’Tis much in our own Power how to Live, but not at all, when, or how to
Dye: So that our part is only to submit to Fate, and to bid Death Welcome
at what Time, and in what Place or Manner soever it shall please God to
send it. The Reason and the Doctrine of this Fable is Clear, Strong and
Edifying: We are either not to Fear Death at all, or to Fear it every
moment of our Lives; nay, and in all the Forms that ever it appear’d
in, which will put us to such a stand, that we shall not dare even to
Live for fear of Dying. We must neither Eat, nor Drink, nor Breathe,
nor Sleep, if we come once to boggle at Presidents, and at the doing of
those things over again, that ever any Man dy’d of before. There is not
one instant of Life in fine, but may be our Last. Beside, that we Live,
not only in the daily Danger of Death, but in a continual Certainty of
it: So that the Question is not how, or of what this or that Man Dy’d,
but the inevitable Fate and Mortality of Mankind. One Man Dies in his
Bed, another at Sea, a Third in the Field; this Man of one Accident or
Distemper, that of another: And what is there more in all this now,
then so many several ways to the same Journey’s End? There is no such
Preservative against the Fear of Death, as the Conscience of a Good Life;
and if we would have it Easie, we must make the Thought of it Familiar to
us.