IT is the generall opinion of the best Writers, perfectissimam vitam esse con­tinuam mortis meditationem, that the most perfect life is a continuall medi­tation of death. Chrysostome expound­ing that place of Saint Luke, Qui vult venire post me, He that will follow me, saith, That Christ command­eth us not to beare upon our backs that heavie burthen of the Woodden Crosse, but that we should alwayes set our death before our eyes, making that of Saint Paul to be mans Motto, Quotidie morior, I die daily.

In the second of the Kings it is recounted, that the holy King Josias did clense the people from their Al­tars, their Groves, and High Places, where innume­rable Idolatries did daily increase: to smend which ill, he placed there, in their stead, Bones, Sculls, and the ashes of dead men: Whose judgement herein was very discreet; for from mans forgetting of his begin­ning and his end, arise his Idolatries: and so reviving by those Bones the remembrance of what they were heretofore, and what they shall be hereafter, hee did make them amend that fault, and reduced them from their errours.

God created man of the basest matter, of very dust: but this dust being molded by Gods own hand, and [Page 2]inspiring it with so much wisdome, counsell, and prudence, Tertullian calls it cura Divini ingenii: but man growing proud hereupon, and hoping to be a god himself, God doomed him to death, and wrap­ped him again in durty swadling clouts, with this in­scription, Pulvis es, Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.

Adam did not without some mystery cloath him­self with green leaves; for (as Saint Ambrose hath noted it) he gave as it were therein a signe and token of his vain and foolish hopes.

When God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar how little a while his Empire was to last, he shewed him a statue of divers metalls, the head gold, the brest silver, the bellie brasse, the legges iron, the feeet clay; and it seems a little stone descended from the moun­tain, lightning on the feet, dashed the statue in pie­ces. But instead of taking this as a fore-warning of his end, and to have it still before his eyes, he made ano­ther statue of gold from top to toe, which is held to be a durable and lasting metall: so that the more God sought to disdeceive him, the more was he decei­ved with his vain hopes. And this is a resemblance of that which daily hapneth unto us: for God advi­sing us that our first building is but dust, our idle thoughts and vain hopes imagine it to be of gold; and mans life being so short, that (as Nazian­zene said) it is no more then to go out of one grave to enter into another, out of the womb of our particular mother, into that of the common Mother of us all, which is the earth: because therefore we flatter our [Page 3]selves with the enjoying of a long life, therefore the sonne of Syrach being desirous to cut off this errour, saith, In omnibus operibus tuis, Recordare novissima tua, & in aeternum non peccabis: Whatsoever thou takest in hand, Remember thy end.

Death (saith Saint Augustine) in his book against the Pelagians, is nothing else but a privation of life, having a name and no essence: As hunger is said to be the defect of food; thirst, lack of drink; darknesse, the absence of light; even so death is but a name for want of life.

Death then having a name without essence, God was not the Creator thereof, neither cause nor Au­thour, for all things that God made had Essence; which terme of Essence comprehendeth that which is, or that is to be born. Most true it is, that for the punishment of sinne, God pronounceth the sen­tence of death against man; but there is great diffe­rence, between pronouncing the sentence of death, and to be the cause of death. They are the words of Salomon, not mine, Deus mortem non fecit, nec laeta­tur in perditione vivorum: God hath not made death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the li­ving. Creavit enim, ut essent omnia, &c. For he crea­ted all things, that they might have their being, and the generations of the world are preserved. But in a­nother place he saith, Invidia autem Diaboli mors in­travit in orbem terrarum; Through envy of the De­vil came death into the world, Wisdome 2.24.

The Devil then being the authour of sinne, is also the authour of death, by sinne. The Devil could in­cite [Page 4]man to sinne, but he could not constrain him to yield consent. Adam could keep himself well enough from tasting the Tree of life, but Gods will was that he should not sinne, and so consequently would not have him to die. But leaving life, and taking death, and following then the free liberty of his will, he made himself mortall; so that his fault and disobedi­ence was the cause of death to him, and all men else be­side. From whence therefore the Apostle inferres: Propterea sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mun­dum intravit, & per peccatum mors, &c. As by one man sinne entred into the world, and death by sinne, so death went over all men, forasmuch as all men have sinned, Rom. 5.12.

Nothing then more certain then death, and nothing more uncertain then the time when, the place where, and the manner how; Yet one thing, to this purpose whereof I am now to speak: and I know it may very well seem a novelty to many, and fabulous to divers others, because it is a matter very difficult to be pro­ved, nor do I purpose to bind my self, to iustifie or maintain the truth thereof; albeit (in my iudgement) their authority that have written on the same argu­ment may grant it for true, or very likely.

Pliny, and Marcus Varro, discoursing on the time of a mans life, do affirm, that the learned Egyptians had found out by experience, that man (according to the course of nature) could not live above a hundred yeares; but if any one hapned to out-step that limita­tion, it was iudged by particular influence, and pow­er [Page 5]of the starres, a thing (in natures work) very strange and marvellous.

But passe we to the foundation of this their settled perswasion, they gathered and conceived by the heart of a man, which (having made proof of many times by order of Anatomy) they thereby attained to the knowledge of very wonderfull secrets. For, say they, when a man-child is a full yeare old, his heart poizeth the weight of two of their dram [...]; foure, when hee is two yeares old, and so onward (as many yeares as hee lives) his heart increaseth in weight a couple of drammes yearely. So that when hee commeth to the age of fifty yeares, his heart weigheth then an hundred drammes; but thence forward it is not more ponderous, but proportionably diminisheth his weight (ratably every yeare) by two drammes, even according as before it increased. So that at the age of 100 yeares, the heart (by continuall decrea­sing) becomes to be nothing in poize; and then consequently, the man of necessity dies if (by some o­ther accidentall occasion) he dies not before: because there are so many kinds of severall occasions, which can and do customarily hasten death, before men ar­rive at half the time of making this experiment in themselves.

We have then nothing more certain or assured then death, and that onely in the will, power, and know­ledge of God: so that as the forgetfulnesse of death is the cause of a mans falling into sinne, so the me­mory thereof turneth him quite from sinne. Recordare novissima, Remember thy end, and thou shalt never [Page 6]do amisse. And the Kingly Psalmist saith, Cogitari dies antiquos & annos aeternos in mente habui, &c. Ps 77.5, 6. And Plato affirmes, that the life of a wise man is meditation in death. Therefore watch and pray, for ye know not at what houre the Lord will come. It is well weighed by Rapertus, that after God had condem­ned Adam to death, he bestow'd upon his wife the name of life, Mater cunctarum gentium, the Mother of all the living; scarce had God condemned him to punish­ment, but he by and by shewes he had forgot it: and therefore did God permit the death of innocent Abel, to the end that in Abel he might see the death of the body, and in Cain the death of the soul, for to quicken his memory.

From Adam we inherit this forgetfullnesse, not re­membring what we saw but yesterday; and the ge­nerall desire of man strives all it can to perpetuate our life: which if it were in our hands, we would never see death. But because the love of life should not rob us of our memory, and that fearing as we are mortall, we might covet those things that are eternall, seeing that walls, towers, marble, and brasse moulder away to dust, we may ever have in our memory this rule, Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.

Many holy Saints have stiled the memory the sto­mack of the soul; as Gregory, Bernard, Theodoret: and God commanding Ezechiel he should notifie unto his people certain things he had revealed unto him; and charging him that he should well remember himself of them, he said, Comede quaecunque ego do tibi; Eat whatsoever I give thee. And in another place he com­manded [Page 7]him that hee should eat a booke wherein were written Lamentations and Woe, &c. being all Me­taphors of the Prophets, having things in his remem­brance: and this is more clearly delivered by Job, nun­quid sapiens replebit arbore stomachum sanum? will a wise man fill his stomack with that heate that shall burne and consume him? Job 15. which is to say, will he charge his memory with matters of paine and tor­ments?

The proportion then holds thus: as the stomack is the store-house or magazine of our corporall food, and keeping therein our present meat, the body takes from thence its sustenance, whereby it maintaines its being and its life: So the memory is the magazine of the soule, and setteth before our eyes the obligation where­in we stand; the good which we loose, and the hurt which we gaine.

Secondly, as from the disorder and disagreement of the stomack painfull diseases doe arise, and divers infirmities to the body: so from the forgetfulnesse of the memory rise those of the soule; for without obli­vion (saith Saint Basill) our salvation cannot be lost, nor our soules-health endangered.

Thirdly, as when the fuell and fire shall faile mans stomack, which is the oven which boyles and seasons our life, we may give that of the bodies for losse; so when our memory shall faile us, we may give our soule for lost. Therefore this advice of the sonne of Syrach is most requisite, Recordare novissima, Remember thy end. As the first attribute of man is oblivion, so the second is his basenesse and miserie.

In Ezechiel the King of Tyre said, Deus ego sum, I am a God: but hee was answered, hee was but a man, that is base, vile, and miserable, Eze. 28. So David, ut sciant gentes quoniam homines sunt, Let the Nations know that they are men, that is, base and vile. Psal. 9. And S. Paul, Nonne homines estis? Are ye not men? 1 Cor 3.2 When we see a man sometimes swallowed up in the miseries of the body, sometimes of the soule, we say in the conclusion, he is but a man: Now if in­stead of the gold of the Angells there was found rust, and that so fine cloth as that, was not without it's moths, and that incorrupted wood without it's worm, what then will become of those that are but dust, Qui babitant domos luteas, who dwell in houses of Clay?

Ecclesiasticus doth advise thee to rise up betimes, and not to be the last, but to get thee home without delay, for there thou shalt find enough to doe, Preacurre in domum tuam, et age conceptiones tuas. Jeremie councells thee to the same, sending thee to this house of clay and mud.

It's worth observation, God did not speake unto Moses til he had drawn his sheep aside into the desart, putting his hand twice into his bosome, the one hee tooke out cleare, and the other leprous.

We have two bosomes to take care of in this life, the one of our owne things, the other, of other mens, but the meditation of our owne miserie, being the more necessary, wee must ever have in our mind this Reordare, Remember thy end.

A man not knowing himselfe, cannot know God: Now to know himselfe, the next way is to go out of [Page 9]himselfe, and to consider the trace and track of those Alexanders and Caesars &c. Vbi sunt principes gen­tium, Where are the Princes of the Nations?

It is the quiere of Gregory Nazianzen, why God having created the soule for Heaven, did knit it with so straight a knot, to a Body of earth, so fraile and so lumpish? his answer is, That the Angells being over­throwne by their pride, he was willing to repaire and to helpe his presumption in man, a creature in his su­periour partie as it were, Angelicall, but having a heavy and miserable body, which might serve as a stay unto him, that if the nimblenesse of his understanding should puffe him up, yet that earth which clogged his body should humble him and keepe him downe.

There is no man so desperate, nor of that boldnesse of spirit, but doth shew a kind of feare when death lookes him in the face, and therefore death is termed pale, because it makes the most valiant to change co­lour.

Job painting forth such a kind of soule-lesse man, saith Quis arguet coram eo, Who shall be able to con­troule this man, that neither feares the Law, nor his King, nor his God? Job 21.31. The best remedie is to carry him to the Sepulchers of the dead, et in congerie mortuorum evigilabit; He shalbe brought to the graves and made to wake; and if the looking upon that sad spectacle will not worke him, there is little hope of good to be done upon him.

Those that entered triumphantly into Rome had a thousand occasions given them to incite them to pride, arrogancie, and vanitie, as their great numbers of Cap­taines, [Page 10]their Troopes of horse, their Chariots drawn with Elephants or Lyons, and beautifull Ladies look­ing upon them from their windowes, and the like: but the Senate considering the great danger of the Try­umpher, ordered one to sit by his side, to tell him of his Mortalitie: and what now are the best of us all, but Terrigenae et silii somnium, The off-spring of the earth, and the children of men?

This word Recordare, doth imply a deep-meditation, that it might stirre up fire in us, according to that of David, In meditatione mea exardescet ignis, A fire waxed hot in my heart whilst I was musing. Medita­tion is like Gun-Powder, which in a mans hand is dust and earth: but put fire thereunto, it will over­throw Towers, Walls, and Cities: so a quick lively memory, and inflamed considerations of our owne wretched estates, will blow up the Towers of our pride, and cast downe the Walles of our rebelious hearts, and ruine those Cities of clay wherein wee dwell: As the Phoenix fanowing the fire with her wings, is renewed againe by her owne ashes, so shalt thou become a new creature, by remembring what thou art.

Desire not life then, but with the remembrance of death: there is a Naball in the 1 of Sam. 25. that de­sires to live to sheare his sheepe, and to make a feast like a King, though the next day his heart die within him, and he become like a stone.

There is a foole, Luke 12: that desires long life, to build Barnes, to gather goods, to lay up fruits, to take [...]ase, to eat, to drink, to be merry, Vt ebrii & ru [...]tantes [Page 11]intre [...]t in paradisum: That reeling and belching (saith Jeremie) they may fall into an epicures para­dise.

There is a Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. the 4. that de­sires to mount up his piles of wonderment, and his Turrets of Babell, but in the midst of his pride, (not thinking of his last end) is urned into an Oxe that eat­eth hay.

There is an Absolon, that not remembring his end, desired to weare a Crown upon his head, though hee be hanged by the haire of the head, and hee be strucken with three darts through the liver, 2 Sam. 18.

There is an Achab, that desires to live, and not re­garding his owne end, takes possession of Naboths Vineyard, though in the place where the Dogs licked the blood of Naboth, Dogs shall licke the blood of Achab. Kings 1.21.

There is an Haman, that desires to live, till he may be revenged on Mordecaie his enemy, although a gal­lowes of fifty foot high (an eminent place for execu­tion) be the end of a mischievous courtiers promoti­on. All which unlawfull desires, although they have Volaticum gaudium (as a Father calls them) yet they shall have Talentum plumbi, as the Prophet speaketh, a Talent of lead, an intolerable pressure of their con­science in their death. Zach. 5.7.

Thus you may see, fire and water not more contra­rie, then flesh and spirit: Here I would faine know, what are the strings? what the buckles? what the cords of Love? what slime of Euphrates?

What gumme of Arabia? what cement or glue doe ioyne an immortall, incorporall, insensible soule, in a house of clay, in a body of earth, the most grosse, the most base, most sollid element? surely, wee are won­derfully made: none but God did compose us, none but God can preserve us, none but God, by his permis­sion, or direction, ordinarie, or extarordinary admi­nistration of second causes, can disolve us; he with a breath gave us breath, he with a word takes away our breath, and so all our thoughts perish.

Let not Asa trust in his Physitian, nor Naaman trust to the Rivers of Damascus, nor Absolon to the lustre of beautie, nor Maximus to rhe strength of an Elephant, nor Herod to the flattering clamour of ido­lising people, that we are not men, but Gods. Thoses, who in the regard of their constitutions, communicate in the s [...]nguine of the Rose, and in the snowie beautie of the Little, their bodies are (saith S. Chrysostome) but Nidus hirundinum, a Swallowes Nest, composed of durt, and straw: they are no fairer then Jonas ground, a worm strook it at the roote, and the ground wither­ed; so that the greatest King or Peere, may make King Philips fable, his Motto, and Morall.

Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.

Samuell being to annoynt Saul, God gave him for a signe, that he would have him Prince over his people, that he should find two men as soone as he was gone from him, nea [...]e unto Rachells Sepulcher, God might have given him some other signe, but he chose rather to give him this, to quell the pride and haughtinesse of this his new honour, as if he should admonish and [Page 13]put thee in mind, That so faire a Creature as Rachell should read a Lecture unto thee, what thou must be.

But when the time of this disolution shall come to passe, that no man knoweth, neither the manner how, nor the place where: therefore, Recordare novissima, Remember thy end.

First, no man knoweth the place, and it is no great matter, since Rachell died in the high-way, as well as Jezabell in the streets, since Josias and Achab both dy­ed in the field, since Saul and Jonathan died both in one battle, and their Carcases were hung up as Tro­phies of a bloody victory in a barbarous Citie.

Will you heare a Philosophicall comfort? Earth you know is the center, and Heaven is the worlds cir­cumference. If a man shall draw a circle with his pen, with a poynt in the midst of the circle, the circle is equally distant from all poynts of the circle, unto the poynt of the center; there is therefore from all parts of the poynt and center of the earth, an equall distance to the circle and circumference of Heaven: what mat­ter therefore though the bodies of the Martyrs were intombed in the entrailes of wild beasts, though their ashes were scattered upon Rhodanus, though their car­cases were made a prey to the Fowles of the Heaven? What glory was it to Martialls flye, though it were buried in concreted Christall, what shame to Naboth though his blood was licked up with Dogges? what hurt to the Virgins in the Sack of Rome, whose bodies were unburied upon earth, whose soules were received into Heaven? Nec viuorum culpa, qui non putuerunt [Page 14]Aust. Lib. 1. de Civitate Dei. It was neither (saith S. Austine) the fault of the living, who had no power to burie the dead, nor the punishment of the dead, who had no sence of the afflictions of the living.

Secondly, wee know not the manner of our death, and it is a very trifle.

Job compares man to a Flower, Esay to Grasse, and David to a Tree; Is it any great matter whether the Flower be cropt, or the Grasse mowed, or the Axe laid to the roote of the Tree?

At the death of Christ there were three Crosses: up­on those crosses were three persons; The Thiefe blas­pheming, the Thiefe repenting, the Sonne of GOD praying. Quid similius istis crucibus? quid dissimilius ist is pendentibus? What more like (saith Saint Au­stine) then those crosses? what more unlike then those persons?

Lastly, we do not know the time of our death, and it is good for us we doe not: in nature (saith Seneca) pejor est Letho, timor ipse Lethi, The feare of death is more terrible then death. Caesar had the death he de­sired: and surely that he deserved, to dye suddenly by the hands of the Senators of Rome.

It was the song of Zacharias, that we being deliver­ed out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without feare, all the dayes of our life.

Men would serve God, as they doe their servants, with reversions; In vltimis diebus mortis; In the last daies of their death: but God will be served, In omni­bus diebus vitae, In all the dayes of our life. Nature hath onely a Trumpet of lead, but the Arke of God hath a Trumpet of silver.

Heare then the difference betweene Nature and Grace: Nature saith, O cives, cives, quaerenda pecunia primum; virtus post nummes; first seeke gold▪ then serve God: first betray Christ, then buy a field of blood to burie strangers; first make ma [...]y beggers by usurie and oppression, and then build an Hospitall of a bloody Devotion.

But Grace saith, Quaerite primum Regnum Dei, Math. 6. First seeke the Kingdome of God, and all things shall be given unto you; all the rubbish of the worlds treasure, are but castings, adjectanea, as chip­ings, and shavings, compared to the pearle of Hea­ven. Latet vltimus dies ut obseruetur omnis dies; Be­cause therefore we know not our last day, wee ought to observe every day. Epicures and Balaams that have lived ill, Quando anima in extremis labris, when the Soule sits on their Lips to take her flight, then they send for their Minister, to teach them to die well.

We may then give you a little opiat divinitie to benumme you, we cannot give a cordiall to secure you. We may tel you that one Thief went from the gallows to glory, but then we must not conceale, that as▪ the Lord is rich in mercy, so not poore in judgement. Re­cordare novissima, Remember thy end.

This word Recordare is the father of two good ef­fects; first, it moveth man to Repentance, by putting him in mind of his frailtie: for being dust and ashes how dares he contest with his Creatour? vae qui con­tradicit factori suo, as it is Esay 45.9.

Secondly, it inclines God to mercy, Memento (quaeso) quod sicut lutum feceris me. Consider (O Lord) that [Page 16]thou madest me of earth, and didst mould me up in a masse of bones, sinewes, and flesh, and now Lord, if thou shouldst lay thy heavy hand upon mee, what strength is mine, that it should be able to endure it? If thou shalt not take pity of this poore piece of earth, this crasie vessell of clay, what will become of thy mercy of old, and of all thy wonted kindnesse? if that steele and stronger metall of the Angells was broken by thee, it is no great matter if earth breake and split in sunder.

Nothing more properly appertaineth unto man then dust, his last end; and therefore the Scripture termeth death a mans returning againe unto the earth, from whence he came. The Flower, the Leafe, they have some good in them (though of short continu­ance) as colour, odour, beautie, vertue, and shade; but dust and earth speaks no other good. Amongst the ele­ments, the earth is the least noble, and the most weake; the fire, the water, and the aire have spirit and acti­tude, but the earth is as it were a prisoner laden with weightinesse, as with gyves:

If then mans end be such, but earth, Quid utilitatem saginando Corpore? why such a deale of care in pamper­ing the body, which the wormes may devoure tomor­row? Looke upon that flesh which thy father made so much of, that (now) rotten and stinking Carkas; surely this consideration should moderate thy desire of being over-dainty and so curious in cherishing thy flesh. Jsaac on the night of his nuptialls, placed his wives bed in the chamber where his deare and loving Mother died. Tobias spent all the night with his spouse [Page 17]in prayer, being mindfull of the harme which the de­vill had done to her former husbands; as being advised from Heaven, that he should temper with the remem­brance of death, the delights and pleasures of this his short and transitory life.

Againe, if mans end be but earth, why such a deale of coveting of honours and riches and rising one a­gainst another? why such great and stately houses, and so richly furnished? Our fore-fathers lived eight hun­dred yeares and upwards, and past over their lives in poor Cabins & Cotages. Esau sold his birth-right for a messe of potage, but he excused his so doing, for that he saw his death so near at hand; En, Morior, quid proderunt mihi primogenita; Behold, I am ready to die, what will birth-right profit me? there is a doubt put, why did the Egyptians so freely bestow their iewells, and their gold, and their silver on the Hebrewes?

The Resolution is, that seeing their first begotten were all dead, they made light reckoning of those things which before they so much esteemed. Abulensis moves another doubt, why the Gyants of the promised Land did not devoure the Jsraelites, being but a; Grassehoppers in comparison of their greatnesse? Vnto this, there is a two-fold answer; the first, that they came in as strangers, from whom they presumed they could receive no hurt: the second, that God set a consuming plague amongst them, Terra devorat habi­tatores suos, The earth devoureth her Inhabitants; and there is no man of what strength or metall soever, that can shun deaths dart, or fence his blow.

Not to shake this Tree for any more fruit, I will [Page 18]but therefore strike this flint for a sparke and away; Death is neare at hand: as for the times I neede not tell you of them, for that we all know them by wofull experience. Let us then use this world as if we us'd it not, for the summe of our lives (saith Seneca) con­cludes all in two words, Nasci & Mori; to be borne, and to dye. Gregory Nissen treating of that place of Salomon, Omnia tempus habent, There is a time for all things; notes, that this wise man ioynes our Nasci with a Mori, as being neare neighbours: and indeed many times, the time of death prevents the time of birth. Consider what hath been said, and the Lord of Heaven give you understanding in all things.