Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture
of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars'
books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the
pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured; and
thereby imagine what the pains of death are, when the whole body is
corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain
than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts are not the
quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher and
natural man, it was well said, _Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors
ipsa._[104] Groans and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends
weeping, and blacks and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible. It
is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so
weak but it mates and masters the fear of death, and therefore death is
no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him
that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love
slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear
preoccupateth[105] it. It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a
little infant perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He that dies
in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood: who, for
the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent
upon somewhat that is good doth avert the dolours of death; but, above
all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is _Nunc dimittis_[106] when a
man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations.
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