Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A41719
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Advice to young gentlemen, in their several conditions of life· By way of address from a father to his children. By the Abbot Goussault, counseller in Parliament. With his sentiments and maxims upon what passes in civil society. Printed at Paris 1697, and translated into English.; Conseils d'un père à ses enfans sur les divers états de la vie. English
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Goussault, Jacques.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing G1451A; ESTC R223716
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70,421
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157
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Eternity XIV If God infinitely just has Condemned Man to Death as a punishment due to his Sin the same God infinitely good has given Death to the same Man as a Soveraign Remedy to all his Evils and an infallible means to make him for ever Happy XV. The nature of Man was created as a Vessel that ought to be fill'd with nothing but good and precious Liquors but the Devil jealous of his Happiness having put the Poison of Sin in this Vessel which corrupted it God was willing to repair that which the Devil had spoiled and not being willing the Poison should so possess our Nature that it should always remain infected he breaks this Vessel in pieces by Death that the Poison might run out and that re-uniting these divided pieces at the general Resurrection this Nature might be mended purified and become as wholly different from it self XVI When you shall have quit the Care you had for the Grandeur and Riches of this World and turned your Heart towards God you will easily surmount the rest and not look upon Life but with indifferency your Treasure will be in Heaven you will never lose the sight of it and you will easily resolve to be soon with it to enjoy it to all Eternity XVII You have no need of Faith or Rhetorick to perswade you that all must die the Decree of God which for so many Ages has been indifferently executed upon all Men is an evident demonstration of it and if you find any so extravagant as to doubt it you need but to lead them from Tomb to Tomb and the innumerable number of Bones that they may see there will convince them of the Truth of it XVIII Death has her Lessons and Responses and they are within us let us ask her as long as we please the greatest and most sensible of all her Lessons the most precise and infallible of all her Answers will be that we must die XIX Since that all that we have within us teaches us and speaks continually to us that we must die will it be strange to make this necessity of Death the Object of all your Thoughts and your Reflexions XX. Since that all that are about you cannot tell you the Day or Hour of your Death will it be strange if you make this uncertainty the Object of your Meditations and that by a Spiritual watchfulness make a serious consideration of that which one Day must certainly arrive and of what will become of you XXI That you must die is an undoubted Truth you ought therefore to make all your Endeavours and employ all your Cares to die well It is the most natural consequence that you can draw from this Truth but to employ all your cares without thinking of Death and what good will it do you to think of it except you think of it in such a manner as the Thoughts of it will be to your Profit and Advantage XXII Your Soul that will survive your Body does not that merit your care and pains that you should make it happy for ever does it not deserve more your care and labour than the mass of Flesh which it animates What have you not done for this Mass What cares have you not taken to preserve it in this point I leave you to your own considerations CHAP. XXVI Advice upon the thoughts of Death I. MY Dear Children the great and infallible means to die well is to live well and the great secret and means to live well is to think often of Death II. A good Death is nothing but the consequence of a good Life live well that you may die well and think often of dying that you may live well so that a good Life and a good Death reciprocally depend one upon another and they serve the one the other as the means to come to a good end they give a Hand one to the other to lead a Man where he ought to be III. All the most great and charming things in the World may be consider'd two ways in relation to their Beginning and their End the beginning of Greatness Honours and Riches is God but as soon as we consider them as coming from God what difference do we find betwixt them and God from whom they come when we consider this they must needs appear despicable These are like little Stars that with their small Lights dazle us but disappear and fall by their own weakness into the profound darkness of Night As soon as God the Sun of glory infinitely bright appears before our Eyes in full splendour such is the frailty and misery of all in this World be it never so great never so rich when we consider it in respect to its beginning God IV. Thy Misery and greatness appears yet greater in respect of its end since all Greatness and Riches end with our Lives and are buried with us in our Graves V. All the World runs headlong to Death great and small Rich and Poor Kings and Shepherds and the swift Revolutions of Age draws after them Millions of Men. Our Fathers are dead we shall likewise die our Posterity shall pass away like us and like them that have gone before us VI. Our Years rowl insensibly one after another and rowl without standing still one moment till our Death It is thither that every step we make leads us 't is there we all go like several Rivers which throw themselves into the Sea the Day and Hour of your Death will never come to your Knowledge Make your advantage of this Advice that is given you from the Mouth of Truth and continually be watchful VII Never put off the consideration of Dying to the Hour of your Death that moment is not proper to die well you ought to make it when you are in Health and your Mind undisturbed VIII If you would be watchful and think of Death you should seriously examin the Life you lead to see if it agree with that which you would lead when you are at the point of Death that is to die to the World and to all that you love in it before you die indeed IX If you be watchful and think of Death whilst you are living you will dye by a hearty and true forsaking the World and its Pleasures you will love a retired life you will be assiduous in Prayer you will mortifie your self as much as you can you will give liberally to the Poor you will exercise your self in good Works and you will fill your Mind with nothing but what may encrease your Faith your Hope and your Charity it is in the practice of these things without doubt that the care and right thinking of Death consists X. Children are afraid of their Fathers when they disguise themselves because they do not use to see them in that manner take away the Disguise you give to Death and it will not fright your any more Death is represented continually attended with a company of Physicians with the Tears of
come XVIII If you make ill use of your Life it is unprofitable to you and when you lose it you lose nothing wherefore are you then afraid to lose it have not you more reason to hope it than to fear it XIX You have been Heir to your Ancestors is it not reasonable that your Children should be your Successors your Life is limited to Fifteen or Twenty Lustres why should you desire to go beyond it Have your Ancestors done you the wrong to take your places wherefore would you fill the Places of your Descendants XX. It is strange to fear an imperceptible moment to the last breath we live and so soon as we are expired it cannot be truly said that we die since we are no more We do not find this Death in one that is yet alive nor do we more find it in him who is nor more because he is past Death and it has no more power of him XXI A Dwarf is a Man as much as a Giant and he that lives but a short time is as much a Man as Adam and Seth who lived many Ages the great and the little in the Life of Man is but as one point in regard of Eternity and the World seems no more empty by his Death than the Sea appears dry by a drop of Water taken from it XXII It would be terrible and frightful to us if Man could not die since he would find his Life a Fountain of inexhaustible Miseries XXIII Thales the wise Graecian assures us that it is the same thing to live and to die and one day being asked why he did not die he answer'd because if I should die it would be asked why I did not live XXIV I am not of that Philosophers Opinion I do acknowledge that Life is a Good that God has given us to enjoy and that Death is a punishment of sin therefore I do not look upon them as things indifferent yet the difference that we find between them ought not to give us too great a tie to the one nor too great a fear for the other We are all Criminals but we ought not go cowardly to our Punishment we ought to be sorry that we have given cause for our Condemnation but we ought to suffer with Submission Courage and Constancy XXV The first of our Days teaches us to live but the last does not teach us to die learn this Lesson long before you make use of it and the sooner you do it the better XXVI In all Contracts of Marriage there are Articles that concern the Death of both Husband and Wife and as soon as we make a strict alliance with Reason we ought to make Articles of Death between her and our selves this will make our Alliance more firm more Spiritual and more Christian CHAP. XXV Vpon the same Subject I. MY Dear Children you ought to regard this Life as a passage to another which never will have an end this being so you ought not to set your Affections upon any thing here below seem it never so great and Charming You ought early to begin to die to Honour to Pleasure and to your self II. You ought to consider that your Salvation is the greatest business you have to do and you cannot think too much of it nor too soon III. If you have nothing to reproach your self with you will be quiet and easie in your sickness One is not afraid of Death but when he has lived ill IV. Let it not trouble you when you think of Death but to the contrary look upon it with Pleasure as an end of all your Miseries and as the beginning of a happy Life V. When you see so many Persons of Quality think no more of Death than if they were never to die that ought to engage you to enter into your self and to reason justly upon this Practice their insensibility ought to touch you and you ought to be perswaded that the less they think of Death the more they ought to think of it and the less they fear it the more they have reason to fear it VI. Make use of the Blindness and Folly of others Pleasures pass away Greatness vanishes and believe it it is late if not too late to renounce the amusements of the World when you can no more enjoy them VII Make Reflexion upon the difference that there is betwixt a Worldly Man that is with all the Pomp of this World I mean one that has loved them to the end of his Life and a good and pious Man who has always labour'd to bury himself living in an humble obscure and retir'd life the one dies overwhelm'd under the weight of his Honours Pleasures and Greatness the other dies under the Weight of his Mortifications his Fasting and Humiliations They both die but what difference in their Death in the Thoughts and Consequence of one and the other the World hath fought against them both but they have ended the Battel in a different manner the one is Conquer'd and hath submitted to the Laws of the Conqueror and the other hath triumphed over him so that it might be said that the Death of one is glorious and may be envyed by those who look upon it with the Eyes of Faith and the Death of the other ought to make those that live such a Life to tremble VIII But without considering so morally why should not you think often of Death being that Experience teaches that you must die every step you make leads towards your Grave is it possible that you can do this without Reflexion and that you can travel so long in the Way and not sometimes think of the end that this way leads you to IX You live but to die and always to think of Life and of all that may make it pass away pleasantly and never think of the time that must put an end to it is a thing very extraordinary for a Man of Sense X. Our Sicknesses our Wrinkles our Gray Hairs our Years past that cannot come again and how little we can rely upon those that are to come are all of them eloquent Tongues that teach us that we must die XI The different States of your Life are a looking-glass continually before your Eyes shewing your approaching Death which already has laid his Hands upon you You have been Infants young and Men grown up all that is in order of Nature but when you are Old what can you think or hope to become Death without doubt will follow Old Age which will be the end of your Life as Old Age has been the end of your precedent Ages XII You will ask me what are the means to think of Death when one loves life so much To that I answer there is one way which is easie that is not to love Life so much XIII Why would not you think of Death since it will end your Necessities your Weaknesses and your Miseries it will finish a Voyage at the end of which you will find a happy