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from this unmerciful grief and torment that it suffers, and from these troubles that are more than human: instead of looking to the inferior causes, and to the circumstances of the death of this beloved person, give me grace to remember, that the least things, as well as the greatest, are governed and ruled by thy wise providence, and that the good and the evil proceed from thy divine appointment. Give me grace to consider, that thou dost hold in thine almighty hand the keys of life and death, and thou alone dost cast us. in the grave, and liftest us up from thence again. O Sove reign Monarch of the universal world, who dost not only let Death loose, but also appointest all the circumstances, make me, truly submissive unto thy sacred pleasure, and to put my finger upon my lips, because it is thy doing... If I open them, let it be to adore thy justice, and sing forth thy praises. The person for whom I lament so much, was nearly related to me, like another self, and was also thy creature, thy child, and a member of our Saviour's mystical body. We, for our parts, believe we have the right of disposing of our workmanship, and of that which we have bought with our money and hast not thou, O God, the liberty to dispose of that which thou hast created after thy likeness? bought, not with corruptible things, as with gold and silver, but with the precious blood of the Lamb without spot or blemish? Thou hast a Son, who is the brightness of thy glory, and the express image of thy person, whom thou hast not spared for me: and shall I, Lord, refuse thee my heart and my bowels? Thy only-begotten Son came down upon earth to suffer the most cruel and ignominious death of the cross; but thou hast taken up into heaven the person whom my soul loved, to crown him(or her) with a glorious and ever-happy immortality. Shall his (or her) felicity be the cause of my afflictions? and shall his (or her) rest occasion my displeasure? It is the property of true love to prefer the happiness of the beloved person to our satisfaction; therefore our Saviour told his apostles, If you did love me.

you

you would rejoice, because I go to my Father; for my Father is greater than I. Between thee, O great and living God, and us miserable worms of the earth, there is as vast a difference as there is between the innocent and harmless delights of this world, and the unspeakable pleasures of thy presence: for these are but as drops of water, that are dried up with the least wind; whereas the satisfactions of heaven are like a bottomless sea of delights, in which we shall swim for ever. Do I therefore weep for him (or her) whose tears thou hast wiped away? Do I wear a mournful apparel, and black scarf, for him who is now covered with a glorious at tire of joy and gladness, who is adorned with an habit as white as snow? Do I delight myself in darkness, and doth he solace himself at the fountain of life and glory? Do I seek a solitary and melancholy retreat, and doth he rejoice amongst the thousands of angels, and the glorious company of immortal spirits? I sigh and groan, and he sings a new song, the song of the blessed, which is always in his mouth. All my complaints and groanings cannot bring him back on earth; but if that were possible, it is not just to attempt it; my kindness would be cruel; and my love must be inhuman. How could I resolve to make him leave the haven of eternal felicity, to expose him again to the furious waves and storms of this troublesome sea of the world; to engage him in fresh encounters, to clothe him with the rags of mortality, to take him out of rivers of pleasures, and bring him back again to a sea of gall and bitterness, and feed him again with the bread of affliction? Can I be so cruel as to wish him out of thine embraces, and the ravishing enjoyment of thy favour and eternal life, to deliver him again into the torments of mortality? The shortness of this life reminds me of my departure after him to the light of the living, where we may again enjoy one another. O Lord, truly wonderful and various in all thy dispensations! it is not only for the advantage of this happy creature, and thy glory, that thou hast taken him into thy rest; but for my

good,

good, and the instruction of his surviving friends; to put my obedience and faith to the trial, as thou didst the father of the faithful, whose trial was far greater than mine: for thou commandedst him to sacrifice his son with his own hands; but thou requirest from me no other sacrifice, but my submission to thy holy will. I will therefore speak in Eli's language, "It is the Lord, let him do as seemeth good;" or as Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Thou hast taken from me what I highly valued on earth, that I might look up to heaven, whither he is departed from me. me therefore grace to put an end to all these sighs, groans, and tears, and spend no longer my time and my breath lamenting the loss of my beloved object; but that I may employ myself to prepare for my removal out of this earthly tabernacle. Grant that I may imitate the piety, zeal, faith, and constancy, and all other virtues, of such as thou hast admitted into thine eternal rest, and crowned with everlasting joy and happiness. Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! Amen.

Grant

CHAP. X

The Fourth Remedy against the Fears of Death is, to disengage our Hearts from the World.

THE

HE children of Israel decamped from the wilderness with a ready mind, and went joyfully over the river Jordan, when God commanded them so to do. The cause of their readiness was an earnest longing for the land of Canaan, and their unsettled condition in the wilderness, having nothing but tents to live in. Death is to us the same, in regard to our heavenly paradise, as the river Jordan was to the children of Israel, in respect to the promised land. Therefore from hence it appears, that the strongest motive

to oblige us to a resolution of entering into this passage willingly, is to free ourselves from all things that might encumber, stop, or tie us to the world, and keep ourselves always in a readiness to depart.

For that purpose it is not necessary that we should go out of the world, but that the world should be banished and driven out of us, and that we should renounce all vanities and unruly affections, so that we might be able to say with the apostle," The world is crucified to me, and I am crucified to the world:" for there be many who depart out of this world, but leave their hearts and most tender affections behind: as Lot's wife that went out of Sodom, but left there her treasures and delights, her most ardent desires: as the Israelites, who, when they went out of Egypt, left behind them their cursed affections, with their pots of flesh and onions. M: en lue to eat. 1.

The same thing happens to many, who separate themselves without any necessity from the acquaintance of mankind, and who affect a strange and austere kind of life. They leave the society of wise and virtuous persons, and the lawful use of the blessings which heaven has granted them; and they deprive themselves of all that deserve esteem, and the means of glorifying God, and edifying their neighbours. But many times they carry with them their corruption, their vices, and a legion of wicked thoughts and carnal desires. By this means they give way to the devil, and expose themselves to all his temptations; for that wicked serpent delights rather in the dens of wild beasts, and in the caves of the earth, than in the palaces and dwellings of princes and kings. The most abominable vices creep and breed rather in the desarts and places of retreat, than in public, and in great cities that are full of inhabitants. Lot, remained chaste in the most abominable city that was in the world; but when he went aside to the foot of a mountain, and into the cave to dwell, he defiled himself with

4.

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with a monstrous incest. When Satan intended to tempt our Saviour Christ, he carried him into a desert and to the top of a mountain. From hence we may learn, that this subtle enemy of mankind had learnt, by his long experience, that the places of retreat, and the most solitary, are the fittest to lay his snares. If our Saviour, who was wholly innocent and free from sin, hath been able to overcome all manner of temptations, we are not of the same temper, we are not furnished with such armour as he was, of proof against all the inflamed darts of the devil: for our miserable flesh delights in its own destruction, it opens the ears and the heart wide to the deceitful promises of Satan, and suffers itself to be cheated by his damnable enchantments. It flatters us, and causes us to be lulled asleep in its bosom: then, like a treacherous Delilah, it betrays us into the unmerciful hands of our great

enemy.

Some clothe themselves with hair, and wear at their girdles a knotted cord, whom the devil drags to hell with the invincible chains of lust. Others climb up to the top of frozen mountains, and yet their hearts burn with impure flames. Some affect a mournful solitariness, whose desires and longings are for the world and its vanities. Others have their hands lifted up to heaven, whose minds are enslaved to the earth, and rooted in the rotten and filthy pleasures of the age. Some have a lamp burning before them, whose understanding is wrapped in gross darkness, more palpable than that of Egypt. Others have an empty stomach, whose soul is full of abominable passions. In short, some live in appearance like angels, and yet are possessed with legions of infernal spirits. Others seem to have no concernment in the world, and yet lodge the whole world in their hearts.

Under a coarse habit dwell oft-times more envy, more vanity and ambition, than under the glorious attire of silk and gold. Through a torn habit, some souls may be perceived

swelled

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