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they named all sorts of persons in their prayers, all I mean but wicked persons, all but them that lived evil lives; they named apostles, saints, and martyrs. And all this is so nothing to their purpose, or so much against it, that the prayers for the dead used in the Church of Rome are most plainly condemned, because they are against the doctrine and practices of all the world, in other forms, to other purposes, relying upon distinct doctrines, until new opinions began to arise about St. Augustine's time, and changed the face of the proposition. Concerning prayer for the dead, the Church hath received no commandment from the Lord: and therefore concerning it we can have no rules nor proportions, but from those imperfect revelations of the state of departed souls, and the measures of charity, which can relate only to the imperfection of their present condition, and the terrors of the day of judgment: but to think that any suppletory to an evil life can be taken from such devotions after the sinners are dead, may encourage a bad man to sin, but cannot relieve him when he hath.

But of all things in the world methinks men should be most careful not to abuse dying people; not only because their condition is pitiable, but because they shall soon be discovered; and in the secret regions of souls, there shall be an evil report concerning those men who have deceived them: and if we believe we shall go to that place, where such reports are made, we may fear the shame and the amazement of being accounted impostors in the presence of angels, and all the wise holy men of the world. To be erring and innocent is hugely pitiable, and incident to mortality; that we cannot help: but to deceive or to destroy so great an interest as is that of a soul, or to lessen its advantages, by giving it trifling and false confidences, is injurious and intolerable. And therefore it were very well, if all the churches of the world would be extremely curious concerning their offices and ministries of the Visitation of the Sick: that

their ministers they send be holy and prudent; that their instructions be severe and safe; that their sentences be merciful and reasonable; that their offices be sufficient and devout; that their attendances be frequent and long; that their deputations be special and peculiar; that the doctrines upon which they ground their offices be true, material, and holy; that their ceremonies be few, and their advices wary; that their separation be full of caution, their judgments not remiss, their remissions not loose and dissolute; and that all the whole ministration be made by persons of experience and charity. For it is a sad thing to see our dead go out of our hands: they live incuriously and die without regard; and the last scene of their life, which should be dressed with all spiritual advantages, is abused by flattery and easy propositions, and let go with carelessness and folly.

In

My Lord, I have endeavoured to cure some part of the evil as well as I could, being willing to relieve the needs of indigent people in such ways as I can; and therefore have described the duties which every sick man may do alone, and such in which he can be assisted by the minister: and am the more confident that these my endeavours will be the better entertained, because they are the first entire body of directions for sick and dying people, that I remember to have been published in the Church of England. the Church of Rome there have been many; but they are dressed with such doctrines which are sometimes useless, sometimes hurtful, and their whole design of assistance which they commonly yield, is at the best imperfect, and the representment is too careless and loose for so severe an employment. So that in this affair I was almost forced to walk alone; only that I drew the rules and advices from the fountains of scripture, and the purest channels of the primitive church, and was helped by some experience in the cure of souls. I shall measure the success of my labours, not by popular noises or the sentences of

curious persons, but by the advantage which good people may receive. My work here is not to please the speculative part of men, but to minister to practice, to preach to the weary, to comfort the sick, to assist the penitent, to reprove the confident, to strengthen weak hands and feeble knees, having scarce any other possibilities left me of doing alms, or exercising that charity, by which we shall be judged at doomsday. It is enough for me to be an under-builder in the house of God, and I glory in the employment, I labour in the foundations; and therefore the work needs no apology for being plain, so it be strong and well laid. But, my Lord, as mean as it is, I must give God thanks for the desires and the strength; and, next to him, to you, for that opportunity and little portion of leisure which I had to do it in: for I must acknowledge it publicly, (and besides my prayers, it is all the recompence I can make you) my being quiet I owe to your interest, much of my support to your bounty, and many other collateral comforts I derive from your favour and nobleMy Lord, because I much honour you, and because I would do honour to myself, I have written your name in the entrance of my book: I am sure you will entertain it, because the design related to your dear Lady, and because it may minister to your spirit in the day of visitation, when God shall call for you to receive your reward for your charity and your noble piety, by which you have not only endeared very many persons, but in great degrees have obliged me to be,

ness.

My Noblest Lord,

Your Lordship's most thankful

and most humble Servant,

JER. TAYLOR.

OF

HOLY DYING.

CHAPTER I.

A GENERAL PREPARATION TOWARDS A HOLY AND BLESSED DEATH, BY WAY OF CONSIDERATION.

SECTION I.

Consideration of the vanity and shortness of Man's Life.

A MAN is a bubble (said the Greek proverb), which Lucian represents with advantages and its proper circumstances, to this purpose, saying; All the world is a storm, and men rise up in their several generations like bubbles descending from the dew of heaven : and some of these instantly sink into the deluge of their first parent, and are hidden in a sheet of water, having had no other business in the world, but to be born, that they might be able to die : others float up and down two or three turns, and suddenly disappear, and give their place to others: and they that live longest upon the face of the waters are in perpetual motion, restless and uneasy, and being crushed with a great drop of a cloud sink into flatness and a froth; the change not being great, it being hardly possible it should be more a nothing than it was before. So is every man: he is born in vanity and sin; he comes into the world like morning mushb

rooms, soon thrusting up their heads into the air, and conversing with their kindred of the same production, and as soon they turn into dust and forgetfulness: some of them without any other interest in the affairs of the world, but that they made their parents a little glad, and very sorrowful: others ride longer in the storm; it may be until seven years of vanity be expired, and then peradventure the sun shines hot upon their heads, and they fall into the shades below, into the cover of death and darkness of the grave to hide them. But if the bubble stands the shock of a bigger drop, and outlives the chances of a child, of a careless nurse, of drowning in a pail of water, of being overlaid by a sleepy servant, or such little accidents, then the young man dances like a bubble empty and gay, and shines like a dove's neck, or the image of a rainbow, which hath no substance, and whose very imagery and colours are fantastical; and so he dances out the gaiety of his youth, and is all the while in a storm, and endures, only because he is not knocked on the head by a drop of bigger rain, or crushed by the pressure of a load of indigested meat, or quenched by the disorder of an ill-placed humour: and to preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities is as great a miracle as to create him; to preserve him from rushing into nothing, and at first to draw him up from nothing, were equally the issues of an Almighty power. And therefore the wise men of the world have contended, who shall best fit man's condition with words signifying his vanity and short abode.

And because this consideration is of great usefulness and great necessity to many purposes of wisdom and the Spirit; all the succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the world, and every contingency to every man, and to every creature, doth preach our funeral sermon, and

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