Death no Respecter of Persons. if a God-forgetting lady shall spend her life in the pursuit of transitory pleasures, the sequel shall prove, that she has been dead to God whilst she lived to herself. 1 201 J Then turning to my guide, I said, I perceive, Sir, that DEATH is no respecter of persons, knoweth no distinctions, can neither be bribed nor moved by intreaty, much less can be resisted by power. No, no, replied Veratio, DEATH cannot be intreated, is an utter stranger to distinctions; the majestic prince, and the rustic peasant; the noble earl, and his servile groom; the amiable lady, and the scorched cook-maid; are equally the same to his indiscriminating shaft; all distinctions vanish in the grave, that common receptacle of rich and poor, noble and ignoble, beauteous and unseemly, old and young, the lordly prelate and famished curate, all ranks and degrees of men meet here on a common level; in this respect, one end happeneth unto all men. People of distinction too often desire no other heaven besides the vain and fantastic pleasures of life, little considering that ere long they must bid adieu to sublunary enjoyments: and the most high God hath fixed it as an invariable maxim, that the desire after, must precede the enjoyment of heaven. Hence, no desires after the future enjoyment of God being possessed in this life, it is not rationally to be expected, that they can enter into the celestial felicity at their death. These earthly gods, continued Veratio, are much dissatisfied if they receive not a great degree of homage from their inferiors in life; but, believe me, nothing is more common than for them at death to stand trembling under the force of self-conviction, before the judgment-seat of the King of kings, who hath declared himself to be no respecter of persons: Then, said I, woe is me for my fellow-creatures! Into what destruction has sin involved them! How few, alas! are they who know the things which make for their eternal peace, before they be for ever hid from their eyes! Unhappy, most emphatically unhappy, indeed Serious Reflections on Death. are they, whose only heaven consists of glittering dust, and whose bliss is composed of the empty honours and wretched pleasures of this seducing and bewitching world. Let honours in the highest degree be imposed upon me, and let me enjoy all that men call happiness; what will it profit if my soul must be banished, for ever banished, from the amiable presence of my God? Can these, Veratio,. ever be deemed an ample compensation for the loss of God, in his Divine excellences and glorious subsistences? A lean, an empty hea ven indeed it must be, where this is wanting. O my soul, let thy delights for ever be attracted by the refined, the sublime pleasure of our holy religion! and thou, my heart, look down with indifference upon all those fineries which worldlings so much admire! |