Page:MeditationsOnTheMysteriesOfOurHolyV1.djvu/169

 I were so dead and crucified to all that is in the world that the world also held me for crucified and dead! Grant me, O sweet Jesus, that by the law of Thy grace I may die to the law of sin, to live to God, delighting to be nailed with Thee on Thy very cross, so that " now not I" may "live," but " Thou in me," world without end. Amen.

1. The second point is, to consider the clothing, the bed, and the lodging that is prepared for my dead body.

i. The clothing, for the most part, is in a manner the worst of the house, and very slender: for it is nothing more than a poor sheet for a shroud, with no more precious ornaments of silk or of gold: and if they put any of this upon me to carry me to burial, they take it again from me before they lay me in the grave.

ii. The bed is the hard earth; and as the prophet Isaiah says, " Under" me " shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be" my " covering and the curtains and pillows the bones of other dead.

iii. And after this fashion shall be the house and the lodging; for it is nothing but a narrow pit seven feet long, that is dug in half an hour; for the other sumptuous buildings of sepulchres serve the wretched body for nothing, it being not capable of enjoying them. Out of all this I will gather great confusion and shame for my vanity and sensuality, with which I desire fineness of apparel, softness of bed, and comforts of habitation, animating myself to mortify my superfluities in these, and to bear patiently all wants whatsoever, seeing what I now have (how little soever it be) is very much and very large compared with that which awaits me.