it he never stirred up the holy fire among the Magi nor touched his God with the sacred rod according to the Laws he never offered sacrifice nor worshipped the Deity nor administred justice nor spake to his people nor numbred them but he was most valiant to eat and drink and having mingled his wines he threw the rest upon the stones This man is dead Behold his Sepulchre and now hear where Ninus is Some times I was Ninus and drew the breath of a living man but now am nothing but clay I have nothing but what I did eat and what I served to my self in lust that was and is all my portion the wealth with which I was esteemed blessed my enemies meeting together shall bear away as the mad Thyades carry a raw Goat I am gone to Hell and when I went thither I neither carried Gold nor Horse nor silver Chariot I that wore a Miter am now a little heap of dust I know not any thing that can better represent the evil condition of a wicked man or a changing greatnesse From the greatest secular dignity to dust and ashes his nature bears him and from thence to Hell his sins carry him and there he shall be for ever under the dominion of chains and devils wrath and an intollerable calamity This is the reward of an unsanctified condition and a greatnesse ill gotten or ill administred 2. Let no man extend his thoughts or let his hopes wander towards future and far distant events and accidental contingencies This day is mine and yours but ye know not what shall be on the morrow and every morning creeps out of a dark cloud leaving behinde it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight and undiscerned as are the phantasms that make a Chrysome childe to smile so that we cannot discern what comes hereafter unlesse we had a light from Heaven brighter then the vision of an Angel even the Spirit of Prophesie Without revelation we cannnot tell whether we shal eat to morrow or whether a Squinzy shall choak us and it is written in the unrevealed folds of Divine Predestination that many who are this day alive shall to morrow be laid upon the cold earth and the women shall weep over their shrowd and dresse them for their funeral S. Iames in his Epistle notes the solly of some men his contemporaries who were so impatient of the event of to morrow or the accidents of next year or the good or evils of old age that they would consult Astrologers and witches Oracles and Devils what should befall them the next Calends what should be the event of such a voyage what God had written in his book concerning the successe of battels the Election of Emperors the Heir of families the price of Merchandise the return of the Tyrian fleer the rate of Sidonian Carpets and as they were taught by the crafty and lying Daemons so they would expect the issue and oftentimes by disposing their affairs in order toward such events really did produce some litle accidents according to their expectation and that made them trust the Oracles in greater things and in all Against this he opposes his Counsel that we should not search after forbidden records much lesse by uncertain significations for whatsoever is disposed to happen by the order of natural causes or civil counsels may be rescinded by a peculiar decree of providence or be prevented by the death of the interested persons who while their hopes are full and their causes conjoyned and the work brought forward and the sickle put into the harvest and the first fruits offered and ready to be eaten even then if they put forth their hand to an event that stands but at the door at that door their body may be carried forth to burial before the expectation shall enter into fruition When Richilda the Widow of Albert Earl of Ebersberg had feasted the Emperour Henry III. and petitioned in behalf of her Nephew Welpho for some lands formerly possessed by the Earl her Husband just as the Emperour held out his hand to signifie his consent the chamber-floor suddenly fell under them and Richilda falling upon the edge of a bathing vessel was bruised to death and stayed not to see her Nephew sleep in those lands which the Emperour was reaching forth to her and placed at the door of restitution 3. As our hopes must be confined so must our designes let us not project long designes crafty plots and diggings so deep that the intrigues of a designe shall never be unfolded till our Grand children have forgotten our vertues or our vices The work of our soul is cut short facile sweet and plain and fitted to the small portions of our shorter life and as we must not trouble our inquiry so neither must we intricate our labour and purposes with what we shall never enjoy This rule does not forbid us to plant Orchards which shall feed our Nephews with their fruit for by such provisions they do something towards an imaginary immortality and do charity to their Relatives But such projects are reproved which discompose our present duty by long and future designes such which by casting our labours to events at distance make us lesse to remember our death standing at the door It is fit for a Man to work for his dayes wages or to contrive for the hire of a week or to lay a train to make provisions for such a time as is within our eye and in our duty and within the usual periods of Mans life for whatsoever is made necessary is also made prudent but while we plot and buisy our selves in the toils of an ambitious war or the levies of a great estate Night enters in upon us and tells all the world how like fools we lived and how deceived and miserably we dyed Seneca tells of Senecio Cornelius a man crafty in getting and tenacious in holding a great estate and one who was as diligent in the care of his body as of his money curious of his health as of his possessions that he all day long attended upon his sick and dying friend but when he went away was quickly comforted supped merrily went to bed cheerfully and on a sudden being surprized by a Squinzy scarce drew his breath until the Morning but by that time dyed being snatched from the torrent of his fortune and the swelling tide of wealth and a likely hope bigger then the necessities of ten men This accident was much noted then in Rome because it happened in so great a fortune and in the midst of wealthy designes and presently it made wise men to consider how imprudent a person he is who disposes of ten years to come when he is not Lord of to morrow 4. Though we must not look so far ofâ— and prey abroad yet we must be buisie neer at hand we must with all arts of the Spirit seize upon the present because it passes from us while we
fear with a temporall suffering preventing Gods judgement by passing one of his own let him groan for the labours of his pilgrimage and the dangers of his warfare and by that time he hath summed up all these labours and duties and contingencies all the proper causes instruments and acts of sorrow he will finde that for a secular joy and wantonnesse of spirit there are not left many void spaces of his life It was Saint Iames's advice Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into weeping And Bonaventure in the life of Christ reports that the H. Virgin Mother said to S. Elizabeth That Grace does not descend into the soul of a man but by prayer and by affliction Certain it is that a mourning spirit and an afflicted body are great instruments of reconciling God to a sinner and they alwayes dwell at the gates of atonement and restitution But besides this a delicate and prosperous life is hugely contrary to the hopes of a blessed eternity Wo be to them that are at ease in Sion so it was said of old and our B. Lord said Wo be to you that laugh for you shall weep but Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Here or hereafter we must have our portion of sorrows He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed with him shall doubtlesse come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him And certainly he that sadly considers the portion of Dives and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the unavoidablenesse of his torment was because he had his good things in this life must in all reason with trembling run from a course of banquets and faring deliciously every day as being a dangerous estate and a consignation to an evil greater then all danger the pains and torment of unhappy souls If either by patience or repentance by compassion or persecution by choise or by conformity by severity or discipline we allay the festival follies of a soft life and professe under the Crosse of Christ we shall more willingly and more safely enter into our grave But the death-bed of a voluptuous man upbraids his little and cosening prosperities and exacts pains made sharper by the passing from soft beds and a softer mind He that would die holily and happily must in this world love tears humility solitude and repentance SECT II. Of daily examination of our actions in the whole course of our health preparatory to our death-bed HE that will die well and happily must dresse his soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny He must perfectly understand and watch the state of his soul he must set his house in order before he be fit to die And for this there is great reason and great necessity Reasons for a daily examination 1. For if we consider the disorders of every day the multitude of impertinent words the great portions of time spent in vanity the daily omissions of duty the coldnesse of our prayers the indifference of our spirit in holy things the uncertainty of our secret purposes our infinite deceptions and hypocrisie sometimes not known very often not observed by our selves our want of charity our not knowing in how many degrees of action and purpose every vertue is to be exercised the secret adherencies of pride and too forward complacencie in our best actions our failings in all our relations the niceties of difference between some vertues and some vices the secret undiscernable passages from lawfull to unlawfull in the first instances of change the perpetuall mistakings of permissions for duty and licentious practises for permissions our daily abusing the liberty that God gives us our unsuspected sins in the managing a course of life certainly lawfull our little greedinesses in eating our surprises in the proportions of our drinkings our too great freedoms and fondnesses in lawfull loves our aptnesse for things sensual and our deadnesse and tediousnesse of spirit in spiritual employments besides infinite variety of cases of conscience that do occur in the life of every man and in all entercourses of every life and that the productions of sin are numerous and increasing like the families of the Northern people or the genealogies of the first Patriarks of the world from all this we shall find that the computations of a mans life are buisie as the Tables of Signes and Tangents and intricate as the accounts of Eastern Merchants and therefore it were but reason we should summe up our accounts at the foot of every page I mean that we call our selves to scrutiny every night when we compose our selves to the little images of Death 2. For if we make but one Generall account and never reckon till we die either we shall onely reckon by great summes and remember nothing but clamorous and crying sins and never consider concerning particulars or forget very many or if we could consider all that we ought we must needs be confounded with the multitude and variety But if we observe all the little passages of our life and reduce them into the order of accounts and accusations we shall finde them multiply so fast that it will not onely appear to be an ease to the accounts of our death-bed but by the instrument of shame will restrain the inundation of evils it being a thing intolerable to humane modesty to see sins increase so fast and vertues grow up so slow to see every day stained with the spots of leprosie or sprinkled with the marks of a lesser evil 3. It is not intended we should take accounts of our lives onely to be thought religious but that we may see our evil and amend it that we dash our sins against the stones that we may go to God and to a spirituall Guide and search for remedies and apply them And indeed no man can well observe his own groweth in Grace but by accounting seldomer returns of sin and a more frequent victory over temptations concerning which every man makes his observations according as he makes his inquiries and search after himself In order to this it was that Saint Paul wrote Before receiving the Holy Sacrament Let a man examine himself and so let him eat This precept was given in those dayes when they communicated every day and therefore a daily examination also was intended 4. And it will appear highly fitting if we remember that at the day of judgement no onely the greatest lines of life but every branch and circumstance of every action every word and thought shall be called to scrutiny and severe judgement insomuch that it was a great truth which one said Wo be to the most Innocent life if God should search into it without mixtures of mercy And therefore we are here to follow S. Pauls advice Iudge your selves and you shall not be judged of the Lord. The way to prevent Gods anger is to be angry with our selves and by examining
body and wrapt it self about his head till the Philosophers of Egypt said it was natural that from the marrow of some bodies such productions should arise and indeed it represents the condition of some men who being dead are esteemed saints and beatified persons when their head is encircled with dragons and is entered into the possession of Devils that old serpent and deceiver For indeed their life was secretly so corrupted that such serpents fed upon the ruines of the spirit and the decayes of grace and reason To be cosened in making judgements concerning our finall condition is extremely easie but if we be cosened we are infinitely miserable SECT III. Of exercising Charity during our whole life HE that would die well and happily must in his life time according to all his capacities exercise charity and because Religion is the life of the soul and charity is the life of religion the same which gives life to the better part of man which never dies may obtain of God a mercy to the inferiour part of man in the day of its dissolution 1. Charity is the great chanel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankinde For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother this is the rule of our hopes and the measure of our desire in this world and in the day of death and judgement the great sentence upon mankinde shall be transacted according to our almes which is the other part of Charity Certain it is that God cannot will not never did reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers for God himself is love and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature and therefore when upon our death-bed a cloud covers our heads and we are enwrapped with sorrow when we feel the weight of a sicknesse and do not feel the refreshing visitations of Gods loving kindnesse when we have many things to trouble us and looking round about us we see no comforter then call to minde what injuries you have forgiven how apt you were to pardon all affronts and real persecutions how you embraced peace when it was offered you how you followed after peace when it run from you and when you are weary of one side turn upon the other and remember the alms that by the grace of God and his assistances you have done and look up to God and with the eye of faith behold him coming in the cloud and pronouncing the sentence of dooms day according to his mercies and thy charity 2. Charity with its Twin-daughters almes and forgivenesse is especially effectual for the procuring Gods mercies in the day and the manner of our death almes deliver from death said old Tobias and almes make an atonement for sins said the son of Sirach and so said Daniel and so say all the wise men of the world And in this sence also is that of S. Peter Love covers a multitude of sins and S. Clement in his Constitutions gives this counsell If you have any thing in your hands give it that it may work to the remission of thy sins for by faith and alms sins are purged The same also is the counsel of Salviâ—n who wonders that men who are guilty of great and many sins will not work out their pardon by alms and mercy But this also must be added out of the words of Lactantius who makes this rule compleat and useful But think not that because sins are taken away by alms that by thy money thou mayest purchase a license to sin For sins are abolished if because thou hast sinned thou givest to God that is to Gods poor servants and his indigent necessitous creature But if thou sinnest upon confidence of giving thy sins are not abolished For God desires infinitely that men should be purged from their sins and therefore commands us to repent But to repent is nothing else but to professe and affirm that is to purpose and to make good that purpose that they will sin no more Now almes are therefore effective to the abolition and pardon of our sins because they are preparatory to and impetratory of the grace of repentance and are fruits of repentance and therefore S. Chrysostom affirmes that repentance without almes is dead and without wings and can never soar upwards to the element of love But because they are a part of repentance and hugely pleasing to Almighty God therefore they deliver us from the evils of an unhappy and accursed death for so Christ delivered his Disciples from the sea when he appeased the storm though they still sailed in the chanel and this S. Hierome verifies with all his reading and experience saying I do not remember to have read that ever any charitable person died an evil death and although a long experience hath observed Gods mercies to descend upon charitable people like the dew upon Gideons fleece when all the world was dry yet for this also we have a promise which is not onely an argument of a certain number of years as experience is but a security for eternall ages Make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousnesse that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations When faith fails and chastity is uselesse and temperance shall be no more then charity shall bear you upon wings of cherubins to the eternall mountain of the Lord. I have been a lover of mankinde and a friend and mercifull and now I expect to communicate in that great kindnesse which he shews that is the great God and Father of men and mercies said Cyrus the Persian on his death-bed I do not mean this should onely be a death-bed charity any more then a death-bed repentance but it ought to be the charity of our life healthfull years a parting with portions of our goods then when we can keep them we must not first kindle our lights when we are to descend into our houses of darknesse or bring a glaring torch suddenly to a dark room that will amaze the eye and not delight it or instruct the body but if our Tapers have in their constant course descended into their grave crowned all the way with light then let the death-bed charity be doubled and the light burn brightest when it is to deck our hearse But concerning this I shall afterwards give account SECT IV. General considerations to enforce the former practises THese are the generall instruments of preparation in order to a holy death It will concern us all to use them diligently and speedily for we must be long in doing that which must be done but once and therefore we must begin betimes and lose no time especially since it is so great a venture and upon it depends so great a state Seneca said well There is no Science or Art in the world so hard as to
the holy man must pray and another time he must exhort a third time administer the holy Sacrament and he that ought to watch all the periods and little portions of his life lest he should be suprized and overcome had need be watched when he is sick and assisted and called upon and reminded of the several parts of his duty in every instant of his temptation This article was well provided for among the Easterlings for the Priests in their visitations of a sick person did abide in their attendance and ministery for seven dayes together The want of this makes the visitations fruitlesse and the calling of the Clergy contemptible while it is not suffered to imprint its proper effects upon them that need it in a lasting ministery 3. S. Iames advises that when a man is sick he should send for the elders one sick man for many Presbyters and so did the Eastern Churches they sent for seven and like a college of Physitians they ministred spiritual remedies and sent up prayers like a quire of singing Clerks In cities they might do so while the Christians were few and the Priests many But when they that dwelt in the Pagi or villages ceased to be Pagans and were baptized it grew to be an impossible felicity unlesse in few cases and to some more eminent persons but because they need it most God hath taken care that they may best have it and they that can are not very prudent if they neglect it 4. Whether they be many or few that are sent to the sick person let the Curate of his Parish or his own Confessor be amongst them that is let him not be wholly advised by strangers who know not his particular necessities but he that is the ordinary Judge cannot safely be passed by in his extraordinary necessity which in so great portions depends upon his whole life past and it is a matter of suspicion when we decline his judgement that knowes us best and with whom we formerly did converse either by choice or by law by private election or publike constitution It concerns us then to make severe and profitable judgements and not to conspire against our selves or procure such assistances which may handle us softly or comply with our weaknesses more then relieve our necessities 5. When the Ministers of religion are come first let them do their ordinary offices that is pray for grace to the sick man for patience for resignation for health if it seems good to God in order to his great ends For that is one of the ends of the advice of the Apostle and therefore the minister is to be sent for not while the case is desperate but before the sicknesse is come to its crisis or period Let him discourse concerning the causes of sicknesse and by a general instrument move him to consider concerning his condition Let him call upon him to set his soul in order to trim his lamp to dresse his soul to renew acts of grace by way of prayer to make amends in all the evils he hath done and to supply all the defects of duty as much as his past condition requires and his present can admit 6. According as the condition of the sickness or the weaknesse of the man is observed so the exhortation is to be less and the prayers more because the life of the man was his main preparatory and therefore if his condition be full of pain and infirmity the shortnesse and small number of his own acts is to be supplied by the act of the Ministers and standers by who are in such cases to speak more to God for him then to talk to him For the prayer of the righteous when it is servent hath a promise to prevail much in behalf of the sick person But exhortations must prevail with their own proper weight not by the passion of the Speaker But yet this assistance by way of prayers is not to be done by long offices but by frequent and fervent and holy in which offices if the sick man joyns let them be short and apt to comply with his little strength and great infirmities if they be said in his behalf without his conjunction they that pray may prudently use their own liberty and take no measures but their own devotions and opportunities and the sick mans necessities When he hath made this general addresse and preparatory entrance to the work of many dayes and periods he may descend to particulars by the following instruments and discourses SECT III. Of ministring in the sick mans confession of sins and repentance THe first necessity that is to be served is that of repentance in which the Ministers can in no way serve him but by first exhorting him to confession of his sins and declaration of the state of his soul. For unlesse they know the manner of his life and the degrees of his restitution either they can do nothing at all or nothing of advantage and certainty His discourses like Ionathans arrows may shoot short or shoot over but not wound where they should nor open those humours that need a lancet or a cautery To this purpose the sick man may be reminded Arguments and exhortations to move the sick man to confession of sins 1. That God hath made a special promise to confession of sins He that confesseth his sins and forsaketh them shall have mercy and if we confesse our sins God is righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse That confession of sins is a proper act and introduction to repentance * That when the Jews being warned by the sermons of the Baptist repented of their sins they confessed their sins to Iohn in the susception of Baptism * That the converts in the dayes of the Apostles returning to Christianity instantly declared their faith and their repentance by confession and declaration of their deeds which they then renounced abjured and confessed to the Apostles * That confession is an act of many vertues together * It is the gate of repentance * an instrument of shame and condemnation of our sins * a glorification of God so called by Ioshuah particularly in the case of Achan * an acknowledgement that God is just in punishing for by confessing of our sins we also confesse his justice and are assessors with God in this condemnation of our selves * That by such an act of judging our selves we escape the more angry judgement of God S. Paul expresly exhorting us to it upon that very inducement * That confession of sins is so necessary a duty that in all Scriptures it is the immediate preface to pardon and the certain consequent of godly sorrow and an integral or constituent part of that grace which together with faith mâ—kes up the whole duty of the Gospel * That in all ages of the Gospel it hath been taught and practised respectively that all the penitent made confessions proportionable to their repentance that is
that it is not reasonable to think that every man and every life and an easie religion shall possesse such infinite glories * That although heaven is a gift yet there is a great severity and strict exacting of the conditions on our part to receive that gift * That some persons who have lived strictly for 40. years together yet have miscarried by some one crime at last or some secret hypocrisie or a latent pride or a creeping ambition or a phantastic spirit and therefore much lesse can they hope to receive so great portions of felicities when their life hath been a continuall declination from those severities which might have created confidence of pardon and acceptation through the mercies of God and the merits of Jesus * That every good man ought to be suspicious of himself and in his judgement concerning his own condition to fear the worst that he may provide for the better * That we are commanded to work out our salvation with fear trembling * That this precept was given with very great reason considering the thousand thousand wayes of miscarrying * That S. Paul himself and S. Arsenius and S. Elzearius and divers other remarkable Saints had at some times great apprehensions of the dangers of failing of the mighty price of their high calling * That the stake that is to be secured is of so great an interest that all our industry and all the violences we can suffer in the prosecution of it are not considerable * That this affair is to be done but once and then never any more unto eternal ages * That they who professe themselves servants of the institution and servants of the law and discipline of Jesus will find that they must judge themselves by the proportions of that law by which they were to rule themselves * That the laws of society and civility and the voices of my company are as ill judges as they are guides but we are to stand or fall by his sentence who will not consider or value the talk of idle men or the persuasion of wilfully abused consciences but of him who hath felt our infirmity in all things but sin and knowes where our failings are unavoidable and where and in what degree they are excusable but never will endure a sin should seize upon any part of our love and deliberate choice or carelesse cohabitation * That if our conscience accuse us not yet are we not hereby justified for God is greater then our consciences * That they who are most innocent have their consciences most tender and sensible * That scrupulous persons are alwayes most religious and that to feel nothing is not a signe of life but of death * That nothing can be hid from the eyes of the Lord to whom the day and the night publike and private words and thoughts actions and designes are equally discernable * That a lukewarme person is onely secured in his own thoughts but very unsafe in the event and despised by God * That we live in an Age in which that which is called and esteemed a holy life in the dayes of the Apostles and holy primitives would have been esteemed indifferent sometimes scandalous and alwayes cold That what was a truth of God then is so now and to what severities they were tyed for the same also we are to be accountable and heaven is not now an easier purchase then it was then * That if he will cast up his accounts even with a superficial eye Let him consider how few good works he hath done how inconsiderable is the relief which he gave to the poor how little are the extraordinaries of his religion and how unactive and lame how polluted and disordered how unchosen and unpleasant were the ordinary parts and periods of it and how many and great sins have stained his course of life and until he enters into a particular scrutinie let him only revolve in his minde what his general course hth been and in the way of prudence let him say whether it was laudable and holy or onely indifferent and excusable and if he can think it onely excusable and so as to hope for pardon by such suppletories of faith and arts of persuasion which he and others use to take in for auxiliaries to their unreasonable confidence then he cannot but think it very fit that he search into his own state and take a Guide and erect a tribunal or appear before that which Christ hath erected for him on earth that he may make his accesse fairer when he shall be called before the dreadfull Tribunal of Christ in the clouds For if he can be confident upon the stock of an unpraised or a looser life and should dare to venture upon wilde accounts without order without abatements without consideration without conduct without fear without scrutinies and confessions and instruments of amends or pardon he either knows not his danger or cares not for it and little understands how great a horrour that is that a man should rest his head for ever upon a cradle of flames and lye in a bed of sorrows and never sleep and never end his groans or the gnashing of his teeth This is that which some spiritual persons call a wakening the sinner by the terrours of the law which is a good analogie or Tropical expression to represent the threatnings of the Gospel and the dangers of an incurious and a sinning person but we have nothing else to do with the terrours of the law for Blessed be God they concern us not the terrours of the law were the intermination of curses upon all those that ever broke any of the least Commandements once or in any instance And to it the righteousnesse of faith is opposed The terrors of the law admitted no repentance no pardon no abatement and were so severe that God never inflicted them at all according to the letter because he admitted all to repentance that desired it with a timely prayer unlesse in very few cases as of Achan or Corah the gatherer of sticks upon the Sabbath-day or the like but the state of threatnings in the Gospel is very fearful because the conditions of avoiding them are easie and ready and they happen to evil persons after many warnings second thoughts frequent invitations to pardon and repentance and after one entire pardon consigned in Baptism and in this sense it is necessary that such persons as we now deal withall should be instructed concerning their danger 4. When the sick man is either of himself or by these considerations set forward with purposes of repentance and confession of his sins in order to all its holy purposes and effects then the Minister is to assist him in the understanding the number of his sins that is the several kinds of them and the various manners of prevaricating the divine commandments for as for the number of the particulars in every kinde he will need lesse help and if he did he
the world a longing desire after heaven patience in our sorrows comfort in our sicknesses joy in God a holy life and a blessed death that our souls may rest in hope and my body may rise in glory and both may be beatified in the communion of Saints in the kingdom of God and the glories of the Lord Jesus Amen The blessing Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep thorough the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is pleasing in his sight to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen The doxology To the blessed and onely Potentate the King of kings and the Lord of Lords who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see be honour and power everlasting Amen After the sick man is departed the Minister if he be present or the Major dome or any other fit person may use the following prayers in behalf of themselves I. ALmighty God with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord we adore thy Majesty and submit to thy providence and revere thy justice and magnifie thy mercies thy infinite mercies that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world Thy counsels are secret and thy wisdom is infinite with the same hand thou hast crowned him and smitten us thou hast taken him into regions of felicity and placed him among Saints and Angels and left us to mourn for our sins and thy displeasure which thou hast signified to us by removing him from us to a better a far better place Lord turn thy anger into mercie thy chastisements into vertues thy rod into comforts and do thou give to all his neerest relatives comforts from heaven and a restitution of blessings equall to those which thou hast taken from them And we humbly beseech thee of thy gracious goodnesse shortly to satisfie the longing desires of those Holy souls who pray and wait and long for thy second coming Accomplish thou the number of thine elect and fill up the Mansions in heaven which are prepared for all them that love the coming of the Lord Jesus that we with this our Brother and all other departed this life in the obedience and faith of the Lord Jesus may have our perfect consummation and blisse in thy eternall glory which never shall have ending Grant this for Jesus Christ his sake our Lord and onely Saviour Amen II. O Mercifull God Father of our Lord Jesus who is the first fruits of the resurrection and by entring into glory hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all the beleevers we humbly beseech thee to raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse that being partakers of the death of Christ and followers of his Holy life we may be partakers of his Spirit and of his promises that when we shall depart this life we may rest in his arms and lie in his bosom as our hope is this our brother doth O suffer us not for any temptation of the world or any snares of the Devil or any pains of death to fall from thee Lord let thy H. Spirit enable us with his grace to fight a good fight with perseverance to finish our course with holiness and to keep the faith with constancie unto the end that at the day of judgement we may stand at the right hand of the throne of God and hear the blessed sentence of Come ye blessed children of my Father receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world O blessed Jesus thou art our Judge and thou art our Advocate even because thou art good and gracious never suffer us to fall into the intolerable pains of hell never to lye down in sin and never to have our portion in the everlasting burning Mercy sweet Jesu Mercy Amen A prayer to be said in the case of a sudden surprise by death as by a mortal wound or evil accidents in childebirth when the forms and solemnities of preparation cannot be used O Most gracious Father Lord of heaven and earth Judge of the living and the dead behold thy servants running to thee for pity and mercy in behalf of our selves and this thy servant whom thou hast smitten with thy hasty rod and a swift Angel if it be thy will preserve his life that there may be place for his repentance and restitution O spare him a little that he may recover his strength before he go hence and be no more seen but if thou hast otherwise decreed let the miracles of thy compassion and thy wonderfull mercy supply to him the want of the usual measures of time and the periods of repentance and the trimming of his lamp and let the greatnesse of the calamity be accepted by thee as an instrument to procure pardon for those defects and degrees of unreadiness which may have caused this accident upon thy servant Lord stirre up in him a great and effectual contrition that the greatnesse of the sorrow and hatred against sin and the zeal of his love to thee may in a short time do the work of many dayes and thou who regardest the heart and the measures of the minde more then the delay and the measures of time let it be thy pleasure to rescue the soul of thy servant from all the evils he hath deserved and all the evils that he fears that in the glorifications of eternity and the songs which to eternal ages thy Saints and holy Angels shall sing to the honour of thy mighty Name and invaluable mercies it may be reckoned among thy glories that thou hast redeemed this soul from the dangers of an eternall death and made him partaker of the gift of God eternall life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen If there be time the prayers in the foregoing offices may be added according as they can be fitted to the present circumstances SECT VIII A peroration concerning the contingencies and treatings of our departed friends after death in order to their buriall c. WHen we have received the last breath of our friend and closed his eyes and composed his body for the grave then seasonable is the counsell of the son of Syrach Weep bitterly and make great moan and use lamentation as he is worthy and that a day or two lest thou be evil spoken of and then comfort thy self for thy heavinesse But take no grief to heart for there is no turning again thou shalâ— not do him good but hurt tâ—y self Solemn and appointed mournings are good expressions of our dearnesse to the departed soul and of his worth and our value of him and it hath its praise in nature and in manners and publike customs but the praise of it is not in the Gospel that is it hath
to move the sick man to confession of sins ibid. Instruments by way of consideration to awaken a careless person and a stupid conscience 255. § IV. Of ministring to the restitution and pardon or reconciliation of the sick person by administring the holy Sacrament 268. § V. Of ministring to the sick person by the Spiritual man as he is the Physitian of souls 282. Considerations against unreasonable fears concerning forgivenesse of sins and its uncertainty and danger 283. An exercise against despair in the day of our death 293. § VI. Considerations against Presumption 301. § VII Offices to be said by the Minister in his visitation of the sick 306. The prayer of S. Eustratius the Martyr 310. A prayer taken out of the Greek Euchologion c. 311. The order of recommendation of the soul in its agony 313. Prayers to be said by the surviving friends in behalf of them selves 318. A prayer to be said in the case of a sudden death or pressing fatall danger 321. § VIII A peroration concerning the contingencies and treatings of our departed friends after death in order to their will and buriall 322. Vigilate et Orate quia nescitis horam CHAP. I. A general preparation towards a holy and blessed Death by way of consideration SECT I. Consideration of the vanity and shortnesse of Mans life A Man is a Bubble said the Greek Proverb which Lucian represents with advantages and its proper circumstances to this purpose saying that all the world is a storm and Men rise up in their several generations like bubbles descending à Iove pluvio from God and the dew of Heaven from a tear and drop of Man from Nature and Providence 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 businesse 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 restlesse and uneasy and being crushed with the 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 then it was before So is every man He is born in vanity and sin he comes into the world like morning Mushromes soon thrusting up their heads into the air and conversing with their kinred of the same production and as soon they turn into dust and forgetfulnesse 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 yeers 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 darknesse of the grave to hide them But if the bubble stands the shock of a bigger drop and outlives the chances of a childe of a carelesse 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 Doves neck or the image of a rainbow which hath no substance and whose very imagery and colours are phantastical and so he dances out the gayety of his youth and is all the while in a storm and endures onely 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 humor 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 mans condition with words signifying his vanity and short abode Homer cals a man a leaf the smallest the weakest piece of a short liv'd unsteady plant Pindar calls him the dream of a shadow Another the dream of the shadow of smoak But S. Iames spake by a more excellent Spirit saying Our life is but a vapor viz. drawn from the earth by a coelestial influence made of smoak or the lighter parts of water tossed with every winde moved by the motion of a superiour body without vertue in it self lifted up on high or left below according as it pleases the Sun its Foster-father But it is lighter yet It is but appearing A phantastic vapor an apparition nothing real it is not so much as a mist not the matter of a shower nor substantial enough to make a cloud but it is like Cassiopeia's chair or Pelops shoulder or the circles of Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for which you cannot have a word that can signify a veryer nothing And yet the expression is one degree more made diminutive A vapor and phantastical or a meer appearance and this but for a little while neither the very dream the phantasm disappears in a small time like the shadow that departeth or like a tale that is told or as a dream when one awaketh A man is so vain so unfixed so perishing a creature that he cannot long last in the scene of fancy a man goes off and is forgotten like the dream of a distracted person The summe of all is this That thou art a man then whom there is not in the world any greater instance of heights and declensions of lights and shadows of misery and folly of laughter and tears of groans and death And because this consideration is of great usefulnesse 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 darknesse the thousand thousands of accidents in the world and every contingency to every man and to every creature does preach our funeral sermon and calls us to look and see how the old Sexton Time throws up the earth and digs a Grave where we must lay our sins or our sorrows and sowe our bodies till they rise again in a fair or in an intolerable eternity Every revolution which the sun makes about the world divides between life and death and death possesses both those portions by the next morrow and we are dead to all those moneths which we have already lived and we shall never live them over again and still God makes little periods of our age First we change our world when we come from the womb to feel the warmth of the sun Then we sleep and enter into the image of death in which state we are unconcerned in all the changes of the world and if our Mothers or our Nurses die or a wilde boar destroy our
arts of religion and mortification suppresse the trouble of that fancy till at last being told that she was dead and had been buried about fourteen dayes he went secretly to her Vault and with the skirt of his mantle wiped the moisture from the Carkasse and still at the return of his temptation laid it before him saying Behold this is the beauty of the woman thou didst so much desire and so the man found his cure And if we make death as present to us our own death dwelling and dressed in all its pomp of fancy and proper circumstances if any thing will quench the heats of lust or the desires of money or the greedy passionate affections of this world this must do it But withall the frequent use of this meditation by curing our present inordinations will make death safe and friendly and by its very custom will make that the King of terrours shall come to us without his affrighting dresses and that we shall sit down in the grave as we compose our selves to sleep and do the duties of nature and choice The old people that lived neer the Riphaean mountains were taught to converse with death and to handle it on all sides and to discourse of it as of a thing that will certainly come and ought so to do Thence their minds and resolutions became capable of death and they thought it a dishonourable thing with greedinesse to keep a life that must go from us to lay aside its thorns and to return again circled with a glory and a Diadem 2. He that would die well must all the dayes of his life lay up against the day of death not only by the general provisions of holinesse and a pious life indefinitely but provisions proper to the necessities of that great day of expence in which a man is to throw his last cast for an eternity of joyes or sorrows ever remembring that this alone well performed is not enough to passe us into Paradise but that alone done foolishly is enough to send us to hell and the want of either a holy life or death makes a man to fall short of the mighty price of our high calling In order to this rule we are to consider what special graces we shall then need to exercise and by the proper arts of the Spirit by a heap of proportioned arguments by prayers and a great treasure of devotion laid up in Heaven provide before hand a reserve of strength and mercy Men in the course of their lives walk lazily and incuriously as if they had both their feet in one shoe and when they are passively revolved to the time of their dissolution they have no mercies in store no patience no faith no charity to God or despite of the world being without gust or appetite for the land of their inheritance which Christ with so much pain and blood had purchased for them When we come to die indeed we shall be very much put to it to stand firm upon the two feet of a Christian faith and patience When we our selves are to use the articles to turn our former discourses into present practise and to feel what we never felt before we shall finde it to be quite another thing to be willing presently to quit this life and all our present possessions for the hopes of a thing which we were never suffered to see and such a thing of which we may sail so many wayes and of which if we fail any way we are miserable for ever Then we shall finde how much we have need to have secured the Spirit of God and the grace of saith by an habitual perfect unmovable resolution * The same also is the case of patience which will be assaulted with sharp pains disturbed fancies great fears want of a present minde natural weaknesses frauds of the Devil and a thousand accidents and imperfections It concerns us therfore highly in the whole course of our lives not onely to accustome our selves to a patient suffering of injuries and affronts of persecutions and losses of crosse accidents and unnecessary circumstances but also by representing death as present to us to consider with what arguments then to fortifie our patience and by assiduous and fervent prayer to God all our life long call upon God to give us patience and great assistances a strong faith and a confirmed hope the Spirit of God and his Holy Angels assistants at that time to resist and to subdue the devils temptations and assaults and so to fortifie our hearts that it break not into intolerable sorrows and impatience and end in wretchlessenesse and infidelity * But this is to be the work of our life and not to be done at once but as God gives us time by succession by parts and little periods For it is very remarkable that God who giveth plenteously to all creatures he hath scattered the firmament with stars as a man sowes corn in his fields in a multitude bigger then the capacities of humane order he hath made so much varietie of creatures and gives us great choice of meats and drinks although any one of both kindes would have served our needs and so in all instances of nature yet in the distribution of our time God seems to be strait-handed and gives it to us not as Nature gives us Rivers enough to drown us but drop by drop minute after minute so that we never can have two minutes together but he takes away one when he gives us another This should teach us to value our time since God so values it and by his so small distribution of it tells us it is the most precious thing we have Since therefore in the day of our death we can have but still the same little portion of this precious time let us in every minute of our life I mean in every discernable portion lay up such a stock of reason and good works that they may convey a value to the imperfect and shorter actions of our death-bed while God rewards the piety of our lives by his gracious acceptation and benediction upon the actions preparatory to our death-bed 3. He that desires to die well and happily above all things must be carefull that he do not live a soft a delicate and voluptuous life but a life severe holy and under the discipline of the crosse under the conduct of prudence and observation a life of warfare and sober counsels labour and watchfulnesse No man wants cause of tears and a daily sorrow Let every man consider what he feels and acknowledge his misery let him confesse his sin and chastise it let him bear his crosse patiently and his persecutions nobly and his repentances willingly and constantly let him pity the evils of all the world and bear his share of the calamities of his Brother let him long and sigh for the joyes of Heaven let him tremble and fear because he hath deserved the pains of hell let him commute his eternall
our actions and condemning the Criminal by being Assessors in Gods Tribunal at least we shall obtain the favour of the Court. As therefore every night we must make our bed the memoriall of our grave so let our Evening thoughts be an image of the day of judgement 5. This advice was so reasonable and proper instrument of vertue that it was taught even to the Scholers of Pythagoras by their Master Let not sleep seiz upon the Regions of your senses before you have three times recalled the conversation and accidents of the day Examine what you have committed against the Divine Law what you have omitted of your duty and in what you have made use of the Divine Grace to the purposes of vertue and religion joyning the Iudge reason to the legislative mind or conscience that God may reigne there as a Law-giver and a Judge Then Christs kingdom is set up in our hearts then we alwayes live in the Eye of our Judge and live by the measures of reason religion and sober counsels The benefits we shall receive by practising this advice in order to a blessed death will also adde to the account of reason and fair inducements The Benefits of this exercise 1. By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great sin and prevent its arrival to become habitual For to examine we suppose to be a relative duty and instrumentall to something else We examine our selves that we may finde out our failings and cure them and therefore if we use our remedy when the wound is fresh and bleeding we shall finde the cure more certain and lesse painfull For so a Taper when its crown of flames is newly blown off retains a nature so symbolical to light that it will with greedinesse reenkindle and snatch a ray from the neighbour fire So is the soul of Man when it is newly fallen into sin although God be angry with it and the state of Gods favour and its own graciousnesse is interrupted yet the habit is not naturally changed and still God leaves some roots of vertue standing and the Man is modest or apt to be made ashamed and he is not grown a bold sinner but if he sleeps on it and returns again to the same sin and by degrees growes in love with it and gets the custome and the strangenesse of it is taken away then it is his Master and is sweld into a heap and is abetted by use and corroborated by newly entertained principles and is insinuated into his Nature and hath possessed his affections and tainted the will and the understanding and by this time a man is in the state of a decaying Merchant his accounts are so great and so intricate and so much in arrear that to examine it will be but to represent the particulars of his calamity therefore they think it better to pull the napkin before their eyes then to stare upon the circumstances of their death 2. A daily or frequent examination of the parts of our life will interrupt the proceeding and hinder the journey of little sins into a heap For many dayes do not passe the best persons in which they have not many idle words or vainer thoughts to sully the fair whitenesse of their souls Some indiscreet passions or trifling purposes some impertinent discontents or unhandsome usages of their own persons or their dearest Relatives And though God is not extreme to mark what is done amisse and therefore puts these upon the accounts of his Mercy and the title of the Crosse yet in two cases these little sins combine and cluster and we know that grapes were once in so great a bunch that one cluster was the load of two men that is 1. When either we are in love with small sins or 2. When they proceed from a carelesse and incurious spirit into frequency and continuance For so the smallest atomes that dance in all the little cels of the world are so trifling and immaterial that they cannot trouble an eye nor vex the tenderest part of a wound where a barbed arrow dwelt yet when by their infinite numbers as Melissa and Parmenides affirm they danced first into order then into little bodies at last they made the matter of the world So are the little indiscretions of our life they are alwayes inconsiderable if they be considered and contemptible if they be not despised and God does not regard them if we do We may easily keep them asunder by our daily or nightly thoughts and prayers and severe sentences But even the least sand can check the tumultuous pride and become a limit to the Sea when it is in a heap and in united multitudes but if the wind scatter and divide them the little drops and the vainer froth of the water begins to invade the Strand Our sighes can scatter such little offences but then be sure to breath such accents frequently least they knot and combine and grow big as the shoar and we perish in sand in trifling instances He that despiseth little things shall perish by little and little So said the son of Sirach 3. A frequent examination of our actions will intenerate and soften our consciences so that they shall be impatient of any rudenesse or heavier load And he that is used to shrink when he is pressed with a branch of twining Osier will not willingly stand in the ruines of a house when the beam dashes upon the pavement And provided that our nice and tender spirit be not vexed into scruple nor the scruple turn into unreasonable fears nor the fears into superstition he that by any arts can make his spirit tender and apt for religious impressions hath made the fairest seat for religion and the unaptest and uneasiest entertainment for sin and eternal death in the whole world 4. A frequent examination of the smallest parts of our lives is the best instrument to make our repentance particular and a fit remedy to all the members of the whole body of sin For our examination put off to our death-bed of necessity brings us into this condition that very many thousands of our sins must be or not be at al washed off with a general repentance which the more general and indefinite it is it is ever so much the worse And if he that repents the longest and the oftnest and upon the most instances is still during his whole life but an imperfect penitent and there are very many reserves left to be wiped off by Gods mercies and to be eased by collateral assistances or to be groaned for at the terrible day of judgement it will be but a sad story to consider that the sins of a whole life or of very great portions of it shall be put upon the remedy of one examination and the advices of one discourse and the activities of a decayed body and a weak and an amazed Spirit Let us do the best we can we shall finde that the meer sins of ignorance
of religion to declare publike criminals and scandalous persons to be such that when the leprosie is declared the flock may avoid the infection and then the man is excommunicate when the people are warned to avoid the danger of the man or the reproach of the crime to withdraw from his society and not to bid him God speed not to eat and celebrate synaxes and Church-meetings with such who are declared criminal and dangerous and therefore excommunication is in a very great part the act of the Congregation and communities of the faithfull and S. Paul said to the Church of the Corinthians that they had inflicted the evil upon the incestuous person that is by excommunicating him all the acts of which are as they are subjected in the people acts of caution and liberty but no more acts of direct proper power or jurisdiction then it was when the scholers of Simon Magus lefâ— his chair and went to hear S. Peter But as they are actions of the Rulers of the Church so they are declarative ministerial and effective too by morall causality that is by perswasion and discourse by argument and prayer by homily and materiall representment by reasonablenesse of order and the superinduced necessities of men though not by any reall change of state as to the person nor by diminution of his right or violence to his condition 2. He that baptises and he that ministers the Holy Sacrament and he that prayes does holy offices of great advantage but in these also just as in the former he exercises no jurisdiction or preheminence after the manner of saecular authority and the same is also true if he should deny them He that refuseth to baptize an indisposed person hath by the consent of all men no power or jurisdiction over the unbaptized man and he that for the like reason refuseth to give him the Communion preserves the sacrednesse of the mysteries and does charitie to the undisposed man to deny that to him which will do him mischief and this is an act of separation just as it is for a friend or Physitian to deny water to an Hydropic person or Italian wines to a hectic feaver or as if Cato should deny to salute Bibulus or the Censor of maners to do countenance to a wanton and vitious person and though this thing was expressed by words of power such as separation abstention excommunication deposition yet these words we understand by the thing it self which was notorious and evident to be matter of prudence security and a free unconstrained discipline and they passed into power by consent and voluntary submission having the same effect of constraint fear and authority which we see in secular jurisdiction not because ecclesiastical discipline hath a natural proper coercion as lay-Tribunals have but because men have submitted to it and are bound to do so upon the interest of two or three Christian graces 3. In pursuance of this caution and provision the Church superinduced times and manners of abstention and expressions of sorrow and canonical punishments which they tyed the delinquent people to suffer before they would admit them to the holy Table of the Lord. For the criminal having obliged himself by his sin and the Church having declared it when she could take notice of it he is bound to repent to make him capable of pardon with God and to prove that he is penitent he is to do such actions which the Church in the vertue and pursuance of repentance shall accept as a testimony of it sufficient to inform her for as she could not binde at all in this sence till the crime was publike though the man had bound himself in secret so neither can she set him free till the repentance be as publike as the sin or so as she can note it and approve it Though the man be free as to God by his internal act yet as the publication of the sin was accidental to it and the Church censure consequent to it so is the publication of repentance and consequent absolution extrinsecal to the pardon but accidentally and in the present circumstances necessary This was the same that the Jews did though in other instances and expressions and do to this day to their prevaricaâ—ing people and the Essenes in their assemblies and private Colleges of scholars and publike Universities For all these being assemblies of voluntary persons and such as seek for advantage are bound to make an artificial authority in their superiours and so to secure order and government by their own obedience and voluntary subordination which is not essential and of proper jurisdiction in the superiour and the band of it is not any coeâ—citive power but the denying to communicate such benefits which they seek in that communion and fellowship 4. These I say were introduced in the speciall manners and instances by positive authority and have not a divine authority commanding them but there is a divine power that verefies them and makes these separations effectual and formidable for because they are declarative and ministerial in the spirituall man and suppose a delinquencie and demerit in the other and a sin against God our blessed Saviour our hath declared that what they binde in earth shall be bound in heaven that is in plain signification The same sins and sinners which the Clergie condemns in the face of their assemblies the same is condemned in heaven before the face of God and for the same reason too Gods law hath sentenced it and these are the preachers and publishers of his law by which they stand condemned and these laws are they that condemn the sin or acquit the penitent there and here whatsoever they binde here shall be bound there that is the sentence of God at the day of judgement shall sentence the same men whom the Church does rightly sentence here it is spoken in the future it shall be bound in heaven not but that the sinner is first bound there or first absolved there but because all binding and loosing in the interval is imperfect and relative to the day of judgement the day of the great sentence therefore it is set down in the time to come and sayes this only The Clergie are tyed by the word and laws of God to condemn such sins and sinners and that you may not think it ineffective because after such sentence the man lives and growes rich or remains in health and power therefore be sure it shall be verified in the day of judgement This is hugely agreeable with the words of our Lord and certain in reason for that the minister does nothing to the final alteration of the state of the mans soul by way of sentence is demonstratively certain because he cannot binde a man but such as hath bound himself and who is bound in heaven by his sin before his sentence in the Church as also be-because the binding of the Church is meerly accidental and upon publication
pasport in the article of his death and calls thâ—s the ancient and canonicall law of the Church and to minister it onely supposes the man in the communion of the Church not alwayes in the state but ever in the possibilities of sanctification They who in the article and danger of death were admitted to the communion and tied to penance if they recovered which was ever the custome of the ancient Church unlesse in very few cases were but in the threshold of repentance in the commencement and first introductions to a devout life and indeed then it is a fit ministery that it be given in all the periods of time in which the pardon of sins is working since it is the Sacrament of that great mystery the exhibition of that blood which is shed for the remission of sins 9. The Minister of religion ought not to give the Communion to a sick person if he retains the affection to any sin and refuses to disavow it or professe repentance of all sins whatsoever if he be required to do it The reason is because it is a certain death to him and an increase of his misery if he shall so prophane the body and blood of Christ as to take it into so unholy a breast where Sathan reignes and sin is principall and the Spirit is extinguished and Christ loves not to enter because he is not suffered to inhabite But when he professes repentance and does such acts of it as his present condition permits he is to be presumed to intend heartily what he professes solemnly and the Minister is onely the Judge of outward act and by that onely he is to take information concerning the inward But whether he be so or no or if he be whether that be timely and effectuall and sufficient toward the pardon of sins before God is another consideration of which we may conjecture here but we shall know it at doomsday The spirituall man is to do his ministery by the rules of Christ and as the customs of the Church appoint him and after the manner of men the event is in the hands of God and is to be expected not directly and wholly according to his ministery but to the former life or the timely internall repentance and amendment of which I have already given accounts These ministeries are acts of order and great assistances but the sum of affairs does not relie upon them And if any man puts his whole repentance upon this time or all his hopes upon these ministeries he will find them and himself to fail 10. It is the Ministers office to invite sick and dying persons to the Holy Sacrament such whose lives were fair and laudable and yet their sicknesse sad and violent making them list-lesse and of slow desires and flower apprehensions that such persons who are in the state of grace may lose no accidentall advantages of spirituall improvement but may receive into their dying bodies the symboles and great consignations of the resurrection and into their soules the pledges of immortality and may appear before God their Father in the union and with the impresses and likenesse of their elder Brother But if the persons be of ill report and have lived wickedly they are not to be invited because their case is hugely suspicious though they then repent and call for mercy but if they demand it they are not to be denied onely let the Minister in generall represent the evil consequents of an unworthy participation and if the penitent will judge himself unworthy let him stand candidate for pardon at the hands of God and stand or fall by that unerring and mercifull sentence to which his severity of condemning himself before men will make the easier and more hopefull addresse And the strictest among the Christians who denied to reconcile lapsed persons after baptisme yet acknowledged that there were hopes reserved in the court of heaven for them though not here since we who are easily deceived by the pretences of a reall return are tied to dispense Gods graces as he hath given us commission with fear and trembling and without too forward confidences and God hath mercies which we know not of and therefore because we know them not such persons were referred to Gods Tribunal where he would finde them if they were to be had at all 11. When the holy Sacrament is to be administred let the exhortation be made proper to the mystery but fitted to the man that is that it be used for the advantages of faith or love or contrition let all the circumstances and parts of the Divine love be represented all the mysterious advantages of the blessed Sacrament be declared * That it is the bread which came from heaven * That it is the representation of Christs death to all the purposes and capacities of faith * and the real exhibition of Christs body and blood to all the puposes of the Spirit * That it is the earnest of the resurrection * and the seed of a glorious immortality * That as by our cognation to the body of the first Adam we took in death so by our union with the body of the second Adam we shall have the inheritance of life for as by Adam came death so by Christ cometh the resurrection of the dead * That if we being worthy Communicants of these sacred pledges be presented to God with Christ within us our being accepted of God is certain even for the sake of his well beloved that dwells within us * That this is the Sacrament of the body which was broken for our sinnes of that blood which purifies our souls by which we are presented to God pure and holy in the beloved * That now we may ascertain our hopes and make our faith confident for he that hath given us his Son how should not he with him give us all things else Upon these or the like considerations the sick man may be assisted in his addresse and his faith strengthened and his hope confirmed and his charity be enlarged 12. The manner of the sick mans reception of the holy Sacrament hath in it nothing differing from the ordinary solemnities of the Sacrament save onely that abatement is to be made of such accidentall circumstances as by the lawes or customes of the Church healthfull persons are obliged to such as fasting kneeling c. though I remember that it was noted for great devotion in the Legate that died at Trent that he caused himself to be sustained upon his knees when he received the viaticum or the holy Sacrament before his death and it was greater in Hunniades that he caused himself to be carried to the Church that there he might receive his Lord in his Lords house and it was recorded for honour that William the pious Arch-Bishop of Bourges a small time before his last agony sprang out of his bed at the presence of the holy Sacrament and upon
his brother nor give to God a ransome for him for the redemption of their soul is precious and it ceaseth for ever that he should still live for ever and not see corruption But wise men die likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me As for me I will behold thy face in righteousnesse I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likenesse Thou shalt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. Let us Pray ALmighty God Father of mercies the God of peace and comfort of rest and pardon we thy servants though unworthy to pray to thee yet in duty to thee and charity to our brother humbly beg mercy of thee for him to descend upon his body and his soul One sinner O Lord for another the miserable for the afflicted the poor for him that is in need but thou givest thy graces and thy favours by the measures of thy own mercies and in proportion to our necessities we humbly come to thee in the Name of Jesus for the merit of our Saviour and the mercies of our God praying thee to pardon the sins of this thy servant and to put them all upon the accounts of the Crosse and to bury them in the grave of Jesus that they may never rise up in judgement against thy servant nor bring him to shame and confusion of face in the day of finall inquiry and sentence Amen II. GIve thy servant patience in his sorrows comfort in this his sicknesse and restore him to health if it seem good to thee in order to thy great ends and his greatest interest And however thou shalt determine concerning him in this affair yet make his repentance perfect and his passage and his faith strong and his hope modest and confident that when thou shalt call his soul from the prison of the body it may enter into the securities and rest of the sons of God in the bosome of blessednesse and the custodies of Jesus Amen III. THou O Lord knowest all the necessities and all the infirmities of thy servant fortifie his spirit with spirituall joyes and perfect resignation and take from him all degrees of inordinate or insecure affections to this world and enlarge his heart with desires of being with thee and of freedome from sins and fruition of God IV. LOrd let not any pain or passion discompose the order and decencie of his thoughts and duty and lay no more upon thy servant then thou wilt make him able to bear and together with the temptation do thou provide a way to escape even by the mercies of a longer and a more holy life or by the mercies of a blessed death even as it pleaseth thee O Lord so let it be V. LEt the tendernesse of his conscience and the Spirit of God call to mind his sins that they may be confessed and repented of because thou hast promised that if we confesse our sins we shall have mercy Let thy mighty grace draw out from his soul every root of bitternesse lest the remains of the old man be accursed with the reserves of thy wrath but in the union of the Holy Jesus and in the charities of God and of the world and the communion of all the saints let this soul be presented to thee blamelesse and intirely pardoned and thorowly washed through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here also may be inserted the prayers set down after the Holy Communion is administred The Prayer of S. Eustratius the Martyr to be used by the sick or dying man or by the Priests or assistants in his behalf which he said when he was going to martyrdom I Will praise thee O Lord that thou hast considered my low estate and hast not shut me up in the hands of my enemies nor made my foes to rejoyce over me and now let thy right hand protect me and let thy mercy come upon me for my soul is in trouble and anguish because of its departure from the body O let not the assemblies of its wicked and cruell enemies meet it in the passing forth nor hinder me by reason of the sins of my passed life O Lord be favourable unto me that my so I may not behold the hellish countenance of the spirits of darknesse but let thy bright and joyfull Angels entertain it Give glory to thy Holy Name and to thy Majesty place me by thy mercifull arm before thy seat of Judgement and let not the hand of the prince of this world snatch me from thy presence or bear me into hell Mercy sweet Jesu Amen A Prayer taken out of the Euchologion of the Greek Church to be said by or in behalf of people in their danger or neer their death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I. BEmired with sins and naked of good deeds I that am the meat of worms cry vehemently in spirit Cast not me wretch away from thy face place me not on the left hand who with thy hands didst fashion me but give rest unto my soul for thy great mercy sake O Lord. II. SUpplicate with tears unto Christ who is to judge my poor soul that he would deliver me from the fire that is unquenchable I pray you all my friends and acquaintance make mention of me in your prayers that in the day of Judgement I may find mercy at that dreadfull Tribunall III. Then may the by-standers pray WHen in unspeakable glory thou dost come dreadfully to judge the whole world vouchsafe O gracious Redeemer that this thy faithfull servant may in the clouds meet thee cheerfully They who have been dead from the beginning with terrible and fearfull trembling stand at thy Tribunall waiting thy just O Blessed Saviour Jesus None shall there avoid thy formidable and most righteous judgement All Kings and Princes with servants stand together and hear the dreadfull voyce of the Judge condemning the people which have sinned into hell from which sad sentence O Christ deliver thy servant Amen Then let the sick man be called upon to rehearse the Articles of his Faith or if he be so weak he cannot let him if he have not before done it be called to say Amen when they are recited or to give some testimony of his faith and confident assent to them After which it is proper if the person be in capacity that the Minister examine him and invite him to confession and all the parts of repentance according to the foregoing rules after which he may pray this prayer of absolution OUr Lord Jesus Christ who hath given Commission to his Church in his Name to pronounce pardon to all that are truly penitent he of his mercy pardon and forgive thee all thy sins deliver thee from all evils past present and future