it is the disolution of a man, not the annihilation; It doth not make him cease to bee, but takes asunder a while the soule from the body: It carrieth the one to the earth, and the other to ano∣ther world: so that both continue to bee, though they be not uni∣ted as before.The word of God teacheth us, that he hath created the world (as it were) a house of three Stories. The middle is this present life where we be. And there is a lower place, the Dungeon, a place of unhappinesse and destruction. There is a higher place, a pal∣lace of glory. According as men behave themselves in this mid∣dle roome; so Death either leadeth them downe to the place of unhappinesse, or conveyeth them up to the pallace of glory and blessednesse. This, Nature is ignorant of, but the Scripture is plaine in. The rich man dieth, and his soule is carried to Hell; the poore man when he died, his soule was advanced to Heaven. So that Death is nothing but the messenger of God to take the soule out of the body, and to convey it to a place of more happinesse, or more miserie then can be conceived.Secondly, the Scripture acquaints us further with the cause of 2. What are the causes of death.death. Philosophers wondred since nature desireth a perpetuitie, and continuance of it selfe, that man should be so short a time in the world. The Scripture endeth this wonderment, and tels us that man indeed was made immortall, to continue for ever, and should not have died: but sinne came into the world, and by sin death. Death is the mother of sinne, and of all miserie, that by little and little draweth to death.I say sinne: the first sinne of our first Parents whereby they transgressed that most easie and equall mandate about eating the forbidden fruit. That transgression that was the treading under foot the covenant of workes, and the disanulling of it, that sinne let in Death at a great Gappe: and now it triumpheth, and beareth rule over all the world.Nature cannot tell which way in the world a man should die so soone, and that hee that is the Lord of all creatures, should bee inferiour to a great number of them in length of life. But the word of God unridleth this riddle, and telleth us that God made man, that hee might and should have lived for ever, but Sinne com∣ming, and comming in the person of the first man, it brought death, and made all men mortall: and when sinne entred, Gods curse came, and that working upon us poore and miserable crea∣tures, it is the cause that we cannot continue long here.It was equall that death should follow sinne, for since God made man to obey his will, when man had unfitted himselfe for Gods service, it was reason that he should have a short continance of life, for the longer he endured, the more he would abuse him∣selfe.0