Divine Arithmetic, OR THE RIGHT ART Of numbering our DAYS.  
Being a SERMON preached June 17. 1659. at the Funerals of Mr Samuel Jacomb, B. D. Minister of the Gospel at S. Mary Woolnoth in Lumbardstreet, London, and lately Fellow of Queen's College in Cambridge.  
By Simon Patrick, B. D. Minister of the Gospel at Batersea in Surrey.  1 COR. 7.29, 30, 31. 
The time is short: It remaineth that both they that have wives, be as they that have none: and they that weep, as though they wept not: and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not, etc. for the fashion of this world passeth away.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Plato in Critone. 
LONDON, Printed by R. W. for Francis Titan, at the Sign of the three Daggers in Fleetstreet, 1659.   

Reader, be pleased before thou readest, to Correct these Mistakes of the Press.  
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To my Worthy Friend Mr Thomas Jacomb, Minister of the Gospel at Martin's Ludgate.  
Sir,  
I Know that I shall but revive your grief by sending this Sermon to your hands; but it is a trouble which you have drawn upon yourself, by desiring to see that which you heard. It was not meet that I should resist your request, because he whom I had reason to love as myself, used to deny you nothing; yet if I had obtained leisure to have considered these things over again more deeply, you might have seen them (it is possible) pressed with more weight of argument, and put into a more exact order: But since you were desirous that I would dispatch them to the Press speedily, these Papers come to you to entreat you, that you will be content to bear a share in the faults that by reason of haste may (it is likely) be discerned in them. And if I could requite you in a greater matter, by alleviating your griefs, and helping you to bear your sorrows, I should readily lend you my hands, yea & my shoulders. But thanks be to God you need not my assistance, but have learned to bear patiently this sad providence. It is an easy matter to be pleased with God's providences when he doth what we would have him, but to rejoice in adverse things, and to suck some sweetness out of gall and wormwood, is very hard. Every body can thresh corn out of full sheaves, and fetch water out of the Thames; but to bring an harvest out of the dry stubble, and to draw water out of a rock, is the work only of a divine power which can bring good out of evil. I need not doubt but you are endued with it, and that God will comfort you with the same comforts wherewith you comfort others, and that you will say Even this is good too. Let me have a share in your prayers that it may be sanctified to me also, who ought to think myself concerned in it, and I shall ever remain  
Your true Friend to serve you, Simon Patrick. June 28. 1659.   

To the Right Worshipful THOMAS VINER Alderman of the City of London, and the rest of the inhabitants of the Parish of Mary Woolnoth Lumbardstreet.  
WHEN the soul is set in sad circumstances, and clothed with black and mournful thoughts, it is very apt to hearken to sober Counsels, and to entertain pious purposes and resolutions. I imagine it possible that the sight of the Corpse of your beloved Pastor, might open a wider gate then ordinary for the truths which were then propounded to enter into your hearts, and that in that sad silence of your souls they might have more of your attention, and better audience. If they found any good acceptance with you then; they come now again to ask you whether you still stand so affected, and continue in the same mind, and can find in your heart upon a second motion to renew your good resolutions.  
For when the soul that hath been shut up in itself, shall but open again to let in some light of mirth and gladness, all our sad and serious purposes are ready to run out at the same door, unless we take good heed and give an express command for their stay by laying fast hold upon them. When the souls grows gay and pleasant again, it is apt to look upon its former resolves but as Melancholy fancies, or to retain only such a weak remembrance of them as we do of the shadow of a dream, or they seem as things do that we are run a great way from, and have left far behind us, which when we were present looked as big as a Church Steeple, but now at a distance seem no bigger than the stump of a Tree. And therefore it is necessary that you ask yourselves how the truths that were then plainly represented, appear unto you at ten or eleven day's distance from them. Ask yourselves I say, whether now they appear so great and weighty as its possible they might when you were very near unto them, and whether now that you are counting your money and about your trades, you have as good a mind to reckon your days aright, as perhaps you had when God and you were reckoning together. If you would know your souls aright, and be acquainted with your own temper, you must take yourselves in all moods, both when you are merry and when you are sad, when you are in health as well as when you are sick; and if you like the same truths alike at all times, it is an argument of a healthful constitution. So some of the Persian wise men advised that a man should consider of a business both when he had drunk liberally and when he was fasting, in the night and in the day, when he was angry and when he was well pleased, and he might be sure it was a reasonable thing if it appeared so from whatsoever station he looked upon it. In like manner I advise and entreat you to consider whether you like these things not only when you were swallowed up with sorrow, but now that you have dried your eyes. Do they appear the same now to your sight, that they did when you looked upon them through tears? can you like these things in shops, as you did in the Church? Now that they are presented to your eyes, as when they struck your ears? Ask your souls whether they are at so much leisure as to consider once more of them. Tell yourselves whether any such sense of the truth remain upon them, that you will try how you like them upon second thoughts. And I pray our good God that whosoever of you taketh a review of these things, may learn so much of this Divine Art as to take an account of the days he hath passed, to keep a fair account of the rest of his life, and to give up his accounts with joy at the day of our Lord. I use this boldness and freedom of speech to you, because you have been used unto it by my dear friend, and because I think thereby I shall best serve both the truth and you. Let me be so importunate therefore with you as to conjure you by all the names of love and dearness, by all that is precious and valuable to you, by the remembrance of our Lord; by the remembrance of all the servants of the Lord that have laboured among you, by the love you bear to your own souls, and as you desire after heaven, that you will consider seriously how precious a thing a day is, and that you will not spend it all in the business of this world, much less in sports and recreations, but let God have a considerable portion of it. Some of the Heathens have carefully prohibited the wasteful mispense of men's hours; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. L. 2. Var. hist. cap. 5.  and therefore I may well be suffered if I be urgent with you to redeem them. It is a notable Testimony that Aelian gives of the Lacedæmonians, that they were hugely parsimonious and even covetous of their time; spending it all about necessary things, and suffering no Citizen either to be idle or to play: In so much that when it was told that some used to walk in the afternoons for their recreation, the Ephori forbade it as savouring of pleasure, and would have them to recreate their bodies by some manly exercises which had some profit in them, and would breed them to be serviceable to the Common good. How much will they shame us in the day of judgement when it shall appear that all this thriftiness of theirs was not so much for their souls, as for the profit of their City, and we would not use half so much care for immortal beings and the securing of a better Country which is an heavenly. 
Ib. cap. 28.  Themistocles seeing two Cocks fight when he was going to a battle, pointed his Soldiers to them, and said, Do you see yonder Combatants how valiantly they deal their blows? and yet they fight not for their Country, nor for their Gods, nor for the honour of their Ancestors, no nor for glory, nor liberty, nor children, but merely to overcome and crow over the vanquished. What courage then my brave Countrymen, should this put into your hearts, on whose resolution all these depend, and by whose valour they subsist? The same I say to you; Do you see how sparing and saving of their time the Old Lacedæmonians were? And yet it was not for the worshipping of their Gods, nor for the attending to their souls, 
V Wheatly of redemption of time  etc. but merely that they might be hardy Soldiers and might overcome all their enemies. How good Husbands than ought we all to be? how valiantly should we resist all Thiefs and Robbers that would steal away our time from us? when it is for God, for heaven, for the safety of our souls, yea and for our happiness, peace and quiet in this world also. If this discourse may any thing quicken you, let not me be forgot in those good hours that you spend with God, and I shall not forget to pray for you, that he would provide a Pastor for you after his own heart, that will feed you with knowledge and understanding, and guide you in the good old paths that lead to everlasting life.  
Your Servant in the Lord Jesus, Simon Patrick. June 28. 1659.   

Divine Arithmetic, OR The Right Art of numbering our DAYS.  PSALM 90.12. 
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto Wisom.  
IF I were come hither to vent my own passions, they would have been better pleased in the choice of some other Text than this that I have read unto you. When I first heard of the departure of mine and your dear friend, those words of David did strike my mind, and me thought did very well fit my mouth, with the alteration of a name only. I am distressed for thee my Brother Jacomb, 
2 Sam. 1.26.  very pleasant hast thou been to me, thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of Women. Upon this Text it is possible that affection would have taught me eloquence. Grief itself it would have been pleased that. I should have related his pleasantness. Sorrow would have been contented that I should have remembered the joys of his-society; for they would have been huge gainers by it in the conclusion, when the heat and ardency of the affection would have but ended in greater drops of tears for the loss of such a friend. Oh how willingly could I fill your ears with such pathetic groans as those of David saying, O my Friend, my Friend, would God I had died for thee my friend, my friend! And then I imagine that I should hear the reboation of an universal groan from all your hearts, more sad than his doleful knell. I imagine that at least you would say in your thoughts as the Disciples did, when they saw our Saviour weep, Behold how he loved him! It were easy with a very little art to make this place a Bochim, a place of weepers, so that it should be said by those that see you, as they said at good Jacob's Funeral, This is a grievous mourning to this people. But then my beloved, when the flood was a little fallen, and the tempest blown over, when reason and religion had leave to return and take their places, you and I would begin to ask ourselves, What have we done? what a folly is it to suffer such a deluge that should drown the thoughts of God? what forgetfulness to let grief stifle the motions of our soul to him that ought to have the precedence of all our other relations? then should we begin again to lament our too forward lamentations, than should we call for a new tide to wash away the former mud. Yea and the soul of our pious Brother if it could be sensible of what we say and do here, would be much grieved too, that he should leave such an unworthy friend behind him to discourse at his Funeral, as knew not how to prefer God's honour, before all the respect that is owing unto him.  
I will remember therefore that it was his desire, and aught to be mine also, that I should serve the good of your souls, and accordingly I shall speak as much as I can for God, before I speak any thing of him. And what I say of him, I shall endeavour likewise may reflect honour and glory upon God, and redound to your profit and edification.  
For this purpose I have chosen these words of the Psalmist, which are no less suitable to the occasion, than they will seem perhaps to some of you to be to the times wherein we live.  
The Title of the Psalm tells us that they are part of a prayer of Moses the man of God, and as the Chaldee Paraphrase saith, of a prayer which he made when the children of Israel sinned in the wilderness, and many of them were suddenly cut off, and the rest wasted away in that barren place. He gins his address to God with an acknowledgement of his eternity, and everliving goodness, and of man's dependence on him, even as a word doth upon the mouth of him that speaks it; so that if he do but say to man Return, he presently goes unto his dust, ver. 1, 2, 3, 4. And more especially he acknowledgeth how obnoxious men have made themselves to God by contumacy and rebellion against him; and how they shorten too often their own lives by kindling the anger of God against them, from ver. 5. to ver. 10. where he shows how he sweeps them away as a torrent that bears all before it; ver. 5, 6. how he surpriseth them suddenly when they never dream of it; and makes them whither away like a flower by some unexpected nipping blast, that causeth it to hang down its head and die: The reason of which severity and sharp proceeding is from their sins, whereby they dared him to his face and openly contemned his sacred Government. ver. 8 This was the very case of the Israelites in the wilderness, when the wrath of God came upon them and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men among them, as it is Psal. 87.31.  
But how inconsiderate foolish man is, in thus sinning against God, the Psalmist seems to confess when he saith, ver. 10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow, etc. i.e. There is no need to stir up thy wrath: for our days are short enough of themselves: we have much ado to crawl to eighty years: and if we do, the very weakness and infirmities of our age will breed us sufficient trouble and sorrow without any additional griefs from the just displeasure of the Almighty.  
And yet for all this, he sadly complains that very few minded or considered the power of God's anger, which is as great as men can possibly fear or imagine it to be, and greatest of all toward those that profess to fear him, but yet rebel against him, ver. 11. Who knows the power of thy anger, etc. Alas! very few that consider how often they provoke God, how jealous he is of his name, and consequently how short their days are like to be who do dishonour unto it. In the words of my Text therefore he hearty beseeches the Lord that he would teach them to number their days as they ought, and promises that (after all these corrections) they will bring a heart of wisdom. For so the words run in the Hebrew, as obviously as may be to any one's observation; show us so (i. e. so as we should) to number our day's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we will bring a heart of wisdom, or a wise heart.  
According to this rendering of them, they contain A Frayer to God, and A Promise of man's. He first prays for some thing that he would have God to do, Teach us so to number our days; and Secondly he promises something that they will do; We will bring a wise heart. Or according to the ordinary translation, the words are an entire petition, First for grace to teach us to number our days aright; Secondly for effectual grace that may so teach us that good may come of it; so that there may be some good effect of the account, and it may amount to some valuable consideration.  
I shall neglect neither of these translations, nor any else that shall appear to be genuine and unforced, but shall speak to them in these following Observations, or in the use and application of them.  
First, That we are very apt to misreckon, and in nothing more than in the business of life.  
Secondly, That our life is very short if we take it at the best.  
Thirdly, That the right numbering of our days is earnestly and diligently to be inquired out.  
Fourthly, That the best disposition to attain this true Art of numbering is a praying heart and a pious mind.  
For the first, it is most plainly supposed in that we need a Master to teach us to reckon right. It would be worth my pains to show you how much we are out in our accounts about the things of this world. What a sum do we make these Ciphers, these empty nothings amount unto? What a rate do we set upon riches? at what huge sums do we purchase honours? etc. How vainly do we think that such an enjoyment will make an addition to our contentment? how do we multiply our hopes without any certainty, etc. And in the mean time heaven and all the great realities of another world stand for nothing in our account. So in reference to ourselves I might show you, how few sins or miscarriages we take any notice of, if ever we happen (which is but seldom) to call ourselves to an account, and how many good deeds we very falsely reckon up. But I shall confine myself to the bad Arithmetic of men in numbering of their days, which the Text most naturally leads me unto; and in a few words I shall show you how men misreckon in the business of life.  
First, They are very much out in their reckoning, if we look upon the account itself; And secondly, if we examine the rule by which they number.  
For the account, that is very false which men make.  
First, About the length of their days, they tell to so many thousands, and are very loath to make an end, when perhaps their life may be summed up in one figure. Yea the rich fool in the Gospel would rather tell by many years than many days, 
Luke 12.19.  saying, Soul, thou hast goods laid up for many years, Eat, drink, and be merry. He that could not tell truly to one, (for that night his soul was required) tells till he came to a million. What an huge mistake! what an irrrecoverable error was this, that could never be amended! But thus do all men generally miscount in the days of their health; and which is most strange, even dying men ofttimes think of nothing but recovering and living still in the world. They number by years and not by days, or reckon all days to be long, and none short.  
Secondly, Their account is very false about the quality of these days. You shall scarce meet with any man, but he reckons so much pleasure in such a condition which shortly he hopes to attain; and accounts upon so much joy from every mutation and change that he shall make. He thinks that all his days, be they short or long, must all be Summer and Sunshine days. He dreams not of the evil days (as the Scripture calls them) i. e. the days of adversity and misery; he thinks not of a storm or a tempest, of a cloud that may cover his Sky, and bring a sad darkness upon all his mirth and pleasure; and so he never provides against it, but is miserably surprised when he sees all his expectations perish. Men are like Babylon, that said, I shall sit as a Lady for ever: 
Isa 47.  I shall never know widowhood, nor the loss of children. I shall be happy when I am for myself; when I am married, when my Father dies and leaves me a fair estate; when I have builded me an house, and purchased so much land, etc. And so they reckon many years in the same manner, which must be all days and no nights, all fair days and none foul. This makes them heavy and oppressed when the days of darkness come, and every one saith, non putaram (the fool's Motto) I never thought of this. One sad accident blots their whole account, and tells them to their grief how the whole work is wrong wherein their thoughts have laboured.  
Thirdly, About the use of these days, they are no less dangerously mistaken. Men reckon that there are none but Play-days in their life, and they can find never a working day among them. All their days in their Calendar are Festivals: And they are so far from minding the business of life, viz. dressing up their souls for God in a blessed eternity by Religion and Holiness, that a Saint should have no respect from many that pretend to honour him, were it not that he gets them leave to play more freely. The whole course of their lives is but a sporting business, and when they lay aside their worldly affairs, it is but to obtain leisure to be more frolic. There are those in the world that do nothing else but make their bodies spruce and trim, that learn to speak finely, and court Ladies, that in the morning are employed between the comb and the glass, 
Inter pectinem & speculum occupati, etc. Sen.  and in the afternoon would have others look on them as much as they did in the glass. These account a hair or two out of their place of as great moment as the sacking of a town; and you may say they are employed in the same sense that Children are, when they are dressing up a Baby.  
A second sort we can not but see in the world, whose study is to flatter those that are great; who learn to crouch and comply most basely with all their humours, who gape for a place of preferment as a dog doth for a bone; and they know no other use of a day, but to provide for to morrow if they can. How many others do we see sit all the day at wine, and know no other business but to eat, and drink, and walk from one jolly place unto another? who turn days into nights, and nights into days; who are mere Paradoxes in nature, desiring to live for ever in this world, and yet gorging themselves as if they meant to die to day, and never to taste more of God's creatures. And I wish I could not say there are another sort that have nothing at all to do, but are eat up with laziness: Men that have no other thoughts but how they may spend their time which lies upon their hands, with least trouble to themselves: The vermin of the world, that do no good themselves, and devour the labours, yea and the time of others. And for those who you think are busy and full of employment, that have not a day of play inal ltheir lives, (unless they sleep on the Lord's day) I pray what can you say of them, but what Seneca doth, operose nihil agunt, they take a great deal of pains to do nothing! But do they do nothing, will you say, that labour hard all day long and sweat at their work with the strength of an ox? I answer yes, if they were oxen and horses, I should commend their pains, and think they deserved a reward; but since they have a diviner shape, I can call this toil by no better name than a laborious loitering. The man is miserably ridden by the Beast, and seeing he takes no time to tame it, all the rest of his toil is but a more painful sort of playing, a more serious kind of Idleness. Ask such a man what he would do if he could live an hundred years longer than yet he hath done, and he would tell you that he would add house to house, and increase his acre of land into an hundred, and eat & drink of the best; the very voice of a cow or such a creature if it could speak. In such poor fancies do these men's souls sport themselves & they do no more of the work of a man (which is to mortify these carnal affections, and store their mind with divine knowledge) than he doth that rolls himself in a softer and more delicate laziness. Alas poor souls! that play away their time in a most tyrannous slavery, that are at leisure from themselves, that they may drudge in the service of base things. And will you say a man that coasts about to every shore of the world to get riches, and lad himself with goods, is really employed? His Ship takes as long journeys as himself, and is laden with as much riches as he pretends unto: but he knows how to make use of that riches, and he buys land, or provides for his children, etc. What then? He dies, and as to the other world he is worse than Nothing. Is this all you can say of the life of a man, that he hath fair possessions, and provides well for those that stay behind him? Then sure there is no other state to come; or if there be, the man hath played away his day, having done nothing that will last to all eternity. Nay, if this be the work of a man, it had been better for us to have been Apes or such like creatures, for they take least pains to live, and they need no such inheritance to leave their young ones. And so you may say of him that studies impertinent things, or takes up all his time with other affairs of this present world, he hath stood all the day idle, as our Saviour saith to those that he sends into the Vineyard; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plut.  and his account at the last will appear so false, that it will be corrected as Ph. loxenus did the book that was sent to him to amend, with one great blot from the beginning to the end. The very Heathens have reproved the folly of these men, and given such a dash to their accounts, that it is a wonder they should not begin to think how they may live. There is a saying in many men's mouths, but I wish they would think from whom it came that they may be ashamed not to practise it, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plut. de and. poctis.  and it is that which Socrates used, Wicked men live that they may eat and drink, and good men eat and drink that they may live. This one saying strikes I know not how many out of the number of the living; and if this Heathen were alive, he would take most to be dead men, playing in the shape of the living.  
But let us look a while upon the rule by which men reckon, and you shall see more clearly how bad their accounts are.  
1. Some reckon by their age. They account that the old must needs die before those that are young; and they reckon that the fewer days any one hath spent, the more he hath to come, and so few think of dying till they think it cannot be avoided. Hence it is that one who is old saith, I shall never live to see an end of these troubles, but you that are young will behold the conclusion, and perhaps that party drops into the grave in his youthful days. And he that is young saith, These will be fine things to talk of when we are old; our Nephews will wonder when we tell them of such strange revolutions, when perhaps the next week he is sent into the place of silence. These are they that reckon by ages, and who think when childhood is past, that Youth, Manhood, and grey hairs are all to come: But they forget the vulgar proverb, which some of the Jews elegantly express, The old Ass very often carries the skin of the young one to the market. Young men must not let their fancy be so brisk as not to make account that they are but men: And what is that? Man is like to vanity, 
Psal. 144.4.  (saith the Psalmist) his days are as a shadow that passeth away.  
2. Others reckon by their strength and lustiness of body, and imagine that their constitution is so healthful that they are able to wrestle a fall with the greatest sickness. Their rule is that the best built house shall stand longest: a very false and deceitful rule! For on a sudden we see the fire of a fever will burn up and consume the best timbered body in the world. The flames of a Calenture will make him melt away as grease, whose strength is as the strength of stones, and whose flesh is like unto brass. And who can hinder his spirits from catching fire? who knows what vipers he nourishes within him by his meat and drink, and especially his intemperance, which will eat through his own bowels, even while his breasts are full of milk, and his bones moistened with marrow? Job 21.23, 24. who knows what rottenness there is at the core of the fairest fruit? and who doth not know that the goodliest Oaks prove ofttimes hollow and without heart within? And therefore let us not stay till the Axe be laid at the root and the stroke of some terrible disease teach us to reckon better.  
3. Another sort reckon by the care they have of themselves. They measure their days by temperance, chastity and good use of their bodies, by freedom from excess and riot, & whatsoever might be the matter and occasion of diseases. To say the truth, these men have a great many good rules, ex. gr. Too much oil puts out the Lamp. Spare diet is the greatest cordial of nature. Discreet fasting is the best Physic. But they have one rule which spoils all: Temperance must needs prolong our time. The moderate man shall have many days. It is pity such men should never think of the chances, the sudden accidents, and unexpected surprisals which yet we have many instances of in the world. Plagues and infections they say soon seize on the finest tempers, pestilent breaths do soon choke the purest spirits. And there are secret malignant causes which are unknown to the best of nature's Secretaries. Yea the most certain cures of known diseases have sometimes proved fatal to men's bodies. So Gesner reports that one year he observed, Omnes pleuriticos à secta vena expirasse, that all those who were let blood in Pleurisies gave up the Ghost. The opening of a vein which useth to give the soul breath, proved through the corruption of the air (as he thinks) to be but the gate of death.  
4. Others perhaps do reckon their days by their usefulness and the good which they do in the world. There are a great many promises made to dutiful and obedient persons, to such who are charitable and merciful to others, which may make them apt to promise to themselves a certainty of long life. R. Nechonia a Jew when his Scholars asked him on his deathbed how he came to live so long, He answered, I never sought mine own honour by any man's disgrace. I never reproached nor cursed my neighbour, and I was a liberal dispenser of my riches to others, etc. alluding it is like to that in Psal. 34.12, 13, 14. Who is he that would live long and see many days? let him keep his tongue from evil. But though there be some truth in this, yet there are many exceptions, and such men do count wrong if they have no other rule but this. For sometimes by reason of one great sin (as in the case of Moses) sometimes for the sins of others who discern not such jewels, and sometimes that they may not live to see miserable and evil times which are the punishments of sin, the good man is taken away. You see the days of our dear Brother are summed up, and we are taught to number aright by the brevity of his life. If the King of terrors could have been affrighted by piety and usefulness to have let his dart fallen out of his hand, I had not been now here, unless it had been to have offered Sacrifices of praise for his recovery to health again.  
5. A fifth sort there are that measure their own lives by the lives of others; and that not of all others neither, but of the longest livers. They hope to attain to the days of the oldest man in the Parish, and think not that they may go away in the company of the youngest. And especially if they see drunkards and such sinners with grey beards upon red or rotten faces, they think surely that they are many miles off from a grave. I do not know what kind of dotage it is that possesses men's hearts; but so it is that though they see many flowers cropped in their fullest beauty, yet they mind not them so much, though they be in their own hands, as they do the rest that still flourish in the garden. Though a wife be snatched out of men's bosoms, yet they think to live and embrace another. Though a child be ravished out of their arms, yet they think to live and get more, as if death must be so kind as to let them grow old, seeing he hath devoured their relations in their youth. You see now the corpse of one before you that is gathered in the flower of his age; and yet which of you is there that doth not think that he shall be at the choice of another Minister, & that he shall hear him preach a great many Sermons, because some in the Parish are grown so old as to have seen the Funerals of three Ministers besides this? I wish hearty men would but a little ponder upon this common mistake, and when they think of the large extent of some men's lives, they would likewise cast their eyes upon the shortness of others, and see whether they will not overbalance the former account.  
Sixthly, Some men's rule is, that all men's days are numbered by a fatal decree, and therefore they need not number them. They measure their days by the stars, and fetch their rule from Astrology and some secret fate: or rather they do not measure them at all, nor make any reckoning how they live, whether piously or wickedly, temperately or lewdly, thinking that the one cannot naturally prolong, nor the other naturally shorten men days. This is the Turkish way of account, who think that every man's fortune as they call it, and the length of his days is written in his forehead by the Angel that stands by when he is born. And so one of them not many years ago when he was hanged in the Low-countrieses pointed to his forehead, as though it was his destiny and not his fault. A barbarous brutish opinion, fit to nourish bloody Soldiers and make men desperate, and was no Question cunningly devised by the Impostor to make them fear no danger. But whatsoever is determined above concerning our lives, it is plainby Scripture and reason that our wisdom, care, and good behaviour is required, and that by wickedness we may cut short those days which nature hath assigned unto them. Though there be an appointed time beyond which we shall not go, yet we may never come up to that time, but be taken away in the midst of our days.  
Many such false rules there are; but it is no wonder if you do but consider, First what a great love men have to this world. The pleasure and fine things that tickle their senses, possess them with a fond desire of long life, that they may enjoy all the kindnesses which the world offers them; and this most ardent desire will let them think of nothing else but many days to entertain her courtships, and answer her love when she seems to smile & look with a pleasing countenance upon them. Or if she begin afterwards to frown, they are loath to think of death, because they hope to mend their fortune, or are wholly unprovided for any better company in another world. Facile credimus quod volumus; we would fain live long, and therefore we will not be of any other belief but that we shall. And the thoughts of death are unwelcome because we love the dalliances of the flesh so well, which will certainly by it be broken off. This false numbering proceeds not so much from the weakness of men's understanding, as from the wickedness of their wills and distempered affections. They have no mind that it should be true that our days may be short, and therefore they will think so as seldom as they can. And Secondly, the love of ourselves that is in us, is of no less power to blind us and make us very fools. This will not let us think that we may die presently, though many others do. As when two Ships meet at Sea, they that are in the one, think that the other sails exceeding fast, and that they themselves go fairly and easily, or rather stand still; even so it is in this case. Though men see the days of another to run away like a Post, and fly after the manner of a swift Ship that saileth by (as Job speaks) yet they think that they themselves scarce stir at all, 
Job 9.25, 26.  and that their time runs on more slowly, and they seem to be now no older nor nearer unto their graves then they were a year or two ago. They feel their blood doth dance as pleasantly through their veins, and the light sparkles as clearly in their eyes, and their flesh is as warm and moist as formerly they used, and so they think their life is no shorter than it was, because they feel no sensible decays in their nature. A third reason of which mistake is, that the shortness of their thoughts will not let them number aright. Most men look but at a few things, and those few they consider of by halfs, and that half they search not to the bottom, and so they mistake lamentably, and call those years which are but days, and think they live when they lie rotting in their graves. I conceit such men who seldom seriously think, to be like to a child that knows not how much twenty is, who imagines it is a number that can scarce be told. If they think of living twenty or thirty years, their short thoughts makes them seem to be time that will never have an end, wherein they may accomplish all their desires. And though they know that they may fall far short of such an age, yet they only know it, and think no longer of it then a little child with whose thoughts the next object runs away. It is one of the great mischiefs of the world that so few love to consider, and of all other things they least love to consider themselves, and of all parts of self-knowledge they least know what to do with themselves. Many can tell what life is, who know not how to live; many that confess how short it is, who throw it away as if they had too much.  
This mistake is of so evil and dangerous consequence, that we had all need make great speed to correct it. Else we shall begin to think of living when it is too late, and some will never think of it at all, and the best will cry out, O mihi praeteritos, etc.— O that God would give me again that time which is flown away. O that I could call back a day that I might spend it better!  
And that I may quicken you to reform this erroneous account, Let me give a brief touch upon the second Observation, and the Lord make it to touch your hearts.  
Our life is but very short if we take it at the best, Obser. 2 separate from all those dangers which are continually impendent over us. You all know this, and are apt to be guilty of another mistake, which is to account this Doctrine of the brevity of man's life but a dry and trite theme; and therefore believe it, and be affected with these two things in the text which do point to this observation, which are all that I shall mention.  
1. Our life is but days. He doth not say Teach us to number our years; for it is not safe for us to account upon too much, lest we should we be deceived in our computation. Yea Job saith that man who is born of a woman, is but of few days and full of trouble; he comes up like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not, Job 14.1, 2. Seneca makes the same observation from his Poet, that I do here from the divine Psalmist, Optima quaeqne dies miseris mortalibus aevi Prima fugit. 
De brev. vit● cap. 9 —  
He saith not aetas, saith he, but dies; he speaks not of an age but a day, that thy thoughts might not be infinite. Why then dost thou promise to thyself (as he goes on) months and years, and whatsoever thy inordinate desire of life listeth? De die tecum loquitur, & hoc ipso fugiente. He speaks to thee of a day, and that is upon the wing too hasting very fast away. So may I say, the Psalmist speaks to thee of days, it will not be long ere one Sun be set, and then thou liest in the arms of the Brother of death. If another day shine upon thy head, 
Job 9.26.  yet it flies likewise as an Eagle that hasteth to his prey, and it will be a greater wonder if thou outlive all the accidents and dangers of one day, then that rhou diest and descendest to thy grave. Yet some of the Heathens will not allow us such a large measure for our lives as a day, nor suffer us to account above an hour, or a minute, or if there be any thing less than the least minute; such a diminutive expression hath Plutarch somewhere concerning it. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 
Punctum est quod vivimus, & adbuc punct● minus.  All our life is but a point of time, which Seneca well interprets when he saith, It is but a point, yea less than a point that we live. If we believed this, we should not draw so long a line of life as we do in our Fancy, nor describe such a large circle wherein we make a thousand figures, and have infinite contrivances as though it were without any end.  
2. Our days may be numbered, and therefore they are but few. If he had said years, yet seeing every body can count them, we could not justly look upon them as long. That which every man can reckon is but little; and that is infinite which no man can number. As who can tell the days of eternity? What thought can conceive the duration of God who ever was and is and will be? But every fool can tell what the days of man is if he will but set his mind to the account. You can say of man no more but that he hath been so many years, and that he is, and no body can tell whether he shall be. Here you are at a stop, unless you will at random speak of a few days that perhaps shall never come; or if they do, Moses dare let his pen run no further than eighty year, and these pass away as a tale that is told. Or if you will venture to tell by the Son of Siraches account, they are but a hundred, according as you read in Eccles. 18.9.10. The number of man's days at the most are but an hundred years; as a drop of water to the Sea, and a gravel stone in comparison of the sand, so are a thousand years to the days of eternity.  
Which if we did seriously believe, than first we should not desire, love, or design any thing in this world, as though we should live to the years of Methusaleh, or be like Melchizedeck, without end of days. How soon might we tell what would content us, if we could but tell our days aright? what a just measure should we set to all our affections, if we had but once measured our time and drawn it into a narrow compass? innumerable designs would vanish out of our minds, even as a shadow doth when the Sun shrinks in his head, if we did but look upon ourselves as a shadow, and our lives as a vapour that goes out of our mouths. And secondly, if we did seriously think what a few figures will serve to number our years when we have their total sum, and how many of them are spent before we can do any more than a Beast, and how many we cast away without considering after we are men, and how many necessary refreshments by meat and drink, and sleep, will still devour, we would not be so prodigal and lavish of the small number that remains, but save them for good uses and the service of our souls. We would never endure to be such spend thrists of that of which only we can be honestly covetous, but rate our time at such a price, that one minute of it would seem more valuable than all the world.  
The belief of these things that men account so common, that they scarce think of them, would not suffer men to be so late before they begin to live. They would instantly step beyond resolution, and labour to do their work lest they should have no time to do it in. It is a wise and good saying of Seneca, Male vivunt qui semper vivere incipiunt. They never live well who are always beginning to live. Yet this is the state of most men in the world who are at all awakened, they resolve to live too morrow or the next week, when their business is over, and then they resolve again, and set another day, or perhaps they pray, and read, and begin a better life for a few days, at the end of which some occasion breaks off all: And then they are to begin again, and new resolutions come into their minds, and if God be content to stay their leisure a few days hence, he shall hear more of them: As if they had their times in their own hands, and could make death wait upon them till they thought good to come to their graves. How strangely do men forget themselves? how dead do many good notions lie in their minds? one would think they were in a dream; for like men in a sleep, they say yea and no to all the questions we ask, and yet remember nothing that is said. Ask them if their life be short, and their days uncertain; they will fetch a sigh & say that all flesh is grass, or as the flower of grass that soon fadeth away: Ask them if they have no work to do but may take their pleasure, and they say that all eternity depends on this moment, that their work is great, and their time is little, and their account is dreadful. Ask them if God will take the dregs of their time, and be content with the bottom of their days, and they will judge it unreasonable. Yea ask them if it be fit that he should let such live that do nothing for him, and they cannot but say that we kill vermin, caterpillars, and such like things that destroy Gods Creatures, but bring no good to the world. Would you not expect now that they who make such acknowledgements, should be busy about their salvation? would you not imagine that they esteemed time more than thousands of gold and silver? Alas,! their senses are all locked 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 drowsy about their souls, nor more expensive and wasteful of their precious hours, than they are in this short moment of which they talk. Awake, Awake for the sake of your poor souls. Let it feel itself 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 itself about the true number of our days, 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 believe? 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 than we do from many men, if we should preach unto them: And we shall be as unsuccessful 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 chief intended, and it is this.  
The right numbering of our days 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 shows that we are highly concerned in the numbering of our days; 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 rendered So, taken for right and well, as Numb. 27.7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 etc. right have the daughters of Zelophedad spoken, etc. and 2 Kings 7. 9 the lepers say, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We do not well, this day is a day of good tidings. And therefore thus we may render the Psalmists words, Teach us aright and well to number our days, or Teach, so as we should, etc. 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 numbering is a word of consideration, and signifies a meditating or casting in our mind, a serious thinking with ourselves what our days 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 days 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 ourselves because it is none of our own. And so ver. 3. the Psalmist saith, Thou turnest man to destruction, etc. i.e. Man is wholly in thy power, and he hath no more than thou givest him, and the next moment if thou sayest 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 another's 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 sum 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 than is our own. If we could reckon thus, and tell no faster than God adds unto our days, 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 ways; 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 than 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 days, 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 days 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 until 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 ways 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 snatched away, and not carried off leisurely by the steps of many days illness. Some diseases do no sooner appear, than we vanish and disappear. An enemy sometimes gives no warning, but strikes us dead at one stroke. And our sickness doth not always lay siege 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, etc. They were swept away with plagues, they fell before their foes, they went qu●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 choked with the kernel of a grape; Aeschylus by the shell of a Tortoise which fell from an eagle's Talons, who mistook as was thought his bald Head for a white Rock. An Emperor died by the scratch of a comb, 
Essays l. 1. cap. 19  and a Duke of Britain (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 choke 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 always live well, that so I may never die suddenly. 
V Locman.  The Cock in the Arabic 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 Vulture 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 rejoices 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 Fab●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 ago, the whole family of the Justiniani in Venice perished in defence of their Country against Emanuel the Greek Emperor, except one only who was a Priest. 
B●b● Comes Abusinu●.  And Aventinus relates of a Count in the time of Henry the second Emperor, that had thirty Sons (besides eight Daughters) who attended on him to the Emperor's 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 gideon's 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 persuaded that there is a vast uncertainty of life and all worldly things, and that death is dressed 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, etc. all the pains, and stinches and noisome evils that were ever heard of, are in the Womb of sin, and therefore reckon a sinful 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 God's anger, and their days 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 shortened, 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, etc. 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 sinful and unlawful desires. If they would but think that every sin may strike off a figure or two from their lives, that every act of it may cut their days some moment's shorter, what heart could they have to sin? With what pleasure could they drink if they thought that it were poison? how could they endure 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 beg for a day longer to dishonour God Wonder in thyself that Gods lets thee live who know'st 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 than the Hogg in the Arabic 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 kicked 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 than 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 sinful life is a mere 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 man's life seems shorter than 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 than our time. I told you life is very short of itself, and we must reckon it by minutes rather than years, or by fractions rather than 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 employment 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 always 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 employ, 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 endure 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 ourselves, to think that all ours must be Halcyon days, 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 days than white in our Calendar; and than 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 Father's house, and long more in our hearts for the heavenly Country. The travel and toil 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 eternal 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 ways we die daily. What pleasure is there in living when we are eighty year old, when we are a burden to ourselves, and too oft to others what contentment can we have? What cheer can there be when those that look out of the window are darkened? when the sound of the grinding is low, and we rise up at the voice of every bird, and all the daughters of music 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 Cardan's 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 than though we recruit again and repair our bodies, yet we do but make food for new diseases. It is said to Adam, In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die, which teaches us that we are next door 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 intolerable usury for not paying our lives sooner.  
As these things will correct our mistakes about the length and quality of our days, so I shall now add some things that will teach us better the use of them.  
6. We must reckon our days 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 ourselves. 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 Almanac, 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 days, but lived few or none.  
In one sense most men may count their lives by nights rather than days, 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 employed, 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 than he was? is this enough to denominate us men, that we have hair growing upon our Chin? No, there are more Children than those that are in Coats, and while we look no further than 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 ourselves in true understanding, Conscience and godliness, the best of us must reckon fewer years than eighty; for how little of this time do we truly live. When we do no good we may say as the Emperor 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 acknowledge God, and get acquaintance with him, to govern ourselves in conformity to him, to do good to others, etc. are the great businesses of life; and of him that minds not these chief, 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 storm, 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. case 8.  when he first launcheth forth? Non ille multum navigavit, sed multum jactatus est, as Seneca well saith. He did not Sail much, but was tossed very much. Shall we then say, that a man hath lived much, whose soul was filled with Air 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 days 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 mother's Womb. He was much busied, but he did nothing. He was much employed, but he lived idly. For as I told you, days and living are truly to be measured by the work of a man. And therefore much less can you say, that he hath lived, who hath eaten and drank, and got one of the same kind, etc. For so doth a Beast, and therefore all you can say, is that the Beast in him lived, but not the man. And if we did reckon thus, and consider how much time this toy, and that trifle, this business and that service, this man and that woman have devoured, besides what every day will have for necessary uses: 
Se●. ib. cap. 3.  Videbimus nos pauciores habere annos quam numeramus, we shall see that we have fewer years than we number. We say perhaps sixty years is our age, but we may set down ten, yea though we have seriously minded our great work. Let us therefore hereafter when we ask ourselves how old we are, reckon from that time that we are born again. And let us distinguish between time and what is done in time, for all creatures have time as well as we, and unless our work differ us from them our age will not. O be ashamed to be a child with a great beard! Blush to reckon forty or fifty years, when thou knowest not for what thou camest into the world. Let not the Sun see thee again so void of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, as if thy soul were but newly dropped into thy body. Be not twenty or forty years in learning to be sober; and for very shame let it not be said, that in so many years thou knowest not how to pray and represent thy needs to God. How many years dost thou expect to live, if in so many thou canst not learn to mortify one lust? If in the space of fifty years thou canst not get the victory over a cup of drink, how many must God give thee to overcome all the rest of thy sins? If so long experience will not teach thee humility or contentedness, who can hope that thou shouldest live long enough to put on Jesus Christ, and be conformed to all his Image? O live, live I beseech you as fast as you can, for it is certain that is little or nothing that we have lived.  
Seventhly, We must not account all days alike, or we must not measure our time by the length, but by the weight; not by its greatness, but by its worth. Let us not measure our days (as we do) by the motion of the Sun which we see, but by the shining of the Son of Righteousness upon our souls: not by the celestial bodies, but by the celestial inspirations. Think that a long time wherein there are many days of grace, and mind that time and improve it above all the rest. Always think that time is of a different value as to the chief use of time; and in some days we have more of opportunity though but the same time. This makes a great difference in our days if we well understand it, and should make us very watchful to lay hold upon this flower of time when it presents itself unto us. A day of grace, a Lords day when God shall move upon our souls, such an opportunity as this, if God affect our hearts, is worth all our days beside when we are left unto ourselves. As to the purposes of holiness and getting nearer to Heaven, one moment, when the Spirit of God is upon us, and strongly possesses our mind with good things, and breathes into us holy affections, is worth many hours, yea days and years when that is not with us, or doth not so powerfully incite us. Let us therefore employ such time well, and set ourselves to our business, earnestly entreating more of such time, and that God's Spirit will visit us more frequently with its company. Then our work will go on fast, and if it be possible at all to recall the time past, it must be by doing that in a few moments, which naturally could not have been done in a whole Life. We must value time hereafter as Mariners do at Sea, by the wind that blows upon us, and then we must hoist up our Sails. We must look at some as Harvest days, and then we must gather and lay up in store by hard labour; or as Market days, and then we must buy what we want, and lay in provision for the following days. Yea the blackest day of affliction, if we were well skilled, might be numbered among the best times of our life; For God chasteneth us for our profit, that we may be made parkers of his holiness.  
Eighthly, Reckon time to stand in order to eternity. Consider it not in the absolute notion, but in the relative. Look on it as a River running into the Ocean, and account that time itself must be accounted for. So number thy days as to think that they must be numbered again by God. Think that time passeth, and yet that it remain upon thine account. Think that as thou art now, so to eternity thou shalt be. Do not look upon thy life as a few days to be passed, and there is an end, but reckon so many days I have lived, and the next moment is eternity for any thing I can tell. Everlastingness hangs upon this moment, and the state of the one depends on the state of the other; as time is used by us, so shall we find ourselves used in the other life. I doubt we seldom look on these two, as having a reference to each other; but men live, as if when time was trifled away, they might begin upon a new score in Eternity. Men live as if all should be forgotten that is done here, and they should have something else to think of when they go from hence. Remember therefore that both God and thyself will call thee to another reckoning; all the days which thou hast never told, but went away without any observation, shall be recalled back unto thy mind. Then the mind shall tell deliberately, and run thee thorough at every thought, how many hours thou sattest with the cup at thy mouth; how many days thou didst spend in sport; how long the time seemed when the Preacher overrun his hour; and how many motions of God's Spirit thou didst send back, and bid come at some more convenient time. Yea all thy false accounts shall then be accounted for, and thou shalt never have done numbering thy errors, but shall tell them all over again with a new torment that thou shouldst be so wilfully mistaken. O that you would let your souls which are apt to number so many days in this world, and are loath to make an end, let them launch into the depths of eternity, and there spread their thoughts. Seeing they have such a mind to be telling out so many years for us, let them run into that vast Ocean. Bring forth all your numbers wherewith your minds are pregnant, heap million upon million, lay one hundred thousand of millions upon another, and they are all but as an unite to eternity. In this vast eternity you must certainly live; and therefore why do you not let your thoughts be more upon eternity than upon a few uncertain days in time? Why do not your minds, which love to count so unboundedly the days of this narrow life, extend themselves into eternity, which is without any limits at all? Tell the torments of an everlasting fire, tell the aching thoughts, if you can of a burning soul, number the sighs and groans of a heart, that fries in the wrath of God to eternal ages. Then reckon the joys of Heaven, number all the sweet notes of Heavenly choir, tell all the Songs and Hymns of Praise which they sing. And if thou hadst an head as big as Archimedes and couldst tell how many atoms of dust were in the Globe of the Earth; yet think that such a vast number is but as one little atom in compare with those endless sorrows and those endless joys. Seeing thou canst look so far as to the very end of thy days, seeing thou art prone to run in thy thoughts as far as it is possible, take one step further than eighty years, and then thy thoughts are in eternity; go a little further than the end of thy life, and there let thy thoughts lose themselves. Let this be thy Impress, or Motto, let this be writ upon thy mind, that a Learned man writes upon all his Books, Aeternitatem cogita, Think of eternity. 
Johan. Meu. sius.  This will make thine account more exact, when thou lettest thy thoughts run thither, whither thy time is running, into all Eternity.  
9 Though our time be little, yet let us account that it is great enough for what we have to do in time. I said that our life was short of itself, yet let us reckon that it is long enough to serve all the ends of living. We have day enough to do our real business. We have time enough to prepare for eternity. We must always account that we have days enough to number our days, and make up our accounts, and what can we desire more? If we will charge ourselves indeed with unnecessary things to bring about some great design, and accomplish some covetous desire, and raise our estate to such an height, we may not have time enough to execute out purpose. But must we therefore whine and complain and say, nature hath dealt hardly with us? No. Vita, si scias uti, longa est; life is long enough, if thou knowest the use of it. If thou considerest what thou hast to do, thou hast time enough to do it. There is time enough to moderate those worldly desires; to break off those impertinent employments▪ to throw away those designs; to subdue thy passions; to cultivate thy mind, to submit thy will to God, to know the intention of the Son of God, his appearing in the world; to work out thy salvation, and to make ready for his coming again. Though we have not time to resolve all Questions that are started in the world, yet we have sufficient time to resolve this great one, What shall we do to be saved? Heaven may be got in that time, that the world cannot. Why then do we murmur at the shortness of life? why do we sigh that we can number no more days? what would men do with them, and to what use would they employ them? is it their souls they would save? they need no more days than God hath assigned them for that purpose. Is it an estate they would get, or pleasures they would enjoy? they have too much time for such ends, seeing they are not the goods of a man. Would they know all the secrets and subtleties in Learning? two or three Ages will not suffice for that; and seeing that knowledge will die, it is not worth living so long for it. Would they be able to determine all Controversies in Religion. How absurd a thing is this for a wicked man to take up his time in disputes, when he lets the Devil without any quarrel run away with his soul? It is as preposterous a thing, as for a man that is in a deep Consumption to consult with his Physician for the curing of a cut finger. But this is the misery of it, that the fashion of the world is not to mind Religion. Most men and especially great persons are led by the opinion of the world; now vulgar people do not expect that we should be godly, and so they mind every thing but only that, and then complain that they are straitened in their time. People expect that we should keep open house, and let them eat and drink their fill, etc. And so they tempt their. Landlords to think that it is below them to live. Let us correct ourselves in this mistake, and when we account the days are short, we must mean no more but this.  
We have one thing necessary to be done, To do the will of our Father, to get ready for Heaven; this must be constantly and seriously minded, and we have no spare time to throw away without any reference to this business. Our life runs away so fast, that unless we take good heed, we shall not be able to do the work for which we live. It would be accounted a piece of madness, if when the enemy is at the Walls, when the storm is ready to be made, when the Bullets fly about the Streets, A man should sit considering whether a Bow will carry further than a Gun, and whether more were killed by the Ancient weapons, then by the modern Arms. And yet just such is the folly of mankind. When death is at their back, and life flies before their faces, when they are beset with evils in the world, and have little strength to resist them, when they are in the straits of time, and yet have a huge deal of work to do; they are thinking with themselves whether it is best to hunt to day, or to Hawk; whether they should visit a friend at this town or the next, etc. and then spend their time as though they had too much, and yet at last cry out upon the brevity of life. Come, come, let us be honest and reckon right, 
De brev. vitae. cap. 1.  Non exignum temporis habemus, sed multum perdimus, as Seneca well said. It is not a little time that we have, but it is not a little that we lose. God hath not given a little, but we throw away much. Our portion is not small, for what we are to trade, but our mispense is exceeding great. Non accepimus vitam brevem sed fecimus. We did not receive a short life, but have made it so. Not God but we ourselves have made our time little. He is not niggardly and sparing, but we are prodigal and make a lamentable waist of our hours. Just as when a great estate and fair possessions come to an unthrifty Heir, they are presently consumed and spent; whenas a little Portion well husbanded, increaseth to large demeans; so it is with our life. They that have 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 careful 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 days now, as we shall do when we come to die. Then a day will appear a precious 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 days; 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 ourselves so foul and black, in the midst of such gross 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 hours, 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 days 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 Bridegroom 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, than all that ever you turned over. And as for a day of grace at what rate would he purchase such a precious season? He will tell you he is ashamed that he ever sat at his door talking vainly among his neighbours on the Lord's day. He will tell you that he cannot sleep now for the aching of his heart, that he should sleep at a Sermon. He prays 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 hour 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. 
●p Usher.  And therefore let us now judge as sensible and good men do when they are taught by death that cannot flatter. That is a stern Master, but very just and faithful, he speaks with a dreadful 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 room is darkened, 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 ourselves? why not thus now I pray you? when perhaps two or three days agone this was your language. Oh! but now eternity, eternity appears; and therefore set down so many hours for prayer to God, if we live; writ 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 precious time, etc. Whosoever thou art that readest this, do the same now, that thou mayst do perhaps three days hence. Do that which now thou canst, which ere long thou wilt wish to do and canst not. This may be more than 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 engrave 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 mayst find thyself 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 days, as at the foot of every day to write the total Sum. 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, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. What sin 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 ourselves to such a reckoning, than 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 God's hand, therefore we must live this day as though we had no more days 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 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 days as though our life were but a day. And if we did, then sure God would have a portion of every day, if we intent 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 days were summed up. The Mariner which guides and steers the Ship aright sits always in the Stern or hindermost part of it, and so must we, if we will guide and direct our life aright through the troublesome 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, possess our vessel in holiness, 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 always, 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 ways, 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 forty) 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 forty 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 less 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 forty 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 days, 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 bottom of the Ship think they do not stir, 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 sum of our days, 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 days, 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 cipher 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 Son 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 days 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 days than 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 entered into the wilderness. Forty years he was in Pharaohs Court, and forty 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 Egypt, who presently in the first year of their enlargement began to provoke God, and the second year were threatened to be all destroyed in the wilderness: 
Act. 7.36. Deut. 34.7.  now Moses reckons as if his days were at an end also, when as God lengthened them forty years longer, even to an hundred and twenty years. So let us do also and reckon that our days are past and gone, though God may lengthen them to many more years; but if he do, we must remember that they will fly away as swiftly as the rest have done, and therefore 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, till we and it end comfortably both together. That we may not still call for life, when that calls 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 numbering of our days, 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 God's Law, it is no wonder that God will not hear his prayer. When we come in a compliment 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 days according to the account that I have laid before you, though we say, Lord teach us to number our days, yet he cannot but turn away his ear from us. 
Prov. 15.8, 29.  But on the contrary, That God who is fare from the wicked heareth the prayer of the righteous, and delighteth in it. If our heart apply itself 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 fulfil 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 ourselves. We must resolve to be in good earnest about our salvation, and to prefer this art of numbering our days aright, before all the fancies of riches and pleasures, and such like things that are apt to toss 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 ourselves, and let us weigh them, and give them their due value. Let us consider which is more, and which is less 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 days, 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 days 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 lays nothing (as we say) to heart must needs be ignorant and brutish in its knowledge. And therefore this is a piece of wisdom acceptable to God to labour in good sadness 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 thoughtful in a serious sober manner.  
Thirdly, A wise heart is such an one as designs something to itself, 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 days, the shortness of their lives, and the rest that I have said, but they make no use of it at all; it is as mere a speculation, as that twenty and forty 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, etc. 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 wisdom, and to departed from evil is that understanding, Job 28. ult. And this therefore is it we must intent, to this issue we must bring our souls, and if we do consider and contrive this hearty, than we may be encouraged to pray to God, that we may know how to take the right measure of our days. 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 thyself. 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 employment in the world, that I may be friends with thee; and therefore teach me so to use my days, 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 watchful and always prepared, because the end may be sudden in every moment. To be fearful of sin, 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 days 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 edict in our actions, because they must stand upon record to Eternity. To announce 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 penny 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 everliving Good, and settles himself in the joys of a neverdying 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 days, that you may apply your hearts unto wisdom. Do you seriously endeavour, and then entreat 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 itself 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 numbering, and taking every consideration several by itself, 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 judge of things as doth God, and choose 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 covetous 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 Country, a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens. Till we can live as well in poverty as in riches; in hardship as in soft enjoyments, 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 ourselves, and look death in the face as a friend.  
Let us every day call ourselves 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 always 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 tongue, Mene, mean, it is numbered, it is numbered, (which Daniel applies to his Kingdom,) thy days 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 days, which thou hast told out for thyself? dost not thou tell twenty, when he tells 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 design; as building an house, or the like, while thy soul lies in its ruins and rubbish? If they be not the same, if thy reckoning do not agree with his, than it will make thee shake and tremble as it did him, to see thyself so much mistaken in thy numbering, to behold so much of thine account stricken of by the hand of God; so many of the days which thou reckoned wiped quite out of the Book of the Living.  
If thou dost account as he doth, and thinks that thou mayst die to night; then how canst thou live otherwise then as a dying man? how canst thou quietly lay thyself 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 thankful for it.  
He that tells 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 always to live but cannot. Weep for the dead (saith the Son of Syrach, 22. Eccl. 11.) for he hath lost the light; and weep 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 than death; Seavendays do men mourn for him that is dead, but for a fool and an ungodly man all the days 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 die 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 days 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 hour the Lord will come. And to this end, remember that Counsel, and study it throughly, which I have already mentioned. Look back the first thing thou dost, and think how few days 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 myself 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 continual 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 Arithmetic, 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 days, and was laded with more of life, than many a man with a grey Beard. Old Age is not to be known by a withered face, but by a mortified spirit, not by the decays of the natural 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, than no death can be untimely to us.  
But then while I tell you the price of such a Jewel, I shall but make you mourn the more for such a loss. How  would it have been to us all, if such an Aged soul might have dwelled a little longer in a young body? How much more good might he have done by his prudent counsel, by his wise discourses, by grave and serious Sermons, by a mature judgement, by a Religious and well governed life? Thus you are apt to speak within yourselves, and I think I shall do well to assist 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 useful Learning, there would be reason that all intelligent persons should bewail 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 seldom found conjoined 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 knowledge and goodness in any great Splendour. The more therefore ought such to be valued, and their extinction to be lamented.  
Sigismond the Emperor (as Dubravius tell us) having knighted a Doctor of the Law that was very learned, 
Hist. Bohx●m.  and one of his Counsel, and observing that when the Counsel went aside to deliberate about any-business, he joined himself to the Knights as more honourable, and left the Doctors. He called 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 judge which thou art to prise 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 breathe 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 moral 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! cheerfulness in him did contend with seriousness, affability with awfullness, love with discretion, wisdom with simplicity, etc. and the result of all these recouciled graces, was the very Picture of virtue and goodness. Donot think that I flatter him with my Pencil, alas! it gives so rude a stroke, that I am afraid I shall rather disfigure him; and I am ready to draw back my hand, now that I am going to draw the Lines of his Life and present you with a brief Narrative how he spent his days.  
Yet since it will be expected from me who have known him now near fifteen years, I shall give you a draught of what is most material, and leave the fillings up and finishings to your own thoughts, which may have been observant of more particulars.  
God was pleased early to sow the seeds of grace in his heart, and to sanctify him to himself, partly by the Religious education of his godly Parents, and partly by the Preaching (as I have heard him say) of one Mr. Ludlam now with God, whose sweet and Christian eloquence I have heard him speak often of with great affection. We little think perhaps how much we are indebted to God for Praying Parents, and for a painful Ministry. By whose means he was kept from blotting his soul with any of those foul things, wherewith the Consciences of many are grievously debauched.  
Coming unto Cambridge he was placed in Queen's College under a very worthy Person, 
Mr. Whitaker.  who did hugely love him, both for his choice Parts, and early Piety. There he followed his Study very hard to the prejudice I fear of his body. Nulla dies sine linea, might well have been writ over his Study door in those youthful days, which use to be spent in doing worse than nothing. And the work of godliness I am sure he no less laboured in, as some few persons alive can witness, who used to meet together once in a week to confer about things that concerned their souls, the benefit of which some can to this day remember. For Christian Communion discreetly managed, is that which keeps our Religion in Breath. As soon as there was any occasion for him to appear in public, he was noted for his good Parts, and after he had been between four and five years at the University he was chosen Fellow of the College, with the unanimous consent of the whole Society. After that time though he neglected not other useful Learning, yet he applied himself chief to the Study of Divine things. And he did not vent his conceptions while they were but half digested notions, but gave his soul leisure to concoct them, and turn them into its habit and constitution. Thus he laboured to do while he wrestled with the ill habit of a splenetic body, which created him (to my knowledge,) no small disturbance in his Studies. And indeed it doth a great deal of mischief in the world, that men teach others who had need to be taught themselves. Imperfect apprehensions of things, and raw indigested notions have made as great stirs and convulsions amongst us, as the Wind makes in the Body, which arises from the ill concoction of a sour and cold stomach. It was a wise saying, (whosoever was the Father of it) That an indifferent Shoemaker might make a good Cobbler; and an indifferent Tailor might make a good Butcher, but an indifferent Scholar was good for nothing. And therefore he laboured to have the mastery of such Learning as was necessary for his end, and also avoided another dangerous error which many fall into, and that is meddling with the higher things, before they had gained some good knowledge of the lower. By this means they may be both discouraged with the difficulty, and also lose their labour, if they fall not into a worse disease, to have their mind blown up and swollen with things they do not understand. He followed the Rule of Simplicius, 
In Epict.  which is to begin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, with small things first, lest it happen (saith he) unto us according to the Proverb, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to begin the trade of a Potter by making a huge vessel first, before we know whether we can make a less, and so we lose both our labour and cost, and credit altogether. But which is worst of all, 
Orat. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  such men do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Nazianzen speaks, exercise Religion upon other men's souls, before their own, which is the part saith he of a fool, and of a bold man. We had better begin any trade Ignorantly, and venture before our time at great things in any calling, then in this Divine profession undertake to teach souls, and practice godliness upon our Hearers hearts, when we have not the first rudiments of Piety in our own. And therefore it was his endeavour to understand well the grounds of godliness, and to settle those Foundations on which a soul might ●ely, and having overcome the crudities of other knowledge, and arrived to some strength, his next care was to study that learned Ignorance (that a great Master commended) To be willing not to know those things which our supreme Master is not pleased to teach us.  
Then as soon as he was fit, he should appear in the Pulpit, he was presently famed for an excellent Preacher. And he drew not only the common people after him, but the most learned ears were chained to his tongue. I shall never forget with what a becoming boldness, and modest gravity above his years, he preached att St. 
Upon the 2 Rom. 23, 24.  Mary's before the University, when he was appointed among others, to be of a Combination before the ordinary time, by a new order from the higher Powers: A Sermon, I accounted it, of self-denial, though his speech was not of that subject, because it was so hearty, plain, and searching, and stripped of all those Ornaments which young men love to dress and trim their discourses withal.  
Not long after, he undertook to preach constantly in the afternoons at a Church belonging to the College, 
St Buttolph's.  which I may say he did freely; for the stipend amounteth not to much above the wages of an ordinary servant in one of your Houses. There might you have seen a great throng of pious Scholars and people hanging upon his lips, many of which desired nearer acquaintance with him, and used to frequent his Chamber for advice and counsel. There, me thought, he was in his Kingdom, he did so reign and domineer (as it were) over the minds and hearts of his Auditors, who could not but attend unto him. And yet notwithstanding, he did not neglect the charge which he had likewise undertaken of many Pupils; but they thrived so well under the wings of his care, and great love (a thing for which he was noted) that several of them are now fellows of the House. And really, in the managing of all these affairs, he so outstripped his years, that it might have been an argument (had not our eyes been blinded with love) that he was old already, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Greg. Nyss. de Bas.  his manner being so gray-headed in his youth. He did not grow up by degrees as we do, but all on a sudden me-thought he was a man. He acted and preached, when his hottest blood boiled in his veins, as men do in their cool age, with great seriousness, gravity, and a certain majestic humility which commanded reverence to his youth. It is no wonder therefore that God hath gathered him so soon, seeing he brought forth fruit so early, and was ripe when others begin to bloom, or but to put forth a tender bud. He had run half of his course, and seemed to be in his Meridian, when it was but daybreak with us his Contemporaries, and we did but begin to peep above the Horizon with a timorous light. And besides, this is not to be forgotten, that though he was of excellent good learning, and had all this work to do, yet he lived not always among his Books, which is to die among the living, and to live among the dead; a dying to all, and perhaps not a living to a man's self. But he was exceeding free to all good good converse, and let his Ftiends enjoy so much of him, that sometimes he could scarce enjoy himself, but only in them. Yea, I doubt that he was better to them then to himself, and disregarded his own health to satisfy their desires. The Arabic Proverb is, Si amicus tuus sit mel, ne comedas totum: If thy Friend be Honey, do not eat him all up. I wish that it had been known more familiarly in England, for I fear the sweetness of his society, did tempt his friends to devour him among them.  
After he had been in Cambridge between a eleven and twelve years, and had preached much both there and in the Country, the Providence of God so ordered it, that coming to London about three year and a half ago, upon another occasion, he was desired to preach in this place, and instantly was chosen to be Pastor of this Congregation. I remember that he was not received with less joy, than now he is carried forth with sorrow. Nor was he less esteemed, as far as I can hear, in other places of the City, then in this Parish, who I know had a very great affection to him. His Brethren in the Minstry did highly value (as I have heard from some of them) his excellent endowments, and looked upon him as one like to be very instrumental in the work of the Lord. And so I hope he hath been; for you have fully known his Doctrine, his manner of life, his purpose, Faith and Charity, as the Apostle saith concerning himself to Timothy, 2 Epist. 3.10. I will but remember you a little of the first, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Solen. in Laert.  viz. his Doctrine and speech, for by that you may judge of the rest, it being according to the ancient saying, The Character of a man, and the Image of his life.  
His Sermons were stings, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plato.  rather than words: They were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, winged words in a diviner sense; for they were the Arrows of the Almighty, shot with a strong arm into men's hearts. His Discourses were so rational and demonstrative, that they were able to convert an Atheist to the Faith: So clear and full of light, that they might turn the most ignorant soul unto wisdom. So awakening and lively they were, that it will be a wonder if he have left one soul asleep among you. So persuasive and moving, that they might charm the cup out of the hand of the Drunkard, and entice a sinner out of the most delicate embraces. So cordial likewise and reviving, that if any persons droop who heard him, they never drank them down, but only licked the glass. So considerate and digested, that as he beat down confidence in man's proper strength, so he roused them from their laziness, and an idle indifferency about their souls. So discreet and fervent, that as he affrighted cold formality, so he tempered zeal, that it might not be frighted out of its wits. And as the Apostle hath married Truth to Charity, so he endeavoured to keep this bond inviolable, 
For his degree of Batch. in Divinity.  that they might never be divorced either in his heart or word. But the Text upon which he preached the last Commencement before the University was his constant practice, 
Eph. 4.15.  Speaking the truth in love. He was a Preacher indeed, that sought to find out acceptable words, and written upright; even words of truth, as the great Preacher speaks, Eccles. 12.10. And whereas there are too many Sermons that are full of words without matter, and not a few that have excellent matter without words, to set it of, and convey it into men's minds; God had given him an excellent faculty to dive into the bottom of the truth, and then to adorn it with such good and rich expressions, that it should lose nothing for want of one to commend it. There was a sweet vein of Eloquence that ran through his reason. His Arguments were interlaced with handsome illustrations. And after he had drawn the Picture of the truth he intended to represent, he had the art to hang it in a convenient light, so that it should look upon every body in the House. Nazianzen compares a man's mind, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. Vices.  that cannot utter its mind, to the motion of a man whose joints are struck with a benumbing disease. And I may compare a mind which speaks without any understanding, to the motion of a Puppet that frisks and skips most nimbly, but hath no soul within. But he of whom I speak was not frozen and benumbed, so that his mind could not flow forth, neither had he a flood of words, and a drop of sense, but he rapt away his Auditors with a double torrent of Rhetoric and reason sweetly mixed together. And truly, if a Divine could stir up all kind of affections and passions by his Sermons, as well as a Comedian can do by a play, yet unless there be a sound and substantial truth at the bottom, they will be but like the scorching flames in straw, which will quickly expire for want of something to foment and feed them. It is possible that a man may by earnestness and violence exprimere affectus (as Erasmus I think speaks) express and squeeze out affections from his Auditors, but he will never impress them with any, unless there be the strength of reason and weight of Argument to press and persuade men's understanding into obedience. I am sure his Sermons were of this sort that were apt to imprint something, both upon mind and heart; and I hope he hath left some such seal upon you that will never be blotted out.  
But it pleased God that he had many ill fits since he came hither, which were but spurs I believe unto him, to make him run the faster. And especially the last September he was encountered with a most dangerous disease, which assaulted him with such a violence, that it made all 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 tears, and let him breathe a little longer among you. Now which of you can think upon his excellent Sermons since his recovery, without thankfulness 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 lose 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, etc. It would be a good work for every one of you to examine if you have not been careless in following those Directions which might provoke God to stop the breath of this sweet Organ of his, and cut off the thread of his life by another sharp sickness which arrested him on the first day of this month. 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 sickness, 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 wisdom; 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 lose my understanding, But my Saviour intercedes in Heaven; He doth, he doth.  
Thirdly, His patience and quietness under the violence of his Disease. For when he was desired either not to speak or not to stir, his Answer still was, Well, I will not. So that I might say of his  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 Olympic Games, and his soul got the better by patience and lying still. When Epictetus broke his leg, they say he talked and discoursed as if he had been in another man's 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 bless him with a quietness 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 mankind 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 godliness, 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 settled a well-grounded hope in his life, to give the Devil no other Answer at such a time, but Satan thou liest; 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 than 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 month.  
And considering the time of his end, I think it is not a mere 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, unless we join 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 spoke, There remains a Rest for the people of God. Thirdly, He died on one of the longest days 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 Tropic, 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 days; and that it is no small part of virtue, to conceal one's 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 yourselves 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 men's, and many times shorter, though our account be greater; therefore let us spend much time with God, as we endeavour to spend it all for him. Let not a crowd of thoughts in our studies, nor a crowd of company here in the City, thrust God away from our souls, but let them frequently retire unto him, as the fountain of all light and good. Prayer before our studies is the key to unlock the secrets of God, and prayer afterward is the turning of the key to lock them safe into our hearts. 
Dexterius loquentur cum hominibus, qui prius tota ment cum Deo fuerint collocuti. l. 3. derat. Contion.  Prayer sharpens our appetite after truth, and when we have found it, it sets an edge upon the truth, and makes it more cutting and penetrating into the heart. And as Erasmus well said, We shall speak more dexterously to men, when with our whole hearts we have first spoken with God.  
Secondly, Let us look to our ends in our work. This was another of his counsels, without which indeed our labour will be in vain. Let us believe ourselves what we speak, and then we should mind the glory of God, and not ourselves. Alas! what is the applause of men when we are gone, but like a sound in a dead man's ear? And what is it when we are alive, but an empty breath that is lost sooner than got, and is got ofttimes by idleness sooner than taking pains? And what is there else that can tempt an ingenuous mind? Our very breeding doth teach us to despise money and gain, but the example of our Lord and his Apostles will make it seem a sordid thing to be trampled under our feet. Let the good of men therefore, and the glory of God be the mark at which we aim. And the Lord in Heaven hear our prayers, and bless our preaching.  
Secondly, Then to you of this Parish, let me say a few things. And first, Pray earnestly among other Petitions for these two things, That God would pardon your unprofitableness, which perhaps you may have been guilty of under such means; and that he would bless you with another Minister of such a temper as he was, and that will design so seriously the good of your souls. He desired you should know that he loved you, and he prayed God to bless you. I hope God will so hear his desires, and you will so remember his instructions, and those you have received from former Lights, that I may spare that prayer which Mr Udal used at the Funeral of Mr Shute, viz. That God will neither let you fall into the hand of a dark Lantern, nor be led by an Ignis fatuus. The Jews have a saying (God grant it be true) That never doth there die any illustrious man, but there is another borne as bright on the same day. God loves the world so well, that when one Sun sets, another arises. To which they accommodate that place in Eccles. 1.5. The Sun ariseth, and the Sun goeth down. Nay they observe further, That he makes some star or other arise before a Sun be set. As Joshua began to shine before Moses his light was darkened, and before Joshua went to bed, Othniel the son of Kenaz was risen up to judge. Eli was not gathered to his fathers before Samuel appeared to be a most hopeful youth. And among the other Sex they also note, That Sarah was not taken away, till Rebekah was ready to come in her stead. The Lord grant that you may find this true, and that as now the nights are at the shortest, so you may have but a very short night before another Sun arise in this place. But if we be so unworthy, that God will not bless us with such a favour, May it please him but to let posterity twenty year hence fit under such a burning and shining Light: May it please his goodness and mercy, that the day of his Death may be but the Birthday of some eminent person to illuminate this City.  
Secondly, Let me beseech you to write down any memorable thing that you have heard from him, and hath much affected you, that it may be engraven upon your heart, and do you good for ever. By this means you will cause the lips of the dead to speak, and you will not lose all converse with him now that he is gone from you. For a man's discourses are the picture of his soul, which is himself. O my Beloved, how sad an account will you have to make, if you be not truly Religious who have had so many Lights in your Candlestick that have spent themselves to illuminate you? How will you appear before the Judgement seat of God, when not only one, but four or five Ministers shall witness against you? How will you look not only him, but those that delivered the Lamp to him in the face? Or rather, how will you look God in the face when you shall think what means of obtaining salvation you have enjoyed, and yet are not saved? Remember therefore now all those wholesome counsels you have received from their mouths, and if there be any beginnings of godliness in your hearts, any tastes of Religion, let me remember you of two Directions which were some of the last he gave you, and write them upon your hearts. He told me not long before his sickness, that he had begun at his own house to give some short Exhortations to you his Communicants, in which he intended (I think once in a fortnight) to insist upon the chief things that belong to the establishing a soul in grace. He begun this course April 14. and lived to give but two Directions, which I shall again commend to your thoughts.  
First, He desired you to beware lest you should be found in the number of the giddy, or of the lazy Prefessours of this age; and one Argument whereby he pressed to diligence, was this, Death is near you, like to a Mole it is digging your graves under you (so was his expression,) therefore whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, Eccles. 9.10. My Beloved, Death may be as near to you now, as it was then to him, and therefore take heed that you be not found idle and useless servants.  
Secondly, He advised you to give diligence not only to be sincere Christians, but also growing Christians, and at length excellent and very exemplary. Here he directed you to lay the foundation well, and then intended to show how to raise the building and superstructure upon it; but God took him away before he could do that. I beseech you labour to be true and real Christians, though perhaps you may not live to grow to any great height, no more than helived to direct you to it. Look to your hearts lest there be any root of bitterness that may make you to backslide, and remember, as his very expression was, That there is no such Antidote against Apostasy, as real integrity and sincerity. Yea remember all other good Discourses of his, and your other Ministers, that you may frame your lives according to them, and grow taller (if you live still) by so many showers. Let me a little quicken you by this Story. Zeno Cittiaeus consulted with the Oracle, how he might live well, and he received this Answer, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, If he was of the same colour with the dead. This he interpreted to mean, that he should get and read all the ancient Books that he could hear of, and then steep and die his mind in their sacred notions. My Brethren, what St. Paul said of Epimenides his sentence, Tit. 1.13. that I may say of this, This testimony is true. Look as like to the dead in the Lord, as ever you can, and labour to turn your souls into their shape. Not as though there were not living examples and teachers which you are to mind (thanks be to God there are a great number here before you) but I would wish you not to forget men when they are dead and gone, For you cannot tell how soon you must live according to the manner of the dead, and not of the living. The world may prove so bad, that if you will be of their colour, you may be all, but only white. Let me beseech you therefore to remember his Doctrine, and his manner of life too, to tread in his steps, and be followers of him, as he was of Christ. And though I have already made your patience sweat, yet let me exercise it a little longer, and borrow so much time of you, as but to remind you of a few things I would have you imitate. 1. Remember how great a reverence he did bear to the Name of God. You should not hear him speak ofit (I think) without alteration of his countenance, and the manner of his pronunciation. Learn from him not to take it up on every trifling occasion, and when you have any discourse of him, let your mind be serious, and lay aside laughter and jesting with whatsoever at another time may be lawful, but not grave enough to keep company with God. 2. Remember how serious he was in Prayer and addresses unto God. His soul seemed to be gathered into itself, and then gathered up to God. And I believe you can remember that his expressions were such that all might join with him, and that he was not acted by any private, but a public and divine spirit. 3. How he taught you to observe the Lords day. Not long ago he entered with me into a discourse of that thing, and I perceived by it he had earnestly desired of you in some Sermons to spend that time more religiously, in recounting the mercies of God, in telling to your Children and Servants the great things that the Lord hath done since the beginning of the world, that they may be had in everlasting remembrance. But especially in magnifying the goodness and wisdom of God in the glorious work of Redemption by Christ Jesus. 4. Remember his Charity to the Poor, to which he excited you not only in public but in private, and if you could have seen it, by his example also. From some of you sure it was that he obtained yearly a good sum for poor Scholars in the University, not being content with doing good himself, unless you did reap some fruit too. Do not forget I say this Charity, now that he is gone, but let it be still as a living water, though it doth not run through the same hands.  
Fifthly, Get a faithful Friend if you can; for a Friend was a thing, that he much loved and valued as the rarest Jewel in the world next to Piety, without which no man can be our true Friend. A true Friend will tell you of your faults, he will advise you of your concernments, he will be to you as the Wife in your Bosom. He may indeed sometimes be more dear than the nearest relation which we have, and there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a Brother, or whatsoever name of love there is in the world. And therefore it is observable that in the 13. Deut. 6. he is put in the last place as the chiefest of all relations. If thy Brother, or thy Son, or thy Daughter, or the Wife of thy bosom, or thy Friend which is as thy own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, etc. It is very clear that Moses rises up by steps from the lowest to the highest, from a Brother of the same venture, to a Child, and then to a Wife, and at last to a Friend, as the highest of all: And it is likewise clear, that a Man and Wife are but one flesh, but a Man and his Friend are one soul, and therefore unless they be friends as well as Man and Wife, there is a greater love than theirs; but when both these conspire together, the relation of a friend and of Consorts too, than it is the highest of all love, and the Image of the love that is between Christ and his Church.  
Friendship is such a sacred thing, that though we are sometimes mistaken in our choice, yet it is not fit to snap the bones asunder, but gently to dissolve them, that there may be some love afterward. 
Amicitiam etiam subdolam non lacerabo, sed dissuam. De vita propria  So Cardan professeth that he would never rend and tear a false friendship in pieces, but would fairly unloose it, and pick the threads by which they were sown together. I have said more of this then of the rest because it is so rare, and we are most apt to talk of the thing we love.  
To conclude this my address to you, Let me prevail with you to remember but this in General, how he commended Religion to you both in his words, and in his practice, as the life of the soul, as the soul of friendship, as the best friend of men, and the best natured thing and fullest of humanity in the world. It did not appear in him with its face all clouded, with looks sable and sad, with eyes heavy or distorted; but he represented it as the very joy of ones heart, the marrow of our bones, and that which gives health to all our flesh. Methinks it should make you all in love with Religion, when you remember how cheerful, how pleasant, and I had almost said, how sportful a thing it seemed. When we have once attained to the true gust and relish of it; a man that shall persuade us to forsake it, shall be like to him that is in love with his own Dreams, & would persuade us into the Paradise of fools. And if at any time you be sad, O wha● sweet things are those tears? how full of joy are those sorrows? they are but like a Cypress cast over a beautiful face, or at the worst but like the clouds which cover the face of the Sun for a while, that it may be more acceptable when it shines, and beside they water the Earth with their showers, which make it flourish and spring the better.  
But there are some other here present, who will expect a few words from me, and therefore I must pass these things over without any further enlargements.  
Thirdly, To you then who were his Auditors and Friends, let me say that I hope you have learned by his instruction to choose another Guide if you want one in your own Parishes; and that you cannot honour his acquaintance more, then by a devout and strict life, and walking orderly and peaceably according to the Gospel. I am sure he loved his Friends with an ardent love, and he was as void of compliment, as he was of gall. And therefore love his memory, and labour to do that which you think would have pleased him best, if he had still lived. And what is that? as St. John saith concerning his Children, so would he have said of his Friends, I have no greater joy then to hear that you walk in the truth, 3. Epist. v. 4. and therefore he saith v. 11. Beloved follow not that which is evil, but that which is good; He that doth good is of God, but he that doth evil hath not seen God.  
Fourthly, To his Relations I need only say that I need say nothing. For should I say remember him? alas! he was so dear, that they cannot forget him. Shall I say be of good comfort? their piety is so great, that it will let them want no Cordials. Shall I bid them prepare themselves against all other changes? that is counsel common to us all. And therefore I will not address my speech unto them, not knowing how to Administer any counsel where there are so many Physicians.  
Fifthly; But lastly to myself, what shall I say 〈◊〉 If he that hath lost a friend's half dead, and like a worm cut in two, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Orat. 20.  (as Na●ianzen speaks) than it is a wonder that I have said already so much to you. Little do I think when he so passionately bewailed the death of our Friend Mr. Bright, that I should so soon have come to pay my tears at his Funeral.  
I have said enough, having called myself fool by saying so much. But love made me blind, and love makes me speak it. And O that we could all show that we loved him by our tears! O that we could all water his ashes with such affectionate showers, that nothing but Roses and Violets might grow upon his Grave, that his name may be like a sweet perfume, that none may violate that precious thing by any envious and pestilent breath. May thy dust sleep in peace my dear friend! may thy ashes take an indisturbed rest. May thy memory be always green and fresh in my mind. May I live and do as much good. And may I be as happy in my latter end! Oh my soul, let us begin then to take our leave more seriously of this world; let us cease to weep for him, and weep for our own folly. 
Nazian. Epist. 63.  Arise, arise, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, etc. Let us go away from hence. Let us throw away these dreams. Let us not live among these shadows. Let us not be mocked any more by these false pleasures. Let honour, glory, and applause find some body else to make their fools. Farewell all the Puppets that dance on the scene of this world. Farewell all these painted clouds, these gilded vanities, these hyperbolized nothings. Let this henceforth be writ upon my heart, yea let it be engraven on us all. Vanity of vanities saith the Preacher, all is vanity. Surely man at his best estate is altogether vanity.  
FINIS.