A09461:109
A salve for a sick man. or, A treatiseA salve for a sicke man. or, A treatise
A salve for a sick man. or, A treatise containing the nature, differences, and kinds of death as also the right manner of dying well. And it may serve for spiritual instruction to 1. Mariners when they go to sea. 2. Soldiers when they go to battle. 3. Women when they travel of child.A salve for a sicke man. or, A treatise containing the nature, differences, and kindes of death as also the right manner of dying well. And it may serue for spirituall instruction to 1. Mariners when they goe to sea. 2. Souldiers when they goe to battell. 3. Women when they trauell of child.
London: printed by John Legat, 1611London: printed by Iohn Legat, 1611
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Again, that we may be further induced to the practise of these duties, let us call to mind the uncertainty of our days: though we now live, yet who can say that he shall be alive the next day or the next hour? No man hath a lease of his life. Now mark, as death leaves a man, so shall the last judgement find him: and therefore if death take him away unprepared, eternal damnation follows without recovery. If a thief be brought from prison either to the bar to be arraigned before the judge, or to the place of execution, he will bewail his misdemeanour past, and promise all reformation of life; so be it, he might be delivered, though he be the most arrant thief that ever was. In this case we are as felons or thieves: for we are every ⟨p. 182⟩day going to the bar of Gods judgement, there is no stay or standing in the way, even as the ship in the sea continues on▪ his course day & night whether the mariners be sleeping or waking: therefore let us all prepare our selves and amend our lives betime, that in death we may make a blessed end. Ministers of the Gospel do daily call for the performance of this duty: but where almost shall we find the practise & obedience of it in mens lives & conversations? Alas, alas, to lend our ears for the space of an hour to hear the will of God is common; but to give heart & hand to do the same, is rare. And the reason hereof is athand: we are all most grievous sinners, & every sinner in the terms of Scripture is a fool: and a principal ⟨p. 183⟩part of his folly is to care for the things of this world and to neglect the kingdom of heaven, to provide for the body & not for the soul, to cast and fore-cast how we may live in wealth and honour, and ease, and not to use the least fore-cast to die well. This folly our Saviour Christ noted in the rich man that was careful to enlarge his barns,1 but had no care at all for his end or for the salvation of his soul. Such a one was Ahithophel, who (as the Scripture terms him) was as the very oracle of God for counsel, being a man of great wisdom & forecast in the matters of the common wealth and in his own private worldly affairs: and yet for all this he had not so much as common sense and reason, to consider how he might die the ⟨p. 184⟩