many leaves of his book; and it is impossible for us to turn over that day or hour, which hath not our names written upon it, from all eternity. Now this Book of Life God hath written in a-hand, which is not legible by us: we know not the tale of days that he hath appointed us; but this we know, that we shall fulfil, and cannot exceed them: he hath set us our bounds of living, beyond which we cannot pass: the infant, which dies as soon as it seeth the light, hath filled up its appointed time; as well as he, who lives to decrepit age. And, therefore, though God be said, in Scripture, to cut off some men in the midst of their days; this must not be so understood, as if there were remaining in all the store of time any days that were due to them but only it denotes, either that God cuts them off in the full strength and vigour of their years, when they might, according to human probability, have lived much longer; or else, comparing the shortness of their life with the length of others, God seems to break it off in the middle before he had finished it. Indeed, most men do themselves shorten their own lives: some, by intemperance, are still shaking their glass to make it run the faster; and others break it at once, by violence; yet all live as long as God had decreed, though not so long as was their duty. I shall not farther dispute whether the term of life be fixed or moveable: Job, methinks, hath clearly stated and determined the question, Job vii. 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of a hireling? a hireling hath his days of prefixed service; and, when they are expired, he is discharged from his labour: so Job xiv. 5. His days are determined: the number of his months are with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass. It is true, however, though God hath thus numbered out our days, yet there are means proper to prolong our lives beyond the term that God hath fixed in his decree, and such as would prove available if applied: whoever dies might have lived longer, had the right means been used: as Martha said to Christ, John xi. 21. Lord, if thou hadst been here my brother had not died; so we may say, if such means and remedies had been applied, death might have been prevented: but, withal, we must observe, that that God, who hath prefixed to every one his term of life, hath likewise ordained, in his own counsel and purpose, that those means, which are proper to prolong it beyond that term, shall, through some unavoidable mistake or mishap, either not be known or not used. This may be a support unto us, against

fears of our own, and grief for the death of others: all our times are in God's hands: he measures out every day to us; and, as he hath appointed the bounds over which we shall not pass, so he hath appointed that we shall certainly reach them. His providence disposeth of the meanest and smallest concernments of man's life, and therefore much more of life itself: and if a hair of our heads cannot, much less then shall we ourselves fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father.

2. As we know not the time, so neither the particular Manner of our Death, whether it shall be sudden, or foreseen; by disease, or casualty: whether the thread of life shall be snapped in pieces by some unexpected accident, or worne and fretted away by some lingering consumption, or burnt asunder by some fiery fever.

In what manner and shape our death will appear to us, we know not: this is a secret of God's own breast. But, whatever the shape be, if we endeavour by a holy life to prepare ourselves for it, it shall not be frightful nor terrible to us.

But, truly, the generality of the world are as little careful to prepare for their death, as if they were privileged persons, and had a protection given them from that arrest. Though they see thousands fall before them, though death mows down their friends and relations round about them; yet they live as secure and confident, as if they were not at all concerned in those examples, and as if God's hand cut off others only to make the more room for them in the world. Who is there so fool-hardy, that, standing near the mark of an archer, and seeing one arrow fly over his head, another light at his feet; one glance by his right, another by his left-hand; will not at length bethink himself of his danger, that by the very next he also may be shot and slain ? Man is this mark, at which death is continually shooting: sometimes the arrow flies over our heads; and slays some great person, our superior: sometimes it lights at our feet; when it kills a child or servant, or those who are our inferiors: sometimes it passeth by our left-hand; and kills au enemy, at whose death possibly we rejoice; and, anon, it strikes the friend of our right-hand. Though we see all this, though we see our friends and foes, those of all states and ages, drop down dead round about us; yet are we still as frolic and careless, as if this nothing at all concerned us: whereas, possibly, the very next arrow may strike us through the heart, dead upon the place. It is a strange

and brutish sottishness, that so many spectacles of mortality

cannot move.

We read of that victorious emperor Charles the Vth. that, to engrave the deeper apprehensions of his death, he caused his own funerals to be solemnized, while he was yet living: he laid himself down in his tomb, and had that rare fate of great persons, to be lamented with true tears; at least his own: Hoc videlicet rudimento, as the historian speaks, Carolus vicina jam morti proludebat. If it were any help to prepare him to die, at last, really, by dying thus first in emblem, we may almost daily have the same. It will be no great mistake, to account every funeral we attend on, to be our own. Let us imagine ourselves nailed up in the coffin, laid in the grave, covered over with earth, and putrifying to worms and dirt: this is only but a few days to anticipate what shall be. Not a grave opens its mouth, but it plainly speaks thus much, that we are mortal and perishing: not a rotten bone nor dead scull is scattered about it, but it tells us we must shortly take up our abode with them in the same darkness and corruption. And if, upon every such sad occasion, we make not particular application of it to ourselves, we not only lose our friends' lives, but their very deaths too. Yet, herein, are we generally faulty: when God snatcheth them from us, we usually reflect more upon the loss, than the example; and thereby, as he deprives us of the comfort which we had in their lives, so we deprive ourselves of the instruction and benefit which we might have by their deaths.

There are indeed few, unless it be those who have quite divested themselves of humanity, but will sometimes consider their frail and mortal state; at least, when they see a pattern of it before their eyes: when they see departing pangs, distorted eyes, quivering limbs, the wan and ghastly corpse, the image of death in all its lively terrors; if they have any remainders of natural softness left, it must needs strike them with pensiveness, to think that one day this must be their own case; shortly, all this must be acted over upon themselves. But, no sooner is the dead interred and the grave filled, than all these sage and serious thoughts vanish; and they return again to the same glut of lusts and pleasures as before.

* Strada Bel. Belg. lib. i,

II. Let us therefore consider, which was the SECOND GENERAL propounded, whence it proceeds, that men are so stupidly irrational, that, though they all know they shall die, yet so few seriously prepare themselves for it.

Perhaps, upon enquiry, we shall find the causes of it to lie in these following particulars.

i. MEN ARE GENERALLY SO IMMERSED IN THE BUSINESSES AND PLEASURES OF LIFE, THAT THESE SWALLOW UP ALL SERIOUS THOUGHTS OF DEATH, AND PREPARATIONS FOR IT.

They are employed about other things: like a heap of ants, that are busily toiling to get in their provision, without regarding the foot that is ready to crush them. Such are the impertinent and vain cares of men!

One contrives how he may melt away his days in luxury and pleasure; how he may, by variety and choice of invented delights, imp the wings of time, and make the slow day's and hours roll away faster over him. It is not likely these should entertain any sober thoughts of dying, who thus, like prodigals, lavish out their time, as if they could never see the bottom of it, and their stock could never be exhausted. The unconcerning vanities of visits and compliments divide their days; and the only use, which they make of their time, is, to study how they may pass it; till their end comes upon them unthought of, and sour death cuts them off in the midst of all their foolish pleasures. Some are busily climbing up the steep ascent of honour and dignity; and are so wholly engaged in getting promotions and new titles, that they forget their old style of mortal creatures. They spend their lives in pursuing a puff of wind; an airy fantastic thing, depending merely upon the fond and irrational opinion of the giddy multitude. As counters, which as they are placed, stand for scores, or hundreds, or thousands; but are all of the same value, when huddled together: so, truly, the honours, which the ambitious and gallant spirits of the world do so passionately court, are as fictitious as these; depending merely upon common esteem. When death comes to shuffle and huddle the noble and ignoble together in the grave, what becomes of all the distance and difference that was between them? will the dust and ashes of the one make obeysance then, or pay respect to the dust and ashes of the other?

Others are plotting, with the fool, how they may grow rich, and lay up goods for many years; when yet they know not

whether God will not take away their souls this very night; and then what remains to them of all that, which they have scraped together? Such men, methinks, may be well compared to sumpter-horses: they are laden with a rich treasure, and attended with a numerous train of servants; but, at night, when their load is taken off, what remains to them of all their carriage, but only the stripes and weariness of the day?

Vain men! are these the great importing things, which you set your hearts upon? Must the world drink up all your thoughts; and death, that will shortly snatch you from all the enjoyments of it, be forgotten? Yet, so brutish are we become, that, though whatsoever we hold here be by the death of the former owners, yet we are apt to look upon ourselves as perpetual possessors; and never think that we must part with it to others, as others have done to us. The riches and honours, which are but the dust and smoke of this world, have so blinded our eyes, that we cannot discern the near approaches of death: and, thus, while we, Archimedes like, are busily drawing projects and designs in the dust, and are wholly intent about vainer speculations than his, we mind not the alarm, nor perceive the enemy is upon us, till we are stricken dead through the reins.

ii. MEN DELAY SERIOUS PREPARATIONS FOR DEATH, BECAUSE THEY GENERALLY LOOK UPON IT AS AFAR OFF.

till

Those, who are young, think they must of course live till they be aged; and the aged think that their decays are not so great and sudden, but that they may well weather out yet a few years more: the healthy think they need not prepare they be summoned; and those, whom God doth summon by diseases and weaknesses, think that yet it is possible they may escape them. And, thus, though it may be God hath told us out but a few days or hours, yet we reckon very bountifully of years and ages; as if our times were not in his hands, but our own. Men would need no longer eternity, if God should defer his stroke till they thought themselves old enough to die; while their youth and spirits revel it, and their blood runs dancing through their veins, the thoughts of death are not come in season with them: it is as great a solecism to think of their graves, as of going to bed at noon-day: these cold and phlegmatic considerations are more fit for their declining years, and the winter of their lives; and they resolve that they will then think of dying, when they are choked up with coughs and catarrhs,