[ 1167] The sad condition of a Worldly-minded Man at the time of Death.
IT is reported of a wretched Rich Man,* 1.1 who when he heard that his sickness was deadly, sent for his baggs of Money, and hugg'd them in his arms, saying, Oh must I leave you? oh must I leave you? And of another, who when he lay upon his sick-bed, called for his baggs, and laid a bagge of Gold to his heart, and then oad them take it away, saying; It will not do, it will not do: A third also being near death, clap'd a Twenty-shilling piece of Gold in his mouth, saying, Some wiser then some, I'le take this with me however. Now if these mens hearts had been rip'd up as∣ter they had been dead,* 1.2 there might have been certainly found written in them, The god of this present world; a sad condition, wherein may be seen the corruption of nature discovering it self: When men are so wedded to the things of this world, that they do as it were incubare divitiis, sit hatching upon their riches, as the Par∣tridge upon her young,* 1.3 (especially if gotten by their own industry) then they think much to be divorced from them by death, and to leave them to others, to whom many times they know not, and usually to them that will never give thanks for them.