soone dye But that man knowes well what it is to liue whose care is not altogether for himselfe but how hee may liue to please God and to benefit and do good to his neighbours in whom Iesus Christ liueth who hath not so great a care of any one part of his life as he hath for his whole man and for euery part thereof Verity it is a strange thing and not much to be approoued or commended that we are so many wayes carefull for this present life and to pranke vp and mainetaine our selues in this world and make so small account of our better part which so much concernes vs to wit our soule the welfare and good health thereof Whereof Dauid seemeth to make high account as is euident in the 34. Psalme when he asketh this question Who is he that desireth long life and loueth long dayes to see good Keepe saith hee thy tongue from euill and thy lippes from lying talke and equiuocation turne aside from that which is euill and doe the thing that is good seeke peace and pursue it And when he speaketh of life hee vseth a word which according to the Idiom and propriety of the language wherein he spake may be translated liues to put vs in mind that we should not rest vpon and content our selues with that life which is common with vs and the Plants and beasts of the fielde but that our thoughts should bee eleuated higher to that other life which is guided by reason and is indeed worthy to be called life without which we should bee more wretched miserable then the beasts Verily the sensual seruile and brutish life is nothing worth and not greatly to be regarded What glory can it bee to vs or how should wee place our felicity in such a life wherein the beasts euery Idiot and Lourdaut may braue it aswel as wee and haue as great priuiledge and commoditie and much more Let vs carefully looke to and set our affections vpon that life by which our better part the soule hauing as it were sequestred and estranged herselfe from all transsitory things is lifted vp vnto God cleaueth fast vnto him and by his Spirit is nourished comforted and fed vnto the hope of eternall life This is the life that the Prophet willeth vs to be in loue withall and enamoured of to the possession and fruition whereof wee are regenerated by the incorruptible seed of his word who hath abolished death and by the Gospell brought into the world life and immortalitie For the case being thus decreed that all men must once die and euery one of vs hauing daily before our eyes foure assured witnesses that beare record of our mortality and that die we must our owne naturall frailty diuers accidents and mischances that may happen to vs many surfeitings and distemperatures and olde age at last how can we sufficiently aggrauate and display the misery and vanity of man who doth not raise himselfe higher then these earthly things and mindeth and thinketh vpon nothing so much as vpon this dying life or rather a liuing death That which me heathen Philosophers and Naturalists write of long life and the meanes to prolong it will helpe vs little or nothing at all and at no time can assure comfort the conscience Some of them thinke that men may liue longer in hote countries then in cold others are of opinion that the Northerne and colder climates are best to mainetaine health and long life and Galen is perswaded that the ayre of Asia Minor in the East parts is a more temperate countrey to liue in then any other But these wise men doe further obserue that besides a good ayre many other things are requisite as to keepe a good diet to vse rest and exercise at due houres to purge sometimes and to cuacuate the excrements and grosse humours of the body and sometimes to forbeare it to haue the mind merrily disposed and free from pertubations and passions But admit all these helpes should concurre which seldome happens what man is so simple and vnaduised be he neuer so young to assure himselfe in the morning when hee riseth to liue to goe to his bed at night What man is there by keeping a good diet and liuing temperately and by following the rules and prescriptions of Physicians is able to make himselfe continue and last so long as a Date or Cypresse tree or to liue so long as a Rauen a Stagg or a base creeping worme Many haue composed and set forth bookes wherein they treate how a man may preserue health and Galen reporteth of one Antiochus a Physician who contenting himselfe to eate sparingly three times a day a piece of bread spread with hony liued in wonderfull health and strength of body many yeares Plinie in his 22. Booke Chap. 24. maketh mention of one Pollio who liued more then a hundred yeares and being demanded by the Emperour Augustus how and by what meanes he preserued so long the good health of his body and vigour of minde made him this answere That hee vsed to supple his ioynts with oyle and to drinke the best wine hee could get In his 7. Booke and 50. Chap. hee propoundeth for an example thinking the like not to be found of one Xenophilus a Musician who liued a hundred and fiue yeares and was neuer in all that time sicke nor felt any ach or paine in his body Cicero also in his Dialogue of old age maketh mention of Arganthonius King of Gades who raigned fourescore yeares and liued a hundred and twenty But seeing all the time of our life which is not imployed in well doing and vertuous actions is to be accounted lost and that the greatest part of this present life vanisheth away in miseries which we are forced to see and suffer Good God how are they to be lamented and pittied that haue nothing where of they can boast nor whereon to rest and place their assurance but vpon a number of yeares and who commonly die when as yet they haue not beto take order to liue or when they haue no sooner begun to be wise but they are assoone dead I pray you doe we call that long which hath an end yea such an end as euery minute wee expect and looke for Euery man is desirous and willing to liue long and striueth with might and maine vsing his vttermost power studie and care to liue long although the time he runnes and moylingly trots vp and downe be it neuer so long compared to eternitie is but as a drop of water to the maine sea To bee briefe long life in this world is nothing else but a painefull progresse which makes it shorter and shorter and at last makes an end of it Let euery man then as Cicero counselleth hold himselfe contented with the time is appointed vnto him by him who hath the houre glasse of our life in his hand who hath stinted our dayes how long they shall runne and hath set downe this for his
no tormentes nor tortures canne quell or dismay their stoute minde nor no Bug-beare or terror is gastly or horrid enough to fray and affright them The Lord hauing made a couenant with his Church which here on earth is compounded of all sorts of people hath giuen vnto it two strong propps of hope to wit his spirit and his true word This spirit is called the spirit of wisedome vnderstanding counsell power knowledge of sanctification veritie consolation life faith grace The word is called the word of life of saluation of the grace of God of our reconciliation with the father of Heauen A word testifying that all thinges were giuen vs necessary to life and pietie by the knowledge of him who hath called vs by his owne power and glorie by which are giuen vnto vs great and pretious promises that by them wee which are regenerated by the holy Ghost and the word should be made partakers of the diuine nature being deliuered and freed from the concupiscences and corruptions of the world Whosoeuer hath not this spirit of Iesus Christ and trusteth not in the promises of God a midd all his babble and prattle of the contempt of death and the benefit of old age is still in doubt hath feeble hands trembling and staggering knees haltes feedes himselfe with the winde and not with any assured consolation But the iust doe liue by faith are strengthened and vpheld by it which makes them reioyce all wayes in the Lord who sanctifies them preserues whole and entire their mind soule and bodie vnblameable vntill the comming of our Lord Iesus Christ CHAP. XV. An aduise to wise old men conteining the summarie and substance of their dutie vntill their last gaspe IT should remaine now to treat of death and the certaine remedies against it But before we enter therein we will propound to our wise Vieillard an aduise drawne and taken out of the volumes of sacred Philosophie to leade him more easily on to that whereunto he aspires But it behooueth those who are almost at their wayes end more heedfully to consider both the way they haue gone and are to goe for their further encouragement to their dutie Behold then what I pretend to remember to whomsoeuer being in old age will vouchsafe to hearken to him who is drawing neere vnto it It is reason that the grace of God witnessed in so many sortes so many yeares and sealed in our Baptisme at our first entrance into the world and into the Church when we haue rightly apprehended in whom we are dead and in whom quickned doe cause vs to wish a continuall sense and feeling of our adoption by his spirit speaking to vs by his word and witnessing with our spirit that we are the sonnes of God This sense and feeling doth engender or beget an excellent desire an earnest devotion a firme resolution to yeeld him obedience all our life long but more at the dissolution and end of our life then at the beginning which is devoide of knowledge conscience experience wisedome plunged and drowned the greater part of tyme in ignorance selfe opinion insolencie and ribauld and lasciuious impudencie Now then it behooues so soone as we feele the motions of this grace that our hearts be replenished with a sincere and liuely affection to obey God not according to our worldly sense but following the rule which he himselfe doth propose and set downe vnto vs. Touching this affection it is commended vnto vs by generall and speciall reasons The generall reasons are that our God is holy and that we his people cannot cleaue vnto him except we bee holy likewise then as members belonging to Iesus Christ our head and redeemer we ought to be made conformable to him imitating his life which is called the obedience to God his Father euen to the death of the crosse The speciall reasons are First that God is our Father Secondly that Christ hath washed vs by his precious bloud and incorporated vs into him Thirdly that this our head is ascended vp into heauen Fourthly that we are the temples of the holy Ghost Fiftly that our bodies be predestinated to the last resurrection and our soules to immortalitie both of them to euerlasting glorie Whereupon it followes that it is horrible ingratitude not to be willing to obey the will of our heauenly Father that it is madnesse to returne to the filthinesse from which we haue beene so dearely and preciously cleansed and purged that it is detestable iniquitie to wish and to will the members of Iesus Christ to bee ioyned to Sathan and to the world that is but reason for euer to burie all earthly affection to aspire to a better life to be by a liuely faith set in the heauenly places and to feele and taste of life and euerlasting glory that we must not grieue him which dwelleth in vs our counsellor guide and comforter That it is good reason to preserue our selues immaculate and pure euen vntill the day of our Lord. Hauing treated of our affection let vs speake of the rule thereof declared in such wise and so expressely in the law of God to make vs yet to see as the soule and mayne of all that his good pleasure hath beene to forme and fashion our manners by a most exact manner and order and which serues as a commentarie of all that is contayned in the sayd Law That is that wee should renounce our selues to the end to be fit to apply and frame our selues sincerely and wholly to serue God because we are not our owne but Gods Whereupon it followes that a Christian be he young or old and the old is more bound to this dutie then the yong because God hath vpheld and supported him long hath bestowed many blessings and benefites on him and a blessed life whereinto hee is nowe entring ought to search and learne out what God willeth and approueth briefely whatsoeuer serueth to the advancement of his glorie Those which are of an other minde are styled and tearmed by the voyce of truth vngracious hypocrites vngratefull reprobates All these licentious and inordinate humours S. Paul in his Epistle to Titus comprehendeth vnder the word Impietie To which hee opposeth the duties of Christians marshalled and ranged vnder the three excellent giftes of the holy Ghost in the regenerate to wit sobrietie iustice and pietie And in this sacred triangle is included the renouncing of our selues And the Apostle not without cause hath begun with temperance which especially concernes vs which moderates our lustes and desires banishing and driuing away sensuall carnall worldly and vncleane and filthie affections much more their detestable effortes and effectes It is shee which doth fashion and frame vs to a true square rulle and order as well in the moderation of our wishes and dreames of worldly houour and greatnesse as of our inordinate beastly concupiscences suggested by the vncleane spirit In the violent pursuite seeking and hunting after proud vsurping sacrilegious detayning and miserable possessing
crimes and offences doe banish for euer the malefactors from humane society Who shall dare to say that it is iniquity in God the Lord of the permanent and durable City if he eternally banish out of his kingdome of glory his sworne enemies the wicked who continually offend him And the polluted prophane vniust reprobates who plot and conspire against God and their neighbours remaine for euer vnder the wrath and curse of the Lord For iustification of all consider onely the corruption of humane nature and what the sonnes of Adam are in themselues For howsoeuer the beleefe touching the immortality of mans soule be orthodox and most true yet may it fitly bee sayd that the soule is subiect to a certaine kind of death Wee call it immortall because it ceaseth not to liue and in some sort to haue sence and feeling The body is mortall because it may bee depriued of life which consistes in the residence of the soule in it from whence floweth that which doth maintaine it not liuing of it selfe but by the soule which doth gouerne and mooue it But the death of the soule is when God doth abandon it and depriue it of his grace And wee say that man is vtterly dead when the soule is quite gone out of the body and that God doth abandon the soule finally adiudged to euerlasting torments S. Augustine will that the name of death bee deriued from the venomous morsure or sting of the infernall serpent the diuel then by him brought into the world when hee first bit and stung out first mother Eue leauing fast sticking in vs the sting of sinne which the Apostle calleth the sting of death This sting being blunted and taken away death ceaseth mortally to sting vs. When S. Ambrose writeth in his Treatise of the benefit of death Chap. 1. 2. that death hurteth not the soule consequently is not euill seeing that nothing but sinne hurteth the soule it is to bee vnderstood of the bodily death in respect of Gods children Therefore hee maketh a â—hree-fold distinction of death the one good the other euill the third good or euill The good is the mysticall death when a man dyeth to sinne and liueth to God whereof the Apostle speaketh That we are buried with Christ Iesus into his death by Baptisme The euill is the death of sinne whereof it is written Then soule that sinneth shall dye And the third is the end of our race and calling in this world that is the separation of the soule from the body of good men accounted good of wicked men euill Although death doth vnshackle and set all persons at liberty very few yet are to bee found which take pleasure therein But this proceedeth not from any offence that is in death that is in the separatiof the soule from the body but from the infirmity of mortall men who suffering themselues to goe on in their carnall pleasures and delights of this life doe tremble and feare to see themselues at the end of their race in the earth louing long life there to liue euilly that is there to dye hourely O how sweet is the good death to wise old men to men and women who are the seruants of God who watch who pray who cry to their Lord in repentance in faith and charity who manfully fight against all temptations And how bitter is the euill death to those euill soules vnbeleeuers stiffe necked ones hypocrites who wrap themselues in their sinnes who haue no pleasure hope nor comfort but in this world These things being so it is easie to shew how death is to be feared or not Certainely the death of sinners is euill who not content to be borne in sinne liue still in all manner of iniquities But the death of the Saints is precious being the end of their labours and toyles the conseruation and custos of their victory the doore of life and the entrance into an assured perfect glorious rest Those are to bee bewayled in their death who haue hell for their prison But it beseemes vs to reioyce and bee glad at their departure whom God doth bid welcome into his heauenly Palace where they magnifie him for euer If any one aske vs sayth Lactantius in the third Booke of his Christian Institutions whether death be good or euill wee will answere that the qualitie thereof doth consist in the consideration of life in it selfe Death in it selfe cannot bee sayd to bee good pleasing and to be desired on the contrary it is the destruction of nature and the reward of sinne But wee must esteeme it a thing worthy great prayse pleasing and full of grace and delight when wee dye ioyfully in the true knowledge of Christ Iesus to goe out of the prison of this mortall body out of this valley of miseries out of this desart where we are exiled persons to returne to our Father our countrey and heauenly city He dyeth well who with the Apostle sayth in sincerity of conscience all my desire is to depart hence and to bee with Christ Iesus Particularly as touching my selfe I haue fought the good fight I haue finished my course I haue kept the faith also the crowne of righteousnesse is layd vp and reserued for mee which the Lord the iust Iudge shall in that day giue vnto me not to me onely but to those who loue his appearing Againe death and the remembrance and apprehension of it is wonderfull irkesome and bitter to a man which trusteth in his riches liuing in all ease in full strength of body and prosperity Here we demand what we are to judge of the death of those who are cruelly quartered and dismembred by hangmen or by fierce and wilde beastes are swallowed vp in the belly of fishes are stifled with a suddaine apoplexie are bereaued of wit sense and reason by some hot burning feaver or who die franticke and madd As for those who are put to cruell death for the name of Christ Iesus the answere is that their death cannot bee tearmed and accompted but deare and precious in the sight of the Lord and of all his Church For if the heathen Philosophers haue had some reason to say that a vertuous man leaues not to be happie though he bee put to a violent death why should we not say the same of the true vertuous to wit the holy Martyrs seeing we haue so certaine testimonies and so many famous examples of their faith charitie patience and constancie in death The Epistle to the Hebrewes is herein expresse for it conteyneth the heroicall trophies of faith also the opprobries disgracefull reuilings and cruell torments of the invincicible Champions of Christ Iesus But I pray you what torments can dismay and terrifie him which glorieth in the crosse of Christ Iesus among all others a shamefull and terrible torment and death Turtullian obserueth in his Apologetico that in his tyme Christians were called Sarmentitij Semissij bavinistes and poore snakes because they were bound to a stake which
much desired declareth by his wordes which breathed nothing but faith charitie consolation a stedfast hope that the seruants of God are in peace enioy a free rest being drawne out of the foaming and tempestuous waues of this world and landing at the port of safetie and eternall happinesse when after the abolishment of death we come to a glorious immortalitie For this is our peace our assured rest our assured and perpetuall safetie In this world we are continually grapling tugging and wrastling with Sathan and all our exercise is to repulse and repell his dartes We haue on our armes on our foreheads sides and backes avarice incontinencie anger ambition of necessitie wee must wrastle without ceasing against the lustes of the flesh and the baites and allurements of the world Toward the end of the same Treatise hee sayth further that we must not weepe for our brethren when it pleaseth God to call and deliuer them out of this world for well I know that they are not lost but gone before and haue the start of those who tarrie behinde Wee may desire and looke after them as men do for their friends who are going some voyage or who take shipping to sayle and goe to land in a good port But we must not bewayle them nor here weare black mourning habitts seeing they haue alreadie receiued white robes in heauen It becomes vs not to giue occasion to Heathens justly to tax and reproue vs if they see by an inordinate loue our countenance appalled and agast thinking them vtterly lost and annihilated whom we hold and maintaine to be aliue with God and if they perceiue it witnessed euidently enough by our minde that wee condemne the faith we professe with our mouthes In this case we ouer throw our faith and our hope which we could not say but to proceed of hypocrisie It is nothing to shew our selues hardie in wordes if we evert and destroy the truth with our doings and deedes It is tyme to conclude this Chapter We say then that the anxieties of minde maladies perplexities and apprehensions of so many deathes which doe spurne and kicke against vs doe silently and tacitely cry vnto vs and exhort vs with speed to lift vp our eyes to Christ Iesus the fountaine of life to the communion we haue with him also to the blessinges alreadie receiued of him and to those which the hope which makes vs not afraide doth assuredly expect And following the counsell of S. Basile in his Treatise that thankes must alwayes bee giuen to God Let vs not put our affiance and trust in man nor let vs say with the ignorant vulgar death hath taken from me all my succour and helpe my father my husband my sonne the comfort of my old age the prop and piller of my house Who hath commaunded you to moore your ancher of hope in such a little lump of dust as man is What age is priuiledged from the handes of death What a one is he who by couenant made with vs protesteth that he will be the God of their fathers and of their children to a thousand generations who loue feare him Shall we forget him who makes so kinde a proffer of himselfe to vs to imagine forge to our selues succours and helpes of straw and of wind Let the ancher of our sure and stedfast hope sincke into the vaile of heauen and let it bee sticking faste in the throne of God It shall there be a brasen bullwarke for vs a wall of fire Let Christ be our life in death in him let death be our gaine Let vs say with Ieremiah in the 17. Chapter Blessed be the man which trusteth in the Lord whose confidence the Lord is For he shall be as a tree planted by the water which spreadeth out her roots by a flowing riuer which shall not feele when the heate shall approach her leafe shall be greene and shall not wither in the yeare of drought and shall not cease to yeeld her fruit Let vs further amasse and gather some words from the same Prophet O Lord thou art the hope of thy Church those that forsake thee shall bee confounded for they haue forsaken the fountaine of liuing waters Heale those that are thine O Lord then shall they be in rest saue them and none shall bee able to hurt them Leaue them not forlorne and in a desperate plight thou which art their hope in the day of affliction Let their despayring and hopelesse enemies be confounded and let them rest in safetie vnder the shadow of thy wings CHAP. XIX Of the resurrection of the bodies and of the immortalitie of humane soules THE Apostle speake to very good purpose in the 15. chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians that if our hope should be in Christ Iesus in regard of this present life onely our condition should be more miserable then other mens seeing that true Christians are continually exposed to diuers afflictions and from time to time doe suffer great tortures troubles But what would it auaile to liue in the world and there to subsist and be a thousand yeares if it be in the fire of calamities and sundry oppressions There cannot then bee proposed vnto vs a more certaine refuge and helpe nor a more sweete comfort and support against the miseries and infirmities of this present life then the assured hope of the resurrection to a better life When we shall beare about vs no longer the image of the first earthly man but of the second who is the heavenly Adam and that this corruptible and mortall bodie shall put on incorruption and immortalitie The sure confidence of Christians is the resurrection from the dead wherein we shall haue a glorious bodie which shall be so revnited to the blessed soule and the soule againe to the bodie that we may be for euer with our head fully replenished with euerlasting ioy in the presence of God The Heathens enemies of Christian religion haue especially impugned this Article of the resurrection of the bodie And which is more many of their Philosophers haue spoken doubtfully of the immortalitie of the soule At this tyme to the end to confirme our faith our hope and assured consolation we will consider the groundes of these two Articles aswell by the nature of things and by certaine conceptions as by the sound resolutions rehearsed in the holy Scriptures Certainly as Gregory the great said in his Moralls That those who haue not learned from the Scripture the doctrine of the Resurrection ought to learne it of nature For what doe men daily obserue in the continuall medley and blending of the Elements whereof all visible things are composed but proofes of the resurrection of the dead Wee see by the vicissitude and reuolution of time the Plants and Trees to lose their greene leaues which wither and fall off when Winter comes after in the Spring to sprout forth againe and the earth to become greene gay as before If the smal
which the imperfections of mad doting old men are bewrayed and discouered and wise old men are so much the more put in minde how they ought to beare and behaue themselues in the sight of God of his Church of their owne seruants and families of their friends which wish them well and of their enemies which wish them ill seeking to discredit disgrace and defame them It is lamentable to see some old men to idle out the time in potting tipling and swilling in drinke others to seeke after meats and provocatiue drugs to enflame and stirre vp their beastly lustes not regarding the commandement of the Apostle in the second Chapter of his Epistle to Titus second verse where he willeth auncient men to bee sober graue discreete and aduised Such persons doe yet lesse remember that which the Author of Ecclesiasticus sayth Chapter 25. verse 3. 4. There are three sorts of men whom my heart hateth and whose life I abhorre A poore man that is proud a rich man that is a lyer and an old adulterer which doteth or is without vnderstanding A wise man sayd that is an imputation to an old man to speake of vnchast courting and dalliance much more to be deuoted to it yea when it were fit to make him a comely withdrawing roome farre from the canopies of the world and the vncleane spirit then to wallow and bemyre himselfe in the perillous pleasures of the world is to neglect and dispise the wise admonitions of Salomons mother and little to consider the euils which happened to that wise Prince for not hauing considered it well when she left him this worthie instruction Giue not thy strength to women Pro. 31. 3. Our wise Vieillard will remember that if true wisedome lodge in his heart and the knowledge of truth delighteth his soule she will deliuer him from the strange woman which smootheth her words which forsaketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the couenant of her God For her house leaneth vnto death and her pathes lead vnto the dead Not one of them which goe vnto her doe returne againe neither take they hold of the wayes of life Pro. 2. v. 10. 16. 17. c. Keepe thy way farre from her and come not neere the dore of her house least thou giue thine honour vnto others and thy yeares to the cruell least the stranger be filled with thy strength and thy labours be in the house of a stranger Pro. 5. v. 8. c. Salomon hauing in the same place propounded notable things to this purpose euen as a wise Father who with teares trickling a pace downe his cheekes would admonish his lewd stubborne sonne addeth why shouldest thou my sonne bee transported with the loue of a strange woman or embrace the bosome of a stranger seeing the wayes of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he pondereth all his pathes The same wise Salomon further sayth in the sixt Chapter The woman which lusteth hunteth after the precious life of a man Can a man put fire into his bosome and his cloathes not be burnt shall a man goe vpon hote coales and his feete not be burnt so he that goeth into his neighbours wife shall not bee innocent whosoeuer toucheth her Also he that committeth adulterie with a woman is destitute of vnderstanding hee that doth it destroyeth his owne soule In the chapter following hee describeth a shamelesse and impudent woman who by her crafts and subtile deuices brings those to destruction who for want of vnderstanding suffer themselues to be seduced by her enticing wordes comparing such idiots to Beastes that are led to the slaughter house to fooles that are layed and chayned vp in Prison to be corrected to Birds which willingly fall into pit-falles and snares Let our wise Vieillard remember that the author of all holinesse hath expressely condemned whoredome and adulterie not onely in the act but also in the affection In stead of beholding with an euill eye those women whose company he ought to shunne and avoyd let him read or cause to be read vnto him the places of holy Scripture which we goe about to quoate vnto him and which are the parts and points of the inditement according to which God will judge whore-mongers and adulterers Heb. 13. 4. The places are these Gen. 26. 3. Behold thou art dead because of the Woman which thou hast taken shee was onely taken and not defiled Gen. 26. 10. Abimelech sayd to Isaac who somewhat vnaduisedly behaued himselfe in the behalfe of his wife Rebecca it was a narrow hazzard that none of the people lay not with thy wife and that thou hast not beene the cause to haue the sin layd vnto vs. Exod. 20. 14. Thou shalt not commit adulterie Leuit. 18. 20. Thou shalt not lye with thy neighbours wife defiling thy selfe with her Leuit. 20. 10. Adulterers are condemned to death Deut. 22. 24. He that polluteth and defyleth a betrothed virgin is condemned to death with her if she hath consented to it Deut. 23. 17. There shall not be a whore among the daughters of Israell not a whore-keeper among the sonnes of Israel Our Lord Iesus condemneth him of adulterie in the heart which looketh vpon a woman to lust after her Saint Paul propoundeth diuers arguments against whore-mongers and adulterers Rom. 13. 13. and 1 Cor. 6. 15. 16. 18. and the 10. 8. and the 2 Cor. 12. 22. Galat. 5. 19. Ephes 5. 3. Coloss 3. 5. and the 2 Thes 4. 3. c. Heb. 13. 4. Which our wise Vieillard will examine then hee will ioyne thereunto the considerations of the terrible punishments of families defyled with such sinnes the fearefull judgements pronounced against sencelesse and obdurate consciences the lamentable changes and alterations in the familie of Dauid and Salomon and of many others since the strong and inuincible arguments of the Apostle 1 Cor. 6. Chapter to this effect briefely that whore-mongers and adulterers are shutt out of the kingdome of God Therefore that we may haue a part in the inheritance of the Saints who are sanctified and iustified in the name of the Lord Iesus and by the spirit of God we must remember first that our bodies are not for whoredome but for the Lord and the Lord for the bodie Secondly that seeing our bodies shall rise againe not to ignominie and pollution but to glory and holines it is reason we should keepe them pure and vnpolluted for so are they members of Christ and consequently it should be horrible sacriledge to make them members of a Harlot Thirdly that being members vnited vnto the Lord and made one spirit with him it is not meete in no sort to ioyne them to a Harlot with whom we are made one bodie Fourthly that whoredome ought to be detested aboue all other sinnes for whatsoeuer sinne a man committeth it is without the bodie but he which committeth adulterie sinneth against his owne bodie Fiftly that our bodies are temples of the holy Ghost which is in vs which
and reckons of death the threatnings and rage of Tyrants As Solon who being demanded By what vertue hee did so braue the Tyrant Pisistratus answered His old age Touching the contempt of death and a resolution couragiously to apprehend and embrace it who will not maruell to heare the wordes which the great Cyrus King of Persia vttered to his sonnes a little before his death My dearely beloued sonnes said he when you shall see mee no more thinke not therefore I am quite annihilated and no where for when I was in your company you could not perceiue my soule but onely discusled it in your minde to be in my body by the deedes and actions you saw me to doe Beleeue then that the soule is still aliue and in being although you see my body no more Neuer could any man perswade mee that the soules of mortall men perish with their bodies nor that being departed out of our bodies past feeling and sense that they are without feeling and sense on the contrary seeing that the soul being at liberty and hauing nothing to doe with the body begins to become pure and wholy to see and behold it selfe I hold and maintaine that then it is in full perfection of knowledge and vnderstanding Furthermore the case standing thus that death is the dissolution of nature wee see whither all things tend to wit to their first matter whereof they were made the soule excepted which we see not how it comes into the body remaines there nor goes out You see that there is nothing so much resembles death as sleepe But the soules of those which sleepe shew their diuine nature in this point that being free from disturbance and at rest see and behold things a farre off and to come which plainely declares what they must bee after they are deliuered from the prison of the body This being so reuerence mee my sonnes as a thing diuine but if the soule be to perish with the body yet giue not you ouer to feare the gods which maintaine vphold gouerne this Principall master peece called Man And in this doing as good children you shall inuiolably preserue my name To this Oration which is bettered by Cicero in his Dialogue of old age reciting Socrates who in prison wisely and stoutly discourseth of the immortality of the soule Old Cato also addeth that seeing the soules of men are so prompt and apprehensiue to remember things past and of so wise foresight in things future and to come haue inuented so many trades arts sciences so many rare and notable things It is impossible that such natures capable of so great excellencies should bee mortall And seeing the soule is in continuall agitation and motion which shee originally hath not to wit from any extrinsecall cause and from other then her Creatour which Cicero forgetteth seeing shee mooues and stirres of her selfe it followes that shee shall euer haue such agitation and motion for shee will neuer leaue or abandon to bee her selfe Further that the soule in it owne nature being a substance simple pure vnmixt hauing no disagreeing qualities cannot be diuided and being indiuiduall it followes it is immortall which serues to prooue that men are capable and of vnderstanding before they bee borne seeing that children in learning the baser and more seruile and meaner trades arts and sciences doe on a suddaine comprehend and conceiue infinit things ere on would say they begin to apprehend and vnderstand what this or that is but onely their memories serue them to retaine and beare them away Cato afterward affirmeth further That if the soules of men were not immortall good men would not desire or aspire to a glory which is durable and ay-lasting What meanes this saying That euery wise man dieth most willingly and the wicked depart hence full fore against their will and with much griefe and vexation of minde Seemes it not vnto you that the soule which sees more cleerely and father off knowes she goes to a better place On the contrary hebere dull and sencelesse man is vncapable and ignorant heereof Verily I desire nothing more then to see your forefathers whom I haue made much on respected and honoured and besides I desire to be with those of whom I haue heard men to speake and discourse whose bookes I haue seene and perused and whose names I haue quoated and mentioned in mine owne writings Now that I am onward in my way and making hast to goe to them It would be a troublesome and hard matter to hale mee or make mee roule or goe backe as men would a ball or a bowle And if God had made me a grant to become a childe againe and to cry in a cradle I should stifly and with might and maine refuse such an offer for seeing I haue almost finished my course I will not bee recalled from my last end to my first state and condition Is there any commoditie in this life Is not this life painefull in all her reuolutions terminations periods and endes But put the case this life hath many commodities so it is that wee may be full gorged satiated and glutted with them and see and end of them too I will not for all that way wardly and testily fret fume storme and chaffe at this life as many learned men haue oftentimes done and I repent me not that I haue liued for I haue so spent my dayes that I account of my selfe as one that hath serued for some vse and for something in the world I goe out of this life as out of an Inne and not as one out of a house seeing that nature leaues vs here in this world a time to passe and walke vp and downe but not heere to settle abide and continue O happy the day when I shall goe to the holy company of blessed soules and shall leaue the base rabble and rascally route of the world See heere for certaine the worthy Treatises of men ignorant of the immortality of mans soule but as they did gropingly and blindely imagine Notwithstanding they were grounded vpon this imagination that nothing being so common nor of more price and account with man then the loue and preseruation of himselfe a care and regard ought especially to bee had of that part which properly may be called Man to wit the soule and that the way and meanes to liue well and happily consisteth in the knowledge and comtemplation of things diuine inciting and prouoking vs to good workes so as the tranquility of our mindes consisteth not properly in being freed from paine and griefe but rather in being deliuered from those raging and vnruly passions which hurry the wicked vp and downe For as Seneca sayth in his booke De Prouidentia those casuall miseries which our owne hands bring not vpon vs are sent for our good that our many vertues may the more gloriously shew and appeare and that as wee cut Vines to make them yeeld the more fruit so by the smart and wound of
Daniel calles him The Ancient of dayes not that therefore it is lawfull to represent God in the shape of an old man with a great long white beard as many ignorant folke doe which neuer read Moses nor the Prophets and which are ignorant of the nature and essence of the true God But that wee should conceiue this incomprehensible Maiestie to bee nothing else but wisedome a venerable supremacy and greatnesse of estate and a perfect sanctitie Secondly wee are taught to reuerence old men to honour their persons to rise vp with great respect to these white heads and beards and to shew thereby that we acknowledge in this their old age the stampes and prints of God as Moses exhorts vs in the 19. Chap. Leuit. v. 32. which we recite to the same end and purpose as wee haue done other sayings and sentences before whereunto wee adde this of a wise Elder who writ Ecclesiasticus in the third Chapter of which booke hee sayth My sonne helpe thy father in his age and grieue him not so long as hee liueth when his vnderstanding faileth him haue patience and beare with him and dispise him not but honour him as much as thou canst For the good intreaty of thy father shall not bee forgotten but shall bee a fortresse for thee against thy sinnes The women of Bethlehem are friendly and kind to the good old Naomi for that her daughter in law Ruth had borne a sonne to Boaz. This say they may bring life againe to thee and lenghthen thy dayes and cherish and comfort thine old age Ruth 4. 15. God by his Prophet Isaiah reprochet the Babilonians that they were cruell and vnmerciful to the Iewes and laid a very heauy yoke vpon them Chap. 47. 6. Also these wicked people were as hammers which the iust Iudge of the world vsed to breake in peeces the old and the young as Ieremie speakes in the 52. Chapter Vers 22. whence proceeded those woes and alasses of the Prophet in his Lamentations 4. Chap Vers 16. They reuerenced not the face of the Priests nor had compassion of the Elders And in the fift Chapter following Vers 12. The Princes are hanged vp by the hands and they reuerence not the face of the Elders That which Ezechiel proposeth in the 9. chap. v. 6. is most feareful and it sufficeth vs to marke and obserue it that our wise Vicillard doe thereby take heed On the contrary in Zachariahs dayes there being a question and demurre concerning the reestablishment of the people and of the fauours that God was minded to bestow vpon them Zachariah declares in the 8. Chapter Vers 4. That the God of hostes sayd thus There shall old men and women dwell in the streetes of Ierufalem and euery man haue his staffe in his hand for very age But Isaiah in the third Chapter Vers 2. and 5. putteth for signes of the terrible iudgement of God to Ierusalem That the old men shall be taken away and destroyed that the childe shall exalt himselfe and presume against the auncient and the abiect and vile against the honourable If in these times there bee any presage of the decay and ruine of Churches and Common-weales it is that the number of wise old men is very smal that the age of the worthies and renowned men is vanished and past That those that are children in yeares and vnderstanding are percht vp and set vp in the places of the experienced valiant and learned An extreame misery which we cannot sufficiently describe and lament But as good fruit when it is ripest and mellow is most delicate and pleasant to the taste and as the last draught contenteth the thirstie person In like sort pleasure seemes to reserue her dainties to the last and for the last seruice and messe So likewise wee say that old age hath in it I know not what that is notable and more excellent then other ages and the sayings of the auncients as the singing of swannes are daily excellent monitors and admonitions to vs. If wee listen to the last wordes of the Patriarches Moses Ioshua Dauid and giue them the hearing wee shall in them finde an ample proofe heereof Such Histories are familiar to wise old men and it is much better to read them in themselues then heere to recite them What illumination of Gods spirit is reuealed and manifest in the sayings of infinite Martyrs especially of such as were old euen from the Apostles time till now It is matter for a greater booke then this small Tractat or Manuel In the second booke of the Maccabees Chap. 6. It is spoken of Eleazar one of the chiefe Scribes an aged man who being pressed and instantly solicited to feigne and make semblance to adhere and obey to the superstitions of the Heathens vpon an honest and vpright minde worthy his age the excellency of his yeares the honour of his gray hayres his good conuersation from his childhood and chiefly Gods holy law suddenly required that hee might bee led to the place of execution adding these words worthy of memory It becommeth not our age to dissemble least many yong persons diffident and wauering that Eleazar being fourscore and tenne yeares old was gone and yeelded to prophane ceremonies thorough mine hypocrisie and dissimulation for a smal moment of a caduque and transitory life might bee seduced and I bring a malediction and curse and a staine and reproach to mine old age for though I should bee deliuered from the torments of men yet could I not escape the hand of the Almightie neither aliue nor dead Wherefore manfully changing and giuing vp this life I shall shew my selfe such as mine age requireth and meriteth And I shall leaue a notable example for such as be young to die willingly and couragiously for the venerable and holy lawes To this worthy old man let vs ioyne the constant Martyr Polycarpus a Disciple of S. Iohn the Apostle and of the Church of Smyrna in Asia As he was brought to the torturing fire the Proconsul hauing most earnestly solicited him to recant and renounce his faith with promise of libertie I haue said this wise old man and constant Martyr these fourescore and sixe yeares serued Iesus Christ and all this time he did me no outrage nor hurt how should it then be possible to bring me to bee of the minde to blaspheme my Sauiour and King I will neuer doe it If you feigne and pretend you know not my qualitie I would haue you to know that I am a Christian Many other words of admirable constancie were then vttered by this reuerend old man who being armed with inuincible courage presently suffred death for the name of the Lord. These two examples shall suffice to shew that the neerer wise old men are vnto death be it easie or violent the greater is their courage the neerer are they to the kingdome of Heauen And still as their bodies growe weake the holy Ghost doth fortifie and strengthen them in such sorte that
So likewise is it requisite that thou being emptied and stripped of the world and the concupiscences and lustes thereof shouldest be wholly changed and deuoted to further and aduance the glory of God Whereupon the Apostle said That our old man is crucified that the body of sinne may be destroyed Our Lord hauing beene nayled to his crosse is there-dead and wee his members ought to die to the world and to our selues in such sort that as those which are dead we should make no more reckoning of the things of the world should be without sense or feeling of them and should haue neither synewe nor veyne stretching or tending that way To this purpose S. Paul said to the Colossians you are dead and your life is hidd in Christ Furthermore we must also be buried with the same Sauiour He that is dead hath no more care of the world yet before he be buryed the world hath care to winde him vp in a sheete to Coffyn him then to carry him to his graue where being interred all societie and dealing one with another is at an end In this sort many who thinke themselues to be dead to the world pretending and making semblance to haue renounced it are not yet buryed because the world makes great account of them doth reuerence and worship them But it behooueth vs to be dead and buryed to the world in such sorte as we haue as small accompt and esteeme of it as of a stinking carrion and that it esteeme so of vs. For it is an ill signe when the children of this world speake well of vs. It is then a thing requisite and necessary that we be buryed with Iesus Christ by Baptisme into his death And it is fit also that we descend as our head into hell that is that we haue a right knowledge and a liuely feeling of our sinnes which is done when wee feele in our hearts the loue of God our Father in Iesus Christ crucified For being convicted to haue offended him we must descend to confesse and earnestly to decest and abhorre our pride ignorance infidelitie malice obstinacie and other vices Seeing then that these pollutions and defilements haue so much and so greatly displeased God that to purge them out of the world he hath deliuered his owne sonne to death we are brought to this point in some sorte to know our misery and how much we our selues doe displease God Moreouer as the Sauiour is risen againe so his members ought to rise againe in newnesse of life in such sort that afterwardes they haue no motion or inclination whatsoeuer but to glorifie God walking as persons whose conuersation is alreadie in heauen Christ is risen againe therefore his members ought to rise againe not onely at the last day but hourely and continually in newnesse of life so that thence forward they haue no motion or disposition whatsoeuer but to glorifie God Christ is risen immortall for that hauing triumphed ouer death death hath no more dominion ouer him Thereupon S. Peter sayth to Christians seeing our Sauiour hath suffred for vs in the flesh it is reason that we be armed and resolued in mind that he which hath suffred in the flesh hath ceased from sinne willing and ready to say that Christ the head pledge and suretie for all Gods children comming to die consequently to satisfie fully and wholly the Iustice of God for them hath clearely discharged the debt for all his members who are obliged to him vnlesse they would crucifie him againe and hold the precious bloud of the euerlasting couenant for a prophane thing to cease and giue ouer to sinne For being dead to sinne buryed to the world risen againe to God they ought to sinne no more nor to die in sinne much lesse to remaine dead therein Sinne ought no more to raigne nor haue dominion in them they ought no longer to obey their euill lustes but to curbe and restraine them by the spirit which doth quicken guide and gouerne them Our Lord is ascended vp into heauen In like sort if we be liuing members of his mysticall body we ought zealously and with all our affections to be elevated and raised vp vnto God truely to say with S. Paul that our conuersation is in heauen The same S. Paul sayd to the Colossians Chapter 3. 1. If you be risen againe with Christ seeke the thinges which are aboue that is heauenly and diuine not earthly and sensuall Now as this good Sauiour soone after his ascension into heauen for a testimony of his infinite glory in that he is set at the right hand of God the Father Almightie sent his holy spirit in a visible forme vpon his twelue disciples So we likewise after we are raised vp to God shall feele our selues filled with this spirit and with feruent charitie which will then appeare when wee shall illuminate kindle and inflame our neighbours in the loue of God not onely with our wordes but especially with our doings and deedes by the good examples of a blamelesse life Iesus Christ ought to come to judge the quicke and the dead And if we be his members a liuely fayth will make vs to feele the sweetnesse of these wordes of our Sauiour Come yee blessed of my Father possesse the inheritance prepared for you before the foundation of the world Let vs adde that as the judge of all shall be judged of none so shall it be with all his true members in the great and last day And who should judge them seeing the Father iustifieth them in his son and by the mouth of his sonne pronounceth them just blessed and heires of the kingdome of heauen Wherefore Christ Iesus denounceth that he which heareth his word and beleeueth in him hath eternall life and shall not come to condemnation that is shall not be judged but is passed from death to life Ioh. 5. 24. This needes no further exposition And it were to blaspheme whosoeuer would call into question the certaintie of our saluation by Iesus Christ alone who is dead for our sinnes risen againe for our iustification that we might be the righteousnesse of God in him Let vs say further with S. Paul 1 Cor. 6. 2. 3. Know yee not that the Saints shall judge the world Know yee not that wee shall judge the Angells But as after the last judgement Christ Iesus shall remaine in heauen in incomprehensible glorie so true Christians already risen againe by faith and sitting together in the heauenly habitations with their head hauing their conuersation in heauen shall there appeare and be found all perfect entire in their bodies and soules with their Sauiour who in raising them vp againe shall change their vile and contemptible bodies so as they shall bee made conformable to his glorious bodie according to the power and efficacie whereby he is able to subdue all things to himselfe If wise old men doe in a quiet and sober moode meditate and consider these thinges euery one of them hanging
yet is so heedlesse that death doth surprize him hee suddenly falleth into griefes frightes dispaires horrors for not hauing in his life kept reckoning of those things which hee ought maturely and betimes to consider of Wee adde that this is wholly necessary by somuch the more as we are to render our account before the in euitable throne of the eternall Father of that great family which must appeare before him Verily the meditation of death is not irksome anxious perplexing nor ought we to deferre it from one yeare or age to another according to the sottish opinion of the vulgar But cleane contrary to thinke that nothing doth safeguard or assure vs so much in the middest of aduersities and dangers as such meditation It is that which makes vs sober in prosperitie prest ready and prepared in all euents Also as Saint Cyprian sayd to the people of Thibara wee weare not enrolled by Baptisme among Christian Souldiers to thinke that we ought to doe nothing else in the world then there to seeke and hunt after our pleasures and ease turning our backes to conflictes woundes death Saint Augustine writeth in the fifth Chapter of his thirteenth Booke De Ciuitate Dei That faith would vtterly bee weakened if presently after our Baptisme we should become immortall and should be crowned before we had fought 2. Let vs see in the second place what death is how many kindes there are and how it ought to bee feared and contemned Life and death according to Aristotle are common accidents to all liuing creatures for that the reason of originall and corruptible matter doth so beare mainetaine and require it Touching the condition of the first man and how hee had euer liued continuing in his obedience to God wee haue formerly spoken of it in the discourse of the tree of life Furthermore as the condition of man created after Gods image who kindly receiued him into his alliance was excellent By so much the more miserable dreadfull and terrible is the death into which hee fell after his reuolt then the death of other liuing creatures whose soule dyeth with the body and who after this annihilation feare no torment whatsoeuer But wee speake heere of the death of man which God caused not for hee also taketh no pleasure in the death of any but rather in the conuersion good and saluation of vs all This doth not impugne but that God is a iust Iudge punishing sinnes and suffering no misdeedes and transgressions vnpunished but bringing all things to their endes by miraculous meanes wherein his wisedome doth manifestly appeare although very often the instruments which hee vseth to execute his iust iudgements may haue foule crimes and grosse faults In this sence it is sayd That God woundeth killeth whetteth his sword that he bringeth to ruine that hee casteth the body and soule into hell and that hee sendeth the wicked into euerlasting fire So then God hath not made death but death is crept and entred into the world thorough the diuells enuy and malice and mans disobedience Saint Augustine in a certaine place sayth That if God had made death hee would not with teares haue bewayled dead Lazarus whom therefore hee raysed and restored to life that the diuell might see that it is but lost labour with such rage and fury to pursue the children of God to take them out of the world forasmuch as those whom we deeme vtterly lost and destroyed doe liue vnto God Touching their errour who held that Adam should haue dyed though he had not sinned Saint Augustine answereth That all Christians are to hold this point for firme and vndoubted that Adam and Eue were created such that if they had reiected the counsell of the seducer who spake by the Serpent continuing in the free liberty wherein they were they had enioyed eternall life and not dyed But making no reckoning of obeying God their Lord and abusing their free will prone and ready to yeeld to the suggestions of Sathan and their owne lustes and concupiscences so as they very soone felt the effect of the threatning denounced to them both In that day that thou shalt cate of the forbidden fruit thou shalt die the death Before his fall the first man was mortall as touching the condition of his body immortall by the good pleasure of his Creator before sinne hee could not dye But by the redemption of Christ Iesus the elect of God shall obtaine in the life eternall euen the same priuiledge that the holy Angells not to be able to fall from the state of grace nor to dye And as touching this point that our father Adam dyed not so soone as he had obeyed the voyce of Eue it doth derogate nothing from the truth of the sentence pronounced against him nor from the haynousnesse of his sinne For the sence and meaning of the threatning Thou shalt dye the death is as if God sayd certainely thou shalt be subiect to the first death which is a separation of the soule from the body and to the second death a fearefull punishment forasmuch as it is an euerlasting separation from God from the light of heauen from ioy vnspeakeable from the life which is blessed for euer If then it be demaunded how can it bee that Adam liued after his reuolt and falling away Gregorie the great doth sufficiently to the purpose make answere in his 145. Epistle of his fifth Booke that death in two kindes steps in and seizeth vpon vs eyther by the priuation and defection of life or by the quality of life In regard of the first kinde of death Adam dyed not so soone but rather as touching the second For presently after his disobedience being depriued of happinesse of the state of innocency of contentment of minde of a strong sound constitution of body hee felt himselfe couered with shame horrors sorrow with sundry miseries knew himselfe to be aliue in paine vnder the curse of his Soueraigne who was created by Gods fauour to liue in an excellent estate and perpetuall quiet and tranquility of minde Some thinke that wee meddle and goe too farre to say that man transgressing in time was pronounced guilty of temporall and eternall death The Iewes bewitched with the like errour doe dreame that they haue no need of a Messias to abolish and take away sinne and to deliuer from eternall death This errour did grow from the ignorance of the definition of sinne as also of the soueraigne and infinite Maiestie of God whom man had offended by his transgression For sin being a reuolt and falling away from God to ioyne and cleaue to the diuell and a transgression of the holy law in dispite of God man sinning could not escape eternall perdition and punishment but by the grace of his Redeemer as by obedience hee had kept his Creators fauour for euer Euen so then as it is not iniustice as Saint Augustine sayth in the 11. Booke De Ciuitate Dei Chap 11. If Magistrates capitally punishing many haynous
the Sea with Shipps This Monarch considering from the toppe of a hill many millions of men at his seruice in warres fell a weeping that at the end of a hundred yeares not one of them should be aliue And if we loue added he this advantage to be mounted vpon so high a watch Tower that from thence we may behold all the earth vnder our feete and so many kingdomes fallen to ruine also many liuing men some tortured others strangled and drowned on the one side festiualles on the other side funeralles some to be borne others to die To what straight and exigent should we be brought if wee were not assured that all these things are ordered by the just appoyntment of the All-mightie S. Ambrose in his exposition of the creation of the world sayth that all men are borne and die naked that there is no difference betweene the bodies of poore men and rich but that the bodies of rich-men being very pursie well fed and fat while they liue are more puant and stinking then the bodies of poore men Besides these helpes and supports against death which the Heathens haue collected from our condition to be borne and to die they haue from thence collected other causes which we are now to discusse and examine and whereof Ciceco speaketh in his Dialogue of old age as followeth We know how chearefully and manfully souldiers contemne death why then should wise old men feare it To haue our fill of all things causeth that we haue our fill and satietie of life Those who die well liue a life which alone deserueth the name but so long as we are locked vp in the prison of the bodie wee are as it were plunged deepe in the earth and exiled very farre from and beneath our heauenly Mansion Wherfore all wise men die willingly fooles on the contrarie leaue this world against their will mauger their teeth or in brutish ignorance Socrates the last day of his death discoursed of the immortalitie of the soule Cyrus a little before his death sayd to his sonnes Doe not thinke that after I shall be dead I am annihilated and brought to nothing If some god said Cato in the same Dialogue would permit me to returne from old age to childhood and to cry in a Cradle I should forbeare to accept such a condition nor would I for any thing returne to the beginning of my race hauing almost finished it For what commoditie is found in a life tossed to and fro with turmoyles and toyles as this present life is Notwithstanding I will not bewayle it nor doe I repent me to haue liued I which goe out of this world as out of an Inne not as out of a house seeing nature hath giuen vs a cabbin here of ingresse and egresse but not to stay and continue O how glorious will that day be wherein I shall be found in the holy assembly of soules and shall goe to heauen Certainely Old age is the end and Epilogue of our life even as of some Comedie or Interlude Loe here some sayings of Cicero in the fore-mentioned dialogue In the first Booke of his Tusculane questions wherein he expressely treateth of the contempt of death among other his sayinges and discourses we reade that among the old Latines whom the Poet Ennius calleth Cascj that it was a doctrine held from Father to Sonne that death did not abolish man so as it might be sayd he was vtterly perished The sages would not haue set out and adorned their funerals sepulchers and tombes with such ceremonies nor hallowed them with so many devotions if they had certainely held that death is an vtter destruction of the whole man on the contrarie they were in this poynt perswaded that it was a departure and change of life which brought worthie men and women to heauen Plato also bringeth in Socrates condemned to death saying to his judges I hope that good shall befall me to die For if all sense and feeling be abolished in death it bringeth a quiet and perpetuall rest but if that which is said of it be found true that it is a departure out of this world to goe into places where those that be dead are assembled together what contentment shall it be to me to talke and discourse with them It is further addeth Cicero a sound and solid Argument that nature it selfe proclaimes the soules of men to be immortall in this that all men haue a wondrous care what shall become of them and all thinges else after their death and die very willingly when life beginning to faile and to leaue them may stay and settle it selfe vpon a good conscience and a worthie euidence to it selfe In the second Booke of the Lawes these words following are read Our auncestors haue ordained that the dead should bee canonized and placed in the number of gods by certaine ceremonies which they did institute Ennius as of opinion that wee were not to weepe for the dead because their soules were immortall Plato sayd in the first Booke of his Common weale that a man which hath this good testimonie in himselfe to haue done no man wrong is alwayes vpheld with a greacious and stedfast hope the good nursse and supportresse of his old age And againe Cicero in his first Booke of Tusculane questions writeth these words You haue in sleepe the image of death wherein you are sheeted and wrapped vp euery night Are you in doubt then that there is no more sense in death seeing you know that in sleepe the soule of man is never at rest Moreouer banish farre from you those old wiues fables and comptes that it is a great miserie to die before the time And of what time Of Nature But nature hath lent vs life as siluer or coyne without setting vs a day of restitution but to restore it backe againe at her will and pleasure Why then doe you complaine if shee call for and demand her owne againe when it pleaseth her seeing you hold and haue it vpon this condition With what alacritie and chearefulnesse ought we to goe that way at which wayes end we shall be released and discharged of all carefull carkinges fascheries and anxieties of minde A woman of Sparta hauing sent her sonne to the warre and tydinges being brought her that hee was slaine in the battaile with great courage answered that shee did beare him to the end he should die for his Countrie Seneca an excellent Stoicke Philosopher hath verie worthie precepts in his morall Bookes touching death We could compile a great Booke of them but not to be too long too large it shall suffice vs to cull out some sentences of them which shall be able to giue the reader a taste and desire to see the rest I will beginne at the end of the thirteenth Epistle which speaketh to old men Among other euills folly hath yet this one that shee still begins to liue This poynt sheweth how bad and scurrilous the levitie and giddie humour of men
approach it Death doth not violently lay hands vpon vs but gently laies hold on vs. Wherefore a vertuous soule feeling it selfe called to the participation of a greater happinesse endeuoureth to carry and behaue it selfe honestly and wisely in this earthly Sentinell and Station accounting none of those things to be hers which doe hemme her in on euery side but serues her turne with them as with borrowed mooueables remembring her selfe that shee doth but goe a iourney and in post hast There are many other sentences of Seneca touching the benefit of death in his Consolations to Polybius and Marcia as also in his other Treatises But we will make this extract no longer least so wee trouble and offend with long reading impatient and froward old men 4. Fourthly wee speake now of the extreamities that must be auoyded when there is question of death to wit Too great confidence or rashnes or rather inhumane or barbarous stupidity and sencelesnesse then the too great apprehension feare and paine of death Of a truth our Creator and Soueraigne Lord hath honoured vs with this fauourable gift and graunt that our hearts are of flesh not of stone or iron to bee easily touched with the sence of our miseries and the miseries of others How should we apprehend the mercy of God if we had not an apprehension of our miseries And what feare of God and of his iudgements would there be in the world if we should not feare death and other punishments which he doth mitigate and vsually conuert into wholsome remedies to persons who mourne vnder the burthen of their sinnes and with a repentant heart craue and implore the grace of their heauenly Father Wee are not willing to approoue the practise of those too austere Thracian Elders who wept at the birth day of their children and made great cheere merrily banquetted at the funeral of them that died Much lesse doe we purpose to dispute of death as Hegesias of Cyrena whom the King of AEgypt prohibited to discourse any more of death because many who heard him killed themselues No more doe we approoue those mad men such as were in times past certaine surnamed Circamcellianes of the Sect of the Donatists who not rightly vnderstanding the sayings of the Scripture touching mortification of the flesh cast themselues downe headlong from the toppes of high mountaines and without looking or staying for any commandement to doe so resigned and gaue vp the place they held in this humane life It is not lawfull for any priuate person without expresse authority and order of the Magistrate to kill a guilty or condemned person And hee which killeth himselfe is not hee a murtherer Who hath giuen him power and authority to doe so We abhorre and iustly the facinourous fact of Iudas who by dispaire increased his detestable impiety Sathan is the author of such counsells as wee see in the fourth Chapter of S. Matthew where Christ Iesus being importuned by that malignant and mischieuous one to throw himselfe headlong from the top of the Temple answereth That we must not tempt the Lord. S. Augustine sayd in his first Booke De Ciuitate Dei Chap. 22. That those which kill themselues make a hazardous proofe of some kind of greatnesse of courage but indeed they are mad men Further they are not magnanimous seeing that being vnable to support and beare aduersity they discouer their impotency and pusillanimity not their fortitude and valour in casting themselues so into the gulfe and iawes of death But hee is truely magnanimous who chooseth rather to beare the burthen of a miserable life then rashly to rid himselfe and flye from it instead of standing and abiding in the place allotted and appointed vnto him It is said that Cleombrotus hauing read the Booke which Plato writ of the immortality of mans soule cast himselfe downe headlong from a high wall to passe to the other life which hee iudged to be better But it was an act of wretched folly for Plato taught no such thing although he discoursed of the immortality of the soule Therefore let vs turne our backes to the Stoickes so brutish and besotted in their pride that they thinke it lawfull to a man which cannot suffer an iniury to kill himselfe A man of courage and fearing God knowing indeed that life is not giuen him doth not violently rid himselfe of it but renders it into the hands of God not fearing the approaches of death but submitting himselfe to his Soueraigne Lord who hath imployed him in his seruice in the world to goe out of it when he shall commaund him It is alledged that a speedy death is better then a fastidious and tedious life and once to bee quiet for altogether then so long to languish and droope But to attempt to leaue this life before God giue vs leaue is to fall into another death which neuer hath end What then shall not a Souldier dare to goe out of the armie without his Captaines license and passe port but vpon hazard of his head and shall mortall man goe out of this present life without the auouchy and warrant of the immortall who hath placed him in it protected and blessed him What crowne can the impatient the furious the infidell expect who in dispite of his Lord cowardly resignes his charge his place his honour with the losse of his body soule goods and friends who forsakes those to whom hee is bound and beholden breakes all the bandes of diuine and humane society God giueth a happy issue to their temptations who feare him hee doth in fit time deliuer and helpe them It is they which are to hold out to the end in a full assurance of hope not to quaile and lose courage but to follow those who by a faithfull and humble patience haue obtained the promised inheritance Let vs then take heed and beware of the arrogancy of the Stoickes and of the vaine confidence of Epicures who neuer thinke on death but thinke they are in league and friendship with him perswade themselues that it shall be easie for them to put by his blowes and to pacifie him Moreouer let vs haue no part in their effeminacy and diffidence who tremble at the meere name of death not thinking that in death it selfe there is not so great euill as in the solicitudes carkings sorrowes and feares wherewith a thousand times a day they kill themslues without any ease to their vnbeleeuing heart Their apprehensions are ill ordered fond and vnprofitable seeing as witnesseth the Prophet in the Psalme 89. 90. there is no man liuing can boast himselfe not to see death and to be able to saue his life out of the hand of the graue Hereupon we will say to young and old that their duty requires that they beare and behaue themselues so toward God that their death may not be a mortall but a liuing death And that they so gently and wisely lay downe their load in the world that they may not be found vnder
this pardon by the gift and hand of a liuely faith doe wrastle against the image of death against a bruised Serpent a wourried torne Lyon against a stinglesse Waspe against a vanquished enemie Chrysostome censureth in good manner those wretches who feare death and feare not sinne wherein they are insnared and wrapped nor the vnquenchable fire of hell which gapes for them Thus sayth he as children are wayward and wrangle if their mothers come neere them with maskes on their faces but when a lighted Candle is brought neere vnto them they readily thrust their handes in it and are burned So those men feare death who know not what it is to liue Death snatcheth away a miserable and short life to make vs to enter into an eternall and perpetuall blessed life Death doth seperate vs from the heapes of Iewells the robes moueables coffers crammed with gold and siluer the sundrie immoueables which we must leaue But in heaven we haue vnseperable riches with the Angels death extrudes and thrustes vs out of the earth but to bring vs into paradize death kills the bodie but it shall rise againe to die no more but be conformable to the glorified bodie of Christ Iesus If any man fight with his owne shadow he hurtes no bodie so death doth but beate the ayre in bickering and jousting against the just It hath beene Gods will and pleasure so sayth Chrysostome that this present life should be painefull and miserable to the end that being buffetted on all sides with so many and manifold miseries we should eagerly aspire to the happinesses to come But seeing we are thus farre ill aduised to wallow and idle it so willingly in this present life where so many disasters and miseries doe surround and encompasse vs how would it be with vs if there were nothing but ioy peace and rest here Our most mercifull heauenly Father doth so mitigate and temper the afflictions of this life that as a Lute-player doth not winde vp too high his Lute strings for feare to breake them nor slacken them too much that so their sweete harmonie tunablenesse may be more distinctly perceiued So doth the wise maister of our life not leauing vs in continuall prosperitie nor too much oppressed He is faithfull who will not suffer vs to be tempted beyond and aboue our strength but will giue a good issue to our temptations and tryalls to the end we should be able to beare them We see men of warre desirous of honour and to attaine to some rancke and degree manfully to expose themselues to a thousand dangers The couetous Marchant to runne vpon all hazards and risques for a handfull of yellow earth The voluptuous person to disdaine and set light by infinite reprochfull and woefull dangers to satisfie his passions and humours And you wise old men will you slumber and sleepe in a corner will you still sit with your armes and legges a crosse not rouzing lifting vp your selues to the contemplation and diligent seeking after so many happinesses prepared for them which loue God Doe you feare death you which in the middest of the shadowe of death haue standing at your ell-bow the Prince and Author of life If you beare in your hearts that quickning spirit which raised vp Iesus Christ from the dead whence is it that you feare death Haue you blotted out of your remembrance him who hath the wordes of eternall life who is the way the truth the resurrection the life who dyed for our sinne and is risen againe for our iustification But soyle not this gracious remembrance with the myre and mudd of sordid and obscene pleasures Let not the perswasions of the vncleane and filthie flesh stoppe and hinder the motions of the spirit illuminated by sacred Philosophie Let the repetitions of his most sweete most certaine and most holy promises bee potent and powerfull in your hearts who was willing to participate of our flesh and bloud that in the same nature foyled by Sathan our Sauiour hath abolished it by his death as by a most sufficient ransome he which conquered death to wit the Deuill Giue me leaue to reforme and rectifie you by recitall of the excellent promises following of the Lord. Verely I say vnto you that whosoeuer heareth my word and beleeueth in him which sent mee hath eternall life and shall not come to condemnation but is passed from death to life Iohn 5. 24. This is the will of him which sent me that whosoeuer beholdeth the sonne and beleeueth in him hath eternall life and for this cause I will raise him vp againe at the last day Such perspection and contemplation of faith is not as prophane persons chatter and mutter a vaine imagination but is coupled and covnited with his effect and with the true apprehension and laying hold of Iesus Christ and his benefites This great Sauiour hath so often times and againe and againe recommended it and for confirmation of it hath prepared his holy Table to which we draw neere there to receiue the bread of life ordayned to the nourishment of our soules to eternall life not for our bellies to receiue which bread we hold vp the hands of faith to heauen and beleeuing in him doe eate it That bread I say which is giuen to the children of the house not to reprobates who sometimes eate the bread of the Lord but not the bread of life which is the Lord. He which is not reconciled to Christ Iesus eateth not his flesh and drinketh not his bloud although euery day hee receiue but to his condemnation the Sacrament or the holy signes of so excellent a thing But he which confirmes and establisheth vs in Christ and who hath annoynted vs is God who also hath sealed and giuen vnto vs the earnest of his spirit in our hearts It is this holy spirit of promise wherewith we haue beene sealed yea for the day of redemption without which spirit the visible signes in the Sacramentes are receiued to condemnation by which spirit faith taught by the word confirmed by the signes or seales of the righteousnesse of the same faith takes daily new growthes and growinges and is manifested by holy workes of which the summe and totall is that we liue and die to the Lord who is dead and risen againe to haue dominion as well over the liuing as the dead to gouerne and guide vs as the sheepe of his pasture and finally to draw vs out of the hideous deserts of this worldly life no life in deed to gather vs to himselfe his heauenly sheep folde If God be on our side who shall be against vs Who shall bee able to make vs afraide and dismay vs Iesus Christ who is dead is risen againe it is he who now being set at the right hand of God maketh request for vs. Let vs adde some worthie sayinges of S. Cyprian in his excellent Treatise of death Simeon the iust reioycing to hold in his armes the little babe Iesus whom he had so
things in the world and not to be paralleld whereof the reason is hid from vs though we see the things themselues But there is a great difference betweene the destruction or annihilation and the change of nature As we beleeue the resurrection of this our flesh so is it certaine that the nature of the same flesh shall subsist and remaine in the life eternall But the condition shall be changed in as much as this flesh vile and miserable shall be made glorious and happy These are some proofes brought by Tertullian Lactantius Firmianus in his Booke of the Heauenly Reward Chap. 23. obserueth That the Pagan Philosophers who desired to discourse of the last resurrection haue confounded and soyled this Article of our faith as al the Poets haue done Pythagoras maintained that the soule did transmigrate and passe out of one mans body into anothers and that he himselfe in the Troian warre was Euphorbus Chrysippus the Stoicke hath made a better answere who in his Booke De Prouidentia discoursing of the restauration of the world addeth This being so wee see that it is not impossible that after our death at the end of the reuolutions of some ages wee may bee restored againe into the state and condition wherein we are now But as Lactantius addeth the faith of Christians is much otherwise and their hope much more certaine For they vndoubtedly beleeue the resurrection of the flesh confirmed by most sacred and inuincible proofes of the holy Scripture by the promises of God and by the motions of the Spirit which raysed vp Christ Iesus from the dead as the Apostle declares it in the eight Chapter to the Romanes saying If the Spirit of him that raysed vp Iesus from the dead dwell in you hee that raysed vp Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortall bodies because of the Spirit dwelling in you True it is that the wicked shall rise againe in their bodies but this shall not bee for any communion they haue with the body of Christ Iesus nor with his Spirit but simply by the absolute power of God who shall giue them againe their being life and motion to suffer the second death being for euer damned in their bodies and soules So then such a resurrection cannot be counted grace nor called regeneration nor a resurrection to life but a repairing to condemnation whereof S. Iohn writes these wordes in the twentith Chapter of the Apocalips Verse eleuenth c. I saw a great white throne and one that sate on it from whose face fled away the earth and the heauen and their place was no more found I saw the dead great and small standing before God and the Bookes were opened and another Booke was opened which is the Booke of Life and the dead were iudged by the things which were written in the bookes according to their workes and the Sea gaue vp her dead which were in her and death and hell deliuered vp the dead which were ion them and they were iudged euery man according to their workes And the wicked were cast into the lake of fire this is the second death And whosoeuer was not found written in the Booke of Life was cast into the lake of fire Blessed then bee God the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ who by his great mercy hath regenerated vs into a liuely hope by the resurrection of Christ Iesus from the dead to obtain an incorruptible inheritance which cannot bee defiled nor fade away reserued in the heauens for vs who are kept by the power of God thorough faith to haue the saluation prepared to be reuealed at the last day wherein we reioyce being now made heauy by diuers temptations as it is meete to the end that the triall of our faith much more precious then gold which perisheth and yet is tried in the fire may turne to our prayse honour and glory when Iesus Christ shall be reuealed who speaketh thus vnto vs in the person of his Disciples in the beginning of the 14. Chapter of S. Iohn Let not your hearts bee troubled You beleeue in God beleeue also in me There are many dwelling places in my Fathers house I goe to prepare a place for you and when I shall be gone hence and shall haue prepared a place for you I will come againe and will receiue you to my selfe that where I am there may you be also Then shall be the true regeneration and restauration of Gods children when the soule emptied of all errour ignorance and malice shall be filled with new illumination perfect righteousnesse and holinesse when the body clothed with glory and immortalitie shall see death swallowed vp in victory In him there shall be no fainting decâ—ying drooping nor old age The bodies of the Saints sayth S. Augustine in the 19. chap. of his Manuel shal rise againe without blemish without deformity without corruption heauines or impediment This shall as easily be done as their felicity shall be consummated for which cause wee call them spirituall although their bodies ought still to remaine not to be changed into Ghosts and Spirits As for the corruption which now presseth downe the soule and the vices by whose meanes the flesh lusteth against the spirit such flesh shall cease to be because it could not be able to possesse the Kingdome of God In regard of the substance of the same flesh it shall not be abolished but still remaine but euerlastingly glorified For this cause S. Paul said That the body being sowen a fleshly body shall rise againe a spirituall body because there shall be so strong an vnion betweene the soule and the body that the soule making the body to liue without any supply of nourishment and hauing no more combate and striuing within vs betweene the spirit and the flesh all being then spirit we shall not feele any enemies assaults nor dangers whatsoeuer without nor within but shall be repleat compassed about saciated crowned with permanent glory Behold as touching this point of the resurrection of the flesh The beleefe of this Article encourageth all Christians but particularly wise old men patiently to beare their infirmities and maladies remembring the counsell of the Apostle S. Peter in the third Chapter of his second Epistle Seeing that so it is sayth he that the heauens and the earth must be dissolued what manner of persons ought wee to bee in holy couersation and holy workes looking for and hasting vnto the comming of the day of the Lord by whom the heauen being set on fire shall bee dissolued and the Elements shal melt with heate But according to his promise wee looke for new heauens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Wherefore beloued seeing ye looke for such things be diligent that ye may bee found of him in peace without spot and blamelesse Let vs strengthen this Article of the resurrection by the notable sayings of S. Paul to the Corinthians Chap. 5. of the 2. Epistle We must all appeare before the iudgement