doe it but he wil neuer do it or very seldome to shew his infinit power by miracle Let vs in the end say That seeing death is ineuitable it must needs follow that the feare of it is vnprofitable On the other side let vs adde that mās life is not to be cut off before the time therefore a carefull waywardnesse to prolong it auailes nothing the Destinies which haue resolued immutably to spinne it out till such a time they will doe it feare it not and in the danger of death will rather shew a miracle to preserue thee as to the Poet Simonides who supping with Scopas in a Towne of Thessalie word was brought him that two young men were at the dore to speake with him the Poet went forth but found no body at the doore but hee heard a great noyse of the chamber which sunke downe and smothered Scopas and al his guests in the ruins We reade that Gelon then a young Infant but appointed to liue longer to gouern Sicile was drawne out of the like but a stranger danger for as hee was at schoole in the presence of his master and many of his companions behold a great Wolfe enters into the school comes to Gelon layes hold of his booke and drawes it by the one end Gelon without amazement holds fast and rather suffers himselfe to bee drawne forth by the Woolfe then to let goe his hold and in the meane time the building happened to sinke and ouerwhelmed both Master and schollers Thus God shewes his prouidence preseruing by his Angels those whom he pleaseth from present and most eminent dangers So would hee saue Lot and his family from the fire of heauen almost against their will For it is written that the Angels tooke them and thrust them out of Sodome yea it is written that the Angell executioner to shew the force of prouidence told Lot that he could not doe any thing vntill hee were retired into a towne adioyning which was afterwards called Zohar into the which he was no sooner entred but the Eternall powred downe fire and brimstone vpon Sodome and Gomorah We reade of Titus Vespasian that two famous knights had conspired to kill him whereof he was aduertised but making no shew thereof he tooke them by the hands led them forth to walke and hauing called for two swords he gaue to eyther of them one as prouoking them to that which they had resolued but being amazed both of the manner and of the Emperours courage You see sayth he that destinie doth iustly hold the principalitie of the world and that in vaine men practise murthers against it be it through hope to purchase greatnesse or for feare to lose it Let vs therefore acknowledge that it is not of vs but of the word of destinie which God hath pronounced that the lengthening or shortning of our liues depends The great God is to vs a God of strength to deliuer vs and the issues of death belong vnto the Eternal therefore the Apostle sayd that Christ is dead and risen againe that he might haue power ouer the dead and the liuing and therfore this vexing care of life nor that great horror of Death cannot profit vs any thing Let vs then leaue these things and finishing our course resolutely ioyfuly let vs yeeld al into the hands of our soue raigne Master neither to tempt him nor to despaire of him for both the one and the other are equally hateful vnto him and if our soule puft vp with the vent of temptation be desquiet within vs let vs say vnto it with Dauid My soule returne vnto thy rest feare nothing Euery kinde of death of them that are beloued of God is precious in his sight verie precious sayeth S. Bernard as being the ende of labour the consummation of the victorie the port of life and the entrie to perfect felicitie The first Obiection If Death did flow from the enchayned order of destinie we should not see it without order sometimes to goe slowly sometimes to runne headlong But that is vsually seene Therefore it seemes not to flow from destinie THe vnequall Issue of life which we see happen to men doth not alter but rather corroborate destinie it is the immutable decree of the Eternal he sees who should amend or impaire in this life he that hath made all for his glory euen the wicked for the day of calamitie And therefore he soone tooke vp Enoch to himself lest that malice shold corrupt his spirit sayth the text Contrariwise if Constantine the Great who was cruel in his youth had beene cut off he had not bin a Christian neither had hee so much extended the kingdome of Christ. There is yet another reason which is the deliuerance of good men from the miseries of the world when death comes I will gather thee vp with thy fathers sayd God to Iosias the good King to the end thy eyes may not see all the miseries which I will bring vpon this place On the other-side a long life is a great languishing to the wicked So Caine after his parricide committed was cursed of God and liuing so pursued by the Iudgement of God as he often cried out that his punishment was insupportable and therefore hee should wander vpon the face of the earth and that whosoeuer should finde him would kill him but God prouided setting a brand vpon his fore-head to the end no man should slay him But how comes it that the death of some is suddaine as the shot of an harquebuze cānot bee more suddaine and so long in others which languish of some long infirmitie I answere that to search into the Counsells of God which is properly the destiny wherof we speake is more infinite then to seeke the bottome of a gulph That great Apostle rapt vp to the third heauen finds nothing but depths incomprehensible Iudgements and wayes impossible to be found out Rom. 11. Moreouer I do not see to speake truely that death is more suddaine to one then to an other is it to them that being sound and vigorous are so strooken as they die presently Yet being thus strooken they know not whether they should suruiue it or no seeing some one hath escaped being thus stroken Wherefore I do not see that death is more slow to one then to an other Is it to them that lie bedred 10. or 20. yeares yea and what know they whether they shal die the first day they take their beds To conclude I say that seeing the comming of death is imperceptible and that it is impossible for any man to say assuredly I am dead or I shal suruiue that death cannot be suddaine or slow to any man other men iudge after the euent but not before And therefore it seemes to mee that the question which is made whether a languishing death or a suddaine be most to be desired is in vaine for that we shall find that death is suddaine to all men seeing it comes
apparitions shadowes and walking spirits to wrestle with them The statue of Nicon the wrestler borne at Tasos did witnesse it without words when as one who had enuied and hated Nicon at the sight of this statue fell into his old spleene which he had borne him liuing who taking a staffe layd vpon the image to despight the memory of Nicon the image to bee reuenged of this affront fell vpon him with all his weight and crusht him to death This was an accident but it was well and iustly ordained But behold another more euident Fabia wife to the Emperour Heraelius Being carried dead to her tombe it happened that a maiden by mischance did spit out at a window vpon the body for which she was taken burnt in the same fire that was prepared to reduce the body of Fabia to ashes In such recommendation they had in those dayes the honor of the dead The rage of Sylla is iustly held detestable who not content to haue done all the violence he could to his enemies whilest they liued after their death would draw their bones out of their graues and cast them into the riuer The death of the Saints is pretious before God let vs also say the death of vertuous men is pretious before men and if any one hath bene blemished in his life it should be buried in his graue Lewis 11. of France a great King hath verified it in his owne person towards his enemy the faire Agnes whom some of those times supposed that the Kings Father had entertained After her death she was intoÌ„bed in the Church of the Castle of Laches and by reason of a certaine rent shee gaue vnto it her body was layd in the middest of the Quire Lewis comming thither some time after there was suite made vnto him by a Priest that hee would suffer them to remoue that Tombe to some other place for that it did incomodate them The King beeing informed who lay there answered That which you demand is vniust although this woman were in her time very opposite vnto me yet will I not violate her Sepulcher Moreouer I cannot conceiue that you haue laid this body in so eminent 〈◊〉 place without some rich present performe that to your Benefactor being dead which you promised her being alâ—… and remooue her not from thence to bind you more strictly towards her I giue you for an increase sixe hundred pounds starling If this were done in a life which was blemished what shall it bee in one that is all pure and vntainted If it be obserued towards them that dye a drie death how much more towards them that are vniustly slaine by Tyrantâ—… Behold a memorable history among many which intimates that God hath a watchfull eye ouer them Perdinand fourth Mâ—…g of Spaine transported with choler vppon a suspition ill grounded for a murther committed commanded two bretheren of the house of 〈◊〉 to bee throwne headlong from the top of a rocke Going to their execution these Gentlemen protest and crie out that they dye innocents and seeing the Kings eares were shut vp to their iust defence they cited him to apear within 30. dayes before the soueraigne Iudge The dayes run on and the King is carelesse vntill that vpon the 30. day hee found himselfe seazed at the first but with a light infirmity but it increased so suddainely as hee dyed the same day Consider hereof you to whom honour is more pretious then life and who liuing feele the stings of Enuy and slander more then your bodies are followed with their shaddowes Take comfort heerein for God by your death will preuent these vniust pursuites and make an end of these iniurious taxations Enuy assaults the man liuing but lying in the bed of death she leaues him at rest as the Poet saith and then due honour is giuen to men of merit O you which meditate day and night on your learned writings writings either to chase away ignorance or to reforme men deformed with all sorts of vices in this debaucht age faint not for any malice they beare you liuing death will smother this rancor consume this enuy we see it daily and before vs Cate the Cenfor did taxe it sharpely I know saith hee that many ignorant of true honour will traduce my writings if I publish them but I let their babling fall to the ground meaning the graue whereas the sharpest stings of slander are abated and buried and the bookes which during the life of their Authors durst not looke vpon the light no more then Owles after their death flie out like young Eagles and behold the Sunne Obiection Whatsoeuer God and men hold to be euill is euill God and men iudge death to be euill Ergo c. THIS Argument is grounded vpon the Diuine Oracle pronounced to Adam That day thou shalt eate of the fruite of the tree of knowledge of good and euill thou shalt die the death the Apostle saies that Death is the reward of sin As for men in Cities wel gouerned their lawes impose the punishment of death for theeues murtherers sedicious c. I answer That death in her beginning is bad but not in her deriuation but it is good in respect of his power and wisedome who drawes light from darkenes good from euill life from death for now by the blessing of God death serues as a ladder to the faithfull to ascend vp into heauen So the diuersity of tongs sent at the building of the Tower of Babel proceeded from the fury of God kindled against the builders to frustrate their enterprize Yet the same tongs haue bene since imparted to the Apostles vpon White-sonday by the fauour of God thereby to haue the mysteries of the Lord declared So garments were inuented in token of the losse of our naked Innocency and yet in continuance they are become an honorable ornament for our bodies as wee see Euen so in the beginning God sent death in his fury and since he sent it in fauour to Enoch to Iosias and to all them hee loues The holy Ghost speaking by the penne of Salomon sayth that hee more esteemes the dead which are already dead then the liuing which are yet liuing As for malefactors death is not inflicted vpoÌ„ theÌ„ as it is simply death but for two reasons adiaceÌ„t the one is that depriuing them of all motion it makes them cease to commit any more euill frees the Country of such vermine The other that it is imposed for a publike infamy and therefore they are set vpon scaffolds and gibbets in publike place this deserued infamy is the true torment of the punishment death is but an accident and do wee not see many delinquents desire an honorable graue more then life the which they would not do if they held death to bee the worst of euills and not rather an extreame dishonor in which they feele their soules to suruine Bias therefore did answere wittily being demanded which of all
be not directed and animated from aboue he followes that which he should fly and flyes that which he should follow so as he shall neuer hit the white now win the Crowne of Iustice which is the true felicitie of man Let vs then conclude with S. Iohn That what we shal be doth not yet appeare with S. Paul That our life is hidden in Christ That it is in safe keeping and that the ende of this mortall life is the beginning of the immortall Let vs say in the ende that all things haue their Periode that wee are borne to liue We liue to die and wee die to liue againe but without any more turning for the Circle shal be returned to his point and the light of the bodie shall suffer no more eclipse Come then O gentle death which doest make an end of the miseries of this world and beginnest the happinesse of Heauen which dost free vs from mortall paine and bringest vs to enioy immortall good which doest conuert our teares and toyles into ioy rest which doest change our fantasticall treasure into that which is certaine and our temporall into spirituall and eternall Retire then O you deceitfull vanities for the charme of your pleasures cannot preuaile with me who am resolued to die hold your tongue also O vaine deception of Philosophie and humane tradition for I am taught by the death of my Sauiour by his resurrection that my greatest perfection is to acknowledge my imperfection my blindnesse my death in my sinnes and that my greatest happynesse in this world is to obteyne remission of my sinnes and to mortifie my corrupted members to the end that a good death may soone bring mee to the hauen of saluation and eternall life Amen The second Argument taken from the vicious fruits of the extreame feare of death That which breedes many inconueniences in the spirit bodie of man must bee speedily pulled away The extreame feare of death causeth great inconueniences Therefore that must be speedily pulled away SOme one sayed truely speaking of the excessiue apprehension of death that it is the ordinary obiect which troubleth the vnderstanding of man makes him to lose his Iudgement to abandon all duety and to cast himselfe into a shamefull forgetfulnesse of himselfe Let vs. see how Hee that feares death vnmeasurably he must of necessitie feare euery thing that may bring it that is all that hee sees and what he cannot discerne whereas death lyes in ambush whereby it happens that this man doth easily fall into many errours as into foolish superstition thinking by his voluntarie submissions by mâ—…toring of words not vnderstood by adoring of stocks and stones to moue God to pitty him and to turne away death which hee imagines vpon the least accident the flying of a bird or the croaking of a Crow should take him by the throate So we reade of Arislodemus King of the Messeniens who being in warre against his subiects the dogs howled like Woolues and an herbe called Dogstooth grew neere vnto his Altar the which being interpreted by his Soothsayers to bee an ill presage he concoiued such a feare as hee died And as this disordered motion of feare makes men credulous to the words of Satan so doth it make them incredulous to the assured promises of the Eternall the which prouoking the wrath of God in the end hee doth execute vpon them his sentence pronounced against the fearefull incredulous casting them into the Lake burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death Apocal. 21. O how fitly then did Saint Augustine say that by too much fearing the temporall death they did ingulfe themselues in the eternall a fearefull man not onely makes himselfe a slaue to fantasticall diuinity but also a bondman to any one that is subiect vnto him said King Lew. 11. who to assure himself against death shut himselfe vp solitarie at Plessis neere Tours yet could he not bee confident the opening of a doore amazed him he hated all those he suspected and he suspected all the world his most confident were dismisss and put from his person and hee remayned alone melancholie dreaming froward and chollericke nothing pleased him but onely displeasure he grew iealous of his sonne-in-law of his owne Sonne and his Daughter only his Phisitian possest him controlled him and kept him in awe with his words threatning death I know well said hee swearing a great oath that one of these mornings you will send mee away with the rest but you shall not liue eight dayes after Thus this imperious seruant kept his King captiue Thus this King lost his liberty more pretious then his life for maintaining whereof good men should alwaies striue Wherunto Seneca had reference when he sayd that the vilest death was to bee preferred before the honestest seruitude for that this liberty cannot safely confish but in the contempt of death as Agis King of Lacedemon taught him that demanded an assured liberty of him and in truth â—…hee that feares not death may passe freely like a Knight without feare who shall hinder him seeing the extremâ—… dangers of death cannot amaze him Moreouer fearefull persons are the ruine of States and Commonalties for in the least daÌ„gers through feare and the threats of great men they yeeld easily to a mischiefe and subiect themselues to the fauour of the wicked and the will of the base multitude Thirdly a man that trembles so at the apprehension of death runnes into assured misery which depriues him of all pleasure of life makes his facewrincle and grow pale before his time Which the Italian Gentleman will verifie who being imprisoned vpon a certaine accusation and receiuing newes that without all doubt he should lose his head the next day the feare of one night did so trouble his braine and distempered his body with shaking as he became all gray and worne But ô miserable men after all your shifts and escapes in the end you must come and yeeld your selues at the Port of Death So much the more miserable I do not call you miserable for that you are subiect vnto death but for your extreame feare that many thinking to free themselues from death haue run head-long into it some thinking to escape haue cast themselues out at a window and broken their neckes others flying their pursuing enemies swords haue leapt like fishes but without fins into a deepe riuer as into an assured Sanctuary where they haue beene drowned Nay besides all this they which thinking still to delay and escape that which they feare so extreamely when they see themselues in the bed of death then doe they vomit out their rage against heauen and exclaime iniuriously against the true God and being desperate they cast themselues into the infernall gulph Let vs conclude with Seneca That the feare of death will neuer profit any liuing man but drawing him into many miseries which are much more to be feared then death it selfe will make him in the
sentence of death pronounced to Ezekias was by his prayers teares protracted 15 yeares Answer Whatsoeuer it be Destiny as Boetius saith comming frō the immoueable beginnings of prouidence ties together by an indissoluble bond of causes all humane actions and all their euents so as the diuine prouidence is alwayes certaine and alwayes infallible in her euents not contradicting the meanes which the same diuine prouidence hath ordained whereof some are necessary others cōtingent The effects are necessary which haue their cause neer immediate conioinct necessary and they are contingent which haue a contingent cause and whose effect may happen or not happen if it happens God had so appoynted it Thou who foundest thy selfe subiect to a dropsie hast left the reumaticke ayre where thou wert hast abstained from water and hast imployed the Phisition whereby thou hast auoyded the disease and death God had so ordained it not onely for the cause but also for the meanes Yet let man determine in his full liberty let him make choyce according to his owne will yet shall hee not choose any thing but what God hath foreseene and decreed from all eternity I say there is a gulfe in this question whereat Tully suffered shipwracke rather cutting off from prouidence then diminishing any thing from humane liberty so as wherewith S. Augustine doth taxe him seeking to make men free hee hath made them sacrilegers wherefore I will strike saile for the very name of Destiny was distastfull to Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory for that the Ancients did wrest it to the disposition of the starres but if any one saith S. Augustine attributes the actions of men to Destiny for that hee vnderstands by that name the power and will of God let him retaine his vnderstanding and correct his tongue Let vs conclude with the Poet Hope not by your cries to alter Destiny Thus after the Diuines of these times and the opinion of Chrysippus hauing beene so purged as there is no more any feare to stumble at it may we vse this word of Destiny As for the sacred histories obiected they contradict not the doctrine propoūded no more then the immutability of Gods decrees That which had beene denounced to the Nineuits to Ezekias to others was with a condition if they did not repent they submitted themselues so as iustly and without preiudice to the diuine prouidence the sentence was made voyde But you will say Where is the expression of this condition It is vnderstood and drawne from an infallible consequence of the end of the denuntiation made in the name of the Eternall by Ionas and Isay Yet forty dayes and Niniue shall be destroyed cried Ionas Dispose of thy house for thou shalt dye the death and shalt not liue saith Isay to Ezekias Why were these trumpets if God meant to ruine them not to saue them in giuing them warning Therefore the decree of the fatall time both for the men of Niniue and for Ezekias was firme seeing the denuntiation of their death was but a meanes to aduance them to the end and last period of their estate and life The fourth Obiection If that which the diuine prouidece hath decreed to doe were immutable in vaine then should we imploy the meanes to aduance it or hinder it But we imploy them not in vain for that God hath commanded it Therefore what the diuine prouidence hath decreed to doe is not immutable IF all bee so disposed by a fat all necessity why then being sicke doe I call the Phisition and why am I commanded to honour him And why being found doe I preserue my selfe from diseases especially those which are contagious Answere I denie the consequence of the maior for that the position of the first and principall cause concludes not the remotion of the instrumentall the reason is that God to bring to effect his decrees would also haue the second meanes and causes imployed hee doth witnesse it in his word and in the gouernement of the world and he hath commanded vs to vse them As therefore it is not in vaine that the Sunne doth shine and is darkened nor in vaine that the fields are manured and watered from heauen It is God which hath created light and darkenesse and it is hee that makes the earth to spring In like manner it is not in vaine that being sicke wee call for the Physitian and vse his physicke it is not in vaine that wee auoyd the infected ayre and to conclude it is not in vaine that we eate and drinke although that God be the authour of our health yet it is the forsaking of 〈◊〉 grace and vertue which casts vs into diseases It is finally hee who is the powerfull and soueraigne arbitrator of the length or shortnesse of our life The reason is that God who by his absolute will and pleasure hath predestinated these ends hath withall disposed of the meanes and wayes tending to the said ends so as it appeareth it is not our intention to take from man all care of his life but onely to put away the superfluitie the immoderate excesse and particularly the extreame feare of death for that it is vnprofitable yea hurtfull vnto him and therefore a wise man will willingly obey the aduertisement of S. Basile which he directs to all Christians Submit thy selfe saith he to the will of God if thou doest march freely after it it will guide thee if thou goest backe thou doest offend it and yet she will not leaue thee to draw thee whithersoeuer she pleaseth Be it the place the time or the kinde of thy death these three things are vncertaine vnto thee out of thy disposition therefore thou shouldest rely vpon him who alone knowes the time to be borne and to dye and who holds thee fast both before behind Some one makes account to liue long but he shal dye sodainely as it is said in Iob yea at midnight a whole nation shall be shaken passe and the strong stalke carried away As for the place some one shall returne from bloudy battailes who soone after shall dye in his house finally some shall escape violent contagions who shall die of slow feuers as I haue seene any man may easily see in euery Countrie Let vs then conclude this discourse with the verses of Cleanthes the Stoicke which Seneca hath thus translated Duc me Parens celsique dominator poli Quocunque libuit nulla parendi est mora Adsum impiger fac nolle 〈◊〉 Malusque patiar quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Father and Ruler of the lostie Skie What way thou pleasest leade and I Will follow with my will and instantly Grant I may follow with no grieued bloud Nor like an ill man beare what fits a good Whereunto he subscribes saying So wee liue so wee speake and let vs adde So we die The fift Obiection It is not possible but humane nature should bee terrified with that which is horrible of it selfe Some kind of death
for on that day thou shalt eate of it thou shalt die the death obserue the words from that day for he died not that day but liued long after but from that day being fallen from grace he dyed the spiritual death then what doth this Hebrew phrase to die the death mean but the principall death which is the eternall the second death But this death brought in by Sathan by sin by man hath no power ouer the children of God good men to whom this discourse is onely directed since that it was subdued bound and confined into hell by Iesus Christ our Sauiour as Athanasius hath wel obserued that as the waspe strikes violently against a stone but hurts it not by her incursion but rather bruzeth her selfe and looseth her sting euen so death incountring Christ furiously who is life she could not hold him in her bands but she hath lost her sting so as they whom shee terrified before insult ouer her now So then death simply the laying of the bodie into the ground there to be putrified the way to heauē is good to the good is giuen of God by nature life death are of the Lord sayth wise Ecclesi 11. vers 14. It is he that giues life and death that maks vs to descend into the graue to rise againe saith the Prophetesse Anna. 2. Sam. 2. It is then our good mother that calls vs to death let vs follow and obay her voice seeing we can receiue no harme and how can it bee hurtfull seeing it is the sepulcher of vices and the resurrection of vertues sayth S. Ambrose and how how can it bee dangerous seeing it is that Toad-stone which by his fecret vertue expels and rectifies all vncleane things And in truth as Toades when they are growne olde and heauy with a fat poyson are set vpon by an infinite number of Ants which sucke him and deuour him so as nothing remaines but the said stone which afterwards they may freely handle yea profitably So death hauing beene purged from sinne is now by the almighty power of the Eternall conuerted into a most souereigne remedy against sinne The second Obiection There is not any thing ingenerate in all Creatures by nature in vaine But the feare of death is ingenerate in all Creatures Therefore the feare of death is not in vaine FOr the proofe of this Argument shall suffice the approbation of all Creatures great and small which flye from death the same reason is for man whom the complexion of his flesh being proportionable to the quality of the Elements inclines him to loue the world he may be where he will yet his naturall disposition will draw him towards his countrey although in stead of some sweete liquor which he promised to himselfe hee should drinke wormewood So man beeing borne in the world and accustomed vnto it can hardly leaue it Answer The nature of man doth sometimes affect and abhorre one the same thing but for diuers considerations if he beholds death nakedly there is great feare as we may discouer in many but if he can haue the iudgement and patience to see her attired in her precious ornaments with vertue with heauen gates by the which onely we are brought in of the assured ioy and rest of the minde in the possession whereof shee sets the soule then doe wee affect it and desire it and this desire should be held more natural in man for that it is more proper vnto him seeing it proceeds from the true iudgement of reason which makes him man Moreouer for a more cleare solution of the argument we must distinguish the vniuersall nature from the particular vniuersall nature is that vertue that admirable investigable proportiō infused by God into the Vniuerse the proper Instrument of the principall agent of this soueraigne essence which hauing insinuated into this Chaos the first matter hath brought it in six dayes too this goodly ornament and hath preserued it many thousand of yeares of this nature we de nie that she plants in beasts the feare of that shee giues them that is to say death but as to shew vnto the beasts of the earth al the lights of heauen as well the fixed stars as wandring she turnes about the heauens so to shew vnto heauen all the Creatures she hath giuen the passage returning of life death else it were impossible if as in a tree the dry leaues falling giue place to green that spring so in beasts the first should not giue way to them that follow As for particular nature the very cōplexion of euery one to whom death is so terrible I say it is an ill ordered feare The Order is preposterous when as the particular doth not follow the Law of the generall and it is the ruine of States when as the priuate good is preferred before the publike The Romaine Empire did flowrish when as the Popilij Scipios Fabij and others did choose rather to be poore in a rich estate then rich in a poore estate Euen so is it in the societie of mankind taken in all ages euery one must dispose himselfe to follow this generall order of supreme nature and whosoeuer shall contradict it shall shew himselfe a bad Cittizen of this great Cittie of the world and opposing himselfe let him not therfore think to escape the inexorable destinie of his end but as the bird takē in the limetwig thinking to free her selfe by striuing is caught the faster so man which is ensnared by death the more furiously hee torments himselfe the more he shall aduance the obiect of his torment Let euery one therefore looke vnto his dutie to his children and to them that shall come after to prepare himselfe to giue them place here to tends that great desire the issue of particular nature to ingender that great care of fathers mothers in the nourishing preseruation education and bringing vp of their children to the end they may sucoted them and why then hauing prouided for all left yong oliue plants in our old stock hearing the bell sound a retre◅t wherefore I say should we shew our selues deafe vnwilling faynt hearted The fat all bird drawn by the sent of thy Carcase is perched ouer thy window art thou still restie doest thou not feele thy seditious guests with in thee which cōspireth thy infallible ruine Nature will haue it so she commands thee to depart feare not folthy good mother and thou shalt do well Let vs therfore conclude that although our particular nature our complexion makes vs to abhorre death yet wee must not beleeue her no more then the seruant of the house which is borne to obey It is the mistresse the vniuersal vertue of the world which commands vs to depart and to suffer others to enter let vs follow and obey all our trembling and horror is in vaine But to what ende is it will you say for me to haue flourishing children if in the meane time I become worms
Aethiopia called Acridophages or caters of Grasse-hoppers who liuing farre from the sea and being destitute of all succours haue no other meate but these Grasse-hoppers which certaine hot windes from the west raise vp and bring vnto them the which they pouder vp with salt and liue thereon for that growing old which is not aboue fortie yeeres they breed in them certaine lyce which haue wings and stinke the which in a short space eate their bellies then the brest and in the end the whole body their paine beginnes with an itching intermixt with pleasure in scratching which increasing by little and little leaues him not vntill that hauing torne himselfe with his nayles hee hath made an issue for the lice and stinking matter which come forth in such aboundance as there is no possibilitie to bee cured and so through the vehemencie of their torment they end their miserable dayes with horrible cryes But let vs returne into our way and say with the holy writ Death is the highway of all the earth all enter into it let vs follow them by the tracke And you to whom the Ruler of the world hath giuen the Empire of life and death as it were at pleasure abate the frowning of your browes for what a poore man may feare of you the same is threatned to you by the great Master of all saith the tragicall Poet Seneca Obiect not vnto mee the beauty of your Pallaces nor the magnificence of your Sepulchers for the Philosopher Seneca will maintayne that we ought not to take measure of your tombes which seeme to take another course but one and the same dust makes all men equall if wee be borne alike wee must dye alike that great Establisher of humane rights hath made no distinction in our natiuitie and extraction with others but in the time wherein we liue when we shall bee come to the end of mortall men then farewell ambition thou must bee like to all that the earth doth couer Let vs comfort our selues in the death of great men and therefore let vs heare the last speeches and commandement of great Saladin Sultan of Aegypt and Syria I will said he in dying without any other obsequies they carry an old blacke iuppe vpon the end of a lance that the Priest cry out aloude all the people hearing him I haue vanquished I haue liued a great Prince but now I am vanquished by death and my life closed vp I haue beene rich now I haue nothing but a mourning weede To this goodly table let vs adde a second which the pensill of antiquitie hath drawne Cresus being vpon a burning pile is preserued from the fire by Cyrus but rather reserued to another season Cyrus made his profit of the words of Cresus that no man could account himselfe happy before his death he thinks of it and wills after his death others should thinke of it with him when as he caused these words to be grauen vpon his tombe I am Cyrus which conquered the Empire of the Persians let no man enuie this little peece of ground which couers my poore carcase What followes Alexander comes hunting after new worlds and stumbles vpon this tombe hee reades and considers of the words and compassion made his heart to grieue saith the History for the inconstancie of things why for that he must in like manner dye soone after hee dyed Let vs conclude and say with the Apostle that it is decreed that all men shall die once that no man is exempt no not Emperours Kings Princes Lords no not Popes Cardinals nor Bishops neither rich strong nor healthfull and thereby let vs take comfort An Obiection Any thing that is cause of strāge accidents is strange Death is the cause of strange accidents Therefore it is strange THis reason tends to confute the precedent Argument For that death ouerthrowing the highest mountaines degrading and vnthroning Kings and Emperors and consining thē into obscure caues with simple mourning clothes which rot in the end vpon their bodies seemes wonderfull terrible Answer The Monarks of the world haue their priuate consolation in death yea I will say that the greater they are the greater fauour they receiue in death A Kings life is an vnquiet life full of ten thousand cares and troubles he must watch for the quiet of his subiects and against the surprises of his enemies he hath not an houre free from amazement and eats not a bit without feare of poyson and therefore that King of Persia did iustly exclaime◅ against it O Crowne said he hee that knew how heauy thou art would neuer take thee vp where he should finde thee Say not O ambitious they are bare words onely which neuer giue the effects many great men haue spoken it and done it That famous Emperour Dioclesian reiecting the Romaine Empire shut himselfe in the Gardens of Salona to manure them with his owne hands That great King and Emperour Charles 5. protested that hee had found more pleasure and content in one day in his solitary life then in all his royall and triumphant reigne But to conclude the experience of all ages doth teach vs that the greatest gates are most subiect to winde the highest tops of Mountaines are soonest shaken and th◅ greatest Emperors are most assayled and haue no rest but in death onely The 7. Argument from the commendable e◅fect of the contempt of Death Euerie thing that makes vs valiant should be pretious The contempt of death makes vs valiant Therefore the contempt of death should be pretious THere is nothing that hath in it so great force to make a man valiant as the contempt of death he that feares it not makes himselfe master of the most strong and vigorous life in the world Seneca sayth that death is not to be feared that by the benefit thereof any thing is to be preferred or auoyded Agesilaus being demanded of one how hee might purchase great fame If thou contemnest death sayd he He whose spirit is seazed on with the feare of death will neuer performe any memorable thing in war this passion will benumme withdraw mens hands from the goodliest exployts in the world Plut. in Lacon Alexander said that there was not any place so strong by nature or by art that was safe for cowards We reade that Philip king of Macedon hauing ma◅e an irruption into Peloponesus and that one stepping forth sayd That it was to be feared the Lacedemonians would endure many miseries if they did not compound with Philip to whom one Damidas answered O Dwarfe sayd he what harme can happen vnto vs that feare not death Epictetus also teacheth vs that to attempt nothing basely wee must alwaies haue death before our eyes to make her familiar frendly vnto vs where of wee shall haue sufficient proofe in a souldier of Antigonus band who finding himselfe toucht with a deadly infirmitie had death in such disdaine as nothing amazed him yea hee was fearefull to the most
to desire Death not as wee propounded them nor as we haue found them but as they make themselues known If we shall indge of the streame by the spring what may we hope for of the life of man conceiued betwixt the vrine and excrements borne naked all in tears but only a perpetuall flux of corruption pouertie and calamities therefore it is not without reason that S. Bernard sayd That man is but a stinking sperme a nourishment for wormes a sacke of excrements and such should wee see him within if the skinne did not stay our sight outwardly Doe we doubt of it seeing of this liuing substāce there are ingendred wormes about an ell long and being dead serpents in the pithe of the backe as Plinie writes and experience teacheth Plutarke reports that the king of Egypt hauing caused the body of Cleomenes to be hanged and the garde hauing discouered a great serpent wound about his head they called the people who running to this spectacle called Cleomenes as a demy-God The like happened to a young man a Germaine who would neuer suffer his picture to be drawn in his life time but onely granted to his kinsfolkes who importuned him that some dayes after his interment they might take him vp and draw him as they found him Being taken out of the graue they saw about the Diaphragma the pith of the backe many little Serpents to verifie what the authour of Ecclesiasticus faith When man dyerh he becoms the inheritance of serpents The life of man is a candle exposed to all winds saith Epictetus His body is a store-house of all sorts of diseases saith another his flower his most excellent point of glory is such as he is alwayes in paine and martyrdome and this point passeth away dazling the eye like a flash greatnesse and worldly riches are no more sssured then the waues of the sea they flowe suddainely and ebbe no l◅sse violently Sesostris King of Egypt causing himselfe to bee drawne in a Chariot of pure gold by foure Kings his prisoners one of them held his eye fixed vpon the wheele which did rolle vp and down by him Sesostris obseruing it demanded of him the cause of his countenance who answered That looking vpon the wheele and obseruing the spoaks to bee sometimes aloft and suddainely downe againe I call to minde the rolling change of my selfe and my companions Sesostris considers hereof abates his pride and giues liberty to his Captiues Such is the estate of the affaires of this world like vnto a marke subiect to infinite darts of aduersity No man knowes what the night brings sayd one in Titus Liuius the pleasures are vncertaine but the displeasures most certaine Nature giues vs a taste at our comming into the world where wee enter weeping And according to this instinct of nature the Thraci ns wept at the birth of their children numbring what miseries they should suffer in the world For the same reason the Getes a religious people held that it was better to die then to liue therefore they lamented at their child-birthes and sung at their burialls And wise Salomon saith that the day of death is better then that of birth Looke into Erasmus vpon the prouerbe Optimum non nasci Sophocles in like manner giues aduice that it is more reasonable to weepe at the birth of their children as beeing entred into great miseries and beeing dead to carry them ioyfully to the graue as freed from the miseries of this life And who will doubt any more of this seeing he that neuer lies calls this life death Ioh. 5. saying Hee that heares my words and beleeues in him that sent me shall passe from death to life The Lycians law ordayned that they which wold mourn should put on womens robes for that it did in no sort befit graue and discreete men to weepe for the dead but for passionate women Vpon this law a Lawyer of Padoua groūded his testament although he be taxed by another First hee charged his heire vpon great comminations to banish all blacke cloth from his Funeralls and that he should prouide singers and players on Iustruments to sing and play going among the Priests both before and behinde the Corpes to the number of fifty to euery one of which he bequeathed halfe a Ducate for his paines Moreouer hee ordained that 12. young virgines attired in greene should carry his body vnto Saint Sophias Temple in which he should be interred suffering them to sing ioyfull songs with a loud voyce and for a reward hee bequeathed them a certaine summe of money to helpe them at their marriage All sorts of Priests and Monkes might assist except such as were barred with blacke lest that colour should darken the beauty and cheerefulnesse of his Funeralls he had seene with Heraclitus that during the dayes of this miserable life there is no subiect but of teares and that at our departure we should reioyce with Demoeritus And therefore Plato doth rightly call death a medicine for all miseries and Seneca esteemes it the end of seruitude Let vs seale vp this discourse with the memorable aduice which Epictetus gaue to the Emperour Adrian enquiring why they set garlāds vpon the dead It is in signe answered he that at the day of their death they haue triumphed ouer the diuers assaults of this life Let vs then dye when it shall please the prince of this life to cease the teares and alarmes of this life and to beginne the life of heauen whereas God will wipe away all teares from our eyes whereas death shall be no more and there shal be no more mourning crying nor labour Obiection If men call for death and being come refuse it so much it is a signe that it is very horrible But the antecedent is true Therfore the consequent is also true IT is reported in Laertius that the Philosopher Antisthenes tyed to his bed by a greeuous disease and the more grieuous the more he loued his life was visited by Diogenes who knowing the man had taken a naked sword vnder his gowne Antisthenes perceiuing him cried out O God who shall deliuer me from hence Diogenes answered presently that shal this shewing him his sword But Antisthenes replied more sodainly I meane from these paines and not from my life It seemes that most of those crier sout for death make that their refuge when she approcheth neere them Esope in the Apologue hath naturally described it by that old man who being laden with a great burthen and falling into a Ditch he grew to despaire and calling for death death came and commands him to follow him O no said he I call thee to helpe me vp with my burthē that I may returne Answer I know well that many feare death much not for any desire to liue nor for the pleasures they haue in life for the two examples obiected shew the contrarie but for that they know not what death is And thereunto tends this
impossible that at the soules departure from the body there should be any great paine the soule leaues the body as the light doth the ayre which it doth inuest as Viues speakes after S. Augustine Wee must not then imagine heere a grosse tearing of the soule from the body as of a piece of cloth for the vnion of the soule with the body is spirituall and incomprehensible But of the pretended paine in death there is sufficiently spoken in the Obiection following As for the two other enemies it is true that the conscience presents vnto a dying man the foulenesse of his sinne and it is true that Satan tempts man to despaire to precipitate him into eternall perdition But for all this must a man that feares God feare death and feare to lose the battaile No but hee ought rather to assure himselfe of the victory and present himselfe boldly to the Combate as a valiant fortunate Champion against one that is weake and vnfortunate They that are for vs are stronger then they that are against vs God which hath begunne continues his worke in vs and ends it to his glory the faith which he hath prāted in vs wil quench the inflamed darts of the wicked spirit the full assurance of the remission of sins by Iesus Christ dead for our sinnes and risen for our iustification will pacifie the conscience and shew him Iesus Christ in heauen sitting on the right hand of God and stretching out his armes to him Thirdly the seales of the holy Ghost in vs for by it we are sealed to the day of Redemption Baptisme the Communion of the body of Christ and the Spirit of sanctification will terrifie Satan and make him flie Finally the good Angels which from our birth and throughout the whole course of our liues haue administred vnto vs guided and comforted vs will redouble their loue and courage in the like offices at our greatest need and at our last gaspe Let vs not feare seeing we haue such assurance in the Word of God which doth plainely witnesse that the Angells are administring Spirits sent to serue for their sakes that shall receiue the inheritance of saluation Here then is no subiect of desperate feare but rather of an assured resolution The 4. Obiection All paine is euill In dying there is paine EPicharmus by the testimony of Cicero sayd that he would not die but to be dead he cared not The reason is in my opinion for that he feared the passage of death not death it selfe which hee thought with vs had no paine There are many at this day of this opinion abhorring death like an internall gulfe for that they conceiue there is some sharp and violent paine which they endure before it comes and thereunto tends the prouerbe He is in bad case that dies And S. Augustine seemes to attribute I know not what sharpe feeling and force against nature in the diuulsion of the soule from the body which were vnited together Answere If death be terrible by reason of the paine we apprehend in it then life by the same reason should be more for in it some man endures more by the cholicke the stone the sciatica yea by the tooth ach and by many other infirmities without death then an other hath felt in dying And there is this aduantage in death that it comes but once wheras the aboue mentioned infirmities are often reiterated in life But to haue a perfect view if this paine bee so great as opinion a bad counsellor doth make vs beleeue let vs search with reason into the immediate cause of that which doth engender this paine in our bodies The pathes which leade man to death are infinite but all bend to one of these foure high wayes outward force subtraction of meate and drinke inward sicknesse and old age These foure kinds of death may happen to al men yea to wise men although by iniustice touching the first by some rare accident as touching the second concerning the third by ordinary corruption of humors and by an infallible defect of nature touching the fourth Paine according to the definition of learned Phisitions is the feeling of some thing that is offensiue and troublesome to the nature of the body for that it is contrary to the health thereof the which happens either by the dissoluing and cutting of his continued substance or by the alteration thereof which alteration proceeds from the intemperate heate or cold for as for humidity and drinesse they are rather passiue qualities then actiue whose operation is very slow and the paine in the member that is altered is suddaine not gentle as if you be exceeding cold and come to a very sensible paine cold settles his paine in disioyning heate in burning and it is to bee noted that any sence may be wounded yet little or nothing is his paine in comparison of that of touching the which is dispersed ouer the whole body from which no other vessell of the sences is exempt which is the cause that wee sometimes feele prickings in the eyes and shootings in the eares c. Let vs now come to the application Death which comes to man by extreame age can be no cause of paine there being nothing in him that tortures his body nothing that doth suddainely alter and change him by extreame cold or heate but his life goes out presently like vnto a Candle that wants tallow by the losse of his radicall humour deuoured by little and little since his birth by his naturall heate and although this heate doth yet striue as it hath formerly done to conuert the meate which is familiar and fit for the body into radicall humor to repaire his losse yet she can worke no more her vertue failes her euery agent hath his vertue limited what soeuer doth act suffers in acting through vse and in continuance of time this heate decayes dissolues is lost and death ensues So as it hath bene disputed in vaine whether life might bee continued this radicall humor being restored by some fit nutriment for that humor being at the first a certaine ayery onely portion of that seede which doth reside in all the sollide parts it is impossible that such an humour and so much as is needefull should be supplied in it's place The only fruite of the tree of life which was in Eden had this secret vertue by the diuine ordinance to make man immortal that shold eate therof and therefore according to the opiniō of the Fathers God suddenly after the sin chased Adam and Eue out of Eden least they should lay hold of that fruite and become immortally miserable with the diuells In processe of time there happens two notable changes to this radicall humour the one in the quality for that it degenerates by little and little of naturall becomes strange the other in the quantity for that it is wholy wasted whereunto man being once reduced he can suffer no paine if hee complaines
vnto Iesus Christ who being disswaded by his Disciples from going vp to Ierusalem he sayd vnto them There are 12 houres of the day after the example of the Apostles namely of Saint Paul who was thrice whipt with rodds continued whole dayes and nights in the bottome of the sea c. We ought to do it for Christ is a gaine to vs both in life and death for that dying we change the drosse of the world for the gold of heauen we going out of life as out of a deepe pit of darknesse and ignorance and wee ascend vp into the heauenly Vniuersity whereas the deepest sciences are learned and wee passe from a miserable seruitude into a most happy freedome of spirit Let vs then quicken our spirits and take courage and not be like vnto the skoÌ„me of the world to whom dying Nature makes this reproch which is read in Seneca What is this I haue put you into the world without couetous desires without feare without superstition without treason and without any other such infections As you entred into the world so depart this life without apprehension feare vexation or passion which torment your soules But especially let vs be carefull to depart without feare of death which among all humaine passions is most desperate it is done if we once put on a Christian courage and magnanimity and shall not flie but offer our selues following our vocation to the greatest dangers As good Macedonius did who seeing two Captaines march to reuenge the irreuereÌ„ce done to the statue of Placilla by the expresse and vnworthy commandement of Theodosius her husband seeing them I say runne to a great Massacre meetes them stayes them pulls them from their horses and by more then humaine authority commands them to desist from such cruelty to tell their master That the greatnesse of his estate shold not make him forget that he is a man that hee seekes to teare that a sunder which he cannot put together deface liuely Images which hee cannot repaire and that this outrage should touch the Creator By the boldnesse of his words and by his constancy he amazed these Captaines with the feare of Gods reuenging wrath and makes them returne towards the Emperour who hauing heard them pacified his rage Obiection Whatsoeuer is a guift of nature cannot be gotten by art Fortitude is a guift of nature c. ANswere It is true that fortitude hath her foundation in the irascible faculty but her culture her instruction and increase is purchased by labour study and continuall exercise If Alexander Caesar and other valiant Captaines had not bene continually thrust into armes hazarded themselues in warre and cast themselues into battailes they had neuer purchased the habite of valour nor gotten so many triumphes vpon their enemies In like manner if wee desire to conquer our selues and our owne passions which are most dangerous enemies wee must exercise our selues continually in these listes of vertue and weede out of our hearts two contrary vices the one is dull negligence which lulling vs asleepe in the world will not suffer vs to consider what this life is how miserable how vaine wauering although wee suppose it be perpetuall contrary to that which experience doth teach vs shewing vs dayly that either necessity doth pull it away or vanity doth swallow it vp or hasty nature doth end it The other extreame vice is feare which is the cause that wee cannot once thinke of such necessity but with trembling and horror And as the eye viciated with some yellow humour or looking through a yellow glasse thinkes all it sees to be yellow yea the purest white So our soules being infected with this terror increased by faintnesse and fortified by cowardise takes quiet things to be horrible the safest port and secuâ—…est from winds to bee more dangerous then the Rocke Capharois and finally death the happy end of all miseries to bee the beginning of most horrible paines But let vs purge this peccant huâ—… â—…ast off this 〈◊〉 scart and clothe our selues with this force with this resolute vâ—…reue and wee shall visibly see and iudge with reason that wee haue beene miserably deceiued taking our friends for enemies the greatest safety for horror and 〈◊〉 happinesse 〈◊〉 death for misery The 26. Argument taken from the instrumentall cause In euery expedition the meanes must be proper vnto it A good conscience is the proper meanes to the expedition of death Therefore we must haue a good conscience IF we consider profoundly of the cause of this terror which man hath of death we shall finde it is a naturall feeling though dull and some what brutish to haue offended his Lord thinking that he attends nothing but death to lay open the volumne of his faults to indite him criminally to pronounce sentence of condemnation against him and to deliuer him ouer to Satan the executioner to cast him into a fire which is neuer quenched Man hath a confused apprehension of all this he sees nothing in life hee feares it in death his conscience within accuseth him and serues for a thousand witnesses It is that which makes the wicked to tremble when the leaf of a tree doth fall and liues no more assured then if his life were tyed to a thread it is the Worme which neuer dies but gnawes the wicked continually It is a bad conscience said Diogenes which keepes man from beeing couragious and without feare Let a man bee by nature hardy yet a bad conscience will make him most fearefull said Pithagoras yea he added that the torments which hee shall suffer will bee much more sharpe and painefull then whipping to the body the diseases of the minde being far more grieuous then of the body which gaue occasion to Poets to paint the Furies armed with burning torches to burne the wicked So was the Emperor Caligula intreated for his cruelties terrified with feare waking awaked suddainely sleeping alwayes troubled neuer in quiet Nero was in the same estate hauing slaine his mother So Saule being forsaken by the Eternall was possest by an euill spirit hauing bad newes of his speedy death he trembles for feare forsakes his meate and drinke is much perplexed falls downe vppon the ground as the Scripture doth obserue for then the Iniustice committed against Dauid whom he had confest with his mouth to bee more lust then himselfe came to his minde Wherefore if we will liue without feare of death let vs liue without wounding of our coÌ„sciences for it alone in life doth neuer feare said wise Bias It is it that makes men liue in tranquility finding theÌ„selues not guilty of any thing Periander sayd that a good conscience made Agis King of the Lacedemonians triumph ouer his enemies in death for as hee was led to execution by the Ephores seeing some moued with compassioÌ„ to weep Weepe not for me said hee for it is against equity and reason that I am led
to this death they which haue condemned mee are more vniust then I am Inferring thereby that he died well and honestly seeing they put him to death wrongfully and without cause Plato doth teach vs that Socrates was wont to insult ouer death in these tearmes I haue beene carefull said he to liue well in my youth and to die well in my age I am not tormented within me with any paine I am not vnwilling to dye for seeing my life hath beene honest I attend death ioyfully This is much but it is nothing in regard of Saint Paule who protesting that he felt not himselfe guilty in any thing cried out with a bold spirit that hee was assured that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers neither things present nor things to come nor height nor depth should separate him from the loue of God Let vs theÌ„ be careful to polish our soules and to settle our consciences let vs apply our selues to a well ordered equity let the body subiect it selfe vnto the soule and follow her motions Let the inferiour powers of the soule obey the commandements of reason Let reason guided by the holy Ghost obserue the Law grafted in euery creature by nature especially in man and most of all the Law of Moses To doe this is to be vertuous and to be vertuous is to haue a good conscience We must then direct all our actions to vertue if wee desire to liue in the world without feare without paine in peace and ioy vertue doth first of all make the soule perfect in her intellectuall part disperseth the clouds of error ignorance illuminating reason doth adorne it with prudence Secondly she labours to polish the will of man and hauing reformed it by her orderly course shee giues him the habite of Iustice. Thirdly she doth temper the angry part pulls away the extreame feare and on the other side prunes away the sprouts of rashnes and plants betwixt both valour and haâ—… dy feare Finally it doth also bridle the faculty of concupiscence and restraines the motions of voluptuousnesse and makes them obedient to the command of Temperance It is in a few words the true meanes to get a pure and vpright conscience especially if we bee carefull to be as honest in our priuate secret actions as if all the world did behold vs Seneca doth recommend this vnto vt in many places Wee reade of one called Virginius whose History was written by Cluuius who presented it vnto the sayd personage and sayd vnto him If there be any thing written otherwise then thou wouldest pardon mee and reforme it Oh no answered Virginius whatsoeuer I haue done hath bene done in that manner to that end that it might bee free for all to write at their pleasures a worthy speech of a noble spirit and content with his conscience in his actions Iulius Drusus when as one promised a great sum of mony to his Master mason that his house might not be subiect to the view of any man and I sayd he will giue twice so much if thou canst build my house in that sort as all men may see into it what is done there This was to saue his conscience not to do more in secret then before all the world And what a madnesse is it in most men not to feare God nor their conscience and yet to feare men who can do least in the correction of their faults What shall we then feare in this world One only God for his feare will inspire our hearts with an hardy courage against the greatest feares The 27. Argument taken from the frequent thinking of Death He that will receiue Death ioyfully must propound it often to his thoughts Wee all desire to receiue it ioyfully c. SOme sayth Seneca come to their death in choler but no man receiues it when it comes with a cheerefull countenance but he that hath long before prepared himselfe for it Let vs try this remedy it cannot be bad In the night after our first sleepe in bed let vs presuppose that we are dead and by a strong imagination let vs settle our selues in that sort as hauing no sence nor feeling that our soule and reason tells vs that it is euen so in death that there is no other difference but that our soule is yet present in the body and then let vs goe vnto our friends or to any other that die let vs view them talke vnto them and touch them being dead and we shall finde that in all this there is nothing to be feared that all is quiet that there is nothing but opinion that 〈◊〉 abuse man Let vs proceed enter the Church-yards and go down into their graues wee shall finde that 〈◊〉 the dead rest in peace yeaâ—… so profound 〈◊〉 peace as no liuing creature can interrupt them Let vs yet go on farther there is no danger for by the saying of Plato the knowledge of death is the goodliest science that man can attaine vnto Let vs do like vnto Iohn Patriarke of Alexandria build our tombes and not finish them but euery day lay one stone Let vs haue some Anatomy or MoÌ„mie in our houses and let vs not passe a day without beholding it let vs handle it it is death Little children by little and little grow familiar with that which they did strangely fly and in the end they play with it and know that it is but a dead image of copper which so terrified them Wee shall also see in death that it was but a shaddow that so amazed vs. Let vs yet do more waking and not dreaming let vs dispose our selues of purpose as Philippe King of Macedon did by chance who wrestling vpon the sand after the manner of the Country saw and measured the length of his body and admired the littlenes thereof in the shape printed in the sand where he had fallen Finally let vs not forget what the Emperour Maximilian 2. or 3. yeares before his death commanded carefully to be done that they should carry with him a coffin of oake in a chest with an expresse command that being dead they should couer his body with a course sheete hauing put lime in his eares nosestrills and mouth and then to lay him in the ground Let vs follow these great examples both high low and wee shall see that when death shall present her selfe vnto vs it will bee without amazement But if wee flie from euery image of death from al thought therof if the ringing of bells a shew of some mans death doth importune vs finally if euery word of death be troublesome as there haue beene such I doubt not but to them death is wonderfull terrible Obiection If the most reasonable feare Death most it is by reason to be feared But the antecedent is true therefore the Consequent must follow SEneca yea experience doth teach vs that Infants little children and such as haue lost their
orresty sayth one the rider is not in fault The bodie is a ship the spirit the Pilot the ship suffers wracke but the Pilote saues himselfe by swimming or vpon some boarde the body dies the soule saues it selfe vpon the table of faith and repentance The bodie is a Lanterne the soule the Candle if the glasse be cleare and transparent the light is the greater so by the disposition of the body the soule is knowne more or lesse Man is a bird shut vp in the shell of the egge expecting vntill the shell breake of it selfe that he may come forth so doth the soule that the body my be broken to the ende shee may flie to heauen There are three places assigned to man the first is the matrix the second is this world the third is heauen the first is short the second a litle longer and the third is without ende In the first he cries at the comming forth for that he is ignorant of the goodly spectacle of the world which God as a table couered with all sorts of meate in a great Hall hath prepared for him In the second hee apprehends and desperatly feares his departure for that he knowes not this third heauen the seate of Iesus Christ of the Angells and of the blessed which is prepared for him infinitely more excellent then this base earth where he shall remaine euerlastingly and perfectly happy And these are the liuely similitudes with many other likewise which are continually in the mouthes and writings of such as treate profoundly thereof whereby man may see that he hath no subiect to feare death seeing that by it his soule his principall part and by which hee is man receiues so great a benifit And what shall it bee when the holy Ghost shall assure his Spirit that his body being layd in the ground as in a sacred pawne shal be restored to him immortall in the great and last day But attending this incomparable good let vs proue this immortality byreason first of all The soule reuiues and fortifies it selfe in the greatest agonies of death So Testators witnesse that they are sound in minde though very sicke in body so the disposition of a man at the point of death is of more weight for that hee hath a better conscience a more liuely feeling of his soule And Hippocrates giues aduice to obserue if in diseases there appeare nothing that is Diuine meaning that we should obserue the sighes and the gestures of the sicke patient for if they be vnaccustomed of heauen or of God it is a signe that the soule begins to discouer it selfe seeing it thinkes of heauen her proper mansion So Cyrus being in the bed of death caused his children to approach vnto him to whom hee gaue goodly admonitions but among others hee told them that hee could neuer bee perswaded that the soule lying in the body did remaine after the death of the mortall body as if he would say that vntill then he had studied to assure himself but now he did not doubt of it Nay we shall sometimes see ignorant Countrimen discourse exceeding well at the point of death as wee reade of a certaine labourer altogether vnlearned being nee◅e vnto his death had recommended his health his wife and children with as great Rethorike as Cicero could haue vsed discoursing before the Senate This reason was taken as a strong defence against death by the King of Arr◅gon and represented by Seneca to all that are fearefull in death saying This day which thou fearest so much as the last is the birth day of eternity The 2. is taken from religion and from the homage which man doth owe vnto God for the immortality of his soule not in one Country but in all not in one age but for euer not in one person but generally in all by some adoration prayer of sacrifice in what fashion soeuer man will sooner forget his King his father yea himselfe then his God yet hee makes no doubt but there is a King he sees him he knowes him he honours him and that he hath a father of whom hee holds his life and with whom he doth conuerse dayly and whom he is bound to loue finally he tries himselfe growes conceited and many times abuseth himselfe with the great loue of himselfe and yet hee holds himselfe more bound to God then to all these hee will not feare to displease them if he can no otherwise please God and will hold for Maximes That it is beter to obey God then men that he which doth not renounce father or mother for the loue of God is not worthy of him hee that doth not renounce himselfe and take vp the Crosse of affliction for the seruice of God deserues to bee renounced of him The vnciuill wars which haue swallowed vp so many men in Christendome within these 50. yeares had no other pretexts then these sentences and they had no other foundation then the conscience of the soule that immortall seale which God did graue in the soule when he did infuse it into the body of mā as Chrysostome saith Let vs obserue it in some examples but great in euery respect Alexander the Great being incensed for that the Iewes had denied him succors marcht with his Army to ruine them if the high Priest Iaddus with his ornaments and his holy troupe had not gone out to meete with Alexander Who when he saw the high Priest he admired him and fell downe at his feete whereat his people were amazed and troubled and his most confident Parmenio came vnto him How comes it sayth he since that you worship a man you whom althe earth is ready to acknowledge for a God It is not hee answered Alexander but God in him whom I worship who appeared to me in vision in the like habit in Macedon Whence came this suddaine forgetfulnesse of his owne reuenge from whence this acknowledgement to the Immortall but from an immortall soule As Antiochus held Ierusalem besieged the feast of Tabernacles drew neere the Iewes being resolued to celebrate it they sent an Embassage vnto him to demaunde a truce for seuen dayes that they might attend the holy worship of their great God The soule of this great King being toucht with religion not only yeelded to their demand but also hee himselfe turned to this homage caused oxen with gilded hornes to bee conducted to the Cittie gates with great store of Indense and sweet smells to be sacrificed In which action whether should we admire most either the patience of this great King willingly and deuoutly hindering his ready victory Or the forgetfulnesse of himselfe suffering those sacrifices that he knew to be vndertaken against his honor his fortime and his life And what doth not this confused apprehension of God worke in the immortall spirit of man Cybels Priests wil geld themselues thinking to please their goddesse the Athenian Priests will drinke Hemlocke to liue chastly the Virgins will lye vppon
certaine leaues fit to mortifie their lusts and Cicero will crie out to countenance thē that they must come chastly to the gods Yea Agam◅mnon will sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to pacific Diana Adrian in Egypt will sacrifice his Mignion Axtinons Vialerian will vse the superstitious custome to offer vp children the Hetrusci had that institution in their Countrey the ancient Gaules in Prouence in the City of Arles had two pillars erected and thereupon an altar of stone to offer humaine sacrifices The third is taken from the wise ordinance of nature which in many millions of things hath made nothing in vaine nothing that wauers or leanes sometimes of this side sometimes on that as Erasistratus said how then should it be in man her master-peece in the soule the principall part Hath she planted a vehement desire of immortality the chiefe point of her excellency hath shee giuen her a taste in this miserable life to leaue her altered for euer The fourth is from the continual action of the soule which neuer takes rest day nor night like vnto the Sun sleepe doth not shut her eies as it doth the bodyes neither by consequence death Consider it when as the body is in a found sleep without motion not in the beginning of his rest when as the vapours of his disgestion fuming vp into the braine trouble it but after mid-night and especially at the point of day Then when the soule her faculties holds free From seruing bodily variety Then when alone and dead to life in fort Sau'd from dayes waues she enters nights calme port It is then that being raised aboue time she reades in future which is present to her the things which God is ready to doe So Asti◅ges last King of the Medes in his dreame saw the stocke of a Vi◅e comming out of his daughters belly which couered all Asia with her branches The Interpreters being consulted with they answered that his daughter should haue a sonne which should enioy all Asia and dispossesse him of his Kingdome the euent fayled not notwithstanding all the opposition that Astiages could make Tertullian reports that the daughter of Polycrates dreamed that her father raised vp on high was washt by Iupiter and annoynted by the Sun The euent expounded her dreame soone after for that Polycrates being hanged the raine washt him and the Sun m◅ing his gr◅ase annoynted him But who is ignorant of Iosephs dreame of his future greatnesse of Pharaohs touching the fertility and famin which should follow in Egypt of Daniel touching the foure Monarchies of the world of ◅ilats wise vpon the false accusation of Iesus Christ the iust of infinite others yea and of our selues if we haue obserued them For what is he saith Tertullian so voyd of humanity that hath not sometimes felt in himselfe some faithfull vision Thus the Eternal doth vnto the good to assure them of the immortall action of their soules and to the wicked to terrifie them with his eternal iudgement send such dreames of future things to amaze or assure according to his good pleasure So hee spake by his Prophet Your sonnes and your daughters shall prophesie your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dreame dreames Let vs conclude with Tertullian That seeing sleepe the image of death cannot seaze vpon the soule that the soule being alwaies liuely and actiue can not fall in Veritatem mortis into the verity of death The fifth Man in this life is more miserable then any of the creatures and more capable of felicity then any of them they being all made for him who neuer heere vpon earth attaines vnto his soueraigne good which hee most desireth as Aristotle and Theophrastus haue acknowledged and as euery man is a good witnesse in himselfe Who will not then thinke but his true place is in heauen and in it his soueraigne good And what part of man can flie thither but his immortall soule which in a momēt not parting out of the body transports it selfe thither in Idea Tully in his Tusuculans and others The sixth complaint of Theophrastus of nature as of a step-mother seemes most iust to haue giuen a lōg life to no end to certain creatures and to haue denied it vnto man who might therby haue attained vnto wisedome the greatest good in this world if the soule dyed with the body for then onely we beginne to be wise when wee dye and many times were preuented by death But nature hath done nothing but most wisely and therefore shee hath satisfied this complaint another way The seuenth is drawne from mans conscience which being good makes Innocency to lift vp her head by the feeling of another life and to looke down for an offence by the apprehension of a future iudgement There is no light so cleere nor testimony so glorious as when truth shines in the spirit and the spirit is seene in truth saith Saint Bernard A good conscience is stronger then a brazen wall said Horace Let him speake boldly and confidently for himselfe that hath not offended saith Plautus and with the shaking of his chinne retort the false reports of a bad fame as Ouid speakes This did emboldē innocent Susanna against the two old men chusing rather to dye then to offend God This made Ioseph rather to leaue his robe with his mistresse then his heart Finally it is that which in the middest of many deaths gaue resolution vnto Cato Phocion and many other heathen as to Philip King of Macedon who beeing animated by some to take reuenge of such as spake dishonorably of him O no said he I will make them all lyars in doing well On the other side there is nothing that doth more terrifie and torment then a bad conscience Let the most resolute wretch that is come and I will make him confesse in some sort howsoeuer his crime committed in secret in the night without witnesses and without any accuser yea although he had his pardon or were acquite before men or were so aduanced as he were not iustifiable before any man yet he must needes confesse that hee is inwardly troubled and furiously tormented the Swallowes by their importune noyse will publish the parricide attempted by a cauterized conscience as hath hapned in old time Or imaginary flies wil buzze continually in the eares of the seruant that hath killed his master vntill the fact be reuealed Whence is the spring of this liuely feeling in the soul but from the apprehension of immortall paine Gods wil being that for the loue of iustice iudgement should rather go against the life of the body then that which is hidden should not come to light Obiection Counsell giuen by fauour vpon weake coniectures doth rather shake then support a right Such are these reasons THE steppes of such as bring good tydings are pleasing and welcome and they that bring bad distastfull and reiected So the 400. Prophets which promised victory vnto Achab
A Combat betwixt Man and Death OR A Discourse against the immoderate apprehension and feare of Death Written in French by I. Guillemard of Champdenier in Poictou And Translated into English by EDW. GRIMESTON Sargeant at Armes attending the Commons House in Parliament LONDON Printed by Nicholas Okes. 1621. TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFVLL St. THOMAS RICHARDSON Knight Sargeant at Law and Speaker in the Commons House of Parliament And To all the Knights Citizens and Burgeses of that honourable Assembly Most worthily honour'd BOund by your many bounties to some publike seruice of acknowledgement and gratitude I could not in al my poore faculties finde any so neere fit for your graue acceptance as this last of my aged labours Which though a worke farre from all worth of receit and countenance of so many exempt and exemplarie Iudgements and learning for elocution and substance yet for the good suggestion of the subiect and obiect I presum'd you would not disdayne it euen your owne noble names inscriptions Good Motiues beget good actiues and the speedie way to proceede deaths victor in the contemplatiue man is to practise in the Schoole of the Actiue There is no such schoole as yours to teach the conquest of corruption and iniustice which euery man must first subdue before hee conquer their conquerour I suppose therefore I set all mens steps in the way to his conquest in shewing them your Olympus where all equall and Common-wealth Combats are consummate in my therefore bold dedication to you Besides when combats were anciently intended Hercules the Father and Fautor of combats was inuok't and all your vnited vertues composing one Hercules in exploring and extirpating all the priuie Thefts and violences of inhumane iniustice whose conquest is necessary Vsher to the Combats and conquest of death to whom but to your Herculean faculties could this Combat with so sacred decorum be consecrated And your still willing-to bee-well-employed old Seruant holding these humane readings and writings no vnfit contentions for his age to sweate in hee hopes your most honour'd and liberall imputations will allow him not to carry your club idlely nor for onely office or fashion But be this allusion held too light for your grauities My humble endeuour to serue you worthily I am sure is serious enough And therefore euen for the diuinitie of his President that accepted the Will in his weake seruant for the worke I thrice humbly implore your religious imitations resting Euer your most dutifull bounden ED. GRIMESTON The Preamble WEe reade of a certaine Philosopher called Egesias who had so great dexteritie to describe the mournefull face of this life and such grace in setting forth the smyling countenance of death as all men went ioy fully vnto it yea many rauished with the loue thereof did hasten their ends Such Philosophie at this day were very seasonable if euer these hideous Eclipses in the firmament these rainie cloudes in the ayre this contagious poyson dispersed ouer all that intestine alteration which doth silently murmure within the bowele of Christendome that thicke cloude of the East which threatens bourely to fâ—…ll vpon our decayed houses are so many defiances which Death sends to mortall men to summon them to the Combat All men must vndergoe it of necessitie no man can free himselfe by flight there is onely one remedie which offers it selfe vnto vs that speedily and without delay wee make a fayned Combat against death to haue some happy presage of victory As Alexander the Great did from a duell performed at pleasure conceiuing that he should get the victory of Darius for that the souldier which acted his person did vanquish him of Darius In like sort let vs trie at the least this triall will teach vs what wee can dâ—…e or rather what wee cannot to the end that after the knowledge thereof we may haue recourse to him who makes perfect his power in our weakenesse to the Eternall who alone can rescue vs out of the pawes of death Hee will teach vs moreouer how much many are to be blamed at this day which liue in the light of the Sunne of Iustice to bee so fearefull at the time of death when as poore Pagans were so resolute But you will say vnto mee What doctrine can wee expect from Pagans by whom mans life is not instructed but ruined as saith Lactantius and who are the Patriarkes of Heretickes as Tertullian doth witnesse I answere that if wee had put on Christ after the perfect stature of a Christian man this labour were in vaine But for this we may not vtterly condemne all humane Philosophie but the truth which it hath spoken must be pulled away as from an vniust detayner saith S. Augustine Moreouer long since the maximes of Aristotle and other Philosophers were allowed in the schoole of Christ namely in that which concernes naturall things in which ranke naturall death is Humane Philosophie in so much as she hath yeelded herselfe a seruant to diuine truth hath not beene reiected but imbraced of the first most cleere sighted fathers of Lactantius I say who hath written that Philosophie doth not hurt when as the spirit is seasoned with religion Of Clemens Alexandrinus who saith learnedly That although the Doctrine of our Sauiour be of it selfe sufficient seeing it is the power and wisedome of God yet by the doctrine of the Grecians if it bee not more fortified it is yet vnable to repell the insulting of Sophisters and to discouer their ambushes It is the bedge and rampar of the Lords vine These great spirits saith he in another place being free from passions are accustomed to ayme point blanke and hit the marko of trueth Thus he speakes and therefore Lipsius did not forbeare to call it the meanes and reconciler of diuine and humane Philosophie To conclude that great Diuine Nazianzene as if hee had vndertaken the ouerthrow of this present obiection teacheth that this Doctrine should not be basely esteemed for that it seemeth so to some But wee must hold them sinister and impertinent Iudges who desire to haue all men like vnto themselues to the end they might hide themselues with the multitude and auoide the censure of ignorance Finally wee confesse that in the mysteries of Christ he that will follow the opinion of Philosophers shall stumble continually But the first death whereof we treate is no mysterie of Christ but a thing as common as life What Ensigne-bearer then shall we follow in this Plato or Aristotle 〈◊〉 or Seneca both the one and the other but our owne aduice aboue all and aboue our owne aduice the holy Philosophie of the Word of God Ariadnes clue to guide vs in this labyriâ—…th Let Seneca vndergoe his owne Law I haue freed my selfe from all saith hee I carry no mans bookes I yeeld much to the iudgment of great personages so I attribute something to my owne Horace saith I am not bound to sweare to the words of any master whereas the gale of
by the fauourable winde of diuine grace may to morrow str◅ke against the rockes of incredulitie haue a contrary winde and suff◅r shipwracke and so haue ◅eede of the answeres ◅ere set downe To conclude counterp◅ysons are not for the sound but for the sicke and infected these confutations are not for them which bee cleane in heart and sound in spirit but for such as irreligion and presumption of humane wisedome haue bewitched Othou the Cr◅ator of all things the Authour of our life the Inspirer of our soules the Father Sonne and holy Ghost one true and onely God I humbly beseech thee illuminate the eyes of my vnderstanding that I may plainely see the happy issue of fearefull death that it will please thee so to purifie the thoughts of my soule that shee may fully apprehend the true causes of her immortality that it will please thee so to fauour my penne that it may write worthily vpon so worthy a subiect that the worke finished thou mayest be glorified the Reader edified and my selfe fortified Amen The Combate betwixt Man and Death The first Argument taken from the Instrumentall cause of eternal life The only meanes to attaine to the perfection of that good which the world so much desireth should not giue any amazement to the world Death is the only meanes Therefore Death should not giue any amazement to the world THE first proposition of this Argument doth plainely iustifie it selfe for without exception all men desire the happinesse of life the perfection of Soueraigne good which is the beatitude of the holy Spirit called eternal life I except not ill doers for they erre in doing ill and either beleeue that it is good or the way which tends vnto it But there is but one way to attaine vnto this good which is death Now then to abhorre this death more then horror it selfe greedily to desire that good which only death can giue vs to desire health and reiect the potion whereby we may recouer it to affect the pleasures which they say are in those fortunate Ilands but without any figure in that heauenly Paradice to refuse to enter into that shippe which alone can bring vs thither were to mocke at himselfe Let vs proceed and come to the proofe of the 2. proposition for thereon is grownded the force of our Syllogisme That Death is the onely meanes to attaine vnto the perfection of life is manifest in that the perfection of euery thing is the enioying of the ends all the lines of our dessignes all the proiects of our enterprises all our sweating and toyle tend and aime at the end Who knowes not that death is the first end of life feeles not but that life in her greatest vigour driues him directly thither all men may see that life is vnited inseparably vnto death by the con tinuance of the same succession of times cōsider this time whereof the enioying is the life There are three parts that which is past the present and the future the presēt is the bond of that which is past and of the future and as this article of the present time runnes as violently towards the future as the Primum Mobile turnes in the heauē so doth ourlife run vio lently towards her end This life is a very way as soone as thou doest enter into it and makest but one step it is the first pace towards the end of the way towards the end of life which is death for the going out of the cradle is the beginning of the entry to the graue whether thou wilt or wilt not whether thou thinkest of it or not yet it is true yea as certaine as in an howre-glasse where the first graine of sand which runnes is a guide vnto the last to the end of the hower Euery day we passe carries away some part of our life yea as we grow life decreaseth this very day which we now enioy is deuided betwixt Death and vs for the first howres of the morning being past to the present in their flowing are dead to vs wherefore Seneca had often this sentence very fitly in his mouth Death hath degrees yet that is not the first Which diuides vs in twaine but of the death is the last And it is the very reason why that wise Tekohite sayd vnto Dauid in the present time For certaine we die and slide away as the waters which returne no more So many degrees as there are in life so many deaths so many beginnings of another life Let vs examine them and take speciall note of the first death to iudge of the latter for herein as in all the other workes of wise Nature the end is answerable to the beginning The first degree of mans life is when being fashioned and framed hee liues in the wombe of his mother this is a vegetatiue life a life proper to plants only wherein hee may receiue nourishment grow in this life he continues commonly but nine moneths at the end of which time hee dies but a happy death whereby he gaines the vse of the goodly sences of nature that is to say of sight hearing smelling tasting and touching behold then the first death when as the Infant by the force of nature is driuen out of that fleshie prison comming from which place he striues and stretcheth out himselfe hee is angry with nature and cries incessantly but he is ill aduised it is his good and the beginning of his perfection Now followeth the infantiue life not differing from that of beasts which extends vnto seuen yeares compleate of this life child-hood is the death which begins at eight yeares and retaines nothing of the Infancy As for the exterior of man which is the body not the flesh nor bones not the foure principall humors if that bee true which the Phisitions hold for a Maxime that our bodies change all their substance euery seuen yeares And in truth how could our sliding nature so long subsist if it were not maintained by drinke and meate the which by a certaine vertue infused into all the members of the body digested purged and applied doth transubstantiat it selfe into our very bodies proportionably as the substance decayes as appeares by the words in the booke of Wisedome cap. 5. Being borne wee suddenly desist from that being wherein wee were borne It is no more the first body which wee brought into the world that is dead wee haue an other in our child-hood the third degree of life which extends vnto 18. yeares at the end wherof his death encounters him in the which beginnes the 4. degree of life which goes vnto 22. and then dies but from this death riseth youth the 5. degree which florisheth vnto 30. yeares then his flower falls and his youth is lost but a rich losse seeing thereby man-hood the perfect age is gotten which being strong and vigorous climbes vnto 50. yeares and this is the 6. degree of life Then comes age the 7. degree of life and the
hath such circumstances as it is very horrible of it selfe Therefore it is not possible but it should terrifie MAny dissembling the feare which they haue of death when they come to thinke and speake of some kinde of sicknesse drawing neere vnto death and especially of the plague they cannot finde blacke enough to set it forth nor horrour sufficient to abhorre it But let vs see what reasons they can pretend It was a great scourge say they of the wrath of God executed vpon the people for Dauids ambition so as there dyed 70. thousand in lesse then one day threatned in the Apocalipse to embrace the fourth part of the earth It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the liuing God Moreouer it is an vnspeakeable paine to be burnt with the sore to bee strangled with the plague c. Thirdly it is a sorrow which exceeds all extreames to bee abandoned of wife Father mother children friends and kinsfolkes Finally it is a perpetuall griefe to die and haue no meanes to settle his estate Answer These reasons are but goodly shewes to shaddow the feare they haue of death and the shame which lies lurking in their hearts for seeing they must leaue this life what doth it import them whether it be by water or by land or by any other meanes As for the first reason Dauid wil answere for vs that we must not iudge rashly of the poore man in his torment His son will adde that none can discerne whether he be worthy of loue or hatred by that which happens exteriorly The Apostle will say The iudgements of God beginne by his owne house Iob the Apostles the Martyrs will manifest by their examples that they whom God loues are most chastized in this world Finally Iesus Christ will teach vs That in the blind man so borne neither his sinne nor the sinne of his father and mother was the cause that hee was borne blind that neither the Galileans so cruelly intreated by Pilate nor the Iewes smothered in the ruines of the Tower which was in Silo were more guilty then those which had escaped this disaster A faithfull man is not tempted aboue his strength if affliction abounds consolation will superabound He dies happily which layes downe his soule with a setled spirit feeling in himselfe the peace grace of God through Iesus Christ in the remission of his sinnes And it is a thousand times better to be quickned by the light affliction of the plague and to carry away an inestimable weight of glory then to be smothered in the delights of sinne and in danger of a finall ruine both of body and soule The example produced of Dauid makes for this against the Obiector Who sinned Dauid in ambitiously numbring his people who is punished the people the Grecians are plagued for the foolish resolutions of their Kings sayd the ancient Prouerbe But where is the duty of Iustice will you say God knowes it his will is the rule of equitie it is iust seeing God will haue it so And on the other side it was not the wil of God for that it is not right But we commonly see that the plague layes hold of the poorer sort whereupon Galen calls it Epidemique that is to say popular whereof the baites are famine sluttishnesse and stinkes rather then the chiefe of the Towne infected who notwithstanding will be found much more faulty before God Looke vpon that long plague which vnder the Empire of Gallus and Volusian continued 15. whole yeares and which comming out of Ethiopia vnpeopled all the Romane prouinces reade it and iudge of it As for that pretended paine wee must not apprehend it to be greater then in simple swellings and Impostumes or in Cauteries the poison rather mollifying then increasing the paine But there are two kinds of plagues as Phisitions do obserue the one is simple when as the spirits onely are infected by a venemous and contagious ayre which hath bin suckt in by the mouth or the nose or that hath gotten insensibly into the body by the pores of the skinne so as a man shal be stroken that shal not feele any thing it may be he shall be more faint and heauy then of custome but with very little heate and alteration so as hee shall bee sometimes smothered vp before he feeles any paine The other is a compound when as the Contagion seazing the spirits doth communicate his poyson with the foure humours infects them and alters them but without paine for these humours are incapable yet these humours beeing infected and altered infect and alter the parts of the body in the which they reside as in the head the heart and elsewhere and there growes the paine but no greater then in Feauers and swoundings yea lesse by reason of the putrid vapour which doth dull and mortifie the members so as the paine is no more then a small incision yea lesse then the pricking of a pinne The greatest is a certaine inflammation in the hypocondriake parts in the bowells which enuiron the heart for as poyson is the capitall enemy of life so this enemy of life strikes furiously at the heart The worst is a certaine heate whereof the Patient complaines as Thucidides obserues in the plague which happened at Athens but what paine in this heat that is not greater in the burning of a little finger or in a Tertian Ague But if your opinion will not yeelde to these reasons inquire of them which haue beene toucht with this infection they will answer that feare hath beene their greatest paine and if they had been assured of recouery they had felt no paine I know you will reply that there is a difference betwixt them that recouer and them that die But I will answer you that the paine is equall yea greater in them that recouer then in them that dye they that recouer are more vigorous and the vicious humour stings them and is more sensible then in them that are weaker when the parts lesse able to resist are sooner gotten and lost As a Leper hauing his flesh infected with Leprosie and rottennesse feeles little or no paine in the most sensible pricking euen so a weake woman hath lesse torment in her deliuerie although the throwes bee more dangerous wherein appeares the admirable wisedome of Nature which doth not afflict the afflicted Now followeth the third reason obiected the abandoning of wife kinsfolkes and friends Answer It is an accident which happens seldome or not at all this day hardly can that which life hath vnited by marriage consanguinity and friendship be dissolued in death Moreouer a wise man who should haue learned to bee content with himselfe in life should not be discontented if he die alone It was a constant Doctrinein the resolute Stoicks that he is happy that is content with himselfe and depends not vpon any other man nor vpon any thing in the world but like Iupiter liues and moues of himselfe rests in
All that is depraued and there is nothing but a horrible confusion in his will and actions 7. He was absolute Lord ouer all Creatures which trembled at his looke and brought him fruits according to his desire 8. Now they rebell and assaile him yea the earth instead of good corne brings forth nothing but thornes thistles 9. He had frequent conuersation with God inspired of him and breathing by him 10. Now the Prince of the power of the aire the vncleane spirit workes powerfully in the children of rebellion which are all the sonnes of Adam Ephes. 2. 2. 11. A glorious angelical and diuine Maiesty did shine in his face 12. Now they couer their shame with leaues they hide themselues among the trees and crie out Mountains fall vpon vs and couer vs. To conclude there is no greater contrariety betwixt day and night then of these famous qualities to the infamous blemishes of man as he liued in this world before his regeneration in the which by little and little hee recouers this Iustice holinesse and trueth Ephes. 4. 24. But the fulnesse thereof is reserued to heauen whither death leades vs and therefore to be desired The Fourth Argument taken from the efficient cause All that a good and wise mother giueth vnto her Children cannot be hurtfull Nature our good and wise mother giues vs death Death then cannot be hurtfull THe first proposition of this Argument cannot bee denyed after the experience which wee haue seene after the comparison which God makes of himselfe with a mother who cannot forget her child nor he his people After that Iesus Christ had said No man giues a stone instead of bread nor a Scorpion for fish to him that he loues And how then can nature the liuely spring of so liuely a loue giue any thing that is very hurtfull and fayle at neede and in the principall hauing neuer fayled vs in all the course of our life Now to proue that the second proposition is true and that nature hath ordayned death for her children Seneca doth teach vs saying That death is a Law of nature yea that our whole life is but a way vnto it S. Cyprian also doth affirme that it is a decree intimated vnto the world that whatsoeuer is borne should haue an end and from whom is this decree from God the Authour of nature the executioner of this decree but it is a fauourable decree to such as Heauen fauours It is a generall Law to restore that which is lent vs this life is but a loane wee must restore it at the end of the time it is a tribute wee owe for we entred vpon condition to depart when it shall please the master Moreouer what is this life but a harmony rising from the mixture of the foure elements which are the foure ingredients of our bodie and what is death by the censure of Hippocrates but a diuorce of marriage of these foure Elements This diuorce is as naturall to man as it is naturall that fire should be contrarie to water and ayre to earth for their contrarietie is the cause of this diuorce which is death I know that it is not sufficient for humane life to haue a body well tempered with his Organes and to haue the power of life but he must also haue a fist Effence as a Lute well strung and well tuned is not sufficient to make it sound vnlesse there bee a hand to play vpon it And I also maintayne that as the Musitian ceaseth to play when the Instrument is vnstrung so the soule ceaseth to giue life vnto the body yea flyes out when it is destroyed but this destruction is naturall and by consequence death and to that end Nature hath planted this body vpon pyles which take vent vpon boanes not very solide caulkt ouer with soft flesh glued with a viscous humour which may easily melt with heate or dissolue with rayne full of transparent veines easie to pierce watered with vnholesome water tempered with contrarie qualities which a certaine temperature keepes at quiet for a season but when euery one desires to command his companion and time in the end presenting the occasion the common right being forced the body sodainely falls And this force is of nature who must needes effect the words of the Lord spoken vnto man Thou art dust and shalt returne to dust Sonnes of men returne but whither From whence you came to the earth to death death then is of nature and therefore Thales the Milesian said that there was no difference betwixt life and death for that they are both equally according vnto Nature and as one demanded of him why he was in life and dyed not For the same cause answered he that the one is no more excellēt then the other It is also the reason why the Emperor Antonin the gentle seeing his seruants weepe lying sicke in his bed hee sayed vnto them Why weepe you for me and not rather the naturall and mortall condition of all the world that is to say Why doe you not rather weepe for life which is of a mortall condition The answere of Anaxagoras was more vertuous who being aduertised of the death of his deere and onely Sonne sayd O Messenger thou bringest me no vnexpected newes I know well I had begotten a Sonne that was mortall hee was not insensible like a stone but he considered that nothing had chanced to his sonne but what he had foreseene from his birth his long foresight and his sodaine con sideration of the condition of all men for to die had tēpered all sorow in him and brought him to reason which should alwaies holde the helme of this little world man Like was the answere of Lochades father to Siron vp on the like report of the death of one of his children I knew well sayth he that he should dye VVe shall see others hereafter to the ende they may haue no cause to say that this resolution was monstrous in the world To conclude nature to make vs resolue ioyfully vnto death seemes to direct vs to the sweete song of the Swanne a presaging bird consecrated to Apollo by Antiquitie the which dying nature gathers together about the heart the purest and sweetest bloud which makes him Iouiall and to sing a happie presage to whom Socrates Plato and Tully send them that haue so great feare of death An Obiection Satan Man and Sinne are the causes of death Therefore it is not Nature ANswere When it is said in the holy Scripture that Satan holds the empire of death that by one man sinne entred into the world and by sin death finally that death is the reward of sinne we must not vnderstand it of the naturall death whereof the question growes but of the spirituall and eternall death as many of the ancient fathers doe expound it And how else could the threatning of God against Adam be vnderstood touching the tree of knowledge of good and euil Thou shalt not eate
meat I answer Thou art not all wormes meat for the subtilest part of thee liues in thy children all thy person is not food for wormes for thy soule the most excellēt part escapes thou art not long the foode of wormes for another forme and it may be another soule shal be soone adapted The Fift Argument from the end of Nature Euery end whereunto the Law of Nature doth direct all the actions of our life is for our good Death is the end whereunto the Law of Nature directs all the actions of our life Therefore death is for our good IT is a wonderfull strange thing so to feare that passage whereunto our breathing and the course of our life seemes to tend For although the life be but a swift course of some dayes running swifter then a Weauers shettle yet the greatest part of the world desires to haue them shorter and would see them as soone shut vp as discouered As wee may see in playes which for that they hold their eyes and spirits captiues are very pleasant vnto them for that they rauish their thoughts and sences expell all languishing conceits Inquire of a Dancer a Tennis-player a Dicer or a Courtier why they liue continually in a Dancing-schoole a Tennis-Court in a Dicing-house or in great mens houses They will answere you if they vouchsafe you answere That the time would be tedious if they should not spend it in some thing and euen we our selues being more retired if some more profitable imployment did not make vs to spend the time we would say Oh how long this day is when will it be night And if this slow night came not to interrupt our complaints they would breake out into mournefull lamentations in the meane this night presenting herselfe vnto vs the longer through death we are quite cōfounded her countenance defaceth the remembrance of all our former miserie What inconstancie is this wee will and wee will not see our end we desire that euery day should passe away swiftly else wee complaine we wil not haue our life to slide away for then wee howle and yet our life is nothing but a multiplying of many dayes whence comes it It is for that this waywardnesse which cleaues vnto vs by reason of this slow course of euery day of our life proceedes from our nature who finds neither hir appointed abode nor hir setled perfection here and this pale feare which seazeth vpon vs at the discouerie of the gate of death proceedes from the corruption which hath happened to our nature For proofe whereof the table of Natures innocencie in the beginning which is described vnto vs at the entrie of the Bible doth testifie sufficiently for Adam and Eue in Eden were alwayes cheared with delights and pleasures they had continually the vse of an hundred thousand wonders neuer thinking of the future nor desiring presently the end of the day which held them they had their happinesse in the present life the which hath beene hidden in heauen by reason of their transgression whither we must ascend through death to enioy it thither our nature doth call vs from the which our corruption doth diuert vs. Were it not then better to obey nature so officious towards vs then a pernicious deprauatiō which hath possessed vs And therefore the Ancients to taxe this vnreasonable desire of liuing here without end left vs in their pictures how that Tithon beloued of Aurora obtained of the gods at the entreatie of the Goddesse that he should not die But this man being tired with a million of sundry calamities and ouerladen with a burthensome old age so as like vnto little Infants he was saine to be bound vp swadled and rockt hee besought the Gods that he might be suffered to die like other men Whereby they shew that death hath bene granted by the gods as a fauour vnto men as being the safe port of all the tempest of this world Nature hath set a measure and fulnesse to all thing wee finde it in the greatest pleasures which continuing long are in the end distastfull vnto vs Even so hath she done in life wherefore there are old men which would not willingly returne backe to the first beginning of their Infants life vpon condition to run the same dangers which they past the which Tully affirmes of himselfe that if any god would giue him force to become young againe hee would refuse it no sayth he hauing finished my course I will not bee brought backe from the end to the beginning for what commodities hath life nay what toyles hath it not And admit I should confesse that it hath pleasure without any distast must shee not haue her full measure and saciety who can contradict this The sixt Argument taken from the Vntuersall Law All freeing from a common miserie carries in it selfe consolation Death is a freeing from a common miserie It therefore carries in it selfe consolation THe consolation of the miserable is to haue companions sayeth the old Prouerbe for men by conference of their common misery reape some ease and discharge as if they carried a heauy burthen in common Now ô you which dying thinke your selues debarred of felicity consider how death with an equall foote beates and ouerthrowes the Castells of Princes and the Cabinnes of Sheepheards Search Salomon and you shal find that neither wisedome nor riches could preserue him from death nor Sampson his force nor Absolon his beauty Hercules with all his exploites is laid in the graue Alexander with his Empires Caesar with his happy victories Craesus with all his pompe is gone Xerxes is vanished with his miraculous bridge vpon the sea of Helles pont all all gone to the Pallace of Ruine whereas death commands Call these great Princes in whose ambitious hearts their greatnesse had stirred vp enuious vapours we haue them all for companions in death the Oracle hath sayed it and experience doth shew it You are gods but yet you must die You Princes you shall passe like to one of vs. Behold a great man who dying sayed with a mournfull voyce Helas I am rich powerful and mighty and yet can I not wrest the shortest terme from pale destinie It is a great consolation sayeth Seneca to Polib c. 21. to think that whatsoeuer shall happen to vs by death hath bene suffered by all and all must suffer it and therefore hee cries out in the beginning of this Chapter in these termes What man saith hee is so full of artogancie and yet so vnable that will exempt himselfe or his from the necessitie of nature calling all things to one end In life men are vnequall but their beginning and ending are equall all are borne with one poore nakednesse and all dye with a stinking cold and liuing no man is more certaine of the next day then his neighbour hee onely is happy to whom the most miserable kinde of life doth not befall Happy then are wee if wee compare our selues with those people of
hydeous feare The king saw him among the rest and admired him and obseruing his pale colour he inquired of him the cause of his palenes and was informed of his disease the king thinking that by his cure his force and valour would increase caused his Physitions to recouer him but the effect prooued contrarie for the souldiar being cured had no other care but to liue and this care made him to feare euery thing yea the shadow of a leafe his furious humor was gone down to his feet to fly away Where fore we must therfore thinke of death know it and contemne it To this end the ancients did set dead bodies at the doores of their houses to be seene of passengers for the same reason the Egyptians did cause an image of death to be carried about in their bankets and set vpon the table not to strike terror into them but rather a disdaine by the frequent beholding of what it is And so it was at Constantinople in the election creation of a new Emperor they were wont to breathe into his heart vertue valour when as being set in his highest Throne of glorie a mason came neare to him and made a shew of an heape of stones of diuers formes to the ende hee might choose which did best please him to build his tombe It is the same reason why at the Coronation of the Popes when as he that is new called passeth before S. Gregories Chappell the master of the Ceremonies holding an handfull of flaxe at the ende of a drie reed setts fire to it and cries with a loud voyce Pater sancte sic transit gloria mimdi O I would to God that both they and wee did thinke seriously of this that remembring how lightly this life passeth away wee might make haste for feare to be sodainly surprized euery man to doe his dutie according to his vocation euen as they doe which liue at Court being set at the table make what haste they can in feeding least the meat be taken away before they haue dyned VVhy stay wee then Let vs make hast to attaine to that royall dignitie which hee deserues best that is most at libertie and hee is most that least feares death Behold what a tragical Poet sayth Hee is a King that conquers feare And th'ills that dèsperate bosomes beare That in his Towre set safe and free Doth all things vnderneath himsee Encounters willingly his Fate Nor grudges at his mortall state From those golden verses the golden memory of Heluidius an ancient Romain shal for euer shine who seeing the ancient liberty captiuated by Vespasian and being commanded by him that hee should not come into the Senate hee answered That whilest he was a Senator hee would come vnto the Senat Vespasian replyed Bee in the Senate and hold thy peace Heluid Let no man then aske my opinion Vâ—…sp But I must in honour demand it Heluid Then must I in iustice speake what my conscience commands me Vesp. If thou speakest it I will put thee to death Heluid You may do what you please and I what I ought Let this example bee alwayes before our eyes and especially to vs Christians that of the twelue Apostles who neuer yeelded to the cruell assaults of death but alwayes reioyced with an inuincible courage as the text saith to be held worthy to suffer reproach for the Name of Christ. Wherefore aboue all the world they haue purchased a most holy fame yea their twelue names are written in the twelue foundations of the celestiall and eternall City O what a worthy reward for so great valour in the contempt of death The eight Argument taken from the worke of God The reward wherewith the Eternall doth sometimes recompence them he fauors cannot be euill Death is that wherewith hee doth sometimes reward them he fauors Therefore Death cannot bee euill IF that be true which Silenus in Tully and others with reason report that the first degree of happinesse is not to be borne and not to fall into the dangers of the present life That the second is to die in being borne without all doubt the third must bee not to continue long in the miseries of the world but hauing beheld the workes of God the wandring couse of the stars the swift motion of the heauens the inuariable changing of day and night presently to die Say not that thou art taken in thy youthfull age that is a priuiledge which God giues thee to free thee from a thousand Combats of vice which thou shouldest endure or it may be thou shouldest be conquered as Salomon was by voluptuousnsse or as Nero by cruel ty Looke vpon the insolencie and corruption of that time it will appeare that thou hast more cause to feare then to hope in liuing longer sayed Seneca to Marullus epist. â—…00 If this were in those times what shall it be in this age which is as many times impayred as there haue since slowed yeares and daies And admit thou wert assured to continue alwayes vertuous and victorious yet shouldest thoube continually couered with dust altered with thirst full of bitternesse and old with anguish Enoch pleased God and was beloued of him he was rapt vp into heauen that the malice of the world should not change his vnderstanding sayeth the text c. 44. Cleobis and Biton religious and dutifull children for that they tooke the yoake and drew the Charriot of their deceased mother vp the hil for want of Mules and the houre of the interment pressing on they receiued the night following in recompence of their singular piety a happy death Marcellus Nephew to Augustus Caesar adopted by him Marcellus vpon whom the hope of all the Romaine Empire did depend dyed in the 18. yeare of his age a thousand others yea innumeraable haue bene cut off in their vigorous youth the most excellent as the ripest cheries are the first taken it happens to these timely wits as to the ripest fruit they fall first and Homer writes that the Heroes and Demigods neuer extended their dayes euen vnto the threshold of old age Seneca reports that his predecessors had secne an infant of great stature at Rome but they saw him die presently according to the opinion of euery man of iudgement whereupon hee addes that maturity is a signe of imminent ruine that whereas the increasings are consumed they desire the end Moreouer hee abuseth himselfe much which thinkes he hath liued long because hee hath past many yeares if he shew no other signes but his pale face and his gray head Behold what the wise man saith Man is not gray for that hee hath liued many yeares but for that hee hath liued wisely long age must bee measured by the honest conditions and manners not by the number of dayes It depends of another saith Seneca how long wee shall liue but of our selues how good we are the importance is to liue well and not long yet many times liuing well doth not consist
this base estate I know not why I liue hauing no more to doe here to fore I had a desire to liue to see thee liue to Christ I see it why then stay I longer here and soone after yeelded vp her soule to the Spirit of all power Euen so O mortall men liue as long as you list exceede the many yeeres of Nestor or the 969. of Methusalem yet shall you not see any other thing in this world but those foure great Princesses the foure seasons of the yeere holding hands together and dancing this round continually sometimes shewing their gracious aspects sometimes their backs deformed as Philo the Iew speaks It is like Sysiphus stone which being thrust vp by force to the top of the Mountayne returnes presently backe againe to the foote of it and like the Sunne which hath no sooner toucht one of the Tropikes but hee suddenly turnes to the other To conclude it is Danaes tonne pierced full of holes they may well poure in water but they shall neuer fill it These are fictions but they haue their mysticall hidden sences The holy Scripture hath Parables and Philosophie figures let no man therefore reiect them for so did the ancient Philosophers shadow their Philosophie And as mercenarie labourers toyling and sweating in the longest day of Sommer reioyce when they see the Sunne decline and neere his setting so wee after such painefull trauaile whereunto this life doth force vs let vs reioyce when wee draw neere vnto our declining and let vs not refuse being weary and tyred to rest our selues in the sweet armes of death to the which without doubt there is no bed in the world how pleasing soeuer to be compared There is nothing here but ignorance that keepes vs backe If the Israelites had truely vnder stood the beauty and bounty of the land of Canaan if they had beene assured of the enioying thereof they had not so often murmured against Moses being ready to stone him they had not wisht for the oynions and leekes of Egypt they would haue taken courage in the midst of the desart Let vs then conclude that there is nothing but the blindnesse of man which hinders him from seeing the ioyes of heauen whereunto death is the waye Wherefore let vs open the eyes of our vnderstanding not grieue for the grosse foode of this world for in heauen there is prepared for vs the meate of Angels Obiection Any exchange from a place that is pleasing and certaine for one that is vncertaine must needs cause trouble vexation Death is the exchange of the world which is pleasing and certaine for a place wholly vncertaine MOst part of the world when the Lampe of this life is almost wasted are so perplexed as they do lose themselues In the chiefe Citie of Aragon vpon a Knights tombe this Epitaph is written in Latine I know not whither I goe I die against my will Farewell suruiuers The Emperour Titus dying said Alas must I die that haue neuer deserued it There is to be read at Rome vpō the stone of a Sepulcher of Sextus Perpenna to the Infernall gods I haue liued as I list I know not why I die Whereunto may be added the verses which the Emperour Adrian a little before his death made vnto his soule My pretty soule my daintiest My bodies sociable Guest Whither is my sweetest going Naked trembling little knowing Of that delight depriuingme That while I liu'd I had from Thee Many at this day in the light of the Gospell shew by their actions that they are no better resolued then these were although that shame will not suffer them to confesse it when as death approcheth Answer Wee deny the Minor of the Argument for it is not true that death is of it selfe to bee beloued if it appeares so it is but in comparison of some extreame misery which we apprehend in leauing it for the liuing are as we haue said like vnto them which are carried away violently with a stream who to saue themselues lay hold of that which comes first to hand yea if it were a barre of burning Iron If you will then aske them how pleasing that estate is you may easily ghesse what they will say That if they were as certaine as it is most certaine that there were no harme in death as shall appeare they would not breake out into such complaints It is also false that this place is certaine Gorgias the Rhetorician will not depose it for being demanded if hee died willingly Yea said hee for I am not grieued to leaue a lodging which is rotten and open of all sides And Epicurus had often in his mouth that against any thing in the world wee might finde some place of safety but we all liued in a City which was not fortified against death and in truth this body is but a little plot of earth commanded of euery side flanked of none hauing furious enemies without mutinous within Ingeners haue made many impregnable forts but neuer able to resist death Physitions haue drawne out the quintessence of their spirits if they haue any time found a delay yet must they in the end yeeld and pay the interest Fabulous Aeson returned to youth by the Sorceresse Medea and true Lazarus raised againe by the Sauiour of the world haue not yet for all that escaped death But you will reply It is that which wee would say that without death life shold be certaine I answere that you know not what you say for life as it is made here and whereof our question is cannot bee without death to desire to be a man and not be willing to die is not to desire to liue for it is one of the conditions of life as shall appeare in the following Argument Moreouer I adde that what incertainty of the future Estate soeuer you pretend doubtlesse it cannot bee so miserable except the reprobate as that of this life Thirdly admit that life were certaine yet the pleasures would not be so but rather the displeasures certaine That wise King of Macedon saw it feared it and protested against it For newes comming vnto him of three great prosperities that hee had won the price at the Olympike games that hee had defeated the Dardanians by his Lieutenant and that his wife had brought him a goodly sonne hee cried out with his hands lift vp to heauen O Fortune let the aduersity which thou preparest for me in exchange of thy fauours be moderate But I will sommon you Merchants which make a profession of trafficke There is a bargaine offered vnto you in the which you finde of the one side gaine to bee made and of the other losse I demand if like a good husband you will not weigh the losse with the gaine to the end that finding the losse the greater you may breake off the bargaine And why should not man obserue the like in life which is much more important Why should bee not ballance the pleasures
Queene of Nations falsesly held to be eternall where art thou destroied ruined burnt and drowned in vaine do they seeke thee for thou art not where thou were built And you Constantinople Venice and Paris your day will come and why not Seeing that whole Monarchies runne swiftly to their ruine the Assirian Persian Grecian and Romaine are perished You Turkes you florish for â—…lme but behold 〈◊〉 Scâ—…thians prepare to wrest the reines of the world out of your hands and what wonder if that riues which by nature is apt to tiue if that which is easie to melt melt if that which is corruptible decayes and if that which is of a mortall condition dies Without doubt if there be any thing to be amazed at it is how we are borne how wee subsist amiddest a thousaÌ„d deaths which reigne vpon vs we haue but one narrow entry into life but wee haue an infinite number to go out which are very large and slippery And yâ—…t o strange brutishnesse we wonder how we die and not how we liue Let vs then conclude with the Spirit of God That euery man is dust and shall returne to dust for such is his condition The 13. Argument taken from the benefit which the thought of death brings Whatsoeuer doth multiply life should be precious to them that loue life The Meditation of death multiplies life Therefore the meditation of Death should be precious to them that loue life A Great Philosopher obseruing the vncertenty of the time of death and finding that life must infallibly fall by a bullet by iron by a dart a stone a haire as Fabius the Pretor was choakt in drinking milke with a kernell as the Poet Anacreon with a flie as Pope Adrian 4. with a splinter be he neuer so well armed as Henry 2. the French King whom a splinter of Captaine Lorges lance flying into the beuer of his caske wounded in the head whereof he dyed by the rush of a doore as Iterenius the Sicilian in the Venerian act a ridiculous death as Gallus Pretorius and Titharius a Romane Knight who were smothered in the bed of lust By the holding of their breath without constraint as it happened to Comon by delight as to Chilon who hearing his sonne commended for that hee had wonne the prized the Olimpike games was so moued with affection as he dyed yea in laughing as old Philemon who hauing seene an Asse eate sigges vpon his table he commanded his seruant to giue him drinke whereat hee did so laugh as hee fell into a hickeâ—… and so dyed Yea life is ruined by the pricke of a needle as in Lucia the daughter of Marcus Aurelius who pricking her selfe dyed By the tooth of a combe like to Rufynius the Consull who combing himselfe hurt his head and ended his life That great Philosopher I say considering that so many accidents and ten thousand others not to bee foreseene might in an instant take away life gaue this wholsome counsell That wee must dispose of euery day in such sort as if it should close vp our life within the compasse of the twelue houres Consider saith hee how goodly a thing it is to consummate life before death and then to attend without care the time that may remayne and the better to induce vs thereunto let vs remember the aduice which Iesus Christ gaue vnto his Disciples of him selfe I must doe saith hee the workes of him that sent me whilst it is day the night comes and then no man can worke Ioh. 9. By the day hee signifies life by night death and his will is that whilst we liue we should doe our duties without any procrastination for that night is neere that is to say death But when a well setled soule saith the same knowes there is no difference betwixt a day and an age shee then beholds as it were from aboue the dayes and successe which shall follow her and laughs at the course and continuance of yeeres The same Seneca doth also make a pleasant discourse of Pacuâ—…ius the vsurper of Syria who being at night buried in wine as as if he had prepared his owne funerall caused himselfe to bee carryed from the table to his bed in the meane time his friends clapping their hands danced and sung He hath liued hee hath liued and there passed no day but this was done And the Authour addes what he did in an vnseemely manner let vs doe with reason that night approching and ready to lay vs in bed let vs sing with ioy I haue runne the course of my prefixed life and if God doth adde an increase of tomorrow let vs account it for gaine In doing so euery day shall bee a life vnto vs and by the multiplication of dayes our life shall be multiplyed and why not seeing that in what day soeuer we dye we dye in our owne proper day as the fame Seneca saith calling the present day that proper day seeing the dayes that are past are no more ours being so lost for vs as they can bee no more restored As for the future we cannot call them ours being not yet come and may bee wrested from vs in an instant by many accidents Moreouer what is there in an age that wee find not in one day the heauen the earth the inhabitants thereof the day and night by the reuolution of the heauens But you will say This pensiue thoght of death hammering continually in our heads doth hasten our death Answ. You are deceiued a wiseman thinkes quietly of it and in thinking of it aduanceth nothing no more then the marriner in seeing the sayles still and the wind to blow it is by the wind and sayles not by his looking that he is carried into the Port So by the waues of this life not by the meditation of death wee are carried to the graue Let vs then end with the saying of the Philosopher Musonius That he imployes not the day rightly who resolues not as if it were his last The 14. Argument taken from a Simile Euery sweete and sound sleepe is pleasing Death is a sweete and sound sleepe Ergo. A Naxagoras sayed there were two excellent instructions in Death the one in sleepe the other in the time going before our birth Let vs now consider of the first instruction We see that most of the heathen Philosophers haue saluted death with the name of sleepe Plato in the end of his Apologie of Socrates Tully in his booke de Senectute Obsenie fayth hee there is no thing so like vnto death as sleepe Homer faith that sleepe death are brother and sister twinnes Let vs obserue with Plutarque that Homer shewes their similitude terming them twinnes for they that are so doe most commonly resemble And in truth wee cannot denie but there is betwixt them great affinitie It is one of the causes of death the cold vapour vndigested and quenching the naturall heate a vapor which appeares vpon the superficies of the bodie which they also
some one returnes from market saith S. Augustin sound and lustie who falling breaks a leg whereof hee shall dye Who semes better assured then he that is set in a strong chaire yet vpon some troublesome newes hee may be disquieted fall and breake his necke Another laughing eating and drinking shal be suddenly surprized with an Apoplexie rising from some vnknowne cause and dye presently What receptacle seemes more safe and commodious for hunters that are wearie and full of sweat and dust then a cleane house with a good fire And yet a Prince with his traine thinking to retire him to such a place found himselfe in such dāger of death in the morning as he could not escape without the losse of his nayles that fell away by the vehemencie of his paine and two of his company found smotheredin the morning whence thinke you proceeded the cause of this strange Accident It was from the wall newly plastered which cast forth a virulent vapor which together with the smoake of a great cole fire fumed vp into the head dispersed his poyson throughout all the members of their bodies Who could haue foreseene this accident but too late Ammianus Marcellinus reports tho like to haue happened to the Emperour Iouinian who was found smothered in the mor ning by the like poyson And to conclude what seemes freer from breaking then a head lying in the shadow far from any house yet it hap pened that the Poet Aeschilus being so retired an Eagle flying in the ayre thinking his bald head had bene a flint stone let fal a Tortose to break it and to haue the meate but falling downe it brake the skull os poore Aeschilus The first Obiection That which shall not happen vnto vs is not to bee accounted among our miseries But these misfortunes shall not happen vnto vs c. THese miseries if it pleaseth God shall not befall vs but where is that warrant from heauen to assure vs The comicall Poet saith That man cannot be exempt from any humane accident No man liuing can say without warrāt This shal not happen vnto mee saith Menander What befalls to one thinke it may happen to thee saith Seneca for thou art a man and therefore retaine this and thinke of it not to be deiected in aduersity nor puft vp in prosperity but haue alwayes before thine eyes the liberty of fortune as being able to lay vpon thee all the miseries shee holds in her hand Man is in continuall warre vpon earth Is there not a course of warre ordayned for mortall men vpon earth saith Iob. If he be freed from his enemies abroad let him beware of some treacherous Synō at home Be alwaies ready sayd Iesus Christ for you know not the day nor the houre no man is no more assured against death then the bird is against the shot of a harquebuze God would saith S. Augustine that wee should watch continually But if changing thy tune thou thinkest that thy neighbour is not afflicted like thy selfe and that hee is much more happy thou art much deceiued Euery man feeles his owne griefe Herodotus hath seene it and written it saying That if all men liuing laden with their owne miseries had brought them together vpon one heape to exchange with them of their neighbours hauing well weighed them and viewed them euery man would willingly carry backe his owne Without doubt this present life is so full of miseries that in comparison thereof death seemes a remedy A long life is but a long torture saith S. Augustine And what other opinion can wee haue seeing that Iesus Christ who was giuen vs for a perfect president is neuer propounded vnto vs laughing but somtimes weeping as when hee approched the Tombe of his friend Lazarus and when as he wept vpon the ingratefull Citie of Ierusalem and therefore the Apostle saith That in the dayes of his flesh hee offered himselfe with great cries and teares to him who could saue him from death What is that but to shew vs that this life is not worthy of ioy but of lamentation not of laughter but of crying as the Philosopher Heraclitus doth esteeme it who alwayes with a weeping voice did lament the estate of this life The second Obiection It is a cowardly consideration not to be willing to die but to cease to liue This reason hath that consideration TO denounce death to end the miseries of this life is sayth one to pro pound a carnall end to the liking of sensuality Vpon death sayth another the priuation of thislife there is no Cataplasme but of a better life for the losse of earth but the enioying of heauen Answere Death is the corruption of the flesh and a priuation of all the sences to the end therefore that the remedy may be proportionable to the flesh it must also be fleshly sensible and palpable I grant that in retiring ourselues we must not think only to fly from humaine miseries but rather to draw neere to diuine fauours But betwixt doing and duty who doth not at this day see an infinite distance That elect vessell of the holy Ghost that great Apostle Saint Paul seeles a Law in his members fighting against the Law of his vnderstanding He complaines there was a thorne thrust into his flesh the angel of Satan did buffer him what is this but the relikes of sin of infirmity distrust what glosse soeuer they will set of it If Saint Paul were such a one what then are we poore dwarses wauering and staggering let vs not flatter and seduce our selues for our workes discouer vs O God fortifie vs and make thy holy Spirit to reigne in vs and attending the happy effect of diuine promises let vs meditate of the Testament sealed with the bloud of Christ. But if the horror of death which doth threaten vs of euery side comes to hinder our holy meditations let vs vanquish it by the darts of reason this may be done and it is that we ought to doe The Surgion which hath sercht a wounde hath applied a fit Cataplasime hath made his patient without passion or paine is to be cō-mended The Philosopher which hath examined the naturall death hath found o◅t the cause of the feare it giues hath accomodated reasons fit to take awaie this feare and to assure mans courage is not to be contemned I know well that hee which through death hath made vs see the life eternall hath done more but this worke is of God and not of men and if the sacred word of the eternall God doe it not no humaine voice can doe it But doe you say there is no Catap◅sme fit for the losse of a pleasant life but the hope of a better Answer You presuppose two suppositions heere which are not First that life is full of pleasures Secondly that in death wee haue a feeling of the losse against that which hath beene and shab be said to the which I will send
Combate to kil this feare of death in man I therefore persist in my opinion that it is nothing but the feare which man hath to fall into some greater miserie as we haue shewed doth make him so much apprehēd death But there is no euill in this as appeares in the following argument Therefore there is no reason of feare which reason should gouern a reasonable man Let vs not trust to those distrustful spies which being returned from the point of death cry out Horror horror for they faile more in corage then in bodie and deserue the like punishment to them that went to discouer the land of Canaan who being returned brought nothing but bad and slanderous tydings to al the people as the holy Scripture doth witnes Let vs rather beleeue wise and valiant men produced heereafter vpon the Theater who like vnto Iosua◅ spies depose ioyntly that God hath deliuered death into our hands that it is quencht for our sakes Next it is not true that all men flie death being called many haue bin greeued returning to health after some great sicknesse which they thought should haue swallowed vp their life Giue me leaue to speake this truth of my selfe being 120. leagues from my parents about 14. yeares since studying in a towne streightly besieged and famished I fell sicke of a bloudie flux whereof many dyed whereof my master was dead In this estate I was resolued to dye but when I found that God gaue me force to vanquish my disease I was verie melancholike in the beginning held it a losse to be recouered And therefore notwithstanding this opposition wee will close vp our discourse with Seneca saying That death is the cause that life is no martirdome The 20. Argument taken from the remouing of the euill of death No euill consisting in a falfe opinion and nothing in effect is to be feared Death is an euill consisting in a false opinion and nothing in effect c. IT is a great aduantage as great Captaines say to haue obserued and measured his enemy from head to foote Let vs in like manner obserue and measure death and we shall find it is but an Anatomy a vaine name a Picture and Image a scar-crow a bable a fantasticke feare an imaginary fire which some men see in an euening walking in Church-yards An ideot at the sight thereof would be amazed sweare that hee hath seene a spirit walking but a wiseman will vnderstand that it is an oyly exhalation which by agitation takes fire Ignorant opinion makes man beleeue that death is very euill when it is a priuation from all euil hee is amazed with a false alarme So women and weake spirits dare not remaine alone in their Chambers for that they imagine they shal see spirits and apparitions little children are afraid to see their parents masked Astianax could not endure the sight of Hector armed but lay aside these armes take away the maske you shall conuert their feare into assurance and their cries into ioy So pull away these false maskes of hideous lookes and the trembling cries of them that die they are but fained or sorrowes grownded in the aire of an imaginary euill So Cassander did tremble at the sight of Alexanders picture dead long before the table would not bite him yet hee quaked as if it had beene some furious beast the reason was that his imagination being impayred hee thought that Alexander was wonderfully in choller against him Wil you haue an apparent signe that in this horrible apprehension of death mans iudgement is troubled and therefore suspected to bee false The strongest and most vigorous the yongest and most iust do least feare the losse of life who in reason should apprehend it most if it were to be feared hauing more interest in it but old men and such as are subiect to the cholike stone and malefactors feare it without measure Maecenas tormented continually with a feauer was content to bee cut and mangled so as with all his paines hee might prolong his life How many Messales offenders would liue in torture or broken vpon the wheele so as they might not end their liues What is the reason of this but that his iudgement is peruerted beleeuing that all the paine he feeles shall be doubled in death If he be a reprobate and vnderstands it of the second death and not of the first whereof wee now discourse his iudgement is right but for a good man to thinke that there is any great paine in a naturall death hee erres much It is not the death said Aeschines but the violent passion against death which is horrible If they thinke there bee any discomodity in death sayd the old man Bassus let them know it comes from them that die not from death which frees them of all paine Pindarus sayth of man that he is but the dreame of a shaddow but let vs speake it and with more reason of death a dreame is false and a shaddow the opposition of a sollide body to the light So death the priuation of life is an euill dreamed and false Good God who can represent that which is not vnder what idea can the Painter imagine to draw it he will present vnto vs bones bound with sinewes without flesh and naked hauing a sythe in his hand this is something but be well aduised to thinke that death doth subsist beyond this representation as a liuing man doth subsist longer then his picture you should bee foully deceiued for take away this representation and all other imagination and you take away all that is of death for it is nothing at all therefore the portrait is false May a man paint a voice the which although it be inuisible yet it falls vnder the sence of hearing but death in what sence so euer you take it is incapable of all sence and by consequence not to bee drawne by any pencel What is death then it is a word of few letters which hath no subsistāce but in imagination nothing in nature nothing in effect We laugh at the Bourgondian spies who in their war against the French King Lewes 11. being sent to discouer the Country fled at the sight of certaine Thistles as if they had discouered a troupe of men at Armes If we had the vnderstanding to know death as the sight hath to distinguish thistles we should find that they are more ridiculous which fly amazed from the incounter of death for it is nothing at all whereas thistles are at the least pricking plants Let vs then say boldly That to feare that whereof neuer any man yet felt the sting to draw from a wandering fantasie proceeding from an vnsetled braine a true and sensible paine is a meere folly Oh God! what paine can there be at the very instant when life flies away in a body depriued of all sence Let a sicke body endure all the extremities of paine yet in death there is none at all doest thou not
yet beleeue it take the meÌ„bers of a liuing body cut off hacke them burne them yet they shall not feele any thing no more shall all the members of one body vnited in death The which Diogenes hath represented wittily although Cynically after his manner discoursing of burialls saying That being dead he wold bee onely cast vpon the ground But sayed his friends vnto him Will you be eaten by Dogs and birds Oh no sayd he lay aâ—…staffe by me that I may driue them away How canst thou doe it replyed they when thou shalt haue no sence What then sayd he shall the deuouring of beasts hurt me when I haue no feeling To conclude it is an apparent follie to feare death for the loue of this traÌ„sitorie life for this present life giues vs vnto death and death vnto eternall life as S. Ambrose teacheth thinkes it a pertinent reason in his booke of the happines of death Ch. 8. And as we cannot rife vp high in leaping vnlesse we strike the ground with the soles of our feete so the foule caÌ„not mount vp to heauen vntill she hath giuen a blow to this body of earth The 21. Argument taken from the discommoditie of life Whosoeuer shall tremble for the losse of nothing is vnwise The life of this world is nothing IT is a sentence as much propounded in words by Cicero as verified in effect of it selfe That all wise men dye quietly and willingly that such as dye murmuring and vnwillingly are indiscreete And in truth life is such as none but in coÌ„siderate men and such as mistake it will greeue for it According to the holy Philosophy life is but a shadow which takes life from heauen and is equall in her swift passage to the violeÌ„t motion of the heauens it is a grasse yesterday greene in the field to day cut vp dried and layed vp a flower yesterday flourishing to day withered the watch of a night a dreame a vapour which appeares for time then vanisheth againe And according to the voice of man life is a languishing death a course from one mother to another from a fleshly mother to a earthly it is a bubble a puffe a comming in going out c. As when an arrow is shott at a marke sayth Sal. Wise. 5 18. the ayre which is diuided sodainely closeth vp againe in such sort as the passage cannot be seene So we after we are borne presently fade away The Psalmist proceeds farther when he sayth that who so shold waigh man with nothing he should finde that nothing were more weightie But obserue what Aristotle saith being demanded what man was He is the example of weakenesse the spoyle of time the image of inconstancie the ballance of enuie and calamitie the rest is nothing but flegme choller Finally both according to God and men it is nothing Behold how life the which you will grant me is the fruition of time and what enioy wee of this time but the verie present which flowes away incessant ly It is a moate which is indiuisible and imperceptible whereon thou doest no sooner thinke but it passeth away and whilest thou art reading these short lines many nowes are vanished Make no accoumpt of that which is past nor of the future for all the time that is past vnto the first moment of the creation and all the time that is to come vnto the last point of the great last day haue no being but in your imagination there is but this present onely that hath essence but it is a point which stayeth not so small and so swift as nothing can hold it but it will escape It is the very Saturne which deuoureth all it hath engendred pleasures honor riches life make no rampar of pleasures for they are as suddainly changed into displeasures Boethius hath long since written it Of so fraile Nature is all humane pleasure That sudaine griefes make there their sharpest leasure And euermore those men are most afflicted That most we see to their delights addicted This life the seate of fluent pleasures changeth inconstantly like the Moone and more for the change of the Moone is but iâ—… her accident all light her body remaining still but liuing man changeth from one substance to another there remaiâ—…s nothing but the name The Moone as they say doth dayly aduance or retire three quarters of an houre and so much of her light increaseth or decreaseth and is alwayes different from that she was the night before and if our sight were sharp enough we should see this change to bee made euery minute the like is of our fading bodies which doe change from moment to moment Moreouer most part of the world exchange their liues for a very little the Souldier for a poor pay the Merchant for a little Merchandize and others for losse which shewes that their life is nothing or very little Saint Augustine seeing the Citie of Hippona besâ—…ged by enemies who were 〈◊〉 for the spoyle of it seeing death to swimme betwixt the eies of himselfe and his countriemen was wont to say That man is not great who holds the ruine of buildings and the death of men a great matter You shall see that your life is no great mat ter yea nothing if you compare it how long soeuer it be with all the time in generall that hath bin or shall be said Seneca to Martia you shall finde that all your age is not a graine of sand in regard of the sand of Affricke a droppe of water in respect of the Ocean for this is some proportion from one graine to many from one droppe of water to the sea but betwixt the life of man and Eternity there is none at all And aboue all that which shewes most plainely the vnprofitablenesse and vanity of the life of man is that a great part of life flies away in doing euill a great part in doing nothing and all in doing any other thing then well liuing as Seneca doth teach learnedly in his first Epistle If we obserue it wel wee will subscribe for a great part of our life is wasted in sleepe and walking and in our infancie to deceiue and pacific our froward dispositions and all in other things then in rest and tranquility or the sweete enioying of life and the pleasures which present themselues Whereas feare and hope afflicting vs doe possesse euery day yea euery houre of our age So as the Philosopher Zenon said rightly that man was not so poore of any thing as of time Let vs then conclude the same with Seneca That it imports not much to liue for slaues and stagges liue but it is a thing of great moment to die discreetly valiantly and honestly for none but wise men can doe it the reason is that the most ignorant saith Calicratides liue by the benefit of nature but to dye in the bed of honour that is by the vertue of man Plu. in Lacon The 22. Argument taken from things which do resemble
All braue Comedians bend their spirits wholly to act their parts well and reioyce at the Comedy Men liuing in the world are Comedians Therefore braue men should bend their spirits to liue wel and to ioy at the end of life THe Island of the Hermaphrodites begins his discourse with these verses The world 's a stage and man is a Comedy One beares the bable th' other acts the folly So Epictetus spake to the men of this time Imagine that you play a morall Scene vpon this Theater of the world in the which you act what part it pleaseth the master if short short if long loÌ„g If he wil haue thee represent a begger or a lame man a King or a rogue thou must act it as naturally as thou canst and onely feare to faile but in the end clap hands in signe of ioy The good and the end are conuertible tearms saith Plato in Philebus Aristonimus sayd that the life of man was like a Theater on the which the most wicked held the first rankes Aeneas Syluius writes that our life is a comedy whereof the last act is death He is then no good Poet sayth hee that doth not order al the acts wel and discreetly vnto the end he would say that it is not sufficient to liue well but we must die well vntill which no man can be held happie by the saying of Solon yeaeof Saloman for man sayd he shall be knowne by his children Caesar Augustus lying in the bed of death and feeling himselfe at the last periode of life sayd often to his friends Haue I acted my personage well in this place haue I pronounced my part well had I a good grace What thinke you Goe then giue a Plaudite and clappe your hands This life is a verie stage on which some mount vp to be actors others stay below to be spectators and then after the Catastrophe euery one must make his retreat into the last house If the ancients in their simplicitie had reason to vse this comparison wee in this age haue much more for we liue not at this day but by shewes and fictions in most the outward countenance is the maske of the inward man dissembling which hath euer increased since the Kings time who would haue his sonne learne no other Latiue but these words Quinescit dissimulare nescit regnare not to defend himselfe carefully but to practise it seriously during his whole reigne In olde time they detested that speech of Lysanders That when the Lyons skinne will not serue wee must sowe on the Foxes but at this day there are none more esteemed and honoured then such as can cunningly offer their seruice vpon all occasions who can make a shewe of friendship to allure who haue their welcome and at parting many submissions and humble conges But it is to lull him asleepe and to practise some supercherie they wilkisse the hand which they would gladly see burnt Let euery man take heede of his most inward friend â—…aigh Ieremie c. 〈◊〉 Trust not in any brother for euery brother makes a practise to supplant and a bosome friend goes away detracting If then how much more now Let then our courteous Courtiours be suspect vnto vs and see what the fore named treatie of Hermaphrodites sayeth in the Chap. of the Entregent This booke represents to the life the wicked abominations of France if we vnderstand it as it is written the prohibition for the allowaÌ„ce mean thy antiphrasis Finally at this â—…day the most peopled towne are full of Monsters which counterfet the voice of pastors to draw men vnto them eate them like bread Oh what safety is there among so many wolues disguised like sheepe among so many enemies carrying the face of friends Vppon this occasion Salomon cryes out in his time That he had beheld all the wrongs which were done vnder the Sunne and seeing the teares of them that suffer wrong haue no comfort for that they which doe the wrong are the stronger Ecceles 4. In these times the oppressed not onely finde no support but they meet with deceitfull men who vnder the color of Iustice deuoure the remainder of their substaÌ„ce Oh whatsafety This peruers age is a very Sodome God attends but our retreat to rainedown fire brimstone and burning flames Let vs beware when the Angell of the Eternall shal take vs by the hand when the voyce of God shall call vs let vs not looke backe againe like vnto Lots wife by a treacherous greefe for this treacherous life but rather let vs sing with ioy the song of the Lambe who hath giuen himselfe for our sinnes to the end he may retyre vs out of this wretched world as S. Paul speaks The 23. Argument taken from the effects of Death Whosoeuer hath a will to bee sacred and inuiolable should affect death Euery liuing man should haue that will THIS Argument is drawne from the Law of nature which speaking by Chilon Solon doth pronounce the dead to bee very happy and forbids to curse the dead and in truth a man cannot wrong his honour more then in speaking iniuriously of him who cannot answere It is the fact of cowards to fight with the tong against them that can make no reply and to pull a dead man out of his graue It is a duty of piety to hold them that are departed out of this world sacred inuiolable If the last words of a dying man be blessings as Iob doth witnesse desiring them to come vpon him as Iacob did practise it vpon the Patriarkes as Saint Ambrose doth expound as experience doth teach what esteeme should wee make o him whose soule being separated from the body doth conuerse with Angells in heâ—…n And is it not very reasonable not to depraue them which cease to be seeing they are not to bee layd hold on but it is most iust to make an end of hatred by the death of thine enemy Pausanias King of Sparta vnderstood it and did practice it who hauing slaine Mardonius Lieutenant to the King of Persia in battell he was aduised by Lampon a man of great authority to cause him to bee hanged for that he had done the like to King Leonidas No no sayd hee that were to dishonor my selfe and the Country which thou doest so magnifie if I should bee cruell against a dead man it were an act befitting Barbarians and not Grecians who cannot allow of such disorders And in truth it is the act of fearefull confusion to tears in sunder the skin of a dead Lyon It is an act befitting the fain the arted 〈◊〉 before Troy to insult ouer dying Hector But it is the property of a generous Lyon to resist them that make head against him and to passeon and not to strike him that falls flat to the earth like a dead man 〈◊〉 Nature speakes heere It is a villanie and an vnworthy foolery to fight against the dead it is for
kind of death was the worst That sayth hee which the Lawes haue ordained inferring thereby that a naturall death is not euill but that which crimes haue deserued the which is not giuen by nature but by a hangman and yet not so much by the execu tioner who is but the instrument as by a villanie perpetrated which is the true cause So sayd S. Peter Let none of you suffer as a murtherer theese malefactor or too curious in other mens affaires But if any one suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God in that behalfe The 24. Augument taken from the testimonie of wise men All wise men in the conflict of Death depose that death is not euill But that is true which all wise men depose c. THe troupes of Christian Martirs heathen Philosophers marching so boldly vnto death are so many witnesses without reproch to conuince them of falshood which hold death to be so great an euill Let vs be carefull lest this blasphemie creep into our thoughts that they were in despaire or mad No no their verie enemies dare not speake it haâ—…ng knowne that they were for the most part men famous in pietie iustice vertue and wisedome and for such as were recommended by all men The Ecclesiasticall Historie is gored with thousands of such Martires the author of the tables hath set downe some in the end of his first booke of whom I make no mention But behold the manly courage of Blandina who by her ioyfull countenance doth summon vs vnto death whereunto she doth march with such a grace and state as if she had gone to a nuptiall feast Then followes happie Tiburtins conuerted vnto Christ by Vrban in the yeare 227 who marching vpon burning coales seemed to tread vpon Roses These Christians with infinite others as well ancient as moderne had neuer any horror of death but haue desired it yea sought it as a refreshing and refection to their bodies soules but for that no man doubts but the zeale of Christians hathmade them continue constant vnto the death and the diuine power had so fortified their resolutioÌ„s that neither their reason could be swallowed vp nor drowned by the horror of persecution Let vs come to others of a multitude let a few suffise Socrates accused by the Athenians to thinke ill of the Gods for that he reiected pluralitie adored an vnitie was condemned to dye before the which he would first censure his iudges saying To feare death O my Lords Areopagites is to make shew to be wise and not to be for it is to seem to know death to be euil which they vnderstand not He did so little apprehend death as when as eloquent Lisias had giuen him an Oration artificially penned which hee should vse for his Apologie whereby hee should be absolued he read it and found it excellent yet he sayd vnto Lycias If thou hadst brought me Sicionian shoes admit they had beene fit for my foote yet would I not vse them for that they were not decent for me So thy discourse is most eloquent and fluent but not fit for men that are graue and resolute The executioner then presented him poysoÌ„ in a cup which Socrates tooke with a constant hand and demanded of him as a sicke patient would doe of the Physition to recouer health how he should swallow it then without any stay drunk it vp after which he walked a little then tooke his bed his boy vncouering him felt his parts to grow cold Socrates being wak't directed his speech to Criton who aboue all others wished him a longer life and to make him thinke of it had propounded vnto him his children his deare friends that for their sakes if not for his owne hee would preserue his life which was necessarie for them No no answered hee God who hath giuen me my childreÌ„ wil care for them when I shall be gone from â—…ce I shall finde friends either like vnto you or better neither shall I bee long depriued of your company for you must soone come to the same place Then as if he had by this potion recouered his health hee cried â—…ut O Criton we owe a Cock to Aesculapius be not forgetfull to sacrifice vnto him Let vs obserue that in the last passages of life he was in no sort amazed but dying ioyfully comforted his suruiuing friend and let vs not doubt but hee who was the first among the seuen Sages of Greece knew before Demosthenes that which this Orator spake couragiously to Phiâ—… King of Macedon who threatned him to cause his head to be câ—…t off Well saith hee if thou giuest mee death my Countrey will giue mee immortality And doublesse Socrates liues and will liue eternally so the suruiuing hauing seene the assurance of his death held him most happy as going to liue another life and in another place And Aristippus that ioyfull Philosopher beeing demanded in what sort Socrates was dead In that manner said he that I my selfe desire Inferring that death was more to bee wished for then a happy life Let vs heare a second that is Theramenes to whom they presented a great cup of poyson the which he dranke resolutely and returned the cup to Critiâ—… the most cruell of the 30. Tyrants which had condemned him Theramenes therein alluding to the manner obserued at this day in Germanie which is that hee which drinkes to any one sends him the same glasse full of wine that hee may pledge him These deathes are full of courage but behold a woman dying who exceedes them all and that onely to incourage her husband to dy it is Arria the wife of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This woman being aduertised that Petus was condemned to what death hee would choose went vnto him to perswade him both by word the effect to dislodge out of this life she had a naked dagger vnder her gowne and giuing her husband heâ—… last â—…well shee thrust her selfe to the hart and drawing it forth againe with the like courage she held it vnto Petus and spake these her last words vnto him Pâ—… non doleâ—… Pete O my deere Petus it doth not paine mee and then dyed Let vs seale vp these examples with two women who commonly doe passionatly loue the presentation of their children yet a certen Lacedemonian hauing heard that her Son fighting valiantly had beene slaine in battaile O sayd shee this was a braue Sonne not lamenting the death of her Sonne but reioycing at his vertue Another hearing that her Sonne returned safe from battaile and that hee had â—…d shed cryed out vnto him There is a bad report of thee thou must eyther deface it or not liue holding it better to dye then to suruiue an Ignominie Obiection If the greatest fauorites of God haue feared death it is to bee feared But Dauid Ezechias and others fauored by God feared Death and especially Iesus Christ the only and wel-beloued Sonne of God feared
it is rather for griefe that hee must dye or some other distemperature and not the death which doth cause some troublesome alteration in his sinewes sensible parts As for death which proceeds from diseases there are some long others short If they be long the paine is little for that nature doth accustome it selfe to that which comes by degrees it turnes to a habite and hee feares no griefe or very little there being nothing but the suddain alteration which nature cannot endure that which causeth pain is that which changeth the good temperature the which in very long languishing diseases comes slowly and insensibly As for example in an Hectick feuer they grow leane and consume away by little and little and dye with paine which is in a manner imperceptible there is nothing but an heauinesse of the spirits but in their bodyes feele no paine It is euen so of the paine of the Lights whereon the rheume distilling it doth consume them by little and little as a spout of water doth a stone so as in the end this infirmity brings the patient insensibly to death As for short diseases the paine is short What great pain can there be in a swoun ding in an Appoplexie that happens by the sudaine dissipation of the spirits What great paine can a moment of time bring to man But you wil reply that there are diseases wonderfully sharpe It is true but if you will obserue them they are least dangerous for death whereof our discourse is Nature giuing death knowes how to mortifie the members so wel and to weaken the vertue of the sinewes as man cannot discerne when death seazeth on him no more thē when sleep surprizeth him It is an Aphorisme of Hipocrates When a sicke body saith he feeles no paine playes with the couering of his bed and pulls off the wooll it is a signe of death and no likelihood of life what paine then when as hoping to recouer and feeling ease of his paine hee shall dye As for famine and thirst which quench the spirit of life that happens very seldome and the Annales in 16. ages haue scarce obserued two the one vnder the Empire of Honorius at what time in the Theater at Rome there was this strange voyce heard You must set a price vpon humane flesh The other vnder Iustinian at what time they did not only eate mans flesh but euen the excrements of men Here in truth is great horror but little paine neither can I beleeue whatsoeuer they say that he which dies of hun ger feeles no great torment examine it by your selfe whē you haue fasted long you shall feele a great debility a great appetite or a great heate in all your members but no great paine it is in the sinewes to feele where the paine lies which sinewes do not suffer any thing in the extreamity of hunger or thirst but the principal parts which receiue the nourishment therefore in this most pittifull and pitty is here taken for the paine Let the death of Charles 7. the French King be an example vnto vs who being full of suspition and way wardnesse entertained in that humor by the dayly reports of his household flatterers that they would attempt against his person yea a Captaine in whom he trusted most assured him that they meant to poyson him he gaue such credit to this aduice as he resolued neither to eate nor drinke in which capricious humor hee continued seuen dayes But in the end being prest not with paine but by his Phisitions and house hold seruants who laid before him the danger of life whereinto he did voluntarily bring his person when hee would haue eaten he could not by reason sayth the History the passages of the stomake were shrunke Let vs weigh these last words and acknowledge that this naturall fire in vs wherewith the lampe of our life is kindled is like vnto the Elementary alwayes actiue wherefore wanting his ordinary nutriment hee turnes himselfe violently vpon that which beares it vpon the radicall humidity the which it doth waste and consume in a short time and this humidity being consumed the members remaine dry and without vigour so as when they offer them the accustomed remedy hauing lost their vsuall vertue they disgest it not but cast it vp againe It is the same reason why such as obserue a certaine houre for their meales when this houre is come they feele certaine motions of an appetite in their stomacke which requires meate But if they passe this houre either by fasting or by diets they lose their appetites for that this heate being frustrated of his ordinary repast falls either vpon the peccant humor or that failing vpon the vitall humour and as we suffer it to do more or lesse so we receiue more or lesse preiudice Now if in the first and most sensible touches of this natural heate we feele no great torment as euery man may try in the religious fasts of the Church which passe the ordinary time of eating three or foure houres I cōclude necessarily that the longer they abstaine from meate the lesse they suffer for the heate decaying still by the want of nourishment the actiue vertue also decreaseth and his subiect the body suffereth lesse by such a languishing action also the body which for his part decayes in force is daily lesse susceptible of paine vntill that all his humor being exhausted and his heate euaporated hee must die Last in ranke come good men who are vniustly put to death by Tyrants to whom the paine is sensible according to the horror of the punishment But I answere First that it happens seldome God holding in his power the Tyrannous resolutions of great men that they may not execute their wicked designes against his seruants wickednesse shall neuer preuaile so much she shal neuer conspire so strongly against vertue but the name of wisedome shall alwayes remaine sacred and venerable Secondly God who suffers it giues them ease in their torments knowes how to restraine and suspend their paines as hee did to his seruants Sidrac Mizac and Abednego in the burning furnace as they go ioyfully to death and sing the praises of the Lord cheerefully in the middest of the fire as hath bene seene in the Martyrs And thus much for this point But if after all these reasons they persist still in a fantasticall apprehension of some great paine in the article of death wee will adde that it is not fitting to accuse death it is life the remainders whereof cause the paine and death is the end Wherefore Diogenes being demanded if death were euil How can it be sayd hee seing we neuer feele it present and that which is absent cannot bee hurtfull to any man whilest that man hath feeling he hath life but if he bee dead hee hath no feeling and that which is not felt is not hurtfull And therefore hee concludes that it was not death which was euill but the way to
death which was miserable which if we feare what is all the life said he but a path tending vnto death And S. Augustine aboue named means no other thing whilst they haue feeling they are yet liuing if liuing they are rather sensible before death then in death by whose comming all sense is lost The 25. Argument taken from the indignity That which is repugnant to one of the principall vertues is vnworthy of man The extreame feare of death is repugnant to fortitude one of the principall vertues WE meane not here to speak of bodily force but of that of the minde by the which Caesar but of a weake body did more braue exployts thē Hercules There is nothing more worthy of a man then Fortitude a vertue whereunto he should aime al the actions of his life for that alone doth neuer faile to yeeld a recompence either aliue or dead saith Seneca Epist. 81. and hee doth not perish that dies adorned with vertue saith another Saint Augustine confirmes this when he attributes the disdain of life and the contempt of death to the force of the minde The greater and more desperate the danger is the more doth magnanimity increase in a generous minde to free all difficulties that hee shall encounter And seeing that the end is better and more excellent then that which tends vnto it hee will conclude with reason That hee were better to lose his life then vertue But Fortitude one of the foure cardinall vertues besides the generall hath a particular reason why man should seeke to preserue it in her greatest perfection for by it hee enioyes the true tranquility of the minde the which as Cicero reports is nothing else but a quiet sweete and pleasing disposition of the soule in all the euents of life Which carries two Crownes patience in paine resolution in death By which the confirmation of the Minor is inferred there beeing nothing that doth more oppugne and in the end ouerthrow all force and resolution then the extreame feare of death Feare and especially that of death beeing destitute of reason iudgement wounds the soule with amazement alienates his right sense makes it idle and without action it doth waste him vndermine him and consume him as rust doth Iron and the worme an apple A man alwayes shaking with feare is without heart and courage but halfe a man such as histories report Claudius Caesar the 5. Emperour to haue beene whom nature had begun but not finished for that hee was base and faint-hearted Moreouer feare by the terrible obiect of death causeth the heate which is the chariot of force to retire into the bottome of the belly in stead of drawing it about the heart as courage doth so as the heart is alwayes panting and which is worse whereas it should extend it selfe by dilatation in his natural motion hee shrinkes himselfe vp against nature whereby there followes a great debility in all the members of the body and sometimes death as it happened to Lycas who vppon the very report of Hercules force was so terrified as beeing retired into the corner of an Altar dyed there But a generous man resolute to death will not feare any thing that shall present it selfe to crosse him in the course of his duty like vnto Anaxarchus whom Alexander threatning to hang he said Threaten thy Courteours who feare death for my part I care not whether I rot aboue or vnder the earth Socrates also beeing blamed by one for that hee did a thing which would cause his death he answered My friend thou art not well informed if thou thinkest that a man of honor shold apprehend danger yea death in his actions but only consider whether they bee iust or vniust good or bad Such was the courage of the Prophet Micheas when he resisted King Achas and told Israel of his sinnes being filled with vertue by the Spirit of the Eternal with iudgement and with force as he himselfe speakes Thirdly feare not onely hurts it selfe causing his arms to fall out of his hands and laying him open to his enemies darts but like vnto the plague it infects others And therefore King Agamemnon would not that a rich man and a fearefull should goe to the warres of Troy but to stay him he would haue sent him a distaffe if he would not eouer his shame honestly But on the other side a valiant man finds meanes to free himselfe in the greatest dangers So Aristomenes a Lacedemonian being taken prisoner and deliuered bound to two souldiers hee found meanes to burne his bonds and his flesh to the quicke then falling couragiously vpon his guardes hee slue them and so escaped It is a common saying among men That vertue hath no vertue if it be not in paine and the greatest paine in the opinion of man is when hee is at the point of death then should a valiant heart shew his inuincible courage to vāquish this terror of death It is this courage which made Saint Paule to say That if he did serue for an aspersion vpon the sacrifice seruice of faith hee was ioyfull It is the same Spirit that made Ignatius to say beeing condemned by Infidels to be cast to wild beasts I am the wheate of God I shall bee ground in the teeth of beasts to bee made pure and cleane bread If the Trumpet which sounds an alarme be pleasing to a valiant Souldier what shall death bee to a vertuous man when shee shall sound with her siluer Trumpet ordained by God to call the assembly the Church to heauen and to make men leaue the earth where they haue no a biding place what feare we They that haue the chollicke and the gout are not so much terrified with the returne of their paine and can vertuous men so much feare death which hath not so much paine no none at all seeing that what we feel whē death approcheth is of the re mainder of life not of death to what end serues this cowardly feare Fly an honorable death of the one side and a shamefull end will find thee of the other So Sisera left his Armie and fled into the house of Iahel but when he thought to take his rest Iahel came and draue a nayle of the Tabernacle into the temples of his head and slue him But to haue this courage and resolution to resist the terror of death it is not sufficient to speake in the time of health as Souldiers do of their valour at the table learned discourses sayth Seneca make no demonstrations of true magnanimity the most feareful will sometimes speak more boldly then they shold We must meditate seriously of death according to the obiects which are presented vnto vs and not make any difficulty to go and comfort our dying neighbours for it is better to enter into the house of mourning then of seasting sayth the wise man To offer ourselues to al dangers of death when our vocation doth call vs like
coniecture proued true for presently an earthquake swallowed vp the lodging with this Mignion of Fortune and al them of the family euen in the sight of S. Ambrose being not yet farre off Prosperity the stepdame of vertue plants and waters whom shee pleaseth but is soone wearied by the inconstancy of her loue shee supplants them not without amazement shee applies her selfe vnto them for a time by some miserable happines but in the end shee crosseth them and ouerthrowes them and therefore Valerius Maximus sayd truely That greatnes riches were nothing but frailty misery and like vnto little childrens babies toies and what hope then is there in such things But some Idolatrous flatteror of Princes will perswade them that all things yeeld vnder their power and vndergo what yoake it shall please them to impose To this flattery I will oppose the sincere confession made by Canute a powerfull King of England who adds words to the effect for a memorable example to al the monarchs of the world Seeing the sea begin to flow he commanded his chaire to be set vpon the shore sate himselfe downe in it and still obserued the waues as they approched Then the Prince begaÌ„ this speech Stay ô sea the Land whereon I sit is mine thou art on it and in that respect thou doest belong to mee neuer yet any one gaine-sayd mee but was punished I forbid thee to mount any higher beware thou doest not touch nor wet thy Lords garments The sea had no more respect then eares but trembling at the voyce of a greater Monarke came on his course and did wet the Kings feete which was the thing he expected then hee added Let all the Inhabitants of the world know that the power of Kings is so weake as the least creature guided by the Almighty disdaines it Whereunto the embleme of Alcâ—… doth allude representing the Beetle a little weake animall yet banding against the Eagle findes meanes to reuenge himselfe for creeping into her feathers he is carried by her into her nest where he breakes her egs and doth extinguish the race We reade of Sapores King of Persia who hauing besieged Nifibis a Christian Towne hee was chased away by an Army of Hornets and Waspes which succors they did attribute to the prayers of Ieames the faithfull Pastor of that Church I omit the miserable Prelate of the Abbey of Fulden in Germany who was pursued in the end deuoured by rattes notwithstanding all his force and deuices whereof the Tower built in the middest of the riuer of Rhine beares witnesse Plinie makes mention of Conies which did vndermine ouerthrow a Towne in Spaine Moules ruined another in Thessaly Frogs made the Inhabitants of a certaine Towne in Gaule to abandon the place But it is well knowne to all men how God incountered the arrogancy of Pharao King of Egypt with armies of diuers smal beasts If the lâ—…ast wormes of the earth opposing against the great enterprizes of great men ouerthrow them and what hope then is there in this world What shall wee say more but with Lipsius That the most shining Diamond of constancy a vertue so necessary in the inconstancy of Fortune is not to bee transported with hope nor feare a supernaturall ornament neere vnto God which makes man free from passions exempt from the insulting of Fortune and makes him a free King subiect to God only whose seruice is to reigne as the wiseman sayeth The 29. Argument taken from the vnprofitablenesse of life The freeing from a most vaine vanity should not make man sad Death is a freeing from a most vaine vanity SAlomon a powerful King wise and rich hauing sought examined and tasted all that is excellent pleasant happy in this world yet in the end hee cried out with a true voyce in the booke of truth Vanity of vanities all is but vanity The Paraphrase vpon this Sermon doth teach vs that the end of it is to let the world know That they deceiue themselues to their great confusion which either within aboue or vnder the world hope to finde any thing so firme wherein there is assured contentment no sayeth hee there is nothing in the world but is inconstant without stay fraile most vaine And in truth when man hath past his youth and leaues his passions comming to a more perfect age his life promiseth felicity yet vpon condition that hee shall imploy himselfe with all his force either to heape vp store of riches or to purchase much credit or to wallow in voluptuousnesse but after that hee hath toyled turmoyled and killed both body and soule she leaues him empty lost finding her deceite too late For Had man of wealth such store That much still heap't vp more And held in his free hold A spring of liquid gold His coffers seeing fill'd With treasures still instill'd Pearles that best choises please Brought from the bloody seas And in rich labour could To breake his fruitefull mould A hundred Oxen yoke Yet would desire still choke His throate with thirst of more And yet of all the store His heart affects to haue Hee carries nothing to his graue Euen as Boetius exclaimes against sencelesse greedinesse for in truth all shee hath is nothing shee desires all shee hath not and that is infinite she gapes alwaies after gaine one lucre sommons another and she holds al lost that she cannot attaine vnto Finally Couetousnesse is the anuile whereon are forged the chaines of iniquity to binde and â—…ast couetous men headlong into hel these chaines are foure Impiety Inhumanity forgetfulnesse of Gods Iudgements and Distrust whereby we may inferâ—…e that in stead of happinesse there is nothing heere but misery Now comes the second Ambition which knowes no bounds and hath neither end nor meane if shee possesseth this day a whole Countrey to morrow shee will seeke to conquer a new Kingdome after this conquest she wold seaze vpon all the world and theÌ„ pierce through the earth to finde new words a strange thing as Valerius saith that man should thinke his glory hath too streighr a lodging in this world which notwithstanding was sufficient for al the gods but it is more strange that man should bee so tormented for the enioying of a handfull of earth who hath the fruition of the Sunne the heauen and of all the elements in regard wherof this earthly Globe is nothing for the Sunne alone by the iust computation of Philosophers is a 166. times bigger then the earth Why should a little portion of this little earth breed him so much care Hee that hath more should he care for lesse Man hath the common enioying of the principal of life of the sea heauen and stars and must he for a little point of earth depriue himselfe of the quiet enioying of al these things which be farre greater An ambitious man is alwayes shaken with feare and musâ—…led with enuy he feares continually the crosses of fortune
It is the excesse of the feare of death I striue to prune and root out shewing that vanity and corruption is so vnited to life that all which liue yea the greatest spirits wallow in this mire and therefore death which giues an end to this vanity and corruption should cause no feares to reply that it is the abuse and not the life we may answer againe that the abuse is generall since the fall of the first man no man can be exempt if hee be well obserued Let Diogenes go suddainely with a torch lighted into the most frequent market of Athens nay into the most famous royall Faire of France to search yet shal he not find one and I know not whether hee himselfe which could so taxe others will bee found without blame and whether he as it hath bene reproched vnto him did not more glory in his Tub then Alexander in his Empire Oh how easie it is to speake and lie Vertue consists in practise and action there will not any one be found in this age that is not tainted more or lesse with one of the aboue named vices or with all three wee can giue no instance All men suffer themselues to be led to some vaine hope which they attend from day to day which in the end deceiues them and death deliuers them from this deception why then should it be so terrible vnto them But represent one out of ten thousand who hath learned wherein the true end of life doth consist that is to say in the tranquillity of the mind in continuall action according vnto vertue yea according vnto piety as hee knoweth and striues to haue the spirit of a wise man whereof Seneca speakes epist. 60. that is like vnto the world aboue the Moone alwayes cleere Yet must he confesse that he is in a wondeful cōbate yea in insupportable paine being tossed with contrary windes of diuers passions which neuer leaue him no more then his body or flesh Sometimes the immoderate loue of transitory things stings him sometimes the hatred of eternall things sollicites him or prophane ioy or the melancholy of the minde layes hold of him and consumes him if vaine hope leaue him then furious despaire gets hold or boldnes thrusts him on to mischiefe or feare retires him from good and furious choller transports him beyond the bounds of reason so many passions so many cords to bind him so many assaults so many paines if it succeed not wel and most commonly it proues contrary to his proiect for this heauy flesh this sensuall concupiscence which hee is to incounter dawes him stil to the ground But harken how that great Apostle more vertuous then all the Philosophers together for that hee had the gift of the Spirit of God in a higher degree heare how in the like conflict he cries out Miserable man that I am who shall deliuer mee from the body of this death If this seruant of God liuing the life of Iesus Christ yet for the mortal assaults which he felt tearmes this present life death and were death a deliuerance what feare wee in death that wee do not salute it rather as the safe port from all the stormes and tempests of this life full of baites and snares as S. Augustine sayth Let vs feale vp this discourse with the ring of Seneca which is That the condition of all men imployed is miserable and that most miserable which attends no other thing but his imployments hee taxes the greatest part of men who like vnto Liuius Drusus from their infancy to their dying day giue themselues no truce alwayes in action in trauell of minde or body if they meete with any pleasure they passe it ouer lightly without taste if with displeasure they are toucht to the quicke Finally they run so swiftly as they looke not to their way they thinke not of their life and cannot say what it is all actions shall bee pleasant but that which is proper to man which is to haue the spirit purged giuen to Philosophy and to the meditation of that which concernes man in the world Let vs then say with reason O vanity of vanities this is nothing but vanity The 30. Argument taken from the restoring of mankind Whatsoeuer being lost shal bee powerfully restored to vs againe should not trouble vs in the losse Life being lost shal be powerfully restored c. IF thou beest a Christian Christ commands thee thy faith doth bind thee to beleeue the Resurrection of the flesh in the which by the powerfull voyce of the Creator raysing them vp which sleepe in the dust the life which thou hadst left shal bee restored vnto thee againe with most pretious interests But if depriued of the eyes of this faith thou canst not see the beginning of the creation of the world seeing that by faith as the Apostle doth witnesse wee vnderstand that the ages haue bene ordained yet as a miscreant thou doest beleeue the eternity and fatality of the world let vs admit this supposed truth to bee true know then that the limited reuolution of the heauens being ended and al the order of causes chained together returned to the same point in the which they hold all things ballanced in an equal weight know I say that this same concatenatiō of causes by a necessary reuolution wil restore thee to life yea to the same estate in the same place in the same positure thou art in at this present so as you which reade these things or heare them read shall be the same at the same time reading or hearing It is the true extraction which moued that great Zoroastres to assure that one day al men should take life againe Plato was of the same opinion saying That after the returne of the eight spheare which was in thirty six thousand yeares all things should in like manner returne The reason there is nothing made new vnder the Sun and there is nothing but what hath bene and may returne hereafter So the Sun withdrawing his quickning influence with his body from our Zenith the trees being withered remaine without fruit without any verdure without leaues If thou hadst not seene it the yeares past yet thou mayest in some sort beleeue that the Sun should returne and by his returne giue that vegetatiue vertue that springing sap sweete smelling spirit to herbes and trees which thou didst hold depriued of that power and so they were for this life which is in them in the beginning of Winter descends from the branches to the body and so to the roote but the same gracious Star which by his retyring had caused this death returning drawes backe by a wonderful regression and reuolution of nature this vegetatiue vertue from the earth to the roots to the body and to the branches and makes it to be seen and smelt by the buds blossomes leaues and fruites A dead man and one liuing is all one sayd Heraclitus hee that watcheth and the sleeper
and to satisfaction by works The feare of the Lord is the beginning of wisedom sayth the wise man Man then being raysed a degree higher then woman in contemplation if he doth vse his knowledge rightly submitting himselfe wholy to God hee shall be much more zealous to his seruice as it happened to S. Iohn the Disciple which Iesus Christ loued aboue the rest but for that they are oftē puft vp they abuse it for pride is a spiritual poyson which spoyles all as it happened to Belzebub therefore most of our learned men are not so religious as women ignorant people who being gouerned by a moderat contemplation doe husband with all humilitie their moderate knowledge of God the affection in this feminine sexe is commonly more zealous then in the other Finally by the reuerence which is stronger in him this sexe feares to offend God and to make the holy Ghost heauy by whom he is sealed vntill the day of redemption as S. Paul speakes it is not feare onely then that begets religion for then Deere Conies and other fearefull Creatures should bee more religious Moreouer it is no generall rule that women are more religious if it bee not at this time which is as barren in deuout men as it is fertill in many religions for wee shall finde as many men recorded for Martyrs as women and in the Catalogue of the Apostles the first Architects of the Christian Churches we shall not find the name of any womē they are not suffered to speake in the Church And if the Elephant doth therein seeme to imitate man they are but shewes and gesticulations hauing no deuotion in the heart which is the essence of religion and what hee doth is by the instinct of his owne temper which approcheth neere vnto that of man And what doth Aelian others report so memorable of him but that hee turnes vp his s◅out towards the Sun and Moone as if hee did worship them doth not the flower called Heliotropium more it being weighty turnes round about lightly as the Sunne goeth To the 3. The impostor sayth that the soule is kindled with a desire of immortality to the end it may bee stirred vp to vortue it is well spoken for true vertue in this world is the sole and true good of man which makes him worthy of the heauenly beatitude which layes hold of a vertuous soule but this vertue without this immortality is a poison to man keeping him from running headlong to all carnall and vicious pleasures so as they be delightfull and as many Philosophers and men of God as shall crie out against the riots of the flesh they are so many tormenters but the soule is immortal and vertue is or should be requested and therefore one sayd long ago That a man were better to cast himselfe headlong into the sea then to be tyrannized by vice And on the other side Plaustus wil say that there is no price so excellent as vertue that it marcheth before al things liberty health life goods kinsfolke country children are defended and maintained by it And Claudian sings that from a high Tower she laughes at mortal things for that she is certaine of her immortality Finally she is rightly painted treading death vnder her feete for she alone swims is assured to escape spoile shipwracke as the Philosopher Stilpon did fitly teach King Demetrius who enquiring of him if he had lost nothing in the warres No sayd he for that vertue which I esteeme aboue all thing is not subiect to pillage But beasts replies hee flye death also Answere To speake properly beasts flie not from death for they are wholly ignorant what it is they will see the knife made sharpe to cut their throates and not be moued but being endued with the sense of feeling as with the other senses they will crie struggle when they feele a pricking or cutting or any other paine Some beasts of pleasure some birds for delight are cunningly taken by men to bee nourished daintily the which in their taking will torment themselues more then if they had the stroake of death To the 4. he sayth that the hart let vs adde to helpe him milles clockes and such like are in continuall action which notwithstanding cease in the end of their motion but let vs answere that there is difference betwixt a naturall action or one that is artificially forced and that which flowes freely and voluntarily without intermission or rest such as is the action of the soule in her thoughts and desires which wee maintaine to bee a true signe of her immortality as for that which wee did alledge of her continuall Vigilancy whilest the body sleepeth when as by assured dreames shee falls vpon the time to come hee cannot reply any thing to this but that dogs dreame I deny it Their barking and the other actions they do sleeping as well as waking proceede from a certain temperature into which they fall as in our selues in the brutall part by the gathering together of certaine grosse humors about the heart being prest we are forced to cry out The obiection to the 5. is his confirmation for if man abused by his imagination seeking the good encounters that which is bad he is twise miserable in his dessignes in his euents True it is man is subiect to so many miseries in this life as at euery step hee meetes with a thousand if hee thinkes to haue found any pleasure it is suddainly drowned with a floud of teares this did the Comedian Plautus vnderstand saying that mans age is so composed as it hath pleased the gods that pleasure should haue care for companion yea if any good happeneth presently some discommodity followes in greater abundance And Ouid sayd it was a vertue to abstaine from a smiling pleasure Horace he bids chase away pleasure it cost too deere And this made Lucretius though an Epicure to blame men who were too greedy of this life in these words What is there here O man of such delight Whose want so ruthlesse seemes in her despight Thou fear'st O foole and shak'st at thought of death That through al tempest brings where blowes no breath Our aduersary goes on and presumes that man may liue happily in this world if he will Answere Without doubt he would for no man takes counsell if he shal be happy he neuer troubles himselfe to choose felicity but for the meanes to attaine vnto it as Aristotle sayth hee neuer desires any hurt but vnder a shew of good for that goodnesse is the proper obiect of the will the diuell chooseth our euill for his owne good holding it a great benefit vn to him if many perish Man then by this desires to bee happy if he may by the discourse of the aduersary how is it possible that no man in the world neither hath nor shall bee truely happy by his owne faculties The true felicity of man is to be
Olaus Magnus by certaine Venetian Ambassadors by a Iacopin of Vlmes others but I leaue the interpretation free to the iudgement of the reader Thirdly if it were a worke without the compasse of reasō Plutarque Herodotus nor Plato wold euer haue beene credited in writing that one Thespesius Aristeus and Erus were raised vp againe Plinie who beleeued nothing but what hee saw among many that were raysed vp he reports of a woman which was dead seuen dayes and raised againe and that one Gabienus a valiant souldier of Caesars being put to death by order of iustice and left vpon the publike place was found afterwards speaking and asking for Pompey who came vnto him and had much speech with him Melchior Flauian makes mention of a woman whom hee had seene whose name was Mellula neere vnto Damas in Syria raysed vp againe the 6. day after her death in the yeare 1555. God will bring such tokens to assure the world of a future and vniuersall Resurrection As for the Maxime that there is no returning againe to the habite it is abusiue not only to God who can do all but euen to nature and to the order of the world which hath his forces limited So in a little child whose teeth haue beene pulled out the vegetatiue vertue will bring vp new So we reade of a certaine Abbesse who being an 100. yeares olde grewe young againe had her monethly courses her teeth put forth againe her haire grew black the wrinckles of her face filled vp Finally shee became as fresh and as faire as shee had beene at the age of 20. yeeres And if wee may beleeue histories she was not alone but followed and preceded by many others The naturall vertue at a certaine time as trees in the Spring did renue her worke euen foure times as to that man seene in the yeere 1536 by the Viceroy of the Indies who examined it carefully and found out the truth Fourthly that which shewes an insenfible impression of nature of the future Resurrection is the earnest and generall care to burie the dead honorably yea to keep them from corruption by balmes and Aromaticall sents by images of brasse and nayles fastened in the bodies for that brasse hath a speciall vertue against corruption There are yet other deuices which the Egyptians haue and doe vse and particularly obserued by thē of Arran an insularie region whereas the bodyes hang in the ayre and rot not so as the families without any amazement know their Fathers Grandfathers and great-grandfathers and a long band of their predecessors Peter Martir of Milan writes the same of some West-Indians of Comagra Moreouer I deny that man may alwayes see the tayle of that wherof he sees the head the resurrection of the body seeing the immortality of the soule that he must needes see the consequent if he discouers the Antecedent for the one hiding it selfe the other appeares sometimes to the sight of the vnderstanding And to conclude I deny not but that it is true which mans reason cannot verifie vntill it hath found out why the Adamant doth so powerfully draw iron vnto it and holds it fast by an vnknowne vertue why forked sticks of Elder are proper to discouer veines of gold and siluer Why long aftrr a man is dead the bloud will gush out if the murtherer approcheth Why if some desperate man hang himselfe will there rise suddaine stormes and tempests Why the stone called the Amede drawes iron to it on the one side and reiects it on the other with infinite other secrets of Na ture The third Obiection We onely feare that which wee think should be hurtfull vnto vs. The soule feareth death Therfore the soule thinks death should be hurtfull vnto her SOme make a question how the soule can be immortall seeing she hath so great feare of death Men laugh at the attempt of little children be they neuer so in choler for that they cannot hurt them why should not the soule thē mock at death Doth she not in like manner see the immortality feele it in her selfe without giuing so great apprehension to the poore◅ body which of it selfe without her should neuer feare death no more then a bruit beast Why is not the power of death dissolued whereas the authority of immortality intercedes as Tertullian speakes in the first booke of the Trinity Answer This is a most euident signe not of the mortality of the soule but that man is degenerate and corrupt That her Port is no more so free and braue But casts her eye downe like a fearefull slaue He seeles in his Conscience that he is guilty of high treason to God that this voluntary offence must soon or late bring a necessary punishmēt he feels in this life some smal touch he fears not without reason if by faith repentance his pardon bee not inrowled and his absolution sealed that at the departure from this life the executioner of diuine vengeance should stand lurking behind death to take him by the throat and to punish him according to his merits Wherefore if corruption did not generally possesse al men she would suppresse this fear reuerence her Creator and do her duty vnto him and then she should see that by that respectiue feare to offend her God she should be fully deliuered from all other feare shee should see that fearing onely the death of the soule which is onely to be feared shee should not feare that of the body which is to be desired But for that most men as S. Augustine doth teach feare the separation of the soule from the body and not the true death which is the separation from God it happens that fearing that they fall often into this So the soule beeing willing to shake off this feare of the Creator she must needes feare euery creature euen the smallest frogs mice and flies which flying about awake him suddainely and many times trouble him much but in the end death is aboue all extreame feares the most fearefull And why is this if like vnto bruite beasts all dyed in him and if in death there were nothing to bee feared Wherefore Propertius saith The spirit is something death leaues it in store The palest shadowes scapes to the burning shore But to conclude The soule hauing beene too familiar with the flesh shee hath gotten a habite she hath drawne such corruption as being ignorant of the happinesse which attends her in heauen shee cannot leaue this valley of misery this obscure prison but with great griefe being like vnto the man which being carried away an Infant by a she wolfe was nourished by wolues did houle with them and did liue and would liue among them and if hee were taken by other men he would leaue them to returne to his wolues as the History makes mention of one verifying the Prouerbe That nourishment passeth nature The sixt Argument from the efficient cause of Immortalitie The eleuation aboue time and place is the
something from without vs Seneca The soule sayth he if thou lookest vnto her first beginning is not made of that masse of heauy flesh but is descended from the celestiall Spirit Epictetus calls the soule a branch puld from the diuinitie Plutarque in the Platonicall questions sayth that the soule participating of the vnderstanding and reason is not onely a worke of God but a part of him and not onely made by him but of him these are Hyperbolicall Elogies but by them these personages haue made it knowne how reuerently they did esteeme of a reasonable Soule hauing no thought that shee was materiall The 7. Argument taken from the effects of the Immortalitie of the soule Manifest effects doe manifestly shew their cause Consolation in the greatest heauines hope in the most desperate euents fortitude in the sharpest assaults are effects in man proceeding from the immortalitie of the soule MAn floating vpon the sea of this world at euery puffe of winde of aduersity would swound away and perish if the consideration of the immortall being of his soule as a most sure anchor did not comfort forti fie him they that haue strooke against the rocks of aduersity can witnesse it and such as haue not must prepare themselues for it for prosperitie which seemeth to be married vnto them wil crosse them and ouerthrow them in the end if they be not very wary for that her greatest happines is miserably to supplant her fauorites therefore euery man should in time make prouision of a strong Antidote against fortune And the true Antidote is a full perswasion of the immortalitie of the Soule For happen what can happen let the heauens riue let the earth open let the waues ouerflow the world such a man will continue constant vndaunted By this resolution Crates Diogenes Socrates the Curij Fabricij Decij and others desired rather to leaue their riches Scepters fauors the quiet rest of their bodies yea their owne liues then to abandon the least point of their dutie and honour By this beleefe Regulus did ioyfully suffer the inhumane torments of the Cathaginians to maintaine the Maiestie of his Countrie Attilius stood vnstirr'd at death that grew And with a deathles spirit ouerflew Foes highst inflictions smiling in disdaine At all the terrors in the Punique paine It is also the onely assurance which giues firme footing to the doctrine of Christ and makes a Christian hope in the middest of despaire which seemes howrely ready to swallow him vp either in the outward gulfe of persecution or in the inward gulfe of his flesh of his sences of his owne reason which hee must renounce to reuerence this doctrines of the Crosse of Christ which is a scandall vnto the Iewes and follie vnto the Gentiles which offends the most deuout and is reiected by most learned of this world How shall hee hope as some haue sayd in things so farre from reason what shall a man ioy when hee is a daptiue and force his reason by the which he is a man to giue glorie to God immortall Whence can it flow but from the spring of his immortall soule doubtlesse it was an admirable thing that contrary to the Edict of Nere whereby whosoeuer confest himselfe a Christian without any farther search should be put to death as an enemie to mankind men and women went by thousands to Christian Assemblies and to death not sadly but ioyfully But this exceeds all wonders that all thefe miseries endured haue no other foundation but to beleeue in a man whom no man sees to haue one for King who hath beene hanged on the crosse and to haue him sor the only and true God whom they had seene to haue but the disfigured forme of an infamous seruant to men of iudgement and to such as the truly faithfull are this would seeme impossible if their immortall spirits did not atâ—…end after this life nay rather this miserable death a most happie life as after a sharpe Winter a most sweet Spring Finally the onely apprehension of the immortalitie of the soule is it which giues force in the fiercest alarmes and sharpest temptations which made weake Dauid to triumph ouer strong Goliath Debora and Iudith of powerfull Tyrants this made Sceuola a prisoner to amaze king Porsenna to raise his seege from before Rome with many other examples both ancient and moderne all which had no other reasoÌ„ to moue them in their braue exploicts but the glorious brething of their immortall Soules The first Obiection From deluding opinions many times there follow strange and true effects Therefore the effects do not alwayes argue their cause to be true THE false Prophets of Baal did cut theÌ„selues the Anabaptists at this day do strange acts many others deceiued with vaine fancies which in them hold the place of certaine knowledge act terrible things Answere That false pastor that very impostor as counterfeit as lying being directly opposite to the truth cannot bee conceiued but by comparing with the truth whereof he is the shadow and priuation Euen so false religion presupposeth the true necessarily for hauing held her place shee makes terrible worke as in the false Prophets aboue mentioned in the Anabaptists and other Heretickes As then all religions haue for their first foundation the adoration of the Diuinity although diuers and variable which more or lesse follow the patterne which hath bene giuen vs by God in his holy word so all the Heroicke deeds all the worthy actions though thrust on diuersly by diuers passions yet haue they all the immortality of the soule for their first foundation without the which men like vnto beasts would onely care for the belly and not performe any worthy act much lesse endure so many reproches and miseries in this world as hath beene shewed and as is dayly seene The second Obiection If the soule were immortall it should be an euident Principle to euery man by his owne light as that two 2. make 4. that the whole is bigger then the part that we must flie euill and do good â—… things which wee know without learning ANswere I grant the consequence of the Maior for that the soule is immortal it is cleere by her owne brightnesse although she hath beene much darkened by sinne This is knowne to all men in all places and at all times which are the very conditions of the Principle And all that which they alledge is but to defend this truth against the cunning Sophistrie of the wicked spirit and of his supporters laboring by cauillings to dazle the eye of the soule that not seeing her immortality she might be intrapt in the snatos of Satan and suffer shipwradke of her faith The third Obiection If the soule were an essence subsisting of her selfe she should be knowne of all But no man could euer know it ALL men that enter into this question of the soule cry out O darkenesse ô pitty That which leades vs to the knowledge of things
so swiftly as no man can feele it For so was the will of the Eternall to the end that mortall man should bee alwayes ready to die and not delay when hee feeles it for it is insensible The second Obiection It is a vaine and pernicious thing to giue eare to Astrologers in their predictions The former discourse seemes to perswade a man vnto it It is therefore vaine and pernicious EXperience hath and doth dayly verifie that they which haue easily giuen credit to the predictions of future things are for the most part in the end deceiued Niceas King of Syracusa found it true to his cost for confidently beleeuing his diuines that his death was neere he wasted his treasure in all kinds of excesse and liued in want all the remainder of his life which did far exceed the terme of his prediction Aboue all the lamentable taking of Constantinople by the Turkes is memorable The Grecians bewitched with a certaine old prediction that the day would come when a mighty enemie shold seaze vpon most of the forts of Constantinople but being come to the great place called the brazen Bull he should be represt and driuen out by the Inhabitants who to resist him had seazed vpon this place The Constantinopolitanes giuing credit he eunto hauing abandoned their strongest defences retire into this place wher they attend the Turke but they falnt are put to flight slaine and sackt and so to the great preiudice of Greece the Imposture of their Prophecie was manifest Answer I grant the Maior of the proposition and doe confirme it by the Law of God Let no diuiner be among you vsing diuinations nor regarders of times nor any that vse predictions nor Sorcerer c. Whosoeuer vseth any such thing is abominable to the Lord. And what should not Christian Magistrats doe herein seeing they are forbidden by infidels Mecaenas speaking to Augustus the Emperor of the gouernment of the Common weale sayth That there ought not to be any Soothsaier in the Common weale for all such kinde of men in speaking sometimes truth most commonly lie and are the cause of Innouations and troubles The Turkes Empire obserue the like prohibition according to the Al◅aron which sayth that all kinde of diuining is vaine and that God alone knowes all secrets But according to this deposition I denie the Minor and add that in all my precedent discours there is not a word which tends any way to the maintayning of Astrologers to heare and beleeue them I did produce some Histories to proue that our dayes are so determined by God as they cannot exceed their bounds prescribed and this doctrine is true holy diuine Behold the Oracles Man borne of a woman is of a short life fall of cares c. His daies are determined thou hast the number of his moneths with thee thou hast prescribed his limits which he shal not passe And Dauid sayth vnto God My times are in thy hand and therefore Christ is dead and risen that he might cōmand both ouer the dead liuing sayth S. Paul Rom 14. 9. The Iewes would haue put Christ to death before his time but they could not they sought sayth the Gospell to lay hold of him but no man did it for that his houre was not yet come The time of Iesabels death and the ende of her wickednes was accompli shed the time of her death the place had bin foretold by the Prophet Elias Iehu was chosē to execute this decree he did it without any regard till after the euent He runnes furiously into the towne of Iesrehel where Iesabel was after whom he sought Iesabel thought to stay him with her painted face and with the charme of her affected looks which she cast from her chāber window but Iehu commanded they should cast her downe which was done and her bloud rebounded against the wall against her houses the Scripture addes being entred he did eate and drinke after sayd Go now and burie this cursed woman for she is the daughter of a king but they found nothing remayning but the skull the feete palmes of the hands whereof they made report to Iehu who said It is the word of the Lord which he had deliuered by his seruant Elias say ing that in the field of Iesreel the dogs shold eate the flesh of Iesabel And as God for the edification of his Church wold rayse vp Prophets to de clare his promses or threats so w◅uld he somtimes thurst on certen men to denounce his Iudgements to the world to make them amazed in their euents to these fortellers whensoēuer we finde in them the Propheticall zeale of the Lord we ought to giue credit as soone as they haue pronounced the word But to these latter spirits most commonly Lyars we must neuer giue any credit vntill after the euent of that which they haue foretold For the thing being past it is no more doubtfull we may then beleeue it but not before and this was the meaning of the former discourse Otherwise it is not lawful to inquire of doubtfull euents of any Magitian Astrologer Mathematician yet a wise and iudicious man may without scruple of cōscience by certen coniectures gathered from the reading of good books from the vse of things the obseruatiō of the like he may I say conceiue presume or suspect which way the destinie tends and what his ende is but fearefully without confidence not to make a profession of it God only can search the bottome of his decrees none other without his particular and expresse assistance no not the Angels neither good nor bad the determinatiō of our dayes is one of his decrees it can neither be knowne nor stayed by vs. Behold letters from heauen to the end we may doubt no more Man saith Solomon knowes his time no more then fishes which are taken in the net and birds in the snare so men are snared in the bad time when it falls suddenly vpon them In vaine therefore doe we feare that which cannot be corrected by vs. The third Obiection If the cause of death be euitatabl◅ the effect also shal be But the cause of death is euitable Ergo. IT is writtē that a wiseman shal rule the stars for that finding himselfe inclyned to some mortall disease by some malignant influence of the stars he will change the ayre correct that bad complexion that it impaire not We are also commanded to honor the Physition for necessities sake by reason of the Phisicke which he ministers for the preseruation of life Moreouer Gods prouidence hath not imposed any necessity in humaine actions whereof he is Lord and especially of those which depend of his free will as who can hinder a man from killing himselfe if he please as many haue done We reade also in the booke of truth that the periode of the ruine of Niniuie assigned to 40. daies was altered by their repentance also the execution of the