Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor.

Untimely death.

But it is not meer dying that is pretended

by some as the cause of their impatient mourning; but that the childe died young, before he knew good and evill, his right hand from his le••t, and so lost all his portion of this world: and they know not of what excellency his portion in the next shall be. * If he died young, he left but little, for he understood but little, and had not capacities of great pleasures, or great cares: but yet be died innocent, and before the sweetness of his soul was defloured and ravishd from him by the flames and follies of a froward age: he went out from the dining-rooms before he had fallen into errour by the in∣temperance of his meat, or the deluge of drink: and he hath obtained this favour of God, that his soul hath suffered a lesse im∣prisonment, and her load was sooner taken off, that he might with lesser delaies go and converse with immortal spirits: and the babe is taken into Paradise before he knows good and evil, (For that knowledge threw our great Father out) and this ignorance re∣turnes the childe thither. * But (as concern∣ing thy own particular) remove thy thoughts back to those daies in which thy childe was not born, and you are now but as then you was, and there is no difference but that you had a son born, and if you reckon that for evil, you are unthankful for the blessing; if it be good, it is better that you had the bles∣sing for a whil•• then not at all, and yet if he had never been born,* 1.1 this sorrow had not

been at all: but be no more displeased at God for giving you a blessing for a while, then you would have been if he had not given it at all; and reckon that intervening blessing for a gain, but account it not an evil; and if it be a good, turn not into sorrow and sadness. * But if we have great reason to complain of the calamities and evils of our life, then we have the lesse reason to grieve that those whom we loved, have so small a portion of evil assigned to them. And it is no small advantage, that our chil∣dren dying young receive: For their condi∣tion of a blessed immortality is rendred to them secure by being snatcht from the dan∣gers of an evil choice, and carired to their little cells of felicity, where they can weep no more, And this the wisest of the Gentiles understood well, when they forbade any of∣ferings or libations to be made for dead In∣fants as was usual for their other dead; as believing they were entred into a secure pos∣session, to wich they went with no other condition, but that they passed into it through the way of mortality, and for a few months wore an uneasie garment. And let weeping parents say, if they doe not think that the evils their little babes have suffered, are suf∣ficient. If they be, why are they troubled that they were taken from those many and greater, which in succeeding years are great enough to trie all the reason and religion which art and nature, and the grace of God hath produced in us, to enable us for such sad contentions. And possibly we may doubt concerning men and women, but we cannot

suspect that to Infants death can be such an evil, but that it brings to them much more good then it takes from them in this life.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Itidē si pu••r parvulus oc∣••••dat aequ••ae nimo ferendum pu••ant: si verò in cunis, ne querendum quidem: atqui h••c aoerbius exegis natura quòd dede it. At id quidem in c••et••t••s rebus inclius putatur, aliqu••m partem quàm nullum a••••ingere, Senec.