heaviest upon the heart And by this I am induced to believe that it is naturall for man to Suffer because he onely naturally weepes Every extraneous felicity of this life is violent or forced and these constrained though splendid Adiuncts of Fortune are therefore short because noe violent thing can be perpetuall To suffer is the naturall condition and manner of man this is believed to be his misery without patience I confesse it is Nature never failes us in those things which are needful much lesse divine providence and grace Wee shall therefore never faile of Sufferings because they are the great Necessaries Medicines of Humane Nature Wee read of many men that never laught but never heard of any that never wept Democritus himself came weeping into the World none ever came without labour none without griefe Thou wilt ask why man the only creature addicted to beatitude should bee borne to trouble why through the vale of teares travells he to the house of joy why is he alone being capeable of felicity made subject unto misery Because he is borne for virtue the next and readiest instrument to attaine beatitude Now troubles or miserie are the masse or first matter of virtue and without this hard rudiment without this coyne of sorrow he cannot purchase it Nor are the good offices which these calamities doe for us either meane or few for wherefore flowes yea overflowes the divine mercy upon man but because he is miserable wherefore is Gods sure power and saving arme stretched out but because he is fraile wherefore are his comforts and refreshments so plentifully showred down but because he is sorrowfull and helplesse wherefore is his liberality and most faithful providence seen every minute but because he is poore and constantly needy yea wherefore is Immortality everlasting pleasures and a glorious resurrection secured unto us but because our bodies are mortal and subject to death and putrefaction By this time perhaps you see the appositnesse of that comparison which Eliphaz made betwixt man and a bird The bird by nature lifts himself above the earth upon his wings he passeth from hence into the cleare confines and neighbourhood of heaven where he dwells for a time and looks with contempt upon this inferiour darksome portion of the world when hee descends towards the earth he keepeth still above us he lodgeth in the height and freshnesse of the trees or pitcheth upon the spires or ridges of our houses or upon some steepe rock whose height inaccessibleness promise him securitie something that is eminent and high he alwaies affects to rest upon Man likewise ordained for heaven and the contempt of this spot of earth is by his very calamities borne up and carried above the world yea into heaven as an Eagle by the strength of his wings ascends above the clouds O the depth of the riches of the wisedome of God! O the mercifull designe and devicâ— of his providence who knowing our corrupt nature hath laid upon us a necessity of seeking those blessings whose inestimable value ought to stirre us up to a most voluntary and diligent searching after them To this necessity by the same chain of his providence hath hee tyed utility These are sufficient motives to perswade us to patience It was wisely said by some Arabian that the hedge about patience was profit for he that thinks gaine to be necessary must think labour so too Allthough Fortune should be so prodigal as to poure all her Treasures into the bosome of one man and not repent when she had done yet would this very man sometimes feele strong exigencies in indigencie Pompey and Darius were both hardly distrest with thirst they that were Lords of so many Rivers did then wish for one drop of Water Alexander the Great in some of his expeditions was like to perish with cold though his Dominion did in a manner extend to the very Sun for in the East which I may call the Suns House he was such an absolute Lord that bating the Power to forbid the Sun to rise there was nothing more could be added to his conquests Seeing then that labour or troubles are a necessity imposed upon man it followes that there are other labours belonging unto him which are also as necessary and those I shall terme Voluntarie Labours Oâ— these the Elegant Philosopher Eusebiuâ— hath excellently spoken Voluntary Labours saith he are necessary because of future Labours which hang over our heads he will beare those with more ease when they fall upon him who of his own accord and beforehand hath exercised himself in them But you see that in this course also the maine remedy is patience He that suffers willingly suffers not even that which is necessary to be suffered One wedge drives out another Venemous bitings are allayd by Venemous Medecines therefore in necessary troubles there is a necessity of voluntary Labours that Violent Evills meet not with Obstinate Wills but the unavoydablenesse of suffering would not be grievous nor the necessity or Law of Nature any way rigorous did not we by our owne exaggerations adde to their weight and our owne pain Wee helpe to encrease our owne Calamities by reasom of our Inerudition as Diphilus tells us who adviseth even the happy man to learn miseries What can wee doe more becomming our fraile condition then to teach our Mortality the troubles of life which are certain prolusions or arguments of death What is more beneficiall then to learn great tryalls and dangers that wee may leave that servile custome of fearing Fortune whose burthens we ought to bear as willingly as if wee desired to undergoe them It is a great rudiment of patience to suffer willingly when we least expect sufferings It is strange that although wee see nothing in the course of this life more frequent then miseries yet will wee not be perswaded that they may fall into our share Our griefes come most commonly before we believe they may come Nothing can make us believe that we may be miserable untill misery it selfe assures it to us The mind therefore should be tryed and prepared for it with some lusorie or mock-misfortunes Nor must we give eare to Democritus whose saying is That if there be any things for us to suffer it is good to learn them but not to suffer them It is good indeed to learn them but if they must be unavoydably suffered what will our learning of them avail us A most ridiculous advise in my Judgement And if the Author of it had been wise he had laught at nothing more then at this his owne Conclusion It is good to learn to suffer Evills but not to be evill It will benefit us much to learn to suffer them if not as they are Evills yet lest wee our selves become Evill for such we shall be by impatience Besides the overcomming of reall evills there remaine other slight hurts as the discourtesies of nature chance and furie of our enemies and our selves also which we cannot
time have beene well spared Here was the foundation of the Churches of Japan and Amangucia This very Indian and none before him becomming the first fruits of that region unto CHRIST So glorious a document of Patience made him envy our Divine Philosophy that envy made him Ambitious and his holy Ambition made him a Christian So gainfull an Industry is Patience and such a compendious Art of overcomming Most wholsome is the advice of Pimenius Malice saith he never overcomes malice you must overcome malice with goodnesse But if we could overcome one Evill with another why will wee not reserve that Glory for Virtue By such a bloodlesse Victory did Motois overthrow his Adversary from whom he fled most valiantly lest he should offend him I do not say with his hands but with his sight for Patience hath no hands but shoulders His Adversary pursues Motois had lockt himself up became his own prisoner esteeming it guilt enough that another could be angry with him But hearing that his Enemy was come in being only Impatient till he had shewed more Patience hee breakes open the door bids him welcome and like one that had offended desires to be forgiven and afterwards feasts him This story I have touch'd upon that thou maist see how powerfull an Instrument of tranquillity and a quiet happy life Patience is that makes peace to beare fruit in another mans soyl and civilizeth forraigners How fruitfull then is she at home How prosperous a dresser of Virtues in himselfe is the patient man that will not suffer the propagation of Vices in another But Leander said that Patience doth either overcome or else win her Enemies I say she doth both win and overcome She wins men and overcomes Fortune nay she makes her though unwilling a most officious servant of Goodnesse The name of Patience is not an empty titular Honour it hath also very large and princely revenues for the maintenance of Virtue That Fable of the Divine in holy Maximus is truth He saith that wise men dwell in the shadow of a tree which the more the people cut it growes the more It strives and vies with the Iron or to borrow the Poets expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It lives when kill'd and brancheth when 't is lopt His own Mythology is most elegant By this tree saith he is signified wisedom which turâ— es misfortunes into Ornaments trouble into Virtue losse into gain and scars into beauty For the Patient and wise liver like the Serpent of Lerna when he is most mangled is most entire he drinkes in fresh spirits through his very wounds his courage is heightned by them and his spilt blood like dew doth cherish and revive him Like some faire Oke that when her boughes Are cut by rude hands thicker growes And from those wounds the Iron made Resumes a rich and fresher shade The benefit then wee receive from Patience is twofold It diminisheth the sorrowes of the body and increaseth the treasure of the mind Or to speak more properly there is one great benefit it doth us It turnes all that is Evill into Good Most apposite to this is that of Nazianzen Patience digesteth misery Concoction and Digestion of meats are the daily miracles of the stomack they make dead things contribute unto life and by a strange Metamorphosis turne Herbes and almost all living Creatures into the Substance of Man to preserve his particular Species No otherwise doth Virtue by Patience which is her stomack transform and turne all damages into benefits and blessings and those blessings into it self Lupines or bitter Pulse if steep'd in water will grow sweet and nourishing Patience doth macerate miseries to fatten it selfe with them Certaine Divine Raies breake out of the Soul in adversity like sparks of fire out of the afflicted flint The lesser the Soule minds the body the lesser she adheres to sensibility shee is by so much the more capable of Divinity and her own Nature When her Den of flesh is secure and whole then is she in darkness sleepes under it When it is distressed and broken then is she awake and watcheth by some Heavenly Candle which shines upon her through those breaches The wounds of the Body are the windowes of the Soul through which she looks towards Heaven light is her provision shee feedes then upon Divinity Sublime is that rapture of the most wise Gregory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one food the best for all Is to feed on the great Gods mind draw An Immense light from the bright Trinity Death it self which the lust of eating brought into the World inedible or as Zeno saith indigestible is eaten digested and transubstantiated into life by Patience begun in Abel and perfected in JESUS CHRIST So that now that saying of Pirrho who affirm'd that there was no difference betwixt death and life is no longer a Paradox nor need we make use of that shrewd exaggeration of Euripides who knowes said he but this which we call life is death and death life we see that men when they are as we speak alive are then only sick but the dead neither sicken nor suffer any sorrowes Certainly the death of a good liver is eternal life Every Action of a wise man is a certain emulation of Death wee may see it exprest in his patience The Soul by this Virtue disintangles and frees her selfe from the troubles of Mortality For the frivolous flesh burning with fevers or drown'd in dropsies or any other diseases the attendants of corruption which possesse and fill up the narrow Fabrick of Man the Soul as in great inundations when the lower roomes are overflown ascends to the battlements where she enjoyes a secure healthfull ayre leaving the ground-roomes to the tumult and rage of the distemper'd humours She ascends thither where griefe cannot ascend Carneades comming to visit Agesilaus grievously tormented with the Gout and turning his back to be gone as if impatient of the violence and insolencie of the disease whose custome it is to shew litle reverence towards the best men the prerogative of Virâ—â—e can give no protection to Nature Agesilaus pointing from his feet to his brest calls him back with this Check stay Carneades the pain is not come from thence hither Hee shew'd by this that his mind was in health though his feet were diseased and that the pain had not ascended thither where the Soule sate inthroned At this height she hath two priviledges more then ordinary she is lesse affected with the body because at some distance from it and hovers above griefe because above sensibility shee is nearer to God and dresseth her selfe by his beames which she enjoyes more freely as from a kind of Balconie or refreshing place having onely a Knowledge but no Sense of the bodies affliction From this place she overlookes the labours and conflicts of the flesh as Angels from the windowes of Heaven behold Warre and the Slaughter of distracteâ—â—â—en One benefit more shee hath by Patience that
though shut up in the body yet shee can have a tast of her glorious posthume liberty Death looseth the Soule from the body it breaks in sunder the secret bonds of the blood that she may have the full use of her wings and be united to Divinity Patience though it doth not quite loosen the chaine yet it lengthens it that she may take the aire and walk some part of the way towards Home Though it frees not the Soul from the body yet it gives her liberty and dominion over it He that is tyed up by a long Cord is within the compasse allowed him untyed and a free man The Spirit of man incensed by adversities and collected into it selfe is by a certain Antiperistasis made more ardent and aspiring Fire is never stronger nor more intense then amongst Water In the bosome of a cloud it breakes forth into thunder So this Divine Spark which God hath shut up in Vessels of Clay when all the passages of pleasures are stopt his raies which before were diffused and extravagant returne into it selfe and missing their usuall vent break forth with such violence as carries with it sometimes the very body and steales the whole man from passion and mortality The Levitie of fire is of greater force then the Gravity and Massinesse of Earth His Spirit is unresistable and the unknown force of it will blow up the greatest Mountains and the strongest Castles this earth affords Hitherto have I discoursed of outward Evills I shall now consider the Inward and how Patience is their Antidote You have seen her Prerogative over Fortune and reputed Evills which are called Evills because they seem to be so not because they are so as disgrace grief and poverty All these are but fictitious Evils which Custom and Humane error have branded with that injurious denomination for in these contingencies there is no reall Evill but the Evill of opinion neither is any man miserable but in his own conceit and by comparison The glory of Patience would be but poor and trivial if it could doe no more then take away or beare with such frivolous and fictitious troubles as these If it prevailed onely against Evills which we do not suffer but invent It s true glory is that it subdues true Evills Not that it bears them but that it removes them far from us Not that it endures them but than it abstaines from them For truly to suffer Evil is to do Evil whose Agent alwaies the Patient is by reason of a most ill impatience But Patience is onely excellent because it suffers not This worst kind of Evil is therefore the greater because because when 't is in acting it is not seen and were it not afterwards felt there would be no place left for Virtue This is the usuall method of Vice a flattering Comical entrance and a Tragical exit The force and malice of Evil Actions may be gathered by their Nature They are so powerfully hurtful that when they cease to be they cease not to torment us and so malignant that while we act them they flatter us that being Acted they may afflict us While we are doing them they conceal and deny themselves but being done they appear to our sorrow Wherefore he that will lead a blessed a joyfull and a peaceful life must make it his whole work to do no work but what Religion and Virtue shall approve of What peace and security can he enjoy that will revenge himselfe what more would cruelty have according to his own lust What life can he be said to live that kills himselfe to please his inordinate affections What joy can he have whose troubled conscience is his continual Executioner racking and tormenting him in the very embraces of smiling Fortune No outward Fomentations will serve turne against that Indisposition to which fevers and fire are but coolers Wee can provide against the violence of winter and Summer-weather when and how we please But the inward heats and colds the raging accessions of the Spirit admit no cure Patience though Fortune should assist her will never heal the wounds of conscience He that suffers by the guilt of Conscience endures worse torments then the wheel and the saw As that heat which ascending from the liver and the region of the heart doth diffuse it selfe through the body is greater then the united flames of the dog-star and the Sun What torturing invention of Amestris Pherâ—tima or Perillus did ever so afflict distress'd wretches as the fury of his owne Conscience did torment Orestes though freed from all men but himself no Tyrant is so cruel as a guilty spirit Not Scylla with his prison Siuis with his Isthmian pine Phalaris with his bull Sciron with his Rock nor Faunus in his Inne The Pelusians when they punished Parricides conceived no torture so answerable to the heynousnesse of the crime as this inward Divine revenge neither the Sack nor the Lime-kil pleased them so much as this gnawing worm the terrible and luctual excogitation of the wise Father of Nature They ordered therefore and enacted it for a Law that the murtherer for three daies and three nights should be pent up in some narrow roome together with the naked body of the slaine and be forced to look upon it whither he would or not which was effected by putting him in such a posture as permitted him not to look any way but just upon the dead The Sicilian Tyrant himselfe knew that conscience was a more cruell torment then the bull of brasse This made him spare the most unnaturall and bloody offenders that they might be tormented not with scalding metalls and glowing Iron but by a damning conscience The first penaltie for murther was conscience The first Actor of a violent death was punished with life He that first saw and introduced death was thought worthy of no other punishmenâ— but the security of life which he first shewed to be not secure for it is a more mercilesse punishment then death to have long life secured with a killing conscience So he that brought murther first into the World was first punished with the terrourr of conscience Which are then most torturing when health and strength are the capital punishments The Protoplasts themselves the parents of death and of mankind too who gave us death before they gave us life thought it a greater plague then death to be still alive and yet to be guilty of death They would have fled to death to flye from themselves Apposite to this is that of Marius Victor They faine would if they might Descend to hide themselves in Hell So light Of foot is vengeance and so near to sin That soon as done the Actors do begin To fear and suffer by themselves Death moves Before their Eyes Sad dens and duskie groves They haunt and hope vain hope which fear doth guide That those dark shades their inward guilt can hide You see now that conscience even amongst the Pelusians was held a
legal and politick punishment that in Phalaris it was a Tyrannical devise in Cain the Divine vengeance and in Adam and Eve the Justice of Nature God Nature Reason and fury it selfe which in this case must not be defined madnesse do all beare witnesse that selfe-condemnation or the guilt of conscience is of all others the most bitter and avenging torment Adde to this that the certainty of it is as infallible and inevitable as the extremity and fiercenesse of it are implacable there was never any Tyrant so cruel but would pardon some offender There was none so severely inquisitive but some might either escape from him or deceive him But the rigour of conscience permits neither favour flight nor fraud It is utterly inexorable and neither our feete will serve us to ran away nor our hands to free us whither shall a man ran from himselfe from the secrets of his own spirit from his life No man can be an Impostour or dissembler with his own heart no man can undo what he hath already done to have sinned is the remediless plague of the Soul It was a slow expression of Victor that Vengeance is near to sinne It is swifter then so It is not consectaneous or in chase of it but coetaneous with it and its foster-sister The punishment hath the same birth with the offence and proceedes from it It is both the Sister and the Daughter of it Wickednesse cannot be brought forth without its penalty The brest that conceives the one is big with the other and when the one is borne he is delivered of both It is a fruitfullnesse like that of Mice whose young ones are included the one in the other and generate in the very wombe Conscience while man thinkes of Evill even before he acts doth rebuke that thought so that the punishment is praeexistent to the crime though in the reigne of Virtue it is noiselesse and uselesse as penal Lawes are dead letters untill they are quickned by offenders It is then in its minority and without a sting or else it is asleep untill the Cry of Sinne awakes it In the state of Evill Conscience is the first and the last revenger when smal offences are wiped out enormous crimes like capital letters will still remain No man can find a Sanctuary to save him from himself No evill doer can so fly for refuge as to be secure though he may be safe Hee will be afraid in that place where he thought not to fear Though he fears not the friends of the murthered yet he finds that within him which makes him sore afraid He may escape the Executioner and the sword but he will be overtaken by himselfe and being safe hee will be afraid even of his safety Though he may find fidelity in his fellow-Tyrants yet shall he find none in his own bosome which is ever clamorous and spues out blood and guilt Nature deviseth such a punishment for evill doers as that which tyed living Malefactors unto the putrid Carkasses of dead men that the horrour and stench of them might afflict their spirits and the quick flesh be infected and devoured by the dead and rotten The punishment sticks fast unto us after the offence whose carkasse is terrour of Conscience Shame and a gnawing remorse that feeds still upon the faulty but is not satisfied The guilty person can have noe peace But night and day doth his owne life molest And bears his Judge and witnesse in his brest Adde to this that Reason which in all other pressures and misfortunes is the great Auxiliary and Guardian of man is in an offended Conscience his greatest Enemy and imploys all her forces to his vexation and ruine Fortune therefore is not the onely cause of our contristation we our selves do arm adversities and put a sword into the hand of griefe to wound us with we are sticklers against our selves Evill Actions afflict more then Evill Fortune We are not onely troubled that it was Chaunce but that it was our Choice It is the worst kind of misery to be made miserable by our owne approbation That evill which we procure to our selves must needs grieve us more then that which we casually suffer Noe damage is so doleful as a condemning conscience Truly I do believe that the onely misfortune of Man is Sinne. And so very bad and mischievous a Cheat it is that when it is most punished wee think it most prospers neither can Fortune be justly termed Evil but when she is the Assistant of Evill men and the surety for Evill doing This permitted successe makes the affaires of the most unrighteous to be esteemed Just This is a felicity like that of beasts which we put into pleasant and well watered pastures that they may be fed for slaughter Against this true misfortune as well as the false and seeming Patience must be our Antidote not by bearing but by abstaining from it Patience in this Case must elevate it selfe and passe into a virtuous anger and contempt of sinfull prosperity We must be piously impatient of all their proffers and poisonous allurements Impatient I say that we may patiently overcome them Therefore as I have formerly exhibited the Art of bearing well to be the onely remedy against Fortune So now I shall demonstrate to you that the Art of abstaining well is the sole medicine against these true and inward misfortunes Differing diseases must have different cures Patience is the poyson that kills Fortune and the Balm that heales her stripes but a sacred impatience or abstinence from Sinne is the Antidote of Conscience and the Basis or foundation of this holy impatience is transcendent and triumphant Patience To mitigate or overcome Fortune is a trivial trick Flattery will do it if we can but descend to approve of and commend all that she doth To preserve the peace of Conscience wee must be rigid and censorious We must speak home and truly We must examine before we Act and admit of no Action that wil be a just cause but for to blush The approaches of Fortune are abstruse She moves not within the light of Humane wisedome or if she doth the strength of her Prerogative lies betwixt Willingnesse and Constraint It is a kind of fatal fooling Man playes with his Stars untill they hurt him But the cause of an evill Conscience is within our view and may be prevented by Counsell For no man can Sinne against his Will or without his Knowledge One naile must drive out another He that would avoyd damnation must avoid also those things which are damnable He cannot grieve too much that grieves only to prevent Eternal griefe The helps we use against Fortune are after-games But the Salves of Conscience must precede the wound the cure of spirituall diseases is their prevention In the affaires of this World the best man is the experienced But in the distresses and affaires of Conscience he is the wisest that is most ignorant A noxious Knowledge is death and every
those which are drowned these last are innumerable thought it is thought otherwise because they are sunk into the bottom and cannot be seen Admit not I beseech thee for a testimony againstâ— Death those ejulations and tears which darken Funerals and make foul weather in the fairest faces Opinion makes the people compassionate and they bewail not the party that is dead but their owne frailty Call not for evidence to the teares of strangers because thou knowest not whence they flow but call for it to thine own for none of us is happy or miserable but in his own sense which makes us any thing What reason hast thou to think life better then death because others mourne when thou dyest who when thou wert born didst weep thy selfe It is madnesse to judge our selves miserable because others think so The solemnities of death are contrary to the ceremonies of life At the birth of man others laugh but he himself weeps At his death others weep but surely hee rejoyceth unlesse his ill life hath made his death deadly Nor must thou think that his joy is either little or none at al because it is not manifested unto thee Thou mayst lye watching by the side of one that dreams of Heaven is conversing with Angels but unlesse hee tells it thee when he is awaked thou canst discover no such thing while he sleepes The Infant that is born weeping learns to laugh in his sleep as Odo and Augustine have both observed So he that bewailed his birth with tears welcomes the shadow of his death with smiles He presaged miseries to follow his nativity and beatitude his dissolution Weeping is natural tears know their way without a gâ—ide Mirth is rude and comes on slowly and very late nor comes it then without a supporter and a leader It must be taught and acquired Weeping comes with the Infant into the world Laughing is afterwards taught him the Nurse must both teach and invite him to it When he sleeps then he sips and tasteth joy when he dies then he sucks and drinkes it Mourning and grief are natural they are born with us Mirth is slow-paced and negligent of us The sense of rejoycing if we beleeve Avicenna comes not to the most forward child till after the fortieth day Men therefore weep at thy death because it is an experiment they have not tryed and they laugh at thy birth because the miseries of thy life must not be born by them Thou onely art the infallible diviner of thy own frail condition who refusest it with teares which are the most proper expressions of unwilling constrained nature But as the ceremonies of Life and Death are contrary so he that is born and he that dyes have different events Death to some seems to destroy all but she restores all By discomposing things she puts them in their order For he that inverts things that were beâ—ore inverted doth but reduce them to their right Positure The Funeral rite of the Tâ—bitenses who are certain East-Indians is to turn the inside of their garments outward they manifest that part which before was hidden and conceale that part which before was manifest by which they seeme in my opinion to point at the liberty of the soul in the state of death and the captivity of the body whose redemption must bee expected in the end of the world This inversion by death is reparation and a preparative for that order wherein all things shall be made new Most true is that saying of the Royal Preacher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A good name is above precious ointment and the day of death is better then the day of ones birth But thou wilt ask To whom is the day of death better than the day of his nativity It is in the first place to him that dies True thou wilt say if he be a just and holy man Yea say I though he be wicked Who doubts that there can happen in all their lives a better day to the just and honest then the day of death which frees them both from seeing and from feeling the miseries which are in this world As for the unjust it is most certain that no day can be more beneficiall to them then that which sets an end to their impieties tyranny perjury and sacriledge To deny a sword to one that would murther himself is benevolence to deny money to a Gamester that would presently cast it away is courtesie and to deny life to those that would use it to their owne damnation is Mercy and not Judgement But to whom besides these is the day of death better then the day of life Certainly to God Almighty because in that day when the wicked dye his Justice on them and his Mercy towards his own are conspicuous to all and acknowledged by all And to whom else Not to speak of the rich and ambâ—tious It is good to all men to the whole Creation and to Nature it self For in that day the fair order and prerogative of Nature is vindicated from the rage and rape of lustfull intemperate persons It becomes constant consonant and inviolable by putting off those gross vestiments which make her productions subject to the assaults and violence of man who is the most perverse and shamelesse defacer of Gods Image in himself and the most audacious and abhominable contemner of his Ordinances in his works by using them to a contrary end and quite different from that which their wise Creator made them for But let us not consider the goodnesse of death by those evils onely which it freeth us from but by the blessings also which it brings along with it Their soules are by some men less valued then Fortune and temporal power Some cast away their lives to winne a Crowne yea the Crowne and the Kingdome of another They plot to forfeit a Crown of Eternall glory by usurping a transitory one They murther their owne soules by shedding the blood of some innocent persons permitted to be overcome by men that they might have power with God and prevail Shall the short soveâ—aignty and sway of some small corners and spots of earth be compared to the everlasting triumphs in the Kingdom of Heaven The death of the sufferer is in this case the most gainfull the more he loseth by it upon earth his gain is by so much the greater in heaven The shorter our stay is here our time above if reckon'd from the day of our death is the longer but hath no end at all and the more our sufferings are the greater shall our glory be Hegesias the Cyrenian when he praised death promised not these blessings of Immortality but onely an end of temporall miseries and yet he did so far prevail with his Auditors that they preferred death to life they contemned the one and so lusted after the other that they would not patiently expect it but did impatiently long for it they fel upon their own swords and forced death to come on by
body Wee should therefore as often as wee breath remember death when we shall breath our last when the Spirit shall returne unto him that gave it Our whole life is nothing else but a repeated resemblance of our last expiration by the emission of our breath we doe retaine it and as I may say spin it out God gave it not continual and even like fluent streames or the calme and unwearied Emanations of light but refracted and shifting to shew us that we are not permanent but transitory and that the Spirit of life is but a Celestial Gale lent us for a time that by using it well we may secure it Eternally Another Hermetist adviseth us Adorare relliquias ventorum to make much of and to honour our Soules which are the breathings and last dispensations of the still fruitful and liberal creator This we can never do but by a frequent study of our dissolution and the frailty of the body Of such an effectuall goodness is death that it makes men good before it comes and makes sure of Eternity by a virtuous disposing of time Thinke not that evill which sends from so far the beams of its goodnesse There is no good liver but is a debtor to death by whose lendings and premunitions we are furnished and fitted for another world The certainty of it and the incertainty of the time and manner which is the onely circumstance that seemes to offend us if it were seriously considered deserves to be the most pleasing acceptable for amongst all the wondrous Ordinances of Divine providence there is none more Excellent for the Government of man then death being so wisely disposed of that in the height of incertainty it comprehends and manifests an infallible certainty God would have us to be alwaies good to keepe in his likenesse and Image Therfore it is his will that we should be alwaies uncertaine of our most certain death Such is his care of us lest the knowledge of a long life and a late death should encourage us to multiply our transgressions as the notice of a swift dissolution might dishearten and astonish us But being left now in a possibility of either we are taught to live soberly and to expect the time of our change in all holynesse and watchfullnesse The possibility of dying shortly doth lessen the cares of life and makes the difficulties of Virtue easie Bondage and Slavery if it be but short is to those that suffer it the lighter by so much And a large allowance of time makes us slow to Virtue but a short portion quickens us and the incertainty of that very shortnesse makes us certaine to be good For who would weep and vexe himself for worldly provisions if he certainly knew that he should live but one month and how dares he laugh or be negligent of his Salvation that knowes not whither hee shall live to see one day more yea one hour The incertainty of death makes us suspect life and that suspition keepes us from sinning The world was never fouler nor more filled with abominations then when life was longest when abused Nature required an Expiation by waters and the generall submersion of her detestable defilers Theophrastus did unjustly to raile at Nature and condemne her of partiality when he envyed the long life of some plants and inferiour creatures as the Oake the Hart the Ravens some of which live to feed and flye up and down in the World above five hundred years He quarrelled with the wise dispensations of Divinity because a slight suite of feathers and a renew'd dresse of greene leaves could weare out a building that lodged a rationall Soul and the breath of the Almighty Both his wish and his reason were erroneous He erred in desiring long life and in judging happinesse to consist in the multitude of yeares and not the number of good workes The shortnesse of life is lengthned by living well When life was reckond by centuries the innumerable sins of the living so offended God that it repented him to have made impenitent man Those that sinned out of confidence of life he punished with sudden destruction That long liv'd generation had made the world unclean and being polluted by their lives it was purged by their deaths He shorten'd afterwards the lease of life reducing it to an hundred and twenty years that by the diligence of frequent death he might reform the past disorders of long life and prevent them for the future teaching both sexes to amend their lives by giving them death for their next neighbours So beneficiall is death so much profits the certainty of it and as much the incertainty The ignorance of the day of death is in effect the same with the knowledge of it the first makes us watch lest it come upon us unawares and the last though it might name the day to us yet could it not arme us better against it perhaps not so well This incertainty of dying certainly secures us from many errors it makes us prudent provident and not evill Death therefore is a device of the Almighty and a wise instrument of divine policy Zaleucus so highly approved of it that he was about to enact and proclaime a Law for dying had he not found it already published by the edict of Nature And in his Preface to those Laws made for the Locrenses he warns them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To have alwayes before their eyes that time which is to every one the end of life because a hearty repentance for all former injuries seiseth upon all men that thinke of death and an earnest desire or wishing that all their actions in life had been just Wherefore it is expedient that in all our dealings and thoughts death should act a part and be our familiar counsellor ever present with us so shall we be carefull to doe all things virtuously and justly Death then is most necessary to govern mankinde because the memory of it keeps us in awe and conformable to virtue All Commonwealths that follow the method of Nature must approve of this Law of Zaleucus and death in all their consultations should guide their lives Certainly in the Government of the rebellious Generation of Man Death hath been the most awfull Engine of the Deity without this stern he guided them not When man was immortall God saw it necessary to preserve his immortality by death he injoyned the Law of Abstinence to Adam under the penalty of dying which is continued still by the same artifice of death lest iniquities should be immortall wickedness should escape punishment by the patience and submission of his only Son to death he restored dead men to life he conferred upon him all his lost honours renewd and confirmed his old prerogative and together with the salvation of his Soule gave him a sure promise that his body allso should be made Immortal but in all these favours and after full reconciliation he would not remove death but continued it
still and the incertainty as well as the certainty of it This divine devise of death so pleased God and was so necessary for the good of man that though by the merits of his dying Son he changed all the former things blotting out ordinances abolishing Ceremonies opening the gates of Heaven to all believers yet would not he Exterminate death It was out of his mercy that he refused to abrogate it that while corruption reigned death also might reign over it lest this poyson should want its Antidote We have therefore no just cause to complain of death which is an Invention conducing to our great good and the incertainty of the time though it most vexeth us is notwithstanding the most beneficial Circumstance that attends it The time of life is certainly known there is but one entrance to the light of this World The Ceremony of dying is not formal It keeps not to one time nor one manner but admits of all times and many manners Life comes into the World but one way but hath many waies to go out It was the benevolence of God to open so many doors to those that flye for refuge One way is more then enough to find out dangers but to escape them many are but necessary Death is not a burthen of seaven or nine monthes but life must have time before it sets forth And what are the first encounters of it Tears â—nd Bonds It cannot avoyd Evills and it is afeared to bear them therefore it delaies time and when it cannot lurk any longer it comes forth Crying Death leads us forth to joy and liberty Therefore it stayes not it seeks no corners nor protractions Nor doth death free us onely from suffering Evills but keeps us also from doing any To be good every day thou mâ—st dye dayly The incertainty also of the time of death and the manner of it like a busie Monitour warnes thee to do good and to be good at all times and in every place private or publick And the inevitablenâ—sse of it takes away all Excuse or pretensions for thy impreparation The Glory of death is also much augmented by its facility in redressing the difficulties of life It is not without the Divine counsel and a speciall priviledge that the Soule of man is so easily parted from the body the life of beasts is more tenacious and will suffer much indignitie and fury before it leaves them There is nâ— living creature more fraile none more weak then man the lightest strâ—ake fells him the Soul is very nice and will quickly cast off the body if it persists but in the least Indisposition A single hair killed Fabius and a Grape Anacreon these contemptible instruments destroy'd them as effectually as the thunderbolt did Esculapius Coma dyed as easily as he could wish and Baptist a Mirandulus as he could think His Soule quitted his body without any grudging without a disease without poyson without violence or any fatall mischance No door can keep death out it defeats life with its own weapons and kills us with the very Cordials and comforts of it Perhapâ— no kind of death is more violent then thâ—â— which sets upon us with the forces oâ— lâ—â—e because it kills when life is most vigorous and pleasant Their owne wishes have destroyed many And life hath oftentimes perished by her own contrivements Clidemus was killed with honour Diagoras with joy Plato with rest and Philemon with laughter This last is both a merry and a frequent destroyer and freed Sicily from one Tyrant Death also makes use sometimes of our very virtues to exanimate us Shame killed Diodorus and the Mother of Secundus the Philosopher dyed with blushing and an excessive modestie Life is a fraile possession it is a flower that requires not rude and high winds but will fall in the very whispers and blandishments of fair weather It is folly to labour to retain that which wil away to fly from that which will meet us every where yea in the way we fly is a vain and foolish industry Whither we seek death or avoyd it it will find us out Our way to fly and our very flight end both in death by hasting from it we make hast to it Life is a journey whose end cannot be mist it is a steady ayming at dissolution Though we fetch wide Compasses and traverse our way never so often we can neither lengthen it nor be out of it What path soever we take it is the Port-roade to death Though youth and age are two distant Tropicks of life yet death is as near to the one as to the other And though some live more and some lesse yet death is their equal neighbour and will visit the young as soon as the old Death is a Crosse to which many waies leade some direct and others winding but all meet in one Center It matters not which thou takest nor whither thou art young or aged But if thou beest young thou maist come sooner thither then the old who is both doting and weary It was necessary that a Sanctuary being provided for the distressed the way to it should be easie pervious and at an indifferent distance from all parts Good should be diffusive and the gate that leads to it must be without doors and bolts The entrance into this life is narrow and difficult it is difficultly attained difficultly retained and lyes alwaies in the power of another Every man may take life from us none can take death Life is subject to the Tyranny of men but death is not life makes Tyrants and death unmakes them Death is the slaves prerogative â—oyall and the Sabbath of the afflicted Leo Iconomachus the Emperor made the birth of both sexes tributary but death never paid taxation It was not lawfull in his reigne to get Children without paying for them every Infant so soon as borne was to give him contribution they paid then the Excise of life Death onely frees us from these Impositions of Tyrants And wilt thou then condemn liberty and that maturity of death by which it ripens every age wilt thou the divine liberality blame because thy life is short or may be so thou hast no reason to find fault with the years already given thee because thou shalt not have more thou mayst as well quarrel with Nature because she made not thy dimensions larger and thy body heavier by eighty or a hundred pounds he that measured thy proportion measured thy time too and too much of this last would have been as troublesome and unweildy as too much of the first for Long life opprest with many woes Meets more the further still it goes Death in every age is seasonable beneficial and desirable It frees the old man from misery the youthfull from sin and the infant from both It takes the aged in the fullnesse of their time It turnes the flowers of youth into fruit and by a compendious secret improvement matures infancy leading it into the Gate of Heaven
stage if we stay any long time in it and pay not the debt we owe death requires interest she takes his hearing from one his sight from another and from some she takes both The extent and end of all things touch their beginning neither doth the last minute of life do any thing else but finish what the first began We may know also what death is by the apparition or Image of it We see it and make tryal of it assiduously we cannot act life one day but wee must act death at night Life is a Terrace-walke with an Arbour at one end where we repose and dream over our past perambulations This lesser rest shewes us the greater the Soule watcheth when wee sleepe and Conscience in the Just as well as the unjust will be ruminating on the works of life when the body is turned into dust Sleepe is nothing else but death painted in a night-peece it is a prelibation of that deepe slumber out of which we shall not be awaked untill the Heavens be no more We go to bed under a Scene of Stars and darknesse but when we awake we find Heaven changed and one great luminary giving light to all We dye in the state of corruption errours and mistinesse But wee shall be raised in glory and perfection when these clouds of blacknesse that are carried about with diverse winds and every Enemy of truth shall vanish for ever and God alone shall be all in all We affect sleepe naturally it is the reparation of man a laying by of cares The Coppy cannot match the pattern if we love sleep then why should wee hate the Idaea of it why should we feare death whose shadow refresheth us which nature never made nor meant to fright us with It was her intention to strengthen our hope of dying by giving us the fruition of this resemblance of death lest we should grow impatient with delay she favour'd us with this shadow and Image of it as Ladies comfort themselves with the pictures of their absent lovers There is no part of life without some portion of death as dreames cannot happen without sleepe so life cannot be without death As sleepe is said to be the shadow of death So I think dreams to be the shadowes of life for nothing deceives us more frequent then it When we shal be raised from death we shal not grieve so much because the joys of life were not real as because there were none at all It was said by one that he had rather dream of being tormented in Hell then glorified in Paradise for being awaked he should rejoyce to find himselfe in a soft featherbed and not in a lake of unquenchable fire But having dreamt of Heaven it would grieve him that it was not reall Paracelsus writes that the watching of the body is the sleep of the Soul and that the day was made for Corporeall Actions but the night is the working-time of Spirits Contrary natures run contrary courses Bodies having no inherent light of their own make use of this outward light but Spirits need it not Sun-beams cannot stumble nor go out of their way Death frees them from this dark Lantern of flesh Heraclitus used to say that men were both dead and alive both when they dyed and when they lived when they lived their Soules were dead and when they dyed their Soules revived Life then is the death of the Soule and the life of the body But death is the life of the Soule and the death of the body I shall return now to prosecute the Commendations of death because it comes but once Death like the Phoenix is onely one lest any should be ill That which comes but once is with most longing looked for and with most welcome entertained That poor man the owner of one Ewe nourished her in his bosome she did eate of his meat and drank out of his Cup as Nathan exemplified The Father that hath but one Son hath more cares then he that hath many so should we be more carefull to provide for death which comes but once then for the numerous and daily calamities of life By providing for that one wee turne the rest all into so many joyes Whatsoever is rare whatsoever is pretious it is single and but one There is nothing so rare nothing that is comparable to a good death But it is not the universality or diffusivenesse of it that makes it so but the contempt and the subduing of it hâ—s death is most pretious by whom death is contemned Dissolution is not a meere merit but a debt we owe to nature which the most unwilling must pay That wisedome which can make destiny to be her servant which can turne necessity into virtue Mortality into Immortality and the debt we owe to nature into a just right and Title to eternall glory is very great What greater advantage can there be then to make Heaven due to us by being indebted to nature and to oblige Divinity by paying a temporal debt Clemens called them Golden men who dyed thus that is to say when it was necessary to dye They made necessity their free will when either the publick liberty the prerogative of reason or the word of God called for their sufferings For though death be a debt due to Nature yet in these causes Nature doth willingly resigne her right and God becomes the Creditor If we pay it unto him before the time of pure resolution Nature is better pleased with that anticipation then if we kept our set day He is the best debtour that paies before the time of payment The day of payment by the Covenant of Nature is old age but the good man paies before the day If the noblenesse of thy mind will not incite thee to such a forward satisfaction let the desire of gaine move thee for the sooner thou payest the more thou dost oblige Hee that suffers an immature death for the good of his Country for the sacred lawes or the vindication of the truth of God and not for his owne vain glory doth free himselfe from the Natural debt and doth at the same time make God his debtour and all mankind To a man that dyes thus all men are indebted God owes him for the Cause and men for the effect The last doth at least set us an example and the first improves the faith and gives life to Charity Adde to this that this great good of a passive death is a voluntary imitation of the Son of God who laid down his life for the life of the World And it is also done without our industry this great virtue this glorious perfection requires not our care and activity to bring it about This death is most pretious and the best because it is executed by others and not by ourselves To suffer death not to dye is glorious If prisoners break their chaines it is neither their glory nor their security but augments their Guilt and hastens their condemnation So