Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A66253
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Preparation for death being a letter sent to a young gentlewoman in France, in a dangerous distemper of which she died.
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Wake, William, 1657-1737.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing W253; ESTC R5512
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22,586
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170
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be still wanting CHAP. II. That you ought not to be amazed at the fear of Death THERE is nothing in the world more generally dreaded and yet less to be feared than Death Indeed for those unhappy Men whose hopes terminate in this life no wonder if the prospect of another seems terrible and amazing Hell is a place which the most resolute Soul cannot but tremble to think of how much more to enter into But for him who has lived well and who therefore relies on God's mercies for an eternal Salvation to shew this concern it betrays either much weakness or great doubt and either his faith or his hopes or both are less firm than they ought to be HE therefore that will not fear to dye must first be careful to live well 2. THE stroak of death is nothing Children endure it and the greatest Cowards find it no pain But when to this we shall add the certain apprehension of its being the gate to an eternal life then may we presume to say we have wholly conquer'd this King of terrours and sing the Epinikion of St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly He must take off his Affections from this world 3. IT was the reflection of the Son of Sirach Ecclus 4. 1. O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a Man that liveth at rest in his possessions to the Man that hath nothing to vex him but hath prosperity in all things Whilst we please our selves with the vanities we enjoy here we cannot expect but that it must needs be a trouble to us to be divorced from them But let us only change the scene instead of these earthly transient goods let us raise our Souls to the Heavenly and Eternal then shall we begin to think the time long that we are divorced from them and wish for that end we before feared Tully tells us that Cleombrotus was so taken with this speculation that having only read in Plato the conjectures of that great Man concerning the state of the Soul after death he had not patience to tarry the tedious course of nature but by a violent death cut the thread himself that he might immediately enjoy what he so infinitely desired 4. NOR may we fortify our selves much less against the fear of death Thirdly From the Consideration of those evils it frees us from than of that happiness it transfers us to When the Great Emperor of Persia wept over his Army upon this Consideration that within the revolution of a single Age not a Man of all that innumerable confluence would be left alive Artabanus standing by improved his meditation by adding that yet all of them should meet with so many and great evils that every one should wish himself dead long before that It is the true character of our lives which Job once gave Man that is born of a Woman hath but a short time to live and is full of trouble It is the great blessing of Heaven that as our lives are very miserable so are they very short too and what we usually complain of as our misfortune we ought rather to congratulate as our happiness Had David died a little sooner How much trouble had he escaped which now he endured in the rebellion and death of his own Son and all the miseries of a Civil War that was raised against him Let any Man consult his own experience and say how many sorrows he had miss'd had God called him to his rest but a few years before and therefore whether the promise he has made to deliver the just from the evils to come ought not to be made our dayly prayer for its accomplishment rather than fill our Souls with terror at the apprehension But fourthly Death do's not only free us from misery but sin too 5. THE life of a Christian is a continual warfare full of dangerous conflicts and doubtful consequences Our lusts sollicit us the World encourages the Devil tempts us we fall often and are never secure But Death frees us from all danger sets us safely on Shore in our long-expected Canaan where there are no temptations no dangers no possibility of falling but eternal purity and immortal joys secure our happiness for evermore 6. THERE is yet an advice which may usefully be added here and it is this That since the time of our dying is uncertain we should every day expect what every hour may bring to us IT is our great unhappiness in this matter that though we live never so many years we are still surprized We put the evil day far from us and then it catches us at unawares and we tremble at the prospect But let us stand on our guard let us live like those who expect to dye and then we shall find these terrors very much lessen and that we fear'd Death only because we were unacquainted with it Philip King of Macedon had a Page constantly attending in his Chamber to tell him every morning as soon as he awaked Remember O King that thou art mortal 7. BUT to quit you wholly of this fear and that I may close this point too with something particular give me leave Madam to desire you instead of a thousand arguments to recur only to your own experience you have already lookt death in the face you are acquainted with it what have you found so terrible in it as to disturb the repose of a good Christian i.e. of such a one as your self I cannot without satisfaction remember the calm the quiet the peace you were then in when every hour seemed to tell you 't was your last Death is an enemy you have already met and already conquer'd you have pull'd out his sting by the preparation you have made for it and you know he has nothing now remaining that can injure or affright you Only maintain your conquest by securing your innocence and working out your Salvation and then you may with confidence undervalue that which so much terrifies the world and which yet all even those who the most dread it must in a little time meet whether they will or no. CHAP. III. That you ought to be careful to provide for another World. THIS is the great duty of our lives and ought to be the chief business of us all every day of them No Man knows what the next hour may bring forth and to put our Salvation and the hopes of eternity to so dangerous a hazard as we do when we procrastinate though never so little our working of it out with fear and trembling is to shew either a very unwarrantable presumption upon God's goodness or a very light esteem of our own Souls 2. OUR lives depend on so many curious parts and organs so many diseases assail them every moment so many accidents may take them from us that we can never say the
Preparation FOR DEATH Being A Letter sent to a Young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which She died Numb xxiii 10. Let me die the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. Advertisement COuld either my desires or endeavours have prevailed for the suppressing of the following Letter it had been buried in the same Grave with her to whom it was address'd But being fallen into the Hands of her Relations after her Death many Copies were dispersed before my return into England and thereby a necessity put upon me either to publish it my self or to have the dissatisfaction of seeing others do it for me This being the true account of the Edition of this short Treatise I shall need the less Apology if there seem nothing in it for which it should be exposed to a publick view It was writ as a private Letter to a person of more Piety than Curiosity and without any prospect nay I may add more upon an assurance that it should never come to any ones sight but her own And therefore it ought not to be wonder'd if it appear with all the plainness and freedom which an Epistolary Stile and Character required For the rest as I can sincerely profess that it was no principle of vanity that led me first to write it so much less does any such Motive induce me now to publish it It was to serve a greater and better end I both then did and now do design it And if those who shall hereafter peruse it do it but with the same piety that she did for whom it was composed I am perswaded neither they nor I shall have any cause to repent us of our Labour Paris April 25. S. N. 1684. Madam THE Address I here make you how meanly soever I have performed it is yet so suitable to your circumstances and so well befits my character that I make no doubt but you will accept it with the same charity that I have designed it And therefore instead of making Apologies for my undertaking I will rather send it to you with my hearty Prayers that those few directions I have here put together may be as truly useful to you as I do assure you they were really by me intended for your service You are not Madam to expect in this short draught any thing but what you have often already heard and I perswade my self have long practised Religion is none of those things that change with the Fashion and accommodate themselves to the mode And though we have of late met with some who have endeavoured upon the foundations of Christianity to erect a new Scheme of Court-Divinity by making the way to Heaven both broader and smoother than it is yet both the projectors and those that follow them will sadly find themselves mistaken in the end when the one shall perish for betraying their Master and the others be condemn'd for not rejecting their Innovations But Madam if you find nothing new in the matter I am sure much less will you have any thing in the Stile and Method but what is plain and easie In such discourses as these he seems to me to speak most properly that expresses himself most clearly Some things indeed I should have added others have changed and have dress'd the whole with greater care but I had little time and much other business which I am sure you know to be more than pretence The rules yet I am confident are sound and useful and may as they are serve your devotion But if your abundance of better helps frustrate that design yet at least you will be pleased to esteem it an undoubted testimony of that sincerity with which I am Madam Your most humble and most obedient Servant W. W. INTRODUCTION THERE is nothing hath proved more fatal to that due Preparation we ought to make for another life than our unhappy mistake of the nature of this We are brought into the World Children Ignorant and Impotent we grow up in vanity and folly and when we come to be Men we are but very little more prudent and more considerate The whole of our Reflections terminates in this what course we are to take to pass our time some to get others to spend their Estates and when Interest or Inclination Friends or Fortune have determined the choice we are then entred in and our remaining business is to pursue this end to the best advantage for our present ease and our future establishment Thus are our thoughts and our desires wholly tied to this World we vainly project a settlement in it nor look we any farther than the little Interests and Employments thereof engage us 2. I AM sure Madam I need not say much to convince you who have had so many opportunities to settle this Reflection upon your own Experience and who I am perswaded have so profitably employ'd them that this is the just character of the far greater part of Mankind And for the unhappy influence of it to the Decay of Christianity I think it is not to be doubted that 't is the tying of our affections so much to this World that above any thing indisposes us to think of another Whilest we set up our Hopes and our Establishment here we either altogether forget or at least do not so vigorously consider That God has provided another and better place for us whither we shall in a very little time be transferred by him and for which therefore the great affair of our whole lives now should be to provide 3. IS IT possible to be imagined that we should see such numbers engage their lives and Labours some to heap together A little dirt that shall bury them in the end Others to gain an Honour that at best can be celebrated but by an inconsiderable part of the World and is envied and calumniated by more than 't is truly given Most to pursue the pleasures as they call them of their Natures which begin in sin are carried on with Danger and end in bitterness and scarce one that troubles himself about the Blessings of Heaven or at least lives as if he did so would Men seriously perswade themselves that they have here no abiding place no City to dwell in but are only in their passage to the heavenly Jerusalem their City which is above where alone true happiness is to be found and upon which therefore their thoughts and their endeavours ought chiefly to be employed 4. CAN we behold the vices and debaucheries of many the carelessness and irreligion of almost all and believe that the Christian World is seriously convinced of those great truths their Religion teaches them of A future life and A vast Eternity of rewards and punishments according as we observe or neglect the Duties it commands in This 5. How shall we believe that those Men are perswaded of the true business of this