still and the incertainty as well as the certainty of it This divine devise of death so pleased God and was so necessary for the good of man that though by the merits of his dying Son he changed all the former things blotting out ordinances abolishing Ceremonies opening the gates of Heaven to all believers yet would not he Exterminate death It was out of his mercy that he refused to abrogate it that while corruption reigned death also might reign over it lest this poyson should want its Antidote We have therefore no just cause to complain of death which is an Invention conducing to our great good and the incertainty of the time though it most vexeth us is notwithstanding the most beneficial Circumstance that attends it The time of life is certainly known there is but one entrance to the light of this World The Ceremony of dying is not formal It keeps not to one time nor one manner but admits of all times and many manners Life comes into the World but one way but hath many waies to go out It was the benevolence of God to open so many doors to those that flye for refuge One way is more then enough to find out dangers but to escape them many are but necessary Death is not a burthen of seaven or nine monthes but life must have time before it sets forth And what are the first encounters of it Tears â—nd Bonds It cannot avoyd Evills and it is afeared to bear them therefore it delaies time and when it cannot lurk any longer it comes forth Crying Death leads us forth to joy and liberty Therefore it stayes not it seeks no corners nor protractions Nor doth death free us onely from suffering Evills but keeps us also from doing any To be good every day thou mâ—st dye dayly The incertainty also of the time of death and the manner of it like a busie Monitour warnes thee to do good and to be good at all times and in every place private or publick And the inevitablenâ—sse of it takes away all Excuse or pretensions for thy impreparation The Glory of death is also much augmented by its facility in redressing the difficulties of life It is not without the Divine counsel and a speciall priviledge that the Soule of man is so easily parted from the body the life of beasts is more tenacious and will suffer much indignitie and fury before it leaves them There is nâ— living creature more fraile none more weak then man the lightest strâ—ake fells him the Soul is very nice and will quickly cast off the body if it persists but in the least Indisposition A single hair killed Fabius and a Grape Anacreon these contemptible instruments destroy'd them as effectually as the thunderbolt did Esculapius Coma dyed as easily as he could wish and Baptist a Mirandulus as he could think His Soule quitted his body without any grudging without a disease without poyson without violence or any fatall mischance No door can keep death out it defeats life with its own weapons and kills us with the very Cordials and comforts of it Perhapâ— no kind of death is more violent then thâ—â— which sets upon us with the forces oâ— lâ—â—e because it kills when life is most vigorous and pleasant Their owne wishes have destroyed many And life hath oftentimes perished by her own contrivements Clidemus was killed with honour Diagoras with joy Plato with rest and Philemon with laughter This last is both a merry and a frequent destroyer and freed Sicily from one Tyrant Death also makes use sometimes of our very virtues to exanimate us Shame killed Diodorus and the Mother of Secundus the Philosopher dyed with blushing and an excessive modestie Life is a fraile possession it is a flower that requires not rude and high winds but will fall in the very whispers and blandishments of fair weather It is folly to labour to retain that which wil away to fly from that which will meet us every where yea in the way we fly is a vain and foolish industry Whither we seek death or avoyd it it will find us out Our way to fly and our very flight end both in death by hasting from it we make hast to it Life is a journey whose end cannot be mist it is a steady ayming at dissolution Though we fetch wide Compasses and traverse our way never so often we can neither lengthen it nor be out of it What path soever we take it is the Port-roade to death Though youth and age are two distant Tropicks of life yet death is as near to the one as to the other And though some live more and some lesse yet death is their equal neighbour and will visit the young as soon as the old Death is a Crosse to which many waies leade some direct and others winding but all meet in one Center It matters not which thou takest nor whither thou art young or aged But if thou beest young thou maist come sooner thither then the old who is both doting and weary It was necessary that a Sanctuary being provided for the distressed the way to it should be easie pervious and at an indifferent distance from all parts Good should be diffusive and the gate that leads to it must be without doors and bolts The entrance into this life is narrow and difficult it is difficultly attained difficultly retained and lyes alwaies in the power of another Every man may take life from us none can take death Life is subject to the Tyranny of men but death is not life makes Tyrants and death unmakes them Death is the slaves prerogative â—oyall and the Sabbath of the afflicted Leo Iconomachus the Emperor made the birth of both sexes tributary but death never paid taxation It was not lawfull in his reigne to get Children without paying for them every Infant so soon as borne was to give him contribution they paid then the Excise of life Death onely frees us from these Impositions of Tyrants And wilt thou then condemn liberty and that maturity of death by which it ripens every age wilt thou the divine liberality blame because thy life is short or may be so thou hast no reason to find fault with the years already given thee because thou shalt not have more thou mayst as well quarrel with Nature because she made not thy dimensions larger and thy body heavier by eighty or a hundred pounds he that measured thy proportion measured thy time too and too much of this last would have been as troublesome and unweildy as too much of the first for Long life opprest with many woes Meets more the further still it goes Death in every age is seasonable beneficial and desirable It frees the old man from misery the youthfull from sin and the infant from both It takes the aged in the fullnesse of their time It turnes the flowers of youth into fruit and by a compendious secret improvement matures infancy leading it into the Gate of Heaven
throughly so is if not Evill a neighbourhood to Evill True praise consists not in a bare abstinence from Evill but in the pursuance the performance of good It sufficeth not therefore that we doe nothing which may afflict us but we must withall doe something that may exhilarate us This we must remember that to do good is one thing and to become good is another Although we cannot become good unlesse wee doe good But we become good not because we have done good works but because we did them well Discretion which considers the manner of doing good orders the Action so excellently that oftentimes there is more goodnesse in the manner then in the Action What will it availe us to do good if it be not well done It is to write faire and then to poure the Inke upon it Actions cease to be good unlesse well acted they are like excellent colours ill-layed on The more glorious thy intention is the more carefully thou must manage it Indiscretion is most evident in matters of importance One drop of Oyle upon Purple is sooner seen then a whole quart that is spilt upon Sack-cloath The Ermyn keepes his whitenesse unstained with the hazard of his life Hee values himselfe at a most sordid rate that esteems lesse of Virtue then this beast doth of his skin that prefers a foule life to a fair death that loves his blood more then his honour and his body more then his Soule Ennius saith that the way to live is not to love life Life is given us for another cause then meerly to live he is unworthy of it that would live onely for the love of life the greatest cause of life is Virtue what more absolute madnesse can there be then to make life the cause of sin yea the cause of death And for lifes sake to lose the crowâ— of life What greater unhappinesse then to dye eternally by refusing death The Virtuous youth Pelagius rather then he woulâ—d lose his Innocence suffered the most exquisite and studyed torments of that impure Tyrant Habdarrhagmanus He suffered many deaths before he was permitted to dye Hee saw his limbs his hands and his sinewes cut in sunder and lying dead by him while he yet lived This preservation of their honour some chast beauties have paid dearly for It cost Nicetas his tongue Amianus his Eye Saint Briget her face Apollonia her teeth and Agatha her breasts The lovely Cyprian Virgin paid her life for it Nature even for herself doth lay a snare And handsome faces their own traitours are The beauty of Chastity is best preserved by deformity and the purity of life by a contemptible shape The Shoomaker is carefull of the neatnesse of a shooe which is made to be worn in durt and mire And shall man be negligent to adorn his Soul which is made for Heaven and the service of the deity Every artificer strives to do his worke so as none may find fault with it And shall we do the works of life perfunctorily and deceitfully All that makes man to be respected is his worke as the fruite doth make the Tree and a good work can never be too much respected Keepe thy selfe alwaies in respect by doing good Thy own dignity is in thy own power If thy works be good thou shalt be accounted good too If better then any thou shalt be acknowledged for the best Man is the effect of his own Act he is made by those things which he himself makes Hee is the work of his own hands A rare priviledge that permits men and impowers them to make themselves Thou hast leave to be whatsoever thou wouldst be God would not limit thy happinesse He left thee power to encrease it to polish and beautifie thy selfe according to thy own mind Thy friend or thy neighbour cannot do it Thy owne good must be thy owne industry Virtue because she would be crosse to Fortune is not adventitious It is our great happinesse that this great good must not be borrowed Blessed be that Divine mercy which hath given us means to be saved without the assistance of our neighbours who have endeavoured to damn us That almighty hand which first Created man in the Image of his Creatour finished him not but left some things for him to doe that he might in all things resemble his maker It is one thing to be an Idol or Counterfeit and another to be a lively Figure and likenesse There are many Coppies which are not assimilant to their Originals like Pictures that have not so much as an ayre of those faces they were drawn by To the Politure and sweetning of the Divine Image there are some lines expected from thine owne hand If some expert Statuary suppose Phidias himselfe should leave unfinished some excellent peece like that Statue of Minerva at Athens and out of an incurious wearinesse give himself to some obscure and Artlesse imployment or to meere Idlenesse wouldst not thou much blame and rebuke him for it And canst thou deserve any lesse if by a loose and vitious life thou wilt either totally deface the Image of God in thy selfe or else leave it unfinished Doest thou think that God is maimed seeing thou doest leave his Image without hands I mean without good works Dost thou think that he is blind seeing thou dost extinguish or put quite out that discerning light and informing wisdome which hee hath given thee Hee that doth not integrally compose himself and will not carefully strive for perfection would represent God to be imperfect and a Monster Virtuous manners saith holy Maximus are types of the Divine goodnesse by which God descends to be represented by man assuming for a body those holy habits and for a soule the Innocent dictates of wisdome in the spirit by which he makes those that are worthy to become Gods and seals them with the true character of Virtue bestowing upon them the solid riches of his infallible and immortal Knowledge Work then while it is day while it is life-time work and cease not Finish this expectation this great spectacle not of men onely but of God and Angels Remember that the rewards and applause of this World are but a Paint of eternity The solid and permanent glory is given in Heaven When every man shall have praise of God The Limbner is carefull to beautifie and shew his utmost skill in that peece which hee knowes to be intended for judicious eyes Thou art not to paint but really to make a living Image of the Divine mind which also must be examined and judged by that searching eye from which nothing can be hidden have a care that no ill mixture nothing disproportionable nothing uneven or adulterate may be found in it The presents we offer to the true God must be true and solid works not the fictitious oblations of Jupiter Milichus Why wilt thou delight in a maimed Soule or which is worse in a Soul whose best part is dead Thou hadst rather have a
when it cannot go one step upon Earth and giving it the wings of a Dove to flye and be at rest before it can use its feet To these past arguments of the goodnesse of death I shall adde another Death in the old world before the manifestation of God in the flesh was the publick index or open signe of hidden divinity It is the gift of God who gives nothing but what is good The Divell playing the Ape and labouring to imitate the Inimitable Jehovah did by asserting death to be the greatest good mainly fortifie those abominable rites and honours conferred upon him by his blind worshipers When they petitioned him for the greatest blessing that the Gods could give to man he by the permission of the true God whom they had deserted would within three daies strangle them in their beds or use some other invisible meanes to set an end to their daies Thus he served Triphonius Agamedes and Argia for her three Sons This miserable mother requested of him that hee would give the best thing to her children that could be given to men her petition was granted and within a very short time they received that which she thought to be the worst namely death So great is the ods betwixt seeming to be and being really betwixt opinion and truth yea that death which we judge to be the worst I meane the immature is oftentimes the best What greater good had deckt great Pompey's Crown Then death if in his honours fully blown And mature glories he had dyed those piles Of huge successe lowd fame lofty stiles Built in his active youth long lazie life Saw quite demolished by ambitious strife He lived to weare the weake and melting snow Of lucklesse Age where garlands seldom grow But by repining fate torne from the head Which were them once are on another shed Neither could I ever grant that the death of Infants and Children though commonly bewail'd as unseasonable were the parents misfortunes but the courtesies rather and mercies of the almighty To omit Amphiaraus and other Ethnick instances I shall make use of a true and Christian History which in these later years was the great admiration of King Philips Court. Didacus Vergara a most noble hopefull â—outh adorned with all those vertues which â—eautifie a blooming life was famous in the mouths of all good men and as deare in their hearts But what was the reward thinkest thou of his virtuous life An immature and almost a sudden death So that it is not to be doubted but it was a divine favour Being to go into bed he spoke to his sister O what manner of night will this be unto me I beseech you deare sister furnish me with some candles and leave one to burn by me Abought midnight he suddenly called so that all the familie was awaked and got up to whom he told that he should dye that night and desired them to send presently for his Confessour They all imagined that he had been troubled with some dream especially his Father a most renowned Physitian when he felt his pulse to beate well and orderly But notwithstanding all this they omitted not to send for his Confessour who was Gasper Pedroza He as if touched with some Divine presension was at that dead time of the night awake and being come to the sorrowfull Father he told him that Didacus was expected in another World before day that the Virgin-Qâ—eene of Heaven had revealed so much to him and that hee would be gone as soon as the Sacraments could be administred unto him It fell out just so For those sacred solâ—mnities were no sooner ended but he was dissolved as if he had stayed onely for that spirituall refection to strengthen him in his Journey He left this dark and low World towards the first breakin gs of the day and ascending to eternity upon the wings of the morning He might have past from thence with lesser noise and in a shorter time but he expired more solemnly then so and yet without weary accessions and the Tyranny of sicknesse He stayed for the saving institutions of his redeemer the businesse that detain'd him so long was Heaven and not the tumults of a tyring and obstinate dissolution all this proves it to have been the hand of God and not an unfortunate sudden death the precise Actions of the deity must be attended with unusuall circumstances Whome God doth take care for and love He dies young here to live above There is room enough for life within the compasse of few years if they be not cast away Think not that to last long and to live long is the same thing every one that hath stayd long upon earth hath not lived long Some men find fault with death because no experiment can be made of it without an absolute dissolution they would dye twice to trye what kind of state it is that they may be fitly furnished against the second time when they must dye in earnest But this is madness and were it granted them the good they pretend would not be performed For he that will cast away one life without preparing for death wil not fear to hazard another desperate malefactors will take no warning by râ—prieves Besides what benefit would there be by dying twice seeing that of necessity they must live twice too and so be twice miserable if not twice impious It is strange that these men who fear death and adjudge it to be evill should desire to have it doubled and that which by their good will they would not tast once they will beg to chew and swallow downe twice whereas if death were an Evill it would be so much the lesser by comming but once The miseries of life are nothing so civill they are instant importunate and outragious they will reinforce themselves and set upon us twice or thrice yea a thousand times Death is more modest she wearies us not as long as wee are well When our disorders have turned the harmony of life into discord and noise then shee comes to cast those murmurers asleep and to give the Soul peace He is no troublesome guest that comes but once But it were a great happinesse thou wilt say if men did experimentally know what it is to dye Truely this Felicity is not wanting Death is a most admirable ingenious Excogitation Though we dye but once yet do not we dye at once We may make yea we do make many assaies or tryals of dying Death insinuates it selfe and seizeth upon us by peecemeals it gives us a tast of it self It is the Cronie or Consort of life So soon as we begin to be wâ—e begin to wast and vanish we cannot ascend to life without descending towards death Nay we begin to dye before we appeare to live the perfect shape of the Infant is the death of the Embryo childhood is the death of Infancie youth of Childhood Manhood of youth and old age of Manhood When we are arrived at this last
how can it be the Medicine of Evills It is an Evill great enough that it is not the Medicine of Evills but that sufficeth not it is also the greatest Evill Aeschylus is in the like errour for it is called by him The Physician of incurable Evils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A most ridiculous appellation How can that be the Physitian of incurable Evills which is it selfe such an incurable Evill as their owne Machaon could not resist Equally false is that of Sophocles The last Curer of diseases is death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If death it selfe be a disease which must and shall be healed how can it be the last curer of diseases But these men after the Common manner of Physicians held the cure of great Evills to consist in desperate remedies as obstinate diseases are expell'd by strong and Diaphoretick Medicines Health indeed is dear unto us and death I confesse puts an end to all its diseases and to all Medicaments too It takes away the disease sooner and oftner then any other remedy but these Poets themselves as sick men say of their Potions deny not but it is bitter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is better to live ill then to dye well Saith Euripides himselfe in another place such a good opinion had hee of death It had beene but a sorry provision for mankind if God had given us no other Medicine against Temporal Evills but death The cure of our miserable condition had been both imperfect and uncertain and to our sad necessity there had been added necessarie despair when the cure of small Evils had been by a greater and the great Evill it self left incurable But Glory to the blessed Jesus wee are both fully câ—red and faithfully cared for That which can cure all Evills must be something that is not Evill Therefore death cannot cure them because it is an Evill for God created it not but it came into the World through the envy of the Divell Good men hold it to be Evill the bad find it so Thou wilt ask then what is the Medicine of Evills I answer it is that which is the Medicine that strengthens us to bear the violence and the pangs of death that which the very Enemies of it cannot deny to be good I mean Patience that which being made Evill by abuse yet in that state hath been commended by men that were not Evil by Seneca in his Cato Dion in his Melancoma and Philo in his Pancratiastes So winning and attractive is the Virtue of Patience that the very shadow of it procures reverence and make the very abuse and corruption of it laudable If then the Counterfeit of it could beautifie vice and make it amiable even to wise men what wonder is it if the Substance be a protection and ornament to Virtuous persons This is the Medicine which Leonides gave against death Let those Titles therefore which death usurped be vindicated by the right owner Patience then is the best medicine of Evills It is the cure of the Incurable the last Physitian the Ease in death the mollifying Oyle the gentle purge the pleasant Potion and that I may recover its right to another Title which death usurped from the pen of Bâ—etius It is a sanctuary that lies alwaies open to the distressed Lastly lest I should deny that which even the envy of Fortune could not deny Patience as Zeno elegantly said is the Queen regent of all things yea of that rebellious changling Fortune But let us adde to the certainty of the cure the easinesse of comming by the medicine We need not send for it into Forraign Regions nor dig it out of Mines nor extract it out of the Veines of Herbs or the vital parts of beasts Wee need not go for it to the Apothecary nay I shall adde wee need not wish for it It is already in our custody a manuall Antidote that is alwaies about us and in us effectuall for all things and ready for all men It is a Physitian we need not call upon not like death that forsakes the wretched and those that earnestly long for it that hath no pitty upon teares but keeps off And will not hear the Crie Of distrest man not shut his weeping Eye Hitherto we have taken view but of one side of Patience and that halfe of her which she opposeth to Evills Every part of her is lovely and excellent and if we remove now from this Collateral station to a direct we shall behold her intire beauty and how well shee deserves of good The Sacraments of this Virtue are two To suffer Evill to do good Nobly doth she celebrate both with her there is no Evill without her there is no good I think her the Mart and Mother-City of all that is good Every Virtue is a Colonie of Patience planted and nourished by her Virtues owe their Original to her she is part of it and in every one of them She is their holy fire their Vesta and Lararium or private Chappell they are her Nuns or Virgins what ever they have either sacred or glorious is from her To the perfection of man there is nothing more necessary For as Brasse must be first melted and afterwards cast so the hard and rigid matter of Virtues must be softned and dissolved by Patience that man may become a glorious and living Statue of Divinitie No marvell that wee require labour and hardnesse in Virtuous persons seeing wee expect it from Smiths A certain Just Law of all the World hath exacted it to be the price of Virtue Beare what thou wouldst not and thou shalt enjoy what thou wilt Labour is the good mans purse Patience is his Gold Onely an obstinate sordid Idlenesse makes men poor not onely in body but in mind also Without Patience they cannot possesse their own Soules Neither Nature nor Virtue nor Fortune and this last thou wilt perhaps think strange trust us with their goods without this Prosperity when it is lent to man dispensenth its treasures to none so plentifully as to the laborious Without a blow it stroaks us not The sweet-meats it brings are not eaten but in the sweat of the face It was truly said of Fortune Give bread to the poor but give him thy fists for sauce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Snake will easily slip through our hands unlesse we grasp her with Figleaves or some knotty rough grass Fortune is very slippery and without labour and a strong hand she will not be held Honest gaine breeds most Joy I shall adde most security when it is gotten with most pain Labour is the earnest we give for after-Joyes which are an addition or consequence rather attending the other fruits of it Though it goes before them yet it is refreshed with their following after As hunger which is a Natural sauce sweetens the meat and the Joyes of the eater even before â—e eates Wee look with most delight upon those things which wee think to be our own and we think
member cut off then hanging dead by thee Thou wouldst then onely wish for its company when it would be no hindrance to thee And canst thou endure the immortal Soul to be sick of death to be sick in his best part in the head wilt thou suffer thy mind to drowse to be paralytical and senselesse never thinking of God nor of doing good In such a liver the beauty of his immortal part is crusted over with an incurable leprosie and reason which is the Soules Countenance is most ingloriously ecclipsed The Task of life is to labour and the Sacrament of the Soule is to work rationally Idlenesse is a Parenthesis in the line of life When we do nothing wee do not live Slothfullnesse is a dead Existence a kind of sleep when we are awake That life is empty that is not filled with the care of living well It was truly said by Possidonius that one day of a learned mans life was more pleasant then all the years of the unlearned One houre one minute well spent is to be preferred before a sinfull voluptuous for-ever Time is a sacred thing it flowes from Heaven it is a thred spun from thence by the motion and circumvolution of the spheres It is an emanation from that place where eternity springs The right use of it is to reduce it to its Original If we follow time close it will bring us to its Fountain It is a clue cast down from Heaven to guide us thither It is the younger brother of eternity the one must be sought in the other It hath some assimilation to Divinity it is partly knowable and partly not Wee move in it and wee see it not It is then most invisible when most present If we be carefull of it the benefit is ours If wee neglect it we cast away our selves Hee lives not at all that lives not well And hee that lives ill shall dye worse Hee suffers a living and sensible death It is death because it wants the fruit of life and it is sensible because it is with losse and punishment Many ill livers comfort themselves with a vain conceir that the state of death is senselesse But Vice and Idlenesse are more malitious deaths they carry with them the penalty of sense They are fertill in evills and barren of good like a cursed ground that bringes forth nothing but thornes and thistles You expect grapes from your vines corn from your Fields but no Fruit at all from your selves Were you made to be good for nothing for shame be your own dressers Manure your selves and prune your vain and noxious affections Man himself is his own pretious Soile his own fruitfull field and thriving Plant let him that expects fruits from extraneous things tast first of his own Good workes are the apples of this Heavenly Plant. The Vine and the Field though they bear not for themselves pay their annual proventions If they had beene left to their first fruitfullnesse before the Curse they had exceeded in a most uberous spontaneous fertility if they should yeild nothing now they would be good for nothing Man bears fruit for himselfe and may bear as much as he pleaseth Wilt thou then keepe backe thy own provision Wilt thou pine thy selfe or by burying thy talent in the dust be an enemy to thy own soule and envious towards others Virtue in my opinion is like to Musick it pleaseth most of all the Virtuous man himself and it pleaseth also the vitious whose Conscience doth force him to admire that in others which he neglects in himselfe Musick delighteth both the Musician and the unskillfull Musick built the Walls of Thebes and Virtue must build the new Hierusalem Musick and Virtue are the performances of the hand and the Cordials of the mind Every lover of Virtue is Musical that is so say he is pleased with the suffrages of his own Conscience and solaced with the Celestiall flights of his pure Spirit Hee loves the works of Virtue not to gain the peoples applause but for Virtues sake whose beauty and power are best seene in her workes Honesty is one of the liberal Arts it is a trade of Conscience not of gaine Craftsmen shew their skill in their works The Sculptor in his Cuts the Painter in his limnings and the Goldsmith in his Plate To do something not the manner of doing it is their care Their worke may be well done though negligently and without much Art The Limner may give a stroke in hast or anger which neither Judgement nor curiosity can ever match Giotto's circle though drawn perfunctorily surpassed the most elaborate peeces of other Arâ—â—sts Virtue alone makes no use either of errour or chance and this she doth meerly to oppose Fortune In virtuous actions if wee erre in doing though we do good yet the worke of Virtue is not well done In other Arts one Exemplar or Act may serve to shew the Artificers skill though he should never work more But it is not so in Virtue As we cannot know a skillfull Musician unlesse he plaies upon some Instrument so Virtuous men are not manifested untill they Act He that will give any proofe of himselfe must needs be active but to be so once is not activity Virtue is a most usefull thing and the use of it dyeth not after it is used For allthough all the actions of man are transitory yet when they proceed from Virtue they are permanent I advise thee therefore to be permanent yea to be immortal Care not for those things which the World esteems to be enduring as Gold and the Wealth of Fortune those will make them wings and fly away when thou doest least look for it Care thou for those things which the people and their Hypocritital rulers value not because they believe them to proceed from a sheepish and rewardlesse tamenesse and not from grace and the secret dispensations of the God of peace Care I say for Righteousnesse and Innocence Care that thy Actions be upright These are the treasures which the World believing to be transient shall find one day to be truly solid and permanent Thou hast read somtimes that advice of the Apostle Redeem the times That is to say what thou doest well at one time thou shalt have it at all times Thy good Actions withâ—rsoever thou goest will bear thee company They are Companions of a most rare fidelity and will leave thee neither in the hour of death nor after death When our friends cannot follow us then do our good works travell with us they are then our best friends and overcome our foes Envy it selfe is appeased with death it falls off with the body Malice knowes no posthume persecution and the glory of Virtue in that state is above the reach of her Enemies though they may disturb our temporal rights they are too short to oppose our claime to immortality The onely peaceful possession of the dead is his good life and righteous dealings what wil it avail the
but feathers but chaffe and motes Those universall Monarchies founded upon the principall Cities of the World whose Colony was the whole Earth Those Cities whose bulwarks did threaten the Clouds whose Armies and Fleets made the Earth to tremble and the Seas to grone whose Lawes like Oracles were held sacred and unalterable found no security against the Arm of God which tears the Crowne from the Head and the Scepter from the right hand of the Lawgiver He considers in his dwelling plâ—câ— like a clâ—â—r 〈◊〉 upon hâ—â—bs â—e 〈…〉 the things that are to câ—â—e He â—â—â—â—th the Nations with the Sâ—ve of 〈◊〉 He bâ—owes upon them and they wâ—th 〈◊〉 and â—hall not be planted And why tâ—inâ—â—ou theâ— that these dry and fading 〈…〉 fâ—ourish for ever All temporall triâ—mphs have their date they passe away in a sure and uninterrupted course and when they begin to decay and unloade themsâ—lves then they are swiftest All the pomp of this World is but gilded emptinessâ— a nine daies blossome whose beauty drops into the same Mould from whence it sprung It is the Consciousnesse of their delusion that makes these worldly honours fly from us so fast lest if they should stay long wee should discover their Cosenage the discoverer then would be ashamed of his dot age and the discovered would blush at his deceit Therfore Saint Paul in these versible and transitory fashions of the World would have us to personate Stage-players who when they weep grieve not when they bâ—y they possâ—sse not when they command they are without authority Seeing the World is but a play and a fable hee would not have us to act in earnest Players Act the lives of others not their owne I wish that we could do so too Excellent is that advice of the divine To live a stranger unto life Why should I be troubled with the affaires of others more then with their Agues or Feavers he that lives without the Affections of this life is master of himself and looks upon all things as Spectators do upon Stage-playes who are without passion because without Interest The Actors care not how the Scenes varie they know that when the Play is ended the Conquerour must put off his Crown in the same Ward-robe where the Fool puts off his Cap. Take this wholsome Counsel of resting quiet in the degree appointed thee not from the mouth of Musonius Teletes or Epictetus who adviseth thee to be a Pantomime or shifting Masquer in these worldly Enterludes but from the mouth of Saint Paul that great Doctour of the Universe Let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God That Supreme Eternall mind is the master and deviser of this worldly Drama Hee brings on the persons and assignes them their parts Art thou called to be a servant be not troubled at it Hath he ordained thy life to be short desire not to have it lengthned If poor desire not to be made rich What part soever he hath appointed for thee be contented therewith and Act it faithfully It is thy duty to represent the person thou wert chosen for and not to choose that is the prerogative of thy great master If it be his will that thou shouldst Act a begger a sick man or an afflicted let it be thy care to act it well and to meddle with no other action The stageplayer is not commended because he acts the part of a Prince but because hee acts it well and like a Prince It is more commendable to act a foole a begger or a mourner to the life then to act a King or a Philosopher foolishly In the beginning the midle and the end of thy Course keep thou to thy part The best way of acting is to make thy heart consentaneous to thy tongue thy deeds to thy words and thy conversation to thy doctrine In all the tumults and combustions of this World keepe constant to thy station comfort the afflicted and envy not the wicked despise not the one and flatter not the other remember thy Creator and forget not thy end Gloria tibi mitissime Jesu OF LIFE and DEATH THE People think Life to be the greatest good and Death the greatest evill They are mightily deceived And as in the least blessings so in this which is the greatest they greatly erre For Life if thou livest not well is the greatest evill and Death if thou dyest not ill is the greatest good and dye ill thou canst not unlesse thou livest ill A life that is not good encreaseth evils and wickednesse and the death of the good sets an end to afflictions and miseries Those that are sick of the Jaundis judge the sweetest honey to be the most bitter So evil men esteem Death to be evill because of their evill conscience but Death is not so to any but to those onely whose evill lives end in the evill of endlesse death This controversie I shall decide with such reasons as must not be numbred buâ— weighed If wee look upon Philosophy it takes part with Death and is the first that marcheth into the field against this popular error It teacheth us that this hideous nothing this imaginary fear of the multitude should be alwayes contemned and sometimes desired How many wise men hath this contempt of Death made Immortall For those who by a continual remembrance of death did compose and regulate their lives are now by the memory of their virtuous lives vindicated from death Socrates perfected his wisdom by his willingnesse to dye Pythagoras by his gentlenesse Anaxagoras dyed merrily Calanus resolutely hee would not stay to be tamely besieged by her but sally edout and took her he surprized death and aâ—l of them despised her No definitions we can give will suffice to make Death odious every one will make it desirable Whither you consider what Death is or what are the effects or consequents of it whether the evil or the good attending it or whether Death it self be a meer evill or meer good all make for it For though it should be an evill yet the good that comes by it exceeds that evill and being evill it cannot be so great an evill as all those evils it puts an end to What one thing hath Life that is desirarable Contentions and obstinate busie miseries whose frequency and number hath made them lesse feared then Death which comes but once Whose assiduity or daily malice to afflict us hath by a long custome made us not valiant but senslesse and blockish Orpheus defined Life to be the penalty of Soules and Aristotle added That it was a punishment like to that which tied the living to the dead mouth to mouth and breast to breast The pure and eternal Soul is tyed to the putrid and wasting carkasse If God should now suddenly create a man giving him withall in that very instant the perfect and free use of his mind and should then bring before him all Mankind as he did all living creatures before the first man and shew
more as Bears Leopards Wolves Dragons Adders and Vipers were gathered together about him and ready to seize upon him what would not he give to be freed from the violence and rage of such destroyers What greater felicity could he desire then to be redeemed from such an horrid and fatall distressâ— And is it a lesser blessing to be delivered from greater evills We are surrounded with calamities torn by inordinate wishes hated by the world persecuted prest and trodden upon by our enemies disquieted with threatnings which also torture and dishearten some for in pusillanimous dispositions fear makes words to be actions and threats to be torments Death is a divine remedy which cures all these evil Death alone is the cause that temporal miseries are not eternal And I know not how that came to be feared which brings with it as many helps as the world brings damages Danger it self is a sufficient motive to make us in love w th security Death only secures us from troubles Death heals and glorifies all those wounds which are received in a good cause When Socrates had drank off his potion of hemlock he commanded that sacrifices should be offered to Aesculapius as the Genius of Medicine He knew that Death would cure him It was the Antidote against that poysonous Recipe of the Athenian Parliament Tyranny travels not beyond Death which is the Sanctuary of the good and the Lenitive of all their sorrows Most ridiculous were the tears of Xerxes and worthily checkt by his Captain Artabazus when seated on the top of an hill and viewing his great Army wherein were so many hands as would have served to overturn the world to levell mountains and drain the seas yea to violate Nature and disturb Heaven with their noyse and the smoak of their Camp he fell to a childish whining to consider in what a short portion of time all that haughty multitude which now trampled upon the face of the earth would be layd quietly under it He wept to think that all those men whose lives notwithstanding hee hastned to sacrifice to his mad ambition should dye within the compasse of an hundred yeares The secular death or common way of mortality seemed very swift unto him but the way of war slaughter he minded not It had been more rational in him to weep because death was so slow and lazie as to suffer so many impious inhumane souldiers to live an hundred years and disturb the peace and civill societies of Mankind If as hee saw his Army from that hill he had also seen the calamities and mischief they did with the tears and sorrows of those that suffered by them he had dried his eyes and would not have mourned though he had seen death seising upon all those salvages and easing the world of so vast an affliction He would not have feared that which takes away the cause of fear That is not evill which removes such violent and enormous evills If I might ask those that have made experiment of life and death whither they would chuse if it were granted them either to live again or to continue in their state of dissolution I am sure none would chuse life but the wicked those that are unworthy of it for no pious liver did ever repent of death and none ever will The Just desire not this life of the unjust which were it offered them they would fear it more now being at rest then ever they feared death when they lived The story runnes that Stanislaus the Polonian a man of marvellous holinesse and constancy had the opportunity to put this question and the respondent told him that he had rather suffer the paines of dissolution twice over again then live once He feared one life but did not fear to dy thrice Having this Solution from the experienced it is needless and fruitlesse to question on the living If Soules were Praeexistent as one Origen dreamt as Cebes Plato Hermes and other Philosophers the great Fathers of Hereticks have affirmed Wee might have reason to conclude that they would obstinately refuse to be imprisoned in the wombs of women and wallow in Seminal humours What if it were told them that they must dwell nine monthes in a thick darknesse and more then nine years perhaps all the years of their sojourning in hallucinations and the darknesse of ignorance what if the paines the exigencies the hunger and thirst they must endure before they can be acquainted with the miseries of life were laid before thâ—m The Infant while he is yet in the womb is taught necessity Quest for foode makes him violate that living Prison and force his way into the World And now comes he forth according to the Sentiment of Hippocrates to seek for Victualls the provision which proceeded from his Mother being grown too little for him But he comes from one prison into another and breaks through the first to enlarge his own which he carries with him But if the Soules â—hus incarcerated like Prisoners through a grate might behold the various plagues and diseases of those that are at liberty as Palsies Passions of the heart Convulsions Stranguries the Stone the Gout the Wolfe the Phagedaena and an hundred other horrid incurable Evils such as Pherecides Antiochus and Herod were tormented with or that fearful sicknesse of Leuthare which was so raging and furious that she did eat her own flesh and drink her blood in the extremity of the pain Or if they might see those Evills which man himselfe hath sought and found out for himself as emulations warres bloodshed confusion and mutual destruction Is there any doubt to be made think you but they would wish themselves freed from such a miserable estate or that their intellectuall light were were quite extinguished that they might not behold such horrid and manifold calamities Plato imputed the suspension of Reason in Infants and the hallucinations of Childhood to the terrour and astonishment of the Soules which he supposed them to be possessed with because of their sudden translation from the Empyreal light into the darke and grosse prisons of flesh and this inferiour World as if such a strange and unexpected change like a great and violent fall had quite doated them and cast asleep their intellectuall faculties Proclus assisted this conjecture of Plato with another argument drawne from the mutability and the multitude of Worldly Events which in the uncertaine state of this life the Soules were made subject unto Adde to this that the merriest portion of life wihch is youth is in both sexes bedewed with tears and the flowers of it are sullied and fade away with much weeping and frequent sadneâ—se Children also want not their sorrowes The Rod blasteth all their innocent joyes and the sight of the School-master turnes their mirth into mourning Nay that last Act of life which is the most desirable to the Soul I mean old Age is the most miserable The plenteous Evills of frail life fill the old Their wasted
turning life out of doors before her lease was out and had not Ptolomie by a special Edict silenced his Doctrine he had robbed him of more subjects then ever War or the Plague could have taken from him Before the blessed Jesus had made his entrance through the veile and opened the way to heaven the reward of righteousnesse and sanctity was long life the peculiar blessing of the Paâ—riarchs It was a favour then not to appear before perfect purity a Judge of infinite and all-seeing brightnesse without an Advocate or friend to speak for us in the strength and heat of irregular youthfulnesse when not so much as time had subdued or reformed the affections but now bâ—cause Christ is gone thither before and hath provided a place for us the greatest blessing and highest reward of holynesse is short life and an unseasonable or a violent death For those harsh Epithets which are but the inventions of fearfull and sinful livers are swallowed up of immortâ—lity an unspeakable heavenly happinesse which crowns and overflowes all those that dye in Christ Wee consider not those blessings which death leads us to and therefore it is that we so frequently approve of our most frivolous wordly wishes and sit weeping under the burthens of life because we have not more laid upon us A certain groundlesse suspition that death is evill will not suffer us to believe it to be good though the troubles of life make us complement and wish for it every day This foolish fear and inconstancy of man Locmannus one of the most antient Sages of Persia and admitted also into the Society of the Arabian Magi hath pleasantly demonstrated in the person of an Old man loaded â—ith a grâ—at burthen of Wood which having quite tyred him he threw down and called for death to come and ease him Hee had no sooner called but death which seldome comes so quickly to those that call for it in earnest presently appeared and demands the reason why he called I did call thee said he to help me to lift this burthen oft wood upon my back which just now fell off So much are we in love with miseries that we fear to exchange them with true happiness we do so doate upon them that we long to resume them again after wee have once shaked them off being either faithlesse and wavering or else forgetfull of those future joyes which cannot be had without the funerall and the death of our present sorrowes What man distrest with hunger if hee sate upon some Barren and Rockie bank bounded with a deep River where nothing could be expected but Famine or the Fury of wild beasts and saw beyond that stream a most secure and pleasant Paradise stored with all kinds of bearing Trees whose yielding boughes were adorned and plenteously furnished with most fair and delicate fruites If it were told him that a little below there was a boate or a bridge to passe over would refuse that secure conveyance or be affeard to commit himself to the calm and perspicuous streames choosing rather to starve upon the brink then to passe over and be relieved O foolish men For Gold which is digged out of the Suburbs of Hell we trust our selves to the raging and unstable Seas guarded with a few planks and a little pitch where onely a Tree as Aratus faith is the partition betwixt death and us And after many rough disputes with violent perills and the fight â—f so many more wee perish in the unhappy acquisition of false happinesse the Sea either resisting or else punishing our covetousnesse But to passe into our Heavenly Country into the bosome and embraces of Divinity into a Realm where Fortune reigns not wee dare not so much as think of it Who after long banishment and a tedious pilgrimage being now come near to his native Country and the house of his Father where his Parents his brethren and friends expect him with longing would then turn back and choose to wander again when he might have joy when he might have rest God the Father expects us the blessed Jesus expects us the mild and mourning Dove doth long and grone for us The holy Virgin-mother the Angells our friends and the Saints our kindred are all ready to receive us It is through death that wee must passe unto them Why grieve we then yea why rejoyce wee not to have this passage opened But let us grant that death were not inevitable yea that it were in the power of man and that every one had a particular prerogative given him over destinie So that this greatest Necessity were the greatest freedome yea that man could not dye though he desired death Yet in this very state would hee be troubled with Fortune and Hope He would be a fool that would not venture to dye to enjoy true felicity That would choose rather to live alwaies in the changeable state of most unchangeable and lasting miseries then to put an end to them all by dying once It is madnesse to feare death which if it reigned not upon the Earth wee would both desire and pray for It was wisely adjudged by Zaleucus that death ought to be publickly proclaimed though men had been immortall Had death been arbitrary and at every mans pleasure I believe we had esteemed it as desireable as any other joy now because it is Imperial and above us let it not seem too much if wee grant it to be tollerable It was absurdly said by onâ— that death was a necessary Evill and ought therefore to be patiently born His Inference was good though from a bad Principle Death is rather a necessary good And if necessity makes Evils to be tolerable there is more reason it should make good so Death because it is good should be made much of and wee should rejoyce that it is necessary because that makes it certain How great a good is that by which it is necessary that we be not miserable Which frees the captive without ransome dismisseth the oppressed without the consent of the oppressour brings home the banished in spite of the banisher and healâ—s the sicke without the pain of Physick Which mends all that Fortune marred which is most just which repaires and makes even all the disorders and inequalities made by time and chance which is the blessed necessity that takes away necessary Evills He had erred lessâ— if he had mentioned a necessity of bearing life patiently whose more proper definition that sorry proverbe is for it casts us into necessary Evills against our will and is the cause that wee willfully meddle with Evills that are unnecessary It is a discreet method of nature that infuseth the Soules into the body in such a state that is not sensible of their captivity lest they should murmur at the decrees of the great Archiplast What wise man that were neare the terme of his appointed time if he were offered to have life renew'd would consent to be born again to be shut up in flesh
fed for nine months with excrementitious obscenities to bear all the ignominies of Nature all the abuses of Fortune to resume the ignorance of Infancie the feares of Childhood the dangers of youth the cares of manhood and the miseries of old age I am of â—eliefe that no man did ever live so happily as to be pleased with a repetition of past life These Evills which with our owne consent wee would not have reiterated wee are driven into without our consent They are necessarily inferred that they may be willingly borne to shew the necessity of Patience Wee are born on condition that wee must dye Death is the price or reward of life It is the Statute-law of mankind and that ought to be born as a publick good which were it not already enacted would be the spontaneous petition of all men Certainly if life were without the Jubile of death it were just to refuse it as a servitude which hath no year of release Let us now clearly prove that death is not Evill out of her assimilation and conformity to those things which are most excellently good None leade a better life then those that live so as if they were dead Rom. Câ—ap 6. ver 7. For he that is dead is freed from Sinne. Therefore that which is the exemplar of goodnesse cannot be Evill The onely true praise of the living is to assimilate death He is the most commendable liver whose life is dead to the World and he is the most honest that lives the least to it whose Soul listens not to the body but is at a constant distance from it as if they were dissolved or though it sojournes in it yet is not defiled by it but is separated from sensuality and united to Divinity What is the reason thinkest thou that the Divine Secrets are revealed to men most commonly in their sleep because that similitude of death is most pleasing to God Life is a wild and various madnesse disturbed with passions and distracted with objects Sleepe like death settles them all it is the minds Sabbath in which the Spirit freed from the Senses is well disposed and fitted for Divine intimations The Soul is then alive to it selfe while the body reigns not and the affections are ecclipsed in that short Interlunium of the temporall life Philosophie or humane Knowledge is nothing else but a Contemplation of death not to astonish or discourage men but first to informe and then to reform them for the fruit of Philosophy is Virtue and Virtue is nothing else but an imitation of death or the Art of dying well by beginning to dye while we are alive Virtue is a certain Primrose a prolusion or Assay of dying Therefore that by which man becomes immortall and eternall is the preface and the Inchâ—ation of death This is the main drift of Philosophy to make life comfortable by conforming it unto death and to make death immortality by regulating life Death is intollerable to him only that hath not mortified his desires while he yet lives but expects to swallow up death and all the powers of it at once that is to say in the hour of death We cut our meate and feed on it by bits lest we should be choaked by swallowing it whole so death if it be assayed and practised by degrees will be both pleasant in the tast and wholsome in the digestion if we mortifie one affection to day and another to morrow Hee that cannot carry a great burthen at once may carry it all by portions Philosophy acts the part of death upon the Stage of life it kills sensuality and makes death most easie to be born by teaching us to dye dayly What can be more grievous then death unto him who together with his own feeles the paine of a thousand other dying cupidities We faile not to bewaile the losse of one thing whither honour pleasure or a friend How much more when we loose all at a blow and loose eternal life in one short minute The Soule of the wise man frees her selfe from the body in an acceptable time she casts off the delectations of the flesh and the cares of this World while it is day-light that shee may enjoy her self and be acquainted with God before the night comes She finds by experience that her forces are more vigorous and her light more discerning when she is not sullied with Earthly negotiations and the grossâ— affections of the body she finds that covetousnesse love and feare permit her not to see the truth and that the affaires of the body are the Remora's of the Spirit and therefore she concludes that he must neglect the cryes of the flesh and be attentive onely to the voyce of God and upon these considerations shee shakes off that Bondage she deserts the familiarity and consultations of blood that she may advise with and discerne the most clear light of truth she casts off pleasures by which even Spirits are made subject to sense and pollution The truth is most pure and will not be manifested but to the pure and the undefiled Therefore all the scope and the end of Virtue is to separate the Soul from the body and to come as near death as possibly may be while wee are yet alive This is the cause that wise men do so much love and long for death at least they fear it not How can he feare death who by dying passeth into the life of the blessed Who hath already delivered himselfe from more feares and inconveniences then death can free him from Yea from those dangers which make death fearfull Who before his dying day hath disarmed and overcome death Shall he that all his life-time desired to be separated from the body repine at the performance and fullfilling of it It were most ridiculous if hasting towards home thou wouldst refuse the helpe of another to convey thee thither with more speed and be angry at thy arrival in that Port whither thou didst bend thy course since the first day thou didst set forth There is no man that seeking for a friend will not rejoyce when he hath found him No man will be angry if another perfects what he did begin but was not able to finish Nature by death perfects that which Virtue had begun in life and the endeavour dies not but is continued and thrives by a necessary transplantation While he yet lived he denyed himselfe the use of the body because it hindrâ—d the course of the Soul and the body dying he doth but persist in the same just denyall It is a greater pleasure to want then not to use what wee doe not want This Correlation of Death and Virtue I shall exhibite or lay out to your view by a discussion of those honours which each of them procures As Virtue by the Consideration of death ordereth and preserves her Majesty so by imitating death she obtaines the reverence and admiration of all What more reverend thing can wee labour for then that which
by our reverence of it makes the worst livers to be reputed not bad As those who are Evill are loath to believe themselves to be such because of an innate reverence due from every man to Virtue which makes them love the repute of Excellencie though not inherent and rejoyce to be accounted good of themselves or in their own esteem though they be evill taking pleasure in that self-deception So those who have beene vitious in their lives out of the reverence wee owe to death wee dare not speak evill of when they are once dead Nay it is not civil nor pious to mention the dead without commendation either by praise or else by prayer our Christian well wishes as if they had been most deserving in their lives So powerfull is the Majesty of death that it makes the most contemptible venerable Those we most envie while they live we speak well of when they are dead Excellent is that observation of Mimnermus Against the Virtuous man we all make head And hate him while he lives but praise him dead Envy pursues us not beyond the grave and our honour is not free and secure til we are layd in it That humble and quiet dust stops the lying and malicious mouth Socrates foresaw that his draught of hemlock would after his death make his very enemies his worshippers He saw his Statues erected by the same decree that did cast him downe And what was the motive thinkst thou that made his enemies worship him dead whom they persecuted living There is amongst the people a secret tradition that whispers to them that those who are freed from the miseries of this life live happily in another world Now happinesse even in their opinion is worthy of honour therefore the honour or veneration which death exacts is a certain tribute or a debt rather that is due to happinesse and if for this thou wilt advise with thy Aristotle he will not deny it The Lacedemonians bestowed the Olympick palms and honours which whosoever won in his life time he was accounted most happy upon all that dyed without exception or extenuation adorning the statutes of some and the tombes of all with the green and flourishing Laurel esteeming every one of the dead as happy as the most fortunate Victor that lived The antient Romans held the greatest honour of the living to consist in the renown of their dead Ancestors They judged him to be highly honoured that was enjoyned by any dying persons to perform some extraordinary service for them as an Embassie or some other weighty negotiation And Callistratus in his first book of Questions affirmes That Embassadors so employed are the most honourable because that the suffrages and election of dying men is most venerable as being then upon the borders of immortality and discerning more then those who are yet in the midst of life and more in the clouds of thick-sighted humanity That honour is the greatest which is done us by the honourable Nor is this glory of death a Relative of the Soul only Looke well upon the body that provision of the worms a frail and perishing objects but ful of Majesty We are nothing so moved nor doe we so gravely compose our selves at the presence of a King as at the sight of a dead body With how much awfulnesse doth it lye along with what a secret mysterious command doth it check all about it It is a silent abstruse Philosopher and makes others so too Nor is it onely venerable but sacred and the Depositum and Index of an almighty Restauratour The honour of Sepulture is a part of Religion Now if it be argued that goodnesse consists onely in utility or benefits it follows that nothing is good but that which profiteth Death then is the best and the greatest subordinate good of all for the death of others benefits those that see it and their own death is most profitable to those that mind it The Lamae who are the Priests of the Tehitenses are in this point the most excellent Philosophers in the world When they prepare to celebrate prayers they summon the people together with the hollow whispering sounds of certain Pipes made of the bones of dead men they have also Rosaries or Beads made of them which they carry alwayes about them and they drink constantly out of a Skull Being asked the reason of this Ceremony by Antonie Andrada who first found them out one that was the chiefest amongst them told him that they did it Ad Fatorum memoriam They did therefore pipe with the bones of dead men that those sad whispers might warn the people of the swift and invisible approach of death whose Musick they termed it and affirmed it to be the most effectuall of any That the Beads they wore did put them in minde of the fraile estate of their bodies and did in prayer-time regulate and humble their thoughts That a constant commemoration of death was as beneficial to the Soul as devotion therefore they carryed them alwaies about them as the powefull Momento's of their approaching departure out of the Land of the living To this he added that their drinking in a skull did mortifie their affections represse pleasures and imbitter their tast lest they should relish too much the delights of life Lastly he added that this constant representation of death was an Antidote against all the sinfull Excesses and deviations of man With the same Medicine they secured themselves from other iniquities When they were to swear concerning any thing they laid their hands upon certain Images set with the bones of dead men by which ceremony they were put in mind of the last Judgement and the Account which the dead and the Quick must give in that great that impartiall and censorious day Certainly this was no barbarous but a very humane and elegant Philosophy which taught men to season and redeeme all the daies of their lives with the memory of the one day of their death Admirable was the memory of Mithridatés who was master of two and twenty Languages and could readily discourse in every one of them and no lesse happy was that of Cyrus Themistâ—cles and Seneca but a constant memory of mans miseries and his death exceeds them all As the rootes of the tree in the I le of Malega upon that side which lookes towards the East are an Antidote or preservative but those which spread Westward are poysonous and deadly So the Cogitations of a Christian which are the Roots by which hee stickes to Heaven for every Christian is a Trâ—e reversed when they look towards the West or setting point of life are healing and salutiferous but those which reflect still upon temporall things and his abode in this World are destructive and deadly Nature doth every minute commend unto us this memoriall of death Hermes in his sacred book contends that respiration was given to man as a sign of that last efflation in which the Soul parts from the
body Wee should therefore as often as wee breath remember death when we shall breath our last when the Spirit shall returne unto him that gave it Our whole life is nothing else but a repeated resemblance of our last expiration by the emission of our breath we doe retaine it and as I may say spin it out God gave it not continual and even like fluent streames or the calme and unwearied Emanations of light but refracted and shifting to shew us that we are not permanent but transitory and that the Spirit of life is but a Celestial Gale lent us for a time that by using it well we may secure it Eternally Another Hermetist adviseth us Adorare relliquias ventorum to make much of and to honour our Soules which are the breathings and last dispensations of the still fruitful and liberal creator This we can never do but by a frequent study of our dissolution and the frailty of the body Of such an effectuall goodness is death that it makes men good before it comes and makes sure of Eternity by a virtuous disposing of time Thinke not that evill which sends from so far the beams of its goodnesse There is no good liver but is a debtor to death by whose lendings and premunitions we are furnished and fitted for another world The certainty of it and the incertainty of the time and manner which is the onely circumstance that seemes to offend us if it were seriously considered deserves to be the most pleasing acceptable for amongst all the wondrous Ordinances of Divine providence there is none more Excellent for the Government of man then death being so wisely disposed of that in the height of incertainty it comprehends and manifests an infallible certainty God would have us to be alwaies good to keepe in his likenesse and Image Therfore it is his will that we should be alwaies uncertaine of our most certain death Such is his care of us lest the knowledge of a long life and a late death should encourage us to multiply our transgressions as the notice of a swift dissolution might dishearten and astonish us But being left now in a possibility of either we are taught to live soberly and to expect the time of our change in all holynesse and watchfullnesse The possibility of dying shortly doth lessen the cares of life and makes the difficulties of Virtue easie Bondage and Slavery if it be but short is to those that suffer it the lighter by so much And a large allowance of time makes us slow to Virtue but a short portion quickens us and the incertainty of that very shortnesse makes us certaine to be good For who would weep and vexe himself for worldly provisions if he certainly knew that he should live but one month and how dares he laugh or be negligent of his Salvation that knowes not whither hee shall live to see one day more yea one hour The incertainty of death makes us suspect life and that suspition keepes us from sinning The world was never fouler nor more filled with abominations then when life was longest when abused Nature required an Expiation by waters and the generall submersion of her detestable defilers Theophrastus did unjustly to raile at Nature and condemne her of partiality when he envyed the long life of some plants and inferiour creatures as the Oake the Hart the Ravens some of which live to feed and flye up and down in the World above five hundred years He quarrelled with the wise dispensations of Divinity because a slight suite of feathers and a renew'd dresse of greene leaves could weare out a building that lodged a rationall Soul and the breath of the Almighty Both his wish and his reason were erroneous He erred in desiring long life and in judging happinesse to consist in the multitude of yeares and not the number of good workes The shortnesse of life is lengthned by living well When life was reckond by centuries the innumerable sins of the living so offended God that it repented him to have made impenitent man Those that sinned out of confidence of life he punished with sudden destruction That long liv'd generation had made the world unclean and being polluted by their lives it was purged by their deaths He shorten'd afterwards the lease of life reducing it to an hundred and twenty years that by the diligence of frequent death he might reform the past disorders of long life and prevent them for the future teaching both sexes to amend their lives by giving them death for their next neighbours So beneficiall is death so much profits the certainty of it and as much the incertainty The ignorance of the day of death is in effect the same with the knowledge of it the first makes us watch lest it come upon us unawares and the last though it might name the day to us yet could it not arme us better against it perhaps not so well This incertainty of dying certainly secures us from many errors it makes us prudent provident and not evill Death therefore is a device of the Almighty and a wise instrument of divine policy Zaleucus so highly approved of it that he was about to enact and proclaime a Law for dying had he not found it already published by the edict of Nature And in his Preface to those Laws made for the Locrenses he warns them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To have alwayes before their eyes that time which is to every one the end of life because a hearty repentance for all former injuries seiseth upon all men that thinke of death and an earnest desire or wishing that all their actions in life had been just Wherefore it is expedient that in all our dealings and thoughts death should act a part and be our familiar counsellor ever present with us so shall we be carefull to doe all things virtuously and justly Death then is most necessary to govern mankinde because the memory of it keeps us in awe and conformable to virtue All Commonwealths that follow the method of Nature must approve of this Law of Zaleucus and death in all their consultations should guide their lives Certainly in the Government of the rebellious Generation of Man Death hath been the most awfull Engine of the Deity without this stern he guided them not When man was immortall God saw it necessary to preserve his immortality by death he injoyned the Law of Abstinence to Adam under the penalty of dying which is continued still by the same artifice of death lest iniquities should be immortall wickedness should escape punishment by the patience and submission of his only Son to death he restored dead men to life he conferred upon him all his lost honours renewd and confirmed his old prerogative and together with the salvation of his Soule gave him a sure promise that his body allso should be made Immortal but in all these favours and after full reconciliation he would not remove death but continued it
stage if we stay any long time in it and pay not the debt we owe death requires interest she takes his hearing from one his sight from another and from some she takes both The extent and end of all things touch their beginning neither doth the last minute of life do any thing else but finish what the first began We may know also what death is by the apparition or Image of it We see it and make tryal of it assiduously we cannot act life one day but wee must act death at night Life is a Terrace-walke with an Arbour at one end where we repose and dream over our past perambulations This lesser rest shewes us the greater the Soule watcheth when wee sleepe and Conscience in the Just as well as the unjust will be ruminating on the works of life when the body is turned into dust Sleepe is nothing else but death painted in a night-peece it is a prelibation of that deepe slumber out of which we shall not be awaked untill the Heavens be no more We go to bed under a Scene of Stars and darknesse but when we awake we find Heaven changed and one great luminary giving light to all We dye in the state of corruption errours and mistinesse But wee shall be raised in glory and perfection when these clouds of blacknesse that are carried about with diverse winds and every Enemy of truth shall vanish for ever and God alone shall be all in all We affect sleepe naturally it is the reparation of man a laying by of cares The Coppy cannot match the pattern if we love sleep then why should wee hate the Idaea of it why should we feare death whose shadow refresheth us which nature never made nor meant to fright us with It was her intention to strengthen our hope of dying by giving us the fruition of this resemblance of death lest we should grow impatient with delay she favour'd us with this shadow and Image of it as Ladies comfort themselves with the pictures of their absent lovers There is no part of life without some portion of death as dreames cannot happen without sleepe so life cannot be without death As sleepe is said to be the shadow of death So I think dreams to be the shadowes of life for nothing deceives us more frequent then it When we shal be raised from death we shal not grieve so much because the joys of life were not real as because there were none at all It was said by one that he had rather dream of being tormented in Hell then glorified in Paradise for being awaked he should rejoyce to find himselfe in a soft featherbed and not in a lake of unquenchable fire But having dreamt of Heaven it would grieve him that it was not reall Paracelsus writes that the watching of the body is the sleep of the Soul and that the day was made for Corporeall Actions but the night is the working-time of Spirits Contrary natures run contrary courses Bodies having no inherent light of their own make use of this outward light but Spirits need it not Sun-beams cannot stumble nor go out of their way Death frees them from this dark Lantern of flesh Heraclitus used to say that men were both dead and alive both when they dyed and when they lived when they lived their Soules were dead and when they dyed their Soules revived Life then is the death of the Soule and the life of the body But death is the life of the Soule and the death of the body I shall return now to prosecute the Commendations of death because it comes but once Death like the Phoenix is onely one lest any should be ill That which comes but once is with most longing looked for and with most welcome entertained That poor man the owner of one Ewe nourished her in his bosome she did eate of his meat and drank out of his Cup as Nathan exemplified The Father that hath but one Son hath more cares then he that hath many so should we be more carefull to provide for death which comes but once then for the numerous and daily calamities of life By providing for that one wee turne the rest all into so many joyes Whatsoever is rare whatsoever is pretious it is single and but one There is nothing so rare nothing that is comparable to a good death But it is not the universality or diffusivenesse of it that makes it so but the contempt and the subduing of it hâ—s death is most pretious by whom death is contemned Dissolution is not a meere merit but a debt we owe to nature which the most unwilling must pay That wisedome which can make destiny to be her servant which can turne necessity into virtue Mortality into Immortality and the debt we owe to nature into a just right and Title to eternall glory is very great What greater advantage can there be then to make Heaven due to us by being indebted to nature and to oblige Divinity by paying a temporal debt Clemens called them Golden men who dyed thus that is to say when it was necessary to dye They made necessity their free will when either the publick liberty the prerogative of reason or the word of God called for their sufferings For though death be a debt due to Nature yet in these causes Nature doth willingly resigne her right and God becomes the Creditor If we pay it unto him before the time of pure resolution Nature is better pleased with that anticipation then if we kept our set day He is the best debtour that paies before the time of payment The day of payment by the Covenant of Nature is old age but the good man paies before the day If the noblenesse of thy mind will not incite thee to such a forward satisfaction let the desire of gaine move thee for the sooner thou payest the more thou dost oblige Hee that suffers an immature death for the good of his Country for the sacred lawes or the vindication of the truth of God and not for his owne vain glory doth free himselfe from the Natural debt and doth at the same time make God his debtour and all mankind To a man that dyes thus all men are indebted God owes him for the Cause and men for the effect The last doth at least set us an example and the first improves the faith and gives life to Charity Adde to this that this great good of a passive death is a voluntary imitation of the Son of God who laid down his life for the life of the World And it is also done without our industry this great virtue this glorious perfection requires not our care and activity to bring it about This death is most pretious and the best because it is executed by others and not by ourselves To suffer death not to dye is glorious If prisoners break their chaines it is neither their glory nor their security but augments their Guilt and hastens their condemnation So
he that violates his own body and makes way for the Soul to flye out with his own hands is damned by the very Act but if another doth it to him it is both his Salvation and his Crown The heathens esteemed it no honour for Captives to have their bonds loosed It was their freedome but not their glory When the jugde himself did break off their Chaines that they accounted honorable By this Ceremony did Vespasian and Titus acknowledge the worth of Joseph the Jew This vindicated his integrity By cutting his bonds with their Imperial hand they freed him both from captivity and disgrace Titus said that if they would break off his fetters and not stay to take them off his honour would be so perfectly repaired by it as if he had been never bound nor overcome The same difference in point of honour is betwixt the naturall death and the violent betwixt dying when wee are full of daies and the death which Tyrants impose upon us when we are mangled and grinded by their fury This honour is then greatest when the body is not dissolved but distorted and broken into peeces Certainly the best men have ever perished by the violence of Tyrants nature to preserve her innocence being very backward and unwilling as it were to take away such great and needfull examples of goodnesse Treachery and violence were ordained for the just in the dâ—ath of Abel who dyed by the wicked This better sort of death was in him consecrated to the best men those persons whom Nature respects and is loath to medle with envy laies hands upon Whom the one labours to preferre the other plotteth to destroy Nor deals she thus with the good only but with the eminent and mighty too thus she served Hector Alexander and Caesar the goodliest object is alwaies her aim When Thrasybulus the Astrologer told Alexander the Roman that he should end his daies by a violent death he answered that he was very glad of it for then said he I shall dye like an Emperour like the best and the greatest of men and not sneak out of the World like a worthlesse obscure fellow But the death of these Glorioli was not truly glorious I have onely mentioned them because that a passive death though wanting religion hath made their honour permanent That death is the truly glorious which is seald with the joy of the sufferers spirit whose Conscience is ravished with the kisses of the Dove Who can look upon his tormentour with delight and grow up to Heaven without diminution though made shorter on Earth by the head This is the death which growes pretious by contempt and glorious by disgrace Whose sufferer runs the race set before him with patience and finisheth it with joy We are carefull that those things which are our own may be improved to the utmost and why care wee not for death what is more ours then mortality Death should not be feared because it is simply or of it self a great good and is evill to none but to those that by living ill make their death bad What ever evil is in death it is attracted from life If thou preservest a good Conscience while thou livest thou wilt have no feare when thou dyest thou wilt rejoyce and walke homeward singing It is life therefore that makes thee fear death If thou didst not fear life if life had not blasted the joyes of death thou wouldst never be afraid of the end of sorrowes Death therefore is of it self innocent sincere healthfull and desirable It frees us from the malignancie and malice of life from the sad necessities and dangerous errours we are subject to in the body That death whose leaders are Integrity and virtue whose cause is Religion is the Elixir which gives this life its true tincture and makes it immortal To dye is a common and trivial thing for the good and the bad dye and the bad most of all but to dye willingly to dye gloriously is the peculiar priviledge of good men It is better to leave life voluntarily then to be driven out of it forcibly let us willingly give place unto posterity Esteem not life for its own sake but for the use of it Love it not because thou wouldst live but because thou mayst do good works while thou livest Now the greatest work of life is a good death If life then ought to be lesse esteemed then good works who would not purchase a good death with the losse of life why should we be afeared of politick irreligious Tyrants and an arm of flesh though guarded with steele Nature it selfe threatens us with death and frailty attends us every hour Why will we refuse to dye in a good cause when 't is offered us who may dye ill the very next day after let us not promise our selves a short life when our death assures us of eternal glory But if it were granted that death were neither good nor honourable but evill and fearfull why will not we take care for that which we fear Why do we neglect that which we suspect Why if it be evill do not wee arme and defend our selves against it we provide against dangerous contingencies we labour against casuall losses and we neglect this great and enevitable perill To neglect death and to contemn death are two things none are more carefull of it then those that contemne it none feare it more then those that neglect it and which is strange they fear it not because they have neglected it but they neglect it when they fear it they dare not prepare for it for fear of thinking of it O the madnesse and Idlenesse of mankind to that which they adjudge to be most Evill they come not onely unprepared but unadvisedly and without so much as forethought What mean we what do we look for Death is still working and wee are still idle it is still travelling towards us and we are still slumbering and folding our hands Let us awake out of this darke and sleepy state of mind let us shake off these dreams and vain propositions of diverse lusts let us approve of truth and realities let us follow after those things which are good let us have true joy made sure unto us and a firm security in life in death Sickness and death you are but sluggish things And cannot reach a heart that hath got wings FINIS THE WORLD CONTEMNED IN A Parenetical Epistle written by the Reverend Father EVCHERIVS Bishop of Lyons to his Kinsman VALERIANVS Love not the VVorld neither the things that arâ— in the world If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 Ioh. 2.15 They are of the world therefore speake they of the world and the world heareth them Chap. 4. vers 5. If the world hate you ye know that it hated me before it hated you Ioh. 15. verse 18. If ye were of the world the world would love his own but because ye are not of the world out I
the unspeakable tendernesse and mercy of God the good wee do to our own Soules is the most acceptable service and sacrifice that we can offer unto him Much Physicall curiosity much care and many strict observations are bestowed upon the body much pain it undergoes in hope of health and deserves the Soule no Medicine If it be but fit and necessary that diverse helps and means of healing are sought for the body for the recovering onely of a temporall and transitory health is it not unjust that the Soul should be excluded and be suffered to languish and putrifie with deadly and spirituall diseases Shall the Soul onely be a stranger to those proper and pretious remedies ordained for it by the great Physitian Yea rather if so many things are provided for the body let the provision for the Soul be far more abundant for if it was truly said by some that this fleshly frame is the servant and the Soul the Mistris then will it be very undecent and injurious if we shall preferre and place the servant before the Mistris It is but a just claim that the better part should require the better attendance for with constant and intentive diligence should wee look on that side where the greater dignity and our most pretious treasure is laid up It is not agreeable to reason and it takes from the honour of our imployment that we should subject it to the unworthier party The flesh being allwaies inclined to vitiousnesse drawes us back to the Earth as to its proper center and Originall But the Soul being descended from the Father of lights is like the sparks of fire still flying upwards The Soule is the Image of God in us and the pretious pledge of his future munificence Let us imploy all our innate forces and all outward Auxiliaries for the preservation of this if we manage and defend it faithfully wee take care for and protect the intrusted pledge and purchased possession of God What conveniencie can wee have to build unless we do first of all lay the foundation but to him that hath design'd a superstructure of true blessings the fundamentall must be Salvation And if hee hath not laid that foundation upon what can the Consequences he hopes for be builded how shall he be filled with the Increase of those remunerations and after-blessings that wants the first fruits and denies the rewarder what portion can he have in the joyes of Eternity that will be wanting to his own Salvation How can he live the life of the blessed that wil not rise from death or what will it benefit him to heape up temporal provision and the materials of this World when he hath stored up nothing for the comfort of his Soule Or as our Lord JESUS CHRIST hath said What is a man profited if hee gain the whole World and lose his own Soul There can therefore be no cause for sparing and laying up where it is manifest that the Soul is already lost where Salvation is forfeited what gaine or profit can be hoped for Or wherein shall the true treasure be laid up or wherewith shall he receive it when the Soules pretious vessell and the storehouse of Eternal joyes is utterly ruined and broken let us therefore while we have time labour for true riches and make earnest hast to that holy and Heavenly commerce which is worth our looking and longing after Eternall life may be obtained in a very few daies Which daies though they should be blest with an inoffensive and untainted holinesse of life yet because they are but few are to be lightly esteem'd of for nothing can be rich in value which is but short in duration Nor can that procure any long or durable joyes whose time of existence or abode is narrow and transient The short Accommodations of this life have but short effects It seems therefore but just unto me that to the joyes of this present life if it hath any we should preferre the true and indubitable joyes of that which is everlasting For the felicity we enjoy here is at best but temporal but the other is eternal and the fruition of a transitorie uncertaine happinesse is but a frailty and accident but the possession of inviolable and never ending joyes is triumph and security It is clear then that the Eternal life is most blessed for what other thing can be named or thought upon that is more happy then everlasting life As for this present short life it is so very short that it is withall most miserable It is prest and assaulted on every side with surrounding inevitable sorrowes it is distrest with many evill defects and tost to and fro by secret and penal accidents For what is there in all the whole World that is so uncertain so various and so replenished with troubles as the course of this life Which is full of labour full of anguish fraught with cares and made ominous with dangers which is distracted with violenâ— and suddaine mutations made unpleasant with bodily distempers afflicted with thoughtfullnesse and mentall agonies and lies naked and open to all the Whirlwinds of time and Chance What benefit then yea what reason have you to turne aside and run away from Eternal joyes that you may pursue and follow after temporall miseries Do not you see my dear Valerian how every one that is provident even in this life doth with plenty of all necessaries furnish that cottage or field where hee knowes he shall reside and where he abides but for a short time his provision is accordingly where he intends a longer stay he provides likewise a greater supply unto us also who in this present World being straightned on every side have but a very short time are Eternall ages reserv'd in the World which is to come if so be that wee competently provide for an Eternall state and seeke onely what is sufficient for the present not perversely bestowing the greatest care upon the shortest and smallest portion of time and the smallest care upon the time of greatest and endlesse extent And indeed I know not which should soonest or most effectually incite us to a pious care of life Eternal either the blessings which are promised us in that state of glory or the miseries which we feel in this present life Those from above most lovingly invite and call upon us these below most rudely and importunately would expell us hence Seeing therefore that the continuall Evills of this life would drive us hence unto a better if we will not be induced by the good let us be compelled by the Evill Both the good and the bad agree to incite us to the best and though at difference amongst themselves yet both consent to make us happy For while the one invites us and the other compells us both are sollicitous for our good If some eminent and powerfull Prince having adopted you for his Son and co-partner should forthwith send for you by his Embassador you would I believe break through
the Chooser much For when he dyes his good or ill just such As here it was goes with him hence and staies Still by him his strict Judge in the last dayes These serious thoughts take up my soul and I While yet 't is day-light fix my busie eye Upon his sacred Rules lifes precious sum Who in the twilight of the world shall come To judge the lofty looks and shew mankind The diff'rence 'twixt the ill and well inclin'd This second coming of the worlds great King Makes my heart tremble and doth timely bring A saving care into my watchfull soul Lest in that day all vitiated and foul I should be found That day times utmost line When all shall perish but what is divine When the great Trumpets mighty blast shall shake The earths foundations till the hard Rocks quake And melt like piles of snow when lightnings move Like hail and the white thrones are set above That day when sent in glory by the Father The Prince of life his blest Elect shall gather Millions of Angels round about him flying While all the kindreds of the earth are crying And he enthron'd upon the clouds shall give His last just sentence who must die who live This is the fear this is the saving care That makes me leave false honours and that share Which fell to mee of this fraile world lest by A frequent use of present pleasures I Should quite forget the future and let in Foul Atheism or some presumptuous sin Now by their loss I have secur'd my life And bought my peace ev'n with the cause of strife I live to him who gave me life breath And without feare expect the houre of death If you like this bid joy to my rich state If not leave me to Christ at any rate Being now ordained a Minister of holy things and a feeder of tâ—e flock of Christ that he might be enabled to render a joyfull account at the appearance of the great Shepheard he resolved with all convenient expedition to sell and give away all his large and Princely Possessions in Italy and France which hithertâ— he had not disposed of for he looked upon his great Patrimonies as matters of distraction and backsliding the thoughts and solicitousnesse about such vast revenues disturbing his pious affections and necessarily intruding into his most holy exercitations Upon this rare resolution he returnes with his faithfull Consort into France leaving Barcinoe and holy Lampius in much sorrow for his departure For though hee had entred there into the Ministery yet was he no member of that Diocesse And here saith Uranius who was his Presbyter and wrote a brief narration of his life did he open his Treasuries to the poor and the stranger He did not only refresh his neighbours but sent messengers into other remote parts to summon the naked and the hungry to this great Feast where they were both fed and cloathed with his own hands He eased the oppressed freed the captives payd the debts of whole families and redeemed divers persons that were become bondslaves to their creditors Briefly he sold all that he had and distributed the money amongst the poor not reserving one penny either for himself or his dear Therasia Saint Ambrose in his thirtieth Epistle to Sabinus confirmeth this relation Paulinum splendore generis in partibus Aquitaniae nulli secunâ—um venditis facultatibus tam â—uis quametiam conjugalibus c. Paulinus saith he the most eminent for his Nobility in all the parts of Aquitane having sold away all his patrimonies together with the goods of his wife did out of pure love to Jesus Christ divide all that vast Summe of Money amongst the poor and he himself from a rich Sâ—nator is become a most poor man having cast off that heavy secular burthen and forsaken his own house his country and his kindred that he might with more earnestnesse follow Christ His Wife also as nobly descended and as zealous for the Faith as himself consâ—nted to all his desires and having given away all her own large possessions lives with her husband in a little thatch'd cottage rich in nothing but the hidden treasures of Religion and holinesse Saint Augustine also in his first book de Civitate Dei and the tenth Chapter celebrates him with the like testimony Our Paulinus saith hee from a man most splendidly rich became most poor most willingly and most richly holy He laboured not to adde field unto field nor to inclose himself in Câ—dar and Ivory and the drossie darke gold of this world but to enter through the gates into the precious light of that City which is of pure gold like unto cleare glasse He left some few things in this world to enjoy all in the world to come A great performance certainly and a most fair approach towards the Kingdom of heaven He that fights with dust comes off well if it blinds him not To slight words and the names of temptations is easie but to deale so with the matter and substance of them is a task Conscience hath Musick and light as well as discord and darknesse And the triumphs of it are as familiar after good works as the Checks of it after bad It is no heresie in devotion to be sensible of our smallest Victories over the World But how far he was from thinking this a Victory may be easily gathered out of his ownâ— words in his second Epistle to Severus Facile nobis bona c. The goods saith he I carried about me by the slipping of my skirt out of my hand fell easily from me And those things which I brought not into this World and could not carry out of it being only lent me for a time I restored again I pulled them not as the skin off my back but laid them by as a garment I had sometimes worne But now comes the difficulty upon me when those things which are truly mine as my heart my Soul and my works must be presented and given a living Sacrifice unto God The abdication of this World and the giving of our temporall goods amongst the poore is not the running of the race but a preparing to run it is not the end but the beginning and first step of our Journey Hee that striveth for masteries shall not be crowned except he first strive lawfully And he that is to swimme over a River cannot do it by putting off his cloathes onely he must put his body also into the stream and with the motion of his armes his hands and feete passe through the violence of the Brook and then rest upon the further side of it And in his 12th Epistle he cries out O miserable and vaine men Wee believe that wee bestow something upon the poor wee trade and lend and would be counted liberall when we are most covetous The most unconscionable userers upon Earth are not so greedy as we are nor their interest and exactions so unreasonable as ours We purchase Heaven with Earth happinesse
for chaines esteem Suites with the meeke and harmelesse heart so right That 't is all ease all comfort and delight To love our God with all our strength and will To covet nothing to devise no ill Against our neighbours to procure or doe Nothing to others which we would not to Our very selves not to revenge our wrong To be content with little not to long For wealth and greatnesse to despise or jeare No man and if we be despised to bear To feede the hungry to hold fast our Crown To take from others naught to give our owne These are his precepts and alas in these What is so hard but faith can doe with ease He that the holy Prophets doth beleeve And on Gods words relies words that still live And cannot dye that in his heart hath writ His Saviour's death and tryumph and doth yet With constant care admitting no neglect His second dreadfull comming still expect To such a liver earthy things are dead With Heav'n alone and hopes of hâ—av'n hee 's sed He is no Vassall unto worldly trash Nor that black knowledge by which pretends to wash But doth defile A knowledge by which Men With studied care loose Paradise agen Commands and titles the vaine worlds device With gold the forward seed of sin and vice He never minds his Ayme is farre more high And stoopes to nothing lower than the skie Nor griefe nor pleasures breede him any pain He nothing feares to loose would nothing gaine What ever hath not God he doth detest He lives to Christ is dead to all the rest This Holy one sent hither from above A Virgin brought forth shadow'd by the Dove His skin with stripes with wicked hands his face And with foule spittle soyl'd and beaten was A Crown of thornes his blessed head did wound Nayles pierc'd his hands and feet and he fast bound Stuck to the painefull Crosse where hang'd till dead With a cold speare his hearts dear blood was shed All this for man for bad ungratefull Man The true God suffer'd not that sufferings can Adde to his glory ought who can receive Accesse from nothing whom none can bereave Of his all-fullnesse but the blest designe Of his sad death was to save me from mine He dying bore my sins and the third day His early rising rais'd me from the clay To such great mercies what shall I preferre Or who from loving God shall me deterre Burne me alive with curious skilfull paine Cut up and search each warme and breathing vaine When all is done death brings a quick release And the poore mangled body sleepes in peace Hale me to prisons shut me up in brasse My still free Soule from thence to God shall passe Banish or bind me I can be no where A stranger nor alone My God is there I feare not famine how can he be sed To sterve who feedes upon the living bread And yet this courage springs not from my store Christ gave it me who can give much much more I of my selfe can nothing dare or doe He bids me fight and makes me conquer too If like great Abr'ham I should have command To leave my fathers house and native Land I would with joy to unknown regions run Bearing the Banner of his blessed Son On worldly goods I will have no designe But use my owne as if mine were not mine Wealth I 'le not wonder at nor greatnesse seeke But chuse though laugh'd at to be poore meeke In woe and wealth I 'le keepe the same stay'd mind Griefe shall not breake me nor joyes make me blind My dearest Jesus I 'le still praise and he Shall with Songs of Deliverance compasse me Then come my faithfull Consort joyne with me In this good fight and my true helper be Cheare me when sad advise me when I stray Let us be each the others guide and stay Be your Lords Guardian give joynt ayde and due Helpe him when falne rise when he helpeth you That so we may not onely one flesh be But in one Spirit and one Will agree FINIS * A towne in the higher Calabria in Italy 20. miles distant from Rome the Inhabitants were mightily given to pleasure and taught their horses to dance to the pipes which the Crotoniatae their deadly enemies observing brought into the field a company of minstrels the Sybarits horses bearing the pipes began to dance and disordered their Army by which meanes they were overthrowne to the number of 300000. a One of the Courtiers of the Emperor Traian and afterwards a most glorious Martyr Being in Chase of a Stagge he observed betwixt his hornes the signe of the Cross and heard a voice out of his mouth speaking to him in the Latin tongue Cur me persequeris Whereupon leaving his game he retyred presently into his own house and having called together his wife and children were all baptized and received the Christian Faith But in the persecution under Hadrian he and his wife Theophila for their faithfullnesse to JESVS CHRIST were burnt together in a brasen bull And so having overcome and endured unto the end they received the morning star and crownes of life which shall never be taken from them See Volater lib. 15. a Pliny mentions this punishment the parricide after his apprehension to augment the horror of his conscience was first whipâ— with rods dipt in the blood of his murthered parents and afterwards together with a dog an ape and a cock Creatures which shew litle reverence towards their sires he was thrust alive into a strong sack and so thrown into the Sea cell The inhabitants of Pelusium a town in the borders of Egypt now called Damiata It was built by Peleus the fratricide from whom the Citizens desceâ—ded * the word in the He brew signifies the house of powring out which in a secret Allegorie may very well concerne man a Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi sed omnes Illach ymabiles urgentur ignotique longâ nocte carent quia vate sacro * One of the Indian Gymnosophists who feeling himself a little sick made a great Bonefire and in the presence of Alexander burnt himselfe therein Alexander a little before asked him What he would have hee answered I shall see thee shortly Which fel out for he dyed at Babylon few days after * One of the Counsellors of Alexand the great The pipes of death used by the Lamae * An excellent Dilemma * Divitiae Vitia a Every rich man is either a tyrant himself or the son of a tyrant Gregorius Thaurâ—aturgus Thou hast his life annexed to this Epistle as a precedent after these precepts a Hilarius about this time which was 435. years after Christ did lead a monastical life but upon the death of Honoratus he was eleâ—ted his successor in the Bishoprick of Orleans in which dignity he continued not long for being addicted to solitarinesse he resigned it and turned into the Wildernesse a St. Augustine This letter was written in the year of our Lord 435. Philip. Chap. 2. ver 9 10. * He subscribed to the damnable heresie of Arius as both Hierome and Athanasius testifie against him * Cedimus ingenio quantum praecedimus aeyo Assurgit Musae nostra Camaena tuae Sic fastorum titulo prior tua Romae Praecessit nostrum sella curulis ebur St. Hierome Ep. 26. * For Nola. a Paulininus calls him a Martyr quia multa pro Christo passus ersi non occiâ—us a Paulinus will have the word which is commonly used in the Latin to be Nicticora from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies the apple or candle of the eye and not from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this he saith was told him by a holy man that had lived a long time in the deserts of Egypt where he observed the nature of this bird of night and the Pelican August Epistol 22. ad Paulin. a He proved afterwards a most detestable Heretick Te multa dilectio ad mendacii peccatum traxit * Paulinus calls Christ mstically a sparrow Hâ—c est ille passâ—r qui requirentibus se n viis hilaritèr ostend it nunc in portis fit obvius nunc in platis occurrit nunc in muris vel turribus sublimis convocat ad se amatores suos invitat cos in altitudines habitationum suarum ut impleat veâ—bum suum exaltatus omnia ad se trahat Quis dabit nobis pâ—nnas columbae deargentatas ut pennati pervolemus ad bravîum supernae vocationis sequentes istum passerem solitarium qui est unicus dei filius supervolitantem cui in altis habitat humilia respicit Lib. 1. d Civitate deâ— a This was about the year of our L. 428. about which time the Vandals after their excursions through Polonia Italy Franconia and Andalusia had setled in Africk where they continued quietly until the reigne of Justinian buâ— rebelling against him they were together with their King Gillimer totally overthrown by the great Captaine Beliâ—arius An. Christi 533. Luk. 18. Januarius was Bishop of Naples and a Martyr and Martinus was the Bishop â—f Tours in France