he
word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge?
Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to
say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For a
lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood,
and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in
that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgments of God upon the
generations of men; it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, he shall
not find faith upon the earth.

Of Death

MEN fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural
fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly,
the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another
world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due
unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations, there is sometimes
mixture of vanity, and of superstition. You shall read, in some of the
friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself,
what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured,
and thereby imagine, what the pains of death are, when the whole body is
corrupted, and dissolved; when many times death passeth, with less
pain than the torture of a limb; for the most vital parts, are not the
quickest of sense. And by him that spake only as a philosopher, and
natural man, it was well said, Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors
ipsa. Groans, and convulsions, and a discolored face, and friends
weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible.
It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man,
so weak, but it mates, and masters, the fear of death; and therefore,
death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants
about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over
death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it; grief flieth to it;
fear preoccupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain
himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) provoked many to
die, out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort
of followers. Nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety: Cogita quamdiu
eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis aut miser, sed etiam
fastidiosus potest. A man would die, though he were neither valiant, nor
miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft, over and
over. It is no less worthy, to o