The works of George Swinnock, M.A

¹I Wish that the uncertainty of my life, and certainty of my death, may quicken me to be religious every hour of every day. Every day may be my last, therefore every day should be my best. There is no part of my time, in which I am privileged from an arrest, by the King of terrors. Am I young? yet I am old enough to die. Death observeth no order; Some drop out of the arms of their earthly Mothers, into the embraces of their Mother Earth, and do no sooner speak, but they are sent to the place of silence. My Sun may set in the morning of my age, and death may tread upon the heels of life; Some have experienced those words of the wise man; There is a time to be born (so little to live that it is not mentioned) and a time to die. Am I strong? This Sampson of death can fetch meat out of the eater, and out of the strong, sweetness. Deaths harbinger, sickness, which prepareth its way before it, will make me melt like Wax before the Sun, though my strength were the strength of stones, and my flesh as brass. Fresh Flowers are cropped in their pride and greatest beauty; The Autumn of death comes ordinarily before the winter of old age. Besides, I am liable every day to many sudden accidents, and unexpected surprisals. How many die in their Shops or Fields, or in the Church or Streets, as well as others in their beds! All men do not go out of the world at the fore door of sickness, many at the back-door of a violent death. When my blood frisketh merrily in my veins, and light sparkleth gloriously in mine eyes, when my countenance is most fresh and lovely, and my senses are most quick and lively, even then, a• my best estate I am altogether vanity. I may ⟨p. 533⟩draw a long line of life, because nature may afford radical moisture enough for it, when death lieth in ambush like a thief in the candle, and wasteth all on a sudden; Should I as the rich fool, reckon falsely to a million, when I cannot count truly to one, and promise my self many days, when my soul may be required of me this night, how gross is my delusion! Ah, how sad, how fatal is that error that can never be mended!

¹I Wish that the uncertainty of my life, and certainty of my death, may quicken me to be religious every hour of every day. Every day may be my last, therefore every day should be my best. There is no part of my time, in which I am priviledged from an arrest, by the King of terrors. Am I young? yet I am old enough to die. Death observeth no order; Some drop out of the armes of their earthly Mothers, into the embraces of their Mother Earth, and do no sooner speak, but they are sent to the place of silence. My Sun may set in the morning of my age, and death may tread upon the heels of life; Some have experienced those words of the wise man; There is a time to be born (so little to live that it is not mentioned) and a time to die. Am I strong? This Sampson of death can fetch meat out of the eater, and out of the strong, sweetness. Deaths harbinger, sickness, which prepareth its way before it, will make me melt like Wax before the Sun, though my strength were the strength of stones, and my flesh as brass. Fresh Flowers are cropt in their pride and greatest beauty; The Autumn of death comes ordinarily before the winter of old age. Besides, I am liable every day to many sudden accidents, and unexpected surprisals. How many die in their Shops or Fields, or in the Church or Streets, as well as others in their beds! All men do not go out of the world at the fore door of sickness, many at the back-door of a violent death. When my blood frisketh merrily in my veins, and light sparkleth gloriously in mine eyes, when my countenance is most fresh and lovely, and my senses are most quick and lively, even then, a my best estate I am altogether vanity. I may