XXV. To whom I join Salmasius, that famous French scholar, and the other's contemporary, who after his many volumes of learning, by which he had acquired great veneration among men of books, confessed so far to have mistaken true learning, and that in which solid happiness consists, that he exclaimed thus against himself: "Oh! I have lost a world of time; time, that most precious thing in the world; whereof, had I but one year more, it should be spent in David's Psalms, and Paul's Epistles. Oh, Sirs," said he to those about him, "mind the world less, and God more: the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil, that is understanding."
XXVI. Francis Junius, an ingenious person, who hath written his own life, as he was reading Tully de Legibus, fell into a persuasion, Nihil curare Deum, nec sui, nec alieni; till in a tumult in Lyons, the Lord wonderfully delivered him from imminent death; so that he was forced to acknowledge a divine Providence therein, and his father hearing the dangerous ways that his son was misled into, sent for him home, where he carefully and piously instructed him, and caused him to read over the New Testament; of which himself writeth thus: "When I opened the New Testament, I first lighted upon John's first chapter, "In the beginning was the word," &c. I read part of the chapter, and was suddenly convinced, that the divinity of the argument, and the majesty and authority of the writing, did exceedingly excel all the eloquence of human writings: my body trembled, my mind was astonished, and was so affected all that day, that I knew not where and what I was. Thou wast mindful of me, O my God, according to the multitude of thy mercies, and calledst home thy lost sheep into the fold." And, as Justin Martyr of old, so he of late professed, that the power of godliness in a plain simple Christian wrought so upon him, that he could not but take up a strict and a serious life.
XXVII. A. Rivetus, a man of learning, and much reverenced in the Dutch nation, after a long life of study, in search of Divine knowledge, upon his death bed, being discoursed by his friend of heavenly things, brake forth in this manner: "God has learned me more of himself in ten days' sickness, than I could get by all my labour and studies." So near a way, so short a cut it is to the knowledge of God, when people come into the right way, which is to turn, in their minds and hearts, to the voice of God, and learn of Him, who is a Spirit, to be taught of Him, and led by Him: For in righteousness such shall be established, and great shall be their peace.
A Letter from James, Earl of Marlborough, a little before his Death, in the Battle at Sea, on the Coast of Holland, &c.
XXVIII. "I believe the goodness of your nature, and the friendship you have always borne me, will receive with kindness the last office of your friend. I am in health enough of body, and, through the mercy of God, in Jesus Christ, well disposed in mind. This I premise, that you may be satisfied that what I write proceeds not from any fantastic terror of mind, but from a sober resolution of what concerns myself, and earnest desire to do you more good after my death, than mine example (God of his mercy pardon the badness of it!) in my lifetime may do you harm. I will not speak aught of the vanity of this world; your own age and experience will save that labour: but there is a certain thing that goeth up and down in the world, called religion, dressed, and pretended fantastically, and to purposes bad enough, which yet by such evil dealings loseth not its being. The great good God hath not left it without a witness, more or less, sooner or later, in every man's bosom, to direct us in the pursuit of it; and for the avoiding those inextricable disquisitions and entanglements our own frail reasons would perplex us withal, God in his infinite mercy hath given us his holy word, in which, as there are many things hard to be understood, so there is enough plain and easy to quiet our minds, and direct us concerning our future being. I confess to God and you, I have been a great neglecter, and, I fear, despiser of it: God of his infinite mercy pardon me the dreadful fault! But when I retired myself from the noise and deceitful vanity of the world, I found no true comfort in any other resolution than what I had from thence: I commend, from the bottom of my heart, the same to your, I hope, happy use. Dear Hugh, let us be more generous, than to believe we die as the beasts that perish; but with a christian, manly, brave resolution, look to what is eternal. I will not trouble you further. The only great God, and holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, direct you to a happy end of your life, and send us a joyful resurrection! So prays your true friend,
"Marlborough."
XXIX. The late Sir Henry Vane must be too fresh in memory to need a character; but it is certain, his parts were of the first rate, and superior to the generality of men; but he would often say, he owed them to religion. In his youth he was much addicted to company, and promised little to business; but in reading a book, called, "The Signs of a Godly Man," and being convicted in himself that they were just, but that he had no share in any one of them, he fell into that extreme anguish and horror, that for some days and nights he took little food or rest, which at once dissolved his old friendships, and made those impressions and resolutions to religion, that neither university, courts, princes, nor parents, nor any losses or disappointments that threatened his new course of life, could weaken or alter. And though this laid him under some disadvantages for a time, his great integrity and abilities quickly broke through that obscurity; so that those of very differing sentiments did not only admire, but very often desired him to accept the most eminent negotiations of his country, which he served according to his own principles with great success, and a remarkable self-denial. This great man's maxim was, Religion was the best master, and the best friend; for it made men wise, and would never leave them that never left it; which he found true in himself: for as it made him wiser than those that had been his teachers, so it made him firmer than any hero, having something more than nature to support him: which was the judgment as well of foreigners as others, that had the curiosity to see him die. Making good some meditations of his own, viz.: "The day of death is the judge of all our other days: the very trial and touch-stone of the actions of our life. It is the end that crowns the work, and a good death honoureth a man's whole life. The fading corruption and loss of this life is the passage into a better. Death is no less essential to us, than to live or to be born. In flying death, thou fliest thyself; thy essence is equally parted into these two, life and death. It is no small reproach to a Christian, whose faith is in immortality, and the blessedness of another life, to fear death much, which is the necessary passage thereunto."
XXX. The late earl of Rochester was inferior to nobody in wit, and hardly anybody ever used it worse, if we believe him against himself in his dying reflections; an account of which I have had from some that visited him in his sickness, besides that larger one, made public by the Bishop of Salisbury. It was then that he came to think there was a God, for he felt his lashes on his conscience, and that there was such a thing as virtue, and a reward for it. Christianity was no longer a worldly or absurd design; but Christ, a Saviour, and a most merciful one; and his doctrines plain, just, and reasonable, and the true way to felicity here and hereafter. Admiring and adoring that mercy to him, which he had treated with so much infidelity and obstinate contempt: wishing only for more life to confute his past one, and in some measure to repair the injuries he had done to religion by it; begging forgiveness for Christ's sake, though he thought himself the most unworthy of it for his own,—thus died the witty Lord Rochester, and this retreat he made from the world he had so great a name in. May the loose wits of the times, as he desired, take warning by him, and not leave their repentance to a dying bed!
XXXI. A noble young man of the family of Howard, having yielded too much to the temptations of youth, when upon his sick bed, which proved his dying bed, fell under the power and agony of great convictions, mightily bewailing himself in the remembrance of his former extravagancies; crying strongly to God to forgive him, abhorring his former course, and promising amendment, if God renewed life to him. However, he was willing to die, having tasted of the love and forgiveness of God; warning his acquaintance and kindred that came to see him to fear God, and forsake the pleasures and vanity of this world: and so willingly yielded his soul from the troubles of time, and frailties of mortality.
XXXII. The late princess Elizabeth of the Rhine of right claimeth a memorial in this discourse, her virtue giving greater lustre to her name than her quality, which yet was of the greatest in the German empire. She chose a single life, as freest of care, and best suited to the study and meditation she was always inclined to; and the chief diversion she took, next to the air, was in some such plain and housewifely entertainments as knitting, &c. She had a small territory, which she governed so well, that she showed herself fit for a greater. She would constantly, every last day in the week, sit in judgment, and hear and determine causes herself; where her patience, justice, and mercy were admirable; frequently remitting her forfeitures, where the party was poor, or otherwise meritorious. And what was excellent, though unusual, she would temper her discourses with religion, and strangely draw concerned parties to submission and agreement; exercising not so much the rigour of her power, as the power of her persuasion. Her meekness and humility appeared to me extraordinary; she never considered the quality, but the merit of the people she entertained. Did she hear of a retired man, hid from the world, and seeking after the knowledge of a better, she was sure to set him down in the catalogue of her charity, if he wanted it; I have casually seen, I believe, fifty tokens sealed and superscribed to the several poor subjects of her bounty, whose distances would not suffer them to know one another, though they knew her, whom yet some of them had never seen. Thus, though she kept no sumptuous table in her own court, she spread the tables of the poor in their solitary cells; breaking bread to virtuous pilgrims, according to their want, and her ability. Abstemious in herself, and in apparel void of all vain ornaments.