SERMON CVII. THE JUST ESTIMATE OF THE SHORTNESS OF HUMAN Life, AND OUR PROPER EMPLOYMENT HERE. PSALM XC. 12. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. ROM these words I have proposed to treat of the wif FROM dom, the instruction in piety and virtue, which may be learned from the fhortnefs and uncertain duration of human life; confidered, I. With respect to the present scene of things only: Even the former of these views, though extremely and effentially imperfect, yet affords, as I have fhewn you, many important leffons and directions; that by fobriety, temperance, chastity, and due government of all our paffions, we fhould endeavour to prolong the space allowed us here; that we should use every proper method of making it as eafy and comfortable to one another as we can; that we should be diligent to improve our little time to the best purposes, and do quickly what we would not leave undone; that we should proportion our defires of riches, and honours, and power, and every worldly good, to the feanty term which we have for the acquifition and enjoyment of them; that we should moderate our emotions of joy and grief, of hope, and fear, and anger; vehemence in any of them being plainly unfuitable to a condition so tranfitory; and lastly, that from the low attainments of our earthly state, and the short continuance and unequal diftribution of its bleffings, we should be raised to the belief and earnest expectation of a better. U VOL. III. Very Very different conclufions, I am fenfible, and very bad ones, have been often drawn from the fmall number of our days; of which, befides many inftances in the loofer Heathen writers, we have fo diftinct and beautiful an account in the fecond chapter of the book of Wisdom, that I shall repeat it, and make fome remarks on it, before I go further. The ungodly faid, reafoning with themselves, but not aright, Our life is short and tedious; and in the death of man there is no remedy, neither was there any man known to bave returned from the grave. For we are born at all adventures, and we fhall be bereafter as though we had never been. Our time is a very fhadow, that paffeth away; and after our end there is no returning. Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are prefent; and speedily use the creatures, like as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with cofily wine and perfumes; and let no flower of the Spring pass by us: let us crown ourselves with rofe-buds, before they be withered. Let none of us go without his part of our voluptuoufnefs; let us leave tokens of our joyfulness in every place; for this is our portion, and our lot is this. Let us opprefs the poor righteous man; let us not Spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient grey hairs of the aged, Let our Arength be the law of justice; for that, which is feeble, is found to be nothing worth *. Now, it is certainly to be expected, that if this life were to be our all, we should each make the best advantage of it that we could. But then the way to do fo is a very different one from that, which the ungodly, reafoning with themselves, but not aright, propofe. Thoughtlefs gaiety and diffolute pleasures, how inviting foever the description of them may found, bring perfons daily, and often with furprising fuddennefs, into distreffes and fufferings of various kinds; which, deftroying their reputations, their fortunes, their healths, will give them much more caufe to complain of the fhortness, and yet tediousness of life, than they had when they first attempted to palliate this evil by fuch fatal remedies. For vice and folly have the unhappy fecret of reconciling this feeming contradiction, by leffening the extent of our days, and at the fame time increafing the burden of them. But *Wifd. ii. I-12. But fuppofing that fuch miferies could be avoided, human nature is not fitted for a perpetual hurry of amusements and extravagances; nor, without a very painful force upon itself, can bear them; but all exceffes of this kind are feverely punished, sooner or later, by that lowness and dejection, which fails not to follow wrong indulgences; and yet more feverely by that moral principle which is deeply rooted in our hearts, that voice within, which will have its turn to be heard, as Indeed it ought to be heard always. They therefore are the happy perfons, not that can spend the most hours in forgetfulness of themselves, in idle and unwife, and perhaps criminal gratifications, but who can delight to be their own companions; can enjoy the calmer and ftiller, but much more inward and real pleasure, of a ferene and compofed mind, of a worthy, and benevolent, and thankfully pious heart; who are able to look back without fhame, and forwards without fear. Thefe are the fatisfactions of a reasonable being; which, as they who have once fully experienced them, have always declared to be the highest poffible; fo they, who have not, should, in all fairnefs and common difcretion, make due trial of them, before they reject them. And upon fuch trial they would find, that man is not a creature formed to diffipate himself in trifling levity, much lefs to wallow in debauchery and brutishnefs; but hath the feeds of fomewhat noble and divine planted in his breast; which his great concern is to cultivate, improve and exert. They would learn a higher valuation of themselves, and feel how juftly the fon of Sirach hath directed: Glorify thy foul in meeknefs, and give it bcnour according to the dignity thereof*. As to the second inference, drawn by the ungodly, which patronifes oppreffion and cruelty, there is fomething fo hateful and fhocking in these enormities; fo contrary to the tenderness, which is natural to our hearts, till we wickedly harden them; fo inconfiftent with the welfare and very being of fociety, that no one guilty of fuch practices can at all expect either to be easy in himself, or safe from others. And therefore, though the interefts of this life alone were to be confidered, no argument could be rationally urged from the short nefs of it, in favour of any thing fo entirely oppofite to the evident defign of him who placed us here for our good, as both voluptuoufnefs and injuftice are. But whatever conclufions men may think they can draw from this first and imperfect view, yet, when our life on earth is contemplated, in the second that was propofed, as a state of preparation for another and an endlefs one, then neither the wit, nor almost the folly of man, can make any other than virtuous inferences from the fhortness of it. And to the want of looking upon it in this light, the book of Wisdom afcribes principally those profligate reasonings, which I have been confuting. Such things did they imagine, and were deceived; for their own wickedness blinded them: as for the mysteries of God, they knew them not; neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor difcerned a reward for blameless fouls*. Without this knowledge, it was weak to argue as they did; but with this knowledge, it had been impoffible; fo important are the alterations which it makes in our cafe. Indeed it fupplies us, in a very great measure, with three of the chief things which we want in our pilgrimage through the world. These are, 1. Conviction of the neceffity of applying diligently to know and do our duty. 2. Encouragement to perfist in it to the end against temp tation. 3. Support under the afflictions to which we are exposed in the mean while. Now, serious and frequent reflection, how foon the prefent state will terminate in one of infinitely more confequence, is adapted to be of the utmost service to us, in each of these respects, through that bleffing, which God is ready to bestow on our fincere endeavours used, and prayers offered up, in the name of Chrift; for without him we can do nothing †. 1. To keep alive in us a ftrong conviction of the neceffity of applying diligently to know and do our duty. Were this life the whole of our existence, there would be many thoughtless enough to imagine, that being so short, there could be no mighty difference in what manner it was fpent fpent, right or wrong; for fo fmall a journey, any way of undertaking it would ferve, and fancy be guide fufficient; the advantages of choofing well could not be exceeding great; the inconveniences of choofing ill would foon be over, indeed whenever one pleased; and the end of all things would quickly come, when prudence and imprudence would be just upon a level. But plaufible as this may look, when it gratifies the prevailing humour, furely whoever conceives the present state to be his whole portion, be it as fhort as it will, ought to think it deferves his whole attention; elfe he may not only mifs all the happiness that he can promife himself, but find there is room enough for such a one as he is, to be more than a little miferable as long as he lives; notwithstanding which, he will probably wish to continue in being as long as he can. Yet ftill, if the fuppofition, on which thefe men venture their all, were true, the harm which they would fuffer by conducting themselves abfurdly, would not be fo extremely pitiable; and they might contrive to make it appear much lefs than it is. For affectation and obftinacy can support fome, for a time at least, in bearing a great deal, and calling it a trifle but whatever trifles the pleasures and the pains of this life may be, the felicity referved for good perfons in another, and the punishment to be inflicted (and which our consciences tell us will be juftly inflicted), on fuch as have perverted and abused their own natures, injured their fellowcreatures, difobeyed the commands, and defeated the purposes of their Creator; these things must be of moment unfpeakable; and which of them fhall be our lot, abfolutely depends on the use we make of the space allowed us here. How greatly doth it concern us then, carefully and frequently to examine what share we have wrought of the works of him that fent us; and to recollect, how foon the night may and must come, in which no man can work *. To know the former, we must fearch, through the wide extent of the divine law, into our performances and our deficiencies; whether we have uniformly expreffed towards our Maker, our Redeemer, our Sanctifier, that reverence and love, that refignation and thankfulness, that hatred of fin, /* John ix. 4. and |