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.

SECT. VII. The second temptation proper to the state of sicknesse; Fear of death, with its remedies.

THere is nothing which can make sicknesse unsanctified, but the same also will give us cause to fear death. If therefore we so order our affairs and spirits, that we do no•• fear death, our sickness may easily become our advantage, and we can then receive counsel, and consider, and do those acts of vertue, which are in that state the proper services of God: and such which men in bondage and fear are not capable of doing, or of advices how they should, when they come to the ap∣pointed dayes of mourning. And indeed if men would but place their designe of being happy in the noblenesse, courage and perfect

resolutions of doing handsome things, and passing thorough our unavoidable necessities; in the contempt and despite of the things of this world, and in holy living, and the per∣fective desires of our natures, the longings and pursuances after Heaven, it is certain they could not be made miserable by chance and change, by sicknesse and death. But we are so softned and made effeminate with deli∣cate thoughts and meditations of ease, and brutish satisfactions, that if our death comes before we have seized upon a great-fortune, or enjoy the promises of the fortune tellers, we esteem our selves to be robbed of our goods, to be mocked, and miserable. Hence it comes that men are impatient of the thoughts of death; hence comes those arts of protraction and delaying the significations of old age; thinking to deceive the world men cosen them∣selves, and by representing themselves youth∣full, they certainly continue their vanity, till Proserpina pull the perruke from their heads. We cannot deceive God and nature; for a coffin is a coffin, though it be covered with a pom∣pous veil; and the minutes of our time strike on, and are counted by Angels, till the period comes which must cause the passing bell to give warning to all the neighbours that thou art dead, and they must be so: and nothing can excuse or retard this: and if our death could be put off a little longer, what advan∣tage can it be in thy accounts of nature or felicity? They that 3000 years agone dyed

unwillingly, and stopped death two dayes, or staid it a week, what is their gain? where is that week? and poor spi∣rited men use arts of pro∣traction, and make their persons pitiable, but their condition contemptible; beeing like the poor sin∣ners at Noahs flood; the waters drove them out of their lower rooms, then they crept up to the roof, having lasted half a day longer: and then they knew not how to get down: some crept upon the top branch of a tree, and some climbed up to a mountain, and staid it may be three dayes longer; but all that while they endured a worse torment then death; they lived with amazement, and were distracted with the ruines of man∣kinde, and the horrour of an universal de∣luge.

Remedies against the fear of death by way of consideration.

1. God having in this world placed us in a sea, and troubled the sea with a continual storm, hath appointed the Church for a ship, and religion to be the sterne: but there is no haven or port, but death. Death is that harbour whither God hath designed every one, that there he may finde rest from the troubles of the world. How many of the noblest Romans have taken death for sanctuary, and have estee∣med

it less then shame or a mean dishonour? And Caesar was cruel to Domitius Captain of Corfinium, when he had taken the town from him, that he refused to signe his petition of death. Death would have hid his head with honour, but that cruel mercy reserved him to the shame of surviving his disgrace. The Holy Scripture giving an account of the reasons of the divine providence ta∣king Godly men from this world; and shut∣ting them up in a hasty grave, sayes, that they are taken from the evils to come: and con∣cerning our selves it is certain, if we had ten years agone taken seizure of our portion of dust, death had not taken us from good things, but from infinite evils, such which the sun hath seldom seen. Did not Priamus weep oft∣ner then Troilus? and happy had he been if he had died when his sons were living, and his kingdom safe, and houses full, and his citie unburnt. It was a long life that made him miserable, and an early death onely could have secured his fortune. and it hath happened many times that persons of a fa••r life and a clear reputation, of a good fortune, and an honourable name, have been tempted in their age to folly and vanity, have fallen under the disgrace of dotage, or into an infortunate marriage, or have besottted themselves with drinking, or outlived their fortunes, or become tedious to their friends, or are afflicted with lingring and vexatious diseases, or lived to see their

excellent parts buried, and cannot understand the wise discourses and productions of their younger years; In all these cases and infinite more, do not all the world say but it had been better this man had died sooner? But so have I known passionate women to shrike aloud when their neerest relatives were dying, and that horrid shrike hath stayed the spirit of the man, a while to wonder at the folly, and repre∣sent the inconvenience, and the dying person hath lived one day longer, full of pain, amazed with an undeterminate spirit, distorted with convulsions, and onely come again to act one scene more of a new calamity, and to die with less decency: so also do very many men, with passion and a troubled interest, they strive to continue their life longer, and it may be they escape this sickness, and live to fall into a dis∣grace; they escape the storm and fall into the hands of pyrats, and instead of dying with li∣berty, they live like slaves, miserable and despi∣sed, servants to a litle time, and sottish admirers of the breath of their own lungs. Paulus Aemili∣us did handsomly reprove the cowardice of the King of Macedon, who begged of him for pities sake and humanity, that having conquered him and taken his kingdom from him he would be content with that, and not lead him in tri∣umph a prisoner to Rome. Aemilius told him he need not be beholding to him for that: himself might prevent that in despite of him. But the timorous King durst not die: But certainly every wise man will easily believe that it had been better the Macedonian Kings should have dyed in battel, then protract their life so long, till some of them came to be Scriveners and Joyners at Rome: or that the

Tyrant of Sicily better had perished in the Adriatic, then to be wafted to Corinth safely and there turn Schoolmaster. It is a sad cala∣mity that the fear of death shall so imbecill mans courage and understanding, that he dares not suffer the remedie of all his calami∣ties; but that he lives to say as Liberius did, I have lived this one day longer then I should: either therefore let us be willing to die when God calls, or let us never more complain of the calamities of our life which we feel so sharp and numerous. And when God sends his Angel to us with a scroll of death, let us look on it as an act of mercy, to prevent many sins and many calamities of a longer life; and lay our heads down softly, and go to sleep without wrangling like babies and froward children. For a man (at least) gets this by death, that his calamities are not immortal.

But I do not onely consider death by the advantages of comparison, but if we look on it in it self it is no such formidable thing, if we view it on both sides and handle it, and con∣sider all its appendages.

2. It is necessary and therefore not intolerable: and nothing is to be esteemed evil which God and nature have fixed with eternal sanc••ions. It is a law of God, it is a punishment of our sins, and it is the constitution of our nature. Two dif∣fering substances were joyned toge∣ther with the breath of God, and when that breath is taken away they part a∣sunder, and return to their several principles: the soul to God our Father, the body to the

earth our Mother: and what in all this is evil? Surely nothing, but that we are men; nothing but that we were not born immor∣tall: but by declining this change with great passion, or receiving it with a huge naturall fear, we accuse the Divine Providence of Tyranny, and exclaim against our naturall constitution and are discontent that we are men.

3. It is a thing that is no great matter in it self: if we consider that we die daily, that it meets us in every accident, that every creature car∣ries a dart along with it and can kill us. And therefore when Lysimachus threatned Theodorus to kill him, he told him, that was no great matter to do, and he could do no more then the Cantharides could; a little flie could do as much.

4. It is a thing that every one suffers, even persons of the lowest resolution, of the meanest vertue, of no breeding, of no discourse. Take away but the pomps of death, the disguises and solemn bug-bears, the tinsell, and the actings by can∣dle-light, and proper and phantastic ceremonies, the minstrels and the noise-makers, the women and the weepers, the swoonings and the shrikings, the Nurses and the Physicians, the dark room and the Ministers, the Kinred and the Watchers, and then to die is easie, ready and quitted from its troublesome circumstances. It is the same harmelesse thing, that a poor shepherd suffered yesterday, or a maid-servant to day; and at the same time in which you die, in that very night, a thousand

creatures die with you, some wise men, and many fools; and the wis∣dom of the first will not quit him, and the folly of the latter does not make him unable to die.

5. Of all the evils of the world which are reproached with an evil character, death is the most inno∣cent of its accusation. For when it is present, it hurts no body; and when it is absent, 'tis indeed trou∣blesome, but the trouble is owing to our fears, not to the affrighting and mistaken object: and besides this, if it were an evil, it is so tran∣sient, that it passes like the instant, or undiscerned portion of the pre∣sent time; and either it is past, or it is not yet; for just when it is, no man hath reason to complain of so in∣sensible, so sudden, so undiscerned a change.

6. It is so harmelesse a thing, that no good man was ever thought the more miserable for dying, but much the happier. When men saw the graves of Calatinus, of the Servicij, the Scipio's, the Metelli, did ever any man among the wisest Romans think them unhappy? And when S. Paul fell under the sword of Nero, and S. Peter died upon the crosse, and S. Stephen from an heap of stones was carried into an easier grave, they that made great la∣mentation over them, wept for their own in∣terest, and after the manner of men; but the Martyrs were accounted happy, and their dayes kept solemnly, and their memories preserved

in never dying honours. When S. Hilary Bi∣shop of Poictiers in France went into the East to reproove the Arian heresie, he heard that a young noble Gentleman, treated with his daughter Abra for marriage: The Bishop wrote to his daughter, that she should not in∣gage her promise, nor do countenance to that request, because he had provided for her a hus∣band fair, rich, wise and noble, farre beyond her present offer. The event of which was this: She obeyed, and when her father retur∣ned from his Eastern triumph to his Western charge, he prayed to God that his daughter might die quickly, and God heard his pray∣ers, and Christ took her into his bosome, enter∣taining her with antepasts and caresses of holy love, till the day of the marriage Supper of the Lamb shall come. But when the Bishops wife observed this event, and understood of the good man her husband what was done, and why, she never left him alone till he ob∣tained the same favour for her; and she also at the prayers of S. Hilary went into a more early grave and a bed of joyes.

7. It is a sottish and an unlearned thing to reckon the time of our life as it is short or long, to be good or evil fortune; life in it self being neither good nor bad, but just as we make it, and therefore so is death.

8. But when we consider, death is not onely better then a miserable life, not onely an easie and innocent thing in it self, but also that it is a state of advantage, we shall have reason not to double the sharpnesses of our sicknesse by our fear of death: Certain it is, death hath some good upon its proper stock:

praise and a fair memory, a reverence and religion to∣ward them so great, that it is counted dishonest to speak evil of the dead; then they rest in peace and are quiet from their labours and are designed to immortality. Cleobis and Biton, Throphonius and Agamedes had an early death sent them as a reward, to the former for their piety to their Mother, to the latter for building of a Temple. To this, all those ar∣guments will minister, which relate the ad∣vantages of the state of separation and resur∣rection.

Notes

• Montiris, juvenem tinctis Lentine, capillis Tam subito corvus qui modo cygnus eras. Non omnes fallis, scit te Pro∣serpina canum, Personam capiti detrahet illa tuo. Mar. l. 3. ep. 43.
• Audet iter numerat{que} dies spa∣tioq, viarum Metitur vitam, torquetur mor∣te futur••. Hor. lib. 3. Od. 1.
• 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Soph.
• Nihil est miserius dubitatione volutantium quar••um evadan••, quantum sit illud quod resta•• aut quale?

  Seneca l. 17. ep. 102.
• —Heu quanto melius vel cede peracta Parcere Romano potuit fortuna pudori. Lucan.
• Haec om∣nia vidit in flam∣mari, Jo∣vis aram sanguine ••urpari.
• —Sic longius aevum Destruit ingentes animos & vitasuperstes; Imperio nisi summa dies cum fine bonorum A••fluit & celeri praevertit tristia leto Dedecori est fortuna prior. Lucan. lib. 8.
• Mors il•• melius quam tu consuluit quidem. —quis∣quamne secundis Tradere se fatis audet ni∣si morte parata.

  Luc. l. 8.
• Nimirum hac die una plus vixi mihi quam vi∣vendum fuit. Hoc ho∣mo mor∣te lucra∣tur ne malum esset im∣mortale.

  Naz.
• Nihil in malis ducamus quod fit a Diis immor∣talibus vel a na∣tura parente om∣nium•• cnstitu∣tum.
• Concre tum fuit, disere tum est, rediit{que} unde venerat; terra deorsum, spirtu; sursum. Quid ex his omnibus iniquum est? nihi. Epichar.
• Natura dedit u••u∣ram vitae ta••quam pecuniae, quid est ergo quod querare si repetat cum vult? eadem enim lege acceperas.

  Senec.
• Vitae est avidus Quisquis non vult mundo secum pe∣••eunte mori.

  Sen.
• 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
• Par est moriri: ne∣que est melius mor∣te in malis rebus miserie.

  Plaut. Rud.
• Aut fuit, aut veniet nihil est praesen∣tis in illa.

  Mors{que} minus poe∣nae quam mora mortis habet.
• Virtutem incolu nem odimus Sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi

  Horat.
• Et laudas nullos nisi mortuos poetas.

  Mart.