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
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
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
right of Inheritance to none more to none better then to the Innocent But now even by this those suffer most that should suffer least the good and the Just But those sufferings are most sacred that are most unjust Adam found out afflictions and Abel Patience the medicine presently followed the disease Evills were the Inventions of Sinne Patience was the Device of Innocence So that Patience as their peculiar Treasure abounds more and is more beloved by the Just then by any else But that Posthume Cry of Abel proceeded not from Impatience For God would not have taken to himself the cause of one dying discontentedly and with Indignation but as devout Alexandrinus saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Abel the Just dying unjustly was the first of men that shewd the foundations of death to be ruinous wherefore he being dead yet speaketh Death whose right came by unrighteousnesse laid ruinous foundations indeed because ill-layd upon the Just dying unjustly It hath cause to grieve that it erred so fouly in its first stroke seeing it might have made a better beginning in wicked Cain But there was Divinitie in it that death taking possession of mankind by the Murther of the Just might be justly exterminated and swallowed up in Victory by the undefiled Virgin-Prince of the Just who for that end was born of a Virgin Ephrem saith that death howled or lamented in her very beginning which shewed what would be her end The Hern by instinct of Nature Chatters and mourns before he becomes the prey of the Falcon. Death dyed by him over whom she had no power Only there is the night of death where sin where corruption lives Another tie of Constancy laid upon the World after a convenient space was Job who retained his Patience after prosperity and after Innocence Patience is no where merrier nor better contented with it self then in the Innocent Integrity and Fortune seldome lodge together Adversity is the Whetstone which keepes it from rust and makes it shine No Virtues can subsist without troubles which are their foode They live not commodiously where their Provision is farre from them Wherefore holy and Just men have adversity alwaies like a Well at their dores I shall take up then with that saying of Eliphaz Affliction comes not forth of the dust nor doth trouble spring out of the ground but rather from Heaven and comes oftner to holy and heavenly livers then to Worldly and unrighteous persons After Job and at a convenient distance from his time was Tobiah appointed who instead of Celandine made use of Patience to heal his Eyes being blindâ—d by the Swallows he found a more pretious medicine then their Heâ—be and his glory is more by bearing with the living than burying the dead This holy man also after Innocence though not after prosperity retained his Patience untill at last the Son of God himselfe after Impassibility and Allmightinesse became wofully passible and humbled himself to the death of the Crosse of so great an example was Patience worthy and so necessary was this voluntary passion of God himselfe to our fatall necessity of suffâ—ring By this mighty example of himself he hath sanctified Patience to be the All-heal or Universal Antidote of Evills and the Soveraign Lenitive of sorrowes Divinely did one sing to the blessed JESUS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou the Nepenthe easing griefe Art and the minds healing reliefe At this secret Counsel of the Almighty did the rude Instincts or hallucinations rather of the old Heathens proceeding noe doubt from their sense of Humane misery blindly aime They dreamt of some Son of God to be the great exemplar of Patience and pattern of Virtue but finding none they made and proposed to themselves Hercules the Son of Jupiter for a president of continuall Patience Obedience and Virtue about whose labours and atchievements Antiquity hath mightily pleas'd it self with lies and Fables This indeed they rightly apprehended that labour or troubles are rather repugnant to then unworthy of Divinity they held them becomming Virâ—ue and withall necessary that they might adorne Patience with these two Jewells the reward of suffering and the dignity of the Sufferer But the Truth of God hath now outdone the Fictions of men It hath exceede all they did licentiously wish but could not hope for Our Patience is now sufficiently instructed by the SONNE of God who is the pleasant remedy and Panacea of Evills The blessed JESUS breathed nothing but Patience nothing but mildnesse in his life in his Doctrine These are the great examples which true Christians should follow not those of spurious Patience and a narrow heathen fortitude which after it had born some Evills indeed dyed at the root and could not bear it self Seneca otherwise in many things a very true and sometimes a Christian Philosopher proposeth to his readers the example of Cato but I utterly reject it for he destroyed himselfe because he could not save his Common-wealth What Constancy was here though in a state that concern'd not his private happinesse or what manner of Constancy was that which durst not endure and hold out but was overcome not by irrecoverable fallen affaires but falling Not collasped and ruin'd but tottering and doubtfull I confesse it was a spectacle which the Eye of God Intentive to his great and various works might behold with glory and I confesse him a brave Heathen Ill-disposed But I see nothing glorious and excellent in him nothing of true worth but what I can find as wel in the most degenerate and womanish Sardanapalus If wee look upon Cato amidst the publick ruines wee shall finde him overthrowne and laid along where an old wall stands up no Enemy having touch'd him A most unworthy man if he was a man to fall thus basely like a Woman who at the noyse of any thing suddenly thrown down casts her self to the ground and squeaks though untouch'd and far enough from danger But thou wilt say Though all things became subject to one man though his legions possest the Earth and his Navies the Seas yea though Caesars own regiment was in the gates yet Cato made his way out An honest voice if it were not flattery I tell thee he did not make his way but sneakt and fled out most shamefully His legs could not carry him off and therefore hee ran away upon his hands But it is all one flye with which he will it is a plain flight his busie and searching fear which in him by reason of a sudden unmanly astonishment was most Sagacious shew'd him this postern or backdoor which he most basely fled out at But what could that man be afraid of that had born so often the Assaults of Fortune He feared that very same Fortune How can that be say'st thou seeing he had coped with her so long before For that valour let him thank his errour He believed Fortune according to her old vogue to be still inconstant he expected that the Tyde should turne
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
turning life out of doors before her lease was out and had not Ptolomie by a special Edict silenced his Doctrine he had robbed him of more subjects then ever War or the Plague could have taken from him Before the blessed Jesus had made his entrance through the veile and opened the way to heaven the reward of righteousnesse and sanctity was long life the peculiar blessing of the Paâ—riarchs It was a favour then not to appear before perfect purity a Judge of infinite and all-seeing brightnesse without an Advocate or friend to speak for us in the strength and heat of irregular youthfulnesse when not so much as time had subdued or reformed the affections but now bâ—cause Christ is gone thither before and hath provided a place for us the greatest blessing and highest reward of holynesse is short life and an unseasonable or a violent death For those harsh Epithets which are but the inventions of fearfull and sinful livers are swallowed up of immortâ—lity an unspeakable heavenly happinesse which crowns and overflowes all those that dye in Christ Wee consider not those blessings which death leads us to and therefore it is that we so frequently approve of our most frivolous wordly wishes and sit weeping under the burthens of life because we have not more laid upon us A certain groundlesse suspition that death is evill will not suffer us to believe it to be good though the troubles of life make us complement and wish for it every day This foolish fear and inconstancy of man Locmannus one of the most antient Sages of Persia and admitted also into the Society of the Arabian Magi hath pleasantly demonstrated in the person of an Old man loaded â—ith a grâ—at burthen of Wood which having quite tyred him he threw down and called for death to come and ease him Hee had no sooner called but death which seldome comes so quickly to those that call for it in earnest presently appeared and demands the reason why he called I did call thee said he to help me to lift this burthen oft wood upon my back which just now fell off So much are we in love with miseries that we fear to exchange them with true happiness we do so doate upon them that we long to resume them again after wee have once shaked them off being either faithlesse and wavering or else forgetfull of those future joyes which cannot be had without the funerall and the death of our present sorrowes What man distrest with hunger if hee sate upon some Barren and Rockie bank bounded with a deep River where nothing could be expected but Famine or the Fury of wild beasts and saw beyond that stream a most secure and pleasant Paradise stored with all kinds of bearing Trees whose yielding boughes were adorned and plenteously furnished with most fair and delicate fruites If it were told him that a little below there was a boate or a bridge to passe over would refuse that secure conveyance or be affeard to commit himself to the calm and perspicuous streames choosing rather to starve upon the brink then to passe over and be relieved O foolish men For Gold which is digged out of the Suburbs of Hell we trust our selves to the raging and unstable Seas guarded with a few planks and a little pitch where onely a Tree as Aratus faith is the partition betwixt death and us And after many rough disputes with violent perills and the fight â—f so many more wee perish in the unhappy acquisition of false happinesse the Sea either resisting or else punishing our covetousnesse But to passe into our Heavenly Country into the bosome and embraces of Divinity into a Realm where Fortune reigns not wee dare not so much as think of it Who after long banishment and a tedious pilgrimage being now come near to his native Country and the house of his Father where his Parents his brethren and friends expect him with longing would then turn back and choose to wander again when he might have joy when he might have rest God the Father expects us the blessed Jesus expects us the mild and mourning Dove doth long and grone for us The holy Virgin-mother the Angells our friends and the Saints our kindred are all ready to receive us It is through death that wee must passe unto them Why grieve we then yea why rejoyce wee not to have this passage opened But let us grant that death were not inevitable yea that it were in the power of man and that every one had a particular prerogative given him over destinie So that this greatest Necessity were the greatest freedome yea that man could not dye though he desired death Yet in this very state would hee be troubled with Fortune and Hope He would be a fool that would not venture to dye to enjoy true felicity That would choose rather to live alwaies in the changeable state of most unchangeable and lasting miseries then to put an end to them all by dying once It is madnesse to feare death which if it reigned not upon the Earth wee would both desire and pray for It was wisely adjudged by Zaleucus that death ought to be publickly proclaimed though men had been immortall Had death been arbitrary and at every mans pleasure I believe we had esteemed it as desireable as any other joy now because it is Imperial and above us let it not seem too much if wee grant it to be tollerable It was absurdly said by onâ— that death was a necessary Evill and ought therefore to be patiently born His Inference was good though from a bad Principle Death is rather a necessary good And if necessity makes Evils to be tolerable there is more reason it should make good so Death because it is good should be made much of and wee should rejoyce that it is necessary because that makes it certain How great a good is that by which it is necessary that we be not miserable Which frees the captive without ransome dismisseth the oppressed without the consent of the oppressour brings home the banished in spite of the banisher and healâ—s the sicke without the pain of Physick Which mends all that Fortune marred which is most just which repaires and makes even all the disorders and inequalities made by time and chance which is the blessed necessity that takes away necessary Evills He had erred lessâ— if he had mentioned a necessity of bearing life patiently whose more proper definition that sorry proverbe is for it casts us into necessary Evills against our will and is the cause that wee willfully meddle with Evills that are unnecessary It is a discreet method of nature that infuseth the Soules into the body in such a state that is not sensible of their captivity lest they should murmur at the decrees of the great Archiplast What wise man that were neare the terme of his appointed time if he were offered to have life renew'd would consent to be born again to be shut up in flesh
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
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
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
two years old and under So that considering all the Circumstances which offer themselves for the clearing of this point it will evidently appear that he was baptized as I have said before in the eight and thirtieth year of his age The onely Instrument which God was pleas'd to ordain and imploy upon the Earth for his Conversion was his dear and Virtuous Wife Therasia Which makes me conjecture that she was borne of Christian parents and had received the faith from her infancie This Ausonius his old Tutor who was scarce a good Chrihian forgat not to upraid him with in most injurious termes calling her Tanaquil and the Imperatrix of her Husband To which passionate passages though sadly resented Paulinus râ—plyed with all the humanity and sweetnesse which language could exprâ—sse Thus Ausonius barks at him Undè istam meruit non foelix Charta repulsam Hostis ab hoste tamen c. how could that paper sent That luckless paper merit thy contempt Ev'n foe to fo though furiously replies And the defied his Enemy defies Amidst the swords and wounds ther 's a Salute Rocks answer man and though hard are not mute Nature made nothing dumb nothing unkind The trees and leaves speak trembling to the wind If thou doest feare discoveries and the blot Of my love Tanaquil shal know it not To this Poetical fury Paulinus reposeth with that Native mildnesse which he was wholly composed of Continuata meae durare silentia linguae Te nunquam tacito memoras placit amque latebris Desidiam exprobras neglectaeque insuper addis Crimen amicitiae formidatamque Jugalem Objicis durum iacis in mea viscera versum c. Obdurate still and tongue-tyed you accuse Though yours is ever vocall my dull muse You blame my Lazie lurking life and adde I scorne your love a Calumny most sad Then tell me that I fear my wife and dart Harsh cutting words against my dearest heart Leave learned Father leave this bitter Course My studies are not turn'd unto the worse I am not mad nor idle nor deny Your great deserts and my debt nor have I A wife like Tanaquil as wildly you Object but a Lucretia chast and true To avoid these clamours of Ausonius and the dangerous sollicitations of his grâ—at kindred and friends he left Burdeaux and Nola and retyred into the Mountanous and solitary parts of Spaine about Barcinâ—e and Bilbilis upon the River Sale Two journeyes he made into Spain this last and his first before his baptism upon the Emperours affairs he Sojourned then in new Castiâ—e in the City of Complutum now called Alcala de henares where his wife Therasia was delivered of her onely Son Celsus who died upon the eighth day after his birth Holy Paulinus in his Panegyrick upon the death of Celsus the Son of Pneumatius by his Wife Fidâ—lis takes occasion to mention the early death of this blessed infant Hoc pignus commune superno in lumine Celsu Credite vivorum lacte favisque frui Aut cum Bethlaeis infantibus in Paradiso Quos malus Herodes perculit invidiâ Inter odoratum ludit nemus c. This pledge of your joint love to Heaven now fled With honey-combs and milk of life is fed Or with the Bethlem-Babes whom Herods rage Kill'd in their tender happy holy age Doth walk the groves of Paradise and make Garlands which those young Martyrs from him take With these his Eyes on the mild lamb are fixt A Virgin-Child with Virgin-infants mixt Such is my Celsus too who soon as given Was taken back on the eighth day to Heaven To whom at Alcala I sadly gave Amongst the Martyrs Tombes a little grave Hee now with yours gone both the blessed way Amongst the trees of life doth smile and play And this one drop of our mixt blood may be A light for my Therasia and for me These distant and obscure retirements he made choice of because he would not be known of any nor hindred in his coursâ— Which at Nola and the adjacent parts of Rome where his Secular honours an I antient descent made all the people obsequious to him could not possibly be effected Besides very few in those Western parts especially of the Nobility had at that time received the Christian Faith for they look'd upon it as a most degenerate unmanly profession such a good opinion had those rough times of peace and humility This made him lesse looked after by the Inhabitants of those parts and his own friends not knowing what became of him began to give him over and not onely to withdraw from him in their care but in their affections also giving out that he was mad and besides himself But all this moved him not he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ he counted all things dung that he might gaine his Saviour and hee fainted not but endured as seeing him that is invisible The first step to Christianity saith Saint Hierome is to contemne the censures of men This foundation he laid and upon this he built he had given himselfe wholly to Christ and rejected the world he tooke part with that man of sorrowes and suffered the scoffs and reproaches of these men of mirth The people are the many waters he turn'd their froth and some into pearls and wearied all weathers with an unimpaired Superstitie Hee was sounded upon that Rock which is not worne with time but wears all that oppose it Some dispositions love to stand in raine and affect wind and showers beyond Musick Paulinus sure was of this temper he preferred the indignation and hatred of the multitude to their love he would not buy their friendship with the losse of Heaven nor call those Saints and propagators who were Devills and destroyers What courage he had in such tempests may be seen in every line almost of his workes I shal insert one or two out of his 6th Epistle to Severus Utinam frater mi digni habeamur qui maledicamur notemur conteramur atque etiam interficiamur in nomine Jesu Christi dum non ipse occidatur Christus in nobis c. I would saith he my dear brother that we might be counted worthy to suffer reproach to be branded and troden upon Yea and to be killed for the name of Christ so that Christ be not killed in us Then at last should we tread upon the Adder and the Dragon and bruise the head of the old Serpent But alas wee as yet relish this World and do but pretend to love Christ we love indeed to be commended and cherished for professing his name but wee love not to be troubled and afflicted for his sake And in his first Epistle to Aper O blessed displeasures saith he to displease men by pleasing Christ Let us take heed of the love of such who will be pleased without Christ It is an observation of the Readers of Saint Cyprian quod in ejus scriptis singula propè verbâ— Martyrium spirant that through all his writings almost every
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
Flores Solitudinis Certaine Rare and Elegant PIECES Viz. Two Excellent Discourses Of 1. Temperance and Patience Of 2. Life and Death BY I.E. NIEREMBERGIUS THE WORLD CONTEMNED BY EUCHERIUS BP of LYONS And the Life of PAULINUS BP of NOLA Collected in his Sicknesse and Retirement BY HENRY VAUGHAN Silurist Tantus Amor Florum generandi gloria Mellis London Printed for Humphrey Moseley at the Princes Armes in St Pauls Church-yard 1654. TO THE TRUELY NOBLE And Religious Sir CHARLES EGERTON Knight SIR IF when you please to locke upon these Collections you will find them to lead you from the Sun into the shade from the open Terrace into a private grove from the noyse and pompe of this world into a silent and solitary Hermitage doe not you thinke then that you have descended like the dead in Occidentem tenebras for in this withdrawing-roome though secret and seldome frequented shines that happy starre which will directly lead you to the King of light You have long since quitted the Publick to present you now with some thing of solitude and the contempt of the world would looke like a designe to Flatter you were not my Name argument enough for the contrary Those few that know me will I am sure be my Compurgators and I my selfe dare assert this you have no cause to suspect it But what ever the thoughts of men will be I am already sure of this advantage that we live in an age which hath made this very Proposition though suspected of Melancholie mighty pleasing and even meane witts begin to like it the wiser sort alwaies did for what I beseech you hath this world that should make a wise man in love with it I will take the boldnesse to describe it in the same character which Bisselius did the hansome concubine of Mahomet the great Puella tota quanta nil erat aliud Quà m Illecebra picta delicatus harpago c. The whole wench how compleat soe'r was but A specious baite a soft sly tempting slut A pleasing witch a living death a faire Thriving disease a fresh infectious aire A pretious plague a furie sweetly drawne Wild fire laid up and finely drest in Lawne This delicate admir'd Inâ—hantresse even to those who enjoy her after their owne lusts and at their owne rate will prove but a very sad bargaine she is all deception and sorrow This world and the prince of it are the Canker-Rose in the mouth of the fox Decipit arefit pungit But those future supreme fruitions which God hath in store for those that love him are neither Phantasmes nor fallacies they are all substantiall and certaine and in the Apostles phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a far more exceeding and eternall weight of glory Nothing can give that which it hath not this transiâ—ory changeable and corrupt world cannot afford permanent treasures All it gives and all it shewes us is but trash illusion The true incorruptible riches dwell above the reach of rust and theeves Man himselfe in his outward part which was taken out of the world feeles the like passions with the world he is worn wasâ—ed dissolved and changed he comes hither he knowes not how and goes from hence he knowes not whither Nescio quò vado valete posteri was the Roman's Epitaph One generation commeth and another passeth away Properant decurrunt in absconditum they hasten and drive on to their appointed place untill the great day of accompt All the severall shapes and gestures we see in this wild Masque of time are but so many disguises which the Spirits that first assumed them cast off againe when they have acted their parts Most elegantly did Augurellius sing to Peter Lipomanus upon the death of his sister Clara Amaena Petre cum vides c. Peter when thou this pleasant world dost see Beleeve thou seest meere Dreames and vanitie Not reall things but false and through the Aire Each where an empty slipp'rie Scene through faire The chirping birds the fresh woods shadie boughes The leaves shrill whispers when the west-wind blowes The swift fierce Greyhounds coursing on the plaines The flying hare distrest 'twixt feare and paines The bloomy Mayd decking with flowers her head The gladsome easie youth by light love lead And whatsoe'r heere with admiring eyes Thou seem'st to see 't is but a fraile disguise VVorne by eternall things a passive dresse Put on by beings that are passiveles All the gay appearances in this life seeme to me but a swift succession of rising Clouds which neither abide in any certaine forme nor continue for any long time And this is that which makes the fore travell of the sonnes of men to be nothing else but a meere chasing of shadowes All is vanity said the Royall Philosopher and there is no new thing under the Sun I present you therefore with a discourse perswading to a contempt a desertion of these old things which our Saviour tells us shall passe away And with an historicall faithfull relation of the life and happinesse of a devout primitive father who gave all that he had upon earth to the poore that he might have treasure in heaven Some other Additions you will finde which meeting now in this volume under your name will in their descent to posterity carry with them this fairest Testimonie I loved you This Sir is my maine and my sole designe in this Addresse without reservation and without flattery for which respect and for no other I beleeve you will accept of what I have done and looke upon my suddaine and small Presents as upon some forward flowers whose kinde hast hath brought them above ground in cold weather The incertainty of life and a peevish inconstant state of health would not suffer me to stay for greater performances or a better season least loosing this I should never againe have the opportunity to manifest how much and how sincerely I am Sir Your Servant and well-wisher Henry Vaughan byVske neare Sketh-Rock 1653. To the onely true and glorious God the Sole disposer of Life and Death O Doe not goe thou know'st I 'le dye My Spring and Fall are in thy Booke Or if thou goest doe not deny To lend me though from far one looke My sinnes long since have made thee strange A very stranger unto me No morning-meetings since this change Nor Evening-walkes have I with thee Why is my God thus hard and cold When I am most most sick and sad Well-fare those blessed dayes of old Lad When thou did'st heare the weeping O doe not thou doe as I did Doe not despise a love-sick heart What though some Clouds defiance bid Thy Sun must shine in every part Though I have spoyl'd O spoyle not thou Hate not thine owne deere gift and token Poore Birds sing best and prettiest show When their neast is fallen and broken Deare Lord restore thy Ancient peace Thy quickning friendship mans bright wealth And if thou wilt not give me Ease From
overwhelme thee Of such an Immoderate use is Temperance and I Judge Patience to be of no lesser Happily it may be easier for having learnt to abstain we may the better sustain Impatience ariseth naturally out of Cupidity and feare is the Daughter of hope Cast these away and you will find that an adverse Fortune may be entertained not onely with Patience but with much wellcome Crates or Zeno a gallant man if either of the two being at Sea in a great storm caus'd all his goods wherewith the Ship was Loaden to be thrown over board and thanked Fortune for the kindnesse doe thou the like and approving of thy misfortunes say It is well done Fortune thou hast read me a good lesson thou hast had care of my Soul I thank thee that thou art Come thy selfe to fetch these burthens which I should have brought thee home Thou hast dealt courteously to lend me their use and to prevent their Abuse I like thy Method and prefer thy advise to thy favours I know thy meaning I must make a wise use of these crosses I must have recourse to virtue to my self and to my God Thou dost not onely Incite but compell me to goodnesse I am brought safe to shore by the splitting of the Ship hereafter I will be better provided Behold thou hast left yet behind thee some moveables which thou shouldst have taken with thee they are thine by right Thou gavest me so many things that thou canst not well remember them I desire not to conceale them take all thy Reliques and appendencies with thee all that is here besides my selfe I hold thy leavings not worthy of acceptance from the mind of man I wish that we would so deal with Fortune as a certain old man did with theeves that came to rob his house Take with you said he all that you see here They did so leaving nothing behind them but an empty purse which the old man tooke up and following after called to them Take this also with you which you forgot to put up Fortune perhaps amazed at such a Noble Serene disposition would restore all It is most certaine the Theeves did But let a Christian reject this figment of Fortune and in all worldly mutations acknowledge and kisse the divine hand But if after all this thou wilt not excuse the outward and ravenous manners of Fortune there will be no Just cause for thee to accuse them having received no damage by her If thou wilt purge thy mind from wishes and hopes thou mayst safely place thy selfe before her very Arrowes and defie them And truly I believe it will be thy most secure station When Stratonicus saw an unskilfull fellow shooting at Buts he got presently close to the VVhite as the onely place free from danger and being asked his reason for that unusual Refuge he answered Least that fellow should hit me Fortune we say is blind stand then in her way She hits that the least which she most aimes at but if all her shafts should fall upon thee they can draw no blood from thee as long as thou art not drawn by covetousnesse If you break off the point of the Weapon it cannot hurt you Our own Covetousnesse is Fortunes edged toole take that away and you disarme her and secure your selfe blunt weapons wound not to blood I suppose now that Epictetus his abridgement or reduction of Philosophy into two words Abstain and Sustain will seeme prolix enough to you The first we have past through the second and last I meane Sustain or the Art of bearing well wee shall find tedious enough Hee cannot be said to wish for nothing that finds fault with that which he hath This bearing well is to desire nothing but what wee have A Serene bright Will then not clouded with thick and muddy desires will find the burdens of Fortune to be very light For Fortune of her selfe is very light and easie but she hath for pannels our own Lusts which are heavier than her packs and without these shee puts not one loade upon us Nothing tires and weighs us down but our own wishes which evills being ignorant that our burthen proceedes from them we multiply with an Intent to ease our selves but in the meane time the weight increaseth A certain plain Countryman wearied with ploughing and returning home from the field after his daies task tyed the Plough to his Asse and afterwards mounted himself upon his back but the tyred Asse and overloaden could not stirre from the place whereupon the Country-man lights and with the Plough upon his backe remounting the Asse tells him Now I hope thou canst goe well for it is not thou but I that carry the Plough Wee are every day as ridiculous though not so harmlesse as this Country-man Wee study with new cares and new desires to ease and diminish our old lusts which not onely keepes under but choaks and presseth to death all the seeds of Joy and Content This is nothing else but to retain the former load undiminish'd and to put another on the top of it As long as we tolerate these burthens we become intollerable to our selves without any exaggeration of Fortune Let us shake them off let us cast off hope that troublesome Tympany so shall we find Fotune light and be able to bear both her and our selves All things may be born of him that bears not future Evills Those are grievous burthens which miraculously oppresse us and so strangly accommodate themselves to our hurt that they exist in the heart and vexe it before they can exist in time Not onely Evil but Good when it is hovering and uncertain doth afflict us Of Evills themselves there cannot come so many together upon us as we can feare fortune can throw at us but few darts at one time and were she not still furnished by our lusts we should quickly see her quiver empty Abstinence then or the restraining of our desires is the Nurserie of patience by a like title as the toleration of evill and good But when I name Patience I speake not of a Simple thing for there is not onely patience in Evill but in Good also and this later is sometimes the most difficult There is one when we suffer and another when we act There be also other divisions of Patience Holy Ephrem makes it threefold the first towards god the second towards the tempter or wicked Angel and the third towards man I shall add a fourth and the most difficult of all towards our selves or I will make it onely twofold first towards those that are without us the second and last towards our selves or those commotions which fight against us from within This last is the greatest because it teacheth us to beare those pressures which lean upon us and bow us down It is harder to resist those weights which come forcibly upon us from above then those which come oppositly or over against us The beasts can draw more after them then they
oppresse us at once Against violent misfortunes we may not use violence Expectation will sometimes serve us best if it be accompanied with a strong and irremisse beliefe that the Crosse is at hand and will not delay For what happens in this life more frequent than unthought of events Wee meete oftentimes even in one day with matter of grief and matter of Patience It is strange that for those two meales we eat in the day wee are all the day and all our life long providing But for trouble for griefes and sadnesse which take not up two houres in the day but all the houres and daies of our lives wee never think to make any preparation Cast up if thou canst how many things must be had to humor the pride of mans appetite more than for a Sacrifice It is no small state nor ceremonie that the belly is serv'd with How many men doth this worms-meat Imploy Cookes Bakers Fishers Fowlers Hunters Sheepfeeders Herdsmen Millers Colliers and Butchers How many Instruments Spits Pots Trivets Cauldrons Chasing-dishes Chargers Platters and a thousand other utensils of gluttonie And to what end is all this preparation But to please one palate once in the day or twice at most O foolish men Wee are ever providing for pleasures but never for troubles which not twice but for a great portion of our time if not continually wee must needs endure Who against the certain approach of an Enemy will be secure and quiet and upon the comming of a friend watchfull and sollicitous Why do we provide so much for pleasures and vanitie and provide nothing against the day of trouble and miserie We are guarded about with Cloaths of state Canopies Couches Silk-Curtains Feather-Beds and Pillowes wee arme our selves for delights and softnesse for sleeping and eating because they are every daies works but hear not every day telling us that the Evill day is behind We labour to provide for the backe and the belly why not for the better part why not for our fraile condition The Sense of the secure liver is too too delicate The affliction of the Inconsiderate or unprepared too bitter Chance throwes downe the carelesse violently and Fortune tires the idle even to vexation The rude and unexperienced in troubles afflicts and macerates himselfe with an impatient mind in the very midst of his most affected blaâ—dishments and in the bosome and calme of all his pleasures I hold Impatience to be a kind of Night-Mare which comes upon us waking or the Day-hag of life This troublesome disease for our time of rest is his time of misâ—ule and when wee are sleeping then is he stirring sets upon us when wee are most at ease and with a certain strange heavinesse seemes to oppresse and smother us when in the meane time that weight which so much oppresseth us is laid on by our owne Imagination and this sometimes makes us crye out as if wee were killed others according to Lucretius Struggle grone as if by Panthers torne Or Lyons teeth which makes them lowdly mourn Some others seem unto themselves to dy Some clime steep solitudes Mountains high From whence they seeme to fall inanely down Panting with fear till wak'd and scarce their owne They feel about them if in bed they lye Deceiv'd with dreams and nights Imagerie But the greatest trouble of all is that without any hope of remedy they vainly strive and endeavour to shake off this shadow of heavinesse In vain with earnest struglings they contend To ease themselves for when they stir bend Their greatest force to do it even thenmost Of all they faint and in their hopes are crost Nor tongue nor hand nor foot will serve their turne But without speech and strength within they mourne What more expresse Image can there be of Impatience lying heavily especially upon those who drouse away their time in a vitious rest and Idlenesse They are opprest cry out rage and vainly resist without any burthens but what their own fancy layes upon them They feele the weight the heavier the more they stirre it without they shake it quite off To refuse or not willingly to undergoe burthens is the onely burthen of Impatients But if they would awake to themselves which of necessâ—ty they must for when can the will be more Rational than when necessity is unreasonable all these factitious weights and seeming heavinesse would quickly vanish Force must not be used against Fortune but Patience This excells so much in strength that it bears all For it bears what ever it will and for this very reason because it Wills Samson carryed away the doâ—es the two posts and the barre of the Gate of the City of Gaza but this strength lay in his haire like the locks of Nisus and Pterelaus A miraculous strength but weakly secured The strength of Patience is more safely seated It lyes not in a lock which may be cut off by some Dalilah or Comethe or Scylla or any womanish and fearfull hand To Will is the Sanctuary of its strength by being willing it is not onely enabled to bear but also beareth The backe and shoulder of Patience is the Will This voluntary fortitude of the mind will do all its businesse without the help of outward Engines It needs not the assistance of the Armes nor the weak use of wishes The strength of Virtue is not external but in it self There remain also other necessary Indurances though not to those that suffer them allready yet to others that may or are about to undergoe them For the preservation of our Country liberties we ought patiently to suffer even unto death It is not too deare a rate to pay that debt wee owe to Nature for the defense of Nature in our publick Persons To this we want not the Incouragement of examples What ever hath been suffered heretofore may be suffered now by us But if those presidents rather cool then provoke our Courage why dare not wee suffer a little seeing they suffered so much To teach us this Virtue of Patience and strengthen our ruinous brittle condition the motherly love and fatherly care of the eternal Divine mind did provide and disperse through certaine spaces and Intervalls of time like knots for the strengthning of a weak reed persons of such eminent Patience and Piety as might by their examples sustaine and beare up mankind untill the Antient of daies and Father of Immortality himself should descend into this mortall life and be born for Patience and for death In the meane time that the populous World might not want a Glasse to dresse themselves by he sent these to be the substitutes and forerunners of his mighty and inimitable Patience The first he consecrated to this dignity was Abel in whom Patience saith holy Aldhelmus was Original as Sinne was in Adam God joyned Patience to his Innocence by a certain Original Justice or claim in him but to the rest of the Just it descends together with sufferings by
how can it be the Medicine of Evills It is an Evill great enough that it is not the Medicine of Evills but that sufficeth not it is also the greatest Evill Aeschylus is in the like errour for it is called by him The Physician of incurable Evils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A most ridiculous appellation How can that be the Physitian of incurable Evills which is it selfe such an incurable Evill as their owne Machaon could not resist Equally false is that of Sophocles The last Curer of diseases is death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If death it selfe be a disease which must and shall be healed how can it be the last curer of diseases But these men after the Common manner of Physicians held the cure of great Evills to consist in desperate remedies as obstinate diseases are expell'd by strong and Diaphoretick Medicines Health indeed is dear unto us and death I confesse puts an end to all its diseases and to all Medicaments too It takes away the disease sooner and oftner then any other remedy but these Poets themselves as sick men say of their Potions deny not but it is bitter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is better to live ill then to dye well Saith Euripides himselfe in another place such a good opinion had hee of death It had beene but a sorry provision for mankind if God had given us no other Medicine against Temporal Evills but death The cure of our miserable condition had been both imperfect and uncertain and to our sad necessity there had been added necessarie despair when the cure of small Evils had been by a greater and the great Evill it self left incurable But Glory to the blessed Jesus wee are both fully câ—red and faithfully cared for That which can cure all Evills must be something that is not Evill Therefore death cannot cure them because it is an Evill for God created it not but it came into the World through the envy of the Divell Good men hold it to be Evill the bad find it so Thou wilt ask then what is the Medicine of Evills I answer it is that which is the Medicine that strengthens us to bear the violence and the pangs of death that which the very Enemies of it cannot deny to be good I mean Patience that which being made Evill by abuse yet in that state hath been commended by men that were not Evil by Seneca in his Cato Dion in his Melancoma and Philo in his Pancratiastes So winning and attractive is the Virtue of Patience that the very shadow of it procures reverence and make the very abuse and corruption of it laudable If then the Counterfeit of it could beautifie vice and make it amiable even to wise men what wonder is it if the Substance be a protection and ornament to Virtuous persons This is the Medicine which Leonides gave against death Let those Titles therefore which death usurped be vindicated by the right owner Patience then is the best medicine of Evills It is the cure of the Incurable the last Physitian the Ease in death the mollifying Oyle the gentle purge the pleasant Potion and that I may recover its right to another Title which death usurped from the pen of Bâ—etius It is a sanctuary that lies alwaies open to the distressed Lastly lest I should deny that which even the envy of Fortune could not deny Patience as Zeno elegantly said is the Queen regent of all things yea of that rebellious changling Fortune But let us adde to the certainty of the cure the easinesse of comming by the medicine We need not send for it into Forraign Regions nor dig it out of Mines nor extract it out of the Veines of Herbs or the vital parts of beasts Wee need not go for it to the Apothecary nay I shall adde wee need not wish for it It is already in our custody a manuall Antidote that is alwaies about us and in us effectuall for all things and ready for all men It is a Physitian we need not call upon not like death that forsakes the wretched and those that earnestly long for it that hath no pitty upon teares but keeps off And will not hear the Crie Of distrest man not shut his weeping Eye Hitherto we have taken view but of one side of Patience and that halfe of her which she opposeth to Evills Every part of her is lovely and excellent and if we remove now from this Collateral station to a direct we shall behold her intire beauty and how well shee deserves of good The Sacraments of this Virtue are two To suffer Evill to do good Nobly doth she celebrate both with her there is no Evill without her there is no good I think her the Mart and Mother-City of all that is good Every Virtue is a Colonie of Patience planted and nourished by her Virtues owe their Original to her she is part of it and in every one of them She is their holy fire their Vesta and Lararium or private Chappell they are her Nuns or Virgins what ever they have either sacred or glorious is from her To the perfection of man there is nothing more necessary For as Brasse must be first melted and afterwards cast so the hard and rigid matter of Virtues must be softned and dissolved by Patience that man may become a glorious and living Statue of Divinitie No marvell that wee require labour and hardnesse in Virtuous persons seeing wee expect it from Smiths A certain Just Law of all the World hath exacted it to be the price of Virtue Beare what thou wouldst not and thou shalt enjoy what thou wilt Labour is the good mans purse Patience is his Gold Onely an obstinate sordid Idlenesse makes men poor not onely in body but in mind also Without Patience they cannot possesse their own Soules Neither Nature nor Virtue nor Fortune and this last thou wilt perhaps think strange trust us with their goods without this Prosperity when it is lent to man dispensenth its treasures to none so plentifully as to the laborious Without a blow it stroaks us not The sweet-meats it brings are not eaten but in the sweat of the face It was truly said of Fortune Give bread to the poor but give him thy fists for sauce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Snake will easily slip through our hands unlesse we grasp her with Figleaves or some knotty rough grass Fortune is very slippery and without labour and a strong hand she will not be held Honest gaine breeds most Joy I shall adde most security when it is gotten with most pain Labour is the earnest we give for after-Joyes which are an addition or consequence rather attending the other fruits of it Though it goes before them yet it is refreshed with their following after As hunger which is a Natural sauce sweetens the meat and the Joyes of the eater even before â—e eates Wee look with most delight upon those things which wee think to be our own and we think
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
labours and substance in this life What pleasure then can there be in such riches whose collection is sin and sorrow and our transmision or bequeathing of them anxious and uncertaine Whither then at last will this wild and deviuos affection of men carry them You know how to love accidental and external goods but cannot love your own self That which you so much long for is abroad and without you you place your affection upon a forraigner upon an enemy Returne or retire rather into your selfe and be you dearer and nearer to your own heart then those things which you call yours Certainly if some wiseman and skilfull in the affaires of this world should converse and come to be intimate with you it would better please you that he should affect your person then affect your goods and you would choose that he should rather love you for your self then for your riches you would have him to be faithful unto man not to his money What you would have another to performe towards you that doe you for your self who ought to be the most faithfull to your self Ourselves ourselves wee should love not those things which wee phantastically call ours And let this suffice to have been spoken against Riches As for the Honours of this world to speak generally and without exception for I shall not descend to particulars what dinity can you justlt attribute to those things which the base man and the bad as well as the noble and good promiscuously obtain and all of them by corruption and ambition The same honour is not conferred upon men of the same merits and dignity makes not a difference betwixt the worthy and the unworthy but confounds them So that which should be a character of deserts by advancing the good above the bad doth most unjustly make them equal and after a most strange manner there is in no state of life lesse difference made betwixt the worst men and the best then in that state which you term honourable Is it not then a greater honour to be without that honour and to be esteemed of according to our genuine worth and sincere carriage then according to the false gloss of promiscuous deceiving honours And these very things how big soever they look what fleeting and frail appearances are they We have seen of late men eminently honourable seated upon the very spires and top of dignity whose incredible treasures purchased them a great part of the world their successe exceeded their own desires and their prodigious fortunes amazed their very wishes But these I speak of were private prosperities Kings themselves with all their height and imperiousnesse with all their triumphs and glory shined but for a time Their cloathings were of wrought of gold their diadems sparkled with the various flames and differing relucencies of precious stones their Palaces were thronged with Princely attendants their roofs adorned with gilded beams their Will was a Law and their words were the rules and coercive bounds of Mankind But who is he that by a temporal felicity can lift his head above the stage of humane chances Behold now how the vast sway and circumference of these mighty is no where to be found their riches and precious things too are all gone and they themselves the possessors and masters of those royal treasures most late and most famous Kingdoms even amongst us are now become a certaine fable All those things which sometimes were reputed here to be very great are now become none at all Nothing I think nay I am sure of all these riches honours powers went along with them from hence All they took with them was the pretious substance of their faith and piety These onely when they were deprived of all other attendants waited on them and like faithfull inseparable companions travelled with them out of this wrold With this provision are they now fed with these riches and with these honours are they adorned In these they rest and this goodnesse is now their greatnesse Wherefore if we be taken at all with honours and riches let us be taken with the true and durable ones Every good man exchangeth these earthly dignities for those which are celestiall and earthen treasures for the heavenly He layes up treasure there where a most exact and inconfused difference is made betwixt the good and the bad where that which is once gotten shall be for ever enjoyed where all things may be obtained and where nothing can be lost But seeing we are fallen into a discourse of the frailty of temporal things let us not forget the frail condition of this short life What is it I beseech you what is it Men see nothing more frequently then death and minde nothing more seldome Mankinde is by a swift mortality quickly driven into the West or setting point of life and all posterity by the unalterable Law of succeeding ages and generations follow after Our fathers went from hence before us we shall goe next and our children must come after As streames of water falling from high the one still following the other doe in successive circles break and terminate at the banks so the appointed times and successions of men are cut off at the boundary of death This consideration should take up our thoughts night and day this memoriall of our fraile condition should keep us still awake Let us alwayes thinke the time of our departure to be at hand for the day of death the farther we put it off comes on the faster and is by so much the nearer to us Let us suspect it to be near because we know not how far Let us as the Scripture saith make plain our wayes before us If we make this the businesse of our thoughts and meditate still upon it wee shall not be frighted with the fear of death Blessed and happy are all you who have already reconciled your selves unto Christ no great fear of death can disturb them who defsire to be dissolved that they may be with Christ who in the silence of their own bosomes quietly and long since prepared for it expect the last day of their pilgrimage here They care not much how soon they end this temporal life that passe from it into life eternal Let not the populacy and throng of loose livers or hypocriticall time-pleasers perswade us to a neglect of life neither be you induced by the errours of the many to cast away your particular salvation What wil the multitude in that day of Gods judgement avail us when every private person shall be sentenced where the examinations of works and every mans particular actions not the example of the common people shall absolve him Stop your ears and shut your eyes against such damnable Precedents that invite you to destruction It is better to sow in tears and to plant eternal life with the few then to lose it with the multitude Let not therefore the number of sinfull men weaken your diligence of not sinning for the madnesse
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
year who made the dayâ—s and the nights But it is much to be feared that he who hath appointed their daies here will allow them for it long nights Holy Paulinus had now attained a good old age the fore-runners as Master Herbert saith were come and the Almond tree did flourish hee was all white with years and worshiped like Jacob leaâ—ing upon the top of his staffe His virtuous and deare Therasia had died I believe long before this time God having ordained him to be hindmost who was the stronger Vessell and best able to bear her absence and the unavoydable disconsolations of flesh and blood And now having for some time stood gazing after her he begins to follow God visiting him with a strong paine in the side which in a few daies did set him at liberty to overtake her by breaking the prison Three daies before his dissolution Symmachus and Hyaciâ—thinus two Bishops of his acquaintance câ—me to visit him whereupon hee spoke to Uranius his Presbyter that hee should prepare to attend him in the administration of the Sacrament for said he I desire to receive it in the company of my brethren which are now come to see mee This sacred Solemnity was no sooner ended but suddenly hee began to ask where his brothers were One that stood by supposing that he had asked for the two Bishops answered Here they be I know that replyed Paulinus but I aske for my brothers Januarius and Martinus who were here with me just now and promised to come to me again And having thus spoken he looked up towards Heaven and with a voyce as chearfull as his countenance which seemed to shine and revive with joy he sung out the one hundred and twentieth Psalme I lift up mine Eyes unto thâ— hills from whence cometh my help My help commeth from the Lord who made Heaveâ— and Earth This being done Posthumianus another Presbyter that was then present told Paulinus that there were forty shillingâ— unpaid for the Cloathes which he had given to the poor before be fell sick To this Paulinus replyed with a smile that he remembred it very well and Son said he takâ— no thought for it for beleive me there is onâ— that will not be wanting to pay the debt of the poor The words were no sooner out of his mouth but presently there comes in from the parts of Lucania now called Basilicata a Presbyter sent from the holy Bishop Exuperantius to visit Paulâ—nus who brought him fifty shillings for a token from the Bishop Paulinus receiving the money blessed God saying I thank thee O Lord that hast not forsaken them that seek thee Of these fifty shillings he gave two with his owne hand to the Presbyter that brought them and the rest he delivered to Post humianuâ— to pay for the Cloathes which were given to the poor The Evening now drawing on hee remained quiet and well at ease untill midnight but the paine then increasing in his side he was troubled with a great difficulty and shortnesse of breathing which held him till five in the morning The day begining to break he felt the usuall motions of holynesse awaking his Spirit to which though weak he chearfully obeyed and sitting up in his bed celebrated Mattins himselfe By this time all the Deacons and Presbyters of his diocesse were gathered together at the door and came like the Sons of the Prophets to see the translation of their aged Father After some short exhortations to holynesse and Christian courage he lifted up his hands and blessed them mindfull it seems of our Saviours carriage at his ascension whose peace he prayed might rest upon them Shortly after the pain still encreasing and prevailing against him hee became speechlesse and so continued untill the Evening when suddenly sitting up as if hee had been awaked out of his sleep he perceived it to be the time of the Lucernarium or Evening-Office and lifting up his hands towards Heaven he repeated with a low voyce this verse out of the Psalmes Thy word is a Lantern unto my feet and a light unto my paths About the fourth hour of the night when all that were present sate diligently watching about him his poor Cottage did suddenly shake with such a strong Earth-quake that those who kneeled about his bed were something disordered with it and fell all trembling to their prayers The Guests of Eternal Glory were now entred under that narrow roof where after the abdication of his great worldly honours he had lived so long in all holynesse and humility For in that instant of time saith Uranius he was dissolved the blessed Angels testifying that they were present to conduct his happy and glorious Soul into the joy of his Master By the like signe did Christ signifie to his Church in Hierusalem that he heard their prayers when they were persecuted by the mercilesse Jews Gregory the great in the place St. Paulinus to his Wife Therasia COme my true Consort in my Joyes and Care Let this uncertaine and still wasting share Of our fraile life be giv'n to God You see How the swift dayes drive hence incessantlie And the fraile drooping World though still thought gry In secret slow consumption weares away All that we have passe from us and once past Returne no more like clouds they seeme to last And so delude loose greedy mindes But where Are now those trim deceits to what darke sphere Are all those false fires sunck which once so shin'd They captivated Soules and rul'd mankind He that with fifty ploughes his lands did sow Will scarse be trusted for two Oxen now His rich lowd Coach known to each crowded street Is sold and he quite tir'd walkes on his feet Merchants that like the Sun their voyage made From East to West and by whole-sale did trade Are now turn'd Sculler-men or sadly swett In a poore fishers boat with line and nett Kingdomes and Cities to a period tend Earth nothing hath but what must have an end Mankind by plagues distempers dearth and warre Tortures and Prisons dye both neare and farre Furie and hate rage in each living brest Princes with Princes States with States contest An Vniversall discord mads each land Peace is quite lost the last times are at hand But were these dayes from the last day secure So that the world might for more yeares endure Yet we like hirelings should our terme expect And on our day of death each day reflect For what Therasia doth it us availe That spatious strâ—ames shall flow and never faile That aged forrests hie to tyre the Winds And flowers each spring returne and keepe their kinds Those still remaine but all our Fathers dyed And we our selves but for few dayes abide This short time then was not giv'n us in vaine To whom tyme dyes in which we dying gaine But that in time eternall life should be Our care and endlesse rest our industrie And yet this Taske which the rebellious deeme Too harsh who god 's mild lawes