ligion, ferved God with fo much Holinefs, mortified Sin with fo great a Labour, purchased Virtue at fuch a Rate, and fo rare an Induftry? It muft needs be that fuch a Man muft die when he ought to die, and be like ripe and pleafant Fruit falling from a fair Tree, and gather'd into Baskets for the Planter's use. He that hath done all his Bufinefs, and is begotten to a

Huic neque defungi vifum eft, nec vivere pulchrum?

Cura fuit rectè vivere, ficque mori.

glorious Hope by the Seed of an immortal Spirit, can never die too foon, nor live too long.

Xerxes wept fadly when he faw his Army of 1300000 Men, becaufe he confidered that within an hundred Years all the Youth of that Army fhould be Duft and Ashes: And yet, as Seneca well obferves of him, he was the Man that should bring them to their Graves, and he confumed all that Army in two Years, for whom he feared and wept the Death after an hundred. Juft fo we do all. We complain, that within Thirty or Forty Years, a little more, or a great deal less, we fhall defcend again into the Bowels of our Mother, and that our Life is too short for any great Employment; and yet we throw away five and thirty Years of our forty, and the remaining five we divide between Art and Nature, Civility and Customs, Neceffity and Convenience, prudent Counfels and Religion: But the Portion of the laft is little and contemptible, and yet that little is all that we can prudently account of our Lives. We bring that Fate and that Death near us, of whose Approach we are fo fadly apprehensive.

4. In taking the Accounts of your Life, do not reckon by great diftances, and by the periods of Pleasure, or the fatisfaction of your Hopes, or the ftating your Defires: But let every intermedial Day and Hour pass with Obfervation. He that reckons he hath lived but fo many Harvests, thinks they come not often enough, and that they go away too foon. Some lofe the Day with longing for the mor nafcitur, & cupiditas futuri Night,and the Night in waiting for the Day. Hope and fantastick Expe&a

In fpe viventibus proximum quodcunque tempus elabitur, fubitque aviditas temporis, & miferrimus, atque miferrima omnia efficiens, metus mortis.

Ex hâc autem indigentiâ ti

exedens animum. Seneca,

tions spend much of our Lives; and while with Paffion we look for a Coronation, or the Death of an Enemy, or a Day of Joy, paffing from Fancy to Poffeffion without any intermedial notices, we throw away a precious Year, and ufe it but as the Burthen of our Time, fit to be pared off and thrown away, that we may come at thofe little Pleafures which firft fteal our Hearts and then steal our Life.

* Life of

Difc. 14.

5. A ftrict courfe of Piety, is the way to prolong our Lives in the natural Senfe, and to add good Portions to the number of our Years: And Sin is fometimes, by natural. Casualty, very often by the Anger of God, and the Divine Judgment, a cause of sudden and untimely Death. Concerning which, I fhall add nothing (to what I have fomewhere elfe* faid of this Article) but only the Obfervation of † Epiphanius; Christ, Par.3. that for 3332 Years, even to the Twentieth Age, † Lib. 1. there was not one Example of a Son that died before Tom. 1. his Father, but the courfe of Nature was kept, that Panar. Sect. he who was first-born in the defcending Line did first die, (I fpeak of natural Death, and therefore Abel can not be opposed to this Obfervation) till that Terah the Father of Abraham taught the People a new Religion, to make Images of Clay and worship them; and concerning him, it was first remarked, that Haran died before his Father Terah, in the Land of his Nativity: God, by an unheard-of Judgment, and rare Accident, punishing his newly-invented Crime, by the untimely Death of his Son.

6.

6. But if I fhall defcribe a living Man, a Man that hath that Life that distinguishes him from a Fool or a Bird, that which gives him a Capacity next to Angels; we fhall find that even a good Man lives not long, because it is long before he is born to this Life, and longer yet before he hath a Man's growth. "He that can Seneca, de "look upon Death, and fee its Face with the fame Vitâ Beatâ, "Countenance with which he hears its Story; that can cap. 20.

endure all the Labours of his Life with his Soul fup"porting his Body; that can equally defpife Riches "when he hath them, and when he hath them not;

that is not fadder if they lie in his Neighbour's Trunks,

66 nor more brag if they fhine round about his own "Walls; he that is neither moved with Good-fortune "coming to him, nor going from him; that can look

66

upon another Man's Lands evenly and pleafedly as "if they were his own, and yet look upon his own. "and use them too, juft if they were another Man's; "that neither fpends his Goods prodigally and like a "Fool, nor yet keeps them avaritiously and like a "Wretch; that weighs not Benefits by Weight and "Number, but by the Mind and Circumstances of him "that gives them; that never thinks his Charity ex"penfive, if a worthy Perfon be the Receiver: He that "does nothing for Opinion's fake, but every thing for "Confcience, being as curious of his Thoughts as of "his actings in Markets and Theatres, and is as much " in awe of himself, as of a whole Affembly; he that "knows God looks on, and contrives his fecret Affairs "as in the Prefence of God and his Holy Angels; that "eats and drinks because he needs it, not that he may "ferve a Luft or load his Belly; he that is bountiful ❝and cheerful to his Friends, and charitable and apt to "forgive his Enemies; that loves his Country, and "obeys his Prince, and defires and endeavours no

thing more than that they may do Honour to God: This Perfon may reckon his Life to be the Life of a Man, and compute his Months not by the Course of the Sun, but by the Zodiack and Circle of his Virtues: Because these are fuch things which Fools and Children, and Birds and Beafts cannot have; these are therefore the Actions of Life, because they are the Seeds of Immortality. That Day in which we have done fome excellent things, we may as truly reckon to be added to our Life, as were the Fifteen Years to the Days of Hezekiah.

SECT.

SECT. IV.

Confideration of the Miseries of Man's Life.

Sour Life is very short, fo it is very miferable, and therefore it is well it is bort. God, in pity to Mankind, left his Burden fhould be infupportable, and his Nature an intolerable Load, hath reduced our State of Mifery to an Abbreviature; and the greater our Mifery is, the lefs while it is like to laft: The Sorrows of a Man's Spirit being like ponderous Weights, which, by the Greatnefs of their Burthen, make a fwifter Motion, and defcend into the Grave to rest and ease our wearied Limbs; for then only we fhall fleep quietly, when thofe Fetters are knock'd off, which not only bound our Souls in Prifon, but also ate the Flesh, till the very Bones opened the fecret Garments of their Cartilages, difcovering their Nakednefs and Sorrow.

culicum.

1. Here is no Place to fet down in; but you must Nulla rerife as foon as you are fet; for we have Gnats in our quies in terris, furgite Chambers, and Worms in our Gardens, and Spiders poftquam and Flyes in the Palaces of the greatest Kings. How federitis; few Men in the World are profperous? What an infi- hic eft locus nite Number of Slaves and Beggars, of perfecuted and pulicum & oppreffed People fill all the Corners of the Earth with Groans, and Heaven itfelf with Weeping, Prayers, and fad Remembrances? How many Provinces and Kingdoms are afflicted by a violent War, or made defolate by popular Difeafes? Some whole Countries are remarked with fatal Evils, or periodical Sickneffes. Grand Cairo in Egypt feels the Plague every three Years returning like a Quartan-Ague, and deftroying many Thousands of Perfons. All the Inhabitants of Arabia the Defart are in continual fear of being buried in huge heaps of Sand; and therefore dwell in Tents and ambulatory Houfes, or retire to unfruitful Mountains, to prolong an uneafie and wilder Life. And all the Countries round about the Adriatick Sea, feel fuch violent Convulfions, by Tempefts and intolerable Earthquakes, that fometimes whole Cities find a Tomb,

Tomb, and every Man finks with his own House made ready to become his Monument, and his Bed is crush'd into the Disorders of a Grave. Was not all the World drowned at one Deluge, and Breach of the

*Ἔσαι κ Σάμ άμμο, ἐσεῖται δὲ δῆλο adung,

Καὶ Ῥώμη ῥύμη. Sibyl. Orac.

Divine Anger? and fhall not all the World again be destroyed by Fire? Are there not many Thoufands that die every Night and that groan and weep fadly every Day? But what fhall we think of that great Evil, which, for the Sins of Men, God hath fuffered to poffefs the greatest Part of Mankind? Moft of the Men that are now alive, or that have been living for many Ages, are Jews, Heathens, or Turks: And God was pleased to fuffer a bafe Epileptick Perfon, a Villain and a Vicious, to fet up a Religion which hath filled all the nearer Parts of Afia, and much of Africa, and some Parts of Europe; fo that the greatest Number of Men and Women born in fo many Kingdoms and Provinces are infallibly made Mahumetan, Strangers and Enemies to Chrift, by whom alone we can be faved. This Confideration is extremely fad, when we remember how univerfal and how great an Evil it is, that so many Millions of Sons and Daughters are born to enter into the Poffeffion of Devils, to Eternal Ages. Thefe Evils are the Miseries of great Parts of Mankind, and we cannot easily confider more particularly the Evils which happen to us, being the infeparable Affections or Incidents to the whole Nature of Man.

2. We find that all the Women in the World are either born for Barrenness or the Pains of Child-birth, and yet this is one of our greatest Bleffings: But fuch indeed are the Bleffings of this World; we cannot be well with, nor without many things. Perfumes make our Heads ake; Rofes prick our Fingers; and in our very Blood, where our Life dwells, is the Scene under which Nature acts many fharp Fevers, and heavy Sickneffes. It were too fad, if I fhou'd tell how many Perfons are afflicted with Evil-fpirits, with Spectres and Illufions of the Night; and that huge multitudes of

Men