though shut up in the body yet shee can have a tast of her glorious posthume liberty Death looseth the Soule from the body it breaks in sunder the secret bonds of the blood that she may have the full use of her wings and be united to Divinity Patience though it doth not quite loosen the chaine yet it lengthens it that she may take the aire and walk some part of the way towards Home Though it frees not the Soul from the body yet it gives her liberty and dominion over it He that is tyed up by a long Cord is within the compasse allowed him untyed and a free man The Spirit of man incensed by adversities and collected into it selfe is by a certain Antiperistasis made more ardent and aspiring Fire is never stronger nor more intense then amongst Water In the bosome of a cloud it breakes forth into thunder So this Divine Spark which God hath shut up in Vessels of Clay when all the passages of pleasures are stopt his raies which before were diffused and extravagant returne into it selfe and missing their usuall vent break forth with such violence as carries with it sometimes the very body and steales the whole man from passion and mortality The Levitie of fire is of greater force then the Gravity and Massinesse of Earth His Spirit is unresistable and the unknown force of it will blow up the greatest Mountains and the strongest Castles this earth affords Hitherto have I discoursed of outward Evills I shall now consider the Inward and how Patience is their Antidote You have seen her Prerogative over Fortune and reputed Evills which are called Evills because they seem to be so not because they are so as disgrace grief and poverty All these are but fictitious Evils which Custom and Humane error have branded with that injurious denomination for in these contingencies there is no reall Evill but the Evill of opinion neither is any man miserable but in his own conceit and by comparison The glory of Patience would be but poor and trivial if it could doe no more then take away or beare with such frivolous and fictitious troubles as these If it prevailed onely against Evills which we do not suffer but invent It s true glory is that it subdues true Evills Not that it bears them but that it removes them far from us Not that it endures them but than it abstaines from them For truly to suffer Evil is to do Evil whose Agent alwaies the Patient is by reason of a most ill impatience But Patience is onely excellent because it suffers not This worst kind of Evil is therefore the greater because because when 't is in acting it is not seen and were it not afterwards felt there would be no place left for Virtue This is the usuall method of Vice a flattering Comical entrance and a Tragical exit The force and malice of Evil Actions may be gathered by their Nature They are so powerfully hurtful that when they cease to be they cease not to torment us and so malignant that while we act them they flatter us that being Acted they may afflict us While we are doing them they conceal and deny themselves but being done they appear to our sorrow Wherefore he that will lead a blessed a joyfull and a peaceful life must make it his whole work to do no work but what Religion and Virtue shall approve of What peace and security can he enjoy that will revenge himselfe what more would cruelty have according to his own lust What life can he be said to live that kills himselfe to please his inordinate affections What joy can he have whose troubled conscience is his continual Executioner racking and tormenting him in the very embraces of smiling Fortune No outward Fomentations will serve turne against that Indisposition to which fevers and fire are but coolers Wee can provide against the violence of winter and Summer-weather when and how we please But the inward heats and colds the raging accessions of the Spirit admit no cure Patience though Fortune should assist her will never heal the wounds of conscience He that suffers by the guilt of Conscience endures worse torments then the wheel and the saw As that heat which ascending from the liver and the region of the heart doth diffuse it selfe through the body is greater then the united flames of the dog-star and the Sun What torturing invention of Amestris Pherâ—tima or Perillus did ever so afflict distress'd wretches as the fury of his owne Conscience did torment Orestes though freed from all men but himself no Tyrant is so cruel as a guilty spirit Not Scylla with his prison Siuis with his Isthmian pine Phalaris with his bull Sciron with his Rock nor Faunus in his Inne The Pelusians when they punished Parricides conceived no torture so answerable to the heynousnesse of the crime as this inward Divine revenge neither the Sack nor the Lime-kil pleased them so much as this gnawing worm the terrible and luctual excogitation of the wise Father of Nature They ordered therefore and enacted it for a Law that the murtherer for three daies and three nights should be pent up in some narrow roome together with the naked body of the slaine and be forced to look upon it whither he would or not which was effected by putting him in such a posture as permitted him not to look any way but just upon the dead The Sicilian Tyrant himselfe knew that conscience was a more cruell torment then the bull of brasse This made him spare the most unnaturall and bloody offenders that they might be tormented not with scalding metalls and glowing Iron but by a damning conscience The first penaltie for murther was conscience The first Actor of a violent death was punished with life He that first saw and introduced death was thought worthy of no other punishmenâ— but the security of life which he first shewed to be not secure for it is a more mercilesse punishment then death to have long life secured with a killing conscience So he that brought murther first into the World was first punished with the terrourr of conscience Which are then most torturing when health and strength are the capital punishments The Protoplasts themselves the parents of death and of mankind too who gave us death before they gave us life thought it a greater plague then death to be still alive and yet to be guilty of death They would have fled to death to flye from themselves Apposite to this is that of Marius Victor They faine would if they might Descend to hide themselves in Hell So light Of foot is vengeance and so near to sin That soon as done the Actors do begin To fear and suffer by themselves Death moves Before their Eyes Sad dens and duskie groves They haunt and hope vain hope which fear doth guide That those dark shades their inward guilt can hide You see now that conscience even amongst the Pelusians was held a
throughly so is if not Evill a neighbourhood to Evill True praise consists not in a bare abstinence from Evill but in the pursuance the performance of good It sufficeth not therefore that we doe nothing which may afflict us but we must withall doe something that may exhilarate us This we must remember that to do good is one thing and to become good is another Although we cannot become good unlesse wee doe good But we become good not because we have done good works but because we did them well Discretion which considers the manner of doing good orders the Action so excellently that oftentimes there is more goodnesse in the manner then in the Action What will it availe us to do good if it be not well done It is to write faire and then to poure the Inke upon it Actions cease to be good unlesse well acted they are like excellent colours ill-layed on The more glorious thy intention is the more carefully thou must manage it Indiscretion is most evident in matters of importance One drop of Oyle upon Purple is sooner seen then a whole quart that is spilt upon Sack-cloath The Ermyn keepes his whitenesse unstained with the hazard of his life Hee values himselfe at a most sordid rate that esteems lesse of Virtue then this beast doth of his skin that prefers a foule life to a fair death that loves his blood more then his honour and his body more then his Soule Ennius saith that the way to live is not to love life Life is given us for another cause then meerly to live he is unworthy of it that would live onely for the love of life the greatest cause of life is Virtue what more absolute madnesse can there be then to make life the cause of sin yea the cause of death And for lifes sake to lose the crowâ— of life What greater unhappinesse then to dye eternally by refusing death The Virtuous youth Pelagius rather then he woulâ—d lose his Innocence suffered the most exquisite and studyed torments of that impure Tyrant Habdarrhagmanus He suffered many deaths before he was permitted to dye Hee saw his limbs his hands and his sinewes cut in sunder and lying dead by him while he yet lived This preservation of their honour some chast beauties have paid dearly for It cost Nicetas his tongue Amianus his Eye Saint Briget her face Apollonia her teeth and Agatha her breasts The lovely Cyprian Virgin paid her life for it Nature even for herself doth lay a snare And handsome faces their own traitours are The beauty of Chastity is best preserved by deformity and the purity of life by a contemptible shape The Shoomaker is carefull of the neatnesse of a shooe which is made to be worn in durt and mire And shall man be negligent to adorn his Soul which is made for Heaven and the service of the deity Every artificer strives to do his worke so as none may find fault with it And shall we do the works of life perfunctorily and deceitfully All that makes man to be respected is his worke as the fruite doth make the Tree and a good work can never be too much respected Keepe thy selfe alwaies in respect by doing good Thy own dignity is in thy own power If thy works be good thou shalt be accounted good too If better then any thou shalt be acknowledged for the best Man is the effect of his own Act he is made by those things which he himself makes Hee is the work of his own hands A rare priviledge that permits men and impowers them to make themselves Thou hast leave to be whatsoever thou wouldst be God would not limit thy happinesse He left thee power to encrease it to polish and beautifie thy selfe according to thy own mind Thy friend or thy neighbour cannot do it Thy owne good must be thy owne industry Virtue because she would be crosse to Fortune is not adventitious It is our great happinesse that this great good must not be borrowed Blessed be that Divine mercy which hath given us means to be saved without the assistance of our neighbours who have endeavoured to damn us That almighty hand which first Created man in the Image of his Creatour finished him not but left some things for him to doe that he might in all things resemble his maker It is one thing to be an Idol or Counterfeit and another to be a lively Figure and likenesse There are many Coppies which are not assimilant to their Originals like Pictures that have not so much as an ayre of those faces they were drawn by To the Politure and sweetning of the Divine Image there are some lines expected from thine owne hand If some expert Statuary suppose Phidias himselfe should leave unfinished some excellent peece like that Statue of Minerva at Athens and out of an incurious wearinesse give himself to some obscure and Artlesse imployment or to meere Idlenesse wouldst not thou much blame and rebuke him for it And canst thou deserve any lesse if by a loose and vitious life thou wilt either totally deface the Image of God in thy selfe or else leave it unfinished Doest thou think that God is maimed seeing thou doest leave his Image without hands I mean without good works Dost thou think that he is blind seeing thou dost extinguish or put quite out that discerning light and informing wisdome which hee hath given thee Hee that doth not integrally compose himself and will not carefully strive for perfection would represent God to be imperfect and a Monster Virtuous manners saith holy Maximus are types of the Divine goodnesse by which God descends to be represented by man assuming for a body those holy habits and for a soule the Innocent dictates of wisdome in the spirit by which he makes those that are worthy to become Gods and seals them with the true character of Virtue bestowing upon them the solid riches of his infallible and immortal Knowledge Work then while it is day while it is life-time work and cease not Finish this expectation this great spectacle not of men onely but of God and Angels Remember that the rewards and applause of this World are but a Paint of eternity The solid and permanent glory is given in Heaven When every man shall have praise of God The Limbner is carefull to beautifie and shew his utmost skill in that peece which hee knowes to be intended for judicious eyes Thou art not to paint but really to make a living Image of the Divine mind which also must be examined and judged by that searching eye from which nothing can be hidden have a care that no ill mixture nothing disproportionable nothing uneven or adulterate may be found in it The presents we offer to the true God must be true and solid works not the fictitious oblations of Jupiter Milichus Why wilt thou delight in a maimed Soule or which is worse in a Soul whose best part is dead Thou hadst rather have a
fed for nine months with excrementitious obscenities to bear all the ignominies of Nature all the abuses of Fortune to resume the ignorance of Infancie the feares of Childhood the dangers of youth the cares of manhood and the miseries of old age I am of â—eliefe that no man did ever live so happily as to be pleased with a repetition of past life These Evills which with our owne consent wee would not have reiterated wee are driven into without our consent They are necessarily inferred that they may be willingly borne to shew the necessity of Patience Wee are born on condition that wee must dye Death is the price or reward of life It is the Statute-law of mankind and that ought to be born as a publick good which were it not already enacted would be the spontaneous petition of all men Certainly if life were without the Jubile of death it were just to refuse it as a servitude which hath no year of release Let us now clearly prove that death is not Evill out of her assimilation and conformity to those things which are most excellently good None leade a better life then those that live so as if they were dead Rom. Câ—ap 6. ver 7. For he that is dead is freed from Sinne. Therefore that which is the exemplar of goodnesse cannot be Evill The onely true praise of the living is to assimilate death He is the most commendable liver whose life is dead to the World and he is the most honest that lives the least to it whose Soul listens not to the body but is at a constant distance from it as if they were dissolved or though it sojournes in it yet is not defiled by it but is separated from sensuality and united to Divinity What is the reason thinkest thou that the Divine Secrets are revealed to men most commonly in their sleep because that similitude of death is most pleasing to God Life is a wild and various madnesse disturbed with passions and distracted with objects Sleepe like death settles them all it is the minds Sabbath in which the Spirit freed from the Senses is well disposed and fitted for Divine intimations The Soul is then alive to it selfe while the body reigns not and the affections are ecclipsed in that short Interlunium of the temporall life Philosophie or humane Knowledge is nothing else but a Contemplation of death not to astonish or discourage men but first to informe and then to reform them for the fruit of Philosophy is Virtue and Virtue is nothing else but an imitation of death or the Art of dying well by beginning to dye while we are alive Virtue is a certain Primrose a prolusion or Assay of dying Therefore that by which man becomes immortall and eternall is the preface and the Inchâ—ation of death This is the main drift of Philosophy to make life comfortable by conforming it unto death and to make death immortality by regulating life Death is intollerable to him only that hath not mortified his desires while he yet lives but expects to swallow up death and all the powers of it at once that is to say in the hour of death We cut our meate and feed on it by bits lest we should be choaked by swallowing it whole so death if it be assayed and practised by degrees will be both pleasant in the tast and wholsome in the digestion if we mortifie one affection to day and another to morrow Hee that cannot carry a great burthen at once may carry it all by portions Philosophy acts the part of death upon the Stage of life it kills sensuality and makes death most easie to be born by teaching us to dye dayly What can be more grievous then death unto him who together with his own feeles the paine of a thousand other dying cupidities We faile not to bewaile the losse of one thing whither honour pleasure or a friend How much more when we loose all at a blow and loose eternal life in one short minute The Soule of the wise man frees her selfe from the body in an acceptable time she casts off the delectations of the flesh and the cares of this World while it is day-light that shee may enjoy her self and be acquainted with God before the night comes She finds by experience that her forces are more vigorous and her light more discerning when she is not sullied with Earthly negotiations and the grossâ— affections of the body she finds that covetousnesse love and feare permit her not to see the truth and that the affaires of the body are the Remora's of the Spirit and therefore she concludes that he must neglect the cryes of the flesh and be attentive onely to the voyce of God and upon these considerations shee shakes off that Bondage she deserts the familiarity and consultations of blood that she may advise with and discerne the most clear light of truth she casts off pleasures by which even Spirits are made subject to sense and pollution The truth is most pure and will not be manifested but to the pure and the undefiled Therefore all the scope and the end of Virtue is to separate the Soul from the body and to come as near death as possibly may be while wee are yet alive This is the cause that wise men do so much love and long for death at least they fear it not How can he feare death who by dying passeth into the life of the blessed Who hath already delivered himselfe from more feares and inconveniences then death can free him from Yea from those dangers which make death fearfull Who before his dying day hath disarmed and overcome death Shall he that all his life-time desired to be separated from the body repine at the performance and fullfilling of it It were most ridiculous if hasting towards home thou wouldst refuse the helpe of another to convey thee thither with more speed and be angry at thy arrival in that Port whither thou didst bend thy course since the first day thou didst set forth There is no man that seeking for a friend will not rejoyce when he hath found him No man will be angry if another perfects what he did begin but was not able to finish Nature by death perfects that which Virtue had begun in life and the endeavour dies not but is continued and thrives by a necessary transplantation While he yet lived he denyed himselfe the use of the body because it hindrâ—d the course of the Soul and the body dying he doth but persist in the same just denyall It is a greater pleasure to want then not to use what wee doe not want This Correlation of Death and Virtue I shall exhibite or lay out to your view by a discussion of those honours which each of them procures As Virtue by the Consideration of death ordereth and preserves her Majesty so by imitating death she obtaines the reverence and admiration of all What more reverend thing can wee labour for then that which
time have beene well spared Here was the foundation of the Churches of Japan and Amangucia This very Indian and none before him becomming the first fruits of that region unto CHRIST So glorious a document of Patience made him envy our Divine Philosophy that envy made him Ambitious and his holy Ambition made him a Christian So gainfull an Industry is Patience and such a compendious Art of overcomming Most wholsome is the advice of Pimenius Malice saith he never overcomes malice you must overcome malice with goodnesse But if we could overcome one Evill with another why will wee not reserve that Glory for Virtue By such a bloodlesse Victory did Motois overthrow his Adversary from whom he fled most valiantly lest he should offend him I do not say with his hands but with his sight for Patience hath no hands but shoulders His Adversary pursues Motois had lockt himself up became his own prisoner esteeming it guilt enough that another could be angry with him But hearing that his Enemy was come in being only Impatient till he had shewed more Patience hee breakes open the door bids him welcome and like one that had offended desires to be forgiven and afterwards feasts him This story I have touch'd upon that thou maist see how powerfull an Instrument of tranquillity and a quiet happy life Patience is that makes peace to beare fruit in another mans soyl and civilizeth forraigners How fruitfull then is she at home How prosperous a dresser of Virtues in himselfe is the patient man that will not suffer the propagation of Vices in another But Leander said that Patience doth either overcome or else win her Enemies I say she doth both win and overcome She wins men and overcomes Fortune nay she makes her though unwilling a most officious servant of Goodnesse The name of Patience is not an empty titular Honour it hath also very large and princely revenues for the maintenance of Virtue That Fable of the Divine in holy Maximus is truth He saith that wise men dwell in the shadow of a tree which the more the people cut it growes the more It strives and vies with the Iron or to borrow the Poets expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It lives when kill'd and brancheth when 't is lopt His own Mythology is most elegant By this tree saith he is signified wisedom which turâ— es misfortunes into Ornaments trouble into Virtue losse into gain and scars into beauty For the Patient and wise liver like the Serpent of Lerna when he is most mangled is most entire he drinkes in fresh spirits through his very wounds his courage is heightned by them and his spilt blood like dew doth cherish and revive him Like some faire Oke that when her boughes Are cut by rude hands thicker growes And from those wounds the Iron made Resumes a rich and fresher shade The benefit then wee receive from Patience is twofold It diminisheth the sorrowes of the body and increaseth the treasure of the mind Or to speak more properly there is one great benefit it doth us It turnes all that is Evill into Good Most apposite to this is that of Nazianzen Patience digesteth misery Concoction and Digestion of meats are the daily miracles of the stomack they make dead things contribute unto life and by a strange Metamorphosis turne Herbes and almost all living Creatures into the Substance of Man to preserve his particular Species No otherwise doth Virtue by Patience which is her stomack transform and turne all damages into benefits and blessings and those blessings into it self Lupines or bitter Pulse if steep'd in water will grow sweet and nourishing Patience doth macerate miseries to fatten it selfe with them Certaine Divine Raies breake out of the Soul in adversity like sparks of fire out of the afflicted flint The lesser the Soule minds the body the lesser she adheres to sensibility shee is by so much the more capable of Divinity and her own Nature When her Den of flesh is secure and whole then is she in darkness sleepes under it When it is distressed and broken then is she awake and watcheth by some Heavenly Candle which shines upon her through those breaches The wounds of the Body are the windowes of the Soul through which she looks towards Heaven light is her provision shee feedes then upon Divinity Sublime is that rapture of the most wise Gregory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one food the best for all Is to feed on the great Gods mind draw An Immense light from the bright Trinity Death it self which the lust of eating brought into the World inedible or as Zeno saith indigestible is eaten digested and transubstantiated into life by Patience begun in Abel and perfected in JESUS CHRIST So that now that saying of Pirrho who affirm'd that there was no difference betwixt death and life is no longer a Paradox nor need we make use of that shrewd exaggeration of Euripides who knowes said he but this which we call life is death and death life we see that men when they are as we speak alive are then only sick but the dead neither sicken nor suffer any sorrowes Certainly the death of a good liver is eternal life Every Action of a wise man is a certain emulation of Death wee may see it exprest in his patience The Soul by this Virtue disintangles and frees her selfe from the troubles of Mortality For the frivolous flesh burning with fevers or drown'd in dropsies or any other diseases the attendants of corruption which possesse and fill up the narrow Fabrick of Man the Soul as in great inundations when the lower roomes are overflown ascends to the battlements where she enjoyes a secure healthfull ayre leaving the ground-roomes to the tumult and rage of the distemper'd humours She ascends thither where griefe cannot ascend Carneades comming to visit Agesilaus grievously tormented with the Gout and turning his back to be gone as if impatient of the violence and insolencie of the disease whose custome it is to shew litle reverence towards the best men the prerogative of Virâ—â—e can give no protection to Nature Agesilaus pointing from his feet to his brest calls him back with this Check stay Carneades the pain is not come from thence hither Hee shew'd by this that his mind was in health though his feet were diseased and that the pain had not ascended thither where the Soule sate inthroned At this height she hath two priviledges more then ordinary she is lesse affected with the body because at some distance from it and hovers above griefe because above sensibility shee is nearer to God and dresseth her selfe by his beames which she enjoyes more freely as from a kind of Balconie or refreshing place having onely a Knowledge but no Sense of the bodies affliction From this place she overlookes the labours and conflicts of the flesh as Angels from the windowes of Heaven behold Warre and the Slaughter of distracteâ—â—â—en One benefit more shee hath by Patience that
rich oppressours of this World to have their Carkasses buried in the abundance of their treasures unlesse they mean by it to restore that unto the Earth which was digged out of her bowells Gold and Silver are no ransome for unrighteousnesse Virtue alone which survives death is the refreshment of the dead He cannot be affeard to dy who is assured of a better subsistance after death Their dissolution is onely fearful to those who lose all by it and their life to boot The Posthume Inheritance of man is his righteousnesse and integrity which death takes not from him but puts him in possession of them Thou maist gather that good or Virtuous works are proper and necessary to the Soul out of mans natural desire of fame and that innate appetite of immortality which is planted in his Spirit Nature desires nothing which is not rational and her perswasions even when they degenerate strain and point at some primitive delights and innocent priviledges which she was free to before her corruption All secular glories dye with the body goodnesse only is above the power of death That faire part of life is kin to the Supreme good and death cannot hurt it yea it is secured by death which kills envy and frees the virtuous both from the malice of their Enemies and the possibility of failing in themselves Therefore the best imployment for man if he will consider either his own benefit or the approbation and liking of nature which aimes also at immortality is the work of virtue yea far better then the work of reason Many while they study the reason of virtuous works passe by virtue it self By a fruitless study how to do good they lose their time and doe none at all Theorie is nothing so beneficial as Practice It is a true saying that Jamblichus cites out of Pythagoras Every good thing consists of substance and use and not of meer knowledge To be good is to doe good The knowledge of a skilfull Physitian profits not the sick unlesse he falls to practise and gives him something towards his cure Learned Aphorisms heal not the diseased but bitter Medicines That Soul which can reason subtilly and discourse elegantly is not saved but the Soul which doth good works Knowledge and Faith without actual Charity are both dead Neverthelesse there is amongst men a certain covetousnesse of Wisdome and Knowledge as well as of Money The acquisition pleaseth them but they will not set it out to use As Usurers hoard up their mony laying it out neither in pious works nor for their own necessities but suffer it to lye under rust and darknesse So some Learned men neither practise those excellent rules of Living which they have learnt nor will they impart them unto others They study stil more curiosities being in the mean time incurious of their salvation I will say of them as Anacharsis said of the Athenians They know no use of money but to count it There is no man poorer then the rich miser and none more unlearned then the unpractised Nature is contented with mediocrity The World hath many things in it which humane affairs have no need of Virtue also is perfected in few precepts Though we fill the world with our Writings it is not our Volumes that can make us good but a Will to be so Book-men write out of no other design but to reform and civilize Mankind They make several Assayes numerous attempts and then renew them The Dice run not well alwaies the last cast may carry more then all the former Therefore to stir up and incline the Will to goodnesse many things are necessarie but to be good there is nothing needfull but willingnesse We suffer our selves to be cheated by hope we trust that when we have gathered so much knowledge as we covet then we shall do all that we can dâ—sire O foolish and vain prâ—crastination Alchuvius terms it a Palsie I am sure it is a madnesse We stay like that foolish Beggar for a Mess from the Kings table and in the mean time starve We care not to use this present life which is our own but study the secrets of another which as yet is not ours We would learn Mysteries and some things that are either out of our way or else beyond it Christians should neither wander nor sit down but goe on What is that to thee follow thou me Content is a private sphere but wants nothing and is ever calme They that study the world are of the two the worst Speculators Popular politick persons live alwayes by events Their ambition and firienesse makes their lives uneven and uncertaine innocent and undisturbed habits are the companions of Humility Giant-spirits though they may flash sometimes with faire thoughts have alwaies dark and stormy affections Men or the most part of men are like Swans whose feet though ever in a living Bath are alwaies black but their wings and doune which keep above those streames are pure white That part of our lives which is ever padling with the current of Time is foul and defiled but that which soares above it is fair and holy Worldly businesse is the Soules Idlenesse Man ordained to be King of the Worlds Republick had been a meer Cypher if without Soul-imployment He had been created to no end without this Aime If he for whom all things were made will not endeavour to secure himself being made he was made in vain An ornament to the World he cannot be He was not made with any great gaity his decaies are both numerous and hastie If to be seen only were the duty of created things the Stars should have been onely fixt and not moving Stop if thou canst the course of the Sun his restlesse and vast circâ—mvolution As motion makes him bright and lively for hee rejoyceth to run his race so standing still and slothtfulnesse would make him sad and sullied the beauty of the Firmament would be darken'd the freshnesse of the earth would fade and the whole family of Nature missing those cherishing beames would pine and decay Rivers would fall asleep Minerals would prove abortive and the mourning world would wast away under darknesse and sterility But the Sunne though he should not move would not be uselesse his very sight is beneficial Hee is the created light of the visible world a marvellous vessel and an ornament in the high places of the Lord. But man for whom all these things were made without he bâ— active and serviceable to his own Soule is good for nothing There is nothing more pleasant nothing more peacefull nothing more needfull then an industrious Wise man and nothing more impertinent and uselesse then the sluggard The rest of the mind is the motion of Virtue and the idlenesse of the idle is the disturbance of his Spirit He that doth nothing is of lesse use and by much worse then nothing it selfe Wouldst thou be reduced into that unnaturall Vacuity of not being which is without form and void
Limbs the loose skin in dry folds Doth hang about their joynts are numm'd and through Their veines not blood but rheumes and waters flow Their trembling bodies with a staffe they stay Nor doe they breath but sadly sigh all day Thoughts tire their hearts to them their very mind Is a disease their Eyes no sleep can find Adde to these usuall infirmities the confluence of adventious maladies For all the former distempers and corruptions of life gather themselves together and make head in old age when the inward strength and expulsive power of Nature is decayed when wee are almost dead then do they revive and rage most of all Rivers are no where more full nor more foule then towards the Channell-end But this generall decay I acknowledge to be a great benefit because it drives away all voluptuous and unseemly delights from the aged that their Soules may be lively and in health when the hour of dissolution comes And indeed it is necessary that griefes and unpleasantnesse should lay hold upon age because men who are alwaies unwilling to think of dying may be thereby weaned from the delights of life and learn to dye before the day of death Seeing then that the temporal life is in all its portions so full of misery it is not irrational to conclude that Soules if they were praeexistent would be very unwilling to submit to this sad Bondage of flesh and blood Nor do I wonder that Isis in his sacred Book writes that the Soules when they were commanded to enter into the bodies were astonished and suffered a kind of Deliquium or traunce and that they did hisse and murmure like to the suspirations of wind Camephes sets down their complaints 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Miserable wretches in what have we so foulely trespassed what offense so heinous and worthy of so horrible a punishment have we committed as to be shut up and imprisoned for it in these moist and cold carkasses Our Eyes from henceforth shall not behold the Divine spirits for wee shall onely peepe through two small Spheres made of grosse and corrupt humours When we look towards Heaven we shall have onely the liberty to grone for the presence of our Creatour but see him we may not for we shall see then by a Secondary light which is the light of the lower World and not be permitted to use our own discerning light c. We shall hear our Kinred rejoycing in the air and mourn that we are not partakers of their liberty c. But thou great Father and maker of Spirits who doest dispose of all thy works as it pleaseth thee appoint we beseech thee some terme to our sad bondage and let this punishment passe quickly over us that we may be restored again to our celestiall liberty to behold without obstruction the perfect beauty of all thy works c. They comforted themselves with the thought of the bodies dissolution and petitioned before thâ—ir captivity that their inlargement might be hastned when they were excluded from the heavenly life there was no greater blessing then the death of the body which sets an end to the earthly Hee that loves death hates a transitory corrupt condition and he that hates his own life here shall keep it unto life erernall I do verily believe that to him that throughly considers it no part of life can be desireable It is altogether so full of sorrowes It is a peece weaved of calamities and troubles yea life it selfe is its owne vexation As those that travell in rough uneven and mountainous roades are alwaies gasping and weary which makes them sit down often to recover their spent breath and refresh themselves that having reach'd the brow and crown of the hill they may walk onwards with more delight and be at leasure to feed their Eyes with the beauteous prospect and freshnesse of those green flowry plaines which lye extended before them So this troublesome and tumultuous life hath need of death for its ease and repast as a state in which it doth repaire and strengthen it selfe against the fair Journey and progresse of eternity Frail and weary life cannot last and hold out untill the Indiction of immortality So long a journey cannot be performed without subsiding A resting place must be had Death is the Inne where we take up that we may with more chearfullnesse set forwards and be enabled to overtake and to keep company with eternity Nay so fraile is life that it cannot expect or stay for the day of death without some prevening recreations It travells by Stages and Periodical Courses where it breathes and gathers strength against the next motion As tyred travellours make frequent Pauses in the very Roade and cannot stay for the refreshment of lodging So life by reason of the importunity and the multitude of humane troubles cannot endure or hold out till it reacheth the Inne which is death but is driven to rest in the shade upon the way-side for sleep the shadow of death is nothing else but a reparation of weary and fainting life So much more excellent then life is death that life is driven to be sustained by so many deaths that is to say the mortal life is necessarily preserved by sleep which is the usher Masquerade of death Reedes because they are very weak and brittle are strengthned with distinct knots or joynts which makes their length firme and keepes them from cleaving So life if it were not refreshed and mantained still by successive set allevations of certain prolusions of death would fall asunder and vanish upon its first appearance Hitherto we have discoursed of life let us now consider death and compare it with life If death in its shadow and projection be the recreation of life how delightfull will it be at home or in it self Wearinesse is a preparative which makes rest pleasant That Recipe which succeedes bitternesse must needs be sweet Charidemus used to say That through all temporal things there was a chaine drawne whereof one link was pain and the other pleasure That these succeeded one another and so said he after great sorrowes there come greater joyes What greater sorrowes can there be then the sorrowes of life There is therefore no greater pleasure then the pleasure of death which succeed those great sorrows Phalaris said That men held life to be pleasant because they suspected death to be grievous and irksome He speaks after the sense of the people and abuseth life not esteeming it to be good but because he thinks death to be Evill I shall crosse his saying and inferre that death should be esteemed pleasant because wee are sure that life is painfull But there is an appearance of something like errour because we see many here that passe through their whole lives without any troubles or discontents That felicity is rare and adulterate and happens most commonly to those that desire it not look not upon those few which escape in this storme but upon
those which are drowned these last are innumerable thought it is thought otherwise because they are sunk into the bottom and cannot be seen Admit not I beseech thee for a testimony againstâ— Death those ejulations and tears which darken Funerals and make foul weather in the fairest faces Opinion makes the people compassionate and they bewail not the party that is dead but their owne frailty Call not for evidence to the teares of strangers because thou knowest not whence they flow but call for it to thine own for none of us is happy or miserable but in his own sense which makes us any thing What reason hast thou to think life better then death because others mourne when thou dyest who when thou wert born didst weep thy selfe It is madnesse to judge our selves miserable because others think so The solemnities of death are contrary to the ceremonies of life At the birth of man others laugh but he himself weeps At his death others weep but surely hee rejoyceth unlesse his ill life hath made his death deadly Nor must thou think that his joy is either little or none at al because it is not manifested unto thee Thou mayst lye watching by the side of one that dreams of Heaven is conversing with Angels but unlesse hee tells it thee when he is awaked thou canst discover no such thing while he sleepes The Infant that is born weeping learns to laugh in his sleep as Odo and Augustine have both observed So he that bewailed his birth with tears welcomes the shadow of his death with smiles He presaged miseries to follow his nativity and beatitude his dissolution Weeping is natural tears know their way without a gâ—ide Mirth is rude and comes on slowly and very late nor comes it then without a supporter and a leader It must be taught and acquired Weeping comes with the Infant into the world Laughing is afterwards taught him the Nurse must both teach and invite him to it When he sleeps then he sips and tasteth joy when he dies then he sucks and drinkes it Mourning and grief are natural they are born with us Mirth is slow-paced and negligent of us The sense of rejoycing if we beleeve Avicenna comes not to the most forward child till after the fortieth day Men therefore weep at thy death because it is an experiment they have not tryed and they laugh at thy birth because the miseries of thy life must not be born by them Thou onely art the infallible diviner of thy own frail condition who refusest it with teares which are the most proper expressions of unwilling constrained nature But as the ceremonies of Life and Death are contrary so he that is born and he that dyes have different events Death to some seems to destroy all but she restores all By discomposing things she puts them in their order For he that inverts things that were beâ—ore inverted doth but reduce them to their right Positure The Funeral rite of the Tâ—bitenses who are certain East-Indians is to turn the inside of their garments outward they manifest that part which before was hidden and conceale that part which before was manifest by which they seeme in my opinion to point at the liberty of the soul in the state of death and the captivity of the body whose redemption must bee expected in the end of the world This inversion by death is reparation and a preparative for that order wherein all things shall be made new Most true is that saying of the Royal Preacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A good name is above precious ointment and the day of death is better then the day of ones birth But thou wilt ask To whom is the day of death better than the day of his nativity It is in the first place to him that dies True thou wilt say if he be a just and holy man Yea say I though he be wicked Who doubts that there can happen in all their lives a better day to the just and honest then the day of death which frees them both from seeing and from feeling the miseries which are in this world As for the unjust it is most certain that no day can be more beneficiall to them then that which sets an end to their impieties tyranny perjury and sacriledge To deny a sword to one that would murther himself is benevolence to deny money to a Gamester that would presently cast it away is courtesie and to deny life to those that would use it to their owne damnation is Mercy and not Judgement But to whom besides these is the day of death better then the day of life Certainly to God Almighty because in that day when the wicked dye his Justice on them and his Mercy towards his own are conspicuous to all and acknowledged by all And to whom else Not to speak of the rich and ambâ—tious It is good to all men to the whole Creation and to Nature it self For in that day the fair order and prerogative of Nature is vindicated from the rage and rape of lustfull intemperate persons It becomes constant consonant and inviolable by putting off those gross vestiments which make her productions subject to the assaults and violence of man who is the most perverse and shamelesse defacer of Gods Image in himself and the most audacious and abhominable contemner of his Ordinances in his works by using them to a contrary end and quite different from that which their wise Creator made them for But let us not consider the goodnesse of death by those evils onely which it freeth us from but by the blessings also which it brings along with it Their soules are by some men less valued then Fortune and temporal power Some cast away their lives to winne a Crowne yea the Crowne and the Kingdome of another They plot to forfeit a Crown of Eternall glory by usurping a transitory one They murther their owne soules by shedding the blood of some innocent persons permitted to be overcome by men that they might have power with God and prevail Shall the short soveâ—aignty and sway of some small corners and spots of earth be compared to the everlasting triumphs in the Kingdom of Heaven The death of the sufferer is in this case the most gainfull the more he loseth by it upon earth his gain is by so much the greater in heaven The shorter our stay is here our time above if reckon'd from the day of our death is the longer but hath no end at all and the more our sufferings are the greater shall our glory be Hegesias the Cyrenian when he praised death promised not these blessings of Immortality but onely an end of temporall miseries and yet he did so far prevail with his Auditors that they preferred death to life they contemned the one and so lusted after the other that they would not patiently expect it but did impatiently long for it they fel upon their own swords and forced death to come on by
by our reverence of it makes the worst livers to be reputed not bad As those who are Evill are loath to believe themselves to be such because of an innate reverence due from every man to Virtue which makes them love the repute of Excellencie though not inherent and rejoyce to be accounted good of themselves or in their own esteem though they be evill taking pleasure in that self-deception So those who have beene vitious in their lives out of the reverence wee owe to death wee dare not speak evill of when they are once dead Nay it is not civil nor pious to mention the dead without commendation either by praise or else by prayer our Christian well wishes as if they had been most deserving in their lives So powerfull is the Majesty of death that it makes the most contemptible venerable Those we most envie while they live we speak well of when they are dead Excellent is that observation of Mimnermus Against the Virtuous man we all make head And hate him while he lives but praise him dead Envy pursues us not beyond the grave and our honour is not free and secure til we are layd in it That humble and quiet dust stops the lying and malicious mouth Socrates foresaw that his draught of hemlock would after his death make his very enemies his worshippers He saw his Statues erected by the same decree that did cast him downe And what was the motive thinkst thou that made his enemies worship him dead whom they persecuted living There is amongst the people a secret tradition that whispers to them that those who are freed from the miseries of this life live happily in another world Now happinesse even in their opinion is worthy of honour therefore the honour or veneration which death exacts is a certain tribute or a debt rather that is due to happinesse and if for this thou wilt advise with thy Aristotle he will not deny it The Lacedemonians bestowed the Olympick palms and honours which whosoever won in his life time he was accounted most happy upon all that dyed without exception or extenuation adorning the statutes of some and the tombes of all with the green and flourishing Laurel esteeming every one of the dead as happy as the most fortunate Victor that lived The antient Romans held the greatest honour of the living to consist in the renown of their dead Ancestors They judged him to be highly honoured that was enjoyned by any dying persons to perform some extraordinary service for them as an Embassie or some other weighty negotiation And Callistratus in his first book of Questions affirmes That Embassadors so employed are the most honourable because that the suffrages and election of dying men is most venerable as being then upon the borders of immortality and discerning more then those who are yet in the midst of life and more in the clouds of thick-sighted humanity That honour is the greatest which is done us by the honourable Nor is this glory of death a Relative of the Soul only Looke well upon the body that provision of the worms a frail and perishing objects but ful of Majesty We are nothing so moved nor doe we so gravely compose our selves at the presence of a King as at the sight of a dead body With how much awfulnesse doth it lye along with what a secret mysterious command doth it check all about it It is a silent abstruse Philosopher and makes others so too Nor is it onely venerable but sacred and the Depositum and Index of an almighty Restauratour The honour of Sepulture is a part of Religion Now if it be argued that goodnesse consists onely in utility or benefits it follows that nothing is good but that which profiteth Death then is the best and the greatest subordinate good of all for the death of others benefits those that see it and their own death is most profitable to those that mind it The Lamae who are the Priests of the Tehitenses are in this point the most excellent Philosophers in the world When they prepare to celebrate prayers they summon the people together with the hollow whispering sounds of certain Pipes made of the bones of dead men they have also Rosaries or Beads made of them which they carry alwayes about them and they drink constantly out of a Skull Being asked the reason of this Ceremony by Antonie Andrada who first found them out one that was the chiefest amongst them told him that they did it Ad Fatorum memoriam They did therefore pipe with the bones of dead men that those sad whispers might warn the people of the swift and invisible approach of death whose Musick they termed it and affirmed it to be the most effectuall of any That the Beads they wore did put them in minde of the fraile estate of their bodies and did in prayer-time regulate and humble their thoughts That a constant commemoration of death was as beneficial to the Soul as devotion therefore they carryed them alwaies about them as the powefull Momento's of their approaching departure out of the Land of the living To this he added that their drinking in a skull did mortifie their affections represse pleasures and imbitter their tast lest they should relish too much the delights of life Lastly he added that this constant representation of death was an Antidote against all the sinfull Excesses and deviations of man With the same Medicine they secured themselves from other iniquities When they were to swear concerning any thing they laid their hands upon certain Images set with the bones of dead men by which ceremony they were put in mind of the last Judgement and the Account which the dead and the Quick must give in that great that impartiall and censorious day Certainly this was no barbarous but a very humane and elegant Philosophy which taught men to season and redeeme all the daies of their lives with the memory of the one day of their death Admirable was the memory of Mithridatés who was master of two and twenty Languages and could readily discourse in every one of them and no lesse happy was that of Cyrus Themistâ—cles and Seneca but a constant memory of mans miseries and his death exceeds them all As the rootes of the tree in the I le of Malega upon that side which lookes towards the East are an Antidote or preservative but those which spread Westward are poysonous and deadly So the Cogitations of a Christian which are the Roots by which hee stickes to Heaven for every Christian is a Trâ—e reversed when they look towards the West or setting point of life are healing and salutiferous but those which reflect still upon temporall things and his abode in this World are destructive and deadly Nature doth every minute commend unto us this memoriall of death Hermes in his sacred book contends that respiration was given to man as a sign of that last efflation in which the Soul parts from the
body Wee should therefore as often as wee breath remember death when we shall breath our last when the Spirit shall returne unto him that gave it Our whole life is nothing else but a repeated resemblance of our last expiration by the emission of our breath we doe retaine it and as I may say spin it out God gave it not continual and even like fluent streames or the calme and unwearied Emanations of light but refracted and shifting to shew us that we are not permanent but transitory and that the Spirit of life is but a Celestial Gale lent us for a time that by using it well we may secure it Eternally Another Hermetist adviseth us Adorare relliquias ventorum to make much of and to honour our Soules which are the breathings and last dispensations of the still fruitful and liberal creator This we can never do but by a frequent study of our dissolution and the frailty of the body Of such an effectuall goodness is death that it makes men good before it comes and makes sure of Eternity by a virtuous disposing of time Thinke not that evill which sends from so far the beams of its goodnesse There is no good liver but is a debtor to death by whose lendings and premunitions we are furnished and fitted for another world The certainty of it and the incertainty of the time and manner which is the onely circumstance that seemes to offend us if it were seriously considered deserves to be the most pleasing acceptable for amongst all the wondrous Ordinances of Divine providence there is none more Excellent for the Government of man then death being so wisely disposed of that in the height of incertainty it comprehends and manifests an infallible certainty God would have us to be alwaies good to keepe in his likenesse and Image Therfore it is his will that we should be alwaies uncertaine of our most certain death Such is his care of us lest the knowledge of a long life and a late death should encourage us to multiply our transgressions as the notice of a swift dissolution might dishearten and astonish us But being left now in a possibility of either we are taught to live soberly and to expect the time of our change in all holynesse and watchfullnesse The possibility of dying shortly doth lessen the cares of life and makes the difficulties of Virtue easie Bondage and Slavery if it be but short is to those that suffer it the lighter by so much And a large allowance of time makes us slow to Virtue but a short portion quickens us and the incertainty of that very shortnesse makes us certaine to be good For who would weep and vexe himself for worldly provisions if he certainly knew that he should live but one month and how dares he laugh or be negligent of his Salvation that knowes not whither hee shall live to see one day more yea one hour The incertainty of death makes us suspect life and that suspition keepes us from sinning The world was never fouler nor more filled with abominations then when life was longest when abused Nature required an Expiation by waters and the generall submersion of her detestable defilers Theophrastus did unjustly to raile at Nature and condemne her of partiality when he envyed the long life of some plants and inferiour creatures as the Oake the Hart the Ravens some of which live to feed and flye up and down in the World above five hundred years He quarrelled with the wise dispensations of Divinity because a slight suite of feathers and a renew'd dresse of greene leaves could weare out a building that lodged a rationall Soul and the breath of the Almighty Both his wish and his reason were erroneous He erred in desiring long life and in judging happinesse to consist in the multitude of yeares and not the number of good workes The shortnesse of life is lengthned by living well When life was reckond by centuries the innumerable sins of the living so offended God that it repented him to have made impenitent man Those that sinned out of confidence of life he punished with sudden destruction That long liv'd generation had made the world unclean and being polluted by their lives it was purged by their deaths He shorten'd afterwards the lease of life reducing it to an hundred and twenty years that by the diligence of frequent death he might reform the past disorders of long life and prevent them for the future teaching both sexes to amend their lives by giving them death for their next neighbours So beneficiall is death so much profits the certainty of it and as much the incertainty The ignorance of the day of death is in effect the same with the knowledge of it the first makes us watch lest it come upon us unawares and the last though it might name the day to us yet could it not arme us better against it perhaps not so well This incertainty of dying certainly secures us from many errors it makes us prudent provident and not evill Death therefore is a device of the Almighty and a wise instrument of divine policy Zaleucus so highly approved of it that he was about to enact and proclaime a Law for dying had he not found it already published by the edict of Nature And in his Preface to those Laws made for the Locrenses he warns them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To have alwayes before their eyes that time which is to every one the end of life because a hearty repentance for all former injuries seiseth upon all men that thinke of death and an earnest desire or wishing that all their actions in life had been just Wherefore it is expedient that in all our dealings and thoughts death should act a part and be our familiar counsellor ever present with us so shall we be carefull to doe all things virtuously and justly Death then is most necessary to govern mankinde because the memory of it keeps us in awe and conformable to virtue All Commonwealths that follow the method of Nature must approve of this Law of Zaleucus and death in all their consultations should guide their lives Certainly in the Government of the rebellious Generation of Man Death hath been the most awfull Engine of the Deity without this stern he guided them not When man was immortall God saw it necessary to preserve his immortality by death he injoyned the Law of Abstinence to Adam under the penalty of dying which is continued still by the same artifice of death lest iniquities should be immortall wickedness should escape punishment by the patience and submission of his only Son to death he restored dead men to life he conferred upon him all his lost honours renewd and confirmed his old prerogative and together with the salvation of his Soule gave him a sure promise that his body allso should be made Immortal but in all these favours and after full reconciliation he would not remove death but continued it
still and the incertainty as well as the certainty of it This divine devise of death so pleased God and was so necessary for the good of man that though by the merits of his dying Son he changed all the former things blotting out ordinances abolishing Ceremonies opening the gates of Heaven to all believers yet would not he Exterminate death It was out of his mercy that he refused to abrogate it that while corruption reigned death also might reign over it lest this poyson should want its Antidote We have therefore no just cause to complain of death which is an Invention conducing to our great good and the incertainty of the time though it most vexeth us is notwithstanding the most beneficial Circumstance that attends it The time of life is certainly known there is but one entrance to the light of this World The Ceremony of dying is not formal It keeps not to one time nor one manner but admits of all times and many manners Life comes into the World but one way but hath many waies to go out It was the benevolence of God to open so many doors to those that flye for refuge One way is more then enough to find out dangers but to escape them many are but necessary Death is not a burthen of seaven or nine monthes but life must have time before it sets forth And what are the first encounters of it Tears â—nd Bonds It cannot avoyd Evills and it is afeared to bear them therefore it delaies time and when it cannot lurk any longer it comes forth Crying Death leads us forth to joy and liberty Therefore it stayes not it seeks no corners nor protractions Nor doth death free us onely from suffering Evills but keeps us also from doing any To be good every day thou mâ—st dye dayly The incertainty also of the time of death and the manner of it like a busie Monitour warnes thee to do good and to be good at all times and in every place private or publick And the inevitablenâ—sse of it takes away all Excuse or pretensions for thy impreparation The Glory of death is also much augmented by its facility in redressing the difficulties of life It is not without the Divine counsel and a speciall priviledge that the Soule of man is so easily parted from the body the life of beasts is more tenacious and will suffer much indignitie and fury before it leaves them There is nâ— living creature more fraile none more weak then man the lightest strâ—ake fells him the Soul is very nice and will quickly cast off the body if it persists but in the least Indisposition A single hair killed Fabius and a Grape Anacreon these contemptible instruments destroy'd them as effectually as the thunderbolt did Esculapius Coma dyed as easily as he could wish and Baptist a Mirandulus as he could think His Soule quitted his body without any grudging without a disease without poyson without violence or any fatall mischance No door can keep death out it defeats life with its own weapons and kills us with the very Cordials and comforts of it Perhapâ— no kind of death is more violent then thâ—â— which sets upon us with the forces oâ— lâ—â—e because it kills when life is most vigorous and pleasant Their owne wishes have destroyed many And life hath oftentimes perished by her own contrivements Clidemus was killed with honour Diagoras with joy Plato with rest and Philemon with laughter This last is both a merry and a frequent destroyer and freed Sicily from one Tyrant Death also makes use sometimes of our very virtues to exanimate us Shame killed Diodorus and the Mother of Secundus the Philosopher dyed with blushing and an excessive modestie Life is a fraile possession it is a flower that requires not rude and high winds but will fall in the very whispers and blandishments of fair weather It is folly to labour to retain that which wil away to fly from that which will meet us every where yea in the way we fly is a vain and foolish industry Whither we seek death or avoyd it it will find us out Our way to fly and our very flight end both in death by hasting from it we make hast to it Life is a journey whose end cannot be mist it is a steady ayming at dissolution Though we fetch wide Compasses and traverse our way never so often we can neither lengthen it nor be out of it What path soever we take it is the Port-roade to death Though youth and age are two distant Tropicks of life yet death is as near to the one as to the other And though some live more and some lesse yet death is their equal neighbour and will visit the young as soon as the old Death is a Crosse to which many waies leade some direct and others winding but all meet in one Center It matters not which thou takest nor whither thou art young or aged But if thou beest young thou maist come sooner thither then the old who is both doting and weary It was necessary that a Sanctuary being provided for the distressed the way to it should be easie pervious and at an indifferent distance from all parts Good should be diffusive and the gate that leads to it must be without doors and bolts The entrance into this life is narrow and difficult it is difficultly attained difficultly retained and lyes alwaies in the power of another Every man may take life from us none can take death Life is subject to the Tyranny of men but death is not life makes Tyrants and death unmakes them Death is the slaves prerogative â—oyall and the Sabbath of the afflicted Leo Iconomachus the Emperor made the birth of both sexes tributary but death never paid taxation It was not lawfull in his reigne to get Children without paying for them every Infant so soon as borne was to give him contribution they paid then the Excise of life Death onely frees us from these Impositions of Tyrants And wilt thou then condemn liberty and that maturity of death by which it ripens every age wilt thou the divine liberality blame because thy life is short or may be so thou hast no reason to find fault with the years already given thee because thou shalt not have more thou mayst as well quarrel with Nature because she made not thy dimensions larger and thy body heavier by eighty or a hundred pounds he that measured thy proportion measured thy time too and too much of this last would have been as troublesome and unweildy as too much of the first for Long life opprest with many woes Meets more the further still it goes Death in every age is seasonable beneficial and desirable It frees the old man from misery the youthfull from sin and the infant from both It takes the aged in the fullnesse of their time It turnes the flowers of youth into fruit and by a compendious secret improvement matures infancy leading it into the Gate of Heaven
stage if we stay any long time in it and pay not the debt we owe death requires interest she takes his hearing from one his sight from another and from some she takes both The extent and end of all things touch their beginning neither doth the last minute of life do any thing else but finish what the first began We may know also what death is by the apparition or Image of it We see it and make tryal of it assiduously we cannot act life one day but wee must act death at night Life is a Terrace-walke with an Arbour at one end where we repose and dream over our past perambulations This lesser rest shewes us the greater the Soule watcheth when wee sleepe and Conscience in the Just as well as the unjust will be ruminating on the works of life when the body is turned into dust Sleepe is nothing else but death painted in a night-peece it is a prelibation of that deepe slumber out of which we shall not be awaked untill the Heavens be no more We go to bed under a Scene of Stars and darknesse but when we awake we find Heaven changed and one great luminary giving light to all We dye in the state of corruption errours and mistinesse But wee shall be raised in glory and perfection when these clouds of blacknesse that are carried about with diverse winds and every Enemy of truth shall vanish for ever and God alone shall be all in all We affect sleepe naturally it is the reparation of man a laying by of cares The Coppy cannot match the pattern if we love sleep then why should wee hate the Idaea of it why should we feare death whose shadow refresheth us which nature never made nor meant to fright us with It was her intention to strengthen our hope of dying by giving us the fruition of this resemblance of death lest we should grow impatient with delay she favour'd us with this shadow and Image of it as Ladies comfort themselves with the pictures of their absent lovers There is no part of life without some portion of death as dreames cannot happen without sleepe so life cannot be without death As sleepe is said to be the shadow of death So I think dreams to be the shadowes of life for nothing deceives us more frequent then it When we shal be raised from death we shal not grieve so much because the joys of life were not real as because there were none at all It was said by one that he had rather dream of being tormented in Hell then glorified in Paradise for being awaked he should rejoyce to find himselfe in a soft featherbed and not in a lake of unquenchable fire But having dreamt of Heaven it would grieve him that it was not reall Paracelsus writes that the watching of the body is the sleep of the Soul and that the day was made for Corporeall Actions but the night is the working-time of Spirits Contrary natures run contrary courses Bodies having no inherent light of their own make use of this outward light but Spirits need it not Sun-beams cannot stumble nor go out of their way Death frees them from this dark Lantern of flesh Heraclitus used to say that men were both dead and alive both when they dyed and when they lived when they lived their Soules were dead and when they dyed their Soules revived Life then is the death of the Soule and the life of the body But death is the life of the Soule and the death of the body I shall return now to prosecute the Commendations of death because it comes but once Death like the Phoenix is onely one lest any should be ill That which comes but once is with most longing looked for and with most welcome entertained That poor man the owner of one Ewe nourished her in his bosome she did eate of his meat and drank out of his Cup as Nathan exemplified The Father that hath but one Son hath more cares then he that hath many so should we be more carefull to provide for death which comes but once then for the numerous and daily calamities of life By providing for that one wee turne the rest all into so many joyes Whatsoever is rare whatsoever is pretious it is single and but one There is nothing so rare nothing that is comparable to a good death But it is not the universality or diffusivenesse of it that makes it so but the contempt and the subduing of it hâ—s death is most pretious by whom death is contemned Dissolution is not a meere merit but a debt we owe to nature which the most unwilling must pay That wisedome which can make destiny to be her servant which can turne necessity into virtue Mortality into Immortality and the debt we owe to nature into a just right and Title to eternall glory is very great What greater advantage can there be then to make Heaven due to us by being indebted to nature and to oblige Divinity by paying a temporal debt Clemens called them Golden men who dyed thus that is to say when it was necessary to dye They made necessity their free will when either the publick liberty the prerogative of reason or the word of God called for their sufferings For though death be a debt due to Nature yet in these causes Nature doth willingly resigne her right and God becomes the Creditor If we pay it unto him before the time of pure resolution Nature is better pleased with that anticipation then if we kept our set day He is the best debtour that paies before the time of payment The day of payment by the Covenant of Nature is old age but the good man paies before the day If the noblenesse of thy mind will not incite thee to such a forward satisfaction let the desire of gaine move thee for the sooner thou payest the more thou dost oblige Hee that suffers an immature death for the good of his Country for the sacred lawes or the vindication of the truth of God and not for his owne vain glory doth free himselfe from the Natural debt and doth at the same time make God his debtour and all mankind To a man that dyes thus all men are indebted God owes him for the Cause and men for the effect The last doth at least set us an example and the first improves the faith and gives life to Charity Adde to this that this great good of a passive death is a voluntary imitation of the Son of God who laid down his life for the life of the World And it is also done without our industry this great virtue this glorious perfection requires not our care and activity to bring it about This death is most pretious and the best because it is executed by others and not by ourselves To suffer death not to dye is glorious If prisoners break their chaines it is neither their glory nor their security but augments their Guilt and hastens their condemnation So
he that violates his own body and makes way for the Soul to flye out with his own hands is damned by the very Act but if another doth it to him it is both his Salvation and his Crown The heathens esteemed it no honour for Captives to have their bonds loosed It was their freedome but not their glory When the jugde himself did break off their Chaines that they accounted honorable By this Ceremony did Vespasian and Titus acknowledge the worth of Joseph the Jew This vindicated his integrity By cutting his bonds with their Imperial hand they freed him both from captivity and disgrace Titus said that if they would break off his fetters and not stay to take them off his honour would be so perfectly repaired by it as if he had been never bound nor overcome The same difference in point of honour is betwixt the naturall death and the violent betwixt dying when wee are full of daies and the death which Tyrants impose upon us when we are mangled and grinded by their fury This honour is then greatest when the body is not dissolved but distorted and broken into peeces Certainly the best men have ever perished by the violence of Tyrants nature to preserve her innocence being very backward and unwilling as it were to take away such great and needfull examples of goodnesse Treachery and violence were ordained for the just in the dâ—ath of Abel who dyed by the wicked This better sort of death was in him consecrated to the best men those persons whom Nature respects and is loath to medle with envy laies hands upon Whom the one labours to preferre the other plotteth to destroy Nor deals she thus with the good only but with the eminent and mighty too thus she served Hector Alexander and Caesar the goodliest object is alwaies her aim When Thrasybulus the Astrologer told Alexander the Roman that he should end his daies by a violent death he answered that he was very glad of it for then said he I shall dye like an Emperour like the best and the greatest of men and not sneak out of the World like a worthlesse obscure fellow But the death of these Glorioli was not truly glorious I have onely mentioned them because that a passive death though wanting religion hath made their honour permanent That death is the truly glorious which is seald with the joy of the sufferers spirit whose Conscience is ravished with the kisses of the Dove Who can look upon his tormentour with delight and grow up to Heaven without diminution though made shorter on Earth by the head This is the death which growes pretious by contempt and glorious by disgrace Whose sufferer runs the race set before him with patience and finisheth it with joy We are carefull that those things which are our own may be improved to the utmost and why care wee not for death what is more ours then mortality Death should not be feared because it is simply or of it self a great good and is evill to none but to those that by living ill make their death bad What ever evil is in death it is attracted from life If thou preservest a good Conscience while thou livest thou wilt have no feare when thou dyest thou wilt rejoyce and walke homeward singing It is life therefore that makes thee fear death If thou didst not fear life if life had not blasted the joyes of death thou wouldst never be afraid of the end of sorrowes Death therefore is of it self innocent sincere healthfull and desirable It frees us from the malignancie and malice of life from the sad necessities and dangerous errours we are subject to in the body That death whose leaders are Integrity and virtue whose cause is Religion is the Elixir which gives this life its true tincture and makes it immortal To dye is a common and trivial thing for the good and the bad dye and the bad most of all but to dye willingly to dye gloriously is the peculiar priviledge of good men It is better to leave life voluntarily then to be driven out of it forcibly let us willingly give place unto posterity Esteem not life for its own sake but for the use of it Love it not because thou wouldst live but because thou mayst do good works while thou livest Now the greatest work of life is a good death If life then ought to be lesse esteemed then good works who would not purchase a good death with the losse of life why should we be afeared of politick irreligious Tyrants and an arm of flesh though guarded with steele Nature it selfe threatens us with death and frailty attends us every hour Why will we refuse to dye in a good cause when 't is offered us who may dye ill the very next day after let us not promise our selves a short life when our death assures us of eternal glory But if it were granted that death were neither good nor honourable but evill and fearfull why will not we take care for that which we fear Why do we neglect that which we suspect Why if it be evill do not wee arme and defend our selves against it we provide against dangerous contingencies we labour against casuall losses and we neglect this great and enevitable perill To neglect death and to contemn death are two things none are more carefull of it then those that contemne it none feare it more then those that neglect it and which is strange they fear it not because they have neglected it but they neglect it when they fear it they dare not prepare for it for fear of thinking of it O the madnesse and Idlenesse of mankind to that which they adjudge to be most Evill they come not onely unprepared but unadvisedly and without so much as forethought What mean we what do we look for Death is still working and wee are still idle it is still travelling towards us and we are still slumbering and folding our hands Let us awake out of this darke and sleepy state of mind let us shake off these dreams and vain propositions of diverse lusts let us approve of truth and realities let us follow after those things which are good let us have true joy made sure unto us and a firm security in life in death Sickness and death you are but sluggish things And cannot reach a heart that hath got wings FINIS THE WORLD CONTEMNED IN A Parenetical Epistle written by the Reverend Father EVCHERIVS Bishop of Lyons to his Kinsman VALERIANVS Love not the VVorld neither the things that arâ— in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.15 They are of the world therefore speake they of the world and the world heareth them Chap. 4. vers 5. If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you Ioh. 15. verse 18. If ye were of the world the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world out I
the unspeakable tendernesse and mercy of God the good wee do to our own Soules is the most acceptable service and sacrifice that we can offer unto him Much Physicall curiosity much care and many strict observations are bestowed upon the body much pain it undergoes in hope of health and deserves the Soule no Medicine If it be but fit and necessary that diverse helps and means of healing are sought for the body for the recovering onely of a temporall and transitory health is it not unjust that the Soul should be excluded and be suffered to languish and putrifie with deadly and spirituall diseases Shall the Soul onely be a stranger to those proper and pretious remedies ordained for it by the great Physitian Yea rather if so many things are provided for the body let the provision for the Soul be far more abundant for if it was truly said by some that this fleshly frame is the servant and the Soul the Mistris then will it be very undecent and injurious if we shall preferre and place the servant before the Mistris It is but a just claim that the better part should require the better attendance for with constant and intentive diligence should wee look on that side where the greater dignity and our most pretious treasure is laid up It is not agreeable to reason and it takes from the honour of our imployment that we should subject it to the unworthier party The flesh being allwaies inclined to vitiousnesse drawes us back to the Earth as to its proper center and Originall But the Soul being descended from the Father of lights is like the sparks of fire still flying upwards The Soule is the Image of God in us and the pretious pledge of his future munificence Let us imploy all our innate forces and all outward Auxiliaries for the preservation of this if we manage and defend it faithfully wee take care for and protect the intrusted pledge and purchased possession of God What conveniencie can wee have to build unless we do first of all lay the foundation but to him that hath design'd a superstructure of true blessings the fundamentall must be Salvation And if hee hath not laid that foundation upon what can the Consequences he hopes for be builded how shall he be filled with the Increase of those remunerations and after-blessings that wants the first fruits and denies the rewarder what portion can he have in the joyes of Eternity that will be wanting to his own Salvation How can he live the life of the blessed that wil not rise from death or what will it benefit him to heape up temporal provision and the materials of this World when he hath stored up nothing for the comfort of his Soule Or as our Lord JESUS CHRIST hath said What is a man profited if hee gain the whole World and lose his own Soul There can therefore be no cause for sparing and laying up where it is manifest that the Soul is already lost where Salvation is forfeited what gaine or profit can be hoped for Or wherein shall the true treasure be laid up or wherewith shall he receive it when the Soules pretious vessell and the storehouse of Eternal joyes is utterly ruined and broken let us therefore while we have time labour for true riches and make earnest hast to that holy and Heavenly commerce which is worth our looking and longing after Eternall life may be obtained in a very few daies Which daies though they should be blest with an inoffensive and untainted holinesse of life yet because they are but few are to be lightly esteem'd of for nothing can be rich in value which is but short in duration Nor can that procure any long or durable joyes whose time of existence or abode is narrow and transient The short Accommodations of this life have but short effects It seems therefore but just unto me that to the joyes of this present life if it hath any we should preferre the true and indubitable joyes of that which is everlasting For the felicity we enjoy here is at best but temporal but the other is eternal and the fruition of a transitorie uncertaine happinesse is but a frailty and accident but the possession of inviolable and never ending joyes is triumph and security It is clear then that the Eternal life is most blessed for what other thing can be named or thought upon that is more happy then everlasting life As for this present short life it is so very short that it is withall most miserable It is prest and assaulted on every side with surrounding inevitable sorrowes it is distrest with many evill defects and tost to and fro by secret and penal accidents For what is there in all the whole World that is so uncertain so various and so replenished with troubles as the course of this life Which is full of labour full of anguish fraught with cares and made ominous with dangers which is distracted with violenâ— and suddaine mutations made unpleasant with bodily distempers afflicted with thoughtfullnesse and mentall agonies and lies naked and open to all the Whirlwinds of time and Chance What benefit then yea what reason have you to turne aside and run away from Eternal joyes that you may pursue and follow after temporall miseries Do not you see my dear Valerian how every one that is provident even in this life doth with plenty of all necessaries furnish that cottage or field where hee knowes he shall reside and where he abides but for a short time his provision is accordingly where he intends a longer stay he provides likewise a greater supply unto us also who in this present World being straightned on every side have but a very short time are Eternall ages reserv'd in the World which is to come if so be that wee competently provide for an Eternall state and seeke onely what is sufficient for the present not perversely bestowing the greatest care upon the shortest and smallest portion of time and the smallest care upon the time of greatest and endlesse extent And indeed I know not which should soonest or most effectually incite us to a pious care of life Eternal either the blessings which are promised us in that state of glory or the miseries which we feel in this present life Those from above most lovingly invite and call upon us these below most rudely and importunately would expell us hence Seeing therefore that the continuall Evills of this life would drive us hence unto a better if we will not be induced by the good let us be compelled by the Evill Both the good and the bad agree to incite us to the best and though at difference amongst themselves yet both consent to make us happy For while the one invites us and the other compells us both are sollicitous for our good If some eminent and powerfull Prince having adopted you for his Son and co-partner should forthwith send for you by his Embassador you would I believe break through
heaviest upon the heart And by this I am induced to believe that it is naturall for man to Suffer because he onely naturally weepes Every extraneous felicity of this life is violent or forced and these constrained though splendid Adiuncts of Fortune are therefore short because noe violent thing can be perpetuall To suffer is the naturall condition and manner of man this is believed to be his misery without patience I confesse it is Nature never failes us in those things which are needful much lesse divine providence and grace Wee shall therefore never faile of Sufferings because they are the great Necessaries Medicines of Humane Nature Wee read of many men that never laught but never heard of any that never wept Democritus himself came weeping into the World none ever came without labour none without griefe Thou wilt ask why man the only creature addicted to beatitude should bee borne to trouble why through the vale of teares travells he to the house of joy why is he alone being capeable of felicity made subject unto misery Because he is borne for virtue the next and readiest instrument to attaine beatitude Now troubles or miserie are the masse or first matter of virtue and without this hard rudiment without this coyne of sorrow he cannot purchase it Nor are the good offices which these calamities doe for us either meane or few for wherefore flowes yea overflowes the divine mercy upon man but because he is miserable wherefore is Gods sure power and saving arme stretched out but because he is fraile wherefore are his comforts and refreshments so plentifully showred down but because he is sorrowfull and helplesse wherefore is his liberality and most faithful providence seen every minute but because he is poore and constantly needy yea wherefore is Immortality everlasting pleasures and a glorious resurrection secured unto us but because our bodies are mortal and subject to death and putrefaction By this time perhaps you see the appositnesse of that comparison which Eliphaz made betwixt man and a bird The bird by nature lifts himself above the earth upon his wings he passeth from hence into the cleare confines and neighbourhood of heaven where he dwells for a time and looks with contempt upon this inferiour darksome portion of the world when hee descends towards the earth he keepeth still above us he lodgeth in the height and freshnesse of the trees or pitcheth upon the spires or ridges of our houses or upon some steepe rock whose height inaccessibleness promise him securitie something that is eminent and high he alwaies affects to rest upon Man likewise ordained for heaven and the contempt of this spot of earth is by his very calamities borne up and carried above the world yea into heaven as an Eagle by the strength of his wings ascends above the clouds O the depth of the riches of the wisedome of God! O the mercifull designe and devicâ— of his providence who knowing our corrupt nature hath laid upon us a necessity of seeking those blessings whose inestimable value ought to stirre us up to a most voluntary and diligent searching after them To this necessity by the same chain of his providence hath hee tyed utility These are sufficient motives to perswade us to patience It was wisely said by some Arabian that the hedge about patience was profit for he that thinks gaine to be necessary must think labour so too Allthough Fortune should be so prodigal as to poure all her Treasures into the bosome of one man and not repent when she had done yet would this very man sometimes feele strong exigencies in indigencie Pompey and Darius were both hardly distrest with thirst they that were Lords of so many Rivers did then wish for one drop of Water Alexander the Great in some of his expeditions was like to perish with cold though his Dominion did in a manner extend to the very Sun for in the East which I may call the Suns House he was such an absolute Lord that bating the Power to forbid the Sun to rise there was nothing more could be added to his conquests Seeing then that labour or troubles are a necessity imposed upon man it followes that there are other labours belonging unto him which are also as necessary and those I shall terme Voluntarie Labours Oâ— these the Elegant Philosopher Eusebiuâ— hath excellently spoken Voluntary Labours saith he are necessary because of future Labours which hang over our heads he will beare those with more ease when they fall upon him who of his own accord and beforehand hath exercised himself in them But you see that in this course also the maine remedy is patience He that suffers willingly suffers not even that which is necessary to be suffered One wedge drives out another Venemous bitings are allayd by Venemous Medecines therefore in necessary troubles there is a necessity of voluntary Labours that Violent Evills meet not with Obstinate Wills but the unavoydablenesse of suffering would not be grievous nor the necessity or Law of Nature any way rigorous did not we by our owne exaggerations adde to their weight and our owne pain Wee helpe to encrease our owne Calamities by reasom of our Inerudition as Diphilus tells us who adviseth even the happy man to learn miseries What can wee doe more becomming our fraile condition then to teach our Mortality the troubles of life which are certain prolusions or arguments of death What is more beneficiall then to learn great tryalls and dangers that wee may leave that servile custome of fearing Fortune whose burthens we ought to bear as willingly as if wee desired to undergoe them It is a great rudiment of patience to suffer willingly when we least expect sufferings It is strange that although wee see nothing in the course of this life more frequent then miseries yet will wee not be perswaded that they may fall into our share Our griefes come most commonly before we believe they may come Nothing can make us believe that we may be miserable untill misery it selfe assures it to us The mind therefore should be tryed and prepared for it with some lusorie or mock-misfortunes Nor must we give eare to Democritus whose saying is That if there be any things for us to suffer it is good to learn them but not to suffer them It is good indeed to learn them but if they must be unavoydably suffered what will our learning of them avail us A most ridiculous advise in my Judgement And if the Author of it had been wise he had laught at nothing more then at this his owne Conclusion It is good to learn to suffer Evills but not to be evill It will benefit us much to learn to suffer them if not as they are Evills yet lest wee our selves become Evill for such we shall be by impatience Besides the overcomming of reall evills there remaine other slight hurts as the discourtesies of nature chance and furie of our enemies and our selves also which we cannot
but feathers but chaffe and motes Those universall Monarchies founded upon the principall Cities of the World whose Colony was the whole Earth Those Cities whose bulwarks did threaten the Clouds whose Armies and Fleets made the Earth to tremble and the Seas to grone whose Lawes like Oracles were held sacred and unalterable found no security against the Arm of God which tears the Crowne from the Head and the Scepter from the right hand of the Lawgiver He considers in his dwelling plâ—câ— like a clâ—â—r 〈◊〉 upon hâ—â—bs â—e 〈…〉 the things that are to câ—â—e He â—â—â—â—th the Nations with the Sâ—ve of 〈◊〉 He bâ—owes upon them and they wâ—th 〈◊〉 and â—hall not be planted And why tâ—inâ—â—ou theâ— that these dry and fading 〈…〉 fâ—ourish for ever All temporall triâ—mphs have their date they passe away in a sure and uninterrupted course and when they begin to decay and unloade themsâ—lves then they are swiftest All the pomp of this World is but gilded emptinessâ— a nine daies blossome whose beauty drops into the same Mould from whence it sprung It is the Consciousnesse of their delusion that makes these worldly honours fly from us so fast lest if they should stay long wee should discover their Cosenage the discoverer then would be ashamed of his dot age and the discovered would blush at his deceit Therfore Saint Paul in these versible and transitory fashions of the World would have us to personate Stage-players who when they weep grieve not when they bâ—y they possâ—sse not when they command they are without authority Seeing the World is but a play and a fable hee would not have us to act in earnest Players Act the lives of others not their owne I wish that we could do so too Excellent is that advice of the divine To live a stranger unto life Why should I be troubled with the affaires of others more then with their Agues or Feavers he that lives without the Affections of this life is master of himself and looks upon all things as Spectators do upon Stage-playes who are without passion because without Interest The Actors care not how the Scenes varie they know that when the Play is ended the Conquerour must put off his Crown in the same Ward-robe where the Fool puts off his Cap. Take this wholsome Counsel of resting quiet in the degree appointed thee not from the mouth of Musonius Teletes or Epictetus who adviseth thee to be a Pantomime or shifting Masquer in these worldly Enterludes but from the mouth of Saint Paul that great Doctour of the Universe Let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God That Supreme Eternall mind is the master and deviser of this worldly Drama Hee brings on the persons and assignes them their parts Art thou called to be a servant be not troubled at it Hath he ordained thy life to be short desire not to have it lengthned If poor desire not to be made rich What part soever he hath appointed for thee be contented therewith and Act it faithfully It is thy duty to represent the person thou wert chosen for and not to choose that is the prerogative of thy great master If it be his will that thou shouldst Act a begger a sick man or an afflicted let it be thy care to act it well and to meddle with no other action The stageplayer is not commended because he acts the part of a Prince but because hee acts it well and like a Prince It is more commendable to act a foole a begger or a mourner to the life then to act a King or a Philosopher foolishly In the beginning the midle and the end of thy Course keep thou to thy part The best way of acting is to make thy heart consentaneous to thy tongue thy deeds to thy words and thy conversation to thy doctrine In all the tumults and combustions of this World keepe constant to thy station comfort the afflicted and envy not the wicked despise not the one and flatter not the other remember thy Creator and forget not thy end Gloria tibi mitissime Jesu OF LIFE and DEATH THE People think Life to be the greatest good and Death the greatest evill They are mightily deceived And as in the least blessings so in this which is the greatest they greatly erre For Life if thou livest not well is the greatest evill and Death if thou dyest not ill is the greatest good and dye ill thou canst not unlesse thou livest ill A life that is not good encreaseth evils and wickednesse and the death of the good sets an end to afflictions and miseries Those that are sick of the Jaundis judge the sweetest honey to be the most bitter So evil men esteem Death to be evill because of their evill conscience but Death is not so to any but to those onely whose evill lives end in the evill of endlesse death This controversie I shall decide with such reasons as must not be numbred buâ— weighed If wee look upon Philosophy it takes part with Death and is the first that marcheth into the field against this popular error It teacheth us that this hideous nothing this imaginary fear of the multitude should be alwayes contemned and sometimes desired How many wise men hath this contempt of Death made Immortall For those who by a continual remembrance of death did compose and regulate their lives are now by the memory of their virtuous lives vindicated from death Socrates perfected his wisdom by his willingnesse to dye Pythagoras by his gentlenesse Anaxagoras dyed merrily Calanus resolutely hee would not stay to be tamely besieged by her but sally edout and took her he surprized death and aâ—l of them despised her No definitions we can give will suffice to make Death odious every one will make it desirable Whither you consider what Death is or what are the effects or consequents of it whether the evil or the good attending it or whether Death it self be a meer evill or meer good all make for it For though it should be an evill yet the good that comes by it exceeds that evill and being evill it cannot be so great an evill as all those evils it puts an end to What one thing hath Life that is desirarable Contentions and obstinate busie miseries whose frequency and number hath made them lesse feared then Death which comes but once Whose assiduity or daily malice to afflict us hath by a long custome made us not valiant but senslesse and blockish Orpheus defined Life to be the penalty of Soules and Aristotle added That it was a punishment like to that which tied the living to the dead mouth to mouth and breast to breast The pure and eternal Soul is tyed to the putrid and wasting carkasse If God should now suddenly create a man giving him withall in that very instant the perfect and free use of his mind and should then bring before him all Mankind as he did all living creatures before the first man and shew
when it cannot go one step upon Earth and giving it the wings of a Dove to flye and be at rest before it can use its feet To these past arguments of the goodnesse of death I shall adde another Death in the old world before the manifestation of God in the flesh was the publick index or open signe of hidden divinity It is the gift of God who gives nothing but what is good The Divell playing the Ape and labouring to imitate the Inimitable Jehovah did by asserting death to be the greatest good mainly fortifie those abominable rites and honours conferred upon him by his blind worshipers When they petitioned him for the greatest blessing that the Gods could give to man he by the permission of the true God whom they had deserted would within three daies strangle them in their beds or use some other invisible meanes to set an end to their daies Thus he served Triphonius Agamedes and Argia for her three Sons This miserable mother requested of him that hee would give the best thing to her children that could be given to men her petition was granted and within a very short time they received that which she thought to be the worst namely death So great is the ods betwixt seeming to be and being really betwixt opinion and truth yea that death which we judge to be the worst I meane the immature is oftentimes the best What greater good had deckt great Pompey's Crown Then death if in his honours fully blown And mature glories he had dyed those piles Of huge successe lowd fame lofty stiles Built in his active youth long lazie life Saw quite demolished by ambitious strife He lived to weare the weake and melting snow Of lucklesse Age where garlands seldom grow But by repining fate torne from the head Which were them once are on another shed Neither could I ever grant that the death of Infants and Children though commonly bewail'd as unseasonable were the parents misfortunes but the courtesies rather and mercies of the almighty To omit Amphiaraus and other Ethnick instances I shall make use of a true and Christian History which in these later years was the great admiration of King Philips Court. Didacus Vergara a most noble hopefull â—outh adorned with all those vertues which â—eautifie a blooming life was famous in the mouths of all good men and as deare in their hearts But what was the reward thinkest thou of his virtuous life An immature and almost a sudden death So that it is not to be doubted but it was a divine favour Being to go into bed he spoke to his sister O what manner of night will this be unto me I beseech you deare sister furnish me with some candles and leave one to burn by me Abought midnight he suddenly called so that all the familie was awaked and got up to whom he told that he should dye that night and desired them to send presently for his Confessour They all imagined that he had been troubled with some dream especially his Father a most renowned Physitian when he felt his pulse to beate well and orderly But notwithstanding all this they omitted not to send for his Confessour who was Gasper Pedroza He as if touched with some Divine presension was at that dead time of the night awake and being come to the sorrowfull Father he told him that Didacus was expected in another World before day that the Virgin-Qâ—eene of Heaven had revealed so much to him and that hee would be gone as soon as the Sacraments could be administred unto him It fell out just so For those sacred solâ—mnities were no sooner ended but he was dissolved as if he had stayed onely for that spirituall refection to strengthen him in his Journey He left this dark and low World towards the first breakin gs of the day and ascending to eternity upon the wings of the morning He might have past from thence with lesser noise and in a shorter time but he expired more solemnly then so and yet without weary accessions and the Tyranny of sicknesse He stayed for the saving institutions of his redeemer the businesse that detain'd him so long was Heaven and not the tumults of a tyring and obstinate dissolution all this proves it to have been the hand of God and not an unfortunate sudden death the precise Actions of the deity must be attended with unusuall circumstances Whome God doth take care for and love He dies young here to live above There is room enough for life within the compasse of few years if they be not cast away Think not that to last long and to live long is the same thing every one that hath stayd long upon earth hath not lived long Some men find fault with death because no experiment can be made of it without an absolute dissolution they would dye twice to trye what kind of state it is that they may be fitly furnished against the second time when they must dye in earnest But this is madness and were it granted them the good they pretend would not be performed For he that will cast away one life without preparing for death wil not fear to hazard another desperate malefactors will take no warning by râ—prieves Besides what benefit would there be by dying twice seeing that of necessity they must live twice too and so be twice miserable if not twice impious It is strange that these men who fear death and adjudge it to be evill should desire to have it doubled and that which by their good will they would not tast once they will beg to chew and swallow downe twice whereas if death were an Evill it would be so much the lesser by comming but once The miseries of life are nothing so civill they are instant importunate and outragious they will reinforce themselves and set upon us twice or thrice yea a thousand times Death is more modest she wearies us not as long as wee are well When our disorders have turned the harmony of life into discord and noise then shee comes to cast those murmurers asleep and to give the Soul peace He is no troublesome guest that comes but once But it were a great happinesse thou wilt say if men did experimentally know what it is to dye Truely this Felicity is not wanting Death is a most admirable ingenious Excogitation Though we dye but once yet do not we dye at once We may make yea we do make many assaies or tryals of dying Death insinuates it selfe and seizeth upon us by peecemeals it gives us a tast of it self It is the Cronie or Consort of life So soon as we begin to be wâ—e begin to wast and vanish we cannot ascend to life without descending towards death Nay we begin to dye before we appeare to live the perfect shape of the Infant is the death of the Embryo childhood is the death of Infancie youth of Childhood Manhood of youth and old age of Manhood When we are arrived at this last
us What shall we render unto him for this one benefit that he hath given salvation to man by faith and ordained that to be most easie in the fact by which he restored hope to the subjected world and eternal life unto lost man And that I may now descend unto those things which were sometimes out of his Covenant I mean the Nations and Kingdomes of the Gentiles doe you think that these were made subject to the Roman power and that the dispersed multitude of Mankind were incorporated as it were into one body under one head for any other end but that as Medicines taken in at the mouth are diffused into all parts of the body so the Faith by this means might with more ease be planted and penetrated into the most remote parts of the world Otherwise by reason of different powers customs and languages it had met with fresh and numerous oppositions and the passage of the Gospel had been much more difficult Blessed Paul himself describing his course in planting the Faith amongst this very people writes in his Epistle to the Romans That from Hierusalem and round about to Illyricuâ— he had fully preached the Gospel of Christ And how long without this preparation in the fulnesse of time might this have been in doing amongst Nations either innumerable for multitude or barbarous for immanitie Hence it is that the whole earth now from the rising of the Sun unto the going down thereof from the farthest North and the frozen sea breaks forth into singing and rings with the glorious name of Jesus Christ Hence it is that all parts of the world flock and run together to the Word of Life The Thracian is for the Faith the African for the Faith the Syrian for the Faith and the Spaniard hath received the Faith A great argument of the divine clemency may be gathered out of this that under Augustus Caesar when the Roman power was in the height and Acmie then the Almighty God came down upon the earth and assumed flesh Therefore that I may now make use of those things which you also are versed in it may be clearly proved if any skilled in your Histories would assert the truth that from the first foundation of the Roman Empire which is now one thousand one hundred and eighty five years ago what ever additions and growth it gathered either in the reign of their first Kings or afterwards under the administration of Consuls all was permitted by the onely wise and almighty God to prepare the world against the coming of Christ and to make way for the propagation of the Faith But I return thither from whence I have digrest Love not the world saith St. John neither the things that are in the world for all those things with delusive insnaring shews captivate our sight and will not suffer us to look upwards Let not that faculty of the eye which was ordained for light be applyed to darknesse being created for the use of life let it not admit the causes of death Fleshly lusts as it is divinely spoken by the Apostle war against the soul and all their accoutrements are for the ruin and destruction of it A vigilant guard doe they keep when they are once permitted to make head and after the manner of forraign and expert enemies with those forces they take from us they politickly strengthen and increase their own Thus hitherto have I discoursed of those splendid allurements which are the chiefest and most taking baits of this subtile world I mean Riches and Honours And with such earnestnesse have I argued against them as if those blandishments had still some force But what beauty soever they had when cast over heretofore with some pleasing adumbrations it is now quite worn away and all that paint and cousenage is fallen off The world now hath scarce the art to deceive Those powerfull and bewitching lookes of things beautiful sometimes even to deception are now withered and almost loathsome In former times it laboured to seduce us with its most solid and magnificent glories and it could not Now it turnes cheat and would entice us with toyes and slight wares but it cannot Reall riches it never had and now it is so poor that it wants counterfeits It neither hath delectable things for the present nor durable for the future unlesse wee agree to deceive our selves the world in a manner cannot deceive us But why delay I my stronger arguments I affirm then that the forces of this world are dispersed and overthrown seeing the world it self is now drawing towards its dissolution and pants with its last gasps and dying anhelations How much more grievous and bitter will you think this assertion that for certain it cannot last very long What should I trouble my self to tell you that all the utensils and moveables of it are decayed and wasted And no marvell that it is driven into these defects and a consumption of its ancient strength when now grown old and weary it stoopes with weaknesse and is ready to fall under the burthen of so many ages These latter years and decrepitness of time are fraught with evils and calamities as old age is with diseases Our forefathers saw and we still see in these last dayes the plagues of famine pestilence war destruction and terrours All these are so many acute fits and convulsions of the dying world Hence it is that such frequent signs are seen in the firmament excessive Ecclipses and faintings of the brightest Luminaries which is a shaking of the powers of heaven sudden and astonishing Earthquakes under our feet alterations of timeâ— and governments with the monstrous fruitfulnesse of living creatures all which are the prodigies or fatall symptomes of time going indeed still on but fainting and ready to expire Nor is this confirmed by my weak assertions onely but by sacred authority and the Apostolical Oracles For there it is written that upon us the ends of the world are come 1 Coâ— 10.11 Which divine truth seeing it hath been spoken so long agoe what is it that we linger for or what can we expect That day not onely ours but the last that ever the present world shall see calls earnestly for our preparation Every hour tels us of the coming on of that inevitable hour of our death seeing a double danger of two finall dissolutions threatens every one in particular and all the world in generall Wretched man that I am the mortality of this whole frame lyes heavily upon my thoughts as if my own were not burthensome enough Wherefore is it that we flatter our selves against these sure fears There is no place left for deviation A most certain decree is past against us on the one side is written every mans private dissolution and on the other the publick and universal How much more miserable then is the condition of those men I will not say in these out-goings or last walks of time but in these decayes of the worlds goodly things
for chaines esteem Suites with the meeke and harmelesse heart so right That 't is all ease all comfort and delight To love our God with all our strength and will To covet nothing to devise no ill Against our neighbours to procure or doe Nothing to others which we would not to Our very selves not to revenge our wrong To be content with little not to long For wealth and greatnesse to despise or jeare No man and if we be despised to bear To feede the hungry to hold fast our Crown To take from others naught to give our owne These are his precepts and alas in these What is so hard but faith can doe with ease He that the holy Prophets doth beleeve And on Gods words relies words that still live And cannot dye that in his heart hath writ His Saviour's death and tryumph and doth yet With constant care admitting no neglect His second dreadfull comming still expect To such a liver earthy things are dead With Heav'n alone and hopes of hâ—av'n hee 's sed He is no Vassall unto worldly trash Nor that black knowledge by which pretends to wash But doth defile A knowledge by which Men With studied care loose Paradise agen Commands and titles the vaine worlds device With gold the forward seed of sin and vice He never minds his Ayme is farre more high And stoopes to nothing lower than the skie Nor griefe nor pleasures breede him any pain He nothing feares to loose would nothing gaine What ever hath not God he doth detest He lives to Christ is dead to all the rest This Holy one sent hither from above A Virgin brought forth shadow'd by the Dove His skin with stripes with wicked hands his face And with foule spittle soyl'd and beaten was A Crown of thornes his blessed head did wound Nayles pierc'd his hands and feet and he fast bound Stuck to the painefull Crosse where hang'd till dead With a cold speare his hearts dear blood was shed All this for man for bad ungratefull Man The true God suffer'd not that sufferings can Adde to his glory ought who can receive Accesse from nothing whom none can bereave Of his all-fullnesse but the blest designe Of his sad death was to save me from mine He dying bore my sins and the third day His early rising rais'd me from the clay To such great mercies what shall I preferre Or who from loving God shall me deterre Burne me alive with curious skilfull paine Cut up and search each warme and breathing vaine When all is done death brings a quick release And the poore mangled body sleepes in peace Hale me to prisons shut me up in brasse My still free Soule from thence to God shall passe Banish or bind me I can be no where A stranger nor alone My God is there I feare not famine how can he be sed To sterve who feedes upon the living bread And yet this courage springs not from my store Christ gave it me who can give much much more I of my selfe can nothing dare or doe He bids me fight and makes me conquer too If like great Abr'ham I should have command To leave my fathers house and native Land I would with joy to unknown regions run Bearing the Banner of his blessed Son On worldly goods I will have no designe But use my owne as if mine were not mine Wealth I 'le not wonder at nor greatnesse seeke But chuse though laugh'd at to be poore meeke In woe and wealth I 'le keepe the same stay'd mind Griefe shall not breake me nor joyes make me blind My dearest Jesus I 'le still praise and he Shall with Songs of Deliverance compasse me Then come my faithfull Consort joyne with me In this good fight and my true helper be Cheare me when sad advise me when I stray Let us be each the others guide and stay Be your Lords Guardian give joynt ayde and due Helpe him when falne rise when he helpeth you That so we may not onely one flesh be But in one Spirit and one Will agree FINIS * A towne in the higher Calabria in Italy 20. miles distant from Rome the Inhabitants were mightily given to pleasure and taught their horses to dance to the pipes which the Crotoniatae their deadly enemies observing brought into the field a company of minstrels the Sybarits horses bearing the pipes began to dance and disordered their Army by which meanes they were overthrowne to the number of 300000. a One of the Courtiers of the Emperor Traian and afterwards a most glorious Martyr Being in Chase of a Stagge he observed betwixt his hornes the signe of the Cross and heard a voice out of his mouth speaking to him in the Latin tongue Cur me persequeris Whereupon leaving his game he retyred presently into his own house and having called together his wife and children were all baptized and received the Christian Faith But in the persecution under Hadrian he and his wife Theophila for their faithfullnesse to JESVS CHRIST were burnt together in a brasen bull And so having overcome and endured unto the end they received the morning star and crownes of life which shall never be taken from them See Volater lib. 15. a Pliny mentions this punishment the parricide after his apprehension to augment the horror of his conscience was first whipâ— with rods dipt in the blood of his murthered parents and afterwards together with a dog an ape and a cock Creatures which shew litle reverence towards their sires he was thrust alive into a strong sack and so thrown into the Sea cell The inhabitants of Pelusium a town in the borders of Egypt now called Damiata It was built by Peleus the fratricide from whom the Citizens desceâ—ded * the word in the He brew signifies the house of powring out which in a secret Allegorie may very well concerne man a Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi sed omnes Illach ymabiles urgentur ignotique longâ nocte carent quia vate sacro * One of the Indian Gymnosophists who feeling himself a little sick made a great Bonefire and in the presence of Alexander burnt himselfe therein Alexander a little before asked him What he would have hee answered I shall see thee shortly Which fel out for he dyed at Babylon few days after * One of the Counsellors of Alexand the great The pipes of death used by the Lamae * An excellent Dilemma * Divitiae Vitia a Every rich man is either a tyrant himself or the son of a tyrant Gregorius Thaurâ—aturgus Thou hast his life annexed to this Epistle as a precedent after these precepts a Hilarius about this time which was 435. years after Christ did lead a monastical life but upon the death of Honoratus he was eleâ—ted his successor in the Bishoprick of Orleans in which dignity he continued not long for being addicted to solitarinesse he resigned it and turned into the Wildernesse a St. Augustine This letter was written in the year of our Lord 435. Philip. Chap. 2. ver 9 10. * He subscribed to the damnable heresie of Arius as both Hierome and Athanasius testifie against him * Cedimus ingenio quantum praecedimus aeyo Assurgit Musae nostra Camaena tuae Sic fastorum titulo prior tua Romae Praecessit nostrum sella curulis ebur St. Hierome Ep. 26. * For Nola. a Paulininus calls him a Martyr quia multa pro Christo passus ersi non occiâ—us a Paulinus will have the word which is commonly used in the Latin to be Nicticora from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the apple or candle of the eye and not from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this he saith was told him by a holy man that had lived a long time in the deserts of Egypt where he observed the nature of this bird of night and the Pelican August Epistol 22. ad Paulin. a He proved afterwards a most detestable Heretick Te multa dilectio ad mendacii peccatum traxit * Paulinus calls Christ mstically a sparrow Hâ—c est ille passâ—r qui requirentibus se n viis hilaritèr ostend it nunc in portis fit obvius nunc in platis occurrit nunc in muris vel turribus sublimis convocat ad se amatores suos invitat cos in altitudines habitationum suarum ut impleat veâ—bum suum exaltatus omnia ad se trahat Quis dabit nobis pâ—nnas columbae deargentatas ut pennati pervolemus ad bravîum supernae vocationis sequentes istum passerem solitarium qui est unicus dei filius supervolitantem cui in altis habitat humilia respicit Lib. 1. d Civitate deâ— a This was about the year of our L. 428. about which time the Vandals after their excursions through Polonia Italy Franconia and Andalusia had setled in Africk where they continued quietly until the reigne of Justinian buâ— rebelling against him they were together with their King Gillimer totally overthrown by the great Captaine Beliâ—arius An. Christi 533. Luk. 18. Januarius was Bishop of Naples and a Martyr and Martinus was the Bishop â—f Tours in France