vides not for his family;"; how greatly doth this example aggravate your shame, that can behold such pity and compassion expressed to strangers, nay enemies, and those Infidels too, and be so negligent of your own family, for England, aye, Christendom, in a sense, if not the World, is no more, as not only to see their great necessities unanswered, but that wherewith they should be satisfied, converted to gratify the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. But however such can please themselves, in the deceitful daubing of their mercenary priests, and dream they are members of Jesus Christ, it is certain that things were otherwise in the beginning; for then all was sold and put into a common purse, to supply indigencies: Not mattering earthly inheritances, farther than as they might in some sense be subservient to the great end for which they were given, namely, the good of the creation. Thus had the purest Christians their minds and thoughts taken up with the better things, and raised with the assurance of a more excellent life and inheritance in the heavens, that will never pass away. And for any to flatter themselves with being Christians, whilst so much exercised in the vanities, recreations, and customs of the world, as to this very day we see they are, is to mock the great God, and abuse their immortal souls. The Christian life is quite another thing.

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And lest that any should object, Many do great and seemingly good actions to raise their reputation only; and others only decry pleasure, because they have not wherewithal, or know not how to take it ;” I shall present them with serious sayings of Aged and Dying men, and those of the greatest note and rank; whose experience could not be wanting to give the truest account how much their Honours, Riches, Pleasures, and Recreations conduced to their satisfaction, upon a just reckoning, as well before their extreme moments, as upon their dying beds, when Death, that hard passage into eternity, looked them in the face.

¡ 1 Tim. v. 1.

Acts, iv. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37.

CHAP. XXI.

SERIOUS DYING, AS WELL AS LIVING, TESTIMONIES.

SECT. 1. Solomon. 2. Chilon. 3. Ignatius. 4. Justin Martyr. 5. Chrysostom. 6. Charles V. 7. Michael de Montaigne. 8. Cardinal Wolsey. 9. Sir Philip Sidney. 10. Secretary Walsingham. 11. Sir John Mason. 12. Sir Walter Raleigh. 13. H. Wotton. 14. Sir Christopher. Hatton. 15. Lord chancellor Bacon. 16. The great duke of Momerancy. 17. Henry prince of Wales. 18. Philip III. king of Spain. 19. Count Gondamor. 20. Cardinal Richlieu. 21. Cardinal Mazarine. 22. Chancellor Oxcistern. 23. Dr. Dun. 24. Jo. Selden. 25. H. Grotius. 26. P. Salmasius. 27. Fran. Junius. 28. A. Rivetus. 29. The late earl of Marlborough. 30. Sir Henry Vane. 31. Abraham Cowley. 32. Late earl of Rochester. 33. One of the family of Howard. 34. Princess Elizabeth of the Rhine. 35. Commissioner Whitlock. 36. A sister of the family of Penn. 37. My own father. 38. Anthony Lowther of Mask. 39. Seigneur du Renti.

III. The serious Apprehensions and Expressions of several Aged and Dying Men of Fame and Learning.

Sect. 1. SOLOMON, than whom none is believed to have more delighted himself in the enjoyments of the world, at least better to have understood them; hear what he says, after all his experience; " I said in my heart, Go to now; I will prove thee with Mirth; therefore enjoy Pleasure: And behold, this also is vanity. I said of Laughter, It is mad; and of Mirth, What doeth it? I made me great Works, build

ed Houses, planted Vineyards, made Gardens and Orchards, planted trees in them of all kind of fruit: I got me Servants and Maidens; also great possessions; I gathered me Silver and Gold, and the peculiar treasures of Kings and Provinces; also men and Women Singers, and the delights of the sons of men; as Musical Instruments, and that of all sorts: So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem; and whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them; I withheld not mine heart from any joy. Then I looked on all the works which my hands had wrought, and behold, All was vanity and vexation of spirit." The reason he gives in the 18th and 19th verses is, that the time of enjoying them was very short, and it was uncertain who should be benefitted by them when he was gone. Wherefore he concludes all with this; "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man: For God shall bring every work into judgment, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Oh, that men would lay this to heart!

Sect. 2. CHILON, one of the seven wise men of Greece, already mentioned upon another occasion, affords us a dying testimony of great example: It is related thus by Agellius: When his life drew towards an end, ready to be seized by death, he spoke thus to his friends about him: "My words and actions in this long term of years, have been, almost all, such as I need not repent of; which, perhaps, you also know. Truly, even at this time I am certain, I never committed any thing, the remembrance of which begets any trouble in me, unless this one thing only; which whether it were done amiss, or not, I am uncertain. I sat with two others, as judge, upon the life of my Friend; the law was such, as the person must of necessity be condemned; so that either my Friend must lose his life, or some deceit be used towards the Law. Revolving many

! Eccl. ii. 1 to 11.

things in my mind, for relief of a condition so desperate, I conceived that which I put in practice to be of all other the most easy to be borne: Silently I condemned him, and persuaded those others, who judged, to absolve him. Thus I preserved in so great a business, the duty both of a Judge and Friend. But from that act I received this trouble; that I fear it is not free from perfidiousness and guilt, in the same business, at the same time, and in a public affair, to persuade others contrary to what was in my own judgment best."* O tender conscience! Yet an Heathen's! Where dwells the Christian that excelleth? Hard to be found among the great Rabbies of Christendom.

Sect. 3. IGNATIUS, who lived within the first hundred years after Christ, and was torn in pieces of wild beasts at Rome, for his true faith in Jesus, left this, amongst other things, behind him: "There is nothing better than the peace of a Good Conscience :" Intimating, there might be a peace to wicked consciences, that are past feeling any thing to be evil, but swallowed up of the wickedness of the world. And in his epistle to the churches at Ephesus, Magnetia, Trallis, and Rome, upon his martyrdom, saith, "Now I begin to be a disciple; I weigh neither visible nor invisible things, so that I may gain Christ."+ O heavenly-minded man! A blessed martyr of Jesus indeed.

Sect. 4. JUSTIN MARTYR, a philosopher, who received Christianity five and twenty years after the death of Ignatius, plainly tells us, in his relation of his conversion to the Christian faith, "That the power of godliness in a plain simple Christian had that influence and operation on his soul, that he could not but betake himself to a serious and strict life:" And yet before he was a Cynic; a strict sect. And this gave him joy at his martyrdom, having spent his days as a serious teacher,

*

Severus, Apop. p. 175. † Ignatius Epist. ad Ephes. Mag. Trall. Rom. Eus. 1. 3. c. 32.

and a good example. And Eusebius relates, "That though he was also a follower of Plato's doctrine; yet, when he saw the Christians piety and courage, he concluded, no people so temperate, less voluptuous, and more set on divine things:" Which first induced him to be a Christian.*

Sect. 5. CHRYSOSTOM, another father, so called, lays this down for necessary doctrine, "To sacrifice the whole soul and body to the Lord, is the highest service we can pay unto him. God promiseth mercy unto penitent sinners; but he doth not promise them they shall have so much time as to-morrow for their repentance.

Sect. 6. CHARLES V. emperor of Germany, king of Spain, and lord of the Netherlands, after three and. twenty pitched fields, six triumphs, four kingdoms conquered, and eight principalities added to his dominions, a greater instance than whom can scarce be given, resigned up all his pomp to other hands, and betook himself to his retirement; leaving this testimony behind him, concerning the life he spent in the honours and pleasures of the world, and in that little time of his retreat from them all: "That the sincere study, profession, and practice of the Christian religion, had in it such joys and sweetness, as COURTS were strangers to."

Sect. 7. MICHAEL DE MONTAIGNE, a lord of France, famous with men of letters for his book of Essays, giveth these instructions to others, and this character of himself, viz. “Amidst our banquets, feasts, and pleasures, let us have ever this restraint or object of Death before us; that is, the remembrance of our condition : And let not pleasure so much mislead or transport us, that we altogether neglect or forget how many ways our joys, or our feastings, be subject unto Death, and by

* Euseb. Ecc. Hist. 1. 4. c. 8.

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