bone a flie the weakest thing in nature can easily dispatch frail man How many ill accidents are we alwaies liable to besides a multitude of Distempers What can be more uncertain than life which is so weak and beset with so many Enemies If it be suffer'd to continue as long as Nature not abused but carefully cherisht can maintain it 't is but short The flower Life quickly withers if it be not cut down It must needs be short when it makes continual hast to its end when there is never the least stop put to the flying days the flying days hurry us upon their rapid wings with restless speed into Eternity A part of life flies away every minute and the remainder grows less while you are jovial and careless your time is wasting it steals unheeded from you precious time which once gone can never be recall'd a life a year an hour spent can never be recall'd Thus are you never far off and yet alwayes proceeding towards that important period when you must bid adieu to Greatness and Honour adieu to Flattery and Complements to soft Beds gilt Chambers plenteous Tables gawdy Ornaments adieu to your stately Houses beauteous Gardens large Possessions shining heaps of Treasure adieu to pleasant Musick to sprightly Wine jovial Company brisk Dances and all the admired Charms of Youth and Beauty Man goes to his long home and the Mourners goe about the streets The gawdy Rooms are hung with melancholy Sable and his Friends lay aside Ornaments and cover themselves with black he is carried away to the dark silent Grave to become neglected dust and a cold unbeautiful Clod his place here shall know him no more for ever he goes to Eternity never never to return again to time His Walks his Houses his Parks his Shop the Exchange the places of his Business or his pleasure shall know him again no more for ever Oh that men were wise that they would understand this and consider their latter end Since the enjoyment of these things is transitory and will be short should we place our Affections upon them Good things are usually of greater or less esteem with us according to their durableness since therefore Life with its Pleasures are not durable 't is not worthy of a great Value If we could but frame a lively conception of the shortness of this Life how should we despise the Pleasures of it Vain are the Riches of the World which are useful no longer than while we live here Vain are all the Honours and Applauses of the Age which cannot rescue us from Deaths dark Prison nor attend us to the other World What account would you make of a fine house founded on a Quick-sand what account of Mirth and Jollity in a small Cock-boat on the wide Ocean what account of a Pleasant Dream such alas is all the Prosperity of this World Open then thine eyes thou deluded admirer of these things and take a view of the Eternal Pleasures and Glories of the World to come see what Joyes what delights what bright Mansions what a blessed Society do invite thy affections upward the Infinite Eternal Unchangeable God thy chief good invites thy Affections he offers himself to be thy everlasting Portion and exceeding great Reward set thy affections then on things above and let thy dearest treasure be in Heaven spend thy time more in striving to attain these than in the enjoyment of present things conclude it most absurd to value things temporal above the eternal and to chuse the frail pleasures of this life when they stand in competition with those that are ever lasting To make your passage out of this world comfortable you must be secure of Comforts in the other you will be glad to leave a Life so allay'd with frequent vexations as this is to every man when you have good hopes to enjoy that Happiness which knows no mixture of trouble Since Death is a common Necessity which every man must obey 't is the Wisdom and Interest of every one to provide that he may undergoe it with Comfort Since the end of all your present Pleasures is certain and near live piously righteously and soberly in the enjoyment of them that ye may not when that time comes be troubled with a Guilty Mind Oh how intolerable will it be to bear at once the loss of all your present Comforts with the pangs of a painfull death and the torments of a despairing remorse How sad a state will you think your self in when you are summon'd to depart hence and a rouzed Conscience presents to your view a long Catalogue of enormous Crimes Will you not then wish you had lived a regular Life when you find your self going to receive what a Life of wickedness has deserved Oh how ungrateful now will be the remembrance of unlawful Pleasures of your guilty excesses and mad carelesness of your immortal Souls Now the sting of sinful Pleasures is severely felt and they wound and torment the Sinner more deep and sensibly than ever they pleased him before it torments him to think that for such things he should cast away himself and incurr the eternal Wrath of God and he is seized with dread and horrour at the thoughts of what is likely for the future to become of him he fears he shall be banisht by the angry Justice of God to some dismal abode where no small Comfort will ever come near him that he shall change his merry Companions for the cursed Society of damned Spirits to dwell among them a weak scorn'd abused Stranger to be vexed without pity by malicious Creatures whose own Torments encrease their rage he would pray it may be for Mercy but his own remembred Cruelty dashes his hopes he show'd no mercy in his Life but was deaf to the wants and intreaties of the Poor while he spent his wealth in Riot and Luxury he would cry to God to spare his Life a little longer and try how well he would manage the reprieve but that he calls to mind how deaf himself has been to the Divine Commands how he has despised the Promises and Threats of God and neglected all the warnings and instructions that were sent to him And indeed Since he has hated Instruction and despised Reproof to the last God will now laugh at his Calamity and despise him when these fears come upon him The season of abused Mercy is at an end and deserved Vengeance begins and now to have been a holy and a good man would more avail than to have worn a Crown and wielded a Scepter Now the greatest of men is rejected if he be an impenitent Sinner nothing but righteousness and holiness can find any favour with the righteous and holy God Now will he that was injurious to men find the great Soveraign of the World a severe avenger of all wrongs and he that abused his enjoyment of the Creatures and gifts of God shall be banisht from the Happiness of enjoying God himself this
the continuance of our Riches Job that on one day was the Wealthiest man in all the East Countrey in his time became by the next miserably poor How many like Instances does History present us with And how many more might our own observation in a few years tell us if we make observation If you are Rich in Treasures Thieves may steal them if in Ships and Merchandize the stormy Sea may swallow them or they may be seized by Pirates or adverse Nations If in Buildings or a large stock of rich Goods Fire may consume them if in Lands they may be wrested from you by Tricks of Law and the knavery of corrupted Judges and Lawyers The negligence or imprudence of Servants may ruine the Master or if they are dishonest and wicked they may draw from him to enrich themselves especially when the whole management of an Estate is committed to them The Providence of God may blast a mans Estate so that it shall wast he knows not how nor how to prevent it Riches which you may hope will be a defence against Adversity may expose you to it Some have been miserable and some have lost their lives by being rich They are often a Prey to violence and injustice when poorer Persons are let alone In the Invasions of Enemies the Palaces of the great are rifled while the poor lonely Cottage may stand secure and they themselves are chiefly sought for and kill'd or made Captives while the Poor of the Land escape by being despised What constancy is there in the Honours of this World which depend upon the changeable inclinations and esteem of men Has not the World often seen the greatest Favourites of Princes become the Objects of their hatred and scorn undermin'd and overthown by the detractions first and then the accusations of envious men who after they have shone a litle while with the borrowed lustre of their Princes favour have gone down Eclips'd and blusht perhaps in their own blood at their setting Stet quicunque volet potens Aulae culmine lubrico Let him who lists ascend the tottering Seat of Courtly Grandeur said he in the person of another that found it a tottering seat by his own experience As for popular applause and an honourable esteem among the vulgar that is gain'd by many actions and may be lost by one If a man cannot lose a noble Title while he lives yet the Respect and Honour due to it and all the other advantages of it are usually lost when his Estate is thrown away He that lacks bread may honour himself but few besides him will do it 'T is ingeniously said by one That Honour without Riches is like Hops without Poles to support them aloft It must creep upon the ground and is exposed to be trod upon by contempt Now if these things are gone away from you while you live all the Pleasure the Convenience of them is vanisht too and then what will the wretched man do to be happy who had set his chief affections on these things What will he do for delights when all that he delighted in is gone How burdensome and melancholly will the remaining part of his life be How often will he sadly think how happy he has been how miserable he is Should we trust in uncertain Riches and not rather in the living God when they may fail us he cannot Shall we lay any confidence on friends when the minds of men are so mutable Is not this to lean on a broken Reed which may fail our trust and would us with disappointment What shame and confusion will seize him in an adverse condition who in his Prosperity behaved himself haughtily towards others How uneasie will it be to his lofty Spirit to see himself the scorn of the meanest abjects And yet certainly no man is so likely to meet with contempt in a low condition as he that practised it in a higher It should be a provocation to brave actions to consider Perhaps my Fortune may not long continue my advantages for the doing of them A generous and publick Spirit a lover of mankind would say Since the enjoyment of these things is uncertain I will do all the good with them to mankind that I can whilst I yet retain them I will industriously set my self to this lest I lose my advantages and die without doing any good in my time If a man has exercised much compassion to others in their Misery he will find much in his own if he has been injurious and an oppressor every one will retaliate and the same measure that he gave to others shall be meted to him again If by good and virtuous actions a man has acquired the esteem and friendship of good and virtuous men they will not desert him in his adversity but will join their assistance to comfort or raise him up but if all his Friends and Familiars and all that esteem him are men of no virtue of debaucht Principles and Manners they will soon forsake him when adversity comes The cold blasts of that will very easily cool the love of such men and thô they crowd his Table with their company while 't is covered with rich plenty he may eat his morsels in melancholly solitude when they are scanty and course How uneasie will Poverty be to him that lived in boundless pleasure who could deny himself in nothing but was wont to gratifie every desire and now has nothing to enjoy He is possest with high and raging desires and has no means to satisfie them A temperate man will much more easily endure such a change who has been wont sometimes to cross his own desires and by that means has kept them moderate 'T is certainly the most effectual course that you can take to make Adversity tolerable to use your Prosperity in Godliness Justice and Sobriety 2. Your death will shortly call you out of this World and from the enjoyment of present things Thus the fashion of this World passes away One Generation goes and another comes Who is he that lives and shall not see death sayes the Psalmist Psal 84. 48. The eyes that now read this shall perish whatever vigour or brightness there may be in them at present 'T is now your turn to enjoy perhaps the Riches and Honours which were possest before by your Ancestors They after a while went off the Stage of this mortal state and so must you and leave those things to be enjoy'd by others When a man dies he shall carry nothing away His glory shall not descend after him This encreases with respect to us the uncertainty of the duration of our present condition Since all your pleasures fly away with life who can assure himself any certain continuance of the enjoyment It may endure for a few years perhaps but for a few dayes or hours longer How many things are able to cut the slender thread of humane life How easily is a man kill'd A hair a little
is the direful end of a wicked Life and thus will the Wretch be used at last who abuses his Portion here 3. By the abuse of your present enjoyments you encrease the mutability of them at least with respect to your selves You make your changeable Condition here more liable to change if you do not use it well a man must use a vessel of Glass with more care than he need to do one of Iron The loss of your enjoyments during Life or by Death may be caused or hastened by the abuse of them That Estate which might afford a man comfort and pleasure through a long life a few years of extravagant expences will make an end of the deepest Bag has a bottom and you may observe by other men that the greatest Estate if it be not wisely and moderately used may in a little time be thrown away The Glutton and the Drunkard shall come to Poverty and Drowzieness shall cloath a man with Raggs sayes the wise man Prov. 23. 21. Again By means of a whorish Woman a man is brought to a morsel of bread Prov. 6. 26. He shall be served just as the Prodigal in the Parable first gull'd and drawn dry of all his Wealth and to that purpose may be highly flatter'd and carefully pleas'd and humour'd and when he is poor shall be despised as much and kickt out of Doors and then like him he may have the honour to serve Swine or be preferr'd to dine with them These sins when a man becomes addicted to them do naturally bewitch him with a strange carelesness of all his Affairs and tend to make him most lavishly prodigal He cannot keep his expence upon them within any other bounds than necessity forces As long as his own Estate will administer to him or others will lend these wild sins can find occasion for expence The excessive and intemperate use of sensual pleasures weakens and gluts the Appetite and he that so uses them can never have so high a Relish and sense of them as he may that is moderate Foolish men through their greedy desire of Pleasure destroy the thing they love The Rich Glutton cannot take so much delight in his highest delicacies as the hungry Labourer does in his course fare By Excess too men destroy themselves they turn food into Poyson and bring themselves to misery by their pleasures It blasts the health of their body and fills them with uneasie distempers and hereby their lives are made miserable and their death is hastened After a few tedious and groaning years they drop betimes into their Graves Sobriety and moderation are the most effectual means to cherish the health and life But a man must begin and practise them from his youth that they may have this effect 'T is late to begin it when you have corrupted the blood and evaporated the spirits and contracted distempers the Jewel health is much more easily kept than recover'd when 't is once lost Poverty Sickness and Death the great Enemies of your Pleasures are the natural Consequents of the intemperate use of them But besides these evils may be expected to follow this from the just judgment of God As he is highly offended at every abuse of his gifts he may testifie that displeasure by taking them away from you or you from them Consider careless Sinner that you continually provoke the righteous God to put an end to all your Mirth and Pleasure every irregularity you are guilty of deserves this and perhaps does hasten intended Vengeance The more you abuse the Patience of God the more unlikely do you make the continuance of it Now consider these things but a little and the folly of a lawless intemperate Life will most plainly appear is it not an unparalel'd folly to purchase a little wild Mirth at the dear rate of a miserable remainder of Life and a hasty Death Alas how little of the Pleasures of this Life do you enjoy who are so soon overtaken by Distempers what delight can a Man take in his dainties when his sick Stomach nauseates them what Pleasure is there in Musick when the Head akes or is affected with a Frenzy or a Lethargy what delight has the Sinner in his most pleasant Sins when he lies languishing in a Bed his feeble Limbs not able to support him and there he is rotting alive the remembrance of them is rather vexatious than pleasant wheâ— the pains he feels were contracted by them How little of the Pleasures of Life do they enjoy that soon dye are cut off in the midst of their dayes and carried out to be laid in the Dust Methinks if there were no other Argument for Temperance the Love of Pleasure should perswade to it Consider too how sad and uncomfortable that Death will be which you are conscious that your selves have hastened when you think how many years longer in a course of nature you might have lived and now are called hastily away from all that you have loved and delighted in Thus do careless Sinners pursue their own Misery and Vexation when they allow themselves a boundless gratification of their Lusts and seem to be only in the pursuit of Pleasure let it therefore be your resolution and care so to use this World as not abusing it Now I have finisht both the intended parts of this Discourse I have shown you how to behave your selves in the use of your present enjoyments towards God and towards your Neighbour and your selves and the motive which the Spirit of God thought worthy to perswade men thus to use these things I have illustrated what success this Discourse has upon the Reader I know not but doubtless the great God observes either it will reclaim or withhold thee from the Vices of a mad Age or make thee more guilty in following them after having received another Exhortation to the contrary Thou dost not in tend perhaps to run into the great extravagances mention'd but yet art unwilling to observe the strictness of Rule but consider that sin is very apt to encrease that the small degrees of transgression allow'd make way for greater and they make it just with God and provoke him to give thee up to such a high degree of sin as may severely punish its self Consider this general Rule which I have explain'd and urg'd is the Command of Almighty God thou canst not willingly break it without Offence to him 't is of no less consequence to observe or slight it than to enjoy his favour or incurr his displeasure Oh think how easily he can crush the bold offending Worm think what a danger he is in who stands exposed by his Crimes to the Divine Vengeance Dread the invincible thunder of his Wrath Think what Vengeance is due from God to him who makes his Advantages to do much good the means to do much evil who contradicts the end of God in the Gifts that he has bestowed on him and has been only the more wicked for the Bounty of God towards him who to gratifie his own wanton and unnecessary Appetites has often Offended what severe Punishments must such a Sinner deserve Consider that this general rule directs you to use your Portion with Credit and Comfort to make your Life as happy in what you have as that can make it to improve your Portion to the best advantage It directs to such a course as will render your passage out of Life easie and chearful attended with a quiet mind with the applauses of a good Conscience and all your good Actions will then afford you comfortable thoughts and reflections It directs you so to use your Portion as to make your Death as much lamented by others as welcome to your self so as to embalm your Name and make your Memory blest and praised to Posterity This rule directs you to such an use of your present enjoyments as will be matter of Consolation to you in the other World matter of eternal satisfaction and joy when the good deeds which you wrought here shall there be eternally rewarded I think then the Reader may easily conclude I have been pleading with him in his own behalf for himself and his own interest I have been urging nothing but what Self-love together with Wisdom would chuse Who would think it should be a Presumption in me to imagine that in such a case I shall prevail with many can it be a difficult thing to perswade Men to that which is their own Interest but alas it does too often prove so Blinded by Lust and Temptation men will not see their true Interest in the clearest discovery that can be made of it God alone can effectually open the eyes of men to understand that and incline their Wills to chuse and pursue it to him therefore I commit the Reader with this Prayer O Thou that art the Father of Lights and who workest in us both to will and to do according to thy good Pleasure grant I beseech thee that the mighty power of thy Spirit may attend these Instructions and effectually perswade every person that reads them to receive and practise them do thou teach them to deny all ungodliness and worldly Lusts and to live Godly Righteously and Soberly in this present World Let these Rules be planted in many Hearts and from thence be abundantly fruitful in good works to their Happiness and thy Glory the great ends of my ambitious but weak endeavours Grant this Oh Lord for the sake of Jesus Christ our Saviour to whom with the Father and the Spirit be ascribed Kingdom Power and Glory for ever Amen FINIS Deut. 8. 3. Prov. 15. 1. Juv. Satyr 14. Davenane Gondib. Canto 6. Eph. 4. 28. 1 Tim. 5. 6. 1 Cor. 13. 6. Jer. 52. 16. Seneca Thyest Act. 2. Chor. Du Moulin of Contentment Eccles 1. 4 Psal 49. 17. Eccl. 12. 5. Prov. 1. 24. to the end