ancestors. So does the fairest beauty change', and it will be as bad with you and me; and then, what servants shall we have to wait upon us in the grave? what friends to visit us? what officious people to cleanse away the moist and unwholesome cloud reflected upon our faces from the sides of the weeping vaults, which are the longest weepers for our funeral? This discourse will be useful, if we consider and practise by the following rules and considerations respectively. 1. All the rich and all the covetous men in the world will perceive, and all the world will perceive for them, that it is but an ill recompence for all their cares, that, by this time, all that shall be left, will be this, that the neighbours shall say, "He died a rich man ;" and yet his wealth will not profit him in the grave, but hugely swell the sad accounts of doomsday. And he that kills the Lord's people with unjust or ambitious wars for an unrewarding interest, shall have this character, that he threw away all the days of his life, that one year might be reckoned with his name, and computed by his reign or consulship; and many men, by great labours and affronts, many indignities and crimes, labour only for a pompous epitaph, and a loud title upon their marble; whilst those, into whose possessions their heirs or kindred are entered, are forgotten, and lie unregarded as their ashes, and without concernment or relation, as the turf upon the face of their grave". A man may read a sermon, the Anceps forma bonum mortalibus, Exigui donum breve temporis : Ut fulgor, teneris qui radiat genis, Momento rapitur, nullaque non dies Formosi spolium corporis abstulit.- Senec. Hipp. 770. Rape, congere, aufer, posside; relinquendum est. Martial. * Annos omnes prodegit, ut ex eo annus unus numeretur, et per mille indignitates laboravit in titulum sepulchri.. Sen. "Jam eorum præbendas alii possident, et nescio utrùm de iis cogitant.-Gerson. Me veterum frequens Memphis Pyramidum docet, Me pressæ tumulo lacryma gloriæ, Me projecta jacentium Passim per populos busta Quiritium, Et vilis Zephyro jocus Jactati cineres et procerum rogi, Fumantúmque cadavera Regnorum, tacito, Rufe, silentio Mæstum multa monent. - Cas. 1. ii. Od. 27. best and most passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter into the sepulchres of kings. In the same Escurial, where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, and decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, where their ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more; and where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men. There is enough to cool the flames of lust, to abate the heights of pride, to appease the itch of covetous desires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours of a lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust, and pay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all the world, that, when we die, our ashes shall be equal to kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains or our crowns shall be less. To my apprehension it is a sad record, which is left by Athenæus concerning Ninus, the great Assyrian monarch, whose life and death are summed up in these words: "Ninus, the Assyrian, had an ocean of gold, and other riches more than the sand in the Caspian sea; he never saw the stars, and perhaps he never desired it; he never stirred up the holy fire among the Magi, nor touched his god with the sacred rod according to the laws; he never offered sacrifice, nor worshipped the deity, nor administered justice, nor spake to his people, nor numbered them; but he was most valiant to eat and drink, and, having mingled his wines, he threw the rest upon the stones. This man is dead: behold his sepulchre; and now hear where Ninus is. Sometimes I was Ninus, and drew the breath of a living man; nothing but clay. I have nothing, but what I did eat, and what I served to myself in lust, that was and is all my portion. The wealth with which I was esteemed blessed, my enemies, meeting together, shall bear away, as the mad Thyades carry a raw goat. I am gone to hell; and when I went thither, I neither carried gold, nor horse, nor silver chariot. I that wore a mitre, am now a little heap of dust." I know not any thing, that can better represent the evil con but now am From dition of a wicked man, or a changing greatness". the greatest secular dignity to dust and ashes his nature bears him, and from thence to hell his sins carry him, and there he shall be for ever under the dominion of chains and devils, wrath and an intolerable calamity. This is the reward of an unsanctified condition, and a greatness ill gotten or ill administered. 2. Let no man extend his thoughts, or let his hopes wander towards future and far-distant events and accidental contingencies. This day is mine and yours, but ye know not what shall be on the morrow; and every morning creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving behind it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight, and undiscerned as are the phantasms that make a chrisom-child to smile: so that we cannot discern what comes hereafter*, unless we had a light from heaven brighter than the vision of an angel, even the spirit of prophecy. Without revelation, we cannot tell, whether we shall eat to-morrow, or whether a squinancy shall choke us: and it is written in the unrevealed folds of Divine predestination, that many, who are this day alive, shall to-morrow be laid upon the cold earth, and the women shall weep over their shroud, and dress them for their funeral. St. James, in his epistle, notes the folly of some men, his contemporaries, who were so impatient of the event of to-morrow, or the accidents of next year, or the good or evils of old age, that they would consult astrologers and witches, oracles, and devils, what should befal them the next calends: what should be the event of such a voyage, what God hath written in his book concerning the success of battles, the election of emperors, the heirs of families, the price of merchandise, the return of the Tyrian fleet, the rate of Sidonian carpets; and as they were taught by the crafty and lying demons, so they would expect the issue; and oftentimes by disposing their • ̓Αθανασίας δ ̓ οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐδ ̓ ἂν συναγάγης * Τὸ σήμερον μέλει μοι, Τὸ δ' αὔριόν τις οἶδε ; - Anacr. Od. 15. * Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quærere, et Appone. Menand. Clerc. p. 214. affairs in order towards such events, really did produce some little accidents according to their expectation; and that made them trust the oracles in greater things, and in all. Against this he opposes his counsel, that we should not search after forbidden records, much less by uncertain significations; for whatsoever is disposed to happen by the order of natural causes or civil counsels, may be rescinded by a peculiar decree of Providence, or be prevented by the death of the interested persons; who, while their hopes are full, and their causes conjoined, and the work brought forward, and the sickle put into the harvest, and the first-fruits offered and ready to be eaten, even then, if they put forth their hand to an event, that stands but at the door, at that door their body may be carried forth to burial, before the expectation shall enter into fruition. When Richilda, the widow of Albert earl of Ebersberg, had feasted the emperor Henry III. and petitioned in behalf of her nephew Welpho for some lands formerly possessed by the Earl her husband; just as the Emperor held out his hand to signify his consent, the chamber-floor suddenly fell under them, and Richilda falling upon the edge of a bathing vessel was bruised to death, and stayed not to see her nephew sleep in those lands, which the Emperor was reaching forth to her, and placed at the door of restitution. 3. As our hopes must be confined, so must our designs2: let us not project long designs, crafty plots, and diggings so deep, that the intrigues of a design shall never be unfolded till our grand-children have forgotten our virtues or our vices. The work of our soul is cut short, facile, sweet, and plain, and fitted to the small portions of our shorter life; and as we must not trouble our iniquity, so neither must we intricate our labour and purposes with what we shall never enjoy. This rule does not forbid us to plant Nec Babylonios y Tentâris numeros, ut meliùs, quicquid erit, pati, Seu plures hyemes, seu tribuit Jupiter ultimam.-Horat. l. ii. 2. Quæritis, et quâ sit mors aditura viâ.— Propert. ii. 27. 1. Pœna minor certam subitò perferre ruinam; Quod timeas gravius sustinuisse diu.Catul. Eleg. i. 29. z Certa amittimus, dum incerta petimus; atque hoc evenit, in labore atque in dolore, ut mors obrepat interim.-Plaut. Pseud. Act. 2. Scen. 3. orchards, which shall feed our nephews with their fruit; for by such provisions they do something towards an imaginary immortality, and do charity to their relatives: but such pro jects are reproved, which discompose our present duty by long and future designs; such, which by casting our labours to events at distance, make us less to remember our death standing at the door. It is fit for a man to work for his day's wages, or to contrive for the hire of a week, or to lay a train to make provisions for such a time, as is within our eye, and in our duty, and within the usual periods of man's life; for whatsoever is made necessary, is also made prudent: but while we plot and busy ourselves in the toils of an ambitious war, or the levies of a great estate, night enters in upon us, and tells all the world, how like fools we lived, and how deceived and miserably we died. Seneca tells of Senecio Cornelius, a man crafty in getting, and tenacious in holding a great estate, and one who was as diligent in the care of his body as of his money, curious of his health, as of his possessions, that he all day long attended upon his sick and dying friend; but, when he went away, was quickly comforted, supped merrily, went to bed cheerfully, and on a sudden being surprised by a squinancy, scarce drew his breath until the morning, but by that time died, being snatched from the torrent of his fortune, and the swelling tide of wealth, and a likely hope bigger than the necessities of ten men. This accident was much noted then in Rome, because it happened in so great a fortune, and in the midst of wealthy designs; and presently it made wise men to consider, how imprudent a person he is, who disposes of ten years to come, when he is not lord of to-morrow. 4. Though we must not look so far off, and pry abroad, yet we must be busy near at hand; we must with all arts of the spirit, seize upon the present, because it passes from us while we speak, and because in it all our certainty does consist. We must take our waters as out of a torrent and sudden shower, which will quickly cease dropping from above, b Ille enim ex futuro suspenditur, cui irritum est præsens.. Seneca. |