Contemplations moral and divine / by a person of great learning and judgment.

8 Of the Consideration

excessive cares and solicitousness for Wealth, and Honour, and Grandeur; excessive eating and drinking, curiousity, idleness; these are the great consumptives that do not only exhaust that time that would be with infinite advantage spent in our attainment, and perfecting, and finishing the great work and business of our lives; and then when Sickness come, and Death come, and God Almighty calls upon us to give up the Account of our Stewardship, we are all in confusion, our business is not half done, it may be not begun, and yet our Lamp is out, our day is spent, night hath overtaken us, and what we do is with much trouble, perplexity, and vexation; and possibly our Soul takes its flight before we can finish it: and all this would have been prevented, and remedied, by a due consideration of our latter End; and that would have put us upon making use of the present time, and present opportunity, to do our great work while it is called to day, because the night cometh when no man can work.

3. Most certainly the wise consideration of our latter End, and the employing of our selves, upon that Account, upon that One thing necessary, renders the life the most contenting and comfortable life in the World. For

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For as a man, that is a man afore-hand in the World, hath a much more quiet life in order to externals, than he that is behind-hand; so such a man, that takes his opportunity to gain a stock of grace and favour with God, that hath made his peace with his Maker through Christ Jesus, hath done a great part of the chief business of his Life, and is ready upon all occasions, for all conditions, whereunto the Divine Providence shall assign him, whether of life or death, or health or sickness, or poverty or riches; he is as it were aforehand in the business and concern of his everlasting, and of his present state also. If God lend him longer life in this World, he carries on his great business to greater degrees of perfection, with ease, and without difficulty, trouble, or perturbation: But if Almighty God cut him shorter, and calls him to give an account of his Stewardship, he is ready, and his accounts are fair, and his business is not now to be gone about; Blessed is that Servant whom his Master when he comes shall find so doing.

2. As thus this Consideration makes the Life better, so it makes Death easie.

1. By frequent consideration of death and dissolution, he is taught not to fear it; he is, as it were, acquainted with it aforehand,

10 Of the Consideration

hand, by often preparation for it. The fear of death is more terrible than death it self, and by frequent consideration thereof, a man hath learned not to fear it. Even Children by being accustomed to what was at first terrible to them, learn not to fear.

2. By frequent consideration of our latter End death becomes to be no surprize unto us. The great terror of death is when it surpriseth a man unawares; but anticipation and preparation for it takes away any possibility of surprize upon him that is prepared to receive it. Bilney the Martyr was used, before his Martyrdom, to put his Finger in the Candle, that so the flames might be no novelty unto him, nor surprize him by reason of unacquaintedness with it; and he that often considers his latter end, seems to experiment death afore it comes, whereby he is neither surprised nor affrighted with it, when it comes.

3. The greatest sting and terror of death are the past and unrepented Sins of the past life; the reflection upon these is that which is the strength, the elixir, the venom of death it self. He therefore that wisely considers his latter end, takes care to make his peace with God in his life time; and by

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by true Faith and Repentance to get his Pardon sealed; to enter into Covenant with his God, and to keep it; to husband his time in the fear of God; to observe His Will, and keep His Laws; to have his Conscience clean and clear: And being thus prepared, the malignity of death is cured, and the bitterness of it healed, and the fear of it removed: and when a man can entertain it with such an Appeal to Almighty God, as once the good King Hezekiah made, in that sickness which was of it self mortal, Isa. 38. 3. Remember now, I beseech thee O Lord, how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart, &c. it makes as well the thought, as the approach of death, no terrible business.

4. But that which, above all, makes death easie to such a considering man, is this: That by the help of this Consideration, and the due improvement of it, as is before shewn, death to such a man becomes nothing else but a Gate unto a better life; not so much a dissolution of his present life, as a change of it for a far more glorious, happy, and immortal life: So that though the Body dyes, the Man dyes not; for the Soul, which is indeed the Man, makes but a transition from her life in the Body, to a life in Heaven: no moment inter-

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