upon the power of God to support and succour us in our most dejected and disconsolate Estate He is my strength and my defence therefore I shall not greatly be moved Psal 37.24 said David We must trust and hope that he can and will bring light out of the thickest darkness Give beauty for ashes the oyl of joy for mourning and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness That he hath not only the goodness of a Father but the ability yea the Alsufficiency of a heavenly Father and is able to do more abundantly for us than we are able to conceive or hope This was our Apostle's stay and comfort in his most acute trouble He said unto me my grace is sufficient for thee 1 Cor 12.8 9 for my power is made perfect through weakness therefore instead of sinking under my infirmities very gladly will I rejoyce in them that the power of Christ may rest upon me But 3. This inordinacy of Trouble is considerable in its consequents or effects as 1. When it makes us impatient and fretful under our Afflictions as it did Jehoram Behold this evil is of the Lord why then should I wait on the Lord any longer 2 Kings 6.33 Hieremy and Jonah tho good men for the main and holy Prophets yet were very much to blame in this particular It was part of Jabez his Prayer and we would do well to put it into ours 1. Chron. 4.10 Lord keep me from evil that it may not grieve me i. e. that I may not be fretful under it or offensive by it that it may not so grieve me as to occasion my grieving of thee of thy holy and good Spirit 2. When it makes us insensible of and unthankful for those mercies which God is pleased to continue to us Our sorrow must not draw such a thick veil over our Hearts and Faces that we cannot see through it to contemplate or take notice of Gods manifold blessings which we still enjoy They are froward Children who if they may not have what they would throw away what they have and this often provokes their Parents to renew and sharpen their Corrections that they may cry for somewhat indeed If our behaviour be such towards our heavenly Father we provoke him to add to our present Afflictions the removal of our remaining Mercies Wherefore amongst a great deal of excellent consolatory advice which Photius the renowned Patriarch of Constantinople gave Patritius upon the Death of his beloved Daughter we find this agreeable to our occasion Photii Ep. 234. The Almighty Creator hath taken to himself a piece of his own work but he hath given or left more than he took and I pray God they may long be left and live to their Parent 's encreasing joy ' You are grieved for what you have lost take comfort in those that are still with you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let us give thanks to God for what he hath taken from us that we may have a more sure hold of those he continues to us and that they may daily prove greater blessings and comforts 3. Our Sorrow hath an inordinate effect when it makes us unuseful in the Duties of our general and particular Callings when it renders us unserviceable to God to the King the Church to our Country and our Families But I must content my self as I hope by Gods Grace I have in some measure satisfied you to shew you only thus briefly when the tide of our Sorrow swells and rises too high either in the measure the manner or the effects thereof I shall only add a few words more in this dying part of my Discourse And I hope you will most regard what I say last to allay or abate your Trouble and that by perswading you 1. To the exercise of some proper Graces 2. To the practice of some seasonable Duties 1. To the exercise of some proper suitable Graces such as these following 1. Meekness and Humility a Sense of your own Unworthiness of your own if not ill yet undeservings Meekness meets an Affliction half way and Humility stoops as it were to take up the burden 2. Faith or dependance upon God This is a setling and a quieting Grace I had fainted unless I had believed said David Psal 27.13 Wait on the Lord and he shall strengthen thy heart Nothing gives such ease and relief under the Afflictions of this Life as a firm belief of the Joys of another A belief of Consolations hereafter proportionable to our patient Sufferings here 3. Repentance If we turn our Sorrow upon our Sins which most justly deserve it Godly sorrow will wash the wound clean and eat out the Venome and malignity of worldly grief as spiritual joy corrects the flatulency of carnal mirth 4. Charity Which as it covers Sin so it cures Sorrow the work of Righteousness which frequently in Holy Scripture is but another word for Charity or Bounty is peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever Isa 32.17 He that soweth righteousness shall reap a sure reward tho he sow in tears he shall reap in joy Tho we cannot profit the dead as some have imagined we may by our Alms and Oblations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Damascen de defunctis yet we may much benefit and comfort our selves thereby When we come to die the remembrance of our bounty and charity the good deeds we have done for the house and the servants of our God will minister more comfort to our minds than all the Treasures we leave behind us upon Earth These are the Graces which especially I would advise you to exercise 2. The Duties I would recommend to you in short are 1. A diligent reading and hearing of the Word of God 2. Serious and seasonable Meditation 3. Fervent and devout Prayer 1. A diligent Attention to the Word read or preached This is my comfort in my affliction said David Psal 119.5 the King thy word hath quickned me And again Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage Scripturarum lectio Vita est saith St. Ambrose There is comfort nay Life in reading the holy Scriptures Wherefore St. Basil stiles them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Refectory or Apothecaries Shop for fainting sick Souls There is a Salve for every Wound a Cure for every Malady And particularly the great Athanasius counselled his Friend when any sore Trouble seized him to betake himself to the reading of the 42d Psalm 2. Serious Religious Meditation is an excellent help to digest trouble And in such trouble as ours it concerns us especially to meditate upon the shortness of life and upon the certainty and unavoidableness of death or rather because I have spoke of this already of the shortness of death and the certainty of Resurrection That the dead bodies of our dear Relations are not lost but lodged in the grave That it will not be long before that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption and that part which is sown in dishonour shall be raised in glory When we stick our Herses with flowers and go forth to the grave with Rosemary it naturally suggests this meditation That the bones of our friends shall flourish again like an herb in the Prophet Isaiah's comparison In this sense Sunt sua fata sepulchris Death it self dies and Mortality is swallowed up of Life 3. The last duty and instrument of peace and comfort which I shall recommend to you is fervent and devout prayer and it is the Apostle James his Recipe Is any man afflicted let him pray as if this alone would effect the cure To be sure it is the most magisterial and soveraign Remedy it vents the tumor and breaths out the anguish of a throbbing Malady Pray then and pray again that God would sanctifie your Affliction so unto you that you may serve him chearfully here and that in his good time you may be happily gathered to your son and you to your brother as he is already gathered to his fathers and yours that when you rest stom your labour you may rest from your cares and vexations from all the sad accidents of short time from pain and sickness sorrow and sympathy weeping for your selves weeping with and for your beloved Friends that you may get above the Clouds and the Rain above the changeable Regions and enter into pure and eternal Joys that when you leave your Estates and Honours here you may be made partakers of a glorious inheritance with the Saints in light and sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the spirits of just men made perfect in the kingdom of heaven That when you see this Sun no more which sets as well as riseth you may behold everlasting day That you may enjoy a clear and an uninterrupted Tranquility a Rest not only without sorrow but without sleeping too without so much as a still interruption of your waking active delights If you thus cry to God out of your Bochim your Valley your depths of Tears and Trouble this and the other parts of holy devotion if they do not set you upon dry ground will keep your heads above water yea Comfort shall come riding to you upon the wings of your Clouds your loss shall be your gain and this lamented death your living and lasting advantage If you bury your worldly Affections with your dear deceased and blow up a fire of heavenly desire out of his ashes you your selves rise to a new life and do in a sense put off Mortality on this side the grave You have a part in the first Resurrection and shall have in the second Death that black that bloody King of terrors shall not have dominion over you The sting of death is sin the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God who hath given us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one immortal and only wise God be all Honour and Glory Power and Praise now and for ever Amen Blessed Lord who hast caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning grant we may in such wise hear them read mark and inwardly digest them that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ Amen FINIS
of the 29th Verse This I say brethren the time is short it remaineth that both they that have wives be as if they had none and they that weep as tho they wept not c. I shall consider my Text in its dependance and speak first of the Proposition from which it is inferred This I say brethren the time is short And in it I shall observe 1. The Preface This I say brethren 2. The Matter or Doctrine The time is short This I say brethren It is such an Introduction as frequently occurs in Scripture And here in our Text it seems to carry in it a Threefold Emphasis 1. It is a word of Authority This I say i. e. I require you to mark well and observe what I say for I say it in Gods Name not by permission only but by Warrant and Command from him And when we deliver our Messages as the Embassadors of Heaven we may do it with confidence and assurance because we do it with Commission and Authority Philem. 8. We may be bold in Christ as our Apostle speaks in another place 2. This I say brethren It is an expression of kindness and Pastoral Affection I say it out of my true love tenderness and bowels towards you I say it with an unfeigned desire that you may edifie and receive good direction and comfort by it That you may number your days and moderate your affections in all temporal concernments That your desires may not be long when your time is short That all your delights and sorrows may bear an equal proportion to their respective Objects And because as the Wiseman saith there is a time to mourn and a time to laugh you may do neither out of time and measure It was a tender affectionate Address as the Compellation implies This I say brethren 3. It is a word of comprehension or recapitulation wherein the Apostle sums up all in effect which he had said before Having treated of Virginity of Marriage of Callings and directed how we should stand affected to them and behave our selves in them as becomes our Relation and Circumstances In the Text he gives them the sum of all by perswading to moderation in all estates and conditions of life with respect to the mutability and short continuance of them This I say as the Upshot and Epitomy of my whole discourse as the Royal Preacher Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Eccles 12.13 c. So here in the Text. It stands indeed in the middle and so may more properly be said to be the Substance or if you will the Centre of the whole matter This I say and this I would have you take notice of as the sum of all my other sayings and advices both before and after Thus much for the Preface or Form of Address and the importance thereof The Saying it self the Matter or Doctrine follows The time is short it remaineth that they that weep be as though they wept not and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not The words together contain a Doctrine and Two proper Vses we are to make of it The Doctrine is The time is short The Vses are therefore not to enlarge our affections either 1. By over-grieving at our sufferings Or 2. By over joying at our prosperity The time is short 1. The time of Life 2. The time of the coming of the Lord. 3. The time of Joy and Prosperity 4. The time of Persecution and Trouble is short 1. The time of this present Life is very short Man that is born of a woman is but of a few days If he lives to the utmost extent of Nature and becomes wondrous old What is Fourscore years to Eternity It is but a minute in comparison rather a Cypher than a Figure in David's account Mine age is as nothing before thee Seneca Punctum est quod vivimus adhuc puncto minus It is but a point that we live yea less if it may be It is the Language not only of Philosophers but of the Holy Ghost concerning all the Nations of men that they are as nothing less than nothing Isa 40. De die tecum loquitur atque hoc ipso fugiente Sen. de brevitate vitae Job 4.20 and vanity Our Life in Scripture is termed but a day for the most part And in this day saith Eliphaz in Job We are destroyed from morning until evening from the morning of our birth or coming into the world till the evening of our death or going out of the world we are declining and wasting and shall be so till we come to the dust of death Childhood and Youth are vanity and many a man dies when he seems to be in his full strength when his breasts are full of milk Job 21.23 and his bones moistened with marrow A thousand Accidents lie in ambush to surprize us in our most sound and secure state And I might present you with many famous instances of great persons falling by little and unlikely instruments but shall only in compliance with my Text observe That some have died with excess of grief as Homer Rutilius and Pomperanus And others have been carried off with sudden joy Plutarch Val. Max. A. Gellius as Polycritta Philippida and Diagoras Alas what a vain and defenceless creature is man Even in the pride of his strength the most contemptible accident can destroy him the smallest chance affright him every possibility of evil can loosen and dissinew the courage of his mind and his own imagination without any real stroke frequently proves his Executioner Therefore as the time of every mans Life is short so the time of many mens is contracted or made short and that sometimes by the justice and sometimes by the mercy of the Divine Providence 1. The days of the wicked are often shortned for the glorifying of Gods Justice in their exemplary punishment God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddainly shall they be wounded And this Job calls a putting out of their candle Psal 64.7 before it burns out of it self Ungodly men are thrust out of the World many times that they may do no more mischief in it But 2. The righteous are mercifully taken out of it that they may suffer no more They are taken away from the evil to come not only from the evil of Sin which is a blessed Deliverance indeed but from the evil of Sorrow from the Diseases of Nature and all the extrinsecal misfortunes of Life Upon which consideration that saying of Pliny the elder one of the wisest Naturalists seems to be grounded Brevitate vitae natura nihil praestitit melius It is one of the greatest blessings God bestows to take us betimes out of this miserable World They that think otherwise and imagine there is no happiness beyond or besides this Life cannot by taking thought protract their stay here as they cannot add a Cubit to their Stature so neither can they add a
minute to their days Much more might easily if not seasonably be spoken upon this fruitful Subject But sure we need not labour about the Proof or Illustration of a Point which neither Infidelity nor Scepticism ever disbelieved or doubted which every days experience attests which the Mourners publish in the Streets the Tombs and Grave-Stones the Escutcheons and Garlands in the Church Preach without a voice And indeed this Truth that the time of Life is short and of Death certain is written indelibly even in the dust But O vain twice vain man who will be still drawing lines in this dust and spinning out a thread which shall last as long as Methusalems if not as Melchizedechs without end of days But as mans time so the Worlds time Time it self is short yet a little while and the Heavens shall pass away and the Stars shall fall to the Earth like untimely Figs or withered Leaves from their Trees For In the second place The time of the coming of the Lord is short The Apostles spake of it then as nigh at hand and of the Judg as standing before the door And therefore it cannot be far from us after so many Successions of time However we may be sure the time to come is short in respect of that which is already past and that we are fallen into the last Act of the Worlds Tragedy And let me note this by the way that St. James Exhorts to Patience under Afflictions by this very Argument Be patient therefore brethren unto the coming of the Lord. Jam. 5.7 8. 3. The time of ease and delight is short Prosperity is not entailed it passes not after the manner of Inheritance from Generation to Generation we have here no abiding City no durable Riches no Honours or Pleasures which we can bequeath to Posterity Nay none which we can secure to our selves for the short term of our own Life Omnia ista quae vos tumidos supra humana elatos oblivisci cogunt vestrae fragilitatis c. non sunt vestra in depositi causa sunt jamjamque ad alium dominum spectantia Sen. de benef l. 7. Our Sun is often overcast sometimes Eclipsed before our day is done Riches when we think we have them in safe custody take to themselves wings and fly away from us Prov. 23. or else are consumed by the Moth or purloined by the Thief Again Men that are in honour abide not their beauty shall consume away from their dwellings Health is a harmony of humors which is soon discomposed and put out of Tune Credit is a Christal Glass quickly broken and cannot be repaired again What little assurance have we of beloved Wives or delightsome Children We please our selves with them to day and to morrow bury them out of our sight Three hundred of the Fabii in Rome were slain in one day and but one man of the Family left alive Babo Comes and we read of a Count in the time of Henry the second Emperor who had thirty Sons beside eight Daughters who followed him to Court and were all placed and preferred to good Offices by him but all died and left him in a very short space of time And so in Scripture we find all Gideons Children slain at once except one Our portion is among the Flowers which to day spring and look like Health and Beauty and in the Evening they are Sick and at Night are dead and buried in the Oven Ostenduntur haec omnia dum placent transeunt Worldly men indeed Card. Bon. opera p. 10. do very much value themselves upon the account of their worldly Accommodations and presume upon the long continuance thereof to them and theirs The Psalmist tells us that their inward thought is tho happily they are ashamed to publish it that their houses shall endure for ever Psal 49.11 and their dwelling places to all Generations They think all their daies be they short or long must be Summer and Sunshine without a Storm a Tempest a Cloud to cover any part of their Sky or to interrupt the gayety of any hour of their time they think their stock will never wast the provision of their Lusts will never fail that they shall always have their fill yea that their sensual delights will grow and improve upon them and that to morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant But as the Day cometh so also the Night and when men thus say The bitterness of Death or Sorrow is past or else will be long in coming when they say Peace and safety then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travel upon a Woman with child 1 Thes 5.3 When the Atheistical Fool Eat Drank and took his Pleasure as if he had goods laid up for many Years one Night put a Period both to his Enjoyment and his Projects The Ambitious man promiseth himself all the Advantages of Honour and Power and seems in his aspiring thoughts to be ascending into Heaven and exalting his Throne above the Stars of God but God who is above him and his Stars above all his rising Glories soon takes down his swelling Sail and degrades him from his proud heights Tho thou build thy nest among the stars thence will I bring thee down Obad. 4. Phot. Epl. 234. p. 349. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Princes and Potentates of the World who talk and look as if they were immortal die like other men Alas we find it so and their Glory doth not descend after them Yea many times their Crowns fall before them and their Honour is laid in the Dust while they walk above ground The greatest or the best of men have no sure hold of any earthly Felicity even their Summer days are short and the most flourishing Estate fading ready to die and wither when it makes the fairest shew and promiseth the fullest satisfaction The Rabbins have observed of Adam himself that he did not dwell one Night in Paradise but was poysoned with his Prosperity with the ravishing Charms of a fair Wife and the pleasant fruit of a fair Tree 4. The time of Adversity and Trouble is short Man indeed is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward Job 5.7 Our Lillies grow among Thorns our very Roses are wrapt up in Prickles our sweetest comforts have their sorrowful mixtures and the voice of mourning is heard among the daughters of Musick Yea sorrow and trouble are not only an Entail upon our Nature as Men but a Legacy bequeathed to us by the blessed Founder of our Religion as Christians and so they become as well our badg as our burden our mark of honour and relation to our Lord the man of sorrows The Cross shews whose Disciples we are and through manifold tribulations we enter into the kingdom of heaven But where we read in the Old or New Testament of the number or the sharpness of good mens troubles we read of their shortness too We