minding marriages, pleasures, profit, or preferment, desired to be excused from death’s banquet. They had made an appointment with earth, looking at the blessings, not the hand that enlarged them, forgetting how unclothedly they came hither, or with what naked ornaments they were
- But were we servants of the precept given, and observers of the heathens’ rule, Memento mori, and not become benighted with this seeming felicity, we should enjoy it as men prepared to lose, and not wind up our thoughts upon so perishing a fortune. He that is not slackly strong (as the servants of pleasure), how can he be found unready to quit the vail and false visage of his perfection? The soul having shaken off her flesh, doth then set up for herself, and contemning things that are under, shows what finger hath enforced her; for the souls of idiots are of the same piece with those of statesmen, but now and then nature is at a fault, and this good guest of ours takes soil in an imperfect body, and so is slackened from showing her wonders, like an excellent musician, which cannot utter himself upon a defective instrument.
- But see how I am swerved, and lose my course, touching at the soul that doth least hold action with death, who hath the surest property in this frail act; his style is the end of all flesh, and the beginning of incorruption.
This ruler of monuments leads men, for the most part, out of this world with their heels forward, in token that he is contrary to life, which being obtained, sends men headlong into this wretched theatre, where, being arrived, their first language is that of mourning. Nor, in my own thoughts, can I compare men more fitly to any thing than to the Indian fig-tree, which, being ripened to his full height, is said to decline his branches down to the earth, whereof she conceives again, and they become roots in their own stock.