that concerning every one of us, it fhall be told in the Neighbourhood, that we are dead. This we are apt to think a fad Story; but therefore let us help it with a fadder. For we therefore need not be much troubled that we fhall die; because we are not here in ease, nor do we dwell in a fair Condition, but our Days are full of Sorrow and Anguifh, difhonoured and made unhappy with many Sins, with a frail and a foolish Spirit, entangled with difficult Cafes of Confcience, enfnared with Paffions, amazed with Fears, full of Cares, divided with Curiofities and contradictory Interefts, made airy and impertinent with Vanities, a bufed with Ignorance and prodigious Errors, made ridiculous with a thoufand Weakneffes, worn away with Labours, loaden with Difeafes, daily vexed with Dangers and Temptations, and in love with Mifery; we are weaken'd with Delights, afflicted with Want, with the Evils of my felf, and of all my Family, and with the Sadneffes of all my Friends, and of all good Men, even of the whole Church; and therefore methinks we need not be troubled, that God is pleas'd to put an end to all thefe Troubles, and to let them fit down in a natural Period, which, if we please, may be to us the beginning of a better Life. When the Prince of Perfia wept because his Army fhould all die in the Revolution of an Age, Artabanus told him, that they should all meet with Evils fo many, and fo great, that every Man of them fhould with himself dead long before that. Indeed, it were a fad thing to be cut of the Stone, and we that are in Health tremble to think of it; but the Man that is wearied with the Disease, looks upon that fharpnefs as upon his Cure and Remedy: And as none need to have a Tooth drawn, fo none could well endure it, but he that hath felt the Pain of it in his Head. So is our Life fo full of Evils, that therefore Death is no Evil to them that have felt the fmart of this, or hope for the Joys of a better. 2. But as it helps to eafe a certain Sorrow, as a Fire draws out Fire, and a Nail drives forth a Nail; fo it instructs us in a prefent Duty, that is, that we fhou'd not be be fo fond of a perpetual Storm, nor doat upon the tranfient Gauds and gilded Thorns of this World. They are not worth a Paffion, nor worth a Sigh or a Groan, not of the Price of one Night's watching: And therefore they are mistaken and miferable Perfons, who, fince Adam planted Thorns round about Paradife, are more in love with the Hedge than with the Fruits of the Garden, fottish Admirers of Things that hurt them, of fweet Poifons, gilded Daggers, and filken Halters. Tell them they have loff a bounteous Friend, a rich Purchase, a fair Farm, a wealthy Donative, and you diffolve their Patience; it is an Evil bigger than their Spirit can bear; it brings Sickness and Death, they can neither eat nor fleep with such a Sorrow. But if you reprefent to them the Evils of a vicious Habit, and the Dangers of a State of Sin; if you tell them they have difpleafed God, and interrupted their Hopes of Heaven; it may be they will be fo civil as to hear it patiently, and to treat you kindly, and firft to commend, and then forget your Story; because they prefer this World, with all its Sorrows, before the pure unmingled Felicities of Heaven. But it is ftrange that any Man fhou'd be fo paffionately in love with the Thorns which grow on his own Ground, that he fhou'd wear them for Amulets, and knit them in his Shirt, and prefer them before a Kingdom and Immortality. No Man loves this World the better for his being poor; but Men that love it because they have great Poffeffions, love it becaufe it is troublesome and chargeable, full of Noife and Femptation, because it is unfafe and ungoverned, flatter'd and abus'd: And he that confiders the troubles of an over long Garment, and of a cramm'd Stomach, a trailing Gown and a loa den Table, may juftly understand that all that for which Men are fo paffionate is their hurt, and their objection, that which a temperate Man wou'd avoid, and a will Man cannot love. He that is no Fool, but can confider wifely, if he be in love with this World, we need not defpair but that a witty Man might reconcile him with Tortures, and make him think charitably of the Rack, and be D 2 brought brought to dwell with Vipers and Dragons, and entertain his Guests with the fhrieks of Mandrakes, Cats and Scriech-owls, with the filing of Iron, and the harshness of rending of Silk, or to admire the Harmony that is made by an Herd of Evening Wolves, when they miss their draught of Blood in their Midnight Revels. The Groans of a Man in a Fit of the Stone are worse than all thefe; and the Distractions of a troubled Confcience are worse than those Groans and yet a careless merry Sinner is worse than all that. But if we cou'd from one of the Battlements of Heaven efpy how many Men and Women at this Time lie fainting and dying for want of Bread, how many young Men are hewn down by the Sword of War, how many poor Orphans are now weeping over the Graves of their Father, by whofe Life they were enabled to eat; if we could but hear how many Mariners and Paffengers are at this prefent in a Storm, and fhriek out because their Keel dashes against a Rock, or bulges under them, how many People there are that weep with Want, and are mad with Oppreffion, or are desperate by too quick a Senfe of a conftant Infelicity; in all reason we fhou'd be glad to be out of the Noife and Participation of fo many Evils. This is a Place of Sorrows and Tears, of great Evils and a conftant Calamity: Let us remove from hence, at least in affections and preparation of Mind. СНАР. CHA P. II. A General Preparation towards an Holy and 37 SECT. I. Three Precepts preparatory to an Holy Death, to be practifed in our whole Life. I. culum. Si fapis, utaris totis. Coline, diebus ; Martial. E that would die well, must always look for Propera viDeath, every Day knocking at the Gates of vere, & finthe Grave, and then the Gates of the gulos dies fingulas viGrave fhall never prevail upon him to do him tas puta. Mifchief. This was the Advice of all the wife and Nihil integood Men of the World, who, especially in the Days reft inter and Periods of their Joy and Feftival Egreffions, chofe diem & feto throw fome Afhes into their Chalices, fome fober Remembrances of their fatal Period. Such was the black Shirt of Saladine; the Tombstone prefented to the Emperor of Conftantinople on his Coronation day; the Bishop of Rome's two Reeds. with Flax and a Wax-taper; the Egyptian Skeleton ferv'd up at Feafts; and Trimalcion's Banquet in Petronius, in which was brought in the Image of a dead Man's Bones of Silver, with Spondyls exactly turning to every of the Guests, and faying to every one, that you and you must die, and look not one upon another; for every one is equally concerned in this fad Reprefentment. These in fantastick Semblances declare a fevere Counsel, and ufeful Meditation: And it is not eafy for a Man to be gay in his Imagination, or to be drunk Heu, heu, nos miferos! quam totus ho- Sic erimus cuncti poftquam nos auferet Orcus, D 3 drunk with Joy or Wine, Pride or Revenge, who confiders fadly that he mutt e're long dwell in a House of Darkness and Difhonour, and his Body must be the Inheritance of Worms, and his Soul muft be what he pleases, even as a Man makes it here by his living good or bad. I have read of a young Eremite, who, being paffionately in Love with a young Lady, could not, by all the Arts of Religion and Mortification, fupprefs the Trouble of that Fancy: Till at laft being told that fhe was dead, and had been buried about Fourteen Days, he went fecretly to her Vault, and with the Skirt of his Mantle wiped the Moisture from the Carcafs, and still, at the return of his Temptation, laid it before him, faying, Behold, this is the Beauty of the Woman thou didst so much defire: And fo the Man found his Cure. And if we make Death as prefent to us, our own. Death, dwelling and drefs'd in all its Pomp of Fancy, and proper Circumftances; if any thing will quench the heats of Luft, or the defires of Money, or the greedy paffionate Affections of this World, this muft do it. But withal, the frequent Ufe of this Meditation, by curing our prefent Inordinations, will make Death fafe and friendly; and, by its very Cuftom, will make that the King of Terrors fhall come to us without his affrighting Dreffes; and that we fhall fit down in the Grave, as we compofe our felves to fleep, and -Certè populi quos defpicit Arctos In ferrum mens prona viris, animæque capaces Qui quotidevitæ fuæ anum in do the Duties of Nature and Choice. The Old People that lived near the Riphaan Mountains, were taught to converfe with Death, and to handle it on all Sides, and to difcourfe of it as of a thing that will certainly come, and ought fo to do. Thence their Minds and Refolutions became capable of Death, and they thought it a difhonourable thing with Greedinefs to keep a Life that must go from us, to lay afide its Thorns, and to return again circled with a Glory and a Diadem. 2. He that wou'd die well, must all the Days of his Life lay up against the Day of Death: Not only by the general |