but what I make within my self Does not he command me to believe and is not this my proper work that I shoud be found labouring in is there one in the Book of God that does incourage me to question either his ability or willingness to save me it is the work of Satan to make obstructions in a Man 's own self and then to lay them at God's door but is it any part of my work to believe him of regard him it is thy every dayes work to believe with all thy Heart and if thou canst say that thou art willing to give up thy self to the Lord Jesus be saved and sanctified by him to be pardoned and purged by him to bring nothing to him to keep nothing from him to deny thy sinful self thy righteous self and if he call for it thy natural self thou mayest conclude thou art in thy proper work which is suitable for every season and that thou art observing the order of God and appointment the Lord Jesus for This is the work of God saith our Lord that ye believe on him whom he hath sent And what ever it is that does obstruct and hinder this work comes from Satan and not from God it is a work that was never numbred out by God for thee to do for it is according to his mind and pleasure that every one should say as his Apostle Paul did the Life that I live it is by Faith in the Son of God and the work that I do is to be alwaies exercising and putting forth Acts of Faith upon the Lord Jesus And as for the concerns of my Body is it any part of my work or duty according to Gospel-rule to be carking and caring and vexing my self how I shall maintain that what I should Eat and Drink and wherewithal I should be Cloathed has not he engaged his Providence for me is not his express word and is it not my proper work to believe it be content with such things as ye have For be hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Hath he given me a Kingdom and will not he give me a staff to walk to that Kingdom as I have heard it well observed by a worthy Minister will he give me Heaven and will not give me Earth will he give me an inheritance and will he not give me spending money can I trust him for my Soul and can I not trust him for my poor frail Body Is not food and ralment within the Covernant as well as life and Salvation Did he ever put me upon such work as this as to get my own Breads and leave me to my own Hands It s true as he has told me that in the sweat of my Brows I must eat my Bread but he never said I should do it in the care and trouble and grief of my Heart I must work indeed but the care of me lies with him he is bound to maintain me it is not my labour but his blessing that must do it I am but a journy-man the work is not mine but his I must be at his allowance he has set me my dimensum my task and it is purely in his disposal how I must be maintained what he will give me of these outward things whether much or little he knows best my constitution what I can bear what may be convenient for my passage what may be helping and not clogging in my journey to Heaven and if I have but little of the present World I must not call it Poverty but Discipline I conclude therefore it was never intended by the Lord to be any part of my work or to take up any part of my time to sret and perplex my self how I should have provisions to carry me or my Family through the wilderness of this World But to proceed this very thing of not numbring the work to the day and so answering the design of God in giving the day is that which proves fatal to Persons and People and becomes their utter ruine How does our Saviour weep over Jerusalem and breaks out into these mournful expressions Sayings If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes For the day shall come upon thee that thine Enemies shall cast a trench about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy Children within thee and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another Good Lord what is the cause of all this misery why will thou deal so severely with thine own and only People surely there is some great things in the bottom What have they done Dost thou ask what have they done It is for something they did not do when they had an opportunity on purpose given for doing of it Because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation God gave them his Ordinances the means of Grace he waited a great while upon them to see whether they would profit under them and prove an holy and reformed People but they not minding the Lord's end in being at such charge with them continued a careless formal worldly contentious and a very unholy sinful People yea grow worse and worse therefore c. The Lord help us my Brethren to know the day of our visitation our tranquillity is lengthened out our liberties continued we enjoy Sabbaths and Sermons and Ordinances one Exhortation and Admonition after another precept upon precept warning after warning we have also some lesser corrections and chastisements intermingled and what is all this for that we should bring forth fruit to God that we should become an heavenly and serious People that our Faith might grow exceedingly and the charity of every one of us all towards each other might abound But if we go on as we do bringing forth so many truits of the flesh remain carnal frothy so lukewarm indifferent in the things of Religion dead under the opportunitie of life with so much formally in Duties under Ordinances turning as a door upon the hinges neither well with the means of Grace nor well without them with so much outside in our services and performances so little presling after inward communion with God with so little zeal for the Name and Honour and Truths of God so little sence of the sins of others to mourn over them reprove them of the suffering of others to mourn with them and bear their burthens so great lovers of the World so desirous of having much so little contented with our conditions what never an Heart moved yet at the hearing of all this is there none cry guilty so unjust equivocating overreaching and unwatchful over our tongues in trading and bargaining so little thinking of the Royal rule to do as we would be done by so vain in our Discourses so upcircumspect in our Conversations so sensual and unmortified such
best are but dreamish things and may prove much worse if you do them as they did them in the dayes or Noah and Lot I wish with all my heart the next Jog be not so hard and the cry so loud that instead of being kindly awakened they be not mazed and stunned and deaf and disabled from getting up and putting on their clothes 4. How irrecoverable they are and lever to be recalled If I would give all the World I cannot call yesterday back nor be placed where I was yesterday morning He that cries out Call time again call time again is as unlikely to be heard and answered as any man I know â—ay but cannot you set me one day or two backward place me where I was but t'other morning that I may pass over those three or tour hours as I did then No I cannot do it And this is the first Rule in this Christian Arithmetick Number the dayes that yon have past this will make you wise Rule 2. A second Rule in Arithmetick Number the dayes that you have lost this will be a special means to lead you to Wisdom What have your past days been filled with have not you lost weeks and moneths nay years Consider this well and you will be able to tell me I need not tell you what thoughts it will work in you and what wise Counsels it will put you upon have not many of thy dayes been filled with nothing but vanity some men do nothing at all many worse than nothing the most do something that is not their proper work to do but belongs to others canst thou say that any day of thy life has been as well filled with good as it ought to have been or as it might have been if thou had thy best spent dayes to spend over again couldest thou not spend them a great deal better no such cause of mourning as for lost time was not thy Childhood and thy Youth vanity has not the World had many an hour that God and Christ should have had and should have been improved for the promoting of thine eternal welfare How many idle dayes and play-dayes hast thou made how many needless Journeyes Visits Walks and Discourses hast thou made How many unnecessary designs unprofitable labours May it not be said of much of thy business thou hast been imployed in as some said of the Womans pouring the Ointment on Christs Head why was this waste of time might it not have been made better use of Rule 3. Third Rule of Arithmetick Number the work you have done and how you have dont it what will this do you will tell me what it will do if you observe it you will find upon Examination that put all your good works together and allow for dammage for the Hay and the Stubble the Dregs and the Dross and they amount but to very little you will see how much mending all your work needs what mourning over and begging pardon for the defects and failings about it time runs and work sticks and that which we thought we had done well must be done over again how should this awaken us and quicken us when we have done all we can we are but unprofitable servants when we have done the best we can we have not done that which is our duty when we have done the most we can we have not done all we should still some work lies before us and it may be very little time will not this consideration to make men make much of time and not prodigally throw it away as they have done because so much is required to survey and mend old done Deeds Rule 4. Number the Sabbaths the Sermons the Opportunities which you have enjoyed This a fourth Rule in Christian Arithmetick and what will this tend to You will tell me when you have well considered it Reckon how many of Gods Embassadors have been sent to thee with several Messages and with the same message over and over again how many years of the dayes of the Son of Man you have seen how long you enjoyed such a Ministry in such a place and such a powerful Ministry in another and now what am I the better God will expect an account of me is it not high-time for me to consider what return I can make what profiting and progress I have made in the knowledg and fear of God and Faith in his Son Jesus Christ to what degrees and measures of patience Meckness Hope Love Heavenly Conversation crucifying the flesh looking for the appearing of Christ and aiming at his Glory in every thing I do c. Many an exhortation and motive and direction and encouragement have I had about all these and much more many a time and that with a great deal of pressing God may call me to even accounts with him the very next hour for any thing I know and how ready am I for it Oh for a little time for this work I have cause to be afraid that I shall be found much in arrearages to God and that there are some hundreds of Sermons I have heard that I can remember neither Text Doctrine Reason nor Use nor have any real impression remaining upon me from them a dram of habitual vertue or strength by them Oh that God would not clap me up and make me bankrupt that have taken up so many goods of him and am not able to make him any payment the goods are embezeled Oh that I had time to make my composition with him to sue out a release and discharge from him I am undone if I be arrested before this be done for I cannot pay twelve pence in the pound Lord spare me a little time that I may repent in and make money of all that I have that I may bring to thee I will not keep or conceal one peniworth from thee I will give thee a true account in whose hands they are whom I have traded with how I have been cheated by Satan by the World and most of all by a deceitful heart of my own that was bred up with me and which I have given much trust to I could no sooner have any of Heavens commodities come in but presently they were purloyned from me by the means of my deceitful hard vain idle foolish Heart for whilst I slept and was careless the wicked one came and catched them away or the cares of this World and the deceitfulness of Riches spoiled them and so I got no profit by them my base Heart did betray me to all this mischief and loss and now Lord be pleased to spare me a little that I may mourn over and bewail my great losses that I may call my treacherous wicked Heart to an account that I may seriously and severely examine and search it that I may bring it to confession and acknowledgment to deep sorrow and repentance to sincere and holy resolutions of a faithful improvement of any opportunity and season of Grace that he
point when your bagging of God this holy Wisdom to number your daise aright be sure you be earnest with the Lord that when you number your daies he would still help you to make the number come even what is that that that you may see your good dayes to be as many and as long as your evil ones and your dayes to be full as good as any of your neighbours thus to number will exceedingly conduce to give you content in your daies which the Lord numbers out to you in this World and keep you from inordinate desires after the changing of them and having some other dayes in the room of them The Wisdom of God in ballancing Men's conditions in the World is much to be observed though it is but little taken notice of every day has it's suitable good as well as sufficient evil every Man may see in his own condition if he has but his eyes open as much cause of rejoicing as of mourning and he may likewise see his own condition take it all together to be as good as any other Man's what is the reason no Man is contented With his Lot and Portion it is because they do not reckon right they do not stand in right places to take a view and an estimate either of their own or others conditions you stand on the inside of your own and on the outside of another Man's and by this means your own seems to be much worse and his much better than indeed it is do but change your stand and go into the inside of his and the outside of your own and then you will set cause to change your Opinion we may see the neatness of the shew but we little know where it pinches and others at a distance will judge your state very happy which it may be you do not sit so easily in but might sit more easily if thou would not sit alwayes in one place and posture I am perswaded the Lord hath in his Wisdom so ordered Mens conditions in this world that there 's no ods not one better than another if we could but see the ends and sides of them no room left for choice and that condition which every Man is in ought to be concluded the best for him of any in the World the Beggar 's condition is as good as the King 's take it all together no state in the World can be an object either of meer pitty or meer envy none so bad but a great deal of good is to be seen in it none so good but a great deal of misery is to be found in it the Lord in Wisdom and Goodness has fitted every Man's condition for him that another would not fit him so well and it will be our Wisdom if the Lord will give it us to see our selves fitted to our conditions and to observe in every point how well they fit us Here a bunch of pride is growing straighten and check there saies God there sensual delight would come in stop that place here strength is ready to be running over to be imployed in vanity pinch there with a little sickness there a grace or two want imployment send a cross or two to give them some work and exercise here the Soul is ready to faint slacken a little and give a cordial and there the Soul is like to fall clap an hedge or a wall quickly in the way c. What happy lives should we lead in comparison of what we do if we did but know how well every thing we meet with fits us what fitty dayes we enjoy there is not the most cross crooked thing comes to thee but there is some part of thee that it will fit exceeding well now the skill lies in putting it to the right part a Man's shooe will not fit his head nor his glove his leg do not turn thy back to thy cross when thou should take it in thy armes nor yet take it up at arms end when thou should bear it upon thy back a little weight is heavy at armes end which will be scarce felt upon the back which is a fifty place for a burthen we must take up our Crosses as the Man did his sheep upon his shoulder and away with it trudging after the Lord Jesus some men lead their crosses gingerly as a Man leads his young Child by the hand and so make no way some take them by the wrong end and are not able to lift them up some leap over them some fall upon them and many fall under them and all for want of this blessed Teaching of the Lord let us therefore never leave this out of our Parayers that the Lord would teach us the even numbring of our dayes and give us to see that every day we live whatever falls out in it is a fitty day and that our condition take it all together is at any time of the day as good as any Man 's living and take his all together too If he have money I have health if he have Children I have wealth if he have power I have peace if he have prosperity I have grace c. And so much for the third observation I come now to the Doct. 4. Fourth and last Observation in which I shall be brief That the right numbring of our dayes is a special means to obtain true Wisdom I shall endeavour to give you cleâ—â— demonstration of the point in these following particulars 1. He is a wise Man that minds his greatest concern in the first place now he that numbers his dayes aright that reckons of shortness of time he makes it his first business to seek the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof he will take Maries part and leave Martha's till afterward if there be time for it Our Lord Jesus in his travel comes into a certain Womans House named Martha and falls a Preaching her sister Mary considers with her self that she might have time to provide food when she could not have an opportunity to hear a Sermon and therefore she sate Jesus feet and beard his Word Matha was very busie in serving and providing entertainment and complains of her Sisters sleight and disrespect to his person and unkindness to her to suffer her to serve alone our Saviour gives her a check and commends Mary's entertaining his Doctrine before Martha's entertaining his person Christ loves that Man should look after their Souls and not make such a bustle about their outward cordions to make them easie and splendid and delightful but be content with such things as you have such things as the house affords as Christ would have been well enough and have been better pleased with Martha if she had sit down with Mary to hear the Sermon if Christ gave such a check to Martha for her great love to his outward Man because she neglected the good of her own Soul What a severe censure will he pass upon many one day whose care and cumber and pains