This is that dismal conquest we all deplore, that makes us so often cry,
O Adam, _quid fecisti_? I thank God I have not those straight ligaments
or narrow obligations to the world as to dote on life, or be convulsed
and tremble at the name of death. Not that I am insensible of the dread
and horror thereof, or by raking into the bowels of the deceased,
continual sight of anatomies, skeletons, or cadaverous relics, like
vespilloes, or grave-makers, I am become stupid, or have forgot the
apprehension of mortality; but that marshalling all the horrors, and
contemplating the extremities thereof, I find not anything therein able
to daunt the courage of a man, much less a well-resolved Christian. And
therefore am not angry at the error of our first parents, or unwilling to
bear a part of this common fate, and like the best of them to die, that
is, to cease to breathe, to take a farewell of the elements, to be a kind
of nothing for a moment, to be within one instant of a spirit. When I
take a full view and circle of myself, without this reasonable moderator
and equal piece of justice, death, I do conceive myself the miserablest
person extant. Were there not another life that I hope for, all the
vanities of this world should not entreat a moment's breath for me; could
the devil work my belief to imagine I could never die, I would not
outlive that very thought; I have so abject a conceit of this common way
of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I cannot think this
is to be a man, or to live according to the dignity of humanity. In
expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life, yet in my
best meditations do often desire death. I honour any man that contemns
it, nor can I highly love any that is afraid of it: this makes me
naturally love a soldier, and honour those tattered and contemptible
regiments that will die at the command of a sergeant. For a pagan there
may be some motives to be in love with life; but for a Christian to be
amazed at death, I see not how he can escape this dilemma, that he is too
sensible of this life or hopeless of the life to come.
I am naturally bashful, nor hath conversation, age, or travel, been able
to effront or enharden me; yet I have one part of modesty which I have
seldom discovered in another, that is, (to speak truly), I am not so much
afraid of death, as ashamed thereof. It is the very disgrace and
ignominy of our natures, that in a moment can so disfigure us, that our
nearest friends, wife and children stand afraid and start at us. The
birds and beasts of the field, that before in a natural fear obeyed us,
forgetting all allegiance, begin to prey upon us. This very conceit hath
in a tempest disposed and left me willing to be swallowed up in the abyss
of waters; wherein I had perished unseen, unpitied, without wondering
eyes, tears of pity, lectures of mortality, and none had said, _Quantum
mutatus ab illo_! Not that I am ashamed of the anatomy of my parts, or
can accuse nature for playing the bungler in any part of me, or my own
vicious life for contracting any shameful disease upon me, whereby I
might not call myself as wholesome a morsel for the worms as any.