fear of fickness makes us impatient, fo it will make our death without comfort and without Religion: and we fhall go off from our stage of actions and fufferings with an unhand fome exit, because we were willing to receive the kindnefs of God when he expreffed it as we lifted; but we would not fuffer him to be kind and gracious to us in his own method, nor were willing to exercife and improve our Vertues at the charge of a Ecclus. 2.14.fharp Fever, or a lingring Confumption, Wo be to the man that hath loft patience; for what will he do when the Lord fhall vifit him? SECT. VII. The Second Temptation proper to the state of Sickness, fear of Death, with its Remedies. TH "Here is nothing which can make Sickness unfanEtified, but the fame alfo will give us cause to fear Death. If therefore we fo order our affairs and fpirits, that we do not fear death, our fickness may eafily become our advantage, and we can then receive Counfel, and confider, and do thofe acts of Vertue which are in that state the proper fervices of God; and fuch which men in bondage and fear are not capable of doing, or of advices how they fhould, when they come to the appointed days of mourning. And indeed if men would but place their defign of being happy in the noblenefs, courage, and perfect refolutions of doing handfom things, and paffing through our unavoidable neceffities, in the contempt and deipite of the things of this World, and in holy living, and the perfective defires of our Natures, the longings and purfuances after Heaven, it is certain they could not be made miferable by Chance and Change, by fickness and death. But we are fo foftned and made effeminate with delicate Thoughts and Meditations of Eafe, and brutish Satisfactions, that if our Death comes before we have feized upon a great Fortune, or enjoy the Promises of the Fortunetellers, we esteem our felves to be robbed of our Goods. Goods, to be mocked, and miferable. Hence it comes protraction and delaying Menaris juvenem tin&tis, Lentine, capillis, Audet iter, numerátque dies, fpatióque viarum Metitur vitam, torquetur morte futurâ. Τί μένον ; Horat. βροτῶν ἂν ἐ κακοῖς μεμιγ Θνήσκειν ὁ μέλλων τὸ χρόνε κιρ tium i τα φέροι. Soph. Nihil eft miferius dubitatione volutan. quorfum evadant, quantum fit illud quod reftat, aut quale. Seneca, 1. 17, ep. 102. flood: the waters drove them out Remedies against the Fear of Death, by way of 1. God having in this world placed us in a Sea, and H troubled troubled the Sea with a continual ftorm, hath appointed the Church for a Ship, and Religion to be the Stern: but there is no haven or port but Death. Death is that harbour whither God hath defigned every one, that there he may find reft from the troubles of the world. How many of the nobleft Romans have taken death for fanctuary, and have esteemed it less than fhame or a mean dishonour! And Cafar was cruel to Domitius Captain of Corfinium, when he had taken the Town from him, that he refused to fign his petition of Death. Death would have hid his head with honour, but that cruel mercy referved him to the fhame of furviving his difgrace. The holy Scripture, giving an account of the reafons of the Divine Providence taking godly men from this world, and shutting them up in a hafty grave, fays, that they are taken from the evils to come: and concerning our felves it is certain, if we had ten years agon taken feizure of our portion of duft, Death had not taken us from good things, but from infinite evils, fuch which the Sun hath feldom feen. Hæc omnia Did not Priamus weep oftner than Troilus? and hapmari, Jovis py had he been if he had died when his fons were aram fangui- living, and his kingdom fate, and houses full, and his ne turpari. city unburnt. It was a long lite that made him milerable, and an early death only could have se -Heu, quantò meliùs vel cæde peractâ Parcere Romano potuit fortuna pudori! Lucanus. vidit inflam -Sic longius ævum Deftruit ingentes animos, & vita fuperftes And cured his fortune. it hath happened many times, that perfons of a fair life and a clear reputation, of a good fortune, and an honourable name, have been tempted in their age to folly and vanity, have fallen under the difgrace of dotage, or into an unfortunate marriage, or have befotted themselves with drinking, or out-lived their fortunes, or become tedious to their friends, or are afflicted with lingring and vexatious dileafes, or lived to fee their excellent parts buried, and cannot understand the wife difcourfes and productions of their younger years. སྙ Tradere fe fa years. In all these cafes, and infinite more, do not all Mors illi methe world fay that it had been better this man had di- liùs quàm tu confuluit quied fooner? but fo have I known paffionate women to dem.. fhriek aloud when their neareft relatives were dying, quifquámand that horrid fhriek hath ftayed the fpirit of the ne fecundis man a while to wonder at the folly, and reprefent the tis audet nifi £ inconvenience; and the dying perfon hath lived one morte paratâ? day longer full of pain, amazed with an undetermi- Luc. 1.8. nate fpirit diftorted with Convulfions, and only come again to act one fcene more of a new calamity, and to die with lefs decency. So alfo do very many men, with paffion and a troubled intereft they strive to continue their life longer; and it may be they escape this fickness, and live to fall into a difgrace; they escape the ftorm, and fall into the hands of pirates, and instead of dying with liberty, they live like flaves, miferable and defpifed, fervants to a little time, and fottifh admirers of the breath of their own lungs. Paulus Æmilius did handfomely reprove the cowardice of the King of Macedon, who begged of him for pity's fake and humanity, that having conquered him and taken his Kingdom from him, he would be content with that, and not lead him in triumph a prifoner to Rome. Æmilius told him, he need not be beholden to him for that; himself might prevent that in defpight of him. But the timorous King durft not die. But certainly every wife man will eafily believe that it had been better the Macedonian Kings fhould have died in battel, than protract their life fo long, till fome of them came to be Scriveners and Joyners at Rome: or that the Tyrant of Sicily better had perished in the Adriatick, than to be wafted to Corinth fafely, and there turn Schoolmaster. It is a fad calamity, that the fear of death fhall to imbe. cil man's courage and understanding, that he dares not fuffer the remedy of all his calamities; but that he Nimirum hâc lives to fay as Liberius did, I have lived this one day die unâ plus longer than I should. Either therefore let us be wil. vixi mihi ling to die when God calls, or let us never more com- dum fait. plain of the calamities of our life, which we feel fo fharp and numerous. And when God fends his Angel quàm viven to us with a feroll of death, let us look on it as an act of mercy, to prevent many fins, and many calamities of a longer life, and lay our heads down foftly, and go to fleep without wrangling like babies and froHoc homo ward children. For a man (at least) gets this by death, morte lucra that his calamities are not immortal. tur, nè malum effet immor. tale. Naz. But I do not only confider death by the advantages of comparifon; but if we look on it in it telf, it is no fuch formidable thing, if we view it on both fides, and handle it, and confider all its appendages. 2. It is neceffary, and therefore not intolerable: and nothing is to be esteemed evil which God and nature hath fixed with eternal fanctions. It is a law of God, it is a punishment of our fins, and it is the conftitution of our Nature. Two differing fubftances were joined together with the breath of God, and when that breath Nihil in malis ducamus, quod fit à rente omnium conftitutum. Concretum fuit, difcretum eft, rediit que unde venerat, terra deorfum, fpi- is taken away they part afunder, and rirus rurfum. Quid ex his omnibus iniquum eft? nihil. Epichar. return to their feveral principles; the Soul to God our Father, the Body to the Earth our Mother: and what in all this is evil? Surely nothing, but that we are Men; nothing, but that we are not born immortal: but by declining this change with great paffion, or receiving it with a huge natural fear, we accufe the Divine Providence of Tyranny, and exclaim against our natural conftitution, and are difcontent that we are Men. 3. It is a thing that is no great matter in it felf if we confider that we die daily, that it meets us in every accident, that every creature carries a dart along with it, and can kill us. And therefore when Lyfimachus threatned Theodorus to kill him, he told him that was no great matter to do, and he could do no more than the Cantharides could; a little flie could do as much. 4. It is a thing that every one fuffers, even perfons of the lowest refolution, of the meanest vertue, no breeding, of no difcourfe. Take of away |