approach it Death doth not violently lay hands vpon vs but gently laies hold on vs. Wherefore a vertuous soule feeling it selfe called to the participation of a greater happinesse endeuoureth to carry and behaue it selfe honestly and wisely in this earthly Sentinell and Station accounting none of those things to be hers which doe hemme her in on euery side but serues her turne with them as with borrowed mooueables remembring her selfe that shee doth but goe a iourney and in post hast There are many other sentences of Seneca touching the benefit of death in his Consolations to Polybius and Marcia as also in his other Treatises But we will make this extract no longer least so wee trouble and offend with long reading impatient and froward old men 4. Fourthly wee speake now of the extreamities that must be auoyded when there is question of death to wit Too great confidence or rashnes or rather inhumane or barbarous stupidity and sencelesnesse then the too great apprehension feare and paine of death Of a truth our Creator and Soueraigne Lord hath honoured vs with this fauourable gift and graunt that our hearts are of flesh not of stone or iron to bee easily touched with the sence of our miseries and the miseries of others How should we apprehend the mercy of God if we had not an apprehension of our miseries And what feare of God and of his iudgements would there be in the world if we should not feare death and other punishments which he doth mitigate and vsually conuert into wholsome remedies to persons who mourne vnder the burthen of their sinnes and with a repentant heart craue and implore the grace of their heauenly Father Wee are not willing to approoue the practise of those too austere Thracian Elders who wept at the birth day of their children and made great cheere merrily banquetted at the funeral of them that died Much lesse doe we purpose to dispute of death as Hegesias of Cyrena whom the King of AEgypt prohibited to discourse any more of death because many who heard him killed themselues No more doe we approoue those mad men such as were in times past certaine surnamed Circamcellianes of the Sect of the Donatists who not rightly vnderstanding the sayings of the Scripture touching mortification of the flesh cast themselues downe headlong from the toppes of high mountaines and without looking or staying for any commandement to doe so resigned and gaue vp the place they held in this humane life It is not lawfull for any priuate person without expresse authority and order of the Magistrate to kill a guilty or condemned person And hee which killeth himselfe is not hee a murtherer Who hath giuen him power and authority to doe so We abhorre and iustly the facinourous fact of Iudas who by dispaire increased his detestable impiety Sathan is the author of such counsells as wee see in the fourth Chapter of S. Matthew where Christ Iesus being importuned by that malignant and mischieuous one to throw himselfe headlong from the top of the Temple answereth That we must not tempt the Lord. S. Augustine sayd in his first Booke De Ciuitate Dei Chap. 22. That those which kill themselues make a hazardous proofe of some kind of greatnesse of courage but indeed they are mad men Further they are not magnanimous seeing that being vnable to support and beare aduersity they discouer their impotency and pusillanimity not their fortitude and valour in casting themselues so into the gulfe and iawes of death But hee is truely magnanimous who chooseth rather to beare the burthen of a miserable life then rashly to rid himselfe and flye from it instead of standing and abiding in the place allotted and appointed vnto him It is said that Cleombrotus hauing read the Booke which Plato writ of the immortality of mans soule cast himselfe downe headlong from a high wall to passe to the other life which hee iudged to be better But it was an act of wretched folly for Plato taught no such thing although he discoursed of the immortality of the soule Therefore let vs turne our backes to the Stoickes so brutish and besotted in their pride that they thinke it lawfull to a man which cannot suffer an iniury to kill himselfe A man of courage and fearing God knowing indeed that life is not giuen him doth not violently rid himselfe of it but renders it into the hands of God not fearing the approaches of death but submitting himselfe to his Soueraigne Lord who hath imployed him in his seruice in the world to goe out of it when he shall commaund him It is alledged that a speedy death is better then a fastidious and tedious life and once to bee quiet for altogether then so long to languish and droope But to attempt to leaue this life before God giue vs leaue is to fall into another death which neuer hath end What then shall not a Souldier dare to goe out of the armie without his Captaines license and passe port but vpon hazard of his head and shall mortall man goe out of this present life without the auouchy and warrant of the immortall who hath placed him in it protected and blessed him What crowne can the impatient the furious the infidell expect who in dispite of his Lord cowardly resignes his charge his place his honour with the losse of his body soule goods and friends who forsakes those to whom hee is bound and beholden breakes all the bandes of diuine and humane society God giueth a happy issue to their temptations who feare him hee doth in fit time deliuer and helpe them It is they which are to hold out to the end in a full assurance of hope not to quaile and lose courage but to follow those who by a faithfull and humble patience haue obtained the promised inheritance Let vs then take heed and beware of the arrogancy of the Stoickes and of the vaine confidence of Epicures who neuer thinke on death but thinke they are in league and friendship with him perswade themselues that it shall be easie for them to put by his blowes and to pacifie him Moreouer let vs haue no part in their effeminacy and diffidence who tremble at the meere name of death not thinking that in death it selfe there is not so great euill as in the solicitudes carkings sorrowes and feares wherewith a thousand times a day they kill themslues without any ease to their vnbeleeuing heart Their apprehensions are ill ordered fond and vnprofitable seeing as witnesseth the Prophet in the Psalme 89. 90. there is no man liuing can boast himselfe not to see death and to be able to saue his life out of the hand of the graue Hereupon we will say to young and old that their duty requires that they beare and behaue themselues so toward God that their death may not be a mortall but a liuing death And that they so gently and wisely lay downe their load in the world that they may not be found vnder
a heauy and vnsupportable burthen whose weight doth suppresse them and cause them to tumble into euerlasting perdition 5. Fifthly let vs now adde some assured consolations against death and first we will draw from certaine places of the holy Scripture the faire termes and names which it giueth to death to sweeten vnto vs the apprehension of it By whose testimony to dye is to bee gathered to his people as it is said of Abraham Gen. 25. 8. It is to goe the way of all the earth 1. Kings 2. 2. It is to be bound vp in the bundle of life 1. Sam. 25. 29. It is to be taken away from euill to enter into peace and rest in our beds Esaiah 57. 1 2. It is to be in the shadow and at rest as the hireling which hath ended his dayes worke Iob 7. 1. 2. It is to sleepe Iohn 11. 11. 1. Thess 4. 13. To rest from his labours Apocalips 14. 13. It is to goe out of the world to goe to God our Father Iohn 13. 1. It is to goe to our Fathers house where there are many dwelling places Iohn 14. 1. It is to returne to our home and countrey after a long painefull and perillous voyage 2. Cor. 5. 6. It is to be vnshackled and deliuered out of a galley or prison to bee with Christ Iesus Philip. 1. 23. It is to goe hence out of a poore beggarly tabernacle 2 Peter 1. 14. It is to be clothed in heauen with glory and immortality 2. Cor. 5. 1. 2. It is to finish our course and our fight to receiue a crowne 2. Timoth. 4. 7. 8. It is to goe to the Nuptialls of the Lambe and his Bride in the Celestiall Ierusalem in the City of God all garnished with gold and precious stones that is adorned with incomprehensible glory and eternall happinesse Apocalips 21. 1. c. It is to liue with Iesus Christ a thousand yeares to wit for euer Apocalips 20. 4. This life and glorious immortality is manifested vnto vs in the Gospel by Christ Iesus who by his appearing hath abolished death 2. Timothie 1. 10. Wherefore then should a wise man feare to goe to his Fathers and would haue a way by himselfe Is it well done not to will and desire to be gathered with the true liuing from so many euills without within aboue belowe behinde before and round about vs After so many battailes so many conflicts skirmishes and wounds especially in the soule to refuse peace to rest out of the short and danger of the weapons teares alarmes vacarmes gurboyles and stirres of the world of our owne heart of the corruption of the wicked and of the powers of Sathan our capitall aduersary O strange case Wee runne after peace and rest and flye from it when it offers it selfe Trauailes and labours weigh vs downe and oppresse vs and we are agaste and abashed to bee ridde of them There is no bed in the world so soft as that where the bodies doe rest when the soules are separated from them notwithstanding not to lie in it we would be contented to bee condemned to goe wooll ward in sackcloth and haire cloth in totters and ragges and to lye on the hard ground or vpon thornes Had we rather dwell with Vipers then with our Father in his heauenly Mansion Those euerlasting Mansions so much to be desired are in lesse account and esteeme with vs then the vncleane and nastie stables of Beastes The earth doth more infinitely please vs then heauen This galley of our life where we tugg both day and night at the oare of ambition auarice cruell lustes debauched pleasures These darke dennes of innumerable sinnes are the resting places that we make much on and wherein we bristle vp our selues and outragiously curse whatsoeuer sacred Philosophie doth propose and set forth vnto vs of the blessed estate of the triumphant Church with her head in heauen What old men are we who grow young in our vices who had rather renounce our sweete Countrie and trott vp and downe in the hideous desertes of the world full of scorpions and Basilisques of horrid ghostes and hob goblins and so many kindes of Deuills then to set one steppe in the right way of repentant faith of charitable hope and patient humilitie Men of wit where is our wit when our bodies are of more price vnto vs then our soules and we are willing to forgoe and loose our armes to saue our sleeues Who preferre a garment before eternall glory a handfull of crownes before most durable treasures a fond idle wicked damnable pleasure before euerlasting ioyes Who still desire to runne on in the way of perdition who fight and striue against nothing but pietie righteousnesse holinesse to conclude who purchase a buryall place for vertue to cause vice to raigne and triumph When will it be that the invitation to the solemne feast of the Sonne of God with his Church will please and be well-come vnto vs When will we prouide our costly rich robes to appeare in this holy assembly Will we still deferre to cleanse our selues from the filth of sinne which makes vs holds downe the head to blush to looke pale and wan to be halfe dead or in a traunce not to dare once to lift vp the eyes of our minde but in hypocrisie and a very strange stupiditie to him which calleth vs to him to the gates of the Pallace whereunto we are so neere Wise old men awaken and rouze vp your selues and more deepely yet consider and meditate vpon the consolations insinuated and inserted in the termes and names which diuine wisedome giueth and ascribeth to death It is demanded seeing Christ Iesus hath abolished death and that by him we are reconciled to God to obtaine eternall life how comes it to passe that we are still subiect to death S. Augustine answereth that heretofore death came and was by sin haled into the world but now death takes away our temporall life to the end we should cease from sinne and that the remembrance of death doe keepe and conteme vs in our dutie So by the vnspeakeable mercie of God the punishment of our sinnes was changed into an armour or shield against sinnes And although that the death of the flesh proceedeth originally from sinne so is it that the good aspect and face of death hath made many excellent Martyrs And although death and all the euils trauailes and turmoyles vexations and sorrowes of this present life proceed from the desert of our sinnes and that after hauing obtained pardon these euills remaine still it is to the end we should haue aduersaries to wrastle against and to exercise vs to make knowne and sensible to vs how strong the power of the Lord is in our weakenes And that so the new man may grow vp and bee fitted and prepared in this world for the world to come looking for the perfect and compleat happinesse of all Gods children Therefore repentant Christians whose sins are pardoned and who accept
At threescore and fiue yeares vntill fourescore or much about that age old men may be fit to be counsellours of estate and directours and gouernours of families After this age vntill their dying day old men are fit for nothing but to sit in a chaire in their chamber to haue their friends seruants and those of their house to visite them with reuerent and courteous salutations to haue their children and grand-children leaping about them making them pastime and sport to be entertained with talke and discourse fitting to their weake capacities And their part and duty is to returne them their blessing and well wishing and to offer vp daily prayers for them and all others wherein they must bee briefe and short expecting and looking euery minute when death will bee so kinde as to take them out of the world There is a kinde of old age ouerhastened ouermuch worne and broken with sore labour ouermuch paines taking watchings and surfettings in times past Those that by this meanes are become old shall yet at times for the most part haue perfect senses and vnderstanding and shall haue their blood moderately hote the luke-warme heate whereof they shall know by skill and cunning to cherish and maintaine But yet their surfeited bodies shal be tormented with sharpe diseases and aches in their bones which by fits at times shall put them to such griping paines and panges in their body that they shall be able no whit at all to helpe themselues and their neighbours for whose good and comfort they ought the more carefully to preserue and the better to see to and to order their life that so they may in peace of conscience yeeld the better account to God Briefly our life may be compared to the light of a Lampe which by little and little goes out as the oyle that maintaines it doth waste and consume or to the Moone which as it oftentimes shines forth and shewes it selfe so is it as often ecclipsed and vnder a cloud But we commonly see the most part of men sweated to death with hote burning feauers pestilences famines warres common diseases and diuers mischances sweepe them out of the world before they come neere by many a dayes iourney to the doore of old age What man would desire to see the fortith part of his age if when hee is come to be able to speake and to bee of some capacity and vnderstanding he should be shewed in a booke all the accidents and mischances which from and after his infancy is or may happen vnto him whereof as Cicero recounteth in his second booke De diuinatione Dicaearchus in times past wrote a large Volume But I suppose hee had great leasure and that all the world could not containe all that might be imagined to fall out in some mens liues in fiftie yeares space If a man fearing God will seriously examine what things haue passed in his owne life and make a Iournall or day booke of them whereby hee may bee brought to repent him of his follies and faults to amend his life to lay hold on the benefits of Iesus Christ to renounce the world and vnfainedly to meditate and thinke vpon a better life hee shall doe a worthy worke And I would gladly counsell all wise old men to stay themselues vpon such meditations while some young foppish and old doting persons spend their time in ridiculous and shamefull sports and delights or which doe by fowle crimes and misdeedes deadly wound their woefull consciences It is recorded by Lactantius in his second booke of Christian Institutions that the old Poets did circle and inclose the life of man within three terminations or periodes ouer which they appointed three fatall Ladies Atropos Lachesis Clocho the daughter of Iupiter and Themis to spin at the thread of mans life vnder which faigned names was couertly vayled and shadowed diuers considerations of our condition in this world in the first middle and last age of our life whereof we purpose not here to moralize or declare the meaning Aristotle in his booke of the world maketh mention that by these three daughters of Iupiter the ancient people of those times would represent time past time present and to come All things by them being tyed to a fatall necessitie which God hath decreed to bee against which the oldest strongest and youngest cannot resist or gainsay The name of Senators is deriued from the Latine word senes which signifies old men who are so styled in honour of their experience prudence and wisedome inseperable companions of such old men who are appointed to haue the superintendency and gouernment ouer others In the gouernment of all Churches there is an Ecclesiasticall Senate or conuocation of Elders who being assisted with the ministers of the word haue their eyes still prying into the manners of men to reforme and reclaime them from euill to good and if they be good to make them better These old men aboue all others ought to take heed that they doe not incurre the ancient reproach and scandall of bis pueri senes which is verified in those who are old in yeares and in their manners and actions shew themselues children But as it is a rare thing to see a yong man so well stayed as an old or to doe things so well and wisely as an antienter body so is it a lamentable thing to see old men to mocke make moes one at an other and to make a laughing stocke of those who are as old as themselues or to doe the vttermost they can to disgrace them onely to please and curry-fauour with young men Common faults in these dayes which the Ancient of dayes will redresse when it pleaseth him Let vs close vp this Section with a sentence of a Romane Stoicke who sayth That as he maketh not a long voyage who is tossed to and fro at sea with stormy and tempestuous windes and doth not proceed so ought we not to account that man to haue liued long who hath not ordered his life to make a happy end CHAP. V. The spring-head of old age and the cause or occasions of it MAny of the Heathen people haue shewed themselues rash vnaduised and arrogantly minded who haue taken vpon them boldly to accuse nature calling her an enuious and spitefull step-mother which hath been willing and giuen her consent that man who is worthy of very long life should remaine so short a time in the world and which is more that he should be compassed about and pressed to death with millions of euills Others haue imagined that man was purposely placed in the world to bee punished for his sinnes There were many of them that maintained that life was a scourge and plague to man and made great complaints against nature that shee had cast him into the middest of a raging and stormy sea ouerslowing with miseries These and the like discoursers haue resembled those who thinke the worse of good wines because of the lees in the bottome of
So likewise is it requisite that thou being emptied and stripped of the world and the concupiscences and lustes thereof shouldest be wholly changed and deuoted to further and aduance the glory of God Whereupon the Apostle said That our old man is crucified that the body of sinne may be destroyed Our Lord hauing beene nayled to his crosse is there-dead and wee his members ought to die to the world and to our selues in such sort that as those which are dead we should make no more reckoning of the things of the world should be without sense or feeling of them and should haue neither synewe nor veyne stretching or tending that way To this purpose S. Paul said to the Colossians you are dead and your life is hidd in Christ Furthermore we must also be buried with the same Sauiour He that is dead hath no more care of the world yet before he be buryed the world hath care to winde him vp in a sheete to Coffyn him then to carry him to his graue where being interred all societie and dealing one with another is at an end In this sort many who thinke themselues to be dead to the world pretending and making semblance to haue renounced it are not yet buryed because the world makes great account of them doth reuerence and worship them But it behooueth vs to be dead and buryed to the world in such sorte as we haue as small accompt and esteeme of it as of a stinking carrion and that it esteeme so of vs. For it is an ill signe when the children of this world speake well of vs. It is then a thing requisite and necessary that we be buryed with Iesus Christ by Baptisme into his death And it is fit also that we descend as our head into hell that is that we haue a right knowledge and a liuely feeling of our sinnes which is done when wee feele in our hearts the loue of God our Father in Iesus Christ crucified For being convicted to haue offended him we must descend to confesse and earnestly to decest and abhorre our pride ignorance infidelitie malice obstinacie and other vices Seeing then that these pollutions and defilements haue so much and so greatly displeased God that to purge them out of the world he hath deliuered his owne sonne to death we are brought to this point in some sorte to know our misery and how much we our selues doe displease God Moreouer as the Sauiour is risen againe so his members ought to rise againe in newnesse of life in such sort that afterwardes they haue no motion or inclination whatsoeuer but to glorifie God walking as persons whose conuersation is alreadie in heauen Christ is risen againe therefore his members ought to rise againe not onely at the last day but hourely and continually in newnesse of life so that thence forward they haue no motion or disposition whatsoeuer but to glorifie God Christ is risen immortall for that hauing triumphed ouer death death hath no more dominion ouer him Thereupon S. Peter sayth to Christians seeing our Sauiour hath suffred for vs in the flesh it is reason that we be armed and resolued in mind that he which hath suffred in the flesh hath ceased from sinne willing and ready to say that Christ the head pledge and suretie for all Gods children comming to die consequently to satisfie fully and wholly the Iustice of God for them hath clearely discharged the debt for all his members who are obliged to him vnlesse they would crucifie him againe and hold the precious bloud of the euerlasting couenant for a prophane thing to cease and giue ouer to sinne For being dead to sinne buryed to the world risen againe to God they ought to sinne no more nor to die in sinne much lesse to remaine dead therein Sinne ought no more to raigne nor haue dominion in them they ought no longer to obey their euill lustes but to curbe and restraine them by the spirit which doth quicken guide and gouerne them Our Lord is ascended vp into heauen In like sort if we be liuing members of his mysticall body we ought zealously and with all our affections to be elevated and raised vp vnto God truely to say with S. Paul that our conuersation is in heauen The same S. Paul sayd to the Colossians Chapter 3. 1. If you be risen againe with Christ seeke the thinges which are aboue that is heauenly and diuine not earthly and sensuall Now as this good Sauiour soone after his ascension into heauen for a testimony of his infinite glory in that he is set at the right hand of God the Father Almightie sent his holy spirit in a visible forme vpon his twelue disciples So we likewise after we are raised vp to God shall feele our selues filled with this spirit and with feruent charitie which will then appeare when wee shall illuminate kindle and inflame our neighbours in the loue of God not onely with our wordes but especially with our doings and deedes by the good examples of a blamelesse life Iesus Christ ought to come to judge the quicke and the dead And if we be his members a liuely fayth will make vs to feele the sweetnesse of these wordes of our Sauiour Come yee blessed of my Father possesse the inheritance prepared for you before the foundation of the world Let vs adde that as the judge of all shall be judged of none so shall it be with all his true members in the great and last day And who should judge them seeing the Father iustifieth them in his son and by the mouth of his sonne pronounceth them just blessed and heires of the kingdome of heauen Wherefore Christ Iesus denounceth that he which heareth his word and beleeueth in him hath eternall life and shall not come to condemnation that is shall not be judged but is passed from death to life Ioh. 5. 24. This needes no further exposition And it were to blaspheme whosoeuer would call into question the certaintie of our saluation by Iesus Christ alone who is dead for our sinnes risen againe for our iustification that we might be the righteousnesse of God in him Let vs say further with S. Paul 1 Cor. 6. 2. 3. Know yee not that the Saints shall judge the world Know yee not that wee shall judge the Angells But as after the last judgement Christ Iesus shall remaine in heauen in incomprehensible glorie so true Christians already risen againe by faith and sitting together in the heauenly habitations with their head hauing their conuersation in heauen shall there appeare and be found all perfect entire in their bodies and soules with their Sauiour who in raising them vp againe shall change their vile and contemptible bodies so as they shall bee made conformable to his glorious bodie according to the power and efficacie whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe If wise old men doe in a quiet and sober moode meditate and consider these thinges euery one of them hanging
yet is so heedlesse that death doth surprize him hee suddenly falleth into griefes frightes dispaires horrors for not hauing in his life kept reckoning of those things which hee ought maturely and betimes to consider of Wee adde that this is wholly necessary by somuch the more as we are to render our account before the in euitable throne of the eternall Father of that great family which must appeare before him Verily the meditation of death is not irksome anxious perplexing nor ought we to deferre it from one yeare or age to another according to the sottish opinion of the vulgar But cleane contrary to thinke that nothing doth safeguard or assure vs so much in the middest of aduersities and dangers as such meditation It is that which makes vs sober in prosperitie prest ready and prepared in all euents Also as Saint Cyprian sayd to the people of Thibara wee weare not enrolled by Baptisme among Christian Souldiers to thinke that we ought to doe nothing else in the world then there to seeke and hunt after our pleasures and ease turning our backes to conflictes woundes death Saint Augustine writeth in the fifth Chapter of his thirteenth Booke De Ciuitate Dei That faith would vtterly bee weakened if presently after our Baptisme we should become immortall and should be crowned before we had fought 2. Let vs see in the second place what death is how many kindes there are and how it ought to bee feared and contemned Life and death according to Aristotle are common accidents to all liuing creatures for that the reason of originall and corruptible matter doth so beare mainetaine and require it Touching the condition of the first man and how hee had euer liued continuing in his obedience to God wee haue formerly spoken of it in the discourse of the tree of life Furthermore as the condition of man created after Gods image who kindly receiued him into his alliance was excellent By so much the more miserable dreadfull and terrible is the death into which hee fell after his reuolt then the death of other liuing creatures whose soule dyeth with the body and who after this annihilation feare no torment whatsoeuer But wee speake heere of the death of man which God caused not for hee also taketh no pleasure in the death of any but rather in the conuersion good and saluation of vs all This doth not impugne but that God is a iust Iudge punishing sinnes and suffering no misdeedes and transgressions vnpunished but bringing all things to their endes by miraculous meanes wherein his wisedome doth manifestly appeare although very often the instruments which hee vseth to execute his iust iudgements may haue foule crimes and grosse faults In this sence it is sayd That God woundeth killeth whetteth his sword that he bringeth to ruine that hee casteth the body and soule into hell and that hee sendeth the wicked into euerlasting fire So then God hath not made death but death is crept and entred into the world thorough the diuells enuy and malice and mans disobedience Saint Augustine in a certaine place sayth That if God had made death hee would not with teares haue bewayled dead Lazarus whom therefore hee raysed and restored to life that the diuell might see that it is but lost labour with such rage and fury to pursue the children of God to take them out of the world forasmuch as those whom we deeme vtterly lost and destroyed doe liue vnto God Touching their errour who held that Adam should haue dyed though he had not sinned Saint Augustine answereth That all Christians are to hold this point for firme and vndoubted that Adam and Eue were created such that if they had reiected the counsell of the seducer who spake by the Serpent continuing in the free liberty wherein they were they had enioyed eternall life and not dyed But making no reckoning of obeying God their Lord and abusing their free will prone and ready to yeeld to the suggestions of Sathan and their owne lustes and concupiscences so as they very soone felt the effect of the threatning denounced to them both In that day that thou shalt cate of the forbidden fruit thou shalt die the death Before his fall the first man was mortall as touching the condition of his body immortall by the good pleasure of his Creator before sinne hee could not dye But by the redemption of Christ Iesus the elect of God shall obtaine in the life eternall euen the same priuiledge that the holy Angells not to be able to fall from the state of grace nor to dye And as touching this point that our father Adam dyed not so soone as he had obeyed the voyce of Eue it doth derogate nothing from the truth of the sentence pronounced against him nor from the haynousnesse of his sinne For the sence and meaning of the threatning Thou shalt dye the death is as if God sayd certainely thou shalt be subiect to the first death which is a separation of the soule from the body and to the second death a fearefull punishment forasmuch as it is an euerlasting separation from God from the light of heauen from ioy vnspeakeable from the life which is blessed for euer If then it be demaunded how can it bee that Adam liued after his reuolt and falling away Gregorie the great doth sufficiently to the purpose make answere in his 145. Epistle of his fifth Booke that death in two kindes steps in and seizeth vpon vs eyther by the priuation and defection of life or by the quality of life In regard of the first kinde of death Adam dyed not so soone but rather as touching the second For presently after his disobedience being depriued of happinesse of the state of innocency of contentment of minde of a strong sound constitution of body hee felt himselfe couered with shame horrors sorrow with sundry miseries knew himselfe to be aliue in paine vnder the curse of his Soueraigne who was created by Gods fauour to liue in an excellent estate and perpetuall quiet and tranquility of minde Some thinke that wee meddle and goe too farre to say that man transgressing in time was pronounced guilty of temporall and eternall death The Iewes bewitched with the like errour doe dreame that they haue no need of a Messias to abolish and take away sinne and to deliuer from eternall death This errour did grow from the ignorance of the definition of sinne as also of the soueraigne and infinite Maiestie of God whom man had offended by his transgression For sin being a reuolt and falling away from God to ioyne and cleaue to the diuell and a transgression of the holy law in dispite of God man sinning could not escape eternall perdition and punishment but by the grace of his Redeemer as by obedience hee had kept his Creators fauour for euer Euen so then as it is not iniustice as Saint Augustine sayth in the 11. Booke De Ciuitate Dei Chap 11. If Magistrates capitally punishing many haynous
crimes and offences doe banish for euer the malefactors from humane society Who shall dare to say that it is iniquity in God the Lord of the permanent and durable City if he eternally banish out of his kingdome of glory his sworne enemies the wicked who continually offend him And the polluted prophane vniust reprobates who plot and conspire against God and their neighbours remaine for euer vnder the wrath and curse of the Lord For iustification of all consider onely the corruption of humane nature and what the sonnes of Adam are in themselues For howsoeuer the beleefe touching the immortality of mans soule be orthodox and most true yet may it fitly bee sayd that the soule is subiect to a certaine kind of death Wee call it immortall because it ceaseth not to liue and in some sort to haue sence and feeling The body is mortall because it may bee depriued of life which consistes in the residence of the soule in it from whence floweth that which doth maintaine it not liuing of it selfe but by the soule which doth gouerne and mooue it But the death of the soule is when God doth abandon it and depriue it of his grace And wee say that man is vtterly dead when the soule is quite gone out of the body and that God doth abandon the soule finally adiudged to euerlasting torments S. Augustine will that the name of death bee deriued from the venomous morsure or sting of the infernall serpent the diuel then by him brought into the world when hee first bit and stung out first mother Eue leauing fast sticking in vs the sting of sinne which the Apostle calleth the sting of death This sting being blunted and taken away death ceaseth mortally to sting vs. When S. Ambrose writeth in his Treatise of the benefit of death Chap. 1. 2. that death hurteth not the soule consequently is not euill seeing that nothing but sinne hurteth the soule it is to bee vnderstood of the bodily death in respect of Gods children Therefore hee maketh a â—hree-fold distinction of death the one good the other euill the third good or euill The good is the mysticall death when a man dyeth to sinne and liueth to God whereof the Apostle speaketh That we are buried with Christ Iesus into his death by Baptisme The euill is the death of sinne whereof it is written Then soule that sinneth shall dye And the third is the end of our race and calling in this world that is the separation of the soule from the body of good men accounted good of wicked men euill Although death doth vnshackle and set all persons at liberty very few yet are to bee found which take pleasure therein But this proceedeth not from any offence that is in death that is in the separatiof the soule from the body but from the infirmity of mortall men who suffering themselues to goe on in their carnall pleasures and delights of this life doe tremble and feare to see themselues at the end of their race in the earth louing long life there to liue euilly that is there to dye hourely O how sweet is the good death to wise old men to men and women who are the seruants of God who watch who pray who cry to their Lord in repentance in faith and charity who manfully fight against all temptations And how bitter is the euill death to those euill soules vnbeleeuers stiffe necked ones hypocrites who wrap themselues in their sinnes who haue no pleasure hope nor comfort but in this world These things being so it is easie to shew how death is to be feared or not Certainely the death of sinners is euill who not content to be borne in sinne liue still in all manner of iniquities But the death of the Saints is precious being the end of their labours and toyles the conseruation and custos of their victory the doore of life and the entrance into an assured perfect glorious rest Those are to bee bewayled in their death who haue hell for their prison But it beseemes vs to reioyce and bee glad at their departure whom God doth bid welcome into his heauenly Palace where they magnifie him for euer If any one aske vs sayth Lactantius in the third Booke of his Christian Institutions whether death be good or euill wee will answere that the qualitie thereof doth consist in the consideration of life in it selfe Death in it selfe cannot bee sayd to bee good pleasing and to be desired on the contrary it is the destruction of nature and the reward of sinne But wee must esteeme it a thing worthy great prayse pleasing and full of grace and delight when wee dye ioyfully in the true knowledge of Christ Iesus to goe out of the prison of this mortall body out of this valley of miseries out of this desart where we are exiled persons to returne to our Father our countrey and heauenly city He dyeth well who with the Apostle sayth in sincerity of conscience all my desire is to depart hence and to bee with Christ Iesus Particularly as touching my selfe I haue fought the good fight I haue finished my course I haue kept the faith also the crowne of righteousnesse is layd vp and reserued for mee which the Lord the iust Iudge shall in that day giue vnto me not to me onely but to those who loue his appearing Againe death and the remembrance and apprehension of it is wonderfull irkesome and bitter to a man which trusteth in his riches liuing in all ease in full strength of body and prosperity Here we demand what we are to judge of the death of those who are cruelly quartered and dismembred by hangmen or by fierce and wilde beastes are swallowed vp in the belly of fishes are stifled with a suddaine apoplexie are bereaued of wit sense and reason by some hot burning feaver or who die franticke and madd As for those who are put to cruell death for the name of Christ Iesus the answere is that their death cannot bee tearmed and accompted but deare and precious in the sight of the Lord and of all his Church For if the heathen Philosophers haue had some reason to say that a vertuous man leaues not to be happie though he bee put to a violent death why should we not say the same of the true vertuous to wit the holy Martyrs seeing we haue so certaine testimonies and so many famous examples of their faith charitie patience and constancie in death The Epistle to the Hebrewes is herein expresse for it conteyneth the heroicall trophies of faith also the opprobries disgracefull reuilings and cruell torments of the invincicible Champions of Christ Iesus But I pray you what torments can dismay and terrifie him which glorieth in the crosse of Christ Iesus among all others a shamefull and terrible torment and death Turtullian obserueth in his Apologetico that in his tyme Christians were called Sarmentitij Semissij bavinistes and poore snakes because they were bound to a stake which
cost but six Liards three halfe pence or thereabouts and there were burned with faggotts of reedes or brush wood which were set round about them Behold sayth he our equipage our munition and armour of victorie this is out triumphall Chariot Eusebius writeth in the fiftie booke of his Historie of a holy martyr burned aliue with certaine plates of iron made red hot and set to his naked bodie notwithstanding which tormentes hee made a constant profession of the Christian faith even to the last gaspe Eusebius addeth that this sheweth that nothing is terrible to him which feeles that God loueth him and that whosoeuer seekes the glory of Christ Iesus is guarded and saued harmelesse from euery painefull and terrible accident and casuall event As for the vncouth and strange diseases and kindes of hideous death whereunto to mans life is exposed as they are to be seene in the horrible convulsions of Epilepsies falling sicknesses in the violent fittes of Apoplexies in cruell and hot burning feavers these are pittifull cases to behold and incident to our fraile and sinnefull nature But they are also certaine monitors of a better life seeing that our health and happinesse consisteth not in a sound temperature of humours but in this that our names are written in heauen and that wee haue bin dedicated to Iesus Christ For the Lord God who knoweth our heartes who in his secret judgement exerciseth some more then others regardes and considers what he hath done for vs and what the holy Ghost who comforteth vs in such accidents and cases doth for vs by vnspeakeable groanings not the intemperature of our bodies nor the effectes of it For this is an assured thing that there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Iesus and that nothing is able to seperate vs from the loue which the father of heauen beares vs for his sonnes sake yea that all things doe helpe together for the good of those whom according to his determinate counsell he hath called to the participation of his grace Therefore all Christians ought to remaine vndoubted and resolued in this poynt that there is no kinde of maladie torment or death which doth hurt Gods elect that there is no death happie ioyful peaceable to the wicked vnbeleeuers and miscreants whom God often times for a while doth vphold in this world to the end more heauily to punish them after hee hath dragged and haled them out of the earth Hereupon it will be demanded wherefore then so many great personages members of the Church of God and Christ Iesus himselfe the head thereof did feare death and prayed to be guarded and secured from it I answere that there was something of singular note in our Lord and which must be differenced and distinguished from others In that he not onely bore and felt a common death or seperation of the soule from the bodie but also vnder-went and sustayned the wrath of God and all the torments and agonies that may be imagined without sinne notwithstanding because hee was an hostage and pledge for vs Neuerthelesse in such sort that he did not yeeld nor shrinke vnder the burthen nor murmured a whit against God but voluntarily offred himselfe in sacrifice stood not demurring and shifting of death with natures delayes wholly submitted himselfe to the will of God his Father as it was foretold and figured by Dauid in the fortieth Psalme Here am I O God that I may doe thy will Behold as touching the head of the Church who had had no subiect of combat and victorie if he had not felt the tormentes and terrors of death without sinne or any offence and fault on his part In respect then we are his members let vs keepe and obserue this rule That wee cannot commend euery refusal or euery desire of death nor discommend all contempt of death Some wish death not so much for any desire they haue of a better life as for the despite and dislike they conceiue against their abode and stay in the world where they see miseries which their weake mindes cannot brooke and endure and which giue terrible shockes and assaults to the most resolued and stoutest hearts The Israelites wanting bread in the wildernesse wished death as also when newes was brought them that the Cananites were men of a very tall stature Iob in the depth of his panges and griefes desired to die as also the Prophet Eliah did during his escape in the Desert On the contrary Dauid Ezechias and other great personages very much feared death and instantly besought the Lord to guard and saue them from it But this was for a speciall consideration to wit in as much as they being afraide of the threatninges and judgements of God the approach of death appeared more terrible vnto them or because they wished to continue longer to aduance Gods glory and to yeeld their helpe and seruice to the edification of the Church Againe the same personages banished all feare from them looking vpon death according as now it is made vnto vs by the grace of God the rest from our labours the passage to a better life In this sense the Patriarch Iob spake in the 19. Chapter I know that my redeemer liueth and that I shall rise againe at the last day that I shall be againe cloathed with my skin and shall see the Lord in my flesh So Dauid did sing in the 16. Psalme For this cause my heart is glad my tongue reioyceth Moreouer my flesh resteth in assurance for thou wilt not leaue my soule in the graue And in the 23. Psalme Though I should walke in the shadow of death I will feare no euill because thou art with me CHAP. XVIII The sequele of the poynts propounded in the former Section concerning the resolutions and consolations against Death IF there be any men bound to meditate ordinarily vpon death to be armed with remedies against the alarumes of it to procure that their children friends and families doe liue as prest and readie to die wise old men are especially they whose true Philosophie is called the Meditation of death To draw them so much the more easily vnto it we will remember to euery one of them some sayings of wise Pagans and Heathens which will cause vs to say to all persons who vaunt themselues of the name of Christians At least doe not afflict and torment your selues more with the death of the your selues and yours then the silly Heathens who had no hope who so manfully contemned the approches of death who with so great constancie haue embraced it and striuen against it I speake thus considering the cowardize of some Christians who haue nothing so much in their mouthes and take so little to heart as death S. Ierome in the Epistle to Heliodorus shewing how we ought to be more resolute against the assaults of death and all accidents and casualties of humaine life then Infidells were maketh mention of Xerxes that mightie Monarch who ouerthrew mountaines and paved
this pardon by the gift and hand of a liuely faith doe wrastle against the image of death against a bruised Serpent a wourried torne Lyon against a stinglesse Waspe against a vanquished enemie Chrysostome censureth in good manner those wretches who feare death and feare not sinne wherein they are insnared and wrapped nor the vnquenchable fire of hell which gapes for them Thus sayth he as children are wayward and wrangle if their mothers come neere them with maskes on their faces but when a lighted Candle is brought neere vnto them they readily thrust their handes in it and are burned So those men feare death who know not what it is to liue Death snatcheth away a miserable and short life to make vs to enter into an eternall and perpetuall blessed life Death doth seperate vs from the heapes of Iewells the robes moueables coffers crammed with gold and siluer the sundrie immoueables which we must leaue But in heaven we haue vnseperable riches with the Angels death extrudes and thrustes vs out of the earth but to bring vs into paradize death kills the bodie but it shall rise againe to die no more but be conformable to the glorified bodie of Christ Iesus If any man fight with his owne shadow he hurtes no bodie so death doth but beate the ayre in bickering and jousting against the just It hath beene Gods will and pleasure so sayth Chrysostome that this present life should be painefull and miserable to the end that being buffetted on all sides with so many and manifold miseries we should eagerly aspire to the happinesses to come But seeing we are thus farre ill aduised to wallow and idle it so willingly in this present life where so many disasters and miseries doe surround and encompasse vs how would it be with vs if there were nothing but ioy peace and rest here Our most mercifull heauenly Father doth so mitigate and temper the afflictions of this life that as a Lute-player doth not winde vp too high his Lute strings for feare to breake them nor slacken them too much that so their sweete harmonie tunablenesse may be more distinctly perceiued So doth the wise maister of our life not leauing vs in continuall prosperitie nor too much oppressed He is faithfull who will not suffer vs to be tempted beyond and aboue our strength but will giue a good issue to our temptations and tryalls to the end we should be able to beare them We see men of warre desirous of honour and to attaine to some rancke and degree manfully to expose themselues to a thousand dangers The couetous Marchant to runne vpon all hazards and risques for a handfull of yellow earth The voluptuous person to disdaine and set light by infinite reprochfull and woefull dangers to satisfie his passions and humours And you wise old men will you slumber and sleepe in a corner will you still sit with your armes and legges a crosse not rouzing lifting vp your selues to the contemplation and diligent seeking after so many happinesses prepared for them which loue God Doe you feare death you which in the middest of the shadowe of death haue standing at your ell-bow the Prince and Author of life If you beare in your hearts that quickning spirit which raised vp Iesus Christ from the dead whence is it that you feare death Haue you blotted out of your remembrance him who hath the wordes of eternall life who is the way the truth the resurrection the life who dyed for our sinne and is risen againe for our iustification But soyle not this gracious remembrance with the myre and mudd of sordid and obscene pleasures Let not the perswasions of the vncleane and filthie flesh stoppe and hinder the motions of the spirit illuminated by sacred Philosophie Let the repetitions of his most sweete most certaine and most holy promises bee potent and powerfull in your hearts who was willing to participate of our flesh and bloud that in the same nature foyled by Sathan our Sauiour hath abolished it by his death as by a most sufficient ransome he which conquered death to wit the Deuill Giue me leaue to reforme and rectifie you by recitall of the excellent promises following of the Lord. Verely I say vnto you that whosoeuer heareth my word and beleeueth in him which sent mee hath eternall life and shall not come to condemnation but is passed from death to life Iohn 5. 24. This is the will of him which sent me that whosoeuer beholdeth the sonne and beleeueth in him hath eternall life and for this cause I will raise him vp againe at the last day Such perspection and contemplation of faith is not as prophane persons chatter and mutter a vaine imagination but is coupled and covnited with his effect and with the true apprehension and laying hold of Iesus Christ and his benefites This great Sauiour hath so often times and againe and againe recommended it and for confirmation of it hath prepared his holy Table to which we draw neere there to receiue the bread of life ordayned to the nourishment of our soules to eternall life not for our bellies to receiue which bread we hold vp the hands of faith to heauen and beleeuing in him doe eate it That bread I say which is giuen to the children of the house not to reprobates who sometimes eate the bread of the Lord but not the bread of life which is the Lord. He which is not reconciled to Christ Iesus eateth not his flesh and drinketh not his bloud although euery day hee receiue but to his condemnation the Sacrament or the holy signes of so excellent a thing But he which confirmes and establisheth vs in Christ and who hath annoynted vs is God who also hath sealed and giuen vnto vs the earnest of his spirit in our hearts It is this holy spirit of promise wherewith we haue beene sealed yea for the day of redemption without which spirit the visible signes in the Sacramentes are receiued to condemnation by which spirit faith taught by the word confirmed by the signes or seales of the righteousnesse of the same faith takes daily new growthes and growinges and is manifested by holy workes of which the summe and totall is that we liue and die to the Lord who is dead and risen againe to haue dominion as well over the liuing as the dead to gouerne and guide vs as the sheepe of his pasture and finally to draw vs out of the hideous deserts of this worldly life no life in deed to gather vs to himselfe his heauenly sheep folde If God be on our side who shall be against vs Who shall bee able to make vs afraide and dismay vs Iesus Christ who is dead is risen againe it is he who now being set at the right hand of God maketh request for vs. Let vs adde some worthie sayinges of S. Cyprian in his excellent Treatise of death Simeon the iust reioycing to hold in his armes the little babe Iesus whom he had so
the contemplation of God in this present life is the sound food and solid substance of wise old men But let vs grow old in such sort that wee may make a good end that it be not reproached vnto vs in Gods presence that the last yeares of our life haue beene the worst of all But let vs striue to partake of that singular benediction contained in the end of the Song of the wise Debora in the fifth Chapter of the Historie of the Iudges That those who loue God shall bee as the Sunne going foorth in his strength It is not to decline but to rise euen to midday Our midday is to continue such neuer to declyne Not onely old age but the world also is in a decline Let vs then lift vp our eyes to the East aboue let vs behold the Sonne of righteousnesse let vs turne our faces that way least we perish with the world When we shall be departed hence sayth Saint Cyprian against Demetrius there will be no more time to repent satisfaction shall haue no more effect In this world wee lose or saue life Let no man then bee hindred by his sinnes or by the yeares of his life to come to the saluation which is offered vnto him There is no repentance too late to him that remaines yet in the world The gate to obtaine pardon of God is open those which seeke and follow the truth close shall without difficulty approach to it Although you bee ready to topple into your graue and haue not much longer to liue if you pray the onely true God to pardon your sinnes confessing them vnto him and calling vpon him in faith vnfainedly who hath manifested himselfe vnto you your request shall bee granted his mercie shall giue you grace to saluation and you shall passe from death to eternall life Christ affoordeth vs part of such grace hee giueth vs that excellent present of his mercy hauing slaine and put death to death for vs by the Trophie of his Crosse redeeming whosoeuer beleeueth in him by the price of his blood reconciling man to God quickening him that is dead by a heauenly regeneration If it bee possible let vs follow after this Sauiour let vs bee taken and recognized for his Souldiers let vs fight vnder his banner It is hee which openeth vnto vs the passage to life which doth bring and set vs vp againe in the possession of Paradise which doth guide vs to the Kingdome of heauen wee shall liue altogether with him who hath made vs the children of God and being restored by his precious blood we shall enioy ioy for euer in his presence We shall be glorified with our head blessed in God the Father haue our fill of gladnesse and euerlasting happinesse in his presence whom wee shall thanke without ceasing And truely whosoeuer acknowledging his miseries past hath beene made assured of immortall life it cannot bee but hee will bee alwayes ioyfull and render continuall thankes to God These are the sayings of S. Cyprian the meditation of which we doe recommend to the wise Vieillard and for to excite and stir him vp yet the more thereunto wee doe present vnto him these two Prayers following O Lord my God who hast giuen to man life vpon condition to bee a while on the earth and then to goe thence by death to the end to admonish mee that there is a better life heauenly and eternall Grant mee thy grace I beseech thee that as alwayes I ought to thinke by all meanes to liue holily so now I may endeuour to depart happily out of this world Let the hope to behold speedily and out of hand thy glory remooue from mee the feare of death that I may waite in ioy for that day wherein that approaching and euerlasting libertie shall vnlose mee from the chaynes of my sinnes which doe so mightily ouerload mee Let this hope vphold mee so that I may make no reckoning of any transitory thing and let humane affections bee so mortified in my frayle members that I may not desire to beginne againe or to continue my course but to bee soone at an end Grant that I may not bee carefull for this wretched body and this decayed building but so much onely as may bee fit for this short life which remaines for mee to vse Especially fortifie my minde against the many impostures and guiles of Sathan which doe compasse mee about on euery side I am ashamed that I am become a childe againe and worse then a young man who doth forge yeares to himselfe and doth dreame of immortalities in the shadow of death Suffer not this fond confidence of lingering still in the earth insensibly to steale away my life from mee so as without thinking on it and too late I shall finde my selfe at the end of it surprised and suddenly taken desperate and past hope wherevpon would follow a vaine complaint to haue wretchedly cast away thy graces to see my selfe shackled with an vnsupportable chaine and from which I feare to bee loosed My life is betweene my lips why then should I pant and sigh after transitory thinges What haue I any more to doe with the profits and commodities of this life My weakenesses doe bidd mee enough to turne my backe to all infamous lendnesse and licenciousnesse and O my God though I should be stronger then I am should it bee to offend thee My sight is dimme and decayes my hearing is dull and deaffed should I reuiue these dead senses with the remembrance of old pleasures and new also O let mee not with new crimes and sinnes increase and adde to mine iniquities past And if thy fauour hath vpheld mee in my young age oh let mee not abuse it in old age or vilely sinke into the bottomlesse gulfe of death notwithstanding so many graces of thine for which I am bounden and indebted to thine infinite goodnesse and am to make account before thy iudgement seate Thy holy Angels shall they mourne euer mee Thy Spirit shall it be made heauy in beholding mee My conscience shall it accuse mee to bee hypocriticall and malicious Make this old age O Lord free from stupiditie and sottishnesse from pollution from weakenesse talkatiuenesse from arrogancie bragging doating from too much niggardship and from vnnecessarie vaine odious expences make me become charitable honest sober temperate alwaies mindfull of my neere departure and desirous of that immortalitie which I hope for In fine let my old age haue nothing that I may feare nothing that my friends and enemies may lament or condemne Let it be beloued and welcome vnto mee in that it will make mee shorly to returne into thy heauenly Pallace where thou shalt wipe away the teares from mine eyes where I shall see my selfe deliuered from all sinnes filled with thy grace and closed about with blissefull glory in the holy company who there continually magnifie thee O my God deliuer mee from these so many cares and miseries which doe presseme downe to the end
that at the houre of my departure I may follow thee with courage Let this be my meditation continually Let me be released from the vaine imployments and businesses of this world not setting my selfe to any thing but that which directly concernes my calling and behauing my selfe in such sort that both those which dwell neere me and those which are farre and remote from mee may from my behauiours and carriage take example of pietie iust dealing and holy manners Let mee bee an enemie to Atheisme and superstition and sincerely addicted to thy seruice according to the rules of thy word Graunt me I beseech thee this grace that I may carefully meditate on whatsoeuer I haue vnderstood or perceiued of thy wisedome power and mercie in the wayes of my life That I may euery day learne that whereof to be ignorant it would be both shamefull vnto me and dangerous Aboue all roote out of my heart all wicked guile and craft and graunt me the grace to walke before thee in a sincere and honest heart hating euill in my selfe more then in an other to bee a louer of plaine dealing of peace of equitie of meekenesse of puritie of innocencie of life Let these be the ornaments of mine age and let thy spirit so direct comfort and strengthen me that I may not be too much deiected though I become deafe blind weake lame Onely let me haue strength left and remaining to prayse and call vpon thee to the last gaspe so as the weakenesses and decayes of my bodie may be borne vp by the supply of thy graces in my soule which desires not to be and remaine in this prison but to blesse and prayse thee Suffer me not to conceite still on moneths and yeares but that at euery steppe and moment of tyme I may remember my departure out of this present life that my whole thought may be that I must once pay this debt least being suddainely taken I cast away my soule When then the appoynted tyme shall come graunt I beseech thee that I may ioyfully depart and with fervent desire lift vp my selfe to thee Let thy goodnesse O Lord my God cause me to imploy my last dayes to the studie and meditation hereof not fearing to leaue and resigne this life whereby I shall no more offend thee but shall glorifie thee continually The apprehension of so happie a day which shall be the birth day of my eternall and vnspeakeable blessed being let it make mee to reioyce before thee my Lord my God my heauenly Father thorough Iesus Christ thy sonne my redeemer Amen O Eternall God and almightie heauenly Father and mercifull which hast beene my hope from the first day of my life and during all the course of the same and vntill this great age hast by infinite wayes caused me to feele thy prouidence care and protection thou art he to whom I haue recourse as to my God my glorie my saluation My legges are feeble but I lift vp my selfe vpon the winges of my thoughts even vnto thee who art my strength in infirmitie my light in so great darknesse of my vnderstanding my life in death which compasseth me about beseeching thee to be pleased to forget the sinnes of my youth and to haue no more remembrance of my transgressions but remember thy faithfull promises to looke vpon the woundes and suffrings of thy sonne my pledge and Sauiour for whose loue be pleased to pardon mine iniquities Suffer mee not O my God for euer to cast thee off and forsake thee Be pleased to annoynt the eyes of my soule with the salue of thy spirit that I may continually behold thee and that acknowledging my selfe a poore way-faring man and a stranger in this world as all my fathers were I may earnestly aspire to thee and to the countrie where the blessed are and where thou hast prepared a place for all thine elect Graunt that I may see my selfe deliuered out of the waues and stormes of the dangerous Sea of this world O Lord teach mee to know mine end and the number of my dayes to the end that seeing that the flourishing state of this humaine life hath no abiding but is compassed with sorrowes and oppressed with labours and paines and then the more dangerous when we least feele them I may giue my selfe to the studie and exercise of that wisedome which doth teach me to renounce the world and my selfe and to meditate vpon the heauenly happinesse of thy kingdome to the end that my heart may be there where my treasure is the head and spouse of the Church and where thou hast prepared for them which loue thee incomprehensible joyes through IESVS CHRIST c. FINIS Errata PAge 5. Line 21. for be reade begun p. 12. l. 14. for from currant r. or currant p. 17. l. 16. for middest was r. nuddest whereof was l. 1. for and that r. but that l. 29. for sight r. scite p. 18. l. 12. for followeth r. floweth l. 23. for made r was p. 19 l. 21. for of dayes r. of our dayes p. 22. Chap. 4. l. 1. for fearefulnesse r. fearfull fall l. 7. for respectacle r. receptacle l. 22. for age a r. age is a p. 23. l. 13. for downe r. done l. 15. for crimes r. ruines p. 24. l. 12. for lineaments r. ligaments p. 27. l. 20. for spin at r spin out p. 30. l. 3. for a wonder r. no wonder p. 31 l. 5. for if this life r. of his life p. 36 l. 27. for to be proclaime r. to proclaime p. 10. l. 17. for porportiall r. proportionall p. 55. l. 3. for wh r. who p. 58. l. 23. for effect r affect p. 99. l. 20. for youyg r. young p. 107. l. 16. themselues r. themselues p. 120. l. 9. for wit-r witnes The benefit of death The miserable condition of life Physitians masters of their strength and wealth The time to doe good is in this world but men cannot finde it The common felicities of old age Delightfull good recreations are as fit for young persons as labour Old mens actions
The sequele of the points propounded in the former Section concerning the resolutions and consolations against death Page 160. Chapter 19. Of the resurrection of the bodies and of the immortalitie of mens soules Page 180. Chapter 20. The conclusion of the Worke with a serious exhortation to old and young Also two Prayers for wise old men Page 196. Ay mee I lacke but life to make my will If thou hadst life it would be vnmade still Il y a esperance on vn bien faict Le plustost est le meilleur Hee that to doe nor good nor harme hath no deuotion Differs not from a Picture but in motion Dum Scribo Morior THE WISE VIEILLARD OR OLD MAN CHAP. 1. Of long life and the desire men haue to liue long in the world WE labour and essay in this Discourse that the aged person may haue his thoughts and affections somewhat more stayed and setled then those of younger yeares to the end to make him truely wise by expecting and longing vntill hee may bee perfectly euerlastingly wise in heauen By the wisdome which we wish vnto him no other thing is meant then that he should meditate and exercise himselfe in pietie iustice or vpright dealing charity or brotherly loue duties beseeming and requirable in the ancienter sort of persons in euery thing they doe so long as they soiourne and make their abode here on earth It is a thing very vsuall and common vnto vs all our life long which is but short to cast imagine continually with our selues the many difficulties and dangers are in it and it is a wonder to see how ingenious and witty we are to vexe and afflict our selues for triffles and things of no value There is nothing somuch doth trouble vs and makes old age terrible vnto vs as the feare to depart hence and to leaue this withering and transitory life whereof old age is the Catastrophe and last concluding act making an end of vs speedily and may be called the sunne set of our dayes Consider the ancienter sort of persons and you shall obserue almost no one humour so much predominant and raigning in them as a feruent desire to auoide all surfeitings and excesse and to keepe a good diet to the end to maintaine a little strength and to hold our life be it but for an houre and to perswade themselues they may liue one yeare longer at the lest Would you gladly please or flatter them doe but make them younger in yeares then they are by telling them they are not so old as they reckon and take themselues to be and that there is no cause or likelihood but they may liue many a yeare longer then others and forget not in words to extoll their experience sufficiency prudence and wisedome to contriue and wade thorough great matters you are by and by their onely man who but you none more made on It is a point of vndoubted truth that God created Adam and Eue not onely to enioy a life for some hundred of yeares but to liue for euer whereupon there was fixed and imprinted in their heartt a feruent desire to liue and not to see death For although that masse and lumpe of dust whereof the first mans body was formed and made did inuest him with mortalitie yet in regard of the likenesse and similitude which hee had with God death had neuer seized on him but Adam all his posteritie had subsisted and continued long vpon earth in a large and pleasant plot of ground purposely ordained for them to dwell in the whole world before sin entred being wonderfully beautifull vntill such time as he and all his posteritie without feeling griefe of minde or paine of body had beene by God translated into heauen if they had remained in the first estate wherein they were created But Adam and Eue hauing wilfully suffered Sathan to efface and deface the image of God in them they both and all their naturall off-spring long of them were made subiect vnto death became strangers to the life of God and were called Flesh an appellation and name very fit for them Howsoeuer this bee so yet by the speciall blessing of the Father of heauen through the meanes and fauour of his beloued Sonne who was ordained to be the Sauiour of all mankinde this present life how miserable soeuer it be by reason of sinne is no small Donation or pettie Legacy but a most excellent gift of God vnto his children I speake of long life promised to them which shall beare and behaue themselues as they ought to doe toward God and toward their neighbours as is recorded in the second and fifth commandement of the morall law where the promises are set downe whereunto that which is further added in the end of the 91. Psalme is referred and hath relation That hee which vnfainedly loueth the Lord shall be satisfied with long life But this longitude and length of life must not cause vs to forget especiall in all our troubles and trialls that by death wee haue rest and case from our toylings and labours and that this life of ours is a paineful pilgrimage a Sea-voyage full of danger and perill a mercilesse war sparing none making hauocke of all deseruing by reason of the euills that wee suffer and indure in it to bee tearmed rather a death then a life Vpon the consideration whereof a certaine graue ancient Father cried out O death how welcome and pleasing is thy doome and sentence to him that is in want to the man whose strength faileth him to him that is waxen very old and is afflicted on all sides hauing no part of him free from paine to the man that is at defiance and out of loue with himselfe and to him that hath cast off patience and is growne desperate What thing is there that may bee more desired then speedily to shake off and rid vs of these chaines to get out of the prison and darke and fearefull dungeons and deserts wherein wee are confined fast tied and bound that so wee may recouer the precious libertie to goe to our home to dwell in the house of the Lord and in his Palace of glory to triumph and reioyce What doth long life bring with it but a Chaos and infinite number of euills It hath beene said many yeares agoe This grieuous penalty vpon old men is set All the day long at home to grieue and to fret With sorrowes and woes they are compast about Still one paine or other they are neuer without They consume and weare old as they goe mourning in blacke And so at last with griefes heauy load away hence doe packe But he that hath liued well although he die when he is but twentie yeares old ought to haue his tombe erected and placed with the oldest and wisest and with great ioy and applause to haue this for his Epitaph I haue liued long enough and am content here to lye Because nature is pleas'd I should so
soone dye But that man knowes well what it is to liue whose care is not altogether for himselfe but how hee may liue to please God and to benefit and do good to his neighbours in whom Iesus Christ liueth who hath not so great a care of any one part of his life as he hath for his whole man and for euery part thereof Verity it is a strange thing and not much to be approoued or commended that we are so many wayes carefull for this present life and to pranke vp and mainetaine our selues in this world and make so small account of our better part which so much concernes vs to wit our soule the welfare and good health thereof Whereof Dauid seemeth to make high account as is euident in the 34. Psalme when he asketh this question Who is he that desireth long life and loueth long dayes to see good Keepe saith hee thy tongue from euill and thy lippes from lying talke and equiuocation turne aside from that which is euill and doe the thing that is good seeke peace and pursue it And when he speaketh of life hee vseth a word which according to the Idiom and propriety of the language wherein he spake may be translated liues to put vs in mind that we should not rest vpon and content our selues with that life which is common with vs and the Plants and beasts of the fielde but that our thoughts should bee eleuated higher to that other life which is guided by reason and is indeed worthy to be called life without which we should bee more wretched miserable then the beasts Verily the sensual seruile and brutish life is nothing worth and not greatly to be regarded What glory can it bee to vs or how should wee place our felicity in such a life wherein the beasts euery Idiot and Lourdaut may braue it aswel as wee and haue as great priuiledge and commoditie and much more Let vs carefully looke to and set our affections vpon that life by which our better part the soule hauing as it were sequestred and estranged herselfe from all transsitory things is lifted vp vnto God cleaueth fast vnto him and by his Spirit is nourished comforted and fed vnto the hope of eternall life This is the life that the Prophet willeth vs to be in loue withall and enamoured of to the possession and fruition whereof wee are regenerated by the incorruptible seed of his word who hath abolished death and by the Gospell brought into the world life and immortalitie For the case being thus decreed that all men must once die and euery one of vs hauing daily before our eyes foure assured witnesses that beare record of our mortality and that die we must our owne naturall frailty diuers accidents and mischances that may happen to vs many surfeitings and distemperatures and olde age at last how can we sufficiently aggrauate and display the misery and vanity of man who doth not raise himselfe higher then these earthly things and mindeth and thinketh vpon nothing so much as vpon this dying life or rather a liuing death That which me heathen Philosophers and Naturalists write of long life and the meanes to prolong it will helpe vs little or nothing at all and at no time can assure comfort the conscience Some of them thinke that men may liue longer in hote countries then in cold others are of opinion that the Northerne and colder climates are best to mainetaine health and long life and Galen is perswaded that the ayre of Asia Minor in the East parts is a more temperate countrey to liue in then any other But these wise men doe further obserue that besides a good ayre many other things are requisite as to keepe a good diet to vse rest and exercise at due houres to purge sometimes and to cuacuate the excrements and grosse humours of the body and sometimes to forbeare it to haue the mind merrily disposed and free from pertubations and passions But admit all these helpes should concurre which seldome happens what man is so simple and vnaduised be he neuer so young to assure himselfe in the morning when hee riseth to liue to goe to his bed at night What man is there by keeping a good diet and liuing temperately and by following the rules and prescriptions of Physicians is able to make himselfe continue and last so long as a Date or Cypresse tree or to liue so long as a Rauen a Stagg or a base creeping worme Many haue composed and set forth bookes wherein they treate how a man may preserue health and Galen reporteth of one Antiochus a Physician who contenting himselfe to eate sparingly three times a day a piece of bread spread with hony liued in wonderfull health and strength of body many yeares Plinie in his 22. Booke Chap. 24. maketh mention of one Pollio who liued more then a hundred yeares and being demanded by the Emperour Augustus how and by what meanes he preserued so long the good health of his body and vigour of minde made him this answere That hee vsed to supple his ioynts with oyle and to drinke the best wine hee could get In his 7. Booke and 50. Chap. hee propoundeth for an example thinking the like not to be found of one Xenophilus a Musician who liued a hundred and fiue yeares and was neuer in all that time sicke nor felt any ach or paine in his body Cicero also in his Dialogue of old age maketh mention of Arganthonius King of Gades who raigned fourescore yeares and liued a hundred and twenty But seeing all the time of our life which is not imployed in well doing and vertuous actions is to be accounted lost and that the greatest part of this present life vanisheth away in miseries which we are forced to see and suffer Good God how are they to be lamented and pittied that haue nothing where of they can boast nor whereon to rest and place their assurance but vpon a number of yeares and who commonly die when as yet they haue not beto take order to liue or when they haue no sooner begun to be wise but they are assoone dead I pray you doe we call that long which hath an end yea such an end as euery minute wee expect and looke for Euery man is desirous and willing to liue long and striueth with might and maine vsing his vttermost power studie and care to liue long although the time he runnes and moylingly trots vp and downe be it neuer so long compared to eternitie is but as a drop of water to the maine sea To bee briefe long life in this world is nothing else but a painefull progresse which makes it shorter and shorter and at last makes an end of it Let euery man then as Cicero counselleth hold himselfe contented with the time is appointed vnto him by him who hath the houre glasse of our life in his hand who hath stinted our dayes how long they shall runne and hath set downe this for his
will that they should be short and miseerable which hee hath done to this end that we should with good Abraham hauing our fill full loade and backe burthen of dayes packe away and remoue from this life not as from a house of ease and delight but as from a base beggarly Inne making all the speed wee can to goe hence to enjoy that life which is free from all feare of death from sorrow errour and false dealing and is euerlasting O how blessed are they to whom God hath vouchsafed to reueale the way of life who by and through Iesus Christ haue obtained the fulnesse of ioy and those euerlasting pleasures which are in Gods right hand For although it be elsewhere promised that such persons being planted in the houshold and family of the Lord shall bring forth fruit aboundantly in their white old age shall bee in good case alwayes flourishing that their youth shall bee renewed as the Eagles yet is to be vnderstood rather of their spiritual vigour strength then of the strength of the body in which respect Lions Elephants Eagles doe farre surpasse vs. Whereupon the saying of the Prophet doth consent and agree that those which are the Lords followers and doe attend and wait vpon him doe renew their strength their wings doe spread and inlarge as the wings of an Eagle they runne and shal not be wearied they trauell and walke vp and downe and shall not bee tyred nor faint Isaiah 40. 31. The might and power of God doth so support and vphold them that they ouercome difficulties and hard vsage they can passe ouer and vndergoe all troubles whatsoeuer by the meanes of Iesus Christ who doth assist and strengthen them and doe at last happily end their dayes Neuerthelesse we grant and acknowledge that God doth sometimes set foorth vnto vs notable examples of hardy old men who for their strength of body and courage of minde may be wondred at Such a one was Moses of whom it is said Deut. 34. 7. that dying when hee was a hundred and twentie yeares old his sight was not dimme neither was his strength of body decayed Caleb also that valient chanpion and faithfull seruant of God who being fourescore and fiue yeares old said to Ioshua Chap. 14. I am as strong of body as I was when Moses sent mee for a Commander being more then fortie yeares since and I am as able to doe seruice in the warres and to march and trauerse my ground as I was then Saint Ierome writeth thus to Paul of Concorda Behold this is the hundred yeare compleate of thy life and yet thy sight is good thou marchest stoutly thou art quicke of hearing thy teeth are sound thou hast a shrill and eloquent voyce thy body is strong and lustly thy face ruddy and well coloured wherat thy white haires seeme to enuy and thy strength is such that thou art taken to bee younger then thou art thy blood which freezeth and is cooled doth not he betate and dull thy ready and quicke wit nor the wrinkles of thy forehead make thee looke strene and gastly We haue seen in our time many venerable old men there are to bee found many worthy Diuines that are threescore and tenne and fourescore yeares old whose age hath no whit diminished their strength of minde or sharpenesse of wit but that they are still to this day by their graue counsells godly communications and learned writings very helpefull to their Friends and doe good seruice to the Church to their Prince and Common weale and like Appius surnamed the blinde see more apparantly what is good and behoouefull for their countrey then those that sit neere the helme and gouernment of the State I affirme confidently of them that they are trees surely rooted and well grounded And that those verses of Virgill the Poet are wisely inuented where he saith The life of man at the best is as a vanishing dreame Old age doth furrow his forehead with sorrowes extreame And after many diseases and sore trauell without rest Death comes at last and lockes him vp in a chest Those that curiously search into the nature of things haue from time to time obserued that wee are no sooner borne but a certaine heat doth preserue our naturall and radicall moysture which at last especially in old age by extreame cold his contrary is cooled and quenched so as man hath not a iot of time left him to cherish his vitall powers or to maintaine the good temperature of his body wherein those of Pythagoras sect did hold life to consist But to conclude with experience and the saying of a wise man Although the Physitian vse as much art as he can to keepe vs aliue by purging our bodies of peccant humours and diseases yet at last he that is to day a King shall die to morrow Plato doth iudge That Common-weale miserable and not the best Where Physitians are sought to and are in request By whose account there is little regard to bee made of the chiefest townes and cities in Europe But let it be our dutie in all good manner to honour and adore the soueraigne Physitian who pardoneth all our iniquities the fountaines and causes of all our miseries and euills who healeth all our diseases who by the hope of a blessed resurrection doth secure our life from death who doth compasse vs with louing mercies and compassions Let vs pray vnto him to giue vs the true Aqua coelectis All those that haue their hope in him need not to complaine of the shortnesse or miseries of this present life seeing that such is the will of our Father in heauen that whosoeuer beleeueth in this soueraigne Physitian hath euerlasting life doth rise againe at the last day and aswell in body as in soule liueth and enioyeth eternall happinesse in the paradise of God CHAP. II. Of such persons as haue liued long namely the Patriarches before the flood IT is the saying of an ancient man that it is a thing indifferent and not against reason for a right good man to wish death or to desire to enjoy the life present in this world which to some is prolonged for their condemnation and to others as a speciall fauour of God so as wee bee alwayes ready according as it shall please God to yeeld vp our life or to keepe it still Life is to bee desired not so much for it selfe as for that we doe thereby attaine to the wisedome and knowledge of many and sundry things especially of things Diuine for the attainement whereof God who is Almightie and good bestowed vpon the first Patriarches the gift of long life The times before the vniuersall flood had herein a great priuiledge in regard of the off-springs and progeny of Seth. For though they were intangled and cumbred with many miseries as from the name Henoch is collected which signifies a man of misery and from the name of Noah whose father Lamech gaue him that name vpon the hope he
made a representation of the Kingdome of heauen and to this latter signification our Lord seemes to referre when to the Theefe vpon the Crosse who repented acknowledged his Sauiour and made so excellent a confession of his faith as no Christian can make a better he said This day shalt thou bee with me in Paradise Luke 23. 43. Concerning the tree of Life Saint Augustine in his 26. Chapter of the fourth Booke De ciuitate Dei and other antient an moderne Diuines doe thinke that the tree of Life was so called not because the fruite of it sustained man in life as other fruits doe but that by a speciall blessing the fruit of it did maintaine Adam and Eue in life and strength of body that they were not troubled with any disease They gather their exposition on from this that Adam after his fall was by the commandement of God banished with his wife out of the garden of Eden to this end that he should not stretch forth his hand to gather and eat of the fruit of this tree whereby hee might liue for euer And from the Cherubins which with a wauing and flourishing sharpe edged sword were placed towards the East part of the garden to keepe him from comming that way to the tree of life Gen. 3. 22. 24. Some Diuines said that after Adams reuolt the passage way to the tree of life was barrocadoed and shut vp not that God feared that Adam after he had receiued his doome and iudgement to returne to the dust of the earth from whence hee was taken could by eating of the fruit of the tree of life recouer immortalitie but that he hauing made himselfe a mortall creature and lost his dignity should haue his scutchion of honour taken from him and trampled vnder feet and all the ornaments badges and markes of the fauour of God and immortality For otherwise to speake properly God alone is the head spring of life Psal 36. 10. Nay he is our life and the length of dayes Deut. 30. 20. And not any tree nor the fruit of a tree And wittily doth Aristotle scoffe at Hesiodus and his other fellow Poets who tooke vpon them to make a materiall bread and drinke for the liuing gods which they called Nectar and Ambrosia S. Augustine in his eight booke vpon Genesis seemeth out of the wordes of the text very fitly to resolue this point of doctrine when hee saith that all the fruits of other trees were giuen to man for the nourishment and food of his body but the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and euill were giuen him in the nature and quality of a Sacrament Other Diuines whose opion I reiect not doe hold that the tree of life was a figure of the Gospel and the tree of knowledge of good and euill was a figure of the Law that Adam and Eue by eating of the fruit of this latter tree might now come to know good and bad vertue and vice right and wrong iustice or iniustice or by their disobedience to God in doing that which he had forbidden them might learne to their owne confusion from what an excellent state they were fallen and into what an abisse and bottomlesse gulfe of confusion they had plunged themselues Many ancient learned men doe write that the tree of life did signifie wisedome planted in the middest of the garden that is ingraffed or infused into the heart of man which is in the middest of his body And for proofe hereof they alledge the place in the third chapter of the Prouerbes where it is said That wisedome is a tree of life to those that lay hold of it We thinke no lesse but that Salomon in that sentence doth allude to the tree of life in the garden of Eden which was to our first Parents a Sacrament of the life which they had receiued of God and which had beene perpetuated to them if they had not rebelled against him And that he doth also admonish vs that the meanes to recouer that happy life to enioy Gods fauour againe is to apply our selues to that study of wisdome which is taught vs chiefly in the Gospel of which S. Paul saith We speake not the wisdome of the world but the wisedome of God in a mystery which is a hid wisedome 1. Cor. 2. 6 7. And the same Iesus Christ which by God was made wisedome for vs is our resurrection and life Concerning the tree of knowledge of good euill many doe wonder that it was planted in the terrestriall and earthly Paradise seeing it was the occasion and materiall cause of the death of Adam and Eue. But Diuines and namely S. Basil and S. Augustine doe wisely make answere That God planted no tree that was euill neither made he death neither did he set or plant any such tree in the garden to be the occasion of mans ruine and destruction but to prooue his obedience and to beget in him an habite of abstinence and to weane him to sobrietie so that although this tree was pleasant to beholde yet was it not meete that Adam and Eue should climbe it to satisfie their greedy appetites but should abstaine and forbeare so to doe because God had for bidden them to gather and eate of the fruit thereof To conclude with S. Augustine The Lords will was that the reasonable creature should see that he was not to be at his owne caruing and appointment but as a creature to yeeld all obedience to his Creatour and in yeelding obedience should finde it to be best for his health and welfare Thus then Adams estate was excellent and aboue all things to be desired wherein hee abounded in all ioy integrity iustice and holinesse if hee had continued in this happy estate wherein God created him But after hee had eaten of the forbidden fruit of a man iust happy and immortall he became a sinner miserable and mortall These things being so wee the miserable posterity of Adam who haue tasted of the forbidden fruit transgressed in the thing forbidden and by our disobedience brought vpon vs the first and second death seperated and estranged our selues from God the author of our life and of our good being and welfare are exhorted and put in minde to haue our recourse in true faith vnto that Mediatour who by his death and resurrection hath opened vnto vs the celestiall Paradise who giueth vs to eate of the tree of life planted in the Paradise of God Apocal. 2. 7. not of a figuratiue and typicall tree but that we might haue a right and interest in Iesus Christ the true tree of life and in the heauenly Ierusalem which is euerlasting life Apocal. 22. 14. For in our Sauiour is the truth and the accomplishment of all types and figures and whosoeuer beleeueth in him shall not come to condemnation but shall goe from death to life Vpon this sentence S. Paul in the first Chapter of his Epistle to the Romanes 17. Verse doth ground this
euen to mine old age and gray head forsake mee not vntill I haue declared thine arme vnto this generation and thy power to all those which shall come heereafter These are the words of Dauid contained in the seuentie one Psalme Moreouer when the wise old man casteth the eye of his thought vpon the long life of the Patriarches hee thinketh not his condition the worse though he liue not threescore yeares or threescore and tenne yeares but thanketh the Ancient of dayes who in good time will crowne him with the gifts of a better life in his celestiall Palace He beholdeth standing in the middle Court of the heauenly Citie and on both sides of the pleasant riuer which there runneth the tree of life bearing and yeelding his fruit euery moneth in the yeare whereof he gathereth with the hands of a constant and charitable faith for his soules health and marcheth in the strength of the nourishment thereof vntill hee haue obtained to the full and perfect fruition of it As for old age and the causes and degrees thereof he knowes well that God holds the Sun-dyall of his life in his hand that he is his strength and the length of his dayes that all the yeares weeks houres of his life are Climacterical he cōtenteth himselfe reioyceth to march forward vnder the safe conduct fauour and blessing of his Sauiour And being neere to death he lifteth vp his voyce saying aloud I know in whom I haue beleeued put my trust and I am perswaded that he is able to keep euen to the last day whatsoeuer I haue giuen him to lay vp for me and committed to his trust That he will deliuer mee from euery euill worke and will be my saluation in his heauenly Kingdome To him be glory for euer and euer Amen CHAP. VII The complaintes of the miseries of old age aduisedly discussed WEE are now to speake of the inconueniences and miseries wherewith old age is reproched and of the priuiledges and aduantages old men haue and enioy Cicero sayth That many men wondred to see Cato so strong and lusty in his old age and that hee could so easily beare the burthen of it which is esteemed more heauy then huge high mountaines Not to meddle with the complaints made by prophane Authors against the miseries of our life all men agree in this point that old age is miserable being as it were the very sinke of all extreame miseries where they settle Horace writeth That old men are vnwilling to touch or handle things for feare to breake them or let them fall Aristotle noteth in his second booke of Politques Chap. 2. That the people of Sparta with whom old age was honourably esteemed and in great account held opinion that old men were not to continue long in any publique office charge because their strength of minde and iudgement did decay Besides their sight did faile which sense of all other is requisite in men that haue the administration of estates which requires a nimble quicke eye to see into all occurrences and persons There is alledged to this purpose the example of T. Manlius Torquatus out of Titus Likins in the second booke of the warres of Africke This man being chosen Consul refused the charge because of his weakenes of sight saying It was a shame and dishonour to the Generall or Captain of an Army to desire to haue infinite mens liues and estates committed to his trust and not bee able to see how to manage them but by the spectacles of other mens directions And although the first Band of Souldiers which had giuen their voyces would not alter what they had done yet Manlius procuring another cohort of ancienter Souldiers to sit in counsell about it was discharged of his Consulship The saying of that wise Cynicke Diogenes is notable who being demanded what was most miserable in the world stood still and before hee stirred his foot made this answer And old man that is in great need and penury The ancient Romanes had a very rude Prouerb to this effect That men of threescore yeares old were to be cast downe headlong from the top of a bridge to the bottome because they were dotardes and men past labour and vse and fit for nothing or because in times past the young men of Rome as Ouid thinketh in scorne would iustle old men as they mett them vpon narrow bridges that so by drowning them they might not stand in their way to crosse and oppose them or giue their aduice in their doings and counsells Some men thinke that if old age be to be borne withall and had in regard it is of such persons as are rich in great place of honour and haue plenty of all things in the world and in great aboundance But if wee reckon right as we ought we shall finde old age to be charged with many inconueniences and faults which are rather to bee imputed to our corrupt manners and nature Foolish persons accuse old age of crimes they are guiltie of themselues and where they should condemne and represse their owne peeuishnesse distrust impatience folly and auarice vices wherewith young men and men of middle age are tainted and besmeared they blame old men saying Old men looke scowling and are sullen suspicious froward childish couetous and haue forgotten that there is no part of our life but is blemished with some bad humour and with one ill qualitie or other as we see roses are not without thornes that there is nothing good but hath euill for a checkemate and the rich mans reuenewes are serued in with bitter sops and sobs to But a man that knowes in great patience to vse the traffiques and commodities of this life sees great gaines to grow by it and excellent ornaments of vertue when he considers that the miseries of this present life vnto the children of God are but exercises of patience humility charity temperance faith hope Commonly diseases in young men are more painefull and dangerous then in old and we see by daily experience that for an old man there dies ten children and young men All the histories of former times doe point out vnto vs that ambition enuy despaire doe disquiet and spurgall young men as well as old Young men for the most part spend their time badly and it is a rare sight to see wisedome and youth married together Young counsells haue battered downe the walles of great Monarchies and estates and laid them leuell with the ground witnesse that of Rehoboam and very many great kingdomes and estates since It is euident in the history of the Gospel that Iesus Christ healed more young then old persons whereof many instances might be alledged but the Centurions seruant the widdowes sonne of Naim the childe possessed with the diuell the daughter of Iairus and the Canaanitish woman are sufficient testimonies Who will dare to deny but that more young and lusty men doe die and are slaine in the warres then old The plague interres and
layes in the graue more children and men of fiue and twentie and thirtie yeares old then those that bee older and young men are commonly sooner infected then old Let vs then giue ouer vnwisely to obiect vnto old men and to vpbraide them with their calamities and miseries seeing that the youngest men feele more which doe put them to more paine and torment Whereas old men are reproched that they haue giuen ouer Tennys-play reuellings dancing dallying courting leaping vaulting and hoyting and gallopping vp and downe as the wise Barzillay saith when hee requested King Dauid to giue him leaue to leaue the court and to liue quietly at home by himselfe 2. Sam. 19. So it is that old men are distasted and weary of such sports and delights and on the contrary are glad and greatly reioyce that they are free from the desires and lusts of young men which doe tyrannize ouer them and it is a great ioy of heart vnto them that being altogether vnapt to exercise the vanities and sensuall delights and pleasures of the world they haue the more leasure and vacant time to imploy themselues to mortifie their carnall lusts and affections and to meditate vpon the life to come Good God what a wrong doe wee doe to our selues to insert and put into the catalogue and bedroll of our euills and afflictions things which doe bring health vnto vs and are very necessary documents and instructions vnto vs There are no people more miserable then those who foolishly boast They know not what sorrow and misery meanes nor neuer had any The euills of the world are euills because men thinke them so but indeed and in truth they are not euills As for example our bodily infirmitie men that are truely wise and religious make a good and profitable vse of it Wee will take for our second example the approch and comming of death which the neerer it comes to vs the neerer we shall be to our Port and the sooner wee shall be within the kennyng and discouery of our true countrey Thirdly death it selfe is the end of our life and the beginning of our happinesse which all good men wish for Let vs then abandon the company of those idiots who when old age is farre off from them wish and desire it and when it is come neere and almost at them reuile and condemne it CHAP. VIII Foure causes propounded by Cicero of the miseries of old age reduced to two to wit the miseries of the body and of the minde THere is no day houre minute or moment of our life which doth not put vs in minde that we are mortall and it is a brutish stupiditie and sencelessenes both in yong and old men to promise to themselues to morrow But why doe wee refuse to liue according to the conditions agreed vpon when wee came into the world to wit to leaue life in youth or in age when death cals vs and bids vs to take our leaue of it And whence is it that wee beare so impatiently that which cannot be shunned or avoyded What moues vs to look for knotts in Bull-rushes and to make doubts and difficulties in so plaine a case We doe but peruersly blame and accuse the iudge of the world when we speake of old age saying it is miserable in regard it makes vs vnseruiceable men and vnfit to mannage and meddle with worldly affaires enfeebles our bodies putts vs beside and barres vs almost of all pleasures being moreouer the next neighbour to death Cicero in his Dialogue of Old-age putteth such like cases and answering them denyes that wise old men are idle bodies and as for those which make it their recreation and take pleasure to be ignorant and to sit still and doe nothing they are vnworthie the worthie name of Old men and deserue rather to be called Idolles and Statues which artificially are moued by vises gynnes Great and important affaires are not effected by the strength nimblenesse and agilitie of the bodie but by counsell authoritie iudgement and example And as Salust sayth in Iugurth the minde is the guide chiefe Captaine and conductor of mens actions and liues But seeing that Old men haue alwayes beene esteemed to be endued with sound counsell wisedome grounded vpon long experience by reason whereof all those that haue eminent places of charge in the Church and Common-weale are wont to bee called Senators and Elders Why shall we thinke them lither idle persons who direct and prescribe vnto others what is to be done and how and in what order and manner things are to be done and though they sit still themselues yet the whole burthen of the businesse lyes vpon them Euen as wee see Pilots of Ships who without much troubling themselues or stirring from their places sit quietly at the sterne and holding the Rudder in despite of boystrous windes and waues doe cond and carry their Ships laden with men and merchandize safely to their vnlading port And this is the cause why in euery well gouerned Common weale old men are had in great reuerence and honour which they iustly deserue and young men frequent their company and are conuersant with them to benefit themselues by their counsels and instructions On the contrarie wise old men are no gybing and iesting Buffones who with their armes a crosse take pleasure to trifle out the time and to idle it at home in their houses but they meditate imagine and contriue and are alwayes doing one good deed or other teaching good lessons as they grow old and growing old as fast as they teach them not that they would seeme men of knowledge themselues but that others by reaping the fruits of their labours might feelingly perceiue that true pietie and vertue are the guides of their actions Concerning the weaknesse of their bodies as young men content themselues with a proportiall and competent strength and affect not to be so strong as Bulls Cammells or Elephants so old men for their part are content with that condition which it pleaseth God to lay vpon them and fancie not to be so strong as they were in their youth It is very decent and fit that a man obserue and giue way to his owne nature attempting nothing aboue his owne strength but to doe as much as he can and no more Therefore Milo of Cretona made himselfe a ridiculous spectacle who being growne old and beholding his withered armes wept dolefully complaining that they were starke dead Whereupon Cicero vseth these words Doth the vertue and honour of a man lie in his armes It is not rather a mature wisedome which makes him renowned to his dying day Old age doth not by and by so weaken a man but that by diuers exercises wherewith he may invre his bodie and minde and by ordering himselfe well in his drinking eating sleeping by giuing himselfe ease vacancie and rest and not tyring himselfe and spending his spirits with much labour and studie he may keepe himselfe from bending in the hammes
and stooping in the showlders and be still an able and practised man And that this is true Cicero giues vs some examples Neither the Kings counsell Table sayth he nor his Court of Common-pleas nor my Clients for whom I pleade at the barre nor my friends nor strangers can complaine that they lacke me or my helpe Zenophon reportes that Cyrus in a Discourse which he made a little before his death maintained that he neuer felt himselfe to haue a lesse able bodie in his age then he had when hee was young Cicero sayth further that when he was a childe he saw L. Metellus a very aged man so strong of body that he cared not to be young Masinissa king of Numidia could not be perswaded to goe couered with a Hatt on his head when he was fourescore and ten yeares old but in raine hayle frost and snow went bare headed Appius when he was very old blind gouerned a great familie had a spirit like a bow alwayes bent prepared and resolued to dare defye and wrastle with old age in such sort that he bore all the sway of Command in his house and kept all his family in so good awe and order that he was reuerenced of his children and beloued of his neighbors Some doe accuse old age in men that it makes them heauie headed and dull to haue no mirth nor musicke in them and to abandon and cast of all pleasures But if they account the follies fond iollities and gambolles of youth for true pleasures their accusation is false and they speake iniuriously of Old age which procures great good vnto vs blotting out quite whatsoeuer is most vicious and bad in young men to wit carnall pleasure a capitall enemies to vs all which headlong plungeth all those that are vassalls and slaues vnto her into gulfes of eternall perdition is the mother of gluttony drunkennesse whoredome adulterie of all dissolutenesse and debauched villanies and in fine is the cause of the ruines of Common weales and families Old men which are free from the coulp and guilt of these and the like vices and abominations haue lesse torture and torment of mind and haue the more reuerence and authoritie giuen them which is the Crowne of their age The approches of death seeme to strike a terror and astonishment into many old men But wretched is the man who all the time of his life hath not learned to make light account of death which he ought before hand to envre and frame himselfe to wish for and expect seeing death is his guide and conuoy to heauen and bringeth with him a dedimus potestatem to put him in possession of his euerlasting inheritance which the Sonne of God hath adiudged vnto him which iudgement is entred in despite of Sathan who continually in this world brings cauelling suites and actions against vs to molest and interrupt vs in our iust clayme thereunto More occasions and causes therebe of diseases in yong men by reason they are put to all hard labours and iourneyes whereby for the most part they do vntimely end their liues so that death doth as ordinarily seize vpon them as vpon old men Some doe reply that such yong men haue a hope to liue long but it is a foolish perswasion by reason that they take that which is doubtfull for sure and certaine and that which is false for true As the time of Autumne succeedes the spring time and Summer so there is nothing more naturall to old men then to die The death of young men resembles a great flaming fire which is not quenched but with much water but old men are like a dry chipp of wood or a small gloing fire which dyes and goes out of it selfe Why should wee mourne and lament for him who when he dies findes immortalitie and whose practise and studie hath beene from his tender youth to contemne death that his soule might be at rest in a place conuenient This is briefely the substance of that which Cicero in his Dialogue of old age doth handle more at large Christians haue more excellent remedies helpes and refuges against the miseries of old age and the assaults of death which hereafter in their order we will declare That old age hath his particular miseries in regard of the bodie and minde we are not now to dispute It is that which we are next to speake of CHAP. IX A more speciall Catalogue or numbring vp of some miseries in old men in regard of their bodies VErily that man which should take vpon him to maintaine that old age is exempt and priuiledged from all discommodities and miseries should reason against sence experience and nature it selfe which beares witnes against him For although the life of man from the beginning to the end hath no part of it free from diuers calamities which it is to resist and conflict and that man from his birth seemes to bee made to liue in paine and sorrow Yet wee must know and acknowledge that feeble and decrepit old age is incident to many particular miseries which are the causes that weake old men are commonly testie froward sad melancholy especially those who are cholerique fretfull and impatient by nature or are not armed and prepared before hand to vndergoe such assaults and to stoope to the miseries which the last age of their life shall lay vpon them It is a well worne saying That as lees and dregs doe sinke downe and lie at the bottome of vessels so the excrements noysome humours and all the miseries of our life doe settle in old age their last lodging place One compares very fitly the condition of old men to a little City halfe ruinous and decayed whose walles moulder away are almost all broken downe and is altogether vnprouided of munition and victualls to fortifie and succour it selfe if need require For wee see in all old men their eye sight by little and little to faile them that they are duller and deaffer of hearing their teeth to fall out their hands and feet to haue the palsie briefly this building of clay and spittle to haue many defects and decayes and daily to waste and impaire more and more expecting a totall ruine But the more these euills doe presse and molest vs the more we thinke vpon desire and expect to make an end of our painefull pilgrimage to hit the marke we ayme at to be quietly seated in our true dwelling place eternall habitation Those persons who from their youth haue learned to submit themselues to the diuine prouidence and to meditate and reuolue with themselues a better life doe with greater case sustaine and beare all the miseries of their long age And the weakenesse of body in old men doth not hinder them from doing that which is meete and behoouefull for them to doe But it is a great reproach and obliquie to old men if in the eye of good men without shame or feare of their great and soueraigne Iudge who is to bee feared
pregnant ready and great memory but long age had brought him to this passe that he durst not relye or presume vpon his memory in any thing he should engage himselfe to doe or to promise Plinie in his seuenth booke 14. chapter sayth That the memory is one of the principall house imployments and vtensiles of our life and that Simonides did professe to know the art thereof but withall that nothing is more fraile and brittle in man then memory which by sundry diseases and mischeeuous accidents is impaired and made weake so that by a small accident some haue forgotten the names of their neerest allyes some the names of their seruants and some their owne names as Messala Coruinus did But Cicero maintaineth that forgetfulnes is not a vice of old age but rather of a dull sluggish heauy age which had need to be stirred spurred to imitate the schollers of Pythagoras whose manner was euery night to repeat all they had learned said and done the whole day Wee doe not readily forget that which runneth most in our mind and which wee doe most effect As old men doe precisely remember all their seuerall debtors and their manner of dealing and all the coffers cabinets odd holes and corners where they haue laid vp and hid their iewels and gold They carry an exact inuentory of them in their heads It is good oftentimes to put many things out of our minde and to forget them that so wee may remember our Creatour and Redeemer and whosoeuer remembreth him may say He hath forgotten nothing Who because wee are of our owne nature subiect to tread vnder our feet the memory of good things hath instituted that in memory of him wee should often communicate in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist Me thinketh that it were expedient here by all waies and means to remember the prouidence of our all good and merciful Father in heauen who foreseeing that the last age of our life should bee obnoxious and subiect to many euils and infirmities hath giuen vs many remedies for our ease and comfort which are to bee found in the bookes of learned Physicians whereof it is not conuenient for vs to make a scrowle or catalogue in this Section because wee present not a booke of receites for the body but of instructions necessary and fit for euery wise old man Onely we will say that the Creatour hath beene bountifull in giuing infinite meanes to those who delight not in shamefull and exorbitant luxuries and riots to maintaine themselues in a competent strength of body vntill they be threescore and ten yeares old Yea their old age euen as a tree With goodly fruits shall loaded be Whose branches steept in summers dewe Shall goelie be and greene of hewe Which being seene to euery eye Aloud to all doth testifie Gods goodnesse and integritie Who is my strength and my defence And keepes me by his prouidence That I doe liue without offence It is impossible in mine owne opinion that so great ingratitude should enter into the minde or soule of a wise old man to forget the innumerable blessings which God in fauour hath enlarged vnto him and to complaine more of the euills which he doth iustly suffer Iustly then did Cicero taxe and blame Cecilius who maintained that among other the miseries of old age this was one that liuing long we see many things which doe discontent and displease vs. For wee see also other things which doe giue vs all contentation pleasure and delight whereof we are altogether vnworthy if God would strictly examine our life But Cecilius addeth further that it is a misery and a death to bee contemned and to bee a burthen to others as it happeneth to those old men who for many yeares lie bedred of the gout and are a trouble to themselues and to all their seruants and family by reason their weake decrepit old age hath made them vnable to helpe themselues or to doe any thing but lie stil expecting to be laid in their graue I say that these are offences and discommodities which proceed from the frowardnesse or ingratitude of our seruants and those of our house or we our selues are the cause of them hauing liued so wretchedly and vntowardly that wee haue not gained the loue of any or our owne follies haue made vs to be had in contempt of euery one or we doe receiue the reward of our owne arrogant and insolent behauiour towardes our ancestors fathers mothers masters schoole-masters tutors whereby it commeth to passe thorough the iust iudgement of the Almighty that our children seruants or those of our family doe render the like vnto vs. Not to harpe vpon this string if old men bee odious despised and scorned it is of gracelesse villaines for whom the gallowes groans who neuer thinking on the frailty of man and that they themselues are as subiect to the vncough and strange accidents which in this life doe blast great and meane persons doe as proudly disdaine and vilifie the honour of old age as they doe the maistie of God which they blaspheme reuile and rend and teare it asunder How should such desperate wretched persons regard old men when they shew themselues so refractary and vntractable at the good admonitions and reproofes of euery man that grauely telles them of their follies and faults to haue them abhorre and detest them Reuerend old men are worthy of commiseration and to bee supported in their infirmities to bee honoured in their age and the wiser sort of persons doe so esteeme and regard them yea euen those old men against whom information is giuen and complaint is made that they are Dotardes whose number for the most part is but small Howsoeuer their case be these Dotardes these twice children these that are become childish againe doe leaue among good men an honourable memorie of themselues and haue no lesse at their seruice their holy Angells beholding the face of their Father and watching ouer them then heretofore those little children had of whom Iesus Christ speaketh in the 18. Chapter of S. Mathew This is spoken of wise old men as for those men who hauing not enough glutted themselues with the slipps and peccadills of their youth with the sinnes of their middle and manly age doe fill vp the measure of their iniquities with the vices of a shamelesse old age killing their bodies by foule excesses and surfeits of gluttony drunkennesse whoredomes adultries by madd bickerings and suddaine quarrells rising of choller and anger by vnlawfull practiques and vniust dealings proceeding of couetousnesse and by niggard-shipp and extreame parsimony on the one side by prodigalities profuse and inordinate expences to satiate their accursed lustes and appetites on the other side These men build themselues most noysome and nastie prisons where they are to be seene now and then to languish long and pyne vnder the vneasie yoake and in the stockes of sharpe diseases which doe torment and torture them in the sight of all the
Zenophon there are found to this purpose in question many worthy sayings Valerius Maximus in the eight booke of his Collection of auncient memorable acts and sayings doth set forth many notable examples of famous old men whereof some haue hitherto beene propounded by vs. It shall then be enough to adde yet some testimonies drawne and culled out of the hoard and treasurie of Stobeus in his hundred and sixteenth Discourse in fauour of old age The experience of old men can reueale and discouer more wisedome then the trauailes sweating endeuours tugging and striuing of young men It is true that the hands of young men are strong to execute but the braines of old men doe better seruice and preuaile and performe more For time is the father that begets varietie of wisedome and prudence Loue to commune and aduise with old men and abandon the foolish deuices and fond imaginations of young men wherein there is nothing appeares but vainenesse and fopperie So it is that the pleasure of a vitious and sinfull contentment doth not laste long Old age is not so neere the end of life as it is neere the threshold of the dore which opens to an assured happie life Hee that will take vpon him the wardship and tuition of some young man and to haue him well brought vp doth commit him to a wise old man euen as to qualifie strong fuming wines we doe brewe them with water Old men who are free and ridd of the so many euill lustes wherein young men doe furiously plunge themselues become like vnto God Also old men liue and die as if they were rather asleepe whereas the life and death of young men resembles boystrous tempestes and violent ship-wrackes It will be obiected against whatsoeuer I can all edge in fauour of old age that the heathens also haue spoken verie disgracefully and reprochfully of it witnes the hundred and seauenteenth discourse of Stobeus the scoffing taunts and quipps both of the Greeke and Latine comicall and Satyricall Poets in their Tractates And hee he may goe for a witnesse to who compares old age to Wine that is lowe and almost nothing but lees to a ware-house full of refuse and brayded wares whereof there is no reckoning to bee made to a sanctuarie or place of refuge whereunto all sortes of euilles seeme to retyre as to their garrison and hold to an eccho to a shadow to a vanishing dreame and to the dead time of Winter Horace in his art of Poetrie doth pensill and picture out an old man in this manner Many are the miseries of wretched man that is old Either because he hazards himselfe to get money and gold And when he hath got it his wretchednesse is such He dares not lay out a penny he loues it so much Or because in all things he takes in hand and goes about He is fearefull vnweldie full of suspition and doubt He puts off the day of death still his minde doth him giue And he verely hopes many a day longer to liue He lies lusking at home and loues to heare men relate All newes whatsoeuer yea the secrets of State He complaines of the times present is pensiue and sad And sayes his fore-fathers dayes were nothing so bad Iuuenal in his tenth Satyre describeth the infirmities of such old age But if wee heedfully consider the scoffing speeches of these Authors it will soone appeare that they speake either of the diseases of the body or of old age that is decrepit worne out quite spent and done not regarding the commodious helpes and vses of wise old men For otherwise to what dangers and disasters are young men exposed vnto And when should wee make an end if wee should take vpon vs to make a Catalogue of them The Heathens haue confessed that a young man was happy not in regard of his age but his vertue They haue affirmed as much of an old man adding further That an old man is already possessed of that which a young man expects and hopes for And what doe young men ayme at and hope after but to liue to a great age and to be old men They haue compared young men vnto men tossed vp and downe to and fro with the windes and waues in the middest of the Sea and old men to passengers which are neere their port and readie to caste Anchor Ought we to maruaile sayth Cicero if old men be sometimes feeble and decayed in strength seeing that young men cannot be exempt and priuilledged from consumptions or pynings away of the bodie There is no infirmitie whatsoeuer in old age which the wiser old men are not prepared and armed for and with greatnesse of courage and patience doe easily sustayne and endure Whereunto the verses of Horace doe fitly sort and agree who sayth If God to thee a time doe giue Wherein thou mayest full happie liue Most ioyfully this time embrace Doe not neglect too long a space The happie houre of thy Fate To enioy a life more fortunate But to the world proclaime throughout Thou art a voluntarie Souldier and stout And wilt not from thy coullors flie But stand thy ground couragiously And in another place he sayth Irkesome it is to be annoyde With euill a man cannot auoide But that which is past remedie Man beares at last contentedly When patience hath him vnder awe Yeelding obedience to her law Put case then that old age hath his opponents assaults and be exposed to diuers disasters and miseries so hath it also strong and fit weapons stratagemes directories and practised vertues to helpe at need Old mens mindes are still entire and sound so long as they are invred to studie and exercised Though their legges faile them their wittes doe not as Homer sayth bringing in Nestor speaking in this manner I will with my Counsell and Orations excite and pricke forward the youthes and young men This is the trade and practise of old men who haue more wisedome and iudgement then others and as Ovid affirmeth It is time that ripens experience The counsell and sawe of old men hath in it somewhat I know not what that is pleasing to heare gracefull and of venerable regard and well liking Euen as we see the Sunne at his decline With golden rayes more pleasingly to shine If Seneca the Tragedian bee heerein to be beleeued And it there be to bee found foolish impertinent and vnprofitable old men they are no other then fountaines without water forrests grubd vp and gladed trees without fruit starres without light and all their imperfections and defects proceed from ill education Remember saith Cicero that I commend that old age which hath had early good beginnings and beene well taught and trayned vp from childhood and youth For that old age is miserable that can plead nothing else for Atiquitie but the wrinckles of the face and the white haires Moreouer the more old age sees the time to approach of appearing before the tribunall of the Soueraigne Iudge the lesse it apprehends
to ouercome and stand against the slights and assaults of the Deuill and hauing ouercome all things stand fast Stand fast then hauing your loynes girded about with veritie hauing on the brest-plate of righteousnesse and your feete shod with the preparation of peace Aboue all laying hold on the shield of faith wherewith you may quench all the fierie darts of the wicked one Take also the helmet of saluation and the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God Praying alwayes with all manner of prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseuerance These are the words of the Apostle But because it is not enough to name and shew weapons to a man if he know not how rightly to vse and to handle them We are more particularly to enquire after and to discourse and set forth the practise of this military Art as much as the consolation which we purpose to propose to wise old men doth require Saint Ambrose in his commentary vpon the sixt Chapter to the Ephesians speakes well to the purpose that although the Apostle names many specialties and partes of Armour yet faith it is that makes vs keepe to our tackling and to stand fast and whereof principally we haue need in this spirituall combat In deed what auailes it to read much to heare many Sermons of the prouidence grace and mercy of God if faith be not added to his Word And what auailes it to beleeue this word to be true if you tremble not when it soundes lowder in your eares then vsually it hath done if you stedfastly settle not your ioy and assurance in the promises of saluation which it propoundeth vnto you if you doe not in humilitie revere and honour your heauenly Father if you dread not his wrath indignation more then ten thousand deathes if you bee not wholly resolued that God speakes to condemne you if you perseuere and goe on to prouoke him and to offer you grace if you amend your liues and beleeue in the Gospell To what purpose serue so many Sermons touching Iesus Christ his obedience his merit his miracles his loue to saue his elect And what are so many exhortations good for if this Sauiour dwell not in your hearts by faith if he doe not rule amend and reforme them if by his spirit of sanctification and adoption he seale them not vp in them if he doe not stampe and engraue his loue and truth in them The Apostle S. Iohn speaking of the speciall graces of God who is Almighty and good to his children wisely and necessarily ioynes these two together To wit that he hath giuen vs eternall life that this life is in his Sonne so that whosoeuer hath the Sonne consequently hath an assured guard of defence against death and all the temptations which goe before and precede it Afterward that God hath giuen vs knowledge and vnderstanding to the end we may know him and be certainely assured that hee herein is true in this Author of all good which is Christ The same Apostle doth vpon good right call this assurance our victorie that is our warlike furniture and armour wherewith we ouercome the world and throw downe to the ground all her strong holdes For this cause according to the example of the Apostles wee ought deuoutly to pray to God to giue vs faith and daily to increase it in our hearts What dastardes and cowardes were the Disciples of our Lord What a hard harsh diffused noyse was it and not to be endured to heare of their Maisters death before the vertue and efficacie of a liuely faith did actuate and enlarge it selfe in them Wee may see what the Euangelistes sayde of them Saint Matthewe Chapter 16. verse 23. Saint Luke 18. 34. Saint Iohn 16. 6. The eleauenth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrewes contaynes a great number of worthie examples by which we may learne how great the efficacie and power of a true and liuely faith is in all manner of afflictions Wee reade the same in the auncient and moderne Historie of the Church where wee see a great number of men and women of diuerse and differing Ages of young boyes and girles that made proofe of an inuincible Faith as well in the fierie Furnace of persecutions as in the deepe dungeon and prison of all sortes of troubles and calamities and had the victorie and now are crowned with prayse and immortall glorie in the Pallace of GOD in his triumphant Church So wee must conclude with the Prophet in the Psalme 73. that God is good to Israell yea to all those which serue him in holinesse and righteousnesse all the dayes of their life although on the contrary the flesh the world and Sathan doe grumble gnash their teeth and snarle at it And in another place Psalme 66. the Prophet sayth O inhabitants of the earth blesse our God and sound aloud his prayse It is he that hath reestablished our soule in life and hath not suffered our feete to slip For thou O God hast prooued vs thou hast tryed and purified vs as siluer is tryed and purified As if he did say iustly thou mightest consume vs and thou art content to try vs cleansing vs from the filth of so many scandâ—lls and imputations wherewith we haue beene disgraced and diffamed Wee are fallen into the fire of afflictions which should burne and waste vs to nothing and are vp to the eares in the water of extreame anguish and agonie of bodie and minde where if we had our deserts we should be stifled and strangled but thou hast enlarged and set vs at ease The peace and holy libertie which we enioy by thy free gift is as a Mansion or dwelling in a large pleasant country to all those that desire to liue and without ceasing to prayse thee Behold how faith doth accommodate it selfe is willing and readie sweening and mitigating all the paines griefes and discommodities of this present life quenching also all the fierie dartes of Sathan especially despaire and distrust It is shee which hath the custodie and charge of all the Armour of God which shrowdes vs vnder the helmet of saluation with the strong shield of affiance hath the sword of the word of truth in her hand is well shod with the preparation of the Gospell of peace doth crosse and resist all impediments and letts and bestirres her selfe on euery side in the enemies campe If then as S. Cyprian sayth writing to those of Thibara men practise and learne to fence and to fight pell mell not sparing life nor lymme making great reckoning of a corruptible Crowne which is set vpon their heads in the presence of the Emperour how much more excellent and glorious is the combat whereof God is the Emperour and soueraigne and his Angels are not onely spectators but moderators and Iudges and propound to vs a Crowne of glorie Let vs then arme our selues sayth he with a simple and pure vnderstanding a sound and sincere faith and
no tormentes nor tortures canne quell or dismay their stoute minde nor no Bug-beare or terror is gastly or horrid enough to fray and affright them The Lord hauing made a couenant with his Church which here on earth is compounded of all sorts of people hath giuen vnto it two strong propps of hope to wit his spirit and his true word This spirit is called the spirit of wisedome vnderstanding counsell power knowledge of sanctification veritie consolation life faith grace The word is called the word of life of saluation of the grace of God of our reconciliation with the father of Heauen A word testifying that all thinges were giuen vs necessary to life and pietie by the knowledge of him who hath called vs by his owne power and glorie by which are giuen vnto vs great and pretious promises that by them wee which are regenerated by the holy Ghost and the word should be made partakers of the diuine nature being deliuered and freed from the concupiscences and corruptions of the world Whosoeuer hath not this spirit of Iesus Christ and trusteth not in the promises of God a midd all his babble and prattle of the contempt of death and the benefit of old age is still in doubt hath feeble hands trembling and staggering knees haltes feedes himselfe with the winde and not with any assured consolation But the iust doe liue by faith are strengthened and vpheld by it which makes them reioyce all wayes in the Lord who sanctifies them preserues whole and entire their mind soule and bodie vnblameable vntill the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ CHAP. XV. An aduise to wise old men conteining the summarie and substance of their dutie vntill their last gaspe IT should remaine now to treat of death and the certaine remedies against it But before we enter therein we will propound to our wise Vieillard an aduise drawne and taken out of the volumes of sacred Philosophie to leade him more easily on to that whereunto he aspires But it behooueth those who are almost at their wayes end more heedfully to consider both the way they haue gone and are to goe for their further encouragement to their dutie Behold then what I pretend to remember to whomsoeuer being in old age will vouchsafe to hearken to him who is drawing neere vnto it It is reason that the grace of God witnessed in so many sortes so many yeares and sealed in our Baptisme at our first entrance into the world and into the Church when we haue rightly apprehended in whom we are dead and in whom quickned doe cause vs to wish a continuall sense and feeling of our adoption by his spirit speaking to vs by his word and witnessing with our spirit that we are the sonnes of God This sense and feeling doth engender or beget an excellent desire an earnest devotion a firme resolution to yeeld him obedience all our life long but more at the dissolution and end of our life then at the beginning which is devoide of knowledge conscience experience wisedome plunged and drowned the greater part of tyme in ignorance selfe opinion insolencie and ribauld and lasciuious impudencie Now then it behooues so soone as we feele the motions of this grace that our hearts be replenished with a sincere and liuely affection to obey God not according to our worldly sense but following the rule which he himselfe doth propose and set downe vnto vs. Touching this affection it is commended vnto vs by generall and speciall reasons The generall reasons are that our God is holy and that we his people cannot cleaue vnto him except we bee holy likewise then as members belonging to Iesus Christ our head and redeemer we ought to be made conformable to him imitating his life which is called the obedience to God his Father euen to the death of the crosse The speciall reasons are First that God is our Father Secondly that Christ hath washed vs by his precious bloud and incorporated vs into him Thirdly that this our head is ascended vp into heauen Fourthly that we are the temples of the holy Ghost Fiftly that our bodies be predestinated to the last resurrection and our soules to immortalitie both of them to euerlasting glorie Whereupon it followes that it is horrible ingratitude not to be willing to obey the will of our heauenly Father that it is madnesse to returne to the filthinesse from which we haue beene so dearely and preciously cleansed and purged that it is detestable iniquitie to wish and to will the members of Iesus Christ to bee ioyned to Sathan and to the world that is but reason for euer to burie all earthly affection to aspire to a better life to be by a liuely faith set in the heauenly places and to feele and taste of life and euerlasting glory that we must not grieue him which dwelleth in vs our counsellor guide and comforter That it is good reason to preserue our selues immaculate and pure euen vntill the day of our Lord. Hauing treated of our affection let vs speake of the rule thereof declared in such wise and so expressely in the law of God to make vs yet to see as the soule and mayne of all that his good pleasure hath beene to forme and fashion our manners by a most exact manner and order and which serues as a commentarie of all that is contayned in the sayd Law That is that wee should renounce our selues to the end to be fit to apply and frame our selues sincerely and wholly to serue God because we are not our owne but Gods Whereupon it followes that a Christian be he young or old and the old is more bound to this dutie then the yong because God hath vpheld and supported him long hath bestowed many blessings and benefites on him and a blessed life whereinto hee is nowe entring ought to search and learne out what God willeth and approueth briefely whatsoeuer serueth to the advancement of his glorie Those which are of an other minde are styled and tearmed by the voyce of truth vngracious hypocrites vngratefull reprobates All these licentious and inordinate humours S. Paul in his Epistle to Titus comprehendeth vnder the word Impietie To which hee opposeth the duties of Christians marshalled and ranged vnder the three excellent giftes of the holy Ghost in the regenerate to wit sobrietie iustice and pietie And in this sacred triangle is included the renouncing of our selues And the Apostle not without cause hath begun with temperance which especially concernes vs which moderates our lustes and desires banishing and driuing away sensuall carnall worldly and vncleane and filthie affections much more their detestable effortes and effectes It is shee which doth fashion and frame vs to a true square rulle and order as well in the moderation of our wishes and dreames of worldly houour and greatnesse as of our inordinate beastly concupiscences suggested by the vncleane spirit In the violent pursuite seeking and hunting after proud vsurping sacrilegious detayning and miserable possessing
of the company of sinners to be with the iust and in the heauenly Ierusalem to rest from our labours But as it is commended to old and young to haue their hearts where there treasure is which ought to be in heauen consequently not to be affectionated and inamoured of this present life which is indeed no life and is forbidden them to loue the world and the things in the world So must they not hate and abhorre this earthly life nor take occasion by the cumbers thereof to bee ingrate toward God much lesse to mutter and murmure against his iustice or to censure his prouidence Seeing that our life here though short painefull and miserable is an excellent gift yea an assured testimony of Gods loue and fauour to vs. Let vs then so vse it that whatsoeuer we shall abate if wee bee wise of the disordinate loue thereof may be added to a feruent and holy desire to be with the soonest receiued into heauen For wee should doe ill to wish death but to be with the Lord to glorifie him in the triumphant Church more compleately and fully then in the Church militant Let vs onely desire for this cause to liue on earth to prayse our Father which is in heauen and let vs stand and keepe sentinell to wit our vocation wherein our chiefetaine and soueraigne head hath placed vs till he call vs away which is by the call and hand of death True it is that old men are no lesse frighted and skared sometimes more then young men when we tell them of death But the desire to be with our Sauiour in heauen ought so to ouercome this frailty that faith may perswade vs deuoutly to wish that which nature is afraide of By what badges and collours should we be knowne to be Christians and beleeuers if wee should so much feare the day of death which brings vs to the true land of the liuing Should we not be more wretched then the beasts if wee should not leap and skip for ioy pronouncing these comfortable wordes I beleeue the remission of sinnes the resurrection of the flesh the life euerlasting Are not these the priuiledges of the holy vniuersall or Catholique Church and of the communion of Saints Then shall our miseries and infinite temptations bee abolished Then shall wee enioy vnspeakeable glory in heauen aboue all them when after this happy resurrection all our enemies shall be vanquished and God shall bee all in all to his elect But forasmuch as the way to heauen lies open vnto vs in earth it is requisite that Christians old and young know to vse well this present life and the meanes to support it because without this knowledge and skill there is nothing but perills mischances and distasters in our terrene and earthly pilgrimage which it is reason to ayde comfort and further not to hinder and let by vsing our meanes well as well by a supply to our necessities as by honest lawfull recreations and fitting to our ages and callings In both these respects two extreamities are to be shunned Too great austeritie on the one side dissolution and intemperance on the other Those which boast and glory before God and men of a certaine hypocriticall and dissembled abstinence and continence and moulded in their owne fancies or others like themselues are way wardly wise and Timons enemies of honest societie persons which haue but a vaine ridiculous shew and appearance who for the the most part commit in secret things reserued to the iust punishment of the Lord persons vnreasonable vnindifferent to themselues and others ignorant of the doctrine of holinesse true Christian liberty enemies to Iesus Christ his offices and benefits All the life of Gods children who in the Common weale Church and their owne families are profitable seruants and ministers condemneth these frantike wizards who haue made their vaunt and boast of a Moonkish lazie life who vnder player-like habits haue hatched the greatest pride and counterfeite confidence that may be imagined who haue insolently defied and spit at the lawfull recreations of good men and conuerted the graces of the Lord into vncouth and strange dissolutions But to stirre this filth no longer As those that are young and old indued with the feare of the Lord know that it is permitted them to vse the goods and things of thig life not onely for necessity but also for honest delight so it be to the glory of God the reliefe of their neighbour and the common edification of all and to bee for their owne particuler so much the more adapted and fitted to conuerse and keepe company So doe they not cease to condemne as much as their calling requires all dissolutions enormous and licentious liuing in fine all abuse of the things of this life Hereupon it is good to remember First that all the goods wee possesse were ordained that wee should duely acknowledge the Author and giuer of them magnifying with thanksgiuing his liberality to vs which intemperate and dissolute persons cannot doe Secondly that all these goods ought to bee abandoned yea accounted as nothing euen dispised as dung in comparison of the excellent knowledge of our saluation in Iesus Christ and of that glory which is reserued for vs in heauen which is quenched and dyeth when we are too much addicted and wedded to goods transitory and perishing For as much as wee excessiuely abuse them in prosperitie making them instruments of our ruine and hurt which are to procure helpe and further our good For that also we being depriued of them cease not to thinke and to say that all is lost and gone that we are miserable Indeed so wee are in carrying our selues thus but wee haue a good Lord who doth infinitely helpe and support vs but it is to binde and oblige vs so much the more to our dutie Thirdly that the holy Scripture for the ordering of our goods doth teach vs that they are giuen to vs vpon condition to yeeld account of them sooner or later yea by him that hath expresly forbidden the abuse of them whom also wee cannot deceiue or abuse Fourthly that to discerne the right vse from the abuse oâ—â—orldly goods God hath ordained that euery man in all the actions of this life cast his eyes and looke to his vocation and calling that he rashly vndertake nothing nor with a doubting and vnresolued conscience Whereupon it followes that infidels superstitious vniust dissolute prophane persons and Atheists are infinitly culpable and guilty before God because they outragiously and aboue measure abuse this present life and the good they possesse in it all things being polluted to them they themselues being polluted both in body and minde For conclusion of our counsell and aduice the wise Vieillard shall remember that the life of euery Christian young and old consisteth in these sixe Articles First That we haue a sincere affection to obey God Secondly That the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles contained in the Canonical Bookes of the old
downe the head will cry within himselfe O wretch that I am God hath made me by the gift of knowledge capable of infinite wonderfull secrets and mysteries and I seeke contentment in vanitie He hath created me Lord and commander of all things and I am the slaue of the Creatures I ought to serue God alone and I am in subiection to mine owne inordinate passions He hath created me vpright the more easily to behold and looke vp to the place of my felicitie but I am more brutish then a beast which lookes still downe to the ground Christ hath made mee a King and a Priest to God his Father and sensualitie doth tyrannize and domineer over me and I sacrifice to mine owne insolencies and lewdnesse O what misery Ought I not to be fruitfull and abound in all good workes being a tree of righteousnesse and a heauenly plant What doe I I draw no breath of life but from the world I bring forth nothing but iniquitie nothing but poyson for my selfe and others Am I created after the Image of God to be changed into a Beast What resteth more for me but to be like the image of God! Should I I then be a lyar a villaine a slanderer an enemy of godlinesse righteousnesse holinesse I am a little world a world of wounders shall I then become a bottomlesse gulfe of wickednesse I am the end and measure of things but I am like the mad man which killeth himselfe with his owne knife like the wicked rich man that damneth himselfe and by the winding stayres of his riches goes downe to hell I ought to be the benefit and well-fare of my house and familie of my neighbour-hood of a whole country to procure true peace and quietnesse to rule there and I trouble mine owne peace and rest and other mens too I that am the measure and rule of all things am my selfe out of all measure and order as much as can bee spoken and more The vessell appoynted to honour which will fill it selfe with stinking myre and filth The temple of the holy Ghost a most holy place wherein Christ onely ought to enter and lodge but so prophaned that I am ashamed to thinke on it Thou sayest thou art a Christian and thou makest no conscience to wallow in impurities and hypocrisies ioyning thy selfe with Sathan Antichrist and the world so little thou regardest God Iesus Christ and his Church Thou that art light art nothing but darkenesse Thou that art a sheepherd art become a wolfe Thou that art the salt of the earth art vnsauory and tastelesse Thou that art the glory and peace of the world thou sowest disgrace reproch and trouble therein Thou that art the brother friend and Table-guest of Christ doest thou betray him with a kisse Thou that art a member of Christ where are the motions that thou hast of the spirit Thou that art Christes Lieutenant in earth or in thy house or familie or over many houses or families wilt thou daily warre against thy Lord Christ is thy garment and thou puttest it off to cloath thee with shame ryot dissolutenesse disorder Thou art within three stepps within three fingers breadth of death and thou thinkest not on the true life and thinkest onely on the transitorie and perishing life But thinke on the blessinges and honours which God hath bestowed on thee on the dangers which he hath guarded and protected thee from of the true pleasures which he offers vnto thee and thou wilt bee ashamed of the false pleasures which vndoe thee thou wilt blush be apalled to liue and die as thou doest by a poore sorry fire Thou wilt repent and fly to the throne of grace to the end that hauing obtained it thou render him thankes for the same who in speciall regard of his patience sheweth himselfe wonderfull towardes vs and submitting thy selfe to obey his truth thou wilt goe on in silence to glorifie him to the end Loe here a little coppie and patterne of some sighinges and groanings for euery wise old man remembring himselfe and calling to minde Iesus Christ CHAP. XVII Consolations against death and how it ought to be feared or not feared WE present now some consolations to the wise Vieillard to strengthen him against death and doe shew him how he ought to feare or contemne it For in this point it is that wise men at last shew what they are He that hath not learned to die betimes can hardly die well and for one that doth it thousands lagg behinde where they perish Many according to the saying of Cicero thinke old age is miserable because it is so neere approching to death which among the most terrible things being terrible to the children of this world for that it destroyes the structure frame of this mortall bodie and endeth the life which wee keepe and maintaine with so much carking and caring We are not able to relate how great and many the terrors be which the apprehension of death causeth in most persons which liue in the world yea euen in those men and women which vnder the weight and burthen of extreame anguishes and griefes desire nothing more then to be gone hence This terror floweth from the sense and feeling of the wrath of God and a bad conscience with which when wicked ones come to feele themselues tormented they haue no rest nor can conceiue nothing else but euill for them in death Therefore we cannot too much allaude and commend the saying of Sineca in the Epistle 62. where he sayth before I grew old I endeuoured and studied to liue well In my old age I frame and dispose my selfe to die well It is well spoken For according to the counsell of Saint Augustine in his second booke of Christian doctrine he cannot die ill who hath liued well and hardly shall any man whosoeuer make a good end which hath lead a wicked life But they are grossely deceiued who thinke that old men and none else are lodged in deaths quarter and that they onely are prest and obliged resolutely to awaite and looke for him Seeing that in all places and at all tymes he lyeth in waite for persons of all ages and sexes and sayth vnto them Stand I take thee prisoner by the great Kinges commandement packe hence away come before thy Iudge Death respectes neither babe young nor old man nor woman rich nor poore high nor low strong nor weake The poore mans cottage built very low Death doth demolish and quite ouerthrow The rich mans Pallace high towring and strong He shiuers in peeces and layes it along Who knoweth not that warre and the pestilence doth sweepe away out of the world many more little children or strong able men then aged persons verely all the life of man is nothing else but a road way to death Wee came into the world vpon this condition to goe out of it In this wee greatly erre and beguile our selues as many most learned Philosophers and Diuines haue long
agoe spoken that we looke vpon death afarre off and still thinke him to bee a poore feeble impotent which marcheth with a slow pace and is yet fiue or sixe thousand dayes iourney behinde the weakest of our troupe not considering that death is on the threshold of our dores yea is our chamber-fellow a guest at our tables and our bed-fellow too Death hath alreadie trussed vp the fairest and best part of our life like a Sergeant which taking vs by the throate carries away vnder his arme our money-bagges our precious iewels and vpon his yeomens shoulders our curious houshold moueables Not to wonder hereat consider sayd S. Basile the changes and revolutions of ages Doe wee not obserue how in three weeks of yeares three are dead Childhood is passed away and all his fond and vaine wishes haue left vs As much may be said of other parts of our life The case being so then that the meditation of death belongeth to all persons and that nothing is so miserable as not to know to die and that to feare death is an euill more dreadfull then death it selfe seeing also that the proper force of faith consisteth in this not to be afraid of death It is meete now somewhat the more at large to treate of this poynt and to shew what other holy and prophane Authors doe say therein to our purpose to wit to remoue out of the heart especially of euery wise old man the too violent and raging apprehension of death and to strengthen and fortifie so well the minde that it bee neuer dismounted or throwne out of the seate of assurance wherein it is setled by the knowledge of the truth First We will shew that euery one especially our Vieillard ought continually to meditate vpon death and betimes to prouide and furnish himselfe with remedies against the affrightments and terros thereof Secondly what death is how many sortes there are what death it is ought to be feared Thirdly for what reasons the Heathens haue so manfully contemned death Fourthly of the extreamities which must be avoyded and of the meane that it is meete to keepe in all Fiftly the defences and comfortes against death the commodities of it and the great benefits which they reape by it who in young and old age make their recourse to Iesus Christ the food and drinke of eternall life The two first poynts shall be handled in this seauenteenth Chapter the other three in the Chapter following First It is reason that we should betimes thinke vpon death and meditating thereon we should castour eye vpon the freedome life immortalitie and other benefites which ensue it For he giueth death a ioyfull wellcome who before hand is prepared for it and who seeing him to come as at the beginning is no more moued and troubled thereat then the passenger which with a fauourable winde should in shorter time make an end of his sayling A certaine Auncient compared our life to him which is set in a sayling Ship be he sitting or standing he forwardes his way So wee euery moment make towardes death in our waking sleeping standing still or going But it is meete to settle and invre our mindes not to be too much affected and to doate vpon this present life not therein to lazie and house them as if it were their Countrie but rather to thinke that we are way faring persons from the Mansion and royall Pallace of our heauenly Father Let our minds then sigh and groane in this Tabernacle let them meditate vpon and wish for that happie life wherein all corruption shall bee swallowed vp least it happen to them as to those inconsiderate persons who being a long tyme growne lazie and idle in some incommodious rude and base Inne cannot bee haled out thence whatsoeuer remonstrance and counsell is giuen them But on the contrary let vs call to minde our originall and that wee are the sonnes of the euerlasting King that heauen is our countrey that for a while wee trot vp and downe in the earth as little children which are carryed out of cities into countrey villages there to bee nurssed vp till there fathers and mothers send to fetch them home Let vs remember that wee are poore passengers and that after much running vp and downe wee must returne home to our dwelling and settle our selues in some certaine place least our hearts make a stay and demurre at the things wee behold with our eyes and which haue some appearance to deceiue and detaine them Let vs take great heed of being desirous to dwell and to rott and stincke in the close and darke denne of our body and this present life which is nothing else but a horrid pryson of infinite temptations cares carckings and dangers where pleasure is vnpleasing where our ioy is vnsure where wee are tortured with feare scroched with lust and concupiscence wasted with sorrow and griefe Let our soule be daily couersant in heauen let our heart be where our treasure is By this meanes wee shall easily contemne all things that bee earthly transitory and perishing Whosoeuer doth daily thinke that hee is mortall and the Vieillard ought to thinke on it more then any other dispiseth that which hee sees present and makes hast to those happinesses which are future and to come I know no better meanes for our serious conuersion to God and to inioy perfect comfort then the remembrance of the end of our race in the world and the meditation of death This is a powerfull doctrine to draw vs out of the swallowes and gulfes of intemperance impatience and all riots and excesse Let vs remember our Creator in the dayes of our youth before old age and death intrappe and seize on vs Let the end of our actions and affayres bee before our eyes to containe vs in our obedience to God When death is betweene our teeth it is too late to prouide remedies against the terrours thereof He is vnaduised who thinkes to cast out his lading when his ship is all leakie takes in water on all sides It is no time to make prouision for a voyage when men are put forth and forward at Sea Hee deceiues himselfe who seekes preseruatiues when the pestilence is spread all ouer the body and hath seized the heart The foolish Virgines bethought themselues vnseasonably to seeke oyle for their Lampes when the spouse was entred and the gate shut But our Lord hath willed that the day of our death should be vnknowne vnto vs so much the more to dispose vs to waite for it following the example of those faithfull seruants who not knowing the houre of their masters returne stand vpon their guard carefully watching Such seruants are wise But the slothfull dissolute riotous who make spoyle and hauocke of all in the house without care of their master are mischeeuous and vnluckie Plato writeth in his first booke of his Common-weale That when any one is come to this point to thinke that he ought to die out of hand and
the Sea with Shipps This Monarch considering from the toppe of a hill many millions of men at his seruice in warres fell a weeping that at the end of a hundred yeares not one of them should be aliue And if we loue added he this advantage to be mounted vpon so high a watch Tower that from thence we may behold all the earth vnder our feete and so many kingdomes fallen to ruine also many liuing men some tortured others strangled and drowned on the one side festiualles on the other side funeralles some to be borne others to die To what straight and exigent should we be brought if wee were not assured that all these things are ordered by the just appoyntment of the All-mightie S. Ambrose in his exposition of the creation of the world sayth that all men are borne and die naked that there is no difference betweene the bodies of poore men and rich but that the bodies of rich-men being very pursie well fed and fat while they liue are more puant and stinking then the bodies of poore men Besides these helpes and supports against death which the Heathens haue collected from our condition to be borne and to die they haue from thence collected other causes which we are now to discusse and examine and whereof Ciceco speaketh in his Dialogue of old age as followeth We know how chearefully and manfully souldiers contemne death why then should wise old men feare it To haue our fill of all things causeth that we haue our fill and satietie of life Those who die well liue a life which alone deserueth the name but so long as we are locked vp in the prison of the bodie wee are as it were plunged deepe in the earth and exiled very farre from and beneath our heauenly Mansion Wherfore all wise men die willingly fooles on the contrarie leaue this world against their will mauger their teeth or in brutish ignorance Socrates the last day of his death discoursed of the immortalitie of the soule Cyrus a little before his death sayd to his sonnes Doe not thinke that after I shall be dead I am annihilated and brought to nothing If some god said Cato in the same Dialogue would permit me to returne from old age to childhood and to cry in a Cradle I should forbeare to accept such a condition nor would I for any thing returne to the beginning of my race hauing almost finished it For what commoditie is found in a life tossed to and fro with turmoyles and toyles as this present life is Notwithstanding I will not bewayle it nor doe I repent me to haue liued I which goe out of this world as out of an Inne not as out of a house seeing nature hath giuen vs a cabbin here of ingresse and egresse but not to stay and continue O how glorious will that day be wherein I shall be found in the holy assembly of soules and shall goe to heauen Certainely Old age is the end and Epilogue of our life even as of some Comedie or Interlude Loe here some sayings of Cicero in the fore-mentioned dialogue In the first Booke of his Tusculane questions wherein he expressely treateth of the contempt of death among other his sayinges and discourses we reade that among the old Latines whom the Poet Ennius calleth Cascj that it was a doctrine held from Father to Sonne that death did not abolish man so as it might be sayd he was vtterly perished The sages would not haue set out and adorned their funerals sepulchers and tombes with such ceremonies nor hallowed them with so many devotions if they had certainely held that death is an vtter destruction of the whole man on the contrarie they were in this poynt perswaded that it was a departure and change of life which brought worthie men and women to heauen Plato also bringeth in Socrates condemned to death saying to his judges I hope that good shall befall me to die For if all sense and feeling be abolished in death it bringeth a quiet and perpetuall rest but if that which is said of it be found true that it is a departure out of this world to goe into places where those that be dead are assembled together what contentment shall it be to me to talke and discourse with them It is further addeth Cicero a sound and solid Argument that nature it selfe proclaimes the soules of men to be immortall in this that all men haue a wondrous care what shall become of them and all thinges else after their death and die very willingly when life beginning to faile and to leaue them may stay and settle it selfe vpon a good conscience and a worthie euidence to it selfe In the second Booke of the Lawes these words following are read Our auncestors haue ordained that the dead should bee canonized and placed in the number of gods by certaine ceremonies which they did institute Ennius as of opinion that wee were not to weepe for the dead because their soules were immortall Plato sayd in the first Booke of his Common weale that a man which hath this good testimonie in himselfe to haue done no man wrong is alwayes vpheld with a greacious and stedfast hope the good nursse and supportresse of his old age And againe Cicero in his first Booke of Tusculane questions writeth these words You haue in sleepe the image of death wherein you are sheeted and wrapped vp euery night Are you in doubt then that there is no more sense in death seeing you know that in sleepe the soule of man is never at rest Moreouer banish farre from you those old wiues fables and comptes that it is a great miserie to die before the time And of what time Of Nature But nature hath lent vs life as siluer or coyne without setting vs a day of restitution but to restore it backe againe at her will and pleasure Why then doe you complaine if shee call for and demand her owne againe when it pleaseth her seeing you hold and haue it vpon this condition With what alacritie and chearefulnesse ought we to goe that way at which wayes end we shall be released and discharged of all carefull carkinges fascheries and anxieties of minde A woman of Sparta hauing sent her sonne to the warre and tydinges being brought her that hee was slaine in the battaile with great courage answered that shee did beare him to the end he should die for his Countrie Seneca an excellent Stoicke Philosopher hath verie worthie precepts in his morall Bookes touching death We could compile a great Booke of them but not to be too long too large it shall suffice vs to cull out some sentences of them which shall be able to giue the reader a taste and desire to see the rest I will beginne at the end of the thirteenth Epistle which speaketh to old men Among other euills folly hath yet this one that shee still begins to liue This poynt sheweth how bad and scurrilous the levitie and giddie humour of men
is who euery day lay new foundations of their life and beginne to build and raise hopes when it behooues them to goe out of the world You shall see old men who runne themselues out of breath after honors profittes and transitorie goods But can there bee a more vnsightly and vnseemely thing seene then an old man to become a childe againe In the two and twentith Epistle Is it not a great shame to bee afraid when wee are to enter into a Pallace of assurance and safetie The reason is that we are dispossessed and turned out of all the goods after which we doe sigh and painefully toyle at the end of our life whereof not any portion or part remaines vnto vs all being gone and lost There is no man which takes care to liue well but to liue long yet all men may be able to attaine to this good to liue vertuously but no man can or ought to promise himselfe long life We doe adde And the old man which now hath no more to do with the things of this life that are common to all is so ill aduised that he thinketh not of the amendment of his life nor of the boxe and blowe which death shall suddenly giue him on the eare At the very end of the three and twentith Epistle There are some who begin to liue when they must dye and there are some who are dead before they haue begun to liue In the thirtith Epistle As little wise is hee who feareth death as the young man who feareth to bee old For as old age doth kicke and spurre young age in like sort doth death old age Hee which will not dye hath no will to liue because life was giuen with this exception That we must die Wee are in the way of death and who feareth it is out of his wits seeing we expect that which is certaine and feare that which is vncertaine At the end of the two and thirtith Epistle He is free and his owne man who liueth as if hee had no longer to liue And at the end of the sixe and thirtith Epistle Neither little infants nor young boyes nor madde men feare death it is then a great shame if reason doe not as much confirme and assure vs as stupiditie and sottishnesse doth them At the end of the threescore and seuenteenth Epistle It is with our life as with a Comedie it skils not how long it be so it bee well acted Take no care where the end of your race shall be make a stop and a stay where necessity enforceth you prouided you make a good end In the nintith three Epistle Let vs take order that as gold and other things of excellent price and worth so our life be not of a great length neuerthelesse that it weigh much Let vs not measure it by our time but by our worke Will you know a very good respite of yeares it is to liue till we be wise He that is come so farre though hee haue not attayned to a great number of yeares hath seene the greater and better part of them The nintith nine Epistle containeth sundry consolations in death which I will briefly set downe It is a fond and childish part to giue the reynes to sorrow and to make account of an vncertaine thing as our life is He doth ill who weepes vpon custome and seeing that sorrow doth make vs forget the blessings and benefits receiued of God wee must betimes shake off and rid our selues of it to the end to call to minde the vertue of our departed friends and to make our vse of it and of them as if they were present Wee ought to follow the example of those who haue shewed themselues vnmoued at the death of their friendes to thinke we shall follow the dead whom we haue not lost but giuen vp vnto God who are gone but a little before vs It is the way of the world our life doth so manifest it wee haue assurance of nothing vnder heauen but of death and our life is short though it containe many ages It is crossed and wounded with infinite miseries which end in death freeing it of malice and of errour and ignorance Consequently he which is accustomed to grieue much depriueth himselfe of comfort to remedy which and in stead of imitating the fond customes of the ignorant and vulgar hee must shew himselfe a man of courage in the most violent shockes and assaults of aduersitie setting before our eyes the worthy deportments and behauiours of those which goe before vs keeping a measure betweene sorrow and forgetfulnesse of those whom wee haue made much on and beene kind and friendly vnto in the world and whom we see no more and when they are at peace and rest we are to giue ouer to grieue and sorrow for them I reascend to the nintith one Epistle from whence I will deduce that which followes Doe not measure vs by our Tombes and Monuments which seeme to note some way differing betweene some and others The graue wherein our bodies are dissolued to dust makes vs all equall Wee are borne vnequall but death makes vs all equall The Soueraigne Law-giuer hath not differenced vs by our nobilitie linage blood and greatnesse but in this life but when death commeth hee sayth to this worldly greatnesse Begon I will that there bee the same law to all liuing things vpon earth Wee are all subiect to all sorts of euills One is no more frayle nor more assured to liue till to morrow then another In the hundreth and one Epistle There is no day nor houre which doth not point out vnto vs our vanity and which by some new experiment and tryall doth not remember vs of our frailty which we tread vnder our feet and which doth not compell euery one of vs who build and deuise endlesse plots and designes to haue an eye vnto death From the hundred and seuenth Epistle I will make this deduction It is good to beare that which we cannot remedy to follow without murmuring or complaining that great God by whose prouidence all things come to passe A bad Souldier is hee who followes his Captaine vnwillingly Let death finde vs prest forward and cheerefull The heat which doth resolutely consigne and yeeld it selfe into the hands of God is euery way great On the contrary he is a luske coward and basely bred fellow who spurnes kickes and winses who complaines of the gouernment of the world and who had rather censure God then himselfe In the hundred and twentith Epistle A man is neuer more heauenly minded then when he thinketh vpon his owne frailty and knowes and acknowledgeth that he is borne to dye Also that his body is not a house but an Inne and for a while It is a folly for vs to feare the last dayes of our life seeing our first dayes are tributarries and owe as much vnto death as our last The last day of our race makes vs to touch death all the other doe
much desired declareth by his wordes which breathed nothing but faith charitie consolation a stedfast hope that the seruants of God are in peace enioy a free rest being drawne out of the foaming and tempestuous waues of this world and landing at the port of safetie and eternall happinesse when after the abolishment of death we come to a glorious immortalitie For this is our peace our assured rest our assured and perpetuall safetie In this world we are continually grapling tugging and wrastling with Sathan and all our exercise is to repulse and repell his dartes We haue on our armes on our foreheads sides and backes avarice incontinencie anger ambition of necessitie wee must wrastle without ceasing against the lustes of the flesh and the baites and allurements of the world Toward the end of the same Treatise hee sayth further that we must not weepe for our brethren when it pleaseth God to call and deliuer them out of this world for well I know that they are not lost but gone before and haue the start of those who tarrie behinde Wee may desire and looke after them as men do for their friends who are going some voyage or who take shipping to sayle and goe to land in a good port But we must not bewayle them nor here weare black mourning habitts seeing they haue alreadie receiued white robes in heauen It becomes vs not to giue occasion to Heathens justly to tax and reproue vs if they see by an inordinate loue our countenance appalled and agast thinking them vtterly lost and annihilated whom we hold and maintaine to be aliue with God and if they perceiue it witnessed euidently enough by our minde that wee condemne the faith we professe with our mouthes In this case we ouer throw our faith and our hope which we could not say but to proceed of hypocrisie It is nothing to shew our selues hardie in wordes if we evert and destroy the truth with our doings and deedes It is tyme to conclude this Chapter We say then that the anxieties of minde maladies perplexities and apprehensions of so many deathes which doe spurne and kicke against vs doe silently and tacitely cry vnto vs and exhort vs with speed to lift vp our eyes to Christ Iesus the fountaine of life to the communion we haue with him also to the blessinges alreadie receiued of him and to those which the hope which makes vs not afraide doth assuredly expect And following the counsell of S. Basile in his Treatise that thankes must alwayes bee giuen to God Let vs not put our affiance and trust in man nor let vs say with the ignorant vulgar death hath taken from me all my succour and helpe my father my husband my sonne the comfort of my old age the prop and piller of my house Who hath commaunded you to moore your ancher of hope in such a little lump of dust as man is What age is priuiledged from the handes of death What a one is he who by couenant made with vs protesteth that he will be the God of their fathers and of their children to a thousand generations who loue feare him Shall we forget him who makes so kinde a proffer of himselfe to vs to imagine forge to our selues succours and helpes of straw and of wind Let the ancher of our sure and stedfast hope sincke into the vaile of heauen and let it bee sticking faste in the throne of God It shall there be a brasen bullwarke for vs a wall of fire Let Christ be our life in death in him let death be our gaine Let vs say with Ieremiah in the 17. Chapter Blessed be the man which trusteth in the Lord whose confidence the Lord is For he shall be as a tree planted by the water which spreadeth out her roots by a flowing riuer which shall not feele when the heate shall approach her leafe shall be greene and shall not wither in the yeare of drought and shall not cease to yeeld her fruit Let vs further amasse and gather some words from the same Prophet O Lord thou art the hope of thy Church those that forsake thee shall bee confounded for they haue forsaken the fountaine of liuing waters Heale those that are thine O Lord then shall they be in rest saue them and none shall bee able to hurt them Leaue them not forlorne and in a desperate plight thou which art their hope in the day of affliction Let their despayring and hopelesse enemies be confounded and let them rest in safetie vnder the shadow of thy wings CHAP. XIX Of the resurrection of the bodies and of the immortalitie of humane soules THE Apostle speake to very good purpose in the 15. chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians that if our hope should be in Christ Iesus in regard of this present life onely our condition should be more miserable then other mens seeing that true Christians are continually exposed to diuers afflictions and from time to time doe suffer great tortures troubles But what would it auaile to liue in the world and there to subsist and be a thousand yeares if it be in the fire of calamities and sundry oppressions There cannot then bee proposed vnto vs a more certaine refuge and helpe nor a more sweete comfort and support against the miseries and infirmities of this present life then the assured hope of the resurrection to a better life When we shall beare about vs no longer the image of the first earthly man but of the second who is the heavenly Adam and that this corruptible and mortall bodie shall put on incorruption and immortalitie The sure confidence of Christians is the resurrection from the dead wherein we shall haue a glorious bodie which shall be so revnited to the blessed soule and the soule againe to the bodie that we may be for euer with our head fully replenished with euerlasting ioy in the presence of God The Heathens enemies of Christian religion haue especially impugned this Article of the resurrection of the bodie And which is more many of their Philosophers haue spoken doubtfully of the immortalitie of the soule At this tyme to the end to confirme our faith our hope and assured consolation we will consider the groundes of these two Articles aswell by the nature of things and by certaine conceptions as by the sound resolutions rehearsed in the holy Scriptures Certainly as Gregory the great said in his Moralls That those who haue not learned from the Scripture the doctrine of the Resurrection ought to learne it of nature For what doe men daily obserue in the continuall medley and blending of the Elements whereof all visible things are composed but proofes of the resurrection of the dead Wee see by the vicissitude and reuolution of time the Plants and Trees to lose their greene leaues which wither and fall off when Winter comes after in the Spring to sprout forth againe and the earth to become greene gay as before If the smal
things in the world and not to be paralleld whereof the reason is hid from vs though we see the things themselues But there is a great difference betweene the destruction or annihilation and the change of nature As we beleeue the resurrection of this our flesh so is it certaine that the nature of the same flesh shall subsist and remaine in the life eternall But the condition shall be changed in as much as this flesh vile and miserable shall be made glorious and happy These are some proofes brought by Tertullian Lactantius Firmianus in his Booke of the Heauenly Reward Chap. 23. obserueth That the Pagan Philosophers who desired to discourse of the last resurrection haue confounded and soyled this Article of our faith as al the Poets haue done Pythagoras maintained that the soule did transmigrate and passe out of one mans body into anothers and that he himselfe in the Troian warre was Euphorbus Chrysippus the Stoicke hath made a better answere who in his Booke De Prouidentia discoursing of the restauration of the world addeth This being so wee see that it is not impossible that after our death at the end of the reuolutions of some ages wee may bee restored againe into the state and condition wherein we are now But as Lactantius addeth the faith of Christians is much otherwise and their hope much more certaine For they vndoubtedly beleeue the resurrection of the flesh confirmed by most sacred and inuincible proofes of the holy Scripture by the promises of God and by the motions of the Spirit which raysed vp Christ Iesus from the dead as the Apostle declares it in the eight Chapter to the Romanes saying If the Spirit of him that raysed vp Iesus from the dead dwell in you hee that raysed vp Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortall bodies because of the Spirit dwelling in you True it is that the wicked shall rise againe in their bodies but this shall not bee for any communion they haue with the body of Christ Iesus nor with his Spirit but simply by the absolute power of God who shall giue them againe their being life and motion to suffer the second death being for euer damned in their bodies and soules So then such a resurrection cannot be counted grace nor called regeneration nor a resurrection to life but a repairing to condemnation whereof S. Iohn writes these wordes in the twentith Chapter of the Apocalips Verse eleuenth c. I saw a great white throne and one that sate on it from whose face fled away the earth and the heauen and their place was no more found I saw the dead great and small standing before God and the Bookes were opened and another Booke was opened which is the Booke of Life and the dead were iudged by the things which were written in the bookes according to their workes and the Sea gaue vp her dead which were in her and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which were ion them and they were iudged euery man according to their workes And the wicked were cast into the lake of fire this is the second death And whosoeuer was not found written in the Booke of Life was cast into the lake of fire Blessed then bee God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ who by his great mercy hath regenerated vs into a liuely hope by the resurrection of Christ Iesus from the dead to obtain an incorruptible inheritance which cannot bee defiled nor fade away reserued in the heauens for vs who are kept by the power of God thorough faith to haue the saluation prepared to be reuealed at the last day wherein we reioyce being now made heauy by diuers temptations as it is meete to the end that the triall of our faith much more precious then gold which perisheth and yet is tried in the fire may turne to our prayse honour and glory when Iesus Christ shall be reuealed who speaketh thus vnto vs in the person of his Disciples in the beginning of the 14. Chapter of S. Iohn Let not your hearts bee troubled You beleeue in God beleeue also in me There are many dwelling places in my Fathers house I goe to prepare a place for you and when I shall be gone hence and shall haue prepared a place for you I will come againe and will receiue you to my selfe that where I am there may you be also Then shall be the true regeneration and restauration of Gods children when the soule emptied of all errour ignorance and malice shall be filled with new illumination perfect righteousnesse and holinesse when the body clothed with glory and immortalitie shall see death swallowed vp in victory In him there shall be no fainting decâ—ying drooping nor old age The bodies of the Saints sayth S. Augustine in the 19. chap. of his Manuel shal rise againe without blemish without deformity without corruption heauines or impediment This shall as easily be done as their felicity shall be consummated for which cause wee call them spirituall although their bodies ought still to remaine not to be changed into Ghosts and Spirits As for the corruption which now presseth downe the soule and the vices by whose meanes the flesh lusteth against the spirit such flesh shall cease to be because it could not be able to possesse the Kingdome of God In regard of the substance of the same flesh it shall not be abolished but still remaine but euerlastingly glorified For this cause S. Paul said That the body being sowen a fleshly body shall rise againe a spirituall body because there shall be so strong an vnion betweene the soule and the body that the soule making the body to liue without any supply of nourishment and hauing no more combate and striuing within vs betweene the spirit and the flesh all being then spirit we shall not feele any enemies assaults nor dangers whatsoeuer without nor within but shall be repleat compassed about saciated crowned with permanent glory Behold as touching this point of the resurrection of the flesh The beleefe of this Article encourageth all Christians but particularly wise old men patiently to beare their infirmities and maladies remembring the counsell of the Apostle S. Peter in the third Chapter of his second Epistle Seeing that so it is sayth he that the heauens and the earth must be dissolued what manner of persons ought wee to bee in holy couersation and holy workes looking for and hasting vnto the comming of the day of the Lord by whom the heauen being set on fire shall bee dissolued and the Elements shal melt with heate But according to his promise wee looke for new heauens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Wherefore beloued seeing ye looke for such things be diligent that ye may bee found of him in peace without spot and blamelesse Let vs strengthen this Article of the resurrection by the notable sayings of S. Paul to the Corinthians Chap. 5. of the 2. Epistle We must all appeare before the iudgement
seat of Christ that euery man may receiue according to what he hath done in his body be it good or euill Knowing then the terror of the Lord we perswade men to the faith and wee are made manifest to God And that which he sayth at the end of the fourth Chapter of the first to the Thessalonians This we say vnto yee by the word of the Lord that wee which shall liue and remaine to the comming of the Lord shall not preuent them which sleepe For the Lord himselfe with a shout with the voyce of the Archangell and with the Trumpet of God shall descend from heauen and those which are dead in Christ shall rise first afterward wee which shall bee aliue and remaine shall bee caught vp with them also in the cloudes to meete the Lord in the ayre and so shall we euer be with the Lord. O how great occasion haue young and old who read these things to thinke vpon and consider their consciences Let vs adde some lineaments of the immortalitie of mans soule not that wee thinke that any good man doth call in doubt this truth but because we cannot too much fortifie young nor old against the bloudie scoffings execrable blasphemies of Epicures Atheistes with whom the earth is couered in these latter tymes Many auncient Philosophers as Pythagoras Pherecydes the Platonistes and the Stoickes haue set forth many sayinges of the immortalitie of the soule as much as they could learne out of the Schoole of Nature And yet as Lactantius declares it in his 7. booke of Diuine Institutions seeing they were ignorant wherein the soueraigne good of man doth consist vnlearned in the doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles they apprehended not any thing of the truth of this Article but by vncertaine opinion and coniecture rather then by assured knowledge Yea which is worse some of them first Dicaearchus then Democritus and after them Epicurus haue disputed against the immortalitie of soules Cicero himselfe who otherwise doth eloquently harang and pleade this cause in the first booke of his Tusculane questions hauing examined diuers opinions is at a demurr doubt euen to say that it belongs to some god to scan and to see which of all these diuers opinions are maintained sayth he because these diuers opinions are maintained by learned men we cannot well coniecture which of them all is to be receiued But as Lactantius sayth wee to whom God manifesteth his truth need not to coniecture But the source and spring of error vpon this poynt is that those who haue questioned the certaintie of the immortalitie of the soule haue stood too much vpon their owne conceiptes and vnderstanding judging false and incomprehensible whatsoeuer was out of the reach of their apprehension Their reasons are well set forth and fitly confuted in the second and third Chapter of the Booke of Wisedome as it followeth The wicked haue falsely imagined with themselues our life is short and full of vexation and in the death of man there is no recouery and it was neuer knowne that any returned from the graue For we are borne at aduenture and shall be as if we had neuer beene because the breath of our nostrilles is as smoake and our wordes as a sparke rising vp out of our heart which being extinguished our body is turned into ashes and our spirit vanisheth as soft ayre Come then and let vs frolicke it with the pleasures that are present chearefully vsing the creatures and our youth let vs fill our selues with the best wine and with parfumes c. It is added also after The wicked haue thus erred and gone astray because their wickednesse hath blinded them and they haue not vnderstood the mysteries of God nor hoped for the reward of holines and haue not discerned what is the reward of the soules that are faultlesse For God created man to be incorruptible hauing made him to be an Image of his owne nature and likenesse but thorough the enuie of the Deuill death is come into the world and those which hold on his side proue it But the soules of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment shall touch them In the sight of the vnwise they seemed to die their end was grieuous At their departure from vs they seemed vtterly destroyed but they are in peace They suffered paines before men their hope was full of immortalitie hauing beene lightly or in few things punished they shall be plentifully rewarded because God hath proued them as gold and hath found them worthie of him They shall judge the Nations and shall haue dominion ouer the people and their Lord shall raigne for euer Those which trust in him shall vnderstand the truth and the faithfull shall remaine with him in loue For grace and mercy is to his Saints and he hath care of his elect But the vngodly shall be punished for their very imaginations who haue made no reckoning of the righteous and haue rebelled against the Lord. For wicked is he who despiseth Wisedome and Discipline their hope is vaine their labours helpe them not and their workes are vnprofitable From these words we gather that the abhominable opinion of the mortalitie of the soule openeth the windowe to error and letteth goe the raynes to all impietie and dissolution Whereunto doth sort and agree the scoffing speeches of Epicures and prophane ones to elude and shift off the judgments of God denounced vnto them of which Esaiah in the 22. Chapter and Saint Paul in the 15. Chapter of the 1. to the Corinthians make mention Let vs eate and drinke for to morrow we shall die Let vs be frolicke and merry we haue but one day more to liue This is the reckoning of these clamourers and brawlers who deafe and trouble our eares with their discourses and reasons Moreouer this Text of the Booke of Wisedome discouereth the prophanenesse of these sensuall and carnall men to proceede from this that they judge of the soule of man according to their grosse imaginations to wit that it is no other but a respiration a breath and vapour of smoake not considering there is great difference betweene the effect and the cause that is betweene respiration which proceedes from the lunges and is conveyed to the nostrills or to the mouth and the soule it selfe which is that essentiall spirit which formeth man yea doth many thinges without the adiument and helpe of the bodie witnesse her speculations deepe imaginations profound meditations shee being neuer idle and without motion when the bodie is faste a sleepe and stirres not Although then that respiration ceaseth the naturall faculties of the heart and lunges being suffocated and leauing their office the soule created to the image of God is not stifled and abolished so as there is great difference betweene it and the soules of Beastes which being formed with the bodies of the same matter that the bodies are doe perish also as the bodies and with them whereof it is that
the Beastes doe suour the earth and desire nothing but that which is earthie and of the earth Man on the contrary as the wisest of the Heathens especially Plato and Cicero in diuers passages of their writings doe obserue hath a diuine and heauenly soule which being enfranchised and deliuered out of the prison of the bodie returneth to the place of his originall And the more generous the mind of man is the more he lusteth after and desireth heauenly thinges meditating and looking for a better state and condition then he enioyeth in this present life From thence it commeth to passe that he despiseth losses and troubles calamities wounds and death it selfe holding it a great honour to yeeld vp his soule in some valiant and vertuous exployt and enterprise for the seruice and safetie of his Countrie to the end to goe to the other life where good men haue their reward Salust sayth that the vertuous effectes and suffringes of the minde are no lesse immortall then the soule it selfe which to vs is common with God but the body assimilateth and a greeth with the beastes Another reason hath strongly perswaded the auncient Philosophers to beleeue the immortality of mans soule That God should seeme otherwise vniust if he should suffer the vau-neantes treacherous dissolute to prosper in the world after to escape his vengeance and good men who are industrious and imploy themselues to preserue humane societie should vtterly perish in death without hope of rest at the end of their trauailes and of ioy after so many disquiets and griefes of minde and of a crowne at the end of so many thousand fought battailes and combatts Vndoubtedly prophane persons who are bold to thinke and affirme the soule of man to bee mortall doe abolish as much as in them lyes all pietie and religion they ouerthrow all vertuous and laudable actions and enterprises and as S. Ambrose very well sayth in his exposition of the worke of the six dayes they are madd-men Furthermore what is more avers preposterous and ill beseeming then to haue a straight body and a crooked soule alwayes groveling and stooping to the earth never lifting or rouzing vp it selfe toward heauen her true dwelling place But as God our creator hath plainly instructed vs in his word touching the originall end and soueraigne good of man It is also from the same word that wee must gather the infallible doctrines which we doe handle Mans soule was not composed of the elements nor fabricated or formed of the dust of the earth but the Lord God inspired it and endowed it with diuers gifts Little children doe obtaine even a soule of God their creator to wit a reasonable soule not of the seed of their fathers and mothers but by the singular fauour and benefit of him whom the Apostle Hebr. 12. calleth the Father of spirits and not without cause For although that he be the father of our bodies yet notwithstanding he created not our soules by corporall helpes but hath placed them in our bodies as excellent lampes and lights as Salomon speakes of them Prov. 20. 7. We call them immortall for two reasons first by reason of their essence which is spirituall and originarie or primarie from God the giuer of it Secondly in regard of the grace peculier to the children of God for so much as we haue communion with Iesus Christ the eternall Word of the Father the Prince and author of life This immortall and eternall life is the true happie life and so much to be desired so much recommended in the Scripture whereof Saint Paul sayth The just shall liue by faith Rom. 1. 17. Also who beleeueth in me hath eternall life Iohn 6. 47. And the Apostle sayth Iesus Christ hath abolished death and brought life and immortalie vnto light thorough the Gospell 2 Timoth. 1. 10. For although the soules of the wicked in regard of their essence sense and motion be immortall neuerthelesse they suffer death in as much as they are depriued of the iustice light beatitude and glorious life of God vpon which cause the wicked who triumph and braue it for a while in the world are called dead and after this present life it is sayd that they goe into condemnation and into eternall death because the state wherein they are then to be and remaine in perpetuall torments deserueth rather the name of death then life Prophane people talke they know not what in obiecting vnto vs that neuer any came from the other world as they babble and prattle to tell newes of them O the greatest fooles and idiots among people O silly sotts will they be still madde miserable and more brutish them beasts who beleeue nothing but what they see with their eyes and touch with their hands According to their babble they ought to giue ouer to beleeue that they doe participate of reason seeing they doe not see their soule Let them giue ouer to beleeue that our friends dwelling remote and farre from vs doe liue and are at their ease and content desiring to see vs againe and that because wee see them no more But to proceed it is not simply true that neuer any returned from the other life on the contrary the Histories of the Old and New Testament doe furnish vs with examples of men and women of young striplings and damsells raised againe from death The Prince of our faith the head of all Christians our Lord Iesus descending from heauen to assume our humaine nature in earth hath tould vs ample and gladsome newes of the state of heauen and of life eternall His ascension to heauen in bodie and soule is an assured pledge that we also shall ascend into heauen in our bodies and soules S. Paul caught vp into the third heauen where he was informed of the high and deepe mysteries and secrets of God from thence came to tell vs afterward many particularities of the Church Christ Iesus is in heauen and we shall liue there For although that death dissolue the bodie into dust from whence it was taken death cannot let the soule to returne to him that gaue it And when we die young and old let vs after the example of Christ Iesus and of Dauid recommend our soules to God rendring them into his hands as into the handes of a most faithfull keeper and gardian of them And let vs say with S. Stephen Lord Iesus receiue my soule being well assured that at the same houre when it shall be fit for vs to goe out of this present life we haue part in that gracious promise of the sonne of God made to the sinner conuerted Verely I say vnto thee that this day thou shalt be with me in Paradize This is the sweete voyce which still ought to be sounding in the heart of the wise Vieillard to the end that being at the poynt to leaue this world as his age plainely shewes him his conscience doe not smite and checke him to be a prophane person and a contemner