of opinion: they will in civility be abused that they may die quietly, and go decently to their execution, and leave their friends indifferently contented, and apt to be comforted; and by that time they are gone awhile, they see that they deceived themselves all their days, and were by others deceived at last. Let us make it our own case: we shall come to that state and period of condition in which we shall be infinitely comforted, if we have lived well; or else be amazed and go off trembling, because we are guilty of heaps of unrepented and unforsaken sins. It may happen we shall not then understand it so, because most men of late ages have been abused with false principles, and they are taught (or they are willing to believe) that a little thing is enough to save them, and that heaven is so cheap a purchase, that it will fall upon them whether they will or no. The misery of it is, they will not suffer themselves to be confuted, till it be too late to recant their error. In the interim, they are impatient to be examined, as a leper is of a comb, and are greedy of the world, as children of raw fruit; and they hate a severe reproof, as they do thorns in their bed; and they love to lay aside religion, as a drunken person does to forget his sorrow; and all the way they dream of fine things, and their dreams prove contrary, and become the hieroglyphics of an eternal sorrow. The daughter

of Polycrates dreamed that her

Herodot. iii. 124.

father was lifted up, and that Jupiter washed him,

and the sun anointed him; but it proved to him but a sad prosperity: for after a long life of constant prosperous successes he was surprised by his enemies, and hanged up till the dew of heaven wet his cheeks, and the sun melted his grease. Such is the condition of those persons who, living either in the despite or in the neglect of religion, lie wallowing in the drunkenness of prosperity or worldly cares: they think themselves to be exalted till the evil day overtakes them; and then they can expound their dream of life to end in a sad and hopeless death. I remember that Cleomenes was

Plut. Cleom. c. 39.

called a god by the Egyptians, because when he was hanged a serpent grew out of his body, and wrapt itself about his head; till the philosophers of Egypt said it was natural that from the marrow of some bodies such productions should arise. And indeed it represents the condition of some men, who being dead are esteemed saints and beatified persons, when their head is encircled with dragons, and is entered into the possession of the Devil, that old serpent and deceiver. For indeed their life was secretly so corrupted, that such serpents fed upon the ruins of the spirit, and the decays of grace and reason. To be cozened in making judgments concerning our final condition is extremely easy; but if we be cozened, we are infinitely miserable.

SECT. III. Of exercising Charity during our whole

Hhis

Life.

E that would die well and happily must in his lifetime according to all his capacities exercise charity; and because religion is the life of the soul, and charity is the Respice quid prodest prælife of religion, the same which gives life to the better part of

sentis temporis ævum; Omne quod est nihil est, præter amare Deum.*

man which never dies, may obtain of God a mercy to the inferior part of man in the day of its dissolution.

1. Charity is the great channel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankind. For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother. This is the rule of our hopes, and the measure of our desire in this world; and in the day of death and judgment the great sentence upon mankind shall be transacted according to our alms, which is the other part of charity. Certain it is that God cannot,

Quod expendi habui,

Quod negavi punior,
Quod servavi perdidi.*

will not, never did reject a char- Quod donavi habeo; itable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers; for God himself is love, and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature: and therefore when upon our death-bed a cloud covers our head, and we are enwrapped with sorrow ;

"These were common epitaphs formerly; see Weever's Funeral Monuments, pp. 401, 748; 581, 607."- Eden.

when we feel the weight of a sickness, and do not feel the refreshing visitations of God's loving-kind-ness; when we have many things to trouble us, and looking round about us we see no comforter; then call to mind what injuries you have forgiven, how apt you were to pardon all affronts and real persecutions, how you embraced peace when it was offered you, how you followed after peace when it ran from you: and when you are weary of one side turn upon the other, and remember the alms that by the grace of God and his assistances you have done, and look up to God, and with the eye of faith behold his coming in the cloud, and pronouncing the sentence of doomsday according to his mercies and thy charity.

2. Charity with its twin-daughters, alms and forgiveness, is especially effectual for the procuring God's mercies in the day and

Tob. 4. 10, & 12. 9. Ecclus. 3.30.

Isa. 1. 17.

Dan. 4. 27. 1 Pet. 4. 8. the manner of our death. Alms deliver from death, said old Tobias; and Alms make an atonement for sins, said the son of Sirach: and so said Daniel, and so say all the wise men of the world. And in this sense also is that of St. Peter, Love covers a multitude of sins; and St. Clement in his ἔχεις διὰ τῶν χειρῶν σου, Constitutions gives this counsel: δός, ἵνα ἐργάσῃ εἰς λύτρωσιν ἁμαρτιῶν σου· If you have anything in your ἐλεημοσύναις γὰρ καὶ πίστεσιν ἀποκαθαίρονται hands, give it, that it may work ἁμαρτίαι. to the remission of thy sins. For

* Lib. vii. c. 12. Ἐὰν

by faith and alms sins are purged. The same also

Adv. Avar. Lib. ii.

is the counsel of Salvian, who wonders that men who are guilty of great and many sins will not work out their pardon by alms and mercy. But this also must be added out of the words of Lactantius, who makes this rule complete and useful: "But think not, because sins are taken away by alms, that by thy money thou mayest purchase a license to sin. For sins are abolished, if because thou hast sinned thou givest to God, that is, to God's poor servants, and his indigent necessitous creatures: but if thou sinnest upon confidence of giving, thy sins are not abolished. For God desires infinitely that men should be purged from their sins, and therefore commands nihil aliud est quam profiteri us to repent. But to repent peccaturum. is nothing else but to profess

Agere autem pœnitentiam

et affirmare se non ulterius

Lect. Inst. vi. 13.

and affirm (that is, to purpose, and to make good that purpose) that they will sin no more."

Now alms are therefore effective to the abolition and pardon of our sins, because they are preparatory to, and impetratory of, the grace of repentance, and are fruits of repentance : *De Pœnit. Hom. vii. 6. and therefore *St. Chrysostom

affirms, that repentance without alms is dead, and without wings, and can never soar upwards to the element of love. But because they are a part of repentance, and hugely pleasing to Almighty God, therefore they deliver us from the evils of an unhappy and accursed death: for so Christ delivered