to detestation of our sins, and to an effectual resolution never more to return to them. on which said ecclesiasticus, " in all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin." [1] and for the same reason said moses to his people, " oh that they would be wise, and would understand, and would provide for their last end!" [2] giving to understand that our true wisdom, understanding, and providence consist in well meditating and ruminating those things which are to happen to us in the end of our life, and to be provided against them; and especially the meditations of death (as experience teaches us) is very profitable for all those that walk in any of the three ways — purgative, illuminative, and unitive; in which all men ought often to exercise themselves, though with different ends: the beginners to purify themselves of their sins before death assail them and take them unprovided; the proficients to hasten to store up virtues, seeing the time of meriting is very short, and death cuts it off on a sudden; the perfect, to despise all things created, with a desire to unite themselves by love with their creator: and therefore we will point out considerations that may profit all, but most especially such as help to the end of the purgative life, of which we are now treating.
MEDITATION VII.
On the properties of death.
In this meditation we will consider some properties of death, and what ends our Lord intended in them for our profit, reducing them to three, which are the principal.
POINT I.
The first property of death is, that it is most certain, [3] from which none can escape at the time that Almighty God has determined.
