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
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
their Objects Haec quidem philosophia nemini non est in ore sed paucorum animis vere serioque insidet as one observes upon the place Every one is ready to Preach this Philosophy but very few feel the true effects of it in their minds or express them in their Practices Tho the Heathen Orators Poets and Philosophers spake many excellent and acute Things of this kind and perswaded to Moderation and Patience from the mutability of Fortune the shortness and uncertainty of humane life Yet our great Apostle saw it needful to press Christians with the same consideration to be their serious Remembrancers to put them in mind of what they knew before to reconcile to their Affections a Truth which their understandings had already admitted and to incline their practice to follow their Judgments In imitation of this Divine author I am about to exhort beseech perswade you to consider well and lay to heart what you know to yield to the Authority of your own reason to do that which you cannot but be partly convinced is best to be done and which it is your Duty to do viz. to be moderate in your Enjoyments and your Sufferings not to murmure or repine at your losses nor to set your hearts too much upon your remaining Comforts Wife Children Houses Lands c. Because how dear and delight some soever they are to you they are at best but Treasures in earthen Vessels subject to a thousand Casualties If there were nothing else to abate their worth this alone doth it Their time is short In my Text we are advised First to asswage our Grief in occasions of trouble and then to temper and bound our joy when our Affairs succeed best But in my Discourse I shall alter the method and because I design to say least of the Affection of Joy I shall speak of it first and in a way introductory to what I have to say upon the mournful Subject And they that rejoyce as tho they rejoiced not The Fathers have made this observation on these words that the Joys of this World are but Quasi as if they were Joys not such indeed but rather Shadows or Images As when a hungry man eateth in his dream but when he awaketh Isa 29.8 his soul is empty The Pomps and Profits of the World are but Vanities to a Christian and when they appeared to our Saviour in the best Attire and Representation the Devil could give them he despised them all We are allowed a delight and comfort in temporal blessings but with such Qualifications and Restraints as rather becalm than advance our Affections rather wipe away our Tears and prevent Sighing than cheer our minds or maintain Mirth It was a seasonable hint that of Caenus the Macedonian to the conquering Alexander that nothing did better become him than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arrian Moderation of mind in his glorious Success and Prosperity Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom nor the mighty man glory in his might nor the rich man glory in his riches He may be pleased with them and the like blessings and take comfort of them but he must not glory in them he must not be too much conceited of them or vainly puft up with them He must not promise himself too much from them as if they were substantial lasting and abiding Goods Solomon the wisest of men adviseth us to cease from our own Wisdom not to lay too much stress upon our worldly Policies Prov. 23.4 for it will otherwise cease from us There is no knowledg nor wisdom in the grave whither we are all going Eccles 9.10 Again 1 Sam. 2.9 by strength shall no man prevail long and Riches will fail us when we most need them Prov. 11.4 They profit not in the day of wrath If these things and others of the like Nature wherein we are most apt to over-joy to glory and pride our selves do not in a short time fail us it will not be long before we leave them They and we are of a sickly kind declining and decaying daily Accipimus peritura perituri Our fairest and sweetest earthly delights are but a withering Posie in a dying mans hand How then in Reason can we be over-fond of them Why should we set our hearts and affections upon things which are not upon things which perish in the enjoyment which are passing away from us and from which we are passing daily If any thing here could justifie a transport of joy one would think it should be an agreeable yoke-fellow an indulgent husband or a complaisant wife or else hopeful children in whom we behold our fading drooping Age as it were budding and blossoming a-new from whom we promise an Heir to our Estate to our Family a strong support when we fail and to our selves a surviving Name and a lasting Memory But our Apostle puts in his Caveat here especially because here we most need it Let them that are married be as if they were not married because death will soon make a divorce between us and our beloved companions And our children are often laid to bed before us in the grave Therefore St. Chrysostom to season our Nuptial and Child-birth Festivities minds us how death runs through the Marriage-books If I die first or you or the child of us both how it is woven into every line and closeth up every Period to put a quasi non even into those rejoicings a bitter tho a medicinal infusion into our most pleasant enjoyments and expectations Our time and theirs is short This consideration That all our comforts here are but temporary and must die with if not before us methinks should if any thing moderate and sanctifie our Affections to them Frequent serious thoughts That all we have or can desire here will last us but to the grave should make us look upon them effectually but as the two sticks which the Widow of Zarephath gathered to dress an handful of meal and a little oyl that we may eat it and die But because we are unwilling and averse to think of any thing which should interrupt our present delights therefore our Apostle frequently inculcates Sobriety and Moderation in yea Mortification to our outward good things Let your moderation be known unto all men Phil. 4.5 Col. 3.2 the Lord is at hand Set your affections on things above for they are eternal not on things of the earth for they are mortal and perishing And in this St. Peter differs not from his beloved brother Paul 1 Pet. 4.7 The end of all things is at hand be ye therefore sober take heed of inebriating or making your selves drunk with the things of this World Suffer not your hearts to run out too much after them or to be affected inordinately with them lest the day of the Lord overtake you unawares And there is a great deal of need of these counsels and cautions one upon another because as the Heathen Historian observes