so much Good a Man would be ready to cast away his Life and make away himself In answer to this we may take notice First That tho' the Spirit aspires towards Heaven the Body draws towards the Earth and the Soul is too often drawn by the Body But in the second place We must indeed seek to mortifie our Flesh in us and to cast the World out of us but to cast our selves out of this World is in no case lawful The Christian ought willingly to depart out of this Life but not cowardly to run away His Work is to fight against the World and cannot leave his post without Reproach and Infamy But if his Great Captain be pleas'd to call him let him willingly obey For he is not born for himself but for GOD of whom he holds his Life at farm as Tenant at will to yield him the profits It is in the Landlord to take it from him not in him to surrender it when a conceit takes him Diest thou young Praise GOD as the Mariner that hath a good Wind soon to bring him to the Port. Diest thou old Praise GOD likewise For if thou hast had less Wind it may be thou hast also had less Waves But think not at thy pleasure to go faster or slower for the Wind is not in thy Power and instead of taking the shortest way to the Haven thou may'st suffer shipwrack Let us then neither fly from Death when we are call'd to dye whether it be in a more natural way as by Old Age or Sickness or by a more violent way as by the Sword in Battel or by the hand of an Executioner Nor fly to it not being call'd Which both argues the greatest Baseness and Pusilanimity of Spirit and will also bring the guilt of our own Blood upon our own Heads But let us meet Death whenever or however it comes with that Magnanimity and Greatness of Mind that becomes both a Man and a Christian And now having beguil'd my Solitary Hours in Contemplating the Miseries of Life and Happiness of Death to me so much the more necessary by how much it is nearer approaching I will conclude with a Valediction to the World and all its vain Delights written by a very Great Man and Prime Minister of State in the Reign of Charles the First whilst under my unhappy Circumstances and but a little before his Execution GO Empty Joys with all your Noise And leave me here alone In sad sweet Silence to bemoan your vain and fond Delight Whose Dangers none can see aright Whilst too much Sunshine blinds his sight Go and ensnare with your false Ware Some other easie Wight And cheat him with your flattering Light Rain on his head a Show'r of Honour Greatness Wealth and Pow'r Then snatch it from him in an Hour Fill his big Mind with the vain Wind of flattering Applause Let him not fear all Curbing Laws Nor King nor People's Frown But dream of something like a Crown And Climbing tow'rds it Tumble down A TRUE COPY OF THE PAPER Delivered to the Sheriffs upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill on Thursday January the 28th 1696 7. By Sir JOHN FENWICK Baronet SPeaking nor Writing was never my Talent I shall therefore give a very Short but Faithful Account first of my Religion and next what I suffer most innocently for to avoid the Calumnies I may reasonably expect my Enemies will cast upon me when dead since they have most falsely and maliciously aspers'd me whilst under my Misfortunes As for my Religion I was brought up in the Church of England as it is establish'd by Law and have ever profess'd it tho' I confess I have been an unworthy Member of it in not living up to the strict and excellent Rules thereof for which I take Shame to my self and humbly ask forgiveness of GOD. I come now to dye in that Communion trusting as an humble and hearty Penitent to be receiv'd by the Mercy of God through the Merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour My Religion taught me my Loyalty which I bless God is untainted And I have ever endeavour'd in the station wherein I have been placed to the utmost of my power to support the Crown of England in the True and Lineal Course of Descent without interruption As for what I am now to dye I call God to witness I went not to that Meeting in Leadenhall-street with any such intention as to invite King James by Force to invade this Nation nor was I my self provided with either Horse or Arms or engag'd for any number of Men or gave particular Consent for any such Invasion as is most falsely Sworn against me I do also declare in the Presence of God That I knew nothing of King James's coming to Calais nor of any Invasion intended from thence till it was publickly known And the only Notion I had that something might be attempted was from the Thoulon Fleet coming to Brest I also call God to witness that I receiv'd the knowledge of what is contain'd in those Papers that I gave to a great Man that came to me in the Tower both from Letters and Messages that came from France and he told me when I read them to him That the Prince of Orange had been acquainted with most of those things before I might have expected Mercy from that Prince because I was instrumental in saving his Life For when about April 1695 an Attempt form'd against him came to my knowledge I did partly by Disswasions and partly by Delays prevent that Design which I suppose was the reason that the last Villanous Project was conceal'd from me If there be any Persons whom I have injur'd in Word or Deed I heartily pray their Pardon and beg of God to pardon those who have injur'd me particularly those who with great Zeal have sought my Life and brought the Guilt of my innocent Blood upon this Nation no Treason being prov'd upon me I return my most hearty Thanks to those noble and worthy Persons who gave me their Assistance by opposing this Bill of Attainder without which it had been impossible I could have fal'n under the Sentence of Death God bless them and their Posterity tho' I am fully satisfied they pleaded their own Cause while they defended mine I pray God to bless my true and lawful Soveraign King James the Queen and the Prince of Wales and restore him and his Posterity to this Throne again for the Peace and Prosperity of this Nation which is impossible to prosper till the Government is settled upon a right Foot And now O GOD I do with all humble Devotion commend my Soul into thy Hands the great Maker and Preserver of Men and Lover of Souls beseeching thee that it may be always dear and precious in thy sight through the Merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ Amen J. FENWICKE FINIS
that ever he hath had the Evils he hath suffered to get them and having got them to retain and keep them I speak of Pleasures that may be kept and not of those that wither in a moment he will soon judge that keeping it self of the greatest Felicity in this World is full of Unhappiness and Infelicity We may well conclude then That Childhood is but a foolish Simplicity Youth a vain Heat Manhood a painful Carefulness and Old Age an uneasie Languishing That our Plays are but Tears our Pleasures Fevers of the Mind our Goods Racks and Torments our Honours gilded Vanities our Rest Inquietude That passing from Age to Age is but passing from Evil to Evil and from the less unto the greater and that always it is but one Wave driving on another until we be arrived at the Haven of Death In short Life is but a wishing for the future and a bewailing of what 's past a loathing of what we have tasted and a longing for what is yet to taste a vain memory of the state past and a doubtful expectation of the state to come And to conclude In all our Life there is nothing certain but the Certainty and Uncertainty of Death And now we are come to the end of all the Living even to the House of Death Behold this King of Terrors O my Soul and see whether or no he be so terrible as he is represented It is high time methinks for Death and I to be acquainted since I expect in a very few days not to say hours to be taken into his Arms and conducted by him to the bright Mansions of Eternity Let us now consider then whether Death be such as we are generally made to believe and whether we ought to fly from him as we do We are afraid of Death like little Children of a Vizzard or of the Images of Hecate We have a horror for Death because we conceive him not such as he is but ugly terrible and hideous such as the Painters please to represent him We fly before him because prepossess'd with such vain Imaginations and care not to inform our selves better But if we dare stand and look Death in the face we shall find him quite another thing than he is represented to us and altogether of a more amiable Countenance than our miserable Life Death makes an end of this Life and this Life is nothing but a perpetual Scene of Misery and Trouble Death then is the period of our Miseries and safe Conduct into that desired Haven where we shall ride in safety from all Winds and Storms And shall we be afraid of that which delivers us from all our fears and brings us safe into the Port of Happiness But you will say It is a Pain to dye Admit it be and so there 's pain in curing of a Wound Such is the World that one Evil cann't be cur'd but by another to heal a Contusion must be made an Incision You will say There is difficulty in the passage But if this be an Objection the Mariner must always keep at Sea and not come into Port because there is no Harbour whose Entrance is not strait and difficult There is nothing of Value or Worth to be had in this World without the Coyn of Labour and Pain The Entrance may indeed be hard but then it is our selves that make it so by carrying thither self-tormenting Spirits anxious Minds accusing Consciences and fearful expectations of meeting with the just Reward of a Debauch'd and Vicious Life But let us carry with us Calmness and Serenity of Mind with the comfortable remembrance of a Vertuous and well-spent Life and the lively hope and expectation of approaching Happiness and we shall find no Danger nor Difficulty at all But what are the pains that Death brings us And why should Death be charg'd with those pains we feel when we come to dye We accuse Death of all the Evils we suffer in ending our Lives and consider not how many more grievous and cruciating Pains and Sicknesses we have suffered in this Life in which we have even call'd upon Death to deliver us and yet all the Pains of our Life to our last moment we impute to Death whereas it ought to be ascrib'd to Life for 't is but reasonable to believe that a Life begun and continued in all sorts of pain must of necessity end so And therefore 't is only the remainder of our Life that pains us and not Death the end of our Navigation that troubles us and not the Haven that we are to enter which is nothing else but a Safeguard against all Winds We complain of Death when we should complain of Life just as if one that had been long sick and beginning to be well should accuse his Health of his last Pains and not the Relicks of his Disease Tell me then what is it else to be dead but to be no more living in the World And is it any pain not to be in the World Did we then feel pain when as yet we were not Have we ever more resemblance of Death than when we are asleep Or ever more rest than at that time Now if this be no pain why accuse we Death of the Pains our Life gives us at our departure Unless also we will fondly accuse the Time wherein we were not of the pains we felt at our Birth If our coming in be with Tears what wonder is it that our going out be such If the beginning of our being be the beginning of our pain no marvel that such is the ending But if our not being in times past hath been without pain and all our being here full of pain whom ought we in reason to accuse of our last pains the not-being to come or the remnant of the present being We generally think we dye not until we fetch our last gasp but if we mind it well we shall find that we dye every day every hour every moment We apprehend Death as a thing unusual to us and yet have nothing so common in us Our Living is but a continual Dying and look how much we live so much we dye how much we increase our Life decreases We cannot enter a step into Life but we are upon the borders of Death Who has lived a third part of his years is a third part dead who half his years is already half dead Of our Life all the time past is dead the present lives and dies at once and the future likewise shall dye The past time of our Lives is no more the future is not yet the present is and no more is Briefly This whole Life is but a Death It is as a Candle lighted in our Bodies In one the Wind makes it melt away in another it blows it quite out many times ere it be half burned in others it endures to the end Howsoever it be look how much the Candle shines so much it burns for its shining is its burning Its Light
CONTEMPLATIONS UPON Life and Death WITH Serious Reflections on the Miseries THAT ATTEND HUMANE LIFE In every Station Degree and Change thereof Written by a Perâ—â—◠〈◊〉 â—â—ality in his Confinement a litâ—â—â—â—â—fore his Death SHEWING The Vanity of the Desires of Long LIFE and the Fears of DEATH WITH A True Copy of the PAPER Delivered to the Sheriffs upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill on Thursday January 28. 1696 7 By Sir JOHN FENWICK Baronet LONDON Printed for G. Larkin and Sold by most Booksellers in London and Westmistster 1697. Contemplations upon Life and Death WITH Serious Reflections on the Miseries that attend Humane Life c. NOsce te ipsum is a Lesson a Man can never learn too late And therefore tho' hitherto I have liv'd so much a Stranger to my self that I have had little leisure and less desire to think or to Contemplate a studious and sedentary Life having always been my Aversion yet the Solitary Condition I am now reduc'd to and the Melancholy Circumstances under which I lie do methinks call upon me to consider what I have been doing and what I am further shortly to do I am now under a close Confinement secluded from all Coversation with the World and deny'd the Visits of my Nearest and Dearest Relations And all this seems to be but the sad Prologue to that sadder Tragedy in which I am to be the principal Actor before I go off the Stage of this World And therefore since Death and I must shortly be better acquainted it will certainly be my Wisdom as well as my Interest to familiarize it to me before-hand And I do not know how that can be better done than by contemplating the Miseries of Life in all its various Changes and Conditions and then to look upon Death as the great Panpharmacon and Remedy of all those Evils that Life subjects us to 'T is true indeed we generally fly from Death as our worst Enemy altho' it is in truth our greatest Friend and this to a considering Man is very unaccountable I must confess it does seem strange to me and is methinks a thing to be admir'd that the poor Labourer to repose himself longs for the setting Sun that the Mariner rows with all his might to attain his wish'd-for Port and rejoyces when he can discover Land that the Traveller is never contented till he be at the end of his Journey And that we in the mean while tied in this World to a perpetual Task toss'd with continual Tempests and tired with a rough and thorny way yet cannot see the end of our Labour but with grief nor behold our Port but with tears nor approach to our Home but with horrour and trembling This Life is but a Penelope's Web in which we are always doing and undoing a Sea that lies open to all Winds which sometimes within and sometimes without never ceases to blow violently upon us a weary Journey through extream heats and colds over high Mountains steep Rocks and dangerous Desarts And thus we pass away our time in weaving at this Web in rowing at this Oar and in passing this miserable Way And yet when Death comes to end our Work and stretches out his Arms to pull us into the Port when after so many dangerous Passages and loathsome Lodgings he would conduct us to our true Home and Resting Place instead of rejoycing at the end of our Labour of taking comfort at the sight of our desired Haven and of singing at our approach to those happy Mansions we would fain begin our Work again hoise Sail to the Wind and would willingly undertake our Journey anew No more we then remember our weariness and pains our dangers and our shipwracks are forgotten We fear no more the tiresomeness of Travel nor the danger of Desarts But on the contrary we apprehend Death as an extream pain we shun it as the fatal Rock on which we are like to split we fly it as a Thief that comes to rob us of our Treasure We do as little Children who all the day complain of Illness and when the Medicine is brought them are no longer sick Or as they who all the week long run up and down the streets complaining of the pain of their Teeth and yet seeing the Barber coming to pull them out are rather willing still to endure the pain than use the Remedy And as those tender and delicate Bodies who in a pricking Pleurisie complain and cry out and cannot stay for a Surgeon and yet when they see him whetting his Launcet to cut the throat of the Disease pull in their Arms and hide them in the Bed as if he were come to kill them We fear more the Cure than the Disease the Surgeon than the Pain the Stroke than the Imposthume We have more sence of the Medicines bitterness soon gone than of a bitter long-continued Languishing We have more feeling of Death the End of our Miseries than the Endless Misery of our Life And whence proceedeth this Folly and Simplicity We neither know Life nor Death We fear what we ought to hope for and wish for what we ought to fear We call Life a continual Death and yet Death is the Entrance of a Never-dying Life Now what Good O my Soul is there in Life that thou shouldst so much desire it Or what evil is there in Death that thou shouldst so much fear it Nay what Evil is there not in Life and what Good is there not in Death Consider all the Periods of this Life We enter it in tears we pass it in sweat we end it in sorrow Great and Little Rich and Poor not one in the whole World that can plead Immunity from this Condition Man in this point is worse than all other Creatures He is born unable to support himself neither receiving in his first years any pleasure nor giving to others any thing but trouble and before the Age of Discretion passing infinite dangers Onely herein he is less unhappy than in other Ages because in this he hath no sence nor apprehension of his Misery Now can we think there is any so void of Reason that if it were granted him to live always a Child would make Choice of such a Life So then it is evident That not simply to Live is desirable but to Live Well and Happily But to proceed Grows he His Troubles likewise grow up with him Scarcely is he come out of his Nurses hands and scarce knows what it is to play but he falls under the subjection of a Schoolmaster I speak but of those which have the best Education and are brought up with the greatest care and strictness And then if he studies it is ever with Repining And if he plays it is never but with Fear This whole Age while he is under the charge of another is unto him no better than a Prison And therefore he longs for and only aspires to that Age in which freed from the Tutelage of another he may become
is but a vanishing Smoak and its last Fire but its last Wick and its last drop of moisture So is it in the Life of Man Life and Death in Man is all one If we call the last breath by the name of Death so we must all the rest all proceeding from one place and all in the same manner One only difference there is between this Life and that which we call death That during the one we are always dying but after the other we shall always live In short As he that thinketh Death simply to be the End of Man ought not to fear it inasmuch as he who desires to live long desires to dye longer and so he who fears to dye quickly does to speak properly fear least he may not dye longer But to us who profess the Christian Religion and are brought up in a more holy School Death is a far other thing neither do we need as heretofore the Pagans did Consolations against Death For Death it self ought to be to us a Consolation against other Afflictions So that we must not only strengthen our selves as they did not to fear it but we ought also to hope it For unto us it is not only a departing from Pain and Evil but an Access unto all Good not the end of Life but the end of Death and Pain and Sorrow and the beginning of a Life that shall never have an end Better saith Solomon is the Day of Death than the Day of Birth But for what Reason Why because it is not to us a Last Day but the Dawning of an Everlasting Day No more shall we have in that glorious Light either Sorrow for the past or Expectation for the future for all shall be there present to us and that Present shall be present for ever No more shall we spend our strength in seeking after vain and painful Pleasures for there we shall be fill'd with true and substantial Delights No more shall we weary our selves in heaping together these shining Exhalations of the Earth for the inexpressible Glory of Heaven shall be ours And this Mass of Earth which ever draws us towards the Earth shall be then buried in it and consumed with it No more shall we then be Votaries to that gaudy Idol Honour nor put our Wits upon the Rack that so we may be deck'd with finer Feathers than our Neighbours Ambition will have there no place for we shall there be rais'd to that Excelling Glory and be possess'd of all those Heighths of Greatness that we shall look with scorn and with contempt upon an Earthly Diadem and smile at all the Follies of poor groveling Mortals who fight and quarrel with each other for a small spot of Earth like Children for an Apple And which is better still no more shall we have Combats in our selves Our sinful Flesh that here was our worst Enemy shall cease from troubling there and our renewed Spirits shall be fill'd with Life and Vigour Our Passion shall be buried and our Reason be restor'd to perfect Liberty The Soul deliver'd out of this foul and filthy Prison where by its long continuing it is grown into a habit of Crookedness shall again draw its own breath recognize its Ancient Dwelling and again remember its former Glory and Dignity This Flesh which thou feelest this Body which thou touchest is not Man Man is a Spark of the Divinity shot down from Heaven Heaven is his Countrey and his Native Air That he is in this Body is but by way of Exile and Confinement Man indeed is Soul and Spirit and is of a Divine and Heavenly Quality wherein there 's nothing gross nothing material This Body such as now it is is but the Bark and Shell of the Soul which must necessarily be broke before we can be hatch'd before we can live and see the Light We have it seems some Life and some Sence in us but are so very crooked and contracted that we cannot so much as stretch out our Wings much less take our flight towards Heaven until we be disburthen'd and separated from this Lump of Earth We look but 't is through false Spectacles We have Eyes but they are over-grown with Pearls We think we see but 't is but in a Dream wherein all that we see is nothing but a vain Illusion All that we seem to have and all that we seem to know is but Deceit and Vanity Death only can awake us from our Dream and restore us to true Life and Light and yet we think so blockish are we that he comes to rob us of them We profess our selves Christians and that we believe after this mortal Life a Life of Immortality That Death is nothing but a separation of the Soul and Body and that the Soul returns to its former happy abode there to joy in and enjoy the Fountain of all Bliss and that at the last day it shall re-assume its Body which shall no more be subject to Corruption With these goodly Discousses we fill our Books and in the mean while when it comes to to the point and that we are ready to enter in at this Portcullis of Seraphical Glory the very Name of Death as of some dreadful Gorgon makes us quake and tremble If we believe as we speak pray what is it that we fear To be happy To be perfectly at ease To enjoy more Content in one moment than ever was enjoy'd even by Methuselah himself in all his Nine hundred sixty nine years which was the longest mortal Life I ever read of If this be nothing that we fear then we must of necessity confess that we believe it but in part that all that we have said are only words that all our Discourses as of those hardy Trencher Knights are nothing but Vaunting and Vanity Some there are that will confidently tell you I know very well that I shall pass out of this Life into a better I make no doubt of that only I fear the mid-way step Weak Hearted Creatures They will kill themselves to get their miserable living They willingly suffer almost infinite pains and infinite wounds at another Mans pleasure and fearless go throw infinite deaths without dying and all this for things of nought for things that perish and that oft times causes them to perish with them But when they have but one step to make to be at Rest and that not for a day but for ever And not barely Rest but a Rest of that exalted Nature that Mans natural Mind can never comprehend They tremble their Hearts fail them they are afraid and yet it is nothing but fear that hurts them Let them never tell me they apprehend the pain It is but an abuse on purpose to conceal the little Faith they have No no they would rather languish of the Gout the Sciatica or any Disease whatsoever than dye one sweet Death with the least pain possible Rather piningly dye Limb after Limb out-living as it were all their Sences Motions