And, secondly, it signifies this also,
that not only the justice of God shall be confest by us in our own
shame and condemnation, but the evil of the sentence shall be received
into us, to melt our bowels and to break our heart in pieces within
us, because we are the authors of our own death, and our own inhuman
hands have torn our souls in pieces. Thus far the horrors are great,
and when evil men consider it, it is certain they must be afraid to
die. Even they that have lived well, have some sad considerations, and
the tremblings of humility, and suspicion of themselves. I remember
St. Cyprian tells of a good man who in his agony of death saw a
fantasm of a noble and angelical shape, who, frowning and angry, said
to him: "Ye can not endure sickness, ye are troubled at the evils of
the world, and yet you are loath to die and to be quit of them;
what shall I do to you?" Altho this is apt to represent every man's
condition more or less, yet, concerning persons of wicked lives,
it hath in it too many sad degrees of truth; they are impatient of
sorrow, and justly fearful of death, because they know not how to
comfort themselves in the evil accidents of their lives; and their
conscience is too polluted to take death for sanctuary, and to hope
to have amends made to their condition by the sentence of the day of
judgment.
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