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Since we must necessarily dye, it behooves us much to conceive well this truth, That death is certain, & the hour of death uncertain; & that all the prudence of a Christian, con∣sists in preparing ones self well for it, that we may not faile in an affair, which in truth, is the affair of af∣fairs, and the sole & onely one, we
have to do in this world, since we come into it, onely to save our souls, & in loosing them we lose all: For what shall it profit a man, to gain the whole world, if he loose his own soul? Says our Soveraign master Jesus Christ, i•• the 8. Chap: of S: Mark.
O my God, how great is the blind∣ness of the most part of mankind, who not thinking on this great truth, live onely an earthly sensuall, & brutish life, & never elevating their minds to heavenly things, fix their affections so fast to this mortall life, that they prefer it before the eternal. He that loves his life, Says our saviour, shall loose it; 〈◊〉〈◊〉 he that hates it in this world, shall gain for it, life everlasting in the next: in the 12 Chap: of S. Iohn.
O my God, ••is no•• therefore to love our lives •• to have to •• great a fondness for them si••ce this fondness for a em••orall life proceeding from an irregu••ar love of our selves •• puts us in danger of loosing an everlasting one & that you assure me, o my divine Jesus, that if any one comes to you, & does not hate this sensuall life,
& even his own soul, he cannot be your disciple. Give me, o Lord, a holy hatred of this mortall life, which may make me continually tend, & pretend to the eternall one, where I may love you for ever.