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
he had lived wickedly in his future course then he could not have been safe And besides their badness suppose our children should have died of some infamous and base death this would have troubled us more than death it self Yea some there have been that have sought their Parents death and what a trouble would this have been Some have slain their fathers and others their mothers and who was there left to mourn then If you be affrighted at these strange supposals which sometimes have had a reall truth yet consider once more that if they had not been bad notwithstanding who knows what miseries they might have endured worse than death Can you tell what misfortunes might have befaln them which might have made them wish they had died sooner They are now dead perhaps they have that which afterward they might have desired and not so easily obtained For how many and frequent occasions are there of sorrow here To find a life without Crosses we must seek among them that last but from morn to night And so great are the troubles and anguish which some endure that their life is nothing else but a long continued death Which made one of the Gymnosophists answer Alexander when he askt whether death or life was stronger Life sure for that bears the most evils And suppose he that is dead should not have been miserable yet now he is gone if he might rise again it is likely he would not lest he should know again the fear and the pains of dying He is freed from the vanity and vexation of life and from the terrours and agonies of death He hath left the evils of this world as well as the goods and is out of a capacity of suffering as well as of enjoying any thing here This is one of the comforts I remember which that great Divine Greg. Nazianz. gives his Parents against the loss of his dear Brother Caesarius * Orat. 10. p. 172. edit Paris We are sad to think saith he that Caesarius shall rule and govern no more but let us consider withall that none shall hereafter domineer or tyrannize over him None shall fear or stand in awe of him more but he shall not fear neither the insolencies of a grievous Master who is not worthy perhaps to be a servant He shall heap up no more riches No nor shall he be envyed by others or tormented by his own desires of increasing wealth Hippocrates Galen and all the rest he shall expound no more but he shall not labour under diseases neither no nor bear the burden of other mens miseries He shall demonstrate Euclid Ptolomy and Hero no more but he shall not be vexed neither with the proud Ignorance of empty people Plato and Aristotle and Pyrrho and all their fellows can do him no more credit nor shall he cast in his mind how to dissolve their little subtilties What shall I remember more Those high priz'd things which are so greedily sought by all wife and children he shall have none nor shall he mourn for them or be lamented by them either by leaving them to others or being left himself a monument of calamity All this is true may some say my child is free from all the dangers and miseries of this life but if you knew what a rare Creature it was that I have lost you would allow my continued complaints The Heir of an illustrious House the prop of his Family the Hope of his Country the child of a thousand Prayers and that in the Spring and flowr of his Age. What heart of Adamant would not sympathize with one in this condition Some letters of the Antients on this subject I 'le answer you in the words of a great Friend of the Father now mention'd who is ready to comply with your sorrows if you will be but as forward to receive his consolations I confess saith St. Basil in a letter of his to Nectarius * Epist 188. on this subject that it is impossible to be insensible of your loss There was no body but wisht when he was alive that they had such a Son and when he was dead they wept for him as if he had been their own Nay if we would complain and abandon our selves to weeping for this accident the whole time of our life is not long enough for it If all mankind would groan with us they could not make a lamentation equall to this loss no though they should make a River with their tears The Sun himself if he were sensible would shrink at such a spectacle But if we will let the gift of God which he hath put into our hearts interpose that sober reason which sets a measure to our Souls in prosperity it will suggest many things which we have seen and heard to moderate us in these sad circumstances It will tell us that this life is full of affliction and that all places abound with examples of humane calamities But above all that it is the command of God not to lament the dead in the Faith of Christ because of the hope of the Resurrection and that there are great crowns laid up for great patience If we suffer Reason to sing these things in our eares we may find some moderate end of this evil And therefore I exhort thee as a generous Combatant to fortifie thy self against the heaviness of this stroke and not lie down under the weight of sorrow Being perswaded that though the reasons of Gods dispensations are out of our reach yet we ought intirely to accept that which is ordered by one so wise and loving although it be heavy and grievous to be born For he knows how to appoint to every one what is profitable and why he hath set unequall terms to our life The cause is incomprehensible by us why some are carried away sooner and others tarry longer in this toilsome and miserable life so that we ought in all things to adore his loving kindness and not to take any thing ill at his hands Remembring the great and famous voice of Job who when he heard that his ten children were all struck dead in one moment said The Lord gave the Lord hath taken away as it pleased the Lord so it is come to pass Let us make this admirable language our own They are rewarded with an equall recompence by the just judge who perform the same worthy actions We are not robbed of a child but only have restored him to the lender nor is his life extinct but only translated to a better The earth doth not cover our beloved but Heaven hath received him let us tarry a while and we shall be in his company The distance of time is but short between the arrivall of several travellers to their Inne into which some are already turned others are entring and the rest are making great hast toward it but they shall all come to one end For though some perform the journey sooner yet all are in the same
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
If it have any thing to complain of it is only this that it was born And therefore let us be content for it is better perhaps for it and not much the worse for us If we weep so much for an Infant what shall we do for a man Either let us now let down the sluce or else expect that we shall then be drowned If he had lived to be a man it might have done as we do miserably bewail the death of its children And therefore either let us not thus bewail it or else think it happy that it lived not to be so miserable as we think our selves Unreasonable to mourn for one when we have more and both waies our grief will be cured But suppose it be a child of a larger growth whose death extorts these tears from us Yet it is but one and we may have many more remaining Shall we lose all the content of a great many because we suffer the want of one If the life of this one would have pleased us so much then how joyfull should we be in the life of four or five If it be such a grief to lose a child then let us be thankfull that we lie not under the miserable grief of losing them all But if we cannot take this patiently then I doubt we shall run mad with impatience if God should take them all away We must learn to part with more by parting willingly with this one for all must die too Can he bear a stone weight who cannot endure the load of one pound and yet how justly may we fear that all the rest should shortly follow seeing we fret so much at Gods hand in this Suppose that this was the most goodly child yet not fairer sure than all the rest put together Or if he was most beautifull yet some of the others may be more wise If this had all our love then we may learn now how to divide our love equally and take pleasure in loving more If he loved us most then he would have wisht us if he had thought of it not to make our selves miserable by mourning for him Dion Chryst Orat 30. So Charidemus said to his friends when he was a dying It is Gods will that I should die and there can nothing that is hurtfull come from him I am very willing to die and I beseech you believe me in what I say for I have a greater care to speak truth now than any of you can have Grieve not for me for I grieve not do not make your selves miserable for I think not my self to be so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As much as ever you are able refrain from all sadness for no sad thing hath befaln me Thus we should say to our friends if we love them and therefore their love to us should not make us sad because they would have all they love to be chearfull If they could tell us their mind they would certainly bid us cease our mourning and therefore let us end it of our own accord Let there be such an harmony still between us in our wills and desires that we may not be wailing and lamenting when they are wishing we may be comforted Or when we may have more But let it be supposed that it is an only child yet are there not many hopes that you may have more who gave you this cannot he give you another hath not he that hath the keyes of the grave the keyes of the womb also If one die then as long as the world lasts another shall be born And if we desire children for the good of the world then so they be born it is no matter by whom But if for our sake then we may have them as well as others though perpetuall grief and sadness you may be sure is not the way to procure them Or if God will give us none then we may adopt one Any child will love us as if it was our own if it know not that it is any bodies else Nay any one will love and serve us for what we have and instead of one we shall have many that will thank us more than he perhaps to be our heirs but if we have nothing then why should we desire children for to leave them miserable but as I said why should we not hope for more and those better than him we lost with this hope David comforted Bathsheba his wife 2. Sam. 12.24 who bare a Jedidiah a man beloved of the Lord. If we count it such a strange thing to die then it should seem it is an ordinary thing to live and so why should we not expect the new life of another But if it be no strange thing to die then as I have said already we may well be comforted Or if we should have no more yet this may be some comfort that then we shall have no more to mourn thus sadly for Yea suppose thou art the last of thy family and name as was the great Scaliger and Lipsius also another excellent Scholar it is no great matter seeing the world is not to last long If thy name must have an end what needest thou to trouble thy self when it ends And if men can think it no harm to suffer their name to die of it self as Scaliger did who would not marry why shouldst thou be troubled if thine perish after due care to preserve and uphold it Or when it is uncertain whether they or none at all be better But then if thou hadst never so many children yet who knows how they may prove If they should be bad then thou thy self wilt say that it had been better they had never been They that thou mournest for because they are dead might have given thee greater cause of mourning if they had lived If the death of a child be sad his wickedness would have been far sadder for that is a worser death He that dies doth trouble his Parents but once but he that is bad is a perpetuall torment to them He that is dead cannot indeed help his Parents but then he doth not hurt them as many a bad one doth For those that are dead we only grieve we do not fear but for those that are bad we fear perpetually and we grieve also yea all the sorrow we now conceive at their death will not equall perhaps the meer fear which we should have had from their infancy lest their life should prove bad It is said in the life of John the Patriarch of Alexandria that a Merchant came to him to pray for a son of his that was at Sea that he might be safe Within a moneth the child dyed and his ship likewise was cast away And when he was much troubled at this double loss he thought one night that he saw the Patriarch standing by his bed and saying to him Thou desiredst me to pray that thy son might be safe and behold now he is safe for he is dead If
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
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
care to draw them to us And how do we know that blessed souls in whom the faith of a holy love could never dye would not come to visit us if we made our selves fit to receive them and they found nothing in us contrary to their nature and happiness which hindred us from going towards them And what greater obstacle can there be unto it than tears and sorrow The wings that must carry us up thither are our thoughts which animated by our desires and the ardors of an holy friendship must never cease beating till they raise us up to that which we look for And what do our tears but wet the wings of our thoughts and hinder the flight of them Do you not see that among the vapours which arise from the Earth those which proceed from rivers and marshes and other moist places stop in the middle region of the air and melting there return from whence they came whereas those which come from dryer matters soar up higher till being inflamed they turn into Comets and other Coelestial fires Do you believe in like manner that your thoughts though never so pious can never mount high if they be clogged and wet with abundant tears Let them be beated by the sacred flame of your holy friendship and purified from worldly contagion and taking their flight through a calm and undisturbed spirit as through a clear and bright air you will questionless overtake that which is fled from you and embrace that blessed soul and grasp the splendor of that eternal light wherewith it is cloathed And you will find it as if it consented to your desires coming down again all along your thoughts as by a thred giving you a more perfect rejoicing therein than can be imagined It will dwell in you at least by the lively image of your vehement thought and seem as if it were your self For we find that in corporeal things a violent imagination makes us believe we see and touch that which is farthest from us Try Madam that which I say and you will find it most true Make use of this troublesome grief which you cannot be rid of to spur your desires to be re-joyned to that at the loss of which you so much repine Thus He. To which me thinks I hear some that this way is too sublime for their spirits They cannot mount themselves on this fashion but cleave fast to these Terrestial objects It may be so and all that I can say to such is this that next to God and our blessed Saviour whom they apprehend I hope every where to take care of those that commit themselves to the Fatherly Providence of the most supream Reason they should entertain themselves in the company and embraces of their remaining friends whose presence is most delightfull and converse most comfortable And all of them put together may make a sensible Image of a dead Husband I know they will say but these Friends may die too and then what shall I do I have told you already and therefore have the less to add on this subject Yet I shall remember you of the words of Seneca * Epist 63. concerning the death of a Friend which are to this purpose If thou hast other friends besides this Of the Death of Friends is it not a great reproach to them of their unworthiness that all of them are not able to comfort thee for the loss of one If thou hast no more then thou hast done thy self a greater wrong than God hath done thee for he hath taken but one and thou hast made never an one God makes men as is said by some and we make friends And if thou beest desirous of more and findest such need of them thou hast leisure now to go and seek them He can never want friends that wants not Vertue He loved not one well that cannot love any more than one Is it not a ridiculous folly for a man to shrug and cry when he hath lost his coat rather than go to fetch another garment to cover him from the cold If he be taken away whom thou didst love seek another whom to love It is far better to repair thy loss than to mourn for it And if thou canst not find another to thy mind How couldst thou be a friend to him that is dead if thou hast no power to help thy self why should not a good man find enough in God and himself The want of nothing can make thee want Vertue and he that hath that hath enough Nay every good man is thy friend if thou beest good and they that never saw thy face before if they see thy goodness will be good unto thee Ap leius de Philos Mor. Bonos omnes oportet inter se amicos esse etsi sint minus noti All good men ought to be friends though they be not much acquainted I have passed over this last particular as you see very swiftly because I observe my discourse swells to a greater bigness than I intended And in some of the following considerations you shall find satisfaction to every one of these cases if you will but concoct them SECT VI. Which directs how to quiet our selves by comparing our selves both with our selves and with others and there are five waies of comparison insisted on III. To compare our selves with our selves and others a way to be contented We were not so well once or not better and yet not so grieved COnsider so far as to make comparisons And first of all compare thy self now with what thou once wast yea with what thou once wast not There was a time when thou thy self wast not so much as dead for thou wast not at all nor hadst any capacity of joy or sorrow Hath God dealt unkindly with thee in giving thee a being capable of both Wouldst thou have refused a being if we may suppose an offer to be made to nothing unless he would have given thee nothing but joy and never taken away what he gave thee unless thou hast a mind to be gave thee unless thou hast a mind to be nothing be contented with what thou art Then thou hadst not these relations for thou hadst not thy self Why shouldst thou mourn now that thou hast them not since thou hast thy self Is there not more reason to be thankfull for a being though capable of mourning than to be troubled at the occasion of it Surely thou dost not desire to cease thy mourning by ceasing to be Ease thy self then of thy grief by the being that God hath given thee If thou couldst not mourn then Do not mourn now But then consider that since thou hadst a being there was a time when thou hadst none of these relations no wife nor children nor friends which thou art deprived of Yet thou didst not then weep and lament and trouble thy self as now thou dost Seeing thou art what thou wast be contented as thou wast What difference is there between that