Classic Audiobook Collection - The Troubled Man's Medicine by William Hugh ~ Full Audiobook [religion]

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

The Troubled Man's Medicine by William Hugh audiobook. Genre: religion Written in the midst of England's Reformation and shaped by pastoral urgency, The Troubled Man's Medicine is William Hugh's practical guide for anyone facing sickness, loss, fear, or hard fortune. Framed as counsel originally composed for an ailing friend, the book sets out to give troubled readers a steadying remedy: not a physical cure, but a disciplined way to endure adversity with patience, gratitude, and faith. Across two parts, Hugh gathers Scripture, moral reasoning, and vivid examples to challenge the comforts of wealth, confront the realities of poverty and affliction, and press the reader toward prayer and trust when circumstances feel unbearable. The second part turns even more directly to the most daunting trial of all, teaching the listener how to approach death without panic, to examine the heart honestly, and to seek consolation that does not collapse when the body weakens. Clear, exhortative, and intimate in tone, Hugh's work aims to transform suffering into spiritual steadiness, offering a companionable voice for dark hours and a roadmap for courage when the end feels near. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:34:14) Chapter 02 (00:51:02) Chapter 03 (01:24:37) Chapter 04 (01:27:14) Chapter 05 (02:31:32) Chapter 06 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the troubled man's medicine by William Hugh. The results of abundance and wealth, and those of poverty and adverse fortune, should cause us to endure the latter with thanksgiving. Book one, to comfort a man being in trouble, adversity or sickness. Most gentle friend, Urban, I plainly perceive, not so much by your letters as by the report of other men, that you are not joyful, neither of a quiet mind but rather unquieted, sad and pensive in that fortune, which in her inconstancy, as you say, only is constant,

doth not, according to her old tenure, favour you, in that the world which, for the most part, is not theirs that are of God, good and virtuous, does not, as it has done, smile upon you. As all things are common among them which are trusty and faithful friends, so doubtless are the very affections of the mind, which, at length is well known of me, not by hearing but by proof, not by reading but by experience. For as your joyful and prosperous state made me to rejoice, so your adverse fortune and sadness causes me likewise to be sad. Wherefore it shall be expedient and my part to find some way or means,

whereby this heaviness, wherewith both our minds, as yet are equally occupied, may be set aside, or at least restrained. To increase your substance with cattle, gold, or silver my mind is willing, but my power is impotent. To teach you how these things may be procured I have not learned. But that medicine only which learned men have counted most present to a sick and sorrowful heart, I will endear, though peradventure, not skillfully yet friendly to minister. The medicine is brotherly counsel and friendly communication. This saith Plutarch writing to Apollonius is, to a sick mind, the best physician.

Words and voices, saith Horace in his epistles, do mitigate, grief and put away the greatest part of sorrow. Surely I think that as the diseases of the body are healed by confections made of herbs and other things proceeding out of the apothecary's shop, so the diseases of the mind are only to be cured with comfortable and unfeigned words flowing out of a friendly and faithful heart. Isocrates in his oration of peace, saith, quote, I would, ye should chiefly know that whereas many sundry remedies are found of the physicians against the sickness and maladies of the body, against the disease of the mind, there is none saving friendly words, end quote.

Wherefore Apollo, a counter-chief and of the physicians in manner the god in Ovid, complains grievously that the disease of his mind could be cured with no herbs, and that the arts which did profit every man could not refrain his troubulous affection. I would wish the muses were so favourable unto me that I might gather such herbs in their gardens, that would well purge your mind of this heaviness, as it is not to be approved in any man who has partaker of reason, but especially in a man of Christ's religion, albeit alas, so great is the blindness of our foolish nature, we think those things which are not lamentable are to be lamented, and those which are not horrible in reality are greatly to be feared.

In this point I may compare us to unwise children, which vehemently fear them that use evil-favoured vices, thinking that they are spirits, devils and enemies of their health, whereas if they had the wit boldly to pull off the visors, they should see hidden under them gentle countenances and faces of their friends, kinsmen, or, peradventure, most loving fathers. Or else we may be justly likened unto raging Ajax, who, in his fury and madness, used the hogs which God had prepared for his sustenance and wholesome nourishment, as though they had been his deadly enemies and ordained to his utter destruction. What childishness or worse than madness is it to bewail, and not to take in good worth, adversity, misfortune, or poverty, which happen to us not by chance, but by the providence and will of our heavenly father, who worketh everything for the best towards them that love him,

as St. Paul saith to the Romans, chapter 8, who formeth and fashioneth us according to his own will, who maketh us rich and poor, sick and whole, fortunate and miserable, at his pleasure, and all for our good, profit and advantage. Lest thou be deceived, I would not have thee imitate the common sort, ascribing worldly miseries to the stars, to fate and fortune, playing therein the part of the dog which bites the stone that is holed at him, not blaming the holler thereof, but rather imitate the example of David, who blamed not Shime, railing at him outrageously, but imputed thee despites unto the Lord, by whom he was thought to be sent, and attributed them with thanks

to God, of whom by the testimonious scripture, cometh both death and life, riches and poverty good and evil. This witnesseth the psalmist, saying, The Lord doth advance and suppress, The Lord maketh rich and eke the poor. But thou wilt say, peradventure, If we were certain that our misfortunes and miseries were sent unto Christian men by God,

they would be much more tolerable, but when we see our cattle die by stinging of serpents Or by contagion, from which they might have been safe If they had been diligently observed, or when we fall into diseases, whereof we might have been clear, if unwholesome meats and diet infected places or persons had been avoided, or when we are robbed or suffer other losses by negligence of our servants, or evil will of our neighbours, or where we see that we might have been in good case,

if this chance or that chance had been escaped, if this thing or that thing had not been done. Finally, when we see ourselves by such or like chances as I have spoken of come to misery, we think it rather to be imputed to evil fortune than to the hand of God, by the same means seeking or working our welfare. Truly, whosoever is of this opinion in my judgment seems to be ignorant that God is provident and careful for men. Also, to lack the knowledge of his most holy and wholesome scriptures. In Matthew 10 it is written that a sparrow, which is a bird of small estimation, cannot fall

to the ground without our heavenly father, neither a hair of a man's head. And shall we, which are the sheep of his pasture, his people and his sons, whom he regardeth a thousand times more than the sparrows, think that the loss of those things which we have enjoyed, be they riches, health, or any other worldly things, either the miss of them which we have desired, can chance without his will and godly providence? Who so foolish has to think that while God regards the hairs of our heads, which are neither greatly profitable nor necessary, he will contem and neglect things which pertain to the sustaining and necessity of the whole body? Who knows not that Job's substance decayed by diverse chances as by tempests and thunders, by thieves and robbers, his children destroyed by the falling of a house? Which things to the infidow would have seemed to bear chance, and not afflicted by any godly

power. Yet, indeed, as it is manifest in the history, these were nothing else but means or instruments which the Lord used to the performance of his will. Holy Job, of all Christian men, much to be followed, after he had lost all, and was brought to extreme misery, did not accuse his carpenters for building of a ruinous house. Neither did he cry out upon fortune, as the unfaithful do, nor yet found fault at his herdsmen, in that they drove not his cattle diligently into the safe stables, but, considering the true cause of his calamities and wretchedness, said, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall go hence. The Lord did give me wealth, and the Lord hath taken it away. As it pleased the Lord, so it is done, his name be blessed.

David in his Psalms evidently shows that our calamities come none otherwise, but by the will and permission of God, which trieth us as the gold is tried in the fiery furnace, being never the worse, therefore, but better and purer. Thou saith he, O Lord, has proved us, and as silver is wont from fire, thou hast examined us, thou hast brought us into snares and laid tribulations upon our backs. Thou hast made men our enemies, and set them in our necks, we have passed by fire and water. Jeremiah, in chapter three of his lamentations, confirms this, pronouncing such words, who saith that it should be done, the Lord not commanding, do not good and evil proceed from the mouth of the highest. The Gentiles, as blind as they were, of this thing, were not altogether ignorant.

The Greek poet Hesiod asks, what is the cause that some men are vile, some noble, some rich, other some poor? He maketh answer himself, and saith, the will of the mighty God, which, saying, I would wish to be as well-believed of Christian men, as it was truly spoken by a blind heathen, seeing, therefore, that misfortunes, lack, or loss of riches, health, and such things come not rashly, but by the providence of our celestial father. Why should we not take them well, and after the example of Job, blessing his name and giving him thanks for them? Especially considering that adversities, chancing to them which love the Lord, are not tokens of his anger, neither arguments that he casteth us off, but of a fatherly love, rather, and a friendly

care. Thou shalt perceive, if thou read diligently the holy histories, that the more part of those whom God hath chosen to be of his little flock, have been wretched in the respect of the world, and miserable, tasked and turmoil with manifold misfortunes, distracted and unquieted with continual sorrows. Let Elijah the prophet be for an example whom God loved so well that he vouched safe to communicate his counsel and mysteries unto him. What quietness I pray you, or wealth, what riches or surety had he, for all the friendship that was betwixt God and him, truly so much wealth that he had never had.

house to put his head in. Such plenty of meat and drink that if the ravens and the angel had not fed him, he had perished with hunger. Such quietness that could not tell which way to turn him, nor whither to flee from the persecution of Ahab, Baal's priests, and cruel Jezebel, such joy in this world that he desired off to die before he died. What should I speak of Elisha, Jeremiah, and in short of the greatest part of God's prophets which were ever wrapped in woe and deadly anguish, the world seldom or never ministering any cause of gladness, comfort, or solace. I will not speak of the apostles who, besides that they were poor and beggarly all the days of their life, for God's word were troubled, threatened, mocked, scourged, and, at the last, to the sight of men,

miserably died. Our Master Christ, the Son of God, would be an abject among the people, and subject to afflictions innumerable, showing thereby that neither his kingdom nor the kingdom of those who are of his household is in this world. He saith to his apostles, Because he are not of the world, the world doth hate you, John 15, which doubtless loves and chiefly favours them that are her own children and children of darkness, regarding more this temporal life than the life which is promised to them that cleave wholly to the Lord our God.

Scripture, not dissembling with us, but telling plainly where to we should cleave, teachers that they which are of God shall, as in the stead of a recognizance, self-reflictions, adversities, and troubles. All they that will live virtuously in Christ shall be afflicted. To Timothy 3. Jeremiah, speaking in the person of God, chapter 25, saith, in the city wherein my name is invocated, I will begin to punish. As for you, meaning the wicked, ye shall be as innocence and not touched.

And the time is that judgment must begin with the house of God, one Peter four. Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow. his footsteps. Oh, that we might have seen the kind heart of Christ, when he was punished, hanged, and crucified, not for his own cause but for ours, how willingly he suffered, giving us an example that we might follow his footsteps. Doubtless we should, with more courage and fortitude, for our own sakes, suffer troubles than we do. Lo, we that live are mortified for Christ, that the life of Christ might appear in our carnal bodies, two Corinthians four, if any man saith Christ will come after me, let him forsake himself, take his cross on his back,

and follow me. For otherwise he's not meat for me. Every member, doubt ye not, of Christ's body shall have the cross, either of poverty or persecution, sickness or imprisonment, injuries, or of slanders, or of like things. Happy is he that followeth Christ manfully and faileth not, for he at length shall be eased of his heavy burden. He at length shall find perpetual rest and eternal quietness. We must be here, not as inhabitants and home-dwellers, but as Paul saith, as strangers. Not as strangers only, but, after the mind of Job, as painful soldiers, appointed of our Captain Christ to fight against the devil, the world, flesh, and sin. In the which fight, except we behave ourselves lawfully and strongly, by the sentence of Scripture, we shall not be crowned.

Let us, therefore, arm ourselves with the weapons prescribed by St. Paul, under the Ephesians and other places of Scripture to Christ's soldiers, and with a bold courage, contend the darts of the devil and worldly miseries, endeavoring to overthrow our minds and weaken our faith towards God, for our captain with a glorious victory shall gloriously deliver us. In worldly wars there are, and have been, many of courage, not unlike to Jason, Hercules, and Theseus, who covet to enterprise upon dangerous places and perilous enemies, whereby they may have, by their manful conflict, praise, or a gallant of bay boughs, honour, or temporal promotions, and shall we, whose reward shall be not a garland made of green boughs that lightly withereth,

but a crown of glory that ever shall flourish, not temporal performance which endure not, but inheritance in heaven that shall be continual, shall we be loath stoutly to withstand the world? It chances oft that the presence of one whom a man lightly loves shall move him to contend, and find fiercely with his adversary little or nothing regarding his life, but rather careful, lest with shame, he take a foil in her presence whom he loves, and shall the presence of our spouse Christ, whose eyes continually look on the hearts and minds, nothing move us. For a man to have taken a foil before his earthly love had been no loss of body nor soul,

but a little shame, and that not durable, but to take a foil of poverty, miseries, sickness, losses, lack, or other misfortunes, and not to keep our minds still above them, with contempt of their assaults, besides that the presence of God shall shame us, not the body, but the soul, except the grace of God after raises us, shall utterly perish. Look, therefore, that we fight merrily and boldly, despising all misfortunes that hurt or threaten hurt to our mortal bodies. But either I am deceived, or I hear you saying, sir, it is quickly spoken, but it is not so lightly done. It is hard, and by the sentence of philosophers, against nature, for men to be content with those things which hold and damage their bodies, and as you require us with contempt to fight against

them, doubtless it is very hard, and for our strength and power a thing impossible. What then, shall we play the part of demosthenes, cast away our weapons and despair? No, not so, but mistrusting our own power, let us flee to God as unto a holy anchor and safe refuge, desiring help of him who by promise made shall aid, assist, and defend us. Call on me, saith he, in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee. The Lord is nigh to all them that are of a troubled heart and fear him. In thine infirmity despise not the Lord, but pray unto him, and he shall heal thee, as it is written in the book of Ecclesiasticus.

There is no doubt, therefore, but we shall have his help if we faithfully call for it, and in him that comforteth, if the words of Paul are true we shall be able to do all things and nothing shall be impossible for us, being faithful. Therefore, let us say with Hezekiah, 2 Chronicles 32, play we the men and comfort ourselves, for the Lord is with us, our helper, and fighteth for us. The Lord, as he saith in 2 Samuel 22, is our rock and our strength, our saviour and refuge, our buckler, our advancer, and the horn of our health. Let us then not fear nor cease constantly to withstand the cruel enforcements of adversity, ever keeping our minds and faith towards God unwounded, unharmed, and not discouraged by them,

thinking still that they ascend of God, who by infirmity worketh strength, by ignominy glory, by poverty, perpetual riches, by death, life, who doth wound and heal, strikeeth and makeeth whole, as it is in the Psalms, and for none other end, but, as they were sent to Job to exercise and prove us, that his glory may appear in us, and that we may avoid the greater evils, sin, and thralddom to the devil and hell. The afflictions, believe me, that we count evils encumbering our flesh are nothing in respect of those evils,

where with the ungodly are encumbered, living in infidelity and sin under the ire of God, under the power of the devil, being servants to iniquity, to whom saith the Lord is no peace, whose minds and conscience, as Isaiah writes, are ever like to a fervent sea that cannot rest, whose floods redound to conculcation and mourning. That these greater, I say, and more heinous evils may be avoided, these little, or rather not at all to be esteemed evils, are inflicted of God, also that we may at length, after all

our strife, with our Captain Christ, royally triumph. If we would well consider for what purpose God hath created us, we should bear with afflictions and adverse fortune much more than we do. All things in this world are made to serve man, the sheep to clothe him, the ox to feed him, the horse to carry him, the herbs and trees, some to nourish him, some to cure him, being diseased, some to deliver him, the sun and moon to give him light. So, in conclusion, all other things under heaven, in one duty or other, serve man. And as all these things were made to serve man, so man was made to serve God in holiness and pureness of life, and to this end, doubtless, poverty with other afflictions doth much more conduce than wealth or carnal quietness.

In this respect we ought to wish and thank God for adversity rather than for wealth. The one causes us to forget him, the other to remember him, the one to despise him, the other to call upon him and worship him. The one provokes to incontinency and naughtiness, the other to temperance and soberness. The one calleth us to all kinds of vice, the other to virtue and pureness of life. What, I pray you, made David an adulterer and cruel murderer about wealth and quietness. Jeroboam, brought to wealth and prosperous state, became a wicked and a shameful idolater. O perilous abundance of goods and satiety of meats and quietness, which destroyed with so many souls, those goodly cities, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Nothing else made Uzziah proud, and by reason thereof to be stricken with leprosy, but the before-named. What made the young man covetous and loathed? to follow Christ when he was bid, but worldly wealth, which he then enjoyed. You see in the gospel how the men that were bidden to the king's supper could not come, worldly riches and busyness keeping them back. They which came and filled up the place at the feast were wretched, sick, and lame beggars. Christ bewailed Jerusalem because that by her wealthiness and abundance of things she forgot his visitation.

What else brought the rich glutton to forget God, himself, and his mortality, to incontinency, drunkenness, gluttony, and at the last to the place where is mourning and gnashing of teeth, but wealth, prosperity, and worldly quietness. Thus you see that the effects of riches and wealth are nothing else for the most part, but murder, adultery, drunkenness, idolatry, covetousness, gluttony, contempt of God, pride and incontinency. What Christian man will not fear, chiefly considering the fragility of our nature, which, as it is written in Genesis even from our young age,

is ever inclined to the worst, to possess much riches, or to enjoy worldly wealth, seeing that they draw men so entirely from God, so far into vice and mischief. If we are sick in body, having our wits, we will not touch those meats, which we think may move or increase our disease, though they are ever so dainty or precious, and shall we not fear to wallow in worldly wealth, which to our souls is so dangerous that nothing can be more pernicious? We read of some heathen philosophers, of which sort was biased. who gave and cast away their goods whereby they might more quietly study for the knowledge of things. Crates was glad of his shipwreck and poverty,

an exagoras of his imprisonment, Plato, of his exile from the king's court, because their minds were more quiet thereby and fitted for the study of philosophy. And shall we that our Christian men think the lack or loss of worldly things is to be lamented, which are, or may be, the cause of quietness of conscience, and of a mind more fitted for the serving of God, where too we were created. But you will say, peradventure, What, sir, you speak as though men,

might not both be wealthy and virtuous. No you not, that St. Paul said, Philippians four, that he might suffer penury or lawfully have abundance. Moreover, that he will have the rich men commanded One Timothy six not to cast away their riches, neither to cease honestly to procure them, but that they put no trust in them. Have you not also learnt by the old,

testament that Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, with diverse others, had the world at will, and yet were godly, and as far as we can judge, are now in the hand of God where the souls of just men are. Indeed, I grant that men may lawfully procure riches and enjoy the same, so that they do it not at the impulse of avarice or ambition, nor putting any trust in them. I confess also that some men have been, are, and shall be both wealthy and virtuous, else, God forbid, but in my judgment it is but one amongst many. It is a very rare thing and wonderful heart, yea so hard, that Christ who cannot lie, saith. Easier it is for a camel to enter through a needles-eye than for a rich man to enter into the

kingdom of heaven. We must, saith scripture, enter into the kingdom of God by many tribulations, of which our void the wealthy man is, at least as such, as seem to be sent of God, who seeth not. The way of heaven is straight, sharp and painful, Matthew 7. The way of the wealthy man is large, soft and pleasant. I think that St. James speaking the words, James 5, which I will repeat, thought the more part of rich and wealthy men be the children of the world and carnal. Go too, you rich men, say if he weep and howl-like dogs, in the wretchedness that shall come upon you, your riches are putrified and your precious garments eaten of the moths, your gold and silver is rusty and the russie.

of it shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh like as it were fire. You have laid up wrath for yourselves against the last days. You have eaten and drunk upon the oath and nourished your hearts with pleasures. I dare to say, having respect to the divine wisdom of St. James, to the histories of old time and to the rich men that are in our time, whose lives commonly, if a wise man apply to the rule of the gospel, shall seem so little to agree unto it that St. James thought very few rich men should escape, whom this saying shall not touch. St. Paul, knowing the nature of wealth and riches, willeth us, having nourishment, and wherewith we may be clothed, to be content, for they that will be made rich fall into temptation,

into the snare of the devil, into many desires, noisome and unprofitable, which drown men in the sea of death and perdition, one Timothy six. Seeing, therefore, it is a hard thing for the rich, worldly, quiet, and wealthy men to be saved, and that but a few of them, as it should seem, to enter into God's kingdom, methinks we Christians have no great cause to be sorry for any temporal things lost, nor to covet those which we have not yet possessed. But saying with the psalmist, it is good for me, O Lord, that thou hast humbled me, said naught by them which rather entice us into sin and perdition. If Hoceles had feared that he should have been cast away with a shirt made by woman's hand, he would never have worn shirt so long as he had lived, and shall not we

fear to be wrapped in worldly wealth, which in manner is no less dangerous for our souls, than was Degener's shirt for Hercules's body. As we have partly considered the abundance of things and wealth, so we will consider poverty also and adverse fortune, whose works and effects, if they are conferred together, shall be found the contrary. For, as is said before, that worldly success draws men from God and allures them to vice, the devil and sin, so adverse fortune retaining us commonly, in unlawful. honest behaviour, and in the favour of God, stops up the windows and doors which lead men

unto wickedness and God's displeasure. It stops up the windows to adultery, to the contempt of God and pride. Finally, in a manner to all those vices whereunto they were set wide open by wealth. If he desire to have a proof, read scripture, mark well the manner of David's life, who, so long as he was poor, tossed with afflictions, troubled with the persecutions of Saul, beset on every side with dangers, driven from place to place, from post to pillar, sustaining hunger and cold, having few or no friends, lodging or substance, lived in the fear of God, loving him, calling upon him night and day, trusting him and devoid of all vices. Jeroboam, so long as he was but a poor man, nor yet advanced to his kingdom, lived in the

laws of God without reprehension. But upon what vices these two stumbled, after they came to wealth you heard before. Thus you see how wealth lay a blocks in the way that leadeth to heaven, adversity in the way that leadeth to fearful damnation. Wherefore, our loving father, ever correcting the children whom he loveth, giveth adversity as the better of these two, for the most part to his elect, as a medicine to them which have offended, lest they fall again, to them which have not greatly trespassed, albeit every man is a sinner and deserveth evil, as a medicine preservative, lest they should slide. Which medicine, though it seemed to us, at the first more bitter than gorge,

all, yet if we flavour it with the sweetness of his commandments and pleasant promises, we shall find it more delicious than the honeycomb. It is written Proverbs 3, My dear son, thou shalt not neglect the correction of the Lord, neither shall thou be discouraged when thou art reproved, whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, the child which he receiveth he scourgeth. If ye suffer chastisement, God doth offer himself to you, as unto his children. What child is there but his father chastiseth him? By this scripture, you may see that our adversities and afflictions are not tokens of God's displeasure towards us,

but of his goodwill and love, wherefore they ought not to discourage but rather encourage us, not to make us sad but merry, not sorrowful but joyful, in that he of goodness will vouchsafe to take us as his children to subdue our flesh to strengthen our souls. By troubles, as St. Paul saith, he was strengthened to vanquish our enemies, two Corinthians twelve, whereby we shall be meet at the last to have with him the quietness which his son Jesus Christ, with the effusion of his blood, bought for us, where shall be no death, no wailing, no weariness, no sickness, no hunger, no thirst, no chafing, no corruption, no necessity, no sorrows. Let us therefore suffer willingly and gladly the correction of our heavenly father and afflictions,

even as his only son did, whom he spared not but permitted to be scourged, to abide hunger and cold, to be in worst case for long. than the foxes in the field, or the birds of the air, and at length to suffer a most ignominious death. Let us, in all our afflictions, comfort ourselves with the example of him, remembering that the disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord, neither yet the inferior members above their head. Our head is Christ, in that he hath not abhorred afflictions, they may not be in any case disdained of us. I marvel that we disdain them, that we should have great pleasure and delight in. We would be wonderfully well content to handle the table, at the which Christ did

sit, the garments or vestures he used, or other-like relics as being consecrated with his holy touching. Much better me things, we ought to be a paid to handle afflictions as relics, which, besides that they were oft hallowed by his most holy touching. He also commanded to be fingered of us, especially seeing that more rewards and merits come by the handling of them than by the aforenamed. Do we not disdain them, I say, but rather, as Paul willeth, let us glory in our troubles, for trouble worketh patience, patience worketh proof, proof worketh hope, which shall not confound us, Romans 5. I will not yet cease to speak more of the precepts of God as touching this point.

Son, thou coming to the service of God, prepare thyself to temptation, sustain the sustenations of the Lord, and be joined unto him, sustain whereby, at the last, thy life may be increased. Ecclesiastes seven. Thus he see that the children of God are commanded still to bend themselves to tenation and adversity, which follows them no otherwise than the shadow followeth the body. Now mark the end that is promised to our afflictions if we bear them as we ought to do. Truly I say unto you, saith Christ to his friends, you shall weep and lament. They which are of the world shall joy, you shall be sorry. But this sorrow of yours shall be turned into solace, John 16. I do think that the afflictions which we suffer here are nothing in comparison of

the glory which we shall have in the world to come. Romans 8. Our exceeding tribulation, which is for a moment and light, prepareth an exceeding and an eternal weight of glory unto us, while we look not on the things which are seen but on the things which are not seen are temporal, but things which are not seen our eternal, two Corinthians four, although the earthly house of this our habitation, Paul meaneth the body, be corrupted. We know that we shall have a building of God, a house not made with man's hand, but everlasting in heaven, two grandin's five. Who, hearing these promises, is so stony-hearted that he will not take in good part whatsoever shall befall, be it ever so heinous, horrible and perilous to his mortal members. Few men will refuse to suffer for the space of a whole year

that the physician's tortures. Now his veins to be cut, now painfully to be bathed, now to take a most bitter medicine, otherwise to fast and to be punished many other ways, then his body, which is mortal after the sorrows being delivered off his sickness may joy for a time. Much less a Christian heart should be loath to sustain troubles, misfortune, and miseries here for a while, that the soul which is immortal may after joy forever, with joys, not such as the poet Pindar attributes unto happy souls, piping, playing, or singing, pleasant gardens, gorgeous houses, and goodly spectacles,

playing at dice, tennis, or tables, or other like, but such as neither ear hath heard as St. Paul witnesses, nor I hath seen with such joys as faith taketh not, hope toucheth not, charity apprehendeth not, they pass all desires and wishes, gotten they may be, rightly esteemed they cannot be. Blessed is that man, saithes, St. James, who suffereth temptation and trouble, for after his proof he shall receive the crown which

God hath promised to them which love him. Every castigation seemeth to have no pleasure, but rather grief, albeit, at the last, it shall give a quiet fruit of righteousness to them which have been troubled by it. Hebrews 12, who, I say, hearing these comfortable promises, will not joyfully say with St. Paul, what thing in the world shall separate us from the love of God, shall trouble or persecution, shall nakedness or dangers, shall the sword or hunger? As who say, none of all these, neither death, nor life, angels, nor princes, things that are present, neither that are to come, height, strength, nor depth, shall separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 8. But to conclude, seeing that poverty, troubles, miseries, and afflictions

are vanquishers of vice, and maintainers of virtue, seeing that they are appointed of God our father to them that love him, and not as tyrannical torments, but as fatherly corrections and friendly medicines, also that God hath promised to those who patiently bear them, perpetual quietness, joy, and endless solace, why should we not with Thanksgiving be very glad of them? If we are otherwise affected, let us not think the contrary, but we are disposed much like unto those who labour of violent argues, whose true taste being taken from them by the reason of their disease they cannot endure with such meats as are most wholesome and conducible to their health, but desire those which make most against them and increase their sickness.

Wherefore, if we chance so to feel ourselves, cease we not to solicit the Lord with prayers, that he will vouchsafe to take this spiritual argue from us, whereby we may, with judgment, reject the sweet but poisonous baits and dainties of the devil and the world, and taste those meats which are most wholesome and profitable for our souls. End of Section 1. Section 2 of the troubled man's medicine by William Hugh. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. How the Gentiles were moved to endure adversities,

and how much more readily Christian men should suffer them. It is to be wondered, friend Urban, if these things cannot move Christian men to suffer adversities and despise worldly success as a very vain vanity, seeing that the unfaithful Gentiles were moved to endure adversities by things of much less importance. Some of them as Socrates and Diogenes, considering that worldly wealth could not cause a quiet and joyful mind,

and that it was a thing of no worth, neglected it as a thing of no price, and set it at naught, whose consideration Plutarch, as it appears by his similitude, approved as not untrue, quote, likewise, saith he, as a man going to the sea and first carried towards the great ship in a little boat, they're beginning to feel sickness desires much to be at the greater vessel, supposing to find ease therein, when he is worse troubled with the same grief than he was before,

even so a man being in a vile state and poor case, not well content therewith, covets advancement to higher condition, his goods also to be increased, to the which things if he attain he shall be more unquiet than he was before in his former misery, end quote. If you require examples look to Alexander the great King of Macedonia, who possessing in a manner all the kingdoms, riches and wealth in the world, for all that was so little quiet, that when he heard Democritus speaking of many other worlds, wept bitterly that he had not yet wholly conquered one of them.

Of the other part, poor Diogenes glad to use instead of a house, a ton to live in and compelled by poverty to live with cold herbs and water, his mind being instructed with learning and virtues was never unquiet, never filled with care. No, he thought himself richer than Alexander, to whom he was bold to say at such a time as he offered to give him what he would desire, that he was in better case and had less need than he, for as for him his lot pleased him, but as for Alexander, he could not be satisfied with the kingdom of Macedonia, no, not with the kingdoms of the whole earth. Alexander, marvelling at the security and quietness of his mind, said,

Quote, and if I were not Alexander himself, I would wish to be none other but even Diogenes, end quote. I think truly, if he were alive and here again, knowing so much as he knoweth now, that he would no more wish to be Alexander still about Diogenes, crying out against the vain desires of the world, with this or some other like a ration, quote, whither is the blind error of men ravished, at things which are substantial, true, and profitable, no man doth marvel, things that are hurtful, trifling, and uncertain every man with great labour seeks after, why do men importunately desire empires, performance, riches,

or other-worldly things. Let all men learn by me that, as these things are vain and transitory, so they make men never the better, but rather worse, never the quieter, but rather more unquiet. I was once of all emperors and rulers the richest, subduing valiantly barbarous nations, and people innumerable, yet these things so little made me quiet that by the reason of them my mind was troubled with all kinds of unquietness. Now ambition and insatiable desire of more regions, rule, and empires, occupied my mind painfully, now mad rage and ire provoked by drunkenness, which, by the reason of abundance of goods I was addicted to, punished me, and with violence sometimes moved.

me to the murder of my friends. Now unlawful lusts, now envy vexed me, otherwise the hellish furies fleeing about my conscience, and not suffering the memory of my murder, or other evil facts to be obliterated, so sorely grieved me that I would now and then have pierced my heart with a sword, or have pined myself to death, if I had not been hindered. Once, as a fool, I preferred the state of Alexander before the condition of poor Diogenes, but then I judged like unwise Midas, then I knew not that the virtues of the mind alone caused true quietness, worldly success, nothing profiting, but greatly diminishing the same, end quote. What can be more true than such an oration, whom would it not move if it was spoken by the mouth of

Alexander, as he would speak it doubtless, if he might return to us, to esteem the world according to this worthiness. Moreover, you may see by the example of Agamemnon how little quietness, worldly wealth, brings. He was so much disquieted with his high state that he lamented his chance in that he was king and ruler over so many people. Laertes, who, to the sight of the world, lived wealthily and wondrous quiet, yet was not quiet indeed as Plutarch witnesses. On the other side, Metrachles, vile, and beggarly, in winter covering his body, with a tub for lack of house, and in summer, taking up his lodging in the porters of temples, faring not so well as the dogs of the city, yet was of so quiet a mind that his quietness among writers shall be

had in perpetual memory. Dettus, about to be boned, such was the virtue of his mind, was said not to be unquieted at all. Thus I say some of the wise Gentiles, considering and seeing that true quietness precedeth only of virtue, esteemed worldly wealth not of a straw. Yet we Christian men, such as our lack of true wisdom, who know or ought to know if we remember, as I have spoken before, that there is no quietness to them which are of God, but quietness of mind and conscience, which is procured only by virtue, pureness of life and by hope specially, which, as St. Paul's earth, cometh of proof, proof of patience, patience of troubles, and so consequently our quietness must come by troubles. What do we not attempt to attain worldly

vanities, running by sea and by land, by rocks and sands, by Silla and Sirtis, by fire and sword, a seeth the poet, fearing no dangers, nor perils, like men out of our wits, seeking fire in the sea, and requiring water of the dry pumice-stone. O blindness, what, I pray you, have we gotten when we have procured riches or worldly preferments, whose purchasing commonly is painful, the keeping full of busy fear, the use dangerous, the lost deadly? What I say, have we got? Tranquility of mind?

No, truly about excess of unquietness. For the more our goods grow, the more groweth care. miserable saith the poet is the keeping of much money in the which respect horace desired his friend after he had made him rich to take his goods from him again what then hast thou satisfied thy appetite that thou hadst to worldly things nothing less For, as he which hath thee dropsy, the more he drinks, the more he thirsts, so the worldly man, the more he hath, the more he covets, hast thou increase of virtues, no, rather an expulsion of them. What then hast thou, truly a bait to all vice and mischief, and if thou take not very good heed, an instrument to work thine own confusion? O perilous and most pestilent harlot, I mean the world which is transfigured in pleasures and abundance of riches of riches of the earth, in pleasures and voluptuousness, and I call her not only a harlot, but the most filthy and most dirty queen, whose face is foul, horrible, sharp, bitter, and cruel, and in this most, wherein all they are counted without forgiveness whom she deceiveth,

and although her countenance be so filthy and so wild, so barbarous and so cruel, yet many are snared by her, and when they see all things in her body full of peril, full of death, full of mischief, yet she is desired of them and counted to be loved and coveted. Notwithstanding that she maketh no man, better, wiser, or more temperate, no man more favourable, gentle, or prudent. Finally, she changeth no angry person into a man meek of behaviour, neither teaches the voluptuous man's sobriety, nor the impudent, shamefacedness, neither at any time by her has gotten any kind of virtue to the soul.

No, rather like Sussi, who, as Homer writes, changed by enchantments, Ulysses men into hogs, dogs, and other brute beasts, she makes them which are virtuous to be vicious, and of reasonable men, beasts unreasonable. Wherun too may we impute the fault that some which have been meek and gentle, as it often befalls by reason of ire and furiousness, are changed from men as though it were into raging lions, but to the enchanting Circi. Whereunto may we impute the fault that some which have been meek and gentle, as it often befalls by reason of ire and furiousness are changed from men as though it were into raging lions, but to the enchanting Susi the world? What makes them which have been modest, sober, and temperate, as we have many examples for

their drunkenness and beastly intemperance, most like under the unclean and filthy hogs, that enchanting Circe the world? What takes our understandings from us by reason of pride and causes us shamefully to forget ourselves and our mortal state, that enchanting Circe the world? To be sure, this same enchanting Circe the world changes even for the most part of them that have to do with her vile ornaments, except it be some spiritual Ulysses into mere brutes, if you have respect to heavenly wisdom. Horace, considering her enticing charms, calls her riches and ornaments matter of great evil, and counsels them which are loath to be wicked, to hold them into the sea. Let us therefore not sorrow for the lack or loss of riches or otherworldly things that are so perilous,

but rather prepare ourselves partly to follow the council of Horace, though he were a heathen, not in casting away of our goods if we have them, but living as though we had them not, and giving them away, rather than that our souls which God hath dearly bought, should be hurt by them. Remembering that Christ saith, Matthew 5, it is better to go to heaven having but one eye or one arm than to the fire of hell with two eyes or two arms. It is better with poverty and affliction to be favoured of God than with wealth and prosperity to have his displeasure. Let the children of the world and the devil, who is the prince of the world, seek their wealth, it is proper unto them and let them enjoy it. Let us which are of God seek and

inquire for heavenly wealth, which by God's promise shall be peculiar to us. Let the Cretians, Epecureans, Boeotians, with such other barbarous and carnal people, care for things that are pleasant for the body and pertain to this present transitory life. Let us, which are, or ought to be, spiritual, care for things which pertain to the spirit and life to come. But I will return again to the Gentiles, for I began to declare with what things they were moved for the contempt of the world. There were others of them, of the which sort I have named two or three before, whom the desire of knowledge moved to despise worldly things utterly, perceiving that it was hard and unfit for them, having the use and abundance of temporal goods attentively to apply to their

studies. In this point, who does not see them to be commended about the more part of us Christians, who, although our religion requires minds more alienated from the world and addicted to the contemplation of spiritual things, yet our whole minds and strength are wholly intend to things that are vain and earthly, scarcely believing the saying of Christ, no man can serve two masters, God and the world, Matthew 6. Neither regarding the saying of St. Paul, no man, serving in the ways of God entangleth himself with worldly business to Timothy too, that is to say, in my judgment, no man is chiefly and wholly given to the purchasing and disposing of carnal and earthly things, and also to the commandments, wherein God requires our love with all our hearts,

minds, and souls, not bestowing any part of it on these temporal clouds and vain shadows. Matthew 19. It is a shame that the mere knowledge of natural and vile things should obtain of the Gentiles, what neither the knowledge of heavenly things, neither the care of our souls, nor the commandments, nor the promises of God can obtain of us that are Christian men. Others of the Gentiles, in whose number was Aristides, who were moved with no hope of good things, that should befall after this life, yet they, even for very virtues' sake only fancied not but neglected worldly wealth, chiefly seeing it for the most part, came to the most and naughty fellows, while to the best and most virtuous came miseries and troubles.

The thing is partly declared by the answers of poverty and riches in Aristotle's problem. It was asked of riches why he used to dwell with the worst. holding the best as though they were disdained. He answered that his mind was once to have tarried ever with them that were good, but Jupiter, envying this his purpose, put out his eyes, and since he lost his sight, it was ever his lot likely to happen on the worst. It was also asked of poverty, why she did still visit the good men and pass by them that were wicked and naughty.

She answered that good men could tell how to entreat her. You shall read that such murderous as tantalus, ambitious as cruisous, covetous persons as crassus, sycophants as silicon, had great abundance of wealth. On the other part, such just and good men as Aristides, Cato, Udiscensus, Fabius Maximus, Anaxagoras, and Plato, were ever in great need and troubles, indigence and afflictions. Truly, though scripture doth not provoke me, yet charity partly moveth me, to think that God had his elect even among the Gentiles, and that he would have them afflicted, like as those which openly profess him.

Many naughty fellows, say if the Greek poet Calamachus, are rich and wealthy, the good, miserable, and poor, but with these things we must not be moved. The consideration of the thing was sufficient to set the mind of Aristides at utter defiance with the world and his ornaments. Yet we, knowing by God's word, as by the 21st chapter of Job, by the 30th Psalm, by the 22nd chapter of Jeremiah, that evil men do live wealthy, advanced,

and comforted with all kinds of dainties, extolled as the cedars of Labanus, that all things do prosper with them and their seed after them, on the other side that good men are afflicted, punished, and vexed, yet had we rather be numbered among the wealthy and wicked, and to be imitators of their sect, than among the godly who by their patience and sorrows shall penetrate the heavens. We had rather with wealthy Nabol, and his temporal pleasures descend to the devil, than with poor Christ and his temporal troubles ascend into the kingdom of God his father. But it is said in scripture, Proverbs 14, the extremity of joy is occupied with mourning. Once it shall repent us sorely, not without the singing of Lysamachus's song.

King Lyser Marcus, by chance of wars, being taken by the Scythians, in his captivity was so suppressed with first, that he was glad to sell his kingdom for a draught of drink. Afterwards, remembering for how short a pleasure he had sold the thing most precious, He cried out and wept, saying, Alas, how mad was I to sell a noble empire for the satisfying of my affection and greedy belly? I fear it will be some of our end at the last to have the world in such estimation, to sing likewise this sorrowful song, O we miserable and brainless fools, which would for vain pleasures and transitory wealth,

lose the royal kingdom of God, with the eternal pleasures which he hath prepared for them that love him and renounce the world, than which world alas What is more vain? Man, the best part of it Is compared of scripture To the flower of grass The grass shall be withered

And the flower shall fall down O happy souls Which in all your afflictions Have been faithful and constant To you the spring of the Lord Shall ever be flourishing and green Woe be unto these false illusions Of the world

Bates of perdition Hooks of the Devil Which have so shamefully deceived us And seduced us from the right path of the Lord into the byways of confusion and briars of perpetual punishment, where our weeping shall never cease, nor the furies of our conscience shall ever wax old. At the last friend Urban,

seeing that as wealth and riches cause unquietness of mind, so adverse fortune and poverty to a Christian man's heart inferrth deep quietness, seeing that as wealth stayeth and hindroth us from the contemplation of heavenly and spiritual things, so adversity taketh the stay and the hindrance away, seeing that as the nature of worldly success is to make us to be numbered among the just, so is the nature of afflictions to induce us to the number of them that are good, godly, and virtuous. Let us love poverty and embrace afflictions, as things most expedient and necessary for us. Let us fear and beware of wealth, as a thing except we have grace to use it, most deadly, devilish, and dangerous.

End of Section 2. Section 3 of A Trouled Man's Medicine by William Hugh. This Librevonk's recording is in the public domain. An exhortation to flee to God in troubles and the comfort to be found in his word. But thou wilt say, perchance, sir, if you are in my case, your mind would be troubled no less than mine. I have wife and children, a family which the law of nature and honesty binds me to nourish. I have neither money nor other goods to defend them. besides that my body hath no such strength as is necessary for a needy and poor man i am chafed also with slanders and injuries as though these things before were nothing whom i pray you would not these things discourage and in manner make as a man desperate

if the case be as thou sayest beware well and take diligent heed lest the devil use thee as he doth his and the children of damnation being in like anguish beware he bring thee not to damnable mistrust Neither let him lead thee to any unhonest crafts, as theft, pojury, adultery, murder, deceit, or such like, for the unlawful augmenting of thy substance, so making that which God hath offered thee as a mean, whereby thou mightest the rather approach unto him, a mean to perdition and hellfire. But if thou art in these miseries, remember that they come not rashly, but even of the Lord. There is no evil, saith the Scripture, befalls to thee, or any other in the city which the Lord hath not wrought, Amos 3 Of the Lord, I say,

who, as it is written in the third chapter of the apocalypse, chastiseth all the children that he loveth, whereby he may, with a fatherly affection, correct them. While we are judged of the Lord, we are corrected, lest we be condemned with them of this world. 1 Corinthians 11. Remembering these things let us, in all our miseries, comfort our hearts, and say unto our heavenly father,

as did Crouties to fortune after his shipwreck. Graties after he had lost by shipwreck all that he had. Said this with a merry cheer, Go to fortune, I know what thou meanest. I am sure thou dost intend none other but to call me to philosophy. Go too, I am well content to come thither as thou callest me. Even so, say we to our heavenly father, when we are afflicted, Go to most bountiful father.

I know what thou meanest. I know thou dost none other but call me to repentance. lo, I come willingly thither as thou dost call me. Permit not the devil, I say, thine enemy, to bring thee, being needy and poor, to desperation, but flee from him lightly to God's word, as to a more strong fortress, for there, by reading and hearing the promises of God, thou shalt be sufficiently armed against him. Read the sixth chapter of Matthew, where Christ himself announces these words to them which are his faithful, I say unto you, be not careful for your lives what you shall eat or what you shall drink,

nor yet for your bodies what you shall put on. Is not the life worth more than meat, and the body more of value than Raymond? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither reap, nor yet carry into their bounds, yet your heavenly father feedeth them. Which of you, though he took thought therefore, could put one cubit to his stature? Why care ye then for Raymond, consider? Consider the lilies of the field, how they do grow, they labour not, neither spin, and yet for all that, I say unto you that even Solomon in all his royalty was not arrayed like unto one of these. Wherefore if God so clothe the grass which is today in the field, and to-morrow shall be cast into the furnace, shall not he much more do the same for you, O ye of little faith. Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?

After all these things, seek the Gentiles, for your heavenly father, knoweth that you have need of all these things. But rather, seek first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof, and all these shall be ministered unto you. Thus, by promise made by the mouth of Christ, wherein never was found deceit nor guile, we shall lack nothing if we are faithful, that is necessary for us. I have been young, saith the prophet, and I have waxed old, yet I never saw the just left, nor his seed begging their bread. Psalm 37. Cast thy cogitations on the Lord, and he shall nourish thee. Psalm 55. Be ye careful for no worldly thing, but with prayer and obsequration,

let your petitions be known of God, Philippians 4. He that giveth seed to the sower shall give us both meat and drink, 2 Corinthians 9. Comfort we ourselves, therefore, believing these promises and never despairing utterly. But because we believe those things the better whereof we have proof. I will bring examples whereby ye shall see that God both will and is able to perform so much for his faithful as he hath promised. Samson, almost lost for thirst, after the conflict that he had with the Philistines, prayed to God and found drink in an ass's jaws. Hegar in the wilderness

despairing of her own life and her child's for lack of vitals, and with many salt tears laying the child far from her, lest her motherly eyes should see it die, was fed of God and comforted beyond her expectation. The poor woman of Surrepta, looking to die with her child, the day after the prophet came to her house, had her oil and meal so augmented that she lacked not till the time of plenty returned. Therefore, wheresoever any lack happeneth, be it of corn, or such other necessaries, despair we not. Calling to remembrance this example, let us think with ourselves that God is able at all times to increase our corn, lying in the barn, growing in the field, being bred in the oven, yea, or in thy mouth at his pleasure.

as well as he did the oil or meal of the woman of Surrepta, or the oil of the debtor's wife by his prophet Elisha. But if it's so befall that no hope be left of our temporal nourishment, yet have we no just cause to despair, remembering that scripture saith, man doth not only live in bread, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. The omnipotent God did use armour and weapons, yet not necessarily as instruments, by the which he gave to his people Israel many victories, yet his power alone was the chiefest author of the same. So though he used meats and drinks as means whereby he nourishes us, yet the principal cause of our sustenation is his virtue and godly power,

and as he often gave victories to the Israelites, their hands and weapons not moved at all, so hath he also fared and can do so again his faithful, though worldly meat and drink are not utterly ministered. A better proof needs not than, the example of Moses and Elijah whom he sustained with his heavenly power, the space of forty days without the ministration of any worldly feeding. Therefore, as David said, my sword shall not save me, neither yet will I trust in my bow. So say we, our meats and drinks shall not save us,

neither will we trust in worldly things, for the power of God sustaineth us, and in him will we trust, by whom all things do consist, Colossians 1, who sustaineth all things with the word of his power, Hebrews 1, who openeth his hand and filleth every beast with his blessing, Psalm 145, whose hand being open, all things are filled with goodness, whose face being turned away, all things are troubled, whose spirit being withdrawn, all things shall fail and be brought into dust, Psalm 104, who saveth man and beast, Psalm 36, who covereth the heavens with clouds, prepareth rain for the ground, and bringeth forth grass in the mountains, who giveth to beasts their meat, and the young of the ravens calling upon him, Psalm 147. In him, to whom all these things

are justly ascribed, do he live, move, and be, Acts 17, in whom, of whom, and by whom all things are, to whom be glory forever, Romans 11. If you have respect to the foregoing examples, you shall perceive that the Lord, after he hath brought us even to the extremity, as the psalmist saith, can and will, if it be expedient deliver us, not only from hunger and thirst, but from all other miseries, harms and adversities, from persecution and drowning, from fire and our enemies, from sickness, slanders and death, who delivered David so often unjustly persecuted from the bloody hands of Saul, or the three children thrust into the hot fulness from burning, Noah from drowning, lot from the vengeance that lighted on Sodom and Gomorrah, Daniel, from the hungry mouths of the lions,

the Israelites from the Egyptians their enemies, from servitude and intolerable bondage, Joseph from slanders, Peter from his bands and imprisonment, who restored so many lepers to cleanness amongst the Jews, Peter's mother-in-law from her argue to health, so many lame to their limbs, so many blind to their sight. Was it not the mighty hand of God, which is not yet shortened, neither weakened, but as strong as ever it was? And though it pleased him to defer our deliverance as it befell to Joseph,

Israel when oppressed with the Egyptians, whereby his glory may be more clearly shown. Yet let us think none other but he hath both power and will to help and save us from all miseries, whatsoever they are, if it stand with our soul's health and his glory. If it do not, he will not if he love us. If he will not, let us take it in good worth and conform our wills to his, playing the part of a wise patient who would be glad to have his disease and the cause thereof expelled

by keeping a hard diet and receiving of bitter medicines for a month and no longer if it might be. But, in case his sickness cannot be healed, except he used those bitter medicines and hard diet a whole year, he will rather do so in hope of health afterward than by refusing them be sick all the days of his life. Even so, if our souls cannot be clear of such diseases and botchers,

as shall displease the eyes of God, except we use adversities so long as we live, as spiritual medicines ministered to us by God, let us be well contented in hope that we shall after this life, which is but a year, or rather but a minute of an hour in comparison of the time that is to come, have health everlasting, no more in danger of any maladies. Therefore in such prayers as we make in our afflictions, let us follow the example of David, who in his most trouble said, If it please the Lord, he will deliver me, but if he say, Thou dost not please me, I am ready and willing.

Follow we the example of our Master Christ, who said in his prayer that he made a little before his death, Father, if it be possible that I may escape this passion, howbeit not as I will, but as thou wilt. Let us behave ourselves in our afflictions, as did the three children threatened of Nebuchadnezzar. The Lord say they that we worship can deliver us from the fire if it please him, but if it please him not, be it not.

to thee, O King, that we will not worship thy gods, neither thy image made of gold. Learn we also the lesson taught us in the Lord's prayer. O Father, thy will be fulfilled. And if our carnal affections, at any time will rise against us, stood up of the flesh and the devil our enemies, upbraiding us, and endeavouring to shame us with our afflictions, to make us blaspheme God, as though he had forgotten us, make we answer to them, as Aristides did to his countrymen when they upbraided him with poverty, cease to object my poverty and afflictions against me, which are uncomely and unpleasant only for them unto whom

they befall against their wills. I, counting myself no better than my master Christ, am well content and pleased with them. Or, if the same pricks and goads of the devil, affections, I mean, will at any time move us to that which is not godly nor honest, for advantage or money's sake, for preferment, health of the body, or any other commodity or comfort, whereof we seem to have need. Let us make answer to them, as did Marcus Curius to the Samnites offering him money. Marcus Curis was once a man of much nobility, riches, and renown among the Romans, albeit at the length, as at fortune, he became a very poor man,

insomuch that his meat for the most part was only roots, cold herbs and warts. It chanced that the ambassadors of the Samnites, then being at Rome and hearing of his poverty, whom they had known once to be famous and wealthy, came to his house to visit him, where they found him in a poor chamber, poorly arrayed and seething coal warts for his dinner. They, after much communication about to depart,

gently offered to give him money, the which he refused disdainfully with these words. Keep the money to yourselves, you some nights, for he that can be content with such apparel and such fare, hath no need of it. Even so say we to our affections, ambassadors of the devil and the world. Let the world keep his goods and his prosperous things himself,

for he that can be content to live, as did his master Christ, hath no need of them. But what need these profane examples, seeing that we have better in Holy Scripture, let us answer them as Job did his friends, although the Lord kill me, yet I will hope in him still. Though it please God so extremely to punish us, even to the end of our lives as he did Lazarus, with hunger, cold, and lack of lodging, boils, blotches, and grievous sickness, yet we are not discouraged, calling to remembrance, this is promise. He that will persevere even to the end shall be saved. I am sure if Lazarus were here again, knowing so much as he knoweth, though a hundred

times as many evils should vex his body as did once, yet he would not be grieved therewith. Let our strength be, as Isaiah saith, in hope and silence. Whatsoever chance, be we quiet and keep silence, even as our master did, being as a sheep before the shira or led towards the slaughterhouse, when the Jews buffeted him and spat in his face. He that committeth himself to God, saith scripture, keepeth silence. him that keepeth silence doth God so beat that he may amend him, so cast him down that he may raise him, so slayeth him that he may make him alive. Let us therefore be cheerful, looking for the Lord whose coming doubtless shall come and will not tarry. But what should I say will come,

who hath promised to be with us still even to the end of the world, who, as scripture witnesses when all our friends, father and mother forsake us, he receiveth us, neither will ever leave us fatherless and motherless, for such is his promise, but be with us continually in all our troubles, and at the last, as he did Lazarus with others of his sort, clearly deliver us, in the mean space, do we feed ourselves joyfully with hope? The proverb saith, meaning of worldly things, hope nourisheth outlaws, much more should the hope of Christ's promises nourish us, for the hope of worldly things is fallible, but the hope of God's promises cannot be deceived, neither shall it ever shame us. I have hoped in thee, O Lord,

saith David, and I shall never be confounded. Moreover, let us comfort ourselves, considering that the man itself is the immortal soul. The body is but a case after the mind of Socrates, a house or a prison, rather, as Paul Namath it, and the man itself is no better for corporeal commodities, neither the worse for corporeal in commodities. But by the judgment of Holy Chrysostom, like as a horse is nothing the better for his golden bridle, silver saddle, precious trappings, or other ornaments, but for his swiftness, pace, and strength, no more is our interior man for riches, wealth, health of the body, liberty, or other-like,

but for the virtue of the mind and grace of God. Wherefore, if we be never the better for riches, let us not fear poverty, nor for health, let us not fear sickness, nor for good name, let us not fear slanderers, nor for liberty, let us not fear bondage, nor for this common life, let us not fear death. Quote, we are better, saith Krasostom, for the virtue of the mind which is to think uprightly of God, and to live justly among men, end quote. All the other exterior things may be plugged away from us. This cannot, no, not by the devil, except we ourselves willingly consent. The devil, although he took from Job all his goods, whereby he might provoke him to blaspheme God,

although he took his health to slack the constancy of his mind, his children to make him speak evil of the godhead, yet could he never take this from him. But in withdrawing all-worldly things heaped up the great riches of virtue of the love and favour of God through patience. Job was hurt of the devil and of his afflictions, as when Prometheus was of his enemy. Prometheus was a man that had a great swelling in his back, deforming his person very much. It befell that his enemy falling out with him, thrust a dagger into the same deformed place, that done he departed thinking that he had slain him. Howbeit Prometheus had done so little harm by his wound

that whereas his back could be cured before with no physic or surgery, then it was made whole. So he received commodity and health of him that intended his destruction and death. Likewise, truly it befell to Job, if the thing be advisedly pondered. Suffer me, I pray you, to speak this by the way, seeing that Job, for all these cruel torments of the devil, for all these misfortunes and punishments, was never much the worse, who had not yet received the law, neither the redemption of Christ, nor the grace of his resurrection,

much less should we who are weaponed with all these things, with like evils be harmed? What were the apostles worth for their hunger, thirst, and nakedness? Lazarus for his botches, poverty, and sickness, Joseph for his slanders, able for the cruel death he suffered? Were they not more noble and excellent for these among men, and prepared they not for themselves, through these crowns of glory with God? Therefore, let us ever be joyful in Christ and care for no worldly miseries For lack or loss of goods, for slanders or imprisonment, for sickness, banishment, or death. But if it befall that all our goods are taken from us,

Let us say with Job and without sorrow, naked we came into the world, and naked we shall go hence. If we are slandered, put we the saying of the Lord before our eyes, cursed are you when men speak well by you. Be you glad and rejoice when they reject your name. If we are banished, remember that we have no dwelling place here, but look for one that is to come. If we fall into great sickness, use that saying of the apostle, though this our exterior man be corrupted, yet the interior is daily renewed. Art thou shalt in prison and hangeth cruel death over thy head, set before thee John beheaded, and so great a prophet's head given in reward of pleasure to a dancing wench?

As thou notably offended, and therefore in thy conscience, art thou troubled with the despair of God's mercy? For the avoiding of this spiritual trouble, think with thyself that thy heavenly father doth sweetly expostulate with thee after this sort. What now, my dear child, why ceaseth not thy spirit at the last to be afflicted, why dost thou unwisely derogate from the multitude of my mercies, whom dost thou think that I am? Phalaras the tyrant, manlius, Sir Lucas, or some cruel Scythian, or else of mercies the father, and of all consolation the God, long-suffering, and of much mercy? Are thou not taught by my son Jesus to call me thy father? Have not, I promised, that I would be thy father by my prophet Jeremiah, and that thou

should be my son? Why dost thou not, therefore, ask me forgiveness, hoping well for pardon? Who is it of you, although ye are evil, who will not forgive his son? acknowledging his faults, being suppliant, desiring pardon, and promising amendment, notwithstanding he hath provoked him to aya a hundred times, and thinkest thou that I, which am the father of mercies, of whom all fatherliness in heaven and earth, is named, Ephesians three, who possesses the riches of goodness, patience, and long-suffering, not to be ready to forgive my children truly repenting. Be of good comfort, my child, be of good comfort,

mistrusting, not my mercy which surpasses not only man's mercy, how great whatsoever it be, but all my own works. Also, judgment without mercy, shall they feel, whose hearts are obdurate, hardened, and will not repent, who delight still in their sins, and will never leave their wickedness, who contem my words and trust me not, from them indeed health must needs be far away, Psalm 119. But as for thee, repent, and the kingdom of heaven shall draw nigh, Matthew 3. Trust and thy faith shall save thee, Matthew 9.

I would have all men to be saved, and not. no man to perish, one Timothy two. My fashion is ever to recreate, thinking, lest he perish utterly, which is abject or cast down. It is not my will, believe me, that one of these my little ones be cast away, Matthew 18, whom I ever loved so well that I would vouch safe to give my only son for them, John 3. But thy trespasses are great, wherefore thou art not lightly persuaded to trust in my mercy. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, one Timothy one, he came, he to call sinners and not the just, and to save that which was lost, Matthew 9. I know that thou, an offender, shouldst defend, and as a transgressor, I call thee from

thy mother's womb, yet for my namesake will I make my fury afar off. Isaiah 43, thy good works can be of no such perfection that they may be able to save thee, nor can thy evil works, so that you repent with a full purpose to renew thy life, hold thee into the hillfire. for I am, I am which put away thine iniquities for my own sake, and thy sins will not I remember, Isaiah 43. I am, dear son, I am which put away thy sins for myself, for myself, and will give my glory to none other,

Isaiah 48. Suppose thy sins to be as red as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow, as I have won, which I have scattered as clouds, and as a mist have I dispersed them. Turn to me, I say, for I have redeemed thee. I have redeemed thee, which of pity upon all men, and for repentance, behold not men's sins. I would, thou shouldst know that I, thy lord, am meek and gentle. Neither can I turn my face from thee, so that thou wilt return to me.

It is commonly said that if a man dismiss his wife, and she departing marries another husband, shall he return to her any more, shall not she be as a polluted and a defiled woman? Thou hast sinned with many lovers, Jeremiah three, yet for all that, I am ready to return to thee, so that thou wilt return to me. Such is my facility, so gentle I am, such is my benignity, so great is my mercy, which thy most loving brother and advocate Christ, that wash thee from thy sins in his blood hath purchased, continually praying for thee. Hast thou not heard how merciful I showed myself to David, to the Nivites, and to Ahab,

to Magdalene to the thief, to the publican, and others innumerable? Why dost thou not open the examples of them, as a table, or, glass wherein thou mayest well learn, how exorable I am, how ready and willing to forgive, consider with thyself how heinous faults I have pardoned them. Go too, therefore, be of a good cheer, lift out thine eyes, mistrust me no longer, turn to me, and thou shalt be saved, commend thy spirit into my hands, and the prince of this world shall have nothing to do with thee, for by me the god of truth thou art truly redeemed, Isaiah 45. Whensoever deadly despair shall trouble thy conscience, set this erration before thine eyes,

which is nothing else indeed but God's own word, written by his most holy prophets and apostles. Finally, thou art so tossed and troubled that it should seem that God had wholly forgotten thee. Read the 49th of Isaiah, where thou shalt find these words. Zion said, he meaneth God's elect, the Lord hath left me, and the Lord hath also forgotten me. Can the mother forget her infant and not pity the child she hath brought forth? But whether she can or no, I cannot, O Zion forget thee. Alas, how should he forget them that believe in him, with whom, as it seemeth by his own words, he suffereth. Whatsoever is done to one of these little ones which believe in me, the same is done unto me, Matthew 25.

He that toucheth you toucheth the very ball of mine eye, Zechariah too. And this should be no little consolation to the faithful, seeing that they have God himself as companion and partaker of their sorrows. For all our afflictions and griefs of the mind, let us require remedies of God's word, which without fail, can mitigate all pains that occupy the hearts of them which believe in him. Wherefore it is not vain that Christ saith in the gospel, come unto me all ye that labour and are laden, and I shall refresh you. Neither without a cause that David, who had oft experience of the comfort received of God's word, said this, Our sweet are thy words, O Lord, to my mouth, more delighting my taste than the honeycomb. Psalm 19. Whatsoever is written, it is written for our

learning that by patience and comfort of the scriptures we may have hope. Pope, Romans 15. By this you may gather that our comfort is to be required of Scripture. Believe me, though the most heinous waves and tempests of the sea, the world, are raised up, threatening drowning to Peter's ship, yet, if it be fastened with the anchor of God's word, well, they may move it, but overwhelm it, they cannot. And among all other things, let us have in mind those scriptures wherein we are ascertained that our bodies after this common death shall rise again, wonderfully glorified by the same power that formed them first. Those also, wherein is promised the eternal felicity that shall be given to all them,

who, after the example of Christ, suffer adversities, and overcome the devil, and the world with theirs, for they shall abundantly comfort the believing people. Lo, saith the Lord, mentioning the resurrection and renewing of our bodies, I will put breath into you, and you shall be quickened, I will give you sinues, and cover you with flesh and skin, I will put into you a spirit, and you shall live, and know, that I am the Lord, Ezekiel 37. We look for Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who shall transfigure our vile bodies, and conform them to his glorious body by the same virtue, wherewith he is able to subdue all things,

Philippians III. Doubtless, like as a grain of wheat sewn in the ground is first putrified, and brought as into a thing of naught, yet after that springeth up freshly with a goodlier form than it had before, so man's body, sewn in the ground after this temporal life is first corrupted, and in manner brought to nothing. Yet at the last by his power, which did create all things of nothing, it shall rise again with a form of much more excellency than ever was the first. Though this thing be wonderful, yet incredible, it is not,

for he that was able to make all the world with his creatures of nothing, must needs be able to make our bodies again of something, for the matter of our bodies shall ever remain in grass, worms, dust, stones, or some other form even to the last day. and then surely even as Lazarus and Christ of whom we are members, and therefore mustnids at the last rise with him, being our head, were resuscitated from their sleep. So I may call this corporal death, in like case shall the bodies of all men arise, some into the resurrection of judgment, some of life.

But this word sleep, friend Urban, brings me in remembrance of a question which you moved me at our last being together, and for as much as I could not then, for lack of opportunity, conveniently give you an answer, by these letters you shall know my mind, howbeit very briefly, for I purpose to defer the reasoning of the matter to our next meeting. Your question was whether that the soul of man after this temporal death sleepeth, as not the body, void both of pain and pleasure unto the day of judgment, or no. I answer that it is as much against the nature of the soul to sleep, as it is against the nature of the sun to be a dark body, or the fire to be without heat, the soul of man being a

heavenly spirit is so lively and constant, so strong and vigilant a substance that naturally it cannot but perpetually persevere in operation. For of its own nature, it is a very operation and motion itself which never ceaseth, but like as the sun, which way soever he is moved, shineth and inflameth, so the soul of man, whithersoever it is brought, liveth and moveth continually. Yay, and though the body which of nature is gross and drowsy, is oppressed with sleep, yet the soul is still occupied in the memory, in the under or in other of the more excellent powers, as by dreams every man may see. Much less can it sleep when it is wholly delivered from the sluggish body. Therefore, as the body sleepeth,

so the soul cannot, forasmuch as it is a substance accommodated to continual moving, and cannot be weary. Truly the error of those is great who persuade themselves that the soul, separate from the body, shall sleep unto the last day, and this era is old and was confuted by origin and others of his time. was it ever since received in the church, and to such time as a pestilent kind of men, whose madness is execrable, brought it of late days into the world again. But as all others of their opinions are perverse, abhorrent from the truth and devilish, so is this, declaring its patrons not to be taught in Christ's school,

but in gallons, rather, who affirm the death of the soul necessary to follow the death of the body. But, leaving these vain fantasies, let us give ear to God's word, It is written, Ecclesiastes 12, The dust shall return to his earth From whence it came, And the spirit to God which gave it. Where I hope it shall be so far from death and sleep, That it shall live delighted with joys unspeakable.

He that heareth my word, saith Christ, And believeth in him which sent me, hath life everlasting, And he shall not come into condemnation, But he shall pass from death to life, John five. Mark that he saith not from death to sleep, But from death to life. The parable in the sixteenth chapter of Luke doth well prove their false opinion.

Where it is written that Lazarus after his death used joy and gladness on the other part, that the rich glutton was grieved and tormented. If the souls of men should sleep, neither should any joy have been attributed to Lazarus nor punishment to the glutton. What will they say to these words which Christ spoke to the thief? This day, thou shalt be with me in paradise. Will they make us believe that paradise is a dormitory or a place to stay? sleep in. In case it be, a man would think that Christ is or was once asleep therein,

for he saith, thou shalt be with me in paradise. St. Paul was rapt, two Corinthians twelve, into paradise, and there heard words which a man may not lawfully speak. These words he heard not with the ears of his body, for it lay prostrate on the ground. Acts nine, but of the soul, which part of Paul was ravished into paradise, where he did hear and see mysteries, therefore I cannot believe that paradise is a sleeping place, seeing that Paul was so occupied there in hearing of secret things. Moreover, whereas St. Paul desired to die and to be with Christ, me things he should rather have wished for the prolongation of his life if the soul should continually sleep to the last day. For in this world, after a sort, we have the fruition of God, as though it were by a glass,

as St. Paul himself teaches. But after this life, if these opinions be true, we shall have no fruition of God at all, except it be through dreams until the day of judgment. Therefore, St. Paul's wish, if we credit these Antichrists, must seem to be foolish. The Lord saith that he is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, nor the God of the dead, but of the living. But twixt the dead and these men's sleepers I see no difference. If Saul had been taught by any of the old prophets that these souls of men should sleep, he would not have gone about so busily to have raised up Samuel. Therefore, I say, believe not these false deceivers, who endeavour not only to persuade the

sleep of souls, but also to make vain the resurrection of the dead. and so to abolish an article of our faith and make our religion vain. And hereafter, when you shall read or hear any such scriptures, as is a part of one Thessalonians four, where is mentioned the sleep of the dead, ascribe it to the bodies, which indeed shall sleep to the day of judgment, and then shall arise again, the souls joined to them, and awake from their sleep undoubtedly. Therefore saith Job, I know that my redeemer doth live, and in the last day I shall rise from the oath, and in my flesh shall see my saviour. Job 19.

O, that happy and joyful last day, at the least, to the faithful, when Christ by his covenant shall grant unto them which shall overcome and keep his works even to the end, that they may ascend and sit in seats with him, as he hath ascended and sitteth in the throne with his father, Revelation 2 and 3, where sorrow shall be turned into gladness that no man shall take from them. Then, as Isaiah writeth, they which are redeemed shall return and come unto Zion, praising the Lord, and eternal joy shall be over their heads. They shall obtain mirth and solace, sorrow and wailing shall be utterly vanquished. Then the sun shall no more give them light,

nor the moon disperse the darkness for them, but the Lord our God shall be their light and comfort continually. Then doubt ye not. If we are only constant here in the love and faith of God, we shall have, for earthly poverty, heavenly riches, for hunger and thirst, satiety of the pleasant presence of God, for bondage, liberty, for sickness, health, for death, life everlasting. For this time, friend Urban, I shall desire you to take this poor letter, howsoever it be in good worth, and hereafter, if it shall please God to call me to a more quiet living,

as you know I am yet compelled necessarily to bestow in manner all my time and study in teaching of young scholars, I will write to you more largely of this argument, and, peradventure, God the author of all good things giving me grace, more learnedly. Then fare you well. at Oxford the 15th day of March. End of Section 3.

Section 4 of the troubled man's medicine by William Hugh. This Librevovalk's recording is in the public domain. Extract from the dedication. In the dedication to Lady Denny, the author says, quote, I was bold to dedicate this little book unto your gentleness, which book for that purpose I have written, that men might learn to die patiently, to leave the world willingly, and to go unto Christ gladly.

How necessary such a thing is among the people, albeit I would wish that one or other should take the matter in hand, that can handle it more wisely and learnedly than I have done here. They which have been at the point of death, or they that have searched the consciences of men being about to die, can best express. The devil doubtless, which at all times is busied and earnestly occupied in seeking the destruction of man's soul in the day of death, showeth his diligence most. now bringing a man in love with the world and his commodities, provoking him to hate death and to resist as much as lieeth in him the will of God, now leading him to despair to the mistrust of God's promises and impatience. Is it not needful then to have something written and ready, especially among the unlearned, whereby they may learn to despise death,

to contend the world, to obey the will of God, whereby they may be reduced from murmuring to patience, from despair and mistrust to a firm, and constant faith in the promises of God. Whether this book shall perform so much or no, I cannot tell, yet thus much, I dare say, that he which heareth or readeth it, with a mind and purpose to learn the said things

shall not utterly lose his labour. The occasion why I write this book, declamation-wise, is this. It happened to me not long ago to visit a friend lying on his deathbed, whom, after my poor knowledge and learning, I exhorted to die Christianly, his friends that were then present,

in a while after, earnestly required me to write the same exhortation, even as I had pronounced it unto the sick, declaring that so it should most move the readers, hearers and such as should need like consolation. I, thinking no less with myself, was content herein to satisfy their requests, the thing written I determined to give to your ladyship, not for that I thought so slender and simpler thing worthy of your worship, but that I might, as I said before, show some argument of a thankful mind. this I beseech your ladyship,

however it be, taken good worth, not looking so much to the smallness of a gift as unto the mind of the giver thereof. End of section four. Section 5 of the troubled man's medicine by William Hugh, this Librevonk's recording is in the public domain, addressed to one whose sickness is thought to be under death.

By certain arguments a man may easily conjecture, dearly beloved, that the last sleep, which to a true Christian of all sleeps ought to be most pleasant, by little and little creepeth upon your mortal limbs. If my judgment deceive me not, you, ere it be long, shall walk the same way, which for the crimes of our first father Adam, must needs be trodden of all his posterity. Of all, I say, the escape or evasion of death being granted to no man, wherefore you ought the less to be grieved. Scripture saith, all we shall die, and as water shall slide into the ground, to Samuel 14, like as there is one entrance for every man into this present life, so one passage and departure.

Therefore we are admonished in the Book of Wisdom not to fear the judgment of death, but rather to remember things that have happened before our time and those which shall succeed. That is to say that none of our progenitors could ever escape the blow of death, neither shall any of our posterity. In Genesis 3 we are admonished that we are dust, and into dust we shall return by reason of death, which for the fault and disobedience of our first-formed parent, with his inevitable doubt, strikeeth and deadly woundeth all men. He woundeth mortally, not the wretched only, the needy and

miserable, but the fortunate also, the wealthy and the noble, Romans 5. Yea, kings, rulers, and the richest emperors which in power and dignity, riches, renown, and glory excel, and, in their time, rule the world according as they list. Not the unlearned only, the rude and barbarous, but those. also who in learning and manners are most instructed. Not the overcome and careful captives, but also the Pearson conquerors themselves, Alexander, a king most victorious by whose power and furious wars Asia with Europe was manfully subdued. No man being able to resist him could find no weapon to conquer death. The notable wisdom of Solomon, the deep learning of Aristotle or

of Gallen, could not by any means avoid death. Tully's eloquence could not move him, the riches of Crassus could not corrupt him. He favoured not the beauty of fair Absalom. Neither spared he the strength of strong Samson. One night, saith the poet tarrieth for everybody, and the way of death must once be trodden of all men, like as all the stars that come from the east, though they are ever so goodly and bright, yet at the last they go to the west, and there, according to the diversity of their circles, some slowly, some speedily, withdraw themselves out of our sight. Even so all men which come from the east, that is to say their nativity, are born into the world, although they glister and shine here for a season, yet at the last they must needs, some sooner,

some later, according to the duration which they have received of God, fall in the west of death, depart and withdraw themselves from the sight of men. Therefore the wise man Simonides, at such a time as Pausanias, a noble captain desired to learn some good and fruitful lesson, made him remember that he was mortal. Therefore also Philip, the king of Master, Macedonia, wallowing in worldly wealth and prosperity, commanded his chamberlain, that he should every day at his uprising, sadly repeat these words, remember King Philip, and forget not that thou art a man to mortality's subject. All flesh is grass, and every man is the flower of grass. The grass shall be withered,

and the flower shall be dried away, Isaiah 40. The man, saith Job, that is born of a woman, liveth but a short time, replenished with many miseries, fadeth as a flower. and is worn away, vanishing as a shadow. Wherefore, not without a cause, the life of man is compared of Lucian to a bubble in the water, of Pindar to the shadow of a dream, of Escalis to the shadow of vain smoke. Truly, if death should chance but to a few, and to the unluckiest, we should seem to have a just cause heavily to take death, as I think you partly do. But seeing that, he doth as well knock at the rich man's door as at the poor,

at the happy man's door as at the unhappy, at the strong man's door as at the weak, at the king's towers, as at the shepherd's cots. Why should we not take well a thing importing such necessity? How unreasonable is it for a man to take heavily his death more than his birth? Considering that the one is appointed for man as well as the other, the one as common as the other, the one as necessary as the other, and of them both, death is the better. In being sorry to die, we shall seem to lament, in the other. In the one as common as the other, and of them both, death is the better. In being sorry to die, we shall seem to die, we shall seem to lament, that our lot is mortal, and that we are not angels or equal with God, which is a great point of foolishness, mixed with impiety. If we are troubled with such as our calamities indeed,

to have two or three companions we count in a manner a comfort sufficient. Much more should we be comforted as touching death, seeing that we have not two or three, but all men of what a state or degree soever they are of, as companions and partakers of the same, yea, even the very saints themselves and those that were high. favored of God. Moses, who was admitted to the secrets and mysteries of God, died. David, whom God pronounced to be a man after his heart's desire, died. John, the evangelist, most tenderly beloved of his master, died. John Baptist, than whom, by the sentence of Christ, none greater hath risen among the children of men, died. And not saints only but the dearly beloved son of God, Christ,

being both God and man, a lamb most innocent and without spot, that he might pay our ransom, deliver sinful wretches from thraldom, and pacify his father's wrath, was content to die the most ignominious death of the cross, and shall we sinners that were begotten in sin, born in sin, and have lived in sin all the days of our lives, be aggrieved to put off these our vile and sinful bodies? Christ, when he was in the shape of God and thought it no robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, taking upon him the shape of a servant and became like another man, and in a peril was found as a man, humbled himself and became obedient unto death, that he might advance us to the kingdom of his father, and shall we, being but worms, dust and clay,

be loath to die, whereby we may enjoy the same advancement. Sissagambus, the mother of Darius, king of Posa, for the very love she bear towards Alexander, forasmuch as he used her somewhat gently in her captivity, was wondrous willing, by death to follow him after his decease, and shall we Christians be sorry to follow Christ, who in captivity hath retained us well and not evil, but, boasting utterly all his bands, hath clearly delivered us. Cisagambus vehemently desired to follow Alexander, who was her enemy indeed more than her friend, and shall we be unwilling to follow Christ, who is our friend, most faithful and assured. She desired to follow him which made her poor, and shall not we

covet to follow Christ, who hath impoverished himself to make us rich. She was content to follow him that made her of a free woman and a queen, a bond handmade, and shall we, by our wills, refuse to follow Christ, who hath made us of vile slaves and beggarly captors, free men and kings. She would needs follow Alexander, although she could not tell where to find him, nor in his presence how to be entreated, and shall we be loath to follow Christ, whom we know suddenly to be at the right hand of his father, where we shall be sure if we die faithful to find him, and forever to dwell with him, with most gentle entertainment. She would follow him that did not look, call, nor send for her, and shall not we willingly

follow Christ, when his pleasure shall be to call for us. Christ, I say, our Lord and our God, our life, as it is written, and the length of our days calleth us, and forasmuch as the days of men are determined of God, as Job saith, Job 14, we may not ascribe our death to the stars or destiny but unto the calling of God, in whom we live, move, and be, of whom cometh both death and life, who hath appointed our terms that we cannot pass, with whom is the number of our months, without whom a hair cannot fall on the ground from our heads, much less the whole bodies, Matthew 10, for he that worketh all things for himself hath power both of death and life.

I can much commend the common people for as much as they seem to imitate St. Cyprian, in using this phrase, when it shall please God to call me to his mercy in such like, wherein they declare themselves not to be of their opinion who think that men are not cared for nor governed of God, but that all things to chance even by very fortune, which opinion, if it were true, God should either be ignorant of many things or else abhorrent from his creatures, and therefore should he seem either not true or not good. But this matter being left, I will return to my purpose, seeing that it is appointed for all men to die when it shall please God to call them, let us be content joyfully to depart thither, and when our heavenly and

most bountiful father shall call us, remembering ever that we ought to work, not our own wills, but the will of God, according to the prayer that we customably use by the command of Christ. How preposterous and perverse is it to desire that the will of God may be fulfilled in heaven and in earth, and yet when he willeth us to depart from this world, that we should, our wills resist him, and like untoward and stubborn servants are rather drawn with the bans of necessity than with love or obedience due to the will of God. There is none of us, but we will wish deliverance from this Egypt, with its captivity and troubles, and dwell with God in the land of promise, where is all joy and quietness. Yet after that God hath brought us even to the gate

of the said land, for as the cause of our life is a race toward death, so death is the gate of everlasting life. We are loath to enter in by it. We would gladly be honored with heavenly rewards, but we are unwilling to go where they are. What should we pray so oft, let the kingdom of heaven come, if we are so much delighted with earthly bondage? Why do we pray that the day of the kingdom may be hastened, if we are more desirous here to serve the devil than to reign in heaven with Christ? But let us break our own wayward wills, conforming them to the will of God, showing ourselves willing at all times to pay that we owe. What other thing is it to die than to pay such things as were for a time liberally lent us? What honest heart will not, and that willingly, at the least if ability,

fail not, pay again money to him, who gently did lend it at his need, whensoever it shall be required? And shall we hesitate to pay to the earth the mother of us all, our bodies of whom we borrowed them, and our souls to God our father, who bountifully did lend them? God forbid, No, we ought to be much more ready to pay our souls to God than the debtor to pay his money. For of the payment of the money few or no commodities ensue, but after the paying of our souls to God, innumerable pleasures and infinite commodities succeed. For then, at the length, they are happily brought from darkness to light, from fear to security, from travail to quietness,

from a thousand dangerous rocks and waves into a sure haven, from the use of vain, vile, filthy and transitory things, to the fruition of the eternal deity of God. What Christian man will not be glad of such an exchange? What loving child will not heartily covet deliverance from the misery, bondage, and tyranny of this world, and to dwell with his most merciful father in heaven? O blindness, what cause have we, I pray you, to hate death, by whose means we are made of bondmen free of strangers' home-dwellers,

of beasts like unto angels? If that great ruler happened to call any of us to a king's or emperor's cause, "'promising to do for us, to set us out with temporal riches, "'to endure us with worldly possessions, "'we think ourselves very fortunate. "'And when God, the ruler of all rulers and king of all kings, "'shall call us to his court, "'and give us inheritance and possessions,

"'not in earth but in heaven, which are constant, "'and shall never be taken from us, "'by storms or tempests, by craft or subtlety of the law, "'by oppression or tyranny, by death, the devil or sin, "'shall we think ourselves unfortunate?' "'No, truly, if we are well in our senses, but rather count that time, whensoever it shall come, of all times, to be the most happy,

for as much as then, the kingdom of God, the reward of life, the joy of eternal health, perpetual gladness, possession of paradise that was once lost, are even at hand. Then, for earthly things heavenly, for little things great, for transitory things eternal, shall take place. Who then, I pray you, will fear death, but he that hath no faith, that lacketh hope, that would not go to Christ and believe,

not, that he beginneth then to reign with Christ, when he beginneth to leave this world. Oh, that we had a spark of the grace and faith that Simeon had, who being a just and faithful man, was assured by a godly responion, that he should not die before he had seen Christ, whom after that he had seen in the temple, and known in spirit, he knew certainly that he should shortly be called of God and die. Therefore, being marvellous glad, took the child in his arms, and blessing God cried out and said, Now dismiss thy servant,

O Lord, according to thy word in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy saving health. Here did Simeon prove and testify that free tranquility, true peace and firm security do happen to the servants of God when they are drawn from this troublesome world and brought to the gate of the everlasting mansion.

Per adventure you will say unto me, sir, as for Simeon I cannot blame him, though he was well content to die, forasmuch as he was a man of a great age, and, as they say commonly, even at the pits bank. I am, but a young man. I might have lived yet many years with no small comfort of my friends. By the common course my time was not yet come.

I grant indeed you are a man of no great age, but what day I pray you can we appoint for any man's death. Every day may be a last day if it stand with the pleasure of God. We see that some die in their both, some in their cradles, some in the flower of their age, some in their old age, some when they are rich, other some when they are poor, so that we may plainly understand that God doth give to every man his life upon that condition,

that he surrender it again, whensoever, it shall please him to require it. But among all others, saith the Greek poet Menander, Most happy are they and best beloved of God that die when they are young, which saying, as it is very wise, so it is very true, and yet a man may easily perceive it, if he have respect to the spiritual evils and temporal incommodities that occupy this life, for they commonly depart not yet infected with so much malice, entangled with so much vice, corrupted with so much wickedness as their elders.

Not yet so far separated from God by reason of sin and made members utterly and limbs of the devil. It befalls for the most that men, after they come to a ripe and complete age, are wholly drawn from God, from virtue, from simplicity and integrity of life, to sin, wickedness, and ungodly living. The rich, by injurious handling the poor, by oppression, ingurgitation, and filthy incontinency. The poor, by picking, lying, desperation, and blaspheming the name of God. I speak of many, but not of all. The worldly wise by craft, deceit and subtlety, the learned, oft by heresy, ambition, and devilish doctrines.

I will not speak of envy, malice, rancor, and adultery, which, at ripe age, increase in growing, and as Silla and Cabodrus hold the greatest part of men into the horrible sea of perdition. The Holy Ghost teacheth by Solomon that they which please God best are quickly and speedily taken from this world lest they should be polluted

with the wickedness of the same. He was taken away, saith he, lest malice should change his understanding for his soul did please God and he hath made haste to bring him from the midst of iniquity. Enoch pleased God and he was not found afterward

for God had taken him away. therefore to please god is to be counted worthy of him to be delivered from this world and to be brought thither as the devout soul of the prophet covet to come saying how dearly beloved are thy habitations o god of virtues my soul desireth and maketh haste to thy halls psalm eighty four Those trees are not best that are most durable, but those of whom doth spring most profitable fruit. Neither are those songs most commendable that are longest, but that most delight the ears of men. Even so the longest life is not chiefest, but that which is most virtuous and least effaced with vice. Let us further ponder these temporal displeasures and incommodities and then judge whether death, when or in what age soever it befalls, is better than life, according to the words of Ezekiel or not. consider of what calamities chances miseries and perils men are in danger no man living is happy on every part no man is utterly content with his lot whether that reason or chance as saith horace hath offered it unto him

therefore no man according to solon's words is happy indeed before he is buried for this cause socrates with others of his sect desired ever desirously to die esteeming death not to be miserable but the end of all miseries not troubulous but the end of all troubles better saith ezekiel is death than life and eternal rest than continual sorrows for every part of this life doubtless is replenished with unpleasantness full of sorrow unquieted with cares troublesome and vexed with diseases what trade of life soever a man shall follow saith crates he shall be sure to find bitterness therein in the fields are labours at home cares in a strange country fear if a man have aught in the sea fear with jeopardy's in youth foolishness, in age feebleness, in marriage, unquietness, in lacking a wife, solitariness. If a man have children, he hath care. If he have none, he is half maimed, so that one of these two saith he is to be wished, either not to be born or quickly to die. The wretchedness of this world hath compelled even the holiest men, being wearied therewith, to wish for death. Jonah, in his travail, said that it was better for him to die than to live.

Elias in his lifetime, often coveted and not unadvisedly to yield up the ghost. Neither can I see any cause why all of us who have any hope of another life to come should not wish for the same thing, seeing that no man liveth, who labreth not under the want both of spiritual and temporal things. Though a man have ever so much excellency in honours, abundance in riches, delight in pleasures, nothing can satisfy him truly or bring asleep his desires, appetites, and insatiable lusts, no more than the daughters of denouis can fill their bottomless tubs. Is it not better, therefore, to change this life, to leave this strange country,

and go where is all excellency of honours, abundance of all good things, where perpetual pleasures shall ever be in thy right hand, even to the end? Where thy divinity shall be seen, loved, and reserved forever. Death of itself indeed is somewhat formidable, and the way to death, as saith the philosopher, is painful, yet if we consider the premises and that death is now, nothing else but a gate whereby men enter into life, we shall see it to be amiable and much to be embraced. I marvel what evil spirit hath so blinded and bewitched the minds of men, and made them

mad, so shamefully doting, forasmuch as they can persuade themselves, to be best here to live still in these rotten tents, open to all sharp winds and bitter storms, in these ruinous houses, in these stinking prisons, I mean our bodies, and to hate death, as it were, a venomous and poisonous a serpent, seeing it is so friendly a thing, inferring a great sea of commodities and pleasures, saying it is, and only it, the finisher of our filthy and painful imprisonment, a consummation of our labours and grievous wars, and arriving at the safe haven and end of our peregrination, a laying away of a heavy burden, a termination of all sickness, an evasion of all dangers, a return into our country, an entrance into glory. If we are wise, let us be well-content

to die, and cheerfully give a farewell to this. miserable world, continually unquieted with troubles, and troubled with unquietness, subject to sundry evils, and the false illusions of vain fortune, for truly it hath much more gall than honey, much more bitterness than sweetness. The which is well signified by this fable of Homer, Jupiter, saith he, sitting in heaven, and having before him two great tons, the one of felicity, the other of misery, against a little spoonful of happiness, poureth out a great ladleful of unhappiness, meaning they thereby that fortune and misfortune among men do not equally part the stake.

Escalus, recounting with himself the continual tossing and turmoiling of men's bodies and minds, crieth out after this sort, oh, how unjust are those men, how foolish that hate death, seeing it is a remedy most present for all evils and the chiefest expelor of all anxieties. Many of the heathen, for this cause, thought death of all things most to be desired. How much more ought the same to be embraced of us, which are well assured by Holy Scripture of the immortality of the soul, of a better life to come, and that death is none other but an entrance into that life which is true, permanent, and constant.

Let the wicked Sadducees, which deny the resurrection of the flesh, take heavily their death, for they look for none other life after this. Let us, which are sure that our bodies shall arise again freshly renewed, esteemed death as a thing most pleasant. Let those which have had no schoolmaster but Aristotle, who affirms death of all terrible things to be most terrible fear death. Let us which have learnt of St. Paul that to die is again, that whether we live or die we are of the Lord, and that Christ hath died, that he might be ruler both over the quick and the dead, heartily say with David,

deliver, O Lord, deliver our souls out of prison, that they may confess thy name. Besides a thousand incommodities and displeasures of this present slippery life, this doth also accede that our sins daily renewed, augmented, and increased, we more and more provoke the Lord to ire, and the innocency of life, if we have any, is wholly endangered, rather than the which should decay, St. Paul desired to die. Better, saith he, it is for me to die, than any man should make vain my glory. Therefore, let us not love the world, for indeed it will not love us very much if we aren't true Christians, neither the things that are therein, or else the charity of the Father cannot abide in us, for all things in the world which is wholly set in malice are either

concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, or pride of life. To conclude, if death were only an abolisher of worldly displeasures, it were a thing not utterly to be abhorred, but forasmuch as with worldly miseries it puteth away those that are spiritual, and further leadeth us to eternal blessedness, why should we not much wish for it, covet and desire it. Courteous and the D. D.C. of Rome, affecting the vain glory of the world, vowed themselves, no man commanding willingly to death, and shall we Christians die impatiently, whereby we may attain to the true and heavenly glory, God commanding and calling us. Or shall we, rather, following the example of St. Paul, wish for the dissolution of our bodies,

and to be with Christ? What thing in the world is of such excellency that it may justly so allure you, being a wise, and, as I take it, a faithful man, that you should be loath to leave it. Riches, uncertain, false, and vain, the use whereof is vanity, which shall not profit you in the day of obdication, and vengeance, to be short, very smoke. Friends, untrusty, dissemblers, fools, in whom is no health, every man is a hypocrite and wicked, and every mouth hath spoken foolishness. Parents, you shall have a father in heaven, who loveth and tendroth you more than, than these earthly parents.

Wife, brethren, and children, you shall dwell with your brother Christ who loveth and careth for you, much more than all those care, who hath spent, not his money or other external things for your sake, but his most precious blood. So much hath he esteemed you,

so vehemently hath he loved you, before the beginning of the world, yea, and loveth you still. Pleasures, you shall have the presence of God, which so far parseth all other pleasures as the brightness of the sun, excelleth the light of a candle, honours, vain and inconstant, for all things here are vanity. Your body, a corruptible prison which burdeneth the soul, and depresseth the sense,

musing on many things. From the which prison the soul, being the very man itself, for the body is but a case, desireth more to be delivered than the prisoners from their imprisonments and chains, and as fervently covets access unto God, as the chafed heart, boiling with heat desires the sweet flowing water. Is it your country? A strange country for so long as we live here we are strange from Christ. Here we have no permanent city, but look for one that is to come. Here we are aliens, as David said, none otherwise than all our forefathers

abiding in the reign of the tyrant the devil, that is to say in the world beset with a thousand enemies. First, the foul crooked serpent himself afar off and nigh by fines and strokes, with all kinds of weapons never ceaseth endeavouring to opun us. The world disquietes us, and labours still to subvert us. The flesh, as much as lieth in him, cowardly betrays us, and aids busily the aforesaid enemies. Now poverty, now riches, and care of things got and molest us night and day. With how many grievous sicknesses are men's bodies vexed, what injuries, slanders, despise, usually grieve us. Now we must prepare ourselves to fight with avarice and uncleanness. Now with our

Ayer, Ambition, and other carnal vices. To be short, the mind of man is beset with so many enemies that scantly is he able to resist. If Averus be prostrate, unlawful lust offers us battle. If lust be subdued, ambition draws his sword. If ambition be cast down, ire provokes us. Pride sets in his foot, drunkenness approaches, envy breaketh concord, emulation cutteth amity away.

I will not speak of desperation, of the death beating of consciences, of the furies of the mind, with such others, which, with horrible enforcements, furiously assail innumerable, for what should I fight with the monster hydra? Who can number the sands in the sea, or the stars fixed in the high heavens, which I think, pass not much the number of men's enemies? Seeing, therefore, that man daily suffereth so many persecutions and dangers, should we desire to stand still in the midst of our enemies, among so many sharp swords,

or shall we covet by death quickly to flee to Christ our defender and helper? Especially seeing that Christ himself instructeth us and saith, Truly, truly I say unto you, that you shall weep and lament, The world shall rejoice, you shall be sorry but this sorrow of yours shall be turned into gladness. Who will not be desirous to want heaviness, and to enjoy perfect gladness? When this sorrow shall be turned into gladness, he declares, saying, I will see you again, and your hearts shall be joyful, and this mirth shall no man take from you. Therefore, seeing that to see Christ is to be glad,

and that we shall not be glad indeed till such time as we shall see him, what blindness, or rather madness is it here to delight in pain, tears, and pensiveness, and not rather to covet to come unto the joy which no man shall take from us. Let us play the wise man, and be glad at the vocation to leave this painful peregrination, to depart from this labyrinth, and be transferred to our country, and to our most loving father's house, where is no sickness, no sorrows, no weariness, no hunger, no cold, no labour, no mourning, no jeopardies, no enmity, no care. To be short, no adversity at all, but much tranquility and pleasure that shall ever endure and deep quietness, where we shall have for false riches, true inheritance, for dissembling friends, Abraham, Isaac,

the Blessed Virgin Mary, Peter, Paul, and the angels of God, which, as the proverb is, shall ever love, whose faithfulness and love shall never be changed from us. Who, considering these things, will not say with the prophet that the day of death is better than the day of birth? Who will not confess that he which dieth in the Lord maketh the change between Glaucus and Diomedes, that is to say, receiveth for brass, silver, and for copper, pure beaten gold? But peradventure you will say unto me, sir, as for this world, howsoever it be I know it, and of its good things I am a partaker, but whither I shall go hence,

As yet I know not, nor what I shall have after this life, therefore to leave a certainty for a thing uncertain, how should I but be sorry? Harken then, I pray you, and give ear a little, and I shall declare unto you by God's infallible word, both whither you shall go hence, and what you shall have after this life. The body, saith Ecclesiastes, shall return to the earth, from whence it came, and the soul to God which gave it, Ecclesiastes twelve. The souls of just men are in the hands of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them. Many mansions, saith Christ, are in the house of my father. If it were otherwise, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go

to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that you may be where I am, John 14. Trust, therefore, and you shall be sure by this promise to come thither where Christ is. Every man that heareth the word of Christ, and believeth in him that sent him, hath life everlasting, he cometh not into judgment, but passeth from death to life, John five. We know, saith Paul, that if the earthly house of this our habitation be dissolved, we shall have a building of God, a house not made with man's hands, but everlasting in heaven, Tukhrenthins five. That dwelling doubtless shall happen to the faithful which Christ, of his

great mercy, promised to the thief, with these most comfortable words, this day thou shall be with me in paradise. Therefore, seeing it is so that the souls of just and faithful men are in the hand of God, as you are assured by scripture, where the torment of death shall not touch them, seeing Christ hath prepared a place for them, and that they shall dwell even there as Christ himself dwelleth, seeing that we shall have, after the disillusion of these, our earthly bodies, an everlasting mansion in heaven. Doubt no more whither you shall go after this life, but be ready, repent and believe and you shall enter, accompanied of the five wise virgins, into the joyous marriage mentioned in Matthew.

What the faithful shall have after this life, St. Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians chapter two, sufficiently declares, the eye saith he hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, neither the heart of man hath thought the excellency of the good things that God hath prepared for them that love him. Again to the Romans, the passions, troubles, and afflictions we suffer here, not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us in the time to come. Thus St. Paul, who has wrapped into the third heaven, and saw secrets which a man may not lawfully speak, hath taught you what these souls of good men shall enjoy after this life. That is glory and such excellency

of pleasures as the senses and understanding of man cannot comprehend. But if St. Paul had spoken nothing of the matter, yet a reasonable man might partly conceive the great and invisible things that good men shall possess in the other life from these present things little and visible. For as much as our vile and corruptible bodies by the benignity of God receive so many commodities, benefits and pleasures of the heavens, the earth and the sea, of the light and darkness of heat and cold, of the rain, winds, and dew, of birds, beasts, and fishes, of herbs, plants, and trees of the earth, to be short of the ministry of all creatures, serving us successively in their due times,

whereby they may alleviate our weariness. what, how great and innumerable shall those be, which he has prepared for those that love him, in the heavenly country where we shall see him face to face? If he do so much and so great things for us being in prison, what shall he do for us in the palace? Seeing that the works of God are so great and innumerable, wondrous and delectable, which the good and the evil both receive, how great shall those be which the good shall receive being alone, seeing that he performeth so much for his friends and his enemies, yet being together, what shall he do for his friends separately?

Seeing that he comforteth us so much in the day of tears, how much shall he comfort us in the day of marriage? Seeing that the prison containeth such things, what manner of things shall our country contain? The eye, as it is said before, hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, nor the heart of man can think the excellency of those things which God hath prepared for his friends. According to the great multitude of his magnificence,

is the multitude of his pleasantness, which he hath laid up for them that fear him. Therefore, let us not doubt whither we shall go, neither what we shall have being faithful in the other world, forasmuch as we may certainly know not by scripture only, but also by the leading of natural reason. All such doubt put away, desire we most heartily and fervently access to those things which God hath prepared for his friends, musing some such godly meditation as is this, which St. Augustine hath in his soliloquies. Quote, the heart desireth not so much, O Lord, the wells of sweet water, as my soul desireth to be with thee. My soul hath sorely thirsted for thee, O Lord, the well of life.

O when shall I come and appear before thy glorious face? O well of life and vein of living waters? When, when shall I come from the earth, that desert without way, under the waters of thy sweetness, that I may see thy virtue and satisfy my thirst with the waters of thy mercy. I am a thirst, O Lord, and thou art the well of life. Fill me with thy waters I beseech thee. I do thirst for thee, O Lord, the living God. When shall I come and appear before thy face?

Shall I never see that day? That day I mean of pleasantness and mirth. That day which the Lord hath made, That we might be glad and joyful in it. O day most bright, fair, calm, void of all storms, tempests, and troublesome winds, having no even tight nor falling down of the sun, in the which I shall hear the voice of praise, the voice of exaltation and confession. In the which day I shall here enter into the joy of the Lord thy God,

where are great, inscrutable, and marvellous things, whereof there is no number. Enter into joy without heaviness, into joy which containeth eternal gladness, where shall be all good things and no evil, where a man shall have what he will, and nothing that he will not, where life shall be sweet and amiable, where there shall be no enemy impugning us, but safe security, sure tranquillity, quiet chukundity, pleasant felicity, happy eternity, eternal blessedness, and the blessed Trinity, of the unity, of the unity, the deity, of the deity, blessed fruition. O joy above all joys, O joy passing all other, O joy besides which there is no joy,

when shall I enter, that I may see, my lord, that dwelleth in thee, and the great vision, What is it that hindroth me so long? Alas, how long shall it be said to me, Where is thy God, and where is thine expectation? Art not thou, O Lord God? We look for Jesus Christ, who shall reform the bodies of our humiliation, and conform them to His. When shall he return from the marriage, that he may lead us to his marriage?

Come, O Lord, and tarry not, Come, sweet Jesus, come and visit us in peace, Come and bring us from prison, That we may be glad before thee with perfect hearts. come, thou which are desired of all nations, show thy face and we shall be saved, come my own light, my redeemer, and bring myself from prison, that it may confess thy name. How long shall I, poor wretch, be lost in the flood of my mortality, crying to thee, O lord, and thou hearest me not.

Hear my cry I beseech thee from this troublesome sea, and bring me to the port of felicity. O happy are they which have passed the dangers of this jeopardous sea, and have attained to thee, O surest haven. Happy, thrice happy are they which have passed from the sea to the banks, from banishment to their country, from prison to the heavenly palace, where they rejoice with continual quietness, that they have sought by many tribulations, O happy and happy again, which are eased of the burden of their evils,

and being sure of immaccessible glory, inhabit the kingdom of comeliness. O everlasting kingdom, O kingdom of all worlds, where is light that never faileth, and the peace of God that passeth all sense, in the which peace the souls of saints do rest, where everlasting happiness covereth their heads with joy and exultation, where sorrow and mourning can have no place. O how glorious is thy kingdom, good lord, in the which thy saints do reign clothed with light, as it were with a garment, having on their heads crowns of precious stones.

O kingdom of everlasting blessedness, where thou, O Lord, the hope of saints and diadem of glory, out looked upon of thy holy ones face to face, making them glad on every side, in thy peace that passeth all sense. There is joy without end, gladness without sorrow, health without sickness, mirth without sorrow, increase without labour, light without darkness, life without death, all good things without all evil things, where youth never waxeth old, where life hath no end, where beauty never fadeth, where love is never cold, where joy doth never decrease, where sorrow is never felt, where wailing is never heard, where no evil is to be feared, for there the highest felicity is possessed, that is to say, ever to see thy face,

O lord of powers. Therefore happy are they, which have already attained unto such joys, unhappy are we forasmuch as we do not yet travel in a strange country as banished men, suspiring unto thee, being the port of the sea. O country, oh, our sweet country afar off, we look towards thee. From this unquiet ocean we do salute thee with tears, we desire and sue to come unto thee, O Christ, God of God, the hope of mankind, our refuge and virtue, whose light afar off among the dark clouds, over the stormy seas, as the beam of a star of the sea doth irradiate

our eyes, that we may be directed to the safe haven, govern our ship with thy right hand, and with thee stern of thy cross, lest we perish in the floods, lest the tempests of the sea drown us, lest the depth swallow us up. With the hook of thy cross, draw us unto thee, from this tempestuous sea, O thou, our only comfort, whom we see afar off as the morning star and the sun of justice, with our eyes scant able to weep any longer. Unto thee, standing upon the bank and looking for us,

we thy redeemed, we thy banished men, whom thou hast bought again with thy precious blood do cry. Thou, O lord of health, art hope of all coasts of the earth afar off, and in the sea, we do waver in the troubulous surges, O most bountiful Lord, behold thou jeopardies, save us, sweet Lord, for thy namesake, grant us that we may so keep a mean betwixt Cilla and Cabodorus, that we may eschew both the dangers, and happily come to port, our ship, and our merchandise safe." End quote, Augustine's illiquy, chapter 35.

Let us, I say, now and then, all hate of death excluded, muse some such godly meditation earnestly desiring of God, not temporally to live but to die, not to continue here in banishment among our enemies but to be delivered, and dwell in our country with Christ, not to endure here in these dangerous wars, but through death to come unto peace most pleasant. Yet peradventure one scruple is left behind, that troubleth your conscience, and suffereth not your mind as yet to be quiet. You will say unto me, sir, I remember that among many things I heard you say that the souls of just men are in the hands of God, and the torment of death shall not touch them.

I am not just, no, not so much as a dream or a shadow of a just man, but rather a sinner most miserable, who have been accustomed, even from my young age to heap vice upon vice, and with detestable transgression continually to exasperate my Lord God. Wherefore the judgment of Scripture, and not without a cause, troubeth my conscience, causeth it to fear, condemneth it, and pulleth it in peace. pieces. All the fences, says it, shall be gathered together, and all those that work iniquity, they shall be sent into the furnace of fire, where shall be mourning and gnashing of teeth, Matthew 13. Again, they which have done well shall go into everlasting life. They that have done

evil into everlasting fire, Matthew 25, neither adulterers, fornicators, robbers, covetous persons, nor worshippers of images, with such other shall inherit the kingdom of God. One Corinthian 6. This is the sentence of God's word. This repeleth me from his kingdom and from paradise, whereof you made mention. This maketh me afraid, and with shame utterly putteth me back. This confoundeth me and chaseth me clean away. Doubtless, you do very well, in that you confess your own uncleanness, for if any of us should say that we have not offended, we should deceive ourselves, one John one. All men have swerved, and are made unprofitable. Neither is there any that doeth good, no, not one, Romans three. We have wandered verily all of us,

as it were sheep, everyone after his own way, Isaiah 53, being servants unprofitable and by nature the children of wrath. Neither is any good, God only accepted, Matthew 19. Wherefore in his sight no man shall be able to justify himself, nor yet to abide him, if he observe our iniquities, for in his sight the very stars are not clean. But what then shall we, being brought to this straight, cowardly despair? God forbid. Well, what shall we do? Whither shall we flee? Where is our our refuge, let us flee unto Christ, as unto a sure sanctuary, safe refuge and Pearson defender. Unto Christ! How dare we be so bold, whose precepts we have never obeyed, whose laws we have seldom or never kept, whom we have disdain to love again, notwithstanding that he hath ever

been our lover most faithful and true? He, being full of mercy, calleth us unto him of his own accord, come hither to me, saith he, all you that labour and are laden with sin, and I shall refresh you, Matthew 11. Let us be bold, therefore, to sue to his mercy, and of his holy oracles, which are written for our consolation and learning, let us require comfort. For they, such as the virtue of them, can easily erect men's minds and quiet, troubled consciences, they, as most wholesome medicines, shall give us present health, they shall pronounce mercy to a penitent sinner, and pardon to the captives, they shall declare us to be be no more under the rigor of the law, but under grace and mercy. They shall teach us that God is

pacified, and that our sins are forgiven us for His Son's sake. You are freely justified, saith Paul, by grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be the obtainer of mercy through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness, for the remission of sins that are gone before in the sufferance of God, to declare his righteousness in this time that he may be righteous, and the justifier of him which is of the faith of Jesus Christ, Romans 3. By grace, as he saith to the Ephesians, we are saved through faith, and that not of ourselves it is the gift of God, and that not of our own works, lest any man should glory, Ephesians 2. Wherefore, seeing it is so that we are freely justified by faith in Christ Jesus,

we shall have no just cause to despair, but rather to be at peace with God through Christ, by whom we have entrance into this grace wherein we do stand. yea, and to glory in the hope of the sons of God, Romans 5. Scripture saith not, Happy are those that sin not, but happy are they whose sins are hidden, whose iniquities are forgiven. Yea, and to him which worketh not, yet believeth in him that justifieth the wicked, faith is imputed to him for justice, according to the purpose of the grace of God, Romans 4. Doubtless, if our justification should depend on the innocency of our own lives we should perish,

how many soever we are. Romans 8. but seeing that God who is rich in mercy for the great love that he hath loved us with, when we were dead in sin and hath quickened us with Christ, and that not of our deserving, lest any man should glory. Ephesians too, but by the mere grace of God, purchased by the blood of Christ, which has made our redemption, our justice, our prudence and sanctification, one Corinthians one, why should not we, being penitent and faithful,

laying our sins upon his back, who hath taken away our diseases and have carried with him our infirmities, Isaiah 53, and further putting him in remembrance of his promise made to sinners, both by his prophets and his apostles, boldly call on his mercy for his son's sake. Especially considering that he is much more prone of his own nature to forgive than we are to ask forgiveness, yea, and because that you do partly mistrust him, methinks I should hear him being somewhat angry, sweetly expostulate with thee after this sort. What now, my dear child, why ceaseth not thy spirit, at the last be afflicted. Why dost thou think that I am? A cruel tyrant, or else of mercies, the father,

and of all consolation, two Corinthians one, the God long suffering and of much mercy? I have not thou taught by my son, Jesus, to call me thy father, Matthew 6? Have not, I promised by my prophet Jeremiah, that I would be thy father, and thou shouldst be my son? Why dost thou not, therefore, ask me forgiveness, well hoping for pardon? Who is it of you, although you are evil that will not forgive his son, lamenting his faults, being suppliant, desiring pardon and promising amendment, notwithstanding that he hath provoked him to anger a hundred times, and thinkest thou that I, which am the father of mercies, of whom all fatherliness in heaven and in earth is named, which possess the riches of goodness, patience, and longanimity, am not to be ready to

forgive my children, truly repenting, Romans two. Be of good comfort, my child, be of good comfort, mistrusting not my mercy, which surpasseth not only man's mercy, how great soever it be, but my own works also. Judgment without mercy shall they feel, whose hearts are obdurate, hardened, and will not repent, which delight still in their sins, and will never leave their wickedness, which contem my word and trust me not. From them, indeed, health must needs be far away, but as for thee, repent, and the kingdom of heaven shall draw nigh, Matthew three. Trust and thy faith shall save thee, Matthew nine. for as Moses hath exalted the serpent in the desert, so hath my son been exalted,

that every man believing in him might be saved and have life everlasting, John 3. I would have all men to be saved, and no man to perish, one Timothy too, my fashion is ever to raise him up, lest he perish utterly which is cast down. It is not my will believe me that one of these little ones be cast away, whom I have ever loved so well that I would vouchsafe to give my only son for them, Matthew 18. but thy trespasses are great, wherefore thou art not persuaded to trust in my mercy. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, one Timothy I. He is thine advocate, and an atonement for thy sins, and not for thine only, but for these sins of the whole world,

one John two. He came to call transgressors not the just, and to save that which was lost, Matthew 9. I am, dear son, I am he that putteth away thy sins for myself, and will give my glory to none other. Suppose thy sins to be red as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow. I have scattered them as clouds, and as mists have dispersed them. Turn to me, for I have redeemed thee. Such is my facility, so gentle I am, such is my benignity, so great is my mercy, which thy most loving brother and advocate, Christ, that wash thee from thy sins in his blood hath purchased, continually praying for thee. Why dost thou not open the examples of my word as a table or glass wherein thou mayest well learn how exorable I am, how ready and willing to

forgive. Consider with thyself how heinous faults I have pardoned them, Jeremiah three. Go to, therefore, be of good cheer, lift up thine eyes, mistrust me no longer, turn to me, and thou shalt be saved, Isaiah 45. Commend thy spirit into my hands, and the prince of this world shall have nothing to do with thee, for by me the Lord of Truth, thou art truly redeemed. Who, hearing these words of his heavenly father, as they are his words indeed so sweetly alluring him, so earnestly comforting him, so pleasantly drawing him to himself, will any more doubt of his mercy? Despaire you not utterly, dear friend, nor yet be you sorrowful for anything, but if your false enemy the devil approach, objecting against you the multitude and grievousness of your sins, turn to God and say unto him,

turn away thy face from my sins, good Lord, and look on the face of thy Christ Jesus. Thy sins sayeth your enemy, in number past the sands of the sea. Answer, the mercy of God is much more plenteous. How canst thou hope for the reward of justice, being altogether unjust? Christ Jesus is my justice. Shall thou, being covered with sins enter into rest with Peter and Paul? Nay, but with the thief, who hoed on the cross, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise?

How hast thou this trust who never didst good? I have a good lord, an exorable judge, and a gracious advocate. Thou shall be drawn to hell. My head is in heaven already, and from it the inferior members cannot be severed. Thou shalt be damned. Thou art a false accuser, no judge, a damned spirit, no condemner. Many legions of devils do wait for thy soul. I should despair, indeed, if I had not a defender, which have overcome your tyranny.

God is unjust if he give for evil deeds everlasting life. He is just, and keepeth his promise, and I have already appealed from his justice to his mercy. Thou dost flatter thyself with vain hope. The truth cannot lie, to make false promises, belongeth under thee. What thou leavest here, thou seest, but what thou shalt have, thou seest not. Things which are seen are temporal, but things which are not seen are eternal. Thou goest hence, laden with evil deeds, and naked of all good works. I shall desire God to exonerate me of mine evils,

and to cover me with his goodness. God heareth no sinners, yet he heareth them that repent, and for sinners he died. Thy repentance is too late. It was not too late for the thief. The thief had a steadfast faith. Thine is wavering. I desire God that he will increase my faith. Thou dost falsely persuade thyself to find God merciful, which punisheth thee with pains after this sort. Herein he playeth thee part of a gentle physician. Why would he that death should be so bitter, He is the Lord. He willeth nothing but that which is good. And why should I, a servant unprofitable, refuse to suffer that which the Lord of glory hath suffered?

It is a miserable thing to die. Blessed be the dead that die in the Lord. But the death of sinners is most wretched. He is no longer a sinner which hath acknowledged his fault with repentance and hope of mercy. Thou shalt leave this world. I shall go from painful banishment into my country. Look what a heap of good things thou leavest behind thee, yet a great deal more evil. Thou leavest thy riches.

They are the worlds I do carry all that is mine away with me. What canst thou carry with thee? Thou hast nothing that is good. That is truly mine, mine own, that Christ hath freely forgiven me. Thou must forsake thy wife and thy children. They are the lords, I do commend them to him. It is a hard thing to be drawn from thy dearly beloved. they shall shortly follow me.

Thou art plucked from thy pleasant friends, I hasten to friends more pleasant. Thus thou art taught not to give place to the devil, endeavouring to overthrow thee, but boldly to repel every dart that he can hurl at thee. Neither let thee care for thy friends, wife, and children trouble thee, mistrusting not, but God shall provide as well for them, and peradventure better in thine absence,

than he did in thy lifetime, for thou must consider, that thine own power hath not all this while sustained thee or them, and procured things necessary, but God, in whom we live, move, and are, hath done it. God which feedeth, nourisheth, and saveth both man and beast, which royally cloveth the grass in the field, covereth the heavens with clouds, careth for the birds of the air, and prepareth meat for the very chickens of the ravens, shall much more regard thy friends, being his people, confessing his name. called to remembrance how mercifully he provided for the poor widow and her children, spoken of in two kings four.

By the benignity of God, this poor woman with her children was much better provided for after the death of her husband, though he were a holy man than she was before. God is even the same God now than he was then, and can do as much for Christian men now in these days as he could then for the Jews. and he doubtless, if thou fear him, will regard thy wife, children, and friends, no less than he did the wife and children of this prophet. Further, called to remembrance, how that they, many times, who are left of their friends rich and in great honours, are after brought to poverty, yea, and to the beggars' staff, on the other side, that they which are left poor and beggarly of their friends,

at the length come to great riches, authority, and honour, wherefore I do think, as I oft have said, not I but the prophet, that both riches and poverty come of God, and that men shall have what it shall please God to give them. Yet I will not blame an honest provision for men's children. Therefore commit them to God, for they are His, let them cast their care on the Lord, and he by his promise shall nourish them. And to you that are his friends here, to you I speak, What meaneth this your heaviness?

Why do you sorrow after this sort? To what purpose do you trouble yourselves with weepings? Why do ye, as it would, in a manner draw in to dispute the will of God with your unjust complaints? Do ye think him to be a meat matter of lamenting, sorrowing, and wailing, because he is delivered from dangers to safety, from bondage to liberty, from diseases to immortality, from earthly things to heavenly, from men to the company of God's angels? Wherein hath he offended you, that you so envy the good which hath befallen him? If ye do not envy, what needs all these tears? I am sure if he knew to what

felicity he is going, you would banquet and be joyful, at the least, if you love his welfare. Christ said to his disciples, when they were sad that he would depart, if he loved me, you would be glad for as much as I go to my father, wherein he declared that we ought not to be sad, but joyful at the departure of our friends from hence. What, I pray you, shall you lose by the death of your friend, but that he shall be out of your sight, and that but a time. Nevertheless, less you may at all times, in the mean space, in your minds and memories, see him, talk with him, and embrace him. Mourn no more for him, for he offers you no cause of mourning, but if he will needs mourn, mourn for yourselves, in that ye are not so nigh the port of our sweet country,

flowing with milk and honey as he is. This morning is more fit for the Scythians and such other barbarous people, who know not the condition of faithful souls, than for you which know, or might all this while have learned? Let them, I pray, weep and howl-like brutes, let them cut their ears and noses as they were wont to do at the death of their friends. Let us be joyful.

Let Admetus, Orpheus, and such other infidels mourn at the death of their friends, and require them again of prosopine. Let not us require our friends of God again, though we might have them, since it must be with the loss of their wealth and prosperous being. Will you not to be counted,

unreasonable, and to your friend no friend, if you should require him to dine or dwell with you, having nothing in your house about horse-bread and stinking water, where he may go to a friend more faithful than you are, and have at all times, all kinds of dainties? And will you be counted reasonable, who would, by your wills, hinder this your friend, going to the house of his most faithful friend Christ, where he shall have heavenly dainties and meat of the holy angels, in comparison of which your cheer is much worse than horse-bread and stinking water indeed. Mour no more for him, I say, but be glad that your friend shall attain to such felicity. What other thing is it for us Christians to mourn at the death of our friends than to give an occasion to the infidels to reprehend and accuse us,

for as much as we do deny the thing indeed that we do profess with our mouths, for in words we say that the soul of man is immortal, and that there is another life better than this. in our morning we seem to show ourselves to be of another opinion. What prophet is it, I pray you, to pronounce virtue in words and in deeds to destroy the truth? St. Paul doth reprove and blame them which are heavy in the departure of their friends, saying I would not have you ignorant, O brethren, as touching them that sleep, that ye be not sad, as others that have no hope. It belongeth to them to weep, and be sorry at the death of their friends,

which have no hope of another life to come, and not to us which believe, that our souls are immortal, and that our bodies shall arise again. Mour no more for him, therefore, but prepare and make ready yourselves to follow him, living virtuously, for that ye know not the day or hour. Now to you again, my friend, see that you are joyful in God, and let not this short affliction of your body disquiet your mind. But source it rather, and make it pleasant with the hope of everlasting blessedness, remembering that, as you shall be quickly delivered from this sickness,

so you shall no more hereafter be subject to any sorrows, pains or pensiveness. It should never grieve a man to fare evil at dinner, knowing that he shall have a supper most dainty and delicate. When your pangs shall be most urgent, set this saying of St. Paul before your eyes, things which are seen, and that we suffer here are temporal, and last for a while, but things which are not seen, and that we shall have are eternal. In hope, therefore, of these eternal things willingly compose your body to sleep, for so this corporeal death is named in scripture. The patriarchs were ever said to have slept with

their fathers when they died, and not without a cause, for that our bodies shall arise again in the last day, as though it were from a sleep indeed. At the blowing of a trumpet saith Paul, the dead shall rise uncorrupt, and from heaven saith the same Paul, we look for our Lord Jesus Christ, which shall transform our vile bodies and conform them to his glorious body. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also which are asleep, through Jesus, shall God bring with him. 1 Thessalonians 4. O, bringing most blessed, goodly and pleasant,

when the bodies that now are sown in corruption, shall arise in uncorruption. That now are in dishonour shall rise in glory, that now are sown in weakness, shall rise in power, that now are so natural bodies, shall rise spiritual. When these corruptible shall put on incorruption,

and these mortal shall put on immortality, death is clearly swallowed up in victory, one Corinthin's 15. O how joyous shall that day be to the faithful, when men's bodies, made like to the body of Christ, shall inhabit the kingdom which God hath prepared for those that fear him before the beginning of the world, where they shall have joy and everlasting gladness, whereas they, being like to the angels of God, shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their father. At the last, sweet friend, forasmuch as I have declared unto you, that all men must die,

and that when it shall please God, further, that in dying we do no other, but, as all the saints, yea, and Christ himself hath done, with whom we shall rise again, and that death is but a due repaying of things that were for a time liberally lent us, to the earth our bodies, and our souls to God, our most bountiful father. That nothing here is of such excellency, that it should allure a wise man, and to him that hopeth for another life to come, to tarry long with it, that good men have ever desired to die and to be with God, for as much as death is the end of all miseries,

the finisher of all sorrows and an entrance into perpetual bliss. Further, in that I have declared unto you whether you shall go, and what you shall have after this life, and that God most mercifully hath forgiven you your sins, for that you are repentant and faithful, and that he will provide for yours if they fear him as well or better than he did in your days. Finally, that this body of yours shall rise again from the earth gloriously in the last day, through his power that gave its first fashion,

for that these things are so, I say, quiet your mind and prepare yourself, as doth the swan with song of heart and pleasure, to die, and to the accomplishment of God's will, all fear of death being excluded. Think only of immortality, being willing and glad to depart hence to God that calleth you, which, as the servants of God, should always be ready to do, so at this time most ready, forasmuch as this miserable world beset with the horrible tempests, storms and troublesome whirlwinds of all kinds of evil beginneth to do. decay. Moreover, as grievous things are already befallen to nations, so more grievous

things are to be looked for, in that sin daily increaseth among men more and more, provoking the justice of God. Therefore, I cannot but think it a great gain quickly to depart hence. If the posts of the house were perished and the trembling roof should threaten ruin to be at hand, would you not, being in health, depart with all speed? If a troublesome and stormy tempest suddenly risen on the sea should threaten plain shipwreck and the drowning of you and your company, Would you not make haste to the port? Lo, the world decayeth, and the end of things, threateneth plain falling down, and shall not you give thanks to God, and for your own part be glad that you shall be delivered in time from

such ruins, plagues, and tempests as hang over the heads of men. Think, sweet friend, I beseech you, and think again, that so long as we are here, we are very strangers, and that we ought chiefly to embrace that hour which shall appoint every one of us to his own house, and restore us, delivered from all snares of the world, to Paradise and the Heavenly Kingdom, who, being in a strange country, will not covet to return to his own country, who, sailing towards his friends, will not covet a quick and prosperous wind, that he may the rather embrace his will, beloved. We count Paradise our country, the patriarchs, to be our parents and friends. Why then do we not fervently desire speedily to see the patriarchs at Paradise,

where a great company of our friends look for us, and a wonderful number of our parents, brethren and sisters, tarry for us? we being sure of their immortality and wishing that we had the same. At the sight and meeting of these, O how great gladness shall happen both to us and them! How great pleasure of the heavenly kingdom, without fear of death, and with the eternity of life! How high and perpetual felicity!

There is the glorious company of the apostles, there is the laudable number of the glad prophets, there is the innumerable host of martyrs, crowned and triumphing with the victory of their strifes and passions. There are those which have broken the concupiscency of their flesh with the strength of continence. There are the merciful enjoying their rewards, who by feeding the poor and helping the needy have wrought the works of justice, keeping the commandments of God, have transferred their earthly patrimonies into heavenly treasures. This is the joyous company. To this no earthly company is to be compared. To him which hath brought you a place in this company with the price of his blood, I do betake you.

Commit yourselves to his hands, for he shall never fail you. farewell. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. End of Section 5. Section 6 of the troubled man's medicine by William Hugh. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The conclusion of this book, teaching all men gladly to die. I suppose that by this doctrine every Christian man shall be contented

and will be instructed in the time of death to put away from them, these aforesaid impediments, so that I trust in God, they shall not hinder him, nor draw him back from a joyful and glad will to receive this corporeal death, but shall wait for it patiently, and with a good will, whensoever, our dear father calleth him thereto, for by it, as it were thorough and entire, he leadeth us unto another life a thousandfold better, and so delivereth us from all misery and displeasure, from all dangers, and out of the hands of all our enemies, being certified by our faith, that all things which could hurt or hinder us, whether it were sin, death, devil, or hell, are altogether vanquished and overcome,

being turned to our prophet. The account is passed, the judge is appeased, all debts are pardoned, forgotten quite satisfied and paid, and there is nothing found damnable in us because we are in Jesus Christ, and in his faith, as it is said sufficiently before. But it is always to be noted, and this should we keep well in memory, that we have all these things only by Jesus Christ, who is our head, and we his members. I mean those that are Christians, not all they that bear the name, for by a loving faith we trusted, and do rest in and upon him, and his blessed word, knowing that he is Lord of Lords, almighty emperor above all that are in heaven, hail or earth, who hath given us all these things of his mere liberality without any deserving

of us, but through his love and kindness, and hath obtained it for us of his celestial father by his precious blood, because we believe this is true and know that, it is so, all fear and dread goeth from us, and by this means God worketh again in us a ferventness and such a love towards him, that we turn all things to his praise and honour, who hath showed us such kindness and love, being of nature his very enemies. Therefore, let us continually apply ourselves again to please him, and to leave all that we know doth displease him, but because that by reason of the sinful and filthy flesh we are daily troubled and inclined to evil, which doth withdraw and hinder us so to do. Therefore, let us call for his help and desire with the

Apostle Paul, as is said before, that this mortal body may die and be destroyed, to the intent that we may serve God and be obedient evermore unto him without any hindrance. And as long as we have here to travail, bearing this sinful flesh about with us, let us resist daily and fight against the evil inclinations thereof, to the intent that we may hold it under the bridle, and so continue as valiant captains in and by our head, Jesus Christ, the which God our celestial father grant eternally. End of Section 6. End of the troubled man's medicine by William Hugh.