perishing, mortal body, fubject to sicknesses and pain, and a thousand forts of deaths, to be made glorious and immortal, and fet above the power of the many misfortunes, where to it is liable here. The foul alfo shall be wonderfully improved; its capacity fhall be inlarged, fo that (e) though we fee now through a glass darkly, yet then face to face; though now we know in part, then we shall know more thoroughly, even as also we are known: the confideration whereof, if rightly attended to, will neceffarily be a powerful antidote against thofe fears and difturbances, whereto people ordinarily find themselves fubject upon this account. And for this reafon it was, that I told you I did not speak of death, as a diffolution of the vital union, that is betwixt the foul and the body, becaufe not of any fuch ill confequences, as that a man needs to be greatly concern'd about it.

Eufeb. 2. You cannot mean it, I am confident, as to the pains of death; because, though these are many times very sharp, they are of no long continuance, and ufually the fhorter, when they are the fharper. It is a melancholick fight to behold a dying man confined to a still and darkened room, ftored with pots and phials, with his relations and friends about him, confulting his phyficians, and endeavouring by all means poffible, to prolong a miferable life, though it be but for a few hours; to fee him lying in this uncomfortable condition, panting for breath, fighing and groaning, and making the most doleful complaints of the agonies he feels in himself, too great for weak mortality to conflict with, and which must inevitably wear him out in a very little time. You cannot be fuppofed, I fay, to mean this, when you advife to be thinking of death; because all this treatment, how painful foever to the patient, and howfoever fhocking to others, is but of very fhort duration, and will foon be intirely over.

(e) Cor. xiii. 12

Theople

Theoph. I do as little mean this. For this, tho' the more common, is not the only way of leaving the world. Some are fnatched hence by outward accidents; fome by polypufes, epilepfies, apoplexies, convulfions, lethargies, and other latent diftempers, that dispatch them in a moment. Some have been overcharg'd with an excess of meat or drink, or of fudden joy or grief. And fome again are worn out by age, and daily decay, and give up the ghost without fo much as a figh, or a groan. And when death appears with its moft frightful countenance, and armed with its dreadfulleft terrors, as to the manner of it, tho' it be very affecting for the prefent, all this is of fo little continuance, and will be over in fo fhort a space, as not to be of any confideration, in comparison of what is to follow afterwards.

Eufeb. 3. There is another profpect of death, that is terrible to most men, and which needs to be provided against; and that is with respect to the loss that comes by it. For it is no less than an eternal deprivation of all the good things of this life, which mankind are fo infatiably enamour'd of, and in pursuit whereof they ufually spend all their days. And most men will think it very hard, to be cut off in the midft of their hopes, when perhaps they have almost arrived at the top of their defires; to be then ftripped of all, and laid as naked in the earth, as if they had never been owners of any thing. (f) Be not afraid, fays the Pfalmift, though one be rich, or the glory of his boufe be increased; he shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth, neither shall his pomp follow him. While be lived, be counted himself a happy man; but he fhall certainly follow the generation of his fathers, fhall defcend to the fame place of death and corruption, the dark and filent grave, whither they are gone before him, and fhall never fee light. How profperous foever his circumstances are, when once death calls for him, there is no withstanding fuch a fummons; but imme(f) Pfal. xlix. 15, 17, 18, 19. U

diately

diately he must forfake them all, and (g) go to bis long home.

Theoph. All this is very true. When death conies, every one must leave his riches, his honours, his pleasures, his friends and relations, and whatsoever is deareft to him in this world. All which are highly charming to the earthly-minded man, and it strikes him to the heart to think of parting with them. And oh that he could but have them any way fecured to him as long as he fhall have a being! He would then defire no better portion; nor would he be prevailed upon to refign his intereft in them, for all the moft ineftimable, unconceivable, immortal glory, and blifs and felicity of the other ftate. Yet after all, (b) they are fo fhort and uncertain a tenure, and liable to such a variety of cafualties, and loffes, and frauds, and violences, and at beft are unferviceable to fo many of the purposes of life, that a wife man would never fuffer himself to be over-fond of them. But then, if we call to mind, how extremely dangerous and deftructive they are; that (i) ye cannot ferve God and mammon; that (k) if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; that (1) the love of money is the root of all evil, there being, as the orator speaks, (m) Nullum officium tam fan&tum atque folenne, quod non avaritia comminuere atque violare foleat, no duty fo facred and folemn, as that covetousness will not impair and violate it; I fay, if this be taken into the account, the confideration thereof may well abate our reasonable affection for any thing of this nature, and put us upon another fort of thoughts and defigns. And indeed to reflect how flitting and uncertain, and again, how uselefs and unfatisfactory all fublunary enjoyments are,

(g) Ecclef. xii. 5. (6) Οὐ γὰρ μετὰ τὰ ἀνθρώπε τελευὰ πολλάκις,

ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸ τὸ ἀνθρώπε τελείᾳ, καὶ ἴσε ὑμεῖς μυρία ἐπὶ τῇ πόλει ταύτη ὑποδείγματα τῆς τελεικῆς τὸ ἀώρα πλέτες μεμαθηκαῖο, ὅτι ὁ μὲν κεκλημένος ζή, Tò de xτñμα άшwhlo. B. Chryfoft. Tom. 5. Serm. 19. in Pfal. xlviii.

(i) Matth. vi. 24, (4) 1 John ii. 15. (?) 1 Tim. vi. 10. (m) Cic. pro Quintio, N. 13.

fhould

fhould certainly raise up our minds to the joys that are above, and should teach us to (n) look not at these temporal good things which are feen, but thofe which are infinitely better and more defirable, that are not feen, and are eternal. And were but our hearts once throughly fet upon thefe, we fhould foon find it no difficult task, to defpife all this life's tranfitory imperfect fatisfactions and enjoyments, in comparison of thofe greater, and more durable, and confequently far more valuable treafures. This would make us even long to be at home, at our Father's house, to dwell in those bleffed mansions which he has prepared for his beloved, to partake of that (0) fulness of joy, which is in his prefence, and thofe moft tranfporting pleasures, which are at his right hand for evermore. Such is the vaft difference, that is betwixt all the moft enticing allurements of this world, and the unconceivable felicity of the other, that he who seriously attends to it, will find no more difficulty in refigning all here, to enter upon that far better state, than in parting with a poor homely cottage, amongst the meaneft of the people, to take poffeffion of a plentiful fortune, a ftately palace, and an honourable authority and jurifdiction. So far would he be from grieving at his change! It is related of (P) Cleombrotus and (q) Gorgias, and Cato, and (r) divers others amongst the heathens, that they were fo weary of this world, and had such a longing and eager defire after the rewards they promifed themselves in the other, as to be not only reconciled to death, but even fond of it; and that they therefore fet themselves to haften it, as if it would not otherwife have seized them time enough. And what an intolerable fhame is (n) 2 Cor. iv. 18. (0) Pfal. xvi. 11.

(p) B. Aug. de Civ. Dei, l. 1. c. 22, & Cic. Tufc. Quæft. 1. 1. C. 34.

(9) Lib. de Confolat. Ciceroni attribut.

(r) Lactant. Inftit. 1. 3. c. 18. & Ælian. Var. Hift. 1. 13. c. 20. Varen. de Religione in Regnis Japon. c. 1. Le Sieur Jovat. Hift. des Religions, Tom. 3. p. 180, 184, 185.

it for Chriftians, who have nobler rewards in view, than thefe could ever dream of, to be in bondage to what they were fo much mafters of! And above all times is fuch a dotage on the world most inexcufable, when a man is convinced, that, in all probability, he is entering upon another life, wherein he can neither have occafion for, nor receive any benefit from, what he is fo loth to leave. This argues his Chriftianity to have but little influence upon him, fince otherwise he could not poffibly be fo regardless, either of the glories it offers in a future ftate, or of the strict obligations it lays upon all its profeffors, to beware of being enflaved to any thing here below.

Eufeb. 4. Death may be confidered as a deliverance from this frail life, and the numerous calamities, and misfortunes of divers kinds, that fo conftantly attend it. Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards. They are natural to him, during his paffage through this vale of tears and forrows: and he can no more hope to escape them, than to live without breathing. As we are all, even the moft miferable of us, made partakers of innumerable, undeserved bleffings; fo, on the other hand, those who are in the most advantageous circumftances, have nevertheless, their different forts of croffes and vexations to contest with. (s) And that death puts an end to thefe, can be no misfortune; nor need the thoughts of fuch a bleffed change to break any one's rest beforehand. Wherefore I cannot fuppofe this to be what you mean, when you call upon the fick man to confider, what it is to die.

Theoph. You may be fure it is not. (t) For who would ever dread to be delivered from all his infirmi

() Moriar hoc dicis, definam ægrotare poffe; definam alligari pofle, definam mori poffe. Senec. Epift. 24.

(2) Εν ὕτω τάλας εἰμὶ, λιμὴν τὸ ἀποθανεῖν· ἔτος δὲ ἰσὶν ὅ λιμὴν πάντων Jários. Arr. Epictet. 1. 4. c. 10. Es d'awiçãos undir siras pela Jarator, ἀλλ ̓ εἰς ἀναισθησίαν χωρεῖν τὰς ἀποθνήσκοντας ἀποφαίνονται, παθῶν τῶν naúba iubuna suas verysto. Juftin. Mart. Apol. 2.