An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

Observe hence, Few of the living regard how suddenly others do, or themselves may dye. Till we see a friend gasping and dying, till we see him bedewed with cold sweats, and racked with Convulsions, till our eye thus affects our hearts, our hearts are seldom affected with the sense of our mortality. It is one reason why Solomon ⟨p. 160⟩advises to go to the house of mourning, Eccles. 7. It is better to go to the house of mourning, then to the house of mirth, for (saith he) that is the way of all men (all must dye) and the living will lay it to heart, or the living will regard it. As if he had said, the living seldom lay death to heart, till they come to the house of death: He seems to promise for the living, that then they will: yet his undertaking is not so strict, as if every man that goes to the house of mourning did certainly lay it to heart: but he speaks probably, that if living man will at any time lay death to heart, then surely he will when he goes to the house of mourning. When will a man think of death, if not when he sees death? and looks into that dark chamber of the grave? There are many who lay it to heart only then: for a fit at a Funeral, they have a passion of the heart about mortality. And very many have gone so often to the house of mourning, that they are grown familiar with death, and the frequency of those meetings take off all impressions of mortality from their hearts. As we say of those Birds that build & roost in steeples, being used to the continual ringing of the bells, the sound disquiets them not: or as those that dwell near the fall of the river Nylus, the noise of the water deafens them so, that they mind it not. Many have been so often at the grave, that now the grave is worn out of their hearts; they look upon it as a matter of custom and formality for men to dye and be buried, and when the solemnity of death is over, the thoughts of death are over: as soon as the grave is out of their sight, preparations for the grave are out of mind. It is storied (2 Sam. 20. 12.) that when Amasa was slain by Joab, and lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the high way, every one that came by him stood still, but anon Amasa is removed out of the high way into the field, & a cloth cast upon him, & then (the text saith) all the people went on after Joab.