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THE RULE AND EXERCISES i . '-J ' HOLY DYING. CHAP. I. ... ' A GENERAL PREPARATION TOWARDS A HOLY AND BLESSED DEATH, BY WAY OF CONSIDERATION. SECT. I. Consideration of the Vanity and Shortness of Mans Life. A Man is a bubble (said the Greek proverb) which Lucien represents with advantages and its proper cir- cumstancesi to this purpose, saying, all the world is a storm, and men rise up in their several generations like bubbles descending a Jove pluvio, from God and the dew of heaven, from a tear and drop of man, from nature and providence: and some of these instantly sink into the deluge of their first parent, and are hidden in a sheet of water, having had no other business in the world but to be born, that they might be able to die, others float up and down two or three No. 1. - B turns, and suddenly disappear, and give their place to others : and they that live longest upon the face of the waters are in perpetual motion, restless and uneasy, and being crushed with a great drop of a cloud, sink into flatness and a froth; the change not being great, it being hardly possible it should be more a nothing than it was before. So is every man: .he is born m vanity and sin : he comes into the world like morning mushrooms, soon thrusting up their heads into the air, and conversing with their kindred of the same production, and as soon they turn into dust and forget- ftilness: some of them without any other interest in the affairs of the world, but that they made their parents a little glad, and very sorrowful: others ride longer in the storm; it may be until seven years of vanity be expired, and then pin-adventure the sun shines hot upon their heads, and they fallinto the shades below, into the cover of death and darkness of the grave to hide them....
