Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A66253
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Preparation for death being a letter sent to a young gentlewoman in France, in a dangerous distemper of which she died.
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Wake, William, 1657-1737.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing W253; ESTC R5512
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22,586
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170
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removed and there shall be no more any death nor sorrow nor crying nor pain We have a full account of this Heb. 12. A place so satisfactory that I will transcribe only one passage to engage you to recur your self to the rest My son despise not thou the chastning of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth he chastneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth But Fourthly 6. Let us look into the Ages that have gone before us LET us consult our own experience in the present we shall find the observation of our Apostle ever to have been verified that the best men generally fall under the severest pressures Our Saviour Christ was our forerunner in this trial as well as in the reward that accompanies it He began as we ought to follow after and for the joy which was set before him endured the cross despising the shame Which of his holy Apostles escaped this trial What numbers of the Primitive Saints were under the perpetual persecution of the most malicious enemies that Hell could raise against them for many hundred Years They were stoned they were sawn as under were slain with the sword they wandred up and down in sheeps skins and Goats skins being destitute afflicted tormented and yet were these the Men of whom the world was not worthy whom we ought with comfort to look up unto and run with patience the race that is set before us 7. THESE considerations though I have as I ought proposed in general terms yet I am sure Madam you will not fail by a particular application to bring them home to your own concerns and for your easier performance I will go on if you please to make yet a reflection or two that may fortifie you in it 8. IN enquiring into the goods that you have lost or the evils you either fear or suffer I shall not trouble you with an Enumeration of that which I know you despise the flatteries the courtship the other vanities of the World The very loss of these is a happiness almost equal to what you undergo for it And though that Beauty which yet others I perswade my self valued too more highly than your self was a Blessing which you owed much to Heaven for yet the additional ornaments you have hereby the opportunity of making to your Soul will in the end give you a more solid satisfaction and as much chain to you the affections of the good and wise as the other attracted the eyes of the rest 9. FOR your present distemper it is God be thanked neither so troublesome for the present as to take you off from all satisfaction nor I am willing to perswade my self shall it prove so dangerous in its consequence as to deprive you of all hope of seeing your self again in your former health only disciplined and instructed not utterly cut off by sickness 10. HOWEVER let us suppose now as well as fear the worst Is there any thing particular in dying young Do not thousands every day do it And have you known none in health and vigour who have pitied your condition and behold they are themselves gone before you even since you fell into this Distemper And what is the harm then of this that you have fairer warning than others who are unexpectedly cut off and so have a better opportunity as well as greater engagements to cultivate your Soul and provide for your latter end To dye is no pain to leave this World is only to get quit of a troublesome place where you could never find any ease or quiet any solid satisfaction and comfort To go to Heaven is to be transferr'd to that Kingdom you have ever long'd for to enjoy all the glories of eternity to become company for Saints and Angels and behold the Blessed presence of God in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore 11. THE truth is the greatest part of your misfortune is founded on the opinion of the World we fools esteem these things evils and this makes others believe they really are so But the good Christian who considers them only as necessary passages to a glorious immortality that through this dark scene of fansied horror sees a Crown and a Throne and everlasting blessings prepared for him joyfully receives his Summons as he has long impatiently expected it goes off out of the World as contentedly as the Actor when the Play is ended leaves the Stage His only concern is whilst he appears upon it so to demean himself that he may have a Plaudite at last and then 't is all one whether his part ended in the Third Act or continues on to the very last Scene 12. SUCH Madam are your Obligations to this first Duty and the performance of them will especially engage you to these three things 1. Never despair either of Gods blessings here or of his reward hereafter but go on as you have begun fulfil your duty as he has commanded embrace his promises with Faith and assurance and for the rest leave it in his hands as in the hands of a most merciful Saviour who himself became Man and suffer'd Death upon the Cross for our sakes and by that stupendious act of Mercy has taught us ever to rely in all things upon his Goodness 2. Murmur not at your sickness for thereby you will sin against God's Providence and Government but submit with peace to what you suffer and pray for your deliverance I do not say you should affect a rude insensibility Sighs and Groans and mournful expressions this is the sick Mans proper language David roared for the disquietness of his soul our blessed Lord himself in his last and sharpest pang of sorrow cryed out with a loud voice before he gave up the ghost There is nothing in this but what is innocent and though too much of it may betray your weakness yet whilst you keep still a resignation to God's disposal it cannot be imputed to you for any sin 3. TAKE heed of that which is the general fault of sick persons and which a long disorder almost unavoidably brings with it and that is Peevishness This will but render you uneasie to your self and to those about you it troubles your repose without doing you any good and is equally to be avoided both for the folly and for the sin 13. I SHALL close this reflection with one necessary remark which I desire you to apply to all the following That in speaking thus to you I am so far from charging you as guilty in this matter that I can sincerely say I believe the exhortation wholly needless only it was my duty in so important a concern to omit nothing that might any way be thought necessary and it will be your satisfaction to see how far you are advanced in your duty and your engagement to pursue that very little which you may perhaps find to
Preparation FOR DEATH Being A Letter sent to a Young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which She died Numb xxiii 10. Let me die the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1687. Advertisement COuld either my desires or endeavours have prevailed for the suppressing of the following Letter it had been buried in the same Grave with her to whom it was address'd But being fallen into the Hands of her Relations after her Death many Copies were dispersed before my return into England and thereby a necessity put upon me either to publish it my self or to have the dissatisfaction of seeing others do it for me This being the true account of the Edition of this short Treatise I shall need the less Apology if there seem nothing in it for which it should be exposed to a publick view It was writ as a private Letter to a person of more Piety than Curiosity and without any prospect nay I may add more upon an assurance that it should never come to any ones sight but her own And therefore it ought not to be wonder'd if it appear with all the plainness and freedom which an Epistolary Stile and Character required For the rest as I can sincerely profess that it was no principle of vanity that led me first to write it so much less does any such Motive induce me now to publish it It was to serve a greater and better end I both then did and now do design it And if those who shall hereafter peruse it do it but with the same piety that she did for whom it was composed I am perswaded neither they nor I shall have any cause to repent us of our Labour Paris April 25. S. N. 1684. Madam THE Address I here make you how meanly soever I have performed it is yet so suitable to your circumstances and so well befits my character that I make no doubt but you will accept it with the same charity that I have designed it And therefore instead of making Apologies for my undertaking I will rather send it to you with my hearty Prayers that those few directions I have here put together may be as truly useful to you as I do assure you they were really by me intended for your service You are not Madam to expect in this short draught any thing but what you have often already heard and I perswade my self have long practised Religion is none of those things that change with the Fashion and accommodate themselves to the mode And though we have of late met with some who have endeavoured upon the foundations of Christianity to erect a new Scheme of Court-Divinity by making the way to Heaven both broader and smoother than it is yet both the projectors and those that follow them will sadly find themselves mistaken in the end when the one shall perish for betraying their Master and the others be condemn'd for not rejecting their Innovations But Madam if you find nothing new in the matter I am sure much less will you have any thing in the Stile and Method but what is plain and easie In such discourses as these he seems to me to speak most properly that expresses himself most clearly Some things indeed I should have added others have changed and have dress'd the whole with greater care but I had little time and much other business which I am sure you know to be more than pretence The rules yet I am confident are sound and useful and may as they are serve your devotion But if your abundance of better helps frustrate that design yet at least you will be pleased to esteem it an undoubted testimony of that sincerity with which I am Madam Your most humble and most obedient Servant W. W. INTRODUCTION THERE is nothing hath proved more fatal to that due Preparation we ought to make for another life than our unhappy mistake of the nature of this We are brought into the World Children Ignorant and Impotent we grow up in vanity and folly and when we come to be Men we are but very little more prudent and more considerate The whole of our Reflections terminates in this what course we are to take to pass our time some to get others to spend their Estates and when Interest or Inclination Friends or Fortune have determined the choice we are then entred in and our remaining business is to pursue this end to the best advantage for our present ease and our future establishment Thus are our thoughts and our desires wholly tied to this World we vainly project a settlement in it nor look we any farther than the little Interests and Employments thereof engage us 2. I AM sure Madam I need not say much to convince you who have had so many opportunities to settle this Reflection upon your own Experience and who I am perswaded have so profitably employ'd them that this is the just character of the far greater part of Mankind And for the unhappy influence of it to the Decay of Christianity I think it is not to be doubted that 't is the tying of our affections so much to this World that above any thing indisposes us to think of another Whilest we set up our Hopes and our Establishment here we either altogether forget or at least do not so vigorously consider That God has provided another and better place for us whither we shall in a very little time be transferred by him and for which therefore the great affair of our whole lives now should be to provide 3. IS IT possible to be imagined that we should see such numbers engage their lives and Labours some to heap together A little dirt that shall bury them in the end Others to gain an Honour that at best can be celebrated but by an inconsiderable part of the World and is envied and calumniated by more than 't is truly given Most to pursue the pleasures as they call them of their Natures which begin in sin are carried on with Danger and end in bitterness and scarce one that troubles himself about the Blessings of Heaven or at least lives as if he did so would Men seriously perswade themselves that they have here no abiding place no City to dwell in but are only in their passage to the heavenly Jerusalem their City which is above where alone true happiness is to be found and upon which therefore their thoughts and their endeavours ought chiefly to be employed 4. CAN we behold the vices and debaucheries of many the carelessness and irreligion of almost all and believe that the Christian World is seriously convinced of those great truths their Religion teaches them of A future life and A vast Eternity of rewards and punishments according as we observe or neglect the Duties it commands in This 5. How shall we believe that those Men are perswaded of the true business of this