Nilu.

to the roof of his Coffin; the Nofe cold and undifcerning, not pleased with perfumes, nor fuffering violence with a cloud of unwholfome fmoak; the Eyes dim as a fullied mirrour, or the face of Heaven when God fhews his anger in a prodigious ftorm; the Feet cold, $. Befil, the Hands ftiff; the Physicians defpairing, our Friends weeping, the rooms dreffed with darkness and forrow; and the exteriour parts betraying what are the violences which the Soul and Spirit fuffer: the nobler part, like the Lord of the Houfe, being affaulted by exteriour rudeneffes, and driven from all the outworks, at laft faint and weary with fhort and frequent breathings, interrupted with the longer accents of fighs, without moisture,but the excrefcencies of a spilt humour, when the pitcher is broken at the ciftern, it retires to its laft fort, the heart, whither it is purfued, and ftormed and beaten out, as when the barbarous Thracian facked the glory of the Grecian Empire. Then calamity is great, and forrow rules in all the capacities of Man; then the mourners weep, because it is civil, or because they need thee, or because they fear: but who fuffers for thee with a compaffion sharp as is thy pain? Then the Noife is like the faint echo of a diftant valley, and few hear, and they will not regard thee, who feemeft like a perfon void of underftanding, and of a departing intereft. Verè tremendum eft mortis facramentum. But thefe accidents are common to all that die; and when a fpecial providence fhall diftinguish them, they fhall die with eafie circumftances: but as no piety can fecure it, fo must no confidence expect it, but wait for the time, and accept the manner of the diffolution. But that which diftinguishes them is this:

He that hath lived a wicked life, if his Confcience be alarm'd, and that he does not die like a Wolf or a Tyger, without fenfe or remorfe of all his wildness and his injury, his beaftly nature, and defart and untilled manners, if he have but fenfe of what he is going to fuffer, or what he may expect to be his portion; then we may imagine the terrour of their abufed tancies, how they fee affrighting fhapes, and because they

fear

fear them, they feel the gripes of Devils, urging the unwilling Souls from the kinder and faft embraces of the body, calling to the Grave, and hafting to Judgment, exhibiting great Bilis of uncancelled Crimes, awakening and amazeing the Confcience, breaking all their hopes in pieces, and making Faith useless and terrible, because the Malice was great, and the Charity was none at all. Then they look for fome to have s. chryffi pity on them, but there is no man. No man dares be mus. their pledge; No Man can redeem their Soul, which now feels what it never feared. Then the tremblings and the forrow, the meniory of the paft fin, and the fear of future pains, and the fenfe of an angry God, and the presence of fome Devils, confign him to the eternal Company of all the damned and accurfed Spirits. Then they want an Angel for their guide, and Ephrem Syrus, the holy Spirit for their comforter, and a good Confcience for their teftimony, and Chrift for their Advocate, and they die and are left in prifons of Earth or Air, in fecret and undifcerned Regions, to weep and tremble, and infinitely to fear the coming of the Day of Chrift; at which time they shall be brought forth to change their condition into a worse, where they shall for ever feel more than we can believe or underftand.

But when a good man dies, one that hath lived innocently, or made joy in Heaven at his timely and effective Repentance, and in whofe behalf the holy Jefus hath interceeded profperoufly, and for whofe intereft the Spirit makes interpellations with groans and fighs unutterable, and in whofe defence the Angels drive away the Devils on his Death-bed, because his fins are pardoned, and because he refifted the Devil in his lifetime, and fought fuccefsfully, and perfevered unto the end; then the joys break forth through the clouds of Sicknefs, and the Confcience ftands upright, and confeffes the Glory of God, and owns fo much integrity that it can hope for pardon, and obtain it too; Then the forrows of the Sicknefs, and the flames of the Fever, or the faintnefs of the Confumption, do but untie the Soul from its Chain, and let it go forth,

first into liberty, and then to glory. For it is but for a little while that the face of the Sky was black, like the preparations of the Night, but quickly the Cloud was torn and rent, the violence of Thunder parted it into little portions, that the Sun might look forth with a watery eye, and then fhine without a tear. But it is an infinite refreshment to remember all the comforts of his Prayers, the frequent victory over his Temptations, the mortification of his Luft, the nobleft facrifice to God, in which he moft delights, that we have given him our Wills, and killed our appetites for the interefts of his Services: then all the trouble of that is gone, and what remains is a portion in the Inheritance of Jefus, of which he now talks no more as a thing at diftance, but is en5. Martyrius, tring into the poffeffion. When the Veil is rent, and S. Euftratius the Prifon-doors are open at the presence of Gods

Martyr.

Angel, the Soul goes forth full of hope, sometimes with evidence, but always with certainty in the thing and instantly it paffes into the throngs of Spirits, where Angels meet it finging, and the Devils flock with malicious and vile purposes, defiring to lead it away with them into their Houfes of Sorrow: There they fee things which they never faw, and hear voices which they never heard. There the Devils charge them with many fins, and the Angels remember that themfelves_rejoyced when they were repented of. Then the Devils aggravate and defcribe all the circumftances of the fin, and add calumnies; and the S. Chryfofto- Angels bear the Sword forward still, because their

Lord doth answer for them. Then the Devils rage and gnash their teeth; they see the Soul chafte and pure, and they are afhained; they fee it penitent, and they despair; they perceive that the tongue was refrained and fanctified, and then hold their peace. Then the Soul paffes forth and rejoyces, paffing by the Devils in fcorn and triumph, being fecurely carried into the bofom of the Lord, where they fhall DEOTECHA reft till their Crowns are finished, and their Manfions di sasa are prepared; and then they fhall feast and fing, revan joyce and worship forever and ever. Fearful and fuz Phil.

Meisn αἱρετῶν

formi

formidable to unholy perfons is the firft meeting with Spirits in their feparation. But the victory which holy Souls receive by the Mercies of Jefus Christ, and the conduct of Angels, is a joy that we must not understand till we feel it; and yet fuch which by an early and a perfevering piety we may fecure; but let us enquire after it no farther, because it is fecret.

CHAP. III.

Of the State of Sickness and the Temptations incident to it, with their proper Remedies.

A

SECT. I.

Of the State of Sickness.

Dam's fin brought Death into the World, and Man did die the fame day in which he finned, according as God had threatned. He did not

die, as Death is taken for a feparation of Soul and Body; that is not Death properly, but the ending of the laft act of Death; juft as a Man is faid to be born, when he ceafes any longer to be born in his Mother's Womb: But whereas to Man was intended a Life long and happy, without fickness, forrow or infelicity, and this Life fhould be lived here or in a better place, and the paffage from one to the other fhould have been eafie, fafe and pleasant, now that Man finned, he fell from that state to a contrary.

If Adam had ftood, he should not always have lived in this World; for this World was not a place capable of giving a dwelling to all thofe myriads of Men and

Women

tam dedit

Se&t. I. Women which fhould have been born in all the generations of infinite and eternal Ages; for fo it must have been if man had not died at all, nor yet have removed hence at all. Neither is it likely that Man's Innocence fhould have loft to him all poffibility of going thither where the duration is better, measured by a better time, fubject to fewer changes, and which is now the reward of a returning vertue, which in all natural Senfes is lefs than innocence, fave that it is heightned by Chrift to an equality of acceptation with the itate of Innocence: But fo it must have been, that his Innocence fhould have been punifhed with an eternal confinement to this State, which in all reason is the lefs perfect, the state of a Traveller, not of one poffeffed of his Inheritance. It is therefore certain, Man fhould have changed his abode: for fo did Enoch, and fo did Elias, and fo fhall all the World that shall be alive at the Day of Judgment; They shall not die, but they shall change their place and their abode,their duration and their ftate, and all this without Death.

That death therefore which God threatned to Adam, and which paffed upon his Pofterity, is not the going out of this World, but the manner of going. If he had itaid in Innocence, he fhould have gone from hence placidly and fairly, without vexatious and afAlictive Circumftances; he fhould not have died by fickness, misfortune, defect or unwillingness: but Prima que vi- when he fell, then he began to die; the fame day (fo faid God:) And that muft needs be true, and thereHercal. Eur. fore it muit mean, that upon that very day he fell into an evil and dangerous condition, a ftate of change Nafcentes and affliction: Then Death began, that is, the Man nifq; ab or began to die by a natural diminution, and aptnefs to gine pendet. diieafe and mifery. His firft ftate was and fhould have been (fo long as it lafted) a happy duration; his fecond was a daily and miferable change: and this was the dying properly.

hora carplit.

morimur, fi

Manil.

This appears in the great inftance of Damnation, which in the ftyle of Scripture is called eternal Death, not because it kills or ends the duration, it hath not fo much good in it; but becaufe it is a perpetual