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OF CONTEMPT OF DEATH, AND THE BEST PROVIDING FOR IT.

Montpellier, 1669.

"O DEATH, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his possessions, and to the man that hath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity in all things; yea, unto him that is yet able to receive meat: O Death, acceptable is thy sentence to the needy, and unto him whose strength faileth, that is now in the last age, and is vexed with all things, and to him that despaireth, and hath lost patience;" was the reflection of the son of Sirach, upon the several affections and humours and contingencies in the life of man, (xli. 1, 2.) But without doubt, the very prosperous man, who seems to be most at ease, and without any visible outward vexation, is as weary very frequently of life, for satiety of all things naturally produces a satiety of life itself, as the most miserable man, whose appetite of life seems even by this observation to continue as long as his appetite of meat; for as long as he is able to receive meat, the remembrance of death is bitter to him. The philosophers who most undervalued life and most contemned death, and thought it worthy a serious meditation and recollection, utrum commo

dius sit, vel mortem transire ad nos, vel nos ad eam, whether we should stay till death calls upon us, or we call upon it; and believed that it was the greatest obligation that Providence had laid upon mankind, Quod unum introitum nobis ad vitam dedit, exitus multos; and that it was therefore a very foolish thing to complain of life, when they may determine it when they will: Hoc est unum, cur quod de vita non possimus queri, neminem tenet; they may chuse whether they will live or no and though men were obliged to make their lives conformable to the good examples of other men, in the manner of their death they were only to please themselves, optima est quæ placet ; yet there was a great difference in this point between the philosophers themselves, and many of them held it very unlawful, and a great wickedness, for any man to offer violence to himself, and to deprive himself of his own life, and expectandum esse exitum quem natura decrevit and surely, excluding all other considerations, there seems to be more fortitude and courage in daring to live miserably, and to undergo those assaults which that life is liable to, than in preventing and redeeming himself from it by a sudden voluntary death; and the other party, which most disliked and professed against this restraint, as the contradiction of that liberty in which man was born, as very few of them in their practice

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parted voluntarily with their lives, so in their discourses they kept the balance equal; and as they would not have their disciples too much in love with life, to set too high and too great a value upon it, so they would by no means suffer them to contemn, much less hate, it; Ne nimis amemus vitam, et ne nimis oderimus: they had so many cautions and hesitations and distinctions about the abandoning of life, that a man may see that death was no pleasant prospect to them. He who would kill himself ought to do it with deliberation and decency, non fugere debet e vita, sed exire; and above all, that libido moriendi was abominable. It must not be a dislike of life, but a satiety in it, that disposed them to part with it. The truth is, though they could have no farther reflections in this disquisition, than were suggested to them by a full consideration of the law of nature, and the obligations thereof, and could not consider it as a thing impious in itself as it related to heaven and hell, yet the difference that was in their view was very great between being and not being, and their little or no comprehension what was done after death, or whether any thing succeeded it or no, that many of them from thence valued life the more, and some of them the less.

The best Christians need not be ashamed to sharpen, to raise their own contemplations and de

votions, by their reflection upon the discourse of the heathen philosophers; but they may be ashamed if from those reflections their piety be not indeed both instructed and exalted: and if their mere reason could raise and incite them to so great a reverence for virtue, and so solicitous a pursuit of it, we may well blush if our very reason, so much informed by them, be not at least equal to theirs; and being endued and strengthened with clear notions of religion, it doth not carry us higher than they were able to mount, and to a perfection they were not able to ascend to. We may learn from them to undervalue life so much, as not affect it above the innocence of living or living innocently we may so far learn from them to contemn death, as not to avoid it with the guilt or infamy of living. But then the consideration of heaven and hell, the reward and punishment which will inevitably attend our living and dying well or ill, will both raise and fix our thoughts of life and death in another light than they were accustomed to; neither of those Lands of Promise having been contained in their map, or in any degree been exposed to their prospect; and nothing but the view of those land-marks can infuse into us a just esteem of life, and a just apprehension of death. Christianity then doth neither oblige us not to love life, or not to fear death, but to love life so little,

that we may fear death the less. Nothing can so well prepare us for it, as a continual thinking upon it; and our very reason methinks should keep us thinking of that which we know must come, and cannot know when; and therefore the being much surprised with the approach of it is as well a discredit to our reason as to our religion; and beyond an humble and contented expectation of it religion requires not from us: it being impossible for any man who is bound to pay money upon demand, not to think of having the money ready against it is demanded; nor doth any man resolve to make a journey, without providing a viaticum for that journey; and this preparation will serve our turn; that libido moriendi is no injunction of Christianity: and we know in the primitive times, that as great pains were taken to remove those fears and apprehensions out of the hearts of Christians, which terrified them out of their religion, by presenting to them the great reward and joy and pleasure which they were sure to be possessed of who died for their religion; so there was no less to restrain them from being transported with such a zeal, as made them, out of the affectation of martyrdom, to call for it, by finding out and reproaching the judges, and declaring their faith unasked, that they might be put to death; to be contented to die when they

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