efficit Quod si putatis longius vitam trahi Mortalis aura nominis Cum sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies Iam vos secunda mors manet Where now is just Fabricius Brutus where Or Cato the severe In a few Letters their surviving Fame Presents an empty Name But can those Titles which we read or hear Make Dead men to appear In dark oblivion ye all lye down Nor are your Persons known Or if you tâ—ink your Life by others Breath May be redeemâ—d from Death Time which this Life shall also from you take A second death will make The arguments which the World commonly draws from Death are very strange Epicures say Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dy Certainly Death is the worst Master of Revells The Covetous will live Poor that he may dy Rich whereas indeed none dy Rich but the richest depart as poor and naked out of this world as any leaving all their welth to others Glorious men dy daringly that so they may be famous after Death yet all their Fame is but as a stately Monument set over their Graves Miserable men invoke Death and fly to it as their only Remedy but they are the worst Physicians who cure by killing These and the like are false enjoiments of Death and to no good end The reference it hath to another World as it is a parting Line between Life and Eternity doth best instruct us rightly to enjoy it Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do saith the Wiseman do it with thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest He makes Death an incitement to Work not an invitation to Play and the chief VVork and Business of our Life is to gain eternall Life Blessed are the dead who dy in the Lord that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them All other Works all Arts and Sciences and the vast Projects and famous Enterprises which fill the History of the World end in the Grave In that very day his thoughts perish those only are our Stock and Provision for another VVorld Thus a Christian enjoies Death by being familiarly acquainted with him and taking him by the hand goes along with him in all his steps and motions dying dayly to the World and living to God and Heaven and when Death at last summons him to depart he willingly resigns up all as things which no longer concern him He looks upon Heaven as a Kingdom in Reversion after his own Life and looses nothing in the mean time by staying for it while he lives he encreases his future Glory and when he dies he goes to possess it Men of this world whose hope is only in this Life put Death far from them though it be most naturall and nigh unto them and the most certain of all future things and when Death appears and stares them in the face they behold him as a most strange and horrid thing either dying away through fear and astonishment as Nabal did or enraged like a wild Bull in a net as the famous Duke of Biron or with Iudas desperately plunge themselvs into Hell like Empedocles who cast himself quick into Mount Aetna The best of them look upon Death as an indifferent thing as Martial concludes his Happy Life Summum nec metuas diem nec optes But to me saith the Apostle to live is Christ and to dy is Gain which is the best and truest enjoiment both of Life and Death XIII Of Sin SIn is the Death of Souls the Father of Perdition which like the Cici or Worm in Ionas Gourd corrupted the world almost assoon as it was made The Mystery of Iniquity is almost as wonderfull as the Mystery of Grace and Godliness that it should be so exceeding sinfull and that being such it could possibly enter into the VVorld when it was so perfectly constituted that there was no cleft or crany in it by which Sin might creep forth enter into it untill it made way for it self Before Adam by fatall experience acquired the Knowledge of Good and Evill Sin might seem an incredible thing for how could it be imagined that a reasonable Creature of perfect understanding and exact integrity made only to serv and obey his Creator and conscious that all his Happiness consisted therein should rebell against him and at once plunge himself and all his Posterity into everlasting Misery As there was no reason for Sin so neither was there any root or ground out of which it should spring only a bare Possibility of doing that which was most unreasonable and unnaturall God made Man upright but they have sought out many inventions he was fain to seek out and invent the way of undoing himself and to create Sin which God had not made But that which is most wonderfull in Sin and which hath puzled the most profound Doctors is the consideration of Gods Permission and Providence how and why he should suffer such an Enemy to himself and all his Creatures to invade the World and ruin the whole Creation It is certainly the greatest quarrell and highest blasphemy which the Divells and damned have against God that he should make them to damn them and it is the strongest argument in the corrupt minds of the sinners of this VVorld who have not yet felt the Hell of Sin that it is no such great matter as Divines would perswade them thinking that because God doth permit it therefore he will also tolerate it This is the strange and prodigious birth of Sin and the Nature of it is answerable thereunto for it is no less then the doing of that w ch we ought not to do or the not doing of that which we ought to do and what we ought not to do is in the very next degree to what we cannot do Chast Ioseph puts the one for the other How can I do this wickedness and sin against God making morall Entity and Bonity as convertible as Naturall and Gods Interdiction as restraining as his Interposition This Monster assoon as it is born is so strong and adult in mischief that it destroieth the Womb that bare it and infecteth the whole Sphere of its activity though acts of Sin make it grow yet the first birth thereof makes it a complete Body and merits an universall and eternall punishment It hath blasted the whole inferior world and laid the foundations of Hell it self hence are all the Evills in Nature all the disorders in Humane society and villanies of Men. The Story of the Italian who first made his Enemy deny God and then Stab'd him and so at once murdered both Body and Soul declares the perfect malignity thereof and should the dire imprecations of revengefull Spirits be alwaies executed on others we should create Divells and Hells enough to destroy all Mankind But all this is the least and lowest Evill in it the perfection thereof consists in the contrariety and enmity
far below a great Spirit Apostates of all other men most strictly embrace this present world and study to extract the greatest sweetness it can afford their desires being greatly enlarged with the tast which they had of the Chief good and they have reason to do so for at the best they make but a bad bargain but all fall not in the same manner some fall forward with their faces toward the earth and wallow in the mire of sensuall uncleanness as Nicholas the Libertine and his beastly Sect others of a more generous and sublime Spirit by supine gazing on the Heavens from which they fell and barking at the Stars which they left fixed in their Orbs such were Lucian Iulian and the Devils It seems Spiritual wickedness is most sublime and delightful much more Spiritual virtues and graces which are the proper perfections of the Soul Averroes and the rest of the Arabian Philosophers are ashamed of that sensual and beastly Paradise which their Mahomet provided for them as most unworthy of the soul of Man and far short of his true Happiness VI. Of Health HEalth is the temperate Zone or habitable part of Mans Life As sleep is the image of Death so is sickness of Hell being rightly termed a Dying Life whereof Death many times is the sole Physitian Many Princes dwell in stately Palaces whose souls are ill seated in Cadaverous bodies Health is commonly the Peasants prerogative which no riches can purchase of him whereas if he could be bought out of it he might sell it at the dearest rates what would not a rich man give to another to undertake the pain of the Stone or Gout for him could they be laid upon others as outward burdens and labors are Health in Great men is a great advantage Henry the fourth of France was bred hardly among the Peasants which preserved his life and prepared him for those great Actions which he afterward performed Cicero reporteth of one of the Scipio's that he had equalled Africanus if he had not been kept under by perpetual sickness Besides health is the very Paradise of all Sensual Pleasures in which they grow and flourish yet Courtiers usually corrupt it by a licentious course of life and so disable both Body and Mind not only for the performing of Civill Actions but also for the enjoying of Naturall Pleasures which they so much affect So unnatural is the vice of voluptuousness that it destroyeth Health which is its own foundation As Health consists in Temperament so the best way to preserve it is Temperance Diseases caused by emptiness may be more dangerous but there is more danger in exceeding Hence are most of our vulgar sicknesses Feavers Pests Catarrhs and Coughs the Trumpeters of Death Violence and excess may be good Physike but are bad Diet unless we dare venture on them as Mithridates used Poison to fortifie our selvs against casual extremities But a sober and discreet mixture of both seems most conform to the various occasions of life The Ecclesiastical Order was to fast the Eve before a Feast but the Physical rule holds as well afterward till it be digested and the best kind of fasting is to eat a little Excess of Affections especially Malignant as Fear Grief Envy Malice and all Anxiety of mind destroyes the body more then that of Food but delightful objects and pleasant studies are the minds Recreations Keep both Body and Mind clean and fresh freeing them from all burdensom and offensive things But Tiberius his Aphorism That every man is his own best Phisician is worth all others being most true as to the preservation of the ordinary state of Health though not in extraordinary cases or overgrown Diseases which must be helped by the hand of Art Experiments first founded the Art of Physike and no Experience like that within a mans self and Tiberius his life set a Probatum est to his Aphorism for though he was generally most licentious and libidinous yet he preserved himself in good health to a reasonable old age living seventy and eight years He was indeed of a strong constitution but we find the same effect in men very crazy and more sober as Hippocrates Galen and others who first studied their own cases and thence became most eminent Physicians Though Health be very pretious yet it may be overvalued some are so curious of it that they fear the least blast and shadow of Inconvenience as he who imagined himself made all of Glass and was afraid lest every knock should break him whereas indeed this tender niceness is rather a destroier then a preserver of Health Caesar by continuall imployment and hard usage overcame two constant Diseases the Headâ— ach and Falling-sickness and many in our late Wars who before were thought weak and infirm being put upon Service and the necessity of suffering have proved able and hardy beyond expectation However health must be adventured as well as life Pro salute publicae Pompey said Necesse est ut eam non ut vivam when the Common-wealth was concerned He who makes health his chief good and utmost end lives only that he may live and prolongs his time to no purpose VII Of Strength STrength is the Issue Male of Health and Beauty the Female the conjunction of both is very rare and the perfection of Hero's We will speak of them severally There are two kinds of Strength one of Acting the other of Enduring The former is the meniall servant of a Mans self and he who is not his own best Man is his slaves slave and a voluntary Criple There are many offices of life which cannot handsomly be performed by others as necessary Actions and all Exercises The manner of the Turks to sit on Carpets shooting their Arrows and have their slaves fetch them is an unmanly Exercise Some are so vainly idle that they commit the very dressing undressing of themselvs to their servants which is a womanish Fashion there may be some state in it but certainly no convenience A small competency of Strenght sufficeth for common Actions and Agility serveth the turn better then Robust Force Gross and fat bodies are more strong in their Center but have a less Circumference or Sphere of activity being burdens to the earth and themselvs Light and nimble bodies though of less Strength have more use and enjoyment of it The want of a convenient proportion of ordinary Strength renders the Body more infirm and defective then any extraordinary measure thereof can advance in happiness for even in those things whereof there can be no excess and so a mediocrity cannot be the perfection yet it is the Center and hart of the whole It may seem strange that Strength should be increased by sickness and distemper which is an Infirmity as in Feavers Madness Anger yea sometimes by fear it self But this Strength arising from a sudden conflux of spirits is not solid and permanent consisting rather in a violent quickness then in a constant endeavour
was a far greater torment to Satan then all his could be to Iob. Iulius Caesar when he had almost lost the field at Munda was ready to have kill'd himself so great a Conqueror knew not how to conquer Adversity and yet no man is totally vanquished by it till he yield to it Quicquid erit superanda omnis Fortuna ferendo est Though we loose all we may still possess our souls in Patience This is our last Reserv and that strong Hold whereunto he who is beaten out of the Field may alwaies retire and cannot be forced out of it but by surrendring it The common sort of men in Adversity are like Children when they are whipt either wholly surprised with Grief and Horror never striving to keep it from the Hart but give up all presently betraying themselvs by an utter despondency of Spirit and neglect of all Remedies or Cordialls and so ly whining under the power of their Adversary bemoaning and pittying themselvs to no purpose which is a most evident Sign of an absolute conquest and sinks the Soul wholly under water whereas Patience keeps up the Head yea many conspire with their miseries and are as Quintilian expresseth it Ambitiosi in malis augmenting and aggravating them as much as they can as though they found some Pleasure in Grieving and some Musike in their mournfull Ditties Or else Sturdily and Sullenly bear their Afflictions with a setled obstinacy of Mind like strong Bodies on whom no Physike can work when they most need it and so their Disease proves incurable This is to out-brave God and Nature and rather to fly and shun the sense of Affliction then to conquer it Men of Pleasure seek to divert it by inordinate and unseasonable Mirth Gaming Drinking and Surfetting on the remainders of the Feast of Prosperity which is to abuse both Politicians strive by all means to make an Escape and get out of Adversity turning and winding every way like an Eel as long as there is any Life but care not to profit by it or perhaps grow wiser but not better Philosophers fortify against it by the strength of naturall Reason as he said concerning the death of his Son Scio me genuisse mortalem accounting it a gallant thing to be no more affected with the death of a Man then the breaking of a Pitcher Only a Christian Fruitur malis which is indeed a most admirable Enjoiment Angels excell in strength Doing the will of God but Christians in Suffering and a patient enduring of necessary evills is next to a voluntary Martyrdome A Christian heareth the Rod and who hath appointed it which teaches him to suffer and sweetens his suffering more then all the Arts and shifts of worldly men whereby they fence against it He hath a most acute sense of the Pain as feeling the anger of a God in it and yet bears it patiently as the hand of his Father who chasteneth every Son whom he loveth punishing for Sin that so he may punish from Sin and so enjoieth the Love of God and more comfort in all his Evills then worldly men do in all their Good things XII Of Death DEath in it self as it is a cessation of Life is an indifferent or midle thing between Good and Evill and paralell with not being Born In the Ages which have preceded we did not live and in the succeeding we shall not live the first is a negative Death the second a privative Therefore we may as reasonably griev that we were born no sooner as that we shall live no longer Our very Life is a continuall Death for that which is past is dead already Quicquid retro est mors habet and when Death at last shall shut up all and put a full period to the Whole it shall do no more then what every moment doth to the severall Parts The last Sand in the Glass runs out in the same manner as the first Therefore Death should not seem so strange and monstrous being thus familiarly conversant with us every moment The difference between this Mortall Life and Immortality is like that between a Lease for years and an Estate in Fee Simple both go hand in hand together and equally spend the same minutes of Time but the one still runs on whereas the other stops in a certain period Immortality looseth nothing by spending being renewed as fast as it decaieth and continueth still the same Term which the other doth not but is diminished by every moment Fools flatter themselvs and suppose a kind of Immortality in the present Instant of Life because it sufficeth for the present aswell as Immortality it self and they hope still to continue one year or day or moment longer Thus the momentany and uncertain condition of Life which should most mortify is by vain men abused to the contrary Consider Death in relation to the Evill things of this Life and so it is a Release from them all and no part of them Diseases Pains Griefs and all those sad grones and ougly faces which are put upon Death belong to Life which many times exerciseth more cruelty and tyranny then Death Racking is a greater pain then Beheading yet not so deadly Assoon as Death enters upon the Stage the Tragedy is done In relation to the Good things of Life it is a totall deprivation of them and the Grave of all our worldly affairs aswel as of our selvs yea as to our share and interest therein a dissolution of all this World The Tyrants wish That the whole Earth might perish with him took effect in himself Death laugheth at all the Actions of mortall men and stepping in when he pleaseth dasheth all in peices Death stops the mighty Conqueror in the full Career of his Victories and bids him quit the field Death deposeth all Kings and reduceth them to the common equality of their originals Death sweeps down the great Politician and the curious Cobweb of his high Designs Death silences the learned Clerk and makes the Poet cease in the midst of his work like the Poeticall Swan Qui fixus arundine carmen Mille modis querulum quod caeperat interrumpit Death is the best Comment upon Life set him by the most beautifull Mistress and he will convert our deifying fansies into dust and rottenness as Caligula used to say of his Tam bona cervix simulac jussero demetur Place him on the Table among our dishes as the Ancients used to do at their Feasts he will turn all into worms meat Nothing can stand before him but all vanish and disappear at his affrighting presence Honor which of all wordly things only seems to survive passeth away with our Breath into the empty Aire as Boethius wittily descanteth Vbi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii jacent Quid Brutus aut rigidus Cato Signat superstes fama tenuis parvulis Inane nomen literis Sed quid decora novimê° vocabula Num scire consumptes datur Iacetis ergo prorsus ignorabiles Nec fama notos
narrow plank in a dark night and comming the next day to see what danger he had escaped fell down dead with astonishment The common sort of men walk in the dark and so regard not these things but like adventurous Soldiers are hardned with past success though their fellows fall daily on every side Stoikes satisfy themselvs with their Opinion of a Fatall Necessity so the Turks say their Destinies are written on their foreheads which is a desperate Humor but no Security and upon such a conceit to neglect the means of our own preservation adds Guilt to Misery and deprives us of no small comfort in suffering that we were not wanting to our selvs for the prevention of it But as it is the Destiny of such men to perish so it is their Destiny to perish by their own folly which is a double Evill And so Zeno the Stoike could answer his servant whē he would have excused his fault by pleading that it was his Fate he telling him that it was his Fate also to be beaten Politicians think to build above Providence and to set their Mountain so sure that it cannot be moved but how easily are the greatest designs and wisest counsells overturned by the least and most unexpected accidents Iulius Caesar was a man of the largest abilities and no less performance He so far prosecuted all naturall means as if no man had more distrusted his Fortune and yet so much relied on his Fortune as if he had needed no other means when he was in that extremity wherein he could make no use of his Wit or Strength he boasts of it and trusts to it alone Caesarem vehis Fortunam ejus He so often succeeded well in such cases that he kept an Ephemeris thereof God who had ordained him to be the Founder of the Roman Empire did strangely excite and support his Spirit and though it cannot be presumed that he had any knowledge of Divine Revelations and Prophecies concerning himself yet he seems to have had some kind of Belief of the thing I mean an extraordinary Confidence and Assurance of success We shall find him as great an Instance of Divine Providence both in his Rise and Fall as ever was in the World We will begin with his Civill War and recite only his own observations First he had the good hap to deal with an Army without a Generall and then with a Generall without an Army both which met together might probably have match'd him He was so put to it by Petreius and Afranius at Ilerda in Spain that it was reported at Rome they had ended the War which might have been made good if Pompey had come to their aid through Mauritania as was expected Again before the great Battail of Pharsalia when he was assaulted in his trenches he was so far worsted that he plainly confessed he had been conquered if Pompey then had known how to conquer Lastly in the Battail of Munda he was put to fight for his safety as at other times for Honor Labienus only by wheeling about with his Horse for advantage was apprehended by the rest to fly and so resigned the Victory to him so small a matter doth many times turn the Dy of War over and over and determine the greatest affairs of the World and the most secret conspiracies many times leak and run out at the least hole Caesar escaped a most imminent danger of being murdered at supper in the Egyptian Court if the Conspirators had then attempted it and afterward when they were fully prepared for the action his Barber who had no other direction then the strange Instinct of a naturall fearfulness was thereby put upon the search and discovered the Treason which was as weak a Guard to his Person as the Geese to the Capitol yet both proved effectuall But when God had determined to ruine him we shall see how no advantages no warning could preserv him He alwaies held Brutus and Cassius in suspect and professed some fear of those pale lean fellows The Conspirators were many the business long in agitation the danger foretold by Spurinna his wife dream'd of it and had almost staid him Hee had a Paper of the whole Plot delivered into his hands as he was going to the Senate and had begun to read it the Conspirators themselvs were daunted and thought they had been betrai'd yet all this could not preserv him from being slain in the midst of the Senate and made a sacrifice to Pompeys Image Now let all the great Captains and Counsellors of the World learn to acknowledge an over-ruling Providence and submit all their Power and Policy to the Beck of a Divine Will A Christian enjoies Providence by referring himself to Gods Protection and so walks constantly in a streight way in the midst of all changes and vicissitudes with aequanimity of Spirit being most assured that though he cannot well understand the Particulars yet the Summ of all shall be Gods Glory and his own Good which is that Happiness to which he is tending X. Of Prosperity PRosperity and Adversity are the different Issues of the same Parent being the severall dispensations of Providence and as they have the same Root so they yield the same Golden Fruit of Happiness I have learned saith the Apostle in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content Both may be enjoied with Content but learning and skill to do it are requisite Men think it an easy thing to be happy in Prosperity accounting that the only Happiness though they know not how to enjoy it As if a Mariner sailing with wind and tide he knows not whither should think he is making a very good Voiage There is a silent and still stream of Fortune wherein some men swim down quietly from the spring of their Birth to the common Ocean of Death so that they do not much remember the daies of their Life because God answereth them in the joy of their hart This is that kind of Prosperity so much commended by Philosophers and Poets Beatus ille qui procul negotiis c. A pretty kind of idle Felicity a Pastime or sweet Sleep stealing away our Time with the soft hand of ease and rest and at last shutting it up like a fair Day in the common Darkness of Death with others There is also a strong Gale of success carrying on the Designs of some Great Men who adventure themselvs and all their fortunes on the Ocean of the World in such a constant course of Prosperity that they never meet with any cross winds Many of the Graecian and Roman Captains proved alwaies victorious and were never beaten by any Many rich men thrive perpetually and never suffer any considerable loss yet this is no other then a busy Dream or a Play well acted as Augustus the most fortunate Prince intimated who when he was going off the Stage took his leav of his friends like an Actor Valete et Plaudite The right way of enjoying Prosperity