A PIOUS AND Christian Consideration OF LIFE and DEATH AND Of all HUMANE ACTIONS Written Originally in French by the Famous Philip Morney Lord of Plessis Translated into Latin by Arnoldus Freitagius And now done into English by M. A. for the benefit of his Countrymen LONDON Printed by J. L. for LUKE MEREDITH at the Star in St. Paul's Church-yard 1699. A GODLY AND Christian Consideration OF Life and Death IT seemeth to me a thing worthy of great wonder and amazement and not unlike a Paradox when I consider how all sorts of Workmen and Mercenary People rise up early and labour hard all the day in hopes to enjoy their desired rest at night how Mariners tug at the Oar with all their might that they may gain their port and with what signs of joy with what shouts and acclamations they behold the shore though at a distance How Travellers despising the allurements of Life think nothing more pleasant than to attain their Journeys end Only we who are engaged in the labours and trouble of this World are soon tired therewith and though we be tossed with the waves of this troublesome Sea and worn out with hard and painful Travel yet are we unwilling to see the end of our labours we cannot without tears think of coming to our safe and secure Harbour nor without fear and trembling of entring into a quiet retirement This our Life is much like Penelope's Web which was daily to be woven and unwoven It is a Sea exposed to Winds and Storms with which sometimes the outward sometimes the inward Man is miserably tossed it is a Journey in which we must expect to meet with hard Frosts and deep Snows in which we must travel through craggy Rocks dreadful Precipices vast Wildernesses and be daily in danger to be assaulted by Thieves and Robbers Let us daily meditate of these things and of these things let us commune with our own hearts and let us thus tug at the Oar that we may gain our Port. But when we see Death draw nigh and offering us an helping hand to refresh us who are wearied with Labour to put an end to all our grief and sorrow to bring us into a safe Haven after so dangerous a Journey and instead of such troublesome Inns to lodge us safely in our own House instead of Joy and Rejoycing thereat instead of a Swan-like Song we are more willing if the Fates would allow it to repeat our former Labours reiterate our former Voyage and once more trust our selves to the tumultuous and tempestuous Sea of this World we are willing to forget all our former miseries all our shipwrecks and all that danger of Thieves and Robbers that we have been in and to look upon Death as our greatest punishment much greater than all those dangers and misfortunes that we have undergone or can possibly befall us in this Life We act like Children who though they have spent whole days in tears yet upon the approach of a Physician will not own that they are sick Not unlike those who being miserably afflicted with the Tooth-ach spend whole days and nights in bewailing their misery yet upon the sight of a Chirurgeon who offers to pull out their faulty tooth deny that they have any pain at all We act much like those delicate ones who being afflicted with an acute Pleurisie send forth most miserable groans and can scarce have patience to stay the coming of a Chirurgeon yet when he is come and come to remove their Malady they no sooner see him make ready his Instrument but they draw back their Arm and hide themselves within their Bed as if he were about to kill them We fear the Physician more than the Disease the Chirurgeon than the pain Incision than Suppuration We have a quicker sense of the bitterness and momentany trouble of a Medicine than of the cruelty of a long and tedious Disease we are more afraid of the end of our misery than the continuance of those evils which we do and must daily suffer in this World Now whence comes it that we are thus mad and stubborn but only from hence that we do not rightly understand what Death is Hence is it that we are afraid of those things which we ought to hope for and desire those things which we ought to be afraid of We call that Life which is a continual dying and we call that Death which is an Exit out of that state of continual dying and an entrance into Eternal Life Furthermore what is there is Life that is so greatly to be desired Or what is there in Death that is so greatly to be feared Let us examine the several periods of our whole Life We enter into life weeping and wailing The miseries of each several Age. we go through it toiling and sweating and we go out of it decaying and languishing There is no difference between high and low Noble and Ignoble in this they are all alike they must all submit to this Condition of Life none can plead an exemption therefrom The Condition of Man therefore is much worse than that of other living Creatures being born and brought forth into this light he cannot remove himself from the place where he is 1 Of Infancy The first years of his Infancy are void of all pleasure yea so far therefrom that he is troublesom both to himself and others and even to those years in which Reason and Judgment begin to bud he is exposed to infinite dangers In this one thing that period of time is more happy than the rest that he doth not understand his own unhappiness Now is there any of so abject and base a Mind that he would willingly chuse to live always in this state of Infancy Whence it is plain that if we take an estimate of Life as it is in it self and in its own nature there is nothing desirable therein but only to live well and happily But let us proceed 2 Childhood Together with the growth and increase of the Body trouble and sorrow increase too No sooner is he freed from the hands of his Nurse and before he knows what pleasure there is in Play he is committed to the discipline of a School-Master I speak of those who are more liberally Educated whilst he is at Play he is in fear whilst he is at his Book it is grievous and unpleasant to him All that period of time which is spent under the tuition of another is no better nor worse in his esteem than a Prison He thinks of nothing else nor aspireth at any thing more than how he may arrive at those years in which he may be free from the government and restraint of others and live at liberty This is his great and only care that he may quickly see an end of his Infant-state and be admitted into another of more freedom The entrance into this State 3 Adolescence what is it else but the destruction of Infancy
way or other they always find the World in them and about them But that which is most deplorable of all being freed from these outward wars and troubles we wage a civil and intestine war with and against our selves the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit Passion riseth up in rebellion against Reason Earth opposeth Heaven and the World within struggles hard for the World without us which though it be shunned by us yet having fixed its seat it keeps a constant residence in the bottom of our hearts But what do I say when they themselves who with tragical and demure looks and with specious words profess to renounce the World do yet cherish themselves with a vain ambitious hope of worldly praise and profit They pretend to slie the World and yet run into its embraces Some shun Honours and by that means make their way to Dignities hoping for their seeming modesty to be invited to accept of them Others hide themselves that they may be sought after So it comes to pass that the personated World often liveth among those who seem to run from it We are deceived if we follow the multitude for in the greatest throng and concourse of People the World and the God of this World keep their Court do we love solitude he who tempted Christ in the Wilderness hath there his lurking places Do we live with our selves or within our selves we may there as well as any where else find a contaminated World nor have we any other way to mortifie it but by dying to it We live in the World and the World in us and therefore we have no other way to rid our selves of the World but by departing from our selves and this departure we call Death We leave an infected City but we do not consider that we carry infected Bodies along with us and that we our selves are not the least part of the Infection so that though we wander thro' craggy Rocks Desarts Mountains that Infection is still our inseparable Companion Whilst we shun the Contagion of others we labour under our own We may flie the conversation of Men and yet not abdicate the Man from our selves The stormy and tempestuous Sea of this World we find to be very troublesom our heart akes our stomach is sick whilst we sail through the waves thereof and to free our selves from this trouble we change that which is firm and solid for that which is frail and brittle we leave that which is truly great and good for that which is base and little And yet we cannot promise our selves any rest or quiet we are not one jot the better for our change we are still beaten upon by the same waters and tossed by the same waves There is one and the same Haven to all Mortals and that is Death wherein they may rest from their labours The sick Man may be laid in a Chamber near the Street or Market the noise whereof is troublesome to him he may be removed from that to a more retired lodging more remote from noise and tumult and yet for all that his fever continues still and abates nothing of its heat and vigour We may change our Bed our Lodgings our House and our Countrey and yet find no abatement of our troubles and the reason is plain because we every where find our selves we do not endeavour to change our lives but our place we do not strive to be other Men but other where We desire solitude that we may shun solicitude that being at quiet we may shake off the burthen of our cares We desire to be at a distance from the conversation of wicked Men and for that end we change our places but whithersoever we carry our Bodies thither also we carry our own Covetousness our own Ambition and all the passions of our depraved minds which a thousand ways vex us and a thousand times a day call our minds back to the Onions and Garlick of Egypt These do always pass the same Bridge that we do and therefore on which side soever of the River we are we have them to conflict with But if we were able to conquer this Army of Vices which eats up our Minds we should without doubt find peace and quietness not only in solitude but in the greatest throng and press of People The whole Life of Man in this World is a continual warfare We cannot be secure either from external treacheries or clandestine counsels and deceits The Greeks had no sooner raised their Siege and founded a Retreat but the wicked Sinon troubles all within the walls of Troy and endeavours to betray the City to the Greeks We must always watch therefore and keep a strict guard we must always have our weapons in our hands lest by our security and too much confidence we be every moment in danger to fall into the hands of our Enemies out of which we have no probability to escape no not by the benefit of Woods or Rivers or Mountains no not though we inclose our selves within a Press or hide our selves in some Cave or Den under ground Only Death which by the separation of Soul and Body i. e. of the pure and clean part from that which is impure and unclean can do this which whilst they were conjoyn'd in one Person could never agree but were always brawling and at strife between themselves 'till either the one or the other was totally subdued and brought under Now though I am not ignorant how those who have given themselves up to a solitary life do spend their time viz. either in the study of Sacred or Profane Literature and of all Sciences and Disciplines and that these Men live far otherwise than those Men who have wholly given themselves up to Sports and Pleasures and thereby have render'd themselves as brutish as those Wild-beasts which they hunt yet even the wisest of these Wise Men must subscribe to the censure of the wise Solomon and confess with him that all these things when seriously considered are nothingelse but meer Vanity and Vexation of Spirit a What Vanity there is in Sciences or rather in the Persons who spend their whole time in the study of Arts. Some there are who spend their whole time in Grammar and Rhetorick i. e. in learning to speak well but do not in the least think nor allow themselves any small portion of their time to think how they may live well b Logick Others there are who are so busie in finding out the Riddles of a Logical Sphinx that they examine all the trifles and impertinencies of Reasons to find out what Reason is and in the search thereof oftentimes lose themselves and their Reason too c A ithmetick Others there are who by Arithmetick learn to divide every thing into the most minute Fractions and yet are so bad Proficients that they do not know how to divide a Half-penny with a Brother in way of Charity d Geometry Many there are who by the help of
Divine Nature which hath nothing of rude matter in it but the Body is but as the bark or shell in which the Spirit being inclosed there lieth hid and if we desire to be delivered therefrom to live and behold the light that shell must be broken that bark must be stripp'd off and that case must be opened By what reasons can we perswade our selves that we live and think when in the mean time we are even spent and worn out with long sloath and idleness and can very difficultly stretch out our wings so long as we are loaden and burthened with this mass of Earth we cannot flie towards Heaven We see indeed but it is with such Spectacles as deceive us we have eyes indeed but they are covered with a white Film we think we see but we do but dream and are mocked by a lying sight and fallacious apparition Whatsoever we possess or know it is all but meer Vanity and meer Imposture It is only Death that can restore us both Life and the sense of Living And yet so brutish are we that we suspect this as if it were about to despoil us both of Life and Sense We call our selves Christians we believe there is and after this Life ended hope to enjoy a Blessed and Immortal Life nor do we think Death to be any thing else but only a separation of Soul and Body and that the Soul returns to her rest there to enjoy perpetual Joys with God in whom alone all good things and all the treasures of Happiness are laid up and that after the end of this World it will be restored to its own Body which shall never more be subject to corruption With these kind of Heroical and most Noble Expressions we stuff whole Volumes and yet when it comes to the push we shake for fear and tremble at the voice of Death as if it were of all things the most horrible And why so I pray if you believe those things I have even now mentioned Is it Happiness and true Pleasure that ye abhor which without this we cannot pretend truly nor scarce in part to believe we must look upon all that hath been said upon this subject to be only idle talk and no better than the vain Discourses of Men in their Jollity Some there are who constantly and with sufficient confidence affirm and will by no means be perswaded to doubt but that after this Life they shall pass to another far better and much more excellent than this is but when they consider the ruggedness of the way and the difficulty of the passage thereunto both their constancy and confidence do very much abate and they begin to fear and tremble at the thoughts of it How broken and disjoynted are the Minds of those Men who fear not oftentimes to expose themselves to Death for the preservation of their Lives who can be content to endure a thousand pains for that cause who to please others are not afraid to expose themselves to a thousand wounds who for the sake of some vile frail and perishing trifles and such as are not only subject to destruction themselves but also draw their owners into the same snare and ruine do a thousand times encounter Death without attaining the End they aim at and yet at the difficulty of one small passage by which they may procure unto themselves a sure and certain tranquility and that not for one day but for ever not a common rest but such an one as the Mind of Man is not able to comprehend do shake and tremble their courage fails them and they suffer themselves to be overcome by their own fears In vain do they accuse that grief which they suffer this is only a frivolous excuse for that little Faith or rather that great incredulity under which they labour For how they can possibly perswade either themselves or others to the contrary I see not when they chuse rather to wear out themselves with Aches in their Bones with the pains of Gout or Stone rather than by some more gentle kind of Death to change this Life without pain for one far more happy They had rather lose Limb after Limb and die by degrees that they may miserably out-live their own Senses Motions and Actions than by some sudden Death to be delivered from those so many and so great Evils that they may live and live happily for ever But they have an excuse ready for this they only desire their Lives may be prolonged that they may learn to live There are none who are ignorant of that it is an Art which all have learned It is not therefore the Art of Living but the Art of Dying that we ought now to study and learn which that we may happily do let us learn every day to die to our selves We cannot better fortifie our Minds against all assaults than by looking upon every day as the last day of our Lives But it happeneth out far otherwise more is the grief for there is no word more troublesome to the Ears of Men than the mention of Death How foolish and inconsiderate are Men who for the gain of a little money are hired to take up Arms and expose their Lives to the Fortune and Chance of War who in hope of Prey will first scale the Walls and attempt those Places from which they have little or no hope to return in safety so Prodigally do they hazard both their Bodies and Souls upon that account But to exempt themselves from the injuries and mockeries of Fortune that they may gain things rare and incomparable that they may enter into an Immortal Life that we look upon as a dangerous and difficult passage though all the danger and difficulty thereof is only in learning to know it right i. e. in imprinting upon our Minds a right notion of it considering that whether we will or no that passage at one time or other must be entred into and passed by us But alas Men are so much addicted to their own mischief that there are few or none to be found though oppressed with never so much misery who are willing to adventure upon this passage Some alledge their Age saying they could more readily and willingly submit to the Laws of Fate if they had attained to the Fiftieth or Sixtieth year of their Age but in their blooming years in their flourishing youth they think it hard to leave the world and a difficult thing to die that they would willingly know the world before they leave it But these Men do not consider how ignorant they are of all things they do not think that the greatest Age if it be compared either with time past present or to come is but like a point Do ye not see that when ye are arrived at that Age to which ye did aspire time past is as nothing and ye burn with a greater desire of that which is to come The remembrance of time past will be troublesome to you the
expectation of that which is to come will be very tedious and the present will afford you but little or no solace and pleasure You will as earnestly as before desire a truce with Death You hide your selves Month after Month from the sight of your Creditors and still put off the time of Payment and are as unready at the last as at the first to pay your Debt ye do not consider that one day it must be paid and if so then the sooner the better Try all the Pleasures of the world ye will find none new ye will never quench your thirst though ye drink often for that Body which you carry about with you is like that Tub of the Daughters of Danae which was full of holes and therefore could never be filled with water it will sooner be worn out with use than you will be wearied with the use or rather the abuse of it I do not see why you should so greedily desire long Life unless it be that you may consume it in vile and tastless Pleasures or spend it in hunting after Vanities you greedily desire it that you may prodigally spend it In vain do you complain of a Court-Life and the arrogancy of the Palace that specious and splendid pretence by which you would seem more willing to serve the Publick to assist your Countrey and to give up your selves wholly to the worship of God will not acquit you from all blame He who enjoyned you this Task knows without doubt the day and hour in which it is to be done he knows when you ought to labour and when to rest and accordingly will direct his own work But if he should suffer you to be longer busied in those troublesome affairs you might perhaps faint under your labours Now if God be willing out of his Grace Goodness and liberal Beneficence to pay you your wages if he be pleased to recall you from the Place of Suffering and the Stage of Labour and to give you as much for the work of half a day as for a whole one ought ye not then the more to praise his beneficence and liberality and to return him the greater thanks for it But if you will but enter into the inward Chambers of your Hearts if you will but examine the Secrets of your own Consciences you will be forced to confess that it is not the Cause of the Widow and Fatherless nor the neglect of a Duty to a Son a Parent or a Friend not unfaithfulness to the Common-wealth nor to God by denying him the Worship which is due unto him which you pretend and seem to deplore No it is something else that you complain of There are Houses and Gardens which trouble your Minds there are imperfect Platforms of Edifices and Buildings which distract your Thoughts your imperfect and immature Life will not suffer your Mind to fly higher than these which you have no hope to perfect no not by length of time whereas if you more accurately weigh the matter even one moment of time may suffice for the perfecting of it if you seriously consider with your selves that when this Life shall hasten to an end all those things will be of no concern provided you do but make it your business to finish your Course well and happily Now to finish our Course well what is it else but to hasten to our End without trouble to obey the will of God readily to follow him as our Guide cheerfully and not to do any thing that may make it be thought that we are unwillingly dragg'd thither by inexorable Fate or inevitable Destiny Then may we be said willingly to meet our Death when we approach thereunto with a sure hope without fear or doubting when we are well perswaded that after this present Life ended we shall enjoy another far better and much more excellent But this hope and expectation of a better Life must be kindled and nourished in us by a true fear of God whom if we truly fear we shall not need to fear any thing in this world but may hope all things in that to come For whosoever is possessed of this sure Hope and lively Faith Death it self will be both pleasant and grateful to him knowing for certain that by the separation of Soul and Body he shall obtain a quiet Retirement in which no kind of Happiness shall be wanting to him And though there may be some pain in Death yet will it be allayed with a far greater pleasure When the mixed Cup of Hope and Sufferance shall be drunk up the sting of Death will have no more strength which is only troublesom and pungent by vertue of our own fear I may add this also that he who hath thus fortified his Mind shall not only not be troubled or dispirited by any Image of Evil which Death offereth to his imagination but all the misfortunes of this Life which are wont to weaken the Minds of Men and all fear of trouble and molestation shall then be despised by him and set at naught For how can he be said to fear who hopeth to die Doth he fear to be Banished from his Countrey No he knows that he hath a better Countrey elsewhere from which none can banish him he looks upon this World only as an Inn and himself as a Guest there where though he may have a Being at present yet doth he not take it for his abiding place Doth he fear a Prison He can have no more grievous nor straiter confinement than that of his own Body than which he can meet with none more loathsom nor liable to thicker Darkness nor can he any where meet with greater torments and vexations than he finds there Doth he fear least any one should deliver him over to Death that is it which he daily hopes for and greatly desires Which whether it happen by Fire or Sword or Famine or Sickness whether it linger for the space of three years or come to pass in three days or three hours it matters not he is not concern'd by what way or when he leaveth this troublesome Life being always ready fitted and well prepared for his Journey and being well assured that as soon as he departs out of this he shall enter into an Happy and Immortal Life The menaces of Death only are levelled against him and this is that which he daily expects and hopes for Death is looked upon as the greatest and most grievous of all punishments but he looks upon it as the best of all those things that are to be hoped for The Threatnings of Tyrants are to him in place of Promises the Swords of most deadly Enemies are not unsheathed against him but for him he esteemeth the threats of Death as the commination of Life and that by the most mortal wounds he shall be conveyed to an happy Immortality Whosoever doth truly revere God stands not in fear of Death and he that is free from that fear is not afraid of the greatest and