Part 10 (2/2)

He was willing to quit the world alone and altogether, leaving no earnest behind him for corruption or after- grave, having small content in that common satisfaction to survive or live in another, but amply satisfied that his disease should die with himself, nor revive in a pos- terity to puzzle physic, and make sad mementoes of their parent hereditary. Leprosy awakes not sometimes before forty, the gout and stone often later; but consumptive and tabid* roots sprout more early, and at the fairest make seventeen years of our life doubtful before that age. They that enter the world with original diseases as well as sin, have not only common mortality but sick traductions to destroy them, make commonly short courses, and live not at length but in figures; so that a sound Caesarean nativity+ may outlast a natural birth, and a knife may sometimes make way for a more last- ing fruit than a midwife; which makes so few infants now able to endure the old test of the river,# and many

* Tabes maxime contingunt ab anno decimo octavo and trigesi mum quintum.-- + A sound child cut out of the body of the mother.

# Natos ad flumina primum deferimus saevoque gelu dura mus et undis.

to have feeble children who could scarce have been mar- ried at Sparta, and those provident states who studied strong and healthful generations; which happen but contingently in mere pecuniary matches or marriages made by the candle, wherein notwithstanding there is little redress to be hoped from an astrologer or a lawyer, and a good discerning physician were like to prove the most successful counsellor.

Julius Scaliger, who in a sleepless fit of the gout could make two hundred verses in a night, would have but five* plain words upon his tomb. And this serious per- son, though no minor wit, left the poetry of his epitaph unto others; either unwilling to commend himself, or to be judged by a distich, and perhaps considering how unhappy great poets have been in versifying their own epitaphs; wherein Petrarch, Dante, and Ariosto, have so unhappily failed, that if their tombs should outlast their works, posterity would find so little of Apollo on them as to mistake them for Ciceronian poets.

In this deliberate and creeping progress unto the grave, he was somewhat too young and of too n.o.ble a mind, to fall upon that stupid symptom observable in divers persons near their journey's end, and which may be reckoned among the mortal symptoms of their last disease; that is, to become more narrow-minded, miser- able, and tenacious, unready to part with anything, when they are ready to part with all, and afraid to want when they have no time to spend; meanwhile physi- cians, who know that many are mad but in a single depraved imagination, and one prevalent decipiency; and that beside and out of such single deliriums a man may meet with sober actions and good sense in bedlam;

* Julii Caesaris Scaligeri quod fuit.--

cannot but smile to see the heirs and concerned relations gratulating themselves on the sober departure of their friends; and though they behold such mad covetous pa.s.sages, content to think they die in good understand- ing, and in their sober senses.

Avarice, which is not only infidelity, but idolatry, either from covetous progeny or questuary<11> education, had no root in his breast, who made good works the expression of his faith, and was big with desires unto public and lasting charities; and surely where good wishes and charitable intentions exceed abilities, theori- cal beneficency may be more than a dream. They build not castles in the air who would build churches on earth; and though they leave no such structures here, may lay good foundations in heaven. In brief, his life and death were such, that I could not blame them who wished the like, and almost to have been himself; almost, I say; for though we may wish the prosperous appurtenances of others, or to be another in his happy accidents, yet so intrinsical is every man unto himself, that some doubt may be made, whether any would exchange his being, or substantially become another man.

He had wisely seen the world at home and abroad, and thereby observed under what variety men are de- luded in the pursuit of that which is not here to be found. And although he had no opinion of reputed felicities below, and apprehended men widely out in the estimate of such happiness, yet his sober contempt of the world wrought no Democratism or Cynicism, no laugh- ing or snarling at it, as well understanding there are not felicities in this world to satisfy a serious mind; and therefore, to soften the stream of our lives, we are fain to take in the reputed contentations of this world, to unite with the crowd in their beat.i.tudes, and to make ourselves happy by consortion, opinion, and co-existi- mation; for strictly to separate from received and cus- tomary felicities, and to confine unto the rigour of realities, were to contract the consolation of our beings unto too uncomfortable circ.u.mscriptions.

Not to fear death,* nor desire it, was short of his re- solution: to be dissolved, and be with Christ, was his dying ditty. He conceived his thread long, in no long course of years, and when he had scarce outlived the second life of Lazarus;+ esteeming it enough to approach the years of his Saviour, who so ordered his own human state, as not to be old upon earth.

But to be content with death may be better than to desire it; a miserable life may make us wish for death, but a virtuous one to rest in it; which is the advantage of those resolved Christians, who looking on death not only as the sting, but the period and end of sin, the horizon and isthmus between this life and a better, and the death of this world but as a nativity of another, do contentedly submit unto the common necessity, and envy not Enoch or Elias.

Not to be content with life is the unsatisfactory state of those who destroy themselves,# who being afraid to live run blindly upon their own death, which no man fears by experience: and the Stoics had a notable doc-

* Summum nec metuas diem nec optes.

+ Who upon some accounts, and tradition, is said to have lived thirty years after he was raised by our Saviour.--# In the speech of Vulteius in Lucan, animating his soldiers in a great struggle to kill one another.--”Decernite lethum, et metus omnis abest, cupias quodcunque necesse est.” ”All fear is over, do but resolve to die, and make your desires meet necessity.”--iv.486.

trine to take away the fear thereof; that is, in such ex- tremities, to desire that which is not to be avoided, and wish what might be feared; and so made evils voluntary, and to suit with their own desires, which took off the terror of them.

But the ancient martyrs were not encouraged by such fallacies; who, though they feared not death, were afraid to be their own executioners; and therefore thought it more wisdom to crucify their l.u.s.ts than their bodies, to circ.u.mcise than stab their hearts, and to mortify than kill themselves.

His willingness to leave this world about that age, when most men think they may best enjoy it, though paradoxical unto worldly ears, was not strange unto mine, who have so often observed, that many, though old, oft stick fast unto the world, and seem to be drawn like Cacus's oxen<12>, backward, with great struggling and reluctancy unto the grave. The long habit of living makes mere men more hardly to part with life, and all to be nothing, but what is to come. To live at the rate of the old world, when some could scarce remember themselves young, may afford no better digested death than a more moderate period. Many would have thought it an happiness to have had their lot of life in some notable conjunctures of ages past; but the uncertainty of future times have tempted few to make a part in ages to come. And surely, he that hath taken the true alt.i.tude of things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hun- dred years hence, when no man can comfortably imagine what face this world will carry: and therefore since every age makes a step unto the end of all things, and the Scripture affords so hard a character of the last times; quiet minds will be content with their genera- tions, and rather bless ages past, than be ambitious of those to come.

Though age had set no seal upon his face, yet a dim eye might clearly discover fifty in his actions; and therefore, since wisdom is the grey hair, and an un- spotted life old age; although his years come short, he might have been said to have held up with longer livers, and to have been Solomon's* old man. And surely if we deduct all those days of our life which we might wish unlived, and which abate the comfort of those we now live; if we reckon up only those days which G.o.d hath accepted of our lives, a life of good years will hardly be a span long: the son in this sense may outlive the father, and none be climacterically old. He that early arriveth unto the parts and pru- dence of age, is happily old without the uncomfortable attendants of it; and 'tis superfluous to live unto grey hairs, when in precocious temper we antic.i.p.ate the virtues of them. In brief, he cannot be accounted young who outliveth the old man. He that hath early arrived unto the measure of a perfect stature in Christ, hath already fulfilled the prime and longest inten- tion of his being; and one day lived after the perfect rule of piety, is to be preferred before sinning immor- tality.

Although he attained not unto the years of his prede- cessors, yet he wanted not those preserving virtues which confirm the thread of weaker const.i.tutions.chast.i.ty andsobriety were far from him; those jewels were , without flaw, hair, ice, or cloud in him; which affords me a hint to proceed in these good wishes, and few mementoes unto you.

* Wisdom, cap. iv.

Tread softly and circ.u.mspectly in this funambulous<13> track and narrow path of goodness; pursue virtue virtuously, be sober and temperate, not to preserve your body in a sufficiency for wanton ends, not to spare your purse, not to be free from the infamy of common trans- gressors that way, and thereby to balance or palliate obscure and closer vices, nor simply to enjoy health, by all of which you may leaven good actions, and render virtues disputable, but, in one word, that you may truly serve G.o.d, which every sickness will tell you you cannot well do without health. The sick man's sacrifice is but a lame oblation. Pious treasures, laid up in healthful days, excuse the defect of sick non-performance; without which we must needs look back with anxiety upon the last opportunities of health; and may have cause rather to envy than pity the ends of penitent malefactors, who go with clear parts unto the last act of their lives, and in the integrity of their faculties return their spirit unto G.o.d that gave it.

Consider whereabouts thou art in Cebe's<14> table, or that old philosophical pinax<15> of the life of man; whether thou art still in the road of uncertainties; whether thou hast yet entered the narrow gate, got up the hill and asperous way which leadeth unto the house of sanity; or taken that purifying potion from the hand of sincere erudition, which may send thee clear and pure away unto a virtuous and happy life.

In this virtuous voyage let no disappointment cause despondency, nor difficulty despair. Think not that you are sailing from Lima to Manilla,* <16> wherein thou mayest tie up the rudder, and sleep before the wind, but expect rough seas, flaws and contrary blasts;

* Through the Pacifick Sea with a constant gale from the east.

and 'tis well if by many cross tacks and veerings thou arrivest at the port. Sit not down in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but endeavour to make them heroical. Offer not only peace-offerings but holocausts unto G.o.d. To serve him singly to serve our- selves were too partial a piece of piety, not like to place us in the highest mansions of glory.

He that is chaste and continent not to impair his strength or terrified by contagion will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not that virtue until those years when Cato could lend out his wife, and impotent satyrs write satires against l.u.s.t, but be chaste in thy flaming days when Alexander dared not trust his eyes upon the fair sisters of Darius, and when so many think that there is no other way but Origen's.*

Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mitre. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them, and think it is not enough to be liberal but munificent. Though a cup of cold water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed, and treat the poor as our Saviour did the mult.i.tude to the reliques of some baskets.

<script>