render them yet more difficult by affected and habitual impieties these methods are directly opposite to a perswasion of the brevity of life such a thought would be productive of diligence and watchfulness and would make us vigilant in catching at and improving every opportunity that Providence is pleased to afford us of making our calling and election sure we should account it unexcusable folly to waste our pretious time in the serving of our lusts in the jollities of extravagance or the Supinity of sloth and idleness we should then conclude that we ought at least to employ our time well if we could not prolong it that we should make some progress in our spiritual race press on daily nearer and nearer to perfection and be therefore more active because we find we have not long to run but above all we should dread the going backward in our course by vice and licentiousness and the fettering our selves in the sinful pleasures of the world and loading our minds with the clogs of wicked affections and vicious desires Whoever is truly sensible that his hours are few will not dare to be prodigal of them and he that wisely considers that his work is great and that it must be done will tremble at the thoughts of idly neglecting it remissly engaging in it or foolishly swelling its bulk or obstructing its progress 3. The numbring our days will convince us that this short life is yet shorter to us that its period is uncertain and unknown and what must necessarily end quickly by the common laws of nature is frequently by our own follies by chance and accident and by an over-ruling providence suddenly broke off and concluded or which is equal to us render'd useless to our main design the preparing for another life We may perhaps arrive to the age of man which the Psalmist assigns that of threescore years and ten we may possibly by a gentle hand of God be called from the hurry of business the vanities of the world and the temptations of pleasures and have leisure upon a bed of retirement without acute or discomposing sickness to think and prepare for Heaven and make our peace with God these advantages 't is possible the divine clemency may afford some of us but we are to reflect that these are extraordinary advantages that God does not generally vouchsafe to men but is pleased to indulge only to some few as particular expressions of his Paternal love The present occasion of our meeting must divert us from such expectations and if we turn our thoughts upon the usual methods of mens departure we see that the most are taken off when they least think of it some suddainly without time to reflect some by acute diseases that disturb the mind and take away either its sense or the calm which is necessary for divine thoughts and in some the vigor of the understanding wears away with the strength of the body and dotage takes up that time which they had destin'd for the work of their Conversion thus we see we are not rationally to expect that our years should grow to their possible extent or that they should be useful to us if they did and therefore we should constantly be apprehensive of what may always happen and be still prepared for what may every day arrive This reflection then must necessarily awaken us from the lethargy of security and shew us the fatal imprudence of putting the evil day far from us Have I not begun my preparation for death till this day and yet for ought I know this may be the very last day of my life I may perhaps this hour be called to give up my accompts and wretched man than I am I have scarce yet had it in my thoughts that I have an accompt to make must not such a consideration as this terrify the sinner discover the egregious folly of a wicked life the necessity of repentance and that a speedy one is it possible that a man could take any pleasure in the most delightful of all his sensual enjoyments if he reflected that in that very moment he were to expect death as the reward of it this he knows he deserves and he does not know but he may feel and therefore he can never be easy or satisfied while he remembers it till he has made his peace with that God in whose hands are his life and death Nothing sure can be a more rational inducement to draw off our dependance on the world than to think we do not know how soon we may quit it nor is there a more natural consequence of the uncertainty of death than the absolute necessity of a present and certain preparation 4. The last suggestion I shall offer from the numbring our days which carries with it one of the strongest motives to a true use of life is that the same moment that terminates our days puts an end likewise to all opportunities of conversion or reconciliation to God As the tree falls so it lies and as the grave receives us so will it deliver us to judgment Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation but in death no man can remember God or make his peace with him in the pit Were there a middle state where we might have a double prospect backward on the vanities and follies of the world and forward on the two portions of endless bliss or torment and might we be there admitted to sue out our pardon and to make attonement for the errors of our life it would possibly not be reckon'd folly to defer our preparations for another world till we had done with this but Sacred writ assures us that there is no such middle state or opportunity of reconcilement but that as certainly as 't is appointed for all men once to die so certainly after death succeedeth the judgment and we shall not be judged according to any future thoughts we may have hereafter but every man shall receive according to what he has done in the flesh whether it be good or evil Is there then no thought or labour in or beyond the grave is there nothing that can avail us towards joy in the world to come but our passing of our days on earth in a conscientious discharge of our duty and can we live here as if we had nothing to do or nothing but what we might defer till a future state is this life our only stage of probation and tryal and must the other receive us as we are qualified when we go out of it and can we think we are not concerned how we behave our selves here or deliver our selves up to our Iudge if when we depart hence spotted and polluted with unrepented sins there is no fountain left to purge our pollutions but a devouring fire only to punish them sure we cannot be so stupid as not to wash away speedily our habitual vices in repentant tears and a bitter humiliation and labour mightily in this our day
A SERMON Preached in the Parish Church of St. Giles in the Fields At the FUNERAL of Bernard Connor M. D. Who departed this Life Oct. 30. 1698. With a Short Account of his Life and Death By William Hayley D. D. Rector of the said Church and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty LONDON Printed for Iacob Tonson at the Iudges-Head near the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleetstreet and at Grays-Inn Gate in Grays-Inn Lane 1699. A SERMON Preached at the Funeral of Doctor Connor PSALM XC 12. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom THere is nothing more apparent to the capacity of all men than the uncertainty of life and nothing of which mankind is more universally perswaded than the necessity of Death these are truths so self-evident that there needs no labour to demonstrate them the fate of past Genenerations has given us palpable arguments to imprint them upon our minds and the present and every such like occasion of meeting are so many fresh renewals of the impression so that as to the Doctrinal part all men seem to be 〈◊〉 wise and the most ignorant does not want an instructor to tell him that he must Die and that every day of his Life brings him one Step nearer to the Grave And yet though men are thus universally wise in the Theory we find them almost as universally unwise in the more necessary point that of practice Men know they must Die they daily discourse and complain of it nay in their temporal concerns their covenants projects and securities they consider and provide for it and yet they are so blind that they seldom apply it to their great their eternal concerns or draw from it those plain and easy conclusions which it naturally furnishes to perswade to a circumspect and religious manner of living Some look upon it as a great truth indeed but so plain as not to need the being reflected on and therefore neglect it as hardly worth their notice or at least think the consideration of it may be assumed at their leisure Some again know it is too true and they are afraid of it they see 't is pointed and must prick their consciences if they suffer themselves to dwell upon it and therefore put away the evil day far from them remove the thought of it from their minds as they wish they could do the thing from their persons and say in their hearts to such suggestions as the Demoniacks did to our Saviour that they should not come to torment them before the time And others use the important truth yet worse if possible and endeavour to distort it to patronize folly and levity they conclude since life is short 't is best enjoy its delights as fast as they can and live apace because they must shortly depart and so advance for their common Motto Let us eat and drink for to morrow we die Thus the great and useful lesson of the brevity of life which Nature teaches and the word of God inculcates misses of its true end which is the reformation of our manners is overlook'd by the negligent dreaded by the voluptuous and perverted and abused by the daring and prophane The Sacred Author therefore of this Psalm who is supposed to have been Moses the favorite of God makes it his petition that he might be directed by the aid of Heaven in the application of this piece of knowledge and since the world was generally so unfortunate as not to make a due use of it that God would graciously please to teach him and his people the way to profit by it He knew very well that our days pass on insensibly and that we bring our years to an end as it were a tale that is told that the days of our years are threescore years and ten that if they exceed 't is but to bring an accession of labour and sorrow and that their date is made much shorter by our own ill conduct and the just punishment that it deserves that the divine anger frequently cuts the thread of a dissolute life and the divine providence sometimes straitens the bounds of a pious one and therefore that all are concerned to reflect seriously on their frail and uncertain state and to make that consideration a motive to a wise and a watchful conduct and since all wisdom comes from above and 't is God himself that must direct our goings in his paths or else our foot-steps will slip he makes this his supplication and thereby directs us to do the same that God the Author of all that is good in us or useful for us would so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom Wisdom is in the sense of my text the prudent administration of our life the disposal of our ways agreeably to reason and religion the careful preservation of our innocence in this world and the securing our happiness in a future one these being the great ends of Man and consequently the obtaining of them being the main of our hopes and the due prosecution of them the most exalted wisdom And the applying our hearts to this wisdom is the making it the ultimate design of all our thoughts and actions the fixing our minds upon it the entertaining it with such serious meditation as the dignity of the subject requires the keeping it still in our view and not letting it either escape by inadvertency or grow remiss by its becoming familiar but the persisting in a constant uniform contrivance and endeavour to order the little time we have so wisely as to secure our eternity by it and so work out our own salvation with fear and trembling This is to be the great important result of the numbring our days or the reflecting seriously on the shortness and uncertainty of human life this is the excellent lesson that we are to learn by the present and by all other like occasions of assembling which were piously designed not for vain useless ostentation but for our real instruction and improvement and were not so much intended for ceremony to the dead as for advantage to the living this being an opportunity when our hearts are supposed to be more mollified and more capable of serious impressions when our tears should soften and prepare the soyl for the reception of God's word and further its fruitfulness when our senses being fill'd with the demonstration of the vanity of this world we should sensibly rellish the joys of another And O! that it would please God so to bless what I am now about to deliver that it might effectually engage us all not to a faint reflection on mortality which passes away with the pomp of the funeral but to such an habitual remembrance of it as might work its natural effect the applying of our hearts to true wisdom to unfeigned holiness and the fear of God This would be an effect truly answering the charity of our deceased Brother who being now as we
hope in God united to the society of the Saints in glory would with them more rejoyce at the conversion of a sinner than at panegyricks on himself and be more pleased at the improvement of others vertues than at the recital of his own Now in order to this end I shall in my discourse upon these words observe this following method I. I shall shew that the numbring our days furnishes us with excellent motives to a pious and holy life II. That the applying of them to this end is the highest piece of wisdom III. I shall enquire how it comes to pass that they have generally so little influence on the minds of men as not to engage them seriously to a constant and habitual piety IV. I shall conclude with an earnest exhortation to make that due application of our hearts to wisdom which the text directs us to pray for and the present occasion does so movingly recommend to us I. That the numbring our days furnishes us with excellent motives to a pious and holy life The numbring our days is the serious consideration of the brevity and uncertainty of life and the fatal necessity of a dissolution that we must die that it will not be long before we do that the time is not at our own disposal no not in our knowledge that the method of our ending our days is as uncertain as the time but that whenever or however it happens it opens a passage into an eternity of joy or misery Such reflections as these make up the work of numbring our days and at first apprehension they must strike the mind with attention and concern but they are too many to be considered all together and too fruitful of arguments to have them all at one glance deduced and attended to I shall therefore distinctly treat of some at least of the principal of them and shew the motives they afford to piety and a holy life 1. The numbring our days implies that we must die and that a period must be put to them whatever can be numbered must end 't is only infinity that is always durable The life of man is indeed properly eternal and his mortal life is but the prologue of it we were made principally for another world and this present one is but the journey that leads to it Let it be therefore never so durable we must at last come to our long home and its length will then be nothing when eternity is put in the balance with it how pleasant soever the objects of our senses may be however our affections may doat upon them and make us say within our selves as Peter did to our Saviour on the mount It is good for us to be here Yet the eternal Laws of mortality oppose their bent and cry aloud to us that we have here no abiding city Our bodies are tabernacles that cannot last long and nature it self by degrees moulders these our houses of clay to make way for death and that lands us upon immortality The consideration of this is sufficient to teach us that the business of this world is not to be our greatest care that what is needful for our temporary support is not of so great importance as what makes a provision for an endless life what if every thing here does not fall according to our wishes or what if it does what if the world frown upon us and we meet with disappointments in our designs necessity in our fortune and pains and diseases in our bodies what if all these join together to make our journey uneasy if we are sure in the end to find a lasting comfort to have all our tears wiped off and an admittance given us into the joy of our Lord and what if Fortune smile upon us here for a moment what if we are feared or envy'd caressed or loved by those about us what if we have health of body plentiful estates and fair reputations if in the mean time our hopes reach no farther and death is to put an end both to our grandeur and our expectation would not any man that reflects seriously on this be apt to say to himself shall I spend my thoughts or contrivance for that which profiteth nothing or for so short a time shall I loose my rest and my peace to be rich or great in the sight of my neighbours when I am poor and miserable in the sight of my God destitute of the riches of his grace and the Spiritual treasure of good works shall I gratify my own follies and vices and in the hurry of them fancy I live for a moment and so be carried away blindly into everlasting Death O stupidity and madness that can please it self with the gaiety of a mortal state and in the mean time not make provision for immortality 't is enough that this world passeth away to make us not value it and that our home is in another to perswade us to think of and provide for it 2. Another reflexion that the numbring of our days will afford us is that life is at best but short and of no considerable duration if we reckon it from our birth to the period of a good old age 't is no vast circuit when Iacob had lived near twice the common age of man and the days of his pilgrimage were 130 years he told Pharaoh that the days of the years of his life were but few as well as evil 'T is the usual complaint of those that spend their time in enquiries after Sciences in the search of Nature or the improvement of Arts that knowledge is of a vast extent and life is but short to work it out but if we measure the greatness of the work that most concerns us the subduing our corruptions the improving our graces and the study and practice of our Duty this short time will appear yet more inconsiderable the days fly swiftly and the night hastily approaches wherein no man can work I do not now mention that a great part of this life is spent before we come to any maturity of thought that another great portion is given to necessary employments and diversions and a third glides away insensibly in the silence of thoughtless Sleep for the present let us suppose that all of it were in our hands to husband and employ to our spiritual advantage and that we were sure it should not be suddenly snatcht from us yet alas it is easily measured we see how short it seems to ourselves when we look back upon what is past of it and if we do but compare it with eternity it quite disappears and vanishes into nothing Let us see then what use wisdom would make of such a consideration as this would it pass this little time it has given it to no purpose or to wicked ones would it study methods and contrivances to waste and mispend it would it neglect its work or add to it would it carelessly let slip the opportunities of repentance and amendment or
digested if the patient will not receive and keep it 't is in vain to expect any benefit from it 'T is as plain an argument as sense and reason can invent against the worship of an image that it is a thing insensible and uncapable of adoration and yet not only the Gentile world but the Israelites themselves and I wish I could not add some Christians have been drawn into the folly and the Prophet Isaiah in his 44. Ch. and 19. Verse gives the reason for it And that is that none considereth in his heart I have burnt part of it in the fire and shall I make the residue of it an abomination shall I fall down to the stock of a tree And thus the certainty of death and the brevity and vanity of life are as strong motives to vertue and piety as can possibly be given to men but yet they can never have a due effect if Israel will not know if the people will not consider And therefore it is that the mercy of God breaks out into that pathetical wish in the 32. Deut. 29. O that they were wise that they understood this that they would consider their latter end 2. If there are many that will not consider at all there are many likewise that baffle their consideration with the hopes of such advantages as possibly may happen They know and consider too that they must die and that their life is short and uncertain and they are not ignorant that they must make their peace with God before they depart this life or perish everlastingly but yet 't is possible they may live to a good old age and wear out by degrees may have leisure to think and be good when they are no longer able to enjoy the pleasures of life and then they resolve to lay aside all other business and think of eternity They see there are some that God blesses with a gradual and a sensible departure and therefore they hope for the same mercy which God vouchsafes to these some and do therefore abuse his patience and long sufferance because they hope for it I do not now urge the unreasonableness and ingratitude of such a carriage nor contend that the goodness of God should rather lead us to a speedy reformation I am only now noting that how unreasonable soever it be yet still this is a great cause of the backwardness and roerastination of repentance Hope is a flattering passion it will represent what is possible as if it were certain and what is sometimes given as if it might be always expected and so by pursuing these vain hopes men loose their real ones and are overtaken by evil when they promised themselves peace They hope death will not come quickly and so squander away life and by expecting a longer duration of their being in this world are not hasty in laying the well grounded expectation of bliss in a future one Now if there be any here present who have hitherto deferr'd their preparation for another world who are in the strength of their youth and resolve still to put off this work 'till old age I need not send them far for arguments to convince them of their folly Our deceased Brother God has called away in the vigor of his youth about the thirty third year of his age when the world was in expectation of great things from him and when possibly improvement in natural knowledge reputation in his profession and advancement in his fortune filled and employed his thoughts He had liv'd a vertuous and a sober life free from those extravagancies which men in the luxuriant bloom of youth and wit are too often carried into and by which they run into a hasty decay and yet God has been pleased to call him away in the midst of his course and to make him our warning of the uncertainty of life Thus his fate is one argument for us and if we regard his judgment in this matter that will be another for though he had been free from the debauches of the age yet what he seem'd most to lament at his death was that he had not been better prepared for it and that he had not employ'd more of that time which he spent in the search of nature and the entertainment of Philosophy in the more useful search into the state of his Soul and the concerns of a future life so that both the persuasion of his mind and his early departure strike in with my main design to press men to apply their hearts betimes to this piece of true wisdom the early preparing for eternity But before I come to the close application of this it will perhaps not be unacceptable to you to have some short account of his life and death who gives the occasion of this present Admonition He was born in Ireland and educated in the Communion of the Church of Rome and remained in his own Country as I am informed by his Friends till about the twentieth year of his age when in order to cultivate his Studies and to apply his mind to Physick and work out his fortune he betook himself to travel His parts and conduct were soon taken notice of in the Court of France where the Care and Government of the Sons of the high Chancellor of Poland who were then in that Kingdom was committed to him and he attended them in their travels into Italy Sicily Germany c. which gave him opportunity of making many considerable Observations in those Countries At his arrival in Poland whither he accompanied these Gentlemen in their return he was made Physitian to the late King and by him recommended to his Daughter the Electoress of Bavaria to have the care of her health After some stay at the Elector's Court he departed thence with several marks of esteem and favour as he had before done from the Court of Poland and he came through Holland into this City where he was admitted into the Royal Society and the Colledge of Physicians Whether it were only to perfect himself in Physick that he came into England where our Professors have deservedly the reputation of excelling those of our neighbouring Nations or whether his riper years gave him other Opinions in matters of Religion than would have been tolerated in the Courts whence he came I had not opportunity of informing my self In fact he had not been long in England but he became so far acquainted with our Doctrine and Discipline and approved of both so well that he professed himself a Member of our Church what were the main arguments and inducements to his conversion though I could wish they were publick I could not particularly examine for I knew not of his sickness till two days before his death when he was very weak and I was then ignorant of his having been bred up in the Roman Communion and had I known it I should still have thought it more necessary to employ that little time his weakness would enable him to
that the Doctor thanked him for it and desir'd that none of those persons adding a reproachful word which I do not think decent to publish should be admitted to him and that it was the Doctor 's own desire that I should attend him in his sickness and I cannot see what occasion there should be for such a piece of dissimulation if he had been of the Roman Communion Now if the case were thus that he was really past his senses it cannot but give us some resentment of the confidence of persons who will take such liberties in our Land as to obtrude themselves upon the dying Members of our Church when they know what severities any Protestant must expect who should dare to do any thing like it in a Popish Country And it must give us some indignation against the vanity of that Church which hopes to save a man by words said over him in which he bears no part and against the prophaneness of those Priests who prostitute the most Sacred parts of their Religion to those who have no faith in them or regard for them However it be I thought it a sincere part to lay the thing open as it happen'd that it might not be pretended that any thing was concealed which should argue him of the Roman Communion or that we do what we justly reproach our adversaries for endeavour to gain credit to our Church by feigned and pretended conversions IV. It is time now to hasten to the last thing I proposed to conclude with an earnest exhortation to all that hear me to make that due application of their hearts to wisdom which the Text directs us to pray for and the present occasion does so movingly recommend to us Does the numbring of our days then afford us the most moving and prevalent arguments to a pious course of living and does the shortness and uncertainty of life and other reflections drawn from it naturally excite us to caution and vigilance let us then for our own interest and for the glory of God be perswaded to fix it in our minds and meditate upon it Nature has written it in legible characters and providence gives us frequent demonstrations of it in the Funerals of our friends and acquaintance and this day affords us a fresh instance to awaken our memories Let not this occasion then be unprofitable and vain let it not add to our condemnation by proving a new slighted call to conversion but let the natural death of our Brother be the commencement of our spiritual life and if we have not yet considered of our great change let us now begin and let not business pleasure or time obliterate the thought or stop its growth but let us constantly recall it upon all occasions in temptation it will help us to fly and resist in business it will prevent immoderate care and anxiety and in pleasures it will make us cautious to guide them by innocence and confine them with moderation Thus will it be of use in all the scenes of our life and keep the judgment steady and the passions in sobriety But above all let us take care that our meditations on this subject be not bare thought and persuasion but that they have their due energy upon our manners let not actual amendment of our lives be put off till another day nor Iet vain hopes of future opportunities which may be will never come make us loose the present which God has put into our hands If we know we must die let us live as men that expect it if our time at best cannot be very long let us not give idleness or sin any share in it and if our end for ought we know may be now at hand and no one can tell but his turn may be the next let us endeavour to leave behind us a pattern for imitation and love and not for terror and abhorrence And in the last place since we have no other time allotted us but this mortal life to provide for eternity and to secure our happiness let all our actions speak that we think of it and are preparing for it So shall our life here be a blessing to our selves a joy to our friends and a benefit to the publick and our death when ever it comes shall be acceptable and welcome not attended with anxious distrust and doubtful expectations but chearful and resigned and such as gives a blessed presage of a happy immortality Which God of his mercy in his due time grant unto us all Amen FINIS