The Spiritual Chemist, Meditations · Meditation 59
Meditation LIX. Ʋpon going to Bed.
HOw like is the frail Life of Man to a Day, as well for the inequality of its length, as the mixture that it hath both of Cloudes and Sun-ſhine? VVhat a kinde of exact Parelia are Sleep and Death; the one being the ligation of the Senſes, and the other the Privation of them? And of how near a kin is the Grave to the Bed, when the Scripture calls it by the ſame Name? when the Clothes that cover us do the like office with the Mould, that muſt be caſt and ſpread over us? VVhen therefore the Day, and the Labours which Man goeth forth unto are ended, and the darkneſs of the Night diſpoſeth unto Reſt; what thoughts can any better take into his Boſome to lie down with? then to think, that Death, like the Beaſts of the Forreſt may creep forth to ſeek its prey, and that when it comes there is no reſiſtance to be made, or delay to be obtained. It ſpares no rank of Men; but ſlayes the rich as well as the poor, the Prince as well as the peaſant: The Glaſs that hath the Kings Face painted on it, is not the leſs brittle; neither are Kings, that have Gods Image repreſented in them the leſs mortal. And whether it comes in at the window, or at the door, whether in ſome Common, or in ſome unwonted manner who can tell? Many oft times fall aſleep in this World, and awake in the other, and have no Summons at all to acquaint them whither they are going. And yet though every Mans condition be thus uncertain, and that his Breath is in his Noſtrils, where there is as much room for it to go out, as to come in; how few do make their nights repoſe to ſerve as a memorial of their laſt reſt? on their Bed to ſtand for a model of their Coffin? Some pervert the Night, which was ordained to be a Ceſſation of the evils of Labour, to make it a ſeaſon for their greater activity in the evils of ſin. They deviſe (as the Prophet ſaith) iniquity upon their Beds, and when the morning is light they practiſe it, becauſe it is in the power of their hand. Other are eaſily brought aſleep, by the riot and intemperance of the day, owning their unhappy reſt not to the dew of nature, but unto the groſs and foul vapours of ſin, which more darken and eclipſe their reaſon than their ſleep? their Dreames having more of it in them than their Diſcourſe. Others again by their youth and health ſeem to be ſeated in ſuch an elevation above death; as that they cannot look down from their Bed into the Grave without growing dizzy, ſuch a ſteep Precipice they apprehend between life and death? Though this diſtemper doth not ariſe from the diſtance between the two termes, but from the imbecillity of their ſenſe, which cannot bear the leaſt thoughts of a ſeparation from thoſe delights and pleaſures to which their Soules are firmly wedded. VVhen therefore the moſt of men are ſuch unthrifts of time, and like careleſs Navigators keep no Journal or Diary of their motions, and other occurrences that fall our. VVhat need have others to make the Prayer of Moſes the Man of God, their Prayer? So teach us to number our dayes, that we may apply our hearts unto wiſdom. He who was Learned in all the Sciences of the Aegyptians deſires to be taught this point of Arithmetick of God; ſo to number, as not to miſtake, or make any error in the account of life, in ſetting down dayes for minutes, and yeares for dayes. A Man would think that a little Arithmetick would ſerve caſt up ſo ſmall a number, as the dayes of him, whoſe dayes are as the dayes of an hireling, few and evill? and yet it is ſuch a Myſtery, that Moſes begs of God to be inſtructed in it, as that which is the chief and onelyonly knowledge. Yea, God himſelf earneſtly wiſheth this wiſdom to Iſrael his People, O that they were wiſe; that they underſtood this, that they would conſider their latter end! Can we then render the night more ſenſeleſs? or keep the Bed unſpotted from thoſe Impurities that are neither few nor ſmall, then by practiſing duely this Divine Art, of numbering our dayes? which is not done by any ſpeculation, or prying into the time or manner of our death: but by meditating and thinking with our ſelves what our dayes are, and for what end our life is given unto us; by reckoning our day by our work, and not by our time; by what we do, and not by what we are: By remembring that we are in a continual progreſs to the Chambers of death; no Mans life being ſo long at the evening as it was in the morning. Night and day are as two Axes at the root of our life, when one is lifted up, the other is down, without reſt: every day a Chip flies off, and every night a Chip, and ſo at length we are hewen down, and fall at the Graves mouth. O what a wide difference is there between thoſe that lie down with theſe conſiderations in their Boſomes, and others, who paſs their time in pleaſures, and allow not the leaſt portion of it, to think what the iſſues are that a day or night may bring forth? How free are their Converſations from thoſe ſenſualities and luſts, which others commit in the day, and lie down with the guilt of them in the night? How profitably do they improve their time who count onelyonly the preſent to be theirs, and the future to be Gods; above thoſe, that fancy youth and ſtrength to be a ſecurity of the ſucceeding proportions of their life? yea, how comfortable is death to thoſe, who are in daily preparation for it, as well as in expectation of it, above what it is to others, who are ſurprized by it in the midſt of thoſe delights, in which they promiſed themſelves a continuance for many yeares? In what a differing frame and figure doth it appear to the one and to the other? The one behold it as a Bridg lying under their feet to paſs them over the Jordan of this life, into the Canaan of eternall Bleſſedneſs; and the other as a Torrent roaring and frighting them with its haſty downfall: Gladly therefore would I counſell Chriſtians, who enter into the Church Militant by a myſticall death, being buried with Chriſt by Baptiſme, and cannot paſs into the Triumphant, but by a Natural death, to bear dayly in their Mindes the Cogitations of their inevitable end, as the beſt meanes to allay the fear of death, in what dreſs ſoever it comes, and to make it an inlet into happineſs whenſoever it comes. As Joſeph of Arimathea made his Sepulcre in his Garden, that in the midſt of his delights he might think of death; So let us in our Chambers make ſuch Schemes and Repreſentations of Death to our ſelves, as may make it familiar to us in the Emblemes of it, and then it will be leſs gaſtly when we behold its true viſage. When we ſtrip our ſelves of our Garments, think, That ſhortly (as St. Peter ſaith) we muſt put off this our Tabernacle. I, and think again, what a likeneſs there is between our Night-Clothes, and our Grave-Clothes, between the Bed and the Tombe. What a little diſtance there is between life and death, the one being as an Eye open, and the other as an Eye ſhut: in the twinkling of an eye we may be living and dead Men. O what ardors of luſ…s would ſuch thoughts chill and damp? what ſorrowes for ſins paſt? what diligence for time to come to watch againſt the firſt ſtirrings of ſin would ſuch thoughts beget? It being the property of ſin to divert us rather from looking upon our end, then embolden us to defie it. Lord then make me to know my end, and the meaſure of my dayes, that I may in my own Generation ſerve the will of God, and then fall aſleep as David did, and not as others, who fall aſleep before they have done their work, and put off their Bodies before they have put off their ſins.