A Meditation Upon Going to Bed by William Spurstowe (1666) How like is the frail life of man to day, as well for the inequality of its length, as the mixture that it has both of clouds and sunshine? What kind of exact parallel are sleep and death, the one being ligation of the senses, and the other the privation of them? And of how near akin is the grave to the bed, when the Scripture calls it by the same name, when the clothes that cover us do the like office with the mould, that must be cast and spread over us? When therefore the day, and the labors which man goes forth unto are ended, and the darkness of the night disposes unto rest, what thoughts can any better take into his bosom to lie down with, than to think that death, like the beasts of the forest may creep forth to seek its prey, and that when it comes there is no resistance to be made, or delay to be obtained? It spares no rank of men, but slays the rich as well as the poor, the prince as well as the peasant. The glass that has the king’s face painted on it, is not the less brittle, neither are kings, that have God’s image represented in them the less mortal. And whether it comes in at the window or at the door, whether in some common or in some unwonted manner, who can tell? Many oft times fall asleep in this world, and awake in the other, and have no summons at all to acquaint them whither they are going. And yet though every man’s condition be thus uncertain, and that his breath is in his nostrils, where there is as much room for it to go out, as to come in, how few do make their nights repose to serve as a memorial of their last rest, or their bed to stand for a model of their coffin. Some pervert the night, which was ordained to be a cessation of the evils of labor, to make it a season for their greater activity in the evils of sin. “They devise” (as the prophet said) “iniquity upon their beds, and when the morning is light they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand” (Micah 2:1). Others are easily brought asleep by the riot and intemperance of the day, owning their unhappy rest not to the dew of nature, but to the gross and foul vapors of sin, which more darken and eclipse their reason than their sleep, their dreams having more of it in them than their discourse. Others again, by their youth and health, seem to be seated in such an elevation above death, as that they cannot look down from their bed into the grave without growing dizzy, such a steep precipice they apprehend between life and death. Though this distemper does not arise from the distance between the two terms, but from the imbecility of their sense, which cannot bear the least thoughts of a separation from those delights and pleasures to which their souls are firmly wedded. When therefore the most of men are such unthrifts of time, and like careless navigators keep no journal or diary of their motions, and other occurrences that fall out. What need have others to make the prayer of Moses, the man of God, their prayer: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). He who was learned in all the sciences of the Egyptians desires to be taught this point of arithmetic of God: so to number, as not to mistake, or make any error in the account of life, in setting down days for minutes, and years for days. A man would think that a little arithmetic would serve to cast up so small a number, as the days of him, whose days are as the days of a hireling, few and evil. And yet it is such a mystery, that Moses begs of God to be instructed in it, as that which is the chief and only knowledge. Yea, God himself earnestly wishes this wisdom to Israel, his people: “O that they were wise; that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” (Deut. 32:29). Can we then render the night more senseless, or keep the bed unspotted from those impurities that are neither few nor small, than by practicing duly this divine art, of numbering our days? This is not done by any speculation, or prying into the time or manner of our death, but by meditating and thinking with ourselves what our days are, and for what end our life is given to us; by reckoning our day by our work, and not by our time; by what we do, and not by what we are; by remembering that we are in a continual progress to the chambers of death, no man’s life being so long at the evening as it was in the morning. Night and day are as two axes at the root of our life, when one is lifted up, the other is down, without rest: every day a chip flies off, and every night a chip, and so at length we are hewn down, and fall at the grave’s mouth. O what a wide difference is there between those that lie down with these considerations in their bosoms, and others, who pass their time in pleasures, and allow not the least portion of it, to think what the issues are that a day or night may bring forth! How free are their conversations from those sensualities and lusts, which others commit in the day, and lie down with the guilt of them in the night! How profitably do they improve their time who count only the present to be theirs, and the future to be God’s, above those that fancy youth and strength to be a security of the succeeding proportions of their life! Yea, how comfortable is death to those who are in daily preparation for it, as well as in expectation of it, above what it is to others, who are surprised by it in the midst of those delights, in which they promised themselves a continuance for many years! In what a differing frame and figure does it appear to the one and to the other? The one beholds it as a bridge, lying under their feet to pass them over the Jordan of this life in the Canaan of eternal blessedness; and the other as a torrent roaring and frighting them with its hasty downfall. Gladly therefore would I counsel Christians, who enter in to the church militant  by a mystical death, being buried with Christ by baptism, and cannot pass into the triumphant, but by a natural death, to bear daily in their minds the cogitations of their inevitable end, as the best means to allay the fear of death, in what dress soever it comes, and to make it an inlet into happiness whensoever it comes. As Joseph of Arimathea made his sepulcher in his garden, that in the midst of his delights he might think of death, so let us in our chambers make such schemes and representations of death to ourselves, as may make it familiar to us in the emblems of it, and then it will be less ghastly when we behold its true visage. When we strip ourselves of our garments, think that shortly (as Peter said) we must put off this our tabernacle. Aye, and think again, what a likeness there is between our night-clothes, and our grave-clothes, between the bed  and the tomb. What a little distance there is between life and death, the one being as an eye open, and the other as an eye shut: in the twinkling of an eye we may be living and dead men. O what ardors of lusts would such thoughts chill and damp! What sorrows for sins past! What diligence for time to come to watch against the first stirrings of sin would such thoughts beget! It being the property of sin to divert us rather from looking upon our end, then embolden us to defy it. Lord then make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, that I may in my own generation serve the will of God, and then fall asleep as David did, and not as others, who fall asleep before they have done their work, and put off their bodies before they have put off their sins. This article is taken from:  Spurstowe, William.  The Spiritual Chymist: or, Six Decads of Divine Meditations on Several Subjects. London: Philip Chetwind, 1666.  A PDF file of this book can be downloaded, free of charge, at http://www.ClassicChristianLibrary.com