for a fool for he wants understanding i. e. is without light even whilst he lives And therefore it follows presently in him Make little weeping for the dead for he is at rest but the life a fool is worse then death Seavendaies do men mourne for him that is dead but for a fool and an ungodly man all the dayes of his life We make it an argument you know of a fool that he cannot count a right nor tell to ten or twenty and there is no greater argument of stupidity no doltishness should more move our tears and compassion then when men reckon after that foolish sort that I spoke of in the beginning whereby they live in a dream and dye in an amazement And therefore the holy man puts these together in my Text right numbering and a wise heart which if we bring not we are dead while we live and our friends have reason to take up lamentations over us and say Ah my Brother ah my Sister Let me once more beseech you therefore to be wise Go home and tell how many dayes remain and if you can find never an one for any thing you can tell rise not up from your knees before you have taken up some good resolutions against the morrow if you have it and then work out your salvation with fear and trembling every day watch and pray because you know not in what houre the Lord will come And to this end remember that Counsell and study it throughly which I have already mentioned Look back the first thing thou dost and think how few daies thou hast lived Exigua vitae pars est quam nos vivimus it is a very little part of our life that we truly live all the rest of the space tempus est non vita is time and not life And therefore let that which remains be Life PErhaps I may awaken you and my self the more if I leave this Text and take another which is our Dear Brother that not long ago stood in this place from whence I speak unto you Whose Life was a continuall Sermon and upon whom I might make another Sermon to you now that one is done His Life was but short in the Vulgar account and yet it was long if you use the Arithmetick which I have been now teaching you He minded the true end of living and he lived so long as to do his work and he did a great deal of work in a little time and therefore he died old and full of daies and was laded with more of life then many a man with a gray Beard Old Age is not to be known by a withered face but by a mortified spirit not by the decaies of the naturall body but by the weakness of the body of sin not by the good we that have enjoyed but by the good that we have done and if we be prepared for death we have lived long enough if our Life be a death then no death can be untimely to us But then while I tell you the price of such a Jewell I shall but make you mourn the more for such a loss How desireable would it have been to us all if such an Aged soul might have dwelt a little longer in a young body How much more good might he have done by his prudent counsell by his wise discourses by grave and serious Sermons by a mature judgment by a Religious and well governed life Thus you are apt to speak within your selves and I think I shall do well to asist these thoughts now they are begun and help your soul to be delivered of their sighs and to number their losses that so they may by serious weighing of them redound to some good Consider therefore that the Church of God hath lost a burning and a shining Light the Commonwealth an excellent and peaceable Subject the Ministers a Dear Brother this Parish a tender Father the City a most worthy Member and when you have wept to think of these you will have no tears left to condole with me who have lost so sweet a friend If we should consider only what a large stock he had of usefull Learning there would be reason that all intelligent persons should bewaile his loss for there is not such plenty of profitable Learning in the world that we can well spare any and we know not how long there will be any at all But then considering the Piety to which it was wedded our loss is the far more deplorable because these two are but seldome found conjoyned in so large a measure Orat. 20. Nazianzen accounts that they who want either of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do differ nothing at all from men that want one eye who have not only a great defect but cannot so confidently appear in the world to look on others and let others look on them Now many one eyed men there may be in the world some that want Learning and more that want grace but in very few heads shall you see these two luminaries of knowledg and goodness in any great Splendor The more therefore ought such to be valued and their extinction to be lamented Sigismund the Emperour as Dubravius tell us having knighted a Doctor of the Law that was very learned Hist Bohxâ—m and one of his Counsell and observing that when the Counsell went aside to deliberate about any-business he joyned himself to the Knights as more honourable and left the Doctors He cald him to him and said Fiscellin for so was his name I did not take thee to be such a fool as to prefer honour before Learning For thou knowest very well that I can dub six hundred Knights in a day but cannot make one Doctor in all my life What would this brave King have said if he had spoken of the value of true godliness which is to be preferred before all things else I will imagine that he would have spoken such words as these I can make Knights as many as I will and only such as thou canst make Scholars But it is God alone that can give grace and therefore judg which thou art to prize at the highest rate Give me leave to make use of this to our present purpose Men may make others rich or they may confer upon them honours yea and they may appoint Preachers but alas they cannot make them Learned much less can they breath into them the Heavenly spirit and therefore such men living are to be the more esteemed and dead to be the more honoured Especially where these two are accompanied with morall prudence and decent behaviour which came nothing behind the other in our deceased Friend and Brother Oh what an unaffected gravity was there in that countenance What innocent smiles in that face what manlike humility in his deportment chearfullness in him did contend with seriousness affability with awfullness love with discretion wisdome with simplicity c. and the result of all these recouciled graces was the very
you not imagine that they esteemed time more then thousands of gold and silver Alas their senses are all lockt up they are fast asleep though they thus speak not one syllable of this comes from their hearts but they talk of dying and the grave as if they had seen nor thought of either If they had a thousand years still to live in the world they could not be more drousie about their souls nor more expensive and wastefull of their precious hours then they are in this short moment of which they talk Awake Awake for the sake of your poor souls Let it feel it self I beseech you and shake off these heavy and sleepy thoughts that hang upon its mind O let it not talk like the soul of a bird that prattles according as it is taught but let it look into a grave let it reason with it self about the true number of our dayes let it speak its sense to the full and state things so that thou mayst not only resolve to live but make account that thou must either live now or never for any thing thy soul can tell If I could see any soul looking forth out of its Tomb and mind lifting up its head and demanding leave of the body that it may live how blessed an hour should I count this I would reckon it among the best times of my life and it would turn all my present sorrow into joy that God hath got a friend when I lost one O let us not wound the air with noises of death and judgement and your hearts remain insensible and unmoved Let us not seem as fools that fill the world with sounds and clamours which no body heeds or gives ear unto Who do we preach unto but men what do we preach for if you will not beleive to what purpose do we call for belief if you will not consider and how should it come to pass that a thing of daily occurrence as death is should work no more if men did consider We could find no worse entertainment from a herd of beasts then we do from many men if we should preach unto them And we shall be as unsuccessfull upon inconsiderate men as upon the Birds that fly over our heads for men that will not consider will not be men Therefore I beseech you resolve to take things into your more retired thoughts and whosoever he be that lays his eyes upon these Papers let him well consider what I have to say upon the third Observation which is chiefly intended and it is this The right numbring of our dayes is earnestly and diligently to be enquired out Obser 3 It is plain enough from the prayer of this man of God For his prayer for learning shewes that we are highly concerned in the numbring of our dayes and his prayer to be taught So signifies that he desires to be taught as is before expressed in the Psalm or else So signifies right or well without any mistake For we find the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is here rendred So taken for right and well as Numb 27.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. right have the daughters of Zelophedad spoken c. and 2 Kings 7. 9. the lepers say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We do not well this day is a day of good tydings And therefore thus we may render the Psalmists words Teach us aright and well to number our dayes or Teach so as we should c. But the sense will be the same every way because we shall reckon aright if we number So as he spoke before in the Psalm How is that will you say what is the right and good account I shall spare the labour of giving you reasons why you should so diligently inquire in hope that you are a little awakened by what hath been said and in fear that I should extend this discourse beyond the length of a Sermon And answer to the Question as distinctly as I can with some reference unto what you find in this Psalm The word numbring is a word of consideration and signifies a meditating or casting in our mind a serious thinking with our selves what our dayes are and for what end and purpose our life is given unto us And if we would not mistake in our accounts of which there is such danger Then Let us number by ones Let all our account be pure addition and that but by unites Let us not multiply our dayes too fast in our own thoughts nor venture to add one moment to another till God add it I mean we must reckon only upon what is present and account that all our time that is to come is in gods hands which we must not number to our selves because it is none of our own And so ver 3. the Psalmist saith Thou turnest man to destruction c. i.e. Man is wholly in thy power and he hath no more then thou givest him and the next moment if thou saist return he gives up the Ghost This now therefore is only ours and so we must set that down and there stay till God bestow another moment upon us He may be poor enough that will value his estate by what he hath only in hopes and yet such an one is he that reckons his stock of time by what is future He was a distracted man who stood at the Key at Athens and took a note of all the goods in the Ships that came into the port and made account that they were his yet just such is the vanity of a man that puts more time into his accounts then this present instant for he reckons anothers goods not his own he takes that which is in the hands of God only who was is and is to come to be his own proper possession He that numbers thus must reckon over again before he reckon right and if he will account what is his he must take great heed that he set not down in the summ that which is Gods and none of his yet Let him say Now I am and I shall be as long as God pleaseth in whose hand is the breath of my nostnls He that is hasty and quick in casting of accounts you know is frequently mistaken and the surest way is to proceed leisurely and slowly that we may mind the figures and comprehend the numbers clearly in our thoughts There is no less danger in letting our thoughts run too fast when we are about these sacred accounts let us stay and pause let our minds go along with the moments that number our time but not outrun them for then all our accounts will be but a fancy because we have put into them more then is our own If we could reckon thus and tell no faster then God adds unto our dayes and increases our stock of time then God would be more in our thoughts we could not but be more sensible of our dependence upon him and acknowledge him more feriously in all our wayes we should be apt at
every breath to look upon him as the Sun that continues the shadow of our lives and likewise we should look upon our graves more then upon our houses or any thing else For as Lipsius well saith our houses are but Inns Cent. 4. Epist 30. and our graves are our houses 2. Yet let us count those things that may put an end to our dayes by greater numbers Or thus Let us reckon that there are more enemies to life then one Though we can tell but by ones when we number our dayes or moments rather yet we may tell by twenties or hundreds when we number those things that may conclude and put a period to our time Look over a Bill of mortality and there you may tell thirty or forty diseases Then add forty more to them and two or three hundred more to that forty and so proceed untill you come near to a thousand For according to the account of some of the Jews there are nine hundred and three diseases in the world * This they gather from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 68.20 the numeral letters of which are 103. And let us be sure in this account to put down more wayes to the grave then from a sick bed And above all take heed of that dotage to think that we must die of old age for there are fewer die of that disease then any other in the world We must think that our lives may suddenly be snatcht away and not carried off leisurely by the steps of many days ilness Some diseases do no sooner appear then we vanish and disappear An enemy sometimes gives no warning but strikes us dead at one stroak And our sickness doth not alwayes lay seige to our strength wherein we trust but we are blown up in a moment as the Israelites were ver 5.6 Thou carriest them away as with a flood c. They were swept away with plagues they fell before their foes they went quâ—ck into the pit and were gone out of the world as soon as a dream out of our mind And so still we see some are drowned in the water others are strangled suddenly in their own blood and a world of contingencies and casualties there are besides so that ten thousand things besides these nine hundred diseases may put an end to our days Anacreon the Poet was choaked with the kernel of a grape Aeschylus by the shell of a Tortoise which fell from an Eagles Talons who mistook as was thought his bald Head for a white Rock An Emperour died by the scratch of a comb Essayes l. 1. cap. 19. and a Duke of Britany as Lord Mountaigne tells us was stifled to death in such a throng of people as is now in this place one of the Kings of France died miserably by the chock of an Hogg and a Brother of that Lords playing at Tennis received a blow with a Ball a little above the right ear which struck him into his grave What serious considerations would these things breed in us if we thought of them we should often say in our mind What if now the house should fall What if my foot should slip what if I should be trodden under foot in this press or drowned in this sweat what if the Boat should overturn or the Horse should throw me What would become of me if my meat should choak me or my drink should quench my life What then if I be not well provided I go down in a moment to Hell And therefore I must alwayes live well that so I may never die suddenly V. Locman The Cock in the Arabick fable because he had overcome in a battle against another of his neighbouring Cocks thought he had now no enemy and therefore he got upon a top of the house and began to crow and clap his wings in token of his triumph when behold on a sudden a Vultur comes and snatches this great Conqueror away Just such is the state of silly man he overthrows some disease and gets the better of it he escapes in a battle and rejoyces as if now he were out of danger when some accident or other lies in ambush for him and strikes him dead upon the place We must not therefore be secure at any time the strong man must not glory in his strength nor the great man in the honour of his family and numerous progeny for all may be cut off in a moment I can not but here remember how three hundred of the Fabâ—i in Rome were slain in one day and but one man of the Family left that was not extinct And about five hundred years agone the whole family of the Justiniani in Venice perished in defence of their Countrey against Emanuel the Greek Emperor except one only who was a Priest Bâ—bâ— Comes Abusinuâ— And Aventinus relates of a Count in the time of Henry the second Emperour that had thirty Sons besides eight Daughters who attended on him to the Emperors court and were all preferred to offices by him and all died in a very short space of time And so in Scripture we find all Gideons children slain at once except one and the like of Ahabs a wicked family whom God intended to root out And yet which of us thinks that if we have nine or ten children they may all die before us Or who thinks that they may all die in a day nay we are apt to imagine not only that we may stay in the world till we have done all we design but that we shall go out of the world the ordinary way and not be let out at any new gate Let us reform this error and be verily perswaded that there is a vast uncertainty of life and all worldly things and that death is drest in a thou sand shapes and may be in every thing we see in the world 3. Make account that there is no greater enemy to life then sin Sin is not to stand for one thing in our account but for a thousand for all the miseries and evils that can be reckoned up The Stone the Gout the Plague c. all the pains and stinches and noisome evils that were ever heard of are in the Womb of sin and therefore reckon a sinfull life to be of all other the most uncertain and that which provokes the holy God to shorten our days So you read ver 7 8 9. of this Psalm that they were consumed in Gods anger and their dayes passed away in his wrath when he took notice of their rebellions and saw how heinous their crimes were If you will believe the wise man the years of the wicked shall be shortned Prov. 10.27 Or if you will believe his Father God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded Psal 64.7 Or the Prophet Malachi by whom God saith I will be a swift witness against the Sorcerers and Adulterers and against false swearers and against those that oppress the hireling in his
more in our hearts for the heavenly Country The travell and toyl here would make us have a care top rovide for our rest with the people of God and these black nights of affliction for the eternall day that knows no night at all We should not be so much in love with life if we did reckon upon the evils of it nor so much in fear of death if we considered how many wayes we die daily What pleasure is there in living when we are eighty year old when we are a burden to our selves and too oft to others what contentment can we have What chear can there be when those that look out of the window are darkned when the sound of the grinding is low and we rise up at the voice of every bird and al the daughters of musick are brought down i. e. when we have lost our eyes and teeth and voice and sleep and are but a little distance from a clod of earth what joy can we feel in our hearts And yet this is the time that we would fain live to though we creep to it upon our hands and feet through a world of mire and dirt Si vita humana esset 500 aut 600. annorum omnes desperatione vitam finirent Card. de vita prepria and swim through the waters of many afflictions to be more miserable I am of Cardans mind that if the life of man should last five hundred or six hundred years many a one would make away themselves out of madness and desperation there are so many miseries that befall them and yet we are now madly desirous to live till we be weary of life Let us think that life if it be long may be but a kind of death and nothing will comfort us then but the hopes of another life It was a sharp saying of Caesars to one of his Guard that by reason of his craziness asked his leave that he might cause himself to be put to death Dost thou think then that thou art alive Alas such a decrepit thing as man is when he comes to Old age is but a walking Carcase that is ready at every step to stumble upon its Graves Yea death is preying upon us every day he gets a mouth full of our flesh every moment and sometimes by a sickness even eats us to the very bone and then though we recruit again and repaire our bodies yet we do but make food for new diseases It is said to Adam In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye which teaches us that we are next dore to death every day and that we do not so much live as borrow something from death and if we live long it will make us pay intollerable usury for not paying our lives sooner As these things will correct our mistakes about the length and quality of our daies so I shall now adde some things that will teach us better the use of them 6. We must reckon our daies by our work and not by our time by what we do and not by what we are Let us account that the longest day which is best spent and that the oldest life which is most holy Plutarch Consol ad Apollon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A long life is not the best but a good life As we do not commend saith he him that hath played a great while on an Instrument 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or made a long Oration but him that hath played and spoken well and as we account those Creatures best that give us most profit in a short time and every where we see maturity preferred before length of age so it ought to be among our selves They are the worthiest persons and have lived longest in the world who have brought the greatest benefit unto it and made the greatest advantage of their time to the service of God and of Men. Let our Conscience therefore be the Ephemeris or Diary of our life Let us not reckon by the Almanack but by the Book of God how much we live And let us account that he who lives godlily lives long and that other men live not at all We must not say that a man hath lived seaventy years if he hath done nothing worthy of a man but that he hath been so long Diu fuit sed parum vixit he had a great many daies but lived few or none In one sense most men may count their lives by nights rather then daies for they are as men asleep and do nothing at all that is the business and intent of life They are as Childish in their desires as weak in their fears as unreasonable in their hopes as impertinently and vainly imployed as if they were but newly come into the world and had not attained to the use of their Reason Shall we think a man hath lived because he is a yard higher then he was is this enough to denominate us men that we have hair growing upon our Chin No there are more Children then those that are in Coats and while we look no further then the present life we are but great Infants and are at play with Babies And alas if we account the right way by our work and improvement of our selves in true understanding Conscience and godliness the best of us must reckon fewer years then eighty for how little of this time do we truly live When we do no good we may say as the Emperour did Diem perdidi I have clearly lost a day I had as good not have been to day you can scarce say that I was if you look at the purpose of being For to acknowledg God and get acquaintance with him to govern our selves in conformity to him to do good to others c. are the great businesses of life and of him that minds not these chiefly you may say that there is such a thing called by such a name and that hath an existence but you cannot say that the man lives Shall we say that he sailed much who was taken in a storme as soon as he put out to Sea who was tossed by contrary winds in a Circle to and fro and in conclusion is brought just where he was De Brev. vitcae cas 8. when he first launcheth forth Non ille multum navigavit sed multum jactatus est as Seneca well saith He did not Saile much but was tossed very much Shall we then say that a man hath lived much whose soul was filled with Aire and vanity as soon as he was born who had tumbled to and fro in variety of business in the Sea of this world and is never quiet in the pursuit of earthly affairs Alas when he comes to the end of his daies he is as far from his part as when he first began them Heaven is as far out of his reach and further too as when he lay in his mothers Womb. He was much busied but he did nothing He was much employed but he lived idly For as I told you
the pillars and supporters of his body tremble Your hopes were even at the last gasp when God gave his life to your Prayers and teares and let him breath a little longer among you Now which of you can think upon his excellent Sermons since his recovery without thankfulnesse to God that he lent him to you a while longer Who can be impatient even for his death who remembers those words of our Saviour with his Comment in many Sermons Joh. 18.11 The Cup which my Father hath given unto me shall I not drink it And who can be prodigal of his time and loose in his life that felt any of those Arrows which he took out of the Apostles quiver See that you walk circumspectly Eph. 5.15 16. not as fools but as wise redeeming the time c. It would be a good work for every one of you to examine if you have not been carelesse in following those Directions which might provoke God to stop the breath of this sweet Organ of his and cut off the thred of his life by another sharp sicknesse which arrested him on the first day of this moneth Then God put a bitter cup into his hand and he drank it off to the bottom with such an admirable patience as he himself had preached Then he felt the comfort of a holy walking and good use of his time so that as he was not heard to murmur or repine that God should thus soon take hold of his rod again neither did he call for time to come back again as if he were loath to die by this rod. I cannot but remember a few things that I observed in this sicknesse which will be partly for our imitation and partly for our comfort First His resignation in the beginning of his disease God is wise said he to me and his will is guided by wisdome and therefore let him do as seems him good for I am indifferent Secondly The Expression of his Faith When his disease began to make some offers at his head and a little to obscure his mind he said to me Truly this is the only thing that troubles me that I fear I shall loose my understanding But my Saviour intercedes in Heaven He doth he doth Thirdly His patience and quietnesse under the violence of his Disease For when he was desired either not to speak or not to stirre his Answer still was Well I will not So that I might say of his Feavour as Diogenes did when he was sick of the same disease Nazian Epist 64. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ib. It was nothing else but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wrestling of the soul with the body as two Combatants use to do in the Olympick Games and his soul got the better by patience and lying still When Epictetus broke his leg they say he talkt and discoursed as if he had been in another mans body and when the bones of our deceased Brother were sore vexed me thought he lay as if his soul were somewhere else and was gone out to God For Fourthly God was pleased to blesse him with a quietnesse and peace in his conscience Though he had no raptures and excesses of mind which he never affected yet he thanked God he had a solid peace and a sweet calm and he passed out of the world just as he lived in an even temper And Fifthly According to his Faith in the Mediation of Jesus Christ so it was unto him God was very good to him in giving him his understanding unto the last even when the cunning Adversary of man-kind made an attempt upon him toward his latter end when his strength declined and he was least able to resist an assault He would have slily conveyed such thoughts into his mind that he had been a stranger to practical godlinesse but he had so much understanding as to consider that he was not himself nor fit to be a judge when he could look but at a few things And truly I told him that it was the best way for one that had setled a well-grounded hope in his life to give the Devil no other Answer at such a time but Satan thou lyest and enter into no further dispute with him Whereupon he said Thou cowardly Devil take me now Why didst thou not come sooner if thou hadst any thing to say This expression he had more then once and was troubled no further but to give testimony afterward to some that stood by that thanks be to God we have the victory through Christ Jesus And Lastly He had such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the greatest man once in the world wished for and he placidly and quietly without being torn by force out of his body slept in the Lord on the Lords day the twelfth day of this moneth And considering the time of his end I think it is not a meer fancy to remark upon these three things which made his death just proportionable to his life First That as he died in the noon of his age so he died in the noon of the day That may seem but an inconsiderable circumstance unlesse we joyn it with the rest For secondly He went to receive his Reward upon that day wherein he most laboured From the communion of Saints on earth he went to the consort of Saints and Angels in Heaven And it was one of the last words that he spake There remains a Rest for the people of God Thirdly He died on one of the longest daies in the year as if God would tell us that he had lived long enough as long as was fit and that being now come to his full height he was at his Tropick and must return to him that sent him forth Men Brethren and Fathers you will pardon it to the affection I bear to his memory that I have given you this long though I hope not tedious Narration And if any think it is too short which I may rather suspect let them be pleased to consider that his life consisted but of a few dayes and that it is no small part of virtue to conceal ones virtues And therefore they may believe without danger that the greatest part of what I have told you is but the least part of that worth which lay latent in him And now as you have had the patience to bear with me thus long out of your love to him so let your love to your selves bestow so much patience upon you as to suffer a little longer till I speak a few words to every one in this Assembly And first of all to you my Brethren of the Ministry I shall not take upon me to speak any words of my own but acquaint you with two words of his to the dearest relation he had in his former sickness First Let us be much in private prayer Our time is short as well as other mens and many times shorter though our account be greater therefore let us spend much time with God as we indeavour to