The rule and exercises of holy dying in which are described the means and instruments of preparing our selves and others respectively, for a blessed death, and the remedies against the evils and temptations proper to the state of sicknesse : together with prayers and acts of vertue to be used by sick and dying persons, or by others standing in their attendance : to which are added rules for the visitation of the sick and offices proper for that ministery.

The Benefits of this exercise.

1. By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great sin and pre∣vent 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 bleed∣ing, 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 interrupt∣ed, yet the habit is not naturally changed; and still God leaves some roots of vertue stan∣ding, 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 a∣gain 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 abet∣ted by use, and corroborated by newly enter∣tained 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 decay∣ing

Merchant, his accounts are so great, and so intricate, and so much in arrear, that to ex∣amine it will be but to represent the particu∣lars 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 imperti∣nent 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 continu∣ance. For so the smallest atomes that dance in all the little cels of the world, are so tri∣fling 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 Par∣menides affirm) they danced first into order, then into little bodies, at last they made the matter of the world: So are the little indis∣cretions of our life; they are alwayes inconside∣rable

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 pray∣ers, and severe sentences: But even the least sand can check the tumultuous pride, and be∣come 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 com∣bine, and grow big as the shoar, and we pe∣rish in sand, in trifling instances. He that de∣spiseth 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 uneasi∣est 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 judge∣ment; 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, and unavoidable forgetful∣nesse will be enough to be intrusted to such a bank, and that if a general repentance will serve towards their expiation, it will be an infinite mercy: but we have nothing to war∣rant our confidence, if we shall think it to be enough on our death-bed to confesse the no∣torious actions of our lives, (and to say [The Lord be merciful to me for the infinite transgressi∣ons of my life, which I have wilfully or carelesly forgot] for very many of which, the repen∣tance, the distinct, particular, circumstantiate repentance of a whole life would have been too little, if we could have done more.

5. After the enumeration of these advan∣tanges I shall not need to adde that if we de∣cline or refuse to call our selves frequently to

account, and to use daily advices concerning the state of our souls, it is a very ill signe, that our souls are not right with God, or that they do not dwell in religion. But this I shall say, that they who do use this exercise frequently will make their conscience much at ease by casting out a daily load of humor and surfet, the matter of diseases and the instruments of death. He that does not frequently search his con∣science, is a house without a window, and like a wilde untutored son of a fond and undiscern∣ing widow.

But if this exercise seem too great a trou∣ble, and that by such advices, religion will seem a burden, I have two things to oppose against it.

1. One is; that we had better ••ear the burden of the Lord, then the burden of a base and polluted conscience. Religion cannot be so great a trouble as a guilty soul; and what∣soever trouble can be fancied in this or any other action of religion, it is onely to unex∣perienced persons. It may be a trouble at first, just as is every change, and every new accident: but if you do it frequently and ac∣custom your spirit to it, as the custom will make it easy, so the advantages wil make it de∣lectable; that will make it facile as nature, these will make it as pleasant and eligible as reward.

2. The other thing I have to say is this: That to examine our lives will be no trouble if we do not intricate it with businesses of the world, and the Laby∣rinths of care and im∣pertinent affairs. A man had need have a quiet and disintangled life, who

comes to search into all his actions, and to make judgement concerning his errors and his needs, his remedies and his hopes. They that have great intrigues of the world, have a yoak upon their necks, & cannot look back; and he that covets many things greedily, and snatches at high things ambitiously, that despises his Neighbour proudly, and bears his crosses peevishly, or his prosperity impotently and passionately; he that is prodigal of his precious time, and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes, is not a man disposed to this exercise, he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory, and to dash his glasse in pieces, because it must needs represent to his own eyes an intolerable deformity. He therefore that resolves to live well whatsoever it costs him; he that will go to Heaven at any rate, shall best tend this duty by neglecting the affairs of the world, in all things where prudently he may. But if we do otherwise, we shall finde that the accounts of our death-bed and the examination made by a disturbed understanding will be very empty of comfort and full of inconveniencies.

6. For hence it comes that men dye so ti∣morously, and uncomfortably, as if they were forced out of their lives by the violencies of an executioner. Then, without much examina∣tion they remember how wickedly they have lived, without religion, against the laws of the covenant of grace, without God in the world; then they see sin goes off like an amazed, wounded, affrighted person from a lost battel, without honour, without a veil, with nothing but shame & sad remembrances. Then they can consider that if they had lived vertuously, all the trouble and objection of that would now

be past, and all that had remained should be peace and joy, and all that good which dwells within the house of God, and eternal life. But now they finde they have done amisse and dealt wickedly, they have no bank of good works, but a huge treasure of wrath, and they are going to a strange place, and what shall be their lot is uncertain; (so they say, when they would comfort and flatter themselves) but in truth of religion their portion is sad and intollerable, without hope, and without refreshment▪ and they must use little silly arts, to make them go off from their stage of sins with some handsom circumstances of opinion: They will in civility be abused that they may die quietly, and go decently to their executi∣on, and leave their friends indifferently con∣tented, and apt to be comforted, and by that time they are gone awhile, they see that they deceived themselves all their dayes, and were by others deceived at last.

Let us make it our own case; we shall come to that state and period of condition, in which we shall be infinitely comforted, if we have lived well, er else be amazed and go off trem∣bling, because we are guilty of heaps of un∣repented and unforsaken sins. It may happen we shall not then understand it so, because most men of late ages have been abused with false principles, and they are taught (or they are willing to believe) that a little thing is enough to save them, and that heaven is so cheap a purchase, that it will fall upon them whether they will or no. The misery of it is, they will not suffer themselves to be confuted, till it be too late to recant their errour. In the interim, they are impatient to be examined,

as a leper is of a comb, and are greedy of the world, as children of raw fruit; and they hate a severe reproof, as they do thorns in their beds; and they love to lay aside religion, as a drunken person does to forget his sorrow; and all the way they dream of fine things, and their dreams prove contrary, and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow. The daugh∣ter of Polycrates dreamed that her Father was lifted up, and that Iupiter washed him and the Sun anointed him; but it proved to him but a sad prosperity: for after a long life of con∣stant prosperous successes he was surpri∣zed by his enemies, and hanged up till the dew of heaven wet his cheeks, and the Sun melted his grease. Such is the condition of those persons who living either in the de∣spight, or in the neglect of religion, lye wal∣lowing in the drunkennesse of prosperity, or worldly cares; they think themselves to be exalted, till the evil day overtakes them; and then they can expound their dream of life to end in a sad and hopelesse death. I re∣member that Cleomenes that was called a God by the Egyptians, because when he was hang'd, a serpent grew out of his body, and wrapt it self about his head, till the Philosophers of Egypt said, it was natural that from the mar∣row 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 judge∣ments concerning our finall condition is ex∣tremely easie, but if we be cosened, we are in∣finitely miserable.

Notes

• Ecclus. 1••.1.
• Qui levi commina∣tione pellitur, non opus est ut fortitu∣dine & armis inva∣datur. Senec.
• El••ge vi∣tam op∣timam, consue∣tudo fa∣ciet ju∣cundissi∣mam. Senec.
• Securae & quierae mentiae est in omnes vitae parte•• discurrere; occupatorum animi velut sub ••••go sunt, respicere non pos∣sunt. Seneca.