1. Thus we see the child of man or the man who is born of a woman is so full of Trouble to the brim that many times it overflow's him On one side or other we all are troubled but some are troubled on d every side Insomuch that they themselves are the greatest Trouble unto themselves and 't is a kind of death to them that they cannot dye We find King David so sick of Life as to fall a wishing for the wings of a Dove that so his soul might fly away from the great Impediments of his Body He confessed his Dayes were at the longest but a e span and yet he complained they were no shorter It seems that Span was as the span of a wither'd Hand which the farther he stretched out the more it griev'd him He was f weary of his groaning His soul did g pant after Heaven and even thirsted for God And he might once more have cryed though in another sense Woe is me that I am constrain'd to dwell with Meseck and to have mine habitation among the Tents of Kedar I remember that Charidemus in Dio Chrysoslom compared man's Life unto a Feast or Banquet And I the rather took notice of it because the Prophet Elijah did seem in some sense to have made it good Who after a first or second Course as I may say of living as if he had surfetted of Life cryed out in hast It is enough and with the very same breath desired God to take away for so faith the Scripture 1 Kings 19. 4. He went into the Wilderness a solitary place and there be sate under a Iuniper in a melancholy posture and requested of God that he might dye in a very disconsolate and dolefull manner even pouring forth his soul in these melting Accents It is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am no better then my Faâ—hers And if the Dayes of Elijah were full of trouble how was Iob overwhelmed and running over with his Calamity when the b Terrours of God did set themselves in aray against him how did he c long for destruction O saith he that I might have my request that God would grant me the thing that I long for Even that it would please him to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off How did he d Curse the Day of his Birth and the Night wherein he was conceived Let that Day be darkness let the shadow of Death stain it let a cloud dwell upon it let blackness terrifie it And for the Night let it not be joyned unto the dayes of the year Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark neither let it sâ—e the dawning of the day And what was his reason for this unkindness to that particular Day and Night save that they brought upon him trouble of being a Man borne of a woman for we find him complaining a little after why dyed I not from the Womb why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the Belly And then for the Life of our blessed Saviour who is call'd by way of Eminence The Son of Man as I observ'd before that it was short so must I here put you in mind that it was full of Trouble He was therefore call'd by way of Eminence Vir Dolorum a A Man of sorrows The Prophet adds he was b acquainted with Grief For the whole Tenor of his Life was a continuation of his Calamities The Time would fail me should I but mention the hundredth part of those men whose short Time of life hath seemed long to them even because they have felt it so full of Trouble But enough hath been said concerning the Doctrine of the Text And it lyes upon us to make some use First then let us consider that if man as born of a woman hath but a short time to live It concerns us to take up the prayer of David that God will teach us to know our End and the number of our Dayes that we like c Hezechiah may be fully certified how short our Time is It concerns us to take up the Resolution of Job All the Dayes of our appointed time incessantly waiting till our change cometh It concerns us not to say with the rich man in the parable we will pull down our Barns and build greater and there we will bestow all our fruits ' and our goods much less may we say with that other Worldling Souls take your Ease eat drink and be merry for you have much goods laid up for many years for alas how can we know silly creatures as we are but that this very Night nay this very minute either they may be taken from us or we from them there is such a fadeingness on their parts and such a fickleness on ours But it concerns us rather to say with Job Naked came we into the world and naked shall we go out of it Or it concerns us rather to say with David that we are strangers upon Earth and but so many sojourners as all our Fathers were for whilest we consider we are but strangers we shall as * Strangers and Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul And so long as we remember we are but sojourners upon earth we shall pass the time of our sojourning here in fear And behaving our selves among the Gentiles as a chosen Generation a Royall Priesthood an holy Nation a peculiar People we shall shew forth his praise who hath called us out of Darkness into his marvellous Light Secondly let us consider that since our Life is uncertain as well as short inasmuch as we know not how short it is it concerns us immediately to labour hard in the Improvement of this our span into Eternity to employ our very short and uncertain Time in making a seasonable provision against them both I mean it's shortness and its uncertainty For shall we be lavish even of that which is so easily lost and of which we have so very little and every minute of which Little does carry so great a weight with it as will be either a kind of Pulley to help raise us up to Heaven or else a Clogg to pull us down to the lowest Hell Of whatsoever we may be wastefull we ought to be charie of our Time which doth incontinently perish and will eternally be reckoned on our account Perâ—unt imputantur the Epigrammatist could say of his pretious Hours Now the way to provide against the shortness of our Life is so to live as to dye to the greatest Advantage to be imagin'd and so to dye as to live for ever What Tobit said to Tobias in respect of wealth Fear not my son that we are made poor for thou hast much wealth if thou fear God and depart from all sin and do that which is pleasing in his sight He might
deceitfulness and hypocrisie without the least consideration how short a time they have to live and how very much shorter then they imagine Yet unless they believe they can dream devoutly and truly repent when they are sleeping they cannot but know they are damn'd for ever if the day of the Lord shall come upon them as a thief in the night and catch them napping in their impieties Consider this all ye that forget God least he pluck you away and there be none to deliver you Consider it all ye that forget your selves That forget how few your dayes are and how full of misery Consider your bodies from whence they came and consider your souls whether it is that they are going Consider your life is in your breath and your breath is in your nostrils and that in the management of a moment for the better or for the worse there dependeth either a joyfull or a sad eternity If our Time were certain as well as short or rather if we were certain how short it is there might be some colour or pretence for the posting off of our Reformation But since we * know not at what hour our Lord will come this should mightily ingage us to be hourely standing upon our †watch And this may suffice for the subject of our second Consideration Thirdly let us consider that if our dayes which are few are as full of trouble it should serve to make us less fond of living and less devoted to self-preservation and less afraid of the cross of Christ when our Faith shall be called to the severest Trialls * O death saith the son of Sirach acceptable is thy sentence unto the needy and to him that is vexed with all things The troubles incident to life have made the †bitter in soul to long for death and to * rejoyce exceedingly when they have found the grave If the Empress †Barbara had been orthodox in believing mens souls to be just as mortall as their bodies death at least would be capable of this applause and commendation that it puts a conclusion to all our troubles If we did not fear him who can cast both body and soul into hell we should not need fear them who can destroy the body onely because * there is no inquisition in the grave †There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary are at rest There the Prisoners lie down with Kings and counsellers of the earth The servant there is free from his master There is sleep and still silence nor can they hear the voice of the oppressor Mors Bona si non est Finis tamen Illa Malorum But we have farther to consider the threefold Antithesis which we ought to oppose to the three Clauses in the Text for as man who is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of trouble so man as regenerate and born of God hath a long time to live and is full of bliss A life so long that it runs parallel with eternity and therefore without a Catachresis we cannot use such an expression as length of time It is not a long but an endless life it is not time but eternity which now I speak of Nor is it a wretched eternity of which a man may have the priviledge as he is born of a woman but an eternity of bliss which is competent to him as born of God And of this bliss there is such a fullness that our Heads are too thick to understand it Or if we were able to understand it yet our hearts are too narrow to give it entrance Or if our hearts could hold it yet our tongues are too stammering to express and utter it Or if we were able to do that yet our lives are too short to communicate and reveal it to other creatures In a word it is such as not onely eye hath not seen nor ear heard but it never hath entred into the heart of man to conceive Incomprehensible as it is 't is such as God hath prepared for them that love him 1 Cor. 2. 9. If we compare this life with the life described in the Text it will severall wayes be usefull to us for it will moderate our joyes whilst we possess our dear friends and it will mitigate our sorrows when we have lost them for it will mind us that they are freed from a life of misery and that they are happily translated to one of bliss Nay if we are true lovers indeed and look not onely at our * own interest but at the interest of the parties to whom we vow love we even lose them to our advantage because to theirs Lastly it sweetens the solemn farewell which our souls must take of our mortall bodies we shall desire to be dissolved when we can groundedly hope we shall be with Christ we shall groan and groan earnestly to be uncloathed of our bodies with which we are * burdened if we †live by this faith that we shall be cloathed upon with our house from heaven we shall cheerfully lay down our bodies in the dust when 't is to rest in his peace who will certainly raise us by his power that we may rest and reign with him in glory THus have I done with my Text though but in the middle of my Sermon and but briefly considered it in its Antithesis because it is not pertinent any otherwise then by affording to such as are Mourners a use of comfort And because I am confident that there are many such here when I consider how many losses lye wrapt in one not onely wearers of black but serious Mourners whose very souls and insides are hung with sable and whose unaffected sorrows do call for comfort I shall raise you matter of reall joy from the ground and occasion of all your sorrows For there is yet another Text upon which I must give you another Sermon A Text I say whose matter and form have been divided by God and Nature The inward form is ascended to him from whom it came down but the outward matter still lyes before us And well may that person become our Text who was himself a living Sermon since the integrity of his life was truly doctrinal and the resplendent piety of his death a very pertinent application I am sure 't is well known in another place and therefore I hope 't is believed in this that I am none of their number who use to scatter abroad their Eulogies upon every man's Hearse meerly as customary offerings or things of course No those alone are my seasons wherein to make narratives of the dead when it may righteously be done for the use and benefit of the living You know that Jesus the son of Sirach doth set himself solemnly to the work and that with an {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Let us now praise famous men Men renowned for their power men
have said as well in respect of wisdome and by consequence as well in respect of long life For as the fear of the Lord is solid wisdom and to depart from Evil is understanding so Honourable Age is not that which standeth in the length of Time nor that is measured by number of years but wisdom is the gray hair unto men and an unspotted life is old age To be devoted like Anna to the House of God so as to serve him night and day with fasting and prayers and not to content our selves with that which is meerly lawfull or barely enough to serve turn as men do commonly reason within themselves but to study the things that are †more excellent to streine hard towards * perfection to forget those things that are behind and to reach forth unto those things that are before pressing on towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Iesus this is to amplisie our lives and to frustrate the malice of our mortality and as the want of stature many times is supply'd in thickness so this is to live a great deal in the little time of our duration Ampliat Aetatis spaâ—ium sibi Vir bonus hoc est Vivere bis Vitâ posse priore srui As we are thus to provide against the shortness so in like manner we must provide against the uncertainty of our time And the way to do that is to distrust the future and to lay hold upon the present so to live every houre as if we were not to live the next Having a short time to live our time to repent cannot be long And not assured of the * morrow 't is madness not to repent to-day when we see many persons of the most promising countenance and the most prosperous constitution not onely snatched by an early but sudden death why should we not seriously consider that we may be of their number having no promise of the contrary either within or without us †What happens to any man may happen to every man every man being encompassed with the same conditions of mortality 'T is true indeed that we may live till we are old but 't is as true that we may dye whilst we are young and therefore the later possibility should as well prevail with us for a dispatch of our repentance as the former too too often prevails upon us for a delay Nay if we procrastinate our repentance in hope of living till we are old how much rather should we precipitate it for fear of dying whilst we are young if yet it were possible to precipitate so good and necessary a work as a solid impartiall sincere repentance For as to repent whilst we are young can never do us the least harm so it may probably do us the greatest to post it off till we are old Nay it may cost us the loss of heaven and a sad eternity in hell if we deferr our repentance I do not say till we are old but if we deferr it being young till we are one day older then now we are And shall we deferr it beyond to-day because we may do it as well to-morrow This is madness unexpressible For as 't is true that we may so 't is as true that we may not Our knowledge of the one is just as little as of the other Or rather our ignorance is just as much And shall we dare to tempt God by presuming upon that which we do not know Are heaven and hell such triviall things as to be put to a bare adventure shall we play for salvation as it were by filliping cross or pile implicitly saying within our selves if we live till the morrow we will repent and be saved but if we dye before night we will dye in our sins and be damned for ever shall we reason within our selves that though we know our own death may be as sudden as other men's yet we will put it to the venture and make no doubt but to fare as well as hitherto we have done what is this but to dally with the day of judgement or to bewray our disbelief that there is any such thing It s true we may live untill the morrow and so on the morrow we may repent But what is this to the purpose that 't is certain we may whilst 't is as doubtfull whether we shall Is it not good to make sure of happiness by repenting seriously at present rather then let it lye doubtfull by not repenting untill anon Methinks we should easily be persuaded to espouse that course which we are throughly convinced doth tend the most to our Advantage When the rich worldling in the Parable was speaking placentia to his soul * soul take thine ease alleaging no other reason than his having much goods for many years nothing is fitter to be observed then our Saviour's words upon that occasion Stulte Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided However the men of this world have quite another measure 〈◊〉 and do esteem it the greatest prudence to take 〈◊〉 pleasure whilst they are young reserving the work 〈◊〉 mortification for times of sickness and old age when 't will be easie to leave their pleasures because their pleasures will leave them yet in the judgement of God the Son the word and wisdom of the Father 't is the part of a blockhead and a fool to make account of more years then he is sure of dayes or hours He is a sot as well as a sinner who does adjourn and shift off the amendment of his life perhaps till twenty or thirty or fourty years after his death 'T is true indeed that Hezekiah whilst he was yet in the confines and skirts of death had a * lease of life granted no less than fifteen years long but he deferred not his repentance one day the longer And shall we adventure to live an hour in an impenitent estate who have not a lease of life promised no not so much as for an hour shall we dare enter into our beds and sleep securely any one night not thinking how we may awake whether in heaven or in hell we know 't is timely repentance which must secure us of the one and 't is finall impenitence which gives us assurance of the other What the Apostle of the Gentiles hath said of wrath may be as usefully spoken of every other provoking sin †Let not the Sun go down upon it Let us not live in any sin untill the Sun is gone down because we are * far from being sure that we shall live till Sun rising How many Professors go to sleep when the Sun is down and the curtains of the night are drawn about them in a state of drunkenness or adultery in a state of avarice or malice in a state of sacriledge or rebellion in a state of