Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

could not honestly avoid it, was the true martyrdom. We need not seek death out, it will come in its due time: and if we then conform decently to its summons, we have done what is expected from us. There are so many commendable and worthy ends for which we may desire to live, that we may very lawfully desire that our death may be deferred. St Paul himself, who had been so near heaven that he was not sure that he had not been there, was put to a stand, and corrected his impatience to be there again, with the consideration of the good he might do by living and continuing in this world; "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you," Phil. i. 23, 24. He knew well his own place there which was reserved for him, but he knew as well that the longer his journey thither was deferred, he should have the more company there; and this made his choice of life, even upon the comparison, very warrantable. Men may very piously desire to live, to comply with the very obligation of nature in cherishing their wives and bringing up their children, and to enjoy the blessings of both: and that he may contribute to the peace and happiness and prosperity of his country, he may heartily pray not to die. Length of days is a particular blessing

God vouchsafes to those he favours most, as giving them thereby both a task and opportunity to do the more good. They who are most weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die, are such who have lived to no purpose; who have rather breathed than lived. They who pretend to the apostle's ecstacy, and to desire a dissolution from a religious nauseating the folly and wickedness of this world, and out of a devout contemplation of the joys of heaven, administer too much cause of doubting, that they seem to triumph over nature more than they have cause, and that they had rather live till the next year than die in this. He who believes the world not worthy of him, may in truth be thought not worthy of the world. If men are not willing to be deprived of their for tunes and preferments and liberty, which are but the ordinary perquisites of life, they may very justifiably be unwilling to be deprived of life itself, upon which those conveniences depend; and death is accompanied with many things, which we are not obliged solicitously to covet. We are wel prepared for it, when by continual thinking upon it we are so prepared, as not to be in any degree terrified with the approach of it, and at the resigning our life into his hands who temper beyond this is rather to be imagined, than

gave

it;

and a

attained, by any of those rules of understanding

which accompany a man that is in good health of body and mind; and the sickness and infirmity of either is more like to amaze and corrupt the judgement, than to elevate and inspire it with any rational, transcendent, and practical speculations. The best counsel is to prepare the mind by still thinking of it, Illis gravis est, quibus est repentina, facile eam sustinet qui semper expectat. No doubt it must exceedingly disorder all their faculties, who cannot endure the mention of it, and do sottishly believe (for many such sots there are) that they shall die the sooner, if they do any of those things which dying people used to do, and which nobody ought to defer till that season: and there cannot be a better expedient to enable men to pass that time with courage and moderate cheerfulness, than so to have dispatched and settled all the business of the world when a man is in health, that he may be vacant when sickness comes, from all other thoughts but such as are fit to be the companions of death, and from all other business but dying; which, as it puts an end in a moment to all that is mortal, so it requires the operation of more than is mortal to make that last moment agreeable and happy.

OF FRIENDship.

Montpellier, 1670.

FRIENDSHIP must have some extraordinary excellence in it, when the great philosopher as well as best orator commends it to us to prefer before all things in the world; Ut amicitiam omnibus rebus humanis anteponatis: and it must be very precious, when it was the circumstance that made David's highest affliction most intolerable, that his lover and his friend was put from him; and there could be no aggravation of the misery he endured, when his own familiar friend, in whom he trusted, was turned against him. This heroical virtue is pretended to by all, but understood or practised by very few; which needs no other manifestation, than that the choleric person thinks it an obligation upon his friend to assist him in a murder; the unthrifty and licentious person expects that friendship should oblige him who pretends to love him, to waste all his estate in riots and excesses, by becoming bound for him, and so liable to pay those debts which his prideand vanity contract. Ina word, there is nothing that the most unreasonable faction, or the most unlawful combination and conspiracy, can be applied to compass, which is not thought by those who should govern the world to be the

ever.

proper and necessary office of friendship; and that the laws of friendship are extremely violated and broken, if it doth not engage in the performance of all those offices, how unjust and unworthy soAnd thus the sacred name of friendship, and all the generous duties which result from it, are dishonoured and discredited, as if they could be applied to the propagation of vice, or to the support of actions inconsistent with discretion and honesty. The son of Sirach had no such imagination, when he pronounces, that " a faithful friend is the medicine of life, and they that fear the Lord shall find him:" if he be a gift that God bestows upon them who fear him, they will not lose both the gift and the giver upon vile and unworthy employments. Let us therefore, lest this precious blessed composition be driven out of the world, by the falsehood and violence of those who pretend to adore it, or withdraw itself from mankind, because there are so few breasts prepared to receive and entertain it, in the first place, examine what in truth friendship is; what are the obligations of it; and what persons, by the excellence or corruption of their natures, are capable or incapable of being possessed of it, and receiving the effects of it. It may be, it is easier to describe, as most men have done who have writ of it, than to define friendship; yet I know not why it may

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »