are indifferent is false for it is to teare in pieces the sacred communion of the soule with the body of man with his neighbour to kill himselfe Man is not borne for himselfe but after God for his Country which hee depriueth of a good son such as he ought to bee Aristotle hath seene it and hath written it saying That he that kils himselfe doth wrong vnto the Comonalty but to doe wrong is no indifferent thing Moreouer it is a sinne against nature for euery man loues himselfe naturally 〈◊〉 and desires to preserue his being also wee do not see any other Creature but man to kill himselfe through impaciency of paiue The 2. reason which speakes so much of li berty is friuolous and ridiculous for what liberty is there in a dead man who hath neither the power nor the will to chase away a fly that stings him who is made subiect to all sorts of wormes rottennes and stench what is liberty but a power to do what we list but death neither hath will action nor my power it a â—…s mosâ—… dry in my opinion to produce this defence As for the third poysons are giuen by the earth rather to preserue life theÌ„ to destroy it to make antidotes preseruatiues against malignant and venimous diseases and a thousand vnexpected accidents by the biting of mad or venimous beasts omitting the true cause of diuines that the sinne of man hath infected all powring forth his poyson vpon the Creatures which eâ—…uiron him therefore as Saint Paul sayth they sigh and long after their future restauration Finally examples binde vs not but rules wee liue not according vnto others but as we ought the Law of God is plaine sealed in the particular nature of euery one Thou shalt not kill by the which we are forbidden the simple homicide of our neighbor for that he is of humaine blood next the parricide of father or mother for we are their blood which doth much augment the hainousnes of the offeÌ„ce 3. The murthering of our selues which exceeds parricide in a degree of horror To this we must haue regard not vnto what Zeno or Cleanthes haue done And the Stoickes who in all other places so much recommend vnto their Disciples seemelines honesty and duty seeme to me in this point forgetfull blind preuaricators what shal we then do That which a wise Pagan did aduise vs It is for valiant men sayd he rather to contemne death theÌ„ to hate life Many times faint hearted meÌ„ are driuen to a base coÌ„tempt of theÌ„selues throgh the wearines of labor but vertue will trie al things Seeing theÌ„ that death is the end of all things it is sufficieÌ„t to go ioyfully vn to it To his words we adde That our inteÌ„t is not to take away life but the terror of death when it comes a wise man wil liue ioyfully so long as it shall please the Lord of life He wil die also more ioyfully when it shall please the same Lord. This is that he ought to do and doubtlesse man may without sin desire yea pray vnto the Lord that hee may liue long for many reasons but especially for 2. The one concernes the glory of God in the administratioÌ„ of the charge which hee hath committed vnto vs therefore the Son of God in dying would saue his Disciples by that voice full of vertue which he vsed to the Romaine souldiers and Iewes If you seeke me let them go the which preserued them long especially his well-beloued S. Iohn whom he retained in life vnto ninety yeares The other respects our children parents and friends of whom we may and ought in conscience haue a care seeing that by the censure of the Apostle hee which hath not a care of his family hath denied the faith and is worse then an Infidell But besides these reasons and some others which doe simbolize I say that the desire to liue were not fit if there were no other reason sor there is no ceasing from finne so long as life doth last so as the longer wee liue the more â—…lpable we are before God So as I maintaine that the feare to vndergo death I meane death simply is alwayes vicious foolish and ignorant But to be a Murtherer of himselfe without comparison it is much more execrable the Lawes of euery well gouerned Common-weale haue thundred against it yea the Grecians in the midst of â—…rmes whereas lawes are silent would not in signe of indignitie burne the body of Aiax according to their custome for that hee had slaine himselfe The virgins of Milesia for that they had furiously straÌ„gled themselues were drawne by publike ignominie through the streets of the Citie and in such cases God doth vsually shew visible signes of his reuenging wrath So in Parthenay a towne in Poitou a certaine woman in the absence of her husband was taken with a deuilish despaire she tooke the little children when shee had smothered them and hanged them then she came vnto her selfe went vp on a stoole and hung her selfe and and thrust awaie the stoole with her foote but the rope brake and she falling downe halfe dead found a knife the Diuell is a readie officer to furnish instruments to doe euill which she takes and thrusts into her bosome The next day the matter being knowne all the world ranne thither with the iudges who caused her bodie to be cast out vpon a dunghill neere vnto the towne wall Not far from it there was a corps de gard and neere it a place for a sentinell the gard being set for it was in time of warre the sentinell heard a fearfull noise in the ayre right against this Carcasse and after a long stay was forced to leaue his stand the gard also amazed with this noyse thought to flie awaie Thus the Diuells made sport with this poore desperate woman The 19. Argument taken from the contradiction of man touching Death Not any thing that is sometimes called for by vs with ioy being come should be trouble some Death is sometimes called for by vs with great ioy THe Pagans to describe the pittifull estate of man in this life haue fained that Prometheus mingling the slime of the earth with tears made â—…antherof wherunto a Latine Poet hath alluded saying Teares bâ—… the our Births 〈◊〉 all inteares we liue And Death in teares Many alarums doth giue But what need of testimony but the continuall feare and feuers which spring from the apprehension of those infirmities wherof we haue made mentioÌ„ Thy bowells wroung with the cholicke a thousand gripes and throwes at euerie child bearing if thou beest a woman the pinching cares that trouble the mind make thee by interruption soden exclaming to desire death not without reason seeing that the Prophet Elias serues thee for a patterne who not knowing how to auoyd the ambushes that were layed against him did wish to dye But let vs cast our eyes vpon those miseries that make vs
it c. ANswere Neither Dauid nor Ezechias nor the other seruants of God feared death as it was death simply alone considered but for that God threatned them in regard of their sins by reason whereof it seemes they had some confused apprehension of hell which is the second death Doubtlesse my fault is great sayd Dauid but I pray thee saue mee by thy great bounty These are the words of God to Ezechias Dispose of thy house for thou shalt die shortly and shall not liue We must note that Ezekias heart was puft vp with glory God would humble him by the consideration of death wherewith he threatned him But these two and all other the seruants of God setting aside these threats being in the fauour of God haue with Saint Paul desired to die and to be freed from this mortal body to be with Christ with God Man here below should not apprehend any thing but the conscience of another life a life which dying without repentance grace leades to death eternall as that of Saul and Iudas who being desperate slue themselues quenching the match of a vicious life to kindle it in the fire of hell where there is a Lake of fire and brimstone As for the death of Christ the great difference it hath both in the cause and the effects from that of the faithful Christians makes it to differ a world The reason is Gods Diuine Iustice to reuenge the iniury which hath beene done him by the diuell in the nature of man the which not able to do in him without his totall ruine hee hath done in his surety in Iesus Christ his Son whom to that end hee sent into the world to take humaine flesh in the Virgins wombe It is he that was wounded for our offences broken for our iniquities censured to bring vs peace and slaine to cure vs as the Prophet speakes and the Apostles testifie The fruites first the glory of God is manifested in his loue in his bounty and in his mercy towards vs to haue so loued the world as to giue his owne Son to death for it to the end that whosoeuer did beleeue in him should not perish but haue life euerlasting as the same eternal Son doth witnes Secondly it is our saluation the redemption of the Church from sinne and death for it is the Lambe of God which taketh away the sinnes of the world And these are the reasons why Iesus Christ was terrified in death feeling the wrath of God vpon him for our sinnes But the death of the faithfull is nothing like for in the greatest torments which Tyrants can inflict vpon them it mortifies the sence and takes away all paine by the abundance of his consolation as Ruffinus writes of Theodorus and as our Annales testifie of the smiling death of Martirs in the middest of burning fiers for God is satisfied the passage is open the venimous teeth of death are pulled out seeing that the Lord wrestling with her hath slaine her as S. Augustine speakes and like a most expert Phisition hath made a wholesome Treacle to purge our bodies of those corrupt burning stincking and deadly humors and to make it sound holy impassible and immortall The second Obiection Euery iust reward is proportionable to the paine The reward of Martyrsis great Therefore their paine is great THe holy Writ and the ancient Fathers vpon it beare witnesse of the honour and great triumph which the Martyrs obtaine in heauen if their conflict against death bee answerable to this triumph as equity requires it must bee exceeding great and therefore it is no easie thing to dye the which S. Augustine seemes to confirme Si nulla esset mortis amaritudo non esset magna Martyrum fortitudo If saith hee there were no bitternesse in death the Martyrs valour should not be great Answer He is truely a Martyr who for the honour of God and for the loue of his neighbour doth constantly seale the contract of the alliance of God with his owne bloud and the true cause of Martyrdome is to suffer death for iustice and for the name of Christ as Christians and in doing well This bloud thus shed is the true seede of the Church the very Commentary of the holy Scripture the Trompet of Gods glory the true Victory of the cruelty and obstinacy of Gods enemies the holy Lampe to lighten and draw to the Kingdome of Christ those which are in the shaddow of death c. In consideration whereof these holy Champions of the faith are honored in heauen with a Crowne of gold clothed with white garments c. Vpon earth in the primi tiue Church vpon the day of their suffring which they called their birth-day the faithfull assembled vpon the place of their Martyrdome did celebrate their happy memory repeated their combates commended their resolution exhorting the assistants to doe the like if they were called to the like combate as well by reading of their bloody history as by the sight of the place where their blood was newly spilt It is that which Cyrillus in the epistle to Smyrne the Paraphrase of Rufynus doth teach vs wherein we may see that it was not the death but the cause of the death which made them to bee so recompenced and recommended And whatsoeuer they haue had in heauen shall bee giuen to all others which shall haue the like will to serue their master though not the effect the like Crowne nor the like garments To mee saith that great Martyr S. Paule the Crowne of Iustice is reserued which the Lord the iust Iudge shall giue mee in that day and not onely to me but vnto all those that shall loue his Comming And what Christian is it that desires not the comming of Christ It is also written that all the Armies which are in heauen wherein all the faithfull are followed the faithfull the true the Word of God vpon white horses clad in white Cypres Finally in this inestimable reward which God giues vnto Martyrs there is not so great a regard had to the merit and grieuousnesse of their death as to the most precious blood of his Sonne Iesus Christ and to his free promise wherefore this Obiection is to no purpose and if it were it doth incite men more to desire then to refuse death if it bee true that the enduring of the first death in the Saints is a freeing frō the second as Saint Augustine teacheth The third Obiection It is impossible but man should be toucht with a great apprehension of euery sharpe combate he is to endure Such is death MAn hath three cruell enemies which present themselues vnto him at his last farewell a sensible paine at the dissolution of the foule from the body sinne represents vnto him heauen gates shut and hell open and Satan tempts him and lets him see his criminall Inditement whereof he is ready to execute the sentence Answer It is
by the fauourable winde of diuine grace may to morrow str◅ke against the rockes of incredulitie haue a contrary winde and suff◅r shipwracke and so haue ◅eede of the answeres ◅ere set downe To conclude counterp◅ysons are not for the sound but for the sicke and infected these confutations are not for them which bee cleane in heart and sound in spirit but for such as irreligion and presumption of humane wisedome haue bewitched Othou the Cr◅ator of all things the Authour of our life the Inspirer of our soules the Father Sonne and holy Ghost one true and onely God I humbly beseech thee illuminate the eyes of my vnderstanding that I may plainely see the happy issue of fearefull death that it will please thee so to purifie the thoughts of my soule that shee may fully apprehend the true causes of her immortality that it will please thee so to fauour my penne that it may write worthily vpon so worthy a subiect that the worke finished thou mayest be glorified the Reader edified and my selfe fortified Amen The Combate betwixt Man and Death The first Argument taken from the Instrumentall cause of eternal life The only meanes to attaine to the perfection of that good which the world so much desireth should not giue any amazement to the world Death is the only meanes Therefore Death should not giue any amazement to the world THE first proposition of this Argument doth plainely iustifie it selfe for without exception all men desire the happinesse of life the perfection of Soueraigne good which is the beatitude of the holy Spirit called eternal life I except not ill doers for they erre in doing ill and either beleeue that it is good or the way which tends vnto it But there is but one way to attaine vnto this good which is death Now then to abhorre this death more then horror it selfe greedily to desire that good which only death can giue vs to desire health and reiect the potion whereby we may recouer it to affect the pleasures which they say are in those fortunate Ilands but without any figure in that heauenly Paradice to refuse to enter into that shippe which alone can bring vs thither were to mocke at himselfe Let vs proceed and come to the proofe of the 2. proposition for thereon is grownded the force of our Syllogisme That Death is the onely meanes to attaine vnto the perfection of life is manifest in that the perfection of euery thing is the enioying of the ends all the lines of our dessignes all the proiects of our enterprises all our sweating and toyle tend and aime at the end Who knowes not that death is the first end of life feeles not but that life in her greatest vigour driues him directly thither all men may see that life is vnited inseparably vnto death by the con tinuance of the same succession of times cōsider this time whereof the enioying is the life There are three parts that which is past the present and the future the presēt is the bond of that which is past and of the future and as this article of the present time runnes as violently towards the future as the Primum Mobile turnes in the heauē so doth ourlife run vio lently towards her end This life is a very way as soone as thou doest enter into it and makest but one step it is the first pace towards the end of the way towards the end of life which is death for the going out of the cradle is the beginning of the entry to the graue whether thou wilt or wilt not whether thou thinkest of it or not yet it is true yea as certaine as in an howre-glasse where the first graine of sand which runnes is a guide vnto the last to the end of the hower Euery day we passe carries away some part of our life yea as we grow life decreaseth this very day which we now enioy is deuided betwixt Death and vs for the first howres of the morning being past to the present in their flowing are dead to vs wherefore Seneca had often this sentence very fitly in his mouth Death hath degrees yet that is not the first Which diuides vs in twaine but of the death is the last And it is the very reason why that wise Tekohite sayd vnto Dauid in the present time For certaine we die and slide away as the waters which returne no more So many degrees as there are in life so many deaths so many beginnings of another life Let vs examine them and take speciall note of the first death to iudge of the latter for herein as in all the other workes of wise Nature the end is answerable to the beginning The first degree of mans life is when being fashioned and framed hee liues in the wombe of his mother this is a vegetatiue life a life proper to plants only wherein hee may receiue nourishment grow in this life he continues commonly but nine moneths at the end of which time hee dies but a happy death whereby he gaines the vse of the goodly sences of nature that is to say of sight hearing smelling tasting and touching behold then the first death when as the Infant by the force of nature is driuen out of that fleshie prison comming from which place he striues and stretcheth out himselfe hee is angry with nature and cries incessantly but he is ill aduised it is his good and the beginning of his perfection Now followeth the infantiue life not differing from that of beasts which extends vnto seuen yeares compleate of this life child-hood is the death which begins at eight yeares and retaines nothing of the Infancy As for the exterior of man which is the body not the flesh nor bones not the foure principall humors if that bee true which the Phisitions hold for a Maxime that our bodies change all their substance euery seuen yeares And in truth how could our sliding nature so long subsist if it were not maintained by drinke and meate the which by a certaine vertue infused into all the members of the body digested purged and applied doth transubstantiat it selfe into our very bodies proportionably as the substance decayes as appeares by the words in the booke of Wisedome cap. 5. Being borne wee suddenly desist from that being wherein wee were borne It is no more the first body which wee brought into the world that is dead wee haue an other in our child-hood the third degree of life which extends vnto 18. yeares at the end wherof his death encounters him in the which beginnes the 4. degree of life which goes vnto 22. and then dies but from this death riseth youth the 5. degree which florisheth vnto 30. yeares then his flower falls and his youth is lost but a rich losse seeing thereby man-hood the perfect age is gotten which being strong and vigorous climbes vnto 50. yeares and this is the 6. degree of life Then comes age the 7. degree of life and the
be not directed and animated from aboue he followes that which he should fly and flyes that which he should follow so as he shall neuer hit the white now win the Crowne of Iustice which is the true felicitie of man Let vs then conclude with S. Iohn That what we shal be doth not yet appeare with S. Paul That our life is hidden in Christ That it is in safe keeping and that the ende of this mortall life is the beginning of the immortall Let vs say in the ende that all things haue their Periode that wee are borne to liue We liue to die and wee die to liue againe but without any more turning for the Circle shal be returned to his point and the light of the bodie shall suffer no more eclipse Come then O gentle death which doest make an end of the miseries of this world and beginnest the happinesse of Heauen which dost free vs from mortall paine and bringest vs to enioy immortall good which doest conuert our teares and toyles into ioy rest which doest change our fantasticall treasure into that which is certaine and our temporall into spirituall and eternall Retire then O you deceitfull vanities for the charme of your pleasures cannot preuaile with me who am resolued to die hold your tongue also O vaine deception of Philosophie and humane tradition for I am taught by the death of my Sauiour by his resurrection that my greatest perfection is to acknowledge my imperfection my blindnesse my death in my sinnes and that my greatest happynesse in this world is to obteyne remission of my sinnes and to mortifie my corrupted members to the end that a good death may soone bring mee to the hauen of saluation and eternall life Amen The second Argument taken from the vicious fruits of the extreame feare of death That which breedes many inconueniences in the spirit bodie of man must bee speedily pulled away The extreame feare of death causeth great inconueniences Therefore that must be speedily pulled away SOme one sayed truely speaking of the excessiue apprehension of death that it is the ordinary obiect which troubleth the vnderstanding of man makes him to lose his Iudgement to abandon all duety and to cast himselfe into a shamefull forgetfulnesse of himselfe Let vs. see how Hee that feares death vnmeasurably he must of necessitie feare euery thing that may bring it that is all that hee sees and what he cannot discerne whereas death lyes in ambush whereby it happens that this man doth easily fall into many errours as into foolish superstition thinking by his voluntarie submissions by mâ—…toring of words not vnderstood by adoring of stocks and stones to moue God to pitty him and to turne away death which hee imagines vpon the least accident the flying of a bird or the croaking of a Crow should take him by the throate So we reade of Arislodemus King of the Messeniens who being in warre against his subiects the dogs howled like Woolues and an herbe called Dogstooth grew neere vnto his Altar the which being interpreted by his Soothsayers to bee an ill presage he concoiued such a feare as hee died And as this disordered motion of feare makes men credulous to the words of Satan so doth it make them incredulous to the assured promises of the Eternall the which prouoking the wrath of God in the end hee doth execute vpon them his sentence pronounced against the fearefull incredulous casting them into the Lake burning with fire and brimstone which is the second death Apocal. 21. O how fitly then did Saint Augustine say that by too much fearing the temporall death they did ingulfe themselues in the eternall a fearefull man not onely makes himselfe a slaue to fantasticall diuinity but also a bondman to any one that is subiect vnto him said King Lew. 11. who to assure himself against death shut himselfe vp solitarie at Plessis neere Tours yet could he not bee confident the opening of a doore amazed him he hated all those he suspected and he suspected all the world his most confident were dismisss and put from his person and hee remayned alone melancholie dreaming froward and chollericke nothing pleased him but onely displeasure he grew iealous of his sonne-in-law of his owne Sonne and his Daughter only his Phisitian possest him controlled him and kept him in awe with his words threatning death I know well said hee swearing a great oath that one of these mornings you will send mee away with the rest but you shall not liue eight dayes after Thus this imperious seruant kept his King captiue Thus this King lost his liberty more pretious then his life for maintaining whereof good men should alwaies striue Wherunto Seneca had reference when he sayd that the vilest death was to bee preferred before the honestest seruitude for that this liberty cannot safely confish but in the contempt of death as Agis King of Lacedemon taught him that demanded an assured liberty of him and in truth â—…hee that feares not death may passe freely like a Knight without feare who shall hinder him seeing the extremâ—… dangers of death cannot amaze him Moreouer fearefull persons are the ruine of States and Commonalties for in the least daÌ„gers through feare and the threats of great men they yeeld easily to a mischiefe and subiect themselues to the fauour of the wicked and the will of the base multitude Thirdly a man that trembles so at the apprehension of death runnes into assured misery which depriues him of all pleasure of life makes his facewrincle and grow pale before his time Which the Italian Gentleman will verifie who being imprisoned vpon a certaine accusation and receiuing newes that without all doubt he should lose his head the next day the feare of one night did so trouble his braine and distempered his body with shaking as he became all gray and worne But ô miserable men after all your shifts and escapes in the end you must come and yeeld your selues at the Port of Death So much the more miserable I do not call you miserable for that you are subiect vnto death but for your extreame feare that many thinking to free themselues from death haue run head-long into it some thinking to escape haue cast themselues out at a window and broken their neckes others flying their pursuing enemies swords haue leapt like fishes but without fins into a deepe riuer as into an assured Sanctuary where they haue beene drowned Nay besides all this they which thinking still to delay and escape that which they feare so extreamely when they see themselues in the bed of death then doe they vomit out their rage against heauen and exclaime iniuriously against the true God and being desperate they cast themselues into the infernall gulph Let vs conclude with Seneca That the feare of death will neuer profit any liuing man but drawing him into many miseries which are much more to be feared then death it selfe will make him in the
sentence of death pronounced to Ezekias was by his prayers teares protracted 15 yeares Answer Whatsoeuer it be Destiny as Boetius saith comming frō the immoueable beginnings of prouidence ties together by an indissoluble bond of causes all humane actions and all their euents so as the diuine prouidence is alwayes certaine and alwayes infallible in her euents not contradicting the meanes which the same diuine prouidence hath ordained whereof some are necessary others cōtingent The effects are necessary which haue their cause neer immediate conioinct necessary and they are contingent which haue a contingent cause and whose effect may happen or not happen if it happens God had so appoynted it Thou who foundest thy selfe subiect to a dropsie hast left the reumaticke ayre where thou wert hast abstained from water and hast imployed the Phisition whereby thou hast auoyded the disease and death God had so ordained it not onely for the cause but also for the meanes Yet let man determine in his full liberty let him make choyce according to his owne will yet shall hee not choose any thing but what God hath foreseene and decreed from all eternity I say there is a gulfe in this question whereat Tully suffered shipwracke rather cutting off from prouidence then diminishing any thing from humane liberty so as wherewith S. Augustine doth taxe him seeking to make men free hee hath made them sacrilegers wherefore I will strike saile for the very name of Destiny was distastfull to Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory for that the Ancients did wrest it to the disposition of the starres but if any one saith S. Augustine attributes the actions of men to Destiny for that hee vnderstands by that name the power and will of God let him retaine his vnderstanding and correct his tongue Let vs conclude with the Poet Hope not by your cries to alter Destiny Thus after the Diuines of these times and the opinion of Chrysippus hauing beene so purged as there is no more any feare to stumble at it may we vse this word of Destiny As for the sacred histories obiected they contradict not the doctrine propoūded no more then the immutability of Gods decrees That which had beene denounced to the Nineuits to Ezekias to others was with a condition if they did not repent they submitted themselues so as iustly and without preiudice to the diuine prouidence the sentence was made voyde But you will say Where is the expression of this condition It is vnderstood and drawne from an infallible consequence of the end of the denuntiation made in the name of the Eternall by Ionas and Isay Yet forty dayes and Niniue shall be destroyed cried Ionas Dispose of thy house for thou shalt dye the death and shalt not liue saith Isay to Ezekias Why were these trumpets if God meant to ruine them not to saue them in giuing them warning Therefore the decree of the fatall time both for the men of Niniue and for Ezekias was firme seeing the denuntiation of their death was but a meanes to aduance them to the end and last period of their estate and life The fourth Obiection If that which the diuine prouidece hath decreed to doe were immutable in vaine then should we imploy the meanes to aduance it or hinder it But we imploy them not in vain for that God hath commanded it Therefore what the diuine prouidence hath decreed to doe is not immutable IF all bee so disposed by a fat all necessity why then being sicke doe I call the Phisition and why am I commanded to honour him And why being found doe I preserue my selfe from diseases especially those which are contagious Answere I denie the consequence of the maior for that the position of the first and principall cause concludes not the remotion of the instrumentall the reason is that God to bring to effect his decrees would also haue the second meanes and causes imployed hee doth witnesse it in his word and in the gouernement of the world and he hath commanded vs to vse them As therefore it is not in vaine that the Sunne doth shine and is darkened nor in vaine that the fields are manured and watered from heauen It is God which hath created light and darkenesse and it is hee that makes the earth to spring In like manner it is not in vaine that being sicke wee call for the Physitian and vse his physicke it is not in vaine that wee auoyd the infected ayre and to conclude it is not in vaine that we eate and drinke although that God be the authour of our health yet it is the forsaking of 〈◊〉 grace and vertue which casts vs into diseases It is finally hee who is the powerfull and soueraigne arbitrator of the length or shortnesse of our life The reason is that God who by his absolute will and pleasure hath predestinated these ends hath withall disposed of the meanes and wayes tending to the said ends so as it appeareth it is not our intention to take from man all care of his life but onely to put away the superfluitie the immoderate excesse and particularly the extreame feare of death for that it is vnprofitable yea hurtfull vnto him and therefore a wise man will willingly obey the aduertisement of S. Basile which he directs to all Christians Submit thy selfe saith he to the will of God if thou doest march freely after it it will guide thee if thou goest backe thou doest offend it and yet she will not leaue thee to draw thee whithersoeuer she pleaseth Be it the place the time or the kinde of thy death these three things are vncertaine vnto thee out of thy disposition therefore thou shouldest rely vpon him who alone knowes the time to be borne and to dye and who holds thee fast both before behind Some one makes account to liue long but he shal dye sodainely as it is said in Iob yea at midnight a whole nation shall be shaken passe and the strong stalke carried away As for the place some one shall returne from bloudy battailes who soone after shall dye in his house finally some shall escape violent contagions who shall die of slow feuers as I haue seene any man may easily see in euery Countrie Let vs then conclude this discourse with the verses of Cleanthes the Stoicke which Seneca hath thus translated Duc me Parens celsique dominator poli Quocunque libuit nulla parendi est mora Adsum impiger fac nolle 〈◊〉 Malusque patiar quod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Father and Ruler of the lostie Skie What way thou pleasest leade and I Will follow with my will and instantly Grant I may follow with no grieued bloud Nor like an ill man beare what fits a good Whereunto he subscribes saying So wee liue so wee speake and let vs adde So we die The fift Obiection It is not possible but humane nature should bee terrified with that which is horrible of it selfe Some kind of death
himselfe gouernes himself enioies his worthy thoughts as Seneca saith And how can hee bee happy who beeing subiect to anothers command is not master of himselfe Let him drag after him fetters of gold yet hee shall stil be in fetters We wil not heere commend the Stiloons Timons and other haters of mē which like wolues fled from all company but those that offering themselues to company and seeking their friendship are wretchedly chased away and being forsaken of others retire themselues into themselues lose nothing but augment their felicity So as Seneca said rightly thinke and desire this thing aboue all the prayers which thou shalt make vnto God to bee content with thy selfe and with those things that may spring from thy selfe What felicity saith he can be neerer vnto God Whereunto Saint Ambrose subscribeth In what Desart saith hee is not that man accompanied that doth enioy a happy life He then that can liue alone wil neuer grieue to be abādoned by men in death being accompanied by Angels by his Sauiour the true God Thirdly Physitions Surgions and other expert men imploy themselues for thee are about they to assist thee and to restore thee to thy health Thy wife thy children thy friends with their teares would bathe thy bed increase thy sorrow and be infected with thy disease It this then better both for thee and them that they be absent Thou hast proued their affection in liuing why wouldst thou try it in dying thou doest leaue thy worldly friends in death but thou goest to purchase more faithfull and better in heauen euen Iesus Christ the Angells and the Saints whereat then doest thou complaine thou a Christian whereas a Pagan reioyceth Mercurius Trismegislus by the report of Calcidius sayd when he dyed that he returned into his countrie where his kinsfolkes and best friends were Finally thou accusest thy disease for that it takes from thee means to dispose of thy affayres A wise man should not forbeare to settle his estate vntill the extreamitie of an in curable disease for he hath then other matters to thinke of then worldly affayres he should haue foreseene it and prouided in time a good souldier when the trompet sounds to battaile doth not begin to discourse of his house and to thinke of some peece of ground but prepares to fight for his life is in question Euen so a wise man at the point of death should not once thinke of the world but of the conflict which he hath against the Diuell and sinne there is question of his conscience of the life of his soule of the inheritance of heauen which he loseth if he be vanquished our life is vncertain many other diseases besides the plague may cut it off sodenly the Apoplexie Lethargie Catarre Squinancie and many others when they come leaue no place for affayres Therefore during the time of health let vs compound our quarrells with our neighbors and dispose of our estates with our children kinsfolks that we may bee ready at the first sommons of our God prepared at the first signe of that spirituall Combate which shal be giuen vs to fight well to liue or to dye as it shall please the Lord. Watch and pray sayd Iesus Christ to his Disciples for you know not when that time shall be And Let your loynes bo girded and your candells light The sixt Obiection The losse of that which is happy and ioyful causeth horror Life is happy and ioyfull Therefore the losse of life causeth horror PLato is cited to proue the Minor who writes that man may enioy felicitie in his body and that he is happy aboue all the Creatures therefore Gallen in his booke of the parts of the body doth wonderfully extoll the author of nature for hauing delt so bountifully with man And Dauid of more authoritie then all these seemes to sing the praises of the Eternall for the good he hath done vnto man saying Thou Lord hast made him little lesse Then Angells in degree And thou hast crown'd him in like sort With glory state and dignitie ANswer All the Philosophers except Plato Gallen and some few others being dazeled with the brightnesse of some guists remaining in man after his shipwracke in the beginning of the world did not poure forth such prayses of the condition of man but in a manner all with one voice haue called nature not a mother but a cruell stepdame for the many miseries wherewith shee hath ouercharged man as we see in Tully and as Saint Augustine reports Euen so Aristotle who is held the Ensigne bearer of Philosophers being demanded what man was he is sayeth he the patterne of Imbecillity the booty of time the sport of fortune the image of inconstancy the ballance of enuy and calamity the rest is nothing but spittle and choller Demccrites also required to giue his aduice of the condition of man answered that it was a miserable fortune seeing that the goods which were carefully sought after hardly came vnto him but miseries which were not sought for nor any way expected nor suspected ranne vnto him Wherefore the Comedian Neoptolimus being demanded what admirable thing hee did obserue in Aeschilus Sophocles and Euripides Nothing sayeth hee in their words doth amaze mee but that which I haue seene touching Philippe who celebrating the marriage of his daughter Cleopatra and being at a stately supper honored with the name of the 13. god was the next day stabbed and cast vpon a dunghill But you will say This life wants no pleasures Without doubt if you obserue them well they are poore pleasures bitter pinching and intermixt with displeasures yea in laughing the heart shal be grieued his ioy end with care sayeth Salomon in his Prouerbes He also running ouer breefely in Ecclesiastes the vanity toyle of the body vexation of mind and heauines of soule concludes That he thinkes him more happy that was neuer borne then the liuing or the dead for sayeth hee he hath not seene the bad workes which are done vnder the Sunne As for that passage of the Psalme alledged it makes nothing to the purpose for that he considers not man as he is but as he was in his integrity and innocencie in the earthly Paradice or as hee is restored in Iesus Christ man as the Apostle expounds it in the Epistle to the Hebrews That no man was for his transgression degraded from the rancke he held and lost the priuiledges he had it appeareth by the comparison of that which he is with the titles which are giuen him 1. God had made man 2. Sinne had vndone him and all his naturall life is but a spirituall death Ephes. 2. 1. 3. That is to say with a true perfect and healthfull knowledge of God of his wil and of his workes 4. Hee hath lost all that and there hath succeeded ignorance blindnes strange darkenesse 5. His desire and actions were conformable to the lawes of God 6.
All that is depraued and there is nothing but a horrible confusion in his will and actions 7. He was absolute Lord ouer all Creatures which trembled at his looke and brought him fruits according to his desire 8. Now they rebell and assaile him yea the earth instead of good corne brings forth nothing but thornes thistles 9. He had frequent conuersation with God inspired of him and breathing by him 10. Now the Prince of the power of the aire the vncleane spirit workes powerfully in the children of rebellion which are all the sonnes of Adam Ephes. 2. 2. 11. A glorious angelical and diuine Maiesty did shine in his face 12. Now they couer their shame with leaues they hide themselues among the trees and crie out Mountains fall vpon vs and couer vs. To conclude there is no greater contrariety betwixt day and night then of these famous qualities to the infamous blemishes of man as he liued in this world before his regeneration in the which by little and little hee recouers this Iustice holinesse and trueth Ephes. 4. 24. But the fulnesse thereof is reserued to heauen whither death leades vs and therefore to be desired The Fourth Argument taken from the efficient cause All that a good and wise mother giueth vnto her Children cannot be hurtfull Nature our good and wise mother giues vs death Death then cannot be hurtfull THe first proposition of this Argument cannot bee denyed after the experience which wee haue seene after the comparison which God makes of himselfe with a mother who cannot forget her child nor he his people After that Iesus Christ had said No man giues a stone instead of bread nor a Scorpion for fish to him that he loues And how then can nature the liuely spring of so liuely a loue giue any thing that is very hurtfull and fayle at neede and in the principall hauing neuer fayled vs in all the course of our life Now to proue that the second proposition is true and that nature hath ordayned death for her children Seneca doth teach vs saying That death is a Law of nature yea that our whole life is but a way vnto it S. Cyprian also doth affirme that it is a decree intimated vnto the world that whatsoeuer is borne should haue an end and from whom is this decree from God the Authour of nature the executioner of this decree but it is a fauourable decree to such as Heauen fauours It is a generall Law to restore that which is lent vs this life is but a loane wee must restore it at the end of the time it is a tribute wee owe for we entred vpon condition to depart when it shall please the master Moreouer what is this life but a harmony rising from the mixture of the foure elements which are the foure ingredients of our bodie and what is death by the censure of Hippocrates but a diuorce of marriage of these foure Elements This diuorce is as naturall to man as it is naturall that fire should be contrarie to water and ayre to earth for their contrarietie is the cause of this diuorce which is death I know that it is not sufficient for humane life to haue a body well tempered with his Organes and to haue the power of life but he must also haue a fist Effence as a Lute well strung and well tuned is not sufficient to make it sound vnlesse there bee a hand to play vpon it And I also maintayne that as the Musitian ceaseth to play when the Instrument is vnstrung so the soule ceaseth to giue life vnto the body yea flyes out when it is destroyed but this destruction is naturall and by consequence death and to that end Nature hath planted this body vpon pyles which take vent vpon boanes not very solide caulkt ouer with soft flesh glued with a viscous humour which may easily melt with heate or dissolue with rayne full of transparent veines easie to pierce watered with vnholesome water tempered with contrarie qualities which a certaine temperature keepes at quiet for a season but when euery one desires to command his companion and time in the end presenting the occasion the common right being forced the body sodainely falls And this force is of nature who must needes effect the words of the Lord spoken vnto man Thou art dust and shalt returne to dust Sonnes of men returne but whither From whence you came to the earth to death death then is of nature and therefore Thales the Milesian said that there was no difference betwixt life and death for that they are both equally according vnto Nature and as one demanded of him why he was in life and dyed not For the same cause answered he that the one is no more excellēt then the other It is also the reason why the Emperor Antonin the gentle seeing his seruants weepe lying sicke in his bed hee sayed vnto them Why weepe you for me and not rather the naturall and mortall condition of all the world that is to say Why doe you not rather weepe for life which is of a mortall condition The answere of Anaxagoras was more vertuous who being aduertised of the death of his deere and onely Sonne sayd O Messenger thou bringest me no vnexpected newes I know well I had begotten a Sonne that was mortall hee was not insensible like a stone but he considered that nothing had chanced to his sonne but what he had foreseene from his birth his long foresight and his sodaine con sideration of the condition of all men for to die had tēpered all sorow in him and brought him to reason which should alwaies holde the helme of this little world man Like was the answere of Lochades father to Siron vp on the like report of the death of one of his children I knew well sayth he that he should dye VVe shall see others hereafter to the ende they may haue no cause to say that this resolution was monstrous in the world To conclude nature to make vs resolue ioyfully vnto death seemes to direct vs to the sweete song of the Swanne a presaging bird consecrated to Apollo by Antiquitie the which dying nature gathers together about the heart the purest and sweetest bloud which makes him Iouiall and to sing a happie presage to whom Socrates Plato and Tully send them that haue so great feare of death An Obiection Satan Man and Sinne are the causes of death Therefore it is not Nature ANswere When it is said in the holy Scripture that Satan holds the empire of death that by one man sinne entred into the world and by sin death finally that death is the reward of sinne we must not vnderstand it of the naturall death whereof the question growes but of the spirituall and eternall death as many of the ancient fathers doe expound it And how else could the threatning of God against Adam be vnderstood touching the tree of knowledge of good and euil Thou shalt not eate
for on that day thou shalt eate of it thou shalt die the death obserue the words from that day for he died not that day but liued long after but from that day being fallen from grace he dyed the spiritual death then what doth this Hebrew phrase to die the death mean but the principall death which is the eternall the second death But this death brought in by Sathan by sin by man hath no power ouer the children of God good men to whom this discourse is onely directed since that it was subdued bound and confined into hell by Iesus Christ our Sauiour as Athanasius hath wel obserued that as the waspe strikes violently against a stone but hurts it not by her incursion but rather bruzeth her selfe and looseth her sting euen so death incountring Christ furiously who is life she could not hold him in her bands but she hath lost her sting so as they whom shee terrified before insult ouer her now So then death simply the laying of the bodie into the ground there to be putrified the way to heauē is good to the good is giuen of God by nature life death are of the Lord sayth wise Ecclesi 11. vers 14. It is he that giues life and death that maks vs to descend into the graue to rise againe saith the Prophetesse Anna. 2. Sam. 2. It is then our good mother that calls vs to death let vs follow and obay her voice seeing we can receiue no harme and how can it bee hurtfull seeing it is the sepulcher of vices and the resurrection of vertues sayth S. Ambrose and how how can it bee dangerous seeing it is that Toad-stone which by his fecret vertue expels and rectifies all vncleane things And in truth as Toades when they are growne olde and heauy with a fat poyson are set vpon by an infinite number of Ants which sucke him and deuour him so as nothing remaines but the said stone which afterwards they may freely handle yea profitably So death hauing beene purged from sinne is now by the almighty power of the Eternall conuerted into a most souereigne remedy against sinne The second Obiection There is not any thing ingenerate in all Creatures by nature in vaine But the feare of death is ingenerate in all Creatures Therefore the feare of death is not in vaine FOr the proofe of this Argument shall suffice the approbation of all Creatures great and small which flye from death the same reason is for man whom the complexion of his flesh being proportionable to the quality of the Elements inclines him to loue the world he may be where he will yet his naturall disposition will draw him towards his countrey although in stead of some sweete liquor which he promised to himselfe hee should drinke wormewood So man beeing borne in the world and accustomed vnto it can hardly leaue it Answer The nature of man doth sometimes affect and abhorre one the same thing but for diuers considerations if he beholds death nakedly there is great feare as we may discouer in many but if he can haue the iudgement and patience to see her attired in her precious ornaments with vertue with heauen gates by the which onely we are brought in of the assured ioy and rest of the minde in the possession whereof shee sets the soule then doe wee affect it and desire it and this desire should be held more natural in man for that it is more proper vnto him seeing it proceeds from the true iudgement of reason which makes him man Moreouer for a more cleare solution of the argument we must distinguish the vniuersall nature from the particular vniuersall nature is that vertue that admirable investigable proportiō infused by God into the Vniuerse the proper Instrument of the principall agent of this soueraigne essence which hauing insinuated into this Chaos the first matter hath brought it in six dayes too this goodly ornament and hath preserued it many thousand of yeares of this nature we de nie that she plants in beasts the feare of that shee giues them that is to say death but as to shew vnto the beasts of the earth al the lights of heauen as well the fixed stars as wandring she turnes about the heauens so to shew vnto heauen all the Creatures she hath giuen the passage returning of life death else it were impossible if as in a tree the dry leaues falling giue place to green that spring so in beasts the first should not giue way to them that follow As for particular nature the very cōplexion of euery one to whom death is so terrible I say it is an ill ordered feare The Order is preposterous when as the particular doth not follow the Law of the generall and it is the ruine of States when as the priuate good is preferred before the publike The Romaine Empire did flowrish when as the Popilij Scipios Fabij and others did choose rather to be poore in a rich estate then rich in a poore estate Euen so is it in the societie of mankind taken in all ages euery one must dispose himselfe to follow this generall order of supreme nature and whosoeuer shall contradict it shall shew himselfe a bad Cittizen of this great Cittie of the world and opposing himselfe let him not therfore think to escape the inexorable destinie of his end but as the bird takē in the limetwig thinking to free her selfe by striuing is caught the faster so man which is ensnared by death the more furiously hee torments himselfe the more he shall aduance the obiect of his torment Let euery one therefore looke vnto his dutie to his children and to them that shall come after to prepare himselfe to giue them place here to tends that great desire the issue of particular nature to ingender that great care of fathers mothers in the nourishing preseruation education and bringing vp of their children to the end they may sucoted them and why then hauing prouided for all left yong oliue plants in our old stock hearing the bell sound a retre◅t wherefore I say should we shew our selues deafe vnwilling faynt hearted The fat all bird drawn by the sent of thy Carcase is perched ouer thy window art thou still restie doest thou not feele thy seditious guests with in thee which cōspireth thy infallible ruine Nature will haue it so she commands thee to depart feare not folthy good mother and thou shalt do well Let vs therfore conclude that although our particular nature our complexion makes vs to abhorre death yet wee must not beleeue her no more then the seruant of the house which is borne to obey It is the mistresse the vniuersal vertue of the world which commands vs to depart and to suffer others to enter let vs follow and obey all our trembling and horror is in vaine But to what ende is it will you say for me to haue flourishing children if in the meane time I become worms
Aethiopia called Acridophages or caters of Grasse-hoppers who liuing farre from the sea and being destitute of all succours haue no other meate but these Grasse-hoppers which certaine hot windes from the west raise vp and bring vnto them the which they pouder vp with salt and liue thereon for that growing old which is not aboue fortie yeeres they breed in them certaine lyce which haue wings and stinke the which in a short space eate their bellies then the brest and in the end the whole body their paine beginnes with an itching intermixt with pleasure in scratching which increasing by little and little leaues him not vntill that hauing torne himselfe with his nayles hee hath made an issue for the lice and stinking matter which come forth in such aboundance as there is no possibilitie to bee cured and so through the vehemencie of their torment they end their miserable dayes with horrible cryes But let vs returne into our way and say with the holy writ Death is the highway of all the earth all enter into it let vs follow them by the tracke And you to whom the Ruler of the world hath giuen the Empire of life and death as it were at pleasure abate the frowning of your browes for what a poore man may feare of you the same is threatned to you by the great Master of all saith the tragicall Poet Seneca Obiect not vnto mee the beauty of your Pallaces nor the magnificence of your Sepulchers for the Philosopher Seneca will maintayne that we ought not to take measure of your tombes which seeme to take another course but one and the same dust makes all men equall if wee be borne alike wee must dye alike that great Establisher of humane rights hath made no distinction in our natiuitie and extraction with others but in the time wherein we liue when we shall bee come to the end of mortall men then farewell ambition thou must bee like to all that the earth doth couer Let vs comfort our selues in the death of great men and therefore let vs heare the last speeches and commandement of great Saladin Sultan of Aegypt and Syria I will said he in dying without any other obsequies they carry an old blacke iuppe vpon the end of a lance that the Priest cry out aloude all the people hearing him I haue vanquished I haue liued a great Prince but now I am vanquished by death and my life closed vp I haue beene rich now I haue nothing but a mourning weede To this goodly table let vs adde a second which the pensill of antiquitie hath drawne Cresus being vpon a burning pile is preserued from the fire by Cyrus but rather reserued to another season Cyrus made his profit of the words of Cresus that no man could account himselfe happy before his death he thinks of it and wills after his death others should thinke of it with him when as he caused these words to be grauen vpon his tombe I am Cyrus which conquered the Empire of the Persians let no man enuie this little peece of ground which couers my poore carcase What followes Alexander comes hunting after new worlds and stumbles vpon this tombe hee reades and considers of the words and compassion made his heart to grieue saith the History for the inconstancie of things why for that he must in like manner dye soone after hee dyed Let vs conclude and say with the Apostle that it is decreed that all men shall die once that no man is exempt no not Emperours Kings Princes Lords no not Popes Cardinals nor Bishops neither rich strong nor healthfull and thereby let vs take comfort An Obiection Any thing that is cause of strāge accidents is strange Death is the cause of strange accidents Therefore it is strange THis reason tends to confute the precedent Argument For that death ouerthrowing the highest mountaines degrading and vnthroning Kings and Emperors and consining thē into obscure caues with simple mourning clothes which rot in the end vpon their bodies seemes wonderfull terrible Answer The Monarks of the world haue their priuate consolation in death yea I will say that the greater they are the greater fauour they receiue in death A Kings life is an vnquiet life full of ten thousand cares and troubles he must watch for the quiet of his subiects and against the surprises of his enemies he hath not an houre free from amazement and eats not a bit without feare of poyson and therefore that King of Persia did iustly exclaime◅ against it O Crowne said he hee that knew how heauy thou art would neuer take thee vp where he should finde thee Say not O ambitious they are bare words onely which neuer giue the effects many great men haue spoken it and done it That famous Emperour Dioclesian reiecting the Romaine Empire shut himselfe in the Gardens of Salona to manure them with his owne hands That great King and Emperour Charles 5. protested that hee had found more pleasure and content in one day in his solitary life then in all his royall and triumphant reigne But to conclude the experience of all ages doth teach vs that the greatest gates are most subiect to winde the highest tops of Mountaines are soonest shaken and th◅ greatest Emperors are most assayled and haue no rest but in death onely The 7. Argument from the commendable e◅fect of the contempt of Death Euerie thing that makes vs valiant should be pretious The contempt of death makes vs valiant Therefore the contempt of death should be pretious THere is nothing that hath in it so great force to make a man valiant as the contempt of death he that feares it not makes himselfe master of the most strong and vigorous life in the world Seneca sayth that death is not to be feared that by the benefit thereof any thing is to be preferred or auoyded Agesilaus being demanded of one how hee might purchase great fame If thou contemnest death sayd he He whose spirit is seazed on with the feare of death will neuer performe any memorable thing in war this passion will benumme withdraw mens hands from the goodliest exployts in the world Plut. in Lacon Alexander said that there was not any place so strong by nature or by art that was safe for cowards We reade that Philip king of Macedon hauing ma◅e an irruption into Peloponesus and that one stepping forth sayd That it was to be feared the Lacedemonians would endure many miseries if they did not compound with Philip to whom one Damidas answered O Dwarfe sayd he what harme can happen vnto vs that feare not death Epictetus also teacheth vs that to attempt nothing basely wee must alwaies haue death before our eyes to make her familiar frendly vnto vs where of wee shall haue sufficient proofe in a souldier of Antigonus band who finding himselfe toucht with a deadly infirmitie had death in such disdaine as nothing amazed him yea hee was fearefull to the most
Queene of Nations falsesly held to be eternall where art thou destroied ruined burnt and drowned in vaine do they seeke thee for thou art not where thou were built And you Constantinople Venice and Paris your day will come and why not Seeing that whole Monarchies runne swiftly to their ruine the Assirian Persian Grecian and Romaine are perished You Turkes you florish for â—…lme but behold 〈◊〉 Scâ—…thians prepare to wrest the reines of the world out of your hands and what wonder if that riues which by nature is apt to tiue if that which is easie to melt melt if that which is corruptible decayes and if that which is of a mortall condition dies Without doubt if there be any thing to be amazed at it is how we are borne how wee subsist amiddest a thousaÌ„d deaths which reigne vpon vs we haue but one narrow entry into life but wee haue an infinite number to go out which are very large and slippery And yâ—…t o strange brutishnesse we wonder how we die and not how we liue Let vs then conclude with the Spirit of God That euery man is dust and shall returne to dust for such is his condition The 13. Argument taken from the benefit which the thought of death brings Whatsoeuer doth multiply life should be precious to them that loue life The Meditation of death multiplies life Therefore the meditation of Death should be precious to them that loue life A Great Philosopher obseruing the vncertenty of the time of death and finding that life must infallibly fall by a bullet by iron by a dart a stone a haire as Fabius the Pretor was choakt in drinking milke with a kernell as the Poet Anacreon with a flie as Pope Adrian 4. with a splinter be he neuer so well armed as Henry 2. the French King whom a splinter of Captaine Lorges lance flying into the beuer of his caske wounded in the head whereof he dyed by the rush of a doore as Iterenius the Sicilian in the Venerian act a ridiculous death as Gallus Pretorius and Titharius a Romane Knight who were smothered in the bed of lust By the holding of their breath without constraint as it happened to Comon by delight as to Chilon who hearing his sonne commended for that hee had wonne the prized the Olimpike games was so moued with affection as he dyed yea in laughing as old Philemon who hauing seene an Asse eate sigges vpon his table he commanded his seruant to giue him drinke whereat hee did so laugh as hee fell into a hickeâ—… and so dyed Yea life is ruined by the pricke of a needle as in Lucia the daughter of Marcus Aurelius who pricking her selfe dyed By the tooth of a combe like to Rufynius the Consull who combing himselfe hurt his head and ended his life That great Philosopher I say considering that so many accidents and ten thousand others not to bee foreseene might in an instant take away life gaue this wholsome counsell That wee must dispose of euery day in such sort as if it should close vp our life within the compasse of the twelue houres Consider saith hee how goodly a thing it is to consummate life before death and then to attend without care the time that may remayne and the better to induce vs thereunto let vs remember the aduice which Iesus Christ gaue vnto his Disciples of him selfe I must doe saith hee the workes of him that sent me whilst it is day the night comes and then no man can worke Ioh. 9. By the day hee signifies life by night death and his will is that whilst we liue we should doe our duties without any procrastination for that night is neere that is to say death But when a well setled soule saith the same knowes there is no difference betwixt a day and an age shee then beholds as it were from aboue the dayes and successe which shall follow her and laughs at the course and continuance of yeeres The same Seneca doth also make a pleasant discourse of Pacuâ—…ius the vsurper of Syria who being at night buried in wine as as if he had prepared his owne funerall caused himselfe to bee carryed from the table to his bed in the meane time his friends clapping their hands danced and sung He hath liued hee hath liued and there passed no day but this was done And the Authour addes what he did in an vnseemely manner let vs doe with reason that night approching and ready to lay vs in bed let vs sing with ioy I haue runne the course of my prefixed life and if God doth adde an increase of tomorrow let vs account it for gaine In doing so euery day shall bee a life vnto vs and by the multiplication of dayes our life shall be multiplyed and why not seeing that in what day soeuer we dye we dye in our owne proper day as the fame Seneca saith calling the present day that proper day seeing the dayes that are past are no more ours being so lost for vs as they can bee no more restored As for the future we cannot call them ours being not yet come and may bee wrested from vs in an instant by many accidents Moreouer what is there in an age that wee find not in one day the heauen the earth the inhabitants thereof the day and night by the reuolution of the heauens But you will say This pensiue thoght of death hammering continually in our heads doth hasten our death Answ. You are deceiued a wiseman thinkes quietly of it and in thinking of it aduanceth nothing no more then the marriner in seeing the sayles still and the wind to blow it is by the wind and sayles not by his looking that he is carried into the Port So by the waues of this life not by the meditation of death wee are carried to the graue Let vs then end with the saying of the Philosopher Musonius That he imployes not the day rightly who resolues not as if it were his last The 14. Argument taken from a Simile Euery sweete and sound sleepe is pleasing Death is a sweete and sound sleepe Ergo. A Naxagoras sayed there were two excellent instructions in Death the one in sleepe the other in the time going before our birth Let vs now consider of the first instruction We see that most of the heathen Philosophers haue saluted death with the name of sleepe Plato in the end of his Apologie of Socrates Tully in his booke de Senectute Obsenie fayth hee there is no thing so like vnto death as sleepe Homer faith that sleepe death are brother and sister twinnes Let vs obserue with Plutarque that Homer shewes their similitude terming them twinnes for they that are so doe most commonly resemble And in truth wee cannot denie but there is betwixt them great affinitie It is one of the causes of death the cold vapour vndigested and quenching the naturall heate a vapor which appeares vpon the superficies of the bodie which they also
the refutation in the meane time for witnes of my saying I propound that great Diuine S. Augustin writing that which followeth The present life is doubtfull blind miserable beaten with the flowing and ebbing of humors weakened with paines dried vp with heate swelled with meate vndermined with famine coÌ„founded with sports consumed with sorrowes distempered with cares dâ—…lled with pride pufâ—… vp with riches deiected with pouertie shaken in youth made crooked in age broken by diseases and tuined by 〈◊〉 c. Many great men who haâ—… not wanted any thing for the enioying of all pleasures yet would they in their life time haue writteÌ„ vpon the Marble which should couer them dead for a conclusion of the Epitaph these last words The life and biâ—…h of mortall men is nothing but toyle and death as one waue driues on another so one miserie thrusts on another the one is no sooner flying but the other followes him And as in the eye one teare springs of another so one sorrow riseth out of another as Buchanan hath learnedly written in his Tragedie of Iepthe The 3. Obiection It is not lawful of himselfe and without other some Command to remaine in a place that is bad and troublesome Life is a place bad and troublesome It is not therefore lawfull of himselfe without other command to remayne in life THis long Iliade of calamities of this present life seems to perswade man to the doctrine of the Stoicks which is to depart when it is too troublesome so speaks Seneca A wise man liues as long as he ought not solong as hee could he will see how with whom how he should liue and what he should doe if many things fal out troublesome crosse his tranquillitie he frees himselfe and he doth it not only in the vrgent necessitie but as soone as fortune seemes suspect vnto him he coÌ„siders that it imports not whether he giue himselfe his ende or that he receiue it Moreouer that it is wretched to liue in necessitie but there is no necessity to liue in necessitie Diogenès meeting one day with Speusippus being sickly causing himselfe to be carried by reason of the Gout he called vnto him in these tearmes God giue thee a good day Diogenes to whom he answered But God giue you no good day that being in this estate hast the patience to liue With the sharpnes of these Cynicall wordes Speusippus was so moued as contrarie to the precepts of his sect he ended his owne life But let vs produce if you please some reasons by the which these men haue debated there follie The 1. Life and death say they are indifferent things and therefore man acoording to his commoditie may vse them indifferently Wherefore saith 〈◊〉 As one that is inuited hauing feasted taken his refection retyres himselfe so being glutted with life why dost thou not depart O foole why doest thou not imbrace a pleà fing rest what interest hast thou that death should come vnto thee or thou goe vnto it Perswade thy selfe that this speech is false and proceeds from an indiscreet man It is a goodly thing to dye his death for it is alwayes thy death and especially that which thou hast procured to thy self The 2. Death is the goodliest port to libertie which is the fruite of wisedome I will not serue said that LaeedemoniaÌ„ child cast him down a precipice who learned to dye in contempt of seruitude he is free from all power what doth a prison a dungeon or fetters touch him he hath an open port The 3. Wherefore hath nature giueÌ„ so streight an entrance vnto life and hath preseÌ„ted vnto man so many large issues vnto death if it shal not bee lawfull for him to depart when he pleaseth On which side soeuer said Seneca thou shalt cast thy miseries thou shalt finde the end of thy miseries doest thou see this precipice by which they descend to liberty doest thou see this sea this riuer this pit there is liberty in the bottome doest thou see this little tree crooked cursed Liberty hangs at it Doest thou see thy throat thy heart These be the fruits of seruitude Plinie saith that the earth our common pareÌ„t hath for pitties sake ordained poysons to this end that beeing able to swallow them easily we may with equall facility dislodge out of this world So in old time Kings and great men did keepe certaine poyson ready for any suddaine vse in the doubtfull euents of fortune as Titus Liuius reports and therefore many haue poysoned themselues being valiant and esteemed great personages Zeno being 98. yeeres old yet strong and lusty returning from the Schoole hee stumbled and fell and being down hee strooke the ground with his hand saying â—…re I am what wilt thou And being come to his house hee layd downe his life of himselfe Cleanthes hauing an Vlcer in his mouth and hauing abstained two dayes from meat by the aduice of the Phisitions was cured Beeing then perswaded by them to eate againe Oh no said he hauing past the greatest part of the way I will not I will not returne againe and so he died of abstinence We could produce many others much coÌ„mended as Lucrece Cato and others if they were not sufficiently knowne Answer I deny that the swarme of miseries of this present life is a sufficient cause to depart when wee please the great God which hath placed vs here must first come and take vs away Pythagoras in Tully forbids to leaue the Corpes de guarde without commandement of the Captaine as a prisoner breaking prison agrauates his crime so the spirit violating his body makes himself guilty of a double torment And he that hath so strictly forbiddeÌ„ to kil meant it as well of himselfe as of others And therefore Virgil platonizing sings vnto vs that they which haue inhumanly slaine themselues hold the first place in hell As for the vertue which they pretend in it the most quick sighted Philosopher hath seene nothing but feare and foolishnesse thus he speaks It is the part of a coward and not of a valiant man to dye by reason of pouerty of loue or for any other thing that is troublesome it is a faintnesse to flie difficult things and after He suffers not death as a good thing but flying the euill Finally he that murthers himselfe wipes himselfe for euer out of the booke of life for that he dies impenitent in the act of sinne neuer to haue remission after this life nor as Saint Augustine sayth any indulgence of correction But to come neerer to our Stoickes wee will first appeale srom Seneca to Epictetus O men sayth hee haue patience attend God vntill hee giue the signe that hee hath dismist you from this ministery then returne vnto him But for the present support couragiously inhabite this region in the which he hath placed you this habitation is short easie not burthensome c. The 1. reason inferring that life and death
to desire Death not as wee propounded them nor as we haue found them but as they make themselues known If we shall indge of the streame by the spring what may we hope for of the life of man conceiued betwixt the vrine and excrements borne naked all in tears but only a perpetuall flux of corruption pouertie and calamities therefore it is not without reason that S. Bernard sayd That man is but a stinking sperme a nourishment for wormes a sacke of excrements and such should wee see him within if the skinne did not stay our sight outwardly Doe we doubt of it seeing of this liuing substāce there are ingendred wormes about an ell long and being dead serpents in the pithe of the backe as Plinie writes and experience teacheth Plutarke reports that the king of Egypt hauing caused the body of Cleomenes to be hanged and the garde hauing discouered a great serpent wound about his head they called the people who running to this spectacle called Cleomenes as a demy-God The like happened to a young man a Germaine who would neuer suffer his picture to be drawn in his life time but onely granted to his kinsfolkes who importuned him that some dayes after his interment they might take him vp and draw him as they found him Being taken out of the graue they saw about the Diaphragma the pith of the backe many little Serpents to verifie what the authour of Ecclesiasticus faith When man dyerh he becoms the inheritance of serpents The life of man is a candle exposed to all winds saith Epictetus His body is a store-house of all sorts of diseases saith another his flower his most excellent point of glory is such as he is alwayes in paine and martyrdome and this point passeth away dazling the eye like a flash greatnesse and worldly riches are no more sssured then the waues of the sea they flowe suddainely and ebbe no l◅sse violently Sesostris King of Egypt causing himselfe to bee drawne in a Chariot of pure gold by foure Kings his prisoners one of them held his eye fixed vpon the wheele which did rolle vp and down by him Sesostris obseruing it demanded of him the cause of his countenance who answered That looking vpon the wheele and obseruing the spoaks to bee sometimes aloft and suddainely downe againe I call to minde the rolling change of my selfe and my companions Sesostris considers hereof abates his pride and giues liberty to his Captiues Such is the estate of the affaires of this world like vnto a marke subiect to infinite darts of aduersity No man knowes what the night brings sayd one in Titus Liuius the pleasures are vncertaine but the displeasures most certaine Nature giues vs a taste at our comming into the world where wee enter weeping And according to this instinct of nature the Thraci ns wept at the birth of their children numbring what miseries they should suffer in the world For the same reason the Getes a religious people held that it was better to die then to liue therefore they lamented at their child-birthes and sung at their burialls And wise Salomon saith that the day of death is better then that of birth Looke into Erasmus vpon the prouerbe Optimum non nasci Sophocles in like manner giues aduice that it is more reasonable to weepe at the birth of their children as beeing entred into great miseries and beeing dead to carry them ioyfully to the graue as freed from the miseries of this life And who will doubt any more of this seeing he that neuer lies calls this life death Ioh. 5. saying Hee that heares my words and beleeues in him that sent me shall passe from death to life The Lycians law ordayned that they which wold mourn should put on womens robes for that it did in no sort befit graue and discreete men to weepe for the dead but for passionate women Vpon this law a Lawyer of Padoua groūded his testament although he be taxed by another First hee charged his heire vpon great comminations to banish all blacke cloth from his Funeralls and that he should prouide singers and players on Iustruments to sing and play going among the Priests both before and behinde the Corpes to the number of fifty to euery one of which he bequeathed halfe a Ducate for his paines Moreouer hee ordained that 12. young virgines attired in greene should carry his body vnto Saint Sophias Temple in which he should be interred suffering them to sing ioyfull songs with a loud voyce and for a reward hee bequeathed them a certaine summe of money to helpe them at their marriage All sorts of Priests and Monkes might assist except such as were barred with blacke lest that colour should darken the beauty and cheerefulnesse of his Funeralls he had seene with Heraclitus that during the dayes of this miserable life there is no subiect but of teares and that at our departure we should reioyce with Demoeritus And therefore Plato doth rightly call death a medicine for all miseries and Seneca esteemes it the end of seruitude Let vs seale vp this discourse with the memorable aduice which Epictetus gaue to the Emperour Adrian enquiring why they set garlāds vpon the dead It is in signe answered he that at the day of their death they haue triumphed ouer the diuers assaults of this life Let vs then dye when it shall please the prince of this life to cease the teares and alarmes of this life and to beginne the life of heauen whereas God will wipe away all teares from our eyes whereas death shall be no more and there shal be no more mourning crying nor labour Obiection If men call for death and being come refuse it so much it is a signe that it is very horrible But the antecedent is true Therfore the consequent is also true IT is reported in Laertius that the Philosopher Antisthenes tyed to his bed by a greeuous disease and the more grieuous the more he loued his life was visited by Diogenes who knowing the man had taken a naked sword vnder his gowne Antisthenes perceiuing him cried out O God who shall deliuer me from hence Diogenes answered presently that shal this shewing him his sword But Antisthenes replied more sodainly I meane from these paines and not from my life It seemes that most of those crier sout for death make that their refuge when she approcheth neere them Esope in the Apologue hath naturally described it by that old man who being laden with a great burthen and falling into a Ditch he grew to despaire and calling for death death came and commands him to follow him O no said he I call thee to helpe me vp with my burthē that I may returne Answer I know well that many feare death much not for any desire to liue nor for the pleasures they haue in life for the two examples obiected shew the contrarie but for that they know not what death is And thereunto tends this
Combate to kil this feare of death in man I therefore persist in my opinion that it is nothing but the feare which man hath to fall into some greater miserie as we haue shewed doth make him so much apprehēd death But there is no euill in this as appeares in the following argument Therefore there is no reason of feare which reason should gouern a reasonable man Let vs not trust to those distrustful spies which being returned from the point of death cry out Horror horror for they faile more in corage then in bodie and deserue the like punishment to them that went to discouer the land of Canaan who being returned brought nothing but bad and slanderous tydings to al the people as the holy Scripture doth witnes Let vs rather beleeue wise and valiant men produced heereafter vpon the Theater who like vnto Iosua◅ spies depose ioyntly that God hath deliuered death into our hands that it is quencht for our sakes Next it is not true that all men flie death being called many haue bin greeued returning to health after some great sicknesse which they thought should haue swallowed vp their life Giue me leaue to speake this truth of my selfe being 120. leagues from my parents about 14. yeares since studying in a towne streightly besieged and famished I fell sicke of a bloudie flux whereof many dyed whereof my master was dead In this estate I was resolued to dye but when I found that God gaue me force to vanquish my disease I was verie melancholike in the beginning held it a losse to be recouered And therefore notwithstanding this opposition wee will close vp our discourse with Seneca saying That death is the cause that life is no martirdome The 20. Argument taken from the remouing of the euill of death No euill consisting in a falfe opinion and nothing in effect is to be feared Death is an euill consisting in a false opinion and nothing in effect c. IT is a great aduantage as great Captaines say to haue obserued and measured his enemy from head to foote Let vs in like manner obserue and measure death and we shall find it is but an Anatomy a vaine name a Picture and Image a scar-crow a bable a fantasticke feare an imaginary fire which some men see in an euening walking in Church-yards An ideot at the sight thereof would be amazed sweare that hee hath seene a spirit walking but a wiseman will vnderstand that it is an oyly exhalation which by agitation takes fire Ignorant opinion makes man beleeue that death is very euill when it is a priuation from all euil hee is amazed with a false alarme So women and weake spirits dare not remaine alone in their Chambers for that they imagine they shal see spirits and apparitions little children are afraid to see their parents masked Astianax could not endure the sight of Hector armed but lay aside these armes take away the maske you shall conuert their feare into assurance and their cries into ioy So pull away these false maskes of hideous lookes and the trembling cries of them that die they are but fained or sorrowes grownded in the aire of an imaginary euill So Cassander did tremble at the sight of Alexanders picture dead long before the table would not bite him yet hee quaked as if it had beene some furious beast the reason was that his imagination being impayred hee thought that Alexander was wonderfully in choller against him Wil you haue an apparent signe that in this horrible apprehension of death mans iudgement is troubled and therefore suspected to bee false The strongest and most vigorous the yongest and most iust do least feare the losse of life who in reason should apprehend it most if it were to be feared hauing more interest in it but old men and such as are subiect to the cholike stone and malefactors feare it without measure Maecenas tormented continually with a feauer was content to bee cut and mangled so as with all his paines hee might prolong his life How many Messales offenders would liue in torture or broken vpon the wheele so as they might not end their liues What is the reason of this but that his iudgement is peruerted beleeuing that all the paine he feeles shall be doubled in death If he be a reprobate and vnderstands it of the second death and not of the first whereof wee now discourse his iudgement is right but for a good man to thinke that there is any great paine in a naturall death hee erres much It is not the death said Aeschines but the violent passion against death which is horrible If they thinke there bee any discomodity in death sayd the old man Bassus let them know it comes from them that die not from death which frees them of all paine Pindarus sayth of man that he is but the dreame of a shaddow but let vs speake it and with more reason of death a dreame is false and a shaddow the opposition of a sollide body to the light So death the priuation of life is an euill dreamed and false Good God who can represent that which is not vnder what idea can the Painter imagine to draw it he will present vnto vs bones bound with sinewes without flesh and naked hauing a sythe in his hand this is something but be well aduised to thinke that death doth subsist beyond this representation as a liuing man doth subsist longer then his picture you should bee foully deceiued for take away this representation and all other imagination and you take away all that is of death for it is nothing at all therefore the portrait is false May a man paint a voice the which although it be inuisible yet it falls vnder the sence of hearing but death in what sence so euer you take it is incapable of all sence and by consequence not to bee drawne by any pencel What is death then it is a word of few letters which hath no subsistāce but in imagination nothing in nature nothing in effect We laugh at the Bourgondian spies who in their war against the French King Lewes 11. being sent to discouer the Country fled at the sight of certaine Thistles as if they had discouered a troupe of men at Armes If we had the vnderstanding to know death as the sight hath to distinguish thistles we should find that they are more ridiculous which fly amazed from the incounter of death for it is nothing at all whereas thistles are at the least pricking plants Let vs then say boldly That to feare that whereof neuer any man yet felt the sting to draw from a wandering fantasie proceeding from an vnsetled braine a true and sensible paine is a meere folly Oh God! what paine can there be at the very instant when life flies away in a body depriued of all sence Let a sicke body endure all the extremities of paine yet in death there is none at all doest thou not
apparitions shadowes and walking spirits to wrestle with them The statue of Nicon the wrestler borne at Tasos did witnesse it without words when as one who had enuied and hated Nicon at the sight of this statue fell into his old spleene which he had borne him liuing who taking a staffe layd vpon the image to despight the memory of Nicon the image to bee reuenged of this affront fell vpon him with all his weight and crusht him to death This was an accident but it was well and iustly ordained But behold another more euident Fabia wife to the Emperour Heraelius Being carried dead to her tombe it happened that a maiden by mischance did spit out at a window vpon the body for which she was taken burnt in the same fire that was prepared to reduce the body of Fabia to ashes In such recommendation they had in those dayes the honor of the dead The rage of Sylla is iustly held detestable who not content to haue done all the violence he could to his enemies whilest they liued after their death would draw their bones out of their graues and cast them into the riuer The death of the Saints is pretious before God let vs also say the death of vertuous men is pretious before men and if any one hath bene blemished in his life it should be buried in his graue Lewis 11. of France a great King hath verified it in his owne person towards his enemy the faire Agnes whom some of those times supposed that the Kings Father had entertained After her death she was intoÌ„bed in the Church of the Castle of Laches and by reason of a certaine rent shee gaue vnto it her body was layd in the middest of the Quire Lewis comming thither some time after there was suite made vnto him by a Priest that hee would suffer them to remoue that Tombe to some other place for that it did incomodate them The King beeing informed who lay there answered That which you demand is vniust although this woman were in her time very opposite vnto me yet will I not violate her Sepulcher Moreouer I cannot conceiue that you haue laid this body in so eminent 〈◊〉 place without some rich present performe that to your Benefactor being dead which you promised her being alâ—… and remooue her not from thence to bind you more strictly towards her I giue you for an increase sixe hundred pounds starling If this were done in a life which was blemished what shall it bee in one that is all pure and vntainted If it be obserued towards them that dye a drie death how much more towards them that are vniustly slaine by Tyrantâ—… Behold a memorable history among many which intimates that God hath a watchfull eye ouer them Perdinand fourth Mâ—…g of Spaine transported with choler vppon a suspition ill grounded for a murther committed commanded two bretheren of the house of 〈◊〉 to bee throwne headlong from the top of a rocke Going to their execution these Gentlemen protest and crie out that they dye innocents and seeing the Kings eares were shut vp to their iust defence they cited him to apear within 30. dayes before the soueraigne Iudge The dayes run on and the King is carelesse vntill that vpon the 30. day hee found himselfe seazed at the first but with a light infirmity but it increased so suddainely as hee dyed the same day Consider hereof you to whom honour is more pretious then life and who liuing feele the stings of Enuy and slander more then your bodies are followed with their shaddowes Take comfort heerein for God by your death will preuent these vniust pursuites and make an end of these iniurious taxations Enuy assaults the man liuing but lying in the bed of death she leaues him at rest as the Poet saith and then due honour is giuen to men of merit O you which meditate day and night on your learned writings writings either to chase away ignorance or to reforme men deformed with all sorts of vices in this debaucht age faint not for any malice they beare you liuing death will smother this rancor consume this enuy we see it daily and before vs Cate the Cenfor did taxe it sharpely I know saith hee that many ignorant of true honour will traduce my writings if I publish them but I let their babling fall to the ground meaning the graue whereas the sharpest stings of slander are abated and buried and the bookes which during the life of their Authors durst not looke vpon the light no more then Owles after their death flie out like young Eagles and behold the Sunne Obiection Whatsoeuer God and men hold to be euill is euill God and men iudge death to be euill Ergo c. THIS Argument is grounded vpon the Diuine Oracle pronounced to Adam That day thou shalt eate of the fruite of the tree of knowledge of good and euill thou shalt die the death the Apostle saies that Death is the reward of sin As for men in Cities wel gouerned their lawes impose the punishment of death for theeues murtherers sedicious c. I answer That death in her beginning is bad but not in her deriuation but it is good in respect of his power and wisedome who drawes light from darkenes good from euill life from death for now by the blessing of God death serues as a ladder to the faithfull to ascend vp into heauen So the diuersity of tongs sent at the building of the Tower of Babel proceeded from the fury of God kindled against the builders to frustrate their enterprize Yet the same tongs haue bene since imparted to the Apostles vpon White-sonday by the fauour of God thereby to haue the mysteries of the Lord declared So garments were inuented in token of the losse of our naked Innocency and yet in continuance they are become an honorable ornament for our bodies as wee see Euen so in the beginning God sent death in his fury and since he sent it in fauour to Enoch to Iosias and to all them hee loues The holy Ghost speaking by the penne of Salomon sayth that hee more esteemes the dead which are already dead then the liuing which are yet liuing As for malefactors death is not inflicted vpoÌ„ theÌ„ as it is simply death but for two reasons adiaceÌ„t the one is that depriuing them of all motion it makes them cease to commit any more euill frees the Country of such vermine The other that it is imposed for a publike infamy and therefore they are set vpon scaffolds and gibbets in publike place this deserued infamy is the true torment of the punishment death is but an accident and do wee not see many delinquents desire an honorable graue more then life the which they would not do if they held death to bee the worst of euills and not rather an extreame dishonor in which they feele their soules to suruine Bias therefore did answere wittily being demanded which of all
kind of death was the worst That sayth hee which the Lawes haue ordained inferring thereby that a naturall death is not euill but that which crimes haue deserued the which is not giuen by nature but by a hangman and yet not so much by the execu tioner who is but the instrument as by a villanie perpetrated which is the true cause So sayd S. Peter Let none of you suffer as a murtherer theese malefactor or too curious in other mens affaires But if any one suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed but let him glorifie God in that behalfe The 24. Augument taken from the testimonie of wise men All wise men in the conflict of Death depose that death is not euill But that is true which all wise men depose c. THe troupes of Christian Martirs heathen Philosophers marching so boldly vnto death are so many witnesses without reproch to conuince them of falshood which hold death to be so great an euill Let vs be carefull lest this blasphemie creep into our thoughts that they were in despaire or mad No no their verie enemies dare not speake it haâ—…ng knowne that they were for the most part men famous in pietie iustice vertue and wisedome and for such as were recommended by all men The Ecclesiasticall Historie is gored with thousands of such Martires the author of the tables hath set downe some in the end of his first booke of whom I make no mention But behold the manly courage of Blandina who by her ioyfull countenance doth summon vs vnto death whereunto she doth march with such a grace and state as if she had gone to a nuptiall feast Then followes happie Tiburtins conuerted vnto Christ by Vrban in the yeare 227 who marching vpon burning coales seemed to tread vpon Roses These Christians with infinite others as well ancient as moderne had neuer any horror of death but haue desired it yea sought it as a refreshing and refection to their bodies soules but for that no man doubts but the zeale of Christians hathmade them continue constant vnto the death and the diuine power had so fortified their resolutioÌ„s that neither their reason could be swallowed vp nor drowned by the horror of persecution Let vs come to others of a multitude let a few suffise Socrates accused by the Athenians to thinke ill of the Gods for that he reiected pluralitie adored an vnitie was condemned to dye before the which he would first censure his iudges saying To feare death O my Lords Areopagites is to make shew to be wise and not to be for it is to seem to know death to be euil which they vnderstand not He did so little apprehend death as when as eloquent Lisias had giuen him an Oration artificially penned which hee should vse for his Apologie whereby hee should be absolued he read it and found it excellent yet he sayd vnto Lycias If thou hadst brought me Sicionian shoes admit they had beene fit for my foote yet would I not vse them for that they were not decent for me So thy discourse is most eloquent and fluent but not fit for men that are graue and resolute The executioner then presented him poysoÌ„ in a cup which Socrates tooke with a constant hand and demanded of him as a sicke patient would doe of the Physition to recouer health how he should swallow it then without any stay drunk it vp after which he walked a little then tooke his bed his boy vncouering him felt his parts to grow cold Socrates being wak't directed his speech to Criton who aboue all others wished him a longer life and to make him thinke of it had propounded vnto him his children his deare friends that for their sakes if not for his owne hee would preserue his life which was necessarie for them No no answered hee God who hath giuen me my childreÌ„ wil care for them when I shall be gone from â—…ce I shall finde friends either like vnto you or better neither shall I bee long depriued of your company for you must soone come to the same place Then as if he had by this potion recouered his health hee cried â—…ut O Criton we owe a Cock to Aesculapius be not forgetfull to sacrifice vnto him Let vs obserue that in the last passages of life he was in no sort amazed but dying ioyfully comforted his suruiuing friend and let vs not doubt but hee who was the first among the seuen Sages of Greece knew before Demosthenes that which this Orator spake couragiously to Phiâ—… King of Macedon who threatned him to cause his head to be câ—…t off Well saith hee if thou giuest mee death my Countrey will giue mee immortality And doublesse Socrates liues and will liue eternally so the suruiuing hauing seene the assurance of his death held him most happy as going to liue another life and in another place And Aristippus that ioyfull Philosopher beeing demanded in what sort Socrates was dead In that manner said he that I my selfe desire Inferring that death was more to bee wished for then a happy life Let vs heare a second that is Theramenes to whom they presented a great cup of poyson the which he dranke resolutely and returned the cup to Critiâ—… the most cruell of the 30. Tyrants which had condemned him Theramenes therein alluding to the manner obserued at this day in Germanie which is that hee which drinkes to any one sends him the same glasse full of wine that hee may pledge him These deathes are full of courage but behold a woman dying who exceedes them all and that onely to incourage her husband to dy it is Arria the wife of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This woman being aduertised that Petus was condemned to what death hee would choose went vnto him to perswade him both by word the effect to dislodge out of this life she had a naked dagger vnder her gowne and giuing her husband heâ—… last â—…well shee thrust her selfe to the hart and drawing it forth againe with the like courage she held it vnto Petus and spake these her last words vnto him Pâ—… non doleâ—… Pete O my deere Petus it doth not paine mee and then dyed Let vs seale vp these examples with two women who commonly doe passionatly loue the presentation of their children yet a certen Lacedemonian hauing heard that her Son fighting valiantly had beene slaine in battaile O sayd shee this was a braue Sonne not lamenting the death of her Sonne but reioycing at his vertue Another hearing that her Sonne returned safe from battaile and that hee had â—…d shed cryed out vnto him There is a bad report of thee thou must eyther deface it or not liue holding it better to dye then to suruiue an Ignominie Obiection If the greatest fauorites of God haue feared death it is to bee feared But Dauid Ezechias and others fauored by God feared Death and especially Iesus Christ the only and wel-beloued Sonne of God feared
impossible that at the soules departure from the body there should be any great paine the soule leaues the body as the light doth the ayre which it doth inuest as Viues speakes after S. Augustine Wee must not then imagine heere a grosse tearing of the soule from the body as of a piece of cloth for the vnion of the soule with the body is spirituall and incomprehensible But of the pretended paine in death there is sufficiently spoken in the Obiection following As for the two other enemies it is true that the conscience presents vnto a dying man the foulenesse of his sinne and it is true that Satan tempts man to despaire to precipitate him into eternall perdition But for all this must a man that feares God feare death and feare to lose the battaile No but hee ought rather to assure himselfe of the victory and present himselfe boldly to the Combate as a valiant fortunate Champion against one that is weake and vnfortunate They that are for vs are stronger then they that are against vs God which hath begunne continues his worke in vs and ends it to his glory the faith which he hath prāted in vs wil quench the inflamed darts of the wicked spirit the full assurance of the remission of sins by Iesus Christ dead for our sinnes and risen for our iustification will pacifie the conscience and shew him Iesus Christ in heauen sitting on the right hand of God and stretching out his armes to him Thirdly the seales of the holy Ghost in vs for by it we are sealed to the day of Redemption Baptisme the Communion of the body of Christ and the Spirit of sanctification will terrifie Satan and make him flie Finally the good Angels which from our birth and throughout the whole course of our liues haue administred vnto vs guided and comforted vs will redouble their loue and courage in the like offices at our greatest need and at our last gaspe Let vs not feare seeing we haue such assurance in the Word of God which doth plainely witnesse that the Angells are administring Spirits sent to serue for their sakes that shall receiue the inheritance of saluation Here then is no subiect of desperate feare but rather of an assured resolution The 4. Obiection All paine is euill In dying there is paine EPicharmus by the testimony of Cicero sayd that he would not die but to be dead he cared not The reason is in my opinion for that he feared the passage of death not death it selfe which hee thought with vs had no paine There are many at this day of this opinion abhorring death like an internall gulfe for that they conceiue there is some sharp and violent paine which they endure before it comes and thereunto tends the prouerbe He is in bad case that dies And S. Augustine seemes to attribute I know not what sharpe feeling and force against nature in the diuulsion of the soule from the body which were vnited together Answere If death be terrible by reason of the paine we apprehend in it then life by the same reason should be more for in it some man endures more by the cholicke the stone the sciatica yea by the tooth ach and by many other infirmities without death then an other hath felt in dying And there is this aduantage in death that it comes but once wheras the aboue mentioned infirmities are often reiterated in life But to haue a perfect view if this paine bee so great as opinion a bad counsellor doth make vs beleeue let vs search with reason into the immediate cause of that which doth engender this paine in our bodies The pathes which leade man to death are infinite but all bend to one of these foure high wayes outward force subtraction of meate and drinke inward sicknesse and old age These foure kinds of death may happen to al men yea to wise men although by iniustice touching the first by some rare accident as touching the second concerning the third by ordinary corruption of humors and by an infallible defect of nature touching the fourth Paine according to the definition of learned Phisitions is the feeling of some thing that is offensiue and troublesome to the nature of the body for that it is contrary to the health thereof the which happens either by the dissoluing and cutting of his continued substance or by the alteration thereof which alteration proceeds from the intemperate heate or cold for as for humidity and drinesse they are rather passiue qualities then actiue whose operation is very slow and the paine in the member that is altered is suddaine not gentle as if you be exceeding cold and come to a very sensible paine cold settles his paine in disioyning heate in burning and it is to bee noted that any sence may be wounded yet little or nothing is his paine in comparison of that of touching the which is dispersed ouer the whole body from which no other vessell of the sences is exempt which is the cause that wee sometimes feele prickings in the eyes and shootings in the eares c. Let vs now come to the application Death which comes to man by extreame age can be no cause of paine there being nothing in him that tortures his body nothing that doth suddainely alter and change him by extreame cold or heate but his life goes out presently like vnto a Candle that wants tallow by the losse of his radicall humour deuoured by little and little since his birth by his naturall heate and although this heate doth yet striue as it hath formerly done to conuert the meate which is familiar and fit for the body into radicall humor to repaire his losse yet she can worke no more her vertue failes her euery agent hath his vertue limited what soeuer doth act suffers in acting through vse and in continuance of time this heate decayes dissolues is lost and death ensues So as it hath bene disputed in vaine whether life might bee continued this radicall humor being restored by some fit nutriment for that humor being at the first a certaine ayery onely portion of that seede which doth reside in all the sollide parts it is impossible that such an humour and so much as is needefull should be supplied in it's place The only fruite of the tree of life which was in Eden had this secret vertue by the diuine ordinance to make man immortal that shold eate therof and therefore according to the opiniō of the Fathers God suddenly after the sin chased Adam and Eue out of Eden least they should lay hold of that fruite and become immortally miserable with the diuells In processe of time there happens two notable changes to this radicall humour the one in the quality for that it degenerates by little and little of naturall becomes strange the other in the quantity for that it is wholy wasted whereunto man being once reduced he can suffer no paine if hee complaines
death which was miserable which if we feare what is all the life said he but a path tending vnto death And S. Augustine aboue named means no other thing whilst they haue feeling they are yet liuing if liuing they are rather sensible before death then in death by whose comming all sense is lost The 25. Argument taken from the indignity That which is repugnant to one of the principall vertues is vnworthy of man The extreame feare of death is repugnant to fortitude one of the principall vertues WE meane not here to speak of bodily force but of that of the minde by the which Caesar but of a weake body did more braue exployts thē Hercules There is nothing more worthy of a man then Fortitude a vertue whereunto he should aime al the actions of his life for that alone doth neuer faile to yeeld a recompence either aliue or dead saith Seneca Epist. 81. and hee doth not perish that dies adorned with vertue saith another Saint Augustine confirmes this when he attributes the disdain of life and the contempt of death to the force of the minde The greater and more desperate the danger is the more doth magnanimity increase in a generous minde to free all difficulties that hee shall encounter And seeing that the end is better and more excellent then that which tends vnto it hee will conclude with reason That hee were better to lose his life then vertue But Fortitude one of the foure cardinall vertues besides the generall hath a particular reason why man should seeke to preserue it in her greatest perfection for by it hee enioyes the true tranquility of the minde the which as Cicero reports is nothing else but a quiet sweete and pleasing disposition of the soule in all the euents of life Which carries two Crownes patience in paine resolution in death By which the confirmation of the Minor is inferred there beeing nothing that doth more oppugne and in the end ouerthrow all force and resolution then the extreame feare of death Feare and especially that of death beeing destitute of reason iudgement wounds the soule with amazement alienates his right sense makes it idle and without action it doth waste him vndermine him and consume him as rust doth Iron and the worme an apple A man alwayes shaking with feare is without heart and courage but halfe a man such as histories report Claudius Caesar the 5. Emperour to haue beene whom nature had begun but not finished for that hee was base and faint-hearted Moreouer feare by the terrible obiect of death causeth the heate which is the chariot of force to retire into the bottome of the belly in stead of drawing it about the heart as courage doth so as the heart is alwayes panting and which is worse whereas it should extend it selfe by dilatation in his natural motion hee shrinkes himselfe vp against nature whereby there followes a great debility in all the members of the body and sometimes death as it happened to Lycas who vppon the very report of Hercules force was so terrified as beeing retired into the corner of an Altar dyed there But a generous man resolute to death will not feare any thing that shall present it selfe to crosse him in the course of his duty like vnto Anaxarchus whom Alexander threatning to hang he said Threaten thy Courteours who feare death for my part I care not whether I rot aboue or vnder the earth Socrates also beeing blamed by one for that hee did a thing which would cause his death he answered My friend thou art not well informed if thou thinkest that a man of honor shold apprehend danger yea death in his actions but only consider whether they bee iust or vniust good or bad Such was the courage of the Prophet Micheas when he resisted King Achas and told Israel of his sinnes being filled with vertue by the Spirit of the Eternal with iudgement and with force as he himselfe speakes Thirdly feare not onely hurts it selfe causing his arms to fall out of his hands and laying him open to his enemies darts but like vnto the plague it infects others And therefore King Agamemnon would not that a rich man and a fearefull should goe to the warres of Troy but to stay him he would haue sent him a distaffe if he would not eouer his shame honestly But on the other side a valiant man finds meanes to free himselfe in the greatest dangers So Aristomenes a Lacedemonian being taken prisoner and deliuered bound to two souldiers hee found meanes to burne his bonds and his flesh to the quicke then falling couragiously vpon his guardes hee slue them and so escaped It is a common saying among men That vertue hath no vertue if it be not in paine and the greatest paine in the opinion of man is when hee is at the point of death then should a valiant heart shew his inuincible courage to vāquish this terror of death It is this courage which made Saint Paule to say That if he did serue for an aspersion vpon the sacrifice seruice of faith hee was ioyfull It is the same Spirit that made Ignatius to say beeing condemned by Infidels to be cast to wild beasts I am the wheate of God I shall bee ground in the teeth of beasts to bee made pure and cleane bread If the Trumpet which sounds an alarme be pleasing to a valiant Souldier what shall death bee to a vertuous man when shee shall sound with her siluer Trumpet ordained by God to call the assembly the Church to heauen and to make men leaue the earth where they haue no a biding place what feare we They that haue the chollicke and the gout are not so much terrified with the returne of their paine and can vertuous men so much feare death which hath not so much paine no none at all seeing that what we feel whē death approcheth is of the re mainder of life not of death to what end serues this cowardly feare Fly an honorable death of the one side and a shamefull end will find thee of the other So Sisera left his Armie and fled into the house of Iahel but when he thought to take his rest Iahel came and draue a nayle of the Tabernacle into the temples of his head and slue him But to haue this courage and resolution to resist the terror of death it is not sufficient to speake in the time of health as Souldiers do of their valour at the table learned discourses sayth Seneca make no demonstrations of true magnanimity the most feareful will sometimes speak more boldly then they shold We must meditate seriously of death according to the obiects which are presented vnto vs and not make any difficulty to go and comfort our dying neighbours for it is better to enter into the house of mourning then of seasting sayth the wise man To offer ourselues to al dangers of death when our vocation doth call vs like
end insupportable and offensiue to all kind of people yea to himselfe For hauing his nose groueling to the ground like a hogge hee will neuer bee able to lift vp his eies nor his spirit to heauen where all perfect and assured contentment is to bee found If yeelding to all this you will aske me the meanes how to bee freed of this fearefull terror I will tell you that it is to know what Deathis as it is taught in the 13. 14. and 20. Arguments and not to rely vpon doubtfull and false opinions An Obiection Euery roote bringing forth fruits worthy repentance should be carefully preserued The feare of death bringeth forth fruits worthy of repentance Therefore the feare of death should bee carefully preserued WHatsoeuer thou sayest or doest remember thy end and thou shalt neuer sinne sayth the son of Syrach Answ. the continuall meditation of death to him that knowes it rightly helpes wonderfully vnto vertue And Seneca sayeth that man is neuer so diuine as when hee doth acknowledge himselfe to bee mortall Yea it auailes in Christian duties but that the feare of death is profitable to any thing I cannot comprehend I will not deny but that many haue bene wonderfully stirred vp to piety by the feare of death as among others the historie makes mentiō of Peter Vualdo in the yeare 1178. who in the city of Lyons sometime being assembled with many of the chiefe of the Citty to recreate themselues it so happened that one of them fell downe suddenly dead Vualdo a rich man was more mooued then all the rest and seized with feare and apprehension he addicted himselfe more to do penance and to meditate true piety But who doth not see that it is not properly death which causeth this inclination to pietie but the iudgement of God which wee discerne through death as through a glasse that it is the worme of Conscience which doth awaken vs by the contemplation of Death and stirres vp sinners to iustice sanctitie It is the ignorant confusion of the second death with the first which doth so strongly amaze men Finally it is a seruile feare and not commendable yea condemned of the Pagans themselues to forbeare to doe euill for feare of punishment Let vs conclude then That this first death which is naturall and common to all men seeing that her poyson hath beene quenched in the bloud of Christ as Tertullian speaks seeing that the Crosse of Iesus Christ hath pulled away her sting triumphed ouer her and giuen a counter-poyson for the poyson of sinne it is not euill but the greatest good that can arriue to mortall men and to feare to obtayne so great a good is a vice and no vertue before all vpright Iudges The Third Argument drawne from the Impossibility That onely is to bee feared that lyes in the power of man Death lyes not in the power of man Therefore not to be feared VIce onely should hee feared to be auoyded but nothing that is without the power of man is vice as Epictetus saith in his Enchiridion Moreouer that feare is good that can preuent an imminent danger but to that which can neither bee remedied nor foreseene feare serues but to aduance it Man may preuent and auoyd that which hee holds in his owne power and will as the approbation of vice the hatred of goodnesse and of true honour rashnes passions vnlawfull loue vnrestrained heauinesse excessiue ioy vaine hope damned despaire c. But all that which blinde man by his opinion doth affect or feare so much as wealth pouertie the honour or dishonour of the world life and death are not tyed to his will nor subiect to his scepter And therefore the Philosopher will rightly say that neither pouertie nor sicknesse let vs also adde death nor any thing that flowes not from our owne mallice are to bee feared let vs follow the Doctors of wisedome saith Heluidius in Tacitus which hold honest things onely to bee good and dishonest bad power nobilitie and whatsoeuer is without the spirit of man reputation riches friends health life and all things that depend of the free will of man flow necessarily perpetually from the decree of the Eternall and to seeke to hinder their course were to striue to stay the motion of the heauen and starres This prouidence of God dispersed throughout all the members of this Vniuerse hath infused into euery mooueable thing a secret immooueable vertue as Boetius saith by the which shee doth powerfully accomplish all things decreed in its time and place and order To seeke to breake the least linke of these causes chayned together were as much as to runne headlong against a rocke to ouerturne it I will that thou knowest the howre place of thy deceasse that to auoyd it thou flyest to a place opposite vnto it that thou watchest the houre yet shalt thou find thy selfe arriued and guided to the place at the houre appointed there to receiue thy death and that which is admirable thou thy selfe insensibly wouldest haue it so and diddest make choice of it To this force let Iulius Caesar oppose all his Imperiall power let him scoffe at Spurinus his prediction of the 15. of March the day being come hee must vnderstand from his Sooth-sayer who was no lyer that the day was not past he must come to the Capitoll and there receiue 23. wounds and fall downe dead at the foote of Pompeys statue Let Domitian storme for the approching of fiue of the clocke foretold yet must he die at the houre and for the more easier expedition one comes and tells him that it had strooke sixe he beleeues it with great ioy Parthenius his groome tells that there is a pacquet of great importance brought vnto him he enters willingly into the Chamber but it was to bee slaine at that very instant which hee feared most But if these histories seeme ouer worne with age who remembers not that memorable act at the last Assembly of the Estates at Blois of that Duke who receiued aduertisement from all parts both within and without the Realme that the Estates would soone end with the ending of his life euen vpon the Eue one of his confident friends discouered the businesse vnto him going to dinner he found a note written in his napkin with these words They will kill you To which he answered They dare not but they failed not Oh God how difficult is it to finde out thy wayes Let vs then cōclude that the houre of death appoynted by the immoueable order of God is ineuitable so that as one saith We shal sooner moue God then death So the Pagans who erected Altars to all their counterfeit Deities did neuer set vs any to death This firme decree of all things gane occasion to the Pagans to figure the three Destinies whose resolution great Iupiter could not alter no not to draw his Minion Sarpedon out of their bonds Let vs speake more properly God can
doe it but he wil neuer do it or very seldome to shew his infinit power by miracle Let vs in the end say That seeing death is ineuitable it must needs follow that the feare of it is vnprofitable On the other side let vs adde that mās life is not to be cut off before the time therefore a carefull waywardnesse to prolong it auailes nothing the Destinies which haue resolued immutably to spinne it out till such a time they will doe it feare it not and in the danger of death will rather shew a miracle to preserue thee as to the Poet Simonides who supping with Scopas in a Towne of Thessalie word was brought him that two young men were at the dore to speake with him the Poet went forth but found no body at the doore but hee heard a great noyse of the chamber which sunke downe and smothered Scopas and al his guests in the ruins We reade that Gelon then a young Infant but appointed to liue longer to gouern Sicile was drawne out of the like but a stranger danger for as hee was at schoole in the presence of his master and many of his companions behold a great Wolfe enters into the school comes to Gelon layes hold of his booke and drawes it by the one end Gelon without amazement holds fast and rather suffers himselfe to bee drawne forth by the Woolfe then to let goe his hold and in the meane time the building happened to sinke and ouerwhelmed both Master and schollers Thus God shewes his prouidence preseruing by his Angels those whom he pleaseth from present and most eminent dangers So would hee saue Lot and his family from the fire of heauen almost against their will For it is written that the Angels tooke them and thrust them out of Sodome yea it is written that the Angell executioner to shew the force of prouidence told Lot that he could not doe any thing vntill hee were retired into a towne adioyning which was afterwards called Zohar into the which he was no sooner entred but the Eternall powred downe fire and brimstone vpon Sodome and Gomorah We reade of Titus Vespasian that two famous knights had conspired to kill him whereof he was aduertised but making no shew thereof he tooke them by the hands led them forth to walke and hauing called for two swords he gaue to eyther of them one as prouoking them to that which they had resolued but being amazed both of the manner and of the Emperours courage You see sayth he that destinie doth iustly hold the principalitie of the world and that in vaine men practise murthers against it be it through hope to purchase greatnesse or for feare to lose it Let vs therefore acknowledge that it is not of vs but of the word of destinie which God hath pronounced that the lengthening or shortning of our liues depends The great God is to vs a God of strength to deliuer vs and the issues of death belong vnto the Eternal therefore the Apostle sayd that Christ is dead and risen againe that he might haue power ouer the dead and the liuing and therfore this vexing care of life nor that great horror of Death cannot profit vs any thing Let vs then leaue these things and finishing our course resolutely ioyfuly let vs yeeld al into the hands of our soue raigne Master neither to tempt him nor to despaire of him for both the one and the other are equally hateful vnto him and if our soule puft vp with the vent of temptation be desquiet within vs let vs say vnto it with Dauid My soule returne vnto thy rest feare nothing Euery kinde of death of them that are beloued of God is precious in his sight verie precious sayeth S. Bernard as being the ende of labour the consummation of the victorie the port of life and the entrie to perfect felicitie The first Obiection If Death did flow from the enchayned order of destinie we should not see it without order sometimes to goe slowly sometimes to runne headlong But that is vsually seene Therefore it seemes not to flow from destinie THe vnequall Issue of life which we see happen to men doth not alter but rather corroborate destinie it is the immutable decree of the Eternal he sees who should amend or impaire in this life he that hath made all for his glory euen the wicked for the day of calamitie And therefore he soone tooke vp Enoch to himself lest that malice shold corrupt his spirit sayth the text Contrariwise if Constantine the Great who was cruel in his youth had beene cut off he had not bin a Christian neither had hee so much extended the kingdome of Christ. There is yet another reason which is the deliuerance of good men from the miseries of the world when death comes I will gather thee vp with thy fathers sayd God to Iosias the good King to the end thy eyes may not see all the miseries which I will bring vpon this place On the other-side a long life is a great languishing to the wicked So Caine after his parricide committed was cursed of God and liuing so pursued by the Iudgement of God as he often cried out that his punishment was insupportable and therefore hee should wander vpon the face of the earth and that whosoeuer should finde him would kill him but God prouided setting a brand vpon his fore-head to the end no man should slay him But how comes it that the death of some is suddaine as the shot of an harquebuze cānot bee more suddaine and so long in others which languish of some long infirmitie I answere that to search into the Counsells of God which is properly the destiny wherof we speake is more infinite then to seeke the bottome of a gulph That great Apostle rapt vp to the third heauen finds nothing but depths incomprehensible Iudgements and wayes impossible to be found out Rom. 11. Moreouer I do not see to speake truely that death is more suddaine to one then to an other is it to them that being sound and vigorous are so strooken as they die presently Yet being thus strooken they know not whether they should suruiue it or no seeing some one hath escaped being thus stroken Wherefore I do not see that death is more slow to one then to an other Is it to them that lie bedred 10. or 20. yeares yea and what know they whether they shal die the first day they take their beds To conclude I say that seeing the comming of death is imperceptible and that it is impossible for any man to say assuredly I am dead or I shal suruiue that death cannot be suddaine or slow to any man other men iudge after the euent but not before And therefore it seemes to mee that the question which is made whether a languishing death or a suddaine be most to be desired is in vaine for that we shall find that death is suddaine to all men seeing it comes
hath such circumstances as it is very horrible of it selfe Therefore it is not possible but it should terrifie MAny dissembling the feare which they haue of death when they come to thinke and speake of some kinde of sicknesse drawing neere vnto death and especially of the plague they cannot finde blacke enough to set it forth nor horrour sufficient to abhorre it But let vs see what reasons they can pretend It was a great scourge say they of the wrath of God executed vpon the people for Dauids ambition so as there dyed 70. thousand in lesse then one day threatned in the Apocalipse to embrace the fourth part of the earth It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the liuing God Moreouer it is an vnspeakeable paine to be burnt with the sore to bee strangled with the plague c. Thirdly it is a sorrow which exceeds all extreames to bee abandoned of wife Father mother children friends and kinsfolkes Finally it is a perpetuall griefe to die and haue no meanes to settle his estate Answer These reasons are but goodly shewes to shaddow the feare they haue of death and the shame which lies lurking in their hearts for seeing they must leaue this life what doth it import them whether it be by water or by land or by any other meanes As for the first reason Dauid wil answere for vs that we must not iudge rashly of the poore man in his torment His son will adde that none can discerne whether he be worthy of loue or hatred by that which happens exteriorly The Apostle will say The iudgements of God beginne by his owne house Iob the Apostles the Martyrs will manifest by their examples that they whom God loues are most chastized in this world Finally Iesus Christ will teach vs That in the blind man so borne neither his sinne nor the sinne of his father and mother was the cause that hee was borne blind that neither the Galileans so cruelly intreated by Pilate nor the Iewes smothered in the ruines of the Tower which was in Silo were more guilty then those which had escaped this disaster A faithfull man is not tempted aboue his strength if affliction abounds consolation will superabound He dies happily which layes downe his soule with a setled spirit feeling in himselfe the peace grace of God through Iesus Christ in the remission of his sinnes And it is a thousand times better to be quickned by the light affliction of the plague and to carry away an inestimable weight of glory then to be smothered in the delights of sinne and in danger of a finall ruine both of body and soule The example produced of Dauid makes for this against the Obiector Who sinned Dauid in ambitiously numbring his people who is punished the people the Grecians are plagued for the foolish resolutions of their Kings sayd the ancient Prouerbe But where is the duty of Iustice will you say God knowes it his will is the rule of equitie it is iust seeing God will haue it so And on the other side it was not the wil of God for that it is not right But we commonly see that the plague layes hold of the poorer sort whereupon Galen calls it Epidemique that is to say popular whereof the baites are famine sluttishnesse and stinkes rather then the chiefe of the Towne infected who notwithstanding will be found much more faulty before God Looke vpon that long plague which vnder the Empire of Gallus and Volusian continued 15. whole yeares and which comming out of Ethiopia vnpeopled all the Romane prouinces reade it and iudge of it As for that pretended paine wee must not apprehend it to be greater then in simple swellings and Impostumes or in Cauteries the poison rather mollifying then increasing the paine But there are two kinds of plagues as Phisitions do obserue the one is simple when as the spirits onely are infected by a venemous and contagious ayre which hath bin suckt in by the mouth or the nose or that hath gotten insensibly into the body by the pores of the skinne so as a man shal be stroken that shal not feele any thing it may be he shall be more faint and heauy then of custome but with very little heate and alteration so as hee shall bee sometimes smothered vp before he feeles any paine The other is a compound when as the Contagion seazing the spirits doth communicate his poyson with the foure humours infects them and alters them but without paine for these humours are incapable yet these humours beeing infected and altered infect and alter the parts of the body in the which they reside as in the head the heart and elsewhere and there growes the paine but no greater then in Feauers and swoundings yea lesse by reason of the putrid vapour which doth dull and mortifie the members so as the paine is no more then a small incision yea lesse then the pricking of a pinne The greatest is a certaine inflammation in the hypocondriake parts in the bowells which enuiron the heart for as poyson is the capitall enemy of life so this enemy of life strikes furiously at the heart The worst is a certaine heate whereof the Patient complaines as Thucidides obserues in the plague which happened at Athens but what paine in this heat that is not greater in the burning of a little finger or in a Tertian Ague But if your opinion will not yeelde to these reasons inquire of them which haue beene toucht with this infection they will answer that feare hath beene their greatest paine and if they had been assured of recouery they had felt no paine I know you will reply that there is a difference betwixt them that recouer and them that die But I will answer you that the paine is equall yea greater in them that recouer then in them that dye they that recouer are more vigorous and the vicious humour stings them and is more sensible then in them that are weaker when the parts lesse able to resist are sooner gotten and lost As a Leper hauing his flesh infected with Leprosie and rottennesse feeles little or no paine in the most sensible pricking euen so a weake woman hath lesse torment in her deliuerie although the throwes bee more dangerous wherein appeares the admirable wisedome of Nature which doth not afflict the afflicted Now followeth the third reason obiected the abandoning of wife kinsfolkes and friends Answer It is an accident which happens seldome or not at all this day hardly can that which life hath vnited by marriage consanguinity and friendship be dissolued in death Moreouer a wise man who should haue learned to bee content with himselfe in life should not be discontented if he die alone It was a constant Doctrinein the resolute Stoicks that he is happy that is content with himselfe and depends not vpon any other man nor vpon any thing in the world but like Iupiter liues and moues of himselfe rests in
meat I answer Thou art not all wormes meat for the subtilest part of thee liues in thy children all thy person is not food for wormes for thy soule the most excellēt part escapes thou art not long the foode of wormes for another forme and it may be another soule shal be soone adapted The Fift Argument from the end of Nature Euery end whereunto the Law of Nature doth direct all the actions of our life is for our good Death is the end whereunto the Law of Nature directs all the actions of our life Therefore death is for our good IT is a wonderfull strange thing so to feare that passage whereunto our breathing and the course of our life seemes to tend For although the life be but a swift course of some dayes running swifter then a Weauers shettle yet the greatest part of the world desires to haue them shorter and would see them as soone shut vp as discouered As wee may see in playes which for that they hold their eyes and spirits captiues are very pleasant vnto them for that they rauish their thoughts and sences expell all languishing conceits Inquire of a Dancer a Tennis-player a Dicer or a Courtier why they liue continually in a Dancing-schoole a Tennis-Court in a Dicing-house or in great mens houses They will answere you if they vouchsafe you answere That the time would be tedious if they should not spend it in some thing and euen we our selues being more retired if some more profitable imployment did not make vs to spend the time we would say Oh how long this day is when will it be night And if this slow night came not to interrupt our complaints they would breake out into mournefull lamentations in the meane this night presenting herselfe vnto vs the longer through death we are quite cōfounded her countenance defaceth the remembrance of all our former miserie What inconstancie is this wee will and wee will not see our end we desire that euery day should passe away swiftly else wee complaine we wil not haue our life to slide away for then wee howle and yet our life is nothing but a multiplying of many dayes whence comes it It is for that this waywardnesse which cleaues vnto vs by reason of this slow course of euery day of our life proceedes from our nature who finds neither hir appointed abode nor hir setled perfection here and this pale feare which seazeth vpon vs at the discouerie of the gate of death proceedes from the corruption which hath happened to our nature For proofe whereof the table of Natures innocencie in the beginning which is described vnto vs at the entrie of the Bible doth testifie sufficiently for Adam and Eue in Eden were alwayes cheared with delights and pleasures they had continually the vse of an hundred thousand wonders neuer thinking of the future nor desiring presently the end of the day which held them they had their happinesse in the present life the which hath beene hidden in heauen by reason of their transgression whither we must ascend through death to enioy it thither our nature doth call vs from the which our corruption doth diuert vs. Were it not then better to obey nature so officious towards vs then a pernicious deprauatiō which hath possessed vs And therefore the Ancients to taxe this vnreasonable desire of liuing here without end left vs in their pictures how that Tithon beloued of Aurora obtained of the gods at the entreatie of the Goddesse that he should not die But this man being tired with a million of sundry calamities and ouerladen with a burthensome old age so as like vnto little Infants he was saine to be bound vp swadled and rockt hee besought the Gods that he might be suffered to die like other men Whereby they shew that death hath bene granted by the gods as a fauour vnto men as being the safe port of all the tempest of this world Nature hath set a measure and fulnesse to all thing wee finde it in the greatest pleasures which continuing long are in the end distastfull vnto vs Even so hath she done in life wherefore there are old men which would not willingly returne backe to the first beginning of their Infants life vpon condition to run the same dangers which they past the which Tully affirmes of himselfe that if any god would giue him force to become young againe hee would refuse it no sayth he hauing finished my course I will not bee brought backe from the end to the beginning for what commodities hath life nay what toyles hath it not And admit I should confesse that it hath pleasure without any distast must shee not haue her full measure and saciety who can contradict this The sixt Argument taken from the Vntuersall Law All freeing from a common miserie carries in it selfe consolation Death is a freeing from a common miserie It therefore carries in it selfe consolation THe consolation of the miserable is to haue companions sayeth the old Prouerbe for men by conference of their common misery reape some ease and discharge as if they carried a heauy burthen in common Now ô you which dying thinke your selues debarred of felicity consider how death with an equall foote beates and ouerthrowes the Castells of Princes and the Cabinnes of Sheepheards Search Salomon and you shal find that neither wisedome nor riches could preserue him from death nor Sampson his force nor Absolon his beauty Hercules with all his exploites is laid in the graue Alexander with his Empires Caesar with his happy victories Craesus with all his pompe is gone Xerxes is vanished with his miraculous bridge vpon the sea of Helles pont all all gone to the Pallace of Ruine whereas death commands Call these great Princes in whose ambitious hearts their greatnesse had stirred vp enuious vapours we haue them all for companions in death the Oracle hath sayed it and experience doth shew it You are gods but yet you must die You Princes you shall passe like to one of vs. Behold a great man who dying sayed with a mournfull voyce Helas I am rich powerful and mighty and yet can I not wrest the shortest terme from pale destinie It is a great consolation sayeth Seneca to Polib c. 21. to think that whatsoeuer shall happen to vs by death hath bene suffered by all and all must suffer it and therefore hee cries out in the beginning of this Chapter in these termes What man saith hee is so full of artogancie and yet so vnable that will exempt himselfe or his from the necessitie of nature calling all things to one end In life men are vnequall but their beginning and ending are equall all are borne with one poore nakednesse and all dye with a stinking cold and liuing no man is more certaine of the next day then his neighbour hee onely is happy to whom the most miserable kinde of life doth not befall Happy then are wee if wee compare our selues with those people of
in liuing long saith the same Epist. 10â—… That the iniury of times doe anticipate and interrupt in shew the lawfull course of our dayes our apparent vertue will make our life more compleate Yea but God doth promise long life to them that shall honour their parents I answer That God doth promise prolongation of a happy life to them that shall obey him This happinesse is not in this world it is onely to bee found in heauen it is therefore of heauen whither his speech tends And although the literall sense be of the land of Canaan yet was it a figure of the mysticall and chiefe abode that is to say of he auenly Paradise which was the mould of this land flowing with milke and honey and all sorts of blessings And if any one against this probable reason will vnderstand the promise to be generall of the whole earth we may answer that God like vnto Physitions grants vnto men that haue sicke spirits not what is most profitable but what they importunatly and ignorantly desire Otherwise I will neuer yeeld that this life with what singular and extraordinary happinesse soeuer it be fauoured from heauen is better then the life eternall whereunto death doth infallibly leade the chil dren of God It is the onely cause why it pleased the Eternall to take iust Abel vnto him by death and would suffer cursed Caine to languish long It is also the reason why Iesus Christ doth not promise long life as the Lawe doth to those that shall honour him and follow him but the Crosse yea death it selfe Mat. 10. Mar. 13. It therefore remaines true that the Oracle saith Iust men are taken away from the euill enter into peace they rest vpon their bed c. And in like sort it is true that death cannot bee ill seeing it is the reward that God giues vnto his for their faithfull seruice or at the least it is the beginning if it be not the totall The Ninth Argument taken from the rule which should measure all the desire of man Man a reasonable Creature should not desire any thing but what is seasoned with reason The estate of this present life is not seasoned with good reason Therefore man should not desire the estate of this present life THe maior of this Argument cannot bee denyed by any reasonable creature to whom I speake the minor is iustified by the numbring of the three degrees of life vegetatiue sensitiue and intellectuall either of which being considered apart or all three together they haue no vaileable reason to mooue vs to loue them but let vs examine them in order In the vegetatiue life is chiefly obserued a facultie drawing retayning concocting and expulsing to nourish and make grow so as the chiefe end in the Indiuiduum is growing in this growing what reason of loue and in this what hath not a tree more then man yet no man desires to bee a tree yea should hee exceede in height that at the Indies which the Portugalls eye-witnesses sayling to Goa say to bee higher then a crossebow can shoote what auailes it man to be of a monstrous height but for a hindrance Witnesse Nicomachus the Smyrnean who growing to such a prodigious height that being but young hee could not remoue out of one place had continued an vnprofitable stocke if Aesculapius by strict dyets and violent exercises had not abated him In this then wee see no reason to desire life Let vs come vnto the sensitiue we perceiue in creatures fiue senses answering to fiue sensible obiects which are in the world And let vs obserue that the perfection of the sence is when it enioyeth his proper obiect as the perfection of the eye is to see colours of the eare to heare sounds of the nose to smell sents of the mouth to taste sauours of the hands yea of the whole body to touch tactible qualities The sight in colours obserues the sorting and mixture of diuers varieties the proportions and exact dimensions I deny not but man may take pleasure therein but it is a brutish vnreasonable pleasure if it bee not referred to the honour of the Authour of these colours if it bee religiously referred man will desire an increase of sight both of body minde the which he finds in himselfe to be obscure short and so weake that at the brightest colours it melts and is dispersed as the lightning This desire cannot bee perfect but in the new casting of the body by death and therefore Dauid said Turne away mine eyes lest they behold vanitie Psal. 119. they had seene it in Bersabee and elsewhere hee had beene almost lost But yet if in the sight lies the point of the reason of life why is not man another Linx to pierce through stone walls and to see without hindrance whatsoeuer is in the world The hearing in sounds distinguished conceiues a harmony which is no other thing but an aire beaten with many and diuers tunes followed with a iust proportion and happy incounter here vpon earth since that sinne was brought in by man Man of this Lute the world being speciall string All th' other nerues doth into discords bring And renders now for an enchanting aire A murmure so offensiue to the eare As Enion would amaze Enion the rude That th' ancient â—…arrs the Chaos made renew'd HEEre then there is no reason to desire life but rather the end to go and heare the mellodious sounds which are made in heauen diuine in their measured times and proportions which euen the poore Pagans haue acknowledged Smelling of sents seemes a certaine exhaling vapour tempered of heate and moisture but he is soone loathed bee it neuer so delightfull as of muske some cannot endure it but sound at the sent of it But besides all this there are in the world many pestiferous vapors which make man sicke yea die and therefore by consequence herein there is no more reason to desire life then death Tast feeles the sauours which are made by the seasoning of diuers liquors but in those man doth soone find a distast and repletion if he vse them without measure or discontinuance Where is then the true reason of mans good which must be taken without measure without interruption and without satiety the more it is taken the more it is desired and the more compleate it is the more it doth reioyce and content In the end comes touching the pleasure whereof cannot bee but in the feeling of smooth and polished bodies This pleasure as of the former sence if it be continued without intermission becomes very vnpleasant and the most excellent point thereof slides sooner away then it is perceiued this pleasure which the greatest hold to be so great at the very instant it passeth and giues to man two dangerous checkes one to the soule which it depriues of vnderstanding the other to the body which it driues into a falling sicknesse Aristotle doth witnesse the first Hippocrates the last
this base estate I know not why I liue hauing no more to doe here to fore I had a desire to liue to see thee liue to Christ I see it why then stay I longer here and soone after yeelded vp her soule to the Spirit of all power Euen so O mortall men liue as long as you list exceede the many yeeres of Nestor or the 969. of Methusalem yet shall you not see any other thing in this world but those foure great Princesses the foure seasons of the yeere holding hands together and dancing this round continually sometimes shewing their gracious aspects sometimes their backs deformed as Philo the Iew speaks It is like Sysiphus stone which being thrust vp by force to the top of the Mountayne returnes presently backe againe to the foote of it and like the Sunne which hath no sooner toucht one of the Tropikes but hee suddenly turnes to the other To conclude it is Danaes tonne pierced full of holes they may well poure in water but they shall neuer fill it These are fictions but they haue their mysticall hidden sences The holy Scripture hath Parables and Philosophie figures let no man therefore reiect them for so did the ancient Philosophers shadow their Philosophie And as mercenarie labourers toyling and sweating in the longest day of Sommer reioyce when they see the Sunne decline and neere his setting so wee after such painefull trauaile whereunto this life doth force vs let vs reioyce when wee draw neere vnto our declining and let vs not refuse being weary and tyred to rest our selues in the sweet armes of death to the which without doubt there is no bed in the world how pleasing soeuer to be compared There is nothing here but ignorance that keepes vs backe If the Israelites had truely vnder stood the beauty and bounty of the land of Canaan if they had beene assured of the enioying thereof they had not so often murmured against Moses being ready to stone him they had not wisht for the oynions and leekes of Egypt they would haue taken courage in the midst of the desart Let vs then conclude that there is nothing but the blindnesse of man which hinders him from seeing the ioyes of heauen whereunto death is the waye Wherefore let vs open the eyes of our vnderstanding not grieue for the grosse foode of this world for in heauen there is prepared for vs the meate of Angels Obiection Any exchange from a place that is pleasing and certaine for one that is vncertaine must needs cause trouble vexation Death is the exchange of the world which is pleasing and certaine for a place wholly vncertaine MOst part of the world when the Lampe of this life is almost wasted are so perplexed as they do lose themselues In the chiefe Citie of Aragon vpon a Knights tombe this Epitaph is written in Latine I know not whither I goe I die against my will Farewell suruiuers The Emperour Titus dying said Alas must I die that haue neuer deserued it There is to be read at Rome vpō the stone of a Sepulcher of Sextus Perpenna to the Infernall gods I haue liued as I list I know not why I die Whereunto may be added the verses which the Emperour Adrian a little before his death made vnto his soule My pretty soule my daintiest My bodies sociable Guest Whither is my sweetest going Naked trembling little knowing Of that delight depriuingme That while I liu'd I had from Thee Many at this day in the light of the Gospell shew by their actions that they are no better resolued then these were although that shame will not suffer them to confesse it when as death approcheth Answer Wee deny the Minor of the Argument for it is not true that death is of it selfe to bee beloued if it appeares so it is but in comparison of some extreame misery which we apprehend in leauing it for the liuing are as we haue said like vnto them which are carried away violently with a stream who to saue themselues lay hold of that which comes first to hand yea if it were a barre of burning Iron If you will then aske them how pleasing that estate is you may easily ghesse what they will say That if they were as certaine as it is most certaine that there were no harme in death as shall appeare they would not breake out into such complaints It is also false that this place is certaine Gorgias the Rhetorician will not depose it for being demanded if hee died willingly Yea said hee for I am not grieued to leaue a lodging which is rotten and open of all sides And Epicurus had often in his mouth that against any thing in the world wee might finde some place of safety but we all liued in a City which was not fortified against death and in truth this body is but a little plot of earth commanded of euery side flanked of none hauing furious enemies without mutinous within Ingeners haue made many impregnable forts but neuer able to resist death Physitions haue drawne out the quintessence of their spirits if they haue any time found a delay yet must they in the end yeeld and pay the interest Fabulous Aeson returned to youth by the Sorceresse Medea and true Lazarus raised againe by the Sauiour of the world haue not yet for all that escaped death But you will reply It is that which wee would say that without death life shold be certaine I answere that you know not what you say for life as it is made here and whereof our question is cannot bee without death to desire to be a man and not be willing to die is not to desire to liue for it is one of the conditions of life as shall appeare in the following Argument Moreouer I adde that what incertainty of the future Estate soeuer you pretend doubtlesse it cannot bee so miserable except the reprobate as that of this life Thirdly admit that life were certaine yet the pleasures would not be so but rather the displeasures certaine That wise King of Macedon saw it feared it and protested against it For newes comming vnto him of three great prosperities that hee had won the price at the Olympike games that hee had defeated the Dardanians by his Lieutenant and that his wife had brought him a goodly sonne hee cried out with his hands lift vp to heauen O Fortune let the aduersity which thou preparest for me in exchange of thy fauours be moderate But I will sommon you Merchants which make a profession of trafficke There is a bargaine offered vnto you in the which you finde of the one side gaine to bee made and of the other losse I demand if like a good husband you will not weigh the losse with the gaine to the end that finding the losse the greater you may breake off the bargaine And why should not man obserue the like in life which is much more important Why should bee not ballance the pleasures
〈◊〉 to say death iâ—… we take it as the argument giues it I answere That if there bee a great difference not to haue beene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be he haâ—… the 〈◊〉 â—…nefit that is no more for hee hath this aboueâ—… the other that he hath enioyed life and the fruits thereof which the other haâ—… vnlesâ—… you will deny that hâ—… which hath bin admitted into the Kings Chamber 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 assâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…th not any 〈◊〉 abâ—…ue â—…im that hath not beene admitted at all and that hee which hath beene a Maior or a Consul in a free Citie is not more honored then hee which hath neuer beene But the Obiector supposeth one thing which is not That this life is adorned which most excellent gifts being full of most sharpe agonies as is iustified in the 18. Argument and theâ—…fore I deny the consequence of his Minor and to prooue the falsehood I produce that which Salomon saith Eccles. 4. that hee more esteemes the dead then those which bee liuing yea hee esteemes him that hath not beene more happy then the one or the other Secondly the losse of fight of sences of the habit of sâ—…iences is grieuous to a liuing man who hath enioyed them for a time for that he is capable of sorrow but to make it a conclusion to a dead man who should be more grieued to haue lost all this and life it selfe there is no consequence for that death is incapable of sorrow and mourning wherein the Prouerbe of Hesiodus may be verrified The moitie is more then the whole the losse of sences and reason are more grieuous and more to bee lamented then the priuation of life Thirdly I deny that man dying loseth any thing hee was but Vsufructuarie of life God the proprietarie demands it and he restores it what losse Thou art not angry if any curious sercher of the most exquisite rarities of the world if hauing suffered thee to see his Cabinet he afterwards drawes the curtaine thou wilt take it patiently how great soeuer thou art If the Seigneurie of Venice hath done theâ—… the honour to see their stately treasure haue dazled thine eyes with the glistering of those 14. Pearles of their Ducall Bonet of the 12. Crownes of gold and of other most rich ornaments wouldest thou not take it patiently to giue place after some houres Know then that it is reasonable that the Lord of Lords hauing brought thee into his house there to behold the golden studdes which adorne the firmament to obserue the diuers motions of the 7. Planets and among the rest of the Sunne the eye of the world to touch and comprehend the 4. Elements and other infinite goodly creatures if it be his pleasure and hee make signe vnto thee to giue place to others that suruiue it is reason thou shouldest dislodge and thanke the Lord for his fauour Finally I maintayne that the depth and horrour is as great to reason to liue perpetually here without end the same life which wee now breathe for our discourse is of this life as great I say and greater then to bee dead depth for who can perfectly comprehend a life without end horrour for who would alwayes liue with the feare of a hundred millions of horrible miseries which may happen in a hundred millions of yeeres not making mention of the vices and sinnes whervnto man is subiect which a good man should feare more then death As for the authoritie of S. Paul it is not nature only but the heauenly grace which makes him to speake so and they that shall be partakers of this grace in the same degree may braue death with S. Paule and say vnto him O death where is thy victory O graue where is thy sting And if S. Paule in this place did contemplate in spirit the excellent ornaments which hee had seene in the third heauen in his extacie and on the other side toucht to the quicke with the venemous sting of sinne he makes no mention but of the simple deliuerance as if it had beene sufficient for him O wretched man that I am sayth he who shall deliuer me from the body of this death Hee makes mention of deliuerance for that he felâ—… Coâ—…bate in himselfe and found himselfe prisoner to the Law of sinne as the verse going before doth declare But you will reply There is nothing to be compared to life it is a naturall desire and common to all men Ansâ—… Man desireth not only to be and to liue but to beeâ—…t ease else what is hee that like to Ixion in the Poet would alwayes liue to be fastened to a wheâ—…le Who would alwayes liue the damnable life of Satan and his angells in the middest of an vnquenchable fire but mad men and fooles And in truth the desire wee haue to roule on alwayes from day to day is that by an abusiue hope we promise vnto our selues some future pleasure and content The Apostles desire better ordered and grounded was to put off this mortall body and to put on one that was bâ—…essed and immortall not vpon earth where it is not to be found but in heauen and by a diuine and celestiall power But that doth contradict this assertion That man desires as much or more to end the miseries of this life as to continue this miserable life and therefore certaine wise men of the world did settle their resolution vnto death vpon this Dilemma saying Either we shal be happy in death if the soule escapes or else we shal be without paine or misery if all remaine No small aduantage doubtlesse seeing the greatest point of happinesse in this life is to beeleast vnhappy The 11. Argument taken from two resemblances of Death Sâ—…ounding is a kinde of Death and the shadow of the body is an Image of it But in swounding there is no paine nor in the shadow any amazement BY Syncope I vnderstand the strongest and most extended swounding not that which is gentle which happeneth sometimes at the opening of a veine in the which the patient neither loseth feeling nor speech but that which carries away all the forces of a man his natural I say and principally his vitall Sleepe is nothing to represent death in regard of this symptome for it is death it selfe only there is in this sometimes a returning to life and there none I haue seene it and obserued it in my father being an old man I haue conferred it with some that were apparantly dead yet could I not finde any difference he lay without any shewe of soule in any of his â—…ects notwithstanding that he was continually rolled vp and downe in a chamber his pulse was not to bee felt he was in a cold swet ouer all the extreamities of his body were exceeding cold And these are the very signes of a right Syncope by the which the truth of our Maior is iustified that to fall into the Syncope is to fall into death for as death is a cessation
some one returnes from market saith S. Augustin sound and lustie who falling breaks a leg whereof hee shall dye Who semes better assured then he that is set in a strong chaire yet vpon some troublesome newes hee may be disquieted fall and breake his necke Another laughing eating and drinking shal be suddenly surprized with an Apoplexie rising from some vnknowne cause and dye presently What receptacle seemes more safe and commodious for hunters that are wearie and full of sweat and dust then a cleane house with a good fire And yet a Prince with his traine thinking to retire him to such a place found himselfe in such dāger of death in the morning as he could not escape without the losse of his nayles that fell away by the vehemencie of his paine and two of his company found smotheredin the morning whence thinke you proceeded the cause of this strange Accident It was from the wall newly plastered which cast forth a virulent vapor which together with the smoake of a great cole fire fumed vp into the head dispersed his poyson throughout all the members of their bodies Who could haue foreseene this accident but too late Ammianus Marcellinus reports tho like to haue happened to the Emperour Iouinian who was found smothered in the mor ning by the like poyson And to conclude what seemes freer from breaking then a head lying in the shadow far from any house yet it hap pened that the Poet Aeschilus being so retired an Eagle flying in the ayre thinking his bald head had bene a flint stone let fal a Tortose to break it and to haue the meate but falling downe it brake the skull os poore Aeschilus The first Obiection That which shall not happen vnto vs is not to bee accounted among our miseries But these misfortunes shall not happen vnto vs c. THese miseries if it pleaseth God shall not befall vs but where is that warrant from heauen to assure vs The comicall Poet saith That man cannot be exempt from any humane accident No man liuing can say without warrāt This shal not happen vnto mee saith Menander What befalls to one thinke it may happen to thee saith Seneca for thou art a man and therefore retaine this and thinke of it not to be deiected in aduersity nor puft vp in prosperity but haue alwayes before thine eyes the liberty of fortune as being able to lay vpon thee all the miseries shee holds in her hand Man is in continuall warre vpon earth Is there not a course of warre ordayned for mortall men vpon earth saith Iob. If he be freed from his enemies abroad let him beware of some treacherous Synō at home Be alwaies ready sayd Iesus Christ for you know not the day nor the houre no man is no more assured against death then the bird is against the shot of a harquebuze God would saith S. Augustine that wee should watch continually But if changing thy tune thou thinkest that thy neighbour is not afflicted like thy selfe and that hee is much more happy thou art much deceiued Euery man feeles his owne griefe Herodotus hath seene it and written it saying That if all men liuing laden with their owne miseries had brought them together vpon one heape to exchange with them of their neighbours hauing well weighed them and viewed them euery man would willingly carry backe his owne Without doubt this present life is so full of miseries that in comparison thereof death seemes a remedy A long life is but a long torture saith S. Augustine And what other opinion can wee haue seeing that Iesus Christ who was giuen vs for a perfect president is neuer propounded vnto vs laughing but somtimes weeping as when hee approched the Tombe of his friend Lazarus and when as he wept vpon the ingratefull Citie of Ierusalem and therefore the Apostle saith That in the dayes of his flesh hee offered himselfe with great cries and teares to him who could saue him from death What is that but to shew vs that this life is not worthy of ioy but of lamentation not of laughter but of crying as the Philosopher Heraclitus doth esteeme it who alwayes with a weeping voice did lament the estate of this life The second Obiection It is a cowardly consideration not to be willing to die but to cease to liue This reason hath that consideration TO denounce death to end the miseries of this life is sayth one to pro pound a carnall end to the liking of sensuality Vpon death sayth another the priuation of thislife there is no Cataplasme but of a better life for the losse of earth but the enioying of heauen Answere Death is the corruption of the flesh and a priuation of all the sences to the end therefore that the remedy may be proportionable to the flesh it must also be fleshly sensible and palpable I grant that in retiring ourselues we must not think only to fly from humaine miseries but rather to draw neere to diuine fauours But betwixt doing and duty who doth not at this day see an infinite distance That elect vessell of the holy Ghost that great Apostle Saint Paul seeles a Law in his members fighting against the Law of his vnderstanding He complaines there was a thorne thrust into his flesh the angel of Satan did buffer him what is this but the relikes of sin of infirmity distrust what glosse soeuer they will set of it If Saint Paul were such a one what then are we poore dwarses wauering and staggering let vs not flatter and seduce our selues for our workes discouer vs O God fortifie vs and make thy holy Spirit to reigne in vs and attending the happy effect of diuine promises let vs meditate of the Testament sealed with the bloud of Christ. But if the horror of death which doth threaten vs of euery side comes to hinder our holy meditations let vs vanquish it by the darts of reason this may be done and it is that we ought to doe The Surgion which hath sercht a wounde hath applied a fit Cataplasime hath made his patient without passion or paine is to be cō-mended The Philosopher which hath examined the naturall death hath found o◅t the cause of the feare it giues hath accomodated reasons fit to take awaie this feare and to assure mans courage is not to be contemned I know well that hee which through death hath made vs see the life eternall hath done more but this worke is of God and not of men and if the sacred word of the eternall God doe it not no humaine voice can doe it But doe you say there is no Catap◅sme fit for the losse of a pleasant life but the hope of a better Answer You presuppose two suppositions heere which are not First that life is full of pleasures Secondly that in death wee haue a feeling of the losse against that which hath beene and shab be said to the which I will send
All braue Comedians bend their spirits wholly to act their parts well and reioyce at the Comedy Men liuing in the world are Comedians Therefore braue men should bend their spirits to liue wel and to ioy at the end of life THe Island of the Hermaphrodites begins his discourse with these verses The world 's a stage and man is a Comedy One beares the bable th' other acts the folly So Epictetus spake to the men of this time Imagine that you play a morall Scene vpon this Theater of the world in the which you act what part it pleaseth the master if short short if long loÌ„g If he wil haue thee represent a begger or a lame man a King or a rogue thou must act it as naturally as thou canst and onely feare to faile but in the end clap hands in signe of ioy The good and the end are conuertible tearms saith Plato in Philebus Aristonimus sayd that the life of man was like a Theater on the which the most wicked held the first rankes Aeneas Syluius writes that our life is a comedy whereof the last act is death He is then no good Poet sayth hee that doth not order al the acts wel and discreetly vnto the end he would say that it is not sufficient to liue well but we must die well vntill which no man can be held happie by the saying of Solon yeaeof Saloman for man sayd he shall be knowne by his children Caesar Augustus lying in the bed of death and feeling himselfe at the last periode of life sayd often to his friends Haue I acted my personage well in this place haue I pronounced my part well had I a good grace What thinke you Goe then giue a Plaudite and clappe your hands This life is a verie stage on which some mount vp to be actors others stay below to be spectators and then after the Catastrophe euery one must make his retreat into the last house If the ancients in their simplicitie had reason to vse this comparison wee in this age haue much more for we liue not at this day but by shewes and fictions in most the outward countenance is the maske of the inward man dissembling which hath euer increased since the Kings time who would haue his sonne learne no other Latiue but these words Quinescit dissimulare nescit regnare not to defend himselfe carefully but to practise it seriously during his whole reigne In olde time they detested that speech of Lysanders That when the Lyons skinne will not serue wee must sowe on the Foxes but at this day there are none more esteemed and honoured then such as can cunningly offer their seruice vpon all occasions who can make a shewe of friendship to allure who haue their welcome and at parting many submissions and humble conges But it is to lull him asleepe and to practise some supercherie they wilkisse the hand which they would gladly see burnt Let euery man take heede of his most inward friend â—…aigh Ieremie c. 〈◊〉 Trust not in any brother for euery brother makes a practise to supplant and a bosome friend goes away detracting If then how much more now Let then our courteous Courtiours be suspect vnto vs and see what the fore named treatie of Hermaphrodites sayeth in the Chap. of the Entregent This booke represents to the life the wicked abominations of France if we vnderstand it as it is written the prohibition for the allowaÌ„ce mean thy antiphrasis Finally at this â—…day the most peopled towne are full of Monsters which counterfet the voice of pastors to draw men vnto them eate them like bread Oh what safety is there among so many wolues disguised like sheepe among so many enemies carrying the face of friends Vppon this occasion Salomon cryes out in his time That he had beheld all the wrongs which were done vnder the Sunne and seeing the teares of them that suffer wrong haue no comfort for that they which doe the wrong are the stronger Ecceles 4. In these times the oppressed not onely finde no support but they meet with deceitfull men who vnder the color of Iustice deuoure the remainder of their substaÌ„ce Oh whatsafety This peruers age is a very Sodome God attends but our retreat to rainedown fire brimstone and burning flames Let vs beware when the Angell of the Eternall shal take vs by the hand when the voyce of God shall call vs let vs not looke backe againe like vnto Lots wife by a treacherous greefe for this treacherous life but rather let vs sing with ioy the song of the Lambe who hath giuen himselfe for our sinnes to the end he may retyre vs out of this wretched world as S. Paul speaks The 23. Argument taken from the effects of Death Whosoeuer hath a will to bee sacred and inuiolable should affect death Euery liuing man should haue that will THIS Argument is drawne from the Law of nature which speaking by Chilon Solon doth pronounce the dead to bee very happy and forbids to curse the dead and in truth a man cannot wrong his honour more then in speaking iniuriously of him who cannot answere It is the fact of cowards to fight with the tong against them that can make no reply and to pull a dead man out of his graue It is a duty of piety to hold them that are departed out of this world sacred inuiolable If the last words of a dying man be blessings as Iob doth witnesse desiring them to come vpon him as Iacob did practise it vpon the Patriarkes as Saint Ambrose doth expound as experience doth teach what esteeme should wee make o him whose soule being separated from the body doth conuerse with Angells in heâ—…n And is it not very reasonable not to depraue them which cease to be seeing they are not to bee layd hold on but it is most iust to make an end of hatred by the death of thine enemy Pausanias King of Sparta vnderstood it and did practice it who hauing slaine Mardonius Lieutenant to the King of Persia in battell he was aduised by Lampon a man of great authority to cause him to bee hanged for that he had done the like to King Leonidas No no sayd hee that were to dishonor my selfe and the Country which thou doest so magnifie if I should bee cruell against a dead man it were an act befitting Barbarians and not Grecians who cannot allow of such disorders And in truth it is the act of fearefull confusion to tears in sunder the skin of a dead Lyon It is an act befitting the fain the arted 〈◊〉 before Troy to insult ouer dying Hector But it is the property of a generous Lyon to resist them that make head against him and to passeon and not to strike him that falls flat to the earth like a dead man 〈◊〉 Nature speakes heere It is a villanie and an vnworthy foolery to fight against the dead it is for
it is rather for griefe that hee must dye or some other distemperature and not the death which doth cause some troublesome alteration in his sinewes sensible parts As for death which proceeds from diseases there are some long others short If they be long the paine is little for that nature doth accustome it selfe to that which comes by degrees it turnes to a habite and hee feares no griefe or very little there being nothing but the suddain alteration which nature cannot endure that which causeth pain is that which changeth the good temperature the which in very long languishing diseases comes slowly and insensibly As for example in an Hectick feuer they grow leane and consume away by little and little and dye with paine which is in a manner imperceptible there is nothing but an heauinesse of the spirits but in their bodyes feele no paine It is euen so of the paine of the Lights whereon the rheume distilling it doth consume them by little and little as a spout of water doth a stone so as in the end this infirmity brings the patient insensibly to death As for short diseases the paine is short What great pain can there be in a swoun ding in an Appoplexie that happens by the sudaine dissipation of the spirits What great paine can a moment of time bring to man But you wil reply that there are diseases wonderfully sharpe It is true but if you will obserue them they are least dangerous for death whereof our discourse is Nature giuing death knowes how to mortifie the members so wel and to weaken the vertue of the sinewes as man cannot discerne when death seazeth on him no more thē when sleep surprizeth him It is an Aphorisme of Hipocrates When a sicke body saith he feeles no paine playes with the couering of his bed and pulls off the wooll it is a signe of death and no likelihood of life what paine then when as hoping to recouer and feeling ease of his paine hee shall dye As for famine and thirst which quench the spirit of life that happens very seldome and the Annales in 16. ages haue scarce obserued two the one vnder the Empire of Honorius at what time in the Theater at Rome there was this strange voyce heard You must set a price vpon humane flesh The other vnder Iustinian at what time they did not only eate mans flesh but euen the excrements of men Here in truth is great horror but little paine neither can I beleeue whatsoeuer they say that he which dies of hun ger feeles no great torment examine it by your selfe whē you haue fasted long you shall feele a great debility a great appetite or a great heate in all your members but no great paine it is in the sinewes to feele where the paine lies which sinewes do not suffer any thing in the extreamity of hunger or thirst but the principal parts which receiue the nourishment therefore in this most pittifull and pitty is here taken for the paine Let the death of Charles 7. the French King be an example vnto vs who being full of suspition and way wardnesse entertained in that humor by the dayly reports of his household flatterers that they would attempt against his person yea a Captaine in whom he trusted most assured him that they meant to poyson him he gaue such credit to this aduice as he resolued neither to eate nor drinke in which capricious humor hee continued seuen dayes But in the end being prest not with paine but by his Phisitions and house hold seruants who laid before him the danger of life whereinto he did voluntarily bring his person when hee would haue eaten he could not by reason sayth the History the passages of the stomake were shrunke Let vs weigh these last words and acknowledge that this naturall fire in vs wherewith the lampe of our life is kindled is like vnto the Elementary alwayes actiue wherefore wanting his ordinary nutriment hee turnes himselfe violently vpon that which beares it vpon the radicall humidity the which it doth waste and consume in a short time and this humidity being consumed the members remaine dry and without vigour so as when they offer them the accustomed remedy hauing lost their vsuall vertue they disgest it not but cast it vp againe It is the same reason why such as obserue a certaine houre for their meales when this houre is come they feele certaine motions of an appetite in their stomacke which requires meate But if they passe this houre either by fasting or by diets they lose their appetites for that this heate being frustrated of his ordinary repast falls either vpon the peccant humor or that failing vpon the vitall humour and as we suffer it to do more or lesse so we receiue more or lesse preiudice Now if in the first and most sensible touches of this natural heate we feele no great torment as euery man may try in the religious fasts of the Church which passe the ordinary time of eating three or foure houres I cōclude necessarily that the longer they abstaine from meate the lesse they suffer for the heate decaying still by the want of nourishment the actiue vertue also decreaseth and his subiect the body suffereth lesse by such a languishing action also the body which for his part decayes in force is daily lesse susceptible of paine vntill that all his humor being exhausted and his heate euaporated hee must die Last in ranke come good men who are vniustly put to death by Tyrants to whom the paine is sensible according to the horror of the punishment But I answere First that it happens seldome God holding in his power the Tyrannous resolutions of great men that they may not execute their wicked designes against his seruants wickednesse shall neuer preuaile so much she shal neuer conspire so strongly against vertue but the name of wisedome shall alwayes remaine sacred and venerable Secondly God who suffers it giues them ease in their torments knowes how to restraine and suspend their paines as hee did to his seruants Sidrac Mizac and Abednego in the burning furnace as they go ioyfully to death and sing the praises of the Lord cheerefully in the middest of the fire as hath bene seene in the Martyrs And thus much for this point But if after all these reasons they persist still in a fantasticall apprehension of some great paine in the article of death wee will adde that it is not fitting to accuse death it is life the remainders whereof cause the paine and death is the end Wherefore Diogenes being demanded if death were euil How can it be sayd hee seing we neuer feele it present and that which is absent cannot bee hurtfull to any man whilest that man hath feeling he hath life but if he bee dead hee hath no feeling and that which is not felt is not hurtfull And therefore hee concludes that it was not death which was euill but the way to
to this death they which haue condemned mee are more vniust then I am Inferring thereby that he died well and honestly seeing they put him to death wrongfully and without cause Plato doth teach vs that Socrates was wont to insult ouer death in these tearmes I haue beene carefull said he to liue well in my youth and to die well in my age I am not tormented within me with any paine I am not vnwilling to dye for seeing my life hath beene honest I attend death ioyfully This is much but it is nothing in regard of Saint Paule who protesting that he felt not himselfe guilty in any thing cried out with a bold spirit that hee was assured that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers neither things present nor things to come nor height nor depth should separate him from the loue of God Let vs theÌ„ be careful to polish our soules and to settle our consciences let vs apply our selues to a well ordered equity let the body subiect it selfe vnto the soule and follow her motions Let the inferiour powers of the soule obey the commandements of reason Let reason guided by the holy Ghost obserue the Law grafted in euery creature by nature especially in man and most of all the Law of Moses To doe this is to be vertuous and to be vertuous is to haue a good conscience We must then direct all our actions to vertue if wee desire to liue in the world without feare without paine in peace and ioy vertue doth first of all make the soule perfect in her intellectuall part disperseth the clouds of error ignorance illuminating reason doth adorne it with prudence Secondly she labours to polish the will of man and hauing reformed it by her orderly course shee giues him the habite of Iustice. Thirdly she doth temper the angry part pulls away the extreame feare and on the other side prunes away the sprouts of rashnes and plants betwixt both valour and haâ—… dy feare Finally it doth also bridle the faculty of concupiscence and restraines the motions of voluptuousnesse and makes them obedient to the command of Temperance It is in a few words the true meanes to get a pure and vpright conscience especially if we bee carefull to be as honest in our priuate secret actions as if all the world did behold vs Seneca doth recommend this vnto vt in many places Wee reade of one called Virginius whose History was written by Cluuius who presented it vnto the sayd personage and sayd vnto him If there be any thing written otherwise then thou wouldest pardon mee and reforme it Oh no answered Virginius whatsoeuer I haue done hath bene done in that manner to that end that it might bee free for all to write at their pleasures a worthy speech of a noble spirit and content with his conscience in his actions Iulius Drusus when as one promised a great sum of mony to his Master mason that his house might not be subiect to the view of any man and I sayd he will giue twice so much if thou canst build my house in that sort as all men may see into it what is done there This was to saue his conscience not to do more in secret then before all the world And what a madnesse is it in most men not to feare God nor their conscience and yet to feare men who can do least in the correction of their faults What shall we then feare in this world One only God for his feare will inspire our hearts with an hardy courage against the greatest feares The 27. Argument taken from the frequent thinking of Death He that will receiue Death ioyfully must propound it often to his thoughts Wee all desire to receiue it ioyfully c. SOme sayth Seneca come to their death in choler but no man receiues it when it comes with a cheerefull countenance but he that hath long before prepared himselfe for it Let vs try this remedy it cannot be bad In the night after our first sleepe in bed let vs presuppose that we are dead and by a strong imagination let vs settle our selues in that sort as hauing no sence nor feeling that our soule and reason tells vs that it is euen so in death that there is no other difference but that our soule is yet present in the body and then let vs goe vnto our friends or to any other that die let vs view them talke vnto them and touch them being dead and we shall finde that in all this there is nothing to be feared that all is quiet that there is nothing but opinion that 〈◊〉 abuse man Let vs proceed enter the Church-yards and go down into their graues wee shall finde that 〈◊〉 the dead rest in peace yeaâ—… so profound 〈◊〉 peace as no liuing creature can interrupt them Let vs yet go on farther there is no danger for by the saying of Plato the knowledge of death is the goodliest science that man can attaine vnto Let vs do like vnto Iohn Patriarke of Alexandria build our tombes and not finish them but euery day lay one stone Let vs haue some Anatomy or MoÌ„mie in our houses and let vs not passe a day without beholding it let vs handle it it is death Little children by little and little grow familiar with that which they did strangely fly and in the end they play with it and know that it is but a dead image of copper which so terrified them Wee shall also see in death that it was but a shaddow that so amazed vs. Let vs yet do more waking and not dreaming let vs dispose our selues of purpose as Philippe King of Macedon did by chance who wrestling vpon the sand after the manner of the Country saw and measured the length of his body and admired the littlenes thereof in the shape printed in the sand where he had fallen Finally let vs not forget what the Emperour Maximilian 2. or 3. yeares before his death commanded carefully to be done that they should carry with him a coffin of oake in a chest with an expresse command that being dead they should couer his body with a course sheete hauing put lime in his eares nosestrills and mouth and then to lay him in the ground Let vs follow these great examples both high low and wee shall see that when death shall present her selfe vnto vs it will bee without amazement But if wee flie from euery image of death from al thought therof if the ringing of bells a shew of some mans death doth importune vs finally if euery word of death be troublesome as there haue beene such I doubt not but to them death is wonderfull terrible Obiection If the most reasonable feare Death most it is by reason to be feared But the antecedent is true therefore the Consequent must follow SEneca yea experience doth teach vs that Infants little children and such as haue lost their
certaine leaues fit to mortifie their lusts and Cicero will crie out to countenance thē that they must come chastly to the gods Yea Agam◅mnon will sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to pacific Diana Adrian in Egypt will sacrifice his Mignion Axtinons Vialerian will vse the superstitious custome to offer vp children the Hetrusci had that institution in their Countrey the ancient Gaules in Prouence in the City of Arles had two pillars erected and thereupon an altar of stone to offer humaine sacrifices The third is taken from the wise ordinance of nature which in many millions of things hath made nothing in vaine nothing that wauers or leanes sometimes of this side sometimes on that as Erasistratus said how then should it be in man her master-peece in the soule the principall part Hath she planted a vehement desire of immortality the chiefe point of her excellency hath shee giuen her a taste in this miserable life to leaue her altered for euer The fourth is from the continual action of the soule which neuer takes rest day nor night like vnto the Sun sleepe doth not shut her eies as it doth the bodyes neither by consequence death Consider it when as the body is in a found sleep without motion not in the beginning of his rest when as the vapours of his disgestion fuming vp into the braine trouble it but after mid-night and especially at the point of day Then when the soule her faculties holds free From seruing bodily variety Then when alone and dead to life in fort Sau'd from dayes waues she enters nights calme port It is then that being raised aboue time she reades in future which is present to her the things which God is ready to doe So Asti◅ges last King of the Medes in his dreame saw the stocke of a Vi◅e comming out of his daughters belly which couered all Asia with her branches The Interpreters being consulted with they answered that his daughter should haue a sonne which should enioy all Asia and dispossesse him of his Kingdome the euent fayled not notwithstanding all the opposition that Astiages could make Tertullian reports that the daughter of Polycrates dreamed that her father raised vp on high was washt by Iupiter and annoynted by the Sun The euent expounded her dreame soone after for that Polycrates being hanged the raine washt him and the Sun m◅ing his gr◅ase annoynted him But who is ignorant of Iosephs dreame of his future greatnesse of Pharaohs touching the fertility and famin which should follow in Egypt of Daniel touching the foure Monarchies of the world of ◅ilats wise vpon the false accusation of Iesus Christ the iust of infinite others yea and of our selues if we haue obserued them For what is he saith Tertullian so voyd of humanity that hath not sometimes felt in himselfe some faithfull vision Thus the Eternal doth vnto the good to assure them of the immortall action of their soules and to the wicked to terrifie them with his eternal iudgement send such dreames of future things to amaze or assure according to his good pleasure So hee spake by his Prophet Your sonnes and your daughters shall prophesie your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dreame dreames Let vs conclude with Tertullian That seeing sleepe the image of death cannot seaze vpon the soule that the soule being alwaies liuely and actiue can not fall in Veritatem mortis into the verity of death The fifth Man in this life is more miserable then any of the creatures and more capable of felicity then any of them they being all made for him who neuer heere vpon earth attaines vnto his soueraigne good which hee most desireth as Aristotle and Theophrastus haue acknowledged and as euery man is a good witnesse in himselfe Who will not then thinke but his true place is in heauen and in it his soueraigne good And what part of man can flie thither but his immortall soule which in a momēt not parting out of the body transports it selfe thither in Idea Tully in his Tusuculans and others The sixth complaint of Theophrastus of nature as of a step-mother seemes most iust to haue giuen a lōg life to no end to certain creatures and to haue denied it vnto man who might therby haue attained vnto wisedome the greatest good in this world if the soule dyed with the body for then onely we beginne to be wise when wee dye and many times were preuented by death But nature hath done nothing but most wisely and therefore shee hath satisfied this complaint another way The seuenth is drawne from mans conscience which being good makes Innocency to lift vp her head by the feeling of another life and to looke down for an offence by the apprehension of a future iudgement There is no light so cleere nor testimony so glorious as when truth shines in the spirit and the spirit is seene in truth saith Saint Bernard A good conscience is stronger then a brazen wall said Horace Let him speake boldly and confidently for himselfe that hath not offended saith Plautus and with the shaking of his chinne retort the false reports of a bad fame as Ouid speakes This did emboldē innocent Susanna against the two old men chusing rather to dye then to offend God This made Ioseph rather to leaue his robe with his mistresse then his heart Finally it is that which in the middest of many deaths gaue resolution vnto Cato Phocion and many other heathen as to Philip King of Macedon who beeing animated by some to take reuenge of such as spake dishonorably of him O no said he I will make them all lyars in doing well On the other side there is nothing that doth more terrifie and torment then a bad conscience Let the most resolute wretch that is come and I will make him confesse in some sort howsoeuer his crime committed in secret in the night without witnesses and without any accuser yea although he had his pardon or were acquite before men or were so aduanced as he were not iustifiable before any man yet he must needes confesse that hee is inwardly troubled and furiously tormented the Swallowes by their importune noyse will publish the parricide attempted by a cauterized conscience as hath hapned in old time Or imaginary flies wil buzze continually in the eares of the seruant that hath killed his master vntill the fact be reuealed Whence is the spring of this liuely feeling in the soul but from the apprehension of immortall paine Gods wil being that for the loue of iustice iudgement should rather go against the life of the body then that which is hidden should not come to light Obiection Counsell giuen by fauour vpon weake coniectures doth rather shake then support a right Such are these reasons THE steppes of such as bring good tydings are pleasing and welcome and they that bring bad distastfull and reiected So the 400. Prophets which promised victory vnto Achab
against Ramoth of Gilead were welcome but only Miche◅s who pronounced the contrary was put in prison and yet they were false and this true Let vs beware of the like least that fauour and grace deceiue vs in this matter Let vs take the ballance of equity and weigh the reasons propounded if they be good they wil weigh downe whatsoeuer shall be opposed and if they bee currant they will endure the touch let vs then try the first Huart a great Philosopher of Spaine maintaines that the vnderstanding hath his beginning his increase and his constitution and then his declining like vnto a man hee meanes his body for the vnderstanding is the most excellent part of man and like other Creatures and plants And for this cause hee that will learne at what age hi◅ vnderstanding is most strong and vigorous let him know that it is from 33. vnto fifty at what time the gravest Authors should be made if during their liues they haue had contrary opinions Hee that wil write bookes should compose them at this age neither before or after if hee will not retract or alter them Hitherto Huart which experience doth confirme for we see that as a man doth aduance in age he growes in wisedome and Iesus himselfe made true man aduanced in wisedome and stature Contrariwise age declining the spirit decaies in memory in quicknesse in vnderstanding so as man being very old hee becomes twice a child fumbling with his tong doating in minde As for that the Testators say that they are sound in minde it is to shew that neither age nor sicknesse hath as yet made them lose their spirits and therefore it is a true signe of their decay concluding contrary to the intention of the Author And whereas the labourer spake so diuinely it did not proceed from the neerenesse of death but from the alteration of the temperature of his braine growne whot in the first degree by the force of his infirmity so some women haue prophecied and spoke Latine yet neuer learned it by the same reason of the temperature required yet they die not suddainly in this estate To the 2. Religion proceedes partly from nature partly from institution from nature who to rule all Creatures to make them follow the traine of his order graues in them al a certaine terror indistinct apprehension The Creatures feare man and by this feare are contained in their duties man feares a hidden superiority and maintaines himselfe in society many times hee feares hee knowes not what nor wherefore and therefore it happens that women who are commonly more fearefull are more religious Yea they report of certaine bruite beasts which adore the deity as Elephants yet they do not say that their soules are immortall From institution for as vessells do long retaine the sent of their first liquor wherewith they are seasoned so children maintaine vnto the end the religion wherein they are bred and brought vp although it were the most fantasticke and strange in the world yea if in stead of sauing it should damme them as we may see if we will open our eyes in these times so fertill in religions To the 3. If the soule bee mortall it followeth not that nature hath made any thing in vaine if she hath hope or feare to be immortall it is to encourage it to vertue that is to say to the preseruation of that goodly order and to terrifie it from the infraction thereof if she dies her alteration of the immortality dries away Nature hath also giuen vnto the Bat a desire to see the light of the Sun yet this desire neuer takes effect Finally euery creature flies death and desires life not for a time but for euer and by consequent in their kind desire to be immortall and yet they attaine not to it To the 4. The heart beats continually and is immortal Dogs sleeping dreame and are mortall therefore the vnquiet and vncessant action of the soule can bee no certaine signe of her immortalitie To the Fift Iohn de Seres almost throughout the whole course of his history of France will answer That man findes no miserie but what he seekes The philosophers yea Diuines will say that felicitie proportionable vnto humaine nature consists in an vpright disposition of his will to carry himselfe according to the reason that is in him towards all things that shall present themselues to make his profit of al things not to trouble himselfe with any thing that can happen in this world and to nourish the seeds of vertue which are sowen in his mind To the Sixt Solon will answer that it is a hard matter to please all men some complaine of the shortnes of life if we obserue it these are such as haue prodigally consumed thēselus at cardes dice and haue not found it but toolate Others complaine of the length and cut it off before their time But Seneca wiser then either well say that wee must not be carefull to liue long but enough to liue long is a worke depending of destinie to liue enough is of the minde The life is long if it be full and it is full when the spirit affects her good and tranfers her power to her selfe O excellent speech hee that hath eares let him heare Let vs proceed certen creatures liue longer then man and which Rauens Stags the Phenix I doubt it much as for the Phenix it is a fabulous thing for Stags we know not any thing but by a writing which was found about a Stags necke Caesar gaue me this if it were the first Caesar it is long since but it might be some other whilest that the Emperours reigned in France and that is not long As for the Rauen a most importune and vnfortunate bird who hath tryed it But admit this were true there were but two or three excepted out of the generall rule of nature which is that man her chiefe worke liues longer then any other creature and it is her pleasure to except from the generall as we see else where ceasee then to blame that which you should commend and admire To the Seuenth and last simbolizing much with the second you must receiue the same answer And moreouer there is not found any generous instinct in the soule of man which appeares not as great in brute beasts for the preseruation and defence of their yong As for the confession pretended so easie of an offence committed the diuerse kinds of tortures invented to wrest it out in iustice belie it but you will say they are inwardly tormented how know you that who can see nothing but the exterior part Answere The doctrine of the humaine soule depends of a superior knowledge that is of the Metaphisicke whereof the rule is the Canon of the old and new Testament man must not presume to thinke he can fully comprehend it her perfect intelligence is reserued for vs exclusinely for euer when we shall behold it in
there is a third degree yet more abhominable more iniurious to Iustice when as good men are opprest by the wicked and Iustice troden vnder foot by Iniustice what good or iust man is there but sees it and feels it Why doest thou hold thy peace said Abacuck to the Lord the wicked oppressing the iust So Caine slue Abel so Esau persecuted Iacob so the PagaÌ„s haue alwaies mo lested the Israelites sought to ruine them so the Iewes Infidels haue afflicted Christians so the Arrian Heretikes did with all violence persecute the Catholikes Pompey with the iust Senate was vanquished by Caesar Cato murmures and despayring kills himselfe So the Romaine Emperors haue euen glutted their rage vpon the innocencie of Martirs so the Goathes Barbarians tormented the Romaines as soone as they were become Christians Thirtie Tyrants inuade and ruine that goodly Common-weale of Athens The Turke at this day holds the reynes of the Empire of the world triumphing euery where ouer Christian armies Finally what are these great kingdomes but great thefts as a Pirate did fitly obiect to Alexander the Great who made him to keepe silence with shame This iniustice being obserued by many hath giuen occasion to thinke that all things are turned by chance as Claudian doth represent it Graphically and Dauid himselfe confesseth that hee hath beene readie to leaue the good way and to forsake the partie of God for that he saw the wicked in such abundance These men saies he for all that they possesse Are nothing worth yet still we see they spend There liues whole length in varied happinesse Pamper'd with all things to their very end What shall we then thinke yea whereon can wee assure our selues without wauering that the life of man in this world is a List and Careere in which as he hath wrestled and combated so being departed hee shall receiue either the Crowne of glory or the shame of infamy and this shall bee when as iustice shall appeare in her greatest beauty and lustre But in the mean 〈◊〉 this diuine prouidence will that the good as corne in the aire be thrasht fanned and sifted to the end at their departure they may be laid vp in the granier and on the other side the chaffe that is to say the wicked who haue beene alwayes in ioy shal be cast into the fire that is neuer quenched Affliction is the narrow way into the which he must enter who desires to come into the Kingdome of heauen The reproche of Christ is the honour of the child of God the Crosse of Christ is his Scepter his stripes torments are roses and gilloflowers So Moses saith the text held the reproch of Christ to be greater riches then the treasures of Egypt yea hee did rather choose to bee afflicted with the people of God then to enioy for a time the pleasures of sinne So S. Paule did rather choose the trauells imprisonments beatings and death then all the honour he could expect to be a Pharisian Doctor among the Iewes So a million of Martyrs haue rather made choice of chains fires and of death of serue Christ then of Diadems triumphs and wordly felicitie So Regulus did choose rather to bee tormented in a pipe stucke full of nayles at Carthage then to giue preiudiciall counsell to his countrey Socrates had rather dye then adherre to Pagan Idolatrie Seneca preferred death before the flattering of his vicious Prince verifying by effect the words of his Epistle I loue not torments saith he but if there be question to suffer them I desire to carry my selfe brauely couragiously and honestly Cato spake more as the Poet reports Patience most ioyes when most her crosse abounds Most honor costs most and most ioy redounds But for what reason S. Ambrose saith The wise man is not broken by the paines of the body nor vexed by the discommodities in the midst of miseries he is alwayes happy for that the happinesse of life doth not consist in the tickling pleasures of the body but in the coÌ„science purged from all filth of sinne What wilt thou then doe in this secure peace of the wicked in this continuall ware-fare of good men haue a little patience And thou in the'nd shalt say with comfort driuen Thy vowes are heard euen from the highest heauen The Gods sayth Homer suffer not the sinnes of men to passe vnpunished although they deserre the punishment yet by the waight they recoÌ„pence the slownes If the diuine wrath be slow yet it is violent sayth another It is that which did most fortifie Cyrus in the assurance of the immortality of the soule seeing the wicked in this life to prosper good men decay And what shall wee Christians then doe Wee will attend with Dauid that the measure of sinne may be full and then when they haue made an end to fill vp the measure of their fathers they cannot auoyde the iudgement of Hell fire sayth Iesus Christ I know for a certaine sayth Dauid that God will doe iustice I know the Lord th' afflicted will Reuenge and iudge the poore All these wicked riâ—… men which haue had their pleasures and abundance in this world shall haue miseries in the other and 〈◊〉 â—…se poore Lazares which haue beene here diuersly tormented shal be comforted and enioy an eternall rest as the Euangelist speakes Finally the wicked after this life changing opinion and sighing with the anguish of theirminds wil say among themselues Behold him whom wee haue sometimes derided made prouerbs of dishonor wemad men held his life to be mad and his death infamous and how is hee accounted of a the children of God his portion among the Saints And thus doth a wise man discourse We may therefore conclude that seeing lustice this pretious pearle doth east forth but sun-beames in this world vpon vnreasonable creatures and that her bodie beautiful in perfection is in heauen whither she was forced flying the earth to haue recourse there to receiue such as had cherished sought her vpon earth and contrariewise to banish for euer such as had persecuted her with all violence Wee may I say necessarily coÌ„clude That the soules of men are immortal to the end that the happy may be crowned with this iustice and the wicked cast by the heauie burthen of their iniustice to the bottomlesse pit of hell Amen Obiection If the soule did escape the graue shee might fing the prayses of God But she cannot THE Minor is proued directly by a text of the holy Scripture There is no mention of thee in death who shal worship thee in the graue saith Dauid being grieuously sicke And The dead do no more praise the Lord neither they which descend whereas they speake not Ezechias fearing death speakes thus vnto the Lord the graue shall not worship thee death shall not praise thee and they that descend into the
Olaus Magnus by certaine Venetian Ambassadors by a Iacopin of Vlmes others but I leaue the interpretation free to the iudgement of the reader Thirdly if it were a worke without the compasse of reasō Plutarque Herodotus nor Plato wold euer haue beene credited in writing that one Thespesius Aristeus and Erus were raised vp againe Plinie who beleeued nothing but what hee saw among many that were raysed vp he reports of a woman which was dead seuen dayes and raised againe and that one Gabienus a valiant souldier of Caesars being put to death by order of iustice and left vpon the publike place was found afterwards speaking and asking for Pompey who came vnto him and had much speech with him Melchior Flauian makes mention of a woman whom hee had seene whose name was Mellula neere vnto Damas in Syria raysed vp againe the 6. day after her death in the yeare 1555. God will bring such tokens to assure the world of a future and vniuersall Resurrection As for the Maxime that there is no returning againe to the habite it is abusiue not only to God who can do all but euen to nature and to the order of the world which hath his forces limited So in a little child whose teeth haue beene pulled out the vegetatiue vertue will bring vp new So we reade of a certaine Abbesse who being an 100. yeares olde grewe young againe had her monethly courses her teeth put forth againe her haire grew black the wrinckles of her face filled vp Finally shee became as fresh and as faire as shee had beene at the age of 20. yeeres And if wee may beleeue histories she was not alone but followed and preceded by many others The naturall vertue at a certaine time as trees in the Spring did renue her worke euen foure times as to that man seene in the yeere 1536 by the Viceroy of the Indies who examined it carefully and found out the truth Fourthly that which shewes an insenfible impression of nature of the future Resurrection is the earnest and generall care to burie the dead honorably yea to keep them from corruption by balmes and Aromaticall sents by images of brasse and nayles fastened in the bodies for that brasse hath a speciall vertue against corruption There are yet other deuices which the Egyptians haue and doe vse and particularly obserued by thē of Arran an insularie region whereas the bodyes hang in the ayre and rot not so as the families without any amazement know their Fathers Grandfathers and great-grandfathers and a long band of their predecessors Peter Martir of Milan writes the same of some West-Indians of Comagra Moreouer I deny that man may alwayes see the tayle of that wherof he sees the head the resurrection of the body seeing the immortality of the soule that he must needes see the consequent if he discouers the Antecedent for the one hiding it selfe the other appeares sometimes to the sight of the vnderstanding And to conclude I deny not but that it is true which mans reason cannot verifie vntill it hath found out why the Adamant doth so powerfully draw iron vnto it and holds it fast by an vnknowne vertue why forked sticks of Elder are proper to discouer veines of gold and siluer Why long aftrr a man is dead the bloud will gush out if the murtherer approcheth Why if some desperate man hang himselfe will there rise suddaine stormes and tempests Why the stone called the Amede drawes iron to it on the one side and reiects it on the other with infinite other secrets of Na ture The third Obiection We onely feare that which wee think should be hurtfull vnto vs. The soule feareth death Therfore the soule thinks death should be hurtfull vnto her SOme make a question how the soule can be immortall seeing she hath so great feare of death Men laugh at the attempt of little children be they neuer so in choler for that they cannot hurt them why should not the soule thē mock at death Doth she not in like manner see the immortality feele it in her selfe without giuing so great apprehension to the poore◅ body which of it selfe without her should neuer feare death no more then a bruit beast Why is not the power of death dissolued whereas the authority of immortality intercedes as Tertullian speakes in the first booke of the Trinity Answer This is a most euident signe not of the mortality of the soule but that man is degenerate and corrupt That her Port is no more so free and braue But casts her eye downe like a fearefull slaue He seeles in his Conscience that he is guilty of high treason to God that this voluntary offence must soon or late bring a necessary punishmēt he feels in this life some smal touch he fears not without reason if by faith repentance his pardon bee not inrowled and his absolution sealed that at the departure from this life the executioner of diuine vengeance should stand lurking behind death to take him by the throat and to punish him according to his merits Wherefore if corruption did not generally possesse al men she would suppresse this fear reuerence her Creator and do her duty vnto him and then she should see that by that respectiue feare to offend her God she should be fully deliuered from all other feare shee should see that fearing onely the death of the soule which is onely to be feared shee should not feare that of the body which is to be desired But for that most men as S. Augustine doth teach feare the separation of the soule from the body and not the true death which is the separation from God it happens that fearing that they fall often into this So the soule beeing willing to shake off this feare of the Creator she must needes feare euery creature euen the smallest frogs mice and flies which flying about awake him suddainely and many times trouble him much but in the end death is aboue all extreame feares the most fearefull And why is this if like vnto bruite beasts all dyed in him and if in death there were nothing to bee feared Wherefore Propertius saith The spirit is something death leaues it in store The palest shadowes scapes to the burning shore But to conclude The soule hauing beene too familiar with the flesh shee hath gotten a habite she hath drawne such corruption as being ignorant of the happinesse which attends her in heauen shee cannot leaue this valley of misery this obscure prison but with great griefe being like vnto the man which being carried away an Infant by a she wolfe was nourished by wolues did houle with them and did liue and would liue among them and if hee were taken by other men he would leaue them to returne to his wolues as the History makes mention of one verifying the Prouerbe That nourishment passeth nature The sixt Argument from the efficient cause of Immortalitie The eleuation aboue time and place is the
for the onely reason of so great a miserie is to shew himselfe ridiculous Moyses for all the miseries of Adam and his descendants produceth no other reasons DV Bartas hath seene this Obiection hath written in these termes Who shall direct my penne to paint the Story Of wretched mans forbidden bit-loft glory And Though Adams doome in euery Sermon common And founded on the error of a woman Wearie the vulgar and bee iudg'd a iest Of the prophane zealefcoffing Atheists Answer The offence of the first man is not so small as it seemes to an eye troubled with carnall sence But i was a chaine where all the greatest sinnes Were one in other linked fast as twinnes Let vs examine them and condemne them The 1. is Ingratitude to haue receiued from God these soueraigne blessings as wisdome iustice felicitie the gouernement ouer all Creatures and then to haue more honoured the Deuill then his benefactor Secondly Pride not to content himselfe with his honest condition but to seeke to make himselfe equall to his Creator Thirdly his Infidelitie not to giue credit to the threatnings of God Thou shalt die the death and to beleeue SataÌ„ mocking at the threats of God and accusing him of enuie You shall not dye but God knowes that what day you shall eate thereof your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as Gods Fourthly the contempt of God wilfully disobeying and touching the forbidden Tree Fiftly his reuolt from God to his aduersarie from whom hee hopes attends his imaginary greatnesse the which the Doctors of the Church weighing they haue found that it was no small sinne but the greatest in certaine cases that man could commit for three reasons set downe by S. Augustine and these are the contents 1. Neuer man had that facillitie to keepe himselfe from sinne that Adam had for hee had but one Commandement and that most easie hee had no concupiscence that induced him to euill but he had diuine authoritie that grieuous threat to diuert him 2. Man was most happy in the earthly Paradise but we although we haue great blessings from our God yet wee haue them partly in faith as th' IncarnatioÌ„ of Iesus Christ partly in hope as eternall life which is the cause that not tasting them yet wee feele many doubts crossing our minde Besides in the middest of Gods consolations wee are stung with many afflictions so as it is no wonder if many leauing the way of heauen turne themselues to the goods of this world But Adam had receiued infinite blessings of God with a perfect knowledge of him and no vexation and yet hee was an Apostata vnto God 3. That sinne is greatest which brings most ruine vnto mankinde but there is none committed since that hath made a greater spoile By it sayth S. Augustin in the former place the vniuersall Masse of humaine nature is condemned for that hee which did first commit it is punished with his posteritie which was in his rheines It followes then that it is a most horrible sinne and they that speake otherwise haue neuer duly coÌ„sidered thereon or else they are verie bad disputers concluding it a small fault in breaking an easie com mandement of a light thing for it is that which giues most waight vnto the sinne as hath beene already declared To the King of heauen immortall inuisible to God onely wise be honor and Glory for euer and euer Amen FINIS The Errata FOl. 227. l. 11. for death reade life In M. fol. 254. verses set in prose fol. 161. l. 7. for men reade wise men fol. 398. l. 13. for Creatures reade Creator fol. 306. l. penul for daintie reade vanitie fol. 313. l. 7. reâ—… Massachres ead l. 16. for sand reade â—…and fol. 330. l. 7. reade who hath learned fol. 344. l. 17. r. alarmes fol. 355. l. 7. reade Apologie fol. 361. l. 6. reade thousands of offenders fol 372. l. 4. reade seazure fol. 374. l. 1â—… reade for there fol. 382. l. 7. reade seene fol. 404. l. 14. for ioyfull reade pleasant Manud lib. 2. c. 19. Orat. fune in Basil. Epist. 45. Epist. 76. Stobae Serm. 1. Lib. de tranquil vir c. 1. 2. Sam. cha 14. 2. Sam. 2 14. Apoc. 6. 8. Rom. 12. 2. Epist. 24. 103. In 10. Mat. Arist. l. 2. Phys c. 2. c. 1. v. 23. 2. Tim. 4. 1. Cor. 15. 42. Ioh. 5. 25. 2. Cor. 5. 1. Cor. 15. 43. 44. 45. Lib. 7. of his Saturnales Lib. 4. c. 30. de Legib. Elbi ad Nicomaâ—… L. 1. c. 8. Seneca Episâ—… 92. 1. Iohn 3. Coloss. 3. Epist. 71. 1. de Tranquil 11. Eccles. 7 the last verse Epist. 121 Horace Oderunt peccare mali fohmidine poenae Arist. 3. Ethic. 6. Tacâ—…t 4. Histor. The Answer 2. Kin. 22. Gen. 4. 13. 1. King 21. 2. King 9. 30. 31. c. Ecclesi 9. 12. Ionas 3. 4. 10 Isat 38. 1. 5 Lib. de Diuinat Eccles. 3. 2. Psal. 3. 9 Iob 34. Apoc. 6. 8. Iohn 9. Horat Quicquid dearant Reges c. Zonaras Tom. 2. Plato 3. de Repub. Epist. 9. Epist. 20. Mat. 24. Luk 12. 3. de Repu Cic. lib. 3. de repub Stob. serm 69. Pro. 14. 13 Eccle. 4. Chap. 2. Ad Polib 3 Laert. lib. 1 Binson li. 7. Plut. in Lacon Cic. Tusc. Quaest. lib. 1. Lib. de Senect Strab l. 17. Diodor. l. 3. c. 3. Senec. Epist. 91. Heb. 9. 27. epist. 24. 41. Epist. 4. Act. 5. 41. Apoc. 21. 14. Odyss l. 13 Exod. 20. Esay 58. Paul Iou. l. 44. of his Hist. Lib. 1. Du Bartas in Iudic. lib. 6. Ioha 14. Amb. c. 5. of the flight from the world L. 10. Ethic. 〈◊〉 7. Ioh. 17. c 7 Quaest. natu c. vlt. Eccles. 1. c. Iohn 5. 24. Epist. 24. Epist. 78. Epist. 4. Stob. serm 115. Maxim serâ—… 36. Sen. Epist 31. Epist. 70. 120. Plat. Apol. of Socrat. in the end Eipst 7â—… 1. Cor. 15. 1 de Legib. Lib. de Senect 2. Stroma in decore â—…aturae De mundi opiâ—… de Ira. c. 13 Ad Demeâ—… 2. deâ—…irrg Bartas in the 2. day of the 1 weeke Epist. 13. Lucre. 3. Epist. 23. Epist. 59. De vit bea c. 3. 6. Cic. 3. de finibuâ—… 3. Offic. 1. Cic. 3. de finib 5. de finib Sen. epist. 66. 4. De Finib Ephes. 5. 1. Cor. 2. Ephes. 2. Coloss. 2. Math. 12. Epist. 36. Epist. 24. 31. De consol ad Mart. 32. Epist. 202. ad Mart. c. 20. Lib 1. de pec mer. remis c. 38. Wis. 6. Prou. 2. Greg. hom 36. in Eu. Lament 4. 10. Hippoc. Aph. 1. Benz. l. 3. c. 5. Hist. lib. 5. Val. Maâ—… l. 9. c. 12. Epist. 7. 19. Iob. 7. Lib. 7. Ioh. 11. Luk. 19. Heb. 5. Rom. 7. 23. 2. Cor. 12. 7. Lucret 3. Sen. epist. 69. Seneâ—… Epist. 26. De Ira 3. c. 15. Arist. 3. Ethic. c. 7. Ethie ad Eud. lib. 3. Ethic. l. 5. c. vlt. Rom. 8. Curt. l. 5. Iohn 18. 8. 1. Tim. 5. 18 1. Kings 19