"or evil, the men that are alive seldom trouble "themselves concerning the interest of the "dead.

"But seas alone do not break our vessel in "pieces: every where we may be shipwrecked. "And all this is the law and constitution of “nature, it is a punishment to our sins, the "unalterable event of Providence, and the de"cree of heaven. The chains that confine us

с

• Dryden has admirably expressed this sentiment in his Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Ann Killigrew.

Meanwhile her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return, with vain devotion, pays.
Ah, generous youth! that wish forbear,
The winds too soon will waft thee here:
Slack all thy sails, and fear to come,

Alas! thou know'st not thou art wreck'd at home!
No more shalt thou behold thy sister's face,

Thou hast already had her last embrace.

L. 165-173.

The same idea is in his Annus Mirabilis, 1. 129, &c. The son who, twice three months on th' ocean tost, Prepared to tell what he had done before,

His parents' arms in vain stretch'd from the shore.
This careful husband had been long away
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn,
Who on their fingers learn to tell the day,
On which their father promised to return.
Such are the proud designs of human kind;
And so we suffer shipwreck ev'ry where.

"to this condition are strong as destiny, and "immutable as the eternal laws of God.

"I have conversed with some men who re

joiced in the death or calamity of others, "and accounted it a judgment upon them for

being on the other side, and against them in "the contention; but within the revolution of "a few months the same man met with a "more uneasy and unhandsome death; which "when I saw, I wept, and was afraid; for "I knew that it must be so with all men, "for we also shall die, and end our quar"rels and contentions by passing to a final "sentence.” d

With equal force and increased beauty he takes an account of life. "We must not think," he says, "that the life of a man begins when he can feed himself or walk "alone; for so he is contemporary with a "camel or a cow; but he is first a man, when "he comes to a certain steady use of reason, "according to his proportion; and when that

is, all the world of men cannot tell pre"cisely. Some are called at age at fourteen,

d Holy Dying, sect. 1.

"some at one-and-twenty, some never; but "all men late enough, for the life of a man "comes upon him slowly and insensibly. But "as when the sun approaching towards the gates of the morning, he first opens a little

66

46

eye of heaven, and sends away the spi"rits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, " and calls up the lark to mattins, and by and "by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps "over the eastern hills, thrusting out his

66

golden horns, like those which decked the "brows of Moses when he was forced to wear "a veil, because himself had seen the face of "God; and still while a man tells the story, "the sun gets up higher, till he shews a fair "face and a full light, and then he shines

one whole day, under a cloud often, and "sometimes weeping great and little showers, "and sets quickly: so is a man's reason and "his life."

Such is his style of writing in this admirable Treatise. -He divides the subject into five chapters, beginning with a general preparation towards a holy and blessed death, by way of consideration. Under this head he first enters

e • Holy Dying, sect. 3.

upon the vanity and shortness of man's life, and then reduces his reflections to practice. These are followed by rules and spiritual arts of lengthening our days and arguments to take off the objection of a short life; and lastly, he dwells upon human miseries.

The second chapter gives a general preparation towards a holy and blessed death, by way of exercise; lays down three precepts preparatory to this awful event to be practised in our whole life; and insists upon daily examination of our actions whilst in health. exercise of charity occupies the next section: and the chapter closes with general considerations to enforce the former practices.

The

The third chapter treats of the temptations incident to the state of sickness with their proper remedies of the state of sickness itself, of impatience, of the constituent or integral parts of patience, of remedies against impatience, both by way of consideration and of exercise, of the advantages of sickness, of remedies against the fear of death, by way both of consideration and exercise, and of general rules and exercises by which our sickness may may become safe and sanctified.

The fourth chapter shews the practice of the graces proper to the state of sickness which a man may perform alone of patience and its several acts, and the same of faith and repentance; and, after giving an Analysis of the Decalogue, enforces the practice of charity and justice.

The various benefits arising from visiting the sick follow in the last chapter, with the several offices applicable to the occasion; and the subject concludes with a peroration concerning the contingencies, and treatment of our departed friends after death, in order to their will and burial.

Taylor's habits were as industrious as his mind was strong. Though occupied as we have seen in the laborious employment of education, yet in the same year with "the "Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying," he brought out the Sermons already mentioned. They are twenty-seven in number, with the addition of the Sermon preached at Lady Carbery's funeral and the Discourse of the

London, printed by R. N. for Richard Royston, at the Angel in Ivie Lane, 1651. Together with these sermons was published "A Discourse of the Divine Institu"tution, Necessity, Sacredness and Separation of the