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 straithanded; 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.

No

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 a voluptuous life; but a life, severe, holy, and under the discipline of the cross, under the conduct of prúdence and observation, a life of warfare and sober counsels, labour and watchfulness. man wants cause of tears, and a daily sorrow. Let every 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 repentance willingly and constantly; let him pity the evils of all the world, and bear his share in 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 sumined 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 St. James's advice, Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into weeping* : (Chap. iv. 9.) and Bonadventure, in the life of Christ, reports, that the holy virgin-mother said to St. Elizabeth, That

*

Neque enim Deus ullà re perinde atque corporis ærumnâ concliatur. Naz. Orat. 18,

613

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, 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, (Amos vi. 1.) so it was said of old and our blessed Lord said, Woe be to you that laugh, for ye shall weep; (Luke vi. 25.) but, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. (Matt. v. 4.) Here or hereafter we must have our portion of sorrows. He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed with him, will doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him. (Psal. cxxvi. 6.) And certainly, he that sadly considers the portion of Dives, and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the unavoidableness to 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 up

2

braids his little and cozening prosperities, and exact 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.

SECT. II.

Of Daily Examination of our Actions in the whole Course of our Health, preparatory to our Deathbed.

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.

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 indifferences of our spirits 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 Sed longi pœnas fortuna favoriş

Exigit à misero, quæ tanto pondere famæ

Res premit adversas, fatisque prioribus urget.

No. 3.

Lucan. 1.8. ver. 21.

I

how many degrees of action and purpose every virtue is to be exercised, the secret adherences 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 surprises in the proportions of our drinkings, our too great freedoms and fondnesses in lawful loves, our aptness for things sensual, and our deadness and tediousness of spirit in spiritual employments; besides infinite variety of cases of conscience that do occur in the life of every man, and in all intercourses of every life, and that the productions of sin are numerous and encreasing, like the families of the northen people, or the genealogies of the first patriarchs of the world; from all this we shall find, that the computations of a man's life are busy as the tables of sines and tangents, and intricate as the accounts of eastern merchants; and therefore it were but reason we should sum up our accounts at the foot of every page; I mean, mean, that we call ourselves to scrutiny every night when we compose ourselves to the little images of death.

2. For, if we make but one general account, and never reckon till we die, either we shall only reckon by great sums, and remember nothing but clamorous