: the violent fear of sickness makes us impatient, so it will make our death without comfort and without Religion and we shall go off from our stage of actions and sufferings with an unhandsome exit, because we were willing to receive the kindness of God when He expressed it as we listed; but we would not suffer Him to be kind and gracious to us in His own method, nor were willing to exercise and improve our virtues at the charge of a sharp fever, or a lingering consumption. Woe be to the man that hath lost Patience; for what will he do when the Lord shall visit him°? SECT. VII. The second Temptation proper to the state of Sickness, THERE is nothing which can make sickness unsanctified, but the same also will give us cause to fear Death. If therefore we so order our affairs and spirits that we do not fear Death, our sickness may easily become our advantage, and we can then receive counsel, and consider, and do those acts of virtue which are in that state the proper services of God; and such which men in bondage and fear are not capable of doing, or of advices how they should, when they come to the appointed days of mourning. And indeed, if men would but place their design of being happy in the nobleness, courage, and perfect resolutions of doing handsome things, and passing through our unavoidable necessities, in the contempt and despite of the things of this world, and in holy living, and the Ecclus. ii. 14. perfective desires of our natures, the longings and pursuances after Heaven, it is certain they could not be made miserable by chance and change, by sickness and death. But we are so softened and made effeminate with delicate thoughts, and meditations of ease, and brutish satisfactions, that if our death comes before we have seized upon a great fortune, or enjoy the promises of the fortune-tellers, we esteem ourselves to be robbed of our goods, to be mocked, and miserable. Hence it comes that men are impatient of the thoughts of death; hence come those arts of protraction and delaying the significations of old age: thinking to deceive the world, men cozen themselves; and by representing themselves youthful, they certainly continue their vanity, till Proserpina pull the peruke from their heads P. We cannot deceive God and nature : for a coffin is a coffin, though it be covered with a pompous veil; and the minutes of our time strike on, and are counted by Angels, till the period comes which must cause the passing-bell to give warning to all the neighbours that thou art dead, and they must be so and nothing can excuse or retard this. And if our Death could be put off a little longer, what advantage can it be in thy accounts of nature or felicity? They that 3000 years agone died unwillingly, and stopped death two days, or stayed it a week, what is their gain? where is that week? And poor-spirited men use arts of protraction, and make their persons pitiable, but their condition contemptible; being like P Mentiris juvenem tinctis, Lentine, capillis; Tam subitò corvus, qui modò cygnus eras. Personam capiti detrahet illa tuo.-Martial, 1. iii. Ep. 43. the poor sinners at Noah's flood; the waters drove them out of their lower rooms, then they crept up to the roof, having lasted half a day longer, and then. they knew not how to get down; some crept upon the top-branch of a tree, and some climbed up to a mountain, and stayed (it may be) three days longer: but all that while they endured a worse torment than death; they lived with amazement, and were distracted with the ruins of mankind, and the horror of a universal deluge. Remedies against the Fear of Death, by way of Consideration. 1. God having in this world placed us in a sea, and troubled the sea with a continual storm, hath арpointed the Church for a ship, and Religion to be the stern: but there is no haven or port but Death. Death is that harbour whither God hath designed every one, that there he may find rest from the troubles of the world. How many of the noblest Romans have taken Death for sanctuary, and have esteemed it less than shame or a mean dishonour? and Cesar was cruel to Domitius, captain of Corfinium, when he had taken the town from him, that he refused to sign his petition of death. Death would have hid his head with honour, but that cruel mercy reserved him to the shame of surviving his disgrace. The Holy Scripture, giving an account of the reasons of the Divine Providence taking godly men from this world, and shutting them up in a hasty grave, says, that they are taken from the evils to come a: and concerning ourselves it is certain, if we Isa. lvii. 1. had ten years agoner taken seizure of our portion of dust, Death had not taken us from good things, but from infinite evils, such which the sun hath seldom seen. Did not Priamus weep oftener than Troilus? and happy had he been, if he had died when his sons were living, and his kingdom safe, and houses full, and his city unburnt. It was a long life that made him miserable, and an early death only could have secured his fortune. And it hath happened many times, that persons of a fair life and a clear reputation, of a good fortune and an honourable name, have been tempted in their age to folly and vanity, have fallen under the disgrace of dotage, or into an unfortunate marriage, or have besotted themselves with drinking, or outlived their fortunes, or become tedious to their friends, or are afflicted with lingering and vexatious diseases, or lived to see their excellent parts buried, and cannot understand the wise discourses and productions of their younger years. In all these cases, and infinite more, do not all the world say that it had been better this man had died sooner? But so have I known passionate women to shriek aloud when their nearest relatives were dying, and that horrid shriek hath stayed the spirit of the man awhile to wonder at the folly, and represent the inconvenience; and the dying person hath lived one day longer full of pain, That is, before having witnessed the martyrdom of Charles the First, in A.D. 1649, and suffered all the attendant evils in Church and State. The 'Holy Dying' was not published until October, 1651; and it was probably in 1642, nine years before, that Dr. Jeremy Taylor for his learning and loyalty was driven' from his living of Uppingham in Rutlandshire, 'his house plundered, his estate seized, and his family driven out of doors. (See the Epistle Dedicatory' at the beginning of this book, and the Rev. R. A. Willmott's Biography of Bp. Taylor, pp. 135, 142, 104-106.)—ED. amazed with an undeterminate spirit, distorted with convulsions, and only come again to act one scene more of a new calamity, and to die with less decency. So also do very many men; with passion and a troubled interest they strive to continue their life longer; and it may be they escape this sickness, and live to fall into a disgrace; they escape the storm, and fall into the hands of pirates, and instead of dying with liberty, they live like slaves, miserable and despised, servants to a little time, and sottish admirers of the breath of their own lungs. Paulus Emilius did handsomely reprove the cowardice of the King of Macedon, who begged of him for pity's sake and humanity, that, having conquered him and taken his kingdom from him, he would be content with that, and not lead him in triumph a prisoner to Rome. Æmilius told him, he need not be beholden to him for that; himself might prevent that in despite of him. But the timorous king. durst not die. But certainly every wise man will easily believe that it had been better the Macedonian Kings should have died in battle, than protract their life so long, till some of them came to be scriveners and joiners at Rome: or that the tyrant of Sicily better had perished in the Adriatic, than to be wafted to Corinth safely, and there turn schoolmaster. It is a sad calamity, that the fear of Death shall so imbecile man's courage and understanding, that he dares not suffer the remedy of all his calamities, but that he lives to say as Laberius did, I have lived this one day longer than I should. Either therefore let us be willing to die when God calls, or let us never more complain of the calamities of our life which we feel so sharp and numerous. And when God sends His Angel to us |