Midnights Meditations of Death
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The source of this document is the Early English Books Online (EEBO-TCP) website. Those books were transcribed in a character for character manner and can be very cumbersome to read since there was no standard spelling during that time. Many spelling variations such as "unlesse", "vnlesse", and "vnles" regularly appear.
This project was conceived to clean up those books as much as possible and make them more accessible to the interested reader, leading to the creation of a massive list of variant spellings and their corrections. This was used to clean up the text, but is of course only as complete as the list itself. Because of the nature of the original transcription, some words have missing characters or places where the original language (e.g., Greek) was not transcribed. This effort does not change that. Be aware that the original transcription can also be faulty and in some cases entire sentences may be missing.
Although this is no substitute for a properly compared, proofed, and scholarly edition, I believe that the result is a document which is far more accessible, particularly for searching for terms using standard spelling. The document has been cleaned and presented in what I hope is a pleasing and useful format for the vast majority of Christian brothers and sisters who just want access to read these spiritually nourishing works.
However, a word of warning: The Puritans were a very diverse group of people and their age was characterized with godliness, but also much upheaval, disputation and strife. They disagreed on many doctrines and some of these works contain less orthodox or Scriptural views than others. The reader is strongly advised to read with discernment, particularly if it is unknown whether author is trustworthy.
This project took a huge amount of time and skill to bring to fruition. I would particularly like to thank David Jonescue for the initial list of Puritans he found on EEBO and the concept behind this project as well as the continuous, unceasing efforts toward seeing this complete. Without his labor, this would not be available. Alex Sarrouf was invaluable in providing the initial list of over 7,000 spelling variations he had identified and corrected, as well as continuing to review more than 16,000 additions to that list for any typos.
Logan West
(with David Jonescue and Alex Sarrouf)
www.puritansearch.org
Midnights MEDITATIONS OF DEATH: WITH Pious and Profitable Observations, and Consolations:
Perused by FRANCIS QUARLES A little before his Death.
Published by E. B.
LONDON, Printed by John Macock, and are to be sold at his house, in White Bear Court, on Adling hill. 1646.
Profitable and pious thoughts of Death.
Part 1. Of Deaths certainty.
IN heavens high Parliament an act is passed,
Subscrib'd by that eternal Three in One,
That each created wight must one day taste
Of Deaths grim terrors: They exempted none
That sprang from Adam. All that red-earth-strain
Must to their earth again.
An ancient Register of burials lies
In Genesis, to let us understand
That whosoever is begotten dies,
And every sort is under Deaths command.
His Empire's large: Rich, poor, old, young, and all
Must go when he doth call.
Mans life 's a book: and some of them are bound
Handsome and richly; some but meanly clad:
And for their matter, some of them are found
Learned and pious: others are too bad
For vilest fires: Both have their end.
There 's a conclusion pen'd
As well as title-page; that 's infancy.
The matter; that 's the whole course of our lives.
One 's Satan's servant walking wickedly;
Another 's pious, and in goodness thrives;
One 's beggarly, another 's rich and brave:
Both drop into the grave.
One man (a book
in folio)
lives till age
Hath made him crooked and put out his eyes:
His beard doth penance. And death in a rage
Mows down another whilst the infant cries
In 's midwives lap: (that 's an Epitome)
Both wear deaths livery.
God made not death: Whence are we mortal then?
Sure Sin 's the parent of this pale-faced foe;
Nought else did hatch it: and the first of men
He was Deaths grandfather: And all the woe
That in this or the next life we are in
Is caused by our sin.
Meditation
1.
IF I must die, I 'll catch at everything
That may but mind me of my latest breath.
Deaths-heads, graves, knells, blacks, tombs, all these shall bring
Into my soul such useful thoughts of death,
That this sable King of fears,
Though in chiefest of my health
He behind me come by stealth,
Shall not catch me unawares.
When-e're I visit any dying friend,
Each sigh and scrich, and every death-bed-groan
Shall read me such a lecture of mine end,
That I 'll suppose his case will be mine own.
As this poor man here doth lie
Rack'd all over with deadly pain,
Never like to rise again,
Time will come when so must I.
Thus ghastly shall I look, thus every part
Of me shall suffer, thus my lips shall shrivel,
My teeth shall grin, and thus my drooping heart
Shall smoke out sighs and groans; and all the evil
Which I see this man lie under,
What sin earns and death doth pay,
I shall feel another day.
Sin from torment who can sunder?
Thus will my mournful friends about me come:
My lifeless carcase shall be stretched out.
I must be packing to my longest home:
Thus will the mourners walk the streets about.
Thus for me the bells will toll:
Thus must I bid all adieu,
World, and wife, and children too:
Thus must I breathe out my soul.
At others fun'ralls when I see a grave,
That grave shall mind me of mortality.
I will think that such a lodging I must have:
Thus in the pit my bones must scattered lie;
Here one bone and there another,
Here my ribs, and there my scull,
And my mouth of earth be full.
I must call the worms my mother.
When I do look abroad, methinks I see
A fun'rall Sermon pen'd in everything.
Each creature speaks me mortal: Yonder tree,
Which, not a quarter since, the glorious spring
Had most proudly clothed in green,
And was tall, and young, and strong,
Now the ax hath laid along:
Nothing but his stump is seen.
And yonder fruitful valleys yesternight
Did laugh and sing, they stood so thick with corn:
In was the sickle, and 'twas cut down quite,
And not a sheaf will stand tomorrow morn.
Yonder beauteous imps of May,
Pretty eye-delighting flowers,
Whose face heaven doth wash with showers
To put on their best array:
I saw the fair'st, the Lily, and Carnation,
And coy Adonis particoloured son,
Subject to such a sudden alteration
That in a day their fading beauty's gone.
This tree, this corn, and this flower,
Or what things else vainest are,
To myself I do compare,
Who may die within this hour.
Meditation
2.
I'LL never be proud of beauty if I must
Be blemish'd when I die: And if the grave
Will mix my beauty with the vilest dust,
What profits pride? Reader, I will pardon crave
Here to set you down a story
Of as rare and fair a She
As the Sun did ever see,
Whom Death robbed of all her glory.
I once saw Phoebus in his mid-day shine
Triumphing like the Sovereigne of the skies,
Untill two brighter rays, both more divine,
Outblazed his: and they were this Nymphs eyes.
Forthwith Sol curtain'd his light,
Looking very red for shame
To be vanquished by this Dame,
And did slink out of her sight.
I once saw silver Cynthia, nights fair Queen,
In her full orb dimming each lesser flame,
Till this Nymphs beauty-vying front was seen
Outshining hers: then she looked wan for shame.
The man in her, knew he how
But to quit that giddy place,
She had so divine a face,
Would have dwelt upon her brow.
Once was this woman pleased to walk the fields
Then proudly fragrant with Dame Flora's store:
The damask rose unto her beauty yields,
And was contented to be fair no more.
Sure I cannot say how truly,
Yet 'mongst many 't was a fame,
That the rose did blush for shame,
And the violet looked most bluly.
Once did this woman to the temple go,
Where doth fair Venus marble-statue lie
Cut to the life, that one can hardly know
But that it lives indeed: When she came nigh,
He who then the temple kept
After would be often telling
She was so super-excelling
That for mad the marble wept.
Melodious music's warbled by the spheres;
Swans sing their Epitaphs in curious lays,
Once with a singing Swan a part she bears:
As soon 's those corall doors dismissed her voice,
The poor Swan held his peace and died:
And the spheres (as men do say)
Dumbly move unto this day.
This was by a rivers side.
What think you now of such a glorious woman?
This Phoenix sure was she, if any might,
That might be proud: And yet the tongue of no man
Can well express, nor any pen can write
What grim death hath done unto her;
Now she 's of another feature,
Hardly can you know the creature:
Stay a while, and we will view her.
Th' almighty King that dwells above in heaven
Directs to 's high Shrieve Death a certain writ,
Wherein a strait imperial charge was given,
At 's utmost peril forthwith on sight of it
To arrest that piece of beauty
And to wrap her up in clay
'Gainst the last great judgment-day.
Death addressed him to his duty;
And with great care gives warrant by and by
Unto his baillifs, Fever, Pox, and Gout,
Frensy, Strangury, Colick, Squinancy,
Consumption, Dropsy, and an ugly rout
Beside these, for to assail her:
Deaths command was, that they must
Tie her fast in chains of dust:
He gave charge that none should bail her.
You would not think with what a furious pace
These catchpoles fly to pull this creature down:
But Pox was nimblest; she got to her face
And plow'd it up. This hag goes in a gown
Rugged and of color tawny,
Button'd over from top to toe;
(Skin-deep beauties deadly foe)
Uglier hag was never any.
Fain would the rest have fastened on her too,
But that this hag had frighted out her soul.
Now looks her carcase of another hue,
Grim, ugly, loathsome, ghastly, and as foul
As did ever eye look on.
What 's become of that complexion
Which held all hearts in subjection?
In a moment all is gone.
If we might be so bold to dig the grave
Some few years hence where this good woman lies,
Sure we should find this beauty but a slave
To pallid putrefaction, and a prize
For those silly vermin worms:
As they crawl in stinking swarms
She doth hug them in her arms,
And doth give them suck by turns.
Here 's a deformed lump indeed: and this
Must be the fortune of the fairest face.
None then are proud but fools: They love amiss
Whose hearts are chained to anything but grace.
From the beauty of the skin
In the loveliest outward part,
Lord, vouchsafe to turn my heart
To love that which is within.
Meditation
3.
IF Death will come, sure there will come an end
Of all this worlds deep-biting misery.
Nothing adverse that's here on earth doth tend
Beyond the grave: that's a delivery
From the power of men and devils,
And whatever other woe
May befall us here below
Death's a shelter from all evils.
Here I am poor: my daily drops of sweat
Will not maintain my full-stocked family:
A dozen hungry children cry for meat,
And I have none; nor will words fatisfie.
Could I give their belly ears,
'T were a comfort, or could fill
Hungry stomachs with good will,
Or make daily bread of tears.
Here the oppressor with his griping claws
Sits on my skirts: my racking land-lord rears
Both rent and fine; with potent looks he aws
Me from mine own. Scarce any man but bears
In his bosom Ahab's heart.
Horse-leach-like that's ever craving
Other men's, and sick of having,
Right or wrong, will catch a part.
Here in these clay-built houses sickness reigns:
I have more maladies then I can name:
Each member of my body hath its pains.
Moreover, weeping, groaning, sadness, shame,
Slanders, melancholy, fear,
Discontents, disgraces, losses,
And a thousand other crosses
Must be born if I live here.
But these are finite all. When I am dead
My poverty is ended and my care:
I hear my famished children cry for bread
No longer. Then I drink, I lodge, I fare
Just as well as Caesar doth:
There ends cold and nakedness,
All my former wretchedness.
Death is meat, and drink, and cloth.
There 's no face-grinding: There the mighty cease
From troubling; there the weary be at rest:
The servant 's freed; the pris'ner is at ease:
All 's still and quiet; no man is oppressed:
For incroachers there are none.
Not a poor man 's wronged, nor
Is his vineyard longed for:
Every man may keep his own.
Sickness there 's none: whenever Death shall take
My body hence and lodge it in the clay,
I shall not feel a tooth or finger ache,
Nor any other misery that may
In the least degree displease me.
For all sores the grave hath plasters,
And it cureth all disasters:
Of all burdens Death will ease me.
Malicious tongues fired below in hell
There will not hurt me; nor the poisonous breath
Of whispering detractours: I shall dwell
Securely in the dust. One stroke of Death
Sets me out of gun-shot quite;
Not the deepest-piercing tongue
Can there do me any wrong:
Bark they may, but cannot bite.
Lord, I am thine: and if it be thy will,
While I do live a stranger here below,
Brim-high with bitterness my cup to fill,
And make me drink 't; yet, Lord, withal bestow
But thy grace, and thou shalt see me
Patient: and my comfort 's this,
That a short affliction 't is:
In a moment Death may free me.
Meditation
4.
IF I must die, it must be my endeavor
So to provide that every thought of Death
May be a thought of comfort: that whenever
That aged sire shall take away my breath,
I may willingly lay down
This old house that 's made of clay,
Gladly welcoming the day
That brings an eternal crown.
But of all things a holy life 's the way
Must lead me to a comfortable end;
To crucify my lusts, and to obey
God's sacred will in all things: This doth tend
Unto comfort, joy and ease.
Mark the man that is upright,
And sets God always in 's sight,
That man's end is ever peace.
What makes me fear a serpent? 't is his sting;
The mischief's there: When that is taken out,
I can look on him as a harmless thing,
And in my bosom carry him about.
What makes Death look rufully?
Not Deaths self: it is his sting
That doth fear and horror bring,
And makes men so loath to die.
The sting of death is sin: but there 's a Jesus
Hath plucked it out. The guilt 's done quite away;
The stain is washed. He sent his Spirit to ease us
In some good measure of that kingly sway
Which over us sin held before.
Blessed work of grace! now I
Strongest lusts can mortify:
In my soul sin reigns no more.
Now in me holiness is wrought: which is
A pious disposition of the heart,
Inclining me to hate what 's done amiss
In me and others, never to depart
From God to left hand or right,
Nor one of his laws to break;
But to think and do and speak
What's well-pleasing in his sight.
Each act from faith and love ariseth, and
The end I aim at is my Makers praise;
His word 's my rule: my warrant 's his command.
Thus am I fitted: Death, cut off my days,
If thou wilt, within this hour,
I will thank thee for thy pain:
For to me to die is gain.
I will not fear a jot thy power.
What canst thou do that justly may affright me?
Though with thee in the dark I dwell a space,
Yet canst thou not eternally benight me:
Thou art my passage to a glorious place,
Where shall not be any night.
My raised ashes shall enjoy
There an everlasting day,
And an uneclipsed light.
I fear not death because of putrefaction,
Nor (if I might) would willingly decline it:
My body gains by 't; 't is the graves best action:
God, as a founder, melts it to refine it.
Death cannot annihilate,
And in despite of the grave,
Yet I shall a body have,
Fairer and in better state.
God's second work excels his first by ods:
Our second birth, life, Adam, to repair
Our bodies, is a second work of God's,
To make them better then at first they were,
Glorious, immortal, sound,
Nimble, beautiful, and so
Splendid that from top to toe
Not a blemish may be found.
What beggar weeps when 's rags are thrown away
To put on better clothes? Who is 't will grieve
To pull a rotten house down, that it may
Be fairer built? Why should we not receive
Death with both hands when he comes
To pull off those rags that hide us,
To unhouse us, and provide us
Richer clothes and better homes?
The griping pangs of Death do not affright
My heart at all: I have deserved mo.
And if upon no other terms I might
Enjoy my God, I to my God would go
Through hells self, although a throng
Of an hundred thousand juries
Of the black'st infernal Furies
Claw'd me as I went along.
Nor can those inward terrors make me quake
Which Death-beds often on the soul do bring.
I have no Death-bed-reck'nings for to make;
'T was made while I was well, and everything
Was dispatched before, that I
Nothing in the world now, save
Home-desiring longings, have
Then to do but just to die.
Nor doth it trouble me that Death will take me
From those delights that are enjoyed below.
Alas, I know that none of them can make me
One jot the happier man, nor can bestow
Any comfort. Carnal gladness,
Mirth, delight and jollity,
This worlds best felicity,
All is vanity and madness;
Mere empty husks. Had I as many treasures
In my possession as the muddiest wretch
Did ever covet, and as many pleasures
As from the creature fleshly men can fetch;
Had I this: or if I were
Supreme Monarch, only Lord
Of what earth and sea afford:
Yet I would not settle here.
To be dissolved is better: Death doth bring
A fairer fortune then it takes away.
It sets us in a world where everything
Is a happiness, a full and solid joy,
Not to be conceived before
We come thither: but the bliss
Which exceedeth all is this,
That there we shall sin no more.
Lord, grant a copious portion of thy Spirit.
The more I have of that the less I fear
What Death can do; for sure I shall inherit
All joy in heaven if I am holy here:
Nought suits with heaven but sanctity.
Let, my God, thy Spirit and grace
Fit me for that holy place
And that holy company.
Meditation
5.
IF Death will come, what do men mean to sin
With so much greediness? me thinks I see
What a sad case the godless world is in,
How fast asleep in her security.
Fearlessely in sin men live,
As if Death would never come,
Or there were no day of doom
When they must a reck'ning give.
Observe a little yonder black-mouthed swearer,
How 's tongue with oaths and curses pelts the skies:
'T would grieve the heart of any pious hearer
But to bear witness of his blasphemies.
He darts wounds at God on high,
Puts on cursing as his clothes,
And doth wrap his tongue in oaths
To abuse Eternity.
In lawless lust the fornicator fries,
And longs to slake it 'twixt forbidden sheets:
Ne'r sets the sun but his adulterous eyes
Observes the twilight, and his harlot meets.
That which follows, when the night
Draws its curtain o'r the air
To conceal this goatish pair,
Modesty forbids to write.
And I could show you (were it worth the viewing)
In that room three or four drunkards reeling:
In this, as many more that sweat with spewing;
Some that have drunk away their sense and feeling;
Men of all sorts in their wine
And their ale sit domineering,
Cursing, railing, roaring, swearing,
Under every baser sign.
'T is said (so vile is this big-belly'd sin)
That in a day and less some four or five
Of lusty drunken throats will swallow in
More then hath kept two families alive
A whole forthnight (yet made they
Merrie with 't.) Had I my wishes,
Such gulls should not drink like fishes;
But their throats should change their trade
The covetous man with his usurious clutches
Doth catch and hold fast all the wealth he may:
He leans on 't as a cripple on his crutches.
The miser studies nothing night and day
But his gain: he 's like a swine
Looking downward, like a mole
Blind, and of an earthen soul,
Minding nothing that 's divine.
These, and beside these other sorts of sinners,
In every parish you may daily see
As greedy at their sins as at their dinners,
And wallowing in all impiety.
Sure these miscreants do never
Entertein a thought of dying;
Nor yet are afraid of frying
In hell flames for altogether.
Thou God of spirits, be pleased to awe my heart
With death and judgment: that, when I would sin,
I may remember that I must depart,
And whatsoever condition I am in
When I sink under Deaths hand,
(There 's no penance in the grave,
Nor then can I mercy have)
So must I in judgment stand.
Meditation
6.
Lord, what a thief is Death! it tobs us quite
Of all the world; great men, of all their honors;
Luxurious men, of all their fond delight;
Rich men, of all their money, farms and mannours.
Naked did the world find us,
And the world will leave us so:
We shall carry when we go
Nothing, but leave all behind us.
Let Death do 's worst, ambitious men do climb
By any sin though it be never so foul:
Gold-thirsty misers swallow any crime
That brings gain with it, though it kill the soul.
Here for gain is over-reaching,
Cosening, cheating, lying, stealing,
Knavish and sinister dealing;
All arts of the devils teaching.
Whilst I am well advised I will never strive
T' increase my wealth, if 't will increase my sin:
I will be rather poor then seek to thrive
By means unlawful: all 's not worth a pin.
When mine eye-lids Death doth close,
What I sinned for must be
Shak'd hands with eternally,
But the sin that with me goes.
I 'll not wast love upon these lower things,
Nor on the choicest of them doting sit:
For when sad Death a
habeas corpus
brings,
To take the world from me and me from it,
'Gainst which I have no protection;
To spend love in what I may
No where but on earth enjoy,
Were to loose all my affection.
The longest lease of temporals God doth make
Is but for life. I 'll patiently behave
My self, though from me God be pleased to take
In middle age that which his bounty gave:
Neither discontent nor passion
Shall make me repine or grumble;
'T is a way to make me humble,
And takes from me a temptation.
Thou madest my heart, Lord: keep it for thyself,
Lest love of dust eternally undo me:
Vouchsafe that this vain worthless empty pelf
May never win me, though it daily woo me.
If 't were lovely, yet 't is gone
When I dy. Lord, make me see
That there is enough in thee
To place all my love upon.
Meditation
7.
I Am a stranger and a pilgrim here:
The world 's mine inne, 't is not my dwelling-place;
(In this condition all my fathers were)
The life I live below is but a race.
Here I sojourn some few years:
This world is a country strange;
Death my pilgrimage will change
For a home above the spheres.
In elder time the goddess
Quiet
had
Her temple; but 't was placed without the gates
Of Ethnic Rome; to show that good and bad
Have here their vexing and disturbing fates,
And do bear their cross about
Whilst within the walls they stay
Of this world, and shall enjoy
No rest till Death let them out.
Here I am looked upon with divers eyes,
Sometimes of envy, sometimes of disdain:
Here I endure a thousand miseries:
Some vex my person, some my credit stain;
My estate 's impaired by some:
But yet this doth comfort me,
That hereafter I shall be
Better used when I come home.
In all estates my patience shall sustain me:
I am resolved never to repine
Though never so coarsely this world entertein me:
Such is a strangers lot; such must be mine.
Were I of the world, to dwell
Here as in my proper home,
Without thoughts of life to come,
Then the world would use me well.
I am not of their minds in whom appears
No care for any world but this below:
Who lay up goods in store for many years,
As if they were at home; but will bestow
Neither care nor industry
Upon heaven, as if there
They were strangers but had here
A lease of eternity.
The banished Naso weeps in sable strain
The woes of banishment: nor could I tell,
If Death and it were offered, of the twain
Which to make choice of. O! to take farewell
Of our native soil, to part
With our friends and children dear,
And a wife that is so near,
Must needs kill the stoutest heart.
What is 't then to be absent from that house,
Eternal in the heavens, not made with hands!
From Angels, Saints, God, Christ himself, whose Spouse
Our soul is! from a haven where nothing Iands
That defileth; where 's no danger,
No fear, no pain, no distress:
All 's eternal happiness!
What is 't to be here a stranger!
I have been oft abroad, yet never could find
Half that contentment which I found at home;
Methought that nothing suited with my mind
Into what place soever I did come:
Though I nothing needed there,
Neither clothes, nor drink, nor meat,
Nor fit recreations, yet
Methought home exceeded far.
Thither did my affections always bend;
And I have wished, before I came half-way,
A thousand times, my journey at an end,
And have been angry with a minutes stay:
Sun-set I did ever fear;
And a hill or dirty mile,
That delayed me but a while,
Seem'd to set me back a year.
I built not tabernacles in mine inne,
Nor ever cried out,
'T is good being here.
No company would I be ever in
That drowned but half an hour in wine or bier.
I have wished my horse would run
With a far more winged speed
Then those skittish jades that did
Draw the chariot of the Sun.
From carnal self-love, Lord, my heart unfetter,
And then shall I desire my heavenly home
More then this here, because that home is better,
And pray with fervency,
Thy kingdom come.
Lord, had thy poor servant done
What thou hast set him about,
I would never be without
Holy longings to be gone.
Meditation
8.
THere was a State, as I have heard it spoken,
(The tale doth almost all belief surpass)
That had a custom never to be broken,
(But a bad custom I am sure it was)
Mongst themselves their King to choose:
The elected man must be
King as long 's they would, and he
When they pleased his crown must loose.
This State elected and deposed when
And whom they would: but the deposed Prince
They suffered not to live 'mongst other men,
But drove him to a country far from thence
Into woeful banishment,
Where he changed his royalty
For want and all misery;
Scarce a Kingly punishment.
One King there was that whilst his crown was on,
Knowing his subjects fickle disposition,
Beat his crown-worthy head to think upon
Some course of providence, to make provision
At the place of's banishment:
Full-stuff'd bags of money, and
What things else might purchase land,
He into that Kingdom sent.
It came to pass after some certain years,
His yoke seemed heavy, and his people frowned:
King-sick they were; their purpose soon appears:
A new King 's chosen and the old 's uncrow'nd.
And for exile, this foul beast,
Giddy, variable, rude,
The inconstant multitude,
Dealt with him as with the rest.
But that his wiser providence was such,
When 's banished predecessors lived poor,
What he had sent before was full as much
As did exclude want or desire of more.
There he lacks not anything;
He doth purchase towns and fields,
And what else the country yields:
In estate he 's still a King.
So shall we fare hereafter in the next
As we provide in this life. Sure I see
A providence in all: Who is not vexed,
And plunged, and lean with too much industry?
Men of all sorts run and ride,
Sweat and toil, and cark and care,
Get and keep, and pinch and spare;
And all 's done for to provide.
For to provide? what? goods, and lands, and money,
Honors, preferments, pleasures, wealth and friends:
(As bees in summer-time provide their honey)
To sublunaries their provision tends,
And no farther; 't is for dust
That they labor and thick clay,
For these goods that will away,
And for treasures that will rust.
For to provide? for what? Their present life,
That 's natural; their bodies have their care:
Their spiritual state 's neglected: there 's no strife
For grace and goodness. Souls immortal are,
Living everlastingly
In eternal woe or bliss,
As here our provision is,
Yet are not a jot set by.
Men do provide amiss: Full well I know it,
I shall be banished from this sin-smote place:
All here is fading, and I must forgo it.
What shall I lay up for hereafter? grace,
An unspotted conscience,
Faith in Christ, sobriety,
Holiness, and honesty:
These will help when I go hence.
Strengthen those graces, Lord, which thou hast given,
And I shall quickly change both care and love;
My care for earth into a care for heaven,
Take off my heart from hence, and fix 't above,
And will lay up all provision
For that life which is to come
Whilst a stranger, that at home
I may find a blest condition.
PART II. Of Deaths impartiality:
| from whose stroke neither | Riches, | can protect us. |
| Honors, | ||
| Pleasures, | ||
| Friends, | ||
| Youth, | ||
| nor anything |
Sect. I. Riches cannot protect us srom the stroke of Death.
OF richest men in holy writ I read,
Whose basket & whose store the Lord had blest,
And in the land exceedingly increased
Their wealthy substance; yet they all are dead.
Riches do not immortalize our nature:
The richest dies as well 's the poorest creature.
'Bove all, the wealth of Solomon did pass;
Ne'r was man master of a greater store:
He went beyond all Kings that went before.
Silver as stones, and purest gold as brass,
Adorn'd Jerusalem: a glorious thing!
Yet death strikes into dust this wealthy King.
Meditation
1.
IF 'gainst Death's stroke my riches cannot arm me,
Nor comfort me a jot when I am dying:
I will take a care these witches do not harm me
Whilst I do live. I know they will be trying
To do me any mischief; as before
And now they mischief all the whole world over.
Some riches hurt with that old sin of pride:
Rich men extremely swell; most commonly
This sin and wealth both in one house abide:
Poor men are loo'kd on with a scornful eye.
Strangely is his heart puffed up with pride 's bellows
That hath a fatter fortune then his fellows.
His words are big, looks lofty, mind is high;
He with his purse will needs drive all before him:
He ever looks for the precedency;
And vext he is if men do not adore him:
He bears the sway: another man must be,
If not so rich, not half so good as he.
Some men wealth doth infect with churlishness:
They answer roughly: they are crabbed misers.
(Course bread yields hardest crust) This is a dress
Wherewith wealth decks our accidental risers.
Since Nabal's death a thousand rich men be
In every point as very hogs as he.
Some wealth makes prodigalls: there's no excess
But they run into. Back and belly strive
Which shall spend most: belly, with drunkenness
And gormandizing: back, for to contrive
New stuffs and fashions. This excessive crew
Have ways to spend that Dives never knew.
Observe these Caterpillars: One man puts
Into his throat a cellar full of drink:
Another makes a shambles of his guts.
The back is not behind; you would not think,
How for themselves, and for their curious dames,
One suit of clothes a good fat manour lames.
Some wealth makes idle: like so many drones
They suck what others sweat for, and do hate
All good employments. Many wealthy ones
Have neither callings in the Church nor State;
And during life do nothing day by day
But sit to eat and drink, and rise to play.
These mischiefs are in wealth and many more:
It throws men into many a foolish lust.
But if God's bounty multiply my store,
I will drain these vices from 't: For when I must
Grone on my death-bed, these sins will displease me
And fright my soul, but riches cannot ease me.
Lord, either keep me poor, or make me rich
In grace as well as goods: my wealth undresse
(If I have any) of those vices which
Are wont to clothe it; so shall I possess
Riches without those sins that riches bring,'
That when death comes they sharpen not his sting.
Meditation
2.
THough God doth bless me all my time along
With best of blessings, make my courses thrive,
Fill full my garners, make my oxen strong
To labor; and although his bounty give
As much to me as to a thousand more;
Though I am rich and all my neighbors poor;
Though Fortune fan me with a courteous wing;
Though gold be at my beck; though I have sailed
With prosp'rous gales; though not an adverse thing
Did e're betide me, though I never failed
Of good success in any undertaking:
Yet am I still one of the common making;
A piece of dust and clay: and I may go
Into my grave as soon 's a poorer man.
Our mold 's alike; God at first made us so:
He makes the rich man's life but like a span;
And so the beggars is; just both alike:
And both fall when impartial Death doth strike.
When they are fallen both alike they lie;
Both breathless, noisome, lifeless, senseless, cold:
Both like the grass are withered, dead and dry;
And both of them are ghastly to behold.
The ods is this, The poor man 'mongst the crowd
Of buried mortals hath the coarsest shroud.
Why sin the foolish sons of men for gain?
Why doth the Land-lord rack? the Us'rer bite?
Why doth the Judge with bribes his conscience stain?
Why doth the bawling Lawyer take delight
In spinning causes to a needless length,
Untill his clients purse hath lost its strength?
Why are God's Ministers become men-pleasers?
And why are Patrones simoniacall?
Why are our Advocates such nippy teasers
Of honest causes? why the devil and all
Do Misers scrape? and why do Tradesmen rear
Their price, yet sell time dearer then their ware?
Sure these bad courses cannot choose but hurt us;
They make Deaths looks more ghastly, and his sting
More piercing: but our wealth cannot support us
'Gainst smallest pains and fears that Death will bring.
Riches do promise much but do deceive us:
When we have need of succor then they leave us.
Anoint me, Lord, with eye-salve, to discern
What poor contents the world affords at best.
Instruct me, Lord, and I shall quickly learn
That without thee there 's no condition blest.
Bad ways of gaining into hell will drive me:
But all my wealth will not from Death reprive me.
Meditation
3.
SOme therefore sin because they do abound
In store of wealth: this is the only ground
Of many sins. God's laws they do transgress;
They wrong their equals, and the poor oppress;
They tread religion and civility
Both underfoot; all kind of tyranny
They exercise on all within their reach.
Nothing can keep them in; they make a breach
Through all those fences which at the beginning
God set to keep rebellious man from sinning:
They will be revellers, whoremongers, swearers,
Drunkards, oppressors, liars, and forbearers
Of no impiety: this is the reason,
Great men they are, and rich. 'T is petty treason,
Though in a modest way, for to reprove
Those sinful courses which our betters love.
If we dare do it, though we have a calling
To do it boldly, we are tax'd for bawling
And saucy fellows; and another day
Sure we shall smart for 't. Lord, I 'll never say,
I 'll sin because I 'm rich; unless that I
Could say, I 'm rich, and therefore will not die.
Meditation
4.
IF from Deaths stroke my riches cannot shield me,
Nor on my death-bed any comfort give;
Then I will take a care that they shall yield me
Some joy and comfort whilst I am alive,
And never shall a jot my sins increase,
Nor hinder me from going hence in peace.
I 'll get them well: my calling shall be lawful;
My brows or brains shall sweat for what I have:
And I will use my calling with an awful
Regard of God and conscience; nor will crave
What I have not a right to. They do eat
Scarce their own bread whose faces never sweat
Unless they sweat with eating. Nor can I
Find any warrant for those ways of gain
Which many men do get their livings by:
To keep a needless Alehouse to maintain
An idle family: to be a Pander,
A Fortune-teller, or an Apes commander:
A purblind Crowder, or a Rogue that canteth;
A Cuckold by consent for ready pay:
A sturdy Beggar that not one limb wanteth:
Or one that borrows money on the way:
A Us'rer, who whether 't shine or rain,
If the Sun stand not still, is sure of gain.
For these I find no warrant: nor for dealing
Deceitfully in selling or in buying.
To take more then what 's sold is worth, is stealing;
Or to give less: the art of multiplying
Our lands, or gold, or silver, by subtracting
From other men's, or by unjust exacting
What is not ours. Better (in my opinion)
It were to feed on barley-bread and pottage
Made of salt, water, and an onion:
To wear a thread-bare coat, and in a cottage
Smoke-bound and rusty pennylesse to dwell,
Then to get wealth unless I get it well.
And when 't is justly gotten, every thought
That I 'll bestow upon it shall be such
As it deserves: If heavens full hand hath brought
Plenty into my bosom, if as much
I have as I could wish, my care shall be
To think ofit all as of a vanity.
A vanity that, for ought I do know,
May take its flight and in an hour leave me.
As God had many ways for to bestow
His bounty on me, he hath to bereave me
As many more: as moveables I 'll deem it
From me, or with me; and I will esteem it
A strong temptation unto many a sin,
That never will perform what it doth promise:
That wealths fair books when we are deepest in
The greater reck'ning God exacteth from us.
I 'll not afford my wealth a better thought:
And I do think I think on 't as I ought.
And as I ought I 'll use 't: Not to be fuel
For any lust, nor to maintain my riot;
Not to be prodigal, vainglorious, cruel;
Nor yet to make my potent purse disquiet
My poorer brother: but from thence I will raise
My neighbors profit and my Makers praise.
Where there is need, I 'll ready be to give,
Glad to distribute: naked ones I 'll cover:
Hungry, and thirsty souls I will relieve:
Widows distress'd in me shall find another
Husband: to orphans I will be instead
Of parents to provide their daily bread.
I 'll never empty send the poor away:
The Church shall ever find my purse untie'd:
The King shall have his due without delay:
The Common-wealth shall never be denied.
Thus shall my wealth be common unto many,
If ever God be pleased to send me any.
Riches so justly gotten, and employ'd
So piously, although they cannot make
A man immortal, that he should avoid
The grave and rottenness; yet do not shake
The soul with terrors and such desperate fears,
As what 's ill gotten doth, when Death appears,
Make me a faithful Steward, holy Father,
Of what thou hast entrusted me withal.
Where I straw'd not grant I may never gather;
Nor sin in spending: Then send Death to call
Me to account, Lord, when thou wilt, and I
Shall entertein the message joyfully.
Sect. 2. Honors cannot protect us from the stroke of Death.
OF honors all that can be said doth meet
In Kings and Princes; glory, majesty,
Command, and titles: yet their sacred feet
Trudge to the grave-ward. Power, Royalty,
A Kingdom, Crown, and Sceptre cannot be
Protections against mortality.
Princes are God's on earth; yet sure they must,
As well as meaner men, be sick and die:
Their Royal bodies shall be changed to dust:
No crown below is worn eternally.
Of all those Kings which in God's book we read
One died, and another reigned in 's stead.
If good and loyal subjects had their wish,
A gracious Prince should never see the grave;
Nor should his Royal corps be made a dish
For worms: but pious wishes will not save
A King from dust. As other men's, his breath
Is in his nostrils: Crowns must bow to Death.
Sure, were it not a kind of petty treason
To wish his Majesty so long without
A crown of glory, I should think it reason
To pray his lamp of life might never go out.
Though not in 's self, yet, Lord, grant he may be
Immortal in a blessed progeny.
Meditation
1.
'MOngst us an humble great one is a wonder
Rarer by ods then is a winters thunder.
Great men and good each other seldom kiss:
Pride to preferment 's married. O! there is
Not a thought within their brain
Of a grave, nor yet of seeing
Death; nor do they dream of being
Changed into dust again.
Consider, Sir, though you have been a taster
Of Princes favors, mounted all degrees
Of honor; have been called, Lord, and Master;
Though your approach hath bowed as many knees
As once mighty Haman's: yet
Is it not Eternity
That you hold your greatness by.
Death and you must one day meet.
As I remember, I have read a story,
That one in Embassy sent from the King
Of Persia to Rome, was showed the glory
Of that proud city: every famous thing
That was by the Romans thought
To express the great and mighty
Prowesse of their glorious city,
Thither was the Persian brought.
There he beheld such glorious structures, raised
To dare the skies, that outwent all examples;
Where art and cost workman and founder praised:
Baths, Theatres, Tombs, Monuments, and Temples,
Statues that would wonder-strike
Any mortal man that should
Once behold them; neither could
All the world show the like.
After this view Rome's mighty Emperor,
Longing for praises, in the Persian tongue
Demanded of this strange Ambassador
What he now thought of Rome. I should do wrong
To your sacred Majesty,
Thus th' Ambassador replied,
And this glorious place beside,
If I should not magnify
Both you and it. But one thing I dislike
In Rome itself: I see that Death doth reign
As well here as in Persia, and doth strike
The greatest down, and when he please doth chain
People, Senators and Kings
In cold fetters made of dust:
Even noble Romans must
Feel what putrefaction brings.
Your Emperors themselves have had their turns
In fun'rall piles. These tombs can testify
The Caesar's mortal. In these sacred urns
What lies but royal dust? Mortality
Happens here: and I know no man
But hath power to hold his breath
As long, and is free from Death
As much as the noblest Roman.
Look we a little on this land of ours:
Here 's plenty, peace and every other blessing.
Into her bosom God in plenteous showers
Rains kindnesses that are beyond expressing.
Sure we of this kingdom may
Justly our Creator praise
For a share in happier days
Then Rome did at best enjoy.
Ours is a land of barley and of wheat:
Our stones are iron, and our hills yield brafse.
A land wherein th' inhabitants do eat
Bread without scarcenesse; here our blessings pass
All enumeration:
What God severally bestows
Upon others jointly flows
From his bounty to this nation.
Yet here men die too: not the russet Clowns,
And Peasants only that do hold the plow,
And Shepherds that sit piping on the downs,
And milk-maids that do court'sie to a cow;
But those noble men that have
Titles, lordships, farms and mannours,
And a great book full of honors:
These go down into the grave.
See you not yonder super-stately palace?
Three generations since that house was built.
A great man did it for his Lordships solace
In summer-time; but dying up he yielded
To his heir this stately pile:
This heir left it to his brother;
He died too: and then another
Swagger'd there a little while.
And he that had it last is now removed
A story lower down into the dust.
Those swelling titles which were so beloved;
That great estate in which the man did trust;
Troups of gallants that did give
Their attendance; all that treasure
Waiting on his Lordships pleasure
Could not keep the man alive.
Mark yonder marble-tomb: beneath it hath
This man a lodging. All those lines you see
On this side are a praising Epitaph,
And on the other side his titles be.
Of this fabric if we might
One piece from another sunder,
And behold what lieth under,
'T would be scarce so fair a sight.
Great ones, remember that there is a place
Which poor men call a death-bed, and a time
Of parting hence; you walk a nimble pace
To earth-ward every hour. Here though you climb
Up to Honor's highest round,
Drink a cup full to the brim
Of the world, in pleasures swim,
Death will lay you under ground.
Meditation
2.
WHose heart so adamantine but would weep
Sad crimson drops to think upon some risers▪
Lord, what a wicked shuffling they do keep
To lift themselves! Some have been sacrificers
Of their fathers, brothers, friends,
Kinsfolk, children, and have stood
Wetshod every step in blood,
To attain their lofty ends.
Of martyrs what a lamentable heap
Did Herod make for fear to loose his crown!
A mother would have sold a cradle cheap
To buy a coffin or a mourning gown.
This fell Tyrants rage appears
Running down each Parents face:
His wrath left in every place
Childlesse mothers drowned in tears.
And Absalom, that miracle of beauty,
So eagerly did long to be a King,
That he could soon unlearn his filial duty,
And by a strange rebellion fain would bring
The thrice-venerable head
Of his aged father down
To the grave without a crown,
And he triumph in his stead.
Abimelech, so strong was his ambition,
A bloody bargain made with certain men
Of Belial, and to hinder competition
Did sacrifice at once threescore and ten
Of his brothers on a stone:
With so foul and deep a guilt
So much harmless blood is spilled,
That himself may reign alone.
Of that inhumane hell bred tragedy
By Athaliah on the royal seed,
The motive was desire of majesty,
And that her own arms might the better speed.
Our third Richard goes for one
Of those butchers who think good
To cement their crowns with blood,
And by murders reach a throne.
The great Turks absolute prerogative,
Which in security his crown mainteins,
Is not to suffer one of them to live
That hath a drop of royal blood in 's veins:
When he 's crowned there 's nothing lacking
That may to the safety tend
Of this Monarch, but to send
The ghosts of his kinsmen packing.
If I at leisure were to write a story
Of such black deeds as these at large, I could
Tell you of numbers who to purchase glory,
Honors and high rooms in the world, have sold
(And this policy they call)
A good conscience, dearer far
Then a thousand kingdoms are,
And to boot their God and all.
And yet when all is done, there dwells a God above,
A God that 's greater then the greatest are,
Who can and will send Death for to remove
The greatest hence, and bring them to the bar:
Where must stand both small and great,
To have sentence ere they go
Of eternal bliss or woe
At God's dreadful judgment-seat.
When you are seated highest let your carriage
Be full of piety: you do an act
Worthy your greatness if you make a marriage
'T wixt it and goodness, if you do contract
Honors unto holiness.
Ever give the Lord his due
Honor who hath honored you:
Then will Death affright the less.
Affright the less? 't will not affright at all.
The errand 's welcome when a charge is given
To that grim pursuivant that he must call
Your honors hence unto a court in heaven.
To be great is not the thing
That can dying-comforts yield:
Goodness only is the field
Whence all soul-refreshings spring.
Meditation
3.
JF ever it should please God and the King
(Which I do not desire) to give me honors;
Yet never should my best preferments bring
Vices to boot: they should not change my manners.
Many a man hath been good
Unpreferr'd, and not a slave
To his lusts; yet honors have
Put him in another mood.
Of Saul we hear no evil whilst he stood
Endow'd with nothing but a private fortune:
And afterward we hear as little good
Of Saul a King: His honors did importune
His bad nature to produce
Such fruits as were too unfit
For a King, and to commit
Sins that were beyond excuse.
As long as man is limited within
The bounds of humble, base and mean estate,
He seems to make some conscience of a sin,
And one that would be good at any rate:
But no wickedness he spares
When (by chance) the man is mounted
And 'mongst great ones is accounted;
Then the man himself declares.
Then his depraved nature with loose rains
Runnes uncontrolledly into the mire
Of all impiety; no sin remains
Unacted by him: doth he but desire
To be wicked, vain or idle,
Any lust to satisfy,
That lust he will gratify:
His affections wear no bridle.
I 'll never be deboist although my seat
Of glory in the world be never so high:
I will not therefore sin because I 'm great;
For if I greater were, yet I must die,
And must at God's bench appear,
Where my sentence shall be given
To receive a hell or heaven,
As my doings have been here.
Sect. 3. Pleasures cannot protect us from the stroke of Death.
Under the sun there was not any joy
Which Solomon that wise and famous King
Had not a taste of: whatsoever may
Gladness, content, delight and solace bring,
That he from the creature gathers;
Not one pleasure doth he keep
His heart from: yet he 's asleep
In the dust among his fathers.
His senses had those objects which delight,
Content, and please and ravish most his touch;
His taste, his hearing, smelling, and his sight,
His mind and humor too, all had as much
Of delicious satisfaction
As from all beneath the sky
Ever could be fetched by
Any possible extraction.
Three hundred concubines he had to please
His touch: by turns each of them was his guest
At night. Seven hundred wives beside all these;
The worst of them a Princesse at the least.
Such a female army meets,
To make his delight run o'r.
Sure they are enough to store
Twice five hundred pair of sheets.
To please his taste this great Kings daily cheer
Exceeded for variety and plenty:
He had his Roe-buck and his Fallow-deer,
His fatted fowl, and every other dainty.
He had palate-pleasing wine:
Gormandizers, whose best wishes
Terminate in toothsome dishes,
No where else would sup or dine.
And every day both men and women-singers
Imprisoned his ear with charming voices:
The Viol touched with artificial fingers,
An Organs breathing most melodious noises:
Sackbut, Psalterie, Recorder,
The shrill Cornet, and the sharp
Trumpet, Dulcimer and Harp;
These all sounded in their order.
And in his gardens he had lovely ranks
Of flowers for odour all sweets else excelling,
Whose beauteous luster stellifi'd the banks;
All these were to delight his sense of smelling,
And perfumes of sweetest savor,
Which all other nations bring
As a present from their King
Who did woo his Princely favor.
For objects which were wont to please the eye,
He wanted none. Did he desire a sight
Of what might most affect? variety
Of lovely'st objects spangled with delight
Everiewhere themselves present:
Scarce did anywhere appear
Other objects then did wear
Outsides clothed with content.
Behold his thousand wives! If he would know
The height of beauty, it is seen in those.
A battle in a field of sanguine snow
Betwixt the spotless lily and the rose:
Part they would on no condition,
Nor would either of them yield;
Yet at length are reconciled,
And there made a composition.
His gorgeous clothes, his silver and his gold,
His jewels, his incomparable treasure
Were all of them delightsome to behold,
And gave the eye a glorious glut of pleasure.
His friends, his magnificent
Buildings, fish-ponds, gardens, bowers
Interlac'd with gallant flowers
Gave both eye and mind content.
Yet he 's dead. Delights cannot protect us
From Deaths assaults; pleasures eternize not
Our nature: yea, when sickness shall deject us
They will not ease nor comfort us a jot.
What doth most exactly please us
Here appears not where a grave is;
And what most of all doth ravish
On a death-bed will not ease us.
Meditation
1.
MEthinks the trade of brainlesse Epicures
Is not so good as it doth seem to be.
The sweetest cup of luxury procures
No man below an immortality.
Yea, when sicknesses do lay
Him upon his bed, and strain
Everie part with deadly pain,
All his pleasures fly away.
Let 's put the case there was a belly-god,
Whose study 't was to give his throat content;
To sacrifice to 's panch both roast and sod
Was his religion. Every element
Its employment had: The Waters,
Fruitful Earth and nimble Air,
Ransack'd with a costly care,
For fish, flesh and fowl, were caters:
The other cook'd it. This luxurious race
Did breath his stomach twice a day at least;
And each dish floted in provoking sauce,
Which still afresh his appetite increased.
From Dives that 's now in hell,
For a table full of rare,
Toothsome and delicious fare,
This man bears away the bell.
Well; this fat hog of Epicurus sty
Falls sick of surfeiting, or else the gout
Or dropsy gripes him most tormentingly,
That you would think his soul were going out.
Pains do hinder him from sleeping,
He lies restless, and is so
Full of tossings to and fro
That his house is filled with weeping.
His servants, seeing him so out of quiet,
Sadly bespoke him thus, Sir, here 's a Phesant,
A dish of Partridge, Larks, or Quails, (a diet
Your Worship loves) a cup of rich and pleasant
Wine that comforts where it goes,
Muscadine, Canarie, Sherrie,
That hath often made you merry:
This may ease you of your throes.
The man replied, If I had wine by ods
Better then nectar, which the poets feign
Was drunk in goblets by the heathen God's,
It would not ease me of my smallest pain.
Should God rain me from the skies
Manna, glorious Angels food,
'T would not do me any good:
'Gainst it would my stomachrise
There was another that placed no delight
In anything but wealth; his chiefest good
Was purest gold: whether 't were wrong or right
He would be gaining: for he never stood
Upon conscience at all.
And to cry down avarice,
As he thought, was a device
Merely puritanicall.
To lie, to cheat, to swear, and, which is worse,
To forswear, to dissemble in his dealing,
Went ever down with him as things of course:
Nor would he slack a jot at down-right stealing.
Blind he was not; yet he saw
Not that statute-usury
Was at all forbidden by
Any part of moral law.
'T was fish whatever came within his net:
Sweet smell'd the dunghill that afforded gain.
On such a thriving pin his heart was set,
No thoughts but golden lodged in his brain.
Scraping thus early and late,
And increasing by these bad
Ways and means, at length he had
Heaped up a vast estate.
They say a Turkish Musulman, that dies
A faithful servant unto Mahomet,
Shall presently enjoy a paradise
Of brave delights indeed: The place is set
All about with glorious matters;
There are rivers, pleasant benches
Straw'd with flowers, & gallant wenches
That have eyes as broad as platters,
And many other joys as good as these.
But all are babbles to that strong content
Wherewith the man we told you of doth please
Himself in his estate: More merriment
In the images of Kings
Doth he find then six or seven
Martyred Turks do in their heaven.
Hearken how the miser sings;
I 'll eat, drink, and play,
And I 'll freely enjoy
My pleasures before I am old;
I 'll be sorry no more,
For my soul hath in store
Abundance of silver and gold.
In this day and night
Will I place my delight;
It shall fatten my heart with laughter.
No man shall excel me;
For who is 't can tell me
What pleasures there will be hereafter?
His irreligious song was hardly ended,
When at his gate was heard one softly knocking:
It was that Tyrant Death, who came attended
With troops of griping throes; all these came flocking
Round about this golden fool.
As the issue did assure us,
God had sent these ghastly Furies
For to take away his soul.
Alas, Sir, said his servants what may be
The cause you send us out such woeful groans?
How fell you into such an agony?
What ails your throat, your head, your heart, your bones
Or your stomach, or your brains,
That you howl so? here before you
Is that which must needs restore you,
And ease your extremest pains.
Here 's gold and silver and as stately stuff
As England, Scotland, France, or Ireland yields:
Of jewels and of plate you have enough:
Of any man you have the fruitful'st fields.
Fattest oxen throng your stall;
Tenants tumble in your rent:
Those to whom you money lent
Bring both use and principal.
This cannot choose but comfort. But the man,
That lay upon his easeless death-bed sprawling,
Made this reply, If any of you can
By marks infallible make sure my calling
To my soul, and my election;
If from any text divine
You could prove that Christ is mine,
This would be a good refection.
Or if you could assure my parting ghost
Of seeing God to all Eternity,
Of being one amongst that heavenly host
Whose bliss it is to praise him endlessely;
This were comfort that accordeth
With his case that is distrest
As now I am, but the rest
On a death-bed none affordeth.
There was another man whose occupation
Was to pass time away: he made a trade
Of that which men do call a recreation:
He was indeed a very merry blade.
Taverns, bowling-alleys, plays,
Dauncing, fishing, fowling, racing,
Hawking, hunting, coursing, tracing,
Took up all his healthful days.
But on a time a sudden sickness came,
And seised him in each extremer part,
(This grudging did begin to spoil his game)
But at the length it fast'ned on his heart;
There it plunged him woefully,
And forthwith the man is led
Home and laid upon his bed:
Think him now at point to die.
A little after came into the room
A gallant troop of necessary stuff,
His coachman, falconer, huntsman, page, and groom,
His mistress with her hands both in a muff,
Sorie all to see him so.
But see how these fools invent
To give a sick man content,
And to ease him ere they go.
One breaks a jest, another tells a tale;
One strikes the lute, another sings a dittie;
(But neither of them pray to God at all)
Another tells what news is in the city:
Everie man is in his vein,
And all jointly do contrive
Pleasant passages to drive
Out of door their masters pain.
They asked him if he pleased to take the air,
Or call for 's coach and ride to see a play.
And whether he would hunt the buck or hare,
Or to a tavern go to drive away
Or to drown times tediousness,
Or else to a tennis-court
Whither gallants do resort,
Or else play a game at chesse.
The man replied, Ye know I must be gone
The way of all, I cannot tell how soon;
And I have other things to think upon:
Already it is with me afternoon;
Erelong my declining sun
Needs must set. Oh! my life hangs
On a thread: these mortal pangs
Crack it. Out my glass is run.
Time was I doted on these idle toys:
Now can they not a dram of comfort yield.
Too late I see they are not death-bed joys,
No refuge from soul-vexing storms, no shield
When a mortal blow is given.
Prate no more: let not a man
Open 's mouth unless he can
Tell me how to get to heaven.
There was another that for nothing cared
(It was a woman) but for vain excess
In bravery of clothes; no cost was spared,
Nor art, nor care, that served to express
To the full a female pride:
But at length it came to pass
That this spruce and gallant lasse
Fell extremely sick and died.
But I must tell you, that, whilst like a lion
Pains tore her bones in pieces, ere she sent
Her last breath out, (imagine her of Zion
A matchless daughter) to her chamber went,
Weeping ripe, her good handmaiden,
Purposing as much as may be
To cheer up her dying Lady:
For with comforts was she laden.
Thus she began, and spake it with a grace,
Be comforted, good Madame, never let
A little sickness spoil so good a face;
Your Ladyship cannot so soon forget
Your contents. If ever any
Gentlewoman lived that might
Find materials of delight,
You; good Madame, have as many.
Here for your feeet are tinkling ornaments;
Here are your bonnets, and your net-work-cauls,
Fine linen tōo that every eye contents,
Your head-bands, tablets, ear-rings, chains, and falls,
Your nose-jewels, and your rings,
Your hoods, crisping-pins, & wimples,
Glasses that bewray your pimples,
Vails, and other pretty things:
Here are your dainty mantles, and your suits
Of changeable apparel, and your tires
Round like the moon, your bracelets, (finger-fruits)
Of busy hours) mufflers, and golden wires;
And so many more that no man
Can repeat nor yet remember
From October to September:
This would comfort any woman.
Suppose her, if you will, an English Lady;
And think you hear her waiting-gentlewoman
Bespeak her thus, Madame, here is a gaudy
And glorious show, (these fashions are not common.)
Here 's your beaver and your feather,
Here are silver-ribband knots,
Trunks full of rich riding-coats,
Gallant shelters' gainst the weather.
Here are your holland and your cambrick-smocks,
Your gowns of velvet, satten, taffatie,
Irons to curvifie your flaxen locks,
And spangled roses that outshine the sky:
For your head here 's precious geere,
Bonelace-cross-cloths, squares & shadows,
Dressings, which your Worship made us
Work upon above a year.
Rich chains of pearl to tie your hair together,
And others to adorn your snowie breast;
Silk stockings, star-like shoes of Spanish leather:
And that which far excelleth all the rest
And begets most admiration,
Of your clothes is not their matter,
Though the world affords not better,
But it is their Frenchest fashion.
Madame, believe 't, the fairest of the Graces
Subscribes to you. Whenever you appear
Adorned with your gold and silver-laces,
Your presence makes the greedi'st eye good cheer.
This consideration
In time past was wont to please you:
Now then, Madame, let it ease you
And afford you consolation.
The dying woman, when this speech was done,
After a groan or two made this reply,
Doth such a curtain-lecture suit with one
That every hour doth look when she should die?
'T is not congruous. Wer'st thou able
My poor naked soul to dress
With a Savior's righteousness,
This indeed were comfortable:
But all the rest is not. Oh! how I grieve
To think upon my former vanity:
Alas, I feel these toys cannot relieve,
Nor ease, nor comfort. Thus let luxury
Pitch on what it will, its joys
Are but painted, nor can bring us
Ease when pangs of Death do wring us,
Much less can they make our days
Eternal here. Thy servant, Lord, beseecheth
The presence of thy spirit that discovers
How vain that carnal joy is which bewitcheth
With pleasant poison all her sottish lovers.
Let-not earth-delights forestall me:
Help thy servant to provide
Pleasures that will then abide
When thou sendest Death to call me.
Meditation
2.
FArewell those pleasures which the creatures breed:
These carnal comforts shall be none of mine;
They slink away in time of greatest need:
I will get me comforts that are more divine,
Such as God provideth for us
By his Spirit and in his word:
They are such as will afford
Joy unspeakable and glorious.
Unsanctified palates cannot find
A relish in God's service: 't is their folly
That nothing in it suiteth with their mind,
That they account religion melancholy.
And the cause of their misprision
Is because they cannot see
Things divine; for yet they be
In their natural condition.
But sanctified souls have better eyes.
Each Person in the sacred Trinity
Sends comfort down, and such as far outvies
The best delight that is below the sky.
Father, Son, and holy Ghost,
Be it spoke with reverence,
Seem to strive which shall dispense
Blessings that do comfort most.
The Father, as his title often writes
Himself a God of peace and consolation,
He sends me comforts by those sacred lights
Which bring me errands from his habitation:
And so firm and full and free
Is each promise in his book,
That on whichsoe'r I look
Blessed comforts I do see:
So firm, that first the hugest hills and mountains
Shall dance out of their places, stars shall fall,
Streams shall run backward to their mother-fountains,
The earth shall tumble, ere he will recall
One of 's promises: For why,
(And this gives strong consolation
In the midst of temptation)
He 's a God, and cannot lie.
So full, that there 's not anything left out
That I could wish. What I would have him be
God is. Would I be compassed about
With mercy? find relief in misery?
Would I by his Spirit be led?
And have all my sins forgiven?
And hereafter go to heaven?
All this God hath promised.
So free, that to deserve that promised glory
I nothing have but what his mercy gave me:
'T is gratis rather then compensatorie
Whatever God doth to convert or save me.
And if any good I do,
'T is done by supplies Divine;
So God's work and none of mine:
Grace begins and ends it too.
What if by nature I was made a sheep,
And by corruption I am gone astray,
Whether I think, or speak, or do, or sleep,
Or wake, do ever wander from the way
I was set in, and am tossed
So by lust that my soul wanders
Into many by-meanders,
Like a silly sheep that 's lost?
Yet God 's my shepherd: When his mercy spi'd me
Wandering it brought me home; and ever since
It doth watch over, feed, defend, and guide me,
And ever will do so till I go hence:
And hereafter in the even,
When my latest sand is run,
And my pasture here is done,
It will fold my soul in heaven.
The Son doth comfort. 'T was his errand down
To preach glad tidings to the meek, and turn
Their woe to ease; to earn a glorious crown
For sinners, and to comfort those that mourn;
Broken-hearted ones to bind,
And to set at liberty
Pris'ners in captivity,
And give eye-sight to the blind.
There 's comfort in his wounds: His sacred stripes
Do heal our leprous souls of all their sores:
'T is nothing but his precious blood that wipes
Our guilt away and cancelleth our scores.
Six times did he shed his blood,
(And sure out estate did need it
That so many times he did it)
And each drop was for our good.
Those circumcision-drops of's infancy,
Those drops that 's anguish in the garden vented,
Those drops when he was scourged Jewishly,
Those drops when 's head with sharpest thorns was tented,
Those drops when his limbs were nailed
To the cross, those when the fierce
Soldiers spear his side did pierce;
Each drop for our good prevailed.
There 's comfort in his cross: That vile old man
That hangs about us to our dying day
Is crucified with him that it can
Not exercise half of its wonted sway:
Lessened is its kingly power.
Surely sin, it struggles so,
Hath received a mortal blow,
And is dying every hour.
There 's comfort in his death: For us he died,
For us he felt his Fathers heavy wrath,
And his impartial justice satisfied,
And us his all-sufficient passion hath
Pluck'd from Satan
vi & armis,
And his meritorious pain
Freed us from sins guilt and stain,
And whatever else might harm us.
There 's comfort in his resurrection too.
He rose again that we might be accounted
Righteous and just, (This no man else could do)
And that our sins, whose number far surmounted
All the stars that shine in heaven,
All our hairs, and all the sand
That lies scattered on the strand,
For his sake might be forgiven.
And God the holy Ghost doth comfort bring:
By special office it is his employment
To settle in the soul a lively spring,
From whence doth issue such a sweet enjoyment
Of divine, heart-pleasing bliss,
As the world will not believe,
Nor can any heart conceive
But the heart wherein it is.
It is this blessed Spirit that doth seal
Assurance to my conscience of a share
In what God, in and through his Son, doth deal
To needy sinners that converted are.
It assures me of God's love
In the free and full remission
Of my sins, and exhibition
Of those joys that are above.
Let now the world, that 's wont to tell a story
Of strange delights, show me but such a pleasure,
As to be sure of God, and Christ, and glory,
And then I will hug it as my choicest treasure.
Thus each Person of the three
Is employ'd (if I do live
Holy as I ought) to give
Joy and comfort unto me.
Grant a man once to be in Christ, and he
On sublunarie pleasures soon will trample;
And yet for pleasures, who shows best, will vie
With all the world: give him but one example,
What gets pleasure, and what feeds it;
Whatsoe'r 'mongst earthly things
To the mind most pleasure brings;
He can show what far exceeds it.
Can learning please? he is a man of parts.
Me thinks sure at his very fingers end
He hath exactly all the liberal arts;
At least he hath such arts as will commend
Any man a great deal more,
And will sooner bring to heaven,
Then will any of those seven
On which learned men do pore.
His Logic is so scientificall,
His Syllogisms are in so blest a mood,
A thousand arguments his heart lets fall
That rightly from good premises conclude
Him a child of God on high,
And a member of his Son,
And an heir, when 's race is run,
Of a blest Eternity.
His Rhetoric excels. He can persuade
More then those well-pen'd sweet orations which
Demosthenes or Tully ever made.
Doth he that prayer-hearing God beseech?
Presently his ear he gains.
For fine words it is no matter:
Let him like a swallow chatter
Or a crane, yet he obtains.
And for Arithmetic; his numeration
Is of his days: this makes the man apply
His heart to wisdom, that in any station
He may perform his duty prudently.
And those sins, to make them hateful,
Which his conscience most do cumber
Everie day the man doth number;
And God's blessings, to be grateful.
And for Addition; 't is his diligence
Virtue to add to faith; to virtue, knowledge;
Love, godliness, peace, kindness, patience,
One to another: that his soul 's a College
Filled with divinest graces:
And not one grace idle lies,
But all do their exercise
In their several turns and places.
When he subtracteth, 't is not from the poor,
As most men do, not from the King nor Church;
But from sins monstrous body. More and more
He weakens the old man that lies at lurch
In each of his faculties,
And his master-sin, the strongest
Lust that hath been harboured longest
In his soul he mortifies.
He multiplies not, as in many places
Men do, his riches; but he multiplies
And doth augment his saving gifts and graces,
If not in habit yet in exercise.
He divides his goods, he feedeth
Hungrie bellies, and relieveth
Such as are distress'd, and giveth
Unto everyone that needeth.
When he reduceth, 't is his conversation
In every point from what it was by nature:
He moulds his life into another fashion,
And shows himself to be a new-made creature.
And for such a man's Progression;
He 's not fixed in his place
Like a statue, but in grace
Grows to credit his profession.
He ever worketh by the Rule of Three
That do above in heaven bear record.
The Golden Rule, whereby his actions be
Squar'd and directed, is their written word.
Though sometimes he work by Fractions,
Gives God broken services,
'Cause he 's flesh in part; yet is
He sincere in all his actions.
And for a pious man's Astronomy;
What if he cannot tell the sev'rall motions
Those orbs have which do roll about the sky?
Stars names, site, bigness, and such other notions?
What if he know not how soon
The sun will eclipsed be?
Nor hath wit enough to see
The new world that 's in the moon?
Yet he doth know the
milky way
that leads
Unto the palace of the highest King:
Whose presence the whole host of heaven dreads,
Who made the stars, the spheres, and everything;
Steers the course that each orb runs,
Binds stars influence, looseth the bands
Of Orion, and his hands
Guide Arcturus with his sons.
For Geometry; what if he cannot tell
How many miles the vast earth is about?
Yet doth his pious art by far excel
In finding many greater matters out:
Matters that exceed the strength
Of best wits, the full extension
Of Christ 's love in each dimension,
Height, and depth, & breadth, & length.
For Grammar; he can wickedness decline.
His supernatural Philosophy
Is wisdom to salvation. Most divine
His music is: That God that dwells on high
Is pleased with no other tone.
There is nothing he can hear
Makes such music in his ear
As a sanctified groan.
For Physic; his most admirable knowledge
Hath found out a
Catholicon.
(This ranks
His skill deservedly above the College,
Above French or Italian mountebanks.)
There 's no sickness, he is sure,
Be it never so strong or foul,
That affecteth any soul,
But the blood of Christ can cure.
The greatest Clerk is but a learned fool,
If's learning be not mixed with godliness,
The greatest Scholar's he that goes to school
To learn of Christ the ways of holiness.
Thus if learning be a treasure
That doth please, or skill in arts,
Or to be a man of parts;
He that's holy finds this pleasure.
Doth toothsome and delicious cheer delight?
The godly have it once a week at least.
Our bounty-handed Savior doth invite
His servants to a rich and sumptuous feast,
Where his own self is our server;
Such a feast of fattest things
As if all the guests were Kings:
Where faith may be her own carver.
Do riches please? A godly man's estate
Surpasseth that of Croesus: he hath more
Then out of Christ is had at any rate.
God hath endowed him with a blessed store
Better then a heap of gold,
Which nor thief, nor moth, nor rust,
Can steal, eat, or turn to dust:
His are bags that never wax old.
God's rich and precious promises are his,
Which by a precious faith he makes his own:
God's richest mercy; there's no wealth like this:
Christ's precious blood, whereof a drop alone
Was of higher valuation
Then all men and Angels be,
Or what ere the sun did see
Ever since the first creation.
Doth rich apparel please? Christ's righteousness
Clothes all his members to conceal their shame.
Ne'r was Kings daughter in so pure a dress,
Unless she were adorned with the same.
'T is a robe that God doth please:
Angels that on God do wait,
And never lost their first estate,
Are not clothed like one of these.
For all delights, the cheating world hath none
So good by half 'mongst all her painted store
As those the soul finds in religion:
With purest joy the pious heart runs o'r.
Let the world diversify
Her delights a thousand ways,
Yet they come short of those joys
That are found in piety.
When I must die, my joy that 's natural
Forsaketh me; that which is secular
Takes leave afsoon as ever Death doth call;
Joyes that were criminal converted are
Into most tormenting fears:
Only that which is divine
On a Death-bed will be mine.
And what if when Death appears
It cannot shield me from that fatal blow?
(I would not it should do me so much wrong:
For if I were immortal here below
I were not happy) yet 't will go along
With me when I do depart.
Carnal joys, Lord, from me banish,
Let divine delights replenish
Ev'rie corner of my heart.
Sect. 4. Friends cannot protect us from the stroke of Death.
IF I were great, rich, prosperous, secure,
Successefull in the world, I should be sure
That more time-servers would my friendship woo,
Then I could reckon in a year or two.
As greedy Eagles to a carcase hasten,
And with sharp tallons on their prey do fasten;
So would they flock about me. Or if I
Could learn the art of popularity,
I might be rich in friends, yet all my store
Would not know how to keep Death out of door.
Meditation
1.
OF Proteus 't is feigned that he could
Transform himself to any kind of shape:
Into a Dove, or Lamb, and when he would,
Into a Tiger, Lion, Bear, or Ape,
Or a Mountain, Rock, or Spring,
Or Earth, Water, Fire, Air,
Into any forms tha
•
are
Stampt in any kind of thing.
And Aristippus could exactly flatter:
He had the art of winning gainful friends,
And, that his fortune might be made the fatter,
Had all behaviours at his fingers ends.
He could groan when 's friend was sickly,
And could weep when he was sad:
Any humor, good or bad,
Did become him very quickly.
Did I believe that metempsychosis
Pythagoras did dream of, I should swear
That Proteus ghost to this day neither is
In hell nor yet in heaven, but doth wear
Now a body, and the base
Ghost of Aristippus dwells
In a thousand bodies: else
How could thousands have the face
To personate so many humors? act
So many parts at once, and balk no sin?
Yea, perpetrate with ease the basest fact
That hell ere punished, to wind them in-to great friendships, though they miss
Heavens favor, all the while
Dreaming that a great man's smile
Is on earth the only bliss?
And yet when that last enemy shall come
And grind their aching bones with griping throes,
To bring their bodies to their longest home,
There 's not a man 'mongst all their friends that knows
How to take away their pain.
In comes ghastly Death among
The midst of that friendly throng,
And turns them to dust again.
Meditation
2.
THere's none among the sacred troop of Saints
Yet militant below but doth desire
God's favor most, and most of all laments
When it is lost, and always sets a higher
Estimate upon the rays
That are darted from above
By the God of peace and love,
Then on all he here enjoys.
Ne'r doth the chased heart in hottest weather,
When horse and hound pursue him o'r the plains,
And hunt him sweating twenty miles together,
That all his blood is boiled within his veins,
When he 's to the hardest driven,
Pant so much for water-brooks,
As a soul deserted looks
For a kind aspect from heaven.
Once did Elias zealous prayers climb
To heaven, and made the windows there so fast
(This came to pass in wicked Ahab's time)
That one and twenty months twice told were past
E'r there fell a shower of rain
Or a drop of morning dew:
In the meadows nothing grew,
Nor was any kind of grain
Fed by the parched mold. How do ye think
That thirsty, dry, and barren land did yawn
And gape to heavenward for a draught of drink?
Just so, whene'r God's favor is withdrawn
From a soul, it doth distress her.
Ne'r earth thirsted more for rain,
Then doth she for God again
To relieve her and refresh her.
Have you not seen a mothers woeful tears
Embalm the carcase of her only son?
How to all comfort she stops both her ears,
Wrings both her hands, and makes a bitter moan?
Fain in sorrow would she swim,
Or be drowned, it is so deep:
She hath heart enough to weep
Heaven full up to the brim.
But this is nothing to that matchless anguish
That breaks in pieces every pious heart,
And makes the soul with darkest sadness languish,
If from 't a sense of God's good will depart.
O how strangely David 's troubled
When God hid away his face!
(Though but for a little space)
See how his complaints are doubled.
How long? forever, Lord, wilt thou forget me?
How long wilt thou thy gracious visage hide?
How long be angry? wilt thou never let me
Enjoy thy face again? shall I abide
Thus for evermore bereft
Of all comfort, joy, and peace?
Shall my soul never dwell at ease?
Hast thou, Lord, no mercy left?
O once again be pleased to turn, and give
My soul a relish of thy wonted grace:
There 's nothing can my sadded heart relieve,
If thou dost hide thy comfortable face.
Thou in tears thy servant drown'st,
Thou dost fill my cheeks with furrows
And my soul with ghastly sorrows,
Whensoever, Lord, thou frown'st.
The world doth value at a precious rate
Things here below. Some highly prize their sport;
Some, jewels; some, a plentiful estate;
And some, preferments in a Princes court:
But for life; we so esteem it
Above whatsoe'r is best,
That with loss of all the rest
We are ready to redeem it.
But none of these God's children do regard
So much as God's love by a thousand parts:
Feel they but this, to entertein 't is spared
The best and highest room in all their hearts.
They affect no worldly pelf
In comparison of this
Kindnesse; yea, to them it is
Better far then life itself.
Have they no reason for this eager thirst
After God's love and friendship? sure they see
God's favor and his kindness is the first
And chiefest good: all other friendships be
Most deceitful, trustlesse, vain.
When the pangs of Death do seise us
Mortall favors cannot ease us:
God can rid us of our pain.
But grant he do not, yet these pains shall send
Our souls to him that loves us, to enjoy
A painlesse life that never shall see an end.
He whom God loves can on a death-bed say,
I know my Redeemer liveth;
For me there 's laid up a crown:
When this clay-built house is down
God a better mansion giveth.
I 'll never woo the smile of man, whose breath
Is in his nostrils, by sinister ways;
'T will not advantage at the hour of Death:
All my supportment on these carnal stays
At the length will but deceive me.
'T is to have a friend above,
'T is God's favor and his love,
Or else nothing, must relieve me.
Lord, make thy graces in my soul appear;
My heart from every loathsome blemish cleanse,
That I may clearly see thine image there;
For that 's an undeceived evidence
Of thy favor: which when I
Once am certain to obtain,
I 'll not faint for any pain,
Nor will care how soon I die.
Sect. 5. Youth cannot protect us from the stroke of Death.
A Young man may die, but an old man must;
This may die quickly, that cannot live long:
Often are graves filled full with youthful dust.
Though youth be jocund, lusty, merry, strong,
Yet is it subject unto Death-bed-pains;
'T is mortal blood that runs along their veins.
In all appearance old men's halting feet are
Mov'd to the grave-ward with the greatest speed,
(Like that disciples which did outrunne Peter)
But sometimes younger men step in indeed:
And peradventure twenty years or more
Sooner then those that looked in before.
Graves gape for every sort: The butcher 's seen
Often to kill the youngest of the flock.
Some long to pluck those apples that are green:
Death crops the branches and forbears the stock.
Children are wrapped up in their winding-sheets,
And aged parents mourn about the streets.
Jobs children died before himself: for after
The death of ten he lived to get ten other.
We sigh out, Ah my son! or, Ah my daughter!
As oft as, Ah my father, or my mother!
The first that ever died resigned his breath
Nine hundred years before his fathers death.
Yea, many times, Deaths gripings are so crucl,
Before the groaning mothers child-birth-pain
Is past, the infant 's buri'd; like a jewel
But shewn and presently shut up again,
Perhaps within a minute after birth
Is forthwith sent to cradle in the earth.
Perhaps he is not born at all, yet dies,
And dies a very thrifty Death: to save
Fun'rall expenses he in 's mother lies
Entombed, both lodged in a single grave:
And with him lies in one poor narrow room
His swaddling-clouts, nurse, mother, cradle, tomb.
Meditation
1.
SOme sins there be (as holy writ doth teach)
That interrupt the current of our days:
He that 's found gultie of them cannot reach
That length of life which he that 's free enjoys.
Sin (you know) and Death are twins,
Or Death is Sins progeny.
Many of us if we die
In our youth may thank our sins.
One sin is disobedience to that pair
Which did beget us. If I shall despise
My parents lawful precepts, if my care
Be not to do what 's pleasing in their eyes,
If I willingly neglect
Any thing which I do know
Is a duty that I ow,
I may Death betimes expect.
Another sin is unprepar'd receiving
That blessed Supper which doth feed and heal,
And in and to a soul that is believing
A full release of sins doth freely seal:
Where that body and that blood
Is presented on the table,
Which are infinitely able
To do hungri'st sinners good.
If I come hither an unworthy guest;
Or if before my heart I do not prove;
Or if I come as to a common feast;
Or come without Thanks, Knowledge, Faith, and Love:
If I carry any crime
Thither with me unlamented,
Or go ere I have repented,
Death may take me hence betime.
Another is Blood-thirstiness: when we
To do a mischief are so strongly bent
That we sleep not unless our projects be
Contrived to ensnare the innocent:
When we are so like the Devil,
Everie way satanical,
That tongue, brains, heart, hands, and all
Are employ'd in what is evil.
These sins and others like them do procure
Untimely Deaths. Lord, purify my heart
From every sin; but chiefly, Lord, secure
My soul from these, that I may not depart
Hence too soon. Lord, my desire
Is not to live long; but I
Only pray that I may die
In thy favor not thine ire.
Meditation
2.
THere is a sin that seldom doth escape
A rich man's heir, (yet 't is a foul transgression)
For parents Death with open mouth to gape,
That their estates may come to his possession.
He gapes that his friends may sleep:
Parentalia
are rites
Very welcome: he delights
At a fathers grave to weep.
Poor hare-brained fool! Perhaps thou mayest go first:
This night thy younger soul may be required;
Thy Death may frustrate that ungodly thirst:
Whose then is that estate thou hast desired?
If these gallants were not blind,
Sure they could not choose but see
That a thousand children be
Dead, their parents left behind.
Of any kind of sin (to speak the truth)
That Satan can beget upon the soul,
Most commonly man 's guilti'st in his youth:
Our youthful nature is beyond control.
Some examples are afforded,
In whose history appears
Looseness in our younger years:
These the Scriptures have recorded.
The very first that ere sucked mothers teat,
Because his works were naught, his brothers good,
Did boil his choler to so strong a heat
That he must slake it in his brothers blood.
How much rancor did he show
So much harmless blood to spill,
And a quarter-part to kill
Of all mankind at a blow?
Unnaturall, accursed, graceless Cham
Never did grieve, nor sigh, nor blush, but he
Laugh'd at and mocked his drunken fathers shame.
(A sober fathers curse his portion be.)
Profane Esau did make sale
Of 's birthright for 's belly-full;
As 'mongst us there 's many a gull
That sells heaven for pots of ale.
And Absalom was most deformed within;
His head-piece had more hair then wit by ods:
His beauty went no deeper then his skin;
He feared not man's law nor regarded God's.
In him David had a son
Beastly and ambitious too:
He did wrong his bed, and do
What he could to steal his throne.
Incestuous Amnon dotes upon his sister,
And in his own blood cools his lawless fires.
That brother should have sin'd that had but kissed her,
If moved unto it by unchaste desires:
But he makes a rape upon her,
And so furious is his lust
That it cannot hold but must
Rob a virgin of her honor.
And I could tell you of a number more
Most sinful, vicious, vile, exorbitant,
Whose courses are upon the Scriptures score,
As if their youth had sealed them a grant
To be neither wise nor holy,
But to run into excess
Of all kind of wickedness,
And do homage unto folly.
The sage Gymnosophists, who first did give
The wilder Indians good and wholesome laws:
The Magi, by whom Persia learned to live
In order: the Chaldei, whose wise laws
The Assyrians justly ruled
And did guide in everything:
Numa, Rome's devoutest King,
Who the elder Romans school'd:
That famous Solon, whom th' Athenians ow
For all their statutes: and Lycurgus, he
Whose wisdom taught the Spartanes how to know
What to omit and do: and more there be
That have published wholesome laws
To curb all indeed; but yet
Chiefly 't was to put a bit
In men's wild and youthful jaws.
It is a sign that colt is wild that needs
So strong a bridle. Ground that doth require
So much manuring sure is full of weeds.
It is because she wallows in the mire
That we need to wash a sow.
Men in youth must needs be bad,
To curb whom those laws were made
Which we told you of but now.
'T was a commanded custom that the Jews
Should once in every two and fifty weeks
Visit their temple; no man might refuse
To worship there. Each fourth year the Greeks
Their Olympian sacrifice
Orderly performed: and
Th' Egyptians used to stand
Lifting up devoutest eyes
Unto their Idole every seventh year
Within th' appointed temple. And 't is said
Once in ten years the Romans did appear
To sacrifice: then was Apollo paid
His great Hecatomb, and then
Unto Delphi many went
With their gifts, for thither sent
Presents every sort of men.
And of the Samnites authors do relate,
That th' ancient'st of them did most solemnly
Once in five years their
Lustra
celebrate:
But 't is delivered by Antiquity
That the youth of all these nations
Strictly all commanded were
To these places to repair
Oftner to make their oblations.
What doth this intimate, but that the crimes
Of youth are great and frequent, and their vices
Exorbitant, that they so many times
Have need to purge them by such sacrifices?
By experience we do find
What bad courses men do follow
In their youth, and how they wallow
In base lusts of every kind.
And if you ask these brainlesse hot-spurs why
They dedicate themselves to such lewd courses;
They yet are young, these gallants still reply,
And youth must have its swing: but no remorse is
Wrought at all in any heart
For this lewdness; there remains
Not a thought within their brains,
That the youngest may depart.
Lord, take possession of my heart betimes:
My youth is fittest for thy service; take it
Unto thyself: make white those crimson crimes
That fain would soil it: let me never make it
A pretense (as many do)
To be lewd, but think that I
In the height of youth may die,
May die and be damned too.
Meditation
3.
PArents methinks betime should strive to make
Their children good, that heaven may receive them.
If God should send an early Death to take
Them from the earth, it cannot choose but grieve them,
And fill full with bitter woe
Any parents heart to see
That their children wicked be,
And Death come and find them so.
Those fruitful couples whom the Lord hath blest
With children, should take greatest care to breed them
Religiously: In this more love 's expressed,
Then in their care to cloth them or to feed them,
Or what else they can bestow
For their life or livelihood,
And to do their children good
In the things that are below.
You must instruct your children in their way:
That 's double, Civil and Religious too:
They must be taught God's precepts to obey,
And to their neighbors give what is their due.
If you do not strive to set them,
By that rule which God hath given,
In the way that leads to heaven,
You did wrong them to beget them.
There 's such a pour and force in education,
That justly we may call 't a second nature:
Nature finds matter, nurture gives the fashion,
And turns a man into another creature.
If a youth in 's manners halt,
On his parents we do lay
All the blame, and use to say,
That his breeding is in fault.
The heathen, who did see but by that light
Which purblind nature lent them, ever caught
At all occasions they conceived might
Be helps to have their youth in goodness taught.
In their bodies would they find
(For nowhere but in the book
Of the creatures did they look)
Lessons to instruct the mind.
It is observed that Socrates let pass
No ways nor means at all that might conduce
To their amendment: often to a glass
He brought them, and that shadow had its use.
By his means their faces bred them:
For however their complexion
Did appear, by that reflection
From 't a lecture would he read them.
That fair ones must take heed they did not soil
That comely outside with deformititie
Within: to have an inside foul would spoil
The choicest beauty: that their symmetry,
Just proportion of parts,
And their comliness of face
Was not worth a jot, if grace
Did not beautify their hearts.
And that deformed ones should have a care,
That virtuous endowments, of the soul
Might recompense those blemishes that were
By nature placed to make the body foul:
That the mind and nothing else
Makes us either foul or fair.
Out-side beauties nothing are
To a mind where virtue dwells.
Of any age their youth is fit'st to take
The print of vice or virtue: 't is a clean
Unwritten table, where a man may make
What characters he will. If ere you mean
To make straight a crooked tree,
You must do 't while 't is a twig:
When your children are grown big
They will not reformed be.
Sometimes (if need require) you shall do well
To use the rod: if duly you correct them,
'T may be a means to whip their souls from hell:
From many sins may prudent stripes protect them.
No such physic as the rod:
There 's health in a loving scourge,
It will children's manners purge,
And will make them fit for God.
But whensoe'r you fasten any blows,
Let sins against the holy name of God
Be first corrected: for a child that knows
To give his due to heaven, on him the rod
Will prevail with little labor
To correct him how to live
Civilly, and how to give
What he owes unto his neighbor.
And yet you must be moderate in strokes:
You may not make a trade of chastisements.
A parent that corrects too much provokes
His child to wrath; so pious documents
Will be cast away in vain.
Too much mercy is not fit,
Neither too much rigor; yet
Mercy 's better of the twain.
That high and great Jehovah, whom we find
Adorn'd with mercy, goodness, justice, wrath,
Is evermore to mercy most inclined:
Of all the rest that most employment hath.
He that suffered near mount Zion,
(And whatever he did hallow
By his practice we should follow)
Was a Lamb as well 's a Lion.
And ere you strike observe their dispositions:
Those four complexions in man's grosser part
Are but a few; the finer part 's conditions
Are many more. Some at a look will start;
Others will but make a mock
At the lash itself, and never
Will express the least endeavor
To amend with many a knock.
The Nat'ralists can tell you of a stone
Extremely hard, which blood or milk will soften:
But with the strongest hammer there is none
Can do it, though he beat it never so often.
The sea yields a certain weed,
Which, if gently grip'd, will fly;
Roughly, will yield presently:
Rigour such stout natures need.
Some children's dispositions are like nettles:
The gentl'er you do handle them they sting
The more; fair means in them no virtue settles:
Some are like thorns; the harder you do wring
The more deeply will they pierce.
Mark their natures, and you shall
By due chastisements recall
Both the gentle and the fierce.
But it must be 'bove all your chiefest care
To shine before your children by the light
Of good example: for examples are
Of most prevailing natures. What the sight
Can be master of appears
To be more convincing far
Then all other truths that are
Only objects of the ears.
A high perfection did the heathen deem it
To imitate their Jove: were it but in
His close adulteries, they did esteem it
A commendable passage not a sin.
In a wrong way, or a right,
Samplers lead, I know not how:
If King Alexander bow
Not a courtier stands upright.
If Cyrus nose be bad, or if a scar
Chance to disfigure his imperial face;
If Plato 's learned shoulders be too square;
One 's subjects, th' others scholars, are so base
As to draw 't into a fashion:
And if Aristotle stammer,
All his boys will lisp and hammer
Out their words in imitation.
If cruel Dionysius tyrannize,
Each man grows fierce: and if Antiochus
Be lustful, he is not accounted wise
That will not be effeminate: and thus
Ptolemeus Philadelph
Loving letters, by example
Egypt underfoot did trample
Ignorance as did himself.
With scholars (like himself) Augustus filled
The Roman Empire: and Tiberius he
Stor'd it with such as were exactly skilled
In fair dissimulation, and could be
Leaders in the hateful train
Of those monsters who by heart
Had learned perfectly the art
To dissemble, lie, and feign.
Good Constantine's example filled the land
With Christians like himself, and Julian's did
Beget a troop of Atheists: such command
Examples have. In holy writ we read
That examples either way,
For God or against him, for
Great Jehovah's worship or
Baalim's, did the people sway.
If Israel's or Judah 's King were good,
The people presently destroyed their groves:
Scarce in the land a graven image stood:
High places owls did rest in: each man loves
(At the least in show) that Jealous
God that in the desert fed them,
And from Egypt 's bondage led them;
For him only are they zealous.
If Israel's or Judah 's King were bad,
So were the people: Altars straight were reared
To senseless Idols; not a house but had
Their graven Images; and no man feared
Unto Baal to bend his knee.
Men live by similitude
More then law; and most conclude
Upon what their Princes be.
If Nebuchadnezzar the mighty King
Be pleased to fall down to a golden image,
Thither with speed do their devotions bring
People of every kingdom, tongue, and linage.
Three excepted, all adore him:
There 's not one enough precise
To refuse; it doth suffice
That the King did so before him.
Thou art a King if thou a parent art,
Each family 's a petty kingdom, and
The parents Monarch: 't were a kingly part
To make thy little subjects understand
How in virtue to excel
By thy practice; that 's a skill
'Bove all other: children will
No way else be taught so well.
Look how the
primum mobile
doth move,
Accordingly do move the other spheres:
As in a Jack the wheel that is above
With its first mover just proportion bears.
In a family 't is so:
Look what way the parents take,
That the rest their rule will make,
Chiefly there the children go.
Not any godly precept so exact is,
Which you shall teach your children to obey;
But that, if you shall thwart it by your practice,
Thus will your junior household-members say,
At least they will whisper thus,
If virtue be good, then why
Do not you live virtuously?
If not, why d' ye press 't on us?
If by these ways you strive to educate,
Whom God hath blest with fruitful progenies,
Your children well, their early Death or late
Shall not a jot augment your miseries.
A child's death is not a rod
To afflict a parents heart.
He that dies well doth depart
Hence that he may live with God.
Lord, if thou make my wife a fruitful vine,
Make it withal my chiefest care to dress
The branches well; the glory shall be thine,
And if they die my grief shall be the less.
A child's death 's a precious savor
In thy nostrils that was here
Taught to live, Lord, in thy fear;
For he dieth in thy favor.
Meditation
4.
IF youth itself may drop into the grave,
When children die methinks they should bequeath
Surviving parents comforts. Sure they have
No cause (were not affection strong) to grieve
Overmuch, as many do:
For Death is impartial,
By his stroke all ages fall,
Both the old'st and youngest too.
Think duly on 't. Why should your eyes run o'r
For what you have no way to remedy?
If you should heaven eternally implore,
It would not send them back. But you 'll reply,
'Cause there 's no way to be found
That may help us to recover
Them again, our eyes run over,
And our tears do so abound.
Nor ever will your highest flood of sorrow
Transport them back into the world again:
Your selves may follow them before tomorrow.
Those deep-fetched sighs are smok'd out all in vain,
So are all those drops you mourn
Shed in vain; hap'lie you may
Soon go after them, but they
Are too happy to return.
Is it your love that doth produce such groans?
How easily alas is love mistaken!
Methinks you cannot love and grieve at once;
To love were to rejoice that they have shaken
Hands with misery to dwell
In a world of bliss above;
Grief at this is far from love,
It seems not to wish them well.
Or is 't because that they are dead you weep?
I do not think that when they were begotten,
You dreamed them death-free, or had hopes to keep
Them here forever; that they would be rotten
In their graves you could not choose
But consider: for a span
To be quickly ended, can
Never go for any news.
Nor with good reason can you lay the blame
On Death at all, but on yourselves that did
Beget them mortal: for the very same
Matter wherewith they were begot and fed,
Fits them for an alteration
By the hand of Death. If you
Grudge that Death hath ta'n his due,
You may blame their generation.
Or do you grieve because they died so soon?
If ways be foul, and journeys perilous,
Who taketh up his lodging ere 't be noon
Is best at ease. 'T is like God loveth those
Whom he takes betime away:
Sad experience lets us know
That the happi'st here below
Have a miserable stay.
Or is your only child deceased, that passion
Doth domineer so? here I could allow
Methinks your tears a free immoderation,
But that (on better ground then Jephtha's vow)
I remember what was done
By that parent, who is pen'd
Down for great Jehovah's friend,
In case of his only son.
Even when 't was dead a miracle did fill
His Sarah's womb, but it was filled but once.
Isaac was all: Yet Abraham must kill
This all himself. God did it for the nonce
That he might his graces prove,
Yet the man made no denial,
But did by so strange a trial
Manifest his faith and love.
This case must needs strike nearer to the heart
Then yours; yet he doth presently submit.
Love (I confess) is very loath to part
With what it loves, but grace doth put a bit
Into natures mouth that she
May not grumble nor repine
At what 's a decree Divine,
But subscribe it cheerfully.
Just like the Autumn-sap of fruitful trees
So love descends; and it is ardent when
Dispersed, but by infinite degrees
More ardent when it is contracted: men
That have but an only son,
If Death take him hence, their loss
Is a great one; but this cross
Must be born. Thy will be done,
Is what yourselves do pray for every day:
And when this will of God 's declared, you
Greatly offend if you do murmur. May
Not God, and Sin, and Nature claim their due?
Very ill you do behave you
If you give not heaven leave
Thankfully for to bereave
You again of what it gave you.
Lord, if thou please to stock my table round
About with children, yet I will be glad:
Nor shall my sorrow overmuch abound,
Though I do see them in their grave-clothes clad;
For the sooner are they blest:
And within the shortest space
Whom thou help'st to win a race,
They the sooner are at rest.
Meditation
5.
WE do not die by chance nor yet by fortune,
But how and when the Lord will have us die:
He numbers all our days; we cannot shorten
Nor lengthen them a minute: Destiny
Neither spinnes nor cuts the thread.
God a certain period sets:
No man shorter falls, or gets
Further, then the bounds decreed.
If God vouchsafe to number out the hairs
That do adorn and cloth our sinful heads;
Who doubteth that his providence forbears
To count our days? If not a sparrow treads
On the earth 's face thus or thus,
But his providence awaketh
For to note it, sure he taketh
Greater care by far of us.
If any godless wits so curious be
To talk of Hezekiah's fifteen years,
His sentence God did change, not his decree,
The answer is: yet Isaiah 's tongue appears
To speak not a jot the less
Truth; 't was with a supposition:
God doth threaten with condition
Either tacit or express.
When Pestilence, that loathsome, dreadful hag,
Bepatch'd with botches, wanders up and down,
And into every household drops the plague,
Scarce any Turk in an infected town
But will wife and friend afford
Daily visits and embraces:
They fly no contagious places,
Nor fear either bed or bord.
Their reason is, God's providence doth write
Their fortunes on their foreheads; neither can
Their day of life be longer, nor their night
Of Death come sooner then God wills it: Man
Must yield 's ghost when God will haveit.
For health and life, if God will
Save it, 't is not plague can kill:
If not, 't is not they can save it.
Such block-heads have not brains enough to think
That as the time, so God withal decrees
The means of life; as physic, meat and drink,
Clothes, recreations, and what else he sees
Needful. They themselves destroy,
And are to their safety strangers,
That run into mortal dangers,
And not shun them when they may.
Howe'r employ'd, Lord, grant I may have leisure
Religiously to meditate that thou
My days dost number, and my life dost measure,
And make me think, Lord, that this very now,
That this twinkling of an eye
Is the period thou hast set:
Lord, grant I may never forget
That this moment I may die.
PART III. Of Deaths suddenness.
THough sometimes Death doth stay till it be late
At night, until our most decrepit years,
And when he comes, doth (like a King) in state
Send harbingers before; yet Death appears
Sometimes unlook'd for early in the morning,
And takes us up before he gives us warning.
When at full tide our youthful blood doth flow
In every vein, and when our pulses dance
A healthful measure, when our stomachs know
No qualms at all, as we would say by chance
Snatch'd are our bodies to their longest homes,
And Death is past before a sickness comes.
How many sleepy mortals go to bed
With healthful bodies, and do rise no more!
How many hungry mortals have been fed
Contentedly at dinner? yet before
Against a second meal they whet their knives
Death steals away their stomachs and their lives.
How many in the morning walk abroad
For to be breathed on by the keener air?
Perhaps to clarify their grosser blood,
Or else to make their rougher cheeks look fair.
But ere they tread a furlong in the frost,
Death nips them: so their former labor 's lost.
Nature is parsimonious: Man may live
With little: but alas with how much less
A man may die! There 's nothing but may give
A mortal blow: small matters may undresse
Our souls of clay. A thousand ways we have
To send our crazy bodies to the grave.
The elements confeder how they may
Procure our Death: the Air we suck to live
It self hath poi'sned thousands in a day,
And made such havoc that the slain did strive
For elbow-room in Church-yards: houses were
Good cheap, and only shrowds and coffins dear.
If we could come to speak with Pharaoh's ghost,
'T would tell how many met with sudden graves
Beneath the water; that a mighty host
Was slain and buried by the surly waves,
Except a few which surfeited with store
The crop-sick sea did vomit on the shore.
Sometimes our mother Earth, as if she were
So hunger-bitten that she needs must eat
Her children, gapes as for some toothsome cheer,
And multitudes one swallow down doth let;
Which either in her womb she doth bestow,
Or else doth send them to the world below.
That useful creature Fire, whose light and heat
Doth comfort, and, when Earth doth penance, warm us,
Whose cookerie provides us wholesome meat;
Yet mortally this element doth harm us.
One morning sent from heaven such dreadful flashes
As did intomb five cities in their ashes.
We may remember some that have been killed
By falls of buildings; some, by drunken swords.
By beasts both wild and tame our blood is spill'd.
There 's not a creature but a death affords.
'Bove forty children's limbs God's anger tears
In pieces with the teeth of savage bears.
But there 's some likely hood that sudden Death
By means like these may easily befall us:
But many times we mortals lose our breath
By ways less probable. The Lord doth call us
Upon a sudden hence by petty things:
Sometimes the meanest means Death's errand brings.
Our staff of life may kill: a little crumb
Of bread may choke us going down awry.
A small hair in their drink hath caused some
To breath their last. By anything we die.
Sometimes a sudden grief or sudden joy
Have might enough to take our souls away.
Meditation
1.
HOw weak 's the thread of life, that anything
How weak so ere can break it by and by!
How short 's the thread of life, that Death can bring
Both ends of it together suddenly!
Well may the scriptures write the life of man
As weak as water and as short 's a span.
How soon is water spilled upon the ground!
Once spilled, what hand can gather 't up again?
Fome that doth rise today is seldom found
Floting tomorrow. When the wanton rain
Gets bubbles to make sport with on the water,
A minute breaks them into their first matter.
Such is our life. How soon doth Death uncase
Our souls? and when they once are fled away,
Who can return them? As upon the face
Of thirsty ground when water 's shed today,
The morrow sees it not: so when we die
None can revive us; as we fall, we lie.
Our life 's a vapor. Vapours do arise
Sometimes indeed with such a seeming power,
As if they would eclipse the glorious skies,
And muffle up the world, but in an hour
Or two at most these vapors are blown o'r,
And leave the air as clear as 't was before.
We look big here a little while and bristle,
And shoulder in the smiling world, as though
There were no dancing but as we would whistle,
So strangely domineer we here below.
But as a vapor in a sun-shine day
We vanish on a fudden quite away.
Our life is like the smoke of new-made fire:
As we in age and stature upward tend,
Our diss;olution is so much the nigher.
Smoke builds but castles in the air: ascend
Indeed it doth aloft, but yet it must
At high'st dissolve, we vanish into dust.
What is a shadow? Nothing. Grant it were
A thing that had a name and being too,
Yet let a cloud 'twixt us and heaven appear,
Its turned into its former nothing. Do
Our shadows vanish? surely so do we:
At noon a man, at night a corps we see.
Our life 's a cloud, and from variety
Of vapors are created diverse sorts:
The stronger last a time, the weaker fly
With lesfe ado; yet half a day transports
Both strong'st and weakest hence, and in their flight
Their nimble speed outrunnes the quickest sight.
Some men are healthful, merry, lusty, strong;
Some crazy, weak, sad, sickly, drooping: both
Post hence with winged speed: we may not wrong
Life's footmanship; for sure with greater sloth
Clouds through the air the strongest wind doth send,
Then frail man's life doth gallop to its end.
With greater sloth? A man that now is here,
Perhaps an hour, yea half a minute hence,
That man may in another world appear.
Our life moves faster then those things which sense
Acquaint us with, faster then ships by far,
Or birds, or bullets that do plow the air.
All flesh is grass: how suddenly that fades!
Grass in the morning standeth proudly green,
E'r night the husbandmen prepare their blades
To cut it down, and not a leaf is seen
But ere the morrow 's withered into hay,
That in its summer-suit was clothed today.
We grow and flourish in the world a space,
Our days with ease, mirth, health, strength, heaven doth crown:
But 't is not long we run this happy race,
Death cometh with his sithe and mows us down,
When we are apt to say, for ought we know
As yet we have an age of days to grow.
Our life 's a flower that groweth in the field.
A garden-flower is but a fading thing,
Though it hath hedges, banks, and walls to shield
It self from cropping: long 't is ere the spring
Doth bring it forth; three quarters of a year
Are gone before its beauty doth appear.
And when it shineth in its fairest pride,
One hand or other will be sure to pluck it.
But let 's suppose all snatching fingers tied,
And grant withal that never Be doth suck it
To blemish it a jot, yet will the breath
Of winter blow the fairest flower to death.
'T is long before we get us very far
Into the world: for after generation
There is a time when lifeless lumps we are,
And have not bodies of a human fashion:
Such as we have both life and motion want,
And when we live we live but like a plant.
A while we do but grow: then like a beast
We have our senses: next indeed we live
The life of him that lives to be a feast
For despicable worms. The womb doth give
No passage to us yet; we are (like corn
Sown lately) fit to be but are not born.
When born, 't is long before we can procure
Our legs or understandings to assist us:
And then 't is long before we grow mature:
And all this while if sudden Death hath mist us,
Yet in the hoary winter of our age
Our part is ended and we quit the stage.
Lord, what is man? Lord, rather what am I?
I cannot tell myself unless thou teach me:
From thee came
Know thyself
down through the sky
To mortals here. Thy servant doth beseech thee
To make me know, though it be to my shame,
How vanishing, how weak, and frail I am.
Meditation
2.
WHat would I do if I were sure to die
Within this hour? sure heartily repent,
My sinful couch should never more be dry
But drowned in tears, sad groans my heart should rent,
And my sorrow still increase
With repenting till I die,
That once reconciled I
Might be found of God in peace.
Then presently I will set about it, for
My time 's uncertain, and for ought I know
God may not leave my soul a minute more
To animate my body here below.
Deep-fetched sighs and godly sorrow
Shall possess my heart today:
'T is a foolish sin to say
That I will
•
epent tomorrow.
What if I die before? just as the tree
Doth fall it lies. When I am in the grave
I cannot grieve for sin, nor can I be
Converted unto God, nor pardon crave.
Had I breath and grace to crave it,
Yet God's time of mercy 's gone:
'T is given in this life alone,
In the next I cannot have it.
What would I leave undone if ghastly Death
Stood at my elbow? sure I would not wallow
In those pollutions that reign here beneath;
No lewd and wicked courses would I follow.
I should tremble at a thought
Of uncleanness, if I were
Sure that dreadful time were near
When I must to earth be brought.
Why should I sin at all? for in the act
Of my next sin a sudden Death may catch me.
(A town secure is much the sooner sacked.)
What know I but God setteth Death to watch me,
That when any lust hath pressed me
For his service, that I may
Down to hell without delay,
Death may presently arrest me?
If we did well, still should we fear to meet
Death in those places where we use to sin,
And as we enter think we hear the feet
Of Death behind us coming softly in?
We should fear when sins delight us,
When we swallow any crime,
Lest that very point of time
Justice should send Death to smite us.
I know whatever is on this side hell,
Is mercy all: that we were not sent thither
When we sin'd last, is mercy. What befell
Zimri and Cozbi as they lay together?
Phinehas zealous spear did thrust
Both to death, and bored holes
To let out those guilty souls,
Which were melted into lust.
Help me, O Lord; to do and leave undone
What thou command'st, for sudden Death prepare me,
That at what time soe'r my glass is run
Thy holy Angels may to heaven bear me.
Give thy servant grace, that I
May so fear the face of sin
As a serpents, lest that in
Th' unrepented act I die.
Meditation
3.
DOth Death come suddenly? so much the better:
If I am ready and do daily die,
So much the sooner 't will my soul unfetter
T' enjoy the best degree of liberty.
And if Death will send me where
I shall evermore remain,
I will never care how vain,
Or how frail my life is here.
My life is like the wind: but when this puff
Is passed I shall eternally enjoy
A place in heaven, where all is calm enough,
Where never blast is felt that brings annoy,
Where is everlasting ease,
Not a storm nor tempest there,
Nor a jot of trouble, where
All is quietness and peace.
My life is like a vapor: but as soon
As this thin mist, this vapor, is dispersed,
My day shall be an undeclining noon,
Whose glorious brightness cannot be rehearsed,
Which will show me (for so clear
And so shining is that place)
God immortal face to face,
Whom I saw but darkly here.
My life is water spilled and cast away
Upon the ground: but after it is shod,
Instead thereof I shall a stream enjoy,
As Crystall clear, which from the throne of God
And the Lamb of God proceedeth.
Water 't is of life, and lasteth
Ever, which a soul that tasteth
Once no more refreshing needeth.
My life is like a shadow that doth vanish:
But whensoe'r this shadow 's vanished quite,
Substantial glories will my soul replenish,
And solid joys will crown it with delight.
The worlds are but fading joys;
Shadows we all purchase here:
Never until Death appear
Have we true and real joys.
My life 's a flower: but when it withers here
It is transplanted into paradise,
Where all things planted flourish all the year,
Where Boreas never breaths a cake of ice.
With sweet air the place is blest;
There is an eternal spring:
Thither, Lord, thy servant bring.
Here my homely Muse doth rest,
Nor another flight will make
Till she see how this will take.
FINIS.