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TO THE CHRISTIAN READER.
COurteous Reader: forasmuch as wee are all (as Experience proueth, the surest Schoole-mistresse in the world) from the King to the Begger: from the best to the basest: from the mightiest to the mea∣nest: from him that sits vpon the Throne: to the poorest grinder in the Mill, without exception, or exemption of any. Actors heere vpon the Stage of no long continu∣ance: and (as euidently the Holy Ghost doth witnesse vnto vs all, in the 1. Cor. 9.24.) runners of a most short and transitorie race heere in this mortall life: the which race being finished first, or last: either at our first, third, sixth, or eleuenth houre. That is to say, either in Child∣hood, Youth, Middle age, or Old age: our Bodies must then returne vnto Dust, from whence they came: and our Soules must returne vnto GOD who gaue them. That therefore in the very day and houre of our Deaths: that immortall part, I meane our soules, (which as Saint Austen saith, Generando infunduntur & infundendo generantur, are infused into our bodyes by a Diuine and vnvtterable generation, and are begotten of GOD him∣selfe in vs, by a Coelestiall infusion,) may not bee repulsed by CHRIST himselfe, the Iudge of quicke and dead, with Non noui vos, discedite maledicti, &c. I know you