daies do but procure many deathes and others in a shorte space attein the life of infinite ages What is the body without the soule but a corrupte carcase and what the soule without God but a sepulcher of sinne If God be the way the life and the truth he that goeth without him strayeth he that liueth without him dieth and he that is not taught by him erreth Well saieth S. Augustine that God is our trew and chiefest life from whome the reuolting is falling to whome the returninge is rising in whom the staying is sure standing God is he from whom to depart is to dye to whom to repaire is to reuiue in whome to dwell is to liue Be not you therfore of those that beginne not to liue vntill they be ready to dye then after a foes desert come to craue of God a frends entertainment Some thincke to snatch heauen in a moment which the best scarce atteined in the moūtenance of many yeeres and when they haue glutted them selues with worldly delites they would iumpe frō Diues his diet to Lazarus croun and from the seruice of Satan to the solacy of a Saint But be you well assured that god is not so penurious of frendes as to hold him selfe and his kingdome salable for the refuse and reuersion of theire liues who haue sacrificed the principall therof to his enemies and their owne brutishe appetites then onely ceasing to offend when hability of offending is taken from them True it is that a theefe may be saued vpon the crosse and mercy found at the last gaspe But well saieth saint Augustine that though it be possible yett is it scarce credible that his death should find fauour whose whole life hath earned wrath and that his repentance should be accepted that more for feare of hell and loue of him selfe then for loue of God or lothsomnes of sinne crieth for mercy Wherfore good Sir make no longer delayes but being so neere the breaking vpp of your mortall house take time before extremitye to satisfie Gods Iustice Though you suffered the bud to be blasted the flower to fade thogh you permitted the fruite to be perished and the leaues to drye vp yea though you let the bougheswither and the body of your tree growe to decaye yett alas keepe life in the roote for feare least the wholle become fuell for hell fire for surely whersoeuer the tree falleth there shall it be whether it be to south or north heauē or hell such sap as it bringeth such fruit shal it euer bear Death hath already filed from you the better part of your naturall forces and hath lefte you now to the lees and remissailes of your wearish and dyinge dayes the remainder wherof as it cānot be long so doth it warne you speedilye to ransome your former losses For what is age but the calendes of death and what importeth your present weaknes but an earnest of your approching dissolution You are now impathed in your finall voiage and not far of from the stint and period of your course and therfore be not dispurueied of such appurtenances as are behoofull in so perplexed and perillous a iorney Death in it selfe is very fearefull but much more terble in regard of the iudgement that it summoneth vs vnto If you were layed on your departing bed burdened with the heauy load of your former trespasses and goared with the sting and pricke of a festered conscience If you felt the crampe of death wresting your hart stringes ready to make the rufull diuorce betweene body and soule If you lay panting for breath and swimming in a colde and fatall sweat weried with strugling against your deadly panges O how much wold you giue for an hower of repentāce at what rate woulde you valew a dayes contrition Then worldes would be worthles in respecte of a litle respitte A shorte truce would seeme more pretious then the trea sures of Empires nothing would be so much esteemed as a trice of time which now by monethes and yeeres is lauishly mispent O how deeply would it wound your hart when looking backe into your life you considered many faultes committed and not confessed manye good workes omitted and not recouered your seruice to God promised and not performed How inconsolable were your case your frends being fled your senses frighted your thoughtes amazed your memory decaied your whole mind agast and no partable to performe that it should but onely your guilty conscience pestered with sinne that would cōtinually vpbreid you with most bitter accusations what woulde you thinke when stripped out of your mortall weed and turned both out of the seruice housrome of this world you were forced to enter into vncouth strāge pathes with vnknowen and vgly company to be cōuented before a most seuere iudge carying in your owne conscience your enditement written and a perfitte register of all your misdeedes when you should see him prepared to passe the sentence vpon you against whom you had transgressed and the same to be your vmpier whom by so many offēces you had made your enemy When not onely the Deuells but euen the Angells should pleade against you and your selfe maugre your will be your sharpest appeacher What would you do in these dredfull exigentes When you saw that gastly dungeon huge golfe of hell breaking out with most fear full flames Whē you saw the weeping gnashing of teeth the rage of those hellish monsters the horrour of the place the rigour of the paine the terrour of the company and the eternity of all these punishmentes would you then thinke thē wise that would daly in so weighty matters and idly play away the time allotted to preuēt these intollerable calamities would you thē account it secure to nurse in your bosome so many serpents as sinnes or to foster in your soule so manye malicious accusers as mortal faltes Would yo not then thinke one life to little to do penance for so many iniquities euery one wherof were enough to cast you into those euerlasting and vnspeakable torments Why then do you not at the least deuote that small remnant and surplusage of these your latter dayes procuring to make an attonement with God and to free your conscience from such corruption as by your schisme and fall hath crept into it Those very eies that read this discourse and that very vnderstanding that conceiueth it shal be sighted certaine witnesses of the rehearsed thinges In your owne body shall you experience those dedly agonies and in your soule shall you feelinglye finde those terrible feares yea and your present estate is in danger of the deepest harmes if you doe not the sooner recouer your selfe into the folde and family of Gods Church What haue you gotten by being so long customer to the world but false ware sutable to the shoppe of such a marchant whose traficke is toile whose welth trashe and whose gaine miserye what interest haue you reaped that maye equall
was yong and yet a principall pastour S. Ihon not olde and yet an Apostle yea and the Angels by appearing in youthfull semblances giue vs a pregnant proofe that many glorious giftes may be shrouded vnder tender shapes All which I alledge not to claime any priuiledge surmounting the rate of vsuall habilities but to auoid all touch of presumption in aduising my elders seing that it hath the warrant of scripture the testimony of examples sufficient groundes both in grace and nature There is diuersity in the degrees of our carnall consanquinity and the preminence appertaineth to you as superiour ouer your childes body Yet if you consider our alliance in the chiefe portion I meane our foule which discerneth man from inferiour creatures we are of equall proximity to our heauenly father both descended of the same parent and no other distance in our degrees but that you are the elder brother In this sense doth the scripture saye Call not any father vpon earth for one is your father which is in heauen Seing therfore that your superiority is founded vpon flesh and blood which are in maner but the barke and rine of a man and our equality vppon the soule which is mans maigne substance thinke it I praye you no dishonour to your age or disparagement to your person If with all humility I offer my aduise vnto you One man cannot be perfect in all faculties neither is it a disgrace to the goldsmith if he be ignorant of the milleners trade Many are deepe lawiers and yett shallowe Diuines manye verye de liuer in feates of the body and curious in externall complementes yet litle experimented in matters of their soule and farre to seeke in religious actions I haue studied practised these many yeeres spirituall phisicke acquainting my selfe with the beating and temper of euery pulse trauailing in the scrutiny of the maladies medicines in cident vnto soules If therfore I profer you the fruits of my long studies and make you a present of my profession I hope you will construe it rather as a duetifull parte then any point of presumption He may be a father to the soule that is a sonne to the body and requite the benefit of his tēporall life by reuiuing his parent from a spirituall death And to this effect did christ say thes words my mother and brethren are they that do the will of my father which is in heauen Vpon which place S. Climacus shewing to what kinred a Christian ought chiefly to relye draweth this discourse Let him be thy father that both can and will lay his labour to disburden thee of thy packe of sinnes Let holy compunction be thy mother to depure thee from thy ordure and filth Let him be thy brother that wil be both thy partner and cōpeditour to passe and perfite thy race towardes heauen Take the memory of death for thy perpetuall pheere and vnseparable spouse Lett thy children be bitter sighes of a sorowfull harte and possesse thy body as thy bondman Fasten thy frendshippe with the Angelicall powers with which if thou closest in familiar affiance they will be patrones vnto thee in thy finall passage This saieth he is the generation kinred of those that seeke God Such a father as this Sainte speaketh of maye you haue of your owne sonne to enter you farther in the fore recited affinity Of which happely it was a significāt presage aboding the future euent that euen frō my infancy you were wont in merimēt to call me father R. which is the custumary stile now allotted to my present estate Now therfore to ioine issue and to come to the principall drifte of my discourse most humbly earnestly I am to besech you that both in respect of the honour of God your duty to his Church the comforte of your children and the redres of your owne soule you wold seriously consider the termes you stand in way your selfe in a christian ballance taking for your coūterpoise the iudgementes of God Take heede in time that the word Thecel writtē of olde against Baltazar interpreted by Daniel Dan. 5. be not verified in you whose exposition was you haue bene poised in the scoale and found of to lighte weight Remember that you are in the waining and the date of your pilgrimage is well nere expired now it behooueth you to looke towardes your country Your force languisheth your senses impaire your body droupeth and on euery side the ruinous cottage of your faint feeble flesh thretneth fall And hauing so many herbingers of death to premonishe you of your end how can you but prepare for so dredfull a stranger The yonge may dye quickly but the olde cannot liue long The yong mens life by casualty may be abridged but the olde mens by no phisicke can be long adiourned and therfore if greene yeres sometimes must think of the graue the thoughtes of sere age should continually dwel in the same The prerogatiue of infancie is innocency of childhoode reuerence of manhood maturity and of age wisdome And seeing that the chiefe properties of wisdome are to be mindfull of things passed carefull of thinges present prouident of thinges to come vse now the priuiledge of natures talent to the benefitte of your soule procure hereafter to be wise in weldoing and watchfull in foresight of future harmes To serue the world you are now vnhable and though you were hable you haue litle cause to be willing seeing that it neuer gaue you but an vnhappy welcome a hurtfull entertainment and now doth abandon you with an vnfortunate farewell You haue long sowed in a field of flint which could bring you nothing forth but a crop of cares and affliction of spirit rewarding your labours with remorse and affording for your gaine eternall domages It is now more then a seasonable time time to alter the course of so vnthriuing a husbādry and to enter into the field of Gods Church in which sowing the seeds of repentant sorow and watering them with the teares of humble cōtrition you may reape a more beneficiall haruest gather the fruits of euerlasting comforte Remember I pray you that your spring is spent and your somer ouerpast you are now arriued to the fall of leafe yea and winter colours haue already stained your hoary head Be not careles saieth S. Augustin though our louing Lorde beare long with offenders for the longer he staieth not finding amendment the sorer will he scourge when he cometh to ludgement and his patience in so long expecting is onely to lend vs respite to repent not any way to enlarge vs leisure to sinne He that is tossed with varietye of stormes cannot come to his desired port maketh not much way but is much tormoiled So he that hath passed many yeeres and purchased little profitte hath had a long being but a shorte life for life is more to be measured by merittes thē by number of daies seeing that most men by many
your decrementes in grace and vertew or what coulde you find in a vale of teares parageable to the fauour of God with the losse wherof you were contented to buy it You cannot be now inueigled with the passions of youth which making a partiall estimate of thinges sette no distance betweene counterfeite and currant For they are now worn out of force by tract of time or fallen in reproofe by triall of their folly It cannot be feare that leadeth you amisse seeing it were to vnfitting a thing that the crauāt cowardice of flesh blood should daunte the prowesse of an intelligent person who by his wisdome can-not but discerne how much more cause there is to feare God then man to stand in more awe of perpetuall then of temporall penalties If it be an vngrounded presumption of the mercy of God and the hope of his assistance at the last plunge the ordinarye lure of the Deuell to reclaime sinners from the pursuite of vertew it is to palpable a collusiō to misleade a sound and sensed man howsoeuer it preuaile with sicke and affected iudgmentes Who would rely eternall affaires vppon the gliding slippernes running streame of our vncertaine life or who but one of distēpered wittes would offer fraud to the decipherer of all thoughtes with whome dissemble we may to our cost but to deceiue him it is impossible Shall we esteeme it cunning to robbe the time from him and bestow it on his enemies who keepeth tale of the least minutes of our life will examine in the end how eche moment hath bene imploied It is a preposterous pollicy in any wise conceit to fight against God till our weapons be blunted our forces consumed our limmes impotent and our best spent and then when we fall for faintnes and haue fought our selues almost dead to presume of his mercy the woūds both of his sacred body so often rubbed and renued by our sinnes and euery parcell of our owne so sundry and diuerse waies abused being so many whetstones and incentiues to edge and exasperat his reuenge against vs. It were a strāge peece of art and a very exorbitant course while the shippe is sound the Pilote well the sailers strong the gale fauourable and the Sea calme to lye idle at rode burning so seasonable wether and whē the ship leaked the Pilot were sick the Mariners faint the stormes boisterous and the Sea a tormoile of outragious surges then to lanch forth to hoise vp sailes and to set out for a voiage into farre countries Yett such is the skill of these euening repenters who though in the soundnes of helth and in the perfitte vse of reason they cannot resolue to cut the gables and weigh the anckers that with-hold thē from God neuerthelesse they feed them selues with a strong perswasion that whē their senses are astonied their witts distracted their vnderstanding dusked and both the body and minde racked tormēted with the throbs and gripes of a mortall sicknes thē forsooth will they thincke of the weightiest matters become sodaine Saintes when they are scarce able to behaue them selues like resonable creatures If neither the canon ciuill nor cōmon law alloweth that a man perished in iudgement should make any testament or bequeste of his temporall substance being then presumed to be lesse then a man how can he that is amated with the inward garboils of an vnsetled conscience distrained with the wringing fittes of his dying fleshe maimed in all his habilities circled in with so strāge encombrances be thought of dew discretion to dispose of his chiefest iewell which is his soule and to dispatch the wholle menage of all eternity of the treasures of heauen in so stormy and shorte a spurt No no they that will loyter in seed time and beginne onely to sowe when others reape They that will riotte out their health cast theire accountes when they can scarcely speake They that will slumber out the day enter their iorney when the light doth faile thē Let them blame their owne folly if they dye in debt and eternall beggers and fall hedlong into the lapse of endlesse perdition Let such harken to S. Ciprians lesson Let saieth he the greeuousnes of our sore be the sure of our sorrowe Lett a deepe wounde haue deepe and dilligent cure Lett no mans contrition be lesse then his crime Thinkest thou that our Lord can be so soone appeased whō with perfidious words thou hast denied whom lesse then thy patrimony thou hast esteemed whose temple with sacriligious corruption thou hast defiled Thinckest thou easely to recouer his fauour whome thou hast auouched not to be thy Master We must rather most instantly intreat we must passe the day in mourning the night in watching weeping our wholl time in plainfull lamentinge We must fall prostrate vpon the ground humbling our selues in sackclothe and ashes And hauing lost the garment of Christ we should be vnwillinge to be clothed with any other hauing farsed our stomackes with the viande of the Deuell we should now desire to fast from all earthly food We should ply good workes to purge our offences we should be liberall in almes to auoid the death of our soules that Christ may receiue that the persecutour would haue spoiled neither ought that patrimony to be kept or phansied with which a man hath bene ensnared vanquished Not euery short sighe will be a sufficient satisfaction nor euery knocke a warrant to get in Many cry Lord Lord and are not accepted The foolish Virgins knocked and were not admitted Iudas had some sorow and yet dyed desperate Forslowe not saieth the holy ghost to be conuerted vnto God and linger not of from day to day for sodeinly will his wrath come and in the time of reuenge he will destroy thee Lett no man soiourne long in his sinfull securitye nor post ouer his repentance till feare enforce him vnto it Lett vs frame our premises as we would find our conclusion and endeuour to liue as we are desirous to dye Shall we offer the mayne crop to the Deuell and set God to glean the reproofe of his haruest Shall we gorge the Deuell with our fairest fruites and turne God to feed on the filthy scraps of his leauings How great a folly were it when a man pineth away in a perillous languour to prouide gorgeous apparell to bespeake sumptuous furniture and take order for the rearing of stately buildings neuer thinking of his owne recouery to let the disease take roote within him were it not the like vanity for a Prince to dote so farre vpon his subiecte as neglecting his owne regalty to busy him selfe wholly in aduancing his seruant Thus saieth S. Chrisostome do they that whē their soule hath surfeited with all kind of sinne and is drenched in the depth of infinite diseases without any regard therof labour their wittes in setting forth her garment and in pampering the body with all possible delightes And wheras the