The fading of the flesh and flourishing of faith, or, One cast for eternity…

¹Secondly, Dost thou know that death may come suddenly? Some diseases do no sooner appear, but we disappear. Death like a flash of lightning hath on a sudden burnt down many a body. It sometimes shoots white powder, doth execution without giving warning.

1. 1Secondly, Death may come suddenly.

Deiodorus dyed with sudden shame; Sophocles with sudden joy; Nabal with sudden fear; Pope Alexander was choked suddenly with a Fly; Anacreon the Poet with the Kernel of a Grape; Aeschylus was killed by the shell of a Tortoise, which the Eagle let fall on his bald head, mistaking it for a Rock; The Cardinal of Lorraine was lighted to the Chambers of death by a Poisoned Torch; A Duke of Brittany Pressed to death in a crowd; King Henry the second of France was killed at Tilting; Senecio Cornelius had his breath stopped by a Squinzy. I might name very many others, who took a short cut to their long homes, Belshazzar's carousing in his Bolls drunk his bane; Ammon, merry at his dainties, meets with Death; Zimri and Cozbi unload their lusts and their ⟨p. 37⟩lives together; Korah and his companions find the Earth Opening her mouth and swallowing them up quick, though she stay for others till they are dead; Herod scarce ends his proud speech, before he is sent to the place of silence; Ananias and Sapphira finish their lies and their lives at the same time. Scarce a week but nigh those parts we live in, some or other by violent or natural means, are suddenly sent into the other World. That which hath been one mans case may be any mans case. Reader, when thy breath goeth out▪ thou art not sure of taking it in again; thou mayst like the fool be talking of many years, when that God whose word must stand, may say, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and O what will then become of thee! Thy eternal condition, that estate which is to be for ever and ever, dependeth on this uncertain life, and art not thou mad to be revealing and roaring, dallying and delaying, when thine unchangeable estate is in danger. Thieves after the commission of their Robberies, frequently repair to Inns, where they drink joyfully, and divide their booty, when on a sudden, the Hue and Cry arriveth at that town, the Constable entereth their Room, attacheth their persons, marreth all their mirth, and carrieth them to the Goal, whence after their trial for their felonies, they are carted to Tyburn. Many a sinner in the midst of his carnal triumph, hath been haled to eternal torments, like that filthy Adulterer mentioned by Luther, who went ino Hell out of the embraces of his Harlot. The Philosophers say that the weather will be warmish before a snow. When the sky is most clear, then