9. *_Penitens_ was a busy, notable tradesman, and very prosperous in his dealings, but died in the _thirty-fifth_ year of his age.
A little before his death, when the doctors had given him over, some of his neighbours came to see him; at which time he spoke thus to them.
I see, my friends, the tender concern you have for me, by the grief that appears in your countenances; and I know the thoughts that you have about me. You think how melancholy a case it is, to see so young a man, and in such flourishing business, delivered up to death. And perhaps, had I visited any of you in my condition, I should have had the same thoughts of you.
But now, my friends, my thoughts are no more like your thoughts, than my condition is like yours.
It is no trouble to me now to think, that I am to die young, or before I have raised an estate.
These things are now sunk into such mere _nothings_, that I have no name little enough to call them by. For if in a few days, or hours, I am to leave this carcase to be buried in the earth, and to find myself either for ever happy in the favour of God, or eternally separated from all light and peace. Can any words sufficiently express the littleness of every thing else?
Is there any dream like the dream of life, which amuses us with the disregard of these things? Is there any folly like the folly of our manly state, which is too _wise_ and _busy_ to be at leisure for these reflections?
10. When we consider death as a misery, we only think of it as a miserable separation from the enjoyments of this life. We seldom mourn over an old man that dies rich; but we lament the young, that are taken away in the progress of their fortune. You yourselves look upon me with pity, not that I am going unprepared to meet the Judge of quick and dead, but that I am to leave a prosperous trade in the flower of my life.
This is the wisdom of our manly thoughts: And yet what folly of the silliest children is so great as this?
For what is there miserable in death, but the consequences of it? When a man is dead, what does any thing signify to him, but the state he is then in?
Our poor friend _Lepidus_ died, you know, as he was dressing himself for a _feast_. Do you think it is now part of his trouble, that he did not live till that entertainment was over? _Feasts_, and _business_, and pleasures, and _enjoyments_, seem great things to us, whilst we think of nothing else; but as soon as we add death to them, they all sink into an equal littleness; and the soul, that is separated from the body, no more laments the loss of business, than the losing of a _feast_.
If I am now going into the joys of God, could there be any reason to grieve, that this happened to me before I was forty years of age? Could it be a sad thing to go to heaven, before I had made a few more _bargains_, or stood a little longer behind a _counter_?
And if I am to go amongst lost spirits, could there be any reason to be content, that this did not happen to me till I was old, and full of riches? If good angels were ready to receive my soul, could it be any grief to me, that I was dying upon a _poor bed_ in a _garret_?
And if God has delivered me up to evil spirits, to be dragged by them to places of torment, could it be any comfort to me, that they found me upon a _bed of state_?
11. When you are as near death as I am, you will know, that all the different states of life, whether of youth or age, riches or poverty, greatness or meanness, signify no more to you, than whether you die in a _poor_ or _stately_ apartment.
The greatness of those things which follow death, makes all that go before it sink into nothing.
Now that everlasting happiness or misery is come so near, all the enjoyments and prosperities of life seem as vain and insignificant, and to have no more to do with my happiness than the cloaths I wore before I could speak.
But, my friends, how am I surprized, that I have not always had these thoughts? For what is there in the terrors of death, in the vanities of life, or the necessities of piety, but what I might have as easily and fully seen in any part of my life?
What a strange thing is it, that a little _health_, or the poor business of a _shop_, should keep us so senseless of these great things that are coming so fast upon us!