diseases twist themselves about our life, as the ivy about the oak, till they have exhausted all the sap of it, and caused it to wither away, and die. But yet it must be owned, that though there is no happiness in this life so pure, but what hath a great deal of alloy and intermixture; nor none so blessed, as to be totally exempt from pain, and crosses, and disappointments; yet it cannot be denied but that Providence hath a great many favourites in this world, who spend the greatest part of their lives in ease and pleasure, and for every painful moment they endure are compensated with a thousand joys and satisfactions. There are no bands in their death, as the Psalmist expresses it, but their strength is firm: they are not in trouble like other men, neither are they plagued like other men. Their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more than their heart could wish. These are they who prosper in the world, and increase in riches. Psalm lxxiii. Now as for such as these, life indeed is highly desirable; because it entertains them with far more goods than evils; but these, alas! seem privileged from the common fate of mortals; and therefore the Psalmist might well say, they are not plagued like other men: for considering how many there are that consume their lives in perpetual toil and drudgery, and have no other reward for their many hours' labour, but a short hungry meal, and a few hours' sleep and insensibility; how many that are oppressed with slavery, harassed with cruelty, pined with want and poverty, overwhelmed with shame and infamy; that are wasted with long sicknesses, outworn with lingering pains, consumed with vexation, sorrow, and anxiety of soul; that are stung with remorse, racked with horror and

despair, alarmed with perpetual fears and dismal expectations; I doubt, all these put together, into one number, make the much greater part and generality of mankind. And though to many of these miserable ones the divine providence indulges frequent intervals of ease, satisfaction, and pleasure; though it spices and sweetens their bitter cup with some grateful intermixtures, to make the nauseous draught of life go down with them more easily; yet whenever they compare the few goods they enjoy with the many evils they suffer, and equally balance their pleasures with their pains, their hopes with their fears, their successes with their crosses, and their enjoyments with their disappointments; I make no doubt but they will find the latter turn the scale with a great deal of overweight: and when the evils of human life do thus surmount the goods, and its sense is oftener impressed with pain than with pleasure, it is a plain case that death is a release and deliverance.

2. If we consider our birth simply as an entrance into this life, without any respect to another, death is preferable to it upon account of the good in which it instates us. It is true indeed, human life hath its pleasures as well as its pains; but these, alas! in their variety, are so scanty and few, that a very short time suffices us to make a through experiment of them all and when we have done this once, all our following pleasures are nothing but dull repetitions of the same things. For the main of the pleasures of human life are transacted within the short space of twenty-four hours: so that in almost all the rest of our age, we do nothing else but only tread the same stage over and over, the same enjoyments al

ways returning within the same compass of time. So that after we have been entertained a few years with nothing but the same returning pleasures, our appetite to them is quickly cloyed, and at length we rise from them with loathing and satiety: but then, alas! in all this narrow circle of pleasures, the greatest part is little else but a mere privation of pain and misery; and it is not so much a positive good that pleases us, as the removal of some afflicting evil. Thus ease and rest are only so far pleasing to us, as they remove our pain and weariness: for when these are removed, the pleasure is over, and in a little time we are weary again of our rest and ease, till pain and weariness return and sweeten them, and give them a new and grateful relish. And so when we are weary of rest, we are fain to recreate ourselves with action; and when we are weary of action, we are fain to refresh ourselves with rest; and so round and round again in the same circle. Thus eating and drinking are only so far pleasant to us, as they assuage the pain of our hunger and thirst; and when this is removed, the pleasure ceases; and till it returns again upon us, we cannot eat or drink with pleasure. So again, the pleasure of health consists in not being pained or diseased; the pleasure of recreation, in being diverted from the toil and hurry of business. And as for the phantastic pleasure men take in heaps of wealth, heights of preferment, and puffs of popular applause, there is very little real in it, beyond a mere privation of the miseries of want, scorn, and infamy. Thus most of the pleasures of human life are only so many short reprieves from the griefs, troubles, and displeasures of it, so many intermissions of its pains and diseases. And the

main of all our happiness here consists in not being sensible of misery; of which, if we had never lived, we had never been sensible; and when we die, we shall never be sensible more; that is, supposing death to be an utter extinction of all life, both here and hereafter, which is the notion under which I am now considering it and then, whereas our present indolence, or insensibleness of misery, is at best but partial and imperfect, (for to our profoundest ease there always clings some uneasy circumstance; our highest pleasures have always their appendant stings, and our sweetest gusts their bitter farewells,) death instates us in a perfect insensibleness, and cures us at once of all diseases: when we go down to make our beds in the dust, there we sleep on in an entire indolence; there are no midnight qualms, no convulsive starts or melancholy dreams, to discompose our rest; but all is hush and still, soft and quiet round about us; There the wicked cease from trouble, as Job expresses it, there the wearied are at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressors. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master. Job iii. 17. Seeing therefore that death renders us entirely insensible of pain and misery; and the best of life, even the pleasure of it, is little else but a non-perception of pain, and that a partial one too; it hence follows, that death, considered in itself, and without respect to the consequence of it, is really preferable to life.

3. Death is also preferable to life upon account of the hopes and fears arising from the goods and evils in both. For if there be no good to be hoped for in this life, which is not reasonably to be expected in

death; if there be no evil to be dreaded in death, which is not more to be dreaded in life, then it is plain that death is preferable before it. But, I beseech you, what great good doth your hope propose to you in living? Is it that you may pamper your lusts and entertain their voluptuousness a little longer? the meaning of which is no more than this, that you may appease the rage of your own desires with a short enjoyment that will but the more inflame them; and that when they are more inflamed, you may appease them again with the same enjoyment; that is to say, you would fain be eased from the importunate cravings of an insatiable appetite, from which, when all is done, there is nothing will perfectly ease you but a mouthful of earth; and that, by extinguishing the appetite, will for ever satisfy its craving, and then you will be perfectly at rest. For which is the greater good, I beseech ye, never to hunger at all, or to endure the pain of hunger only for the pleasure of eating? Doth not the impatience of your desire, which is a pain, generally abide a great deal longer on your appetite than the pleasure of satisfaction? and do you not find, upon an equal comparison of both, that the length of the pain of your desire doth more than countervail the pleasure of your enjoyment? But now in death all desire ceases; and so what you lose in being deprived of the pleasure of satisfaction, you gain with advantage in being cured of the pain of desire. Or would you live, that you may get more plentiful estates? the meaning of which is no more than this, that you would fain be farther removed from the want of the necessaries and conveniences of life, and translate yourselves to such a distance from wretched indigence, as that it