much pain and blood had purchased for them. When we come to die indeed, we shall be very much put to it to stand firm upon the two feet of a Christian, faith and patience. When we ourselves are to use the articles, to turn our former discourses into present practice, and to feel what we never felt before, we shall find it to be quite another thing, to be willing presently to quit this life and all our present possessions for the hopes of a thing which we were never suffered to see, and such a thing of which we may fail so many ways, and of which if we fail any way we are miserable for ever. Then we shall find how much we have need to have secured the Spirit of God and the grace of Faith by an habitual, perfect, unmoveable resolution. *The same also is the case of Patience, which will be assaulted with sharp pains, disturbed fancies, great fears, want of a present mind, natural weaknesses, frauds of the Devil, and a thousand accidents and imperfections. It concerns us therefore highly in the whole course of our lives, not only to accustom ourselves to a patient suffering of injuries and affronts, of persecutions and losses, of cross accidents and unnecessary circumstances; but also, by representing death as present to us, to consider with what arguments then to fortify our Patience, and by assiduous and fervent prayer to God all our life long to call upon Him to give us patience and great assistances, a strong faith and a confirmed hope, the Spirit of God and His holy Angels assistants at that time, to resist and to subdue the Devil's temptations and assaults; and so to fortify our heart, that it break not into intolerable sorrows and impatience, and end in wretchedness and infidelity. But this is to be the work of our life, and

*

not to be done at once; but, as God gives us time, by succession, by parts and little periods. For it is very remarkable, that God Who giveth plenteously to all creatures, He hath scattered the firmament with stars, as a man sows corn in his fields, in a multitude bigger than the capacities of human order; He hath made so much variety of creatures, and gives us great choice of meats and drinks, although any one of both kinds would have served our needs; and so in all instances of nature: yet in the distribution of our Time God seems to be strait-handed, and gives it to us, not as nature gives us rivers, enough to drown us, but drop by drop, minute after minute, so that we never can have two minutes together, but He takes away one when He gives us another. This should teach us to value our Time; since God so values it, and by His so small distribution of it tells us it is the most precious thing we have. Since therefore in the day of our death we can have still but the same little portion of this precious time, let us in every minute of our life, I mean, in every discernible portion, lay up such a stock of reason and good works, that they may convey a value to the imperfect and shorter actions of our death-bed; while God rewards the piety of our lives by His gracious acceptation and benediction upon the actions preparatory to our death-bed.

3. He that desires to die well and happily, above all things must be careful that he do not live a soft, a delicate and voluptuous life: but a life severe, holy, and under the discipline of the Cross, under the conduct of prudence and observation, a life of warfare and sober counsels, labour and watchfulness. No man wants cause of tears and a daily sorrow. Let every

E

man consider what he feels, and acknowledge his misery; let him confess his sin, and chastise it; let him bear his cross patiently, and his persecutions nobly, and his repentances willingly and constantly; let him pity the evils of all the world, and bear his share of the calamities of his brother; let him long and sigh for the joys of Heaven; let him tremble and fear because he hath deserved the pains of Hell; let him commute his eternal fear with a temporal suffering, preventing God's judgment by passing one of his own; let him groan for the labours of his pilgrimage, and the dangers of his warfare; and by that time he hath summed up all these labours, and duties, and contingencies, all the proper causes, instruments and acts of sorrow, he will find, that for a secular joy and wantonness of spirit there are not left many void spaces of his life. It was S. James's advice, Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into weeping: and Bonaventure, in the Life of Christ, reports that the Holy Virgin Mother said to S. Elizabeth, that Grace does not descend into the soul of a man but by prayer and affliction. Certain it is, that a mourning spirit and an afflicted body e are great instruments of reconciling God to a sinner, and they always dwell at the gates of atonement and restitution. *But besides this, a delicate and prosperous life is hugely contrary to the hopes of a blessed eternity. Woe be to them that are at ease in Sion, so it was said of old f: and our blessed Lord said, Woe be to you that laugh, for ye shall weep; but, blessed are

d James iv. 9.

e Neque enim Deus ullâ re perinde atque corporis ærumnâ conciliatur. Naz. Orat. 18.

f Amos vi. 1.

8 Luke vi. 25.

He

they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Here or hereafter we must have our portion of sorrows. that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed with him, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him. And certainly he that sadly considers the portion of Dives 3, and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the unavoidableness of his torment was, because he had his good things in this life, must in all reason with trembling run from a course of banquets, and faring deliciously every day, as being a dangerous estate, and a consignation to an evil greater than all danger, the pains and torments of unhappy souls. If either by patience or repentance, by compassion or persecution, by choice or by conformity, by severity or discipline, we allay the festival follies of a soft life, and profess under the Cross of Christ, we shall more willingly and more safely enter into our grave: but the death-bed of a voluptuous man upbraids his little and cozening prosperities, and exacts pains made sharper by the passing from soft beds, and a softer mind. He that would die holily and happily, must in this world love tears, humility, solitude, and repentance.

h Matth. v. 4.

i Ps. cxxvi. 6.

j Luke xvi. 19.

SECT. II.

Of daily Examination of our actions in the whole course of our health, preparatory to our Death-bed.

HE that will die well and happily must dress his Soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny: he must perfectly understand and watch the state of his Soul; he must set his house in order before he be fit to die. And for this there is great reason, and great necessity.

k

Reasons for a daily Examination.

1. For, if we consider the disorders of every day, the multitude of impertinent words, the great portions of time spent in vanity, the daily omissions of duty, the coldness of our prayers, the indifference of our spirit in holy things, the uncertainty of our secret purposes, our infinite deceptions and hypocrisies, sometimes not known, very often not observed by ourselves, our want of Charity, our not knowing in how many degrees of action and purpose every virtue is to be exercised, the secret adherencies of pride, and too forward complacency in our best actions, our failings in all our relations, the niceties of difference between some virtues and some vices, the secret undiscernible passages from lawful to unlawful in the first instances of change, the perpetual mistakings of permissions for duty, and licentious practices for permissions, our daily abusing the liberty that God gives us, our unsuspected sins in the managing a course of life certainly lawful, our little greedinesses in eating, our

k Isa. xxxviii. 1.