The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying II. A GENERAL PREPARATION TOWARD A HOLY AND BLESSED DEATH, BY WAY OF EXERCISE Section I Three Precepts Preparatory to a Holy Death, to Be Practiced in Our Whole Life 1. He who would die well must always look for death, every day knocking at the gates of the grave, and then the gates of the grave shall never prevail upon him to do him mischief. This was the advice of all the wise and good men of the world, who especially in the days and periods of their joy, chose to throw some ashes into their chalices, some sober remembrances of their fatal period. 2. He who would die well, must all the days of his life lay up against the day of death; not only by the general provisions of holiness, but provisions proper to the necessities of that great day of expense, in which a man is to throw his last cast for an eternity of joys or sorrows; ever remembering, that this alone well-performed is not enough to pass us into paradise, but that this alone done foolishly is enough to send us to hell; and the lack of either a holy life or death, makes a man to fall short of the mighty prize of his high calling. In order to this rule, we are to consider what special graces we shall then need, and provide beforehand a reserve of strength and mercy. Men in the course of their lives walk lazily and incautiously; and when they are revolved to the time of their dissolution, they have no mercies in store, no patience, no faith, no love of God; being without appetite for the land of their inheritance, which Christ with so much pain and blood had purchased for them. When we come to die indeed, we shall be put to it to stand firm upon the two feet of a Christian: faith and patience. When we ourselves are to turn our former discourses into present practice, and to feel what we never felt before; then we shall find how much we have need to have secured the Spirit of God, and the grace of faith, by a habitual, perfect, immovable resolution. The same also is the case of patience. It concerns us therefore highly in the whole course of our lives, not only to accustom ourselves to a patient suffering of injuries, affronts, persecutions, and losses; but also, by assiduous and fervent prayer to God all our life long, to call upon him to give us patience and great assistance, a strong faith and a confirmed hope, the Spirit of God and his holy angels assistants at that time, to resist and subdue the devil’s temptations and assaults; and so to fortify our hearts, that they break not into intolerable sorrows and impatience, and end in wretchedness and infidelity. But this is to be the work of our lives, as God gives us time, by succession, by parts and little periods. For it is very remarkable that God has scattered the firmament with stars, as a man sows corn in his fields. He has made a variety of creatures and gives us great choice of meats and drinks, although any one of both kinds would have served our needs, and so in all instances of nature. Yet, in the distribution of our time, God seems to be strait-handed, and gives it to us, not as nature gives us rivers, enough to drown us; but drop by drop, minute after minute, so that we never can have two minutes together, but he takes away one when he gives us another. This should teach us to value our time, since God so values it, and by his distribution of it, tells us it is the most precious thing we have. Since therefore in the day of our death we can still have but the same little portion of this precious time, let us in every minute of our life, prepare for our death. 3. He who desires to die happily, above all things must be careful that he does not live a soft, delicate, and voluptuous life; but a life severe, holy, and under the discipline of the cross; a life of warfare, labor, and watchfulness. No man lacks cause of tears and a daily sorrow. Let every man confess his sin, and chastise it; let him bear his cross patiently, and his persecutions nobly, and his repentances willingly and constantly; let him pity the evils of all the world, and bear his share of the calamities of his brother; let him long and sigh for the joys of heaven; let him tremble and fear because he has deserved the pains of hell. And by that time he has summed up all these labors and duties, all proper causes and acts of sorrow, he will find that for secular joy and wantonness of spirit, there are not left many void spaces in his life. But besides this, a delicate life is hugely contrary to the hopes of a blessed eternity. “Woe to them who are at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1); so it was said of old. And our blessed Lord said, “Woe to you who laugh, for you shall weep” (Luke 6:25); but, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). Here or hereafter we must have our portion of sorrows. “He who now goes on his way weeping, and bears forth good seed with him, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him” (Ps. 126:6). And certainly he who sadly considers the portion of Dives, and remembers that the account which Abraham gave him for the inevitability of his torment was, because he had “his good things in this life,” must in all reason, with trembling, run from a course of banquets, and “faring deliciously every day,” as being a dangerous state, and a consignation to an evil greater than all danger, the pains and torments of unhappy souls. Section II Of Daily Examination of Our Actions in the Whole Course of Our Health, Preparatory to Our Deathbed He who will die well and happily must dress his soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny. He must understand and watch the state of his soul; he must set his house in order before he is fit to die. And for this there is great reason. 1. For if we consider the disorders of every day, the multitude of impertinent words, the time spent in vanity, the daily omissions of duty, the coldness of our prayers, the indifference of our spirits in holy things, the uncertainty of our secret purposes; our infinite deceptions and hypocrisies, sometimes not known, very often not observed by ourselves; our lack of charity, our not knowing in how many degrees of action and purpose every virtue is to be exercised; the secret adherences of pride, and too forward complacency in our best actions; our failings in all our relations, our unsuspected sins in managing a course of life certainly lawful, our little greediness in eating, our too great freedom and fondness in lawful loves, our aptness for things sensual, and our deadness and tediousness of spirit in spiritual employments; besides an infinite variety of cases that occur in the life of every man, and in all interactions of life; from all this we shall find that the computations of a man’s life are as intricate as the accounts of eastern merchants; and therefore it is reasonable that we should sum up our accounts at the foot of every page, I mean, that we call ourselves to scrutiny every night when we compose ourselves to the little images of death. 2. For, if we make but one general account, and never reckon till we die, either we shall only reckon by great sums, and remember nothing but clamorous and crying sins, and never consider concerning particulars, or forget very many; or if we could consider all that we ought, we must be confounded with the multitude and variety. 3. It is not intended we should take accounts of our lives only to be thought religious, but that we may see our evil and amend it, that we may dash our sins against the stones, that we may go to God, and to a spiritual guide, and search for remedies, and apply them. And indeed no man can well observe his own growth in grace, but by accounting less frequent returns of sin, and a more frequent victory over temptations; concerning which, every man makes his observations according to how he makes his inquiries and searches after himself. 4. And it will appear highly fitting, if we remember that at the Day of Judgment not only the greatest lines of life, but every branch and circumstance of every action, every word and thought, shall be called to scrutiny; insomuch that it was a great truth which one said, “Woe to the most innocent life, if God should search into it without mixtures of mercy.” And therefore we are here to follow St. Paul’s advice, “Judge yourselves, and you shall not be judged of the Lord.” The way to prevent God’s anger is to be angry with ourselves. As therefore every night we must make our bed the memorial of our grave, so let our evening thoughts be an image of the Day of Judgment. Section III General Considerations to Enforce the Former Practices These are the general instruments of preparation, in order to a holy death; it will concern us all to use them diligently and speedily; for we must be long in doing that which must be done but once. Therefore we must begin hastily, and lose no time; especially since it is so great a venture, and upon it depends so great a stake. Seneca said well, “There is no science or art in the world so hard as to live and die well; the professors of other arts are vulgar and many”; but he who knows how to do this business is certainly instructed to eternity. Let me remember this; that a wise person will also put most upon the greatest interest. Common prudence will teach us this. No man will hire a general to cut wood, or shake hay with a scepter, or spend his soul and all his faculties upon the purchase of a cockleshell; but he will fit instruments to the dignity. Since heaven is so glorious a state, and so certainly designed for us, let us spend all that we have, all our passions and affections, all our study and industry, toward arriving there. For if we do arrive, every minute will infinitely pay for all the troubles of our whole life; if we do not, we shall have the reward of fools, a pitiless and an upbraiding misery. To this purpose, I shall represent the state of lying and dead men in the devout words of some of the fathers of the church. When the sentence of death is decreed, and begins to be put in execution, it is sorrow enough to see or feel the sad accents of the agony and last contentions of the soul, and the reluctances of the body. The forehead washed with a new and stranger baptism, and smeared with a cold sweat, tenacious and clammy, apt to make it cleave to the roof of his coffin; the nose cold and undiscerning, not pleased with perfumes, nor suffering violence with a cloud of unwholesome smoke; the eyes dim as a sullied mirror, or the face of heaven, when God shows his anger in a storm; the feet cold, the hands stiff; the physicians despairing, our friends weeping, the rooms dressed with darkness and sorrow; and the exterior parts betraying the violences which the soul and spirit suffer. The nobler part, like the lord of the house, assaulted by exterior rudeness, and driven from all the out-works, at last faint and weary with short and frequent breathings, interrupted with the longer accents of sighs, without moisture, except the product of a spilt humor, when the pitcher is broken at the cistern, retires to its last fort, the heart, where it is pursued, and stormed, and beaten out, as when the barbarous Thracian sacked the glory of the Grecian empire. Then calamity is great, and sorrow rules in all the capacities of man; then the mourners weep, because it is civil, or because they need you, or because they fear. But who suffers for you with a compassion sharp as is your pain? Then the noise is like the faint echo of a distant valley, and few hear, and they will not regard you, who seem like a person void of understanding, and of a departing interest. Vere tremendum est mortis sacramentum (Very awesome is the sacred act of death). But these circumstances are common to all who die; and when a special providence shall distinguish them, they shall die with easy circumstances. But that which distinguishes them is this: he who has lived a wicked life, if his conscience be alarmed, and he does not die like a wolf or a tiger, without sense or remorse of all his wildness and his injury, his beastly nature led, if he had but sense of what he is going to suffer, or what he may expect to be his portion; then we may imagine the terror of the abused fancies of such, how they see alarming shapes, and because they fear them, they feel the gripes of devils, urging the unwilling souls from the embraces of their bodies, calling to the grave, and hasting to judgment, exhibiting great bills of uncancelled crimes, awakening and amazing their consciences, breaking all their hopes in pieces. Then “they look for some to have pity on them, but there is no man.” No man dares be their pledge. “No man can redeem their souls,” which now feel what they never feared. Then the trembling and the sorrow, memory of past sins, the fear of future pains, the sense of an angry God, and the presence of devils, consign them to the eternal company of all the damned and accursed spirits. Then they want an angel for their guide, and the Holy Spirit for their Comforter, and a good conscience for their testimony, and Christ for their Advocate, and they die and are left in prisons of earth or air, in secret and undiscerned regions, to weep and tremble, and infinitely to fear the coming of the day of Christ; at which time they shall be brought forth to change their condition into a worse, where they shall forever feel more than we can believe or understand. But when a good man dies, one who has lived innocently, or made joy in heaven at his timely repentance, and in whose behalf the holy Jesus has interceded prosperously, and for whose interest “the Spirit makes intercessions with groans and sighs unutterable” (Rom. 8:26), and in whose defense the angels drive away the devils on his deathbed because his sins are pardoned, and because he resisted the devil in his lifetime, and fought successfully, and persevered unto the end; then the joys break forth through the clouds of sickness, and the conscience stands upright and confesses the glories of God. Then the sorrows of the sickness, and the flames of the fever, or the faintness of the consumption, do but untie the soul from its chain, and let it go forth, first into liberty, and then to glory. For it was but for a little while that the face of the sky was black, like the preparations of the night; but quickly the cloud was torn and rent, the violence of thunder parted it into little portions, that the sun might look forth with a watery eye, and then shine without a tear. But it is an infinite refreshment to remember all the comforts of his prayers, the frequent victory over his temptations, the mortification of his lusts, the noblest sacrifice to God, in which he most delights, that we have given him our wills, and killed our appetites, for the interests of his services; then all the trouble of that is gone, and what remains is a portion in the inheritance of Jesus, of which he now talks no more as a thing at a distance, but is entering into the possession. When the veil is rent, and the prison doors are open, at the presence of God’s angel, the soul goes forth full of hope, and instantly passes into the throngs of spirits, where angels meet it singing, and the devils flock with malicious and vile purposes, desiring to lead it away with them into their houses of sorrow. The soul passes forth and rejoices; passing by the devils in scorn and triumph, being securely carried into the bosom of the Lord, where they shall rest till their crowns are finished, and their mansions are prepared; and then they shall feast and sing, rejoice and worship forever and ever.