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
abundance of time given unto them through their grofs improvidence and mispense are utterly undone and whine like beggars as if they had had none whereas carefull and diligent persons so improve a little that thanks be to God they are rich in good works and say it is enough let God call for them when he pleaseth Tenthly Let us reckon death to be the best accountant and so number our daies now as we shall do when we come to dye Then a day will appear a pretious thing then will a covetous man offer all that he hath got in his whole life for one day then will a voluptuous man be ready to purchase a day with any pains though it were all rainy and he were forced to spend it in tears But it is a sad reckoning when a man must reckon twice and one of them must be when he hath no time to mend his errors and mistakes It will go very ill with us if we make one account in our life and another at our death If we should see then that there are as many faults as there are daies and that so many lines as there are in our life so many blots we must make how fearfully shall we be amazed in what perplexity of spirit shall we see our selves so foul and black in the midst of such grosse and damnable errors Let us therefore see and consider now what account dying men make of their time and take their reckoning as most certainly true Though men now be lavish of their time and play away their houres though they give all or most to the world and little or nothing to God yet come to a dying man and he will tell you that daies were good for something else then for a man to eat and drink and trade in he will tell you of feeding and nourishing the Diviner part or providing for a soul of dressing it for the Bride-groome by constant acts of godliness besides all those of temperance and sobriety of justice and mercy He will tell you of a Book more worth your reading and studying then all that ever you turned over And as for a day of grace at what rate would he purchase such a pretious season He will tell you he is ashamed that he ever sate at his dore talking vainly among his neighbours on the Lords day He will tell you that he cannot sleep now for the aking of his heart that he should sleep at a Sermon He praies that he might but live and Pray with his Family Evening and Morn Yea let him be a good man that hath made a good use of his time yet he will tell you that such an houre he might have spent better in such a company he might have done more good at such a time he might have been more solicitous and industrious about Heavenly things and he will Pray as a good Bishop did Lord pardon my sins of omission â—p Vsher And therefore let us now judg as sensible and good men do when they are taught by death that cannot flatter That is a sterne Master but very just and faithfull he speaks with a dreadfull voice but things that are infinitely true and serious He cuts their very heart whose accounts they leave him to write but he will truly state them Let us then learn of those that he teaches and not stay till we be taught when perhaps we shall be past Learning Let us imagine that the roome is darkned that the Physician stands by our bed side that we hear our friends sigh and groan that we feel the approaches of death and then conceive that our Books of account are brought to us and we have our pen in our hand What now shall we write Let us eat and drink and be merry Let us take our ease for we have goods laid up for many years will you reckon thus our time is long enough let us take care for nothing but to please our selves why not thus now I pray you when perhaps two or three daies agon this was your language Oh! but now eternity eternity appears and therefore set down so many houres for prayer to God if we live write down so much pains to understand the Word of God and we make account that so much time must be spent in meditating of the will of God Make a golden letter at the Lords Day for that must be more pretious time c. Whosoever thou art that readest this do the same now that thou maist do perhaps three daies hence Do that which now thou canst which ere long thou wilt wish to do and canst not This may be more then an imagination before the morning and be sure one day it will be a reality unless thou shalt be struck dead without any warning and have no leave for one deliberate thought and therefore now reckon after the same sort set down the same things in thy resolution yea ingrave them and cut them upon thy heart that so thy death beds account may agree with that in thy life Be sick now in thy thoughts that thou maist find thy self well then And seeing then we shall think that we have lived so much as we have done good and as we have designed the glory of God let us now think that we do not live unless these be in our hearts and lives Eleventhly If we would number aright let us every day cast up our accounts Let us so number our daies as at the foot of every day to write the total Summe Let us say thus long have we lived perhaps we may live no longer nor turn over another leaf let us see therefore how our accounts stand Say as Pythagoras taught his Scholars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. What sinne have I committed What good have I done What good have I neglected What stand all these actions for Are they figures or cyphers Have I lived or only been Doth my work go on or am I running in arrears Do I live as if I were going to die Is eternity in my thoughts and the great account that I must give If we could call our selves to such a reckoning then we might correct any fault we find betime before it be grown to such a number that it will be beyond our thoughts and give up our account more fair and in order when God calls for them and might hope they would be accepted by him And for the doing of this it is necessary that we account every day as if it were our last Which is a maxim in this divine art of numbering that flows from the first Proposition Seeing our time that is to come is in Gods hand therefore we must live this day as though we had no more dayes to live And a Heathen could say That it is impossible for a man to live the present day well Musonius apud Stob. Serm 1. Epist 52. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That doth not propose to himself to live it as his last And so Seneca
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
wages c. Hear what Observations one of Jobs friends made Job 20.4 5.6 Ever since man was placed upon the earth it was a known rule that the triumphing of the wicked is short and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment though his excellency mount up to the heavens and his head reach unto the clouds yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung they which have seen him shall say where is he He shall flee away like a dream and shall not be found he shall be chased away like a vision of the night And Job himself doth assent to the truth of the Observation when he saith cap. 21.17 18. How oft is the Candle of the wicked put out And how oft cometh their destruction upon them God distributeth sorrows in his anger They are as stubble before the wind and as chaff that the storm carrieth away This Consideration might a little stop men in their violent pursuit of sinfull and unlawful desires If they would but think that every sin may strik off a figure or two from their lives that every act of it may cut their dayes some moments shorter what heart could they have to sin With what pleasure could they drink if they thought that it were poyson how could they indure passion and revenge if they thought it would send a fire into their bones and yet there is all reason that we should expect it should be so unless God think fit to alter the course of things for what ends he sees best in his Government of the world seeing none are such a trouble and burden to mankind as wicked men He that is so prodigal of his time hath little reason to think that God should give him more in whose hands it only is He knows not what to do with that he hath already and therefore how can he with any face come to begg for a day longer to dishonour God! Wonder in thy self that Gods lets thee live who knowst not how to live Admire that he should give thee any time who knowest not how to use it And let this one thing lead thee to repentance and not make thee presume to continue in the same unreasonable mispence Me thinks every sinner when he is sick should think of nothing but dying and yet they think the least of it Me thinks they should be in a horrible fright and never imagine to escape seeing they do no good unless they have less reason then the Hogg in the Arabick fable That tells us that a Butcher carrying three creatures upon his Horse Locman a Sheep a Goat and a Hogg the two former lay very quiet and still but the Hogg kickt and cried and never rested Thereupon the man said Why art thou so impatient when the other two are so quiet The Hogg answered Every one knows himself and the Sheep knows that he is brought into the City for his Wools sake and the Goat for the sake of his Milk and so they need take no care but I alas know very well that I have neither Wool nor Milk but that assoon as I come into the City I must be killed for that is all that I am good for A wicked man must be worse then such a Swine that doth not think every plague will sweep him away and that when there is a great mortality he shall be one of the dead for he is good for nothing else but to be killed and to make some room for a better person to stand up in that place which he takes up in the world But if God be pleased for the punishment of others and to punish them worse hereafter to let them stay still here Let them know that a sinfull life is a meer death as the Apostle saith of the lascivious Woman 1 Tim. 5.6 and they can expect nothing hereafter but such a state as will make them wish they had died sooner here 4. Reckon that no mans life seems shorter then his that thinks not often how short it is Time never seems to pass away so swiftly as when we are thinking of something else then our time I told you life is very short of it self and we must reckon it by minutes rather then years or by fractions rather then whole numbers and yet it is still shorter in our thoughts because we mind not how these minutes run away They are as a steep saith the Psalmist ver 5. and in sleep you know there is no observation of time at all but a night seems as one moment How soon is an hour gone when we are in any pleasure Yea in business or any imployment which takes up our mind how quickly is a day flown away A day seems but as an hour to him that thinks not at all of his day Just as a man that is in a journey who talks or reads or thinks is come to the end of it before he thought that he was near the place so it is with every one of us our life is gone and we know not how while we think of all things but only of our life He seems to himself not to have lived at all that minds not how his time passes away because it slips through his fingers and he feels it not His thoughts being busied alwayes about other things a year to him is but as a day and he complains miserably when he comes to die that God hath given him no longer time If we did consider this we should often think how our time spends and that would make us labour to spend it well We should think what our life is and how it goes and that would make us prolong it by doing of Good For life seems long to no man so much as to him that minds how it passes on and how many hours he hath for to imploy and who doth some thing in those hours His very work will tell him that he hath lived or else he could not have done so many things 5. We must account that in our life there will be some nights as well as days We must not expect all kind usage from the world but look to meet with much trouble and sorrow So ver 10. the Psalmist tells us That if we live till Eighty years our strength will be but labour and sorrow and besides you see from what hath been said that we must indure much grief before that from the loss of our friends and relations that God takes away besides all the vexation that will be apt to arise from other accidents It is a foolish flattery of our selves to think that all ours must be Halcyon daies and that no disgust shall wrinkle our foreheads nor no black vail be cast over our faces We had better reckon truly and put down more black daies than white in our Calendar and then if they be fairer than we expect our contentment will be the greater and howsoever the thoughts of trouble will make us desire more after our Fathers house and long
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
professeth Id ago ut mihi instar totius vitae sit dies that he laboured one day might be like a whole life to him We must spend our dayes as though our life were but a day And if we did then sure God would have a portion of every day if we intend him any in our life and we could not but be diligent to set all right and to make up our accounts at night as if it were the end of our lives and our dayes were summed up The Mariner which guides and steers the Ship aright sits alwayes in the Stern or hindermost part of it and so must we if we will guide and direct our life aright through the troublesom sea of the world according to the course God hath prescribed be often in the contemplation of our death dwell much in our last end and then shall we manage all the better possesse our vessel in holinesse and bring her at the last to a safe Haven It is a good saying of one of the Jews wherewith I shall conclude this Mind thy business as if thou wast to live alway but think of thy end as if thou wast to die to morrow Twelfthly Let us number as much backward as we are apt to number forward Let us cast up our accounts both wayes and tell the time that is past as we are forward to account that which is to come It is a great fault sure that we skip over such a great part of our time and never think what we have done what mercies we have enjoyed which of them we have abused and how little profit God hath received from us for all the benefits he hath bestowed And therefore we must not only now begin to take an account of the passages of every day but take some time also to study our lives that are past We shall find such a huge advantage by this that it will recompense all our pains For 1. Hereby we shall at least know how long we have lived and therefore what a little time in all likelihood remains And 2. How foolishly we have spent that time that is past and therefore how chary we ought to be of what God will give us more And 3. We shall consider how soon those years perhaps thirty or fourty are gone which will be a good measure whereby to judge of the time to come which will run away as swiftly if it should be as long And 4. We shall wonder that we have lived so long rather than that we die so soon seeing our Lord attained not to so many years as we perhaps number All these and many other advantages we shall get by our serious review of our lives which I must leave to your own meditations And I beseech you think of them thoroughly for it is for want of some such reflections that we live as we were but beginning to live Though men have lived fourty or fifty years yet velut ex pleno abundanti perdunt they wast as if they had their whole and full stock of time to spend upon and had a great deal to spare whereas if they did well consider what it gone and that the lesse remains they would double their diligence to gather up what is lost to provide for that state for which they have but a little time left wherein to provide And suppose we have fourty or fifty years to come or let our imagination run as far as it pleaseth yet we must consider how much of this time must be spent in rectifying our accounts and bringing our souls to good order and how much will be devoured by the needs of our bodies and likewise how speedily they will be all gone if we measure by what is past How few do the days which we have spent seem How soon are they gone and seem as if they had not been Just so fleetly will all that run away which is to come let it be never so much and though it seem a great deal to us while we look forward Senec. Epist 4. yet it will seem as a few dayes if we look but behind us Infinita est velocit as temporis quae magis apparet respicientibus Time is infinitely swift but it most of all appears to those that cast their eyes back They that are in the bottome of the Ship think they do not stirre but they that look to the place from whence they are come will wonder how fast they have run before the wind If we did but cast up the summe of our dayes when we have numbered as many years as we think good alas they amount but to a trifle What are eighty or a hundred years when we have put them altogether in one number How few figures will tell the longest term of life But we are so foolish that we tell dayes and months and years one after another which severally spoken of seem to make a great show and never put them together and consider what all these will amount unto if we should live them all Then one figure and a cypher will number them all But if we likewise did consider how fast a great part of this little number is fled away it would make our life seem so short and transitory that we should never fancy more that there is no haste to make ready for another world And if we added this consideration likewise that he who best deserved to live came not to these years which we perhaps have attained What should we think What should we look for but death the next moment Jesus Christ the Sonne of the living God lived in our flesh but a little more than three and thirty years Why I beseech you should not this be accounted old-age among us Christians since the Head of us all was no elder when he died Though they reckoned to seventy or eighty years when Moses lived yet why should we count to more than thirty three as the ordinary term of life since the great Prophet is come into the world If God lengthen not our dayes beyond this we should rather look upon it as a wonder that we live so long then that we live no longer To conclude the safest way is to reckon no more dayes then we have as I told you at first For Moses you see reckons but to eighty years which was the very age that he was of when he entred into the wildernesse Fourty years he was in Pharaohs Court and fourty year more he was in banishment as St. Stephen informs us Acts 7.23 30. and then he went to Pharaoh and brought the people out of Aegypt who presently in the first year of their enlargement began to provoke God and the second year were threatned to be all destroyed in the wildernesse Act. 7.36 Deut. 34.7 now Moses reckons as if his dayes were at an end also when as God lengthened them fourty years longer even to an hundred and twenty years So let us do also and reckon that our dayes are
past and gone though God may lengthen them to many more years but if he do we must remember that they will flie away as swiftly as the rest have done and therfore we must lay hold upon them and fly away with them that they may not go away without us Let us not be left behind by our time but let us be going on as fast we can along with it til we and it end comfortably both together That we may not still call for life when that cals for death but we may be fit to die when our time of life is done But how shall we learn all these good lessons will you say Who shall teach us to number aright Death you say is a good accountant but who will lead us unto these deep thoughts The fourth Observation which I shall briefly open and commend to your Meditations will give you some Answer to this Enquiry Observ 4. We may best learn this right numbring of our dayes by a praying heart and a pious mind The prayer herein the Text is directed to God that he would teach them and for their part they promise to bring an heart of wisdom Prov. 28.9 that is a godly and religious mind The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord saith the Wiseman If a man will not hear Gods Law it is no wonder that God will not hear his prayer When we come in a complement and for fashion sake having no great mind that God should do that for us that we ask it cannot be expected that God should regard us If we have no heart to number our daies according to the account that I have laid before you though we say Lord teach us to number our dayes yet he cannot but turn away his ear from us Prov. 15.8 29. But on the contrary That God who is farre from the wicked heareth the prayer of the righteous and delighteth in it If our heart apply it self to wisdom if we come with a serious resolution and a sincere deliberate desire to be what we say God will answer our requests and fullfill our petitions If we bring but a heart of wisdom we should presently by the help of God reckon right and make the best use of our life By an heart of wisdom here in the Text is meant a wise heart as an heart of stone or flesh signifies an hard or soft heart And it is made up of these things First We must bring a serious heart for a spirit that is vain and trifling that acts like one in jest cannot be wise We must all labour to take off that lightness and giddiness that agitates our spirits and to bring our souls to some composure and settlement by a reverence unto God yea and unto our selves We must resolve to be in good earnest about our salvation and to preferre this art of numbring our daies aright before all the fancies of riches and pleasures and such like things that are apt to tosse and whirl our minds we know not whither Secondly We must bring considering hearts For he will never number and cast accounts well whose mind is not fixed and whose thoughts cannot put things together We many times think but we do not consider Let us therefore raise observations unto our selves and let us weigh them and give them their due value Let us consider which is more and which is lesse in all things let us balance things in our thoughts and well mind what equality and what disproportion there is between them Say is not a soul like to live longer than a body Had I not more need tell its dayes and take care of it then labour thus about a dying thing What compare is there between Time and Eternity How soon have I done telling the dayes of my life And how am Host and even drowned in that vast Ocean But I need not teach a serious man to consider And I need not tell you that an heart that minds nothing that layes nothing as we say to heart must needs be ignorant and bruitish in its knowledg And therefore this is a piece of wisdom acceptable to God to labour in good sadnesse to take things into our thoughts till our hearts be touched by them We are gone a great way to learn any thing of God and particularly this great business how to live when we are once made inquisitive and thoughtfull in a serious sober manner Thirdly A wise heart is such an one as designs something to it self and intends to improve the knowledge it gets to some purpose The heart of a fool looks no further than the beginning of a thing and thinks not of what shall follow and therefore we must bring such a serious disposition as is determined to deduce some good out of every thing that is propounded to our consideration Many truths lie by men but they cannot be said properly to know and skill them because they are contented with the bare notion of them They know the number of their dayes the shortnesse of their lives and the rest that I have said but they make no use of it at all it is as meer a speculation as that twenty and fourty make sixty or the like And therefore we must not only number and tell how short they are and whither they are running and what use they are for but we must conclude in some resolution and set down something that results from the whole account for the good of our souls All these things are but means to something else reading praying considering and examination are but the beginnings of Religion not the end they are the way only and therefore we must not rest in them but let our souls go further till we are carried to something else by them As when we account but one day to our life when we tell so many evil days if we live long c. We must ask our souls What then will you do Cast in your minds and speak what course do you mean to take And by such like Questions bring your work to some good issue And Fourthly A truly wise heart is that which designs holiness to be like to God and eternally to enjoy him For the fear of the Lord that is wisdome and to depart from evil is that understanding Job 28. ult And this therefore is it we must intend to this issue we must bring our souls and if we do consider and contrive this heartily then we may be encouraged to pray to God that we may know how to take the right measure of our dayes We may say to him Lord teach me what my life is for else I am afraid I shall not live Lord affect me with the shortness of my time for else I am in danger to want thy self And thee it is that I seek thou knowest it is the desire of my soul to be godly I am resolved it shall be my work and imploiment in the world that I may be friends with
thee and therefore teach me so to use my dayes that I may not lose both them and thee God cannot resist such importunate and unfeigned desires He seeks such Scholars as have a mind to learn and he will teach them to make a right use of what I have said What Use should that be may some say What will a pious mind and praying heart learn from hence I will tell you how it will shape its life according to this reckoning which I have made and thereby briefly suggest many good Rules of life unto you A wise man will learn to be diligent because the time is short To be watchfull and alway prepared because the end may be sudden in every moment To be fearfull of sinne because the anger of God cut sinners off in the midst To think much of time because it passeth most swiftly when we think of something else To remember our Creator betimes because evil dayes will come wherein nothing else will please us To do good because that is the work of life To work together with God and zealously improve opportunities because all times are not alike To be very exict in our actions because they must stand upon record to Eternity To â—nnounce unto all unnecessary things because we may have no time nor leisure for them To seek first the Kingdom of God because that is the only thing we are sure to attain To die daily because death makes the best and truest reckoning To be constant in self-examination because this day may be our last To look back to our beginning because the more we have lived the less we have to live In a word A wise heart will learn to be a very good Husband of its time and make it serve the most noble design And he is a wise man indeed that of a few days can make an eternal advantage by the improvement of a short life gain endless felicities He would be accounted a wise man who had an art by a peny in a little space of time to raise an estate of many thousand pounds But he is far wiser and hath a greater reach who by the good use of this moment obtains the inheritance of Angels yea of the Son of God gets possession of the ever-living Good and settles himself in the joyes of a never-dying life Let me conclude with a brief Exhortation to you in the words of the Text as they lie in our Translation Pray unto God earnestly that he would so teach you to number your dayes that you may apply your hearts unto wisdome Do you seriously indeavour and then intreat of him to give you such an effectual grace that there may some good arise to you out of your labour Pray till you feel your heart inclining unto wisdom till it apply it self to understanding Till you seek for it as for silver and dig for it as for hid treasure Never leave importuning the Father of mercies through Christ the wisdom of the Father till you be made wise unto salvation Let us never cease numbring and taking every consideration several by it self and beseeching God to impress them on our hearts till we find this effect and fruit of it that our hearts are brought to the wisdom of the just till we judg of things as doth God and chuse that which he loves and follow the thing that good is and altogether become of the same mind with him Let us number and pray till we find these considerations taking down the heights of Pride and the heats of lust the huge desires of a covetuous mind and the humorous desires of a fond fancy till we find them quieting our passions moderating our affections and bringing our wills to the measures of God Till we have found a place in another Countrey a Kingdome that cannot be shaken a house not made with hands eternall in the Heavens Till we can live as well in poverty as in riches in hardship as in soft injoyments without distrust or envy without fear or cares without perplexed or careless thoughts in short till we have learned to live the life of Men and the life of Christians till we make God our only joy and love our Neighbours as our selves and look death in the face as a friend Let us every day call our selves to an account and think that we have one day less to live and one day more to reckon for We every day make our account greater and have less time to make it in and therefore let us make it alwaies as we go along And suppose my Brethren that God should come this night and say to any one of us as he did to Belshazzar by a hand writing on the Wall in the Chaldee tonge Mene mene it is numbred it is numbred which Daniel applies to his Kingdome thy dayes are told God hath counted them up and finished them thou shalt not live to see a morrow Are thy accounts and Gods even do they not differ very much dost not thou reckon for a great many years longer and shall he not cut them short in the midst of those dayes which thou hast told out for thy self dost not thou tell twenty when he tels but one or not so much Are not thy thoughts a huge way off from eternity hast thou not most of thy great work to do art thou not in the midst of a designe as building an house or the like while thy soul lies in its ruines and rubbish If they be not the same if thy reckoning do not agree with his then it will make thee shake and tremble as it did him to see thy self so much mistaken in thy numbring to behold so much of thine account stricken of by the hand of God so many of the dayes which thou reckoned wiped quite out of the Book of the Living If thou dost account as he doth and thinks that thou maist dye to night then how canst thou live otherwise then as a dying man how canst thou quietly lay thy self on thy Pillow for to sleep with the Conscience of any guilt upon thy soul why dost thou not say every night as the Philosopher could direct Vixi quem dederit cursum fortuna peregi I have lived and finished my course which providence hath assigned me to run Then if God give thee a morrow thou wilt look upon it as a new life and be more thankfull for it He that tels his time by ones and by moments will think that if he donot live now he may live never he will betake himself to the most serious and strictest course of Piety knowing that that life is long enough which is good and that is too long or rather none at all which is bad Truly there is nothing so much to be lamented as the folly of men whereby they think they live but do not and whereby they desire alway to live but cannot Weep for the dead saith the Sonne of Syrach 22. Eccl. 11. for he hath lost the light and weep
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