perpetual habitation of the wicked in that place of bondage, whither the wrath of God shall drive them (for building of houses argues an abiding). "Put you in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow, for the wickedness is great." The revenge of sin is, here and elsewhere, compared to reaping, and treading the wine-press"; and the greatness of sin is here called 'the ripeness of the harvest;' and the overflowing of the fats, to shew unto us that there is a time and measure of sin, beyond which the Lord will not defer the execution of his vengeance. There are " days of visitation and recompense for sini," which being come, Israel, which would not know before, shall know, that God keeps their sins in store sealed up amongst his treasures; and that, therefore, their foot shall slip in due time,' namely, in the day of their calamity,' or in their month,' as the prophet speaks. As God's blessings have a punctual time, from them four and twentieth of the ninth month,' from this day I will bless you: so likewise have his judgments too. The days of man shall be a hundred and twenty years", to the old world: Nor are years only, but even months determined with him: now shall a month devour them with their portions, to idolatrous Israel: Nor months only, but days, and parts of days; ' In a morning shall the king of Israel be cut off;' his destruction shall be as sudden as it is certain. The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth;' but though he plot, he shall not prosper; though he gnash with his teeth, he shall not bite with his teeth; for the Lord shall laugh at him, because he seeth that his day is coming. So much mischief as he can do within the compass of his chain, the Lord permits him to do; but when he is come to his day, then all his thoughts and projects perish with him. Excellently hath holy Job stated the point, with whom I mean to conclude: Their good,' saith he', 'is not in their hand.' Riot it indeed they do, and take their fill of pleasure for a time; as the fish of the bait, when he hath some scope of line given him to play: but still their good, g Joel iii. 13. k Isaiah xxvi. 11. Jer. xvii. i. • Hosta v. 7. i Hos. ix. 7. Isaiah lxv. 6. h Mat. xxiii. 30. Isaiah lxiii. 3. Lamen. i. 15. n Gen. vi. 3. their time, their line, is in God's hand; they are not the lords of their own lives and delights. God layeth up his iniquity for his children; that is, the Lord keeps an exact account of his sins, which, haply, he will repay upon the beads of his children: however he himself shall have no more pleasure in his house after him, when once the number of his months is cut off in the midst ;' and, in the mean time, however he be full of strength, wholly at ease and quiet, yet saith he, The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction.' He is but like a prisoner, shackled peradventure in fetters of gold; but he shall be brought forth to the day of wrath and though he could rise out of the grave before Christ's tribunal, as Agag appeared before Samuel delicately clothed, yet the sword should cut him in pieces, and bitterness should overtake him. Thus we see how infinitely unable the creature shall be to shelter a man from the tribunal of Christ; and how wise, just, and wonderful the Lord is in the administration of the world, in bearing with patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and suffering them to muster upon his own blessings against himself. Sect. 30.-Lastly, This must serve for a needful caution to us, to take heed of deifying the creatures, and attributing that immortality to them which they are not capable of: but, inasmuch as they are only for present refreshment in this vale of misery, and have no matter of real and abiding happiness in them, not to look on them with an admiring or adoring eye, but to use them with such due correctives, as become such mortal and mean things. Sect. 31.--First, In using the creature, be sure thou keep thine intellectuals untainted: for earthly things are apt to cast a film over men's eyes, and to misguide them into corrupt apprehensions and presumptions of them. We find nothing more frequent in the prophets, than to upbraid the people with their strange confidences, which they were wont to rest upon against all the judgments which were denounced against them, by objecting their wealth, greatness, strong confederacies, inexpugnable munitions, their nests in the clouds, and their houses amongst the stars: they could never be • Solatia miserorum, non gaudia beatorum. Aug. Epist. 119. brought to repent for sin, or to tremble at God's voice, till they were driven off from these holds. A man can never be brought to God, till he forsake the creature: a man will never forsake the creature, till he see vanity in the creature. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity:' David intimates that a man can never heartily pray against fixing the affections on earthly things, till he be, really and experimentally, convinced of the vanity of them. This rule Solomon observes to withdraw the desires of young men, who have strongest affections and smallest experience of the deceit of worldly things: Though thou rejoice and cheer up thyself, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes, yet, Know thou, that, for all these things, God will bring thee to judgment ":" a time will come when thou shalt be stripped of all these; when they shall play the fugitives; and the years of darkness shall draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them:-and then the Lord will revenge thy great ingratitude, in forgetting and despising him amidst all his blessings, in idolizing his gifts, and bestowing the attributions of his glory, and the affections due unto him, upon a corruptible creature. In the Roman triumphs, the general or emperor, that rode in honour through the city with the principal of his enemies bound in chains behind his chariot,-had always a servant running along by him with this corrective of his glory: Respice post te; hominem memento te;' look behind thee, and, in the persons of thine enemies, learn that thou thyself art a man, subject to the same casualties and dishonours with others. Surely if men, who had nothing but the creatures to trust to,' being aliens from the covenant of promise, and without God in the world,' had yet so much care to keep their judgments sound touching the vanity of their greatest honours ; how much more ought Christians, who profess themselves heirs of better and more abiding promises! But especially arm thyself against those vanities which most easily beset and beguile thee: apply the authority of the Word to thine own particular sickness and disease; treasure up all the experiences that meet thee in thine own course, or are remark u Eccles. xi. 9. ▾ Tertul. Apolog. c. 33.-Brisson. de formul. li. 4.-Augustus nocturno visu stipem quotannis die certo emendicabat à populo, cavam manum asses porrigentibus præbens. Sueton. in Aug. c. 91. able in the lives of others; remember how a moment swallowed up such a pleasure, which will never return again; how an indirect purchase embittered such a preferment, and thou never didst feel that comfort in it, which thy hopes and ambitions promised thee; how a frown and disgrace, at another time, dashed all thy contrivances for further advancement; how death seized upon such a friend, in whom thou hadst laid up much of thy dependence and assurances; how time hath not only robbed thee of the things, but even turned the edge of thy desires, and made thee lothe thy wonted idols, and look upon thy old delights, as Ammon upon Tamar, with exceeding hatred. But above all, address thyself to the throne of grace, and beseech the Lord so to sanctify his creatures unto thee, as that they may not be either thieves against him to steal away his honour, or snares to thee to entangle thy soul. We will conclude this first direction with the words of the apostle: "The time is short: it remaineth that both they that have wives, be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they weeped not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it:" that is, as not to be drowned and smothered in the businesses of this life, as if there were any fundamental and solid utility in them; for saith he, 'The fashion of this world passeth away." The apostle's exhortation is beset at both ends with the same enforcement, from whence I have raised mine. First, The time is short:' the apostle, as the learned conceive, useth a metaphor from sails or curtains, or shepherds' tents (as Isaiah makes the comparison), such things as may be gathered up together into a narrow room. 'Time is short; that is, that time which the Lord hath spread over all things like a sail, hath now this five thousand years been rolling up, and 'the end is now at hand,'as St. Peter speaks". The day is approaching when time shall be no more;' and so the words in the original will well bear it; ὁ καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος τὸ λοιπόν ἐστιν, The remainder of time is short, or time is short for so much as yet remaineth of it to be folded up and therefore we ought so to behave ourselves, as men that have more serious things to consider of, as men that are very near to that everlasting haven, where there * 1 Cor. vii. 29. y Isaiah xxxviii. 12. 21 Pet. iv. 7. shall be no use of such sails any more. And in the apostle's close, the same reason is farther yet enforced: For the fashion of this world passeth away;' oxua, The figure; intimating that there is nothing of any firmness or solid consistency in the creature; it is but a surface, an outside, an empty promise; all the beauty of it is but skin deep: and then that little which is desirable and precious in the eyes of men, which the apostle calls, The lust of the world,' (1 John ii. 17.) πaρáyɛ, it passeth away, and is quickly gone. The word, as the learned differently render it, hath three several arguments in it, to express the apostle's exhortation. 1. It deceives or cozens: and therefore use it as if you used it not; use it as a man in a serious business would use a false friend that proffers his assistance; though his protestations be never so fair, yet so employ him, as that the business may be done, though he should fail thee. 2. Transversum agit;' it carries a man headlong: the lusts of the world are so strong and impetuous, that they are apt to inflame the desires, and even violently to carry away the heart of a man. And for this cause likewise use it, as if you used it not; engage yourselves as little upon it as you can do as mariners in a mighty wind, hoist up a few sails, expose as few of thy affections to the rage of worldly lusts as may be beware of being carried where two seas meet, as the ship wherein Paul suffered shipwreck; I mean, of plunging thyself in a confluence of many boisterous and conflicting businesses, lest, for thine inordinate prosecution of worldly things, the Lord either give thy soul over to suffer shipwreck in them, or strip thee of all thy lading and tackling; break thine estate all to pieces; and make thee glad to get to Heaven upon a broken plank. 3. The fashion of this world passeth over; it doth but go along by thee and salute thee; and therefore use it, as if thou usedst it not. Do to it as thou wouldst do to a stranger, whom thou meetest in the way; he goes one way, and thou another; salute him, stay so long in his company, till from him thou have received better instructions touching the turnings and difficulties of thy own way; but take heed thou turn not into the way of the creature, lest thou lose thine own home. Sect. 32. Secondly, get an eye of faith, to look through |