SECT. XVI.

The grounds of the fear of death.

THERE are, that fear not so much to be dead, as to die; the very act of dissolution frighting them with a tormenting expectation of a short, but intolerable painfulness. Which let if the wisdom of God had not interposed to timorous nature, there would have been many more Lucrecias, Cleopatras, Ahithophels; and good laws should have found little opportunity of execution, through the wilful funerals of malefactors. For the soul, that comes into the body without any, at least sensible, pleasure, departs not from it, without an extremity of pain: which, varying according to the manner and means of separation; yet, in all violent deaths especially, retaineth a violence not to be avoided, hard to be endured. And, if diseases, which are destined toward death as their end, be so painful, what must the end and perfection of diseases be; since as diseases are the maladies of the body, so death is the malady of diseases?

There are, that fear not so much to die, as to be dead. If the pang be bitter; yet it is but short: the comfortless state of the dead strikes some, that could well resolve for the act of their passage. Not the worst of the heathen emperors made that moanful ditty on his death-bed, wherein he bewrayeth, to all memory, much feeling pity of his soul, for her doubtful and impotent condition after her parture. How doth Plato's worldling bewail the misery of the grave; besides all respect of pain! "Woe is me, that I shall lie alone rotting in the silent earth, amongst the crawling worms, not seeing ought above, not

Very not-being is sufficiently abhorred of nature, if death had no more to make it fearful. But those, that have lived under light enough, to shew them the gates of hell, after their passage through the gates of death; and have learned, that death is not only horrible for our not-being here, but for being infinitely, eternally miserable in a future world, nor so much for the dissolution of life, as the beginning of torment: those cannot, without the certain hope of their immunity, but carnally fear to die, and hellishly fear to be dead. For, if it be such pain to die, what is it to be ever dying? and, if the straining and luxation of one joint can so afflict us, what shall the racking of the whole body, and the torturing of the soul, whose animation alone makes the body to feel and complain of smart? And, if men have devised such exquisite torments, what can

Adrian. See his Address to his Departing Spirit; the original of Pope's celebrated Ode, "The Dying Christian to his Soul."-CATTERMole.

spirits, more subtle, more malicious? And, if our momentary sufferings seem long, how long shall that be, that is eternal? And, if the sorrows indifferently incident to God's dear ones upon earth be so extreme, as sometimes to drive them within sight of despairing, what shall those be, that are reserved only for those, that hate him, and that he hateth? None but those, who have heard the desperate complaints of some guilty Spira, or whose souls have been a little scorched with these flames, can enough conceive of the horror of this estate: it being the policy of our common enemy to conceal it so long, that we may see and feel it at once; lest we should fear it, before it be too late to be avoided.

SECT. XVII.

Remedy of the last and greatest breach of peace, arising

from death.

Now when this great adversary, like a proud giant, comes stalking out in his fearful shape, and insults over our frail mortality, daring the world to match him with an equal champion; while a whole host of worldlings shew him their backs for fear, the true Christian, armed only with confidence and resolution of his future happiness, dares boldly encounter him; and can wound him in the forehead, the wonted seat of terror; and, trampling upon him, can cut off his head with his own sword, and, victoriously returning, can sing in triumph, O death, where is thy sting? A happy victory! We die, and are not foiled: yea, we are conquerors in dying: we could not overcome death, if we died not. That dissolution is well bestowed, that parts the soul from the body, that it may unite both to God. All our life here, as that heavenly Doctor (Augustin) well terms it, is but a vital death. How advantageous is that death, that determines this false and dying life; and begins a true one, above all the titles of happiness!

The Epicure or Sadducee dare not die, for fear of not being the guilty and loose worldling dares not die, for fear of being miserable: the distrustful and doubting semi-Christian dares not die, because he knows not, whether he shall be, or miserable, or not be at all: the resolved Christian dares, and would die, because he knows he shall be happy; and, looking merrily towards heaven, the place of his rest, can unfeignedly say, "I desire to be dissolved: I see thee, my home, I see thee, a sweet and glorious home after a weary pilgrimage, I see thee: and now, after many lingering hopes, I aspire to thee. How oft have I looked up at thee, with admiration and ravishment of soul; and, by the goodly beams that I have seen, guessed at the glory that is above them! How oft have I scorned these dead and unpleasant pleasures of earth, in com

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parison of thine! I come now, my joys, I come to possess you: I come, through pain and death; yea, if hell itself were in the way betwixt you and me, I would pass through hell itself to enjoy you."

And, in truth, if that heathen Cleombrotus, a follower of the ancient Academy, but upon only reading of his master Plato's Discourses of the Immortality of the Soul, could cast down himself headlong from a high rock, and wilfully break his neck, that he might be possessed of that immortality which he believed to follow upon death; how contented should they be to die, that know they shall be, more than immortal, glorious! He went, not in a hate of the flesh, as the patrician heretics of old', but in a blind love to his soul, out of bare opinion; we, upon a holy love, grounded upon assured knowledge: he, upon an opinion of future life; we, on knowledge of future glory: he went, unsent for; we, called for by our Maker. Why should his courage exceed ours, since our ground, our estate so far exceeds his?

Even this age, within the reach of our memory, bred that peremptory Italian, which, in imitation of the old Roman courage, lest in that degenerated nation there should be no step left of the qualities of their ancestors, entering upon his torment for killing a tyrant, cheered himself with this confidence; "My death is sharp: my fame shall be everlasting "." The voice of a Roman, not of a Christian. My fame shall be eternal: an idle comfort! My fame shall live; not my soul live to see it. What shall it avail thee to be talked of, while thou art not? Then fame only is precious, when a man lives to enjoy it. The fame, that survives the soul, is bootless. Yet even this hope cheered him against the violence of his death. What should it do us, that (not our fame, but) our life, our glory after death, cannot die? He, that hath Stephen's eyes, to look into heaven, cannot but have the tongue of the Saints, Come, Lord: how long? That man, seeing the glory of the end, cannot but contemn the hardness of the way. But, who wants those eyes, if he say and swears that he fears not death, believe him not: if he protest his Tranquillity, and yet fear death, believe him not believe him not, if he say he is not miserable.

SECT. XVIII.

The second rank of the enemies of peace.-The first remedy of an over prosperous estate: the vanity and unprofitableness of Riches: the first enemy on the right hand.

THESE are enemies on the left hand. There want not some on the right, which, with less profession of hostility, hurt no Tul. Tuscul. Callimach. Epigram. 1 August. de Hæres. Mors acerba, fama perpetua.

less: not so easily perceived, because they distemper the mind, not without some kind of pleasure. Surfeit kills more than famine. These are the over-desiring and over-joying of these earthly things. All immoderations are enemies; as to health, so to peace". He, that desires, wants as much; as he, that hath nothing. The drunken man is as thirsty, as the sweating traveller. Hence are the studies, cares, fears, jealousies, hopes, griefs, envies, wishes, platforms of atchieving, alterations of purposes, and a thousand like; whereof each one is enough to make the life troublesome. One is sick of his neighbour's field, whose misshapen angles disfigure his, and hinder his lordship of entireness: what he hath is not regarded, for the want of what he cannot have. Another feeds on crusts, to purchase what he must leave, perhaps, to a fool; or, which is not much better, to a prodigal heir. Another, in the extremity of covetous folly, chuses to die an unpitied death; hanging himself for the fall of the market, while the Commons laugh at that loss, and in their speeches epitaph upon him, as on that Pope, "He lived as a wolf, and died as a dog.' "o One cares not what attendance he dances all hours, on whose stairs he sits, what vices he soothes, what deformities he imitates, what servile offices he doth; in a hope to rise. Another stomachs the covered head and stiff knee of his inferior; angry that other men think him not so good as he thinks himself. Another eats his own heart, with envy at the richer furniture, and better estate, or more honour of his neighbour; thinking his own not good, because another hath better. Another vexeth himself with a word of disgrace, passed from the mouth of an enemy, which he neither can digest, nor cast up; resolving, because another will be his enemy, to be his own. These humours are as manifold, as there are men that seem prosperous.

For the avoiding of all which ridiculous and yet spiteful inconveniences, the mind must be settled in a persuasion of the worthlessness of these outward things. Let it know, that these riches have made many prouder, none better: that, as never man was, so never wise man thought himself, better for enjoying them. Would that wise philosopher (Socrates) have cast his gold into the sea, if he had not known he should live more happily without it? If he knew not the use of riches, he was no wise man: if he knew not the best way to quietness, he was no philosopher: now, even by the voice of their oracle, he was confessed to be both; yet cast away his gold, that he might be

Hippocr. Aphor.

• Boniface VIII. His immediate predecessor, Celestine V., is said to have prophesied of this Pope, that he would enter upon his office like a fox, reign like a lion, and die like a dog. Whether the remark was really uttered before, or forged after, his promotion, it was certainly in a great measure verified in the event. See Bower's Hist. of Popes, vol. vi. p. 372.-CATTERMOLE.

happy. Would that wise prophet have prayed as well against riches, as poverty? Would so many great men, whereof our little island hath yielded nine crowned kings while it was held of old by the Saxons, after they had continued their life in the throne, have ended it in the cell, and changed their sceptre for a book; if they could have found as much felicity in the highest estate, as security in the lowest? I hear Peter and John, the eldest and dearest Apostles, say, Gold and silver have I none: I hear the Devil say, All these will I give thee; and they are mine, to give: whether shall I desire to be in the state of these Saints, or that Devil? He was, therefore, a better husband than a philosopher, that first termed riches Goods: and he mended the title well, that, adding a fit epithet, called them Goods of Fortune; false goods ascribed to a false patron. There is no fortune, to give or guide riches: there is no true goodness in riches, to be guided. His meaning then was, as I can interpret it, to teach us, in this title; that it is a chance, if ever riches were good to any. In sum, who would account those as riches, or those riches as goods, which hurt the owner, disquiet others; which the worst have; which the best have not; which those, that have not, want not; which those want, that have them; which are lost in a night, and a man is not worse, when he hath lost them? It is true of them, that we say of fire and water: they are good servants, ill masters. Make them thy slaves, they shall be goods indeed in use, if not in nature; good to thyself, good to others by thee: but, if they be thy masters, thou hast condemned thyself to thine own gallies. If a servant rule, he proves a tyrant. What madness is this! thou hast made thyself, at once a slave and a fool. What if thy chains be of gold? or if, with Heliogabalus, thou hast made thee silken halters? thy servitude may be glorious: it is no less miserable.

SECT. XIX.

The second enemy on the right hand, Honour.

HONOUR, perhaps, is yet better: such is the confused opinion of those, that know little; but a distinct and curious head shall find a hard task, to define in what point the goodness thereof consisteth.

Is it in high descent of blood? I would think so, if nature were tied by any law to produce children like qualitied to their parents. But, although in the brute creatures she be ever thus regular, that ye shall never find a young pigeon hatched in an eagle's nest: neither can I think that true, or if true it

A proof, that, with Christians, deserves no credit; but, with Heathens, commands it.

Proverbs xxx. 8.-CATTERMOLE.