body and wrapt it self about his head till the Philosophers of Egypt said it was natural that from the marrow of some bodies such productions should arise and indeed it represents the condition of some men who being dead are esteemed saints and beatified persons when their head is encircled with dragons and is entered into the possession of Devils that old serpent and deceiver For indeed their life was secretly so corrupted that such serpents fed upon the ruines of the spirit and the decayes of grace and reason To be cosened in making judgements concerning our finall condition is extremely easie but if we be cosened we are infinitely miserable SECT III. Of exercising Charity during our whole life HE that would die well and happily must in his life time according to all his capacities exercise charity and because Religion is the life of the soul and charity is the life of religion the same which gives life to the better part of man which never dies may obtain of God a mercy to the inferiour part of man in the day of its dissolution 1. Charity is the great chanel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankinde For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother this is the rule of our hopes and the measure of our desire in this world and in the day of death and judgement the great sentence upon mankinde shall be transacted according to our almes which is the other part of Charity Certain it is that God cannot will not never did reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers for God himself is love and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature and therefore when upon our death-bed a cloud covers our heads and we are enwrapped with sorrow when we feel the weight of a sicknesse and do not feel the refreshing visitations of Gods loving kindnesse when we have many things to trouble us and looking round about us we see no comforter then call to minde what injuries you have forgiven how apt you were to pardon all affronts and real persecutions how you embraced peace when it was offered you how you followed after peace when it run from you and when you are weary of one side turn upon the other and remember the alms that by the grace of God and his assistances you have done and look up to God and with the eye of faith behold him coming in the cloud and pronouncing the sentence of dooms day according to his mercies and thy charity 2. Charity with its Twin-daughters almes and forgivenesse is especially effectual for the procuring Gods mercies in the day and the manner of our death almes deliver from death said old Tobias and almes make an atonement for sins said the son of Sirach and so said Daniel and so say all the wise men of the world And in this sence also is that of S. Peter Love covers a multitude of sins and S. Clement in his Constitutions gives this counsell If you have any thing in your hands give it that it may work to the remission of thy sins for by faith and alms sins are purged The same also is the counsel of Salviâ—n who wonders that men who are guilty of great and many sins will not work out their pardon by alms and mercy But this also must be added out of the words of Lactantius who makes this rule compleat and useful But think not that because sins are taken away by alms that by thy money thou mayest purchase a license to sin For sins are abolished if because thou hast sinned thou givest to God that is to Gods poor servants and his indigent necessitous creature But if thou sinnest upon confidence of giving thy sins are not abolished For God desires infinitely that men should be purged from their sins and therefore commands us to repent But to repent is nothing else but to professe and affirm that is to purpose and to make good that purpose that they will sin no more Now almes are therefore effective to the abolition and pardon of our sins because they are preparatory to and impetratory of the grace of repentance and are fruits of repentance and therefore S. Chrysostom affirmes that repentance without almes is dead and without wings and can never soar upwards to the element of love But because they are a part of repentance and hugely pleasing to Almighty God therefore they deliver us from the evils of an unhappy and accursed death for so Christ delivered his Disciples from the sea when he appeased the storm though they still sailed in the chanel and this S. Hierome verifies with all his reading and experience saying I do not remember to have read that ever any charitable person died an evil death and although a long experience hath observed Gods mercies to descend upon charitable people like the dew upon Gideons fleece when all the world was dry yet for this also we have a promise which is not onely an argument of a certain number of years as experience is but a security for eternall ages Make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousnesse that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations When faith fails and chastity is uselesse and temperance shall be no more then charity shall bear you upon wings of cherubins to the eternall mountain of the Lord. I have been a lover of mankinde and a friend and mercifull and now I expect to communicate in that great kindnesse which he shews that is the great God and Father of men and mercies said Cyrus the Persian on his death-bed I do not mean this should onely be a death-bed charity any more then a death-bed repentance but it ought to be the charity of our life healthfull years a parting with portions of our goods then when we can keep them we must not first kindle our lights when we are to descend into our houses of darknesse or bring a glaring torch suddenly to a dark room that will amaze the eye and not delight it or instruct the body but if our Tapers have in their constant course descended into their grave crowned all the way with light then let the death-bed charity be doubled and the light burn brightest when it is to deck our hearse But concerning this I shall afterwards give account SECT IV. General considerations to enforce the former practises THese are the generall instruments of preparation in order to a holy death It will concern us all to use them diligently and speedily for we must be long in doing that which must be done but once and therefore we must begin betimes and lose no time especially since it is so great a venture and upon it depends so great a state Seneca said well There is no Science or Art in the world so hard as to
tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousnesse The sacrifice of God is a broken heart a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Lord I have done amisse I have been deceived let so great a wrong as this be removed The prayer for the grace and perfection of Repentance I. O Almighty God thou art the great Judge of all the world the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies the Father of men and Angels thou lovest not that a sinner should perish but delightest in our conversion and salvation and hast in our Lord Jesus Christ established the Covenant of repentance and promised pardon to all them that confesse their sins and forsake them O my God be thou pleased to work in me what thou hast commanded should be in me Lord I am a dry tree who neither have brought forth fruit unto thee and unto holinesse nor have wept out salutary tears the instrument of life and restitution but have behaved my self like an unconcerned person in the ruins and breaches of my soul But O God thou art my God earnestly will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee in a barren and thirsty land where no water is Lord give me the grace of tears and pungent sorrow let my heart be as a land of rivers of waters and my head a fountain of tears turn my sin into repentance and let my repentance proceed to pardon refreshment II. SUpport me with thy graces strengthen me with thy Spirit soften my heart with the fire of thy love and the dew of heaven with penitentiall showers make my care prudent and the remaining portion of my dayes like the perpetuall watches of the night full of caution and observance strong and resolute patient and severe I remember O Lord that I did sin with greedinesse and passion with great desires and an unabated choice O let me be as great in my repentance as ever I have been in my calamity and shame let my hatred of sin be great as my love to thee and both as neer to infinite as my proportion can receive III. O Lord I renounce all affection to sin and would not buy my health nor redeem my life with doing any thing against the Lawes of my God but would rather die then offend thee O dearest Saviour have pity upon thy servant let me by thy sentence be doomed to perpetuall penance during the abode of this life let every sigh be the expression of a repentance and every groan an acccent of spiritual life and every stroke of my disease a punishment of my sin and an instrument of pardon that at my return to the land of innocence I may eat of the votive sacrifice of the supper of the Lamb that was from the beginning of the world slâ—in for the sins of every sorrowful and returning sinner O grant me sorrow here and joy hereafter through Jesus Christ who is our hope the resurrection of the dead the justifier of a sinner and the glory of all faithful souls Amen A prayer for pardon of sins to be said frequently in time of sicknesse and in all the portions of old age I. O Eternal and most gracious Father I humbly throw my self down at the foot of thy mercy seat upon the confidence of thy essential mercy and thy commandment that we should come boldly to the throne of grace that we may finde mercy in time of need O my God hear the prayers and cries of a sinner who calls earnestly for mercy Lord my needs are greater then all the degrees of my desire can be unlesse thou hast pity upon me I perish infinitely and intolerably and then there will be one voice fewer in the quire of singers who shall recite thy praises to eternal ages But O Lord in mercy deliver my soul. O save me for thy mercy sake For in the second death there is no remembrance of thee in that grave who shall give thee thanks II. O Just and dear God my sins are innumerable they are upon my soul in multitudes they are a burden too heavy for me to bear they already bring sorrow and sicknesse shame and displeasure guilt and a decaying spirit a sense of thy present displeasure and fear of worse of infinitely worse But it is to thee so essential so delightful so usual so desired by thee to shew mercy that although my sin be very great and my fear proportionable yet thy mercy is infinitely greater then all the world and my hope and my comfort rise up in proportions towards it that I trust the Devils shall never be able to reprove it nor my own weaknesse discompose it Lord thou hast sent thy Son to die for the pardon of my sins thou hast given me thy holy Spirit as a seal of adoption to consigne the article of remission of sins thou hast for all my sins still continued to invite me to conditions of life by thy ministers the prophets and thou hast with variety of holy acts softned my spirit and possessed my fancie and instructed my understanding and bended and inclined my will and directed or overruled my passions in order to repentance and pardon and why should not thy servant beg passionately and humbly hope for the effect of all these thy strange and miraculous acts of loving kindnesse Lord I deserve it not but I hope thou wilt pardon all my sins and I beg it of thee for Jesus Christ his sake whom thou hast made the great endearment of thy promises and the foundation of our hopes and the mighty instrument whereby we can obtain of thee whatsoever we need and can receive III. O My God how shall thy servant be disposed to receive such a favour which is so great that the ever blessed Jesus did die to purchase for us so great that the falling angels never could hope and never shall obtain Lord I do from my soul forgive all that have sinned against me O forgive me my sins as I forgive them that have sinned against me Lord I confesse my sins unto thee daily by the accusations and secret acts of conscience and if we confesse our sins thou hast called it a part of justice to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Lord I put my trust in thee and thou art ever gracious to them that put their trust in thee I call upon my God for mercy and thou art alwayes more ready to hear then we to pray But all that I can do and all that I am and all that I know of my self is nothing but sin and infirmity and misery therefore I go forth of my self and throw my self wholly into the arms of thy mercy through Jesus Christ and beg of thee for his death and passions sake by his resurrection and ascension by all the parts of our redemption and thy infinite mercy in which thou pleasest thy self above all the works of the creation to be pitifull and compassionate to thy servant
2 That God delights not in the confusion and death of sinners 3. That in heaven there is great joy at the conversion of a sinner 4. That Christ is a perpetual advocate daily interceding with his Father for our pardon 5. That God uses infinite arts instruments and devices to reconcile us to himself 6. That he prayes us to be in charity with him and to be forgiven 7. That he sends Angels to keep us from violence and evil company from temptations and surprizes and his holy Spirit to guide us in holy wayes and his servants to warn us and reminde us perpetually and therefore since certainly he is so desirous to save us as appears by his word by his oaths by his very nature and his daily artifices of mercy it is not likely that he will condemn us without great provocations of his Majesty and perseverance in them 8. That the covenant of the Gospel is a covenant of grace and of repentance and being established with so many great solemnities and miracles from heaven must signifie a huge favour and a mighty change of things and therefore that repentance which is the great condition of it is a grace that does not expire in little accents and minutes but hath a great latitude of signification and a large extension of parts under the protection of all which persons are safe even when they fear exceedingly 9. That there are great degrees and differences of glory in heaven and therefore if we estimate our piety by proportions to the more eminent persons and devouter people we are not to conclude we shall not enter into the same state of glory but that we shall not go into the same degrees 9 That although forgivenesse of sins is consigned to us in Baptism and that this Baptism is but once and cannot be repeated yet forgivenesse of sins is the grace of the gospel which is perpetually remanent upon us and secured unto us so long as we have not renounced our Baptisme For then we enter into the condition of repentance and repentance is not an indivisible grace or a thing performed at once but is working all our lives and therefore so is our pardon which ebbes and flowes according as we discompose or renew the decency of our Baptismall promises and therefore it ought to be certain that no man despair of pardon but he that hath voluntarily renounced his Baptism or willingly estranged himself from that covenant He that sticks to it and still professes the religion and approves the faith and endeavours to obey and to do his duty this man hath all the veracity of God to assure him and give him confidence that he is not in an impossible state of salvation unlesse God cuts him off before he can work or that he begins to work when he can no longer choose 10. And then let him consider the more he fears the more he hates his sin that is the cause of it and the lesse he can be tempted to it and the more desirous he is of heaven and therefore such fears are good instruments of grace and good signes of a future pardon 11. That God in the old law although he made a Covenant of perfect obedience and did not promise pardon at all after great sins yet he did give pardon and declared it so to them for their own and for our sakes too So he did to David to Manasses to the whole Nation of the Israelies ten times in the wildernesse even after their Apostacies and Idolatries and in the Prophets the mercies of God and his remissions of sins were largely preached though in the Law God put on the robes of an angry Judge and a severe Lord but therefore in the Gospel where he hath established the whole summe of affairs upon faith and repentance if God should not pardon great sinners that repent after baptisme with a free dispensation the Gospel were far harder then the intolerable Covenant of the Law 12. That if a Proselyte went into the Jewish communion and were circumcised and baptized he entred into all the hopes of good things which God had promised or would give to his people and yet that was but the Covenant of works If then the Gentile Proselytes by their circumcision and legall baptisme were admitted to a state of pardon to last so long as they were in the Covenant even after their admission for sins committed against Moses law which they then undertook to observe exactly In the Gospel which is the Covenant of Faith it must needs be certain that there is a great grace given and an easier conditon entred into then was that of the Jewish law and that is nothing else but that abatement is made for our infirmities and our single evils and our timely repented and forsaken habits of sin and our violent passions when they are contested withall and fought with and under discipline and in the beginnings and progresses of mortification 13. That God hath erected in his Church a whole order of men the main part and dignity of whose work it is to remit and retain sins by a perpetuall and daily ministery and this they do not onely in baptisme but in all their offices to be administered afterwards in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist which exhibits the Symbols of that blood which was shed for pardon of our sins and therefore by its continued ministery and repetition declares that all that while we are within the ordinary powers and usuall dispensations of pardon even so long as we are in any probable dispositions to receive that Holy Sacrament And the same effect is also signified and exhibited in the whole power of the Keyes which if it extends to private sins sins done in secret it is certain it does also to publike but this is a greater testimony of the certainty of the remissibility of our greatest sins for publike sins as they alwayes have a sting and a superadded formality of scandall and ill example so they are most commonly the greatest such as murder sacriledge and others of unconcealed nature and unprivate action and if God for these worst of evils hath appointed an office of ease and pardon which is and may daily be administred that will be an uneasie pusillanimity and fond suspicion of Gods goodnesse to fear that our repentance shall be rejected even although we have not committed the greatest or the most of evils 14. And it was concerning baptized Christians that Saint Iohn said If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father and he is the propitiation for our sins and concerning lapsed Christians S. Paul gave instruction that if any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a man in the spirit of meeknesse considering lest ye also be temted the Corinthian Christian committed incest and was pardoned and ‑ Simon Magus after he was baptized offered to commit his own sin of Simony and yet Saint Peter bid him pray
of the Divine mercy in pardoning sinners If it be thought a great matter that I am charged with originall sin I confesse I feel the weight of it in loads of temporall infelicities and proclivities to sin But I fear not the guilt of it since I am baptized and it cannot do honour to the reputation of Gods mercy that it should be all spent in remissions of what I never chose never acted never knew of could not help concerning which I received no commandement no prohibition But blessed be God it is ordered in just measures that that originall evil which I contracted without my will should be taken away without my knowledge and what I suffered before I had a being was cleansed before I had an usefull understanding But I am taught to beleeve Gods mercies to be infinite not onely in himself but to us for mercy is a relative terme and we are its correspondent of all the creatures which God made we onely in a proper sense are the subjects of mercy and remission Angels have more of Gods bounty then we have but not so much of his mercy and beasts have little rayes of his kindnesse and effects of his wisdom and graciousnesse in petty donatives but nothing of mercy for they have no lawes and therefore no sins and need no mercy nor are capable of any Since therefore man alone is the correlative or proper object and vessell of reception of an infinite mercy and that mercy is in giving and forgiving I have reason to hope that he will so forgive me that my sins shall not hinder me of heaven or because it is a gift I may also upon the stock of the same infinite mercy hope he will give heaven to me and if I have it either upon the title of giving or forgiving it is alike to me and will alike magnifie the glories of the Divine mercy And because eternall life is the gift of God I have lesse reason to despair for if my sins were fewer and my disproportions towards such a glory were lesse and my evennesse more yet it is still a gift and I could not receive it but as a free and a gracious donative and so I may still God can still give it me and it is not an impossible expectation to wait and look for such a gift at the hands of the God of mercy the best men deserve it not and I who am the worst may have it given me * And I consider that God hath set no measures of his mercy but that we be within the Covenant that is repenting persons endeavouring to serve him with an honest single heart and that within this Covenant there is a very great latitude and variety of persons and degrees and capacities and therefore that it cannot stand with the proportions of so infinite a mercy that obedience be exacted to such a point which he never expressed unlesse it should be the least and that to which all capacities though otherwise unequall are fitted and sufficiently enabled * But however I finde that the Spirit of God taught the writers of the New Testament to apply to us all in general and to every single person in particular some gracious words which God in the Old Testament spake to one man upon a special occasion in a single and temporal instance such are the words which God spake to Ioshuah I will never fail thee nor forsake thee and upon the stock of that promise S. Paul forbids covetousnesse and perswades contentednesse because those words were spoken by God to Ioshuah in another case If the gracious words of God have so great extension of parts and intension of kinde purposes then how many comforts have we upon the stock of all the excellent words which are spoken in the Prophets and in the Psalms and I will never more question whether they be spoken concerning me having such an authentic precedent so to expound the excellent words of God all the treasures of God which are in the Psalms are my own riches and the wealth of my hope there will I look and whatsoever I can need that I will depend upon for certainly if we could understand it that which is infinite as God is must needs be some such kinde of thing it must go whither it was never sent and signifie what was not first intended and it must warm with its light and shine with its heat and refresh when it strikes and heal when it wounds and ascertain where it makes afraid and intend all when it warms one and mean a great deal in a small word and as the Sun passing to its Southern Tropic looks with an open eye upon his sun-burnt Aethiopians but at the same time sends light from its posterns and collateral influences from the backside of his beams and sees the corners of the East when his face tends towards the West because he is a round body of fire and hath some little images and resemblances of the infinite so is Gods mercy when it looked upon Moses it relieved S. Paul and it pardoned David and gave hope to Manasses and might have restored Iudas if he would have had hope and used himself accordingly * But as to my own case I have sinned grievously and frequently But I have repented it but I have begged pardon I have confessed it and forsaken it I cannot undo what was done and I perish if God hath appointed no remedie if there be no remission but then my religion falls together with my hope and Gods word fails as well as I but I believe the article of forgivenesse of sins and if there be any such thing I may do well for I have and do and will do that which all good men call repentance that is I will be humbled before God and mourn for my sin and for ever ask forgivenesse and judge my self and leave it with haste and mortifie it with diligence and watch against it carefully and this I can do but in the manner of a man I can but mourn for my sins as I apprehend grief in other instances but I will rather choose to suffer all evils then to do one deliberate act of sin I know my sins are greater then my sorrow and too many for my memory too insinuating to be prevented by all my care but I know also that God knowes and pities my infirmities and how far that will extend I know not but that it will reach so far as to satisfie my needs is the matter of my hope * But this I am sure of that I have in my great necessity prayed humbly and with great desire and sometimes I have been heard in kinde and sometimes have had a bigger mercy instead of it and I have the hope of prayers and the hope of my confession and the hope of my endeavour and the hope of many promises and of Gods essential goodnesse and I am sure that God hath heard my prayers and verified his promises
his brother nor give to God a ransome for him for the redemption of their soul is precious and it ceaseth for ever that he should still live for ever and not see corruption But wise men die likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me As for me I will behold thy face in righteousnesse I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likenesse Thou shalt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. Let us Pray ALmighty God Father of mercies the God of peace and comfort of rest and pardon we thy servants though unworthy to pray to thee yet in duty to thee and charity to our brother humbly beg mercy of thee for him to descend upon his body and his soul One sinner O Lord for another the miserable for the afflicted the poor for him that is in need but thou givest thy graces and thy favours by the measures of thy own mercies and in proportion to our necessities we humbly come to thee in the Name of Jesus for the merit of our Saviour and the mercies of our God praying thee to pardon the sins of this thy servant and to put them all upon the accounts of the Crosse and to bury them in the grave of Jesus that they may never rise up in judgement against thy servant nor bring him to shame and confusion of face in the day of finall inquiry and sentence Amen II. GIve thy servant patience in his sorrows comfort in this his sicknesse and restore him to health if it seem good to thee in order to thy great ends and his greatest interest And however thou shalt determine concerning him in this affair yet make his repentance perfect and his passage and his faith strong and his hope modest and confident that when thou shalt call his soul from the prison of the body it may enter into the securities and rest of the sons of God in the bosome of blessednesse and the custodies of Jesus Amen III. THou O Lord knowest all the necessities and all the infirmities of thy servant fortifie his spirit with spirituall joyes and perfect resignation and take from him all degrees of inordinate or insecure affections to this world and enlarge his heart with desires of being with thee and of freedome from sins and fruition of God IV. LOrd let not any pain or passion discompose the order and decencie of his thoughts and duty and lay no more upon thy servant then thou wilt make him able to bear and together with the temptation do thou provide a way to escape even by the mercies of a longer and a more holy life or by the mercies of a blessed death even as it pleaseth thee O Lord so let it be V. LEt the tendernesse of his conscience and the Spirit of God call to mind his sins that they may be confessed and repented of because thou hast promised that if we confesse our sins we shall have mercy Let thy mighty grace draw out from his soul every root of bitternesse lest the remains of the old man be accursed with the reserves of thy wrath but in the union of the Holy Jesus and in the charities of God and of the world and the communion of all the saints let this soul be presented to thee blamelesse and intirely pardoned and thorowly washed through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here also may be inserted the prayers set down after the Holy Communion is administred The Prayer of S. Eustratius the Martyr to be used by the sick or dying man or by the Priests or assistants in his behalf which he said when he was going to martyrdom I Will praise thee O Lord that thou hast considered my low estate and hast not shut me up in the hands of my enemies nor made my foes to rejoyce over me and now let thy right hand protect me and let thy mercy come upon me for my soul is in trouble and anguish because of its departure from the body O let not the assemblies of its wicked and cruell enemies meet it in the passing forth nor hinder me by reason of the sins of my passed life O Lord be favourable unto me that my so I may not behold the hellish countenance of the spirits of darknesse but let thy bright and joyfull Angels entertain it Give glory to thy Holy Name and to thy Majesty place me by thy mercifull arm before thy seat of Judgement and let not the hand of the prince of this world snatch me from thy presence or bear me into hell Mercy sweet Jesu Amen A Prayer taken out of the Euchologion of the Greek Church to be said by or in behalf of people in their danger or neer their death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I. BEmired with sins and naked of good deeds I that am the meat of worms cry vehemently in spirit Cast not me wretch away from thy face place me not on the left hand who with thy hands didst fashion me but give rest unto my soul for thy great mercy sake O Lord. II. SUpplicate with tears unto Christ who is to judge my poor soul that he would deliver me from the fire that is unquenchable I pray you all my friends and acquaintance make mention of me in your prayers that in the day of Judgement I may find mercy at that dreadfull Tribunall III. Then may the by-standers pray WHen in unspeakable glory thou dost come dreadfully to judge the whole world vouchsafe O gracious Redeemer that this thy faithfull servant may in the clouds meet thee cheerfully They who have been dead from the beginning with terrible and fearfull trembling stand at thy Tribunall waiting thy just O Blessed Saviour Jesus None shall there avoid thy formidable and most righteous judgement All Kings and Princes with servants stand together and hear the dreadfull voyce of the Judge condemning the people which have sinned into hell from which sad sentence O Christ deliver thy servant Amen Then let the sick man be called upon to rehearse the Articles of his Faith or if he be so weak he cannot let him if he have not before done it be called to say Amen when they are recited or to give some testimony of his faith and confident assent to them After which it is proper if the person be in capacity that the Minister examine him and invite him to confession and all the parts of repentance according to the foregoing rules after which he may pray this prayer of absolution OUr Lord Jesus Christ who hath given Commission to his Church in his Name to pronounce pardon to all that are truly penitent he of his mercy pardon and forgive thee all thy sins deliver thee from all evils past present and future
our gardens and spiders and flies in the palaces of the greatest Kings How few men in the world are prosperous what an infinite number of slaves and beggers of persecuted and oppressed people fill all corners of the earth with groans and Heaven it self with weeping prayers and sad remembrances how many Provinces and Kingdoms are afflicted by a violent war or made desolate by popular diseases some whole countreyes are remarked with fatal evils or periodical sicknesses Gran Cairo in Egypt feels the plague every three years returning like a Quartan ague and destroying many thousands of persons All the inhabitants of Arabia the desert are in continuall fear of being buried in huge heaps of sand and therefore dwell in tents and ambuâ—atory houses or retire to unfruitful mountains to prolong an uneasy and wilder life and all the Countreyes round about the Adriatic sea feel such violent convulsions by Tempests and intolerable Earthquakes that sometimes whole cities finde a Tombe and every man â—inks with his own house made ready to become his Monument and his bed is crushed into the disorders of a grave Was not all the world drowned at one deluge and breach of the Divine anger and shall not all the world again be destroyed by fire Are there not many thousands that die every night and that groan and weep sadly every day But what shall we think of that great evil which for the sins of men God hath suffered to possess the greatest part of Mankinde Most of the men that are now alive or that have been living for many ages are Jews Heathens or Turcs and God was pleased to suffer a base Epileptic person a villain and a vitious to set up a religion which hath filled almost all Asia and Africa and some parts of Europe so that the greatest number of men and women born in so many kingdoms and provinces are infallibly made Mahumetans strangers and enemies to Christ by whom alone we can be saved This consideration is extremely sad when we remember how universal and how great an evil it is that so many millions of sons and daughters are born to enter into the possession of Devils to eternal ages These evils are the miseries of great parts of mankinde and we cannot easily consider more particularly the evils which happen to us being the inseparable affections or incidents to the whole nature of man 2. We finde that all the women in the world are either born for barrennesse or the pains of Child-birth and yet this is one of our greatest blessings but such indeed are the blessings of this world we cannot be well with nor without many things Perfumes make our heads ake roses prick our fingers and in our very blood where our life dwells is the Scene under which nature acts many sharp Feavers and heavy sicknesses It were too sad if I should tell how many persons are afflicted with evil spirits with spectres and illusions of the night and that huge multitudes of men and women live upon mans flesh Nay worse yet upon the sins of men upon the sins of their sons and of their daughters and they pay their souls down for the bread they eat buying this dayes meal with the price of the last nights sin 3. Or if you please in charity to visit an Hospital which is indeed a map of the whole world there you shall see the effects of Adams sin and the ruines of humane nature bodies laid up in heaps like the bones of a destroyed town homines precarii spiritus malè haerentis men whose souls seem to be borrowed and are kept there by art and the force of Medicine whose miseries are so great that few people have charity or humanity enough to visit them fewer have the heart to dresse them and we pity them in civility or with a transient prayer but we do not feel their sorrows by the mercies of a religious pity and therefore as we leave their sorrows in many degrees unrelieved and uneased so we contract by our unmercifulnesse a guilt by which our selves become liable to the same calamities Those many that need pity and those infinites of people that refuse to pity are miserable upon a several charge but yet they almost make up all mankinde 4. All wicked men are in love with that which intangles them in huge variety of troubles they are slaves to the worst of Masters to sin and to the Devil to a passion and to an imperious woman Good men are for ever persecuted and God chastises every son whom he receives and whatsoever is easy is trifling and worth nothing and whatsoever is excellent is not to be obtained without labour and sorrow and the conditions and states of men that are free from great cares are such as have in them nothing rich and orderly and those that have are stuck full of thorns and trouble Kings are full of care and learned men in all ages have been observed to be very poor honestas miserias accusant they complain of their honest miseries 5. But these evils are notorious and confessed even they also whose felicity men stare at and admire besides their splendour and the sharpnesse of their light will with their appendant sorrows wring a tear from the most resolved eye For not only the winter quarter is full of storms and cold and darknesse but the beauteous spring hath blasts and sharp frosts the fruitful teeming summer is melted with heat and burnt with the kisses of the sun her friend and choaked with dust and the rich Autumn is full of sicknesse and we are weary of that which we enjoy because sorrow is its biggest portion and when we remember that upon the fairest face is placed one of the worst sinks of the body the nose we may use it not only as a mortification to the pride of beauty but as an allay to the fairest outside of condition which any of the sons and daughters of Adam do possesse For look upon Kings and conquerours I will not tell that many of them fall into the condition of servants and their subjects rule over them and stand upon the ruines of their families and that to such persons the sorrow is bigger then usually happens in smaller fortunes but let us suppose them still conquerers and see what a goodly purchase they get by all their pains and amazing fears and continual dangers They carry their arms beyond Ister and passe the Euphrates and binde the Germans with the bounds of the river Rhyne I speak in the stile of the Roman greatnesse for now adayes the biggest fortune swells not beyond the limits of a petty province or two and a hill confines the progresse of their prosperity or a river checks it But whatsoever tempts the pride and vanity of ambitious persons is not so big as the smallest star which we see scattered in disorder and unregarded upon the pavement and floor of Heaven And if we would suppose the pismires had but
our understandings they also would have the method of a Mans greatnesse and divide their little Mole-hils into Provinces and Exarchats and if they also grew as vitious and as miserable one of their princes would lead an army out and kill his neighbour Ants that he might reign over the next handfull of a Turse But then if we consider at what price and with what felicity all this is purchased the sâ—ing of the painted snake will quickly appear and the fairest of their fortunes will properly enter into this account of humane infelicities We may guesse at it by the constitution of Augustus fortune who strugled for his power first with the Roman Citizens then with Brutus and Cassius and all the fortune of the Republike then with his Collegue Marc. Anthony then with his kinred and neerest Relatives and after he was wearied with slaughter of the Romans before he could sit down and rest in his imperial chair he was forced to carry armies into Macedonia Galatia beyond Euphrates Rhyne and Danubius And when he dwelt at home in greatnesse and within the circles of a mighty power he hardly escaped the sword of the Egnatii of Lepidus Caepio and Muraena and after he had entirely reduced the felicity and Grandeur into his own family his Daughter his onely childe conspired with many of the young Nobility and being joyned with adulterous complications as with an impious sacrament they affrighted and destroyed the fortune of the old man and wrought him more sorrow then all the troubles that were hatched in the baths and beds of Egypt between Anthony and Cleopatra This was the greatest fortune that the world had then or ever since and therefore we cannot expect it to be better in a lesse prosperity 6. The prosperity of this world is so infinitely sowred with the overflowing of evils that he is counted the most happy who hath the fewest all conditions being evil and miserable they are onely distinguished by the Number of calamities The Collector of the Roman and forreign examples when he had reckoned two and twenty instances of great fortunes every one of which had been allayed with great variety of evils in all his reading or experience he could tell but of two who had been famed for an intire prosperity Quintus Metellus and Gyges the King of Lydia and yet concerning the one of them he tells that his felicity was so inconsiderable and yet it was the bigger of the two that the Oracle said that Aglaus Sophidius the poor Arcadian Shepherd was more happy then he that is he had fewer troubles for so indeed we are to reckon the pleasures of this life the limit of our joy is the absence of some degrees of sorrow and he that hath the least of this is the most prosperous person But then we must look for prosperity not in Palaces or Courts of Princes not in the tents of Conquerers or in the gaieties of fortunate and prevailing sinners but something rather in the Cottages of honest innocent and contented persons whose minde is no bigger then their fortune nor their vertue lesse then their security As for others whose fortune looks bigger and allures fools to follow it like the wandâ—ing fires of the night till they run into rivers or are broken upon rocks with staring and running after them they are all in the condition of Marius then whose condition nothing was more constant and nothing more mutable if we reckon them amongst the happy they are the most happy men if we reckon them amongst the miserable they are the most miserable For just as is a mans condition great or little so is the state of his misery All have their share but Kings and Princes great Generals and Consuls Rich men and Mighty as they have the biggest businesse and the biggest charge and are answerable to God for the greatest accounts so they have the biggest trouble that the uneasinesse of their appendage may divide the good and evil of the world making the poor mans fortune as eligible as the Greatest and also restraining the vanity of mans spirit which a great Fortune is apt to swell from a vapour to a bubble but God in mercy hath mingled wormwood with their wine and so restrained the drunkennesse and follies of prosperity 7. Man never hath one day to himself of entire peace from the things of this world but either somthing troubles him or nothing satisfies him or his very fulnesse swells him and makes him breath short upon his bed Mens joyes are troublesome and besides that the fear of losing them takes away the present pleasure and a man had need of another felicity to preserve this they are also wavering and full of trepidation not onely from their inconstant nature but from their weak foundation They arise from vanity and they dwell upon ice and they converse with the winde and they have the wings of a bird and are serious but as the resolutions of a childe commenced by chance and managed by folly and proceed by inadvertency and end in vanity and forgetfulnesse So that as Livius Drusus said of himself he never had any play dayes or dayes of quiet when he was a boy for he was troublesome and busie a restlesse and unquiet man the same may every man observe to be true of himself he is alwayes restlesse and uneasy he dwells upon the waters and leans upon thorns and layes his head upon a sharp stone SECT V. This Consideration reduced to practice 1. THe effect of this consideration is this That the sadnesses of this life help to sweeten the bitter cup of Death For let our life be never so long if our strength were great as that of oxen and camels if our sinews were strong as the cordage at the foot of an Oke if we were as fighting and prosperous people as Siccius Dentatus who was on the prevailing side in 120 battels who had 312 publike rewards assigned him by his Generals and Princes for his valour and conduct in sieges and short encounters and besides all this had his share in nine triumphs yet still the period shall be that all this shall end in death and the people shall talk of us a while good or bad according as we deserve or as they please and once it shall come to passe that concerning every one of us it shall be told in the Neighbourhood that we are dead This we are apt to think a sad story but therefore let us help it with a sadder For we therefore need not be much troubled that we shall die because we are not here in ease nor do we dwell in a fair condition But our dayes are full of sorrow and anguish dishonoured and made unhappy with many sins with a frail and a foolish spirit intangled with difficult cases of conscience insâ—ared with passions amazed with fears full of cares divided with curiosities and contradictory interests made aëry and impertinent with vanities abused with
arts of religion and mortification suppresse the trouble of that fancy till at last being told that she was dead and had been buried about fourteen dayes he went secretly to her Vault and with the skirt of his mantle wiped the moisture from the Carkasse and still at the return of his temptation laid it before him saying Behold this is the beauty of the woman thou didst so much desire and so the man found his cure And if we make death as present to us our own death dwelling and dressed in all its pomp of fancy and proper circumstances if any thing will quench the heats of lust or the desires of money or the greedy passionate affections of this world this must do it But withall the frequent use of this meditation by curing our present inordinations will make death safe and friendly and by its very custom will make that the King of terrours shall come to us without his affrighting dresses and that we shall sit down in the grave as we compose our selves to sleep and do the duties of nature and choice The old people that lived neer the Riphaean mountains were taught to converse with death and to handle it on all sides and to discourse of it as of a thing that will certainly come and ought so to do Thence their minds and resolutions became capable of death and they thought it a dishonourable thing with greedinesse to keep a life that must go from us to lay aside its thorns and to return again circled with a glory and a Diadem 2. He that would die well must all the dayes of his life lay up against the day of death not only by the general provisions of holinesse and a pious life indefinitely but provisions proper to the necessities of that great day of expence in which a man is to throw his last cast for an eternity of joyes or sorrows ever remembring that this alone well performed is not enough to passe us into Paradise but that alone done foolishly is enough to send us to hell and the want of either a holy life or death makes a man to fall short of the mighty price of our high calling In order to this rule we are to consider what special graces we shall then need to exercise and by the proper arts of the Spirit by a heap of proportioned arguments by prayers and a great treasure of devotion laid up in Heaven provide before hand a reserve of strength and mercy Men in the course of their lives walk lazily and incuriously as if they had both their feet in one shoe and when they are passively revolved to the time of their dissolution they have no mercies in store no patience no faith no charity to God or despite of the world being without gust or appetite for the land of their inheritance which Christ with so much pain and blood had purchased for them When we come to die indeed we shall be very much put to it to stand firm upon the two feet of a Christian faith and patience When we our selves are to use the articles to turn our former discourses into present practise and to feel what we never felt before we shall finde it to be quite another thing to be willing presently to quit this life and all our present possessions for the hopes of a thing which we were never suffered to see and such a thing of which we may sail so many wayes and of which if we fail any way we are miserable for ever Then we shall finde how much we have need to have secured the Spirit of God and the grace of saith by an habitual perfect unmovable resolution * The same also is the case of patience which will be assaulted with sharp pains disturbed fancies great fears want of a present minde natural weaknesses frauds of the Devil and a thousand accidents and imperfections It concerns us therfore highly in the whole course of our lives not onely to accustome our selves to a patient suffering of injuries and affronts of persecutions and losses of crosse accidents and unnecessary circumstances but also by representing death as present to us to consider with what arguments then to fortifie our patience and by assiduous and fervent prayer to God all our life long call upon God to give us patience and great assistances a strong faith and a confirmed hope the Spirit of God and his Holy Angels assistants at that time to resist and to subdue the devils temptations and assaults and so to fortifie our hearts that it break not into intolerable sorrows and impatience and end in wretchlessenesse and infidelity * But this is to be the work of our life and not to be done at once but as God gives us time by succession by parts and little periods For it is very remarkable that God who giveth plenteously to all creatures he hath scattered the firmament with stars as a man sowes corn in his fields in a multitude bigger then the capacities of humane order he hath made so much varietie of creatures and gives us great choice of meats and drinks although any one of both kindes would have served our needs and so in all instances of nature yet in the distribution of our time God seems to be strait-handed and gives it to us not as Nature gives us Rivers enough to drown us but drop by drop minute after minute so that we never can have two minutes together but he takes away one when he gives us another This should teach us to value our time since God so values it and by his so small distribution of it tells us it is the most precious thing we have Since therefore in the day of our death we can have but still the same little portion of this precious time let us in every minute of our life I mean in every discernable portion lay up such a stock of reason and good works that they may convey a value to the imperfect and shorter actions of our death-bed while God rewards the piety of our lives by his gracious acceptation and benediction upon the actions preparatory to our death-bed 3. He that desires to die well and happily above all things must be carefull that he do not live a soft a delicate and voluptuous life but a life severe holy and under the discipline of the crosse under the conduct of prudence and observation a life of warfare and sober counsels labour and watchfulnesse No man wants cause of tears and a daily sorrow Let every man consider what he feels and acknowledge his misery let him confesse his sin and chastise it let him bear his crosse patiently and his persecutions nobly and his repentances willingly and constantly let him pity the evils of all the world and bear his share of the calamities of his Brother let him long and sigh for the joyes of Heaven let him tremble and fear because he hath deserved the pains of hell let him commute his eternall
fear with a temporall suffering preventing Gods judgement by passing one of his own let him groan for the labours of his pilgrimage and the dangers of his warfare and by that time he hath summed up all these labours and duties and contingencies all the proper causes instruments and acts of sorrow he will finde that for a secular joy and wantonnesse of spirit there are not left many void spaces of his life It was Saint Iames's advice Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into weeping And Bonaventure in the life of Christ reports that the H. Virgin Mother said to S. Elizabeth That Grace does not descend into the soul of a man but by prayer and by affliction Certain it is that a mourning spirit and an afflicted body are great instruments of reconciling God to a sinner and they alwayes dwell at the gates of atonement and restitution But besides this a delicate and prosperous life is hugely contrary to the hopes of a blessed eternity Wo be to them that are at ease in Sion so it was said of old and our B. Lord said Wo be to you that laugh for you shall weep but Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Here or hereafter we must have our portion of sorrows He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed with him shall doubtlesse come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him And certainly he that sadly considers the portion of Dives and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the unavoidablenesse of his torment was because he had his good things in this life must in all reason with trembling run from a course of banquets and faring deliciously every day as being a dangerous estate and a consignation to an evil greater then all danger the pains and torment of unhappy souls If either by patience or repentance by compassion or persecution by choise or by conformity by severity or discipline we allay the festival follies of a soft life and professe under the Crosse of Christ we shall more willingly and more safely enter into our grave But the death-bed of a voluptuous man upbraids his little and cosening prosperities and exacts pains made sharper by the passing from soft beds and a softer mind He that would die holily and happily must in this world love tears humility solitude and repentance SECT II. Of daily examination of our actions in the whole course of our health preparatory to our death-bed HE that will die well and happily must dresse his soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny He must perfectly understand and watch the state of his soul he must set his house in order before he be fit to die And for this there is great reason and great necessity Reasons for a daily examination 1. For if we consider the disorders of every day the multitude of impertinent words the great portions of time spent in vanity the daily omissions of duty the coldnesse of our prayers the indifference of our spirit in holy things the uncertainty of our secret purposes our infinite deceptions and hypocrisie sometimes not known very often not observed by our selves our want of charity our not knowing in how many degrees of action and purpose every vertue is to be exercised the secret adherencies of pride and too forward complacencie in our best actions our failings in all our relations the niceties of difference between some vertues and some vices the secret undiscernable passages from lawfull to unlawfull in the first instances of change the perpetuall mistakings of permissions for duty and licentious practises for permissions our daily abusing the liberty that God gives us our unsuspected sins in the managing a course of life certainly lawfull our little greedinesses in eating our surprises in the proportions of our drinkings our too great freedoms and fondnesses in lawfull loves our aptnesse for things sensual and our deadnesse and tediousnesse of spirit in spiritual employments besides infinite variety of cases of conscience that do occur in the life of every man and in all entercourses of every life and that the productions of sin are numerous and increasing like the families of the Northern people or the genealogies of the first Patriarks of the world from all this we shall find that the computations of a mans life are buisie as the Tables of Signes and Tangents and intricate as the accounts of Eastern Merchants and therefore it were but reason we should summe up our accounts at the foot of every page I mean that we call our selves to scrutiny every night when we compose our selves to the little images of Death 2. For if we make but one Generall account and never reckon till we die either we shall onely reckon by great summes and remember nothing but clamorous and crying sins and never consider concerning particulars or forget very many or if we could consider all that we ought we must needs be confounded with the multitude and variety But if we observe all the little passages of our life and reduce them into the order of accounts and accusations we shall finde them multiply so fast that it will not onely appear to be an ease to the accounts of our death-bed but by the instrument of shame will restrain the inundation of evils it being a thing intolerable to humane modesty to see sins increase so fast and vertues grow up so slow to see every day stained with the spots of leprosie or sprinkled with the marks of a lesser evil 3. It is not intended we should take accounts of our lives onely to be thought religious but that we may see our evil and amend it that we dash our sins against the stones that we may go to God and to a spirituall Guide and search for remedies and apply them And indeed no man can well observe his own groweth in Grace but by accounting seldomer returns of sin and a more frequent victory over temptations concerning which every man makes his observations according as he makes his inquiries and search after himself In order to this it was that Saint Paul wrote Before receiving the Holy Sacrament Let a man examine himself and so let him eat This precept was given in those dayes when they communicated every day and therefore a daily examination also was intended 4. And it will appear highly fitting if we remember that at the day of judgement no onely the greatest lines of life but every branch and circumstance of every action every word and thought shall be called to scrutiny and severe judgement insomuch that it was a great truth which one said Wo be to the most Innocent life if God should search into it without mixtures of mercy And therefore we are here to follow S. Pauls advice Iudge your selves and you shall not be judged of the Lord. The way to prevent Gods anger is to be angry with our selves and by examining
and unavoidable forgetfulnesse will be enough to be intrusted to such a bank and that if a general repentance will serve towards their expiation it will be an infinite mercy but we have nothing to warrant our confidence if we shall think it to be enough on our death-bed to confesse the notorious actions of our lives and to say The Lord be merciful to me for the infinite transgressions of my life which I have wilfully or carelesly forgot for very many of which the repentance the distinct particular circumstantiate repentance of a whole life would have been too little if we could have done more 5. After the enumeration of these advantanges I shall not need to adde that if we decline or refuse to call our selves frequently to account and to use daily advices concerning the state of our souls it is a very ill signe that our souls are not right with God or that they do not dwell in religion But this I shall say that they who do use this exercise frequently will make their conscience much at ease by casting out a daily load of humor and surfet the matter of diseases and the instruments of death He that does not frequently search his conscience is a house without a window and like a wilde untutored son of a fond and undiscerning widow But if this exercise seem too great a trouble and that by such advices religion will seem a burden I have two things to oppose against it 1. One is that we had better â—ear the burden of the Lord then the burden of a base and polluted conscience Religion cannot be so great a trouble as a guilty soul and whatsoever trouble can be fancied in this or any other action of religion it is onely to unexperienced persons It may be a trouble at first just as is every change and every new accident but if you do it frequently and accustom your spirit to it as the custom will make it easy so the advantages wil make it delectable that will make it facile as nature these will make it as pleasant and eligible as reward 2. The other thing I have to say is this That to examine our lives will be no trouble if we do not intricate it with businesses of the world and the Labyrinths of care and impertinent affairs A man had need have a quiet and disintangled life who comes to search into all his actions and to make judgement concerning his errors and his needs his remedies and his hopes They that have great intrigues of the world have a yoak upon their necks cannot look back and he that covets many things greedily and snatches at high things ambitiously that despises his Neighbour proudly and bears his crosses peevishly or his prosperity impotently and passionately he that is prodigal of his precious time and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes is not a man disposed to this exercise he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory and to dash his glasse in pieces because it must needs represent to his own eyes an intolerable deformity He therefore that resolves to live well whatsoever it costs him he that will go to Heaven at any rate shall best tend this duty by neglecting the affairs of the world in all things where prudently he may But if we do otherwise we shall finde that the accounts of our death-bed and the examination made by a disturbed understanding will be very empty of comfort and full of inconveniencies 6. For hence it comes that men dye so timorously and uncomfortably as if they were forced out of their lives by the violencies of an executioner Then without much examination they remember how wickedly they have lived without religion against the laws of the covenant of grace without God in the world then they see sin goes off like an amazed wounded affrighted person from a lost battel without honour without a veil with nothing but shame sad remembrances Then they can consider that if they had lived vertuously all the trouble and objection of that would now be past and all that had remained should be peace and joy and all that good which dwells within the house of God and eternal life But now they finde they have done amisse and dealt wickedly they have no bank of good works but a huge treasure of wrath and they are going to a strange place and what shall be their lot is uncertain so they say when they would comfort and flatter themselves but in truth of religion their portion is sad and intollerable without hope and without refreshment and they must use little silly arts to make them go off from their stage of sins with some handsom circumstances of opinion They will in civility be abused that they may die quietly and go decently to their execution and leave their friends indifferently contented and apt to be comforted and by that time they are gone awhile they see that they deceived themselves all their dayes and were by others deceived at last Let us make it our own case we shall come to that state and period of condition in which we shall be infinitely comforted if we have lived well er else be amazed and go off trembling because we are guilty of heaps of unrepented and unforsaken sins It may happen we shall not then understand it so because most men of late ages have been abused with false principles and they are taught or they are willing to believe that a little thing is enough to save them and that heaven is so cheap a purchase that it will fall upon them whether they will or no. The misery of it is they will not suffer themselves to be confuted till it be too late to recant their errour In the interim they are impatient to be examined as a leper is of a comb and are greedy of the world as children of raw fruit and they hate a severe reproof as they do thorns in their beds and they love to lay aside religion as a drunken person does to forget his sorrow and all the way they dream of fine things and their dreams prove contrary and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow The daughter of Polycrates dreamed that her Father was lifted up and that Iupiter washed him and the Sun anointed him but it proved to him but a sad prosperity for after a long life of constant prosperous successes he was surprized by his enemies and hanged up till the dew of heaven wet his cheeks and the Sun melted his grease Such is the condition of those persons who living either in the despight or in the neglect of religion lye wallowing in the drunkennesse of prosperity or worldly cares they think themselves to be exalted till the evil day overtakes them and then they can expound their dream of life to end in a sad and hopelesse death I remember that Cleomenes that was called a God by the Egyptians because when he was hang'd a serpent grew out of his
warres and violencies that seven years fighting sets a whole Kingdom back in learning and vertue to which they were creeping it may be a whole age And thus also we do evil to our posterity as Adam did to his and Cham did to his and Eli to his and all they to theirs who by sins caused God to shorten the life and multiply the evils of mankinde and for this reason it is the world grows worse and worse because so many original sins are multiplied and so many evils from Parents descend upon the succeeding generations of men that they derive nothing from us but original misery But he who restored the law of Nature did also restore us to the condition of Nature which being violated by the introduction of death Christ then repaired when he suffered and overcame death for us that is he hath taken away the unhappinesse of sicknesse and the sting of death and the dishonours of the grave of dissolution and weaknesse of decay and change and hath turned them into acts of favour into instances of comfort into opportunities of vertue Christ hath now knit them into rosaries and coronets he hath put them into promises and rewards he hath made them part of the portion of his elect they are instruments and earnests and securities and passages to the greatest perfection of humane nature and the Divine promises So that it is possible for us now to be reconciled to sicknesse It came in by sin and therefore is cured when it is turned into vertue and although it may have in it the uneasinesse of labour yet it will not be uneasie as sin or the restlessenesse of a discomposed conscience If therefore we can well manage our state of sicknesse that we may not fall by pain as we usually do by pleasure we need not fear for no evil shall happen to us SECT II. Of the first temptation proper to the state of sicknesse Impatience MEn that are in health are severe exactors of patience at the hands of them that are sick and they usually judge it not by terms of relation between God and the suffering man but between him and the friends that stand by the bed-side It will be therefore necessary that we truly understand to what duties and actions the patience of a sick man ought to extend 1. Sighes and groans sorrow and prayers humble complaints and dolorous expressions are the sad accents of a sick mans language for it is not to be expected that a sick man should act a part of patience with a countenance like an Orator or grave like a Dramatick person It were well if all men could bear an exteriour decencie in their sicknesse and regulate their voice their face their discourse and all their circumstances by the measures and proportions of comlinesse and satisfaction to all the standers by But this would better please them then assist him the sick man would do more good to others then he would receive to himself 2. Therefore silence and still composures and not complaining are no parts of a sick mans duty they are not necessary parts of patience We find that David roared for the very disquietnesse of his sicknesse and he lay chattering like a swallow and his throat was dry with calling for help upon his God That 's the proper voice of sicknesse and certain it is that the proper voyces of sicknesse are expressely vocal and petitory in the eares of God and call for pity in the same accent as the cryes and oppressions of Widows and Orphans do for vengeance upon their persecutors though they say no Collect against them For there is the voyce of man and there is the voyce of the disease and God hears both And the louder the disease speaks there is the greater need of mercy and pity and therefore God will the sooner hear it Abels blood had a voice and cried to God and humility hath a voice and cries so loud to God that it pierces the clouds and so hath every sorrow and every sicknesse and when a man cries out and complains but according to the sorrowes of his pain it cannot be any part of a culpable impatience but an argument for pity 3. Some senses are so subtile and their perceptions so quick and full of relish and their spirits so active that the same load is double upon them to what it is to another person and therefore comparing the expressions of the one to the silence of the other a different judgement cannot be made concerning their patience Some natures are querulous and melancholy and soft and nice and tender and weeping and expressive others are sullen dull without apprehension apt to tolerate and carry burdens and the crucifixion of our Blessed Saviour falling upon a delicate and virgin body of curious temper and strict equall composition was naturally more full of torment then that of the ruder theeves whose proportions were courseâ— and uneven 4. In this case it was no imprudent advice which Cicero gave Nothing in the world is more amiable then an even temper in our whole life and in every action but this evennesse cannot be kept unlesse every man follows his own nature without striving to iâ—itate the circumstances of another and what is so in the thing it self ought to be so in our judgements concerning the things We must not call any one impatient if he be not silent in a feaver as if he were asleep or as if he were dull as Herods son of Athens 5. Nature in some cases hath made cryings out and exclamations to be an entertainment of the spirit and an abatement or diversion of the pain For so did the old champions when they threw their fatall nets that they might load their enemy with the snares and weights of death they groaned aloud and sent forth the anguish of their spirit into the eyes and heart of the man that stood against them so it is in the endurance of some sharp pains the complaints and shrikings the sharp groans and the tender accents send forth the afflicted spirits and force a way that they may ease their oppression and their load that when they have spent some of their sorrows by a sally sorth they may returne better able to fortifie the heart Nothing of this is a certain signe much lesse an action or part of impatience and when our blessed Saviour suffered his last and sharpest pang of sorrow he cryed out with a loud voice and resolved to die and did so SECT III. Constituent or integrall parts of patience 1. THat we may secure our patience we must take care that our complaints be without despair Despair sins against the reputation of Gods goodnesse and the efficacy of all our old experience By despair we destroy the greatest comfort of our sorrowes and turn our sicknesse into the state of Devils and perishing souls No affliction is greater then despair for that is it which makes hell fire and turns a natural
little impertinencies and them imperfectly and that with infinite uncertainty But God hath been pleased with a rare art to prevent the inconveniencies apt to arise by this passionate longing after knowledge even by giving to every man a sufficient opinion of his own understanding and who is there in the world that thinks himself to be a fool or indeed not fit to govern his brother There are but few men but they think they are wise enough and every man believes his own opinion the soundest and if it were otherwise men would burst themselves with envy or else become irrecoverable slaves to the talking and disputing man But when God intended this permission to be an antidote of envy and a satisfaction and allay to the troublesome appetites of knowing and made that this universal opinion by making men in some proportions equal should be a keeper out or a great restraint to slavery and tyranny respectively Man for so he uses to do hath turned this into bitternesse for when nature had made so just a distribution of understanding that every man might think he had enough he is not content with that but will think he hath more then his brother and whereas it might well be imployed in restraining slavery he hath used it to break off the bands of all obedience and it ends in pride and schismes in heresies and tyrannies and it being a spiritual evil it growes upon the soul with old age and flattery with health and the supports of a prosperous fortune Now besides the direct operations of the Spirit and a powerfull grace there is in nature left to us no remedy for this evil but a sharp sicknesse or an equall sorrow and allay of fortune and then we are humble enough to ask counsell of a despised Priest and to think that even a common sentence from the mouth of an appointed comforter streams forth more refreshment then all our own wiser and more reputed discourses Then our understandings and our bodies peeping thorow their own breaches see their shame and their dishonour their dangerous follies and their huge deceptions and they go into the clefts of the rock and every little hand may cover them 3. Next to these As the soul is still undressing she takes off the roughnesse of her great and little angers and animosities and receives the oil of mercies and smooth forgivenesse fair interpretations and gentle answers designes of reconcilement and Christian atonement in their places For so did the wrastlers in Olympus they stripped themselves of all their garments and then anointed their naked bodies with oil smooth and vigorous with contracted nerves and enlarged voice they contended vehemently till they obtained their victory or their ease and a crown of Olive or a huge pity was the reward of their fierce contentions Some wise men have said that anger sticks to a mans nature as inseparably as other vices do to the manners of fools and that anger is never quite cured but God that hath found out remedies for all diseases hath so ordered the circumstances of man that in worser sort of men anger and great indignation consume and shrivell into little peevishnesses and uneasie accents of sicknesse and spend themselves in trifling instances and in the better and more sanctified it goes off in prayers and alms and solemn reconcilement And however the temptations of this state such I mean which are proper to it are little and inconsiderable The man is apt to chide a servant too bitterly and to be discontented with his nurse or not satisfied with his Physitian and he rests uneasily and poor man nothing can please him and indeed these little undecencies must be cured and stopped lest they run into an inconvenience But sicknesse is in this particular a little image of the state of blessed Souls or of Adams early morning in Paradise free from the troubles of lust and violencies of anger and the intricacies of ambition or the restlesnesse of covetousnesse For though a man may carry all these along with him into his sicknesse yet there he will not finde them and in despite of all his own malice his soul shall finde some rest from labouring in the galleys and baser captivity of sin and if we value those moments of being in the love of God and in the kingdom of grace which certainly are the beginnings of felicity we may also remember that the not sinning actually is one step of innocence and therefore that state is not intolerable which by a sensible trouble makes it in most instances impossible to commit those great sins which make death and hell and horrid damnations And then let us but adde this to it that God sends sicknesses but he never causes sin that God is angry with a â—inning person but never with a man for being sick that sin causes God to hate us and sicknesse causes him to pity us that all wise men in the world choose trouble rather then dishonour affliction rather then basenesse and that sicknesse stops the torrent of sin and interrupts its violence and even to the worst men makes it to retreat many degrees we may reckon sicknesse amongst good things as we reckon Rhubarb and Aloës and child-birth and labour and obedience and discipline These are unpleasant and yet safe they are troubles in order to blessings or they are securities from danger or the hard choices of a lesse and a more tolerable evil 4. Sicknesse is in some sense eligible because it is the opportunity and the proper scence of exercising some vertues It is that agony in which men are tried for a crown and if we remember what glorious things are spoken of the grace of faith that it is the life of just men the restitution of the dead in trespasses and sins the justification of a sinner the support of the weak the confidence of the strong the magazine of promises and the title to very glorious rewards we may easily imagine that it must have in it a work and a difficulty in some proportion answerable to so great effects But when we are bidden to beleeve strange propositions we are put upon it when we cannot judge and those propositions have possessed our discerning faculties and have made a party there and are become domestick before they come to be disputed and then the articles of faith are so few and are made so credible and in their event and in their object are so usefull and gaining upon the affections that he were a prodigie of man and would be so esteemed thâ—t should in all our present circumstances disbeleeve any point of faith and all is well as long as the Sun shines and the fair breath of heaven gently waâ—ts us to our own purposes But if you will try the excellency and feel the work of faith place the man in a persecution let him ride in a storm let his bones be broken with sorrow and his eyelids loosened with sicknesse let his bread be
of mercy to preserve their innocence to overcome temptation to try their vertue to fit them for rewards it is certain that sicknesse never is an evil but by our own faults and if we will do our duty we shall be sure to turn it into a blessing If the sicknesse be great it may end in death and the greater it is the sooner and if it be very little it hath great intervalls of rest if it be between both we may be Masters of it and by serving the ends of Providence serve also the perfective end of humane nature and enter into the possession of everlasting mercies The summe is this He that is afraid of pain is afraid of his own nature and if his fear be violent it is a signe his patience is none at all and an impatient person is not ready dressed for heaven None but suffering humble and patient persons can go to heaven and when God hath given us the whole stage of our life to exercise all the active vertues of religion it is necessary in the state of vertues that some portion and period of our lives be assigned to passive graces for patience for Christian fortitude for resignation or conformity to the Divine will But as the violent fear of sicknesse makes us impatient so it will make our death without comfort and without religion and we shall go off from our stage of actions and sufferings with an unhandsome exit because we were willing to receive the Kindnesse of God when he expressed it as we listed But we would not suffer him to be kinde and gracious to us in his own method nor were willing to exercise and improve our vertues at the charge of a sharp Feaver or a lingring consumption Woe be to the man that hath lost patience for what will he do when the Lord shall visit him SECT VII The second temptation proper to the state of sicknesse Fear of death with its remedies THere is nothing which can make sicknesse unsanctified but the same also will give us cause to fear death If therefore we so order our affairs and spirits that we do noâ— fear death our sickness may easily become our advantage and we can then receive counsel and consider and do those acts of vertue which are in that state the proper services of God and such which men in bondage and fear are not capable of doing or of advices how they should when they come to the appointed dayes of mourning And indeed if men would but place their designe of being happy in the noblenesse courage and perfect resolutions of doing handsome things and passing thorough our unavoidable necessities in the contempt and despite of the things of this world and in holy living and the perfective desires of our natures the longings and pursuances after Heaven it is certain they could not be made miserable by chance and change by sicknesse and death But we are so softned and made effeminate with delicate thoughts and meditations of ease and brutish satisfactions that if our death comes before we have seized upon a great-fortune or enjoy the promises of the fortune tellers we esteem our selves to be robbed of our goods to be mocked and miserable Hence it comes that men are impatient of the thoughts of death hence comes those arts of protraction and delaying the significations of old age thinking to deceive the world men cosen themselves and by representing themselves youthfull they certainly continue their vanity till Proserpina pull the perruke from their heads We cannot deceive God and nature for a coffin is a coffin though it be covered with a pompous veil and the minutes of our time strike on and are counted by Angels till the period comes which must cause the passing bell to give warning to all the neighbours that thou art dead and they must be so and nothing can excuse or retard this and if our death could be put off a little longer what advantage can it be in thy accounts of nature or felicity They that 3000 years agone dyed unwillingly and stopped death two dayes or staid it a week what is their gain where is that week and poor spirited men use arts of protraction and make their persons pitiable but their condition contemptible beeing like the poor sinners at Noahs flood the waters drove them out of their lower rooms then they crept up to the roof having lasted half a day longer and then they knew not how to get down some crept upon the top branch of a tree and some climbed up to a mountain and staid it may be three dayes longer but all that while they endured a worse torment then death they lived with amazement and were distracted with the ruines of mankinde and the horrour of an universal deluge Remedies against the fear of death by way of consideration 1. God having in this world placed us in a sea and troubled the sea with a continual storm hath appointed the Church for a ship and religion to be the sterne but there is no haven or port but death Death is that harbour whither God hath designed every one that there he may finde rest from the troubles of the world How many of the noblest Romans have taken death for sanctuary and have esteemed it less then shame or a mean dishonour And Caesar was cruel to Domitius Captain of Corfinium when he had taken the town from him that he refused to signe his petition of death Death would have hid his head with honour but that cruel mercy reserved him to the shame of surviving his disgrace The Holy Scripture giving an account of the reasons of the divine providence taking Godly men from this world and shutting them up in a hasty grave sayes that they are taken from the evils to come and concerning our selves it is certain if we had ten years agone taken seizure of our portion of dust death had not taken us from good things but from infinite evils such which the sun hath seldom seen Did not Priamus weep oftner then Troilus and happy had he been if he had died when his sons were living and his kingdom safe and houses full and his citie unburnt It was a long life that made him miserable and an early death onely could have secured his fortune and it hath happened many times that persons of a faâ—r life and a clear reputation of a good fortune and an honourable name have been tempted in their age to folly and vanity have fallen under the disgrace of dotage or into an infortunate marriage or have besottted themselves with drinking or outlived their fortunes or become tedious to their friends or are afflicted with lingring and vexatious diseases or lived to see their excellent parts buried and cannot understand the wise discourses and productions of their younger years In all these cases and infinite more do not all the world say but it had been better this man had died sooner But
discover it would dash it in pieces by a solemn disclaiming it for thou art the Way the Truth and the Life and I know that whatsoever thou hast declared that is the truth of God and I do firmly adhere to the religion thou hast taught and glory in nothing so much as that I am a Christian that thy name is called upon me O my God though I die yet will I put my trust in thee In thee O Lord have I trusted let me never be confounded Amen SECT V. Of the practise of the Grace of Repentance in time of the Sicknesse MEn generally do very much dread sudden death and pray against it passionately and certainly it hath in it great inconveniences accidentally to mens estates to the settlement of families to the culture and trimming of souls and it robs a man of the blessings which may be consequent to sickness and to the passive graces and holy contentions of a Christian while he descends to his grave without an adversary or a tryal and a good man may be taken at such a disadvantage that a sudden death would be a great evil even to the most excellent person if it strikes him in an unlucky circumstance But these considerations are not the onely ingredients into those mens discourse who pray violently against sudden deaths for possibly if this were all there may be in the condition of sudden death something to make recompence for the evils of the over-hasty accident For certainly it is a lesse temporal evil to fall by the rudenesse of a sword then the violences of a Feaver and the axe is much a lesse affliction then a strangury and though a sicknesse tries our vertues yet a sudden death is free from temptation a sicknesse may be more glorious and a sudden death more safe the deadest deaths are best the shortest and least premeditate so Caesar said and Pliny called a short death the greatest fortune of a mans life For even good men have been forced to an undecencie of deportment by the violences of pain and Cicero observes concerning Hercules that he was broken in pieces with pain even then when he sought for immortality by his death being tortured with a plague knit up in the lappet of his shirt And therefore as a sudden death certainly loses the rewards of a holy sicknesse so it makes that a man shall not so much hazard and lose the rewards of a holy life But the secret of this affair is a worse matter men live at that rate either of an habitual wickednesse or else a frequent repetition of single acts of killing and deadly sins that a sudden death is the ruine of all their hopes and a perfect consignation to an eternal sorrow But in this case also so is a lingring sicknesse for our last sicknesse may change us from life to health from health to strength from strength to the firmnesse and confirmation of habitual graces but it cannot change a man from death to life and begin and finish that processe which sits not down but in the bosom of blessednesse He that washes in the morning when his bath is seasonable and healthful is not onely made clean but sprightly and the blood is brisk and coloured like the first springing of the morning but they that wash their dead cleanse the skin and leave palenesse upon the cheek and stiffnesse in all the joynts A repentance upon our death-bed bed is like washing the coarse it is cleanly and civil but makes no change deeper then the skin But God knowes it is a custom so to wash them that are going to dwell with dust and to be buried in the lap of their kinred earth but all their lives time wallow in pollutions without any washing at all or if they do it is like that of the Dardani who washed but thrice in all their life time when they are born and when they marry and when they die when they are baptized or against a solemnity or for the day of their funeral but these are but ceremonious washings and never purifie the soul if it be stained and hath sullied the whitenesse of its baptismal robes * God intended we should live a holy life * he contracted with us in Jesus Christ for a holy life * he made no abatements of the strictest sense of it but such as did necessarily comply with humane infirmities or possibilities that is he understood it in the sense of repentance which stil is so to renew our duty that it may be a holy life in the second sense that is some great portion of our life to be spent in living as Christians should * a resolving to repent upon our death-bed is the greatest mockery of God in the world and the most perfect contradictory to all his excellent designes of mercy and holinesse for therefore he threatned us with hell if we did not and he promised heaven if we did live a holy life and a late repentance promises heaven to us upon other conditions even when we have lived wickedly * It renders a man uselesse and intolerable to the world taking off the great curb of religion of fear and hope and permitting all impiety with the greatest impunity and incouragement in the world * by this means we see so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philo calls them or as the prophets pueros centum annorum children of almost an hundred years old upon whose grave we may write the inscriptions which was upon the tomb of Similis in Xiphilin Here he lies who was so many years but lived but seven * and the course of nature runs counter to the perfect designes of piety and * God who gave us a life to live to him is only served at our death when we die to all the world * and we undervalue the great promises made by the Holy Jesus for which the piety the strictest unerring piety of ten thousand ages is not a proportionable exchange yet we think it a hard bargain to get heaven if we be forced to part with one lust or live soberly twenty years But like Demetrius Afer who having lived a slave all his life time yet desired to descend to his grave in freedom begged manumission of his Lord we lived in the bondage of our sin all our dayes and hope to dye the Lords freed man * but above all this course of a delayed repentance must of necessity therefore be ineffective and certainly mortal because it is an intire destruction of the very formality and essential constituent reason of religion which I thus demonstrate When God made man and propounded to him an immortal and a blessed state as the end of his hopes and the perfection of his condition he did not give it him for nothing but upon certain conditions which although they could add nothing to God yet they were such things which man could value and they were his best and
that it is not reasonable to think that every man and every life and an easie religion shall possesse such infinite glories * That although heaven is a gift yet there is a great severity and strict exacting of the conditions on our part to receive that gift * That some persons who have lived strictly for 40. years together yet have miscarried by some one crime at last or some secret hypocrisie or a latent pride or a creeping ambition or a phantastic spirit and therefore much lesse can they hope to receive so great portions of felicities when their life hath been a continuall declination from those severities which might have created confidence of pardon and acceptation through the mercies of God and the merits of Jesus * That every good man ought to be suspicious of himself and in his judgement concerning his own condition to fear the worst that he may provide for the better * That we are commanded to work out our salvation with fear trembling * That this precept was given with very great reason considering the thousand thousand wayes of miscarrying * That S. Paul himself and S. Arsenius and S. Elzearius and divers other remarkable Saints had at some times great apprehensions of the dangers of failing of the mighty price of their high calling * That the stake that is to be secured is of so great an interest that all our industry and all the violences we can suffer in the prosecution of it are not considerable * That this affair is to be done but once and then never any more unto eternal ages * That they who professe themselves servants of the institution and servants of the law and discipline of Jesus will find that they must judge themselves by the proportions of that law by which they were to rule themselves * That the laws of society and civility and the voices of my company are as ill judges as they are guides but we are to stand or fall by his sentence who will not consider or value the talk of idle men or the persuasion of wilfully abused consciences but of him who hath felt our infirmity in all things but sin and knowes where our failings are unavoidable and where and in what degree they are excusable but never will endure a sin should seize upon any part of our love and deliberate choice or carelesse cohabitation * That if our conscience accuse us not yet are we not hereby justified for God is greater then our consciences * That they who are most innocent have their consciences most tender and sensible * That scrupulous persons are alwayes most religious and that to feel nothing is not a signe of life but of death * That nothing can be hid from the eyes of the Lord to whom the day and the night publike and private words and thoughts actions and designes are equally discernable * That a lukewarme person is onely secured in his own thoughts but very unsafe in the event and despised by God * That we live in an Age in which that which is called and esteemed a holy life in the dayes of the Apostles and holy primitives would have been esteemed indifferent sometimes scandalous and alwayes cold That what was a truth of God then is so now and to what severities they were tyed for the same also we are to be accountable and heaven is not now an easier purchase then it was then * That if he will cast up his accounts even with a superficial eye Let him consider how few good works he hath done how inconsiderable is the relief which he gave to the poor how little are the extraordinaries of his religion and how unactive and lame how polluted and disordered how unchosen and unpleasant were the ordinary parts and periods of it and how many and great sins have stained his course of life and until he enters into a particular scrutinie let him only revolve in his minde what his general course hth been and in the way of prudence let him say whether it was laudable and holy or onely indifferent and excusable and if he can think it onely excusable and so as to hope for pardon by such suppletories of faith and arts of persuasion which he and others use to take in for auxiliaries to their unreasonable confidence then he cannot but think it very fit that he search into his own state and take a Guide and erect a tribunal or appear before that which Christ hath erected for him on earth that he may make his accesse fairer when he shall be called before the dreadfull Tribunal of Christ in the clouds For if he can be confident upon the stock of an unpraised or a looser life and should dare to venture upon wilde accounts without order without abatements without consideration without conduct without fear without scrutinies and confessions and instruments of amends or pardon he either knows not his danger or cares not for it and little understands how great a horrour that is that a man should rest his head for ever upon a cradle of flames and lye in a bed of sorrows and never sleep and never end his groans or the gnashing of his teeth This is that which some spiritual persons call a wakening the sinner by the terrours of the law which is a good analogie or Tropical expression to represent the threatnings of the Gospel and the dangers of an incurious and a sinning person but we have nothing else to do with the terrours of the law for Blessed be God they concern us not the terrours of the law were the intermination of curses upon all those that ever broke any of the least Commandements once or in any instance And to it the righteousnesse of faith is opposed The terrors of the law admitted no repentance no pardon no abatement and were so severe that God never inflicted them at all according to the letter because he admitted all to repentance that desired it with a timely prayer unlesse in very few cases as of Achan or Corah the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath-day or the like but the state of threatnings in the Gospel is very fearful because the conditions of avoiding them are easie and ready and they happen to evil persons after many warnings second thoughts frequent invitations to pardon and repentance and after one entire pardon consigned in Baptism and in this sense it is necessary that such persons as we now deal withall should be instructed concerning their danger 4. When the sick man is either of himself or by these considerations set forward with purposes of repentance and confession of his sins in order to all its holy purposes and effects then the Minister is to assist him in the understanding the number of his sins that is the several kinds of them and the various manners of prevaricating the divine commandments for as for the number of the particulars in every kinde he will need lesse help and if he did he
in temporall instances for he ever gave me sufficient for my life and although he promised such supplies and grounded the confidences of them upon our first seeking the kingdom of heaven and its righteousnesse yet he hath verified it to me who have not sought it as I ought But therefore I hope he accepted my endeavour or will give his great gifts and our great expectation even to the weakest endeavour to the least so it be a hearty piety * And sometimes I have had some chearful visitations of Gods Spirit and my cup hath been crowned with comfort and the wine that made my heart glad danced in the chalice and I was glad that God would have me so and therefore I hope this cloud may passe for that which was then a real cause of comfort is so still if I could disâ—ern it and I shall discern it when the veil is taken from my eyes * and blessed be God I can still remember that there are temptations to despair and they could not be temptations if they were not apt to perswade and had seeming probability on their side and they that despair think they do it with greatest reason for if they were not confident of the reason but that it were such an argument as might be opposed or suspected then they could not despair despair assents as firmly and strongly as faith it self but because it is a temptation and despair is a horrid sin therefore it is certain those persons are unreasonably abused and they have no reason to despair for all their confidence and therefore although I have strong reasons to condemn my self yet I have more reason to condemn my despair which therefore is unreasonable because it is a sin and a dishonour to God and a ruine to my condition and verifies it self if I do not look to it for as the hypochondriac person that thought himself dead made his dream true when he starved himself because dead people eat not so do despairing sinners lose Gods mercies by refusing to use and to believe them * And I hope it is a disease of judgement not an intolerable condition that I am falling to because I have been told so concerning others who therefore have been afflicted because they see not their pardon sealed after the manner of this world and the affairs of the Spirit are transacted by immaterial notices by propositions and spiritual discourses by promises which are to be verified hereafter and here we must live in a cloud in darknesse under a veil in fear and uncertainties and our very living by faith and hope is a life of mystery and secresie the onely part of the manner of that life in which we shall live in the state of separation and when a distemper of body or an infirmity of minde happens in the instances of such secret and reserved affairs we may easily mistake the manner of our notices for the uncertainty of the thing and therefore it is but reason I should stay till the state and manner of my abode be changed before I despair there it can be no sin nor error here it may be both and if it be that it is also this and then a man may perish for being miserable and be undone for being a fool In conclusion my hope is in God and I will trust him with the event which I am sure will be just and I hope full of mercy * However now I will use all the spiritual arts of reason and religion to make me more and more to love God that if I miscarry Charity also shall fail and something that loves God shall perish and be damned which if it be impossible then I may do well These considerations may be useful to men of little hearts and of great piety or if they be persons who have lived without infamy or begun their repentance so late that it is very imperfect and yet so early that it was before the arrest of death But if the man be a vitious person and hath persevered in a vitious life till his death-bed these considerations are not proper Let him inquire in the words of the first Disciples after Pentecost Men and brethren what shall we do to be saved and if they can but entertain so much hope as to enable them to do so much of their dutie as they can for the present it is all that can be provided for them an inquirie in their case can have no other purposes of religion or prudence and the Minister must be infinitely careful that he do no not go about to comfort vitious persons with the comforts belonging to Gods elect lest he prostitute holy things and make them common and his sermons deceitful and vices be incouraged in others and the man himself finde that he was deceived when he descends into his house of sorrow But because very few men are tempted with too great fears of failing but very many are tempted by confidence and presumption the Ministers of religion had need be instructed with spiritual armour to resist this fiery dart of the Devil when it operates to evil purposes SECT VI. Considerations against Presumption I Have already enumerated many particulars to provoke a drowzy conscience to a scrutinie and to a suspicion of himself that by seeing cause to suspect his condition he might more freely accuse himself and attend to the necessities and duties of repentance but if either before or in his repentance he grow too big in in his spirit so as either he does some little violence to the modesties of humilitie or abate his care and zeal of his repentance the spiritual man must allay his frowardnesse by representing to him 1. That the growths in grace are long difficult uncertain hindred of many parts and great variety 2. That an infant grace is soon dash'd and discountenanced often running into an inconvenience and the evils of an imprudent conduct being zealous and forward and therefore confident but alwayes with the least reason and the greatest danger like children and young fellows whose confidence hath no other reason but that they understand not their danger and their follies 3. That he that puts on his armour ought not to boast as he that puts it off and the Apostle chides the Galatians for ending in the flesh after they had begun in the spirit 4. that a man cannot think too meanly of himself but very easily he may think too high 5 That a wise man will alwayes in a matter of great concernment think the worst and a good man will condemn himself with hearty sentence 6. That humility and modesty of judgement and of hope are very good instruments to procure a mercie and a fair reception at the day of our death but presumption or bold opinions serve no end of God or man and is alwayes imprudent ever fatal and of all things in the world is its own greatest enemy for the more any man presumes the greater reason he hath to fear 7. That a mans