SECT. II.

Of daily Examination of our Actions in the whole Course of our Health, preparatory to our Death-bed.

E that will die well and happily must dress his Soul by a diligent and frequent scrutiny: He must perfectly understand and watch the state of his Soul; he must set his house in order before he be fit to die. And for this there is great reason, and great neceffity.

Reafons for a daily Examination.

1. For, if we confider the disorders of every day, the multitude of impertinent words, the great portions of time spent in vanity, the daily omiffions of duty, the coldness of our Prayers, the indifference of our spirit in holy things, the uncertainty of our fecret purposes, our infinite deceptions and hypocrifies, fometimes not known, very often not observed by ourselves, our want of Charity, our not knowing in how many degrees of actions and purpose every virtue is to be exercised, the fecret adherencies of pride, and too forward complacency in our best actions, our failings in all our relations, the niceties of difference between fome virtues and fome vices, the secret undiscernible paffages from lawful to unlawful in the first instances of change, the perpetual mistakings of permiffions for duty, and licentious practices for permiffions, our daily abufing the liberty that God gives us, our unfuspected fins in the managing a course of life certainly lawful, our little

greediness in eating, our surprises in the proportions in our drinkings, our too great freedoms and fondneffes in lawful loves, our aptnefs for things fenfual, and our deadness and tediousness of spirit in spiritual employments befides infinite variety of cafes of conscience that do occur in the life of every man, and in all intercourses of every life, and that the productions of fin are numerous and increasing, like the families of the Northern people, or the genealogies of the first Patriarchs of the world: from all this we shall find, that the computations of a man's life are bufy as the Tables of Sines and Tangents, and intricate as the accounts of Eastern Merchants: and therefore it were but reason we should fum up our accounts at the foot of every page, I mean, that we call ourselves to fcrutiny 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 fums, and remember nothing but clamorous and crying fins, and never confider concerning particulars, or forget very many; or if we could confider all that we ought, we must needs be confounded with the multitude and variety. But if we obferve all the little paffages of our life, and reduce them into the order of accounts and accusations, we shall find them multiply fo faft, that it will not only appear to be an ease to the accounts of our Death-bed, but by the inftrument of shame will restrain the inundation of evils; it being a thing intolerable to human modefty, to see fins increase so fast, and virtues grow up fo flow; to fee every day stained with the spots of leprofy, or sprinkled with the marks of a leffer evil.

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3. It is not intended we should take accounts of our lives only to be thought religious, but that we see our evil and amend it, that we dash our fins 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 obferve his own growth in Grace, but by accounting feldomer returns of fin, and a more frequent victory over temptations; concerning which every man makes his obfervations according as he makes his inquiries and fearch after himself. In order to this it was that Saint Paul wrote before receiving the Holy Sacrament, Let a man examine himself, and fo let him eat. This precept was given in those days when they communicated every day, and therefore a daily examination also was intended.

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, fhall be called to scrutiny and severe judgment: infomuch that it was a great truth which one faid, Woe be to the most innocent life, if God should search into it without mixtures of mercy. And therefore we are here to follow Saint 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; and by examining our actions, and condemning the Criminal, by being Affeffors in God's Tribunal, at least we shall obtain the favour of the Court. 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.

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5. This advice was fo reasonable and proper an inftrument of virtue, that it was taught even to the Scholars of Pythagoras by their Master: Let not fleep feize upon the Regions of your fenfes, before you have three times recalled the converfation and accidents of the day:' Examine what you have committed against the Divine Law, what you have omitted of your duty, and in what you have made use of the Divine grace to the purposes of virtue and religion; joining the Judge Reafon to the Legiflative mind or Confcience, that God may reign there as a Law-giver and a Judge. Then Christ's Kingdom is fet up in our hearts; then we always live in the eye of our Judge, and live by the measures of Reafon, Religion, and fober counfels.

The Benefits we shall receive by practifing this advice, in order to a bleffed Death, will also add to the account of Reason and fair inducements.

The Benefits of this Exercife.

1. By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great fin, and prevent its arrival to become habitual. For [to examine] we suppose to be a relative duty, and. inftrumental to something else. We examine ourselves, that we may find out our failings and cure them: and therefore if we use our remedy when the wound is fresh and bleeding, we shall find the cure more certain and less painful. For fo a Taper, when its crown of flame is newly blown off, retains a nature fo fymbolical to light, that it will with greediness re-inkindle and fnatch a from the neighbour fire. So is the Soul of Man,

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when it is newly fallen into fin; although God be angry with it, and the state of God's favour and its own graciousness is interrupted, yet the habit is not naturally changed; and ftill God leaves fome roots of virtue standing, and the man is modest, or apt to be made ashamed, and he is not grown a bold finner : but if he sleeps on it, and returns again to the same fin, and by degrees grows in love with it, and gets the custom, and the strangeness of it taken away, then it is his Master, and is swelled into an heap, and is abetted by use, and corroborated by newly-entertained principles, and is infinuated into his nature, and hath poffeffed his affections, and tainted the will and understanding: and by this time a man is in the state of a decaying Merchant, his accounts are so great, and fo intricate, and fo much in arrear, that to examine it will be but to represent the particulars of his calamity, therefore they think it better to pull the napkin before their eyes, than to stare upon the circumstances of their death.

2. A daily or frequent examination of the parts of our life will interrupt the proceeding and hinder the journey of little fins into an heap. For many days do not pass the best persons in which they have not many idle words or vainer thoughts to fully the fair whiteness of their fouls: fome indifcreet paffions of trifling purposes, some impertinent discontents or unhandsome usages of their own person of their dearest Relatives. And though God is not extreme to mark what is done amifs, and therefore puts thefe upon the accounts of his mercy, and the title of the Cross; yet in two cases these little fins combine and cluster; and we know that grapes were once in fo great a