a sure apprehension of both the unavoidable necessity and certain benefit of death A necessity grounded upon the just and eternal Decree of Heaven It is appointed to all men once to die and what a madness were it for a Man to think of an exemption from the common condition of mankind Mortality is as it were essential to our Nature neither could we have had our Souls but upon the terms of a re-delivery when they shall be called for If the Holiest Saints or the greatest Monarchs sped otherwise we might have some colour of repining Now grieve if thou wilt that thou art a Man grieve not that being Man thou must die Neither is the benefit inferiour to the necessity Lo here the remedy of all our cares the Physick for all our maladies the rescue from all our fears and dangers earnestly sued for by the painful dearly welcome to the distressed Yea lo here the Cherub that keeps the Gate of Paradise there is no entrance but under his hand In vain do we hope to pass to the Glory of Heaven any other way then through the Gates of Death The second is the Conscience of a well-led Life Guiltinefs will make any Man cowardly unable to look danger in the face much more Death whereas the innocent is bold as a Lion What a difference therefore there is betwixt a Martyr and a Malefactor this latter knows he hath done ill and therefore if he can take his Death but patiently it is well the former knows he hath done well and therfore takes his Death not patiently onely but chearfully But because no mortal Man can have so innocently led his Life but that he shall have passed many offences against his most Holy and Righteous God here must be Thirdly a final Peace firmly made betwixt God and the Soul Two Powerful Agents must mediate in it a Lively Faith and a serious Repentance for those Sins can never appear against us that are washed off with our tears and being justified by Faith we have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ Now if we have made the Judge our Friend what can the Sergeant do The fourth is the Power and efficacy of Christs Death applyed to the Soul Wherefore dyed he but that we might Live Wherefore would he who is the Lord of Life die but to sanctifie season and sweeten death to us Who would go any other way then his Saviour went before him Who can fear that enemy whom his Redeemer hath Conquered for him Who can run away from that Serpent whose sting is pulled out Oh Death my Saviour hath been thy Death and therefore thou canst not be mine The fifth is the comfortable expectation and assurance of a certain resurrection and an immediate Glory I do but lay me down to my rest I shall sleep quietly and rise gloriously My Soul in the mean time no sooner leaves my body then it enjoys God It did lately through my bodily Eyes see my sad Friends that bad me farewel with their Tears now it hath the blisse-making Vision of God I am no sooner lanched forth then I am at the Haven where I would be Here is that which were able to make amends for a thousand Deaths a Glory Infinite Eternal Incomprehensible This Spiritual Ammunition shall sufficiently furnish the Soul for her encounter with her last Enemy so as she shall not only endure but long for this Combat and say with the chosen Vessel I desire to depart to be with Christ SECT XVIII The miseries and inconveniences of the continued conjunction of the Soul Body NOw for that long conversation causeth entireness and the parting of Old Friends and Partners such the Soul and Body are cannot but be grievous although there were no actual pain in the dissolution It will be requisite for us seriously to consider the state of this conjunction to enquire what good offices the one of them doth to the other in their continued union for which they should be so loth to part And here we shall find that those two however united to make up one Person yet as it fals out in Cross matches they are in continual domestique jars one with the other and entertain a secret familiar kind of Hostility betwixt themselves For the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these are contrary the one to the other One says well that if the Body should implead the Soul it might bring many foul impeachments against it and sue it for many great injuries done to that Earthly part And the Soul again hath no fewer quarrels against the Body Betwixt them both there are many brawles no Agreement Our Schools have reckoned up therefore eight main incommodities which the Soul hath cause to complain of in her conjunction with the Body whereof the first is the defilement of Original Sin wherewith the Soul is not tainted as it proceeds alone from the pure hands of its Creator but as it makes up a part of a Son of Adam who brought this guilt upon Humane nature so as now this composition which we call Man is corrupt Who can bring a clean thing out of that which is unclean Saith Job The second is a proneness to Sin which but by the meeting of these partners had never been the Soul if single would have been innocent thus matched what Evil is it not apt to entertain An ill consort is enough to poyson the best disposition The difficulty of doing well is the third for how averse are we by this conjunction from any thing that is good This clog hinders us from walking roundly in the ways of God The good that I would do I do not saith the chosen Vessel The fourth is the dulness of our understanding and the dimness of our mental Eyes especially in the things pertaining unto God which now we are forced to behold through the vail of Flesh If therefore we mis-know the fault is in the mean through which we do imperfectly discover them The fifth is a perpetual impugnation and self-conflict either part labouring to oppose and vanquish the other This field is fought in every mans bosom without any possibility of peace or truce till the last moment of dissolution The sixth is the racking solicitude of cares which continually distract the Soul not Suffering it to rest at ease whiles it carries this Flesh about it The seventh is the multiplicity of passions which daily bluster within us and raise up continual Tempests in our Lives disquieting our Peace and threatning our Ruine The eight is the retardation of our Glory for Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God we must lay down our load if we would enter into Heaven The seed cannot fructifie unless it Die. I cannot blame Nature if it could wish not to be unclothed but to be clothed upon But so hath the Eternal Wisdom Ordered that we should first lay down ere we can take up
with those temporall cares which are ever barking in mine ears is forced upon earthly things thus he There are indeed cares which as they may be used may help us on towards Heaven such as Malancthon owns to his Camerarius My cares saith he send me to my prayers and my prayers dispel my cares but those anxieties which commonly wait upon greatness distract the mind and impare the body It is an observation of the Jewish Doctors that Joseph the Patriarch was of a shorter life then the rest of his brethren and they render this reason of it for that his cares were as much greater as his place was higher It was not an unfit comparison of him who resembled a Coronet upon the Temples to a Paile upon the Head We have seen those who have carryed full and heavy vessels on the top of their heads but then they have walked evenly and erect under that load we never saw any that could dance under such a weight if either they bend or move vehemently all their cariage is spilled Earthly greatness is a nice thing and requires so much chariness in the managing as the contentment of it cannot requite He is worthy of honey that desires to lick it off from thorns for my part I am of the mind of him who professed not to care for those favours that compelled him to lie waking SECT XI Danger of distemper both bodily and spiritual that commonly follows great means and torment in parting with them IN the next place I see greatness not more pale and worn with cares then swoln up and sickly with excess Too much oyl poured in puts out the Lamp Superfluity is guilty of a world of diseases which the spare diet of poverty is free from How have we seen great mens eyes surfeited at that full Table whereof their palate could not taste and they have risen discontentedly glutted with the sight of that which their stomach was uncapable to receive and when not giving so much law to nature as to put over their gluttonous meal their wanton appetite charging them with a new variety of curious morsels and lavish cups they find themselves overtaken vvith feaverous distempers the Physitian must succeed the Cook and a second sickness must cure the first But alas these bodily indispositions are nothing to those spiritual evils vvhich are incident unto secular greatness It is a true word of S. Ambrose seconded by common experience that an high pitch of honour is seldom held up without sin And S. Jerome tells us it was a common Proverb in his time That a rich man either is wicked or a wicked mans heir Not but that rich Abraham may have a bosom for poor Lazarus to rest in and many great Kings have bin great Saints in Heaven and there is still room for many more but that commonly great temptations follow great estates oftentimes overtake them neither is it for nothing that riches are by our blessed Saviour styled the Mammon of Iniquity and wealth is by the holy Apostle branded with deceitfulness such as cheat many millions of their Souls Add unto these if you please the torment of parting with that pelf and honour which hath so grosly bewitched us such as may well verifie that which Lucius long since wrote to the Bishops of France and Spain that one houres mischief makes us forget the pleasure of the greatest excess I marvel not at our English Jew of whom our story speaks that would rather part with his teeth then his bags how many have we known that have poured out their life together with their gold as men that would not outlive their earthen god yea woe is me how many souls have been lost in the sin of getting and in the quarrel of losing this thick clay as the Prophet terms it But lastly that which is yet the sorest of all the inconveniences is the sadness of the reckoning which must come in after these plentifull entertainments for there is none of all our cares here but must be billed up and great Accompts must have long Audits how hard a thing it is in this case to have an Omnia aequè In the failing whereof how is the Conscience affected I know not whether more tormented or tormenting the miserable soul so as the great Owner is but as witty Bromiard compares him like a weary Jade which all the day long hath been labouring under the load of a great treasure and at night lies down with a galled back By that time therefore we have summed up all and find here envy cares sicknesses both of body soul torment in parting with and more torment in reckoning for these earthly greatnesses we shall be convinced of sufficient reason to be well apaid with their want SECT XII Consideration of the benefits of Poverty LEt the fifth Consideration be the benefits of Poverty such and so great as are enough to make us in love with having nothing For first what an advantage is it to be free from those gnawing cares which like Tityus his Vulture feed upon the Heart of the Great Here is a man that sleeps Aethiopian-like with his doors open no dangers threaten him no feares break his rest he starts not out of his bed at midnight and cries Theeves he feels no rack of ambitious thoughts he frets not at the disappointment of his false hopes he cracks not his brain with hazardous plots he mis-doubts no undermining of emulous rivals no traps of hollow friendship but lives securely in his homely Cottage quietly enjoying such provision as Nature and honest Industry furnish him withall for his drink the neighbour Spring saves him the charge of his Excise and when his better earnings have fraught his trencher with a warm and pleasing morsel and his cup with a stronger liquor how chearfully is he affected with that happy variety and in the strength of it digests many of his thinner meals Meales usually sawced with an healthfull hunger wherein no incocted Crudities oppress Nature and cherish disease Here are no Gouts no Dropsies no Hypochondriack passions no Convulsive fits no distempers of Surfets but a clear and wholsome vigor of body and an easie putting over the light tasks of digestion to the constant advantage of health And as for outward dangers what an happy immunity doth commonly bless the poor man How can he fear to fall that lies flat upon the ground The great Pope Boniface the seventh when he saw many stately Buildings ruined with Earthquakes is glad to raise him a little Cabin of boards in the midst of a Meadow and there findes it safest to shelter his triple Crown When great men hoist their Top-sail and launch forth into the deep having that large clew which they spread expos'd to all windes and weathers the poor man sails close by the Shore and when he foresees a storm to threaten him puts into the next Creek and wears out in a quiet
wealth and state and making still even with his Victuals and the day who when he was invited to supper to one of Alexanders great Lords could say I had rather lick salt at Athens then feast with Craterus Here I meet with him whom their Oracle styled the wisest of men walking barefoot in a patcht thred-bare cloak contemning honours and all earthly things and when that garment would hang no longer on his back I can hear him say I would have bought a Cloak if I had had money after which word saith Seneca whosoever offered to give came too late Apollodorus amongst the rest sends him a rich mantle towards his end and is refused With what Patience doth this man bear the loud scoldings of his Xantippe making no other of them then the creaking of a Cart-wheel with what brave resolution doth he repel the proffers of Archelaus telling him how cheap the Market afforded meal at Athens and the Fountains Water Here I meet with a Zeno formerly rich in his traffique for purple now impoverisht by an ill Sea-voyage and can hear him say I sailed best when I Ship-wrackt Here I see an Aristippus drowning his gold in the Sea that it might not drown him Here I can hear a Democritus or Cleanthes when he was asked how a man should be rich Answer If he be poor in desires What should I speak of those Indian Sophists that took their name from their nakedness whom we hear to say The Sky is our House and the Earth our Bed we care not for Gold we contemn Death One of them can tell Onesicritus As the Mother is to the Child so is the Earth to me The Mother gives Milk to her Infant so doth the Earth yield all necessaries to me And when gold was offered to him by that great Conquerour Perswade said he if thou canst these birds to take thy silver and gold that they may sing the sweeter and if thou canst not do that wouldst thou have me worse then them Adding moreover in a strong discourse Natural hunger when we have taken food ceaseth and if the mind of man did also naturally desire gold so soon as he hath received that which he wished the desire and appetite of it would presently cease but so far is it from this satiety that the more it hath the more it doth without any intermission long for more because this desire proceeds not from any motion of Nature but only out of the wantonness of mans own will to which no bounds can be set Blush O Christian Soul whosoever thou art that readest these lines to hear such words falling from Heathen lips when thou seest those that profess godliness doat upon these worthless metals and transported with the affectation and cares of these earthly provisions If from these patterns of men that should be below our selves we look up to the more noble precedents of Prophets and Apostles Lo there we find Elijah fed by Ravens Elisha boarding with his poor Sareptan Hostess And an hundred Prophets fed by fifty in a Cave with bread and water The Sons of the Prophets for the enlarging of their over-strait lodgings hard at work they are their own Carpenters but their tools are borrowed There we shall find a few barly loaves and little fishes the houshold provision of our Saviours train Yea there we find the most glorious Apostle the great Doctor of the Gentiles employing his hands to feed his belly Busily stitching of skins for his Tent-work Yea what do we look at any or all of these when we see the Son of God the God of all the World in the form of a Servant Not a Cratch to cradle him in not a Grave to bury him in was his own and he that could command Heaven and Earth can say The Foxes have holes the Birds have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head Who now can complain of want when he hears his Lord and Saviour but thus Provided for He could have brought down with him a Celestial House and have pitcht it here below too glorious for earthen eyes to have lookt upon He could have commanded all the precious things that lie shrouded in the bowels of the Earth to have made up a Majestical Palace for him to the dazling of the eyes of all beholders He could have taken up the stateliest Court that any Earthly Monarch possessed for his peculiar habitation But his greatness was Spiritual and Heavenly And he that owned all would have nothing that he might Sanctifie want unto us and that he might teach us by his blessed example to sit down contented with any thing with nothing By that time therefore we have laid all these things together and have seriously considered of the mean valuation of all these earthly things for their transitoriness Unsatisfaction Danger of the over-ruling Providence of the Almighty who most wisely justly Mercifully disposeth of us and all events that befall us of the worse condition of many thousand others of the great inconveniences that attend great and full estates of the secret benefits of Poverty of the smalness of that pittance that may suffice Nature of the miseries that wait upon discontentment of the Merciful vicissitudes of Favours wherewith God pleaseth to interchange our sufferings and lastly the great examples of those as well without as within the bosom of the Church that have gone before us and led us the way to Contentation our judgment cannot chuse but be sufficiently convinced that there is abundant reason to win our hearts to a quiet and contented entertainment of want and all other outward afflictions SECT XVII Of Contentment in Death it self BUt all these intervenient miseries are slight in comparison of the last and utmost of Evils Death Many a one grapples chearfully with these trivial afflictions who yet looks Pale and trembles at the King of Fear His very Name hath Terrour in it but his looks more The courageous Champion of Christ the blessed Apostle And with him every Faithful Soul makes his challenge universal to whatsoever Estate he is in to the Estate of Death therefore no less then the afflictive incidence of Life When therefore this gastly Giant shall stalk forth and bid defiance to the whole Host of Israel and when the timorous unbeleevers shall run away at the fight of him endevour to hide their Heads from his presence the good Soul armed not with the unmeet and cumbersome Harness of Flesh and Blood but with the sure though invisible armour of God dares comes forth to meet him and in the name of the Lord of Hosts both bids him battle and foils him in the Combat and now having laid him on the ground can Triumphingly say O Death where is thy sting O Grave where is thy Victory Five smooth pebles there are which if we cary in our scrip wee shall be able to quel not only the power of Death but the terrour too Whereof the first is
OUr last Resolution must be to be frequent and fervent in our Prayers to the Father of all Mercies that he will be pleased to Work our Hearts by the Power of his Spirit to this constant state of Contentation without which we can neither consider the things that belong to our inward Peace nor dispose our selves towards it nor resolve ought for the effecting it without which all our Considerations all our Dispositions all our Resolutions are vain and fruitless Justly therefore doth the blessed Apostle after his charge of avoiding all Carefulness for these earthly things enforce the necessity of our Prayers and Supplications and making our requests known unto God who both knows our need and puts these requests into our Mouths When we have all done they are the requests of our Hearts that must free them from cares and frame them to a perfect Contentment There may be a kind of dull and stupid neglect which possessing the Soul may make it insensible of Evil Events in some natural dispositions but a true temper of a quiet and peaceable estate of the Soul upon good grounds can never be attained without the inoperation of that Holy Spirit from whom every good gift and every perfect giving proceedeth It is here contrary to these Earthly Occasions With Men he that is ever craving is never contented but with God he cannot want Contentment that prays always If we be not unacquainted with our selves we are so conscious of our own weakness that we know every puff of Temptation is able to blow us over they are only our Prayers that must stay us from being carried away with the violent assaults of Discontentment under which a Praying Soul can no more miscarry then an Indevout Soul can enjoy safety SECT XXVI The difficulty of knowing how to abound and the ill consequences of not knowing it LEt this be enough for the Remedy of those distempers which arise from an adverse Condition As for Prosperity every man thinks himself wise and able enough to know how to govern it and himself in it an happy estate we imagine will easily manage it self without too much care Give me but Sea-Room faith the confident Mariner and let me alone what ever tempest arise Surely the great Doctor of the Gentiles had never made this holy boast of his divine skill I know how to abound if it had been so easie a matter as the World conceives it Meer Ignorance and want of Self-experience is Guilty of this Errour Many a one abounds in Wealth and Honour who a no less in miseries and vexation Many a one is caried away with an unruly greatness to the destruction of Body Soul Estate The World abounds every where with Men that do abound and yet do not know how to abound And those especially in three ranks The Proud the Covetous the Prodigal The Proud is thereby transported to forget God the Covetous his Neighbour the Prodigal Himself Both Wealth and Honour are of a swelling Nature raising a Man up not above others but above himself equalling him to the Powers Immortal yea exalting him above all that is called God Oh that vile dust and ashes should be raised to that height of Insolence as to hold contestation with its Maker Who is the Lord Saith the King of Egypt I shall be like to the Highest I am and there is none besides me saith the King of Babylon The Voice of God and not of Man goes down with Herod And how will that Spirit trample upon Men that dare vie with the Almighty Hence are all the heavy oppressions Bloody Tyrannies imperious domineerings scornful insultations merciless outrages that are so rife amongst Men even from hence that they know not how to abound The Covetous Man abounds with bags and no less with sorrows verifying the experience of Wise Solomon There is a fore evil which I have seen under the Sun Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt what he hath got with unjustice he keeps with care leaves with grief and reckons for with torment I cannot better compare these Money-mongers then to Bees they are busie gatherers but it is for themselves their Masters can have no part of their Honey till it be taken from them and they have a sting ready for every one that approaches their Hive and their lot at the last is burning What maceration is there here with feares and jealousies what cruel extortion and oppression exercised upon other And all from no other ground then this that they know not how to abound The Prodigal feasts and sports like an Athenian spends like an Emperour and is ready to say as Heliogabalus did of Old Those Cates are best that cost dearest caring more for an empty reputation of a short gallantry then for the comfortable subsistence of himself his Family his Posterity Like Cleopes the Vain Egyptian King which was fain to prostitute his Daughter for the finishing of his Pyramid This Man lavisheth out not his own meanes alone but his poor neighbours running upon the score with all Trades that concern back or belly undoing more with his debts then he can pleasure with his entertainments none of all which should be done if he knew how to abound Great skill therefore is required to the Governing of a plentiful and prosperous Estate so as it may be safe and comfortable to the owner and beneficial unto others Every Corporal may know how to Order some few Files but to marshal many Troops in a Regiment many Regiments in a whole Body of an Army quires the skill of an experienced General But the rules and limits of Christian moderation in the use of our Honours Pleasures Profits I have at large laid forth in a former Discourse thither I must crave leave to send the benevolent Reader beseeching God to bless unto him these and all other Labours to the Happy furtherance of his Grace and Salvation Amen * ⎠* FINIS Phil. 4. 11. Si sedeas requies est magna laboris Si multum sedeas labor est Tert. Carm. Pro. 30 8. Senec. de Tranquil Psal 23. 1. Psalm 34 9 10. Eccles 25. 2. Rev. 3. 17. Mat. 20. 15. 2 Kings 7. 2. 2 King 6. 33. Rev 36. 9. 11. Jonah 4 9. Pro. 30. 5. Jer. 10. 19. * Galba Otho Vitellius Ael Pertinax Didius Anno D. 1275. 1276. Gregor 10 Innocent 5 Hadrian 5 Johan 20 vel 21 Nicolaus 3 * 1 Cor. 15. 31. Gen 15. 10 Deut. 29. 23. Prov. 23. 5. Psal 29. 4. Ludo. Vives in 3. De Civit censura notatus Vellosillo Prov. ult Penult Ecc. 11. 10. Mat. 6. 28. Psa 69. 22 Dan. 1 12. 13. Heb. 11. 38. Ps 132. 1. G. Naz. Carm. de calam suis Greg l. 7. Epi. 12. 7. In vita Melanct. Shicardus Ambros 〈…〉 Epist 29. Hieron Ep. ad Hedibium 1. Tim. 6. Ep. Lucii ad Episc Gall. Hisp 1 Tim. 6. 9. Paulo primo Eremitae in spelunca viventi palma cibum vestimentum praebebat quod cum impossible videatur Jesum testor Angelos vidisse me Monachos de quibus unus per 30. annos clausus herdeaceo pane lutulenta aqua vixit Hieron de vita Pauli Revelatur Antonio nonagenario de Paulo agente jam 113. annum esse alium se sanctiorem Monachum ibid. Plin. l. 26. c. 6. Hugo Instit Mona Reg. S. Columb Senec. Epist 88. Job 18. 4. Eccles 7. 9. Gen. 30. 1. Gen. 15. 2. Pro. 15. 13. Ps 37. 7. Jam. 5. 7. Jer. 12. 8. Ps 103. 9. Job 2. 10. Livius 2 Cor. 4. 17. Acts 7. Inter opera Ambrosii Dâ—moribus Brachmannorum 1 Kings 18. 13. 2 Kings 6. 2 3 4 5 Mat. 8. 20. Heb. 9. 27. Rom. 5. 1. Phil. 1. 23. Gal. 5. 17. Job 14. 4. Rom. 7. 19. 2 Cor. 5. 4. Gen. 18. 27 Pirke Avâ—oth Gen. 32. 10. Pro. 3. 34. Jam. 4. 6. Mat. 5. 39. 40. Pro. 85. 33. Phil 4. 6. Heb. 11. 1. Mat. 5. 10. Heb. 13. 5. Esa 54. 7 8. Psal 139. 8 9. ver 10 11 Ps 68. 20. Joh. 7. 38. Joh. 6. 55. Rom. 13. 14. Rev. 22. 2. Ps 62. 6 7. Phil. 1. 27. Joh. 11. 25. 1 Cor. 1. 30. Rev. 3. 23. Rom. 7. 19. Esa 28. 27. Gen. 43. 34. Gen. 45. 24. 2 Cor. 4. 16. Ambros de vitiorum virtutum conflictu Pro. 30. 15. Job 38. 11. Pro. 24. 13. Pro. 25. 16. Pro. 25. 16. Mat. 5. 6. Ambros Epist 27. Gen. 32. 26. 33. 5 6. c. Act. 27. 18 19. 2 Sam. 23. 15 16 17. Phil. 4. 6. Jam. 1. 17. Exod. 5. 2. Esa 14. 14. Act. 12. 22 Eccl. 5. 13. Aelius Lamprid.