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more easy abode: Thy neighbour's grief does not lessen thy affliction: their sickness cannot restore to thee health, nor their death comfort thee against the approaches of thine own. On the contrary, if thou hast any sense of humanity, thou wilt weep for their misery and thine together. It is that which great Xerxes, king of Persia, practised; for upon a review of his numerous army, in which there were 1,700,000 men, he, considering that within an hundred years so many brave captains and soldiers would be rotting in their graves, was moved with compassion, and wept. Į mention not here the brutish and foolish opinion of such who imagine that man's soul is mortal, and perishes with the body. This consideration brings no comfort, but brings us into an irrecoverable despair; for, besides the torments of hell-fire, there is nothing that can be imagined more dreadful than a reducement to non-entity.

It is also needless to mention the Platonists, who have discoursed of the soul's immortality, and of its blessedness after this life. They imagine themselves very acute and subtile: but their discourses of this matter are so gross and extravagant, that instead of persuading to the truth, they expose it to scorn and contempt. Let their fond and imagi nary description of the Elysian fields be witnesses; for whatsoever hath been invented of this kind hath been reckoned among the fables and poetical fictions. Those chimerical gardens and grounds contain nothing like to the divine excellencies and unspeakable pleasures of the paradise of God.

In a word, seek amongst the rarest and most precious treasures of wit and learning of the Heathen antiquity; turn over the writings of the most eloquent orators, of the subtilest philosophers, of the most famous poets; examine the secrets of the most experienced physicians, consider their practice, and all the remedies they prescribe to the 1..

E

soul,

soul, and you shall find them too unskilful to perform the least cure. They do but charm and flatter the disease; they harden us against evil; they furnish us with a good exterior, and teach us to bear a good mien; but they have no real antidote against the venom that kills the principle of life; nor the remedy that reaches to the heart: and as torrents, that dry up in the hottest seasons, such consolations that flow not from the fountain of life, vanish away without effect, and dry up to nothing, when a deep sorrow, fear, and affliction, seize upon a sinful soul.

It seems the compilers of the Heathen religion were sensible of this truth; for they dedicated temples, and erected altars, to all manner of gods and goddesses; not only to virtues and health, but also to vices and diseases, to fear, cowardice, anger, the fever, the pestilence, and an infinite number more; but they left Death out of their devotions. This is an open declaration, that they knew not how to strike acquaintance with Death, and win its esteem and favour. They had no sacrifice nor incense that could allay its fury; they looked upon it as their most inhuman and irreconcileble enemy. The very name of Death terrified them:

therefore it was one of their most unfortunate omens.

Adrian the emperor is a witness of what I say: he was one of the greatest princes in former ages; he made most parts of the habitable world yield to his sceptre, and put to death an infinite number of men; but at last he trembled, and was astonished himself at the approaches of Death: he had overcome the most barbarous nations, and tamed the most savage beasts; but when he came to his last enemy, he had no weapon fit for the encounter. Therefore, on this occasion, he discovers the weakness and inconstancy of his mind, far more disturbed than his body was with the disease. Sometimes he employed the magic art to retard

Death;

Death; sometimes he made use of his sword and poison to hasten it; at last he killed himself by an abstinence from food, necessary to entertain his life. He had conquered all the world, and given peace and happiness to his empire: but he could not overcome himself, or appease the troubles of his conscience. He was so far from quieting the disturbed thoughts of his soul, that he suffered himself to be overwhelmed with despair; he flattered his soul in hastening its ruin; for when his disease gave him liberty to breathe, he talked unto it in this manner: "My little soul, my dearest companion, thou art now going to wander in obscure, cold, and strange places; thou shalt never jest again, according to thy wonted manner; thou shalt never give me any more sport or pleasure."

You will say, Adrian was a powerful monarch, but no great philosopher; perhaps he knew how to govern, and was well acquainted with politics; but he was ignorant of morals, and had no skill to die well. To answer this objection, let us give an example beyond all exception :— Aristotle is generally esteemed to have been the subtilest and the most learned of the Heathen antiquity, the prince of all the philosophers, the glory of his age, and the founder of his sect: when his excellent soul had surveyed all things, examined the heavens, searched among the excellencies of the earth, pried into all the wonders of the world, and found out the rarest secrets of nature, he could never find any solid comfort against the apprehensions of death. Notwithstanding all his admirable subtilties, and his profound learning, the fear of this cruel Death terrifies his conscience in such a manner, that he confessed, "That of all terrible things Death was the most dreadful."

CHAP.

CHAP. III.

Of divers Sorts of Death, with which we are to encounter.

WHEN David had a design to fight with Goliath, and

WHEN

could not make use of the armour of king Saul, he took a smooth stone out of his bag, cast it with his sling, struck the Philistine in the forehead, and brought down this proud giant, who had defied the armies of Israel. We have already examined and tried all the armour of human wisdom and learning, laid up in the store-houses of the greatest wits of former ages; and we have found that they are not able to afford us any assistance in an encounter with Death. Let us, therefore, now see whether we may overcome this proud enemy with the sling of our mystical David, with the weapons of our divine Shepherd: but before we begin the resistance, let us look and behold it in the face. The enemy I intend you shall overcome, is a monster with three heads; for there are three sorts of death, the natural, the spiritual, and the eternal.

The natural death is a separation of the soul from the body. Although our body has been fashioned with the finger of God, it is but a weak and frail vessel, made of earth: but our soul is an heavenly, spiritual, and immortal substance; it is a sparkle and a ray of the Godhead, and the lively image of our great Creator: for when God had made our first parent, "he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," Gen. ii. 7. that we might thereby understand, that our souls alone proceeded from his immediate hand, therefore he is named the "Father of spirits," Heb. xii. and "the faithful Creator of souls," I Pet. iv. This soul raises us a degree above all animals, and above the celestial bodies, and renders us like the angels of heaven. It is the light that enlightens us, the salt that preserves us from corruption. In one word, by this soul we live, enjoy our senses, move, and understand.

understand. As soon as this angelical guest leaves its mansion, the body, it loses all its beauty, and falls of itself into a state of ruin; for this flesh that we are so careful of, and feed with all manner of dainties, then corrupts and rots. After that it hath been stretched awhile upon beds of gold, and richly attired in purple and scarlet, it is cast upon a bed of worms, and covered with the vilest insects of the earth. Notwithstanding all its former perfumes, it yields then a most horrid stink. Before, it ravished the eyes of the beholders with its admirable beauty; but now it becomes so odious and offensive, that the living care not to see it. It is at last reduced to ashes, according to the sentence that was pronounced in the earthly paradise, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

The spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God our Creator; for he being the soul of our souls, and the light of our life, we fall into an abyss of darkness and death: "For all those that depart from God shall perish," Psalm lxxiii. As the members, when they are cut off from the body, commonly rot; as the twig withers, when it is separated from the vine; so, in a separation from God, we can neither live, move, nor have a being. And as it is with the body separated from the soul, it nourishes a nest of worms that devour it, and sends forth a most insufferable stench; so it is with our souls at a distance from God; it yields those evil affections that torment and consume it, and the ill scent of its crimes is offensive to heaven and earth. this kind of death our Saviour speaks to the Jews in this manner; " If ye do not believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins," John viii. And to the angel of the church at Sardis, "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead," Rev. iii. The same death St. Paul mentions in the second chapter of the Colossians, and the second of the Ephesians; "When we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God hath quickened us together with Christ." And elsewhere he ex

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