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This day thou shalt meditate on death: the consideration of which, is very profitable to attain unto true wisdom, to beat down sin, and to excite men timely to cast up their accounts, which they are to make in the latter day.

Consider, first, the uncertainty of that hour, wherein death is to seize upon thee, thou knowest not the day, nor the place, nor the state wherein it shall find thee; only thou believest that thou must die, for other things thou art wholly ignorant of, except that it sometimes setteth upon a man when he little dreameth of it, and thinketh it to be furthest of

Consider, secondly, that grievous separation, which shall be at the point of death, not only from every thing of this present life, wherein thou lookest content, but also betwixt the- soul and body, whose society was most ancient, most loving and dear. If a man taketh it grievously to be banished, to be thrust out of his native soil, and to be deprived of that air wherein he first breathed, although he should carry all others, his dearest things with him, how far more bitterly would he take that general exile, wherein he most weaned from all worldly things, his house, his means, his father, his mother, his children, his friends, uncertain whither he himself must go. Then, shall he be deprived of the light and the commerce of all human creatures?