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all heresies; if not a mixture: here, you drew in the free and clear air of the Gospel, without that odious composition of Judaism, Arianism, Anabaptism: there, you live in the stench of these, and more. You are unworthy of pity, if you will approve your misery. Say, if you can, that the Church of England (if she were not yours) is not a heaven, to Amsterdam. How is it then, that our gnats are harder to swallow, than their camels? and that, while all Christendom magnifies our happiness and applauds it, your handful alone so detests our enormities, that you despise our graces?

See, whether in this, you make not God a loser. The thank of all his favours is lost, because you want more: and, in the mean time, who gains by this sequestration, but Rome and Hell? How do they insult in this advantage, that our Mother's own children condemn her for unclean, that we are daily weakened by our divisions, that the rude multitude hath so palpable a motive to distrust us! Sure, you intended it not: but, if you had been their hired agent, you could not have done our enemies greater service. The God of Heaven open your eyes, that you may see the injustice of that zeal, which hath transported you; and turn your heart to an endeavour of all Christian satisfaction: otherwise, your souls shall find too late, that it had been a thousand times better to swallow a Ceremony, than to rend a Church; yea, that even whoredoms and murders shall abide an easier answer, than separation.

I have done, if only I have advised you of that fearful threatening of the Wise Man: The eye, that mocketh his father, and despises the government of his mother, the ravens of the river shall pick it out, and the young eagles eat it.

EPISTLE II.

TO SIR ANDREW ASTELEY.

A Discourse of our due Preparation for Death, and the Means to sweeten it to us.

SINCE I saw you, I saw my father die: how boldly and merrily did he pass through the gates of death, as if they had had no terror, but much pleasure! Oh, that I could as easily imitate, as not forget him! We know we must tread the same way: how happy, if

with the same mind!

Our life, as it gives way to death, so must make way for it. It will be, though we will not: it will not be happy, without our will, without our preparation.

It is the best and longest lesson, to learn how to die; and of surest use: which alone if we take not out, it were better, not to

have lived. O vain studies of men, how to walk through Rome streets all day in the shade; how to square circles; how to salve up the celestial motions; how to correct miswritten copies, to fetch up old words from forgetfulness, and a thousand other like points of idle skill: while the main care of life and death is neglected!

There is an art of this, infallible, eternal, both in truth and use : for, though the means be divers, yet the last act is still the same, and the disposition of the soul need not be other. It is all one, whether a fever bring it, or a sword. Wherein yet, after long profession of other sciences, I am still (why should I shame to confess?) a learner; and shall be, I hope, whilst I am : yet it shall not repent us, as diligent scholars repeat their parts unto each other to be more perfect; so mutually to recal some of our rules of well dying: the first whereof, is a conscionable life : the next, a right ap prehension of life and death. I tread in the beaten path : do you follow me.

To live holily, is the way to die safely, happily. If death be terrible, yet innocence is bold; and will neither fear itself, nor let us fear : where, contrariwise, wickedness is cowardly; and cannot abide, either any glimpse of light, or shew of danger. Hope doth not more draw our eyes forward, than conscience turns them backward, and forces us to look behind us; affrighting us even with our past evils. Besides the pain of death, every sin is a new fury, to torment the soul, and make it loth to part. How can it choose, when it sees, on the one side, what evil it hath done; on the other, what evil it must suffer? It was a clear heart (what else could do it?) that gave so bold a forehead to that holy Bishop, who durst, on his death bed, profess, "I have so lived, as I neither fear to die, nor shame to live." What care we when we be found, if well doing? what care we how suddenly, when our preparation is perpetual? what care we how violently, when so many inward friends (such are our good actions) give us secret comfort? There is no good steward, but is glad of his audit: his straight accounts desire nothing, more than a discharge: only the doubtful and untrusty fears his reckoning.

Neither only doth the want of integrity make us timorous, but of wisdom; in that our ignorance cannot equally value, either the life which we leave, or the death we expect. We have long conversed with this life, and yet are unacquainted: how should we then know that death we never saw? or that life, which follows that death? These cottages have been ruinous, and we have not thought of their fall: our way hath been deep, and we have not looked for our rest. Shew me ever any man, that knew what life was, and was loth to leave it: I will shew you a prisoner, that would dwell in his gaol; a slave, that likes to be chained to his galley. What is there here, but darkness of ignorance, discomfort of events, impotency of body, vexation of conscience, distemper of passions, complaint of estate, fears and sense of evil, hopes and doubts of good, ambitious rackings, covetous toils, envious underminings, irksome disappointments, weary satieties, restless desires, and many worlds

of discontentments in this one? What wonder is it, that we would live! We laugh at their choice, that are in love with the deformed: and what a face is this we dote upon! See, if sins, and cares, and crosses, have not, like a filthy morphew, overspread it; and made it loathsome to all judicious eyes.

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I marvel then, that any wise men could be other but stoics; and could have any conceit of life, but contemptuous: not more for the misery of it, while it lasteth, than for the not lasting. We may love it: we cannot hold it. What a shadow of a smoke, what a dream of a shadow, is this we affect! Wise Solomon says, There is a time to be born, and a time to die: you do not hear him say, time to live." What is more fleeting than time? yet life is not long enough to be worthy of the title of Time. Death borders upon our birth; and our cradle stands in our grave. We lament the loss of our parents; how soon shall our sons bewail ours! Lo, I that write this, and you that read it, how long are we here? It were well, if the world were as our tent; yea, as our inn; if not to lodge, yet to bait in: but now it is only our thoroughfare: one generation passeth; another cometh; noue stayeth. If this earth were a paradise, and this which we call our life were sweet as the joys above; yet, how should this fickleness of it cool our delight! Grant it absolute: who can esteem a vanishing pleasure? How much more now, when the drams of our honey are lost in pounds of gall; when our contentments are as far from sincerity as continuance!

Yet the true apprehension of life, though joined with contempt, is not enough to settle us, if either we be ignorant of death, or ill persuaded: for, if life have not worth enough to allure us; yet, death hath horror enough to affright us. He, that would die cheerfully, must know death his friend. What is he, but the faithful officer of our Maker, who ever smiles or frowns with his Master; neither can either shew or nourish enmity, where God favours: when he comes fiercely, and pulls a man by the throat, and summons him to hell, who can but tremble? The messenger is terrible, but the message worse. Hence have risen the miserable despairs, and furious raving of the ill conscience; that finds no peace within, less without. But when he comes sweetly, not as an executioner, but as a guide to glory; and proffers his service; and shews our happiness; and opens the door to our heaven: how worthy is he of entertainment! how worthy of gratulation! But his salutation is painful, if courteous: what then? The physician heals us, not without pain; and yet we reward him. It is unthankfulness to complain, where the answer of profit is excessive. Death paineth: how long? how much? with what proportion to the sequel of joy? O death, if thy pangs be grievous, yet thy rest is sweet. The constant expectation, that hath possessed that rest, hath already swallowed tho.e pangs; and makes the Christian, at once, wholly dead to his pain, wholly alive to his glory. The soul hath not leisure to care for her suffering, that beholds her crown; which if she were enjoined to

fetch through the flames of hell, her faith would not stick at the condition.

Thus in brief, he, that lives Christianly, shall die boldly: he, that finds his life short and miserable, shall die willingly: he, that knows death and foresees glory, shall die cheerfully and desirously.

EPISTLE III.

TO MR. SAMUEL BURTON,

ARCHDEACON OF GLOUCESTER

A Discourse of the Trial and Choice of the True Religion..

SIR:

THIS Discourse, enjoined by you, I send to your censure, to your disposing; but to the use of others. Upon your charge, I have written it for the wavering. If it seem worthy, communicate it; else, it is but a dash of your pen. I fear only the brevity: a volume were too little for this subject. It is not more yours, than the author. Farewel.

We do not more affect variety in all other things, than we abhor it in religion. Even those, which have held the greatest falsehoods, hold that there is but one truth. I never read of more than one heretic, that held all heresies true: neither did his opinion seem more incredible, than the relation of it. God cau neither be multiplied, nor Christ divided: if his coat might be parted, his body was entire. For that, then, all sides challenge truth, and but one can possess it; let us see who have found it, who enjoy it.

There are not many religions, that strive for it; though many opinions. Every heresy, albeit fundamental, makes not a religion. We say not, the Religion of Arians, Nestorians, Sabellians, Macedonians; but the Sect, or Heresy. No opinion challenges this name in our usual speech, (for I discuss not the propriety) but that which, arising from many differences, hath settled itself in the world, upon her own principles, not without an universal division. Such may soon be counted: though it is true, there are by so much too many, as there are more than one.

Five Religions, then, there are, by this rule, upon earth; which stand in competition for truth: Jewish, Turkish, Greekish, Popish, Reformed; whereof each pleads for itself, with disgrace of the other. The plain reader doubts, how he may sit judge, in so

high a plea: God hath put this person upon him; while he chargeth him to try the spirits; to retain the good, reject the evil. If still he plead, with Moses, insufficiency; let him but attend: God shall decide the case, in his silence, without difficulty.

The JEW hath little to say for himself, but impudent denials of our Christ; of their prophecies: whose very refusal of him, more strongly proves him the true Messiah: neither could he be justified to be that Saviour, if they rejected him not; since the prophets foresaw and foretold, not their repelling of him only, but their reviling.

If there were no more arguments, God hath so mightily coufuted them from heaven, by the voice of his judgment, that all the world hisseth at their conviction. Lo, their very sin is capitally written in their desolation and contempt. One of their own late Doctors seriously expostulates, in a relenting Letter to another of his fellow Rabbins, what might be the cause of so long and desperate a ruin of their Israel; and, comparing their former captivities with their former sins, argues, and yet fears to conclude, that this continuing punishment must needs be sent for some sin, so much greater than idolatry, oppression, Sabbath-breaking; by how much this plague is more grievous, than all the other: which, his fear tells him, and he may believe it, can be no other, but the murder and refusal of their true Messiah. Let now all the Doctors of those obstinate Synagogues, answer this doubt of their own objecting.

But how, past all contradiction, is the ancient witness of all the holy prophets, answered and confirmed by their events! whose foresayings, verified in all particular issues, are more than demonstrative. No art can describe a thing past, with more exactness, than they did this Christ to come. What circumstance is there, that hath not his prediction? Have they not forewritten, who should be his mother; a virgin: of what tribe; of Judah: of what house; of David: what place; Bethlehem: what time; when the sceptre should be taken from Judah; or after sixty-nine weeks: what name; Jesus, Immanuel: what habitation; Nazareth what harbinger; John, the second Elias: what his business; to preach, save, deliver: what entertainment; rejection: what death; the Cross what manner; piercing the body, not breaking the bones: what company; amidst two wicked ones: where; at Jerusalem : whereabouts; without the gates: with what words; of imploration: what draught; of vinegar and gall: who was his traitor, and with what success? If all the Synagogues of the Circumcision, all the gates of Hell, can obscure these evidences, let me be a proselyte.

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My labour herein is so much less, as there is less danger of Judaism. Our Church is well rid of that accursed nation: whom yet Rome harbours, and, in a fashion, graces; while, instead of spitting at, or that their Neapolitan correction whereof Gratian speaks, the Pope solemnly receives at their hands that Bible, which they, at once, approve and overthrow.

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