end of his life as a hireling Then he addeth For if a Tree be cut downe there is hope and it will yet sprout and his branches shall not fayle Although the root thereof waxe old in the earth and the stocke thereof be dead in the ground yet feeling water it will bud and bring forth bowes as a Tree newly planted But man dyeth and all his strength is gone yea man breatheth out his last gaspe then where is hee These are the complaints of Iob extreamely afflicted beholding in his condition the condition of such like himselfe not speaking precisely nor determinately much lesse after the manner and meaning of Epicures On the contrary both his wordes of the tree cut downe and growing greene againe and that which hee addeth presently after makes it plaine what sense and feeling hee had in his soule of the doctrine concerning the resurrection The waters saith he flow from the Sea and the Riuer decayes and is dryed so mans lies in the earth and riseth not to wake againe till the heauens be no more they shall not to wake and they shall not be awakened from their sleepe It is well said for our bodies being cut off and layd vpon the earth and in the earth in the day of death shall take root againe haue bud and fruit that is shall liue againe They shall indeed rest in the earth vntill the end of the world And as S. Peter declareth in the third Chapter of his second Epistle Verse 10. The day of the Lord shall come as a theefe in the night In that day the heauens shall passe away with a whizzing tempestuous noyse It is that which Iob denoteth by these words There shall be no more heauens and the Elements shall melt with heate and the earth and all the workes therein shall be quite burnt vp But moreouer the same Patriarch maketh a plaine confession of his faith vpon this Article in the 19. Chap. Vers 25. saying As for me I know that my Redeemer liueth and that he shall stand the last day on the earth and although after my skinne wormes destroy this body I shall see God in my flesh whom I my selfe shall see and mine eyes shall behold him and none forme So then it may bee demonstrated from the first testimony of the tree cut downe after growing greene againe that the resurrection of the flesh is not aboue nor beyond besides nor against nature Notwithstanding wee acknowledge that the mighty power of God shall then bee seene as it was when hee raysed vp Christ Iesus shut vp in the graue as the Apostle witnesseth Rom. 1. 4. Ephes 1. 19. 20. And in the third Chapter of the Philippians at the end From heauen sayth hee wee looke for the Sauiour and the Lord Iesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned and made conformable to his glorious body according to the working and efficacy whereby hee is euen able to subdue all things to himselfe Among the ancient Theologians S. Basil doth propose and set out an image of the resurrection in those Insects which wee call Silke wormes Wherefore doe you wonder sayth he in his exposition of the six daies at the change which shall bee of our bodies at the day of the resurrection Seeing you see so many mutations and changes in the very insectes especially in the horned Indian worme It is first a Caterpiller which turnes to a Silke-worme Moreouer it keepes not this forme but is changed into a Butter-flye You those women who artificially winde vp your quilles and bobbins of silke and so cunningly and wittily twisted on your fine skaines and clues to make the most costly and curious garments that can be worne Remember you the diuersitie of this admirable worme to gather from it a cleere and certaine testimonie of the resurrection and beleeue that one day our bodies shall be otherwise then they be in this present life and in the graue Tertullian in the booke which he penned of the resurrection of the flesh confirmeth this Article of our faith by reasons worthy memory What difference is there at the first beginning to giue vs our life and after to restore it againe We cannot dispise the flesh of man except wee would also dispise the Lord and Creator of the same flesh The earth from whence the body of our flesh was taken is vile but that which is abiect and contemptible in his originall may bee excellent in regard of his very subsistence and matter Gold is but yellow earth and yet is much more precious then any other earth Doe we call the flesh vile wherein God hath infused the breath of his Spirit which the Sonne of God hath prised hath willed to be baptised and commanded to receiue the holy signes of the Sacrament with thankesgiuing True it is that the workes of the flesh that is of mans nature corrupted by sinne are condemned but not the flesh it selfe which the Sonne of God hath resumed and taken into the vnity of his person being God-man euerlastingly Moreouer the accomplishment of the last iudgement should bee imperfect if the whole man should not appeare there to the end that hee who hath suffered in his body for the confession of the truth may receiue remission and repose and that hee whosoeuer hath made the members of his body slaues to execute wickednesses may be punished Also it is meete that we should take vpon vs to spanne with our fingers and measure with our arme the miracles of God who alone as all people who are not altogether brutish doe auouch doth wonderfull workes of purpose that there might bee many choyce and rare
seat of Christ that euery man may receiue according to what he hath done in his body be it good or euill Knowing then the terror of the Lord we perswade men to the faith and wee are made manifest to God And that which he sayth at the end of the fourth Chapter of the first to the Thessalonians This we say vnto yee by the word of the Lord that wee which shall liue and remaine to the comming of the Lord shall not preuent them which sleepe For the Lord himselfe with a shout with the voyce of the Archangell and with the Trumpet of God shall descend from heauen and those which are dead in Christ shall rise first afterward wee which shall bee aliue and remaine shall bee caught vp with them also in the cloudes to meete the Lord in the ayre and so shall we euer be with the Lord. O how great occasion haue young and old who read these things to thinke vpon and consider their consciences Let vs adde some lineaments of the immortalitie of mans soule not that wee thinke that any good man doth call in doubt this truth but because we cannot too much fortifie young nor old against the bloudie scoffings execrable blasphemies of Epicures Atheistes with whom the earth is couered in these latter tymes Many auncient Philosophers as Pythagoras Pherecydes the Platonistes and the Stoickes haue set forth many sayinges of the immortalitie of the soule as much as they could learne out of the Schoole of Nature And yet as Lactantius declares it in his 7. booke of Diuine Institutions seeing they were ignorant wherein the soueraigne good of man doth consist vnlearned in the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles they apprehended not any thing of the truth of this Article but by vncertaine opinion and coniecture rather then by assured knowledge Yea which is worse some of them first Dicaearchus then Democritus and after them Epicurus haue disputed against the immortalitie of soules Cicero himselfe who otherwise doth eloquently harang and pleade this cause in the first booke of his Tusculane questions hauing examined diuers opinions is at a demurr doubt euen to say that it belongs to some god to scan and to see which of all these diuers opinions are maintained sayth he because these diuers opinions are maintained by learned men we cannot well coniecture which of them all is to be receiued But as Lactantius sayth wee to whom God manifesteth his truth need not to coniecture But the source and spring of error vpon this poynt is that those who haue questioned the certaintie of the immortalitie of the soule haue stood too much vpon their owne conceiptes and vnderstanding judging false and incomprehensible whatsoeuer was out of the reach of their apprehension Their reasons are well set forth and fitly confuted in the second and third Chapter of the Booke of Wisedome as it followeth The wicked haue falsely imagined with themselues our life is short and full of vexation and in the death of man there is no recouery and it was neuer knowne that any returned from the graue For we are borne at aduenture and shall be as if we had neuer beene because the breath of our nostrilles is as smoake and our wordes as a sparke rising vp out of our heart which being extinguished our body is turned into ashes and our spirit vanisheth as soft ayre Come then and let vs frolicke it with the pleasures that are present chearefully vsing the creatures and our youth let vs fill our selues with the best wine and with parfumes c. It is added also after The wicked haue thus erred and gone astray because their wickednesse hath blinded them and they haue not vnderstood the mysteries of God nor hoped for the reward of holines and haue not discerned what is the reward of the soules that are faultlesse For God created man to be incorruptible hauing made him to be an Image of his owne nature and likenesse but thorough the enuie of the Deuill death is come into the world and those which hold on his side proue it But the soules of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them In the sight of the vnwise they seemed to die their end was grieuous At their departure from vs they seemed vtterly destroyed but they are in peace They suffered paines before men their hope was full of immortalitie hauing beene lightly or in few things punished they shall be plentifully rewarded because God hath proued them as gold and hath found them worthie of him They shall judge the Nations and shall haue dominion ouer the people and their Lord shall raigne for euer Those which trust in him shall vnderstand the truth and the faithfull shall remaine with him in loue For grace and mercy is to his Saints and he hath care of his elect But the vngodly shall be punished for their very imaginations who haue made no reckoning of the righteous and haue rebelled against the Lord. For wicked is he who despiseth Wisedome and Discipline their hope is vaine their labours helpe them not and their workes are vnprofitable From these words we gather that the abhominable opinion of the mortalitie of the soule openeth the windowe to error and letteth goe the raynes to all impietie and dissolution Whereunto doth sort and agree the scoffing speeches of Epicures and prophane ones to elude and shift off the judgments of God denounced vnto them of which Esaiah in the 22. Chapter and Saint Paul in the 15. Chapter of the 1. to the Corinthians make mention Let vs eate and drinke for to morrow we shall die Let vs be frolicke and merry we haue but one day more to liue This is the reckoning of these clamourers and brawlers who deafe and trouble our eares with their discourses and reasons Moreouer this Text of the Booke of Wisedome discouereth the prophanenesse of these sensuall and carnall men to proceede from this that they judge of the soule of man according to their grosse imaginations to wit that it is no other but a respiration a breath and vapour of smoake not considering there is great difference betweene the effect and the cause that is betweene respiration which proceedes from the lunges and is conveyed to the nostrills or to the mouth and the soule it selfe which is that essentiall spirit which formeth man yea doth many thinges without the adiument and helpe of the bodie witnesse her speculations deepe imaginations profound meditations shee being neuer idle and without motion when the bodie is faste a sleepe and stirres not Although then that respiration ceaseth the naturall faculties of the heart and lunges being suffocated and leauing their office the soule created to the image of God is not stifled and abolished so as there is great difference betweene it and the soules of Beastes which being formed with the bodies of the same matter that the bodies are doe perish also as the bodies and with them whereof it is that
THE WISE-VIEILLARD OR OLD MAN TRANSLATED OVT OF French into English by an obscure Englishman a friend and fauourer of all wise Old-Men ECCLVS 25. 4. 5. O how pleasant a thing is it when gray-headed men minister judgement and when the Elders can giue good counsell O how comely a thing is Wisedome vnto aged men c. PRO. 16. 31. Age is a crowne of glorie when it is found in the way of righteousnesse LONDON Printed by Iohn Dawson 1621. TO THE RIGHT VVORSHIPFVLL VVORTHIE REVEREND AND LEARNED DIVINE Mr IOSEPH HALL Doctor of Diuinitie and Deane of Worcester the Author doth Dedicate this Translation as the first fruit and essay of his FRENCH Studies WORTHIE SIR This translation of the sage Vieillard being the fruit of certaine vacant and divorced houres I purposed to dedicate in a singular respect to a worshipfull Gentleman your good friend and neighbour Mr Henry Archer late of Thaydon Garnon in Essex who was well versed in the French language But his death disappoynted me of my purpose made my pen fall out of my hand lye still and stirre no further hauing then more then halfe finished the Booke The second yeare after whose death well weighing with my selfe that it was a Worke might yeeld some profit to my Countrie men of England I tooke vp my Pen againe and at starts and tymes finished it And then withall considering with my selfe that a good Booke in these dayes had need of a good man to Patronize it I called to mind that your worthy selfe hauing beene in Fraunce and other forraine partes might be a fit Maecenas to support my weake labours therein and so boldly adventured to Dedicate the Patronage thereof to your good Worship And I was the rather imboldened thereunto vpon hope that for your deceased good friend and neighbours sake to whom it should haue beene Dedicated you would not refuse it at least for the workes sake being a mixt Subiect of morall and diuine documents and instructions And further I hope that it will not be accompted presumption to dedicate a good Booke to the learned and vertuous Howsoeuer it is my dutie to craue pardon for presuming to dedicate it to your worship my selfe being a man of an obscure and humble condition And therefore I doe further craue your pardon that I may not make my selfe otherwise knowne vnto your worship then by the two Alphabeticall letters of my name here-vnder printed Yet haue I alwayes beene since I first knew you and still doe rest a man which doth vnfainedly reuerence you T. VV. ¶ To the Reader I AM loath to woce thee by styling thee courteous kinde gentle Reader but rather desire that the subiect matter of the Booke might allure thee to read it The French Author thereof hath intituled it TheWise Old Man by which title hee seemes to implie that all are not wise that are old which if it be so hee then seemes to glance at our English Prouerb No foole to the old foole Howsoeuer hee lessons both young and old what they should be As for my part I thinke it not fitting to preface the wholesome documents and instructions contained in it which as good Viandes are offered to thy taste least I should take away thine appetite to read it and make thee to surfeit before thou hast fed All that I haue to doe and lesse I cannot doe is to craue thy fauourable construction of that I haue done For I modestly confesse I haue beene too ouerweening and bold to take vpon me to translate so worthy a Worke of the worthy French Author thereof Monsieur Symon Goulart my selfe being no higher a graduate in learning then a common Grammarian and no better skilled in the French language then what mine owne practise and study hath enhabled mee to be But vpon the first reading of him I was so delighted that my fingers did euen itch to set pen to paper and to vnclaspe so good a Worke which was shut vp from thy vse and benefit vnder a strange tongue Make much I pray thee of him now because hee speakes to thee in English and if he speake it not well I craue thy pardon for I am in fault that haue taken vpon mee to make him speake our language before I well vnderstand his Yet I hope I haue hit of his meaning though I vary from his wordes as all Translators must doe And now I am a suiter for pardon I doe wooe thee by these Epithites of courteous kinde gentle Reader charitably to censure mee for taking vpon me to put into English so worthy a Worke with so weake a hand which fauour I hope I shall the rather obtaine at thy hands for that I haue done it out of a good will to thee and not out of any skill in mee which I doe disclaime and therefore I desire to hide mee from thee and not otherwise to be knowne vnto thee then I am to the worthy Gentleman to whom I haue beene hold to commend the patronage of this Worke. And so I leaue thee courteous Reader to God and wish thee to be with God when thy time is to goe to him and will still bee thy well wisher in all good things T. W. THE CONTENTS OF THE twentie Chapters of this Booke Chapter 1. OF long life and the desire men haue to liue long in the world Page 1. Chapter 2. Of such persons as haue liued long namely the Patriarches before the Flood Page 11. Chapter 3. Of the Tree of Life and of the Tree of Knowledge of good and euill Page 16. Chapter 4. What old age is and how many Species and kindes of old age there be Page 22. Chapter 5. The Spring-head of old age and the causes and occasions of it Page 28. Chapter 6. Of the Climactericall Yeares Page 41. Chapter 7. The complaints of the miseries of old age aduisedly discussed Page 44 Chapter 8. Foure causes propounded by Cicero of the miseries of old age reduced to two to wit the miseries of the bodie and of the minde Page 48. Chapter 9. A more speciall Catalogue or numbring vp of some miseries in old men in regard of their bodies Page 53. Chapter 10. The miseries of old men in regard of their mindes Page 63. Chapter 11. Of the causes that old age is burthensome and tedious to old men Page 82. Chapter 12. Of the benefit or good of old age Page 86. Chapter 13. Of the profit which wise old men may reape from the doctrine contained in the Writings of Philosophers and Heathen Authors Page 96. Chapter 14. Assured consolations against all infirmities of bodie and minde Page 107. Chapter 15. An aduise to wise old men containing the summarie and substance of their dutie vntill their last gasp Page 126. Chapter 16. Worthy meditations for all persons especially the wise Vieillard of what quality or condition soeuer he be Page 136 Chapter 17. Consolations against death and how it ought to be feared or not feared Page 145. Chapter 18.