receive his well-beloved and trusty friend and fellow, that he had long abideth and looked after.
This cunning is most profitable of all cunnings, in the which cunning religious men specially, more than other, and every day continually, should study more diligently than other men that they might apprehend it ; namely[1] for the state of religion asketh and requireth it more in them than in others. Notwithstanding that every secular man, both clerk and layman, whether he be disposed and ready to die or no, yet nevertheless he must needs die when God will. Therefore ought every man, not only religious, but also every good and devout Christian man that desireth for to die well and surely, live in such wise and so have himself alway, that he may safely die, every hour, when God will. And so he should have his life in patience, and his death in desire, as Saint Paul had when he said: Cupio dissolvi et esse cum christo. [Philip, 1:23.] I desire and covet to be dead, and be with Christ. And thus much sufficeth at this time, shortly said, of [the] craft and science of dying.
CHAPTER II
THE SECOND CHAPTER IS OF MEN's TEMPTATIONS THAT DIE
Know all men doubtless, that men that die, in their last sickness and end, have greatest and most grievous
- ↑ ' namely ' generally means (as here) ' especially,' ' chiefly.'
