such are the ways (saith he) of everyone that is
greedy of gain."

And if we could afford ourselves but so much leisure as to consider,
that he which hath most in the world, hath, in respect of the world,
nothing in it: and that he which hath the longest time lent him to
live in it, hath yet no proportion at all therein, setting it either
by that which is past, when we were not, or by that time which is to
come, in which we shall abide forever: I say, if both, to wit, our
proportion in the world, and our time in the world, differ not
much from that which is nothing; it is not out of any excellency of
understanding, that we so much prize the one, which hath (in effect)
no being: and so much neglect the other, which hath no ending:
coveting those mortal things of the world, as if our souls were
therein immortal; and neglecting those things which are immortal, as
if ourselves after the world were but mortal.

But let every man value his own wisdom, as he pleaseth. Let the rich
man think all fools, that cannot equal his abundance: the revenger
esteem all negligent, that have not trodden down their opposites; the
politician, all gross that cannot merchandise their faith: yet when we
once come in sight of the port of death, to which all winds drive us,
and when by letting fall that fatal anchor, which can never be weighed
again, the navigation of this life takes end; then it is, I say, that
our own cogitations (those sad and severe cogitations, formerly beaten
from us by our health and felicity) return again, and pay us to the
uttermost for all the pleasing passages of our lives past. It is then
that we cry out to God for mercy; then when our selves can no longer
exercise cruelty to others; and it is only then, that we are strucken
through the soul with this terrible sentence, "That God will not be
mocked." For if according to St. Peter, "The righteous scarcely be
saved: and that God spared not his angels"; where shall those appear,
who, having served their appetites all their lives, presume to think,
that the severe commandments of the all-powerful God were given but
in sport; and that the short breath, which we draw when death presseth
us, if we can but fashion it to the sound of mercy (without any kind
of satisfaction or amends) is sufficient? "O quam multi," saith
a reverend father, "cum hac spe ad aeternos labores et bella
descendunt!"[16] I confess that it is a great comfort to our friends,
to have it said, that we e