apt to grieve And besides what a folly is it thus to die with continual grief for him who if he did grieve to die his grief continued but a little while He died but once why should we die alwaies It is certain we must die but of all deaths let us not die with grief and much less for grief about that which we see we cannot avoid our selves But let us be furthest of all from making our life a perpetual death and grieving for that which by grief we may so soon run our selves into Weep no more for thy friend than thou wouldst have had him weep for thee IX Ask thy self again Whether two friends do not think that one of them must die first Do we not see that in the common course of things one man goes before another to his grave Who then if it had been permitted to thy choice wouldst thou have appointed to be the leader unto the other Wouldst thou have given thy self the preheminence and resolved to have shewn him the way Then death it seems is a good thing for if it were evil we can scarce believe thy self-love is so little as to wish it might be thy portion before another And if it be good then thou maiest soon satisfie the pretence of loving them better than thy self by being glad that they enjoy it before thy self Or wouldst thou have had both gone together and been enclosed in the same Coffin and interred in the same grave Then it seems it is no such great matter to die as thou makest it seeing thou art so willing to die also And if it be no great matter for thee to live then no more was it unto him If the sorrow of living without him be greater than the sorrow of dying with him why then was not he desirous that thou shouldst die And why did he pray for thy life and health when he died And if he would not have thee to die also when he died why dost thou then live in a kind of death and enjoyest not thy self nor the pleasures of life Either resolve to die also or else to live as a man should do If his death be so sad thou wilt not be able to bear thy own X. Ask thy self How can I take my own death Certain it is that thou must die also but if thou canst not part with a friend how canst thou part with thy self How wilt thou endure that soul and body should be separated if thou canst not shake hands with another body distinct from thine Are not they the most ancient friends Is not their union most strict and close Can two men cleave so together as thy soul embraces its companion What then wilt thou do when their bonds shall be untied if thou canst not bear the rupture of lessr cords of love What wilt thou think when thy soul sits on thy lips and give thy body a farewell kiss if thou canst not close the eyes of thy friend without so many tears Will thy soul mourn after thy body is dead as thou dost now lament the death of thy friend Will it groan and sigh to think of the hole where its flesh lies Will it sight to think that its old companion is then become the companion of worms If not then let it not groan so heavily for a less matter that is now befaln it If it will then why art thou troubled for thy friend and not for thy own self to think how sad thou must one day be The fear of thy own death must more than equall thy sorrow for the death of another man And how canst thou have time to think of any thing else if thou dost fear it Or if thou dost not fear it how canst thou fall under thy sorrow who hast overcome so great a sear Dost thou intend to go crying out of the World If not then be not now dismayed at that which thou must bear so valiantly thy self Then do not mourn so much for the loss of anothers life which will but put self-love into a most piteous case when thou comest to yield up thy own Death is no strange thing as I have said for we must all die But then why should we mourn so much if it be such an usuall thing If we mourn excessively it is a sign we think not of the commonness of it and then how shall we take our own death seeing it is such a stranger to our thoughts Let us but comfort our selves upon solid grounds against our own departure and I will warrant you that shall cure all our other lamentations Let us but dare to die our selves and we shall not dare to cry so much for any mans death Isidore of Pelusium thinks that our Saviour Lib. 23 Epist 173. did not mourn for his friend Lazarus because he was dead for he knew that he was going to raise him from the dead but because he was to live again And to come from the haven where he was arrived back again into the waves and storms from the crown which he enjoyed to a new encounter with his enemies If thou dost not believe his interpretation yet dost thou believe the thing Dost thou seriously consider that the misery of this world is so great that we should rather weep that we are in it than that others are gone out of it Then I ask thee again whether when thou art dead and well thou wouldst willingly live again If not then thou knowest what to say to thy self concernning thy friends death If thou wouldst then it seems thou canst be contented with this grief and I will not go about to comfort thee seeing thou lovest life with all the miseries thou createst to thy self But the very truth is we are so sensible of our bodies and have so little feeling of our souls or divine things that it is ready to make us think we are not when our bodies are dead This makes death such a terrible thing this makes both our own and others death so heavy because it seems as if there were an extinction of us That which we feel not nor have any sense of within us is as if it was not And therefore if we feel not heavenly things and perceive not that we have a soul we shall receive death as if it was the loss of our selves and then who can but be sad Let us live therefore in a sense of such things as may make us die willingly and think that we our selves are not lost and then we shall not think that we have lost our good friends nor lay their death so much to heart Nor wilt thou be able to help others to bear their sorrows XI Ask thy self likewise How wilt thou be able to comfort others if thou canst not comfort thy self It should seem by thy tears that thou art very ambitious of the name of a friend but if thou be not able to comfort thy friend what is he the better for thee And
our departure doth not part friends now but makes them cleave the closer untill they depart Let us be willing they should die and that will not abate of our love for we cannot be willing untill we have loved them as much as we can We shall be loth they should go without the best testimonies of our love and that will make us only improve our time to have the benefit of them and they of us Seneca tells in one of his Letters Epist 63. that he who gave a great deal of good counsell to others not to grieve was himself almost made an example of one overcome with grief But the truth of it is saith he there was no other cause of that mourning which I must now condemn but only this I did not use to think that my friend might die before me I only had in my mind that he was younger much younger than my self whereas I ought to have added What is this to the purpose Though he ought I imagine to die after me yet he may die before me Because I did not thus meditate I received a stroak when I was unarmed which went to my heart But now I think both that all things are mortall and that there is no certain order of mortality That which may be at all may be to day And if you think that your friend may die to day then why do you not begin to mourn since his death is at hand unless you mean to take it patiently when it comes If you will lament the death of your friends so sadly why do you not prepare your lamentations seeing death may be so near If you think it is not so near then it is likely your sorrow will be violent when it comes because sudden If you think it is and yet do not mourn then why should you lament that so sadly at night which you did not weep for at all at noon There were some creatures they say in Pontus Plutarch whose life lasted but one day They were born in the morning and came to their full growth at noon and grew old in the evening and at night dyed If these animals had been masters of the reason that we have would they have lamented after our fashion would they have mourned for one that chanced to dye at noon when as it could not live longer than night No that which is necessary it is no great matter when it comes And because we are of a longer life our trouble at death is not to be the greater but the less For it is a greater wonder that we did not die many daies agone than that we die to day The kind of death is not so considerable as death it self But some will say that it is not death it self but the kind of death that so troubles them They could have been contented if he had gone out of the world another way But I beseech you do you know what will please your selves Can you tell what sort of death it is that would content you are there any that do not blame their hard fortune and wail and mourn as if none were so miserable are not men equally troubled if one die of a Feavour and another of a Consumption if their love be equal It is very plain that he that perswades himself to part with his friends will not grieve for the manner of the parting He that can overcome himself in the greater cause of grief will not suffer the less so easily to overcome him And therefore you see that men have alwaies something to find fault withall If a friend die in a far Countrey then they say Alas that we should not see him before he dyed how sad is it that we should not take our leave If he die at home then they say who could endure to hear his groans how sad was it to see him in the agonies of death If he die and speak nothing then they say O if he might but have told us his mind if he had left us any remembrances it would have been some comfort If he did speak then they tell his speeches to every one and say O my sweet child or friend I shall never forget thy words Would you have me put out of my mind his dying speeches and so those sayings are a perpetuall nourishment and food to their grief If he die on a sudden then they lament because he was snatched rather than went away If he die of a lingring sickness then they say he was nothing but skin and bone a meer Anatomy never any creature endured so much as he did And so they complain they know not for what for they would not have had him gone away so soon but spun out his life till he lookt more ruefully And indeed men never want some pretences for these complaints but the true reason is that they would not have had their Friends to die at all In what glass soever this potion had been presented they would have swallowed it with the same disgust And I must confess it is very bitter yet we should not study to make it worse than it is but by digesting such considerations as these receive it with a better countenance and take it down more easily For which end let us proceed further and weigh what follows SECT V. Which contains comforts against the loss of Children Parents Consorts Friends upon a due consideration what every one of them is We must consider who the persons are that die LEt us consider well who it is for whom we make our lamentations Who is it I say that death hath taken away from us Perhaps it is an Infant a poor little weakling newly crept into the light And this hath the least of wonder in it of all other things that such a little spark of life should be blown out Comforts against the loss of children A greater wonder it is that it was not strangled in the gate of the womb A little while ago it had no life and it is now but as it then was We were once content without it why cannot we be content without it now It never loved us nor was capable to shew any affection to us and therefore we may the better part with it It was scarce tyed to our heart and therefore it need not make the strings crack It was not unwilling to go out of the world and if it had lived longer death would have been more against its will It hath lost no great matter for it knew not the benefits of life It hath cost us nothing or we have been but at a small charge about it and therefore our loss is not so great neither as we make it If it could have known the miseries of living and it had been put to its choise very likely it would not have chosen to live but to be what now it is It hath not blotted its soul by any sin nor deflowred the Virgin purity wherein it was born
not been to go out Considerations about the death of Parents what need would there have been of bringing us in If they were designed to stay alwaies then there had been no room for us They might more easily remember their mortality than we for there is no act that puts us more in mind of death than that whereby we give another life And it is but one of them it is likely that we have lost we may then love the other the more Or if both yet we have least reason to complain about their death of all others for both Nature and they themselves and we also would have them die before us We complain that people die when they are young and will we complain too when they die of old age Then it seems we will have none die and cannot be contented unless they live alwaies Would they have been willing to have been left childless without you If not then they have their choice to go first Or are you so well in love with death that it would have been more acceptable to you to have gone before or so much in love with them that on that account you had rather have died than they Then know that your death would as much more have troubled them than theirs doth you as the love of Parents to their children transcends the love of all children unto them It is very well then as it is It is not handsome neither to complain when we are forty or fifty years of age that our Parents are dead for they could live no longer or if they could it would have been but a kind of death If we will not cease to complain when we are of age neither shall we ever cease when we grow older For as Cardan tells us A poor woman once came to his door to beg an alms and though she were seventy years of age yet she used this argument in her complaints That she was a poor fatherless and motherless creature and had none to take any care of her We need the less of their care when we can take care of our selves But perhaps they die before we are of age and can take care of our selves Then we are least sensible of their loss or if we are so considerate as to know that we may consider also such things as these There is none fatherless that hath God for his Father and he that hath not would be little better for his earthly Parents If they were good let us follow their example and remember their Counsell if they were bad they would not have been true Parents to us and it is well perhaps that we had not such an example to follow They may live still in us if they were good if they were bad we had need live the better and spend those tears for their sins which may entail curses on us which we bestow upon them But besides it is observed by some that the most eminent persons that have been in the world did lose their Parents when they were young or else it is like they had not proved so eminent The great Caesar and his successor Augustus Alexander the Monarch of the World Cicero the famous Orator Galen the most excellent Physitian Aristotle the great Philosopher are all examples of this truth If these had enjoyed the support of their Parents to lean upon they might not have tryed their own sufficiency nor exercised their abilities or else they might have been wholly eclipsed by their lustre and done nothing to be taken notice of in the World And of Husband of Wife But my loss will some sorrowfull Creature say is greater than all this no loss than half my self is gone from me Death hath ravished an Husband out of my bosome and he the tenderest in the world A sad case I must confess but it is well since Death is so common that he hath left one half and not taken all Would he had will that passionate soul reply I cannot live in any joy now that the better part of me is dead and gone O that I had never lived to see this day or not out-liv'd it Who can think of so wide a breach and not be ready to go out at it But stay a little I beseech you did you never think of this before now Did you not take one another with this clause Till Death us do part Death and you ought to have been better acquainted before this time It sought your acquaintance long ago and would have been as familiar with you as your Husband Who spoke of parting with you when you first came together and now that you are parted hath set you free again as you were before If you like that State so well you are at liberty to seek another self If you do not like to be tyed in such a yoke Why do you mourn thus for the gaining of your freedom Or if you liked that person so well as not to be able to think of any other then you may have the glory to stand among the rare and noble examples of conjugall love and friendship who have preserved the Image of their deceased Husband or Wife so lively ingraven in their hearts that nothing could ever displace it or blot it out Alas may some of the tenderer sex say whose hearts are commonly most deeply wounded with this affliction what a pitifull glory is this and what a torment will it prove to me to have only the image of such a person ever in my sight It is not possible to keep my self from being in pain and anguish when I feel that he is torn from me Since God hath made Man and Wife not to be two but one flesh How can I take this separation otherwaies than as if my body was cut in sunder In such language I remember St. Bafill represents the complaints of a desolate Widdow And if you please hear his Answer in a letter to the Wife of Arinthaeus * Epist 186. Some part or other of which may help perhaps to compose the spirits of such persons whom I cannot but pity above all other and make them conceive some joy when they look upon the Image of what they have lost And if you meet with some things in it that have been said already do not therefore skip it over hastily For second thoughts of a good thing are better than the first and the same thing in a new dress may meet with those affections which it did not excite before There is none saith he that doth not sigh for such a man Who can be so stony hearted as not to shed a tear for him Yet let us not complain that we are deprived of him but give thanks to God who joyn'd you together that you have lived so long with him To be bereaved of an Husband is common to you with all other women But to dwell with such an one it may be questioned whether any can glory in the like happiness For
he is now advanced in the Heavens Their hearts were not to be troubled when He that is the Lover of the world was held in the chains of death because they knew that he would loose them Why then should we be disturbed for the death of one that loves us only when we know that Christ is risen and that he is in the Heavens Angels Authorities and Powers being made subject to him If an Angel was necessary for our comfort we should not want his Ministry He is so full of Love and compassion towards us that if he did not think he had left Cordials enough to support us he would come himself to chear us and raise our friend as he did Lazarus from the dead But now we may well live in hope and he hath given us strong consolution and good hope through grace Let us have patience but a little and we shall not be capable of mourning any more All tears shall be wiped off from our eyes sighing and sorrow shall fly away SECT IX The Conclusion Which contains an advice to those that are in love with sorrow And an advice for the reaping profit by this Book And a brief recapitulation of the chief matters in it Let no man therefore be in Love with tears REmember then I beseech you whosoever you are that cast your eyes on these lines what I said at the beginning Take heed you do not indulge your selves in your tears Est enim dolendi quaedam ambitio for there is a certain ambition even in mourning and men think that they shall be the better thought of for their grief But assure your selves that if we study to exceed one another in grief it is but just with God that we should never want misery enough seeing we are so ambitious of it If we will mourn immoderately when he would have us to be patient we shall not keep our selves patient when perhaps there is little or no cause to mourn When the air is disposed to rain it is a long time before we can recover fair weather and every little cloud will fall a Weeping which at another time would have been dry and barren And just so it is with those that strive to gather as many clouds as they can to overcast them and make them sad It is so long before they can disperse them all that every little thing renews their grief as if a chearful day should never shine upon them more It was a very handsome device that one of the Ancient Phylosophers used to comfort Arsinoe when he observed her to Weep immoderately for her Sons death Let me intreat you said he to lend me your patience till I tell you this story On a time Jupiter conferred honour upon all the lesser Gods or divine Powers and there was none of them wanting but only Sorrow When all the rest were gone away rejoycing she came and begged some honour also with many tears and intreaties Jupiter having conferred all honours that were worth any thing upon the other Heavenly Powers He grand to her all that which men bestow upon their dead friends viz. grief and tears as best befitting her quality Now all these little Deities said this wise man do love those most that love and honour them and so doth Sorrow also They bestow most of their gifts on their Votaries and those that pay them constant services and they care not for those that observe none of their ceremonies If you therefore bestow no honour upon Sorrow then she will not love you nor come to you But if you studiously seek how to please her and honour her by tears and lamentations and all such sad things that are the offices wherein she delights she will be in Love with you and you shall never want her company nor be without occasions of doing continual honour to her She will be continually supplying thee with tears to pour upon her Altar and filling thee with sighs which are the incense which she loves thou shouldst evaporate toward Heaven By this Art the wise man staid her tears for she knew that he meant that if we give way to grief we shall never want it and much more if we seek for arguments to aggravate it it will stick so fast unto us that it will never forsake us Though love and respect to our friends and the natural affection which distinguisheth us from beasts do allow and require moderate sorrow and sadness of our spirit yet an intemperate grief and afflicting of our souls is uncreasonable for it doth them no good and it is unnatural for it doth both our body and mind abundance of harm and let me add likewise that it is unchristian and argues that we have little hope in God either for our selves or others God hath done us the honour to make us Priests unto himself and you know it was the Law for the Priests that none of them should mourn for a dead friend unless he was of their nearest kindred And therefore let us take heed how we make our selves unclean for the dead by Weeping so that we should unfit our selves for any Christian service which God hath appointed us for our constant imployment Can you mourn and praise God too Can you pour our your souls to God while you pour out these tears of grief Can you pray in faith for other things and not be able to believe that you can live without a friend Can you read seriously when your eyes are sore with the sharpness of your sorrow Can you meditate of heavenly things while your thoughts are filled with the images of such doleful objects If not know that you defile your Priesthood and that you must instantly cleanse your selves that you may be fit continually to offer up spiritual sacrifices unto God And for a conclusion of this discourse remember what I said in the former Treatise That you must lay these foundations and grounds of comfort within your selves He must write these things in his heart who would find the comfort of them or else you will alwaies be troubled It is something within us that must satisfie our minds and not the enjoyment of any outward good and therefore we must work these principles into our hearts for even They if they be without us will not profit We either think it is the thing we want which will cure us when as it is without us or else that we have reasons enough to comfort us when as alas we want them also because we let them lie without us and have them not in our minds We have more waies than one to abuse and deceive our selves At first we think that if we had what our hearts desire at this present we should never be disquieted And when by reason and experience we find it otherwise then we make a great many good principles upon which to rest our souls but they are at a great distance also from our hearts and when we should use them they
not to mourn at all than to mourn moderately These are but the dreams of heavy souls that think that none can stand still but they that are resolved never to stir It is said indeed that we may more easily abstain from a thing of which we never tasted than refrain from it after a little acquaintance But this must be understood of pleasure and not of grief When we have mourned a little we shall soon see that there is neither pleasure nor profit in our mourning Or if any one shall think it to be some pleasure yet it will notwithstanding be easily moderated because it is only the pleasure of being eased of our loads that oppressed us not of being satisfied with the pressure of any delightful object It is but the letting out of sadness not the bringing in of any pleasure and therefore when the heart is once eased of its burden it will soon be perswaded to mourn no more for that will be the bringing upon us a new burden But then on the other side as we may grant something unto nature so we must be sure not to let it work alone That we may weep moderately it will be necessary to make resistance to our sorrows and muster up all the consolatory arguments that are reposited in our minds Nature will do its part without our help We need not study how to weep enough nor use any arguments to perswade our selves into tears It is a superfluous imployment to strive to magnifie our loss for Fancy is apt to make it bigger than it is It is a foolish trouble to be careful how to mourn for tears will flow from us without any bidding All our work must be to stop their passage as fast as we can and to make them flow leisurely not gush forth with too great a violence Our Reason and Religion must be called up in all haste to make as strong a dam as we are able to our sorrow or else if it have its course it may overflow us He is a base Pilot that leaves his tackling in a storm and suffers his ship to run along with the tempest and no less ignoble and abject is his spirit that permits himself to the gusts and Haericans of his own passions and lets them drive him whither they and not whither he himself pleases But it is a degree of madness to use reason it self to make the blasts more terrible and when the storm is too furious by art and skill to conjure up more boisterous passions Who would pitty him that sets his reason against himself and studies how to be as miserable as his mind can make him We need not be so in love with grief as to create it to our selves Nature as I said knows how to mourn without our teaching We had need think rather how to bear our natural troubles than how to lay more upon our shoulders But if we will make any opposition we must begin before our passions are too strong They are too powerful of themselves and we must not let them gather more strength by our negligence If we do not at the very first set our selves in a posture of defence against them they will seize upon our whole soul and get every thing into their possesion As soon therefore as our grief stirs we must strive to comfort our selves and not either help forward or suffer our grief If we go and bewail our friends as much as we can and think to chear our souls afterward we shall soon find that our souls are drowned with a flood and that it will be a long time before it be soaked up When we give the least leave to these passions they will ask no leave of us afterward but the soul will mourn like Rachel and refuse to be comforted As soon therefore as thou hearest of the death of thy friends do not spend the time in bemoaning thy self saying Alas what a friend have I lost did ever any man part with such a person where shall I find one comparable to him in wisdom in love in faithfulness in all manner of sufficiencies to make a friend Do not I say after this sort stand to aggravate thy grief but instantly say Why should a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins why should I trouble and torment my self with my own thoughts why should wind and tyde run together how many reasons have I to be contented and spread them all before thine eyes that they may dry up thy tears and cease thy sorrow Labour at least that these thoughts may tread upon the heels of the other and as soon as may be overake them and get the mastery of them And so doing thou wilt weep as much as is fit but no more than thou oughtest Nature will be satisfied and thou thy self not ashamed None will think that thou art not grieved and thou wilt feel that thy heart is comforted SECT III. Which shews rather what might be said than what is said in this present Treatise for moderating our sorrow But yet those examples which we have from others may move us to follow their rules and so a brief touch is made upon them The best and wisest persons have not mourned much BUt what comforts are these may some say which you bring us with what reasons will you assist us I suppose it will be of no great effect to answer that the wisest persons have made their mourning short and moderate because I have already named two both good and wise that were excessive And therefore I must endeavour to make men throughly wise and furnish them with such reasons as will not suffer them to be oppressed with their sorrows Yet me thinks it is observable that the Aegyptians mourned ten times as long as the children of Israel Seven daies ordinarily contented the people of God for their grief as you may see Eccles 22.12 Job 2.13 whereas they that were strangers to the God of Israel extended their mourning seventy daies as you may read Gen. 50.3 yea the greatest mourning that the Israelites used for their two famous leaders Numb 20.29 Deut. 34.8 Moses and Aaron was prolonged but to thirty daies which is not half the time that those Heathens allowed I think not fit neither to pass by the shortness of Abrahams grief for his dearest wife Sarah who dyed as some of the Jews conjecture for very grief when he was at Mount Moriah thinking that her son was offered This they gather from that expression Gen. 23.2 Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her From whence it was that he came I have nothing to affirm yet this note of theirs is considerable that in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to weep for her there is a small Caph in the middle of great letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may very well shew they think that his weeping was little and moderate and not of the greatest size That expression is
rode and the same lodging expects them all Thus that Holy man comforted Nectarius and when he had done he wrote the like consolatory letter to his wife * Epist 189. which is so full of good counsells that I shall transcribe some of it Those things saith he which befell us are not without Providence as the Gospel teaches us For there is not a Sparrow that falls to the ground without the will of our Father Why should we go about to resist his will seeing by all our strife we cannot repair what is already done but we may lose and ruin our selves Let us not condemn the just sentence of God We are not wise enough to discern his secret judgements Our Lord makes a tryall of thee how much thou lovest him Now is the time by patience to take thy portion with the Martyrs The Mother of the Maccabees saw seven of her children put to death with miserable torments and neither sighed nor shed ignoble tears But she gave God thanks that she had any thing to offer to him It is a great affliction I confess but there is a great reward for the Patience When thou wast made a Mother and broughtest forth a Son thou gavest God thanks but didst thou not think then that being mortall thy self thou broughtest forth a mortall child What is there strange then in this that he who was mortall is now dead He dyed perhaps thou wilt say before his time How knowest thou that He dyed in a very good time for any thing thou canst tell for it is beyond the compass of our understanding to chuse that which is most profitable for souls and set the bounds of humane life Much more he adds to the same effect which he repeats also in other Letters on the like occasion * To Elpidius Epist 348. and also 201. But after this which was last said what need is there of any more The most solid comforts are those which are derived from this humble submission to Almighty God and entire resignation of our selves to his incomprehensible wisdom Concerning which a modern writer * Mouns Malherbe hath spoken such excellent words that I cannot forbear to translate them hither Our lives saith he are not all alike their length is measured by the will of him that giveth them He gathereth the fruit while it is green he staies till it be ripe and He lets it hang till it be rotten whatsoever he doth we owe this submission to our Creator to believe he doth nothing unjustly He doth no wrong neither to them he takes away young nor to them whom he suffers to grow old But to ask why he doth things with such diversity is to question that which we shall not be resolved of till we come to a place where there is a greater light Now we are in such a darkness as renders all our curiosities unprofitable There are plummets to sound the deep abysses of the Sea but none for Gods secrets Believe me and put this trouble out of your mind it cannot stay there without diminution to your honour and which is more I must add without disrespect to God We wonder perhaps to use the words of one of our own Nation * Dr. Donne letter to a Lady in mourning which is no less fruitfull of good discourses than any other To see a man who in a Wood were left at his liberty to fell what Trees he would take only the crooked and leave the streightest But yet that man hath perhaps a ship to build and not an house and so hath use of that kind of Timber Let not us who know that in our Fathers house are many Mansions but yet have no modell or design of that Building wonder at his taking in his Materials why he takes the young and leaves the old or why the sickly over-live them who had better health Then is the Will of God done in Earth as it is in Heaven when we neither pretermit his actions nor resist them nor yet pass them over in an inconsideration as though God had no hand therein nor go about to take them out of his hands as though we could direct him to do them better I shall conclude this with some considerations of the same writer in a letter to a Friend of his that had lost her son We do but borrow children of God to lend them to the world And when I lend the world a Daughter in Marriage or a Son in any profession the world doth not alwaies pay me well again my hopes are not alwaies answered in that Daughter or that Son Of all that I lend to the Grave is my best pay-master That shall restore me my child where he and I shall have but one Father and pay me my Earth when that Earth shall be Amber a sweet perfume in the nostrils of his and my Saviour Since I am well content to send one son to the Church the other to the Wars why should I be loth to send one part of either son to Heaven and the other to the Earth Comfort your self in this my Noble Sister but above all in this that it is the declared Will of God In sicknesses and other worldly crosses there are anxieties and perplexities we wish one thing to day in the behalf of a distressed child or friend and another to morrow because God hath not yet declared his Will But when he hath done that by death there is no room for any anxiety for any perplexity no not for a wish for we may not so much as pray for the dead You know David made his childs sickness his Lent but his death his Easter He fasted till it was dead but then he returned to his repast because then he had a declaration of Gods Will. I am far from quenching in you or discharging naturall affections but I know your easie apprehensions and over-tenderness in this kind And therefore since in so numerous a family as yours every year is like to present you with some such occasion of sorrow I advise you in the office of a Friend and a Brother and Priest of God not only to take this Patiently as a declaration of Gods present Will but Catechistically as an instruction for the future and that God in this tells you He will do so again in some other of your Friends For to take any one cross patiently is but to forgive God for once but to surrender one's self entirely to God is to be ready for all that he shall be pleased to do These Generall Antidotes being timely used will preserve us from fainting under any other evil of this nature and I need not be sollicitous to prescribe more particular remedies against them But if any expect I should and tell me it is the death of their Parents which they bewail they that brought them into the world are themselves gone out of it I desire to know of them what wonder there is in this If our Parents had
the World But he was taken away will some say before his time else I should be content I shall answer this as Photius doth who accords with Basil the great Epist 234. before mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let me hear no such word I beseech you a word too bold to be spoken and more bold to be thought Before the time do you say Then why was he not thought to come before the time when he came out of his mothers Womb There is no reason for it but this that it was the will and pleasure of God that he should be born at such a time And must God appoint the time of his birth and we set the time of his death Did the Workman give him a being in good time and take him to himself not knowing the fittest season From a drop he made him to become a lump of flesh He formed the flesh into parts he brought him into the light and he kept him in his infancy and childhood Was any of these out of due time Why then should it be out of season when he translated him to another life Let us do therefore as David did who prayed and wept as long as he could hope the decree of God was not absolute concerning his childs death but when he saw that it was irreversible he comforted himself Let us alway say as Job doth The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away and blessed be the Name of the Lord. And let this be further considered to the enforcing of this truth that if the will of the Lord must be born then it must be done And his will is that we should take all things patiently yea chearfully from his hands And therefore if we mourn immoderately what do we but only add sin unto our pain As there is a time to laugh so there is a time to weep But there is no more time to weep superfluously than there is to laugh idly and profusely Both in the one and in the other we must be wholly subject to the Will of God But that Will of God as I said is very wise in every thing and therefore he intends to turn our mourning into laughter and by every sad thing that doth befall us to make our hearts glad He alwaies gives something better than he takes away if we would but seek after it and ofttimes he takes one thing away that we may seek after the better But alas our blindness is so great that we value not that which brings us profit unless it be sweet to our taste We let our passion judge and not our reason and therefore we think there is no good in a bitter cup and no danger in a pleasant draught We lament and mourn when we ought to think our selves great gainers and we rejoyce and leap when perhaps a cross of the greatest burden hath befaln us Let us stay a while therefore and expect the end of things before we mourn too much And let us but desire to be cured rather than pleased to have our souls amended rather than our fancy humoured and we shall have great reason to thank God for every thing that comes to us And he rules it better than we could do VI. And this will lead me to another consideration concerning the Goodness of God in all that he doth Ask thy self therefore Doth not God do all things for our good Do we wish better to our selves than God doth Hath not He the greatest care of all his creatures to see that it be well with them Did he make them for any other end than that they might be happy Is there the least Sparrow as I said before that falls to the ground without our Fathers Providence Then Mankind must needs be under a greater love and none of them can die by chance but by his direction And above all other men He hath a singular care over the persons of good Christians the very hairs of whose heads are all numbred If not so much as an hair can drop off without Him much less can any body of them fall into their graves but He hath a hand in it But still He hath a more speciall Providence over such Christians as are Fatherless and Widdows helpless and destitute of all succour And therefore as it was his goodness that took their friends away so much more will his goodness take care of them whom he hath left none else to take care of He considers us not only as his children but as children placed in the midst of such and such circumstances as desolate and sad as left only to his Providence and tuition And therefore it is that the Psalmist saith Psa 10 14. Thou art the helper of the Fatherless And in another place A Father of the fatherless Psa 68.5 and a Judge of the widdow is God in his holy babitation Psa 69.23 I am poor and sorrowfull let thy salvation set me up on high Yea and all good men are full of compassion to such persons So that The blessing of those that are ready to perish come upon them Job 29 12 14. and they cause the widdows heart to sing for Joy It is an excellent saying of the Royal Philosopher Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Lib. 2. Sect. 11. worthy to be engraven upon our minds If there be a God then nothing can be hurtfull to us for he will not involve us in evil But if either there be none or he take no care of mens matters what shall I live for in a World that is without a God or without a Providence But there is a God and he cares for men also and hath put it into their power not to fall into those things which are truly evil And for the rest that befall us if any thing of them had been evil he would have provided that we should have been able not to have faln into that neither But if this great person had known also that God leaves us not alone to our own power when he sends any thing upon us but that he hath a peculiar love to his servants when they are in trouble and affords them his assistance He would have said on this sort If we be not alone without God then nothing need discomfort us for he is the God of all comfort If we be alone then we had need to be most discomforted for that and never endure in a condition without God But we are not alone and we are least alone when we are alone and have him most when we have other things least Therefore he hath put it into our power not to be troubled but to go to him for comfort in all that befalls us and if there were no comfort in him for us in such cases then they should not have befaln us Let us not therefore mourn as long as we have a God and as long as all things make us seek for our comfort in him VII Grief will
how didst thou deserve to have the friend which thou hast lost If thou art able or hast ever given any comfort unto others administer then the same cordials to thy self Why should not that satisfie thee which thou expectedst with so much reason should satisfie them What thou wouldst say to another if his friend was dead that say to thy self And if thou wouldst wonder that he should reject all comfort then do not make thy self a wonder Didst thou never tell any man that it is a shame to be impatient when we can cure our selves That they suffer nothing but what God and nature have appointed that we must all expect such losses that no body knows whose turn is next Take then thy own counsell and be not such a Physitian as cannot cure himself at all Is thy distemper different from theirs Are there not the same griefs and maladies in their minds Then the same medicine will cure thee that thou gavest them Or if it would not cure them then thou wast much too blame that didst not seek a better both for them and thee Or is thine some strange loss the like to which never any suffered Then this may comfort thee that thou shalt never suffer the like again For it would be more strange if a thing that never came before should twice fall upon one man It it be so strange to thee then thy courage will be as strange to others If thou art drawn into an example of sufferings then thou maist render thy self an example to all of patience and contentedness And so Seneca saith of the Brother of Drusus that though Drusus dyed in the midst of his embraces and with his kisses warm upon his mouth though he dyed in the very height of his fortune with the most war-like Nations dead at his feet yet he not only put a measure to his own grief but taught all the Army how to be moderate also And indeed he could not have stopt the tears of others unless he had been of so brave a spirit as first to stop his own If thou art a friend therefore unto any let them all learn of thee how to be well satisfied Comfort thy self as thou hast comforted others or else as thou dost intend to comfort them And let it be seen by thy worthy behaviour toward thy self that thou art worthy to be a friend to another person Death doth sometime befriend us XII Ask thy self again Whether friends only be mortal Do none die but they that love us Must not all our enemies and they that hate us die also Death then that makes thee sad may give thee comfort As it puts an end to some comforts so it is the common end of all miseries Though we may not wish for the death of any yet it is no harm to think that they must die who hate us and their rage shall not last for ever If nothing can cease their malignity yet death can It hath done us then no such wrong but what it can repay us with the same hand that did it Though we have now no friend yet shortly we may have no enemy neither This was one support to the Christians under their persecutions that though their enemies like Saul did breath out nothing but threatnings and slaughters against them yet their breath was but in their nostrils and might soon evaporate and vanish away Julian called the Apostate had done more hurt to the Christians than the ten Persecutions if death had not suddenly wounded him with one of his arrows The Marian flames had devoured in all likelyhood a great many more bodies if death had not shortned her reign and so extinguished the fires We have no reason then to look upon it as unkind which may do us so many courtesies not to accuse that of cruelty to us which destroys the cruelty of others towards us XIII And now may you not well make one question more to your selves Contentment hath more to say for it self than grief hath and say Is there not more reason to be comforted than there is to be sad If there be as certainly there is what should hinder your comfort if you live by reason If you do not live by it then nothing that a man can say will comfort you Nothing will chear us unless we think of it and make it our own by meditation neither will any thing sadden us unless we think of it also Seeing then they are our own thoughts that make us either sad or merry and we have more comfortable thoughts than heavy we cannot but be of good chear if we will not be enemies to our selves All that we can say for our sadness is that we have lost a friend a very dear and perhaps only friend But you have heard that there are more in the world and that you have not lost this and that you have more comforts remaining than are taken away and that if you had none but God you had enough and if you will read again what hath been said twenty other reasons will offer themselves to chear for one that arises to make you sad If there was no reason at all to be sad then none need spend any time in giving comfort But if they be very few in compare with others and we are made to follow the most and strongest reasons then he is not to be pityed who notwithstanding the small reason of his sorrow will not be of good comfort The greatest cause that I know of this sort of trouble is when many that we love die soon after one another So it hapned to that Prince which the L. Mountaigne speaks of who received the news of his Elder Brothers death L. 1. Essay cap. 2. whom he highly esteemed with a great deal of constancy and shortly after the tidings of his younger Brothers decease in whom he placed much hope did not alter the smoothness of his countenance But when one of his servants dyed not long after that he suffered himself to be so far transported that he quitted his former resolution and gave up himself to all grief and sorrow The reason of this was not from the love that he bare to his person more than the rest but as he well faith because being top full of sorrow before the next flood must needs break the banks or overflow all the bounds of patience In Dialog cui tit Guilielmus And so Hier. Cardan tells us that after he had partiently born many reproaches and the cruel infamous death of a son of great hopes and the dangerous sickness of another son and the death of his Parents and Wife with many other evils yea and after he wrote a Book of Consolation against all these evils yet he was overcome with grief at the death of an English youth whom he brought from Dover with him as he passed from Scotland in the time of Edward the sixth And he gives the sam reason for it that the other doth
patient That little sadness will banish and chase away all the greater that else would seize on thee hereafter There will be little to do when death comes if thou constantly dost this Thy soul will be so loose from them that thou wilt not give a shrike none will hear the strings crack when you are separated Death will not be a breaking of your society but a fair and easie untying of it Nothing will happen to you but what you have looked for long before and you shall be able to say This is not the first time that I have seen my dear friend dead Yea think with thy self that thou seest thy own body laid in the grave and that thou feelest thy self as cold as a clod of Earth Think that thou art turned into rottenness and dirt and that thou art forgotten by thy neighbours If thy soul can endure these thoughts then why should it be troubled at the death of another This is a kind of death to be so separated from thy body in thy thoughts It is all one not to be in the body and not to feel that thou art in it Raise thy mind then up toward heavenly things fix thy thoughts on God and the life to come think that thou seest thy self in heaven among the Saints of God and while thy soul is there it is not in thy body here below This kind of death differs from that which will be hereafter in this only that then thou wilt be more perfectly out of thy body But if there be no trouble in this separation which thou now makest even whilest thou art in it There will be far less trouble one would think quite to part with it and to get from it We must not let false opinions live And the way to be dead to these earthly things is to change our opinion of them and to see them to be what indeed they are empty and unsatisfying changeable and unconstant Of this I have spoken before in the former discourse but seeing in it a thing so great and fundamental to our contentment let me again present you with it We are the cause of our own grief by magnifying the things of the world to such a value that the loss of them shall be worth so many tears We think that they are happy who are rich and honourable though they be never so wicked and unskilful how to live 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. L. 1 cap. 19. We presently cry up a man for wise and what not Who to use Arrianus his phrase is preferred by Caesar though it be but to be Groom of his close-stool And on the contrary we despise vertue if it be in a thread-bare coat and count him a fool who is unfortunate No wonder then that we cry and whine like children when we lose any of these worldly things seeing we think our selves more happy than men in the enjoyment of them We think that we are undone when we part with that which we have such an high opinion of and there is no way to make us think that all is safe but by altering of that foolish opinion We expect what cannot be and will not be content with what may easily be We cannot make the things of this world to be still and quiet but may make our selves so and the way to that quietness is well to consider their inconstancy and that our happiness is in something better It was a good rule which Pythagoras gave to all his Schollars and is the same that I would have you learn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do not walk in the high way i. e. Do not follow the common opinions be not led by vulgar and popular apprehensions Rectifie the ordinary conceits which you have carelesly entertained of things and judge of them as they are in themselves and not as they are reputed of If we would do thus then that which is the cause of our sorrow would be the cause of our tranquillity because nothing hath left us but that which we knew would not stay with us We mourn now because things are so inconstant but then we should not mourn because we knew them to be inconstant If we could make it good that any of these things are ours then I might avouch it that they would never have left us But if they were not ours why are we offended that God doth what he will with his own And besides shall we who are so inconstant oblige all things besides our selves to constancy Shall we whose desires are so restless and uncertain expect that all things but only we should be stable and quiet No let us look into our selves and we shall find so much difficulty to settle them that we shall not wonder that other things are unsettled And again if things be so mutable why should we not think as I have already said that they will one day change to what we would have them But suppose they should what are we the better If our opinion be not turned too we shall be as much afraid to lose them again seeing they are so unconstant as now we are desirous to have them by the benefit of their inconstancy We must therefore alter our esteem of things now else we shall only change our trouble but not be rid of it when things are changed Adeo nihil est miserum nisi cùm putes c. So certain it is that nothing is miserable but when we think it is so and that nothing will make us happy unless we think that we are happy And we had better think so now than stay to be taught this lesson by the dear experience of a great many troubles Let thine estate be never so prosperous yet if thine heart be unmortified thou wilt never be the nearer but rather the further off from settlement For they that have the greatest abundance are the soonest disturbed by every trisle because they are not used to have any thing go contrary to their humour But if thou wilt take any comfort from the unconstancy of things let it be this That if thou thinkest thy self therefore unfortunate because those things are gone that were joyful then thou mayst think thy self happy enough seeing the things that are unpleasant are going away also And think I beseech you once more and be of this opinion That there is nothing better in this world to thee than thy self As long therefore as thou hast thy self why shouldst thou be troubled especially if thou thy self thinkest never the worse of thy self because thou art poor and destitute of friends For these take away nothing of thy self nor can any thing in the world deprive thee of thy self And as Boethius well saith This is the condition of humane nature that it then only excels all things here when it knows it self but when it doth not it is below the very Beasts For it is natural for them to be ignorant but for a man it is the basest vice especially
when he is ignorant of himself There was a Fable among the Heathens which wise men understood to contain in it great Philosophy In the midst of this sad discourse it will please you perhaps if I relate it and it will please you a great deal more for to learn and live by it After Jupiter had made the world he thought that men would not be restrained from sin without rewards and punishments and so he made two great barrels the one full of good things the other full of bad to be sent down among men as there was occasion Pandora being very desirous to know what was in these barrels did one day broach them and all the good things flew out towards heaven and all the bad towards hell Hope only and Fear remained in the bottom of these Casks the former in that of Evil things and the latter in that of Good When this was done Jupiter threw down these empty Tubs to the earth and all mortals ran at the rareness of the sight to see what they could find in them Some looked into the one and some into the other and though both of them were empty yet they thought verily that the one was full of good and the other full of evil And ever since it came to pass that here below we have nothing but a fancy or conceit of Good mixed with fear and jealousie and a meer conceit of Evil with some hope in the compound of it The Morral of it is this That the things of this world are but empty Goods and inconsiderable Evils They are our own opinions that trouble us with the shadow of evil and that flatter us on the other side with a fair shew of Good All substantiall Good is in heaven and all dreadfull misery is in hell If we go to heaven we are well enough whatsoever we lose if we fall into sin and so into hell we cannot be well though we should enjoy all the world and while we stay here below there is no good thing we enjoy but is accompanied with fear and no evil we suffer but is attended with Hope And there is no hope like that which is laid up in Heaven of enjoying a bliss sincere and pure without any allay at all Let us turn our minds then toward these heavenly things which they did but dream of in the dark ages of the world Let us heartily believe the Gospel which hath brought to light eternal life And then we shall think our selves happy enough if we lose not those things and perhaps the death of our friends and such like crosses befall us that we may not lose them The Almighty Goodness draws our thoughts and affections by these means from transitory comforts and calls them up thither where we hope our Friends are arrived See saith he here is your Home here is your resting place here is the immortal Inheritance that never fades away If you love your selves mind the way hither and suffer nothing to turn you out of it Whatsoever cross befalls you take it up and carry it along with you Let it only spur you to make the more hast to Eternal joyes Where when we are once seated aloft amidst those glorious objects which then shall incompass us with what contempt as an ingenious Person * M. Malh to the Princess of Conty speaks shall we look down upon this Morsel of earth which men have divided into so many Kingdoms or upon this drop of water whereof so many Seas are composed How shall we smile to see men so busie about the necessities of a Body to which we no sooner give one thing but it asks another and so disquieted through a weakness of spirit which daily troubles them as to unwish that to day which the day before they wished for Enter if it be possible into these generous thoughts before hand Begin to speak of the World as you will do when you have forsaken it Acknowledge it to be a place where you must daily lose something till you have lost all And by these and the like Meditations let your soul assuredly conceive that having had its Original from Heaven it is one of the number of those which must one day return thither In the mean time when the daies of Mourning come and sorrow will not be denyed its place let me recommend this advice to every man As soon as it is possible II. Our tears should be kept for that which is the cause of death and all our tears Turn thy sorrow for thy friend into sorrow for thy sins Remember that thy tears may be due to some other thing and the cure of that will cure all thy other griefs If thou art not a Christian then it is thy duty to mourn neither for one thing nor other but only to bewail thy self Let the dead bury the dead as our Saviour said do thou presently follow after thy Lord with tears Take no care of funerals think of no earthly thing but only how thou mayest be a Christian And if thou art so then thou oughtest to rejoyce that thy sins are pardoned and that thou hast not the greatest cause of grief and this joy sure will swallow up all thy sorrows There is scarce any thing so considerable in our bodies that is seen as our tears for they are the most notable expressions of what is in our hearts The hands as Ant. Guevara observes do work the feet do walk the tongue speaks but it is the heart only that weeps The eyes are but the spunges of the heart through which its affections are drained and dried up An afflicted heart hath neither hands to labour nor feet to walk nor can it find a tongue to speak but tears are all that it hath to tell you what it wants And therefore we ought to reserve these for some greater thing than our dead friends which our heart ought much to be affected withall As our Saviour said to the women of Jerusalem when he was going to the most cruel sufferings so might our friends say to us when they are a dying Weep not for us but weep for your selves if you be dead while you are alive Mourn more than you do if you have not yet mourned for your sins and amended them But if you have then rejoyce in the favour of God and bless him for his Son Jesus who is better to thee than ten Sons or all thy friends which thou lamentest Are our sins dead as well as our friends have we buried them in the grave of our Lord are we risen again to an heavenly life Let us go then to God and pray to him and praise him and this will give us ease But if we be troubled for sin then sure we shall not add another sin by immoderate sorrow and forgetfulness of Gods goodness If it be sin we hate then bitter complaints and discontents must all be hated Would you indispose your self to pray to praise God and meditate in his