A Mirror both for Saints and Sinners, Treatise · Chapter 64
CHAP LXVI. Examples concerning Death.
ALI must die, Heb. 9. 27. Psal. 89. 48.
It's called a Bed to rest in, Isa. 57. 2. A being with Christ, Phil. 1. 23. A changing, 1 Cor. 15. 51. A cutting down, Job 14. 2. A cutting off, Job 6. 9. A depriving of years, Isa. 38. 10. A dissolution, Phil. 1. 23. A destruction of the body, 2 Cor. 5. 1. A day of darknesse, Eccles. 12. 7. A departing, Luk. 2. 29. A going forth of the breath, Psal. 146. 4. An entrance into the way of all the world, Joshu. 23. 14. An end of all flesh, Gen. 6. 13. An end of mans daies, 1 Sam. 26. 10. A falling asleep, Act. 7. 60. A finishing our course, 2 Tim. 4. 7. A fleeting away, Job 20. 8. A gathering to the people, Gen. 25. 8. A going to the grave, Job 5. 26. The way of all the earth, 1 King. 2. 2. To our fathers, Gen. 15. 15. To the dead, 2 Sam. 12. 23. To the place of silence, Psal. 115. 17. Into the pit, Job 33. 24. Home, Psal. 39. 13. To the long home, Eccles. 12. 5. Into the Land of darknesse, Job 10. 21. A hiding in the Grave, Job 14 13. A house for the living, Job 30. 23. A lying still, Job 3. 13. A Land of oblivion, Psal. 88. 12. A rest from labour, Rev. 14. 13. A returning to the dust, Gen. 3. 9. Job 34. 15. A sleep, Job. 3. 13. 1 Thess. 4. 14. 1 King. 1. 21. Job 7. 21. A translation, Heb. 11. 15. A vanishing, Job 14. 2. A giving up the ghost, Gen. 25. 8.
Vita citò avolat, nec potest retineri:
Mors quotidie ingruit, nec potest resisti.
Death happy to the godly, Psal. 116. 15. & 72. 14. Eccles. 7. 1. Rev. 14. 13. 1 Cor. 15. 5, 52.
Death cursed to the wicked, Psal. 37. 9, 10, 20, 22. Job 18. 17. Phil. 3. 19.
Qualis vita, finis ità. Vita vitrea. Fumus, et umbra sumus.
Mors ubi que nos expectat.
Solon enacted a Law amongst the Athenians, that none should speak evil of the Dead. Plut.
Xerxes getting upon an hill near to Abydus, and beholding the Sea covered over with his Ships, and all the Plains filled with his Army which consisted of above a million of men, thought himself a very happy man, yet withal fell a weeping, and being asked the reason of it by Artabanus his Uncle, he answered; Considering with my self how short the life of man is, I cannot but pity this great multitude of gallant men of whom within an hundred years there shall not one be left alive. Herod.
Lycurgus made a Law in Lacedaemon, that they should bury their dead round about their Temples, that the young men having the graves alwaies in their eyes, should mind their own mortality. Plut.
Agesilaus King of Sparta used to say, That they which live virtuously are not yet blessed persons, but that they had attained true felicity who dyed virtuously. Xenophon.
When Agesilaus was ready to dye, he charged his friends that they should neither make any picture nor statue of him; for, saith he, If I have done any thing that is good, that will be my monument; but if I have done otherwise, all the statues that you can make will not keep my good name alive. Idem.
Democritus the Philosopher as he was travelling abroad in the world came to the Court of Darius King of Persia, whom he found overwhelmed with grief for the death of one of his most beautifull wives, to whom Democritus promised that he would restore her to life again if he would provide him things necessary for such a businesse: Darius much rejoycing at this promise, bade him ask for whatsoever he would have. Democritus told him, that amongst other ingredients he must have the names of three men that had never met with any sorrow in the whole course of their lives; The King told him that that was impossible to be done: Then said Democritus, What a fool art thou which desirest to be freed from that fortune which is common to all men? Pez. Mel. Hist.
Alex. M. being twice wounded in the siege of an Indian City, feeling the pain of his wounds, said, I am called the son of Jupiter, but I perceive that I am subject to wounds, and death as well as other men. Q Cur.
Epaminondas finding his Sentinel asleep, slew him, saying, I left him but as I found him. Plut.
A certain Christian King in Hungary, being on a time very sad; His brother (a jolly Courtier) would needs know on him what ailed him: O brother (said he) I have been a great sinner against God, and I know not how to die, nor to appear before God in Judgment. These are (said his brother) melancholy thoughts; and withal made a jest at them. The King replyed nothing for the present: But the custom of the Country was, that if the Executioner came and sounded a Trumpet before any mans door, he was presently to be led to execution. The King in the dead time of the night sends the headsman to sound his Trumpet before his brothers door: who hearing it, and seeing the messenger of Death, springs in pale, and trembling into his brothers presence, beseeching him to tell him wherein he had offended? O brother (replyed the King) you have never offended me: And is the sight of my Executioner so dreadful, and shall not I that have greatly and grievously offended, fear to be brought before the Judgement-Seat of Christ?
In the Isle of Man the women whensoever they go abroad gird themselves about with their winding sheets wherein they purpose to be buried, to mind them of their mortality. Camb. Brit. of Man. p. 205.
At one end of the Library of Dublin was a globe, and at the other end a skelleton, to shew, that though a man was Lord of all the world, yet he must die.
C. Marius in his 7th. Consulship, being about 70 years old, yet finding his death approaching, cryed out, and complained of his hard Fortune, for cutting off the third of his life before his counsells and desires were accomplished. Sab.
Pope Anastasius as he was easing nature in a sakes, voided his bowels, and dyed miserably. Gra…i.
The AEgyptians in their Funeral Orations never commended any man for his riches, or Nobility, because they were but the goods of Fortune; but for his Justice, and piety, whereby they thought to stirre up the living to the imitation of his virtues. Fulgos.
The Grecians had a Law, that no man should bestow more workmanship upon a Monument then might be finished by ten men in 3. daies.
Artemesia Q. of Halicarnassus when her husband Mausolus died, bestowed so much cost, and curiosity upon his Tomb, as that it was counted one of the seven wonders of the world, Suidas.
By an ancient Law amongst the Romans it was enacted that no man should bestow more labour about a Sepulchre, then might be finshed in three or five dayes at the most, and that none should have a bigger Pillar erected for him then would contain his just praises, and the titles of his honour. Cicero.
St. Augustines wish was that, when the Lord came to take him out of this world, he might find him aut precantem, aut praedicantem; either praying, or Preaching.
The Death of the Righteous is the forerunner of judgment.
Methusalem died in that very year in which the Flood came: Augustine was taken away by death immediately before Hippo [the place of his dwelling] was sacked by the Vandals: Paraeus before the taking of Heidelberg by the Spaniards: The death of Ambrose was the forerunner of the ruine of Italy: and Luther died a little before the wars brake forth in Germany, which himself foretold at his death: And holy Mr. Whately a little before the plundering, and burning of Banbury in the beginning of our late Civil wars.
The Righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come,
Isai. 57. 1.